37TH ♫ | so i'll say “hello” again, “hello – just who have i become?”

[mytarget]

YUURI WAKSA CMO POST

BECAUSE I'M GOING TO BE NICE TO YUURI EVEN WHEN CANON ISN'T!!!

you all know who rii-san is by now anyway this is just a fresh and spicy update to her usual CMO so i can throw it at people to make her play them with me. Like my usual CMOs, I'm totally happy to roll with assumed CR, AUs, setting transplants, BASICALLY ANYTHING YA LITTLE HEART MAY DESIRE, I'M HERE TO GET ON WITH IT

PROMPTS:

Random Scenario Meme Prompts
Jamjar CR Meme Prompts
Murdergame Meme Prompts

Comments

what the fuck is up

[burninglight]

[It was, without a doubt, an incredibly special day. Not just because it was a normal one without any sort of horrorplague apocalypse, but because it was practically an interdimensional holiday.]

[And because the scourge of the stars, accursed Adagium, chancellor of a fallen empire, was squinting at a cookbook with a streak of flour on his face, midway through putting together what would eventually be a cake. Hopefully.]

[After all, it would have been horribly unreasonable to let his daughter's birthday go uncelebrated.]

BIRTH

[nojohnyouare]

[Mai arrives with a gift like the rest, but hey, she didn't bring another cake. There is a card, though, with a lion on it and "Look Who's Turning 3" whited out and covered with Yuuri's actual age. The gift is better, though, at least -- the scarf may have a cat print, but it's a cream-and-brown subtle cat print that actually goes with much of Yuuri's wardrobe.]

Birthday. ...I hope it's good.

i'll save hibiki launching herself bodily *through* the window for daybreak

[priforprince]

Your sighs are like doves escaping into a clear blue sky.

[ Here, Yuuri. A bouquet of purple roses, passed through the window. By someone in a prince costume, on horseback. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT ANYONE RANDOMLY SELECTED IN A LOTTERY TO WIN AN AFTERNOON WITH A CELEBRITY WOULD WANT TO SEE, CORRECT?

YUURI IS OBVIOUSLY THE LUCKIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD. ]

I wish they would come home to roost with me.

[birthday intensifies]

[daughterofthemark]

[Yuuri might have noticed an odd quiet in the days leading up to her birthday. Her little sister and her bigger little sister weren't missing, certainly, but suddenly the minute-by-minute updates on their lives slowed down to daily, and they went on some errands on their own, one or two of them even offworld apparently.

It was all probably very suspicious.

Will Yuuri remember all this now that she's suddenly being woken up early? Only time will tell.]

Good morning, Rii-san! Happy birthday!

[serrata]

[ It says a lot about a number of factors that Yuuri's response to being woken up out of the blue at an hour like this isn't quite a full-fledged heart attack on the spot. That's the nice thing about not living in the apocalypse and/or a murdergame anymore: normal emotional reactions to things like being startled out of sleep by troublemakers.

Yuuri sits up slowly, looking a bit less put together than she usually likes to present herself, and rubs her eyes for a moment before giving Arianna a look of pure bafflement. ]

I... good morning, Arianna... is something happening?

[serrata]

I... suppose that's certainly one way of putting it.

[ Dear god. Why is she here again?

Oh, that's right. Because Kurumi and Yuki wouldn't let her back out of it. She only put in for the lottery because the two of them were doing it and she never expected to actually win. She'd fully intended to pass, but the two of them (Miki had wisely refrained from joining this particular brand of nonsense) had made it clear that if she backed out, they'd never let her live it down. So here she is.

At least the flowers are nice. ]

Are you coming in... through the window?

[priforprince]

No, I'm here to invite you out.

[ Hibiki extends a hand to Yuuri, once said hand is no longer full of flowers. ] Now, take my hand. An afternoon of supreme elegance awaits - devoted just to you.

[ The Prince's eyes are alight with not only shoujo sparkles, but also expectation. Shikyoin Hibiki wants YOU! This is a priceless sensation. Were the Projan War to be rewaged, it would be for just such honors!!! ] You'll accept gladly, correct?

[serrata]

[ Yuuri looks down at the offered hand and finds herself immediately wondering if it's still too late to back out. She can claim illness or injury or some sort of emergency, but deep in her heart, she knows that if she pulled any of that, she'd subject herself to even worse ribbing from the two troublemakers who got her pulled into this in the first place. So really... she doesn't have a choice. ]

I really can't say no to that, can I? [ She really, REALLY can't. She takes Hibiki's hand – and then hesitates. ] Um, just a second – am I coming out through the window?

[ Forgive her if that sounds hazardous and also deeply embarrassing. ]

[serrata]

[ Good lord, she's surrounded by cinnamon rolls. ]

Thank you, Mai-chan! It couldn't be anything but good when everyone's made such an effort. I feel spoiled rotten.

[ She says this as if she's not the worst culprit for spoiling people on their birthdays. Don't believe her lies, Mai. ]

[serrata]

[ So, after being divebombed awake by a pair of very excited sisters, Yuuri thinks she has an idea about how this day is going to shape up. She's not fool enough to expect a quiet birthday considering, well, every single person she knows but she can at least try and prepare herself for it a bit – if only because she doesn't think her heart can take any more surprises.

So once she's up and dressed, she slips out of the apartment and down to Ardyn and Church's door where she knocks and then just immediately lets herself in because that's just how we do things around here, really. ]

I'm not ruining another surprise if I come poking my nose in here, am I?

[burninglight]

[Just so long as we knock on every other door.]

I suspect it will come as no surprise to you at all, my dear princess. I presume you smart enough to know what I'm likely to be doing.

[priforprince]

[ THIS IS THE PUNIVERSE'S MOST TRUSTWORTHY SMILE

as Hibiki draws Yuuri closer to the windowsill ]

Don't worry. I'll handle you carefully.

[ Hibiki reaches with her free hand for Yuuri's side, to help her out. ]

[nojohnyouare]

You deserve it.

[She looks away, embarrassed.]

You're kind on ours, too.

[serrata]

[ Deadpan: ]

Another apology cake for the neighbours, of course.

[ She's kidding. Mostly kidding.

... She's probably kidding. ]

Did you really get up so early just to make this, though?

[serrata]

We all deserve it, don't you think? Especially on a day like your birthday.

[ It's certainly not cold enough in the apartment for Yuuri to need a scarf, but you can bet she's putting it on right now anyway. It's cute, and Mai got it for her. Of course she's going to wear it. ]

It wasn't any trouble to come and see us today, was it? Oh, sit down – I'll bring you something to drink.

[ the fuss machine has no breaks and will never stop. ]

A Simple Request

[littlestsurvivor]

Nee-chan, I want to go hunting.

[It'd been a week since Ruu had been rescued from the ruins of what was once Namekawa Grade School; and nearly a week since she nearly charged them all with a spear before realizing her sister was one of them. It was clear that Ruu's experience in the apocalypse had been... harder than their's. She was always on-guard and paranoid, usually not leaving her sister's side.]

[Ruu did not understand fully how her sister and the others had survived; she didn't understand the people who holed themselves up, but she assumed that at the least, they had to hunt for fresh meat, right? They hadn't survived 9 months just eating canned stuff and veggies? And this was the perfect chance to show everyone she wasn't just some kid to be babied!]

[She couldn't speak, but she still enthusiastically wrote it down on a piece of paper.]

Let me go hunting neechan! Give me a few hours and I can capture a few rabbits and we can have some fresh meat!

[serrata]

[ Ruu is safe.

Every few hours during the day, Yuuri stops what she's doing to repeat those words to herself and just try and absorb it. Ruu is safe. Even now, she's not fully convinced she's not about to blink awake and realize the whole thing was a dream.

It's not been perfect. Even she can see that – or rather, she's better equipped than anyone to see it. Ruu's still quiet and timid, just as she remembered, but there's a difference to it now. It's like the softness she remembered has been ground down and sharpened to a razor edge and it makes Yuuri feel off-kilter when she sees it.

So maybe, considering all that, she shouldn't be so surprised by the message Ruu gives her. Ruu had to have survived somehow out there at the school alone, but seeing it still makes Yuuri feel winded, like she's taken a blow to the stomach.

It takes her a second to make her voice level and, she hopes, keep her expression neutral if not completely calm. ]

Hunting... for animals, you mean. [ Of course that's what she means. It's right there in the note, but Yuuri has to say it out loud to confirm it for herself. ] Is that what you'd been doing back– back at the school?

[littlestsurvivor]

I might be able to kill a few of the dead guys too. Keeps everything safer. I just need a clean knife for the food!

[Ruu had changed.]

[The way she talked about these things, or rather wrote them, were natural to her. Killing zombies and hunting animals; she wrote it as casually as before as when she talked about getting new toys or making origami.]

Yeah! Along with scavenging! The birdies and bunnies are easier to capture, but the birds have too many feathers and I don't like eating those. The really nice thing you can hunt is deer! But you need more people to bring them back. One deer feeds your group for a long time though!

[Oh, they had done so much more than just that... but Rii didn't need to know that. Right now, she just wanted to get food for the Living Club and prove she didn't need to be babied! She was gonna show these lockers how it worked out here!]

[serrata]

[ And there it is. Put so matter-of-factly, Yuuri can't pretend it's anything but what it so clearly is, no matter how badly she wants to. It makes her feel queasy to think of Ruu not just hunting, but being so familiar with it that she has preferences to express – but that's selfish.

She'd been safe, locked up in Megurigaoka and Ruu had been on her own. Yuuri should be – and is – thankful that she's alive to tell the tale. Hunting is probably the least she's had to do and it's naive on Yuuri's part to reel so at the idea of it.

So she stoops down slowly, putting herself on Ruu's level properly – this feels like a capital-T Talk and not one they should have with Yuuri stood over her. ]

Ruu-chan, I... right now, I don't think it's a good idea. Not– not right now.

[ Maybe not ever is the obvious subtext there even if Yuuri can't bring herself to say it outright. ]

[nojohnyouare]

[Mai shakes her head. She does sit down, though, it's rude not to.]

You should be taken care of. Rather than take care of us today. ...Unless that bothers you.

[littlestsurvivor]

Not now? Then when?

[Ruu was confused. She knew lockers didn't usually like hunting and stuff; but she was offering to do it...]

I can totally do it though! You gotta trust me, neechan! We've been eating canned stuff only for days!

[She wrote down quickly. She was sick of this canned stuff; she wanted meat, real meat, and she wanted her sister to eat good too! She didn't feel happy knowing her sister had to keep living like this...]

Rii, if you don't eat good stuff you'll get sick...

[serrata]

[ Yuuri just laughs and shakes her head. ]

Oh? Even if it's my birthday, I can't let myself get away with being a bad hostess, can I?

[ Her smile makes it clear she's only teasing, though and she takes a seat herself. ]

Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take you up on the offer. Would you mind bringing me whatever you're going to have as well, then?

[serrata]

[ She wishes this was as easy as talking to Yuki. There's a twinge of guilt in her chest as she thinks it, because explaining things to Yuki always requires a layer of falsehood – if not an outright lie. But even if Yuuri could bring herself to even try lying to Ruu, she has a feeling it just wouldn't fly.

Does it make her an awful person, if being honest is this difficult for her? ]

It's not that I don't trust you. I know you've been doing this all by yourself for who knows how long, but I...

[ She trails off and then takes in a slightly shaky breath and puts her hands out, palms up, for Ruu to take. ]

There's nothing that's more important to me than keeping you safe right now. I don't want to just send you out alone where it's so dangerous.

[littlestsurvivor]

[Alone. There it was again; alone. But she hadn't been alone, not until recently. But she had been alone before her sister and friends found her again...]

[What would happen if her sister found out the truth, though? About all the things they had done? Could she ever possibly forgive her?]

[Could anyone like that deserve to be loved after that?]

I wanna be useful neechan... I don't like being cramped up like this...

[She would have hated being lectured about safety from lockers, but with Rii, she didn't want to make a fight. And she took her big sister's hand, holding onto her big sister. It was warm... She wanted to write something else down, but did not want to ruin this moment either. The warmth and gentleness of Yuuri...]

[She leaned in, forcing herself to whisper, her voice raspy from disuse. Ruu had only spoken a small handful of times since coming with the School Living Club, so when she did, it commanded attention.]

... D... do... don't... w-wo... worry a... about me... I-I'm fine... n-neechan...

[nojohnyouare]

[Mai stands up and, wordless, goes to the kitchen. She can be heard setting the kettle and rummaging around a little, and when she does bring out the tea, well. She clearly grabbed the first thing she could find. At least she can brew tea, unlike someone else I play who would have set the kitchen on fire.]