Kneel Before The King - Keijiro

It felt like his face was burning so hot that it would get stuck that way--like he'd be permanently red faced for the rest of his damn life. He wasn't sure he'd ever be able to recover from how red he got, and he turned away from the mirror, forcing himself not to look. "I want to see you too." And he did. He'd always had a puppy love crush on Jun Shi, even if he knew it would never, ever work. He had always known that he at least sort of like boys, but it wasn't the sort of thing you just admitted to your parents. Especially not with everything he already had to live up to. Admitting to that sort of thing would just mean that everyone was right about him--that he'd never live up to the family name.

That wasn't the sort of thing he'd ever be able to admit.

Which meant, like it or not, the stupid crush he had would have to remain a stupid crush. Jun Shi clearly (or not so clearly, since Keijiro was very, very wrong about his old friend) thought of them as 'just friends', and they'd simply have to stay that way.

"I should let you go then. It's probably late there, yeah?" It was what... midnight in New York? Not that he'd ever confirmed he was even in New York.

JUN SHI WEI | MAY 25TH, 3AM

"It was nice talking to you." There was a short pause as Keijiro struggled to think of how to end the conversation. "Goodnight." And then he let it end, the call over.

It was late and he was tired, but it wasn't nearly as easy as simply falling into bed. The mirror was still there, impossible and confusing, still showing Kun Shui as the phone call ended.

He didn't want to see. Or more accurately he did want to see, and was ashamed and embarrassed of that simple fact. It had been a normal mirror when he bought it, so why was it so stubbornly showing him Jun Shi? Couldn't he turn it off? Had he... what, said his name and summoned up his image?

He paused. It sounded astoundingly stupid, and yet the whole situation made no sense at all. There was no harm in trying, was there? He was alone, and he paused before speaking it out loud. "My mother." He declared, squeezing his eyes shut and thinking particularly hard.

When he opened them, he found himself staring at a grocery store. The signs were in Japanese, it was light outside, and a woman who looked a whole lot like his mother appeared to be checking out the vegetables, although it was hard to tell from that angle. He paused, then thought of his father--and the image flickered to an almost perfectly still image of his father in his office. He moved only rarely, flipping through pages as he read through some absurdly thick looking contract.

Keijiro found himself feeling vaguely ill. He'd never been particularly religious or superstitious, but it was impossible to look at the mirror and thing it was anything else but magic. That was what it was. He thought of people, and it showed them to him. Was it possessed? Some kind of spirit? He felt vaguely alarmed that it simply didn't know, and despite the late hour he carefully set the mirror reflective side down and pulled open his laptop.

Thirty minutes later, he knew what he had. It was a tsukumogami -- an ungaikyo to be specific. Information in general was relatively scarce, but what he had found matched up. A possessed mirror that gained it's own soul after having been around for a hundred years. They were old stories, and he knew he'd heard at least a few of them. At the very least it gave him a rough guideline, and he carefully set the mirror back up.

It was only showing his face, and he felt somewhat silly as he clapped twice, bowing before it and mumbling his thanks before quickly retreating to his bed. The mirror did not change--and as far as he could tell, if he treated it kindly, it would do him no harm.

It was still eerie though.

JUN SHI WEI | MAY 25TH, 3AM