teaserving | ⏪ INBOX

Not Stupid: did you find your birthday present.

i did and it's really damned cool thanks i should've said something

It's fine. I assumed you'd be busy for the duration — either enjoying yourself or being unconscious.

I'm glad it's suitable. It seemed like your sort of thing. Mostly because of the spikes.

it's pretty great.
thanks, kirigiri.

you had another question?

Yes. Both remaining ones are stupid. You've been sufficiently warned.

Do you ever find yourself...upset, irrationally, by things that are on their face benign and harmless, but that still somehow remind you of...unpleasant things...anyway?

what do you mean by things that are on "their face"

Like a car backfiring, but the sound reminding a person of a gunshot.

so that's either ptsd or something similar
but yeah i know what you mean
that's not stupid
what's up?

It's still embarrassing. Reacting like that over a dead body.

Someone gave me a gift recently, and it made me remember my father's murder. The...way it was wrapped.

Now will you agree it's stupid?

no
why the fuck would i think that

that's traumatic. reacting negatively to something like that is way more normal than you might think.
i couldn't step into a damned convenience store for like a year after my partner died

I don't know. I suppose it just never occurred to me that it would bother me. Especially not something as harmless as that. The box, I mean. Maybe it was a lot of factors.

I lost control of myself, a bit. That's the other embarrassing part.

sometimes simple shit can make you think back to things you thought you put behind you
i've seen some fucked up things but those don't weigh on me as hard as personal matters. things that actually matter to you.

I'll go into convenience stores for you if you want. I don't mind doing it.

What about afterward? To feel like a...gray, disgusting, discarded gym sock, is that also normal?

ha that's actually pretty sweet of you

oh yeah. that's normal. that's kind of how i feel most of the time
a little moist
moldy

Gross.

I wouldn't guess it from looking at you, though.

i keep it on the inside usually.

don't be hard on yourself, kirigiri.
i don't know everything you went through but reacting to something because it reminds you of a dead person is pretty understandable. whether they were family or something else.