masanari | [Futurelandia] An Eventful Valentines and beyond (happy new year)

Your sanity hasn't quite returned from that war, I'm sure.

[It's been years!!! ... Granted it really was pretty awful, all those corny lines and shitty plots and the weird rules to the actual game itself .. It was all a mess.]

I mean, there was something I wanted to show you but I just never got around to mentioning it. Hold on.

[She slid off of the bed, quickly leaving, and coming back in near record time. The only sign that she ran up the stairs is the slightly labored breathing and how messily she's holding a small pile of stuff.]

So - there's this game, it's called 'A Dark Room', you sort of rebuild society over time and you have to allocate resources and save people and it's really weird. But I can leave it on for ages when I'm home without everyone getting eaten by bears or whatever.

[Honestly, now that she's sure she isn't bothering him Junko's practically jumping at the seams, bringing her computer back to life. Her desktop's wallpaper is one of their more recent family pictures, but it doesn't take her long to pull it up so that Masaomi can play it.]

It was pretty bad, okay.

[ And he's pretty sure Yamato's still into those collectable card games. Just not YuGiOh now.

But he digresses.

He's not sure what he expected, but he didn't quite expect her to run out of the room and run back as fast as she did. He stares at the door to the room, waiting for her to come back or perhaps Sully or Audrey or Ada to walk in while she's out. But when Junko's back just as fast he puts on smile for her and --

Huh. Well, he cozies up to her and waits for her to explain more. ]

Aaah, so you wanted me to give it a whirl?

Mmhm! I mean, you have to pay attention to all sorts of stuff at once, it requires a lot of managing and there's a story that goes along with it, so I thought it would be great since you're stuck in bed.

[Something to keep his mind engaged, maybe relieve a little bit of the soul-sucking boredom. She gets the browser up and running and hands it over to him ... Though it's up to Masaomi how he's going to hold the laptop so his junk isn't bothered. Thankfully Junko's laptop is pretty damn thin.]

[ He's been using his own before now, just prop it up a little on his ankles, and he's pretty sure he can manage it. Still, he hums a little - oh, right in the bowser? Neat? He nods as she offers it and then- oh, he should make a lame joke. ]

Oh, but my daughter just gave me her laptop, aren't I supposed to check all your emails and facebook messages to see all the untoward things now?

[ Not that he's making an effort to do that yet ]

[Yet?!]

You've already seen Audrey's boobs and I doubt you'd care about my collection of anime porn.

[There's literally nothing in her facebook but her email ...

Anyway, she gets her embroidery hoop out of the messy pile of colors - which are all different lengths and thicknesses of thread, and she's gonna get back to the design she was working on last week without much comment. It's just plain words, and it's currently at 'Life is' and she's working on the 'a'.]

And even if you did you shouldn't look at it anyway.

I thought kids these days never paid for or downloaded porn, because it's all up for streaming and whatever.

[ He says this with an airy tone, but it's mostly so that he could distract himself from having to start this game that he's never done before. But then... well, she started it blind once too, right? ... Well no, it's junko. She probably looked up a bunch of shit first.

But okay, let's just...

Start it... ]

I didn't pay for any of it. It's all fan art and gifs and stuff like that. I don't like sound when it comes to porn.

[Kind of takes her out of the moment. But while Masaomi figures out how to start the game (it's a lot of clicking, a small bit of reading as things get going) Junko loops her thread and starts working! This is literally what she does in her free time: Play a computer game, listen to some music, and embroider!

Junko might secretly be an old woman. A weird old woman.]

Edited 2016-06-24 02:10 (UTC)

[ That's...

Weird? Who doesn't like sound? Oh well, he waves a hand and sets out on the reading and clicking. Okay, let's get started. It's a browser game, so it can't be that complex, can it? ]

Speaking of boobs, aren't your own a bit bigger?

Edited 2016-06-24 02:11 (UTC)

[Not really! Everything goes in steps, and like Junko mentioned after a certain point the game runs itself and it just has to be watched after - or micromanaged, if that's how one wanted to play! And the mention of her new boob size earns a small groan.]

Yes, by more than a whole cup! That's actually what I used my credit card for, I waited too long to get new bras and mom couldn't go with me since she was busy with school.

[So, in hindsight, maybe paying off her card wasn't that bad. Hindsight-lies.]

I always thought it was kind of weird that they were so small when mom's whole family is stacked but I guess I just ended up a late bloomer.

Mmm. Honestly, the person who's probably your grandmother on my side's got a larger B cup.

[ Probably. Well actually, he's distracted from the game for a moment mostly because he's still reading stuff and going through the steps as he counts off on his fingers all the possibilities. Elda was quite small, Yori-sama was what he just mentioned... ]

So it could have swung both ways.

I kind of wanted them to stay the way they were! Now I feel like everyone stares at my boobs.

[Dammit Grandma Yori why didn't your genes win out on this one! Ugh.]

And how is someone 'probably' related to me?

Ahaha... well, I don't really know who my mother is 100%. I've got a few educated guesses.

[ It's the way the pack he grew up in worked. Of course, it's hard to obscure a woman's pregnancy, but there some some level of deliberate obscurity made on the part of the pack at large. Plus they were all just raised communal style.

... Has he never talked about this with his kids?

... You know, he might not have. ]

[Either way, she attaches to an entirely different part of his past.]

So ... You never did anything with your mom? What about your dad?

[This, to Junko, is incredibly weird. Their mom had taken them to school every day, they'd had family trips, they had little traditions, actions embedded into their holidays and birthdays. Once she'd gotten over herself as a kid she'd been more than happy to show off her passed test, successful projects, numerous awards ... All of those memories had her mother, and a lot of that had been done with the hope of winning her father's attention, too.

So what the fuck kind of childhood could someone have if half their parents were gone?]

Mmm. No, I'm sure I did, I just wouldn't have recognized her as "mom" As for my father... [ He ... ] He died when I was around Koji's age. But before then, I did quite a bit with him.

[ But it does inform a lot of his opinions and actions, ultimately, that he didn't have that much of a relationship with his parents as parents. He was raised by a village. ]

Oh.

[That's depressing two times over. The fact that he didn't have recognizable memories with his own mother, that his father died so young. Junko paused, staring at her barely finished lettering.] I guess ... That kind of explains a lot.

[She wants to say 'I'm sorry' but it's in moments like this that she's reminded her dad has had a whole life before he was anyone's father. He was way too old for her to be apologizing to him? It wouldn't really do any good, especially since she's only finding something 'wrong' with his upbringing because it's affected her own.]

... What was your dad like?

Maaaah. That just makes it sound like I owe you kids an apology all over again. [ But still, he's... he's not sure he should apologize for being a parent, or for being the sort of parent he was. That would just invalidate everything that he's done until now. And he doesn't quite want to do it, so he lets that sarcastically float in a air a moment as he continues what there is to say about his dad. Honestly, he could tell her about everyone he grew up with. All his siblings, the older women, his dad...

What was he like, though? He considers and then finally ]

Incredibly sweet. A lot of it's hindsight, of course, because he teased a lot, but he's one of the kinder people I've ever known.

[... She'll come back to that first part because it's over due. Because there's a lot she needs to talk to her dad about, a lot she needs to hear even if he thinks its all stuff that should be obvious or that she should already know. But it can wait a second because she's trying to avoid fucking up her count.]

That almost explains your jokes.

[Almost.]

Do you think he would have liked us?

['Us' being ... the entire family that Masaomi has helped create. His mate, his children, his pack members ... The whole thing. Even though he's gone she somehow can't help minding the opinion of her grandpa.]

[ Would he has liked them...

He tries to consider that seriously, and the fact of the matter is that he doesn't know. He doesn't know a lot about his dad, now he thinks of it. And so he just decides to speak more in hopefuls than in absolutes. And so resting a hand on his cheek, he comes out with ]

Probably. I know everyone else does.

That's such an even response.

[Junko's smart, but not enough to tell her what he might not be saying with such an answer. After all, she feels like she knows her parents incredibly well, even for the short amount of time she's been on the planet.]

Dad.

[...] If there are things you feel like you regret or should apologize for, about being a father and all? You don't, okay. [She pauses in her embroidery, staring at it as if the threads might give her the answer to world peace.] I've been upset about some stuff for a long time, but I think I get it now. I think, when you have more kids with mom, you'll spend more time with them, and that's all I'd ask you to do anyway.

Sorry. None of his children were old enough to have their own families when he passed.

[ So it's hard for him to imagine him reacting to it. ... Well, Basara was old enough, but he mated rather late in life all things considered. That said, what she follows up with - that gobsmacks him. It makes his stomach do a somewhat unpleasant flip, and while it should be really reassuring to him, it's not. It just makes him feel a lot worse, honestly. And so he starts to say something, falters, and then looks down at the screen. He runs a finger over the touchpad to prevent it from locking and clicks something idly on the screen to advance ahead a step.

Things... ]

If my daughter's carrying some weight about me, it seems like I might need to. [ Inhale ] But alright.

[Her head tilts in a manner reminiscent of him, which is ironic.]

If you feel a need to, that's something else. I'm just saying that everyone makes mistakes, but one of the benefits is that your family will forgive you no matter what. No one will think less of you or stop loving you.

[So if he wanted to have a long drawn out talk in order to clear the air of it all? They could do that. But how could she continue being so upset with him when all the things she'd expected from her father were things he'd never even had, or known to want? When he'd lost his father so early on?

It didn't make sense to hold onto any of it, now.]

[ He response to that isn't obvious. Is it better to just allow it to sit there and from there allow Junko to move on if she really is okay? Or is it better to unpack it and see what might rest there. It's an impossible choice, particularly in what's been an otherwise quiet, nice, conversation. He looks at the laptop and then back at her, and he focuses evenly on her, and smiles ]

You can't appreciate it now, probably, but we were so young when we had you three.

[ Even if in the back of his head he was a third of the way to his own grave or nearing it. ]

I'm so sorry for whatever hardships my ignorance caused you, Junko.

[She looked back at him, hands in her lap and unexpectedly nervous. There's something odd about talking to her dad this way, maybe it's because they don't exactly have a lot of familial talks like this.]

I forgive you, completely. [To her, that's a more respectful and dignified response than 'it's okay' or 'that's fine'. Both of those responses seem dismissive, and that's not the point of this talk. She exhales and then smiles wide.]

And thank you.

[At the end of the day all she really wanted was that apology.]

[ And... ]

And I'll hear out whatever complaints you have. Or well, as much as I can as a Father. [ As Alpha, he'll hear all of them. But as a Father, don't you need to eventually put your foot down or something? That seems like how it ought to be based on what else he's seen, right? That said, he looks down at the laptop again, tilting his head to the side. He clicks again. Next screen ]

I mean, I don't think it's anything that hasn't already been addressed in some form or another already, which is why I'm not worried about it.

[She pauses, considers -]

... I know you're really busy, but I'd like it if we spent more time together like this. I'm not ... Always the most entertaining person like Audrey, I know, but -

[It's really not like her to be so unsure.] It's just nice.

the limitations of pure text

Yes quite but what happened to your arm you okay?

I think I just sprained it really badly at work when I was carrying stuff in from the back )x

Oh man that sucks?? I hope that records well.

Yeah! I'll be fine it's already easier to move now than when I first tagged some hours ago

Okay good I'm glad to hear that

aw thanks. I just have to type slow which is irritating as hell but oh well

You got this!! also this is cute

I agree, an unexpected cuteness at that

Yeah I kind of love it.

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/compiles an actual list of his birth pack just so I can keep it straight god damn

it will never end, it will continue to grow

Well yes but I want to make sure I've got the facts I set up already right

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