week 1, day 1; good morning

[gimu]

[ Some sweet time after choso has awoken, a brief span after Lortel's enlightenment, the Murmur shivers. It is the only heads-up that something has begun to thrash in the waters, so to speak. There is no ramp up, no building anything to warn before there is just noise, a sudden burst of intent that sounds like: ]

YUJIII!

[ it tastes like urgency and feels like desperation, but mostly, it sounds like embarrassing. ]

Where are you?! Hold on, little brother! I'm coming for you!!!

Comments

[salaryman]

[ Ope - gravity doesn't work. He is floating in the air and wondering what to do about this before a loud voice enters the Murmur. Involuntarily, his hands clasp over his ears, but that doesn't do much of anything.

Rolling about in the air, he winces quietly before reaching tentatively out - like a hand gently tap-tap-tapping on the person's shoulder. ]

Hello. You sound distressed.

[gimu]

[ he thinks of crowded train tunnels and ashes, burned and dead plant matter settling on his shoulders. but he recognizes this ash somehow, like a distant memory. ]

I am not distressed. [ he is. ]

I must find my brother.

[inverseye]

[Ow?! His ears! His brain ears???? ]

Hey! Some of us are trying to sleep!

[gimu]

[ he knows this brainvoice, but it’s getting all tangled up with his urgency and the other voices bumbling around in his braincase. ]

Some of us are trying to find important things. Like YU-JIII!

[dustyroad]

[The music, he could handle. The strains of awkward conversation that the felt like an eavesdropper on he could blame on the sensory deprivation--

But, this?

Shelley Lang stood still for a second, drawing on his own sense of self and varied memory of music knowledge--

And started running through this song in in his head, in retaliation.]

Look, man. It's too early- late?- for this BS.

If this is a party line, then we're gonna party until one of us goes crazy!

[He could go all day like this if necessary. Who would win- the man looking for Yuji, or They Might Be Giants?]

[gimu]

[ noise was something. voices, conversations, memories and hope and dreams and whatever came through this accursed mask, but music? that was new.

even more new, how this one doesn’t quite stop. the refrain leading in, the instruments he has no name for, the lyrics and allusions to a distant and maybe fictional land… ]

This isn’t a party! It is a search! I’m not looking for a stand-bull.

[ it keeps going. it’s so loud. who is a turk? it keeps going. ]

Stop that!

[sorte]

[ oh he knows that name.

damn is this a shitty brother like Toji is a shitty father or is he a crazy but good brother like Nicola. Overall its pointing to the latter except having no way to even pretend to have chill. These sorcerer kids sure have unique family. ]

Ohhh, the other kid ninja that likes comics, right?

[gimu]

[ what is ‘chill’? nothing choso has ever been introduced to. alas. ]

The what? Have you met him? What does he look like? Sound like?

[ the questions come rapid-fire. ]

[dethangel]

[There's a lot of weird stuff going on with the Murmur right now, which doesn't stop Toki from using it like social media. He's just never going to stop.

When he hears the yelling, he just kind of... repeats it.]

YUJIII!!!

[hallowedly]

( g r o a n i n g across the Murmur — )

Please don't indulge this.

[gimu]

[ too late, Sei-chan. toki shouts back, and that triggers what can only be the opening to a mental echo chamber. like a concert, or stray dogs in the alley. ]

YUJIII!

[sorte]

[whispering: ]

Toki, no.

[merged]

[ She doesn't respond, but there's a sense she's rubbing her temples. Toki. Toki, why!? ]

[hallowedly]

( ...this, then, is how everyone awoken at 5 and 6 a.m. by Seishirou's strategic chirping feels like. Unfortunate.

If this is Itadori's brother, then that grandfather of theirs certainly shouldn't be entrusted with any further youth. )

Hush, now. Please.

[gimu]

No! I must find him!

[ good morning. somewhere in Manhattan’s guts, Yuki-chan whinnies merrily, as if sensing who was on the other end of the line. brain. brain??? ]

[trashblaze]

Hey, it's Choso!

[ Cheery as usual, this one. ]

I might know where Yuji is. I believe he lives with Meggy?

[ He's pretty sure he heard something like that, at least. He's not fully certain, since whenever he visits Megumi, Yuji happens to be out each time. ]

[gimu]

[ …? ]

Hello, you. [ a race through a crumbling world, mares dashing headlong. he recognizes this voice. ]

Who is Meggy? Where is Meggy?

not actually here

[potentialman]

[ CAELUS...PLEASE DON'T GET OTHER PEOPLE CALLING HIM THAT...

(...is what Megumi would say if he were in any way conscious enough to know this was going on. But he's not. RIP him.) ]

[opheliac]

Yuuuuujiiii! Come out, come out wherever you are! — Mama's gotta bullet with your name on it. Hot and ready to fire...!

[ she has no idea who these people are, but maybe threats will make them come out faster?? ]

[gimu]

[ his outrage is palpable, prickly like brambles, like barbed wire. ]

NO, you don't have anything! YUJI, don't listen to that one! She is not our mother!

[sculptedash]

Yo- Yo- Yo-

What does he look like? I can keep an eye out.

[gimu]

Pink hair, fierce eyes. He moves with power.

[merged]

Thanks for the headache, dick. [ Forgive her, she's always sour after waking from the dream. ]

[gimu]

You are welcome. [ he either doesn't notice, or doesn't care, but he sounds genuine enough that one has to wonder what turnip truck he fell out of this morning. ]

[for_sake]

( oh my god. this is cruel and unusual punishment, even for this place. )

How are you coming for him if you don't know where he is?

( but despite the overwhelm, it's hard to ignore the desperation, the urgency, and so: )

... Fushiguro said if you focus on the one person you want to see, you can reach them wherever they are. Eventually.

[gimu]

[ there's that name again, tickling at some distant and only half-remembered conversation. ]

Eventually?

[ whether it's true or not, one way or another that 'eventually' would come to pass. he just has to carry on. he just has to continue. ]

Do you know him? This Fushiguro?

[vocalistyodels]

[If he could burn this fucking mask he would.]

None've you ever heard of fucking indoor voices?

[He doesn't care if there's an urgency to this guy's voice, he doesn't need to blow out everyone's mental ear drums to get it across.]

1/2

[gimu]

not here

[vixenish]

[ oh. this is her fault, huh.

oh well. that sounds like the rest of Manhattan's problem, now! ]

[gimu]

[ you gave him the power of knowledge; how were you to know what crimes would spring forth from it? ]

I am so very late to this I'm SORRYYY

[cursedvessel]

[It feels like a sharp spike burrowing into his brain, instantly jolting him awake.

Confusion swiftly shifts to panic as he recognizes the voice, and feels its desperation.]

Choso? Are you okay? Where are you?

oniichan will wait forever if he must!!!!!!

[gimu]

[ the chaos, the scrambling scratching incessant roiling susurrus of the Murmur almost seems to freeze for the duration of a single breath. even the beads of his mask seem muffled, distant, inconsequential. ]

Yuji.

[ it is a rising tide, not a roar but the simple perfect swell of an ocean swallowing a shore. relief, gratitude, regret, sorrow, love, love, love and hatred and fury and a remorse so deep that were it not for the yearning of his blood he might not have stood back up to begin with. Eso and Kechizu and the indifferent dark, a ruined concourse and emergency lighting, the lights reflected off water and blood and wet knuckles, the view of Yuji from above, blood framing a broken body beneath broken framing. a table under the trees and a blanket in the grass, spaghetti wound around a fork's pristine tines. ]

I am under the earth. Are you safe? Are you well? Do you remember the dream?