WHO: Kaname Chidori and Meiya Mitsurugi.
WHAT: A chat in a LOVE HOTEL.
WHEN: June 17th.
MISSION: A heart-to-heart.
WATCH OUT FOR: Love hotels, oh my!

Meiya Mitsurugi just shanghaid Kaname Chidori into a Love Hotel. If this wasn't a matter of life and death, it would probably be a lot more hilarious. Fortunatly, Meiya picked a relatively normal seeming room, as opposed to the...more... uh, playfully decorated ones.

Meiya closes the door behind the pair and sighs. "You aren't hurt, are you?"


The realization still hasn't sunk in yet.

In her head, she knows it, that the apartment is gone, but there's still a part of her that can't come to terms with it, that is still wholeheartedly denying the truth that was right there in front of her.

As she fails to come to terms with the reality of the past, she still isn't completely aware of her surroundings in the present. A full ten seconds pass before Kaname realizes she's being spoken to, and a moment later, she finally responds:

"I'm fine."

She sits on the edge of the bed, by far the most prominent fixture in the room, and gazes down at her feet.


Meiya watches her friend as she moves to sit down, her expression falls. Kaname has had her home, and her sense of safety stripped away from her, horrible things to lose.

Meiya walks over to the bed and sits down next to her friend. "...no...you aren't..."


"I shouldn't have gone back to the apartment," Kaname says. She had nothing to do what happened there; it likely would have happened even without her intrusion.

Silence fills the space between them for a moment before Kaname opens her mouth to speak again. "When did you become Mythril?" she asks. She doesn't want to talk about what just happened.


"It sort of complicated, but it was after that talk we had." Meiya plays with a strand of her own hair "I'm not so much Mithril as I cooperate with them. I honestly thought it wasn't going to come up again. I would have told you otherwise."


Kaname accepts Meiya's response without question.

"Everyone's going to think I was at my apartment," she says. Outside of Macua and Meiya, no one knew she was staying somewhere else; even Meiya and Macua didn't know /where/ exactly she had been staying since the incident with Cecil.

"Kyoko... Ayame... my dad."


"I'll think of something, Kaname. We'll find some way to tell them your okay." Meiya promises, almost fervently. Maybe they can say Kaname was at Meiya's house, it's plausable.


"I guess you know about Sousuke now, too," Kaname says, curling her arms around her. Even if she hadn't let it slip in front of her friend, she's probably suspected it for a long time; Sousuke wasn't exactly discreet in his duties.


"I had sort of suspected..." Meiya admits. "Don't blame yourself for that. Don't blame yourself for anything." She moves closer and puts an arm around her friend.


Kaname doesn't pull away, nor does she lean in closer.

"What about me?" she asks, suddenly. It's an abrupt, vague question, and Kaname's expression gives no indication as to what she means.


Meiya's brow creases with worry. "I don't know why your involved in all this."

"But I do know you don't deserve this." she tries to comfort. "You didn't do anything wrong, whoever is responsible for this will pay for it."


"Before, when the two of us talked after the incident onboard the Tuatha de Daanan," she says; she pauses, letting the words rest in the air. "I wasn't being completely honest."


Meiya takes a moment to think about how to respond. "It's okay... You must have had a reason..." and she..

"I..I might not have said everything I should have either."


Meiya has a right to know.

"I know why Mythril's guarding me," Kaname says, finally.


Meiya nods slightly and tries to hug Kaname with her one hand around her. "It's okay, you don't have to..."


But she does.

"I don't know why, but I hear these whispers," she says, pulling her legs up to her chest. "I don't know where they come from, but they're there, whispering to me. I understand things I shouldn't... about the Arm Slaves, about lambda drivers, about technology that shouldn't /exist/."

She slowly inhales, then exhales.

"Before, on the class trip that was hijacked our second year, I was abducted by Gauron. They wanted to run tests to see if I was really one of the 'Whispered'. Because of that, all of my class was almost killed. And now..."

Her voice trails off.


Kaname relates an incredible story to Meiya, who can only sit and listen to the tale. "Whispered?" she never heard the word applied like that. "Know things..." technology that shouldn't exist?

"Kaname, Kanaame listen to me... even if your a Whispered or whatever, you didn't do this. /You/ didn't cause that explosion." Meiya might give Johnny some words for being stupidly reckless though.


"I know that," she snaps. Then in a lower tone: "I know."

"I don't know what was going on with Cecil," she says. "I don't even know if he was involved with them. But that guy in the Arm Slave, the room he pointed to was Cecil's."


Meiya doesn't flinch as Kaname snaps. She nods slightly though. "You're worried about him?" she asks.


"I don't know," Kaname says quietly. A beat, then: "I should probably try to contact my family and Kyoko. I need to thank Johnny, too." She can't help but feel weary just at the thought of it; this is all so exhausting.


Meiya digs into her pocket and offers Kaname her cellphone "Use mine, just in case."

"Tell them you stayed at my house, and weren't there."