Logs:In Which Some Support Is Offered, Very Carefully

In Which Some Support Is Offered, Very Carefully
Dramatis Personae Daiki, Taylor	2024-03-18 "I have to live in this orderly universe, and he showed me it's possible to do that without stagnating, and even possible to be whimsical and surprising."
Location <NYC> Daiki's Apartment - Lower East Side
This fifth-story walkup is a tiny, drafty efficiency, but the interior is not as spartan as one might expect. The kitchen is well-provisioned and neatly organized, and the would-be dining area has been sacrificed in favor of a single larger sitting area centered around a sizeable chabudai in summer and kotatsu in winter. Beyond this, a folding paper screen with a sumi-e painting of a bamboo forest on it separates the common area from the sleeping area, which has a standing wardrobe and an old-fashioned writing desk as well as a cozy tatami'd nook for sleeping. The walls are adorned with several whimsically disturbing Jax Holland paintings of fantasy creatures, and a pair of plain, respectable calligraphy scrolls. There is a small Buddhist altar tucked into one corner and a lovingly tended bonsai on the ledge of the window beside it. Daiki is uncharacteristically slow answering the door, even though he was expecting a guest and had plenty of time to get himself together. He is, when the door opens, very much not together. The slump in his posture looks completely wrong on his tall slender frame, and he's wearing a faded blue happi over a white ribbed undershirt and black gi pants beaten to threadbare softness, which might well be the shabbiest Taylor has ever seen him in adulthood. The quiet "irasshaimase" and the shallow bow as he steps back to invite his guest inside might just be dogged determination to find comfort in customs, but the sheer overwhelming intensity of his presence right now makes even the smallest gesture seem maddeningly (wonderfully) (horribly) significant. For once Taylor looks almost stylish beside Daiki, though he's just here in his straight-from-work outfit of jeans and a tee shirt that reads 'UNAPOLOGETICALLY BLACK' in large text on the back and on the front, smaller in yellow red and green, "BYP100". His clothing stil smells strongly of coffee. He's stepping out of his shoes as he enters, toe pressing down on the opposite heel of his sneakers, and (reflexively, unthinking) one arm is snaking out towards Daiki's shoulders. Then pulling halfway back, but ultimately completing the gesture in a small squeeze. It seems visibly hard for him to pull his arm back and he wraps it tight around his torso once he does. Daiki tenses reflexively when Taylor reaches for him, then relaxes very deliberately, though he keeps very still when Taylor carefully embraces him. "Can I get you something to drink?" He's not waiting for an answer, but once he gets into the kitchen doesn't seem to know what to do with himself. "I opened a bottle of sake." He doesn't really look like he's eaten enough to be drinking, but he doesn't sound like he's been drinking all that much, either. Maybe it should be strange that he can be so compelling just listlessly nudging things around his kitchen in old lounge clothes, but it's not. "I was just going to keep working. I'm not sure I know what else to do." Taylor just kind of grunts in reply. He's drawn along to the kitchen in Daiki's wake but once there he does get out a pair of glasses so that he can fill them with water. "I'on think there's a right answer for that." One of his arms is holding the water out to the other man while several others are rummaging around the kitchen as if he owns the place. Bread, butter, cheese, an onion. "Y'all was real close a real long time. You wanna drink, you wanna work, you wanna tell your best Lucien Stories, I think it's all good." He's placing a cutting board and knife in front of Daiki, though, a brief and gentle nudge steering his friend toward it as he deposits the onion there. "First you chop, though." Daiki takes the glass and drinks from it, perhaps somewhat reflexively, given the way he looks down at the water in very mild affront a moment later. He sips from it again, though -- more deliberately -- before setting it down. "I'm good at my work," not only doesn't sound like a brag, it sounds fantastically, incomprehensibly modest. "He was, too. He taught me so much, and he never tried to be my father and that was probably for the best, but." He takes the onion somewhat automatically, too, and starts delicately peeling away the outermost layers. "Sometimes I wished he would." "Fathers overrated," Taylor opines, a bit offhand. He's pulling down a cast iron skillet to set on the stove before he starts grating cheese. "Brothers, now, pretty invaluable. I ain't know the man half so good but he seemed like a good one." He tips the edge of the grater up just a little bit to peek under it as he grates. "What would you have wanted different?" Daiki just nods as he starts in on the onion, the fine edge on his santoku turning out perfect translucent slices. "I'm rich in brothers," doesn't sound like an argument at all, and though he does not smile or look at Taylor the shift in his power is palpable, almost intoxicating. "It's not like he was that much older than us, and he was Desi's brother, so..." He draws a deep breath and lets it out very slowly, very evenly. "I don't know what he was to me or why I wanted more, or what more I could have asked." He sets the knife down carefully and goes to fill a tokkuri -- also carefully -- from the bottle of Hakkaisan Yukimuro on the counter. "He was just -- Luci." Taylor is focusing way more intently on his cheese grating than it probably needs, and even though his eyes are riveted on the growing pile of cheese shreds he doesn't seem to notice that he's piled up far more than really necessary for a pair of grilled cheese sandwiches. Several of his arms have wrapped tighter around his torso and yet still continue an unsettling sort of undulation, like it's only by main force that they aren't reaching back out. "I'on even know how old he was," he freely admits, "man seemed half like he was born in a whole other era. Like he outta still be leaving calling cards if he been by to visit." He's taking a breath, too, slow, and grating a little harder when this doesn't help. "Ain't really your usual beat but I bet you could write a piece. Something better than some breathless gossip 'bout drugs or bland-ass praise on his singing voice. Man was complicated, yeah? Even if you don't shop it out to nobody, maybe it'll help you figure out --" One of his smallest arms has uncurled itself to gesture, vague. "Luci." Daiki sets the tokkuri on a lacquer tray with two matching cups, all of simple white porcelain so fine it's almost translucent at the edges. "Thirty-two," he replies, somewhat automatically, "but I'm almost certain he did have calling cards. I'm just not the kind of person you drop in on." He does smile, now, looking down at the sake service, though he does not drink. Maybe he has deliberately put the alcohol into a format whose decorum forbids drinking at his own pace. "I don't know if it's possible to figure him out. It was one of the things I loved about him. I have to live in this orderly universe, and he showed me it's possible to do that without stagnating, and even possible to be whimsical and surprising." He does look up at Taylor, though he dares not look for long; at even a brief glance the grip of his power pulls that much harder. "I don't think he'd like me to write about that, though. He enjoyed pretending to be serious and boring." Taylor's eyes lock back on Daiki with a small quickening of breath, and drop again sharply when the other man looks away. He has a veritable mountain of cheese in front of him by now and leaves off his grating, just staring down at the heap for the space of a few steady breaths. "Sure had me fooled, I definitely thought he was serious and boring. -- Never thought you was stagnant, though, you've always had that playful just under --" but he's continuing on from here with a small frown like it's only just occurring to him now: "... but I ain't known you without him, either." He swallows, starts to reach for a knife but -- the drawer he's reaching for is closer to Daiki and he does not quite dare extend his arm so far. "You wanna slide me a knife?" He's pulling the butter dish close, at least, and getting out four slices of bread. "The playful didn't used to be underneath, before I knew better." Daiki closes his eyes, then opens them and, at a very brief delay, pulls a butter knife from the drawer and slides it along the counter toward Taylor, handle first. "Then, after Mich --" He clearly realizes that line of thought was a mistake the moment he'd started down it, because he breaks off directly into silently mouthing the Odaimoku. It blunts the sharp spike of his power pleading, tugging, wrenching Taylor's attention toward him as though it weren't already focused there. Daiki sags back against the counter, gripping its edge with both hands as if he needs to hold himself back from reaching for Taylor. "I'm sorry." The deliberate flatness of his speech really just makes the wavering of his words more striking, more obvious he is trying not to cry. "I thought -- thought I had gotten most of this out of my system." He chuckles ruefully. "But I'm no Lucien Tessier, after all." Taylor doesn't reach for the knife, at first. His arms curl tighter around himself, his eyes squeezing shut. It does nothing to stop his small instinctive lean towards Daiki, which he only pulls back from when that sharp tug starts to mellow. When he does open his eyes again his smile, though bright, is a little shakier than its usual ease. "Good thing you ain't cuz I'onno what that motherfucker like when he sad. Go sit yo ass down --" There's just a subtle emphasis on, "-- over there an cry. When you done I'mm'a have the best damn grill cheese ready."