one death: tragedy / a million a statistic / incommensurate

[roc_on]

Beila gives Dao space. He is extremely right that she's not the best person to be sad about his dead serial killer friend with and that seems to be his principal occupation, so - space.

Comments

[thinklikethis]

"Aw. That poor book, getting lost on the train."

[roc_on]

"Yeah. But it was awful flying weather, so I stand by my train use, I wouldn't have wanted to be late to the memorial."

[thinklikethis]

"The memorial?"

[roc_on]

"It was in the papers that I was involved with finding Sora. In a rather garbled way, but still. And one of the victims' families invited me to the memorial service."

[thinklikethis]

"Oh."

[roc_on]

"One of the others sent me a letter but the funeral was weeks ago, so even if they would have invited me it didn't come up."

[thinklikethis]

"I don't think I read the papers; what did they even end up saying about it?"

[roc_on]

"Republic City police were called to the location of the serial killer, deceased in a conflict with the Avatar, turned out to have been a bloodbender using pyrotechnic equipment, insert about new bloodbending information available on page six."

[thinklikethis]

[roc_on]

"So the usual procedures for ruling out bloodbending in criminal processing have been updated. People are nervous about that but it'll die down."

[thinklikethis]

"Yeah."

[roc_on]

"Yeah."

[thinklikethis]

Vaguely awkward silence. Weird fruit smoothie.

[roc_on]

"I haven't gotten the impression that you've given much thought to the victims," she says softly.

[thinklikethis]

"...I'm not sure what to say to that?"

[roc_on]

"It's just... very different from how I think so I'm not sure what to make of it."

[thinklikethis]

"Well... I think maybe you haven't gotten a good impression of what I've been thinking about for the last couple of weeks, because I've been avoiding you the whole time?"

[roc_on]

"That could be it, yeah."

[thinklikethis]

"Yeah."

[roc_on]

"Do you want to tell me what you've been thinking?"

[thinklikethis]

"...I'm not sure? Like... I don't not want to, exactly, maybe, but I don't... know what you want to hear?"

[roc_on]

"I didn't ask for, like... recreational purposes."

[thinklikethis]

"I, uh, what?"

[roc_on]

"It's not about what I want to hear, I mean."

[thinklikethis]

"Yeah, I didn't say that right. I mean like..."

He pauses. He looks contemplatively into his weird fruit smoothie.

"Okay, if we're going to get into this can we go somewhere that is not your kitchen? Like your room, or the roof, or something."