open

[redpeacoat]

Who: Shinjiro, and perhaps you?
When: Afternoon of the 24th.
Where: Somewhere on the island, near the water.
Format: Either's fine.
Status: Open.

[Chances are you don't find too many people relaxing on the beach in a hot and heavy coat and skull cap. Chances are they aren't sprawled out awkwardly in the sand either, or lack proper vacationing accessories like a beach towel and bag.

But you've found one, and he's just started to return to consciousness thanks to a healthy film of sand building in his eyes, picked up by the wind.

Shinjiro groans, sitting up and gazing out at the sea with watery eyes.]

Where the hell am I?

[So many possibilities. He could have died, and this was the afterlife. He could have fallen comatose again. Briefly he wondered if Akihiko had knocked him out cold to drag him on a trip. And if that was the case, he would be in for a hurting. He just wanted to see her again.

But he's here now.]

Damn.

Comments

> attempts resistance.. > resistance failed > hope you don't mind a troll

[helmetdoesnothing]

[Along the very same beach, apparently oblivious to what's going on around him, a gangly grey-skinned teenager with a mop of hair reminiscent of a dandelion obscuring his eyes is picking his way across the sand, moving half stooped from one spot to the next. He's picking seashells up, occasionally discarding them, but dropping others into a cloth bag held loosely in one hand.

He hears Shinjiro before he sees him, freezing at the sound of that groan and looking up slowly, blinking once before creeping a little closer. Humans here, they're not like the humans in the dream bubbles - or, well, some of them are, on account of actually being the humans from the dream bubbles - and sometimes it's hard to tell them apart but this one... Has he seen this one before?

The ever-misfiring synapses in his half-fried brain temporarily form some coherent order, enough to inform him that no, this is someone new. No doubt Mituna looks quite the odd sight as he slowly comes to that conclusion, settled in an awkward crouch and barely moving. Then, he shifts, comes a bit closer, the bag of seashells held close to him as he halts a few metres away and drops back onto his heels. It's not a great position for someone whose sense of equilibrium is precarious at the best of times. He barely gets half a syllable out before he loses his balance and falls on his backside in the sand.]

H-- fuck. [First impressions, he makes great ones. Take two.] ... Hi. [His head tilts in a small, twitching motion.] What're you doing?

don't mind at all!

[redpeacoat]

[Shinjiro turns at the drop of Mituna's curse word, watching him not-so-gracefully fall backwards into the sand. If he was still in Japan, he'd expect to see someone of Asian descent...heck, someone with natural-colored flesh would have been normal too, were he anywhere on Earth. But this kid's skin is ash grey, and he's got a wild set of horns jutting out of his head.

...It's got to be a cosplay, right?]

I have no idea. There something goin' on?

\o/

[helmetdoesnothing]

Going on?

[He shakes his head a little, shifting his hair out of his bi-coloured eyes for a moment before it inevitably falls back in front of them. With one hand steadying himself he crosses his legs and brings one knee up to rest his chin on it. There's probably no way for this guy to look graceful or put together no matter how hard he tried.]

The bubble made a f-fhucking loud noithe and the water came in, tho we all came up here.

[That's what he means, right?]

[redpeacoat]

[It looks like he has company for now. Perhaps whatever he's doing isn't that pressing for him to want to stop and chat with someone like him. He half expects the teen to start chattering about something he knows nothing about...

And he does! A bubble?]

What are you talking about?

[helmetdoesnothing]

[He stills, then taps his fingertips to the sand.]

Down there. There'th a bubble, but it broke.

[Squint. Something clicks over in his mind. He remembers falling out of the fountain when he got here, not ending up on the beach.]

... How the fuck did you get up here anyway.

[tsundyne]

[With everything that's been happening, Yukari has essentially evacuated to the island with the rest. She doesn't really want to spend anymore time than she has to in an underwater city where her everything will get wet, though she does kind of wonder what this will mean for new arrivals.

Heck, would there even be any, now that the barrier's cracked?

Wasn't that the entire reason they were here in the first place?

She looks a lot angrier these days -- like she's in a bad mood. But as she walks along the beach, she sees him, and that red pea coat.

Her eyes widen, expression more surprised now than serious or angry.]

S- Senpai?!

[She approaches, carrying her Jack Frost doll. Something of a prized possession that she managed to bring up with her.]

[redpeacoat]

[You're not supposed to be the miserable one, Takeba. That's his job.

He's been sitting there for a while, contemplating getting up and walking around, when he hears a familiar voice. It's been a really long time since he's seen his friends, aside from Akihiko. He'd forgotten everything, and all of a sudden it hit him like a truck all at once, and he felt terrible.

It's reassuring to see Yukari, even though his expression doesn't really change to show it.]

Takeba?

[Yukari would be straight with him and tell him what was going on, surely.]

[tsundyne]

[It takes her a moment to find her voice again. But luckily this isn't the first time she's seen a dead person walking -- or even him walking around, really. She takes a breath, looking him over with a tilt of her head.

She's calm.]

Yeah, it's me . . . did you just -- ?

[wake up here??

. . . Okay, but he looks pretty confused. It's pretty safe to assume he did, so rather than asking:]

I mean -- I'm guessing you want some answers.

[redpeacoat]

This isn't Gekkoukan.

[Why are we on vacation, Yukari?]

If you've got'em, spill them.

[tsundyne]

[He's so observant.

Heh -- Yukari just nods, taking a seat next to him in the sand because. Well, this could take a while.]

. . . This is Vatheon.

[She waits a brief moment for a reaction -- just on the off-chance that he remembers. But she's taught herself to assume the worst, so she just sighs, going on.]

Or at least, the island above it.

[She glances over to the elevator briefly, leading down to a city that's slowly flooding.]

[xxii_thefool]

Say, who are you thinking about right now?
As for me, I'm thinking of you...

Minako has been trying to limit how much she uses her mp3 player since the bubble cracked and she evacuated, like so many others, up onto the island. After all, there's no telling when she might get the chance to charge it again; when the battery runs down, that might just be it. But even though her headphones are atypically silent, her internal soundtrack is still running in the back of her mind, and she hums to herself as she wanders down the shoreline - barefoot, shoes and socks left behind somewhere, the now rather worse-for-wear jacket of her school uniform tied around her waist by its sleeves.

The barrier failing and the flooding that followed, the relocation... recently arrived as she is, it hasn't been quite the upheaval for her that it has been for others. On the other hand, it hasn't done anything to help her settle in, either. Mostly she feels kind of - ha ha - at sea, not entirely sure what she should be doing with herself.

The beach isn't bad, in any case. It makes her think back to the summer trip to Yakushima. She'd like to go back there again, with everyone, she thinks... this time with no thoughts of Shadows looming over them.

She's so wrapped up in imagining it that her gaze rests on the familiar shape of dark red and black against the sand for a good few steps before it actually registers in her brain that he's not part of her daydream - even Shinjiro, it occurs to her to think in some silly and irrelevant part of her head, would probably not wear his coat and hat to the beach by choice, however difficult it might be to picture him without them.

It's actually him. He's actually here.

Her breath catches, and her progress along the beach falters to a stop for a second - then she breaks into a hasty jog.

[redpeacoat]

The heat must be getting to him. Perhaps he should at least wriggle out of his coat and take off his now-roasting skull cap. Why? He sees her, rushing down the beach.

He needed to wake up. He must've passed out on the stairs, and now they were probably taking him back to the hospital, which was the last thing he needed right now...well, wanted.

But there's little he can do about that right now. Might as well enjoy this time, even if it's not real. He finds it in himself to curl a slight smile.

[xxii_thefool]

She's halfway there before she manages to find her voice, breathless, positively lit up with delight - it really is him, whole and awake and looking, if not precisely healthy, worlds better than the last time she saw him. "Shinjiro-senpai!"

When she reaches him she doesn't so much stop as kind of launch herself at him in a full-body diving glomp of a hug. "I'm so glad to see you--!"

[redpeacoat]

Shinjiro now finds himself lying in the sand again, but that's perfectly alright at the moment. He slowly wraps his arms around the person he cares the most about. It's selfish to want to be with her, and he can't justify it. It's rare for him to have something that makes him happy.

[xxii_thefool]

It's only after she's basically tackled him that it occurs to Minako that this might possibly not be the best way to greet a guy who, at least from her perspective, was shot twice in the chest only about a month ago.

"Ah, sorry--" She lifts a bit of her weight off of him, raising her head so that she can see his face, looking worriedly for any signs of pain. "Are you okay? That probably hurt, didn't it?"

[findsrisks]

On an island in the middle of nowhere.

[That less-than-thrilled reply comes from a teenage girl who's standing nearby, throwing rocks out at the ocean. It's a way to relieve stress, ok? And she's got a good arm so the rocks are going pretty far.]

Though you should count yourself lucky, most new arrivals end up drenched. That would be terrible, in a thick coat like that.

[redpeacoat]

[Shinjiro's glance fixes on the girl, and then the stones as they skip across the water. He'd used to do that when he was younger...with large puddles, but close enough.]

People fall out of the sky around here?

[So he was on an island somewhere. His home country is an island, but he can't say if he's still there or not. He's never been to the beach before.]

[findsrisks]

Something like that. I don't really remember myself, I just woke up soaking wet near the coral, but I'm guessing everyone would have to fall to get here.

[redpeacoat]

[While Shinjiro is no star student, he knows coral is the stuff that grows underwater. Obviously you would be soaking wet to regain consciousness near it, but something about how she says it seems odd.]

You didn't drown.

[findsrisks]

Well no, I don't think anyone did.

[Then she remembers that new people wouldn't know about the city.]

Oh that's right, you didn't get to see it. There's this huge underwater city, kind of like Atlantis but with more magic. There's a huge piece of coral in the middle of the city, which is in a bubble of air. So yeah, no drowning.

[ukidokiotaku]

[Renge had arrived only a short while ago. Unsure of what to expect or even where in the world she had traveled to. All she knew was the fact that she was on a beach and she didn't bring her favorite beach style cosplay for the occasion.

It was rather disappointing to say the least. So, with her arms to the sides of her dress, she walked as calmly as the young heroine could. Worried about what will happen to her collection back when she she almost stumble across someone sitting on the beach.

Maybe she could pay more attention, when off in her own little world.]

I'm sorry...Though, that's not really what one would normally wear on the beach. So, are you like me and lost and confused?

[redpeacoat]

[Frustrated, Shinjiro narrows his eyes briefly at the girl during her first comment. He didn't ask to come here like this!]

You were abducted too?

[ukidokiotaku]

[She nodded slightly.]

Yes and now I don't have any of the things I am use to. Who would do such a thing?

[redpeacoat]

[Well, somebody's full of themselves. At least she comes across like that to the teen. He sighs.]

Someone who doesn't give a shit that you're out of your element. People who pull this crap don't care about what happens to you, so long as you're alive.

[ukidokiotaku]

[Sadly, she is kind of full of herself.]

Someone's a little rude. Taking you like a damsel in distress and landing you here, doesn't make you curious as to what they want with us?