"Can You Open Your Heart?" - a Rika pseudo-route

[Beoran]

If there's one thing I'm slowly starting to understand is that you need to talk to people in terms they understand, with words they are willing to listen to. You cannot change someone's cherished, strong beliefs that easily, by directly opposing them. On the contrary, you have to take a roundabout approach.

As I see it, charging in with common wisdom about how you can stay the same even if you get better... will never work on Rika since she strongly believes that to be false. He has to make a step towards her and acknowledge her way of thinking, but then offer a better alternative than self-destruction.

[wolvenfire86]

Dude, I just started reading this today at work (fuck da police). I just made it past Illusions and I have to say you are a wonderful writer. Rika is my favorite girl as of now and her beliefs are so refreshing, so real.

Love you stuff. Seriously, love your work. Excellent my man.

[Titus]

(replying at lightning speed)

I meant that by choosing that option, he's sort of showing that he doesn't really get her after all. "I want the happy version of you that I occasionally get a glimpse of" is a nice thing to say but the way he expresses it puts them at odds.

This branch was supposed to convey a Hisao that isn't really sensitive to Rika's actual concerns. Sort of how the other "bad endings" work in KS. Maybe because I wanted to make the choice more ambiguous, I couched it in language that sounded better than it ended up being. I could have also said, "Rika, what's important is your health," or something like that, but that's too obviously the wrong thing to say.

I kind of wanted him to think, "You know what, everyone's putting pressure on me to be a positive influence on Rika and maybe if I use my honeyed words I can do exactly that." But then he has a Master of Romance moment and totally fucks it up by having no idea what to actually say. And his emotions get the better of him because he's tired of how condescending she is.

It's tough to write Hisao being a dummy and not make it seem like bad writing. I'm open to the possibility that it is an error on my part, and I welcome the criticism, but I think it's consistent with Hisao in the context.

Thanks for the response, Titus. Your comments are always thoughtful and I appreciate them.

Thanks, I liked your story ever since the first scene at the bus stop! If that was the message of the choice, I wonder about the other that I went with. I got the idea that everything would end up bad and worse right when Rika "furrowed" her brow during Hisao's speech in which Hisao thought that he might be "rambling". I guess Hisao doesn't know when to shut up right? I can't say Rika is an angel either (hell no), but with her, like another poster said:

you need to talk to people in terms they understand, with words they are willing to listen to. You cannot change someone's cherished, strong beliefs that easily, by directly opposing them

Then again, we all don't know how you will have Hisao solve Rika's defeatist attitude to life and obsession with death (and whatever happened to her smoking). Do whatever it is you do that makes your story great, I'm your biggest fan

[MarioXMan]

Will the other anser be just 2 sceens and finish or will the other ending drag out for a while and even leed to more choices

[nemz]

I have a sneaking suspicion that neither of you can be saved... that the difference between good and bad endings is whether you die together in bliss or apart in anger.

Great read though!

[MarioXMan]

I have a sneaking suspicion that neither of you can be saved... that the difference between good and bad endings is whether you die together in bliss or apart in anger.

Great read though!

Who said Hisao dies,ya he had a heart attack,but Emi was close to him so she could easily got him to the hospital.

[wolvenfire86]

Un-fucking-believable! Rika is like a ghost. I think I like her more than most of the canon girls. The last chapter...thank god I didn't pick that answer. It was so powerful, really moving, terrifying. I was scared thinking of Rika's dead eyes looking up at Hisao, as empty and mysterious as she always looked at him.

Now I really need to read the other ending. Holy shit, this one was depressing. I would have picked [Rika, your life is yours. I just want to be here for you.] so I want to see how it turns out.

You are a great writer my friend. Really great stuff.

[bradpara]

WOW,

That is one hell of a Bad Ending.

Waiting on the Good Ending, will we get an H Scene

[Rikabro]

Still more to come before Act 3 is over. Act 4 is forthcoming.

Thanks for reading. Erotic content warning in this one.

***

Scene 11: Paths

I reach over and clasp her hand, looking into her eyes. She gives me her complete attention.

“Rika, you don’t need to be left alone, because you’re not going to be alone, alright? Not anymore.”

She squeezes my hand as her crimson eyes fill with emotion. I swallow hard. My voice quivers a little bit as I go on, careful what I’m about to say. Rika seems unstable, somehow, and it’s worrying.

“You know,” I say, “it hurts me to hear you talking like this because I’m still so new to all of this myself. I know you’re afraid all the time. I’m afraid, too. More than ever since we’ve been together. And honestly, Rika, I don’t think I understand you most of the time. But maybe you don’t need me to understand you. You’re not my teacher and I’m not yours. We’re both on our own journeys. And even if I don’t agree with you all the time, and you don’t agree with me… can’t we just see it all through together? Be afraid together? Maybe we’ll each learn something that way.”

She breathes an innocuous sigh and averts her eyes thoughtfully. Her controlling gaze loses its grip on me and the feeling is liberating. The tears that were hanging in her eyes fall free and trickle down her cheeks. She speaks softly.

“You’ll stay with me, then?”

“Of course I will. I’m not going to put conditions on what we have. But I need something from you, too.”

“What is it?”

“I need you to be with me, too. I’m learning about who I am, and I have my own idea of what’s best for me and for my future. We may not always agree about what’s important for each other. But that’s not any of our business. You’ve shown me a lot and there are things I want to show you, but we need to live with respect if this is going to work. Do you understand?”

A light giggle. I’m gladdened to hear any kind of positive response, but it still catches me off guard.

“You’d probably be surprised how much I’m learning from you, Hisao. Maybe I just don’t show you enough gratitude. You know how rude I am.”

“Is that your way of apologizing?”

She looks me in the eyes, a coy smile on her face. “You can either accept it or reject it.”

“Well, then apology accepted.”

She giggles again, and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “I meant my rudeness.”

I blush a little. For someone my age it’s embarrassing that I still react this way to intimacy, but Rika is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a girlfriend.

She rests her head in my lap and looks up at the tree branches. I put my hand on her face, brushing the tears from her cheek. She kisses my fingers, a small gesture but one that has an enormous impact on me. My stomach flutters as we silently rest beneath the canopy of tree branches. Normally when I’m getting signals from my body, it’s not a good thing, but this is a feeling I don’t think I need to fear.

Love. It’s something like love.

Suddenly, her face turns contemplative again and she springs to her feet. She peers at my bedroom window, and I follow her gaze. I’ve left it open again. I need to stop doing that, especially with strange girls like Rika roaming about at night.

Rika gets a sly look on her face. What’s she scheming?

“Hisao,” she says, “if you’re going to be my shadow, you’ll need to follow every step I take. Do you think you can even do that?”

With a quick jog she jumps up at a thick, hanging tree branch, which dips a bit under her weight. She hoists herself onto it with finesse, dangling her legs over the edge as she seats herself on her perch with a wink.

“Shadows never leave the ground, Rika. I’ll take the stairs.”

She scoffs. “There are no shadows at night, Hisao. Just us. You can do what you want. But you said you wanted to come on a journey with me, didn’t you?”

It sounds a little more like an ultimatum than a request, when she puts it that way. Is she trying to mock me for what I said earlier, about us being on equal footing? Or is this just another of her trademark attempts at scaring the life out of me?

She carefully rises to her feet, balancing herself against the branch with one hand, and walks towards the trunk of the tree. I follow her and uncertainly place my hands on either side of the trunk, careful to get my footing as I try to hoist myself up.

“You should keep your shoes on,” she says to me. It occurs to me that she doesn’t even seem to have brought shoes of her own. “And use your legs more than your arms.”

I try to pull myself off the ground, placing a foot firmly on a knot near the base of the tree, and suddenly something sharp stings my left hand. I recoil, losing my balance and falling backwards. In an instant, Rika’s at my side, helping me to my feet. From the look on her face it’s clear that she’s trying to stifle laughter.

I examine my left hand, and she takes it from me as soon as she sees my concern, turning it over cautiously in her own hands.

“I think I got a splinter,” I say. I sound like a hurt child. How humiliating.

She shakes her head, pointing to a spot just above my left index finger. There are two red marks, with just a few drops of blood sitting on the surface of my skin.

“You’ve been bitten by a squirrel.”

“Are they poisonous?” I joke, and she shrugs at me, keeping a straight face.

“They can carry diseases. We should probably get you to the emergency room just to be safe.”

I nudge her and she grins at me. Her japes are starting to lose their effect on me, and she must realize that by now. I wonder how far she would have taken this one just to stir up a bit of fear. Mixed with her concern is just a hint of glee, as usual. She seems to take pride in my complete failure to even get my feet off the ground.

I start to walk back to the dorm building, nursing my hand with exaggerated agony, and she accompanies me without any thought of seeking invitation.

“How high up did I go?” I ask. She giggles.

“Let’s just call it a personal best.”

She pulls my wounded hand away from myself, squeezing it with her own as we walk. I wince at her, but the warm softness of her skin against mine is oddly calming. How her own hands manage to stay so soft with such a pastime as this is a mystery to me.



Scene 12: The Visitor

We ascend the stairs quietly, fortunate not to be spotted by anyone, and the moment I enter my room I feel myself hit with fatigue again. My door closes behind me just as I start to doze off, on my feet, and brings me back to the reality that I’m not alone.

Rika quickly slips out of her sweater again and strolls nonchalantly over to my nightstand. I gaze at her back as she picks up a few of my pill bottles, scrutinizing their labels in the faint moonlight, much of which is probably emanating from her own face.

I’m either too drowsy or too entranced by the sight of her partial nudity to wonder what exactly she’s pondering. Something must amuse her as I hear her stifling some laughter. She turns around and throws one of my pill bottles to me, and I fumble to catch it.

“Hallucinations,” she says in a haunted house voice, wiggling her fingers dramatically. I laugh.

“You don’t have these ones?”

She shakes her head at me. “We do have a few in common. Mind if I have a cocktail?”

I notice a rather busy selection of medications in the palm of her left hand. I silently comply as she downs a few pills with a sip from the water bottle I keep at my bedside. Whether she’s approximating her own prescription or trying to benefit from a few “side effects,” I’m not quite sure, but I don’t ask.

She steps towards me and abruptly places her hands on the front of my shirt, unfastening my buttons. My eyes widen and I stammer incomprehensibly at her boldness.

“You aren’t really thinking of going to bed with your clothes on again, are you, Hisao?”

Standing with my arms at my sides I can’t help feeling like a little boy being undressed. Rika snickers as she regards my posture. After unfastening the last button she slips her hands beneath my shirt and caresses my lower back with the tips of her fingers. Beads of sweat emerge on my forehead and I feel my pulse accelerate. She observes my reaction and her eyebrows rise slightly, more from curiosity than concern.

“This isn’t how you undress someone,” I say in my sexiest possible voice, which at present is a pubescent crackle. I clear my throat.

She raises an eyebrow at me, smirking charitably at my misguided flirting attempt. Leaning forward, she stands on her toes to put her face level with mine, and I feel her breasts pressing against my body. She speaks softly into my ear. “Teach me how to undress someone, Mr. Nakai.”

The tingling sensation caused by the tips of her fingers brushing against the surface of my skin starts to sink more deeply, diffusing throughout my body. The lines between illness and exhilaration are hard to discern anymore. My racing pulse fills me with desire and anxiety. I sweat. I feel dizzy.

Rika moves her hands up towards my chest and deftly slips them under my sleeves, removing my shirt. It falls to the floor and I shiver a bit at the breeze coming through the window, which feels cool against the dampness of my skin. Her eyes look into mine, narrowing a bit in an ecstatic expression as she probes my thoughts. Whether she’s looking for signs of inexperience or signs of emergency, I don’t know.

I place my hands on the small of her back. Her skin feels hot against mine. She inhales at the unexpected contact, and I caress her smooth back with my own hands, mirroring her movements. I reach up to unfasten her bra and fumble with it for a few seconds before she gives me an incredulous smirk, reaching behind herself to unfasten it for me. Any illusions of experience I’ve managed to sustain are gone at this point.

I remove the straps from her shoulders and let her bra fall to the ground, careful not to break eye contact. She reaches down to unfasten my pants, and the sound of my zipper causes me to flinch. My trousers fall to the floor and I step out of them, kicking off my shoes in the process, while Rika unbuttons and unzips her own. She wiggles her hips comically as she bends down to remove her jeans. My pulse pounds in my head as I behold her luminous, slender physique, her alluring hips, her narrow but toned thighs, her low-cut, pink lace underwear that makes me wonder how much of tonight's events she'd been anticipating before coming here.

She kicks her jeans aside, leaving her socks on, and before I can even fathom what’s happening she presses herself against me with a forceful kiss. I fall backwards onto my bed, and she climbs on top of me, placing her hands on my chest and fixing me with her glowing, crimson eyes. The sensation of her skin on mine makes my heart rate climb even further. The image of her is unreal. Her bright skin seems almost to amplify the faint moonlight in the room. She leans forward again to kiss me and her braid hangs, tickling the scar on my chest. I look at her with surprise.

“Are you still feeling insecure?” she chides me with a half-smile. She reaches down and takes my hand in hers, placing it between her breasts. Even from below, with her towering over me, being so forceful, she somehow looks so diminutive and frail. Weak, almost. I run my hand over her bare chest, reaching up across her collar bone. I can feel her pulse beating rapidly, though her composure and expression give no indication that anything is amiss.

Rika searches me with her eyes. “You’re not nervous, are you?”

“I guess a little bit,” I concede. She rolls her eyes playfully.

“I don’t bite, Hisao,” she says, glancing at my left hand. I realize now that I’m still bleeding a bit, and where my hand has been is a very faint, red streak. She pulls my hand towards her face and kisses my wound. I touch her cheek with the back of my fingers, and she tilts her head to meet my caress. I reach up with my other hand and place it on her shoulder, running my hand down her bare arm.

“You’re so beautiful,” I murmur in a daze.

She seems flattered for a second, blushing ever so slightly, giving me a rare glimpse of her modesty. Her eyes go down to my chest and she draws a little circle around my scar with her fingernail.

"I'm yours," she says, though without a hint of submission in her tone.

She bends forward and places her lips against mine, parting them just a little bit. I take my cue reluctantly, tilting my head and returning her kiss as I run my hands down her sides to her hips. She runs her fingers through my hair as I stroke her back. Our breaths quicken and our bodies overcome us.

Suddenly, she pulls back, and her expression grows distant. Her eyes narrow in something like concentration, as though she heard a distant noise. Then she takes a deep breath, pressing herself down against me with an uncanny vigor. She grabs my wrists stiffly and moves my hands to her chest as she rocks back and forth on top of me. Her breaths start to shudder as she imprisons me in her obscene act. I gasp as my body betrays the better part of my judgment. I grip her breasts with my hands.

“Harder,” she says in an urgent, shuddering voice. I move my hands up to her shoulders and pull her against me, and she gapes at me in surprise, steadying herself against my chest with her arms as I press my groin against her. My heart churns with unease as my pulse accelerates. Sweat trickles down my face. My skin becomes hot, and the image of Rika starts to blur. My sight blurs at the edges, the pallid room liquefying in my peripheral vision.

And that other sensation. The sensation from the cinema. A lingering presence. An unsettling feeling that I am being watched. The word from my pill label ticks around in my head, in Rika's playful, spooky voice. "Hallucination."

Rika’s hands move up to my shoulders, as she rocks her hips back and forth. She inhales sharply and I feel her fingernails pierce my skin. I cry out in a mixture of pain and ecstasy, her brazen antics fueling what I can only hope is my lust. Her own breath gathers in her throat, her jaw lowers, her lips quiver, and the flame in her irises flickers. After a few minutes, her features distort and she abruptly slows to a stillness, slumping her weight against me.

As fear fends off my own recklessness, I anxiously reach up to check her pulse. It’s every bit as rapid as it was before. A relief compared to what I’d been afraid was happening.

She hums complacently, reaching up with her own hand to check my pulse, in turn. She gives me a condescending pat on the cheek.

“Still with me, Nakai?”

I swallow hard, suddenly ashamed of my inhibitions. I’m not as practiced as Rika either in the art of lovemaking or the art of having heart attacks. Maybe I should have read that pamphlet that Nurse gave me.

She rests her head on my shoulder, and I put my hand behind her, stroking her back as she reposes on top of me.

“You felt it too, didn’t you?” she asks me.

I just chuckle nervously instead of answering. I can’t even begin to understand what I just felt. My mind is exhausted, scurrying from desire to fear. I couldn’t speak if I tried.

She sighs. “Me too,” she says, and gives me a kiss on the cheek. “We were almost there.”


Continue to Scene 13...

[BobBobberson]

I sense a part deux with the 'hallucination' bit! If anything, it's a good excuse for another scene of Hisao/Rika I still find it funny how the girls are so fucking forward with Hisao. Keep on doing what you're doing mate, you've got a fan in me.

Quick question though, Act 3 is the equivalent of Act 4 in the VN though, right? Usually if you fuck up and get the bad ending, you don't make it past Act 3.

[Rikabro]

Quick question though, Act 3 is the equivalent of Act 4 in the VN though, right? Usually if you fuck up and get the bad ending, you don't make it past Act 3.

I think I was unclear. Act 3 is going to probably be done in the next installment but Act 4 is yet to come. Act 4 will contain another branch, as I currently envision it, and will have them engaging with their context a lot more (i.e. more characters than just them all the time).

Thanks for the words of support.

[Mahorfeus]

I'm strangely appreciative of how you didn't portray Hisao as some Virgin Sex God like the visual novel and accompanying fanfics do. Can't say why, though.

All in all, good work as always.

[BobBobberson]

Quick question though, Act 3 is the equivalent of Act 4 in the VN though, right? Usually if you fuck up and get the bad ending, you don't make it past Act 3.

I think I was unclear. Act 3 is going to probably be done in the next installment but Act 4 is yet to come. Act 4 will contain another branch, as I currently envision it, and will have them engaging with their context a lot more (i.e. more characters than just them all the time).

Aaight, that makes the layout clearer now. But now there's the possibility of MOAR bad endings...I hope? I might be the only one who wants to see more bad endings.

[Titus]

YES

You never fail, each story is incredibly well done and delightful to read, good thing Rika borrowed Hisao's pills too eh? If only I had decent drawing skills for this story. Sigh. My imagination will have to do, and I love the details. But one thing, Rika isn't a virgin? Or will that be left for the readers to decide?

But now there's the possibility of MOAR bad endings...I hope?

NO! no more, please, make it stop!

[chubert]

I'm not sure...

See, in the bad end, Hisao confronts the fucking problem that needs to be confronted--even people without heart conditions go about their lives trying to strike fear in each others' hearts. It's self-destructive behavior, which is generally, uh, bad. Playing the GD Batman doesn't really help you, uh, STAY ALIVE when you have a heart condition.

And there's also the issue with Rika's dead boyfriend. That's brought up in the bad end too. Rika flips shit and dies.

In the Bad End Hisao, par for the course, fucks up the delivery of a sensitive subject (Emi's house, don't consult with her mom; atelier, after the first Rin H scene; etc.) But they're still issues that need to be brought up. Right now, in our "good end" route we have all the inertia of a train wreck. hey, guys, let's experiment with our heart medication! this is a great idea!

If those two choices were presented to me in the game, my reasoning would be: "Okay, I'd probably, IRL, take the more confrontational choice, but that'll probably bad-end me. Let's take the one that makes me semi-uncomfortable."