sotobas_lot | PSL - To give better title later.

The shriek ringing through the clinic demanded an urgency that one Ozaki Toshio just couldn't seem to muster. That probably made it a good thing it was inorganic, or he'd have been even more disqualified from calling himself a doctor than he had felt at the time. Hell, the doctor himself was feeling less and less organic, more and more mechanical. It was probably that mechanical element that had him answering the phone; the human, meaty part of his brain saw no logic in answering that phone, no benefit. Another death notice, maybe? Another failure? Another missing person? Another problem he couldn't solve? But on the most basic, lower-brain level, a person answered a ringing phone. So it was off of the receiver before he could think better of it.

Staring into the mouthpiece, he had to suddenly awaken from his autopilot haze to realize he'd picked it up. He had to consciously remember the next step. What did one do with a phone? Right, right. They spoke.

"Ozaki Clinic," he answered, after that unnatural pause, itself coming after an unnaturally long ring that might have left the caller about as surprised at Ozaki picking up as he was at himself for doing so.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Since Seishin couldn’t be certain when Toshio would arrive, he’d busied himself with sharpening the pencils he had been neglecting. He knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his novel. And even if he could, likely Toshio would interrupt him at a crucial moment. Once a train of thought was lost, it wasn’t easy to recollect. That was why he was in the habit of writing late at night when he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed as everyone else should be sleeping. (Although when he genuinely believed he had a break, some rare free time during the day, occasionally he would cloister himself in his office and hope for the best.)

Although he already had a dozen pencils in his pencil tray sharpened to perfect points, ready to be traded out with any whose tips became rounded by the time Toshio entered his office (without knocking naturally), he continued his work if only to occupy his fingers while he thought. Really..he had no idea where or how to begin. Toshio’s caustic “yo” certainly wasn’t providing him with either warmth or direction.

“Thank you for coming,” he replied, tone very much strained and on edge but not as dry or as brittle as it was on the phone. His words did carry some blame and judgment but not quite as much as Toshio’s. The fatigue was roughly even.

“Would you like some tea or coffee?” Unlike Toshio he did bother with basic courtesies.

"Coffee," he answers, leaning back on both hands and deciding to give himself a few moments to try to collect himself, as if he didn't have the entire trip up the hill to do so.

But now that he's actually in the room with Seishin again, suddenly the nihilist monk's thinking seems to make more sense, to be as familiar as the room, as the man himself. Of course Kyouko's dead, dissected body was a shock. Even if the man was often near corpses, he wasn't an undertaker, it never handled them. It was Ozaki Toshio who was touching still warm bodies, stripping them down at times, calculating just how long ago life had left, facing the nature of their demise as much as the result. Seishin, he thought, dealt in ideas. The first dead body he had to really contend with as more than a concept was Kyouko's, to him a Shiki rather than the human Kyouko.

He's no better than me, in that.

The two he had found in Yamairi had spooked him before there was anything as grave and pressing as their current situation. So when he thought of taking action, of kill or be killed, he thought of the 'tragedy' of dead Shiki, not the tragedy of dead humans that made the Shiki. And it's all very annoying and a part of him wants to lay into him all over again, but more to the point, a real, living, human victim sure to become a tangible human corpse had set themselves before him.

That is what it takes, isn't it? People need to be given no choice before they face this reality. Not taking a side is close enough to murder at this rate.

"You remember to feed the kid, too?" he finally asks. "She won't be in a state to think to ask for something."

Seishin couldn’t help but smile at Toshio’s choice of coffee even if the smile was thin and didn’t really touch his eyes. Tea was more relaxing, soothing and he didn’t imagine either of them had been drinking much of it recently. In a time of crisis (and what else could one consider this?), coffee was the drug relied upon for additional stamina. When they were pulling all nighters at the clinic they had most certainly kept the coffee maker busy.

Toshio didn’t seem any more eager than Seishin for a genuine conversation. (Well, they hadn’t spoken once since that awful morning when they’d argued about his treatment of Kyouko-san and his view of the shiki.) Even at Kyouko-san’s funeral they’d barely glanced at each other and although Seishin felt guilty for his silence at such a crucial time, offering condolences to someone who had killed their own wife after mercilessly experimenting upon her for...was it days? Seishin really didn’t wish to think about it. He hadn’t asked and he certainly wasn’t about to now. It had been made perfectly clear that their assessments of the shiki varied drastically.

Of course they did. Toshio hadn’t conversed with any of them for any length of time. Seishin had been the one to engage Sunako (or rather she’d targeted him, following him to his place of refuge much to his initial annoyance). He had also briefly talked to Mutou Tohru outside Yuuki Natsuno’s grave. Kyouko-san’s mouth had been taped shut when Seishin regarded her definitive corpse. He would guess Toshio had been unwilling to listen to her personal perspective.

After preparing the coffee, he’d returned with a mug for both of them, offering the one in his right hand for Toshio, awkwardly hovering nearby after he’d accepted it. “I gave her some tea and pastries. She did eat a few of them but perhaps I should have given her more than snacks.” Although Seishin had little experience cooking and it wasn’t yet dinner time so nothing more substantial was available. Hopefully the sweets would tide her over until supper was served.

PSL - To give better title later.

Tea Time

No, Coffee.

Re: No, Coffee.