[Still clawing cobwebs off his waking mind, it's easy to forgot not everyone has the luxury of his history with cognitive worlds and can bounce back on their feet so easily, or that someone as bad with technology as Mondo might not have thought to look for his name.
He presumes--just as he's presuming a lot about the reason for this late-night call.
Murder. Can it be? Could both events he'd witnessed in Mondo's mind be an echo of something that had really happened? Presumptions had left him with doubts about the other boy from their very first encounter; the attitude, the entitlement, all the hallmarks of a dangerous juvenile delinquent worn like a badge of honor... Shitbags like that popped up on the phan-site every other day. He wouldn't have blinked twice to see the boy's name listed among them.
But murder?
Even for an unlikable guy like Mondo, that's a singularly depraved low. The part of Ryuji that had empathized with him in the moment of his grief, weeping for a brother that had made the ultimate sacrifice to save him, wants to deny it, but the silence when the call connects (a knowing silence? a guilty silence) seems like another nail in the coffin.]
Well?
[He picks up where they'd left off, like there hadn't been a break in between.]
Are you just gonna heavy breathe at me? What was that? At the pool... Your other self killed that kid. Was that real?
no subject
He presumes--just as he's presuming a lot about the reason for this late-night call.
Murder. Can it be? Could both events he'd witnessed in Mondo's mind be an echo of something that had really happened? Presumptions had left him with doubts about the other boy from their very first encounter; the attitude, the entitlement, all the hallmarks of a dangerous juvenile delinquent worn like a badge of honor... Shitbags like that popped up on the phan-site every other day. He wouldn't have blinked twice to see the boy's name listed among them.
But murder?
Even for an unlikable guy like Mondo, that's a singularly depraved low. The part of Ryuji that had empathized with him in the moment of his grief, weeping for a brother that had made the ultimate sacrifice to save him, wants to deny it, but the silence when the call connects (a knowing silence? a guilty silence) seems like another nail in the coffin.]
Well?
[He picks up where they'd left off, like there hadn't been a break in between.]
Are you just gonna heavy breathe at me? What was that? At the pool... Your other self killed that kid. Was that real?