reincarnated, and cranky.

[phrenesia]

What exactly it is that's possessed you to play with the notion that this is a good idea is positively baffling.

You're not clever, nor are you original. Your stories, theories, and ideas for such a ridiculous "creation" will never see fruition. I will not exist anywhere else but within your own mind, and we all know how much fun that will be. You've enough crazy people in here without adding yet another to your macabre collection.

Change my name, if I'm to have some say in your decisions. I don't like Thomas.

Comments

[phrenesia]

[ ... him again. This is strange. ]

Or is the fleeting senses of familiarity without any scrap of evidence as to why it exists worse than the two combined?

[ Because he knows him, and he doesn't know him, and it makes his head hurt. ]

[hisou]

[ In his life of constant wandering, of constant searching for some unattainable connection, it would seem there is now something-- or someone-- to revolve around. For whatever reason this man is pulling him in, and it's the first time that Takeshi can remember feeling even a hint of recognition. There is a spark tying them together, and Takeshi wants to know what it is. ]

There is a... [ what is the English word? ] disconnect. I, however, find it welcome. More so than the emptiness.

[phrenesia]

[ He'll admit that he wants to know too. Something is drawing him in, and he is curious and afraid of it all at once. He idly wonders if it's just his medication that needs refilling, because surely this is just ... crazy. ]

You'd welcome a stranger simply to fill the void?

[hisou]

[ Takeshi shows the man the closest thing he has to a smile. ]

All I have are strangers.

[phrenesia]

[ ... interesting. Thomas considers that for a moment, his voice softening. ]

I understand.

[hisou]

Do you? [ Takeshi is surprised, because most people don't. The Westerners he meets think he means simply that he is in a foreign land with no one he knows. They don't realize that even in Japan things were the same. Family, neighbors, coworkers, they were all strangers to him. Even those he's known for years never felt like anything more than a distant acquaintance. No one has ever been able to understand the deep, gnawing aloneness that has been Takeshi's whole life…

…but he's starting to think that if anyone can, it would be this man. ]

[phrenesia]

[ He looks up, curious. He wonders how a stranger with such an odd familiarity about him has him so drawn. But he does, he understands very well. He hasn't met many others who made him feel the same, but Thomas knows the other feeling very well. ]

Everyone I have ever met in my life has been a stranger. I do not have parents, or siblings, or family. I live by myself. I work by myself.

I think the barista at the coffee shop knows me by name, but I do not think that counts.

[hisou]

[ Takeshi nods in sympathetic agreement. ]

I do not stay in one place long enough for anyone to know my name. ...I travel, looking for something I do not know.

[phrenesia]

[ It's ... oddly comforting, knowing someone feels the same way. ]

Will I get to know your name?

[hisou]

Ah-- [ He starts. No one in America has ever asked his name unless they're hiring him for some manual labor job, and almost always they either forget it instantly or pick a more Western name to call him, claiming his name is too hard to pronounce or remember (really, are three syllables so hard?). ]

Takeshi.

[phrenesia]

[ And there he has it. A name. There is nothing familiar about the name, so he supposes he can leave it at that. Surely the face and the voice are just faded similarities that he will forget in time. ]

A pleasure. [ He nods, formally, probably a bit too much so but it is a habit. ] I am Thomas. Apparently.

[hisou]

Apparently.

[ He returns the nod, averting his eyes either out of respect or because he fears what he says next will be too disrespectful. ]

That is not the name I would have expected.

[phrenesia]

[ No disrespect is sensed, although why he feels he should be prepared or on edge for it is strange. Why should he expect scorn? ]

I do not believe it to be mine. One of the many puzzle pieces that simply won't fit.

[hisou]

What do you believe to be your right name?

Or, you cannot remember?

[phrenesia]

[ A pause ... ]

I do not remember. Something blocks my mind from it.

[hisou]

And mine. I know that this name Takeshi is wrong but I cannot find what is true. I travel thousands of miles and find nothing true.

[ Until now, he doesn't say. Until this strange man who is somehow not strange at all. ]

[phrenesia]

Who gave you your name?

[hisou]

Does it matter? It was no one important, and the name means nothing.

[phrenesia]

I was ... only curious.