skaikru | inbox @ comesailaway

heyy clarke
um
i guess i havent rly talked abt it lol
but
were u aware that venti and i r dating?

( one night/early morning, fine for what it was, and then completely compartmentalized until one day she opens up a text from mizuki expecting some semblance of silliness or important ship-specific theories and is instead greeted by — )

...sorry, what?

i know! crazy, right?
happened after murder island, actually
which is weird
closest ive ever gotten to dating sum1 is
uh
pixels on a screen lol
that probably sounds weird 2 u, but otomes r a lot of fun
i can show u sometime

[ He's not taking this well, but he also only knows how to be amiable… ]

( maybe it's a good thing then, that she specializes at cutting to the core of things.

...and also pouring gasoline directly on open flames, because clarke sees this text. reads it. internalizes it, then reads it again just to be sure and just about hurls her phone across the room. this is... tragically and horribly not the first time this has happened, and she's on the brink of seething and self loathing for a good twenty minutes before ever deigning to text him back. )

When after the island?

immediately on his return
(´・v・`;)

( fuck. shit. fuck. fucking shit.

she could immediately fall on her proverbial sword and offer apologies — because he has to know, why else would this come up? — but there's an unhealthy monster living in her chest that demands every time she's hurt (confronted with her own mistakes, reminded of every bad thing she's ever done, etc) someone else needs to flinch too.

that's just never applied to mizuki before. )

And at the after party, you still chose to stand beside Ebalon?

[ A sigh. He doesn't know how to talk about this at all. It's so much trouble just… talking about it. Why can't things just be easy? Why does Venti have to be so self-sabotaging? ]

well, ofc i did
he needed sum1 there 4 him
and also
…
im not mad, clarke
i did tell venti he was allowed to pursue other ppl
i just… thought he knew that meant he needed 2 talk 2 me abt it 1st
… and he did know. he just didnt.

You're not supposed to choose the person who murdered your boyfriend over your boyfriend, Mizuki.

( hi, yes, hello, it's hypocrite o'clock. and a blessing this isn't a conversation happening in person, so no one gets to see how viciously clarke rubs her hands over her face. )

I didn't think

( ugh no, try again. )

...I'm sorry, Mizuki. And even if you haven't expressly said it, I'm assuming you know exactly what I'm sorry for.

u know im not good at choices, clarke
but i also talked 2 venti about it b4 the party
he knew what i intended 2 do
he even said he trusted me
…
its hard 4 me 2 say the same of him now

but thats not ur fault. u didnt do anything wrong
i mean, not if u didnt know, which u didnt, and ive confirmed that
so its ok!
im sort of just at a loss personally of what 2 do, ig

( again, a blessing that this entire conversation is over text, because you chose him over me too is on the tip of her tongue. luckily her fingers have a bit more restraint, or at least freeze up for long enough that clarke can refocus her attention on the topics at hand: mizuki, and apparently his two boyfriends. )

But it's not okay. You're not supposed to absolve me in the same conversation you confront me in, Mizuki, that's not how this is supposed to go.

( typed and deleted:

i don't

it's not

i'm not.

then decidedly back to the beginning: )

I don't know what you should do here either, Mizuki. But I feel it's important you know it wasn't planned. He came to my room to talk about the Captain, and I wasn't being...logical. And then Venti showed me a weakness and I pushed on it.

[ Well, Mizuki was very pointedly defending Ebalon while trying to appeal to Clarke, which, in his head, means he's also not choosing between them, either. But, alas, even if Clarke had mentioned something about this, Mizuki wouldn't have explained it that way. Too easily he is ready to apologize over explaining his point of view, especially to the person he sees as his superior rather than his equal. ]

i didnt rly think of this as a confrontation
i just wanted 2 know if u knew, thats all
i am upset
ofc i am
but just generally upset
like maybe venti didnt turn u down bc we were 2 casual
we havent rly been on a date yet, so i
um

[ 'I think there's something wrong with me.' 'I don't know why I'm not good enough.' 'I am used to being just useful.' ]

sry
it wasnt my intention to make u feel bad
u rly didnt do anything wrong, ok?
ty 4 being honest w me tho
i sincerely do appreciate it

( ....okay second thought, maybe it's a deficit that this conversation is happening via text, since it means clarke can't reach out and physically shake him. )

I'm supposed to feel bad here, Mizuki. Not knowing all the facts doesn't mean I didn't make a mistake.

( there's the quiet thought that venti didn't turn her down because she wasn't actually trying to fuck venti. has less of an interest in him as she does in barbatos and the power he'd slated in her back pocket, at her beck and call. in the end it isn't that different from how she's embraced mizuki's reverence; it just hadn't been necessary to kneel at his feet to get him to offer to eat her enemies. )

Just...let me feel like shit, okay?

I didn't mean to hurt you.

And not going on a date yet isn't an excuse. It's... I don't understand whatever you've got going on together ( because again, ebalon. ew. ) but I've never been on a date in my life, and that never had any say as to if I loved someone.

[ Mizuki squeezes his phone tightly, the edges cracking as he threatens to just crush it between his hands, but he stops before it gets to that point. He doesn't want to make Clarke sad. He wanted to be upset with her if she knew! Maybe not make her sad, but at least let her know that wasn't okay. But now, not only did she not know, but he's absolutely making her upset. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know how to feel. This is why people just need to tell him what to do. ]

no ur rly not
ur beating urself up for smth u couldnt have known abt
and i wont let u feel like shit bc u didnt know it was a mistake!!!
so! its ok!!!! and ill come over there and throw pillows @ u until u believe me!!!
u didnt hurt me
im hurt, but its not ur fault, okay?
i love him a lot
but, y'know, i love u 2!!!
not in the same way, sure, but ur both rly important to me!
and im sure were gonna figure this out
thats what matters ok?

[ Why is he trying to give a pep talk here? Why is he the one trying to reassure her things are okay? Ah, yes, because that's just his personality. He's just the type of person to make people he cares about happy no matter what. It's a good thing Clarke and Venti are so important to him, really, because he would be a little less self-destructive right now and way more yandere about it. ]

( no, let's revisit & stick upon why he's the one giving a peptalk here. )

Stop pretending and trying to make me feel better.

( how much weight does her commands carry here anymore? she'd wanted to approach this as the most apologetic friend but still ends up speaking in full demands by default. )

Please.

I could have known about it, though. I've seen the two of you together, I knew he was important to you. I just didn't know it was

( official? still a thing? look, she can't follow all this interpersonal drama, it's not high on her murderboard priorities, and that's somehow how she ended up directly in the middle for a few moments.

despite being downright allergic to those three little words, sometimes situations call for swallowing her own self loathing and giving back, in the hopes it helps mend the skin across this emotional wound she feels very responsible for carving into mizuki's chest. with a butchers knife. )

And I love you too, Mizuki. It's

I don't love Venti. ( just his power maybe. )

And I just... How do I fix this?

[ Ugh. He doesn't want her to be upset, though! But he also doesn't want to keep telling her "no". Maybe this is how it's supposed to be? Maybe Clarke is telling him what to do here and he should just listen? It certainly doesn't feel right. ]

ok

[ Welcome back to the Okay Party. They live here. ]

i
I don't know
I don't know what to do
I don't know what to think or say or do I just know that I'm hurt
…
I'm really not upset with you, though. I want to stress that.

( just trust her is the easy explanation here, before having to examine how irreparably that trust has been broken. )

Then how about I hate myself enough for both of us right now, and you just don't say anything else on that matter?

( good? good. okay. )

And that way we can focus on you right now. Or... it doesn't have to be "we". I can give you space and let you figure out what it is you really think about all this first.

[ That's really not what he wants, either, but he doesn't really have the luxury to complain about it. Or, yes, he does, but… he isn't going to. He wasn't going to talk about it anymore even without Clarke's order to, but now that just cements it. ]

I don't know what to figure out.
I don't need space
I don't want space

[ I'm so alone. So angry. So sad. So in love. So hurt. So afraid. ]

It'll be okay.
I just overreacted a bit.
He didn't mean anything by it.
You didn't either.
I just need to get a hold of my emotions.
That's never been very easy for me. That's all.

( again, wishing she was face to face with him, in order to grab mizuki by the shoulders and impress no, you didn't overreact.

just because clarke's not without guilt here, just because she's not blameless, and just because she still wants to use mizuki like a weapon of war — none of that means she doesn't believe he has every right to rage in this moment. )

No.

You don't need to get ahold of your emotions.

You need to feel them as fully as you possibly can, and do whatever they're telling you to do.

But I don't know what they're telling me to do
They're so loud…
…
But I can't hear any of it.
It's like
Overlapping voices
…
I think maybe I should just forget this happened.

No. Don't do that, Mizuki, it doesn't help anyone.

And as for the voices — take a breath.

Then tell me if you want to break something or cry.

Both.
I want
To hurt him.
I want him to be okay.
I want to just lie down and not exist for a while.
But I also don't want to be alone.
It's really confusing.
I don't want to deal with it.

( her heart aches. and a voice in the back of her head persistently reminds her — you did this. )

I know you don't. No one ever does, but you can't just lie down.

Cry first. Break something later.

[ Jokes on Clarke, he's done both simultaneously before and he'll do it again. By now, his room is probably in a similar shape. It's a good thing his roomie is rarely around, otherwise coming back to broken furniture everywhere would be such a hassle. ]

I don't understand.
Why am I not good enough?
What did I do wrong?
How do I get him to trust me?
Why does this hurt so much?
Should I feel like this?

[ Ugh. He keeps erasing everything in frustration. He doesn't want to invalidate his feelings, but everything feels so yucky right now. He doesn't want to make Clarke feel yucky too just because he can't get himself organized. It takes him a moment to finish his thought process as a tentacle picks up the chair at his desk and slam it into the wall a few times until either it crumbles into bits and he's only left with a leg, or, the option that actually happens: it gets stuck in the wall entirely. He could probably pull it back out, but that's too much effort. Hopefully his neighbors, Natsuno and Jade, aren't home. ]

He told me he won't do this again, but
He…
Has.

[ It was just a kiss, of course, but that's not what he means. Faithfulness. Trust. These were broken both times. The first time he was able to brush it off because he assumed it was his fault and he could fix it by, you know, actually being a boyfriend. But now? Now, he is Venti's boyfriend. And it still happened. ~~Funny how an act for faith is the most unfaithful thing Venti can do.~~ ]

And I don't blame him. I know how he sees me. Maybe I should just accept this much.
I just didn't think it would be like this.

( she's torn, right? wants to rage with mizuki for mizuki's sake, wants to retreat and nurse the notion she's a horrible person until it becomes a full grown ideal she can send off to college or something. and then also — struggles with the idea she ought to be defending venti here too. how? who knows, this whole thing was really shitty, but there has to be something to be said for the fact they keep looking at a god (disgraced or otherwise) as if he were anything close to human. isn't that how the stories go? the olympians were always petty, vengeful, and used humans for their own personal gains. it'd be easier of mizuki just blamed her, or at least blamed her more — clarke could and would at least give him very human anguish and guilt.

she's also torn on wanting to give him advice and feelings like she's taken any right to do so — dragged it out back, shot it in the head, and not even bothered to bury it. )

You should blame him. Blame both of us, Mizuki. This isn't a situation where you have to keep smiling and being nice about it.

If he doesn't see you how you want to be seen, if this is a pattern now, why stay?

[ If Mizuki weren't now currently aware that he has the thoughts of a literal eldritch god in his head, he very well may have agreed with Clarke. Sure, he's not human, but he is mortal. But between Elder God Thoughts(tm) and knowing Lumine also isn't mortal, he can absolutely say for a fact that this is very much just Venti's bullshit. Not in those words, of course, as Mizuki is still very intent that neither of them have the blame, but, uh, he can and will shut that notion down entirely.

…

He should probably tell Clarke about the Elder God in his head at some point. ]

Because I love him.
I love him with all my heart.
He's so kind and patient with me.
He helped me figure things out about myself that I didn't know.
He calms me down when I'm having a hard time, and I've helped him out of a really tough time.
I know he cares about me. Really, really truly cares about me. And he gets so happy when I sing to him.
I just want him to smile.
I just want him to be happy.
…
I feel so selfish.

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