#some were harder to translate for their vague or multiple meanings‚ or just not crossing over well‚ but i did it!

[crescentmp3]

hiii im home! ^-^

[that-one-girl-behind-you]

Illicio 3/?

Part 2

“We’ll get it out,” he says. Jon doesn’t doubt him, but he also doesn’t know exactly what to expect, and he definitely doesn’t want Melanie dead or- or worse.

“I need to get Basira,” is all Jon says before climbing to his feet and hurrying out the door.

III

Jon Knows the door to his office will open about a second before it does, but he still flinches a little when Gerry barges in and slams it closed behind him.

“I thought you’d left for the day,” Jon smiles a little as Gerry drops heavily on one of the chairs before his desk. “You’re in a mood huh?”

“I don’t like your Martin,” Gerry says, crossing his arms over his chest. The eyes on his elbows look at Jon as his face grows hot.

“Please don’t call him that,” Jon mumbles. Gerry’s real eyes are also fixed to his face, and Jon only grows more flustered at that. 

“Met him just now at the break room. He’s got a good bite- are you sure this is the guy that spent two weeks hiding from Prentiss?" 

"Very,” Jon says dryly. It’s still a sore spot for him; he should have known that wasn’t Martin, he should have-

“You could do better.” Gerry’s still frowning something awful, and Jon can’t help the tired chuckle that escapes his lips. “What?”

“I really couldn’t.”

“Oh come on!” Gerry shakes his head. “Of course you’d think that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jon frowns, but Gerry only rolls his eyes and looks to the side, the chair’s front legs lifting off the floor as he leans back on it. After a few more minutes of silence, Jon resigns himself to spending an undetermined amount of time with a grown man sulking, and goes back to finishing his emails.

Jon’s not too used to being quiet around Gerry, probably because when Gerry seeks him up it’s because he needs Jon to feed. The silence feels odd, and Jon finds himself stealing glances across the desk from time to time.

Gerry looks like a statue, completely still except for the ring around his lower lip that periodically shifts against the flesh, glinting almost hypnotically under the cold lights of the office. 

“He used to- he was always looking after me, you know?” Jon doesn’t really know why he’s telling Gerry this, other than he needs him to understand that Martin is so much more than what the Lonely is making of him. Gerry’s teeth flash into view as they bite and pull the silver ring. “He went through the trouble of getting some of Prentiss’ ashes, so I’d feel… safe.”

“Hm.” The ring flips a little more aggressively, Gerry’s lip pushed pursed and pressed under a slightly chipped -from a mosh pit when Gerry was sixteen, the Eye informs helpfully- front tooth.

“And he was always making sure I had something to eat and that I took breaks even when-” his voice falters a little, and licks his bottom lip in a thoughtless mimicking of Gerry’s movements, “-even when I was acting like a tool and stalking them all because I was sure they were trying to kill- Gerry!” Jon stops abruptly, when an index and middle finger each lay on the sides of Gerry’s bottom lip and his tongue flicks between them in a very suggestive way.

Gerry’s only response is a loud bark of laughter, and if Jon’s face was warm before when talking about Martin, now it’s positively boiling.

“W- are you twelve years old?” Jon stutters out, feeling the keen burn of embarrassment in his stomach. Gerry, mouth is curled in a devilish smirk he remembers from when Tim used to joke around and tease him, and the corners of his eyes are crinkled in amusement. “You’re ridiculous.”

“You were just so focused,” Gerry cackles, and the chair’s front legs land again with a heavy thud. “It’s ok. I still don’t like him, but I’m not going to try to convince you. I’ll just keep an eye on him.”

“…I’ve come to learn stalking people doesn’t bring great results, but suit yourself,” Jon grunts, focusing on his computer screen again with a dark frown. 

The chair creaks, and Gerry’s eyes peek over the edge of the laptop’s screen. Jon scowls, and Gerry pushes the laptop closed with a hand, his chin resting comfortably on the other. 

“It’s rude to ignore your presents, Jon. The Eye might start to think you didn’t even want me back.” Gerry’s still sporting that infuriating smirk, and Jon narrows his eyes.

“Personally, I’m starting to think you’re more of a punishment, Gerard.” It’s too hot in the office; it wasn’t so hot before. Jon stands up to make sure the radiator is turned on, and grabs the box of real statements from the shelf on his way back. “Now, I have work to do, unless you want to keep distracting me.”

Gerry lifts his hands in surrender, and Jon rolls his eyes. It’s still too hot in the office, but a statement should make him feel better. A tape recorder clicks on in one of his desk drawers.

“Alright then. Statement of Sergeant Terrence Simpson, regarding an outbreak of violence in the crofting community of Lancraig, Ross-shire…”

He does in fact feel better after reading it, at least in a physical sense. In all others thought, it's… an absolute downer.

“Slaughter is nasty,” Gerry offers, and Jon almost jumps on his seat. He was so focused on the statement he completely forgot Gerry was there. He’s made himself at home with his legs on the second chair and his arms behind his head. “Normally the Fears go one on one, but you get a single wielder into the mix and suddenly you have tens of dead or injured.”

“Yes… honestly I’m very surprised Melanie has kept it under control this time,” Jon nods. Gerry’s head whips towards him, and he gets his feet off the chair. Jon pays him no mind, following his train of thought instead, “with that bullet still in her leg, pumping her up with violence and- w- did I read that somewhere?" 

Gerry leans across the desk. Jon can hear the static now, but he keeps his eyes fixed on Gerry’s as the man gives him an encouraging nod.

"Ride it,” Gerry whispers, “let me hear it.”

“W- well yes. The- the bullet. From her trip to India.” It’s much easier to let the Knowledge out when he’s telling it to someone else. “It didn’t show in the scans, in any of them, but it’s still there. Just above the tibia and getting infected-”

Gerry nods. His entire demeanor has changed, Jon notices. His brow is furrowed, his shoulders tense. This is most definitely not the man that teased Jon into a flustering mess just an hour ago.

“We’ll get it out,” he says. Jon doesn’t doubt him, but he also doesn’t know exactly what to expect, and he definitely doesn’t want Melanie dead or- or worse.

“I need to get Basira,” is all Jon says before climbing to his feet and hurrying out the door.

—-

Melanie’s sleeping. Basira knows the cocktail she has every night is enough that she won’t hear them unless they’re deliberately loud, but she still worries. Melanie’s dangerous under the best circumstances, and Basira can’t tell she’s too keen on her waking up and finding Basira looming over her with Jon and Gerard Keay of all people.

“The guy said you’d need to hit the right nerve or it won’t work,” Basira hands over the syringe and takes a step back. “You know much about-”

“Here,” and he points to a spot on her leg that looks perfectly unremarkable to Basira.

She arches an eyebrow. “You sure?” she asks, then when he nods, “ok, go for it then.”

“Right,” Jon takes a deep breath, and leans over Melanie’s limp form. Basira cringes a little; Melanie’s her friend, but-

“Pray the injection doesn’t wake her-”

“Yes thank you, Basira-” Jon’s increasingly annoyed voice is cut off when Keay slaps a hand down over his mouth.

“If the injection doesn’t wake her up, you will. Just poke her,” the man says in a hoarse, tense whisper. Basira blinks in surprise when Jon lifts a hand to pull Keay’s hand from his mouth but doesn’t actually push it away.

“… Okay,” is all Jon says before he pushes the needle into Melanie’s leg in a single move that seems almost practiced in its certainty. Keay waits only as long as it takes for him to slip the needle out again to pull Jon back. “Now… now we wait.”

“You better be right about this,” Basira says as she sits down with her back against the wall. 

Jon looks at her with a pained grimace, like he wants to smile but knows she doesn’t want to see it. “I am.”

He and his shadow sit against the wall across Basira, and she takes the opportunity to watch them. Jon’s sitting partly turned towards Melanie, which leaves his back half exposed to Gerard Keay, and he doesn’t seem too worried about that. 

Basira somehow doubts Jon had an easy time being touched even before the multiple kidnappings and attempted murder, so this has probably got something to do with the Eye, making him feel like he’s safe in Keay’s presence so he grows even more distant from other humans.

She’s been… trying. She greets him back when he comes into the Archives, waves goodbye while trying to ignore the boiling jealousy that he gets to go home still. She wasn’t lying to Melanie; once upon a time, she liked Jon. 

But Basira still can’t forgive him for surviving when Daisy didn’t. 

Every time she sees him it feels like he’s stealing a breath Daisy should’ve had. Like some cosmic power placed them both on a balance and decided Jon was more important before it took Daisy away without leaving even a body for Basira to mourn over.

She knows she’s being unfair, and she doesn’t like it. She’s better than this, more objective. So she tries harder.

“I should’ve noticed before,” Basira offers tentatively, an olive branch that Jon jumps on much too quickly. Once upon a time it would have been endearing.

“No, of course not. You didn’t know Melanie before…” he makes a vague gesture pointing at his leg, “a- and she’s very uh- assertive. Even without the Slaughter, I think it would’ve translated into violence once you all started being in danger and there was no one else to… protect you.” He seems to catch on to what he’s saying, because he looks away almost immediately.

“Hm,” is all Basira says. She should’ve known this would bring her back to Daisy. Everything does. She can feel Keay’s eyes on her, and she focuses on not fidgeting. He doesn’t scare her.

“You… you’re living here too?” Jon asks after a moment, his voice dubious like he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to continue the conversation after he ruined it once. 

“It’s not safe out there. I got a camp bed by the tunnels,” Basira shrugs. “I like to keep an eye on them.”

“I… see. And- and Martin?” Jon asks. Keay makes a sound like a groan behind him, and Basira arches an eyebrow. Jon however, seems much more interested in a loose thread in his sock.

“I think he’s still got his own place. Whatever he’s doing for Lukas seems to be enough to keep him safe.”

“That’s… not ideal,” Jon tells the floor in a voice so low Basira can barely register it.

“No. I guess it isn’t.”

Neither one of them is too interested in conversation after that, and when Jon finally looks up and says it’s time Basira hops up to her feet immediately. It’s been a long thirty minutes.

“The scissors, please,” Jon extends a hand to her.

“I thought you had the scalpel?” Basira scowls. Surely he’s not planning on cutting her leg op-

“For the trouser leg!” Jon snaps in an exasperated whisper.

“Oh- right,” she hands them over.

Jon snips at the fabric until the trouser leg falls away, and he takes a deep breath.

“God… look at that,” he mutters. Basira feels every hair on her body stand on end, as a familiar static begins crackling around them. Jon’s eyes are giving off a faint green glow as he looks down at Mel, before he turns to face Keay. “Can- do you see it?”

“I see the mark,” Keay shrugs. He looks normal enough, no eerie glow or sharp teeth or anything, but by now Basira knows not all the monsters are that obvious. 

“It’s a leg,” she says dryly. 

Jon shakes his head. “It’s all rotten inside.”

“See the bullet?” she asks. Jon nods, and she tilts her chin towards Mel. “Get it out then.”

“Easy to say… she’s probably not going to swing at you,” Jon tightens his grip on the scalpel.

Basira doesn’t try to contradict him because while she’s sure none of them will be safe if Melanie wakes up, she’s even more certain Jon is going to be the first target.

“Here we go…" 

And then Jon is sinking the knife into Melanie’s leg, and then his fingers, and Basira heaves a little when he pulls out a bright gold bullet dripping something black and slimy.

That’s when Melanie wakes up.

"GET OFF ME!” Melanie’s first lunge sends their makeshift operation tray crashing to the ground.

“Oh Jes- get her, she’s- she’s not supposed to be-!” Jon yells out, taking a hurried step back and crashing into Keay.

“Melanie, it’s alright!” Basira tries to reach her from the back- a chokehold won’t calm her down, but it’ll keep her still.

“Jon, get back-”

“DON’T TOUCH ME!” It must be the Slaughter’s residual effects, because there is no way Melanie’s slight frame has enough strength to shake Basira off this easily- “I’LL KILL YOU!”

Basira sees something silver glint in her hand as she lunges at Jon, and she screams. “She’s got the scalpel!”

Jon screams when Melanie stabs the knife into his shoulder. Then she’s pulling back, and Basira knows she’ll go for the throat this tim-

The dry slap of a punch against flesh cracks over them and Melanie backs down, dizzy enough that Basira can wrap her arms tightly around her torso and arms.

“Run!” Basira yells, but Keay’s already half carrying, half dragging Jon away towards the exit.

The bullet sizzles as it burns a hole straight into the floor of the Institute.

——-

If whatever Jon and his friends did at the Unknowing didn’t destroy it outright, the Anglerfish could take some notes from the Archivists, Gerry thinks. For a couple of avatars that gain absolutely nothing from having people devoted to them, they’re both especially adept at luring them in.

Gertrude knew perfectly well what to give people in order to ensnare them. Gerry never did fall for the dainty old lady image that she so carefully cultivated to make both avatars and assistants drop their guard, so she never tried it with him. 

It kept him from ending up like Michael Shelley, but of course that only made her come at him from another angle. 

He knows now she never cared for him. Not as a person; not enough to not mutilate his body and tie his soul to the book and then not even take it back with her. But at the time it was easy to let himself believe this woman could give him at least some of the things his mother refused. 

Sometimes during their trips, when they were just having supper at a small roadside restaurant or another, Gerry found himself stopping and marvelling at how normal it felt. 

“Decaf for my grandma please, she’s very delicate,” he’d tell the server of the day and smirk at the way Gertrude’s eyes gleamed dangerously from the other side of the table.

“My grandson’s paying,” she’d say at the end of the meal when the bill landed on the table, giving the server a sweet little smile like she hadn’t just poured a couple hundred pounds of concrete onto a woman with as many arms as she had fingers. “He’s always treating me, a real sweetheart,” and Gerry would have to burn some more of his emergency cash on a meal.

At some point he started believing ‘normal’ was 'real’, and when Gerry tasted acid on his tongue and smelt burnt hair before his body started seizing, the most reassuring thought in his mind was that Gertrude was there with him as he reached a hand to her. 

He doesn’t know if she took it.

Jon is a different story. It’s difficult not to notice when one spends every other night at his flat, but Jon is so alone that Gerry’s a little surprised to find none of the ten marks he bears belong to the Forsaken.

Jon flinches when Gerry touches him, and Gerry knows he should stop, that not everyone is ok with it, but Jon never really seems uncomfortable, just… surprised.

Jon smiles very rarely, but when he does he almost always looks down, like he doesn’t want you to see it. His smile is a bit lopsided, his teeth a little crooked  and there’s a worm scar right at the edge of his lip. It’s a good smile, in Gerry’s opinion.

Jon takes up an eternity to dress up every morning because his right hand only barely works, and Gerry can’t bring himself to offer to help because Jon always mutters little apologies for the delay and he thinks it would only make him feel worse.

Jon greets Melanie and Basira every morning and says goodbye every evening, even when Basira’s the only one that responds and even then only sometimes. Gerry can pinpoint the days she doesn’t because he comes out looking a little more deflated.

Getrude had her assistants, Decker, Leitner, Gerry himself and half of the avatars moving across a chess board only she could see. Jon has a man willingly feeding himself to the Lonely -allegedly- out of love, and a poor imbecile who apparently can’t resist people who are as broken as him.

“How’s your shoulder?” Gerry asks as though he can’t see the bright pink new skin through the loose neckhole of one of the oversized shirts Jon wears to 'sleep’. “Wounds from the Slaughter take a while to heal.”

“I’m- I think it’s doing fine,” Jon fidgets with his sleeve a little, before going to sit at the opposite end of the sofa. “Martin’s still avoiding me.”

Jon’s voice is perfectly calm and unaffected, and Gerry knows it’s full of bullshit. He reaches to lay a hand atop Jon’s head consolingly.

“Still not your Martin?” he asks, only the slightest bit teasing. It still manages to bring a pained little smile out of Jon. 

“Not anymore, in any case.” Jon sinks back against the sofa’s plush backrest, his head heavy against Gerry’s hand. “Basira told me his mother died while I was in the hospital. I didn’t even know.”

“If Lukas is keeping him isolated for some reason,” Gerry doesn’t say 'asides from sacrificing him to his patron’ because he’s not insensitive, thank you very much, “it makes sense he can’t just come into your office to talk feelings over a cup of tea.”

Jon sighs. “It’s not his fault. I- it’s selfish.”

“How is caring for him selfish?” Gerry arches an eyebrow. His hand in Jon’s hair moves the slightest bit, only enough to ruffle through it softly.

“Because I’m not caring for him. I’m caring about what he thinks of me. If I- I should respect his decision,” Jon finishes lamely, pulling his feet up onto the sofa to circle his knees with his arms.

“You are. It’s not a crime to miss someone you like.” Gerry never had a cat, but he imagines this is how it feels to pet one. Careful not to move too much or too abruptly lest he shatters the fragile trust he’s managed to build. “They- if they don’t want to save themselves, you can’t do it for them, Jon.”

Jon’s head tilts sideways so that he can aim his big dark eyes at Gerry. “We saved Melanie.”

“And look what it got you.”

“It doesn’t matter what happened to me. Melanie is… recovering. That’s all there is to it,” he says, and Gerry has no doubt Jon actually believes it. “Are you going out tonight?”

Gerry’s not stupid by any means, and he knows a diversion tactic -and a request for space- when he hears one.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Gerry says before climbing to his feet. Jon’s muttered 'be careful’ follows him through the door and prompts a small smile out of him. 

Jon is easy to grow fond of, or maybe Gerry just doesn’t learn from his mistakes.

—-

It’s almost midnight when Melanie wakes up from a fitful sleep. It was probably the nagging hunger, so she sets to digging around the fridge for something she can put together with minimal effort.

“That’s a good bruise right there,” says a familiar, amused voice. Melanie smiles. Helen doesn’t usually manifest her door outside the lower levels of the institute, but Melanie hasn’t gone back down yet, choosing instead to sleep on a sofa at the makeshift infirmary Basira set up for her in the break room. She must be worried.

“I think he almost dislocated my jaw,” she says as she turns on the sofa to face Helen’s distorted, ever-changing form. “Jon’s new boyfriend has a good hook.”

“In my defense, I was only trying to knock you out. Is that the Distortion?”

Both of them turn at that, and Helen’s long fingered hand wraps itself protectively around Melanie’s shoulder. Melanie’s pleasantly surprised to notice the touch doesn’t trigger the mix of irritation and rage it did just a few days before. Now she’s only grateful to have Helen by her side as she looks up at Gerard Keay.

“Michael knew you,” says Helen, tilting her head to the side a few degrees further than a human could reasonably go.

“Only a little,” Gerard shrugs. “Before he became you. Who are you now?”

“I am me. But Helen is also me.”

Gerard nods. “Sans Getrude in the mix, I’m guessing a sacrifice that outsmarted you somehow?”

Helen’s smile curls at the corners, her eyes swirling with delight when Melanie looks up to check on her. 

“Michael was getting distracted. Archivists have that effect, I’ve found.”

“And Helen doesn’t get distracted?” Gerard asks.

Helen’s smile keeps growing and curling into itself, but she doesn’t respond. Her hand tightens around Melanie’s shoulder.

“What do you want?” Melanie knows there’s a knife behind her. A blunt one, only good for spreading mayonnaise or butter, but it’s still a knife and she’s still aware of it. Her feeling for these things has diminished over the past two days, but she figures it’ll be a long time before it’s gone. If it ever is.

“To check on you, mostly. You didn’t go full avatar, but that bullet still did a number on you.”

Melanie’s fist clenches by her side. “Well, no need to worry now. I’m back to being inoffensive little old me.” The truth of it aches at her like a bad tooth. Logically, Melanie knows the bullet was bad, and that it made her terrible and feral. But she’d been… powerful. She’d driven out the Flesh’s creatures by herself, she’d saved everyone. And now the power is gone, and she can lie to Basira, but not herself.

She misses it.

“Yeah, right. I doubt that.” Gerard gives her a wary smile. “The Slaughter goes for tigers, not kittens. But without that thing inside you you should at least be thinking more clearly.”

“…I am,” Melanie responds after a moment’s hesitation. She’s not quite sure she buys that the Slaughter only powered up what was already inside her, but… this guy would know, wouldn’t he? “How- how is he?”

“Healing. A statement or two and he should be right as rain,” Gerard frowns a little when Helen chuckles behind Melanie. “Do you know something we don’t, Helen?”

“You know the answer to that question.” Helen’s smile looks angular now, like they’re looking at it in a fractured mirror. 

Gerard rolls his eyes and shakes his head, before turning to Melanie again.

“He’ll be happy to know you’re feeling more like yourself.”

“I still don’t like him,” Melanie crosses her arms over her chest, “don’t give him any ideas.”

“As if Jon would ever willingly believe anyone likes him,” he smirks, but it’s a soft, amused smirk Melanie’s seen before on people talking about Jon- seriously, what do people see in him?! 

Do Georgie and Martin and this guy just have some sort of… disaster human fetish? And that’s another problem because if Georgie does have it, that doesn’t say anything good about Melanie herself, one way or the other.

“How do you not… hate him?” Melanie asks. Whatever Gerard thinks about Jon, there ought to be some resentment in there. 

“Jon?”

“No, the bloke that keeps leaving used spoons next to the sink, of course I’m talking about Jon!” Melanie snaps. He’s got to be making fun of her, it’s the only explanation. “You died, you were dead and you wanted to be dead and now you’re back in this fucking mess!”

The man lifts a pierced eyebrow. “It wasn’t Jon who brought me back.”

“But it was because of him! We’re all trapped here because-”

“Because Elias is an asshole?”

“Elias isn’t here!” Melanie snarls. Helen’s hand tightens around her torso again, from shoulderblade to clavicle, and Melanie thinks if the bullet were still in her she’d be at Gerard’s throat already.

“If you’re going to blame Jon for all that’s happened to you, you might as well blame yourself for knowing Jon.” The absolute bastard has the gall to shrug at her. “That’s how much choice he had in the matter, or how much you did.”

“So what, you’re saying this was going to happen one way or another?” Her teeth grind as she tensed her jaw. “That we had no choice?”

“Oh no. There were definitely choices involved,” Gerard seems to sense she’s about to jump at him, because he readjusts his stance a little. “Jon chose to take on the promotion at work. You chose to come and give your statement. Your friend here chose to open the door-”

“Leave her out of this. She couldn’t have known what would happen if she opened it, I couldn’t have known coming here to tell a story would end with me being- being turned into some kind of monster!” By the time she’s finished, Melanie’s panting for breath. Hot, angry tears burn at her eyes that she won’t let spill.

“There you have it,” Gerard says simply. “I was born into this mess. You pushed a domino and ended up here. Not everyone is Martin Blackwood.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?” At some other point she’d find this hilarious. Two men pining over an absolute mess of a monster. As it stands, the only thing she feels is the slightest wave of protectiveness towards Martin; because she’s known him the longest out of the two of them.

Gerard shrugs.

“Jon may trust him… but Martin knows what he’s doing. And I don’t trust anyone who chooses this willingly,” he says, averting his gaze. “I knew a woman who did.”

—

Martin doesn’t like to think of Elias at all, much less in positive terms. He has to admit though, that unlike Peter, he at least knew something about  running an institution. Peter disappears for days, sometimes weeks at a time, and when he does show up all he cares about is how Martin’s self isolation is going. 

He caught him talking to a tape recorder a few days ago, and Martin had to sit through another lecture on how this is for everyone’s good, including Jon, and he’s been doing a wonderful job but needs to work harder and… Martin had lost interest after that, the gist of it is the same every time. 

As long as Peter believes it’s working, he’ll leave Jon and the others alone.

Martin sits down before the two steaming mugs -he keeps brewing an extra one on reflex-, and pushes his glasses up to his forehead to rest his face on his hand. At least the Archives’ break room is free again, after Melanie recovered from whatever it was that happened to her leg.

There’s a very familiar click below the table, and Martin’s lips twitch into a smile.

“Hello there,” he greets the tape recorder when he bends down to retrieve it. He places it behind Jon’s cup of tea, and it does make him feel a little bit better. “Not doing anything really interesting right now, but you can stay if you want.”

The tape whirs away, and Martin nods at it.

“Yep. Just taking a break, Peter can get really exhausting, but you’ve heard him before, I’m sure you know.” It’s a fun little exercise, pretending the tapes talk back to him. It still makes him feel very lonely, but in a different way. One way or another, this is Jon here with him. “Not really, I mean if what he’s been saying about the Extinction is true then we do have a bigger problem in our hands but God, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. He doesn’t even know his email password, you know? Has to change it every time he logs in, I think by now we’re up to Tundra22. One would think the head avatar for a supernatural entity would be a bit less incompetent.”

The tape recording gives two little clicks, and Martin chuckles. 

“Yes I know, but Jon could at least log in to his email, even if Sasha was always guessing his passwords. But you’re right, maybe it’s an avatar thing.” He takes a sip of his tea; this is the most at ease he’s felt in days. “How is he doing by the way? I guess it’s good he’s not alone, he makes… really poor decisions when he is. Or when he thinks he is- remember when he dug my Mum’s letter from the trash? What was he thinking? I wasn’t going to confess to a murder over a letter, much less throw it in the bin!”

Click.

“Yes, fear makes us do stupid things, I know.” He rolls his eyes, feeling a wave of fondness for the man. “I just… I wish I could talk to him. But thinking about it, I don’t even know what I’d say. 'Hey Jon, did you hear me when I read to you at the hospital? I missed you at the Institute, but at least it was very reassuring to know where you were instead of wondering if you’d been kidnapped again’? Not great conversation starters.”

Click. Whirr. Click. 

“I mean… I want to think so, of course. But I don’t know if you can really think when in a coma, much less miss someone. I- if he wanted to miss me of course!” Martin is such a mess, getting flustered at his own imagined conversations with an inanimate object. “I’m just- I’m going to get back to work, I’ve already spent too much time talking to you.”

A series of accusing clicks.

“Don’t give me that. I know you can just pop into my office whenever you want anyways,” he gives the tape recorder his best stern look. “Go back to him, come on. Before he decides to… I don’t know, go find another ritual to stop and almost gets himself killed again.”

The click this time sounds amused to Martin’s ears, and he chuckles as he climbs to his feet.

“Yeah, alright. You can- you can keep his tea. It’s not like I’m going to drink it anyways.”

He walks out of the room before he can convince himself to stay. He really does have things to do, and the last thing he wants is for Peter to come find him.

Inside the break room, a door opens that hadn’t been there before, and a long fingered hand snatches the tape recorder from the table.

[clarste]

I am now the proud owner of three copies of this book. Maybe I should reevaluate my priorities in life. I’ll probably get the digital version for future volumes though.

Anyway, as promised I plan to do some side-by-side translation comparisons, along with some general commentary on the series. I’ll do this chapter-by-chapter, so for now we’re just doing chapter 1. Please excuse the fact that I’m taking pictures of the book with my phone.

First of all just a general impression of the book itself: both English and Japanese books are about the same in terms of paper quality and whatnot. The main difference is that the Japanese book has a book jacket surrounding a classier/blander actual cover:

I’m mostly fine with that, but the English book is missing the brief self-introductions by the authors, including Harukawa’s habit of using photos of her cats as her portrait.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the translation is credited to ZephyrRZ, but according to his/her own twitter, s/he was not the translator and Yen Press made some kind of mistake that will be corrected for future printings. So the translator for Yen Press is currently unknown. Moving on:

It should be pretty obvious, but the the browner/yellower image is the Yen Press translation, while the cleaner BW is my own. Blame the lighting at my house. Anyway, remember how I said a little while ago that kanji (Chinese characters) have unlimited possible pronunciations? Well, on this page there was a cute trick used: Marisa says Akyu/Akyuu’s name in kanji, but the furigana next to it say it’s meant to be pronounced ‘anta’, a rather informal way of saying ‘you’. So she means Akyu, but is only saying ‘you’ out loud. These days I’d probably go with exactly what Yen Press did, but back then I just removed all reference to her name. In context, Akyu gets kind of annoyed that everyone’s calling her ‘you’ all the time instead of using her name; this is somewhat rude in Japanese. Incidentally, almost everyone in Touhou is rude.

Okay, several things are going on here. First, I don’t know why I deleted the fancy divider line in Kosusu’s title card: those are in every title card in the series, and I kept most of them. But not here. Weird. Second, I used ‘just’ Akyuu because I was trying to convey a dismissive attitude that Akyuu would be offended by. It’s a subtle difference, but writing is hard. Not sure which is better; maybe Akyuu’s offense stands on its own?

Third, Akyu versus Akyuu. It’s technically more correct to leave in the long vowel sound, since the short Akyu would actually be pronounced differently in Japanese, but strictly speaking it should be Akyū anyway. The double ‘u’ is a weird artifact of fan translations based on a more literal reading of Japanese alphabet. Anyway, I have no problem with Akyu because I personally switched to Akyu halfway through the series and no one even noticed. If anything, I think the double ‘u’ sounds are just confusing to English readers, and so are macrons. For example, anyone who’s pronounced Touhou as Toohoo. Akyu is the easiest to understand and close enough to correct, for an English speaker. That said, some other names would be much harder to change without upsetting people. Look forward to meeting Yomu and Moko (they're never named in FS, iirc).

Fourth, Kosuzu’s actual title. Honestly I’m surprised that they’re so similar. The only difference is singular versus plural, which I don’t think is all that important. For the record, Japanese doesn’t use plurals unless it’s being particularly emphasized, you can just kinda tell by context. I mean, obviously she has two eyes so I thought it should be plural, but the concept is abstract enough that I think singular is fine too. “You have a good eye” etc. Incidentally, in Japanese she was described as a ‘Bibliophilia’, but that didn’t make much sense so both translators corrected it.

No, I’m not going to talk about Hiedano. Well, I’ll say that they probably should have included a translation note, at least.

Once again, we have a pluralization issue with the books. I kind of figured from the picture that Akyu was returning multiple books at once, but I suppose maybe those were already on the table? Sometimes you just have to go with your gut. Translation is ultimately all about being bold, and affirming that your interpretation is the correct one.

The main thing that stand out to me here is Kosuzu saying “Thank you, friend.” Which seems really really weird to me. Do people say that? Maybe I just don’t speak teenage girl though.

“Utterly Normal Magician.” Eh, close enough. It means the same thing. One thing to note though is that ZUN is using English words in every single FS character title. We’ve already seen Bibliophilia/Bibliophile and Savant, so now we have Magician. Every day of my life I am absolutely flabbergasted that ZUN happened to choose the same English word that the fandom already used to describe Marisa. Instead of like Mage or Witch or Magus Night. This is the true miracle.

Other Touhou works also have themed character titles. For example, in WaHH each character title contains a four character idiom, which I’ve found basically impossible to translate and rarely bother.

As I mentioned just now, all the titles here were originally partly in English. So ‘shaman’ isn’t Yen Press’s translation of shrine maiden, it’s ZUN’s translation of shrine maiden. For what it’s worth, that seems fairly common? For example, Fire Emblem uses it for certain light-element mages like Micaiah in Radiant Dawn. Her final class in Japanese is written as 巫女 (shrine maiden) but pronounced as Shaman. This is the same class as Julia and Deirdre from Genealogy of the Holy Way. Anyway, I’ve seen it in other fantasy works too, after I started noticing it. Maybe it’s the first translation listed in some popular J-E dictionary? For what it’s worth, shrine maiden do in fact meet the anthropological definition of shamanism, so it’s not incorrect to call her a shaman. It just sounds a bit weird to us.

I have a much bigger problem with the use of the word ‘beautiful’ in her title. The Japanese word used there is 素敵  (suteki) which has meanings like “wow, amazing, cool, wonderful.” You can use suteki to compliment someone’s looks, but in my opinion that’s mostly in the same sense you can say someone “looks amazing” in English. And in the context of Touhou, I simply can’t imagine ZUN choosing to describe Reimu as beautiful. That’s just not a part of her character, nor is it something ZUN seems like he’d particularly care about.

Ah yes, the infamous footnote. For the record, the footnote was there in Japanese too, i just deleted it because it seemed pointless, at least in English. In Japanese she uses the word 稀覯本 (kikounbon) which I can only assume is relatively technical and obscure. Sadly I’m not well-versed enough in Japanese to tell the difference between an obscure word and one I just happen to not know, but there seem to be plenty of other shorter words for rare books, so I’d imagine this is meant to show off Marisa’s collector mania. But... there’s no good way to put that into English so the footnote becomes redundant. I now fully expect someone to come forward with some obscure word for rare books that I don’t know in English either.

For the record, I also like how they put Reimu’s dialog here better than how I did it.

Oh. My. God. Honorifics! Our oldest of friends, and greatest of enemies. Honestly, -san is so ubiquitous and generic that you can ignore it 90% of the time, but in Touhou it’s different. In Touhou, everyone is a rude bastard who rarely even uses someone else’s name, so Kosuzu using -san with these two shows that she treats them with a basic level of respect that’s somewhat unusual for this series. I chose to go with Miss because it kinda makes sense to me that you’d call someone slightly older than you Miss with their first name, but I can also totally understand the feelings of the translator who just throws their hands up in the air and says “C’mon, our target audience already understands this stuff, so do we really need to bother?!”

Thank the gods that we’re not dealing with -sama.

The term tsukumo-book (tsukumobon) does in fact show up exactly this once.

Also, I think Yen Press did a better job with the rest of the line. I know I was going back and forth on “phenomena” but ultimately decided to go for vague.

Yen Press definitely had a better voice for the book. I respect that. But mostly I just thought it was funny how they used Blood Needlegrass when I used Bloodneedle Grass. I’ll give the point to Yen Press on this one because needlegrass is a real thing.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Great minds think alike. And/or we both love our cliches a bit too much.

On another note, I haven’t mentioned this until now, but they’ve been “translating” all these sound effects while leaving the Japanese ones in place. All I have to say about that is that I would totally do that too (more often anyway) except for the fact that this one person once praised me for replacing all the sound effects and I feel like I’d disappoint that person. I hate sound effects though. Especially non-sounds like “carefree”. What’s the sound of someone being carefree in English? Seriously, I need to know.

And... that’s that for chapter 1. Sorry if anyone wanted me to go over every single line, but I tried to stick to the ones that I found most interesting. If any of you have any particular line you’d like to ask about, feel free. You can expect chapter 2 sometime before the next volume comes out, but no guarantees.