narumin rescue squad

[adsum]

Participants: Clamor, Hanako(npc), Helena, Hikaru(npc), Komaeda, Lucifer, Sara, Shin
Location: Sun 4
Date: ??? nebulously October

(ooc notes: I will state any possible content warnings in the subject line of the mod response when it comes up. If anything makes you uncomfortable, please tell me so I can back off and refocus the thread.

There will be no tag order, and a mod response will come whenever there's a good point to move the thread along. Please note this means that if you're absent for a day or more, the thread will move on, but I will pace things so that people aren't missing large plot beats.)

Comments

[adsum]

[ The laptop rejects the password, again giving that warning that too many wrong tries will lock the user out of the system, but it never gives you how many tries you have left and I hate that because it makes me nervous.

Anyways, doesn't seem like that's it.

The barista takes another shot of espresso. ]

Fuzzy dice? You're talking about Ito-san's ugly car, aren't you? I heard he got it the year his son was born.

[ Not as a celebration thing. But as a "oh I just bought a car and didn't realize children are so expensive and now I have to make this car last because I cannot afford a newer one, let alone anything else, for the rest of my life" thing. ]

[commences]

( he keeps his mouth shut, as if he doesn't want to answer shin's question because he's being... considerate, but when the barista speaks to them he can't help but say his piece. )

Yes! You saw that disastrous hunk of junk... just the sight of it puts me in a bad mood.

( he sighs, brows furrowed because he does seem to be in a bad mood as he notices that the password was wrong, but mostly because the ugly dice are burned into his memory. )

How old is his son, are you aware?

[adsum]

[ The barista nods fervently because yeah. Yeah. It's rude to say it, but it's okay when she's not the one saying it. ]

Ito-kun must be seventeen, I think. Oh- no, eighteen, now. Today is his birthday.

[notsosou]

[I love this barista and am sad we cannot tulpa her out of Narumi's mind without causing some kind of tulpaception. Not them bonding over the deathtrap Toyota...

Anyway Shin's once more holding his scarf with the hand that usually doesn't do it, in both thinking and disappointment. Brute forcing isn't going to work, and they might just have only one try now so back to it... he's just going to lean over to the calendar near the reception desk (or head over if it's in the lobby in general) if there is one to check today's date and also repocket his phone while he's at it.]

[sunstead]

[Clamor is still here and has nothing to contribute atm so. he is going to attempt to investigate the lobby, and then get distracted by the magazine with celeb mugshots of the squad

we need to know if Narumi's gossip mag has any juicy deets in his celebrity AU, this is very important lore. Sara can read it out loud and Helena might also be over here, this is all of our excuses for not actively interrogating this barista about Narumi's dad's car]

[adsum]

[ It's an October calendar.

The hot goss on the criminals include Sara being a notorious biker gang leader, Clamor being involved in underground drug trafficking, and Komaeda being a fourteen time escaped convict who once survived the electric chair and now they're not allowed to re-kill him but they can still lock him up. ]

[commences]

( ok they didn't want me to lock us out, but i'm going to keep 10191981 (ref) for later, because i'll forget it if i don't. anyway, komaeda will stare at the barista while shin's looking on the desk. )

Miss, we're not from here... can you tell us what the date is, we're tourists.

( the way they're in a magazine, and the fact that she doesn't care she's surrounded by convicts, maybe it is safe to be direct as hell. )

[adsum]

[ She stares at Komaeda like what does being tourist have anything to do with knowing the—- oh. No, that's right. Travel is exhausting and time stops existing on busses and planes.

She slides a cup of coffee over towards him. ]

Looks like you need this more than I do...

[commences]

( takes the coffee, and looks at the date of the receipt slip like they do at starbucks is one on here. )

...

( peeks... PEEEKS. )

[sunstead]

[meanwhile in the very important mag corner

u can't just NOT give us the other half of narumi's headcanons i'm crying WHAT ARE HELENA'S CRIMES? WHO HAS SHIN KILLED? IS LUCIFER SOMEHOW THE ONLY INNOCENT ONE BECAUSE THE CULTISTS LOOK UP TO HIM??

this will be important, somehow, maybe, we're gathering info]

[adsum]

[ There's no receipt because it was her coffee she was drinking. Like, she didn't even buy the coffee, she just picked up a cup and is drinking to pass the time, fuck capitalism.

The magazine talks about the infamous Helena-Shin duo who has robbed dozens of banks across the country, with the innocent looking Helena infiltrating the building and creating an avenue for Shin to hack into and disable the security system. At one point, an operation didn't go as expected, and they had to call an associate to bail them out: a hitman working under the codename of "Lucifer". The building was left in ruins, vaults completely empty by the time authorities arrive on the scene, the three criminals gone and having left behind more than a dozen casualties, including one Misaki Ito, beloved wife and mother. ]

[sunstead]

[Narumi's crime fanfic about his classmates....... this kid has issues damn

but also Clamor is going to politely shout across the room,]

Lucifer, when we find Narumi you need to apologize for [checks notes] killing his mother?

[all of this is so dramatic... maybe Narumi is actually just super into gritty crime novels]

[carpevinum]

...I need to what? I haven't killed anybody's mother in the last few years or so.

[commences]

Thank you! ...Not even my parents would do this for me!

( you know, give him something of theirs that they had other than their time and the agonizing moments of screaming his mother must have had when having some devil child like him. aside from that, he looks at the cup fondly before setting it down on the table because he doesn't want to drink it, it would ruin... the sentiment. he can remember the warm heat against his hand which tells him it's still good to drink, but yeah... )

Ah, was the sort of Toyota that Ito-kun's father had a... Sedan? Camry?

[sunstead]

Well, last I checked I wasn't in the drug business either... wait, in the last few years?! [LUCIFERRRRRRR

SIGHS you know what he doesn't wanna know actually, just. filing this away with all the other things he doesn't wanna address rn re: his murderous demon husband. it's fine.

they're keeping the gossip mag as a soulvenir]

Please just apologize anyway, even if it's some nonsense dream logic... he deserves at least that much after all this has put him through.

[adsum]

[ Customer conversations are just white noise in the background.

If he's not going to drink it, give it back. She'll give him the cup after if he wants. ]

Toyota Corolla. I'm kind of surprised I didn't see it in the parking lot when I came in this morning... Ito-san's rarely ever late. Wonder what happened to him.

[ Pours herself another cup of coffee if Komaeda won't give her back, and takes a swig either way. Three more hours left in the shift. She can make it. ]

[notsosou]

[Coffee just mysteriously materializes next to him while he's focused on the laptop and staring at it like it holds life's mysteries and without looking at it he picks it up and drinks it from habit. Still warm, nice.

It's at this point he remembers Kanna's trick (which is a pang of painful nostalgia in it's own right) but... hm, Komaeda's already typed on it and left some debris behind... He can at least look closely to see if any keys outside of 'Password1' show traces of being used.]

[carpevinum]

I think you've forgotten that it was very recently that Lord Diavolo decreed that demons were not to murder humans nor angels, so yes, you could say I've gone a couple thousand years of my life being the evil being all of the books say about me.

[Sorry people overhearing this weird lover's spat??]

I'll apologise to Narumi, out of both respect for him and you. ...I didn't murder his mother, however.

[adsum]

[ The laptop keys look like they've been used all day every day, honestly, but in terms of paint being rubbed off to denote frequent usafe, in alphabetical order, the following keys are the most used:
A C E L I N O R S T
also backspace and enter and the left shift button.
As for numbers, they're all fairly well worn, and it seems as if Ito-san almost exclusively uses the numpad on the right for his numbers instead of the row above the letters.

There's a fair bit of dust and grit in between the keys, and it could probably use a good shake upside down. ]

[adsum]

[ Belatedly, as if needing that 42nd cup of coffee to fully wake up, the coffee shop worker finally looks over at the criminal gang. ]

I sure hope not! Ito-san's been through so much already... All he has left is his son.

[ So, password clues:
"car year" ("car, year"?)
A C E L I N O R S T
and something related to his son ]

clawing our way out of laptop hell gomen :' )

[notsosou]

[He's initially somewhat disappointed by the state of the keyboard (not everyone is as mindful of being clean as him and Kai it seems, and also, ew)... but hm... The Y in Toyota isn't worn enough for it to be something entered in that frequently so... that leaves Corolla, possibly. The ache's slow to fade that Kanna is, in a sense, still helping him.

Then if it's a year... the last two digits would still fit. He could type 79 in again but. His son, huh...]

Wait, you said it was his birthday today? Ahaha, we were so focused on the date but...

[That's also the classic, isn't it? It's almost too easy but... It's worth a try. I'm going to assume the calendar said 1999 as well as October for expediteing's sake. There's the sound of typing as he enters in 'corolla81' and with held breath, presses enter.]

[adsum]

[ The login blinks away and the screen turns bright blue, with the day's hospital schedule pulled up in one window and several other tabs minimized on the bottom of the screen. There, in the earlier half of the day, Shin will see a familiar name:

7:00 AM, surgical unit 2A - Narumi Ito - Craniotomy

One of the minimized tabs has the cafeteria menu pulled up (the special for today is roasted sweet potato), another tab contains a unfinished email draft addressed to 10k10k@email.com ("Happy early birthday, kiddo. Your life is going to change tomorrow, and I promise things will be better. I have another late shift that will run until the middle of the night, but I'll drive home as soon as I ca"), and a third displaying yet another password locked login for patient medical records except they have no need to access that and no, corolla81 doesn't work.

It's 6:48 AM. ]

[notsosou]

It's the year! Yes!

[This is a bit too much excitement from someone pretending to be as coolly confident as he was. Let him have this though passwords have been the bane of his existence up until now :' ) There's the genuine to his smile as he digs in to looking at everything.

He tries the password again on the locked file first because of course and... yep, that was a little too much to expect, really. Still. The fading mood pops like a soap bubble into something more pensive when he starts actually reading the actual contents of the accessible windows, because the environmental storytelling doesn't paint a good picture... He's played video games, he knows what it means when a message cuts off suddenly.]

Guys... [It's the slow 'turn around, but slowly' sort of tone of voice, with that undercut of searching desperation as he looks up at the rest of them.] We've got twelve minutes.

[commences]

( he'll make his way over since the screen finally changed a different color from what's reflected off shin's person, and so that must mean good news ahead. he'll walk over, peering at the information on it, and... he's not unfamiliar to a procedure like that, but he clears his throat as he taps the screen lightly. )

Hm... to go through that, the skull must be applying to much pressure on his brain, you can witness a procedure like that in the movie Saw... if you've ever seen it.

( when he looks at shin, he seems like the squeamish type, but that aside, he'll stare at the time at the bottom of the computer, and then look towards the double doors where narumi was taken. )

What do you think? ...Would you save his life, or let him go through with it?

( it's like a morality game. )

[samuraiwomen]

You watch that terrible franchise? You have bad taste.

[ Gore should only be in exciting kurosawa action films where peoples hearts dramatically explode. Death games are horrible. Komeada should know this. ]

Obviously we're going to go save him? There was a bomb in his house! I don't trust anything in this place.