thenearshore | [open mingle] close your eyes, feel the present

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[open mingle] close your eyes, feel the present

Who: Everyone! This is an open mingle log, so feel free to toplevel and thread between yourselves as much as possible.
When: October 27th
Where: Calico Cat Cafe, somewhere vague in Tokyo. An address was posted on the BBS a day prior.
What: Cat adoption day - come bring some (or a lot of) new friends home, take advantage of the no entry fee to spend a day hanging out with cats, or volunteer to help out the somewhat overloaded staff.

An adoption event needs no small venue, and Cat Cafe Calico provides that much, visible as soon as anyone walks in the front door, pane glass with a little bell to ensure no cats walk out undetected. The area is spacious and welcoming, warmly lit with smooth and modern decor, and of course, plenty of posts for the cats. The cafe area itself is on the lower floor, along with various stools, cushions and lounges for people to sit on and spend some time with the plentiful felines. Most of the adoption services have set up along one wall down here, but it's plenty easy to avoid them and just play around with the cats unless you intend to adopt. They've got plenty of waitstaff available, and the cafe is testing out some new and unusual styles and flavours of tea, coffee and milkshakes, as well as seasonal fruit based cakes and tarts. For those without as much of a sweet tooth, there's savoury snacks as well - or maybe you'd prefer to just buy some snacks for the cats, which is an option too.

Upstairs, there's also a video game area with plenty more seating and plenty more cats...though good luck getting them out of the way of the screens, or occasionally off the consoles themselves. Quite a few of the cats are lounging around by the large window, either between cushions or on an impressively-sized play frame, and some are even up near the roof on mounted walkways. There are no guarantees they won't drop onto the occasional passerby. The upstairs also houses a few enclosed areas for people to socialise with specific cats or groups of them to see which ones they get on with best.

Volunteers will be thanked profusely, and some of the staff may even approach visitors to ask if they might help, offering compensation of food and drink prices or similar. There's a lot of adoption paperwork to be done, and with the waitstaff run off their feet, there's few people left to supervise interactions between visitors and cats to make sure all's friendly. Of course, this is an excellent excuse to just surround oneself with any available cats and let others approach as they please.

There's a steady stream of kittens being let out into the mingling cats throughout the day, most of them kept to enclosed areas under staff supervision. Whenever more come out, it might be possible to catch some whispers from the waitstaff, as if surprised at something - listen closely enough, and it sounds like they're talking about an employee, one who they barely see and rarely talks, yet finishes work promptly and slips away before anyone notices except the cats, who all seem very comfortable around him...

Whatever the reason for being here, there's plenty of cats to go around, plenty of activity, and ample opportunity to take home a new friend! Or two. Or ten, if you can convince the staff you can handle it.

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[That's about what Shun was figuring the problem would be, though he casts Yata a slight side-eye once he says it.] If you don't want to say who it's for, I won't be able to tell you what kind to look for if I don't have some idea of what they're like. There's no point giving an energetic cat to someone who doesn't have the patience for it.

[For example. It's a more complicated process than Shun would've given it credit for before ending up working here, and while he doesn't generally have much to do with adoptions because he's too busy hiding in the back, he's seen cats returned and the kinds of people who return them enough times to make connections.]

[ Yata hesitates for a moment before sighing, shoving his hands in his pockets. ]

Saru's birthday is coming up. He just remembered it. And it... came with some not so fun memories. Well. Sorta fun memories. It seems like not a lot of people made much of a fuss about remembering it back home. [ Except for him, apparently. ]

I wanted to get him something special, something that might help him be less lonely. Something that isn't me. A cat isn't too high maintenance. And I thought I could find one with a personality that would go well with his. Not a kitten, I think that would drive him nuts, but a young cat or an adult that would be okay hanging out with him when he's working on his coding shit would be okay. Besides, then there'd be someone other than me prodding him for attention to take breaks now and then.

[Right, that guy. Shun had seen the post, but not remarked on it because he figured it wasn't anything that important, and there were better people than him to weigh in on the subject. Despite only having met him once or twice, he's not the type Shun would have pegged as friends with Yata, but he does know they're both from the same world, so that's probably a factor in their newfound friendship here.

Or "friendship", maybe. Shun listens to Yata's lengthy response to the question with an impassive look all the way through, but there's something very familiar about the way he's phrasing it. Or maybe it's just that people typically don't talk about getting someone something special or being the only person who makes someone less lonely unless things go a bit deeper than that.

Shun sighs slightly and turns away.] So it's a present for your partner. [He still doesn't use "boyfriend" because he thinks it sounds childish, but it seems obvious enough to him.] There's a couple of quieter young cats that would work for something like that, but most of them are upstairs because it's too damn loud down here.

[He's just going to head for the stairs and apparently not pardon for any embarrassment Yata might have at his earlier blunt remark.]

[ Except Yata doesn't even translate 'partner' as 'boyfriend'. Saru and he have been partners since the other shinki showed up here and it doesn't even occur to him to think Shun meant anything different. So he just grins and shoves his hands in his pockets as he follows along. Which is actually a good thing, because he's still getting hella flustered over the whole 'boyfriend' gig. ]

Heh. [ Sounded like Saru in cat form already. ] It doesn't have to be all quiet, but one that doesn't mind it sometimes wouldn't be bad. I wasn't really sure what to start looking for. I guess I kinda hoped I'd know the right one when I saw it.

Good, because most cats aren't all quiet. [They have a tendency to just lose their heads a bit at some hour of the day, occasionally prompted by other cats but sometimes not. It's not the sort of thing Shun considers conducive to quiet, but it also doesn't tend to happen when the mood is too quiet either, in his experience.]

That's a bad attitude to have when you're talking about taking something in. [There are cats dotted about the stairs in various places, but once they get to the top, there's a much larger number draped in various places over the big climbing frame in front of the window. A few are lazily poking each other's faces or dangling tails.]

The ones over there are probably most likely to sit still and quiet most of the time.

Is it? Why? [ I mean. It had seemed to work out with Saru so far?

Although at the sight of the tower of cats, Yata gets a bright grin and wanders in that direction, eyes already skimming the different cats sprawled in various locations. ]

Man. This place really does have a lot, huh? Do you know much about any of these?

You're living with it and looking after it. Coming in with no idea what you want is the kind of thing people who come back a week later because they got an energetic kitten for a one-room apartment do. [Not that that particular example is likely to be an issue for anyone on the Far Shore, but still, it's not a great idea in Shun's experience.

Though he looks faintly exasperated at Yata's lack of experience with this sort of thing, he still answers the question...to some degree.] We'd be here for a while if I just started talking about all the ones on here. It's a range of cats that get taken in.

Well how are you supposed to do it, then? I don't remember ever having a pet before. Shinki, remember?

[ For all he knew, this could be the first time entirely. ]

And I sorta had an idea of what I want, I just don't know how to describe it... [ Words are not always his forte. ] Look, should I just... I dunno, sit and play with some of them for a bit and see if any stand out? Would that work for you?

[At this point, Shun just stands and waits for Yata to babble himself to the correct conclusion without Shun having to explain it anyway, giving him a rather flat look. Once he gets to the questions, he just inclines his head slightly.]

That's how it's usually done. I was wondering if you'd get there yourself. [Saves him having to explain.

Though with all this talking happening close by a couple of the cats are starting to wake up, so he might have a bit of a headstart on the ones he'll have more of an opportunity to play with.]

[ That's usually the best way to deal with Yata's babble. He'll get himself there eventually, he just needs to work himself around to it in his own convoluted logic sometimes. It occasionally takes as many loops and flips as his skateboarding favors.

He does crouch down with a grin as a couple of the cats hop down on lower platforms to investigate the ~~short~~ new person who's come to play, reaching out a hand to let them investigate him. ]

Yeah, yeah, so I didn't come prepared as well as I thought. My bad.

[ What is 'preparing' and can he eat it? This is the guy whose definition of Plans is to just... set everything on fire and hope for the best. ]

I'm not surprised. [Shun states that rather flatly, observing the cats that come over to investigate Yata. Not only is it pretty common among people who come here anyway, but most people he's met from HOMRA are act-before-thinking types in their own ways, bar maybe Izumo or the ones who don't act at all.]

You should've brought your partner if it's for him, anyway. Being romantic with someone doesn't mean you always know what suits them.

[Yeah, he's just going to...say that outright. Even disregarding the earlier part of the exchange, this is an awful lot of trouble to be going to for anything short of a sibling, extremely close friend, or lover, and he's already got the latter impression from Yata's reasoning.]

[ Yata freezes like you've just pulled a gun on him before glancing over his shoulder with wide, alarmed eyes. ]

R-r-romantic?!?! What makes you...? We're not...! That's just...!

[ Good job, you might have broken him. ]

[And Shun thought he was bad at the romance thing.

After just giving Yata a rather unimpressed look for the time it takes him to fluster himself to a stop, he lets out a faint sound of exasperation.]

You came in to do something you know nothing about for a specific person, because you're worried he'd be lonely outside of you. You've obviously thought a lot about what would match up with him, but you're still asking for help. So you want to make sure you've gotten it right. It's rare anyone goes to that kind of effort, and you know a little too much about him and his habits for me to buy that it's just friendship, especially since what you said earlier sounded like you're around him almost all the time.

[At least his reasoning for breaking Yata is solid?]

[ GDI, Shun. ]

That's just...!

[ He has no arguments to combat that logic with, dammit, because anything he could say would just... incriminate him further, really. Hunching his shoulders inwards, his face red, he just grumbles out an aggravated huff. ]

Shut up. He's important, okay?

You're the one making it a big deal by overreacting. [Shun had meant the earlier comment to basically be in passing, a warning that Yata might not necessarily make the right choice without the person who the cat is actually for here. As far as he's concerned, it's Yata's fault it went any further than that.]

Anyway, some idiot's probably going to get nosy about it eventually, so you should learn to keep a better poker face. [In Shun's definition, most of the people who get nosy about that sort of thing are idiots.]

I hate poker. [ Three guesses why, Shun. ]

And I couldn't have brought him. It's supposed to be a surprise. Don't worry, I know him better than you might think. I'm pretty sure I can find the one he'll like.

[ ....Probably. ]

Probably because you couldn't bluff to save your life. [Who needs three guesses when he could just make one. Being from a world where card games are ridiculously commonplace, Shun can't help but make the observation.

At the rest of his response, though, Shun just raises a brow.] If you were that sure you wouldn't have come and asked me in the first place. It's too late to try and be convincing.

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[open mingle] close your eyes, feel the present

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