ROLEPLAY / Akihiko Sanada - Tumblr Posts
Things haven't been more promising in a long time. he knows, he knows he should be happy, but in a smaller, electric part of him it rumbles with a eroding kind of feeling; all sharp edges jabbing, focus like an afterthought, and it's something like...
" You act like Tartarus is just a walk away, not a 30-minute ride... " ━ jealousy.
━━ it could've been called a half-jest, or perhaps as close as Akihiko can get as a comment of plan to steal Mitsuru's motorcycle? hangs in the hollow flesh of his cheek, chewed raw and silvery when he runs his tongue over his molars, brushing the wall with it. he finds himself unwilling to spit it out, even if for the sake of something conversational, as that rumbling thunders on in his chest. all sat upon sturdy wood, legs shifting across carpeting, a pen and notebook in his hand under the dim green light that floods the dorm as his efforts to study were fruitless in how little he could keep his attention to it; he resists tapping only by virtue of how he holds the pen, spinning, between his fingers.
He's restless. Akihiko doesn't bother with the idea of hiding it, he figures Goro to be smart enough to read him either way in the time past spent ━ together, until they're not. the way the not has become bigger as time goes by. Goro improving, improving, improving while stagnation lives in Akihiko's ribs and strangles him. Unsurprising, then, why the feverish parts of him lashes so unwillingly even as his sides ache against the idea; painkillers never enough; the pattern, in a way, where Akihiko never gave up, never stopped, but...
... Well. Things change, don't they? it gets hard to keep up. It gets easy to falter. ( a thousand reasons to keep going, and two where it will never be the same. )
Akihiko studies Goro, in the way he's never been much good at studying anyone, and he supposes he respects it; the distance kept, the 'tough love' & 'learn by doing' kind of attitude, the way he imagines he watches and how it isn't quite him watching. He understands the grounds it's rooted in, uses it often himself, training a perilous thing and rarely something someone can hold your hand over, and yet; and yet...
restless. nervous. they're still new to it all.
" I can't blame you for not warming up to them yet, though. They're... " Akihiko shifts, perpetually uncomfortable no matter the way he sits, the last bones of his ribs achy and unrelenting. He smiles wryly, despite it. " New, and loud too. It's only been a couple days, after all. "
his eyes drift from Goro to the stoic TV, electricity cut during the Dark Hour aside from a handful of specially made lights; one currently propped up at the table where Akihiko sat to illuminate the paper under his fingers; before he sighs a haggard sigh, leaning back in his chair. resisting the urge to wince as the muscles strain and agitate the broken rib.
" I can't wait for the chance to get back in there... " a murmur, longing and forlorn and perhaps tinged with an uncharacteristically anxious undertone that's nearly parentlike in that way, and mostly to himself. he knew better than to ask if Goro would let him. even if he had agreed, he'd never get past Mitsuru on the first floor undetected.
... the boxer scrubs a calloused hand over his face. the time can't go by quick enough, and simultaneously feels to pass him by entire. ( jealousy. restlessness. anxiety. ━ he half blames the Dark Hour's atmosphere for it. )
@quillheel | Goro & Akihiko
❛ you’re completely out of your element here, aren’t you? ❜
"That's one way of looking at it. I'm just not inclined to hold their hand while in Tartarus. Mitsuru asked me to go in with them but she never said anything about fighting their battles," Goro pointed out as he looked towards Akihiko with a flat look. "I've warned them to not linger for too long on the floors and that floors void of any shadows is not a good sign, so they would need to find the stairs quickly."
They'd only just gotten Takeba and Iori on the team along with Arisato and he wasn't that impressed. Well, no, that's a lie. He wasn't all that impressed with the other two second years, but Arisato was interesting if rather infuriating. He could use multiple personas and then there was the footage of his first time summoning. Orpheus and then other... the one with no name for now.
Regardless, as intriguing as Arisato was, it didn't mean that Goro would be babying them whenever they stepped into Tartarus. He would continue as he has been until it gets to the point where the shadows are stronger and the others have more or less caught up to him. They would gain no kind of battle experience if he simply went with them. The brunet could also just admit that he's not a team player, the last couple of years with Loki has mainly been him going out during the Dark Hour and fighting on his own. He's never relied on teammates in that sense.
"I keep track of them with my navigational skills, Akihiko. If I sense that they're in trouble then I will quickly make my way down to them and get them out," The teen assured the other as he turned his attention back to his book report. It was his third report if he counted the other two reports about his findings within Tartarus so far.