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COUPRIS 40 - The motor carriage rumbles over the concrete of the motorway going out of Martinaise. It’s animalistic. Its headlights illuminate the street and blot out the stars.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - The people in the back - Kim, Judit and Trant Heidelstam - are all sleeping.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - It is late, after all. Nearly midnight. It would be unusual if they weren’t.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - You would be too, only your leg is killing you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He speaks suddenly, with a stern sharpness in his tone. “You think you’re so funny, huh? It’s all- all one big joke to you, shitkid?”

LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - You really do not know what he’s talking about. 

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - Stay calm. You can do this.

1. “My good sir, I am afraid I have no idea what you speak of.”
2. “What?”
3. Say nothing.

COUPRIS 40 - The atmosphere in the motor carriage only gets more suffocating. The air feels like thick jelly.

KIM KITSURAGI - He snores softly. He can’t help you here.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - How are you going to solve this case, detective? Your lifeline is unavailable. It’s just you in the face of this big, bad situation. All alone.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He shifts his body and grunts. “You hear me?”

1. Try to subtly poke Kim to wake him up.
2. “Um… what?”
3. Say nothing. Look out the window, try to ignore him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks at you impatiently out of the corner of his eye. “It’s time to take something seriously for once in your life. Drop the act.”

YOU - As you continue glaring at the window, you can see his reflection burning in the pane. He’s staring. Right through you.

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - Go ahead, say something, so he keeps his eyes on the road. You want to keep everyone safe, don’t you?

YOU - You pull on your seatbelt. The pressure on your chest makes you feel even more trapped in this shoebox of a motor carriage.

KIM KITSURAGI - You pick up the gentle sound of his breath escaping as he exhales.

+1 Morale

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Pull yourself together. You have to answer him. He is your partner, after all. As much as you don’t want him to be.

1. “What do you mean, a ‘big joke?’”
2. “I think you’re a big meanie and I want you to stop talking to me.”
3. “I’m going to be honest, I hardly even know your name.”
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “What do you mean, a ‘big joke?’”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He laughs bitterly and shoves a hand into his hair. You notice his arm tremble, just slightly. He’s looking ahead at the road again, but he tosses you a swift glance. “I told you, just drop it already, shitkid.”

EMPATHY [Legendary: Failure] - He’s a little scared, but you can’t tell why.

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - If you want this to go anywhere, you need to tell the truth.

1. “What do you mean, a ‘big joke?’”
2. “I think you’re a big meanie and I want you to stop talking to me.”
3. “I’m going to be honest, I hardly even know your name.”
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “I’m going to be honest, I hardly even know your name.”

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - He freezes. His knuckles grow red, then white, as he grips onto the steering lever.

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - You can see everything you’ve ever done together, everything you have ever said to him, slipping through his fingers in an instant.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - And you can't remember any of it.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “No,” he laughs humourlessly. “No, you’re fucking with me.” He shakes his head and puts his other hand back on the console. “It’s not funny anymore.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - He half-believes you. But he doesn’t want to.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Jean.” He hesitates. “Lieutenant Jean Vicquemare, Precinct 41, God damn it! Of course you know this, you’re my fucking partner, for fuck’s sake!”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - There’s hurt in his voice. He regrets blowing up at you immediately, mindful of the three people sleeping in the backseat.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Success] - His whole body is tense, like he’s about to receive a blow… or make one.

SUGGESTION [Legendary: Failure] - Fuck, you really have no idea what to say.

1. “I’m sorry.”
2. “I’m trying to brood here. You’re completely cramping my style.”
3. Say nothing.

YOU - “I’m sorry.”

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Something in him breaks.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - He snaps, faster than anyone ever should.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He’s heard this from you before.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - There’s only one thing you can do to redeem this, sire. Lie.

1. DRAMA [Godly] - Convince him you still remember.
2. No, I won’t do that! I can fix this!
3. Silently brood.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - No, you can’t. These are the consequences of your own actions. You can’t run from this anymore, Harry.

COUPRIS 40 - You suddenly become viscerally aware that you’re stuck in a steel matchbox hurtling at 90mph down a motorway - there’s no feasible way you could leave.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Easy: Success] - You can’t evade this one by fleeing.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - It takes everything in him to hold all his emotions in. He must really care about the people in the back of the motor carriage.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He speaks through gritted teeth. “You’re ‘sorry?’ Sorry for what? You can’t remember any of it, apparently.”

1. SUGGESTION [Challenging] - Try to figure out what to do.
2. “Okay, fuck you, then.”
3. “Well, what do you want me to do about it?!”
4. Say nothing.

Check: Success

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - The leather of the seat sticks uncomfortably to your thighs. It does nothing to alleviate the throbbing pain from your wound. 

SUGGESTION - You shuffle and the leather reacts with a hiss - the sudden sound quivers in the silence. However, moving your legs seems to have given you a brainwave.

1. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you, give me a hand?”
2. Ask him to help you remember.
3. Keep your eyes dead on the dashboard and make a plan.

YOU - “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you, give me a hand?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - His jaw tenses.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - There are countless emotions battling each other inside him, each bloodthirsty for an ultimate victory, but they’re swamping together into an aching mix in his shoulders.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You-” he hesitates and draws a long, shaky breath. “Since when did you apologise so damn much?! I don’t want your apologies, I want you to just stop. Stop all of-” he stammers, and gestures vaguely toward you, eyes fixed hard on the road.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He can’t bear to look at you. He’s afraid of what he might say, of what he might see, if he does.

1. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to help you, give me a hand?”
2. Ask him to help you remember.
3. Keep your eyes dead on the dashboard and make a plan.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - You’ve hurt him enough already.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - You are a pillar of destruction, Harry. Everything you touch, everyone you love is destroyed…because of you. 

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - It’s not too late to shut this down.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Do you want the truth, or do you want to destroy him?

1. Enough! I can still fix this, I know it!
2. I haven’t hurt everyone! I haven’t hurt Kim!
3. I want the truth.
4. I want to destroy him.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Haven’t you?

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Legendary: Failure] - You know the things you’ve done, even if you can’t remember them - surely running around, drunk off your face, threatening to kill yourself, hurt Kim. He only sticks with you because he feels sorry for what you’ve turned yourself into.

PERCEPTION - You’re suddenly hyper-aware of Kim’s presence behind you.

KIM KITSURAGI - He’s asleep. His chest gently rises and falls with each inhale and exhale under his white V-neck, his breath fogging up the window as his head lulls against it. His orange bomber jacket is draped over his and Judit’s shoulders, acting as a makeshift blanket. His glasses are off, and his lips are slightly parted as he snores quietly. He looks strikingly peaceful, even after all the two of you have endured together.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - You ache for him.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He deserves a rest, after everything. Don’t wake him.

1. Enough! I can still fix this, I know it!
2. I haven’t hurt everyone! I haven’t hurt Kim!
3. I want the truth.
4. I want to destroy him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - As you open your mouth, he bites his lip so hard you think it might start to bleed.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - Wait…

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - The truth has always harmed you. 

SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Success] - Is this what you really want? You could get him to stop the motor carriage, right now, and escape into the urban wilderness and never come back. Jean would let you. Kim is sleeping. He can’t stop you. He can’t convince you to stay.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - God knows he would. 

YOU - You inhale sharply and blink. The cold air in your sinuses goes straight to your lungs. It reminds you that this wreck of a situation is real, and if you don’t say something soon, Jean might just rip at the seams.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He snores. Very loudly. 

VOLITION [Formidable: Success] - Speak. 

1. “Refresh my memory, if we’re partners, what cases have we done together?”
2. “Well, maybe you could jog my memory?”
3. Ask him to stop the motor carriage so you can run away.
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “Well, maybe you could jog my memory?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - You catch his expression in the rear-view mirror. He scowls at you, catches himself, and then his expression softens.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He’s pitying you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Do you remember that time when our desks were opposite each other, and you kept throwing me balled-up notes with just the word ‘SEX’ on them, and I got so angry that I threw my mug at you, and missed you entirely, and the stain from the coffee was on the wall for 3 years? And Mack-and-Chester framed it like it was some sort of experimental art piece?”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You hear a faint snort from behind you as he speaks, which quickly morphs into a snore.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - That’s not important right now. What is important is Jean. Your partner.

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Success] - His voice remains stoic, but there are crows feet in his eyes. He remembers this fondly.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks over to you with a faint smile, desperately searching for any semblance of recognition in your face.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - When he sees your vacant expression, it all comes crashing down.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Desperately, he tries again. “Or- or when we got drunk together and we somehow managed to walk a mile and a half out of Revachol, and had to radio to the Precinct on some old man’s motor carriage, for them to come get us?”

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - His eyes flicker anxiously over your face. He needs you to remember this. It’s the most important thing in the world to him right now.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He swallows dryly. “You don’t even remember the cold and lonely nights, on particularly tough cases, or when we had an unthinkable amount of paperwork, and we had to bunk down together?”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - Something rustles in the back seat. 

LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - It’s just someone turning in their sleep. Don’t read into it too much.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - You knew something about his body was familiar to you - the way his muscles move under his skin, and the way he holds himself, and something so achingly, achingly close, that you can’t quite place.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - The rhythm of his breathing causes something deep and painful to pang within you, like you’ve been suddenly jabbed with a sharp object.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Don’t acknowledge it. It will only hurt you.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] - In the silence, you realise you haven’t heard Kim’s breathing for a while.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - It’s gnawing at him now. This deep, unbearable longing.

YOU - Your helplessness sinks in your chest like a stone to the bottom of a lake.

1. DRAMA [Godly] - Convince him you still remember.
2. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
3. Subtly check if Kim is awake.
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - His breathing hitches in his throat. He doesn’t look at you.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - Jean shakes his head wordlessly. He knows if he speaks, he will break out in tears. So he says nothing at all. 

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - It’s taking every ounce of his willpower for him to hold it together right now. Come to think of it, you also feel like crying. Thank God Jean holds it together, because if he didn’t, you know you would get teary-eyed too. And that would be an absolute mess.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - Weak!

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - He’s shaking. Quite literally shaking.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Look what you’ve done, Harry.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - Leave him alone. Let him cool off. He can handle it.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - With a slow, trembling hand, he turns on the heating in the motor carriage.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - Somehow, you had completely missed how cold it was until now. You should pull your shitty old jacket closer around your body.

1. DRAMA [Godly] - Convince him you still remember.
2. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
3. Subtly check if Kim is awake.
4. Say nothing.

YOU - You glance in the rear-view mirror, studying the reflection of Kim’s face. His eyelids flicker slightly, but his body remains motionless, save for the easy movement of his chest as he sleeps.

INTERFACING [Challenging: Success] - You notice there’s a chip in the blue paint framing the mirror. A FALN-branded air freshener hangs from it.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Medium: Success] - It’s apricot scented. 

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - Not this again…

1. Turn to get a better look at Kim.
2. COMPOSURE [Medium] - Investigate further.
3. Wake him up.
4. Let it go.

YOU - You crane your neck around the headrest.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks at you from the corner of his eye, but he does not say anything.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Right now, Kim is what matters to you. Pay him no mind.

KIM KITSURAGI - He looks oddly cosy, if a bit squashed in the corner of the backseat. His body is tucked into itself, and one of his legs is awkwardly positioned in the footwell. Under his jacket, his slender hands are folded in his lap formally. He’s still holding on to the photo of the Phasmid.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - He’s even professional when he’s asleep.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - He’s going to get muscle cramps. He should have stretched before getting into the motor carriage. What an amateur. 

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - Wait, but didn’t Kim mention he has trouble sleeping?

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - Oh-ho-ho! The plot thickens, milord!

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You have been staring at the lieutenant for way too long. Maybe you should get back to Jean.

1. Turn to get a better look at Kim.
2. COMPOSURE [Medium] - Investigate further.
3. Wake him up.
4. Get back to Jean. You know, your actual partner.

Check: Success

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Wait. Something’s not quite right. He’s… lying.

KIM KITSURAGI - His body is gradually slipping down the upholstery. He makes a jerky move to push himself back up, opens his eyes for a second, and makes direct eye contact with you as you peer at him from between the front seats. He snaps his eyes shut immediately and slumps back down.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - He must think you’re such a freak; watching him sleep like that.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - It’s not freaky to check up on your half-brother once in a while. Plus, you weren’t wrong! He *was* lying to you!

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Oh God, has he been listening this whole time?

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - We don’t have time for this! Get back to Jean, for God’s sake!

YOU - You turn back to face the front of the motor carriage, throwing a sideways glimpse at Jean.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Somehow, leaving him to cool off has made him even more agitated. He looks like he’s going to pop a blood vessel.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - But something stirs deeper inside him…

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - Jealousy.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - Lieutenant Kitsuragi. He’s thinking about Lieutenant Kitsuragi. He’s thinking about when you radioed him on Kim’s Kineema, and you called Kim your ‘partner’. He’s thinking about when you met one morning, Jean in disguise, in the Whirling-in-Rags, and you said Kim was cooler than him. Not that it mattered that much, but Jean always wanted to be your favourite, even if he could never fully admit it to himself. And something about hearing the words ‘Kim’ and ‘partner’ leave your lips together hurt him in a way he's never been hurt before. It was new. It was raw. Raw like a tender wound.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - At least Lieutenant Kitsuragi was actually there for you when you needed somebody the most.

1. Turn to get a better look at Kim.
2. Investigate further.
3. ‘Wake him up’.
4. Get back to Jean. You know, your actual partner.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - His hair is in his face. He looks insane. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] - It’s pissing you off.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Please, *please* don’t do anything. It’ll just make it worse.

1. ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable] - Tuck his hair behind his ear.
2. “Done something different with your hair? Looks great on you!”
3. Tell him about Kim being awake.
4. Ignore it and talk like adults. (Proceed) 

Check: Failure

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable: Failure] - You stretch out an arm toward the side of Jean’s head. For a moment, you’re the very picture of domesticity. But only for a moment. You miss, and stick your finger directly in his ear.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He slaps your arm so hard it stings, then goes numb.

-1 Health

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - You’re going to have a bruise. A Jean-shaped bruise.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - You’ll have to take so much Drouamine.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He snaps, angrier than you’ve ever seen him, but he still barely raises his voice above a whisper. “What the actual fuck are you doing?!” 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You hear another strange snort-snore.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - It’s Kim! He’s laughing at you! 

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - In the rear-view mirror, you catch a fleeting glance of Kim cracking one eye open - he just can’t help himself after hearing that resounding smack of skin against skin. His shoulders are quivering from the effort of not laughing as you cradle your numb arm in your other hand. He’s trying desperately not to disturb Judit, who is still sound asleep on the other side of him.

1. Tuck his hair behind his ear.
2. “Done something different with your hair? Looks great on you!”
3. Tell him about Kim being awake.
4. Ignore it and talk like adults. (Proceed) 

YOU - You look at Jean, so he knows he actually has your attention.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - You continue hurtling down the motorway for a few moments. Jean’s eyes are fixated on following the shining cat-eyes embedded in the road.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - He’s tense. Extremely tense.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He takes an audible breath. “Just… tell me one thing.”

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - It quickly becomes abundantly clear that he has not thought this far at all. 

EMPATHY [Formidable: Success] - He really doesn’t want to believe you. You’re so familiar to him, in every single way, yet he is a complete stranger to you. It’s taking a toll on him.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - The way you talk. The way you move. He’s seen it all, a thousand times before. He knows you like the walls of his childhood home, and you knew him too, once. A hundred million years ago. 

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - He’s practically scrambling for an excuse, for a way out of this situation, to find a ‘gotcha’ that proves you have been lying all along.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Formidable: Success] - And then everything can go back to how it was before.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Do you really, really not remember *anything* at all? How far does this…memory loss go back?”

1. “I told you. I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t even remember my name. Or my face.”
2. “Fuck you.”
3. Say nothing. You’ve had enough of his shit.

YOU - “I told you. I don’t remember anything. I couldn’t even remember my name. Or my face.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “But that doesn’t-” he blurts out, before remembering the people sleeping in the backseat. He lowers his voice. “That doesn’t make *sense*, how can you just wake up, and not remember anything… you’ve lost your memory from drinking before, but never *this* badly…”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - It was only for a few hours back then. Surely you’re in there somewhere. Surely Jean, of all people, can root you out. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “If this is about us, it’s so stupid. I know I’m not your dream fucking partner, I know I could’ve been better to you, but it goes both ways. You’ve hurt me...” He hesitates. “...and as much as I don’t want to admit it, I’ve hurt you.”

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - You can feel it - this is the most apologetic he will ever be with you.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - Don’t ask him, he won’t elaborate. He doesn’t want to reopen any old wounds. Whether that be his or yours.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - He’s watched you destroy yourself from the inside out dozens of times. The fire comes from inside the house.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He’s still holding on to the hope that you remember something. Anything.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “If you *aren’t* being serious, shitkid, then I hope you know how fucking *cruel* all this shit is…” He shakes his head. He won’t let himself look at you. He *can’t*.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - He’s thinking of the Precinct. He’s thinking of Lieutenant Kitsuragi. He’s thinking of Dolores Dei. All the people you’ve hurt. All the people you’ve dragged into the gutter with you.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - It’s the only way you know how to love.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You can’t just… you can’t just leave it all behind. You can’t just leave *us* behind.”

1. “I wish I had a choice, but I don’t. It’s just all gone.”
2. “I’m not your ‘shitkid’. You don’t know me anymore. I’m a whole different person.”
3. Say nothing.

YOU - “I’m not your ‘shitkid’. You don’t know me anymore. I’m a whole different person.”

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - His barriers immediately spring right back up again. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Fuck you!” He punches the steering levers. “But you’re not! You’re not a whole *different fucking person* just because you’ve been away for a week, doing whatever the fuck with your new little *boytoy*! You’ve told me a million times you’d change, but you never fucking do. Fuck you.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - He hisses ‘boytoy’ and promptly regrets it. It is not at all classy to call a four-times decorated lieutenant about to flatter your precinct with a transfer a ‘boytoy’.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He, truthfully, doesn’t want you to change. He doesn’t want anything to.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - You might want to be careful what you say here. Kim is awake.

1. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi isn’t my ‘boytoy’. He is his own person who does not belong to me.”
2. “Kim’s totally my ‘boytoy’.”
3. “I have no opinion on Kim’s boytoy status as of current.”

YOU - “Kim’s totally my ‘boytoy’.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] - For a moment, there is a harsh silence in the motor carriage. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I don’t give a fuck. I don’t fucking care what he is. I don’t care if you’re sucking and fucking, or *what*. You hear ‘Kim’ and that’s all you react to, like a little pavloved doggy. You don’t even fucking care-”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He snores, cutting off Jean. Very loudly.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He omits “-about me.”

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - I think he might give a fuck. Just a hunch though. 

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You might want to start acting like you give a fuck, too, before Jean does something he regrets.

INTERFACING [Challenging: Success] - He is, after all, driving a motor carriage.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - That is not what I mean.

1. “I’m sorry.”
2. “Oh, so this is about Kim now?”
3. “I think you’ll find I do give a fuck. And I think you do, too.”

YOU - “Oh, so this is about Kim now?”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Jean’s ears flush bright red. 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - You can hear his teeth grinding together. If you continue on this track, soon they will be paste.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He wants, so badly, to actually resolve this.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “No. No, it’s not about Lieutenant Kitsuragi, of course it’s fucking not! You’re the one that can’t talk about anything but him!”

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - Okay, he’s got a point there.

1. I talk about things other than Kim!
2. Of course I talk about him all the time. He’s so cool. So devastatingly *cool*.
3. I just admire my fellow half-brother. It’s nothing deeper than that. (Lie.)
4. I just admire my fellow half-brother. It’s nothing deeper than that. 
5. Let it go. (Proceed)

YOU - I just admire my fellow half-brother. It’s nothing deeper than that.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - I think it could be a little more than ‘admiration’...

YOU - “What’s that supposed to mean?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “It means what I fucking said! I can’t put it any more clearly, shitkid. You’re fucking *obsessed*.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - Jean is sick of you, of how you act around Kim. Like an obsessed fan. Like he’s the real Guillaume le Million. But still, Jean would nevertheless be the most honoured man in the world if Kim pulls through with transferring to Precinct 41.

ENDURANCE [Formidable: Failure] - What a pity you’ve attached yourself to the lieutenant. What a pity that he doesn’t feel the same way about you.

1. “I’m sorry.”
2. “Oh, so this is about Kim now?”
3. “I think you’ll find I do give a fuck. And I think you do, too.”

YOU - “I’m sorry.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Stop saying you’re fucking *sorry*! Are you trying to be the sorriest cop in the whole world? Win a *sorry-off*? Of course you aren’t. It’s just courtesy.”

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - He will never believe your apologies are genuine. No point in trying to make him.

1. “I’m sorry.”
2. “Oh, so this is about Kim now?”
3. “I think you’ll find I do give a fuck. And I think you do, too.”

YOU - “I think you’ll find I do give a fuck. And I think you do, too.”

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - He really doesn’t appreciate that comment.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - A scowl deepens the creases around his eyebrows and nose. For an ephemeral moment, you could’ve sworn you saw his eyes flutter up at Kim in the rear-view mirror.

KIM KITSURAGI - He’s still, like the water of the harbour at low tide on a calm morning.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He spits. “You give a fuck? Since when? Can’t you at least give me the civility of *acting like it?!*” 

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - He thinks you’re lying about everything, my liege. Perchance, if you said you were a normal human being, he would start to suspect you were a cockatoo… or something.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - We can’t fucking win.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “How are you going to give a fuck about someone you can’t even remember?” His eyebrow twitches. He mumbles something.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Formidable: Success] - “I just want my partner back.”

YOU - Your chest tightens.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] - You and Jean go way back. Way fucking back.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - I don’t think we’ve ever hurt him worse than this. And that’s saying something.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He’s breathing heavily. Practically dry heaving.

HALF LIGHT [Challenging: Success] - He looks like he’s on the verge of exploding, but he’s looked like that for the past fifteen minutes, so that’s really not saying much.

COUPRIS 40 - The Coupris rolls up a paved driveway to a tall apartment block. The glass panes of the entryway door are illuminated by the headlights’ reflection. It’s pitch black outside. And inside.

TALL APARTMENT BLOCK - The building appears daunting and supranatural in the blisteringly white headlights of the Coupris. The black streaks down the side, mould or soot, make it look like it’s bleeding. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He stops the motor carriage neatly, taking care to park it without obstructing other vehicles despite it being the middle of the night; there’s not likely to be any drivers at this hour. Jean gets out of the motor carriage, stretching his legs for a moment as he steps out of the door.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - Yes! Good boy! That’s how we do it! Kim could take a lesson or two from Jean.

YOU - You follow his form as he walks around the side of the motor carriage, to the side where Kim is slumped, head still resting on the window, behind you. 

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He snores. Yet again. It shakes the whole motor carriage.

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - He’s going to fall out! You need to swoop in and save him like Dick Mullen and one of his smoking-hot dames in distress. You could be Kim’s knight in shining armour. Wouldn’t that be cute?

KIM KITSURAGI - His limp body flops toward Jean as he opens the door. Thankfully he remembered his seatbelt, or he would have tumbled directly onto the cold tarmac.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - We don’t want him to be harmed now, do we?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Not after everything he’s done to keep you alive. You want to wrap him up like an intricate piece of delicate china, shielding him from any break or scratch. You want to keep him safe.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Glad to see *someone* around here is being responsible for their health.

KIM KITSURAGI - He blinks dazedly a couple of times, squinting first at the brightness of the headlights, and then again as he turns to Jean. He wordlessly rubs the side of his head and pulls his jacket off Judit. Agonisingly slowly, he spins it around to find the pockets, and then carefully pushes the photo of the phasmid into the left pocket, tucked underneath his gloves.

DRAMA [Formidable: Success] - He does a remarkably good impression of someone who has just been rudely awoken.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “My apologies, Lieutenant Kitsuragi.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “It’s nothing, Mr. Vicquemare.” His voice is husky but firm. He closes his eyes and coolly leans back into the seat.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Oh.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Actually, Lieutenant, do you mind…” he indicates to Judit, still sleeping peacefully next to him.

KIM KITSURAGI - He furrows his brow lethargically, then grunts and turns away from Jean to face Judit fully, sinking further into the upholstery. 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You hear the shuffle of nylon as Kim bundles his bomber jacket up in his lap, holding it close to his stomach.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He looks so, *so* comfortable.

DRAMA [Easy: Success] - He’s pretending he doesn’t know what Jean is asking him to do. This is going to be hilarious, milord. Just watch.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He huffs, taking a moment to accept that he has to make himself look like a fool. Evidently, he’s decided it’s not worth asking the lieutenant more than once. He anchors one leg in the footwell, taking care to avoid stomping on Kim’s foot, and reaches over him to gently shake Judit awake.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - Kim has a *great* view right now.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He lays one hand on her shoulder, obviously intending to just give her a small nudge to wake her up.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Success] - There’s a slight judder in his hand. 

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He seems oddly… nervous? 

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - Do you seriously think he’s ever felt the touch of a woman?

1. Yes?
2. No?

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - That was rhetorical. Of course not. Look at him. He’s practically shaking in his boots. His stupid police-issued boots.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Formidable: Failure] - Listen… Don’t freak out, but… he might not be a feminist. Better bring this up to him the next chance you get.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He overestimates how much force is required to wake Judit up, and instead shoves her back into the seat.

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - Yup. Definitely not a feminist.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - It’ll be a miracle if she doesn’t get whiplash.

KIM KITSURAGI - From your peripheral vision you notice crow’s feet in Kim’s eyes. He’s laughing silently.

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - At Jean! He’s laughing at Jean!

RHETORIC [Easy: Success] - Thank God we can agree that Jean is making himself look like a complete and utter idiot right now.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean instantly realises his mistake, and grabs Judit’s other shoulder to anchor her back into her seat, but it’s too far away. He trips over himself and falls directly on top of her.

JUDIT MINOT - With her unexpected awakening, Judit reflexively swings at the first thing she sees, which is, unfortunately for him, Kim Kitsuragi. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He lets out a small grunt as he’s punched directly below the ribs, and groans from the sudden impact.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Even with his bomber jacket cushioning the blow, it still must have hurt a bit.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Success] - Kim’s a trooper. He’s been through worse - he will be perfectly fine. He was just a little caught off-guard.

JUDIT MINOT - She’s firmly awake now, and understandably surprised to see Jean directly in front of her face, grasping onto her shoulders with much more force than could possibly be necessary. “Jean, what the hell are you doing?”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - She doesn’t even seem to realise she’s just socked Kim directly in the gut.

YOU - Where’s Trant Heidelstam in all this?

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He’s sleeping like a corpse. No, not that corpse. His hands are folded over his chest like a mummy. No, not that mummy.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - An Ilal-Sahravan mummy, to be exact. A no longer practised tradition of ancient Ilal-Sahrava, where they preserved and honoured their dead using meticulous and prolonged methods. They were famously arranged with each hand resting on the opposite shoulder, like Trant Heidelstam is doing right now, which was believed to help protect their soul as they entered the afterlife. 

1. Cool.
2. Okay, but what about the other mummy?

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] - A mother. A female parent.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - In fact, he fell asleep pretty much the second he was buckled into the motor carriage, like flipping an ON-OFF switch on a radiocomputer, only even more immediate. He hasn’t moved since he first sat in that seat.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - So disciplined. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Shit. Sorry.” He releases her from his grip, realising what he’s doing. “Well, this is your stop.”

JUDIT MINOT - She nods, unbuckles herself, and begins to stand up to exit the motor carriage. Jean readjusts his balance so he doesn’t fall again, and holds a hand out to Judit. She ignores it.

KIM KITSURAGI - With Jean and Judit about to clamber backwards out of the motor carriage, Kim begrudgingly moves his awkwardly positioned leg so they don’t trip over him - he can spare them that tiny bit of embarrassment.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - He winces as he lifts his leg and repositions his body, now having more space without Judit in the backseat.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Trivial: Success] - I told you he should have stretched! 

JUDIT MINOT - “I don’t need your help, Jean.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He rests his hand on her upper arm. Judit almost immediately shrugs him off.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - That’s cold. She must be really irritated.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Jean’s expression falters. It’s a little bit funny to see him taken down a peg.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “At least let me walk you up to your apartment.”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He doesn’t *really* want to, he just feels the need to try to make it up to her. And himself.

JUDIT MINOT - She doesn’t respond, and instead climbs out of the motor carriage behind Jean with as much grace as she can muster.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean follows.

TALL APARTMENT BLOCK - You watch idly through the windshield as the two walk - no, stagger - through the entrance to the apartment block.

KIM KITSURAGI - Kim is still tucked up in the backseat of the motor carriage, resting with his eyes closed. He’s absent-mindedly stroking the nylon of his bomber jacket with his thumb, like it’s some sort of domesticated animal. He’s resting his head on the back of the seat now.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - He made a quick recovery from that blow.

1. (Whisper) “Kim?”
2. Let him relax.
3. Let him relax, but keep watching him.

YOU - “Kim?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He opens one of his eyes with a faint smile on his face. He’s looking at you under his eyelashes. The moment he makes eye contact with you, he grins, trying to hold back laughter for fear of waking Trant Heidelstam up.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable: Success] - Without his glasses, you can see every tiny wrinkle around his eyes as he squints, boyishly choking back laughter. He’s grinning, properly grinning, the kind of smile that makes your cheeks ache. He’s the very picture of bliss. You’ve never seen him this amused before.

1. “Don’t worry about Trant, he’s like a mummy.”
2. Laugh.
3. “So, you weren’t actually asleep?”

YOU - “Don’t worry about Trant, he’s like a mummy.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He laughs quietly, and the bridge of his nose scrunches up. “The Ilal-Sahravan kind, or the female parent?”

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - He’s a feminist! Thank God!

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] - Oh, wouldn’t you just *look* at the way he’s looking at you? Really *looking*. The way his eyes are so soft and the corners of his mouth are so curved. He’s looking at you like you’re the only thing in his entire world. But there’s something else as well, so familiar…

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Heroic: Failure] - But you just can’t place it.

1. “The female parent kind.”
2. “The Ilal-Sahravan kind.”

YOU - “The female parent kind.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He doubles over and physically rocks back and forth, folded at the waist with stifled laughter. “I suppose he does… does give off quite… quite a maternal energy,” he manages to say.

1. “Don’t worry about Trant, he’s like a mummy.”
2. Laugh.
3. “So, you weren’t actually asleep?”

YOU - You laugh, as quietly as you can. Which happens to be pretty damn loud.

KIM KITSURAGI - He laughs, *actually* laughs, and brings a hand up to cover his mouth.

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - No, don’t do that, you beautiful man!

YOU - Wait, what?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - You want to make him feel good. You want to see all of him. You want to know all of him. 

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Something turns in your stomach.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - Thank God you didn’t say that out loud.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Come on, just admit it. You want to savour every moment with him. You want to capture and preserve the expression of pure joy on his face, and stare at it forever.

KIM KITSURAGI - His shoulders are actually shaking now, and small tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. His laughter rings like a wind chime through the motor carriage.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - You can make as much noise as you please, and Trant Heidelstam won’t wake up. He could sleep through the end of the world.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - And he probably will.

COMPOSURE [Formidable: Failure] - Your face begins burning. You could’ve sworn the in-built heating didn’t go *this* high.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - You have been staring at him for an awful long while now. 

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Failure] - Don’t let him see you! Don’t, he’ll know immediately! Quick, turn away, before you ruin everything!

REACTION SPEED [Medium: Success] - Wait… But that look in his eyes…

1. CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary] - That look…
2. Shit, yeah, you’re right. (Turn away)
3. Ignore it. Keep staring, and laugh with him.

Check: Failure

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary: Failure] - It’s nothing. He’s just laughing. You’re just a colleague. A half-brother. That’s all.

-1 Morale

1. CONCEPTUALIZATION [Locked] - That look…
2. Shit, yeah, you’re right. (Turn away)
3. Ignore it. Keep staring, and laugh with him.

KIM KITSURAGI - He’s laughing less now, finally catching his breath.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He’s relaxed. He’s totally vulnerable.

1. “Don’t worry about Trant Heidelstam, he’s like a mummy.”
2. Laugh.
3. “So, you weren’t actually asleep?”

YOU - “So, you weren’t actually asleep?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He clears his throat, slowly becoming a paragon of professionalism again. “No, I wasn’t. Although I admit, I was a bit surprised when I saw you staring at me.”

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - He’s avoiding telling you why he was awake. Ask him.

1. “You were surprised?”
2. “Why weren’t you asleep?”
3. “What did you hear?”

YOU - “You were surprised?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “I mean, if you woke up and saw *me* staring at you, I think you would be pretty surprised too.” He smiles sorely to himself.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - He’s thinking about you. Poor little sick you. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - He’s thinking about something you can’t remember - when you were half-conscious, still recovering.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - It might be important. Don’t forget to ask him about it later, when you’re somewhere a little more private.

1. “You were surprised?”
2. “Why weren’t you asleep?”
3. “What did you hear?”

YOU - “Why weren’t you asleep?”

KIM KITSURAGI - “I couldn’t get to sleep.” He shrugs. “Simple as that.”

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - He did mention he had trouble sleeping. It makes sense, especially with four other people in the motor carriage. 

DRAMA [Easy: Success] - Everything checks out, sire. 

1. No… Ulterior motives?
2. Yeah, it makes sense. (Drop it.)

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - He hates it when you talk about personal matters. Why would there be any?

1. “Are you sure?”
2. Drop it.

YOU - “Are you sure?”

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - He employs a stone-cold expression. It’s slightly jarring - he was laughing moments before.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Yes.” He avoids your gaze, instead looking out of the window, covered with a thin haze of condensation. “Do you think Mr. Vicquemare will be back soon?”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] - He tries not to show it, but he really hated listening to the two of you arguing.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - He’s a little offended that you suggested he even wanted to listen at all.

1. “You were surprised?”
2. “Why weren’t you asleep?”
3. “What did you hear?”

YOU - “What did you hear?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He doesn’t respond. Instead, he shuffles, tucking himself into the corner between the seat and door, and drapes his jacket around his shoulders like a blanket.

HAND / EYE COORDINATION [Medium: Success] - You feel a dull ache in your arms as you watch Kim close his eyes taciturnly. You see the reflection of the headlights outline his collarbones. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - Oh, God…

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - The sudden searing rap of knuckles on the window launches you back into the present. It sounds like hailstones tumbling against the glass.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - It’s Jean. He looks like he’s been dragged backwards through a thicket of brambles. Twice.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - You were so engrossed in staring at Kim, you now look stupid. Well done.

LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - Oh, sorry… I should have known Kim was pretending to be asleep again.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - There’s something that causes you a twang of excitement about knowing Kim’s awake. Jean doesn’t know. It’s your little secret.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Trivial: Success] - Even after stretching, those stairs were too much for Jean. He’s panting like an animal.

1. Unlock the door for him.
2. Stare gormlessly at Kim a little more.
3. Keep him shut out.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - He looks so peaceful, the delicate angles of his face illuminated by the motor carriage headlights like a beautiful old-world mural. He’s so close… but so infinitely far away. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Floating in deep space.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You need to stop slobbering over the lieutenant. Let your partner in! 

1. Keep slobbering over the lieutenant.
2. Let Jean in.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - What is wrong with you?

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - He’s a poem. And we want to read him over and over. We want to dance between his lines forever.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He knocks again, more insistently, on the window. He looks just about ready to smash the pane with a rock to get in.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Listen… I know we have had our disagreements. But he looks actually bloodthirsty. If you don’t let him in, there’s a good chance Kim could bear witness to a murder-suicide.

HAND / EYE COORDINATION [Medium: Success] - You do all have guns, after all.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He snores. Again.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Trivial: Success] - It’s almost deafening. The whole carriage feels cleansed once he stops.

1. Continue to slobber over the lieutenant.
2. Let Jean in.

YOU - You finally tear your eyes away from Kim.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - He is now steadily breathing, creating the full appearance of being firmly asleep. You feel as though you almost believe him yourself. 

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - You lean over the driver’s seat and hook the handle of the door open so Jean can get in.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He enters entirely without gratitude. He takes his seat without even looking at you. 

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - A grand gust of cold air follows him. It blasts you in the face, then quickly permeates through the whole motor carriage.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You hear the soft rustle of Kim pulling his jacket around him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He doesn’t say anything as he brings the motor carriage into motion.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success]- Two can play at this game. 

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - No, you shouldn’t act like a child.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - At least make some small talk.

1. Say nothing. 
2. Say nothing, but do it better than Jean.
3. CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging] - Think of something to say.

Check: Failure

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Failure] - Um… Er… Shit…

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] - Remember what I told you, my son. 

YOU - “Mummies.”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - Snore… 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - Words, music, even art fails to explain how loud he is. Perhaps an enormous cathedral built to commemorate his sheer volume could suffice, but you unfortunately do not have a few centuries to spare nor an army of peasants. 

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] - Even then, the acoustics of a sonorous cathedral would be no match for how FUCKING LOUD HE IS BEING.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - He brings down the property value of his whole postcode from the noise.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He doesn’t say anything and just keeps staring, deranged, through the windscreen. 

LOGIC [Challenging: Failure] - He definitely didn’t hear it. You need to say it again. He needs to hear about ancient Ilal-Sahravan mummies.

1. “Did you HEAR ME, Jean? I said, MUMMIES.”
2. Just keep bumbling on about mummies.
3. Let it go.

YOU - “Did you HEAR ME, Jean? I said, MUMMIES.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He breaks, spectacularly, right before your eyes.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - He yells like he’s on fire. No, like you’re all on fire. No, like the motor carriage is on fire. No - like Martinaise, like Revachol, like the whole damn world is on fire and all everyone is doing is burning.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Fucking *stop*! What is your problem?! I’ve got you talking about mummies in one ear, and Trant fucking Heidelstam snoring so *fucking loud* in the other I’m surprised The Hanged Man hasn’t *woken up* and started talking, fucking h-”

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - His eyes flutter open instantly. “Did somebody say my name?” His hands are still in the mummy position.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - It’s like a reanimation scene from a science-fiction book.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You hear that familiar snort-snore come from Kim again.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He’s really lost his flair for composure. Jean has too, now you think about it. They’ve probably lost it because they’re tired. Everyone is.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - It could also be the impact of the sudden brush with death, an unanticipated renewed zest for life radically transforming him as he truly realises the true worth of companionship and vulnerability to his fellow man. After treating the mortally ill and wounded you, perpetually unsure of whether you would live or die… possibly even the smallest things, like seeing you alive, and laughing, could make him delirious with happiness. So much so that he can’t hide it.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - It might also be the concussion. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Trivial: Success] - It’s probably the concussion, yes.

+1 Morale

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He sighs. It’s drawn out, way out.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - You can feel it in your bones, resounding like a dinner bell. It runs deep.

SHIVERS [Trivial: Success] - This man is, without a doubt, the most exasperated man currently in Revachol. Possibly in the whole of Le Caillou. Maybe even in all of Insulinde.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He heaves another tremendous sigh as he navigates his way onto the driveway of Trant Heidelstam’s residence. “Just fucking go. Please.”

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - You can practically *feel* his eyebags increasing in size.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM’S RESIDENCE - It looks remarkably domestic, even in the harsh light of the headlamps, a suburban domicile. The bright little gems of flowers sparkle in their beds. The lawn is immaculately two-toned. The hedges are so perfectly trimmed, they could be used as rulers. It’s almost out of place in miserable Revachol.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - It looks like a postcard. It’s like it’s trying to tell you something. Everything will be okay here. If you walked inside, it would fix everything, smooth over everything wrong like the creases in a freshly laundered white tablecloth. 

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - She would come back… See everything you’ve done… Run back into your arms… Like some perfect movie…

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Stop it.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He unfolds his hands from his shoulders and smoothly reaches to undo his seatbelt.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - His back is almost unnaturally straight. Nothing, absolutely nothing about him gives even the slightest hint he was just fast asleep. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Easy: Success] - What a champ, he’s raring to go. He looks like he could run a marathon.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Take notes, Harry.

TRANT HEIDELSTAM - He exits the motor carriage in a single second, opening the door and jumping out in one swift movement. He forgets to close the door behind him, completely ruining the gradual warmth slowly reintroduced since Judit got dropped off, and skips down the driveway like a joyful whimsical schoolboy.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - What a fucking pansy.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Pretty damn rich coming from you.

KIM KITSURAGI - He sighs, realising he has to shut the passenger door on the opposite side of the motor carriage. He leans over without moving his lower body and pulls the door shut by its handle. He then wordlessly lifts his legs across the seat, occupying where Trant Heidelstam was sitting moments before, and rests his head on the soft part of the edge of his seat.

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - Kim is using the backseat like it’s a pull-out sofa bed. He lies on his left side, orange bomber jacket still wrapped around his shoulders.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - He’s watching your back. Literally.

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - Oh, he’s forgotten his seatbelt.

1. “Uh, Kim. Your seatbelt.”
2. Don’t disturb him. He looks safe enough.

HALF LIGHT [Challenging: Success] - HE IS GOING TO DIE!!!

1. “Kim, if you don’t put on a seatbelt, you will die.”
2. I don’t want to say that!
3. Let him do whatever. It’s his life. (Proceed)

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Too bad. It’s the truth.

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - Better safe than sorry.

1. “Kim, you are going to die.”
2. Let him do whatever. It’s his life. (Proceed)

YOU - “Kim, you are going to die.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He barely stirs. You almost think he hasn’t heard you, but then he starts lazily groping for the middle chair’s seatbelt. Once he’s grasped it, he pulls it under him and clicks it into place.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - It’s going to dig into his hip. That can’t be too comfortable for him.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks at you like you’re insane. Not that he ever doesn’t, it’s just that this particular glare has a little bit more confusion in it than it does hatred.

COUPRIS 40 - The engine purrs as Jean reverses out of Trant Heidelstam’s residence.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Time to continue this rather difficult conversation. Yay! 

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - ‘Difficult’ is putting it lightly.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He audibly swallows. “*If* you *really* have lost your memory-”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He *still* doesn’t want to believe your medical emergency. It’s almost comical. It’s pretty clear, however, that he’s just kidding himself.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - At this point, he doesn’t even want to continue this conversation. But it’s in his nature. He has to finish what he’s started.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “What I’m saying is,” he sighs shakily, “how the fuck can I even help you?”

1. “That isn’t important right now. Are you a feminist or not?”
2. “Tell me about something I knew…”
3. “Tell me about something I didn’t know before…”
4. “You can’t help me. Not really. Not ever.” (Proceed)

YOU - “That isn’t important right now. Are you a feminist or not?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Are you fucking serious?” There is no humour in his voice.

RHETORIC [Easy: Success] - I knew it! Not a feminist!

1. Push it. Real hard. Make him regret disrespecting women.
2. Nah… (Let it go.)

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - Just don’t blame me when all the dismayed dames he’s disappointed and/or hurt start pouring in…

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He murmurs under his breath. “What the fuck, Harry…”

1. “Tell me about something I knew…”
2. “Tell me about something I didn’t know before…”
3. “You can’t. Not ever.” (Proceed)

YOU - “Tell me about something I knew…”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - I’m not sure you want to do that.

1. “Tell me about Kim.”
2. “Tell me about you.”
3. “Tell me about myself.”
4. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “Tell me about Kim.”

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Fucking hell.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He almost blows a fuse again, but quickly reconciles with himself.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] - He knows Kim is the only person you’ve had by your side for the past week, also known as the only time you can actually recall. He also knows Kim is the only one who has been willing to put up with your bullshit. Naturally, he understands that he is the safest bet. As much as Jean hates it, Kim is where you find comfort.

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - Kim is where you find comfort.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Right…” He sucks in air through gritted teeth. “Lieutenant Kitsuragi. Full name Kim Kitsuragi. Highly decorated police lieutenant from Precinct 57, although not for much longer…Hopefully. Well-regarded for solving many difficult cases and for his relentless dedication to research and thoroughness, some think of him as being Precinct 57th’s finest, or even the best of the whole RCM.”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He’s flattering him, and well and truly laying it on thick. Jean really, really hopes that Kim is awake right now.

1. Check on Kim.
2. Don’t bother.

YOU - You glance up at the rear-view mirror, and there he is.

KIM KITSURAGI - His jaw is clenched, as is his fist. His eyes are tightly closed. He’s fighting against a frown.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - He really, *really hates* flattery. Or even just compliments. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - Especially coming from Jean.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - “Garden-variety Revacholiere.”, “I am the greatest of nothing.” He said it like he’s rehearsed it.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Fuck, I don’t know. Unfortunately, you’ve spent more time with him than I have.”
EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - There’s a slight twinge of jealousy in his voice.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - You’d be lying if you said that didn’t make you a little bit happy.

1. “Tell me about Kim.”
2. “Tell me about you.”
3. “Tell me about myself.”
4. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “Tell me about myself.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He almost laughs. “You!”

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - He’s not going to sugar-coat it. Better brace for impact.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re a fucking drunk. A gym teacher. A disaster.”

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - He’s actually holding back a little!

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - How nice of him, my liege! What a cunt. I mean gentleman! What a *gentleman*.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - This really isn’t helping our situation.

1. “Tell me about Kim.”
2. “Tell me about you.”
3. “Tell me about myself.”
4. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “Tell me about you.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He almost chokes.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - He can’t look much worse than he already does. This almost shoves him over the edge.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “No.” He shakes his head, almost delirious. “No, I can’t. It wouldn’t be right.”

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Success] - He needs you to remember for yourself.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He’s going to *make* you remember. He’d do it even if it killed him, God damn it. 

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Formidable: Success] - He’d do it even if it killed *you*.

1. “Tell me about Kim.”
2. “Tell me about you.”
3. “Tell me about myself.”
4. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “Nevermind.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - His shoulders are so tense. He’s like a dog with its heckles up.

1. “Tell me about something I knew…”
2. “Tell me about something I didn’t know before…”
3. “You can’t. Not ever.” (Proceed)

YOU - “Tell me about something I didn’t know before…”

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - He’s digging deep for this one.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He clears his throat. “I used to tell you… that my most serious injury while on the force was getting shot in the shoulder. But…” 

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - He is really forcing himself to recount this. It takes him a lot of energy to dredge up memories he wants to forget.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Usually, he would never tell anyone this.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - But he trusts you. After everything, he still trusts you.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “When I was a junior officer, way back before I met you,” He hesitates. “I was learning to ride horses, as part of my training as an equestrian officer. And there was this one horse - her name was Honeybell, because she was a horse for trainees.”

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - How sweet. And emasculating.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “In short, the fucking horse bucked me off. I had bruises all over my left side for weeks, with a particularly bad one on my hip that made it hell to go up and down stairs. I broke multiple bones, I can’t remember which. If that wasn’t enough I also had fucking internal bleeding from where the beast *kicked* me while I was on the ground, like I was a rock or some shit. I almost quit my job after that.”

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - Snort-snores. All through this speech. God knows how Jean hasn’t noticed.

1. Laugh. Very loudly. For a very long time.
2. “Do you have a scar?”
3. “Honeybell really showed you!”

YOU - “Do you have a scar?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He scoffs. “No, I don’t, obviously, because then you would’ve…” He trails off.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - A beat of silence, then you hear the quietest gasp you’ve ever heard in your life from the backseat. It’s more like a sharp inhale.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] - The lieutenant has just connected the dots. 

YOU - What dots?

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - Don’t you see them?

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Why do you think his body is so familiar to you? 

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - What do you think that imperceptible look behind his eyes means? His determination to make you remember?

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Best not to keep thinking about this.

1. You’re right. Best not.
2. Seriously, what dots?

LOGIC [Trivial: Success] - You’ve fucked. Probably more than once.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - *Definitely* more than once.

YOU - “WHAT?!”

KIM KITSURAGI - You shout so loudly that Kim flinches, opens his eyes immediately and clambers upright into the middle seat as fast as he possibly can.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - You’ve done WHAT?

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Trivial: Success] - With HIM?!

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Would he…do it with us again?

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Yes…” he draws the word out, then shrugs. He turns, and his eyes grow wide when he sees your expression. “Wait.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - His face is practically burning. You can feel the heat emanating from it.

YOU - Neither of you have to say it.

KIM KITSURAGI - He’s sat bolt upright, practically tied to the middle chair with the seatbelt, both hands over his mouth. His eyes are screwed shut from the effort of not laughing. His whole body is shuddering.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - He didn’t even notice his jacket slide off his body and into the footwell.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Jean looks in the rear-view mirror at the sound of Kim sitting up.

KIM KITSURAGI - Noticing Jean, He starts huffing into his hands and breathing by hissing through his teeth. He moves restlessly, as much as he can, writhing like a wounded animal.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - He’s trying to lie! You have to admit, sire, the way he smoothly transitions from laughing to seemingly having his bones bitten by the winter air is quite ingenious.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - Even his teeth are chattering.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - You need to back up your fellow officer!

1. “Kim is lying to us, Jean.”
2. “Wow… It’s so cold in here, Jean, isn’t it?”
3. Say nothing. Leave him to his own devices.

YOU - “Wow… It’s so cold in here, Jean, isn’t it?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He glances sideways at you, then at Kim. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - He looks even more mortified at leaving a decorated lieutenant in the cold. 

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - He fumbles with the heating dial, turning it up to full. 

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - Not that it really makes any difference.

KIM KITSURAGI - He scoops his jacket off the floor and drapes it over his torso again, arms still shaking.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - Kim is trying unbelievably hard to keep a straight face. He’s succeeding, but the intense effort it’s taking is evident.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - I’m still having a hard time dealing with the fact that… with *him*...

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - I hope you realise you’ve been staring, slack-jawed, at Jean this entire time.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - You should say *something*.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Don’t tell me…” He groans.

1. “I don’t *actually remember* it, but…”
2. “You’re telling me that I??? FUCKED YOU???”
3. Deny it. Vehemently.

YOU - “You’re telling me that I??? FUCKED YOU???”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He’s so embarrassed, he’s emanating heat as much as, if not more than, the actual heater in the motor carriage. The window next to him is beginning to form a thin film of condensation. “Let’s not talk about that right now, Lieutenant Kitsuragi is…” He gestures to the rear-view mirror.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Trivial: Success] - But what he really wants to say is that it was more the other way around - HE fucked YOU.

KIM KITSURAGI - He can’t resist, and he lets out the most tremendous laugh. It trills and chimes through the motor carriage.

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - That lovely, lovely sound.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He’s forgotten himself. Completely.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] - Just like you have!

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Of all things, you even fail at being a homosexual. Unbelievable.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - Fail? Just because we let Jean top us we *fail*?

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - Yes. Now you know for certain you’re a beta male.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - A what?
AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - Nevermind.

-1 Morale

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - You can feel that this is probably the most humiliated Jean has ever been in his entire life. He wants so desperately for Lieutenant Kitsuragi to think highly of him, and you’ve just, frankly, destroyed his confidence.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - In reality, this is the highest Kim’s thought of him since they met.

COUPRIS 40 - There’s the crunching of tyres on gravel as the Coupris rolls up to Kim’s residence, a decent-looking apartment block.

DECENT-LOOKING APARTMENT BLOCK - It looks decent. It seems nice to live in. There’s a yellow light on in one of the downstairs apartments, shining through old lace curtains. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - It seems the most ‘homey’ out of the others. Or maybe you only get that impression from knowing Kim lives here. You can’t really tell.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - It dawns on you that you haven’t felt as comfortable, as *vulnerable* with anyone as you do with Kim, for a very, *very* long time.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - It’s like you can almost picture the domestic bliss. Like an aching memory. A scene from a book you can never read.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Khm. Thank you for the lift, Mr. Vicquemare.” He unbuckles himself from the middle seat, slips his bomber jacket on and climbs over the seat to open the motor carriage door.

KIM KITSURAGI - You follow his outline in the rear-view mirror as he climbs out of the car. He slips on his jacket when he’s finally standing outside, and zips it halfway up.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Success] - You think he winces, but it’s hard to tell in the dark.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - What did I say?! He should’ve STRETCHED, GODDAMN IT!

KIM KITSURAGI - He taps his heel, then puts his glasses back on with one graceful motion. He begins to walk toward the entryway.

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - No! Don’t go!

1. SUGGESTION [Formidable] - Walk Kim to his apartment.
2. Let Jean walk him up.
3. Shout after Kim.

Check: Failure

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Failure] - You just can’t get the words right. While you’re mentally stuttering, Jean has already jumped at the chance…

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I’ll walk you in, Lieutenant.”

YOU - Something inside you falters.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - Jean wants to walk Kim up to get a chance to explain everything.

KIM KITSURAGI - He raises an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Harry is coming with me.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Fuck yes.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - My God. His power… Jean doesn’t stand a chance.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks well and truly bewildered. “But you… Harry’s coming home with *me*. *I’m* treating his wound. He shouldn’t be overexerting himself by walking you up.”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Kim stiffens as he hears the way Jean says he’ll treat you. Like it’s a given.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - He’s getting *protective* again.

KIM KITSURAGI - “I think you had better stick with the motor carriage.” 

YOU - You get out of the motor carriage so quickly you almost fall over, and stumble in the dark towards Kim.

KIM KITSURAGI - He indicates the entrance of the apartment block. You follow him inside, and climb up the stairs behind him. He occasionally glances back at you, presumably to make sure your injury isn’t causing you awful pain.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - It is, but you hide it well.

DECENT-LOOKING APARTMENT BLOCK CORRIDOR - The hallway is long, and obscured by the gloom of the night. Overhead there are only a few red emergency lights acting as illumination. Either side there are doors, each leading into a separate apartment.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - A small pang of fear twinges in your gut as you look down the dark throat of the corridor.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - A shiver darts up your back as you feel a cold but strong hand on the small of your back. Your head snaps to Kim, walking beside you.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - Your jaw is on the fucking floor. You look so dumb. Pick it up.

KIM KITSURAGI - A smirk, half-visible in the dark. “Don’t worry. Mr. Vicquemare can’t see us here.” He speaks with dulcet… No, *sultry* tones.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Hooooly SHIT. I’m FREAKING OUT.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Don’t get a hard-on. Don’t.

RHETORIC [Easy: Success] - If you didn’t know any better, you would say he *knows* what effect this would have on you.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - A thousand fireworks erupt in your stomach.

KIM KITSURAGI - And he *winks*. The bastard WINKS.

1. COMPOSURE [Impossible] - KEEP YOUR COOL!
2. DRAMA [Impossible] - MY GOD! DON’T SWOON!
3. VOLITION [Impossible] - STAY CALM!

Check: Failure

COMPOSURE [Impossible: Failure] - You feel your skin grow hot from your neck to your ears. You must be even redder than Jean was ten minutes ago.

KIM KITSURAGI - Thankfully, Kim isn’t looking at you. No, he’s steering you with his hand, gazing ahead. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - A shepherd with his flock. A captain and his ship.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - A knight and his sword.

HAND / EYE COORDINATION [Medium: Success] - Or just a man and his smoking gun.

COMPOSURE [Trivial: Success] - He’s not blushing.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - He can’t, remember?

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - The fireworks are still shooting up and fizzling out, over and over, and if Kim doesn’t move his hand soon I think we might die, *actually* fucking die, right here, right now.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He must have his hand over one of those nerves that can kill a man instantly, just from a little too much pressure.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Trivial: Success] - Nope. Those don’t exist.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - You’ve forgotten what it’s like to feel protected.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Don’t shy away from it, it’s good for you.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - You hear the rustle of Kim’s bomber jacket as he moves, just a little.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - Imagine the way his hips are moving as he walks, putting one foot in front of the other. Such a delicate, yet effortlessly perfect motion. The way the fabric of his trousers folds and shifts around his legs… The way his body moves… or could move…

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Honest question, do you ever shut up?

KIM KITSURAGI - “So… Boytoy, huh?”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - HELL YEAH!

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Be normal for once, please. This is important.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - I second that.

1. “Fuck yeah. You’re my boytoy.”
2. “I didn’t mean it!” (Lie.)
3. “Sorry, I didn’t ask you. Do you want to be my boytoy, Kim? Officially?”
4. Say nothing. You are mortified.

YOU - “I didn’t mean it!”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - *Thank* you.

KIM KITSURAGI - He jerks an eyebrow up, but doesn’t say anything for a moment.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - His hand doesn’t falter.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Well… he is a member of the Homosexual Underground. Maybe…

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Oh God, not you too.

1. “Fuck yeah. You’re my boytoy.”
2. “I didn’t mean it!” (Lie.)
3. “Sorry, I didn’t ask you. Do you want to be my boytoy, Kim? Officially?”
4. Say nothing. You are mortified.

YOU - “Sorry, I didn’t ask you. Do you want to be my boytoy, Kim? Officially?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He laughs again, that wonderful, wonderful laugh.

YOU - You can feel it tremor in his hand.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - My God! His hand! His hand is still on our back!

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Success] - Does he even *know* what he’s doing to you?!

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - Your heart is beating so fast you’re almost afraid it might jump out of your throat and become a bloody pulsating mass on the floor.

KIM KITSURAGI - “I, personally, have no inclination towards being anybody’s *boytoy*. However…”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - …if someone *else* wanted to be *my* boytoy, I might have to take some time to consider.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - …Speechless. I am without speech.

YOU - You swallow, noticing your mouth is incredibly dry. Surely you must nearly be at Kim’s apartment.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You become almost agonisingly aware of the sound of yours and Kim’s footsteps on the wooden flooring, stepping almost in harmony.

KIM KITSURAGI - He isn’t saying anything. He doesn’t think it’s necessary.

1. Say something. Anything.
2. No! I can’t! Not with Kim’s hand on my back!
3. He’s jamming my ability to think!
4. I’m going to stutter and say something stupid.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - His *hand*. It’s so firm, yet so graceful. Insistent. Dominant, even.

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - Your back is quite literally tingling from the pressure of Kim’s arm. You can feel each of his fingers digging into your skin.

1. Say something. Anything.
2. No! I can’t! Not with Kim’s hand on my back!
3. He’s jamming my ability to think!
4. I’m going to stutter and say something stupid.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] - There’s nothing else in your mind. Just Kim. Kim, next to you. Kim, who’s quite literally the only reason you haven’t lost your absolute shit in the past week.

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - He’s anchoring you. But he’s anchoring you with him. To the point where nothing else matters. You’re a ship in the harbour, Harry.

1. Say something. Anything.
2. No! I can’t! Not with Kim’s hand on my back!
3. He’s jamming my ability to think!
4. I’m going to stutter and say something stupid.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - Kim wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t. At all.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - You could say literally anything and Kim would still consider you one of his own.

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - Wait! That thing he was talking about earlier! When you asked him why he was surprised you were looking at him when you realised he was awake!

1. RHETORIC [Challenging] - Ask what he was thinking about earlier.
2. “Do you know your hand is on my back? And I feel like throwing up. Holy fuck.”
3. Just start talking about mummies again.
4. Say nothing. 

Check: Success

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - Just be casual, and make sure that he knows what you’re talking about.

YOU - “Earlier, when we were laughing, you said something that stuck in my mind.”

KIM KITSURAGI - “Oh? What was it?”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He’s half-paying attention. You suddenly become highly aware of the fact that he is very, very tired.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - “...if you woke up and saw *me* staring at you, I think you would be pretty surprised too…”

1. “When you said I’d be surprised if I woke up and saw you staring at me…”
2. “Were you staring at me in my sleep?!”
3. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “Were you staring at me in my sleep?!”

KIM KITSURAGI - He starts slightly. 

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He was not expecting you to ask that. He’s almost smiling, though. He likes how unpredictable you are.

KIM KITSURAGI - “When you were recovering from two gunshot wounds, of course I had to watch you. It’s my duty as an officer of the RCM.” He hesitates, but his hand on your back still doesn’t falter. “Admittedly, I did fall asleep myself a couple of times, but…”

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - He’s holding something back. 

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Human can opener, Go! Let’s wring the truth out of him!

1. “When you said I’d be surprised if I woke up and saw you staring at me…”
2. “Were you staring at me in my sleep?!”
3. “Nevermind.”

YOU - “When you said I’d be surprised if I woke up and saw you staring at me…”

KIM KITSURAGI - He stops abruptly. “We’re here.” He drops his hand from your waist, brushing your hip as he burrows his hand into his right pocket to find his keys.

DECENT-LOOKING APARTMENT DOOR - It’s sturdy, but somewhat old. A brass number hangs from the top middle of the door with a damaged knocker below it. It’s degraded with a golden sheen from years of usage - this apartment has had many previous owners, before Kim. The door is painted over in white, but it’s chipped in some of the dents and corners, and glimpses of colour peek through.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Challenging: Success] - Blue. This door used to be blue.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Be careful. All of the worst things are.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - Kim’s keys jangle as he puts them in the lock. He has a battered keychain with a small symbol on it.

REACTION SPEED [Challenging: Success] - It looks simple, but unfamiliar. It could be a logo used for advertising or to promote a campaign… but Kim’s too subtle for overt alliances. 

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Challenging: Success] - Ooh! It could be something from the sci-fi cult novel series Sun’s Conflict, which is mainly concerned with *fantasy* politics, but it’s too niche for you to place which faction it is exactly.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - You know the drill. Ask him. Later.

KIM KITSURAGI - He steps inside.

YOU - You stay outside. It feels wrong to just walk in.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - There’s a row of coat hangers to the left of the door, adorned with a small array of jackets.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Oh. Come in.” But he doesn’t move from the doorway.

YOU - You tentatively step inside, and Kim shuts the door behind you. He secures the latch instead of locking it.

KIM KITSURAGI - “I think it’s only right that I tell you.” He flicks on a light by the front door, flooding the room with a soft yellow light. He sighs and looks directly at you. “Harry…”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - He says your name in such an achingly gentle way. He almost whispers it. *Harry*.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - You almost think he might reach his hand out and caress your cheek. But of course, he doesn’t.

KIM KITSURAGI - “While you were recovering, I was keeping an eye on you when you were asleep.” He doesn’t break eye contact with you. “You slept a lot, your body needed it to recover. But there was one occasion when you were saying his name in your sleep…Jean. When you woke up you were very upset. I know you don’t remember it, you were utterly incoherent.” 

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - He takes a shaky breath. It’s hard for him to recount this. He is not at all good with ‘personal matters’ like this. But he pushes through his apprehension.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] - He truly believes you have the right to know what you went through, even if it hurts.

KIM KITSURAGI - “You were crying, and holding on to me, gripping on to my arms like I was the only thing keeping you safely in this world. In my panic I gave you one of my handkerchiefs. And you called *me* Mr. Vicquemare’s name.” He bites the inside of his cheek.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - So calling him ‘Mr. Vicquemare’ isn’t just plain old disrespect. Saying his name brings up that awful memory.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - You must have scared Kim. God, how you must have frightened him.

INLAND EMPIRE [Formidable: Success] - You can see his face during the moment, buried deep in your mind's eye. Kim was barely holding it together while you sobbed and thrashed and groped for him, in your half-conscious, barely lucid state. You called him ‘Jean’ and his face fell like a house of cards; his nose crumpled, and he swallowed a hard lump in his throat.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - There’s a gnawing pain in your chest.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Success] - Kim’s slender hands are trembling. Ever so slightly.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - You feel like you should apologise, or comfort him, or say *something*.

KIM KITSURAGI - Before you can muster up anything, he leaves wordlessly, turning and going to the other room.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - This is all too much for him.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - But don’t you want to know more? Don’t you want to know how he soothed you, don’t you want to see how he reacted when you were a complete mess? Aren’t you curious about how he took care of you, when no one else would?

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - Don’t you want to follow him into the other room?

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Keep him in your sssights forever, sire! Don’t let him slip away.
VOLITION [Medium: Success] - It wouldn’t be fair. Do not push the subject. Let him have his privacy, he deserves it after everything.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - You aren’t his dog.

YOU - You absent-mindedly slip a hand into your jacket pocket. Your fingers are met with a silk fabric.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - Kim’s handkerchief.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - Your heart shudders.

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - You need to get out of here. Right fucking now.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - If you’re going to do that, you need to tell him. 

1. VOLITION [Impossible] - Call out to Kim.
2. Start crying.
3. SAVOIR FAIRE [Challenging] - Leave. Quietly.

Check: Failure

SAVOIR FAIRE [Challenging: Failure] - Your hands are shaking relentlessly as you twist the doorknob.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - You’re breathing loudly. Too loudly. Stop that.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - The sound of the door clicking shut behind you burns through your ears and ends up prickling behind your eyes.

SHIVERS [Formidable: Success] - Kim hears the door shut. He’s heard it a hundred times. He leans back against the wall, steadying himself. He looks pale.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - Each step you take echoes in the sparsely-furnished hallway.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - A shooting pain assaults your left side as you walk. Shit, you could really do with someone to lean on right now.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - You just have to make it down the stairs.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - The metal handle of the entryway door to the decent-looking apartment block is blisteringly cold against your bare skin. The cold air of the late-winter night is even worse.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - The Coupris is still there, but its headlamps are off.

1. Wait. Until something happens. 
2. Go up to the Coupris.

YOU - You wait.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - And wait.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - And wait.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Still… waiting.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - It is very, very cold out here. 

YOU - You keep waiting. And thinking. 

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Nothing is going to happen unless you make it happen. Do something.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - You should smoke. It would complete the look- a brooding detective, waiting alone in the dark, raises a smouldering cigarette to his lips… The tension is unbearable! Do it!

1. Light up a cigarette. In anticipation.
2. Keep waiting. You can do this until total entroponetic collapse.
3. Go back to Kim’s apartment.
4. Go to the Coupris.

+1 Intellect

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - There we go! You look wonderful. Very dramatic. Very Dick Mullen.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Your leg hurts so much more than it did five minutes ago. It feels like it’s trying to kill you.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - The combination of walking up stairs and the relentless cold has significantly aggravated your wound’s pain. 

-1 Health

1. Keep waiting. You could do this forever.
2. Go back to Kim’s apartment.
3. Go to the Coupris.

YOU - You limp over to the Coupris. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Through the window, you see him bundled up in the driver’s seat, eyes closed, with his arms crossed over his chest.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Not like a mummy.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He seems… oddly peaceful, considering everything. Having a moment to calm down without you, or anybody, there has done him some good.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Something tugs at your heart.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - You miss him. It’s a habit.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - You feel like you’re reaching and grasping for a memory of something you have never experienced. It’s like you’re trying to recount an echo of an echo of a story you heard a hundred million years ago.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - For the first time in a few days, it dawns on you that you are completely alone. There’s no-one waiting for you. There’s nothing you can do.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Challenging: Success] - No-one can stop you from leaving. If you still want to do that, of course.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - Your wound will get infected if the bandages aren’t changed tonight. And if that infection doesn’t get treated it’ll probably develop into sepsis and spread. And then you’ll die.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - So maybe don’t forget to do that. And don’t end up somewhere where you can’t do that.

1. SAVOIR FAIRE [Challenging] - Walk right past the Coupris, into the night. Forever.
2. Get into the motor carriage.
3. Keep waiting.

YOU - Tentatively, you open the passenger-side door. Jean immediately sits up and looks directly at you. You clamber into the seat, avoiding eye contact with him. You close the door behind you with a muted thud.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He mumbles. “Took you long enough.” He pokes at a few buttons on the console with languorous fingers, and then buckles himself back into the Coupris. He doesn’t start driving.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - You’re sitting in the car park of Kim’s apartment block. You can see a gentle gold light spilling from his front-facing window, the room obscured by semi-opaque curtains.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Jean’s eyes are boring into your head. And he isn’t pulling the Coupris out of the car park.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - You’re trapped between two worlds. 

1. SUGGESTION [Heroic] - Tell him about what happened while you were recovering.
2. DRAMA [Locked] - Convince him you still remember.
3. “Wait, you said I was staying with you now?”
4. “Mummies.”
5. Say nothing.
6. Leave the Coupris. (Leave)

YOU - “Wait, you said I was staying with you now?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Are you fucking kidding me?” He sounds surprised more than anything.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - He took this for granted - he couldn’t even begin to imagine anyone else would want to take you for a few nights, nor would you want to stay with anyone other than him.

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Success] - That agonising familiarity. It aches behind his temples.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - And there’s no way in hell he would let you go back to your own apartment the first night after coming back from Martinaise - God knows what state it’s in.

1. “I don’t want to stay with you! I want to stay with Kim!”
2. “I don’t want to stay with you! I want to stay at my own place!”
3. “I’ll stay with you.”

YOU - “I don’t want to stay with you! I want to stay with Kim!”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He blinks rapidly, but whether it’s surprise or offence or if he simply has something in his eye, you can’t quite tell.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Has Kim even-” He splutters. He does not know what to make of this. He thinks you’re insane.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I feel…” He bites his lip, then sighs deeply. For a moment he looks as though he might just start driving without a word. He is not good at being vulnerable. At all. “I owe it to you. After…”

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - After abandoning you in Martinaise.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - After leaving you for dead.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - After treating you like lower than the scum of the earth.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - After not caring for you, even after you were wounded.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - After everything.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I’ve helped you out of this shit a hundred times, Harry. Probably even more. I’ve looked after you, over and over, and I’d do it again. Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t know why, but I would do it again.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success]- He knows he should have been there, right from the beginning of the case, and beyond it. He’s your partner, for fuck’s sake.

1. “It’s okay. I know I must have been difficult.”
2. “I don’t need you. I have Kim.”
3. “Can we just start driving now?”

YOU - “I don’t need you. I have Kim.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He looks right at you, and you can only see the glaringly dark circles under his eyes. “You can’t be fucking serious. Can you *please* just cooperate for once? We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow morning…”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - But there’s something else he wants to say.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He stares past you, into the middle distance, for a few moments, stifling it. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You radioed us from Lieutenant Kitsuragi’s Coupris Kineema.” He stops for a moment. “You needed us. You can’t just leave us behind, and pretend that the Precinct doesn’t fucking matter to you…”

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He says ‘us’, but he really means ‘me’.

1. “I only did it because Kim told me to. It means nothing.”
2. “I lost my badge, and my gun. It’s protocol to radio the Precinct. You know that.”
3. “I do need you, then. Whatever. Start the car.”

YOU - “I lost my badge, and my gun. It’s protocol to radio the Precinct. You know that.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Yes, and I *tried* to help you. I *protected* you. Told them it was a prank. The entire precinct had me as the butt of their jokes for days after that, but I *was* doing my best… it’s my duty as your partner…”

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - ‘Partner.’ He says it over and over again, like a mantra. Like if he says it enough times, it’ll be true again.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - That’s not quite how you remember it.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He kept saying ‘lost’ and ‘badge’. Far more than was necessary. If anything, he was just making matters worse.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - But this isn’t about your badge. This is about you.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - You can’t wait here forever, you’re going to bleed through your bandages. Make a decision. 

1. “Let’s go already. I’m tired.”
2. “I’m not staying with you.”

YOU - “I’m not staying with you.”

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He won’t take no for an answer.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “No. Lieutenant Kitsuragi isn’t my fucking *replacement*. We’ve known each other for years, and you’ve spent, what, a week with him? You must be insane to think I’m letting you go. *I’m* obviously the best person to take care of you, if that’s what you’re so concerned about, I’ve looked after you dozens of times - just because you can’t *fucking remember it* doesn’t mean it didn’t *happen*!”

RHETORIC [Easy: Success] - He’s just whipping accusations out of thin air. No-one said Kim was a replacement.
PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - It goes even deeper than that. But he won’t say it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Yeah, he’s taken care of you. Taken care of you *real good*.

1. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
2. “But where were you while I was bleeding out on a shitty pull-out bed?!”
3. “No-one said Kim was a replacement.”
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “But where were you while I was bleeding out on a shitty pull-out bed?!”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I was at the Precinct, after you told me and everyone else to fuck off!”

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - …Yeah, he’s got you there.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - If he really cared as much as he says he does, why didn’t he visit you?

1. “If you really cared, why didn’t you check on me?”
2. Say nothing.

YOU - “If you really cared, why didn’t you check on me?”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “I…” He looks deeply uncomfortable for a moment.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - You weren’t *you*. You didn’t remember him. What was the point? You’d only accuse him of being animal control, or a male nurse, or a firefighter again.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - And you still don’t remember him now…

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - A thinly concealed look of panic appears on Jean’s face.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - It’s dawned on him.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - He couldn’t bear to see you in that state, *especially* when he’d automatically search for any hint of recognition in your face and would only be met with blank eyes.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - He believes that you really couldn’t remember anything all along. I was wrong.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - And he’s finally come to terms with the fact this may be it. For real, this time. You may never regain your memories.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - And if you do, there’s no guarantee you would recover them fully. You may have even created false memories, and you would have no way of sifting through what’s fact and what’s fiction.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Missing pieces, like a half-decade old jigsaw, with all the pictures peeled off or sun-bleached beyond recognition. Unusable. 

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - It’s hit him all at once, like a dam collapsing from the weight it is holding back. Jean has realised he may never get the old Harry du Bois back. And this frightens him more than anything in the world.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable: Success] - Because he loves you. He loves you so much and now, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to say it.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - You should tell him. Tell him you were saying his name in your sleep when you were recovering. He could do with the comfort.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - He shivers, but it’s not cold in the motor carriage anymore. He hasn’t moved since he last spoke.

1. SUGGESTION [Heroic] - Tell him about what happened while you were recovering.
2. DRAMA [Locked] - Convince him you still remember.
3. “Wait, you said I was staying with you now?”
4. “Mummies.”
5. Say nothing.
6. Leave the Coupris. (Leave)

Check: Failure

SUGGESTION [Heroic: Failure] - You open your mouth to speak, reveal a vulnerable part of your soul to him, make him realise that there’s still a part of you deep, deep down that remembers him, and still needs him, and that if you work together then, by some miracle, you could uncover it.

YOU - But the words die in your throat and you can’t muster up anything to say, so you try The Expression instead.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - Not like it’s ever done you any favours.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - You look fucking stupid. Wipe that grimace off your face.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “You’re fucking insane.” His voice rings with defeat.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Challenging: Success] - I’m never getting you back, he thinks. His ribcage is like a wasps’ nest with the speed at which his heart is beating.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - There’s something in the way he’s looking at you right now.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - His eyes are entrenched with a deep melancholy. And something else…

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - Yearning. He’s drowning in it.

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Success] - And not in the romantic way. The throw-up-water-and-choke-and-splutter way. The bloodshot-eyes-bulging-out-of-a-heavy-body way. He’s drowning in it in the way that kills you. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Something sparks at the forefront of your memory, like flicking a lighter with your thumb. A rustle in your frontal cortex.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - A brush of cold, rough hands. A shirt cuff with a brown stain on it.

1. What was that?
2. Ignore it.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - Best not to go digging around. You’re going to find something that hurts.

1. It hurts enough already.
2. Ignore it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - A-ha, Harry! Always the self-destroyer. That’s my boy.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - There’s a crease in his jacket, near the lapel.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - You say something to make him laugh. He smiles politely. It’s lopsided on his pox-scarred face.

1. Who?
2. Ignore it. There’s still time.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Trivial: Success] - Isn’t it obvious?

RHETORIC [Trivial: Success] - You know who.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - The more you try to grasp the moment, the further it recedes. Like the tide pulling in from the shore.

1. INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic] - Remember it.
2. I don’t want to. This always ends painfully.
3. Nothing is ever soft for me.
4. ‘Gentle’ is not a word I know.

Check: Success

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - You remember his eyes.

1. Tell him.
2. Keep the memory to yourself.
3. Don’t cause any more damage.
4. Please.

YOU - “You looked so…young.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - The memory is just fragments, but it’s there, and it *itches*.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He holds his hand out to you. It’s large, and his skin is cracked from the relentless Revacholian winter. His jacket is well-tailored.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He grins at you and says something.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - His hair is shorter. Maybe too short. He looks… brighter, somehow. Physically.

INTERFACING [Challenging: Success] - You grasp his hand and shake it. 

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You need to make a good impression! This is important!

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - Your heart thuds like you’re back there again.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “What?”

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He notices the stain on your shirt cuff and the gauze covering your wrist and the back of your hand. Your hand had trembled more than usual while making your morning coffee.

1. Tell him.
2. Don’t. Stop. You know how this ends.
3. There’s still time to turn back…
4. It doesn’t have to be like this.

YOU - “I shook your hand…”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - He pales. His brows unfurrow. He’s just realised what you’re talking about. 

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - The day is murky. But something else comes to mind.

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Trivial: Success] - Apricot gum.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - You gave him apricot gum.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - It was a rough case. “Let’s clear our heads,” you said. “The sun has set.”

1. I want to destroy him.
2. Enough! I can still fix this, I know it!
3. Not this time, Harry.
4. You can’t.

YOU - “And… we walked down the pier, and shared a cigarette?”

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He scuffs his foot along the planks as you walk across them, the screws rusting around the edges from the sea air. He kicks a stone boyishly, and scratches the back of his neck.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - Neither of you have said anything for a short while. It hangs awkwardly in the space between you.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - His hands are folded behind his back as he gazes down the pier. His features are dimly illuminated by a flickering street lamp.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Success] - He sits on a bench and adjusts his jacket, in the same way he does every time his hands have nothing to do. You sit beside him. 

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - There are no crickets chirping, or birds in the sky. Neither of you speak. There is only the soft hush of the waves below you.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - You offer the cigarette to him. 

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - How long has that been in your hand?

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He nods politely and takes it. Your skin prickles as your hands brush.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - He smokes, and his shoulders shudder in the winter air. The sun went down hours ago.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - You offer him your jacket, despite the fact you would be cold without it. He shakes his head.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - But there’s a small twinkle in his eye as he looks at you.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He looks so vulnerable in the moonlight.

YOU - “I remember now! It was dark, and so cold, and I wanted you to like me, so I tried to give you my jacket, but you said no.”

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - There was that *same* look in his eyes, even then. That sickening *yearning*.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - He takes another drag from the cigarette and looks up into the night sky. The void stares straight back at him. There are no stars under street lamps.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - The street lamp illuminates the double crown of his hair like a halo. Like he’s something radical and holy.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Trivial: Success] - And he was beautiful - you remember that above all.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Success] - The curve of his adam's apple as he looks up, what could be smoke or his white breath escaping his throat, light on the wind…

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - It suffocates you.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - To you, he is memory personified. This might be the only thing you have in common.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - The silence burns you. He looks like he might snap clean in two.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Easy: Success] - Every single one of his muscles are tensed.

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Fuck you.” He laughs bitterly. “Actually fuck you. After everything you’ve just put me through, you can’t say that. No. You can’t say that to me. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself, Harrier du Bois. If that’s who you even are anymore… whatever *thing* you’ve turned yourself into.”

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - You’ve gone and fucked it up. For good this time. 

1. “I’m sorry, Jean.”
2. Say nothing. It would only make matters worse.

YOU - “I’m sorry, Jean.”

JEAN VICQUEMARE - Hearing his name in your voice for the first time in God knows how long cuts him. Deep.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - His eyes grow wide.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Like an animal’s.

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - I know I haven’t served you well in the past. Please accept my humble apology for that. But oh my God, if you don’t get out of here as soon as possible, you are going to die. 

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - Everything he has been barely holding in the entire car ride is going to come out all at once. It will be huge, and ugly, and unforgiving.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Like the wrath of some insane eldritch God, locked away in a foreign land.

HALF LIGHT [Trivial: Success] - Run. 

JEAN VICQUEMARE - “Get out.”

SAVOIR FAIRE [Easy: Success] - Don’t let him tell you twice.

1. Stay.
2. Leave.

YOU - You leave the motor carriage very deliberately. Jean has to realise that this marks goodbye, at least for now. At least for a while.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - You don’t look at the Coupris as Jean drives away, without a second thought. 

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - You have no option but to go back to Kim. Or sleep in the porch of the decent-looking apartment block.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - You need to change the bandages. You have to go back to Kim.

SUGGESTION [Formidable: Failure] - Kim? But Kim *hates* us. 

EMPATHY [Heroic: Failure] - You made him scared. You made him leave the room. He doesn’t want to see you again.

ENDURANCE [Trivial: Success] - You can’t breathe. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - The air constricts around you, it’s crushing.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Challenging: Success] - Suddenly, you’re aware of everything, and nothing. Your eyes feel like they are the only part of your body, but they’re glazed over.

VOLITION [Formidable: Failure] - You shouldn’t have done that to Jean. You should have gone with him. 

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - The pain in your pelvis is only getting worse. It’s intensifying the panic attack. 

HALF LIGHT [Heroic: Failure] - YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Medium: Success] - Your body feels like nothing. You can’t feel yourself moving, but you must be, because the world keeps panning up and down, over and over again.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - Like a transition shot from a rental film.

INLAND EMPIRE [Heroic: Failure] - Consciousness is shucking itself off your body and mind. Everything is spinning. Nothing exists. 

SHIVERS [Challenging: Success] - FOCUS

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Success] - Come on. Hold it together. Breathe as slowly as you can.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Yes. It’ll be okay.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - Kim is your half-brother. Even if he hated you, he would have to let you in.

YOU - You stagger towards the door of the decent-looking apartment block, clutching your chest as you fall against it.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - The door is freezing.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - You’re staying with Kim, no matter what. 

HALF LIGHT [Challenging: Success] - Whether he’s willing to take you in for the night or not. Sleep on his doorstep if you have to.

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] - I was referencing the fact that your bandages need to be changed. But be as co-dependent as you want, it’s not my business.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Your lower back burns with the phantom sensation of Kim’s hand, where it was placed minutes ago.

DECENT-LOOKING APARTMENT BLOCK DOOR - It’s falling open as you lean against it.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - You forgot to close the door as you left. 

INTERFACING [Challenging: Success] - It’s a little stiff and quite heavy. Needs a good oiling. 

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Breathe out. Get up. Open it.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - You’ve started to feel attached to your own body again, but it’s not over yet. The pain in your leg is getting so bad, you can hardly stand.

DECENT-LOOKING APARTMENT BLOCK CORRIDOR - The sight of it, just the same as you left it, manages to both ground you and exacerbate the panic.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - It reminds you this is really happening.

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Success] - Keep going. Keep walking. You have to.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Challenging: Success] - One foot in front of the other. And again. And again.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - It’s pure agony.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - “Infernal engine.”

KIM KITSURAGI - You stop in your tracks when you see him. He’s walking quickly down the hallway, looking toward the window. He stops and straightens up when he sees you.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - His hair is wet. Small patches of his white shirt have turned translucent with the droplets of water from his neck and ears.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - His sweatpants are barely hanging from his hips. There’s a small gap between the waistband and his shirt. You can see a sliver of his tummy. 

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - He was showering, and got out in a hurry. Too fast to properly dry himself off.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Harry! Thank *God*.”

1. “Kim!”
2. “You were coming back for me!”
3. “Sorry for running away like that.”

YOU - “Kim!”

KIM KITSURAGI - “I heard the Coupris leave. I thought you had gone.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - A shooting wave of pain in your leg.

COMPOSURE [Legendary: Failure] - You wince and shudder, unable to hide it.

KIM KITSURAGI - He rushes to your side, grabbing your arm to steady you. “Why weren’t you in the car? You’re freezing, what happened to you?”

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - He’s so warm.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - What did Jean do to you?

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - You need to go into detail. Really make him understand what happened to you.

1. “I was in the cold, yeah. I was waiting.” 
2. “Jean’s okay. I upset him by accident.”
3. “So it all started when I left your apartment, and at first I decided to just wait around for a bit…”

YOU - Before you can get a sentence in, he shushes you.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Don’t talk, you’ll hurt yourself. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He talks to you like you’re a wounded, frightened animal.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - Your eyes are burning. You were crying. And Kim sees that.

YOU - It feels strange for a second, then it passes, and suddenly you’re a wreck of a man in an unfamiliar apartment block who can hardly walk from the pain in his leg, drenched in sweat yet freezing cold, being held by a man he didn’t know until a week ago.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - You can stop thinking for now. It’s okay. He’s in ‘save colleague’ mode. He’s got you.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - He’s *so* warm.

KIM KITSURAGI - He hooks your left arm over his back and practically carries you back to his apartment, which is, thankfully, not too far from where you managed to drag yourself.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - As he drags you through the doorway you notice his keys sprawled in the key dish next to his door. His orange bomber jacket is hung on the row of coat hangers above it.

RHETORIC [Medium: Success] - The keychain! Now’s your chance!

1. Bring it up.
2. Let it go.

YOU - You weakly point at it. “Sun’s conflict…”

KIM KITSURAGI - He chuckles, but his mind is elsewhere. “Yes. The symbol of the Apex Council. I’m surprised you know it.”

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - Another sting of sharp pain grips you.

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - You double over and gag. More sweat beads on your forehead.

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - The world shrinks away from you. Tiny stars swamp the edges of your vision. 

-1 Health

KIM KITSURAGI - He speaks, but you can hardly hear him.

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] - You’re about to faint.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Challenging: Success] - He’s still talking, but you can’t make out much over the searing ringing in your ears. “Detective? Harry? Harry, speak to me.”

1. Try to speak.
2. God, it hurts.

YOU - You make a pitiful attempt to say something, but instead burble unintelligibly. 

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - The only thing keeping you anchored to consciousness right now is Kim’s arm wrapped tightly around your waist.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Formidable: Failure] - You don’t even have the mental or physical capacity to be all hot and bothered about it right now. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He lugs you over the threshold into the bathroom and sets you down on the edge of the bathtub. Kim had left the overhead light on.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] - Your pupils are so dilated that everything has a nauseating glow over it.

DRAMA [Legendary: Failure] - A thousand angels descending upon you, milord!

KIM KITSURAGI - He stands and looks at you for a moment. There’s a real gentleness behind his eyes. He turns and leaves.

ENDURANCE [Challenging: Success] - It’s taking all of your strength to stay upright.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - Your left side is still warm from his body. But your shoulders are shuddering. Feverish.

KIM KITSURAGI - Before you have much time to mull over your pitiful state, Kim returns with an armful of fresh bandages, clean towels and disinfectant. He sets them down on the floor next to you. 

KIM KITSURAGI - “I need to change your bandages and bathe you. Is that okay?” He takes the showerhead down and turns it on.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - His voice quivers just a little. He thinks it’s solely up to him to make sure you’re okay.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - Relax. He’s kept you alive while you were practically comatose for the past two days. He’s almost definitely seen all of you.

1. Nod. 
2. Shake your head.
3. Wait, *all* of me?

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - The water rushes. 35 kilometres away, in Grand Couron, two drunk teenagers hold their coats above their heads as they run through a downpour from awning to awning. They laugh as loud as they can. For them, this moment lasts forever.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Good. Take this.” He presses what feels like a pill into your palm.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - Drouamine! It’s Drouamine! Take it *now*! 

YOU - You shove it into your mouth and swallow it dry.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - Everything comes back into focus, if just a little. It’ll take a bit more time for it to really start working, but placebo is leagues better than agony.

KIM KITSURAGI - He stands there impassively with the glass of water you were supposed to use to take the pill. After a moment, he puts it down. 

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Trivial: Success] - There are more important things to tend to.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Can you manage to undress?”

ENDURANCE [Legendary: Failure] - You can hardly keep yourself from falling off the edge of the bath, let alone stand up.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Heroic: Failure] - Come on! You can do it! You’re a champion! BELIEVE IN YOURSELF!

1. Nod. (Lie.)
2. Shake your head.

KIM KITSURAGI - He nods affirmatively. “Would you like your jacket?”

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Come to think of it, your jacket is becoming extremely stifling.

YOU - You shake your head again. Thankfully, your vertigo is beginning to subside.

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - Usually you would be mortified at your sickly state, but everything feels so natural with Kim. You have nothing to hide from him. He’s already seen the worst parts of you, and loves you despite.

REACTION SPEED [Trivial: Success] - Wait… loves you?

LOGIC [Formidable: Failure] - I don’t know… why would *he* ever love *you*? He’s beautiful. And clever enough to know what’s good for him. Example in this case being, *not you*.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - No… that look! The look! He’s doing it again!

1. CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary] - That look…
2. No, fuck off. He’s about to *bathe* me. I don’t want it to be awkward. (Let it go.)

Check: Success

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Legendary: Success] - The answer comes quickly, and surprisingly easily. He *loves* you.

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - He loves *you*.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He would never say it, but he does.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - Would he? Maybe… on a slow morning… warm breakfast, clean dishes… a slight smile… the dust suspended in thin rays of light… stopping for a moment… becoming weightless…

KIM KITSURAGI - He leans over you, takes your arm and hooks his hand in between your arm and the sleeve of your jacket. Gently, he manoeuvres your arm out of your jacket and pulls half of it off.

SHIVERS [Easy: Success] - His warm breath tickles your neck. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He pulls your other sleeve off, and swiftly hangs your jacket on the back of the bathroom door. It looks oddly out-of-place.

EMPATHY [Medium: Success] - He doesn’t mind that you’re slumped there, body like a dead weight. You have the right.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - He’s seen it all before. He knows that all you need right now is somebody to take care of you. And he’s fine with being that somebody.

KIM KITSURAGI - “You can’t stand by yourself. Lean on me.”

YOU - You lift your arm around Kim’s shoulders and he hoists you up, allowing you to lose all of your strength. He doesn’t find it hard to take your weight.

KIM KITSURAGI - With one hand he undoes your flares and pulls them off. It isn’t awkward. He doesn’t mind.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - This is not how you imagined *it*. This is so un-sexy.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - I think you are severely misinterpreting this situation.

KIM KITSURAGI - With no other option, he gingerly kicks your flares away from the bathtub, as to not cause an obstruction.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Your head spins slightly as Kim turns you around.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Step into the bath.”

YOU - You oblige, still putting all of your weight on him.

KIM KITSURAGI - He lowers you back on to the edge of the bathtub, and carefully lets you go. Then he turns to the sink, turns the tap on, and starts to wash his hands.

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - He is scrubbing vigorously, under his nails, between his fingers…

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Medium: Success] - After a while, you can hear the fabric of his sweatpants shuffling against the floor tiles as he kneels down to undo your old dressing. He leans one arm on the edge of the bath for stability.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Your wound has been weeping,” he says, carefully unravelling the unclean bandage.

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - His hands move so precisely yet with so much grace, like he’s playing a musical instrument. His skin brushes yours as he discards the dressing.

KIM KITSURAGI - He picks up the shower head and quickly puts his hand in the stream of water to assess the temperature, then holds it over your shin to let you feel it. “Is this okay?”

YOU - You nod again.

VOLITION [Medium: Success] - The water is still warm from Kim’s last shower, but he’s adjusted it towards a lukewarm temperature to be less harsh on your skin. It tickles as Kim brings the water up to your thigh.

YOU - You reflexively groan from the sting as the water hits your raw injury. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He gives you a quick, concerned glance, checking to see if he’s hurting you any more than absolutely necessary. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] - And he can’t get *that look* off his face.

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - It’s doing weird things to your heart.

KIM KITSURAGI - After running the water over your injury for a few moments, he switches off the shower and places the showerhead back in the bath. “I’m going to dry and disinfect the area, then repack it with gauze. I’ll tell you when to prepare yourself. Just so you know.”

1. “No! Fuck! Stop! It hurts! Don’t touch me!”
2. “Okay. I trust you.”
3. “Can I just get a little break, to prepare myself?”
4. Say nothing.

YOU - “Okay. I trust you.”

AUTHORITY [Trivial: Success] - Oh, good. It seems you’ve regained your ability to speak.

KIM KITSURAGI - He smiles softly, just enough that you can see the corners of his eyes crease.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - A little encouragement.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Easy: Success] - The fireworks erupt in your chest and stomach again.

INLAND EMPIRE [Trivial: Success] - We would like this moment to last forever. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He pulls on a pair of blue medical gloves, then, with a clean towel, he dabs around the wound in your thigh. He’s being as light-handed as he can manage.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - He really, really cares about you.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - It feels weird. But good. Really good. Like a high. 

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - Embrace it. Just relax, focus on your breathing. It’ll make it easier.

KIM KITSURAGI - With an immense amount of precision, Kim repacks your wound with clean gauze, gently warning you of the parts that will be particularly uncomfortable or painful. Guiding you through it.

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - He keeps his left hand, when not in use, on the inside of your thigh. Maybe a little bit further up than is really necessary. 

KIM KITSURAGI - “Alright. It’s done.” He slowly rises from his kneeling position to look down at you.

YOU - Look at your wound.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - That’s some top-notch handiwork right there! Lieutenant Kitsuragi, Precinct 57’s finest. Soon to be Precinct 41’s. His rigorous police training has paid off well. He’s putting that first-aid skill set to good use. 

INTERFACING [Medium: Success] - He’s probably done it a million times before, to the point where it’s muscle memory. And you have, too. You’ve just forgotten. 

SUGGESTION [Challenging: Success] - Aren’t you lucky to have him? 

KIM KITSURAGI - “That should be sufficient, at least until morning.” He says it so softly. It’s only meant for you. This moment is sacred.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - That voice could launch a thousand ships.

KIM KITSURAGI - He stretches, both arms above his head, and lets out a groan.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - You steal a glance at his stomach again, this time seeing the skin over his pelvic bones. He has a light happy trail running down his tummy.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging: Success] - Don’t even think about it. I’m not sure you can handle it right now… Or do. I can’t stop you.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Do you feel better now?” He shuffles his feet. “…That was a stupid question.”

1. “Yes, thank you.” (Lie.)
2. “Not really.”

YOU - “Not really.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He holds out his hand confidently. “Here, let me help you up. It’s very late. We should get some proper sleep.”

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - …For the first time in a week. Or longer.

INLAND EMPIRE [Challenging: Success] - You probably haven’t slept properly since you were a prepubescent boy.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Easy: Success] - I was hoping he would keep us up *all night*…

1. Let Kim help you up.
2. Try to stand on your own.
3. Sit there like an idiot.
4. “I was hoping you would keep me up *all night*...”

YOU - You begin to lift yourself up, one hand anchored to the edge of the bathtub.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Trivial: Success] - Pain darts through your pelvis, lesser than before, but still sharp and unbearable.

AUTHORITY [Challenging: Success] - Don’t cry out.

KIM KITSURAGI - An expression of deep concern quickly spreads over his face as he watches you.

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - He looks ready to move at a nanosecond’s notice. His nerves are scalding.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Godly: Failure] - You can do this! You can stand up with no help whatsoever! You *can*!

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - You can’t.

YOU - You let out a mortifying gasp as you stumble.

KIM KITSURAGI - He lunges forward to catch you, gripping on to both your upper arms to steady you. “What are you doing?!”

REACTION SPEED [Trivial: Success] - He’s right in front of you. And he is so beautiful.

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - Enough! You’re his superior!

1. “I don’t need your help!”
2. “I need you, Kim.”
3. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

YOU - “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He hesitates, about to make a retort, but concedes. He knows this is your way of apology. “It’s okay, Harry.” 

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - The way he says your name sounds strange and lovely, like tracing your finger around the rim of a wine glass. Maybe he’s savouring it. Or maybe it’s just odd to hear it after days of “officer”, “lieutenant”, and “detective”.

REACTION SPEED [Trivial: Success] - The word bubbles up inside you. Oh, love. Love, love, love. 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Easy: Success] - Knowing what makes you feel so strongly about him makes your shoulders lift, like sparkling helium balloons at a party. Like a thousand paper lanterns drifting up into the night sky, illuminating the entire world.

KIM KITSURAGI - He hoists your arm over his shoulders. “Is there anything else you need?”

1. “You.”
2. “No, I’m okay.”

YOU - “You.”

KIM KITSURAGI - He freezes up for half a second, then quickly recovers his composure. From your peripheral vision you see him shake his head. “Let’s go to bed.”

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - There’s the slightest hint of a smile on his face. He liked that little comment. He thought it was sweet.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - No need to freak out. You’ve basically been having a slumber party with Kim for the past week anyway.

LOGIC [Medium: Success] - Sleeping in hostel rooms next to each other isn’t a ‘slumber party’. It’s called being partners on a murder case.

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - There’s no way he’s letting you out of his sight tonight.

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - It’s his love language.

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - He needs you as much as you need him.

REACTION SPEED [Trivial: Success] - He loves you! He *loves you*! You want to scream it from the rooftop of every building on Le Caillou! Kim Kitsuragi loves you!

KIM KITSURAGI - He breathes a little heavier as he pulls you into a bedroom.

LOGIC [Challenging: Success] - His bedroom. This is clearly a one bedroom apartment, it’s what estate agents would call “quaint” and “cosy”, and what everyone else would call “cramped” and “a shithole”.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - *His* bedroom…

KIM’S DECENT LOOKING BEDROOM - It’s small, is your first impression. The double bed has been pushed to one wall from lack of space, and the tiny window in the middle of the room makes it look even more compacted. Your second impression is that it’s incredibly clean. The bed is carefully made up, and the sheets are white with no stains or marks. The floor is clear, and appears to have been vacuumed recently. 

KIM KITSURAGI - “Here. I’ll get you clean sheets.” He lowers you onto the edge of his bed.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - It’s tempting to lay back on the blankets and let the sweet waves of sleep wash over you right there and then.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Medium: Success] - You feel helpless. You can’t even stand up without someone to lean on.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - It’s okay. Kim would never judge you. Not for this.

1. “Where am I sleeping?”
2. “Nice place.”
3. “Wuff. Bit of a craphole.”
4. Say nothing. Just watch him.

YOU - “Nice place.”

KIM KITSURAGI - His back is turned to you. You can see every notch of his spine through his white T-shirt as he bends over, rummaging in a closet. “It’s decent.”

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - It’s certainly infinitely better than whatever shitshow of an apartment you live in. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He groans quietly, then straightens up. He turns back to face you. He pushes his glasses up his nose. “Khm. It appears I don’t have any fresh linen.”

DRAMA [Challenging: Success] - He’s holding ssssomething back, milord…

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - How are we going to solve this one?

1. “Where am I sleeping?”
2. Say nothing. Just watch him.

YOU - “Where am I sleeping?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He opens his mouth to speak, hesitates, and closes it again.

HALF LIGHT [Formidable: Failure] - Fuck, he’s going to kick you out.

VOLITION [Legendary: Failure] - Loving you and leaving you. 

RHETORIC [Challenging: Success] - Wait…

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - *Fuck it*, he thinks to himself.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Just sleep in my bed. With me. There should be enough room for two.”

HALF LIGHT [Medium: Success] - Oh. Sorry. Nevermind. Crisis averted.

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - He looks right at you as he says it. Confidence is sexy.

VISUAL CALCULUS [Medium: Success] - But he obviously didn’t mean for you to *interpret* it sexually. Just a heads up. So you know.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - I guess sleeping with him in the *literal* sense is better than nothing.

1. “Yes!”
2. “Khm. Yes. Sure. I’m not too enthusiastic about this, as you can clearly tell.” 
3. “No. Let’s find other arrangements.”
4. “I hate you and I wish Jean was here.”
5. “You need to sleep on the floor.”

YOU - “YES!!!”

VOLITION [Easy: Success] - That came out a *lot* more enthusiastically than you meant it to.

KIM KITSURAGI - He nonchalantly switches on the bedside lampshade. “Have you been thinking about sleeping with me often, Harry? Be honest.”

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - He’s smirking. It’s a joke, just a joke. A big, funny joke. Played on you.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Challenging: Success] - For a millisecond you swear you could strangle him.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - Sexually. Erotic asphyxiation is your *nombre un* hobby.

ENCYCLOPEDIA [Medium: Success] - Following in Guillame le Million’s footsteps.

1. “Yes, Kim… You’re right. I would LOVE to sleep with you, I’ve been dreaming about it since we met…”
2. “Kill yourself.”
3. PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Formidable] - Strangle him.
4. ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Legendary] - *Strangle* him. But ask first. CONSENT IS KEY!
5. “You know, Guillame le Million died of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Cool, huh?”
6. Say nothing. You’re the bigger person.

YOU - “You know, Guillame le Million died of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Cool, huh?”

KIM KITSURAGI - He says nothing, but glances at you sideways.

EMPATHY [Challenging: Success] - He’s trying desperately to figure out what your thought process was to make you say that.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Medium: Success] - What the fuck?

1. Elaborate.
2. Nah, too tired. (Lay down.)

YOU - Without elaborating, you drag yourself over to the side of the bed pushed against the wall, and lay down, your head on Kim’s pillow.

REACTION SPEED [Easy: Success] - *Kim’s* pillow!

ENDURANCE [Easy: Success] - What a relief! 

PERCEPTION (SMELL) [Trivial: Success] -The linen smells like him. Pine needles and smoke with the subtlest hint of motor oil.

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - His sheets are so soft.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Medium: Success] - You’re almost jealous of his bedsheets. You want to feel his heartbeat, feel his breathing against you every night. All the time, in fact. 

KIM KITSURAGI - You watch him, head resting on your arm, as he sits on the edge of the bed. You can see the way his muscles move and the outline of his ribs as he removes his glasses and gently lays them on the nightstand.

ENDURANCE [Trivial: Success] - You are so tired.

KIM KITSURAGI - He turns and gazes down at you.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - And he gives you that *look* again.

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - All at once, you realise how overwhelmingly *safe* you feel. You’re sure you have not felt this safe, in a very, *very* long time. It makes you want to cry your heart out.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Challenging: Success] - Or until you vomit, or your throat prolapses, or something horrifying and unromantic like that. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He flicks off the lampshade, and lays down beside you, facing towards you. His weight on the other side of the bed is comforting.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - You can feel his warm breath brushing your face as he exhales.

PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Medium: Success] - Now your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, you can see his eyes are still open. He’s watching you.

SAVOIR FAIRE [Easy: Success] - He’s so close.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - But he might as well be miles away. You’ll never touch him, not in the way you want to. 

KIM KITSURAGI - He brings his hand up to your hair and touches it so gently, it feels like the whisper of a rare cool summer breeze.

ENDURANCE [Medium: Success] - Your heart rate jumps so suddenly, for a second you are convinced that you’re going to go into cardiac arrest right there and then.

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Formidable: Success] - He’s equally as anxious about this as you are.

SHIVERS [Medium: Success] - You can feel an unobtrusive warmth emanating from his body. He’s resting his hand on the back of your head. Security.

1. “So, Sun’s Conflict?”
2. “Is this real?”
3. Say nothing.
4. “Goodnight, Kim.” (Proceed.)

YOU - “Is this real?”

COMPOSURE [Medium: Success] - You say it so softly it’s almost inaudible. You don’t recognise the tone of your own voice.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - It’s adoration. 

VOLITION [Trivial: Success] - He loves you. And the truth is, you love him too. You know that. You’ll know it until the end of time.

PAIN THRESHOLD [Medium: Success] - Not more than her. But close.

HALF LIGHT [Easy: Success] - It’s terrifying.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Yes.” 

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Challenging: Success] - He’s almost silent, almost gone. Like the beat of a finch’s wing over a motorway. But he’s got his hand in your hair, and it feels like all you’ve ever wanted.

COMPOSURE [Trivial: Success] - This is what he wants.

1. ELECTROCHEMISTRY [Challenging] - Move your hand to his waist.
2. Not now. It’s too soon.

Check: Success

YOU - You release a shuddering breath as you slide your hand over Kim’s stomach, under his shirt, and rest it on his waist.

SHIVERS [Trivial: Success] - His skin is warm. So warm. 

INTERFACING [Easy: Success] - You can feel the ridges of his ribs as your fingers graze over them.

KIM KITSURAGI - His skin shakes under your hand as he exhales.

INLAND EMPIRE [Medium: Success] - You are all that he can see. At this moment, there is nothing else in this world but the two of you.

1. “So, Sun’s Conflict?”
2. “Is this real?”
3. Say nothing.
4. “Goodnight, Kim.” (Proceed.)

YOU - “Goodnight, Kim.”

INLAND EMPIRE [Easy: Success] - Maybe the world is gentle, after all.

KIM KITSURAGI - “Goodnight, Harry.”