[open]

[sweetdeath]

Who: Tsuzuki Asato (sweetdeath) and you!
What: Tsuzuki's feeling better, but boy, does he need a night out. Time for karaoke, booze and late-night strolls home through the cherry blossoms… although he really shouldn't be making those strolls without his shinki.
Where: Your favorite seedy basement bar in Tokyo and a nearby park
When: April 1, after dinner to late night
Warnings: Alcohol consumption, fighting, possible injury, possible mention of character death & Tsuzuki guilt issues. (Feel free to tag in your preferred format, I'll follow suit!)

Gods drink alone

It took three bars before Tsuzuki found one where, when he walked in, nothing opened too many pink-hazed eyes in a corner and wheezed Smells niiiiice, at him. Bar number four was just as badly lit as the first three, with the kind of gloom that hid any stains that might've accumulated on the upholstery in the booths and harsh pink and orange neon striping the tables from the signs in the window, but there was something homier about the place, he thought. Its collection of tired Friday-night salarymen and women were friendlier. The bartender was actually listening to the elderly man at the end of the bar tell stories about the economy back before the bubble popped, and it only took a couple tries before Tsuzuki got his attention and got his drink.

Even in a friendly place like this one, though, he wasn't really being noticed. The eyes of the living seemed to glide over him. Sometimes it was useful. Sometimes, though, he wished it worked like the Shinigami invisibility, and he could still turn it off.

He settled in at the bar in a little bubble of solitude, working his way through Sapporos (easier to order than cocktails, and way easier to get before the bartender forgot who he was getting it for) and, more and more, wishing he'd found somebody to drag along with him. Mr. Akiyama, two seats down at the bar, was explaining the problems in his marriage at length to Ms. Yasuda, and Tsuzuki was pretty sure he'd snuck a hand onto her knee. If he had, she wasn't complaining.

Glass in hand, Tsuzuki slid off the chair and headed for the aging karaoke machine at the other side of the bar. Nobody'd started singing yet tonight, which meant it was free, and even if he couldn't chat he was still at least going to have fun.

A few minutes later, the strains of "Linda Linda" drifted out onto the street, carolled in an enthusiastic and untrained tenor. Tsuzuki had five more songs queued up after that one. The night was looking up.

Distressed Drunk

It'd been a good night, Tsuzuki decided. He was wavering a little on his feet, and the stars were pleasantly smeared across the midnight sky behind the equally blurry shadows of cherry branches in the park. Most of the flowers had fallen, but there were still a few stubborn petals hanging on late, and the earliest of the hydrangea and azalea were starting to bud. He grinned fondly at the nearest bush, stopping to lean an elbow against the tree trunk while he rode out a slow wave of vertigo. He was gonna make it back to the shrine at the other end of the park. Slow and steady. It wasn't his shrine, but it could get him back to the Far Shore, and from there he was just gonna walk it. Teleportation, he'd figured out way back in his early days as a shinigami, could go pretty wrong if you were seeing double.

The shadow of the azalea next to him moved.

Tsuzuki squeezed his eyes shut, and then tried opening them again. Wow, he must be drunker than he'd thought. Blurry was one thing, but he usually didn't see things no matter how much he'd had.

It moved again, and a sprinkling of tiny eyes opened, gleaming in the moonlight as a misshapen mouth dropped open under them and a leg stretched out from under the bush.

"Smells good," an inhuman voice crooned. Tsuzuki stumbled backwards, tripped on the edge of the paved walk, and went sprawling into the grass. The ayakashi lurched up, twice, then three times the height of the bush it had flattened itself under, and a long, dripping purple tongue licked its lips.

Tsuzuki stared up at it, and said, sincerely, "Oh, shit."

Comments

[erogappa]

By the time the opening chords of the fourth song burst through the staticky speaker, Gojyo had made up his mind to kill the man. It was the only way this torture was going to end.

The fact that nobody else in the place seemed bothered by the wailing coming from the back corner only meant that the singer was either a god or a shinki. But that was fine. For a crime like this, he could kill a god or a shinki. No court in the land would convict him.

The singer paused for a couple of instrumental measures, and Gojyo spied his chance. "Oi!" he shouted across the room from his spot holding up the end of the bar (and wasn't it still disturbing that nobody seemed to notice him, even now?). "Five song limit, I'm cuttin' you off! Give somebody else a chance."

[sweetdeath]

"Hey! Nobody else is complaining!" Tsuzuki objected, waving the mic in the redheaded guy's direction with a squeal of feedback. So, that was probably because he was only half-there to them anyway, but --

Wait a minute. He was only half there to most of the people in the bar. That meant the guy down there who didn't like karaoke was a god, a shinki or maybe just extra spiritually gifted, and in any case, they could talk.

Abruptly, Tsuzuki realized he'd missed half of the last verse, and snatched the mic back to his mouth, crooning his way through the last few seconds to the outro. Good thing he hadn't put on any more songs, he thought, switched the mic off this time before giving it a friendly wave, and set it back down on the stand.

"Thanks, everybody!" The room received the cheerful shout with the same total obliviousness that'd greeted his singing, and Tsuzuki scooped up his glass and headed over for the empty chair next to the guy who saw gods.

"There you go," he said with a wink. "--So what's your story? Wanted a turn yourself?"

[erogappa]

Nobody else was complaining because everybody else was spiritually deaf, the lucky bastards. Gojyo groaned as the guy picked the song back up, but thankfully he was only finishing off the last verse. Then, blissful silence.

A silence which lasted about fifteen seconds, until the guy slid into the seat next to him. Great. He made a friend, that's great. "Do I look like the kind of guy who can sing?" he retorted dryly, finishing off his beer. "Hey! Bartender!" He stomped his empty glass loudly on the bartop a couple times, trying to get the man's attention, but the bartender just continued slicing limes at the well as though he hadn't heard a thing. "Hey! I need another drink!" Still nothing.

This invisibility thing was really getting old. "I want a turn with th'damn bartender," he grumbled, sitting heavily back in his seat, momentarily defeated.

[sweetdeath]

Tsuzuki considered him. Bright red hair (that had to be dyed, right?) kept long, rangy build, one of those faces that was kind of fine-boned, but more in a bad-boy way than a pretty way?

"Sure, you look like you could be a rock star," he said, snickering, and drained the last mouthful of his beer. He waved it in turn. "Hey! Barkeep!"

Maybe it was the waving glass, or delayed reaction to the banging the other guy'd tried, but after a few more seconds the bartender glanced up and started their way.

"Sapporo light," Tsuzuki said hastily, and glanced to Gojyo. "--What's your drink?"

[erogappa]

Okay, that just wasn't fair! How come the bartender responded to Tonedeaf's order and not his? He--

"Kirin," Gojyo blurted out, interrupting his own whiny chain of thought. And then, before the bartender could turn away: "Make it a pitcher. A pitcher!" Just in case the bartender decided not to see them again.

Beer ordered (and, judging from the actions of the bartender, actually in the process of being produced), Gojyo settled back, pulling a cigarette out of the battered pack lying next to him on the bartop. "Don't think that makes us even," he muttered into the filter, but the side-eye look he shot Tsuzuki as he flicked his lighter was a friendly one. "You were singin' up there for an hour. A pitcher'll only get you so far."

[sweetdeath]

"One pitcher's all you're getting," Tsuzuki said with an easy laugh, leaning an elbow on the bar and setting a cardboard coaster spinning with his fingertip. "Sorry, I didn't bring that much money. So, what's your name, anyway? I'm Tsuzuki Asato. -- God of sweets."

I think you can guess which one this is for

[herbalsupplements]

Kurama couldn’t have asked for a better cue if he’d planned it. As Tsuzuki just lay there, reeking of alcohol and some undefined misery, Kurama took control of the azalea the ayakashi had been hiding in: dozens of branches shot out in a sudden cloud of flower petals, grasping at the foul spirit like the arms of an unusually spindly octopus and drawing it back towards the bush. When he was sure it was held tight—if only for a moment—Kurama emerged from his own hiding spot a little further down, clearing the bushes in a single bound, and leaned down to hook a hand around Tsuzuki’s upper arm.

“Quickly, now, on your feet.”

Floral rescues are the best kind

[sweetdeath]

Tsuzuki grabbed at his rescuer's hand with his other arm, steadying himself against the slow loop-the-loop the world was doing around him as he scrambled back up to his feet.

"Boy, that was lucky," he managed, and blinked down at the guy (girl? Low voice but pretty hair...) until his eyes came back into focus. Oh, it was-- "Minamino, right? I was just on my way home."

His tongue felt as unsteady as his knees, but he thought he'd mostly managed to get the sentences out unslurred. Understandable, anyway. Which was close enough.

"Guess we should hurry."

How long could a bush win a fight with an ayakashi, anyway? There were legs popping out all over to struggle with the azalea's branches.

[herbalsupplements]

"Unless you feel like being that thing's dinner."

Lucky was almost certainly the best way to describe the coincidence of Kurama picking this area at this time of night for his latest excursion in flower acquisition and neighborhood familiarity, but it wouldn't be for much longer; even as he tightened the azalea's grip on its prey, it was slipping more and more bits of itself out, so with a gentle tug he urged Tsuzuki to stop staring at the thing and start walking. "Are you sober enough to run?"

Because teleporting was definitely out of the question.

[sweetdeath]

"No way," Tsuzuki said with heartfelt certainty -- to both statements. He didn't want to be ayakashi dinner, and he was stumbling over his own feet at a walk. There was no way teleporting was going to go well if he tries it. He just didn't have the concentration, which meant stumbling along at a fast walk was as good as they were going to get. He tried again to get his eyes to focus.

"--Minamino, right? Sorry about this. I'll -- I'll owe you one."

He raised a hand, pointing vaguely towards the other end of the park.

"There's a shrine that way. S'how I got here."

[herbalsupplements]

Kurama sighed, as much at Tsuzuki's persistence as their ridiculous situation: there was no guarantee he'd even remember it if Kurama tried to give him the same name he'd given everyone else, and he wasn't even confident enough in teleporting himself yet to consider trying with a second person. He was nothing if not skilled at buying time, however, so he began guiding Tsuzuki in the direction indicated, already preparing the grass behind them as the ayakashi began to slip free.

"Just Shuichi is fine, Mr. Tsuzuki. After all, we're coworkers."

[sweetdeath]

"Guess so," Tsuzuki agreed. What was wrong with using last names for co-workers anyway, he wondered, but let it go as he heard the rustling of the ayakashi tearing free from its bush behind them. He tried to stumble a little faster. "Just Tsuzuki's okay for me then," he added, leaning a little more heavily on Shuichi's shoulder.

"Did you do that thing with the bush...?"

[chronobreak]

[There's not a lot of reasons for a teenager to be out this late at night, but the night is when Ekko feels most at home. It's dark and maybe something is... missing from the atmosphere, but it's close enough he feels at ease.

What he wasn't expecting was seeing somebody else out this late at night, and what he definitely wasn't expecting was somebody getting jumped by an ayakashi.

Still, he's not one to go anywhere without some sort of protection. There's a bat slung across his shoulders, which is quickly pulled into a fighting position. ]

Hey, you! Better start moving!

[sweetdeath]

A-are you okay?!

[Tsuzuki scrambles back, not trying to get to his feet yet. The world's still swaying around him, but that guy's just got a bat, right? He can see Tsuzuki, which means he might be a god, but.]

Is that your shinki?

[Okay, he can do this. He can. He gets one knee under him, wobbles, grabs the nearest tree trunk and hauls himself shakily back to his feet.]

Be careful!

[chronobreak]

[You wish, Tsuzuki.

He laughs at the first question.]

Isn't that what I'm supposed to ask you?

Nope. I'm the shinki here.

[sweetdeath]

[He was a shinki -- oh, shit. Tsuzuki's eyes went wider with concern, and he stumbled forward, reaching out for Ekko as the ayakashi dragged itself free of the bush and opened another handful of eyes across its back.]

Let's go, okay? Quick, it'll blight you.

[Whoever this guy is, he's someone else's shinki, and that means he's going to be staying in his human form unless his god shows up. That means neither of them should fight this thing. They just need to get out. Fast.

Tsuzuki's not getting any other shinki hurt, whether they're his or not.]

[chronobreak]

[Ekko, at least, doesn't need to be dragged away, as he tumbles to the side and avoids the thing's grasp.

Ergh, these ayakashi things are such a pain.]

Can you even run like this? You look unsteady.

[sweetdeath]

I can try!

[Walking was tough enough. Running? No way, Tsuzuki knows he'll be flat on his face before he's gone ten feet.

But he's going to try anyway. That ayakashi's big, and neither of them can fight it, not unless--]

H-hey, do you know how to cast borderlines?

[cyberfly]

The day had been productive. Nagi and Omi helped Hakkai set up the computer lab earlier in the morning. Being in his vessel form was still something Nagi was getting used to, but he had to admit that it was quite a useful thing. His power as a shinki vessel wasn't anything Nagi couldn't do as his human self, but it certainly was a lot more intuitive and efficient. He rather wished he could access that ability all the time.

Such was the brief bit of thought going through his mind (along with the list of various household things he was out there to purchase), when he came upon an ayakashi looming up ahead. Nagi thought about making a detour to avoid it. After all, he wasn't obligated to destroy an akayashi just because he crossed paths with it. He heard a voice however, that gave him pause.

"Tsuzuki?"

He approached cautiously from the side and stopped.

[sweetdeath]

The voice calling his name stopped Tsuzuki in the middle of rolling drunkenly to his feet -- to his knees, anyway -- anyway, something other than sitting on his ass in the wet grass waiting for the ayakashi to eat him at its leisure. He looked up in surprise, trying to make the standing figure resolve into just one, non-blurry figure.

Cautiously, he essayed, "You're... from the party, right...?"

He looked back over his shoulder at the ayakashi, which was unfolding to a truly unpleasant size from its hiding place, and managed to get the rest of the way to his feet in an undignified scramble.

"L-let's get out of here!"

He fumbled an ofuda from his coat pocket, and activated it with a word, throwing it towards the ayakashi with reflexes that even way too much beer couldn't completely kill. It hit the creature's forehead and stuck. With an inhuman screech, the ayakashi froze in place.

[cyberfly]

Whoa. Tsuzuki drew out a piece of paper and put some sort of mantra on it. Like an onmyouji...? Or maybe this was a death god power. For the god of sweets, Tsuzuki was rather versatile. But Nagi didn't really have any moment to ponder on the intricacies of spell casting in that moment. The ayakashi looked to be in some sort of psychic bind, providing them with the opportunity to make a hasty retreat.

He gripped his bag tightly over his shoulder and followed after Tsuzuki, running from the ayakashi as quickly as possible. He wasn't sure how far they ought to run, seeing as he had no idea how strong the bind was. Maybe it only gave them a couple seconds. Maybe more? He would take his cue from Tsuzuki.

[sweetdeath]

"That's not gonna last long," Tsuzuki managed. His own top escaping speed was a drunken stumble, right now: any faster and he'd fall over, which would just slow them both down. Behind him, he could feel the spell starting to fracture against the ayakashi's enraged psychic struggle.

Maybe five more seconds?

Four. Three. Two. It shattered a moment before he'd expected it to, and he tried to speed up, almost tripping over his own feet in the process.

"C'n you use borderlines?"

[cyberfly]

Tsuzuki's movements are weird and sluggish. Like he's drunk. He is drunk, isn't he? Nagi knows a thing or two about drunkeness, much to his own chagrin. At least Tsuzuki isn't too inebriated to throw spells, but his flopping around isn't helping in his escape plan.

Borderlines, he's been practicing them. But he's never had to make them against such a big ayakashi before.

"I'll try."

He skids to a halt and turns around to face the approaching ayakashi.

"Issen!" he says as he draws his hand across in front of him in a slicing motion. A glowing wall of light appears. Hopefully it'll hold?

[darkbreak]

[It's one of the many nights where Riku can't find himself sleeping properly. Normally, he's good with just lingering around the shrine, but tonight he was feeling more restless than normal. So a walk seemed like a good idea.

And possibly a lifesaving one at that, since he recognizes the appearance of an ayakashi now.

Human or god, invisible or not (since this is a guy he doesn't recognize, he's not sure what he is), Riku picks up the pace. While he's been trying to practice his borderlines, he's not sure how good his aim will be or how strong. What if he accidentally hits this guy and he's a shinki or something?

So instead, there's some dark fireballs being lobbed the ayakashi's way. It might not do a lot of damage, but it'll at least be a good distraction.]

Get up now!

[sweetdeath]

I'm trying, m'trying!

[Tsuzuki's rolling awkwardly over onto hands and knees, then one knee, then -- swaying against the persistent roll of the grass under his feet -- up until he's standing again. He looks around, blinking, until he spots the pale-haired stranger.]

... who're you?

[He puts a hand to his coat pocket, fumbling for ofuda. Whatever the guy had just used against the ayakashi wasn't going to distract it for long.]