[he has half a mind to at least consider trying to call one of the leaders. he doesn't even care which one at this point. whoever will answer, that's who he'll try. but as he opens the door to the planetarium the light from outside spills into the room just enough that he spots someone already there.
It sure also is some sort of plushie held close in her arms, though it's hard to tell what exactly it is right this second. She's hugging it tight from her seat on the floor, her hair a mess, bits of grass and twig stuck in her braid and parts of her clothes.
She'll look up immediately at her name, though, looking disappointed for a moment but shaking it off just as fast.]
Ah... Sora-kun!
Did you see the message about Hajime-chan? Has anyone seen her??
Um...[hm. this is awkward. but she deserves to know.] Yeah. I'm sorry, Hikaru, but the message wasn't a lie. She's really gone. I think someone brought her back to one of the drop-off points already.
[at least. he assumes. he did not find a body in the woods.]
Thankfully, for poor Sora, RNG said this clicks for Hikaru enough that he doesn't have to explain. Her face switches rapidly, from concern to alarm to an almost angered sorrow.
She clutches that plushie harder, the fluff of blondish-white hair sticking up against her arms.]
When... when they said she was removed, is... that what they meant, then?
[since she's taking it this way, he'll enter the room a little further to sit nearby. possibly on stray cereal. i don't know. anyway. hm...it's a hard question, and he's not exactly happy this happened either.]
That's what it meant. But I don't know if the Realm did this. The Leaders said they would let us know tomorrow if they learned anything new, so if it was the Realm they should know really soon. But I don't understand why it would do that. It wanted our help. How is killing her helping?
[it's fine we'll just show up with incriminating evidence all over our clothes tomorrow bc we sat on it]
I don't want to believe that it could help. If the Realm needs nova, then having lots of memories to choose from and a lot of people to collect it would be best, you know? So if we're all alive, and if the Leaders are right about what the Realm wants from us... then all it needs is for us to work together.
But if it wasn't the Realm... then why did it allow someone to do something like this? And who... Who would kill someone like Hajime-chan?
Maybe she broke some sort of rule... but the Leaders wouldn't be reacting this way if it was something like that, right?
That's what I want to know, too. Why would anyone pick Hajime out of anyone else here? [those are all very good questions and points.] They do say that the nova is attracted to people in certain ways, but we don't know all of the ways it is. If there's something that happens where an emotion like fear or or anger attracts more nova, then it would make sense to create a situation to make more of it come.
But I don't know. The Leaders seemed pretty shocked to me, too. They must have just found out like we did.
me sitting on my hands with all my ideas because Hikaru is not a brain cell
Mmn. When I talked to my leader, they said all they wanted to do was help, as best as they could. I trust them - they'd tell us if they knew something like this. But...
Wouldn't that have to mean that the Realm was the one who did something to her? None of us could have known if something bad would change the nova any way, right?
Maybe. We don't really know how the Realm works or what it can do or what it tells the Leaders. Or if it can talk to some of us, too. Maybe...maybe the Realm told someone else to take care of it.
But I dunno. There's still too much we don't know, and won't, until the Leaders come back.
[She's coming back into the inn, looking more than a little tired when she spots Sora. Something in her eyes lights up, face serious as she crosses over to him.]
Sora-kun...
I need to talk to you for a minute. It's about the vote. Is that okay?
My leader thinks that the Realm got confused. It knew that I was innocent, and that I knew I was innocent, too. So it didn't know what to do with my vote.
So it just picked a name, and my vote got changed.
A really bad coincidence then. [ugh...somehow, that's worse. but he takes a moment to think on her answer.]
...none of us truly deserve to die, Hikaru. But what Virid did was still wrong, wasn't it? [hajime didn't deserve to die. pikachu sure as hell didn't deserve to die either.]
Mm. [she's not wrong.] No matter what option we picked, somebody was gonna lose. We were kind of doomed the minute we walked into that trial, and nobody knew what would happen until it happened.
...it's okay to still feel like it was wrong. I don't think death was a great solution, but I don't think Virid cared about what he did either. [...so he's maybe still a little mad about that.] But we should make sure others know, too. If we ever have to do this again, and someone else tries to vote for themselves...there are way too many ways it could go all wrong.
[a pause.] But the vote for Yona wasn't really your fault. Okay? [just...so she knows that.] We just have to know better going forward.
I already talked to Won-san... I'm... gonna talk to Yona-chan tomorrow, once she can rest. Even if it wasn't my intention, she still deserves an apology.
I hope we never have to do that horrible trial again... but if we do, then someone's gotta tell everybody. It's why I wanted some of you to know. People are already losing memories, so if something bad ever happens again, and I can't be the one to explain... I want someone to still be able to tell people.
Won's a good person to talk to. He seems to know what to do around here. [sora likes soo-won quite a bit, actually.] I think Yona will like to hear that though. I'm sure she's wondering, and...we can only be a team if we're working together.
That's a smart idea though. [he agrees that it's best to share information just in case.] Almost everyone I know has lost memories from their own worlds, but that doesn't mean it won't change. After everything that just happened? We can't be too careful.
My leader did say there should be a better way to get nova. A way that doesn't involve doing what Virid-kun did. I don't know what that way is, but... I'm gonna keep asking.
[Something settles in her expression, a hurt familiarity.] I don't want anyone else to get so afraid of losing what they have, that they feel they have no choice but to do such horrible things.
I'll keep asking mine, too. If there is a way, we'll have to find out soon. We can't lose anybody else.
...Mob and I were saying the best we can do right now is try to talk to people and understand them, just so they don't feel like they don't have another choice. If there are people they feel like they can trust, and if we can understand each other, maybe we'll save someone from going too far.
[Hikaru is freshly bandaged and camping outside on the inn steps with a few pieces of paper in her hands, a pen in her mouth and a goldfish plushie with two jagged, plastic pieces awkwardly pinned onto its back occupying most of her lap.
She'll wave at Sora when she spots him, her eyes lighting up.]
Ahh -- Sora-kun, hey! I need to talk to you for a minute! [Her voice sounds rough and she does have to cough a little after raising it to get his attention, but at least she looks fine???]
[everybody sure got wrecked yesterday, and that's actually kind of terrible. but as sora's approaching the inn from somewhere else in town he spots hikaru seated there and waves back.]
Hey! [he'll walk right up to her, and there's a flare of concern.] Are you sure? Rest your voice if you need to, that sounds pretty bad.
[...sora has legitimately no idea what happened in town because he was on a boat the whole time.]
No, no, I'm okay! [She fiddles next to her seat before pulling up a bottle of water, already half-empty.] I promised my leader I'd be drinking a lot until it starts to sound better, so please don't worry. There was just a lotta smoke the other day, you know?
Anyway, um... I need your help with something for a minute, if that's okay!
Everything was burning up pretty bad. As long as you're sure though. [but he seems satisfied with that answer and he nods. she's listening to her leader and that's good enough for him.]
I've got time. What's going on? ["how can i help?"]
[there's a short blip of curiosity as he watches her shuffle papers, but he also seems like he's thinking on that question. yeah. no, that is kind of weird that he doesn't have a family name, isn't it? oh well.]
It's just Sora. We don't really use family names where I'm from. Not really.
[Mm. That saddens her, just a little, but it settles back into something confident and curious as she jots his name down at the top of her new page.]
That's okay. There's a lot of people that don't use them here, I think.
Your name's always easy for me to remember. It means "sky". Like, um...
[She'll start to draw out 空 where he can see it, but Realm's Google Translate kicks in the second she's finished the last stroke and all he'll see is "sky" probably. Oh well, she tried.]
[what an odd reaction. but he doesn't seem to mind seeing how she continues and it's just how things are.]
Yeah. I guess on our island we don't really need to use them since everybody knows everybody else anyway. [he watches her work though as she writes his name before it flickers into something else. sky is sky.]
It looks kind of cool written that way. [but there's a grin.] I guess I never really thought much about my name before.
[he's probably wandering around and seems to be heading back to the inn. he almost doesn't hear her, actually, and it's more likely that he sees her on his way in before he stops.]
[it's a funny way to phrase it, and his expression changes to something a little more confused.]
Why wouldn't I let you? Whatever you want to say, I'll listen. [he's not even sure an apology is warranted but he figures there's maybe something more to it than just that.]
I figured out that Chiron-sensei knew about it, um... really, really early. Some things he's told me had me wondering if whoever we caught would be in the same situation as Shima-kun. But... I knew if Chiron-sensei was involved... he'd try to help them do whatever they had to do with respect, even if the decision was a hard one. That's just the kind of person he is.
It's part of why Yoshizawa-chan's death being found out... that it had to have been something cruel... it' why it made me so angry, and why I screamed what I did. Because I knew someone who had to be involved somewhere wouldn't allow for something so horrible.
Yeah. He is. Chiron's not exactly the type of person to back away from what's necessary.
[he has a lot of respect for chiron for a multitude of reasons, and even today he hadn't found his story believable. "if what you say is true." of course it wasn't.]
That's fine. If you felt like that's how you needed to express yourself, then okay. [...yeah he doesn't. get. what she's really saying, but it sounds like it worked for her however she needed it to.]
[on the one hand, he's happy to hear she's at least taken a step back to acknowledge it. on the other, he's not sure what to do with this other than nod.]
Well...I appreciate it. Thanks. [he's not mad in the slightest, exhausted by the events of today and yesterday, but it's a little nicer to know they're on a similar page.]
I know it's really hard when things are this unfair, and when people are this cruel. And it's important to listen to what your heart tells you. But we have to be smarter about finding our culprits now. After all, for every week we have a trial, that's another week a potential killer knows what we're going to be looking for. So we all just have to stick together even when it gets worse. Right?
Mn, right. We're going to start forgetting a lot more, I think... so we need to trust each other, because I think it's gonna be hard to trust ourselves completely. And it's...
It's... more complicated than we realize, I think. Why people are getting killed. I... don't think Shima-kun will be the only one to say what he did.
If we really get more nova for finding the guilty person, then... maybe that's something that even some of the murderers are aware of. Maybe it's why Emet-Selch-san and Sensei were a... a little too obvious at points, even though we all looked around them.
Yeah. I think so, too. But luckily even for the people who can't trust so easily they're finding at least one or two people they can rely on.
I'd like to think that other people will be willing to tell us about what happened, but knowing how badly it hurt his Leader and all of us being careful now, they may not get the chance to. It's a set of rules we're going to have to work with and be careful with. But...same thing, I think. Maybe people who act will think it's okay to tell one or two people about what they did. Just to try and help out.
[...hm.] I dunno. Maybe, but knowing Emet-Selch he was only obvious because he was trying to get us to focus on what happened to Sumire instead of wasting time. And the other thing is that for people who took Chiron at his word, if they voted it would've been an innocent vote and we wouldn't get the nova anyway, right? That doesn't seem like something Chiron would do.
It's a case of what matters most to people. More nova for themselves in this competition, or trying to find the culprit for an obviously brutal case. I understand why people voted for Emet-Selch because we ran out of time, but...maybe it's just me, but once we heard that it was a self-defense kill I kinda wish we had put all of our focus on figuring out what happened to Sumire.
...Sumire... that was Yoshizawa's name? [haha angry outburst was over yoshizawa, after all!!!]
...No, it's not just you. I wish we had, too. Especially after what Won-san said... I think he swayed a lot of people into wanting to pick a "right" answer, maybe, instead of... of taking a risk that would maybe lead to a tie if we couldn't figure it out. But I still couldn't vote for Sensei, or for Emet-Selch-san.
We had to have missed something with Yoshizawa-chan. Just like we did with Shima-kun.
Yeah. I think she may have forgotten it some time ago, so I was remembering it for her.
We always seem to miss something. I'm just trying to figure out if it's on purpose or if it's on us. [which is frustrating.] I get why people feel that the right answer's important, but we need to take time to really go over stuff once we've stopped focusing on other stuff. That seems to always happen when we have two people.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
w0 friday post-invest
with. a sword. hm.]
Hey. It's Hikaru, right?
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It sure also is some sort of plushie held close in her arms, though it's hard to tell what exactly it is right this second. She's hugging it tight from her seat on the floor, her hair a mess, bits of grass and twig stuck in her braid and parts of her clothes.
She'll look up immediately at her name, though, looking disappointed for a moment but shaking it off just as fast.]
Ah... Sora-kun!
Did you see the message about Hajime-chan? Has anyone seen her??
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Um...[hm. this is awkward. but she deserves to know.] Yeah. I'm sorry, Hikaru, but the message wasn't a lie. She's really gone. I think someone brought her back to one of the drop-off points already.
[at least. he assumes. he did not find a body in the woods.]
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[But she was gone?
...
Thankfully, for poor Sora, RNG said this clicks for Hikaru enough that he doesn't have to explain. Her face switches rapidly, from concern to alarm to an almost angered sorrow.
She clutches that plushie harder, the fluff of blondish-white hair sticking up against her arms.]
When... when they said she was removed, is... that what they meant, then?
Did the Realm kill Hajime-san?
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That's what it meant. But I don't know if the Realm did this. The Leaders said they would let us know tomorrow if they learned anything new, so if it was the Realm they should know really soon. But I don't understand why it would do that. It wanted our help. How is killing her helping?
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I don't want to believe that it could help. If the Realm needs nova, then having lots of memories to choose from and a lot of people to collect it would be best, you know? So if we're all alive, and if the Leaders are right about what the Realm wants from us... then all it needs is for us to work together.
But if it wasn't the Realm... then why did it allow someone to do something like this? And who... Who would kill someone like Hajime-chan?
Maybe she broke some sort of rule... but the Leaders wouldn't be reacting this way if it was something like that, right?
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But I don't know. The Leaders seemed pretty shocked to me, too. They must have just found out like we did.
me sitting on my hands with all my ideas because Hikaru is not a brain cell
Wouldn't that have to mean that the Realm was the one who did something to her? None of us could have known if something bad would change the nova any way, right?
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But I dunno. There's still too much we don't know, and won't, until the Leaders come back.
Week 0 - Sunday night
Sora-kun...
I need to talk to you for a minute. It's about the vote. Is that okay?
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Hikaru, hi. Yeah. [he even sits up a little to give her room on the couch.] What's going on?
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[She makes sure he has his attention before continuing.]
Nobody ever really voted for Yona-chan. From what my leader said, nearly everyone voted for Virid-kun.
What messed it up was me.
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What do you mean? What exactly happened?
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My leader thinks that the Realm got confused. It knew that I was innocent, and that I knew I was innocent, too. So it didn't know what to do with my vote.
So it just picked a name, and my vote got changed.
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Do you think maybe that's why Yona was picked today? [and a better question:] Why did you vote for yourself...?
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[As for the second:]
I couldn't vote for someone that I didn't think truly deserved to die.
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...none of us truly deserve to die, Hikaru. But what Virid did was still wrong, wasn't it? [hajime didn't deserve to die. pikachu sure as hell didn't deserve to die either.]
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I... just don't think it should have been something like death. When we took the vote, that's all I could think of.
Not voting meant removal, and a tie meant removal. So I just did the only option that my heart felt was okay.
I know now, though, that that could have made things dangerous for Yona-chan, if... if the vote had been different.
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...it's okay to still feel like it was wrong. I don't think death was a great solution, but I don't think Virid cared about what he did either. [...so he's maybe still a little mad about that.] But we should make sure others know, too. If we ever have to do this again, and someone else tries to vote for themselves...there are way too many ways it could go all wrong.
[a pause.] But the vote for Yona wasn't really your fault. Okay? [just...so she knows that.] We just have to know better going forward.
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I already talked to Won-san... I'm... gonna talk to Yona-chan tomorrow, once she can rest. Even if it wasn't my intention, she still deserves an apology.
I hope we never have to do that horrible trial again... but if we do, then someone's gotta tell everybody. It's why I wanted some of you to know. People are already losing memories, so if something bad ever happens again, and I can't be the one to explain... I want someone to still be able to tell people.
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That's a smart idea though. [he agrees that it's best to share information just in case.] Almost everyone I know has lost memories from their own worlds, but that doesn't mean it won't change. After everything that just happened? We can't be too careful.
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My leader did say there should be a better way to get nova. A way that doesn't involve doing what Virid-kun did. I don't know what that way is, but... I'm gonna keep asking.
[Something settles in her expression, a hurt familiarity.] I don't want anyone else to get so afraid of losing what they have, that they feel they have no choice but to do such horrible things.
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...Mob and I were saying the best we can do right now is try to talk to people and understand them, just so they don't feel like they don't have another choice. If there are people they feel like they can trust, and if we can understand each other, maybe we'll save someone from going too far.
WEEK TWO - THURSDAY
She'll wave at Sora when she spots him, her eyes lighting up.]
Ahh -- Sora-kun, hey! I need to talk to you for a minute! [Her voice sounds rough and she does have to cough a little after raising it to get his attention, but at least she looks fine???]
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Hey! [he'll walk right up to her, and there's a flare of concern.] Are you sure? Rest your voice if you need to, that sounds pretty bad.
[...sora has legitimately no idea what happened in town because he was on a boat the whole time.]
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Anyway, um... I need your help with something for a minute, if that's okay!
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I've got time. What's going on? ["how can i help?"]
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[She'll shuffle to a blank piece of paper, and hold up a finger. Number one!]
Do you have a family name at all, or is it just Sora-kun?
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It's just Sora. We don't really use family names where I'm from. Not really.
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That's okay. There's a lot of people that don't use them here, I think.
Your name's always easy for me to remember. It means "sky". Like, um...
[She'll start to draw out 空 where he can see it, but Realm's Google Translate kicks in the second she's finished the last stroke and all he'll see is "sky" probably. Oh well, she tried.]
Like that.
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Yeah. I guess on our island we don't really need to use them since everybody knows everybody else anyway. [he watches her work though as she writes his name before it flickers into something else. sky is sky.]
It looks kind of cool written that way. [but there's a grin.] I guess I never really thought much about my name before.
WEEK THREE - SATURDAY - POST TRIAL
Hey sora where are you because miss pixie cut is looking for you after everyone has finished being sad on the respective grandpas.
She's still got her memory book in hand, but she'll start from the inn and move outward, only calling out if she sees him.]
Sora-kun.
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Hey. Need something?
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I.... yeah.
To apologize, for snapping at you like I did. If... you'll let me.
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Why wouldn't I let you? Whatever you want to say, I'll listen. [he's not even sure an apology is warranted but he figures there's maybe something more to it than just that.]
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I figured out that Chiron-sensei knew about it, um... really, really early. Some things he's told me had me wondering if whoever we caught would be in the same situation as Shima-kun. But... I knew if Chiron-sensei was involved... he'd try to help them do whatever they had to do with respect, even if the decision was a hard one. That's just the kind of person he is.
It's part of why Yoshizawa-chan's death being found out... that it had to have been something cruel... it' why it made me so angry, and why I screamed what I did. Because I knew someone who had to be involved somewhere wouldn't allow for something so horrible.
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[he has a lot of respect for chiron for a multitude of reasons, and even today he hadn't found his story believable. "if what you say is true." of course it wasn't.]
That's fine. If you felt like that's how you needed to express yourself, then okay. [...yeah he doesn't. get. what she's really saying, but it sounds like it worked for her however she needed it to.]
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How I felt still shouldn't have made me talk the way I did, Sora-kun, so... I'm sorry. I really am. You were right.
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Well...I appreciate it. Thanks. [he's not mad in the slightest, exhausted by the events of today and yesterday, but it's a little nicer to know they're on a similar page.]
I know it's really hard when things are this unfair, and when people are this cruel. And it's important to listen to what your heart tells you. But we have to be smarter about finding our culprits now. After all, for every week we have a trial, that's another week a potential killer knows what we're going to be looking for. So we all just have to stick together even when it gets worse. Right?
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It's... more complicated than we realize, I think. Why people are getting killed. I... don't think Shima-kun will be the only one to say what he did.
If we really get more nova for finding the guilty person, then... maybe that's something that even some of the murderers are aware of. Maybe it's why Emet-Selch-san and Sensei were a... a little too obvious at points, even though we all looked around them.
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I'd like to think that other people will be willing to tell us about what happened, but knowing how badly it hurt his Leader and all of us being careful now, they may not get the chance to. It's a set of rules we're going to have to work with and be careful with. But...same thing, I think. Maybe people who act will think it's okay to tell one or two people about what they did. Just to try and help out.
[...hm.] I dunno. Maybe, but knowing Emet-Selch he was only obvious because he was trying to get us to focus on what happened to Sumire instead of wasting time. And the other thing is that for people who took Chiron at his word, if they voted it would've been an innocent vote and we wouldn't get the nova anyway, right? That doesn't seem like something Chiron would do.
It's a case of what matters most to people. More nova for themselves in this competition, or trying to find the culprit for an obviously brutal case. I understand why people voted for Emet-Selch because we ran out of time, but...maybe it's just me, but once we heard that it was a self-defense kill I kinda wish we had put all of our focus on figuring out what happened to Sumire.
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...No, it's not just you. I wish we had, too. Especially after what Won-san said... I think he swayed a lot of people into wanting to pick a "right" answer, maybe, instead of... of taking a risk that would maybe lead to a tie if we couldn't figure it out. But I still couldn't vote for Sensei, or for Emet-Selch-san.
We had to have missed something with Yoshizawa-chan. Just like we did with Shima-kun.
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We always seem to miss something. I'm just trying to figure out if it's on purpose or if it's on us. [which is frustrating.] I get why people feel that the right answer's important, but we need to take time to really go over stuff once we've stopped focusing on other stuff. That seems to always happen when we have two people.
[split attention span that doesn't always work.]