but even if the stars and moon collide [afterparty]

[allatonce]

[Well, that sucked!

After about an hour, invitations written in colorful ink appear under everyone's doors.]

Understandable if you're not up to it, but we're having a memorial and "don't wanna be alone" hang-out in the restaurant again.

[The restaurant has very much been decorated with the most rainbow fabric she could find in the department store. Jonathan got roped in, mainly so she could make sure he was doing okay, but also because she assumed that he knew how to put a tablecloth on a table. He seemed like the type, anyway.

After consulting with Undertaker, most of the food that's been set out is more traditional Chinese funeral food than Victorian—you can get a whole roast duck in the restaurant—but she tried for a mix of things. There is fruit, the aforementioned roast duck, and several vegetarian dishes along with potatoes for some reason and... cookies? Okay then.

Joy's trying, because that was way less terrible for her than it was for basically anyone else.

Happy Pride Wrath, New Rapture!]

Comments

[visiblepattern]

[The words kind of leave him in a rush.]

I don't know, I just... I tried to talk to Hodaka as much as I could, I tried to keep him calm and help him as much as possible, but I just couldn't... I don't know. It wasn't enough? It feels like it wasn't enough.

[bootyhunter]

[Dandy feels for poor Forrest, wanting to reach out and comfort him, half worrying that it will do no good.]

Me too.

But I pushed it too far.

[He recalls how the young boy had yelled at him.]

He had a lot of baggage, though.

Too much for one kid to carry. I know you were tryin' hard, I...

[Dandy inhales and then exhales.]

I just feel bad, y'know.

That he didn't feel like we were gonna understand, in the end. He was so mad at himself.

[visiblepattern]

He seemed afraid I was going to hate him. For...a lot of things.

[He always seemed so careful around Forrest, it was devastating.]

...I want to think that we were friends anyway. Maybe we weren't really, and it's just something I'm making up. But I want to think that.

[bootyhunter]

Oof.

[Dandy's laugh is mirthy.

It's not a real one.]

I was on the other side of that. I blurt out somethin' that made the guy hate my ass.

'S okay, though. I just don't think he was used to grown-ups givin' a damn. Ain't that the saddest shit?

[visiblepattern]

It is.

[...]

I have a hard time seeing many people hating you, actually. Not always understanding, maybe, I can see that. But not hating.

...Maybe it's because you remind me of someone I know. That could be it.

[bootyhunter]

Agree to dis-agree, Frou-Frou.

[He knows he can be an ass! It's fine, he's long forgone the idea of maintaining any sort of reputation. A life lived entirely for the sake of the approval of others is hardly a live being lived at all.]

I don't pipe down for nothin' or nobody! That tends to rub a lotta people the wrong way.

I don't care.

[He pauses, then realizing it's best to clarify.]

About what they think, I mean! Not the effects of all the, uh... "Rubbin'."

I'd rather everybody doesn't get too banged up afterwards.

[Emotionally... The number of fights this man enters into for SUCH petty reasons is insufferable.]

In here.

[He taps his heart!

Or where his heart should be, rather. It's not entirely explicit whether he actually possesses a physical one or not.]

[visiblepattern]

We've got that much in common, then.

[Maybe it's for different reasons, maybe it's in different ways. But he's always been one just to do his own thing, people's thoughts about him be damned.]

People don't tend to understand me where I'm from. They don't like the way I feel, the way I dress, the way I am. I get a lot of cruelty, bluntly put. I've been mocked, beaten, abducted for being who I am. But I learned a long time ago that there's no point in caring how others feel about me, because I can't control that. I know how I feel about them, and that's all that matters.

Maybe in another world I would have been more like you. If I were louder, less passive, less sensitive about everything. I don't know.

[bootyhunter]

You know they're the real pussycats, right?

Tch.

[pussycats meaning pussies bc the funimation english dub has censors i hope that much was clear AALSDKLJF]

There's nothin' wrong with sparkles. Or bein' sensitive for that matter!

It just means that your heart's still workin' the way it should. Those assholes should stop pickin' on you and start hittin' the ground running.

On their way to a doctor!

[visiblepattern]

[oh my god.]

My father did ensure that the last group paid, absolutely. I can't bring myself to feel too sorry for anyone who was on the receiving end of any of that; I just feel a little bad about being unable to help him in doing it.

[bootyhunter]

Bad 'cause you couldn't help him or bad 'cause ya couldn't knock a few of their teeth out?

[Oh! This is surprising. Maybe Forrest packs more of a punch than Dandy thought he did.]

Both is also toooootally an option, you know.

[visiblepattern]

If we're going to look at it that way...

[Hmmm...]

Then I rather think it was both.