Sol ☼ Thomas "Tan" Moore (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
secretofthefox) wrote2014-08-01 12:24 am
secretofthefox) wrote2014-08-01 12:24 am
Memory 7
Negative Neutral: the other side of the playground brawl
Won: Day 81
Game: Combatant's Association
Summary
The setting is that same forest, late at night. The stars are pretty nicely visible, though they're nothing like anything that would be familiar to anyone. The group is camped around a nice campfire - Norbert and the Twins are asleep on one side, while Laura is asleep on the other. She looks kind of feverish, though.
Tan walks over to where Kim is sitting next to her sister and tells her that she should get some sleep, it's his turn to keep watch. Kim, however, says she can't sleep, she's too worried about her sister. Besides, she's young, she can go one night without sleep.
(Also, an important thing to note here about Kim? She always refers to Laura as "Nee-chan", and peppers her sentences with random Japanese vocabulary, more when she's happy, less when she's serious. ...Yes she is basically a 13-year-old weaboo.)
So, Tan sits down next to Kim and comments that she and Laura are pretty close. Kim affirms it, but then comments that they weren't always. When they were younger, Kim and Laura didn't get along at all. Their parents paid a lot more attention to Laura, mostly because she had some psychological issues (mostly really vivid dreams that she insisted were real but her parents didn't believe it) and kept trying to get her help for that, and Kim resented her for what she saw as favoritism for a long time.
But then, after Laura went mute and the two of them were pulled out of school to be home-schooled instead, Kim ended up coping with the changes and the loneliness by diving into anime, and while Laura would only barely react to anyone at that point, watching anime together managed to get Laura to smile and open up a little bit, and so they kind of bonded over watching dumb Japanese TV shows together.
So what caused Laura to go mute if she wasn't always, Tan wonders? Well, three years ago, she was attacked by her classmates one day out of a clear blue sky. No one's quite sure why - she hadn't ever been the most popular kid in school, mind, but she was quiet, certainly not someone who deserved almost being killed. Their cousin Alex - he was a teacher's aide in Ms. Biggs' class, where Laura was - tried to stop the fighting, but got knocked out so badly that he's been in a vegetative state ever since. Laura went mute from the trauma, or at least that's what everyone assumes.
Kim saw it all happen because her class was at the school for a field trip, and she'd run down to tried to help her sister, but they'd almost turned on her too. But that's when a couple of boys showed up to protect them until the vice principal broke it up.
Their parents had pulled them out of the school after that, since obviously it wasn't a safe district. There had been some kind of lawsuit afterward, Kim thinks, but she's pretty sure most of the boys who attacked only ended up with a slap on the wrist at best. Which is stupid, but hey, that's authority for you.
Curious because this sounds really familiar, Tan asks what school this was, and Kim tells him Watergate Middle School. That's when Tan realizes that Laura was the girl who he ran in to protect that day three years ago. When he says as much, Kim looks at him, she thinks for a moment, her eyes widen a little... and then she laughs, saying "There's no way it was you, Charcoal Boy. You're too weird to be a cool hero like that. ...But if it was you, I'd be really grateful."
What He Learns
☼ New Names: Alex (put to the face of the teacher from Memory 2), Ms. Biggs
☼ Home town is called Watergate, btw
☼ Kim is a weaboo anime fangirl, and she's the reason why Tan doesn't blink over Japanese suffixes and the like
☼ Kim and Laura didn't always have such a good relationship but bonded over anime
☼ Laura wasn't always mute
☼ their cousin Alex was a teacher's assistant (not an actual teacher, w/e) and is currently pretty much comatose
☼ Laura and Kim were the girls he and Norbert saved back in Memory 2
☼ Bullies are still evil
☼ ..."Charcoal Boy"? ._.
☼ Kim is weird.
☼ (P.S. still no bracelet)
Notes
Regrettably I'm not going to get to all of Kim's arc here because a crucial point happens when Kim and Laura are somewhere Tan isn't, but oh well.
Also Ms. Biggs may sound like a throwaway name but she will come up later in a big way, never fear... Okay she's more part of Laura's arc but Tan is actually there for that so.
Won: Day 81
Game: Combatant's Association
Summary
The setting is that same forest, late at night. The stars are pretty nicely visible, though they're nothing like anything that would be familiar to anyone. The group is camped around a nice campfire - Norbert and the Twins are asleep on one side, while Laura is asleep on the other. She looks kind of feverish, though.
Tan walks over to where Kim is sitting next to her sister and tells her that she should get some sleep, it's his turn to keep watch. Kim, however, says she can't sleep, she's too worried about her sister. Besides, she's young, she can go one night without sleep.
(Also, an important thing to note here about Kim? She always refers to Laura as "Nee-chan", and peppers her sentences with random Japanese vocabulary, more when she's happy, less when she's serious. ...Yes she is basically a 13-year-old weaboo.)
So, Tan sits down next to Kim and comments that she and Laura are pretty close. Kim affirms it, but then comments that they weren't always. When they were younger, Kim and Laura didn't get along at all. Their parents paid a lot more attention to Laura, mostly because she had some psychological issues (mostly really vivid dreams that she insisted were real but her parents didn't believe it) and kept trying to get her help for that, and Kim resented her for what she saw as favoritism for a long time.
But then, after Laura went mute and the two of them were pulled out of school to be home-schooled instead, Kim ended up coping with the changes and the loneliness by diving into anime, and while Laura would only barely react to anyone at that point, watching anime together managed to get Laura to smile and open up a little bit, and so they kind of bonded over watching dumb Japanese TV shows together.
So what caused Laura to go mute if she wasn't always, Tan wonders? Well, three years ago, she was attacked by her classmates one day out of a clear blue sky. No one's quite sure why - she hadn't ever been the most popular kid in school, mind, but she was quiet, certainly not someone who deserved almost being killed. Their cousin Alex - he was a teacher's aide in Ms. Biggs' class, where Laura was - tried to stop the fighting, but got knocked out so badly that he's been in a vegetative state ever since. Laura went mute from the trauma, or at least that's what everyone assumes.
Kim saw it all happen because her class was at the school for a field trip, and she'd run down to tried to help her sister, but they'd almost turned on her too. But that's when a couple of boys showed up to protect them until the vice principal broke it up.
Their parents had pulled them out of the school after that, since obviously it wasn't a safe district. There had been some kind of lawsuit afterward, Kim thinks, but she's pretty sure most of the boys who attacked only ended up with a slap on the wrist at best. Which is stupid, but hey, that's authority for you.
Curious because this sounds really familiar, Tan asks what school this was, and Kim tells him Watergate Middle School. That's when Tan realizes that Laura was the girl who he ran in to protect that day three years ago. When he says as much, Kim looks at him, she thinks for a moment, her eyes widen a little... and then she laughs, saying "There's no way it was you, Charcoal Boy. You're too weird to be a cool hero like that. ...But if it was you, I'd be really grateful."
What He Learns
☼ New Names: Alex (put to the face of the teacher from Memory 2), Ms. Biggs
☼ Home town is called Watergate, btw
☼ Kim is a weaboo anime fangirl, and she's the reason why Tan doesn't blink over Japanese suffixes and the like
☼ Kim and Laura didn't always have such a good relationship but bonded over anime
☼ Laura wasn't always mute
☼ their cousin Alex was a teacher's assistant (not an actual teacher, w/e) and is currently pretty much comatose
☼ Laura and Kim were the girls he and Norbert saved back in Memory 2
☼ Bullies are still evil
☼ ..."Charcoal Boy"? ._.
☼ Kim is weird.
☼ (P.S. still no bracelet)
Notes
Regrettably I'm not going to get to all of Kim's arc here because a crucial point happens when Kim and Laura are somewhere Tan isn't, but oh well.
Also Ms. Biggs may sound like a throwaway name but she will come up later in a big way, never fear... Okay she's more part of Laura's arc but Tan is actually there for that so.