That Nostalgic Summer Rain (Bleach/Kara no Kyoukai)

[X] This wasn't just coming out of nowhere. Fujino needed to talk to Arisawa to figure out how to change her mind. This felt like it ran deeper than just one mistake.

When Fujino next spoke, her words were slow, more deliberate. This was a matter which felt like it could be sensitive. She needed to make sure that she didn't say anything that would cause Arisawa to withdraw, and stop talking.

"Arisawa." She began. "What were you going to say there? You trailed off."

There was the sound of something ruffling as Arisawa moved suddenly, before she replied. "It's nothing. Forget about it."

"It doesn't sound like nothing." Fujino replied. "Arisawa, I haven't known you for very long, but it doesn't sound like you're doing too well, right now."

"Of course I don't." Arisawa replied. "I only just woke up from all the blood loss."

"That's not what I mean." Fujino disagreed. "Arisawa, please, just tell me what the problem is."

The girl fell into silence again.

Had she been too pushy? Fujino really didn't know Arisawa that much. Was she expecting too much, like this? It wasn't like Fujino could simply walk it back at this point, she wanted an answer and if Arisawa had been offended by how forceful Fujino was with wanting answers, then backing out wouldn't change that. Still, it weighed down on Fujino during the silence, that she may have overstepped her boundaries.

Arisawa sighed, ending the silence, and Fujino focused on her as she started talking.

"I'm feeling really stupid about this." Arisawa muttered. "It's not anything big compared to the whole Ouji thing. It feels like I'm just wasting your time."

"Don't be like that." Asagami told her. "If it's bothering you, it's important. Even if someone else is going through something worse, that doesn't mean something weighing on your mind is any less difficult for you."

Arisawa didn't reply to that, and there was a pause before she shifted the topic of conversation. "I always thought I was someone my friends could count on. Someone who'd help. Maybe I was being self-centred, but I always thought I was reliable. Then it turns out Ichigo and Orihime have gotten involved in something big and never told me, never even let me know something was happening."

The girl sighed again, and Fujino waited until she started talking again. "I didn't want to let it bother me for long, didn't want to just sulk over not being told anything. But I guess I just didn't want to be left out again, really. You noticed, right? I kept butting in on the conversation between you and Ouji talking, even though I didn't have any right to be involved. Agitated her just because I didn't want to be doing nothing."

"That's not how-" Fujino began.

"Yeah, it was." Arisawa interrupted. "I should've just shut up. You might've been able to talk with Ouji more if I didn't piss her off. Hell, who knows, maybe she wouldn't have set the Hollow on me if I didn't keep talking."

Fujino didn't reply. Arisawa would likely just interrupt her again if she spoke too suddenly, so she had to take a moment to wait for her chance to speak, and if she was waiting for her moment, she had time to think about what to say. And given the chance to think, Fujino had to admit, she didn't know if she could say for sure that Arisawa was wrong. Fujino didn't know Misaya that well, and the state Misaya was in meant that it made sense that she might act irrationally. Could Fujino really say for sure that Arisawa's interjections weren't detrimental?

Fujino couldn't honestly refute Arisawa's point there, and if she tried, she doubted she could sound convincing. So rather than logic, Fujino needed to appeal to emotion.

"It's fine." She insisted. "Misaya wasn't in the best state of mind when we met her, anyway. Even if she had stuck around and talked with me more, I could have said something that would have set her off just the same."

"You don't know that for sure." Arisawa countered.

"And I don't know otherwise for sure." Fujino insisted.

"Why are you so insistent on this?" Arisawa asked. "Why do you care?"

Fujino didn't reply for some time, as she tried to phase her reply to this.

"You felt bad about your friends not telling you about their problems." Fujino began. "So you tried to involve yourself in my problems. I hardly think you should be blamed for that."

"Why not?" Arisawa asked.

"Because my reasoning is hardly better." Fujino answered, looking down. "The supernatural element to this situation is something I don't want to be involved with. If it was up to me, I'd never have to involve myself in the supernatural ever again. I'd never let anyone know I was involved in the supernatural at all, if I had a choice in the matter."

Arisawa sounded like she was about to say something, but at the last second, cut herself off.

"I'm going to be honest." Fujino continued. This point, she was unsure about, but Misaya had already hinted at it fairly heavily with Arisawa in earshot, so it wasn't that much more being revealed. "I'm not a good person, Arisawa. I don't want to go into details on this, but after the things I've done, the fact that I am still here is an injustice."

"...Asagami?"

"At the end of the day, the reason I'm here isn't anything selfless." Fujino explained. "It's just to make me feel better. It's no less selfish than wanting to be involved because you want to be needed, Arisawa."

"...I don't know what to say." Arisawa admitted. "I don't know what's happened, but... Well, you're selling yourself short, Asagami. If your idea of feeling better about yourself is going out of your way to help someone when you'd rather stay home, then I don't know how you're so sure that you're not a good person."

"Thank you, Arisawa." Fujino replied. "But if you think someone can be a good person while pursuing a selfish goal, then you can see why I wouldn't care if you made a mistake because you were trying to pursue something important to you. I could just as easily make a mistake, all things considered."

"You haven't yet, though." Arisawa replied. "I have."

"And that doesn't mean you will again." Fujino countered.

"Might be too late." Arisawa continued. "Misaya already doesn't like me. Me turning up might agitate her more in the future."

"Perhaps." Fujino continued. "It doesn't mean you can't help without meeting her again, somehow."

Silence fell again, as Arisawa presumably took time to think of what to say, before she spoke again.

"I'm surprised you've gone so far to change my mind." Arisawa admitted.

"You've been a big help so far, Arisawa." Fujino continued. "And you said it yourself, you would rather be someone reliable. I believe it would be easier to find Misaya again if you could continue helping me, Arisawa. At the very least, having someone who can see the town and know where everything is would be helpful."

"...I still don't like this." Arisawa muttered. "But yeah. Alright. If you really want me to keep lending a hand, I will."

Fujino smiled. "Thank you, Arisawa. If you want to talk about it any more, just let me know. Maybe it will make you feel better."

"There's not any more to talk about." Arisawa replied. "I mean, we covered it all already, I think. I feel bad because people weren't filling me in on what they were doing, when they were going through hard times, and it sucks I couldn't help. Then I fucked up when I did try to help. Not really anything else to it."

"I suppose." Fujino accepted. "Still, if it bothers you, I'm here if you want to talk about anything, Arisawa."

"Hey." Arisawa interrupted. "We just had a big talk about how we feel and stuff. This isn't usually something I'd talk about with someone I'm on last name basis with. I think it's alright if you just called me Tatsuki at this point."

Fujino blinked.

"I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to." Arisawa quickly rectified. "Like, if it's something that'd make you uncomfortable, I'd get it. We've known each other for like three days, we barely know each other beyond the obvious."

"No, it's fine." Fujino assured her. "I just hadn't expected it, for some reason. It's fine. Tatsuki. You can fall me Fujino, if you want."

Tatsuki sighed again, this time sounding relieved. "That's still something, though. We really don't know each other that well, Fujino. What do you do when you're not travelling around looking for lost people? For fun, I mean."

Fujino took a moment to think on that. It'd been some time since she'd been able to do much, what with ow much she had been trying to catch up on school work while trying to learn braille, but there was a few things.

"I used to enjoy movies." Fujino mused. "I haven't gone to any recently, for obvious reasons, but I have been meaning to get around to seeing what options the cinema has for the visually impaired. Recently, I've mostly just been thinking a lot. How about you, Ar- Tatsuki?"

The girl chuckled lightly. "You know, I won't get upset or anything if you call me Arisawa. I get it, it's habit, it's hard to shift over."

"I don't want to seem rude." Fujino replied.

"Well, to answer you question..." Tatsuki took a moment to think. "Movies are good, occasionally. I spend most of my time at Karate practice, personally. Usually hang out with Orihime, or Ichigo, or whoever, but everyone's busy right now, so that's not an option. I guess thinking's pretty much all I was doing until you came along, recently."

"You haven't done anything to just relax recently?" Fujino asked. "Just to unwind?"

"Have you?" Tatsuki asked.

Fujino pondered that. "You raise a fair point. Perhaps we should try to take some time to relax. Misaya is suffering, but if we don't find her soon, I could end up burning myself out just trying to find her."

"Well, I wouldn't go that far." Arisawa interrupted. "You're hardly that bad."

"It's still a thought." Fujino pointed out. "People can't survive just focusing on heavy subjects and not having fun. And besides, I imagine giving Misaya time to calm down might make her less likely to attack us on sight."

"I suppose." Tatsuki stated. "So what? You want to grab a movie later? I mean, not in the cinema, but there's a place not far from here that dubs over American movies, I'd say there's good odds they have something narrated in detail there."

"How recent are the movies they have?" Fujino asked. "I hear that one of the big American horror movies got a sequel recently, and I'm interested in seeing how it is."

"...Horror?" Tatsuki asked. "I hadn't taken you as the kind of person who likes horror."

Fujino frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I dunno too much about you, but you always seemed..." Tatsuki began, before trailing off. "You were getting bothered earlier because hiding in a bush was undignified, but you watch horror?"

"I don't get it." Fujino replied. "How is that strange?"

"It..." Tatsuki trailed off again, and sighed. "Never mind."

"Well I'm going to mind now." Fujino replied. "Am I missing something? Is there something strange about me liking horror movies that I don't understand? Do people find that weird?"

"No, no, it's fine." Tatsuki assured her. "It's just... How did this conversation get here? How did we go from me asking what exactly happened when I got hit to us talking about movies?"

"I'm not entirely sure." Fujino replied. "Oh, and I forgot to mention. Kurosaki is in the room next to us, she wanted to check on you at some point. I should probably leave so she can talk to you at some point."

"Karin?" Tatsuki asked. Fujino nodded, and Tatsuki continued. "Yeah, I should probably talk to her. The big guy told me I needed to rest for a while, but when he lets me go, we'll go see if we can find a movie or something?"

"That would be nice." Fujino replied. "I'll be seeing you, then."

"What're you gonna do while I'm stuck here?" Tatsuki asked. "Just curious. Go back to the abandoned place and grab Ouji's stuff?"

Fujino took a moment to think about it. "Maybe. She might not think about going back for it for a while. It's not a priority, regardless. It's hardly needed, even if it would be convenient. But I don't have anything else to do."

"I suppose we could just leave it and go by later." Tatsuki mused. "Wait for her to realise she needs to go back for it and be there when she gets there? It's not really a plan but we could work on it, I guess."

Fujino thought on it for a moment.

[X] Go get Ouji's stuff now, and see if any of it can be useful for her to find Misaya. At the very least, the map could be useful.
[X] Leave it. It's not explicitly something needed right now, and maybe it would do Fujino some good to just wait here.