> First Stop: Slippery when wet

[busstopsign]

Who: Shinjiro and You
Where: Wandering confused in the plaza
When: July 29th
Style: Starting with prose but feel free to switch to action and I will match up
Status: Open!

Had to be the drugs.

At least that's what he told himself as he continued to walk, his shoes making noise from the water buildup. His hat did little to protect him from the pouring rain, and his hair was already stuck around his neck. His coat was in no better shape and he grunted as he idly put his hands in his pockets, walking along confused. The coat hid his hospital outfit well...considering upon waking up, Shinjiro had remembered the promise they had made, and his first thought wasn't to get properly dressed, but to grab what he could from his room and make a dash for the school.

...only to end up here. Really, it had to be the drugs. He'd managed to catch a date on his way out, and he knew it had been a while. Maybe painkillers with a a side effect. Who the hell knew. But he'd certainly wake up any minute now.

Strange how it felt so real...he looked up to the sky before sighing.

"Tch. Think I'd be done with dreaming after so long..."

Comments

[shotarcana]

Minako had certainly been aware from the start that this wasn't a place where the ordinary rules applied entirely. Here she was, dead or missing or away as she should be; and here were many of the people she'd feared missing so much, too. And then there was the whole business with her new "twin".

She'd been strolling all around the place during the daytime ever since she'd gotten here, and seen others come in, too, reassuring her that she was at least hardly alone. Today she was lost a bit in her thoughts, trying to decide exactly what she needed to do here, trying to decide how she should feel about the unexpected detour.

Actually, she'd stopped entirely noticing her surroundings as she got deeper into her conundrum, just skirting the edge of the plaza, staring down at her feet, absently rubbing a spot on her lower back where she'd finally found her new tattoo.

[busstopsign]

The girl in his dreams.

Every since he'd been in the hospital comatose and ignorant of the outside world advancing without him, he'd been plagued of a girl. Sometimes she'd show up halfway in a dream, other times, she'd just laugh and disappear when he looked again. He knew her. He definitely knew her, but never get her name right. Wherever he thought he had the answer, she she would grin, or hold his hand and cry before disappearing just before he could. Yet he'd stubbornly continued to march in the mists of his mind until, one day, he'd been able to say it, finally leading to him waking up, covered in tubes and machines.

"Minako Arisato."

Had he said that out loud? Wasn't sure. Hell, this might just still be a dream. Idly, as if this would somehow give him a straight answer, he pinched himself and--OW.

Slowly...he ended up walking towards her, half expecting the field leader to burst into a cloud of smoke, unable to say her name again as if it was now taboo to do so. However Minako might notice the shadow creeping up behind her. Shinji wasn't exactly good about sneaking.

[shotarcana]

Surprisingly, or maybe not, she didn't immediately notice. She'd been wandering around for hours, and plenty of people had walked behind her before, after all. Only... something did seem to indicate to her that something was about to happen. Maybe it was part of that talent for getting the drop on Shadows. But there weren't any Shadows here.

Except for the immediately obvious one, of course. She turned just a fraction, to reveal her face in profile, and then, out of the corner of her eye, was a figure that made her blink, and then almost freeze up for a second.

Oddly, stupidly, the first thing that came to her mind was that he hadn't been on the starfish communicator's list. Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe she was already crazy. Her hand flew to the pocket with her communicator in it, as if to check there, rather than with the evidence of her own senses. She didn't want to finish turning around, in case it wasn't real, at first. He was the one she hadn't gotten to really say goodbye to...

But her hand stopped once it reached the communicator, because-- what was she doing, what was she thinking? Whatever it was, she'd better just treat it with equanimity, as usual. Of course. That would be easy, right?

[busstopsign]

He stopped close to her, her own confusion reflected right back at him. There was a moment of silence before he could formulate what to say, having witnessed everything.

"...Idiot." His voice seemed to be cracking under pressure and he said the word with a surprising gentle tone. He stopped walking when he was close enough to her, but couldn't bring him to touch her, afraid she'd just disappear in the wind. "What happened to the girl who'd rush in to get her way?"

He shook his head...and then...Shinji smiled. It was a smile few people got to see. Even most of SEES, really. It was a smile that was reserved only for her.

"Tell me I ain't dreaming..."

[shotarcana]

With that first word, and then that sentence, the challenge, the old feeling, everything that she'd almost forgotten from months ago, was on for her again. It was as if a catch had slipped in a window and it was finally open. He wouldn't touch her? Then she would grab his hand. He wanted to hear he wasn't dreaming...?

"Maybe you are dreaming," she said, in a voice she was trying to keep light, "but if you are, I'm dreaming too, senpai."