2022-03-10: Incommensurable

• Log: 2022-03-10 - Incommensurable
• Cast: C.C., Akane Shinjo
• Where: Tsutsujidai
• OOC - IC Date: 0096-03-10
• Summary: A witch decides there always was a Shiranui Shirome in Tsutsujidai's Class 2-C.

---

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

        ======TWO WEEKS AGO======

In this little perfect slice of unchanging that ought to be, a change slips through the cracks. Or does it? On a bench between the path out of school and the nearest vending machines, a popular route often taken after the last bell rings - there's a strange delinquent looking girl, dressed in the normal white blouse and black skirt of most students...but it's a bit disheveled. A few buttons on the blouse are loose. She's got long green hair done up in twintails with an irresponsible number of hairclips and accessories hanging from them, laying on her back and holding a book skyward, with an arsenal of snacks down on the ground, just within a lazy draping arm's reach.

She's out of place, and doesn't that always herald yet another problem?

...but she doesn't seem to pay any mind to when the girl at the center of all this passes her by. She -does-, however, give a few languid little peace signs to some other students, who strike up a few short little chats with her. Some of them fetch her something from the vending machine. Some of them get money from her in turn to buy something for themselves.

        ======ONE WEEK AGO======

She's there some days, and not there other days, but she's firmly established that she's a recurring sight. By now, she's halfway done with that book she started the previous week.

        ======THREE DAYS AGO======

She's spotted wandering down the hallway at the side of those usual friends. Most of them are familiar, yet unremarkable sights. She's the odd one out, but isn't treated like it. She's seemingly a lower classman despite seeming quite a bit taller than her peers.

======TODAY======

She's on that bench again. Today's just a little bit hotter. The cicadas are just a tiny bit louder. She has her book, and is lost in it as ever. Something is slightly off, but it's not immediately obvious...

"Hey. You there."

She calls out to a certain someone who happens to pass by, still staring at her book. Almost like she doesn't really care who it is.

"Can you get me some of those chocolate cookies? I'll pay you back. I'm fresh out of anything today."

Indeed, her arm dangles down to where her typical assortment of snacks are - and there's not a single thing there...!

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

There's definitely changes in the world -- now and then, here and there. The yellow-eyed girl slides into the world amid its rebuilding following the attack of the Reine Noire, meaning Akane doesn't even notice; while people not specifically targeted tend to stick around, sometimes the world adjusts itself to accommodate a change in rebuilding. The logic shifts, and with it, new people come into being.

The fact that she mimics the place's slowness and stillness so well helps her slot in. Akane doesn't really notice her; it's not long before she becomes part of the furniture, as it were -- at least, until she addresses Akane.

---

Akane glances over to the lazing... first year? Is this a first year? It probably is, Akane thinks -- people seem to treat her like she's on the younger end. Maybe something else forced a change in 1-D. "Huh?" she asks, blinking once as she glances down to that dangling arm, and then... oh, okay.

"Sure," Akane says, with a nod. It's rare that she's actually asked for it, but there's something about feeding people that activates her brain a bit. She moves just a little less listlessly toward the school store.

"Hmmm -- how about... two trays of chocolate cookies and... I need a pen, too, actually." She forgot hers today -- that or it ended up in the trash pile at some point.

She returns with about 12 gilla's worth of plastic cookie trays, and says, pleasantly, "These, right?" Unless C.C. moves to actually take them, Akane just... sets them where her arm dangles. It wouldn't do to disrupt her, after all.

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

Ever so subtly, C.C. does pick up on that 5% increase in the spring of Akane's step, and does actually sit upright just a little bit more to catch that little tray of cookies, unpeeling them with a stretch like she's just woken up from her own nap. "You're a peach, uhhhm..." Peering up, then down Akane's form, from toe to hair. "...Risa-chan? That you? No, that ain't right. If you got your hair done it would've been the same time as mine." She pops an earbud from each lobe, each emitting the tinny distant sound of . . . something melodic, but a little bit -much-?


"Well, I guess this just means you can say I owe you a little if you seem me around. Ah. Shiranui Shirome. Class 2-C." she can't keep getting away with this! "Well met, yeah?" A cookie fills "Shiranui"'s mouth, where she's unceremoniously making muffled munching noises around it, all while propping her book up on one knee. A change in posture does one good when reading!

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Being mistaken for someone else is a rarity for Akane -- but then again, maybe Shiranui is a bit of a weirdo. Every now and then the world has a weirdo or two in it. (How else would you explain Namiko?) "Ahahaha, please, don't even worry about it," comes Akane's answer, with a dismissive little wave of her hand. "It's totally fine. We can settle up whenever, it's not a big deal."

It's nice. Her world is so easygoing -- it's the thing she likes best about it. As Shiranui finishes adjusting her posture, Akane moves to sit down next to her -- not that there's much room on the bench, but... "You're a second year, huh...? So going into third year next month, huh..." ... life transitions. It's weird -- despite being the god of her world, she's never really thought about 'what comes next' for her people. "Are the teachers hassling you about career choices and stuff, or does that not really start until third year actually starts?"
I don't understand that.

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

There's a surprise, C.C. notes. She'd taken this girl as more mistrusting from her observations. The one thing she did already have on hand - a thermos of some sort - is moved aside to avoid Akane's butt parking atop it, where she gives it a carefreee few sips. (the bottle, not the butt)

"Well, if you ask my parents about it, they're a bit firmer about that sorta thing. They take care of a shrine, yeah? Can't go getting myself into negative karma, or stuff like that." Siiiiiiiiiiiip. It's a little bit noisy.

...if -Akane- hasn't thought about transitions, then, boy howdy. That's a facet C.C. has to actively remind herself as a process that actually exists.

"...career, eh? I figured they were just going to accept me taking over the temple or something. Miko mikoooo." This part drawn out a bit facetiously like it's some idol catchphrase or vtuber greeting she's ironically alluding to. "Years kinda come and go, don't they? It's not ever really anything I've thought about, or that anyone's ever really pushed me to. ...'s why I got a makeover the other week. You know? Now is the summer of my rebellion, and all that. Less changed than I thought it would. Kind of a pain in the ass. Even if I'm pushy on saying things like 'kind of a pain in the ass' to sell the whole thing. At this rate I'm just going to make bad habits for myself."

It's definitely a discordant way of talking. Stuffy and formal transitioning freely to rough and lazy.

"...You -seem- familiar somehow. I'm sure I've seen you around here, come to think of it. Your hair's colored so well even though you keep it so short, is it something you do every time you go to the hair salon?" Shiranui's leaning in a liiiiittle bit closer to the back of Akane's head, examining her roots...

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

The secret to Akane is to approach her casually. The lower you make the pressure surrounding you, the more genuine she gets. C.C. has presented Akane with exactly the type of prompt that really activates her. "Oh, huh. I didn't know that kinda stuff still... well, no, I guess I did. I went once, when I was really little."

*There's* the moodiness, the mistrust, the frustration... or something like it, at least. Where before, Akane was at a comfortable, low-broadcast, 'neutral' emotional speed, suddenly there's a roar of emotion that doesn't reach her posture at all. Perhaps the most striking thing about it is how *inhuman* it is -- oh, sure, it ticks all the necessary boxes to be a living being, but it's a jumbled, foreign, almost animalistic feeling -- hard to translate, hard to pin down. It's a jagged little swirl.

It doesn't break her conversational stride at all, somehow. "Hehe, you sound like Ako, from my class. She's kinda the same way..." Leaning in conspiratorially, Akane explains, "She changed her whole look just to force people to really think about how much they wanna talk to her. If she looks like a delinquent, people aren't gonna try to be friends with her unless they really mean it." A beat. "Still, I bet it's kinda nice to have a future all planned out. Are your parents cool about it, or are they kinda..."

She vaguely gestures -- and that gives C.C. an opportunity to topic pivot. "Is this a dig at how often I skip?" Akane teases, at the question of having seen her around. "And... my hair is just like this." There's no visible roots or anything -- she doesn't have any noticeable black there or anything. She does have that light gradient of color, but it's pretty modest -- older hair getting a bit sun-bleached, perhaps.

Something about being observed this closely, too, gets Akane to tense up a fair bit... though she doesn't actually say anything about it yet.

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

What a delicate situation this has immediately become for C.C.'s purposes. She can 'see' it, clear as day, the thorniness lurking beneath the unchanged surface. It's hard to even know what could set it off, what its instincts are, what will make it roar or sputter.

Her first instinct is to close her eyes, probing her surroundings. Looking for that thing. That orbiting black hole whose gravity clearly underpins the orbit of this place. That lurking shadow she's been avoiding at as wary a distance as possible...the reason why she simply isn't at this spot some days. It's too close sometimes.

Not yet.

Another cookie in the mouth, before 'Shiranui' backs away to her casual seating posture, flipping another page in her book and focusing her eyes on that for a little while. "Yeah. They're that 'kinda'. ...I think everyone wants the opposite of their situation. When their future's set in stone, they want freedom. When they're free, they want a firmer future. It means those with responsibilities drift away just to feel something, and those who could decide their future wind up exploited by others instead. It's terrible. Proves that it's not really the right binary to think about things."

She twirls a twintail around one finger, the tinny and over-climactic song in her earbuds finally coming to its gradual crescendo. It's replaced by the howling, heavy death metal lyrics of something else - before C.C. decides it's probably a bit too much for this situation, and clicks a button in her blouse pocket to mute the music. "Now you're making me wanna meet this Ako. In my case...mm, I'm kinda surprised by how little it's changed. Most people still talk to me the same, somehow. Almost disappointing. I hoped for a bit more screaming and arguing and wild nights out on the town, but it's never as easy as that." A cheeky grin crosses 'Shiranui's lips, side-eye glancing at Akane after a few pages go by.

"...ne, you wouldn't happen to know of the kinds of clubs where some serious shit goes down, huh?" There's a much more definite transition from her previous lofty sorta voice. It's almost easy to tell that she is, actually, trying hard to get a little dirtier, that it doesn't come naturally to her.

That much is on purpose. Whether one can tell that it's on purpose...

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

That black hole... is far enough away not to be felt, for now. It really is just Akane, and whatever seed of yawning unhappiness lies at her center, threatening to bloom. "Hmmm... I'm not sure about that. I see a lot of people who're pretty happy with what they've got." The topic doesn't seem to make her all that happy, though, so she moves along. It's not that she's disengaged by it... if anything, both halves of it feel too close to home.

"Poke around for a little while. She's hard to miss," comes Akane's answer. "Bright blonde hair, real flashy jacket. She's usually hanging around Marusa, who's... kinda plain -- dark brown hair, pretty much always wears a few different shades of purple." She could talk about those two for a while; despite everything weird about Tsutsujidai, they're... her friends, who she cares about the normal amount, for, a friend. Indeed, talking about them starts to attenuate that feeling again.

"Huh? You mean like... what, you're not talking about school clubs. You mean like nightclubs? Cabaret clubs?" There's a wide-eyed, innocent-looking blink. "This ward is kinda sleepy for that stuff..." No doubt such places *exist*, but Akane doesn't give them a lot of thought. "I know there's a couple of okay karaoke places..."

She squints at 'Shiranui' for a moment, though, and asks: "Are you really interested in that kinda stuff, or are you just trying to sound cool?" It sounds like Akane can recognize that much, at least.

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

"Yeah, yeah, stuff like that! Something exciting. Something a little edgy. Risky, even. ...but maaaan, you're right. Might be outta luck trying to find somewhere like that around here." Shiranui clicks her tongue. Another page flips. Another bout of silence for just a second, before she lets out a frustrated groan. "...you're pretty canny about this. It's probably for the best, actually, that it's like that. The idea of trying it's fun...but does that mean I'd actually go? Or is just the idea of it something exciting? I wonder if those sorts of places started to go on the decline, because if we really wanted something that crazy, we could just watch a TV show with a bar fight or a crime scene..."

Another page turn. Shiranui clicks her music player to fill the silence-

"SO YOU THINK YOU CAN RIIIIIIDE, THIS CHOCOB-"

Click back off.

Another cookie devoured.

A casual noogie to Akane's head that relents quickly enough. "You've told me your friends' names before your own. I noticed that! Just because I get too philosophical too easily or whatever...look, my head's not completely in the clouds yet!"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane -- gets noogied!! Touch!! Unexpected touch!!

For a split second, her teeth grind -- but 'Shiranui' backs off quickly and Akane recovers neatly in short order. Okay, that's -- fine, she thinks. She reaches up, smoothing her hair out a bit. The upset is still there... but she doesn't ask her not to do that, or anything. Instead, she just keeps talking. "Oh -- Akane Shinjo." With a pleasant smile that doesn't reach her heart, she says, "Good to meet you, Shirome."

Something about Shiranui's whole... posture, everything about her, is -- weird. Akane's starting to pick up on it, just a tiny bit... but she's actually more inclined to think *her own* posture is weird and she's throwing herself, right now. The last little while has been pretty bizarre. "If you *do* decide to go, maybe invite me along?" It... might be a good idea to know a little more of what's actually in her world. "-- Oh, do you have a phone or something?"

Akane pulls out her own phone, saying, "We should trade numbers."

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

By the point of this request, Shiranui's shifted into...even stranger a position. Laying on her back, legs hooked over the back of the bench, head tumbling back down the front. Is this -comfortable- for her...? "Hmmm. I thought I was being a pain in the butt to you, to be honest. But you know what...sure. Sure thing!" She pulls out her phone from her purse as well - it's shockingly plain and tidy and well-kept...because she goes utterly without a case. It -is- bright green, just like her hair, but otherwise undecorated and unprotected. Somehow responsible, somehow extremely irresponsible. She trades numbers! Her icon is - a picture of her face, one eye closed, lips pursed a little bit like she's been caught off guard, but in a glamorous way.

"Yeah, I might mosey around and dig my nose where it doesn't belong, and if you're feeling up to it, we'll see how getting into some trouble feels. Ah, and just call me Shiranui, if you don't mind. Am I weird for...never getting it? Why it's not normal to call each other by given names? I dunno. I'm a pain if you try to explain that sorta stuff to me, so don't worry about it."

She finishes her book shortly after that exchange, tucking it away in her purse...and pulling out another. It's an almost slightly childish light novel about an adventure in a fantasy world, but the cover art shows some sort of landscape made of enormous seashell-like cities. And she stays put right there! It's clear that this is her Perch. This is her Place. She's not budging an inch from this bench - and she can get away with it even once it starts getting dark, since a nearby streetlamp provides just about perfect illumination without being blindingly obnoxious.

===========================

(If this isn't 'hers', she's definitely an anomaly. Nobody else has given off any feeling like that.)
(This whole place stinks of wanting things to be a 'normal' that was never real.)
(It's so mundane that it's hard to feel anything strongly.)
(And there's definitely an aversion to tipping over the edge of emotion.)
(...but it got just a tiny bit worse. A tiny bit more sour.)
(...an incubator, maybe. Of what, for what, and how?)
(Why go through all this trouble...)
(...for something so painfully next to ordinary?)

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane also doesn't always sit on things remotely correctly. She literally lies across a few dozen trash bags sometimes; she certainly can't get at anyone else for their sitting posture. Despite the weirdness of the posture, she does indeed trade numbers. Her own messaging icon is a Taraba Seijin -- specifically, Alien Aumerei, an alien most noted for appearing in an extended dream sequence in Tarabaman X4. It's cartoony and floppy, as depicted here -- the foibles of a suit all exaggerated for the drawing.

"Oh, okay," Akane says. It's... not *perfectly* easy for her to skip straight to first names, but she can do it if the other person sets that speed. "Sure thing, Shiranui. ... I don't really get it either, but you and Ako might have an okay time talking about that. She's pretty fussy about what she calls people. She gave Marusan a nickname and then punked right back out on it." A small, hand-to-mouth giggle.

Akane says, "I need to go home and get back to work on a bit of a side project... see you around, Shiranui. You should come on the spring break trip some of the class is planning, too!" ... that's a little risky, but she's planning to make some big mountains -- big enough that she could just have a nice time and not get stepped on.

With that, she retreats, leaving Shiranui on her perch with her book, to assess her data.

<Pose Tracker> C.C. has posed.

For a few minutes, part of C.C.'s own assessment of her data is peering at the icon of what Akane gives her. The strange barely humanoid shape, rough and somewhat crude. It isn't 'cute', or 'stylish', or . . . clearly anything.

When Akane is out of sight, she peers at it one last time, and just mutters, "...I have absolutely no idea what this thing is."