ukan | IC CONTACT

"I would tell you," he agrees. If there was any lingering defensiveness, it's gone now. "Because I trust that you'll hear me out if I tell you I think you're headed for something dangerous. I think you're good for Pagan. And I think at heart, he's a good person. But he makes poor decisions; that's why he's here. I don't want those to end up hurting you."

A firm nod.

He has his suspicions about what Pagan is, and why, but he's told Lark that he'll stay out of his wardening. Whatever help that Pagan gives Kiryu is the love of a friend... and, soon enough, he hopes, more. It still hasn't happened and the bad luck of many years has him hesitant to believe it will until it has.

He pours himself some tea as well and there's a few moments of peace and quiet before he considers the moment and dips his head to look at Lark.

"May I ask you about something else?"

It feels undeservedly good to have this matter settled into something he feels good about. He's absorbing it all when Kiryu speaks, and he sits up a little straighter. "Of course. Anything."

He takes a moment and reaches into his pocket, pulls out his communicator, and takes a moment to scan until he finds the post. Lark's post. Then he reaches forward and points to... *all* of the replies.

"Is something missing on my communicator?"

"Some private conversations," Lark says, guessing that's what he means. Several of the conversations seem to just end as they're switched over to private filters.

"And whatever context Misty or William have around the murder. I was asked to find the killer in a recent murder; it was William, so I reported it. That's all the information I had."

He winces a little because, well, he realizes he's bad with technology and Pagan may have mentioned that, but he'd figured that out soon enough. Privacy, and the ability to utilize it, is important.

"No, not that." He points to one of the entries.

"Your posting. It's not shortened?"

Because otherwise, he's very confused.

"It's all the information I had," he says mildly, but he knows what Kiryu is asking. Or what he should be asking.

"For one thing, I only knew who was involved in it. For another...it doesn't matter what was being done about it. People insist they want to know what's being done to create a sense of justice. Acknowledging that a crime was done is the first step, and we keep trying to skip over it."

That provides more, but there's still a lot of questions. The chief among them being-

"Why does everyone keep mentioning retribution? Or acting as if you've violated someone's privacy?" He lets those sit for a moment before he pulls the communicator closer again and scrolls down to Misty's post. He's not sure how to address that, so he just tucks his communicator back into his pocket.

"There's seems so much assumed in both postings."

"They're assuming that I wanted a mob to go after William, and they're assuming that I doubt Misty, and neither of those things is true. But that's one reason I did it this way...to see who puts the worst assumptions and makes the largest leaps away from logic." A small frown. "That's the one area I've been disappointed; I thought fewer people would go straight for 'Lark wants a riot'."

He sits back with a sigh. "I don't think it does anything except enable a murderer, or an abuser, to keep violence quiet. But silence does make things more comfortable for everyone else, so that's what they seem to want."

Kiryu listens to Lark’s answer, and it’s clear that he has mixed feelings about it. He takes his time, pulling his tea into his hand but not sipping it as he works through the thoughts and tries to coalesce them into words. When he feels he has them, there’s a soft nod (mostly to himself) before he meets Lark’s eyes.

“May I make an observation?”

"You may," he says, with the unspoken caveat that Lark almost invariably sees things at a different slant than most people do. He values Kiryu's opinions, though, enough to give this a serious ear.

A quick nod in acknowledgement before he continues.

“You asked me once if I was familiar with dealing with wary people. And I told you that I was, as most people in the world I live in are wary. To ask something of a wary person, you need to establish trust. Either trust in a... shared understanding, a social binding, or personal trust.”

He looks to Lark then.

“Personal trust is difficult to establish in large groups, but a shared understanding allows for those groups to act for the betterment of all. A shared understanding is even more difficult when wary people come from different worlds and different backgrounds. Even within the same world, I have seen a businessman who had turned yakuza struggle with the difference in how the two ‘worlds’ function. Or two yakuza, one who handles financial work and another who acts as an enforcer, struggle to find an equilibrium in a shifting social understanding.”

He sips his tea because he keeps needing to talk so much.

“The most important thing that keeps this understanding between people is the knowledge that it benefits all those involved. They have been shown that benefit and the system functions because everyone upholds that understanding accordingly.”

He puts the tea down.

“I agree with your thoughts, Lark-san: abuse and murder should not be hidden. Even if a warden ultimately has the greatest say in how their inmate is handled, transparency is important for the community. There should be a social understanding that such actions have consequences, and that they affect not just those involved, but everyone here. Because they do. We all exist in this community together and guidelines around acceptable behavior are healthy and beneficial for all.

“But your approach only makes wary people more wary. In your own words, it was an experiment. A test.” And that never feels good. “It places you as arbiter of the system instead of part of it, and does not ask others to ‘buy in’ to an understanding. It demands it and shames those who, because of their past experience, may not know what benefits it may offer. And that can damage the opportunity for trust to build. Especially from a warden.”

Edited 2021-06-01 15:14 (UTC)

He listens, his gaze never quite wavering. "Understand that I agree with all of that. But." He pours a little more tea.

"I assume you're familiar with two way glass. With standing on one side, and watching how people react to their reflections. And to what they think is on the other side. It creates a situation that is at once honest and guarded. When you know where someone's fears truly lie, that's where you begin to build trust. Not always from careful niceties."

A careful look. "That's what two sentences can do. That's what a long silence can teach. I'm not afraid of people facing something that makes them more wary, because when they face it they can see for themselves that it isn't going to hurt them after all."

“But it may hurt them.”

He dips his head in a silent request to explain.

“It may hurt them, not because it should, but because others are not ready to see. You can hand children utensils and tell them they are for food. But if one child stabs another with that fork as you go to get the plates, another lesson will be learned as well. Usually by the child who was patiently waiting for their meal, and the children across the table who weren’t involved. And the lesson they see will stick with them more than any you try to teach.”

"We aren't here to shield them from pain, Kiryu," he says quietly. "We're here to teach them how to cope with it. We're here to learn the same thing. We're here to be a support, yes- and to apologize when the hurt is caused. But not to avoid it ever happening. Maybe that's the wolf in me."

His expression tightens for a moment before he breathes in deep and closes his eyes. He doesn’t reach for the tea, instead resting his hands on his thighs. He dips his head towards Lark before speaking. There is a lot of things he wants to say, but all those words won’t get to the heart of what he’s trying to say.

“Before you came here, had you never felt pain?”

He knows Kiryu is getting at something, and that they're on slightly different pages. So he quiets his own mind and listens closer, answering without trying to fill in spaces. "Nothing here has hurt as much as what I felt at home."

“And did you die immediately after feeling that pain?”

"Never. Even if I thought I might."

He opens his eyes then.

“Then before you ever came here, you knew how to cope with pain. And I’m sure most would say similar.” A simple enough statement, but he’s getting to his point. He makes sure he has Lark’s eyes.

“What is different between the pain they’ve lived with and the pain you’d apologize for?”

Edited (Slight reword) 2021-06-01 17:55 (UTC)

"If I caused it by mistake." He won't pretend he isn't ruthless. He's a pack leader; a bite here or there to get them away from danger is instinct, and not something he even knows how to dampen. He isn't sure how to communicate that so he chews on the idea a moment.

"But I wouldn't say I knew how to deal with pain before I came here, Kiryu. I could survive it. I did not know how to use it to better myself."

Kiryu didn’t get those giant arm muscles from offering free hugs to the street hoodlums of Kamurocho. He understands the value of physical reinforcement. The kind of pain he’s talking about isn’t about a snap here or there or a harsh word. It’s the deeper kind. The kind that shapes who and what you are afterwards.

He almost points out something about ‘mistakes’ but Lark’s given him what he needs in the last statement. There it is. There’s his point.

“But did you think you did?”

‘How the world works’ and ‘how to survive’ and ‘how life goes’ and ‘what everyone does’. He’s heard it enough times, here and back at home.

More quietly.

“You can hand them a dozen mirrors, Lark-san. If you don’t teach them how to look first, they’ll only see what they expect to see, what their fear shows them.”

Edited 2021-06-01 18:41 (UTC)

"I know they do," Lark nods slightly. "But it's where we reach a clear view of those fears. People almost never articulate those fears, Kiryu. But when we see what we're afraid of, when an outside view recognizes it, that is where they can be taught."

He looks away, out the window, and back. "I know this method very well. I can promise that it does work even if it seems callous at times. But that doesn't mean I don't want to learn others. Yours, for instance."

It’s not his way. It’s a way he’s familiar with, but he has problems with it, both because of his beliefs and because of the places that he’s seen it fail or cause collateral damage in his own world.

He considers arguing, but chooses instead to take another route.

“You want to know how I would approach it?”

"Yes. Or approach something in the future." Because what's done is done, and he's not inclined to revisit it. There will always be things to manage in the future, though. "So I can try it."

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