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Entry tags:
KHR Rarepair Week - Sky - Corpse Retrieval
"Want to help me get rid of a dead body?" Kaitou Julie says to her one day, and Chrome sincerely considers the offer.
She's been told, multiple times, by multiple people, that it would be fine if she never wanted to see Julie ever again, after everything that happened with the Shimon Family. She's used to having given her body over to Mukuro, of course, for him to use as he'd like, but it's a different thing, isn't it, when something is forcefully taken instead of given freely? And so Tsuna had said it was fine, and Adelheid had said it was fine, Haru and many others besides.
Julie had never approached her on the subject himself. Instead, quietly underneath all his loud playful flirting with other girls, he'd ignored her. And Chrome supposes she had ignored him too, simply because she couldn't think of a reason to interact with him.
But not thinking of a reason to talk with him hadn't meant that she had ever disliked him, for she's never truly known him, and so Chrome simply answers, after a moment of thought, "I guess so."
It's an answer that should work out for Julie, or so she thinks until he raises a hand to his hair, knuckles bumping his hat out of the way. "Jeez, you aren't gonna say no, that you have some fun karaoke to do, or a show you want to watch? You remind me of Adel-chan, all work. Well, I asked, so I'm not going to back out now."
Going to get rid of a dead body isn't a strange journey at all. They don't have some plain car with dark windows that drives them through all the back alleys. They don't go through the back alleys themselves. Julie just has her take the subway with him, the two of them seated with a little bit of distance between them. Julie takes the window seat. "Should I be going to karaoke?" she asks him, as the car begins to move.
His gaze flicks back towards her, just barely visible past the frames of his glasses. "Well, that's usually what a girl does at the end of a schoolday," he says. "It's where all the cute girls want to go, when I take them on dates."
Is this a date? She doesn't think so, although she does have to wonder if Julie is using a rather roundabout way to call her cute. Even though she was never a part of too many people's social groups, and still isn't, Chrome is pretty sure corpse retrieval and disposal isn't the sort of thing you use as date material. "Kyoko is trying to help her brother study for an upcoming test to get him into the same high school as Hibari," she says matter of factly. "And Haru is having talks with Mammon, I think." In other words, everyone is working on something that will help them in the future.
Funny, to think of the future. She never would have, once.
But if he was asking questions about her personal life, Chrome supposes it's only fair to aim them right back. "Why did you ask me to come help you with this job?" she asks. "Are the rest of the Shimon busy as well?"
Julie groans, the back of his head hitting his seat. "Boy, aren't we ever. I appreciate the Vongola watching out for us, but boy, the agreement we have with them sure busts our balls! And it doesn't help that Adelheid insists on making sure everyone makes it through their education as well, so everyone has to bother about that..." The groan becomes a sigh, and he tugs his hat a little further over his face. "She's going to work herself to death."
Oh. Chrome thinks she gets it. Probably? She's never had a family like the Shimon; she's never had a Family like the Shimon. That still doesn't answer the main question of hers, however. "So why me?"
His fingers grind against the brim of his hat. "Well, I was thinking this is probably the kind of thing that would be helpful to you," he finally answers, with just a hint of reluctance dragging his words. "And.... Okay, listen." He straightens up, shaking his head. "I was going to save this for after our fun little outing here, but - here." Reaching into his jacket, he pulls out a bag of chocolates, and holds them out to her. "I wanted to apologize to you. Nice and proper."
Oh. Why is she suddenly reminded of Ken, there, for a second? Although he usually likes the chocolate grain, not solid candies like these seem to be. Chrome accepts, because she never quite knows what to do in situations like this. "Why are you apologizing?"
It's sort of funny, she supposes. She seems to have a knack for asking questions or falling silent on matters that absolutely stun people, and this time it's no different, considering how he stares at her. "Why - I stalked you, kidnapped you, and took over your body! Just the first one would get the cops called on a normal guy."
"Oh, I don't call the cops for anything." They've never helped her, after all, and, anyway, they have better ways with dealing with problems that come after her - whether that's cops or otherwise. Although Ken and Chikusa usually just did their own thing, when it came to hiding the bodies... They never told her how they got rid of them. Well, she supposes now she'll learn from someone else.
"That's - you know what I mean," Julie says, pinching the bridge of his nose and nudging up his glasses. "I still did something to you."
"You didn't." Julie blinks at her, hand leaving his face. "I mean, I think it wasn't you, who did those things, even from the very start, when you tried leaving food behind. That was Daemon, wasn't it? So I don't think there's much you need to apologize for." Chrome's gaze drifts off towards the rest of the subway train. No one is really reacting much to their conversation. She can't say she's surprised. There's the finest bit of sand along her knuckles, and probably choking the air. Mukuro does similar. She thinks Mammon probably does as well. The long born habits of illusionists. But she can't cultivate that habit herself, when everyone around her keeps doing it first. "Or else I would probably have to apologize for things as well...." Maybe she should. Maybe it would make some people feel better.
Not that it seems to be making Julie feel better, considering that frown twisting about his mouth. "Alright, see, that's different."
"You're just saying it's different... because then it would get in the way of making you feel better. I think."
He blinks. The wrinkles in his brow gives way to relaxed befuddlement. And then... He laughs, turning his head away, hand pushing his hat lower down towards his face. "Okay. You might've gotten me there." But that seems to relax him, a little bit, and he folds his hands behind his head, legs sprawled out inelegantly in front of him. It's not very good manners, probably, on a subway car, but Chrome doesn't talk to him about it. "Although I really did feel bad, about what happened to you. I'll admit to being a bit of a sleazebag, sometimes, when I forget to be subtle in my appreciation of cute girls, but I'm not the kind of sleazebag who stalks. I got a little upset, thinking about what you might've experienced."
"If it makes you actually feel better, I lost him a few times when he tried to trail me," Chrome tells him, and Julie laughs, all the way until the two of them leave the subway.
Things... fall silent, after that. But a strangely okay sort of silence. Not the sort of silence where people are trying to push against her with it, and not the sort of silence that comes with words too strange and worrying for people to touch with their bare hands. It's the silence of mist filtering over a sandy beach, long or before everyone else has so much as glanced at it, no matter how close they might live.
"I don't remember a lot," she says suddenly, as the two of them slip right through into the morgue where the body is kept. No one looks at them. Only Julie looks at her. "When he took over."
It's not something she's really talked about to the others. She's never found a reason or way to bring it up, and the others were all struggling with their own problems as well. Everyone struggling with everything. But it's true. She hardly remembers anything of the times when she was underneath Daemon's influence.
Julie nods. There's something a little more plain on his face, as he looks at her now. No exaggerated whining, no teasing, nothing of what she knows of him from a distance. Just something simple. Like a rock hidden in the desert. "You know, I kind of had to wonder if it was just me who couldn't remember anything," he admits as well, only turning his head away so that he can work through the door leading downstairs to where all the bodies are kept. "I thought maybe it was just a skill issue, right? I'm not a good enough illusionist, maybe, or I'm not used to possession."
And that's true. Maybe neither of them are that good at illusions. But for possession... "Mukuro-sama does it differently," she says, and reaches out with her hand to flick on the morgue lights. "I still remember things when he takes over. Unless I fell unconscious in the first place." And that's happened, before, with all of them - her and Chikusa and Ken.
Mukuro would never admit it, but that's at least a third of what constitutes him taking over their bodies. They all get too... zealous, as Gokudera would describe it.
"Huh." The sound pops out of Julie's mouth, a considerate bubble of a noise, before he goes straight towards one of the morgue drawers. There's no hesitation in his footsteps; he must have done at least a little bit of research before they came here. "Well, I guess that answers that question, doesn't it?"
And with that, he yanks open the drawer, pulling out the dead body laying upon cold metal without any particular aplomb. It's hardly as bloody and messed up as it may have been when first brought into the morgue, but the bullet holes marred with burnmarks around the edges still show exactly what kind of violence occurred. Chrome doesn't know why, but that's hardly important, is it?
Julie flicks his hat off of his head, doing a few tricks as it rolls along his knuckles, along the length of his arm, and smiles. "Well, now that we're finally here... Would the cute girl like to see a magic trick?"
The "magic trick" is mostly how to falsify records to explain a disappearing corpse, removing the corpse, and then going to find the nearest place that's under construction. Namimori is often going under construction these days, honestly, so that's not as hard as one might think. All it takes is laying the corpse down amidst the foundations when no one is looking, keeping it hidden as the concrete is poured over, and then letting their illusions pull back as the construction workers finish for the day.
"Well, that's about all I had planned," Julie says, when they're a good couple of blocks away. "Sorry that it wasn't more glitzy and exciting, but that's the mafia life for you."
What exactly could be glitzy and exciting about disposing of a corpse? Chrome ponders that, and decides that not only would Mukuro know, she's decided that she doesn't want to see what he would have in mind. "I thought there would be more seawater involved," she says after a second.
Julie shrugs. "Well, if the sea were just a little bit closer, we could do that, I guess, but then you'd still have to find cement anyway. Trapping a guy in cement already being used in the city? A lot simpler, and easier for us to find in this case. But jeez, you really seemed surprise at just a little bit of document fudging. Don't you use your illusions for anything fun? When's the first time you even used them?"
Well, obviously the first time she used them was when Mukuro was training her in illusions, which would then have her go on to use them for the Vongola during the ring battles.
She'd figured that was how most illusionists learned, really. In the context of something greater, something serious. Mukuro certainly learned that way, for a given definition of the word. But apparently that's not quite right, judging by the way that Julie wrinkles his nose. When she asks him how he learned, his answer is immediate. "I figured out how to make my flames physical so that I could reach the treat jar that my parents kept on top of the fridge."
Huh. And yet, at the same time, she supposes that's just what she expected. "That seems like you," she says matter of factly, and Julie laughs.
"Is my reputation that bad, even if you've forgiven me for the other stuff?"
She's not sure if forgiven is the right word, but that's just nitpicking. "With how much Adelheid-san yells at you, you seem... the kind of person who plays a lot," she says, after a second. "So that seems like something you would do."
"I mean, that's a nicer response than I was expecting, but, also, I was just a kid." Julie raises an eyebrow at her. "Kids do things like that. You know. Normally."
Normally... Right. The kind of life that she never really got to have. Chrome falls silent for a second, thinking back to her own child. Of an enormous condominium for the rising actress that birthed her, and the rich man who kept her housed. There were nannies hired for her, when she was very small; Chrome can just faintly recall their figures. But then she'd grown up big enough to make cereal, and understand words like don't bother me, and that had been that.
Some people, like Nana, say she's still a kid, and should enjoy herself more. But... "I think... I should be doing something greater than myself," she says, the words clumsy and awkward in her mouth. They don't quite mean what she wants them to mean. Close enough, maybe. "Making something of myself?" Making herself, when she was never even allowed a self. It's still all kind of jumbled in her head, honestly. "I've thought about that... Ever since I was close to dying." It occurs to her that last sentence might raise more questions, since of course Julie would never have heard, so she adds, "That's how Mukuro-sama rescued me."
Will he ask more questions? Chrome wonders, but, instead, Julie's gaze drifts off towards the various shop windows that they pass by. He doesn't seem as though he's actually looking inside them, however. "Making something greater than yourself after a near death experience, huh?" He laughs, but it doesn't seem as light as the ones he usually fakes. "Man, and there I went, doing the opposite for the longest time!"
Him? Oh. When the Shimon family.... first experienced its own tragedy. "What's the opposite?" she asks, because she can't even imagine a life like that. A life where she might have decided on something different. If Julie tells her... Maybe she can at least visualize it.
But for a moment, it almost seems as though he won't answer. Julie just avoids eye contact, fingers rubbing along the back of his neck. Are his hands usually this busy? She's never had cause to notice. Maybe that's a mistake; illusionists are only as good as the reality they're faking. "Well, I suppose I should probably tell you that much," he answers at long last. "But... It came out of nowhere." A grimace passes his lips, that he immediately tries to hide. In a normal way, not with illusions. "Everyone... gone, I mean. Like one day you're doing normal things, going to school, and then, one big crash, and it's all upturned on your head."
Even if it's not the exact same... She thinks of a cat. She thinks of the shock that had come right after that brief burst of pain, before her mind had blocked it all out to drag her into unconsciousness. "I think I understand," she agrees quietly.
Julie nods. Just a nod. That isn't bad, she thinks. "Anyway, it made me think, that could be me, any day now. And what did I actually want to do, then? What'd I want my last day on earth to be? Not slaving away for a job that would just make me die quicker."
Chrome's gaze drifts off to the side. "...Is that not what this is....?"
"Yeah, so joke's on me, huh?" And yet, despite that, he smiles sidelong at her. "But, you know, after getting possessed, and seeing how much a kid like Enma grew up in the blink of an eye... I've kind of figured something. And it's that even if I got an all expenses paid vacation to live life up as much as I'd like, it'd always be p r e t t y sour tasting in my mouth, knowing I'd left Adel-chan behind to haul up all the work, and Enma to live with the bunch of weirdos that my family is. And besides, I mean." He rubs his chin, looking self satisfied and puffed up. "Not to boast, but no one makes better food than our place. I'd be missing out, don't you think?"
Nana Sawada makes the best food in all of Japan, at the very least, but Chrome has learned, slowly, to not diminish other people's pride in their Families. Not carelessly, anyway.... and she gets what he means.
She'd regret it, too, if she just went on to be the best Mist Guardian of the Vongola, and never once even turned back to look at Chikusa and Ken.
As it turns out, they live relatively near to one another - it's just what happens when you're poor middle school students struggling to make a living on your own. So they ride the subway back to their part of town, in relative quiet, and Chrome wonders what next. She sort of knows what she wants to happen next, but she's never had a talent for making that sort of thing happen.
Fortunately, at least Julie is an extrovert, and he doesn't seem to abide silence long, with things having been sorted between them. "You know, you should do something fun with your illusions sometime. Figure out a whole new wardrobe for yourself, shoplift some of your favorite food. You have options!"
"Do you want to do karaoke sometime?" she asks, and Julie nearly trips over his own feet. Maybe she didn't ask it right after all. "When Haru-chan and Kyoko-chan are free."
Adjusting his hat, Julie forgets to straighten himself up completely in favor of just staring at her. "And where did this come from? Talk about a goal change..."
Where? She thought it was obvious, with how their conversation has gone on and trailed, the different paths it's gone down and all that it's picked up along itself, from the school gates to here, both of them walking along the street. She thinks it has to be obvious, when she can place her life and his side by side, seeing the things which match and everything that's different.
"I want to," is what she tells him, because that seems like the simplest way to answer.
Julie stares a moment longer, and then snorts, and then looks away, hand curled up at his mouth. "You know, you're the first girl I've met who's so hard to understand... But alright. We can do that tomorrow, when they're free." Swinging back up into a mostly straight posture, he grins at her. "And I'll bring over Enma, and Rauji, too. A whole big party, right?"
Chrome remembers the last party she was dragged into, and she must make a face, because Julie laughs again.
Well. Maybe this one won't be so bad, won't be so focused on her. And with this...
Maybe. Maybe for a lot of things. Chrome thinks that this time, maybe it might not be so bad, to see about reaching out for a life she never had.
Reaching out for a sense of self.
She's been told, multiple times, by multiple people, that it would be fine if she never wanted to see Julie ever again, after everything that happened with the Shimon Family. She's used to having given her body over to Mukuro, of course, for him to use as he'd like, but it's a different thing, isn't it, when something is forcefully taken instead of given freely? And so Tsuna had said it was fine, and Adelheid had said it was fine, Haru and many others besides.
Julie had never approached her on the subject himself. Instead, quietly underneath all his loud playful flirting with other girls, he'd ignored her. And Chrome supposes she had ignored him too, simply because she couldn't think of a reason to interact with him.
But not thinking of a reason to talk with him hadn't meant that she had ever disliked him, for she's never truly known him, and so Chrome simply answers, after a moment of thought, "I guess so."
It's an answer that should work out for Julie, or so she thinks until he raises a hand to his hair, knuckles bumping his hat out of the way. "Jeez, you aren't gonna say no, that you have some fun karaoke to do, or a show you want to watch? You remind me of Adel-chan, all work. Well, I asked, so I'm not going to back out now."
Going to get rid of a dead body isn't a strange journey at all. They don't have some plain car with dark windows that drives them through all the back alleys. They don't go through the back alleys themselves. Julie just has her take the subway with him, the two of them seated with a little bit of distance between them. Julie takes the window seat. "Should I be going to karaoke?" she asks him, as the car begins to move.
His gaze flicks back towards her, just barely visible past the frames of his glasses. "Well, that's usually what a girl does at the end of a schoolday," he says. "It's where all the cute girls want to go, when I take them on dates."
Is this a date? She doesn't think so, although she does have to wonder if Julie is using a rather roundabout way to call her cute. Even though she was never a part of too many people's social groups, and still isn't, Chrome is pretty sure corpse retrieval and disposal isn't the sort of thing you use as date material. "Kyoko is trying to help her brother study for an upcoming test to get him into the same high school as Hibari," she says matter of factly. "And Haru is having talks with Mammon, I think." In other words, everyone is working on something that will help them in the future.
Funny, to think of the future. She never would have, once.
But if he was asking questions about her personal life, Chrome supposes it's only fair to aim them right back. "Why did you ask me to come help you with this job?" she asks. "Are the rest of the Shimon busy as well?"
Julie groans, the back of his head hitting his seat. "Boy, aren't we ever. I appreciate the Vongola watching out for us, but boy, the agreement we have with them sure busts our balls! And it doesn't help that Adelheid insists on making sure everyone makes it through their education as well, so everyone has to bother about that..." The groan becomes a sigh, and he tugs his hat a little further over his face. "She's going to work herself to death."
Oh. Chrome thinks she gets it. Probably? She's never had a family like the Shimon; she's never had a Family like the Shimon. That still doesn't answer the main question of hers, however. "So why me?"
His fingers grind against the brim of his hat. "Well, I was thinking this is probably the kind of thing that would be helpful to you," he finally answers, with just a hint of reluctance dragging his words. "And.... Okay, listen." He straightens up, shaking his head. "I was going to save this for after our fun little outing here, but - here." Reaching into his jacket, he pulls out a bag of chocolates, and holds them out to her. "I wanted to apologize to you. Nice and proper."
Oh. Why is she suddenly reminded of Ken, there, for a second? Although he usually likes the chocolate grain, not solid candies like these seem to be. Chrome accepts, because she never quite knows what to do in situations like this. "Why are you apologizing?"
It's sort of funny, she supposes. She seems to have a knack for asking questions or falling silent on matters that absolutely stun people, and this time it's no different, considering how he stares at her. "Why - I stalked you, kidnapped you, and took over your body! Just the first one would get the cops called on a normal guy."
"Oh, I don't call the cops for anything." They've never helped her, after all, and, anyway, they have better ways with dealing with problems that come after her - whether that's cops or otherwise. Although Ken and Chikusa usually just did their own thing, when it came to hiding the bodies... They never told her how they got rid of them. Well, she supposes now she'll learn from someone else.
"That's - you know what I mean," Julie says, pinching the bridge of his nose and nudging up his glasses. "I still did something to you."
"You didn't." Julie blinks at her, hand leaving his face. "I mean, I think it wasn't you, who did those things, even from the very start, when you tried leaving food behind. That was Daemon, wasn't it? So I don't think there's much you need to apologize for." Chrome's gaze drifts off towards the rest of the subway train. No one is really reacting much to their conversation. She can't say she's surprised. There's the finest bit of sand along her knuckles, and probably choking the air. Mukuro does similar. She thinks Mammon probably does as well. The long born habits of illusionists. But she can't cultivate that habit herself, when everyone around her keeps doing it first. "Or else I would probably have to apologize for things as well...." Maybe she should. Maybe it would make some people feel better.
Not that it seems to be making Julie feel better, considering that frown twisting about his mouth. "Alright, see, that's different."
"You're just saying it's different... because then it would get in the way of making you feel better. I think."
He blinks. The wrinkles in his brow gives way to relaxed befuddlement. And then... He laughs, turning his head away, hand pushing his hat lower down towards his face. "Okay. You might've gotten me there." But that seems to relax him, a little bit, and he folds his hands behind his head, legs sprawled out inelegantly in front of him. It's not very good manners, probably, on a subway car, but Chrome doesn't talk to him about it. "Although I really did feel bad, about what happened to you. I'll admit to being a bit of a sleazebag, sometimes, when I forget to be subtle in my appreciation of cute girls, but I'm not the kind of sleazebag who stalks. I got a little upset, thinking about what you might've experienced."
"If it makes you actually feel better, I lost him a few times when he tried to trail me," Chrome tells him, and Julie laughs, all the way until the two of them leave the subway.
Things... fall silent, after that. But a strangely okay sort of silence. Not the sort of silence where people are trying to push against her with it, and not the sort of silence that comes with words too strange and worrying for people to touch with their bare hands. It's the silence of mist filtering over a sandy beach, long or before everyone else has so much as glanced at it, no matter how close they might live.
"I don't remember a lot," she says suddenly, as the two of them slip right through into the morgue where the body is kept. No one looks at them. Only Julie looks at her. "When he took over."
It's not something she's really talked about to the others. She's never found a reason or way to bring it up, and the others were all struggling with their own problems as well. Everyone struggling with everything. But it's true. She hardly remembers anything of the times when she was underneath Daemon's influence.
Julie nods. There's something a little more plain on his face, as he looks at her now. No exaggerated whining, no teasing, nothing of what she knows of him from a distance. Just something simple. Like a rock hidden in the desert. "You know, I kind of had to wonder if it was just me who couldn't remember anything," he admits as well, only turning his head away so that he can work through the door leading downstairs to where all the bodies are kept. "I thought maybe it was just a skill issue, right? I'm not a good enough illusionist, maybe, or I'm not used to possession."
And that's true. Maybe neither of them are that good at illusions. But for possession... "Mukuro-sama does it differently," she says, and reaches out with her hand to flick on the morgue lights. "I still remember things when he takes over. Unless I fell unconscious in the first place." And that's happened, before, with all of them - her and Chikusa and Ken.
Mukuro would never admit it, but that's at least a third of what constitutes him taking over their bodies. They all get too... zealous, as Gokudera would describe it.
"Huh." The sound pops out of Julie's mouth, a considerate bubble of a noise, before he goes straight towards one of the morgue drawers. There's no hesitation in his footsteps; he must have done at least a little bit of research before they came here. "Well, I guess that answers that question, doesn't it?"
And with that, he yanks open the drawer, pulling out the dead body laying upon cold metal without any particular aplomb. It's hardly as bloody and messed up as it may have been when first brought into the morgue, but the bullet holes marred with burnmarks around the edges still show exactly what kind of violence occurred. Chrome doesn't know why, but that's hardly important, is it?
Julie flicks his hat off of his head, doing a few tricks as it rolls along his knuckles, along the length of his arm, and smiles. "Well, now that we're finally here... Would the cute girl like to see a magic trick?"
The "magic trick" is mostly how to falsify records to explain a disappearing corpse, removing the corpse, and then going to find the nearest place that's under construction. Namimori is often going under construction these days, honestly, so that's not as hard as one might think. All it takes is laying the corpse down amidst the foundations when no one is looking, keeping it hidden as the concrete is poured over, and then letting their illusions pull back as the construction workers finish for the day.
"Well, that's about all I had planned," Julie says, when they're a good couple of blocks away. "Sorry that it wasn't more glitzy and exciting, but that's the mafia life for you."
What exactly could be glitzy and exciting about disposing of a corpse? Chrome ponders that, and decides that not only would Mukuro know, she's decided that she doesn't want to see what he would have in mind. "I thought there would be more seawater involved," she says after a second.
Julie shrugs. "Well, if the sea were just a little bit closer, we could do that, I guess, but then you'd still have to find cement anyway. Trapping a guy in cement already being used in the city? A lot simpler, and easier for us to find in this case. But jeez, you really seemed surprise at just a little bit of document fudging. Don't you use your illusions for anything fun? When's the first time you even used them?"
Well, obviously the first time she used them was when Mukuro was training her in illusions, which would then have her go on to use them for the Vongola during the ring battles.
She'd figured that was how most illusionists learned, really. In the context of something greater, something serious. Mukuro certainly learned that way, for a given definition of the word. But apparently that's not quite right, judging by the way that Julie wrinkles his nose. When she asks him how he learned, his answer is immediate. "I figured out how to make my flames physical so that I could reach the treat jar that my parents kept on top of the fridge."
Huh. And yet, at the same time, she supposes that's just what she expected. "That seems like you," she says matter of factly, and Julie laughs.
"Is my reputation that bad, even if you've forgiven me for the other stuff?"
She's not sure if forgiven is the right word, but that's just nitpicking. "With how much Adelheid-san yells at you, you seem... the kind of person who plays a lot," she says, after a second. "So that seems like something you would do."
"I mean, that's a nicer response than I was expecting, but, also, I was just a kid." Julie raises an eyebrow at her. "Kids do things like that. You know. Normally."
Normally... Right. The kind of life that she never really got to have. Chrome falls silent for a second, thinking back to her own child. Of an enormous condominium for the rising actress that birthed her, and the rich man who kept her housed. There were nannies hired for her, when she was very small; Chrome can just faintly recall their figures. But then she'd grown up big enough to make cereal, and understand words like don't bother me, and that had been that.
Some people, like Nana, say she's still a kid, and should enjoy herself more. But... "I think... I should be doing something greater than myself," she says, the words clumsy and awkward in her mouth. They don't quite mean what she wants them to mean. Close enough, maybe. "Making something of myself?" Making herself, when she was never even allowed a self. It's still all kind of jumbled in her head, honestly. "I've thought about that... Ever since I was close to dying." It occurs to her that last sentence might raise more questions, since of course Julie would never have heard, so she adds, "That's how Mukuro-sama rescued me."
Will he ask more questions? Chrome wonders, but, instead, Julie's gaze drifts off towards the various shop windows that they pass by. He doesn't seem as though he's actually looking inside them, however. "Making something greater than yourself after a near death experience, huh?" He laughs, but it doesn't seem as light as the ones he usually fakes. "Man, and there I went, doing the opposite for the longest time!"
Him? Oh. When the Shimon family.... first experienced its own tragedy. "What's the opposite?" she asks, because she can't even imagine a life like that. A life where she might have decided on something different. If Julie tells her... Maybe she can at least visualize it.
But for a moment, it almost seems as though he won't answer. Julie just avoids eye contact, fingers rubbing along the back of his neck. Are his hands usually this busy? She's never had cause to notice. Maybe that's a mistake; illusionists are only as good as the reality they're faking. "Well, I suppose I should probably tell you that much," he answers at long last. "But... It came out of nowhere." A grimace passes his lips, that he immediately tries to hide. In a normal way, not with illusions. "Everyone... gone, I mean. Like one day you're doing normal things, going to school, and then, one big crash, and it's all upturned on your head."
Even if it's not the exact same... She thinks of a cat. She thinks of the shock that had come right after that brief burst of pain, before her mind had blocked it all out to drag her into unconsciousness. "I think I understand," she agrees quietly.
Julie nods. Just a nod. That isn't bad, she thinks. "Anyway, it made me think, that could be me, any day now. And what did I actually want to do, then? What'd I want my last day on earth to be? Not slaving away for a job that would just make me die quicker."
Chrome's gaze drifts off to the side. "...Is that not what this is....?"
"Yeah, so joke's on me, huh?" And yet, despite that, he smiles sidelong at her. "But, you know, after getting possessed, and seeing how much a kid like Enma grew up in the blink of an eye... I've kind of figured something. And it's that even if I got an all expenses paid vacation to live life up as much as I'd like, it'd always be p r e t t y sour tasting in my mouth, knowing I'd left Adel-chan behind to haul up all the work, and Enma to live with the bunch of weirdos that my family is. And besides, I mean." He rubs his chin, looking self satisfied and puffed up. "Not to boast, but no one makes better food than our place. I'd be missing out, don't you think?"
Nana Sawada makes the best food in all of Japan, at the very least, but Chrome has learned, slowly, to not diminish other people's pride in their Families. Not carelessly, anyway.... and she gets what he means.
She'd regret it, too, if she just went on to be the best Mist Guardian of the Vongola, and never once even turned back to look at Chikusa and Ken.
As it turns out, they live relatively near to one another - it's just what happens when you're poor middle school students struggling to make a living on your own. So they ride the subway back to their part of town, in relative quiet, and Chrome wonders what next. She sort of knows what she wants to happen next, but she's never had a talent for making that sort of thing happen.
Fortunately, at least Julie is an extrovert, and he doesn't seem to abide silence long, with things having been sorted between them. "You know, you should do something fun with your illusions sometime. Figure out a whole new wardrobe for yourself, shoplift some of your favorite food. You have options!"
"Do you want to do karaoke sometime?" she asks, and Julie nearly trips over his own feet. Maybe she didn't ask it right after all. "When Haru-chan and Kyoko-chan are free."
Adjusting his hat, Julie forgets to straighten himself up completely in favor of just staring at her. "And where did this come from? Talk about a goal change..."
Where? She thought it was obvious, with how their conversation has gone on and trailed, the different paths it's gone down and all that it's picked up along itself, from the school gates to here, both of them walking along the street. She thinks it has to be obvious, when she can place her life and his side by side, seeing the things which match and everything that's different.
"I want to," is what she tells him, because that seems like the simplest way to answer.
Julie stares a moment longer, and then snorts, and then looks away, hand curled up at his mouth. "You know, you're the first girl I've met who's so hard to understand... But alright. We can do that tomorrow, when they're free." Swinging back up into a mostly straight posture, he grins at her. "And I'll bring over Enma, and Rauji, too. A whole big party, right?"
Chrome remembers the last party she was dragged into, and she must make a face, because Julie laughs again.
Well. Maybe this one won't be so bad, won't be so focused on her. And with this...
Maybe. Maybe for a lot of things. Chrome thinks that this time, maybe it might not be so bad, to see about reaching out for a life she never had.
Reaching out for a sense of self.