Tokusatsu musebox

It's too much.

It's too much to think about, all at once.

Waking up was painful, but lying here is nearly unbearable. Doctors have no idea what's wrong with me, police officers are growing steadily more frustrated that I can't explain where I was, what happened to me, or why.

I remember everything.

And it's too much.

I don't know when they're going to let me out of the hospital. I don't even know if I want to leave.

If I leave, I have to choose. Who I'm going to stand with. Who I'm going to stay with. Where I really belong.

And I'm not ready.

It's too much.

[OOC: for post order, I was thinking something along the lines of Joe-Kazari-Gai-Jou-Megumi-Yuusuke-Katsumi-JK repeat. If that's okay. If it's not, or if I forgot someone, or whatever, just shout at me. :D]

As I usher JK to the table, I remind myself to write heartfelt thank you notes to Gai and Megumi for cooking. They really didn't have to, I would have figured something out, but Gai loves being in the kitchen and Megumi likes it when I'm smiling, so I figure that's why they did it. Still, I owe them majorly.

Adding one more person to the table doesn't make it overly crowded, but I made sure JK's chair is close enough to mine that our legs will touch when we're sitting. I can be crafty sometimes too.

First things first, though, as everyone else slowly gathers around the table.

"Right, okay. So, this is my family. Um, you know my dad Jou, from school, right? And this is my other dad, Yuusuke, and my mom Megumi. And you know Gai from the door, and Kazari from when I was sick? And maybe Katsumi from school. Yeah. Everyone, this is my boyfriend JK." I don't even stutter over the b-word this time, I deserve a medal.

I know I'm supposed to be sleeping. That's what the parents think I'm doing, and that's probably what I should be doing.

But honestly, I'm scared of the inside of my own head. I don't want to have the dream again, not tonight, not knowing that there's a very real possibility it's not even a dream, but a memory. A memory of, what? Don with a gun and a stranger who calls himself Captain Marvelous in a red coat, and two girls that I don't know, and someone dying for me, and me, and we're all fighting. With weapons, real weapons. And it might be real, or it might have been real, or it might have actually happened.

I don't want that.

I don't usually sneak out of the house, but this is one night that I kind of think maybe I need to.

At first I'm not sure where I'm going. I'm just taking a walk through the nighttime and appreciating it, and looking up towards the moon and considering breaking into the school so I can get to Rabbit Hutch, and that's when I figure it out, but almost before I do I've got my phone out and I'm texting JK asking where he is.

[ooc: sorry this is so long, omfg, Joe wanted to write a FIC apparently.]

As if my life wasn't considerably weird enough, it's actually be getting weirder. And not in a cute, sort of fuzzy cuddly weird way. More of a really bad weird way.

I had come to terms with the fact that Sempai died. I dealt with the fact that seeing it happen screwed me up pretty badly, and was probably the reason I had to be removed from my second-to-last foster home, the one from right before I met Don. I may not have gotten over it, but I managed to get to the point where I stopped thinking of it as my fault.

Still, it kind of throws me off a little, how much this new teacher, this Biyodo-sensei, looks just like Sid-sempai. Except older, obviously. And the hair. But other than that, he's an absolute spitting image. And I hate seeing him. The teacher is probably perfectly nice, but I got intentionally sick the day he took one of my classes. And I probably will again.

And then there's JK. Whatever is going on with JK. We kissed, yeah, but we were also in each other's bodies at the time. At least that got fixed, but we haven't really spoken much about it since then, and it hasn't happened again, and when would it happen anyway? Between Zodiarts, and Kijima, and this new group of people attacking the school who apparently have nothing to do with Zodiarts but that we still sort of feel obligated to chase off, the Club is kind of booked solid.

And there's Don, he's gotten weird too. After that freak illness of mine, and the freaky dreams that went with a drastic fever, he's been sort of... pussy-footing around, to put it mildly. Everything I say, I can tell he's analyzing, like he's looking for some deeper meaning. I can tell, because his eyes get all wide but he's quiet. I've known him long enough to know that.

Then there's the dreams themselves. Because getting rid of the fever didn't get rid of the dreams. Now I'm pretty sure the boy who keeps dying in my dreams isn't just someone I'm calling 'guy', I think it might actually be his name. And there's other people, aside from Don with a gun. A girl in pink, and another in yellow, both unfamiliar to me. And many flashes of red that are not in fact blood.

And as if that weren't enough, I keep seeing those same flashes of red out of the corners of my eyes, when I arrive at school in the morning, when I leave in the afternoon, when I accompany JK off campus for fact-finding missions. Flash of red, a long coat on a guy with an odd glower, and his frown is directed at me.

All told, I kind of think maybe I'm going insane. I'm feeling less than in control. I have to do something. Something impulsive, something that's entirely my choice.

Which is what finds me entering a hair salon, pocket money in hand, sitting down in one of those odd spinning chairs, and telling the very sweet girl, with my voice as steady as I can manage, "Cut it off."

She asks me three times if I'm sure, and my answer gets more confident each time. Then she carefully takes hold of the length of my ponytail, and shears it off just past the tie.