yogen | Awakening

Who: Shin Tsukimi and Anyone
When: July 2nd
What: Opening Post!
Warnings: None as yet.

Shin’s arrival to Yogen is heralded by a slam as he sharply closes his locker and dizzily leans against it while two sets of memories jostle each other. He gathers himself enough to glance around, grab his jacket, and lock it, mind furiously racing as he puts it on and tries to process how he is here. The raw relief flooding through him is turning sour at the immediate possibilities that come to mind.

A: School Life (Day, Misc)
Shin… keeps going to classes he half-remembers, eyeing any non-human-looking students he sees. He feels exposed (and also mundanely chilly) without his scarf and beanie, and his hands keep drifting to the empty space of either. When classes end he returns to his locker, puts them on and pockets the items inside, before trying to leave through the front doors and finding he… can’t. Ah. So that’s how it is. You can catch him in such states as staring at the School Rules with an unreadable expression, at one of the vending machines with more of a debating one, or in one of the classrooms sitting with his elbows on a desk and his hands tugging his beanie down over his head.

B: Washing Day (Evening)
So it turns out one of the side effects of dumping a bag of dirt out inside a locker is that everything in that locker... becomes covered in dirt. So if you go into one of the bathrooms after 6PM you may see the strange sight of someone in a dirt-dusted purple jacket not-so-gently washing their clothes in one of the sinks with half his face buried into the similarly adorned scarf around his neck, because as furtive as he’s been about waiting for one to be empty it’s just a bathroom and people can just walk in. Ask him how his day is going.

C: Safety In Numbers (Night)
At this point you may see Shin file quietly into whichever room seems to have the most people in it and sit down in a corner or seat. Somewhere he has a good view of the room; if you catch him looking at you he’ll give you a polite smile and glance away, fiddling with his scarf. He’s exhausted, and his head will occasionally dip and jolt back upright as his body tries to collect the day’s debt.
Believe it or not this is him starting to try out that ‘trust’ thing again… or maybe it’s just there’s no dorm rooms he can lock. Baby steps.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( nene... likes to think the best of people. she tries very hard to. even when they do openly mistreat her, she gives them a chance. and this is very much... hm. it's a victory, maybe, but it's a hollow one. either he's trying on a superficial level, he thinks she's stupid, or he's just humoring her.

she still gives him a soft, truly sincere smile, because despite everything- she wants to try. )

Then... what kind of things do you like? I run the gardening club, but we have a few different ones too.

[Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown but it's forget it Nene, it's Shin's terminal inability to communicate properly with others about what he's thinking or feeling. On some level all three of those are true at the same time; the thin light of a genuine desire to try split by the grimy prism of holding the world at arm's length.]

I've seen your plants in my ['his'] home room. You meet in 3-E, right?

[Things he likes... well, talking about his nerdlier hobbies would just be embarrassing. Nobody needs to know about his gachas... and nobody ever will.
He could lie and say he runs marathons... or maybe some other and more plausible outdoor activity...
He really doesn't do much, does he.]

Aha, well... I do a little coding for fun, you know, in my spare time...

[Shin you're a freelancer who spends hours at a time at this. You even actually get paid sometimes. Like not much but own it a little.]

Mhm. Please be careful with them, though, they're delicate.

( also, s. some of them are foreign poisons. so. )

Ah... Nanami-san will probably latch onto you then, she's been really excited about her robotics and programming club. But if you ever want to stop by the gardening club, I won't mind.

[W-which 'some'?]

Not sure how much help I'll be...

[Which is his way of saying yes, yes he will come by and sneakily try to watch what everyone else does before also sneakily attempting things. Pressgang him Nene. Make him move bags of compost (do not do this, he will die).]

I've already seen one robot here... so that was Nanami-san's doing?

[SHIN, NO.]

( sometimes the monster in the courtyard gives you flower seeds to raise and they turn out to be toxic. mind ya business. )

It's never too late to learn~!

( that's his only warning. will he take it? probably not. )

Ah... I don't think so. I think they're like us, but... um. Maybe not from where we're from? We also have a talking dog. Her name's Angel, she's a very good girl.

[Sadly, probably not. This is how you end up in the void, Shin.

Wait, so that's why there was a dog in the classroom. Nobody seemed to be batting an eye about that and Shin had had other worries at the time.]

Wait, 'where we're from?'

[If people are from different times, are they from different worlds as well? He's fairly sure dogs don't talk where he's from. Not even in secret. Fairly sure. What is this, an isekai pileup?]

I, um- over the past few months, I noticed something. Not everyone is from the same world- Noah-kun and Mr. Clamor are from a place where magic is real and super common, for instance... I-I knew a boy with superpowers... but I don't know what happened to him.

And in time... people who had magic are getting it back, so. I-It's not like we have reason to disbelieve them?

[Hang on just let him have the standard internal 'magic??? well this day has already been so goddamn weird' reaction. After sending himself to eeby deeby he can't really argue with it being an actual thing.

Which means... maybe... he can let himself be a little excited about it. No, just interested. This is pure interest hours only. For sure. The brief gleam in his eyes disappears in a puff.]

Magic? What kinds?

[Noah and Clamor, huh.]

Ah... probably not anything that can get us out, right. It'd be a bit too easy...

[It's not likely for him to be the first to think of it. Shin needs someone to be behind all this for his mental balsawood tower to stay upright, and someone with that much control only returns the toys they want you to have, right? Mind you the last time he thought someone was his nemesis... well, turns out he might have been a bit mistaken.]

Well, I see ghosts.

( perhaps the bluntest she's admitted to this, but! she did it! without things being horrible or having to be pressured into it! be proud of her even if you don't know why, shin. )

... One of them can control shadows- he'll make little cats, it's actually really cute? But no, we haven't been able to get through whatever's keeping us here. Even with what people can do... I-I don't really know for sure the extent of everyone's abilities, but it's also coming back piece by piece.

... I also don't- I get really scared at the idea of some people knowing what I can do, so I try not to... tell to many about others' abilities.

( which is a small plea to not spread the word himself, if only about her. ... not that seeing ghosts mattered in a place so empty. )

[...ghosts are real. Cool, cool, cool.

At least any here probably wouldn't have any reason to be upset with him.]

And yet you're telling me about the shadow cats? You trust me that much, huh.

[But his tone is the kind of smug he has when he's teasing or getting in pointless arguments for fun. Or poking the bear of someone's temper.

He gets it, though. Keeping what you can do under your hat, just in case. It is pretty big she just handed this to him with that in mind, and he's giving it the regard that's worth, slightly tone deaf response aside.]

...It's not like I talk to many people as it is. [Which is his roundabout Shin way of saying no, he's not going to tell anyone.]

The shadow cats are very hard to miss, to be fair.

( if he sees them, he'll see them! but ghosts? mermaid things she's trying to keep under wraps? that's different. )

... If... you just want to be without talking, I tend to the gardening club stuff or I'll be in one of the home ec rooms... it's.. I don't think it's good to be alone here. So... yeah.

I make some pretty good snacks, if it makes any difference.

( she just met him, she knows. and he's teasing her right out the gate, but- but this place, for as cramped as it is, can be stiflingly lonely. so if he doesn't' want to talk but doesn't want to be on his own, she'll keep the door open. simple as that. )

[Catch him trying to pet the shadow cats later.

That... that gets him. It slips through the layers he's shuffled around his sense of self, unexpectedly. He's genuinely touched.]

......

[Maybe it's just hearing it put like that. Being without talking... he comes across as that gloomy even in one conversation, huh.]

Haha, I'll have to come and see how good they are for myself, then. [She's also right about not being alone as well.] Can't just take your word for it, right?

[He's already resolving it. He can't make the same mistakes with her he did with Kanna.]

( he should, they're amazing.

its partly that he's a gloomy guy, yeah, but also... sometimes its good to just. exist, without having to talk, or force interaction. to just be, and to do so with others. it's a bit of peace that can go a long way in a hellish place like this. )

Well, I can tell you no one in school makes better donuts!

( and despite the exhaustion and lingering grief, she's at least laughing a bit. it's- it's a sign, on some level. )

Awakening

he'll regret it when he realizes the nene beams have him

little does he know

LITTLE DOES HE KNOW INDEED

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the nene beamssss have landed

MUAHAHAHAHA theres no escape now shin