MAILBOX; inbox

[shoubai]

WELCOME

House 1411

"Hello? Hello?? I'm sorry, there's nobody home right now. [ obnoxious peal of laughter: go ]

Ahh, that's right! Leave a message, and I'll get back to you. Right? That's how it goes? Aha, no telemarketers, please!

If you run up my bill, I'll have to ask you to pay the extra costs.

[ BEEP ]

Comments

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[eh?]

[picks up]

What?

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ he keeps it short, simple. ]

Don't provoke him.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

-- Why?

Re: a call

[shoubai]

Don't.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

...You're the one who lied about him.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

Wouldn't you lie about the gun in your room? The bomb in your house?

Don't.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[...]

What's wrong with him?

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ nothing everything the entire goddamn world is whats wrong with him what else could make a single man hate so much detest so much want to destroy so much everything the world his friends himself-- ]

War.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

Don't lie.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

I'm not.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

It's too big.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

It's ours.

[ our war our cause our pain our mess our business ]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[it's the first time he's been -- denied, at this welcoming man's discretion]

[he doesn't know how to feel about it]

...So there's somethin' wrong with you too.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ he receives no answer, save for a laugh, bright and sunny.

and he takes another drink. ]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

...It's okay.

I know everybody's fucked up somehow.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ and he laughs

and laughs ]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[the boy falls silent]

[he's... he's sometimes far too exhausted of men who laugh, especially when, sometimes, his face aches from drawn brows and a downturned mouth]

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ he can laugh or he can shout or, worse yet, he could give into the quiet and the silence and the inevitable cascade of thought that comes with it.

laughing, for sakamoto, is what a stressball is to most men. a piece of string, an oft-chewed pen, a bracing shot of liquor.

with laughter, he thinks he can keep from sinking under too quickly.

with laughter, he can think himself different from the rest of the men who went to war and came back home broken things

so he laughs, and inevitably trails off into nothing ]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[Badou isn't sure what to say -- but he doesn't hang up]

[(it's an appropriate summation of his life, really)]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

-- Sakamoto?

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ a shuffle, a clink of glass on wood, the faint telltale ring of liquid in a container, in many containers. ]

Badou?

[ his voice is thick, bright, cheerful ]

Re: a call

[badbreak]

...Don't drink so much tonight. You're gonna get a bad hangover, an' then you'll be pukin' everywhere even more than when you get outta a car. You're gonna be a total pain, I just know it.

Re: a call

[shoubai]

That's what paper bags are for.

[ another laugh, short, but its followed soon after by the defined clatter of a glass on a harder surface.

business opens in the morning, after all. ]

All right.

Re: a call

[badbreak]

[it hurts, how familiar this feels]

...I can't sleep.

Can ya show me the constellations tonight?

Re: a call

[shoubai]

[ constellations, he wants to see the constellations the skies the stars, he

the stars the goddamn stars





its much too dark in this office ]