Chapter Text
YOU: A week and a half later, it is Saturday afternoon, and you are at the apartment. Having recently finished THE UMBRELLA MURDERS, you have the day off. You split your chores in the way you’ve found most mutually beneficial - you go to the Jamrock Public Library to return books and get new ones, and Kim buys the groceries.
VOLITION: You cannot be left in charge of the groceries. You buy far too many snacks and Hjelmdallmann dinners for the household budget.
YOU: You have not done anything with the knowledge that you are in love with Kim Kitsuragi.
ENDURANCE: Oh, sure you have. You’ve been having trouble sleeping.
INLAND EMPIRE: And when you have slept, your dreams have been strange and confusing. Once, you had gotten up and crossed the living room, and leaned in the open doorway of Kim’s bedroom to listen to him sleep. He had stirred, turning, but had not woken.
YOU: You’ve been staring at Kim more - more than *usual* anyway. You’ve been staring at Kim often enough that he’d noticed, and self-consciously touched his face, rubbing at his mustache. “What is it,” he had said, “do I have something…?”
SUGGESTION: Last night, you had rented a Guillaume le Million biopic from the Video Revachol and watched it on the couch in pure torture, Kim’s leg bumping yours the entire time.
LOGIC: If you didn’t know better, you’d say he was doing it on purpose. Those touches, those long looks, his shoulder knocking into yours as you shelter from a rainstorm in a doorway.
EMPATHY: If you didn’t know better, you might be tempted to think that Kim is in love with you too.
VOLITION: You have determined to do nothing with this information.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: At least, not yet. You are a detective without enough evidence. You are in search of more clues. Surely if you keep investigating this - THE CASE OF KIM KITSURAGI - you will discover the truth.
KIM KITSURAGI: Kim comes back from shopping, brushing his hair off his forehead as he carries the groceries in.
YOU: You get up and help him. You’ve been sitting out on the balcony reading your new book on dream interpretation -
ESPRIT DE CORPS: This is going to help you crack the case of THE DROWNED MAN - you just don’t know it yet -
YOU: - and given the day’s heat, you’re not wearing very much. Kim’s eyes linger on you longer than can be considered decent. “I think it’s going to storm,” you say, helpfully.
KIM KITSURAGI: He looks out the window, at the hazy smog over the city. “What makes you say that?”
1) “I feel it in my bones.”
2) “The city told me.”
3) “The clouds amassing over the horizon - look, there.”
YOU: “The clouds amassing over the horizon - look, there.” You point, your forearm brushing his shoulder. He shivers.
KIM KITSURAGI: After you put the groceries away, and make a small, cold lunch -
PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: And after your series of stretching exercise in the living room that you’ve been trying - and failing - to get Kim to join you in -
PAIN THRESHOLD: That man is the least flexible man you know. You can tell every morning when he gets out of bed because you can *hear* his spine creak.
YOU: - you join Kim on the balcony. He’s tinkering lazily with a transistor radio you’d recently Jamrock shuffled out of a bin. “I think you were right, detective.” He nods at the ocean, where a line of storms is coming in, thick and dark. The wind has picked up, waving laundry hung out on the neighboring building.
1) “I’m always right, Kim.”
2) “They don’t call me Stormwalker for nothing, Kim.”
3) “They don’t call me the Weather God for nothing, Kim.”
YOU: “They don’t call me Stormwalker for nothing, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Do they?” He smiles. “I didn’t know they did that.” He fiddles with a screwdriver, then leans forward, pursing his lips as he turns the radio up. A burst of static makes him wince, and he turns it down, then off, then continues working.
YOU: The two of you watch the storm come in. You entertain Kim by reading from the dream interpretation book, offering to interpret his dreams -
KIM KITSURAGI: “I don’t think my dreams need interpretation, detective,” he says. “I know what they mean. I work in a stressful job that requires constant vigilance.”
HALF LIGHT: He has bad dreams about Dom dying. You, too. Dreams in which every body you’ve discovered that day turns into one or the other of you at night.
YOU: Hey, I have those too!
ESPRIT DE CORPS: As does Jean Vicquemare, Judit Minot, Chester McLaine, Mack Torson….they’re fairly common.
1) “I have those dreams, too.”
2) “You have to have other dreams too, Kim.”
YOU: “I have those dreams, too.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes - I know.” He shoots you a look.
PERCEPTION: He hears you, sometimes. Thrashing. Moaning. Whimpering.
1) “I have those dreams, too.”
2) “You have to have other dreams too, Kim.”
YOU: “You have to have other dreams too, Kim.”
KIM KITSURAGI: His ears flush. He looks down at the radio and twists the screwdriver left, then right again. “I think those are fairly normal, detective,” he says, dryly.
1) “Oh, yeah, I have *those* too.”
2) “No, I mean, *other* dreams.”
YOU: “Oh, yeah, I have *those* too.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Yes. I know.” A twitch to the corner of his mouth.
ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He hears you, sometimes. Thrashing. Moaning. *Whimpering.*
YOU: Oh god, do I say names?
COMPOSURE: I don’t think you want to know.
1) “Oh, yeah, I have *those* too.”
2) “No, I mean, *other* dreams.”
YOU: “No, I mean, *other* dreams.”
KIM KITSURAGI: He puts the radio down. “Yes - sometimes.” He looks out at the rapidly approaching storm. The wind is ruffling his hair back. Sudden gusts flip the pages of his book. “I often dream about where I grew up - the orphanage. Except it’s abandoned now, empty. I’m all alone, and I wander the halls, looking for something - sometimes it’s another room, or the way out, or it’s *someone.*”
HALF LIGHT: Usually, it’s someone.
YOU: You rifle through the dream interpretation book. “It says here that you might be lost - or looking for direction-”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Detective, I don’t think that book is entirely accurate science, no?” He watches the storm. “You know, I often used to watch thunderstorms come in as a child. I had one of the attic rooms.”
YOU: “It must’ve gotten hot in the summer.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Very.” A brief smile. “But it wasn’t a bad room.”
VISUAL CALCULUS: It was closest to the sky.
YOU: You’re close to the sky now - here, on this balcony. It’s one of the things Kim likes best about his apartment. It’s part of why he’s still kept it, even working in Jamrock. He is on the top floor, and sometimes - late at night, when he can’t sleep, or early in the morning, or times like now, when the storm is rolling in - he feels almost as if he is in the sky.
KIM’S APARTMENT: You sit and watch the storm come closer. It starts slow, at first. Everything darkens, as if it’s early evening. The sea is choppy, the sky dark and heavy above it, obscuring it from view.
PERCEPTION: As the storm approaches, everything goes quiet. The wind dies down.
HALF LIGHT: The quiet of a large predator waiting to strike.
PERCEPTION: Then a low rumble of thunder you can feel deep inside. Another. A few raindrops fall on your library book, and you swipe them away with your hand. Then, a few more, cooling your overheated skin.
KIM KITSURAGI: “Let’s get inside.” He picks up the radio and his screwdriver.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Much like a cat, he does not enjoy getting wet.
KIM KITSURAGI: He does not go far. He shuts the screen, but leaves the balcony door open. He sits on the floor, leaning back against the bed, and fiddles with the radio. “Ah!” he says as he turns it on, and sound begins pouring out. Slightly tinny, and a little crackly. He turns it to WEATHER FM, which is saying, - the line of storms out over the sea are coming in to the Greater Revachol Industrial Harbor now -
KIM KITSURAGI: “Sit down,” he says, and you sit, slowly, beside him. Your shoulders press together, knees bumping.
YOU: And then the rain gusts in. Heavy, wet, sweeping sheets of it. The temperature drops nearly immediate.
PERCEPTION: You can smell the rain, strong and overwhelming in the dark room. It is nearly as dark as night - you can make out Kim’s fingers on the radio, the flash of his glasses lenses as he turns to you.
INTERFACING: You can feel the mist of rain reaching onto your skin, even from a meter away.
PERCEPTION: Another gust of rain rattles hard against the building. It drowns out the sound of WEATHER FM.
YOU: You can feel something crackling in the air between you and Kim. You can feel the distance - mere centimeters - between you, can feel something alive and electric tingling all through your skin, zipping down your spine.
LOGIC: An incoming lightning strike?
YOU: “Kim, I think we should take cover.”
KIM KITSURAGI: A huff of laughter you feel across your lips. “We’re perfectly safe here.”
YOU: “Have *you* see the latest inspection reports for this building?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “I’ve never seen the inspection reports for this building,” he admits.
PERCEPTION: Another gust of wind, bringing cold, clean air into the room. You can feel the heat of Kim’s skin as he leans closer.
YOU: “I told you, Kim. I’m trained. This building is going to be struck by lighting, and we’re going to die-”
KIM KITSURAGI: Another huff, and then his mouth is on yours, cool and a little damp.
YOU: You make a noise in surprise, and then kiss him back.
RHETORIC: It’s entirely possible he only kissed you to shut you up.
KIM KITSURAGI: Remarkably effective, he thinks, and files it away in his mental notebook. Then, he resumes kissing you, his hand tangled in your hair, pulling you close.
YOU: You can feel the scratch of his mustache, running your tongue along his teeth. He pants into your mouth. You kiss for a long time, slow and deep, the sound of your breaths, and small murmurs, almost lost under the sound of the storm, and the radio.
PERCEPTION: Your tongues brush, and a flash of lighting spikes through your closed eyelids.
CONCEPTUALIZATION: Or is it your lungs, briefly flaring?
YOU: “Kim,” you murmur against his lips, breaking the kiss, “did you see that?”
KIM KITSURAGI: “Of course,” he says, and pulls you back in, as the radio plays on, low, unheard. Jamrock, 24 degrees centigrade, stormy, clearing soon...