Murder mystery VNs Jisei and Kansei have been updated to run on modern computers along with a handful of minor adjustments. They’re also available to purchase on itch.io!
Q: What are Jisei and Kansei? A: The first two installments in our Jisei murder mystery series. The main character is a psychic detective. We’ve currently released three games in the series (the third game is Yousei), and the fourth is currently in production.
Q: Is this a dating sim? A: It isn’t, but I won’t stop you from trying.
Q: If I already bought Jisei and/or Kansei from your site, will I have to re-purchase them? A: No. The latest version will always be available to you via the same download link you received in your confirmation email. If your link has expired or you’ve lost the email, send me an email with the address you used to purchase the game.
Q: If I buy this now, will I be eligible for a Steam code when you put the games on Steam? A: Yes. Free Steam codes will be distributed to anyone who purchases the game from our site or via itch.io.
Q: If I bought a physical copy from you at a convention, will I have to re-purchase them? A: We’re currently working on a system to get a free Steam code to anyone who purchased a physical copy. Stay tuned!
Dinner was quiet. Again. You could hardly look at Cerberus directly anymore, not since the day you chose to save him, ultimately leaving both of his brothers to perish. You knew it wasn't your fault, and HE knew it wasn't your fault they were gone. But he was always so quiet around you now. And maybe it's just because silence leaves room for bad, ugly little thoughts to grow, but now you felt, or at least you wondered, if part of him resented you for it. And it was killing you.
Leah repeated the words in her head like a mantra, wielded them like a shield and a blade all at once, desperate to cut through the shadows clouding her mind to find any semblance of light. But the words rang dull and meaningless. They always did. No matter how many times she pleaded, or cried–at who exactly, she didn’t know–it never changed the fact that she woke up every day and they were gone.
She and Cerberus were still here and breathing, but she was feeling far from alive.
There wasn’t time to think.
It was supposed to be a routine case. Another H.E.R.A. client with an unreliable Aura, an albatross with wings like winter, who needed help subduing it long enough for more capable agents to arrive. But things spiraled of control. Fast.
At first the client screamed for help, and then for them to run away, but then she just kept screaming and then Cerberus and his brothers were trying to corner her Aura with theirs, and Leah’s Aura flared to life too but she wasn’t fast enough and everything was cold cold cold and icicles like daggers were spraying out in all directions and then–
It was him or them.
That was worst of all, being forced to choose between three men she loved like family, but in different ways, and having only a split second to do it. If she’d acted sooner, if she’d done things differently when they’d first arrived on the scene, would they all still be here together now?
She picked listlessly at the spinach on her plate as faces wavered in her mind, visions of what should still be. Nemean, reliable and friendly, and Orthrus, sweet and slightly awkward, struggling to comfort her through his last, labored breaths.
“It’s okay, Sis… don’t cry…”
Oh gods, she could still hear him, it was all too clear even now. Her heart clenched, but she didn’t realize she’d stopped eating until she heard a ceramic clatter and looked down–her fork had slipped from her fingers onto her plate.
She grabbed it, but she felt clumsy and slow. She saw Cerberus, looking at her in concern–when was the last time he looked at me?–and quickly showed him a reassuring smile.
Smile, smile. Don’t add to his troubles. Don’t make his worries even worse.
But even to her, it felt too quick, too bright, a weak flame to be snuffed out with the slightest breath. She had been smiling for weeks. She almost didn’t know what it was like to not smile anymore, to not be clinging to the last remaining edge of a stronghold as it crumbled away all around her.
She felt a tremor in the muscles in her cheeks. She fought to suppress it and keep her lips curved up, but it just spread through her shoulders and chest and body, until finally she gave in, burying her face in her hands with a long, despairing wail.
@bukuria okay you promised me a happy/hopeful ending homefry time to deliver chop chop these tears on my keyboard ain’t gonna mop themselves up.
“Leah…!” Cerberus seemed stunned still for a moment, shocked at this revelation, this exposure of vulnerability. He leapt from his seat and stepped closer, crouching down beside her and looking up at her. Whatever thoughts had preoccupied his mind before were worlds away already.
“Hey,” he said softly, reaching up and putting his hands on her wrists. He tugged gently, and she reluctantly let him take her hands off of her face and into his own. When she looked at him, she saw him peering up at her, his face awash with concern, more emotion than she’d seen from him in a month.
“I’m sorry.” She meant for her outburst. “I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I'm—” She wasn’t talking about the outburst anymore.
“Leah, please. Please stop apologizing.” His voice was firm.
“Cerberus…” She looked at him with tear-blurred vision, refusing to break from the longest eye contact they’d held in so long, and yet suffering more than she’d ever imagined from it. She blinked away the tears and saw him clearly again, just in time to catch the smallest twitch of his lip, the slightest sheen in his eyes.
He gave her hands a squeeze and then let go, standing up and giving her a kiss on the forehead. “Finish eating, if you can,” he said, picking up his own dishes and heading for the sink. “You should get some rest.”
Leah watched his retreating back. For a moment, there had been warmth, connection. But just as quickly, it had gone. She let out a shuddering breath.
She slid the tray into the oven, twisted the knob on the timer, and headed into the living room. She flipped through the channels absently, finally settling on a rerun of something she’d already seen, and opted to keep the volume down. She wasn’t really watching, anyway.
Her mind was repeatedly replaying the events that had transpired that morning.
She’d woken to find Cerberus sitting up already, the sight of his broad back—a sight, she couldn’t help thinking, that she had grown quite familiar with— greeting her. But when he heard her stir, he turned to her.
“Hey, you’re awake. You sleep well?”
“Yes,” she lied. She was willing to pretend the previous night’s mishap had never occurred, if he was. “How about you?”
“Honestly… no.” The candor in his answer took her by surprise. They were both silent, and just when she had made up her mind on what to say, he continued. “I was up a long time thinking… about what to say.”
“Oh?” Her voice was strained. How refreshing, to actually be talking to him. And how terrifying, not knowing what he was going to say.
“I guess…” His eyes trailed down. Her stomach sank. Then he looked back up, directly at her. “I should start with I’m sorry.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry.”
“What—” She swallowed. “I mean, why?”
He turned back, facing forward again. She saw his face in the dresser mirror. His eyes clouded over, lost in thought, focused on phrasing.
“All this time, the way I’ve been acting… I thought this was the best thing to do. I thought if we didn’t talk about it, we could move on. I thought it was better to suffer in silence, instead of multiplying our misery by talking about it.”
“Cerberus,” she started, “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to—”
“No.” His eyes met hers in the mirror. “No, because I’ve tried not talking about it, we’ve tried, and it’s clearly not working. I never got it out— how I felt— and so I never could move past it. And every time I looked at you, I saw your stricken face, and it reminded me of that day, and it pained me to see, and so I looked away. I forgot—” His voice cracked. “I forgot you were hurting too.”
Leah squeezed her eyes shut tightly, the tears that had been forming in them slipping out of the sides. She put a hand to her head. Had she really woken up? Was this a real conversation or just some catharsis of her unconscious mind?
“Leah?”
“Yes?” She hadn’t realized he’d been waiting for a response.
“Please… tell me how you feel right now. How you really feel. If you’re hurting…”
“…I am,” she said slowly. “I’m hurting because I miss them. Because I feel like it’s my fault. And because it feels like when I lost them… I lost you, too.”
She tried to keep her composure. She didn’t want Cerberus to comfort her out of concern, to lie to her out of pity. But the last of her nerves had been chewed through in the past twelve hours, and it wasn’t long until she was sniffling again.
“Leah…”
She felt a hand fall on top of her own and looked up. Cerberus was facing her again, but now the careful expression of earlier was gone, and the tears came down his face in a steady stream.
“This is what I was hoping to avoid,” he said in a voice like trembling bricks. “I didn’t want you to see me break down, I thought that would be worse.” The bricks came tumbling down. The wall he had so carefully constructed was rubble at their feet. “I-I’m sorry I did that to you— froze you out, made you think I was angry with you, ignored the fact that you were grieving too. I’m so sorry, Leah.”
He pulled her into his arms and held her, the both of them crying too much for words at first. But as she began to calm down, she became aware of his hands stroking through her hair, all the way down her back. When she trusted her own voice again, she pulled back enough to look at Cerberus, and though they ceased their movements, his arms remained around her.
“I…” She stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I just keep thinking, that if I had only been faster, they— Nemean and Orthrus— they might still—”
“Stop it. Stop thinking that way. You know that’s the last thing my brothers would want,” Cerberus said firmly. His own breath was shaky before he continued. “We have to talk about it, but not like that. Now with guilt or blaming or ‘what ifs.’”
His golden eyes were fierce, more alive than she’d seen them in weeks. She nodded. They were going to have to tear their wounds right open again. They were going to have to pick out all of the debris they’d left unacknowledged. But once they did, the real healing could finally begin.
A ding brought Leah out of her recollections. Had it really been a half hour already? She went to check on the cake.
Once in the kitchen, she noticed the timer still ticking away, another twenty minutes away from finishing time.
Oh, the doorbell.
She made her way to the door, but stopped with her hand on the knob. Cerberus said he would be awhile running errands before joining her for a relaxing day at home, and they weren’t expecting visitors that day. Still, maybe it was just May popping in to check on her. She peeked outside, but saw no one.
“Hello?” She called, opening the door. Nobody answered. She was ready to close it when a small white envelope on the doorstep caught her eye.
She picked it up and brought it inside, curious as to the personal delivery of such a simple-looking letter. It was addressed to her specifically, but had no postmark or return address.
She opened the envelope, her interest piqued, and as she pulled the paper from inside, two objects fell from it. She gasped and started, staring at the black curl and brown strands. Her heart started thumping wildly. When she could finally tear her eyes from the familiar locks of hair, she read the letter.
They’re alive. You can save them. Just do as I say.
Alive!
If Leah had been in a well-rested, emotionally stable state,
she might have sensed something off about the note. As it was, she didn’t
hesitate to throw open the front door and tear down the street.
Buildings, street signs, and faces passed by in a blur. She
didn’t care that she was in her pajamas and bathrobe, having called in sick to
work that morning, and she barely felt the sun-warmed asphalt scraping the
soles of her bare feet. Over and over, the words in the letter sang out in her
mind.
I always hate it when people are all “so do you go to school, or are
you working, or” and I either have to
make up some lie, or
eventually get
around to “I am not working because of depression/anxiety,” and
subsequently have to deal with whatever bullshit-riddled and completely
unsolicited opinions on mental illness this stranger feels obligated to
share with me.
So my therapist was like, “You don’t have to do either.
You can just say you haven’t worked in a while because you’re recovering
from an illness.”
I tried it when the home inspector was here today, and it fucking worked.
He was like, “oh, I’m sorry, are you doing better now,” and I’m like
yeah, and don’t worry, it’s not contagious, awkward laugh, and we moved
on.
MY THERAPIST. IS A GENIUS. Because it is an
illness, so it’s not a lie to say that, and it’s also none of his
business to know specifically what it is, and I clearly don’t want to
give more details, so we should move on from this topic. MYTHERAPIST IS A GODDAMN GENIUS.
Dude I needed this. I never know what to say when people ask if I work because I’m severely disabled and don’t work.
REBLOG TO SAVE A LIFE HOLY SHIT
To add, this works on job interviews too. I once had to answer the ‘so whats up with this gap of 8 months in your resume where you were unemployed?” and I just said I had suffered an illness and I needed time to recover.
It’s easy enough, not a lie, and puts them on edge enough that they usually don’t go digging.
Understand that there is a huge difference between someone finding you physically attractive and someone who actually respects and values you as a whole person and sees you in their future
