2022-10-29: Teatime
- Log: 2022-10-29 Teatime
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Namiko
- Where: Tsutsujidai High School
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-10-29
- Summary: Namiko catches up with the ace of her class.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
It's lunchtime!
Akane usually takes her lunch either in the classroom or on the roof, but today she's not quite feeling that; despite all of her new friends, she kind of wants a little space to herself. She needs the time to work on something, because she has a Project now -- one that's both time-consuming and high-effort.
She stretches out a bit in the place she thinks is least likely to be occupied:
The Tea Ceremony Club's club room. It's got a relatively tranquil atmosphere, and what's more, the club isn't that big; she doesn't expect anyone to come by, realistically.
Part of her thinks she might hole up in the library for the rest of the day rather than going to class. She's... not feeling it.
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
Alas; she has entered the snare of the Tea Demon.
The Tea Ceremony room has a few permanent props set up in a corner, and the closet is hidden behind some ornamental paper backdrops. The floor isn't layered with tatami, like it would be when the room is properly prepared for club days. It's not a big club, no, but perhaps that very nature lends itself to cleanliness. The room is spotless.
Namiko is most often canoodling with Rikka and Hass during lunch hour, but today, she has departed from her usual triangle of buddies. And so, not even five minutes after Akane has slipped in, found a spot, and.... ...presumably started surfing rOkBuddyTarabaman, the door slides open again!!
It's Namiko. The brunette with the dual-stage kitty grin does look a bit surprised and says as much with a trilling, "Well, there's a surprise!" as she helps herself in. "I was just gonna prep some stuff for today, and who do I find? Been a while since we saw you in here, Akane."
Alexis Kerib teleports in.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Has Akane even been here before? Namiko says so, and that means she probably has, but... a lot of memories from before Gridman came are sort of numb -- washed out in a sea of discoveries, then despair. If Namiko says it's true it's probably actually true, though -- she's a tease, but not a liar. ... right?
It looks like she's actually doing... meal planning, which is odd because she rarely eats during the day. Her tablet has a spreadsheet open, tracking... a frankly obscene number of values. She tabs off it when she's approached, though.
"Oh, hey!" she enthuses. "Yeah, I kinda needed a break, you know? They piled all the newbies into our class, and that's not bad but sometimes it's a little much. How're you doing?"
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
Namiko is a tease and not a liar, but she does sometimes just say shit whose truth doesn't overly matter. For instance, she might be just assuming Akane showed up at some point during an open day with no specific memory in mind. Or just be welcoming by greeting Akane as someone already welcome!
"Yeah, it got noisy all the sudden, huh?" Namiko titters, stashing her bag by the door. She moves around like a person who knows the space, which is what she is, finding a few parts of tea trays that she starts laying out with precision, going so far as to tilt them to specific angles. "Any idea what that's all about? Seemed like they were all really interested in you!"
She turns a look over her shoulder, her grin in full force, with a giggle. "Well, not that that's a surprise, Miss Class Idol."
She goes back to her work, pulling back to get a better look at the arrangement of the whole tray she's assembled. "Oh, I'm fine. Hass has some whacko collab marathon for the next like week, so she's basically either in class, dead, or streaming until then. So I'm at a bit of loose ends for a while, I guess! Maybe I'll tail Rikka a little and see what she finds so interesting in Hibiki," she says, and giggles mischievously.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Ehehe... I guess I made an impression," Akane says, which is true in that she turned several of them into impressions in walls, buildings, concrete, etc. at varying points in their lives. "I met the new swim coach at a coffee shop in like, January, and then met a few of them through her!" That's also true for several given values of true.
Putting a hand up to her mouth, she says, "I actually picked out new outfits for them too! Like, not whole wardrobes, but... when you move somewhere you kinda get a chance to make a whole new 'you'!" What does it say about her, then, that she wants to take that privilege rather than merely encourage it?
... then again, that's a little abstract. The mention of Rikka gets a pleasant giggle, though a slightly nervous one that she doesn't quite realize comes out nervous. "She's pretty popular lately too, huh? Are you jealous?"
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
Namiko giggles at that, herself. "You always do!" she cheers. "GOSH, I still remember when you came in? Half the boys could barely stop staring." She giggles, and her face twists to a teasing wink. "Well, I think the other half just hid it better. Wow, really? So you like, recruited them to us, huh? Next GUTS fest is gonna be wild, then! Tsutsujidai sweep, here we come!"
She is placing a teapot when Akane boasts about their outfits, and it lands just slightly too loudly. Huh. That's. Namiko screws up her face a little, faced away from Akane, trying to squeeze the thought clattering around in her brain into an output slot. "Wow, all of 'em?" is what finally comes out. "So you're behind Alouette cribbing my style!?" She laughs, half-turning, the uneasy thought not quite forming fast enough to use. "C'mon, I had dibs on red!"
She goes back to fussing with the tea set. "Oh yeah, she's SUPER popular. She keeps running off. She hasn't told us yet, but we're like, pretty sure if she's not dating, it's close, you know? Maybe Hibiki? They'd be cute. He's actually kinda cool, ya know?"
Jealous? "heh heh," she says, and wiggles her butt because she's too on her knees to sway around jokingly. "What do I have to be jealous for, Akane? I already have lap pillow and all-day hugging priveleges. My position is unassailable!"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hehe... well, it wasn't just me. Alouette was part of our school team at the Festival, so she was kinda heading that way already," Akane says, with a little wave of her hand. As for cribbing her style: "I don't think you can have dibs on a whole color!" She's teasing back, not seriously defensive. "Besides -- she used to go somewhere that had pretty strict uniform regulations, so I thought she could use a crack at, you know... something bolder."
Dating Hibiki... Akane's not so sure about that. She had a pretty hard time hurling them at each other. Still... "Hibiki's an interesting guy," she agrees, instead of directly engaging that. "Even now that the mysterious transfer student energy's kinda wearing off, he's still kind of cool, right? He's got that squishy heart but a real samurai energy to him, too."
Lap pillow and all day hugging privileges... is Akane jealous? "Good point. I don't think anything would break up you, Hass, and Rikka. ... it's kinda weird how secretive she's been lately, though." Her voice drops a bit. "Do you know where she keeps running off to?"
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
"I am very powerful," Namiko teases back, as if this remotely allows her to claim something like an 8th of the electromagnetic spectrum. "But yeah, that makes sense. The uniform rules here are great?? Even if I'm pretty sure nobody looked up the word uniform first." She giggles again.
As for Hibiki: "Right? He just gets so excited, then it's like something clicks and he drops it all and looks super serious and cool, suddenly." She gently places a serving cup. "Even if most of the time it's just the fire alarms. But treating that so seriously is cute in its own way."
"That's right!" she says, puffing up. "Dream team forever!" Ah, but Akane does, in fact, INSTANTLY spot the fracture in the group and hit it with a stick, while Hass isn't here to reign in Namiko. "I, uh, don't, actually," she admits, her own voice lowering. "It's like so obvious that it's something, though? I trust her, though, so I've just been waiting for her to feel ready to tell us. It's not like she's running off to fight crime, or anything."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Haha, right? Like, I guess you need to... theoretically have the shirt, but past that it's pretty easy. They don't even have hair rules or anything!" Akane smiles just a little too fondly at that, just a little too long. SHe lets it linger -- it's almost wistful.
'It's not like she's running off to fight crime, or anything.' "Haha, yeah. Rikka's a good girl," Akane says, remaining in that wistful state. "Like she was born for it." She lets out a small sigh, closing her eyes for a second.
Her eyes track over to the serving cup for a moment. 'Dream team forever'... Hmm... "Have you noticed anything weird lately? Like -- besides her," Akane asks, eyes narrowing. ... she's looking at the cup and not Namiko, though, so the whole effect is kind of weird.
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
Namiko is...maybe not the smartest of her friends? Probably, really. Rikka saves her ass regularly on homework, Hass has more sense by miles, but...seeing the way Akane sort of drifts off there, and then again discussing Rikka, sees Namiko shift herself to a proper seating position so she can actually look at Akane. "Something bothering you?" she prompts.
Hm, maybe this is it. The question makes her tip her head. "Weird?" she wonders. "I mean, five or something new students and two new teachers less than a month before exams counts as pretty weird." She folds hands in her lap, comfortably still, and thinks. "And wasn't there that time a couple suited weirdos just walked in the gates around DecuFes? Think they booked it pretty fast, though. Maybe they were just lost. ...and the fire alarm is getting the workout of its life this year." That one earns a giggle from her. "And, you know, there was this commotion down by the park the other day. That's when I saw Hibiki playing with some hole he'd found."
She doesn't, quite, hit a wall - her thoughts aren't restrained, not like Akane's 'guests.' But her opinion of Yuta Hibiki changed a bit when he switched from whimsical wonder to actively protecting her from a Space Thing that day in the park. The maintenance kaiju have neatly trimmed out the memory of the Glow Cloud, as they do. But for once, Namiko's thoughts stumble over a memory that feels slightly wrong. Her face screws up and she scratches the side of her head.
"It got a little rowdy," she ultimately says, "but nothing, like...weird, weird?" is what eventually rattles out of her head.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"I think someone's just pulling it," Akane says, at the mention of the fire alarm. It's even true; one of the students is in fact initiating all the events that lead to random 'fire alarm tests.' "Yeah, though -- lots of weird adults, right? This cosplayer came to talk to me on the roof a few weeks ago during lunch!"
Namiko mentions something at the park -- and Akane closes her eyes, scanning through her memories. "Hrrmm... well, thanks for that, anyway," she ultimately says; she doesn't have a lot she can do with any of that. Things are still holding together for now, at least.
The question of whether something's bothering her gets her attention. "I guess I'm just glad they have somewhere to be themselves now! I know a little about what they were dealing with before they moved here, and some of it's kinda bad, so..."
Akane rubs at the back of her head, descending into nervous laughter. "... I don't even know what I'm saying," she finally admits.
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
"Heck of a prankster. Can't imagine the teachers think it's as funny as we do." Heh. -- "Really!? Just some random cosplayer?!" Namiko breaks into a full laugh at that. "How'd he get to the roof without - no, you know what, I'll sleep better not knowing. Wow!? Amazing. Even the weirdos know you're cool. I'm impressed."
Seems like she didn't meet Akane's weirdness threshold. She chuckles haplessly and shrugs. "I live to serve," she says, which is like three puns, one of which she doesn't know about.
And then... Hm. Namiko scooches just a bit closer, and pats Akane lightly on the knee, just a gentle show of presence. "Sounds like things are more complicated than I'm seeing," she says, kindly. "Should've known you'd be looking out for people, Akane. You always did in class, too."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Being told how even weirdos know she's cool gets Akane to bring a hand up to her mouth and start giggling. "Yeah, totally random," Akane says. "I guess not totally random. He did know my guardian, though that didn't really matter?"
When Namiko approaches her and pats her on the knee, she tenses up a little bit; it's not bad -- it's Namiko, who Akane... trusts as much as she's capable of trusting anyone -- but it's still a little bit on the exhausting side to deal with. "Haha, yeah. This is the kind of place that shouldn't be a huge struggle, right? Exams are kinda tricky here, I know this is a pretty high-tier school! But the rest of it should be easy."
Communicating in layers is no longer stimulating or fun. "So! ... I get the feeling we don't have enough time for you to make me some tea before lunch ends. That kinda sucks."
<Pose Tracker> Namiko has posed.
Namiko reclaims her space. It's why she didn't go for the full hug, of course. But Namiko is a person who expresses her care through touch, and thus the middle ground is found. She smiles but doesn't really have much for Akane's thoughts but a nod.
...it's a little weird to say that it 'shouldn't be' a struggle? Like, life in general? No, it sounded like she meant the school itself? She doesn't...quite know how to take it.
Akane, fortunately, redirects her before she has to figure out how to say words out of that mental swamp. "Ah, ye of little faith!" Namiko cheers, and nimbly rises to her feet from a seat, padding over to her bag and producing...!!
An actually quite nice-looking thermos. She shakes it just a little, grinning from ear to ear.
"We can cheat a few steps. Sit there."