Alternative title : Suzume bullies people into being helpful assholes, and insults modern art.
3 : A Life Well Lived, A Heart Poorly Loved
The art museum is nice, but its been a long day and eventually the three teenagers collapse in the cafe and order something to fill their stomach. Normally he'd feel more out of place, but squished between his two companions he can't find it in him to worry about what anyone else thinks of his scales or his hair or his claws. Not when Suzy's warm shoulder is against his arm, and Shiga draps his legs across Shuichi's lap while he leans back against the wall behind him.
They're sitting there with empty plates when Shuichi realizes that a woman another table over is crying. It's quiet, but it's there.
Against his better judgment he looks over to find a woman a little older than he is with long antennae drooped in front of her face. Even inside she has dark sunglasses on, and a cane rests beside her. Bright red and white.
Shiga follows his gaze and, because he's a dick with no manners, says, "What's there to cry about?" loud enough to be heard.
The woman chokes and tries to shake her head, mumbling an apology before Suzy elbows Shiga roughly. Which is impressive, since Shuichi is sitting between them.
"He means, did something happen," she says with slightly more tact, even though that's definitely not true. Shiga is less of a jerk than when the three of them started playing games together, but he's still pretty rough around the edges.
"I'm just-" the woman stops, her mouth trembling, before she squares her shoulders. "I was. Just waiting for a guy. That's all. But he's not coming, it's been an hour and he hasn't called or texted or anything."
The older girls mouth twists bitterly. "I get it, bring the blind girl to the museum! Funny. Ha. Ha."
Shuichi winces in sympathy. "That's fucked up."
Ash falls on the table, and Shiga's empty cup is mysteriously missing.
"I should have seen it coming, I guess. Oh wait."
Suzy muffles a cough in her fist. She's got the strangest look in her eyes.
"That was a horrible pun," Shiga says flatly. This time he dodges when Suzy tries to elbow him.
But then, the youngest of them looks at the new comer.
"I've had time to think about it. This is a thing, I guess, because this isn't the first time it's happened since I lost my sight. God, I feel so damn stupid-"
They're interrupted by a couple, clearly in love, walking by talking about the beautiful art they'd just seen, and how life changing the day was.
The tears were back in the woman's eyes again, and this time Shuichi is glad he's not holding a glass because he would have 100% broken it and stabbed the couple with it.
"What else are you doing today?" Suzy asks suddenly, surprising them all.
"Wha- me? Nothing, I suppose…"
"Great. Then you have an hour," Suzume nods once, and then looks at Shiga. She looks almost like a snake, eying up a mouse. "You're kind of an asshole."
"Gee, thanks," Shiga says dryly. "What are you getting at?"
"Get up," Suzy orders, and bullies Shiga and Shuichi into standing. Shiga groaned, apparently cottoning on to her plan, and Suzy goes to the crying woman. Shiga must not hate the idea that much, because he doesn't object when he's dragged over by the wrist.
"Hey. Come with us for a little bit."
"Uh. What?"
"Come with us," Suzy repeats, tapping her nails on the table. They're painted orange today, part of her deal with Shiga.
"To. Where?"
"The museum. Just give it a shot, what's the worst thing that can happen?"
"You trick me into a van?"
"... okay that's fair actually. But we're not going to. Look, we're in the museum of modern art, the only people who actually enjoy this shit are pretentious twats like the two that just walked by-"
"Why do you get to say twat, but when I did you pinched me?"
"- We've seen everything in here, and I'm pretty sure I'm a worse person for it."
"That's nice of you to say, but it's really not true…"
"Nope, it is. Come on. We'll prove it."
It's a testament to how effective Suzy's tactic of 'Bully Shiga Into Being A Better Person' is that the man doesn't even protest Suzy herding them all to the front of the museum again.
They start the walk again, touring into the big open room of abstract sculptures.
"Dick, dick, pile of dicks," Suzy lists off as they walk past the first ones.
Shiga, asshole supreme, stops them in front of a piece labeled 'Fossil Fue-tiliy' and starts describing it in great detail. "This one looks like what would happen if someone stuck their dick in a tail pipe, smoked a joint, and tried to translate the feeling of being in a boat onto clay while watching a turkish oil wrestling match."
They're garnering furious glares from other people who are just there to enjoy the artwork, genuinely, but Shuichi can't bring himself to care. Not when this random blind woman is now laughing so hard that her tears are a thing of the past as they lead her into room after room, roasting the artwork with vitriol.
They go through the whole museum that way, making innuendos and describing the artwork as best(and worst) as they can.
'The town where racism was invented, but make it Chipmunks'.
'A toddler learning Kanji on top of wet paper mache'.
'What would happen if a space alien drawing with a pencil glued to their third boob tried to draw a dog'.
'Ketsup splattered on top of a melting bagel'.
'A coat rack made of feet'.
'... It's a rock with string on it'.
By the end of it the blind woman is grinning, just as crazy and just as much of an asshole as the rest of them.
The only time they aren't roasting the hell out of everything is because they come across artwork that looks like Portal, the video game, and Shiga goes off on a rage fueled rant on underrated classics.
They drop her off at the subway, where she promises she'll be fine, and the trio walks off.
Shuichi feels just a little bit like a hero.
It's the most productive time he's ever had insulting shitty art.
Suzy and Shiga start arguing as soon as the woman is gone about whether or not they should go back and make some of the art mysteriously disappear.
It's only then that Shuich realizes they spent the entire afternoon touring that woman around, and he has no idea what her name was.
