[Leona answers, inspecting the state of Yoojin's human-claws compared to his own. Human nails are interesting in that they tend to tell a quite a bit about the work or personality behind them, and he doesn't expect Yoojin's hands to be delicate at all.
...Altogether he's gotten a bit aimless with it, though, observing less as an attempt to learn and more and more as just a cat reveling in a behavior it hasn't been scolded for.]
You're uncompromizing in your goals for two people who don't seem to have as much to lose. You analyze others to learn their behaviors and tame them as though they're beasts themselves.
[Leona's right about that; hands, in general, can reveal a lot about a person. Yoojin's hands aren't those of a fighter; after turning the clock back to before his own awakening, all those little scars and calluses, those signs of fighting bare-knuckled, armed with knives, or holding a spear, are gone. They do, however, speak of years of different kinds of labor. Construction work. Carrying things. Cooking prep and dog-walking. Anything anyone would hire him for when he dropped out of school at fifteen.
Now, he tames beasts. And, as Leona so keenly observes, people.
On reflex, he closes his hand loosely.]
...Ah... I mean...
[It becomes even more obvious that he's looking away.]
[The noise Leona makes in immediate response is a bit vague, and it takes a moment before he's willing to turn his eyes away from their hands to look more toward Yoojin, smirking a little when he asks;]
[Satisfied with the exchange of pettiness, Yoojin lets his arm rest on Leona again.]
It's not just a survival tactic, for me. It's a skill--a bunch of skills. If people knew how much I could read into their abilities, or how I make powerful folks twice as powerful, or that I can basically brainwash even S-ranked humans, not just monsters... Yoohyun locking me up forever for my safety would be the best-case scenario.
Worst-case, someone finally figures out I'm a threat and takes me out.
[And as an F-ranker with no offensive abilities of his own, what could Yoojin do to stop them? Cry about it?]
Besides, it's not the kind of thing that works if people... well, know how it works. Even if it wasn't a skill, no one would trust what I said anymore if they knew I was manipulating them into getting stronger, right?
[That first bit makes sense, without Leona even having to ask further. It's not even surprising, after everything else. But the next...]
...I don't think that's the question you want to be asking.
[It's a bold claim, but Leona continues;]
Every coach manipulates their team into succeeding. It doesn't matter what the odds actually are; it's the coach's job to sell the team an undeniable vision of victory. To feed their hunger, their drive—
All of it's manipulation, in the end. And it's a manipulation they're asking for. They want to be made to believe the world can change, and it's your job to make that happen for them.
But you see it as a lie instead of an exchange. Maybe it's that you expect others to trust you, but you don't trust them in return. The bond feels uneven, for whatever you think you're not giving them.
[But Leona knows it isn't.
No amount of hiding things from Ranma could change the kind of reaction Yoojin had to seeing that kid chopped to pieces. Whatever Yoojin thinks he isn't giving his 'kids'— honesty, trust— he is giving each of them the whole of his heart.]
Rules of magic are one thing, but rules between people are another.
Not everyone who trusts you is too stupid to see who you are.
[Leona turns his head to look Yoojin in the face. He's talking about himself. He is the one who assumes he sees Yoojin for what he is.]
The person they see might just be worth the investment.
[For someone so good at seeing and nurturing other people's talents, Yoojin is astonishingly terrible at gauging his own value. His item-smithing friend Myungwoo saw it and gently worked around it, keeping Yoojin safe in his own way. Haeyeon Guild's top administrator saw it and filed the observation tidily away. Sung Hyunje certainly noticed it, because Hyunje notices everything, especially when it comes to the well-being of his favorite toy. His fifteen-year-old ward Yerim once picked him up by the collar and tried to shake some sense into him. Just days before this horror show started, even big, bad Yoohyun had bawled his eyes out about it on Yoojin's shoulder like a baby.
Leona isn't the first to run into this crud-tier self-recognition problem of Yoojin's. He's just the first to put it like this--to confront it so baldly to his face.
He stares at Leona, mouth falling slightly open with nothing in it to say.
For so long, others seeing him--noticing him as anything more than background noise--was unequivocally bad. It got him bullied, berated, and beat up. It tore his reputation to shreds and shattered his very bones.
The past few months after using the wish stone have been a drastic, if not always positive, reversal of fortune for him. But they haven't erased the last five, eight, twenty-something years of rejection and abandonment. He hasn't forgotten what people used to call him. Leech. Parasite.
He can't forget how it felt for Yoohyun to tell him, 'All you do is drag me down.'
The answer to "Who is Han Yoojin?" has always been a worthless nobody. So for Leona to say so seriously, looking at him so intently, that he's somehow worth his dodgy, exploitative, lying bullshit is like... getting rammed in the gut by a juvenile manticore. Like someone forcibly turning off a skill effect he's taken for granted, for good or ill.
He has to restart breathing eventually, and that makes him blink and wet his lips in turn. He pulls his arm back to fold it over his own chest, an unconscious curling-in.]
Heh. You're way too nice to me, man.
[Nobody asked him to be a coach. Well, nobody he counts among his team, anyway.]
[Leona protests, casually, looking back up at their shared patch of sky.]
I still think you're a thick-headed meddling herbivore.
[He sounds a little pleased with himself saying so, too.
Because it doesn't really matter how Yoojin sees himself in the end. Leona understands his value to the pack regardless. What Yoojin does may be manipulative, but in the end, he crafts somewhere safe for the heavy to lay their hearts. For some packs, he may as well have traded gold in exchange for loyalty— or perhaps he would be worse off doing so.]
[Still feeling oddly fidgety, even out from under Leona's sharp gaze, Yoojin squirms a couple moments more before bringing his elbow back up to shield his face.]
...Thanks for saying that other stuff, though. I'll try to take it to heart.
[He may not feel deserving of the overall assessment, but there were gems in there he can definitely use.]
[Pfft. Just like that, Yoojin's snickering again, slapping right back at that tail.]
Oh, my bad. Eeeeeeeeveryone eavesdropping on our ghostly pocket dimension is gonna think you're a gentle little kitten just 'cause I can show a guy some gratitude.
[It's partially that he doesn't remember— but in Leona's mind that also isn't the conclusion they arrived at during the trial. In fact, he isn't sure any of them actually asked.]
...How would you describe how that ability is cast?
[He glances at Leona. Looks away again. ...Lets his tail go. Instead, never able to stay still long, Yoojin idly traces his thumbnail up and down a scar beneath his shirt.]
I...
[...He's never told anyone about this ability. Not Yoohyun, not Hyunje. The only people he's even spoken about it with are the system administrators who gave it to him. But Leona already knows about it, and Yoojin got him killed with it. If he can tell anyone, it should be Leona.]
...When I got my awakening, I was given a title called "Custodian" for raising someone as strong as Yoohyun. The title allows me to take others into my "custody" if I use a set keyword on them, as long as they're capable of understanding and responding to that keyword. Though it's really less about the word and more like... the sentiment, I guess? That's how I'm able to use it on monsters, I just have to get the same feeling across with how I act with them.
[He raises two fingers on one hand and points to them with the other.]
The primary benefit is that those I take under my custody grow twice as fast. Uh, not literally always grow, but grow stronger. Smarter, tougher, faster. [He counts those off on his fingers, too, then flaps both hands to indicate anything.] Whatever they're good at, they'll get better at twice as quick, and they're more likely to unlock their optimal skills instead of random crap that won't do them as much good. But it has other effects, too. Makes it easier for me to use other skills on them, for one. Makes them fond of me, too, probably.
[Yoojin rests both hands on his chest again.]
I only figured this out after doing it a few times, but it seems like--for people, anyway--it works by tricking them into thinking I'm like a caretaker they've had in the past. Usually, that's to my advantage. I'm seen as a good friend, or a kindly old grandpa. Someone they think of positively.
[His fingers curl into two tight balls.]
But not always. Not everyone's had a caretaker they could actually trust to offer care.
[At this point, Leona finally sits up, leaning against his knee to take in what Yoojin is explaining to him. For the most part, it's coming together the way he suspected, or at least, similarly. The rules are a little different— the idea of being given a magical ability is strange— but for the most part it aligns with the evidence they were given.
Leona can see why Yoojin would suspect the spell has an effect on emotion. As far as he's concerned, though, there isn't enough of a study group to test something like that with only one individual using the spell. They would need other tools, too, as there are certainly ones that can test this sort of thing— STYX would probably have an analysis done in a night. Ugh.
Regardless, that isn't the point Yoojin's focused on, and it isn't the focus for Leona, either. He's brought up a particular few points, and now that they're in perspective, Leona has to wonder.]
[Yoojin doesn't remember too much of what he blurted out himself. He'd already had a hand on Leona's shoulder so he could share his buff to offensive skills via Plus One, so he'd been close enough to watch Leona's face. He was sure he could see the thought this isn't working cross his mind, and he hadn't wanted to give up, not so soon.
Thinking back, he probably laid it on pretty thick. Leaned on how much Leona was trying to help, how he got nosy about Yoojin in the first place, how he had the care and empathy to read Pratibha, despite the aloof act, his real and obvious superiority. He does remember saying, 'I love guys like that! Leona, I love you!'
Stupid idiot dumb. Yoojin should have learned his lesson from the last S-ranker he tried that on. Since then, at least until he woke up in another dimension, he'd been a lot less reckless with those words.]
[Leona doesn't mean to hang on the moment. It's just that the image that follows the last two lines is Yoojin, cold, motionless, blue in the lips. No way to take in air.
Red, red, red, everywhere.
But even when his thoughts catch up, he's more sure of his conclusions than he was before.]
[Yoojin finally sits up, too, if only to hug his knees to his chest, to press his face to his knees.
He manages, in a whisper crushed between his arms and thighs,]
...I'm so, so sorry.
[Leona can hit him and blame him, or he can pin it on the house, but none of that will absolve Yoojin of his own sin.
With 'I love you,' he promised to take care of Leona. Just like he promised Ranma and Anemone. Just like he promised Yoohyun. And he can't pretend it doesn't gut him to have failed so, so badly. He can't pretend the words, for all his rush, weren't--or aren't--true.]
[The answer doesn't come immediately. Instead, Leona quietly shifts from his knees to more of a thoughtful squat, contemplating. A deep breath, and a sigh.
He leans forward, putting his palm on Yoojin's head and ruffling his head.]
What are you talking about?
[His voice is as dry as it ever is, but a bit more tired, too. Not scolding, just tired.]
Not even I'm bad enough off to think it's a crime to be loved by someone.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
monsterdaddy) wrote2025-04-29 12:06 pm
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[Leona answers, inspecting the state of Yoojin's human-claws compared to his own. Human nails are interesting in that they tend to tell a quite a bit about the work or personality behind them, and he doesn't expect Yoojin's hands to be delicate at all.
...Altogether he's gotten a bit aimless with it, though, observing less as an attempt to learn and more and more as just a cat reveling in a behavior it hasn't been scolded for.]
You're uncompromizing in your goals for two people who don't seem to have as much to lose. You analyze others to learn their behaviors and tame them as though they're beasts themselves.
[Leona seems amused about that last bit.]
Can't say it's a terrible tactic.
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Now, he tames beasts. And, as Leona so keenly observes, people.
On reflex, he closes his hand loosely.]
...Ah... I mean...
[It becomes even more obvious that he's looking away.]
...I guess there's no point hiding that now, huh.
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[The noise Leona makes in immediate response is a bit vague, and it takes a moment before he's willing to turn his eyes away from their hands to look more toward Yoojin, smirking a little when he asks;]
You were hiding it?
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Don't give me that. I was hiding it back home, at least.
[He doesn't know exactly what came out during that first ritual, but the cat is definitely out of the bag with Leona, he's sure.]
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It's not the most obvious thing about you.
[But he is curious;]
What's the point of hiding it?
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It's not just a survival tactic, for me. It's a skill--a bunch of skills. If people knew how much I could read into their abilities, or how I make powerful folks twice as powerful, or that I can basically brainwash even S-ranked humans, not just monsters... Yoohyun locking me up forever for my safety would be the best-case scenario.
Worst-case, someone finally figures out I'm a threat and takes me out.
[And as an F-ranker with no offensive abilities of his own, what could Yoojin do to stop them? Cry about it?]
Besides, it's not the kind of thing that works if people... well, know how it works. Even if it wasn't a skill, no one would trust what I said anymore if they knew I was manipulating them into getting stronger, right?
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...I don't think that's the question you want to be asking.
[It's a bold claim, but Leona continues;]
Every coach manipulates their team into succeeding. It doesn't matter what the odds actually are; it's the coach's job to sell the team an undeniable vision of victory. To feed their hunger, their drive—
All of it's manipulation, in the end. And it's a manipulation they're asking for. They want to be made to believe the world can change, and it's your job to make that happen for them.
But you see it as a lie instead of an exchange. Maybe it's that you expect others to trust you, but you don't trust them in return.
The bond feels uneven, for whatever you think you're not giving them.
[But Leona knows it isn't.
No amount of hiding things from Ranma could change the kind of reaction Yoojin had to seeing that kid chopped to pieces. Whatever Yoojin thinks he isn't giving his 'kids'— honesty, trust— he is giving each of them the whole of his heart.]
Rules of magic are one thing, but rules between people are another.
Not everyone who trusts you is too stupid to see who you are.
[Leona turns his head to look Yoojin in the face. He's talking about himself. He is the one who assumes he sees Yoojin for what he is.]
The person they see might just be worth the investment.
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Leona isn't the first to run into this crud-tier self-recognition problem of Yoojin's. He's just the first to put it like this--to confront it so baldly to his face.
He stares at Leona, mouth falling slightly open with nothing in it to say.
For so long, others seeing him--noticing him as anything more than background noise--was unequivocally bad. It got him bullied, berated, and beat up. It tore his reputation to shreds and shattered his very bones.
The past few months after using the wish stone have been a drastic, if not always positive, reversal of fortune for him. But they haven't erased the last five, eight, twenty-something years of rejection and abandonment. He hasn't forgotten what people used to call him. Leech. Parasite.
He can't forget how it felt for Yoohyun to tell him, 'All you do is drag me down.'
The answer to "Who is Han Yoojin?" has always been a worthless nobody. So for Leona to say so seriously, looking at him so intently, that he's somehow worth his dodgy, exploitative, lying bullshit is like... getting rammed in the gut by a juvenile manticore. Like someone forcibly turning off a skill effect he's taken for granted, for good or ill.
He has to restart breathing eventually, and that makes him blink and wet his lips in turn. He pulls his arm back to fold it over his own chest, an unconscious curling-in.]
Heh. You're way too nice to me, man.
[Nobody asked him to be a coach. Well, nobody he counts among his team, anyway.]
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[Leona protests, casually, looking back up at their shared patch of sky.]
I still think you're a thick-headed meddling herbivore.
[He sounds a little pleased with himself saying so, too.
Because it doesn't really matter how Yoojin sees himself in the end. Leona understands his value to the pack regardless. What Yoojin does may be manipulative, but in the end, he crafts somewhere safe for the heavy to lay their hearts. For some packs, he may as well have traded gold in exchange for loyalty— or perhaps he would be worse off doing so.]
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[Still feeling oddly fidgety, even out from under Leona's sharp gaze, Yoojin squirms a couple moments more before bringing his elbow back up to shield his face.]
...Thanks for saying that other stuff, though. I'll try to take it to heart.
[He may not feel deserving of the overall assessment, but there were gems in there he can definitely use.]
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Fat load of good it'll do ya if we don't get out of here.
[He sighs as though dissatisfied.]
Actually, don't thank me at all. You're gonna get people thinkin' I'm soft.
[punctuating that with a smack of his tail against Yoojin's leg.]
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Oh, my bad. Eeeeeeeeveryone eavesdropping on our ghostly pocket dimension is gonna think you're a gentle little kitten just 'cause I can show a guy some gratitude.
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[Smack, smack, smack.]
There goes Yoojin, out to sleep with the big bad lion that ate 'im.
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Tch, like you're any better. What's a cool, tough guy like Leona doing horsing around with the dumbdumb who brainwashed him?
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[Leona snaps to look at Yoojin—]
You think they think I let ya brainwash me?
[IS IT HIM?? DO THEY THINK LEONA'S THE ONE WHO'S STUPID??]
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[He says with a serious face, still pinning Leona's tail.]
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...How would you describe how that ability is cast?
All we had to go on was speculation.
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I...
[...He's never told anyone about this ability. Not Yoohyun, not Hyunje. The only people he's even spoken about it with are the system administrators who gave it to him. But Leona already knows about it, and Yoojin got him killed with it. If he can tell anyone, it should be Leona.]
...When I got my awakening, I was given a title called "Custodian" for raising someone as strong as Yoohyun. The title allows me to take others into my "custody" if I use a set keyword on them, as long as they're capable of understanding and responding to that keyword. Though it's really less about the word and more like... the sentiment, I guess? That's how I'm able to use it on monsters, I just have to get the same feeling across with how I act with them.
[He raises two fingers on one hand and points to them with the other.]
The primary benefit is that those I take under my custody grow twice as fast. Uh, not literally always grow, but grow stronger. Smarter, tougher, faster. [He counts those off on his fingers, too, then flaps both hands to indicate anything.] Whatever they're good at, they'll get better at twice as quick, and they're more likely to unlock their optimal skills instead of random crap that won't do them as much good. But it has other effects, too. Makes it easier for me to use other skills on them, for one. Makes them fond of me, too, probably.
[Yoojin rests both hands on his chest again.]
I only figured this out after doing it a few times, but it seems like--for people, anyway--it works by tricking them into thinking I'm like a caretaker they've had in the past. Usually, that's to my advantage. I'm seen as a good friend, or a kindly old grandpa. Someone they think of positively.
[His fingers curl into two tight balls.]
But not always. Not everyone's had a caretaker they could actually trust to offer care.
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Leona can see why Yoojin would suspect the spell has an effect on emotion. As far as he's concerned, though, there isn't enough of a study group to test something like that with only one individual using the spell. They would need other tools, too, as there are certainly ones that can test this sort of thing— STYX would probably have an analysis done in a night. Ugh.
Regardless, that isn't the point Yoojin's focused on, and it isn't the focus for Leona, either. He's brought up a particular few points, and now that they're in perspective, Leona has to wonder.]
...Your keywords, for people.
It's the phrase, "I love you," isn't it?
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[He turns his head away, but he nods.]
...You remember that?
[Yoojin doesn't remember too much of what he blurted out himself. He'd already had a hand on Leona's shoulder so he could share his buff to offensive skills via Plus One, so he'd been close enough to watch Leona's face. He was sure he could see the thought this isn't working cross his mind, and he hadn't wanted to give up, not so soon.
Thinking back, he probably laid it on pretty thick. Leaned on how much Leona was trying to help, how he got nosy about Yoojin in the first place, how he had the care and empathy to read Pratibha, despite the aloof act, his real and obvious superiority. He does remember saying, 'I love guys like that! Leona, I love you!'
Stupid idiot dumb. Yoojin should have learned his lesson from the last S-ranker he tried that on. Since then, at least until he woke up in another dimension, he'd been a lot less reckless with those words.]
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Darkness, and your voice.
I love you.
My bad.
It's okay.
[Leona doesn't mean to hang on the moment. It's just that the image that follows the last two lines is Yoojin, cold, motionless, blue in the lips. No way to take in air.
Red, red, red, everywhere.
But even when his thoughts catch up, he's more sure of his conclusions than he was before.]
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He manages, in a whisper crushed between his arms and thighs,]
...I'm so, so sorry.
[Leona can hit him and blame him, or he can pin it on the house, but none of that will absolve Yoojin of his own sin.
With 'I love you,' he promised to take care of Leona. Just like he promised Ranma and Anemone. Just like he promised Yoohyun. And he can't pretend it doesn't gut him to have failed so, so badly. He can't pretend the words, for all his rush, weren't--or aren't--true.]
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[Leona's voice must sound much closer, because he's rolled over to his knees in front of Yoojin. He doesn't touch him just yet, waiting, watching.]
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Because I have to have been one of the worst things that ever happened to you, but you're still here with me, anyway.
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He leans forward, putting his palm on Yoojin's head and ruffling his head.]
What are you talking about?
[His voice is as dry as it ever is, but a bit more tired, too. Not scolding, just tired.]
Not even I'm bad enough off to think it's a crime to be loved by someone.
Yoojin Han, look at me.
[Steady, warm, commanding. Like a prince.]
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