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Who: Shin and Open
When: December 8th - 10th (bass shopping) or 24th (Other things)
Where: All over
What: A bit of a catch all for things Shin's doing his first weeks here

I. Bass Instincts Ahahaha see, I said the username, that's kinda like saying the title right?
Adrien had told him to get himself a bass, along with some clothes. He was given full reign on it, much to his shock. That didn't mean that he wasn't going to be conservative... with the clothes. The bass he seems determined to find the perfect instrument. He'd gotten three days worth of clothes on the first day, then went to the nearest music shop and tried every bass in the place. He'd then gone to the next nearest one, trying everything there as well. He left most of the people he'd talked with confused, as he couldn't tell them what kind of music he planned to play, or what kind of feel he liked best, or what string type he liked most. The first person he couldn't even tell if he prefered strumming with his thumb or a pick. Yet every time he played well enough that it left the attendant shocked. And then he handed the bass back each time, feeling like it wasn't right.

He didn't quite connect the glares he was getting with him lighting up his cigarette in the store. Sure, a lot of people seemed to be willing to forgive it when they heard him playing, though there seemed a few even more pissed at him over it. Sure, it's not technically illegal in Tokyo to smoke in stores, but public opinion has shifted since he had developed his habit of smoking where ever he felt like. At least he carries around a disposable pouch for his cigarette butts so he's not littering too much. He found himself still lighting up as he starts to realize what the glares are for, the irritation of not being able to find something that felt quite right starting to get to him.

II. I got Twenty Dollas in my Pocket
Shin finally finds a bass, and so he spends the next several days looking through thrift shops, finding for himself new clothes. He is pretty consistently drawn to the designer suits hidden in the back of some of these places, usually with all kinds of holes that made them unwearable to their previous owner, but gave Shin a ton of possibilities. Between his obvious leaning in style once he started picking out clothes and Marinette at least being able to teach him how to mend, he was thrilled to be getting all kinds of clothes second hand. It might be difficult to find him under the pile of band shirts while he looks through countless old shoes for things that might fit him in the back of a overstuffed store. His favourites all tend to share major design elements with 90's era Vivienne Westwood. He likes a touch of leather fringes, platform shoes, and upholstery type fabrics mixed in with his plaid pants with hanging belts and band tees. It's not long before he's picking out all the icons of early 2000's punk fashion.

IIIa. Hello from the Other Side
It didn't matter that Adrien insited that Shin shouldn't feel like he needed to pay anything back. Shin knew he'd want to be able to have his own money to spend without worrying about bothering Adrien for it. He didn't want to make things hard on Adrien, having already noticed his own expensive tastes. Not to mention, he couldn't secretly get Adrien his own bass for Christmas with Adrien's money. That just wouldn't feel right.

He'd gone out searching for jobs, and after passing over a lot of other options, he'd stayed out later than he had before, trying to get jobs in bars. Most bars thought that he wasn't old enough looking to work there and didn't want trouble. He worked his way deeper into the city, and before he knew it he was surrounded by some things he was pretty sure would make his god blush, but he felt drawn to. Expensive clothes, expensive drinks, big lights. It took almost no time for him to decide to start asking some of the men if they knew anywhere that was hiring. A few of the men he'd asked laughed, called him too little, or didn't seem to notice him at all, which he suspected was going to be the biggest issue of all.

Finally he found a group that were willing to humor him. They told him that if he, said with some words about his baby face, could get a girl's number that night, then he would be able to work at their place. It doesn't take him that long to realize that they didn't really notice him since he's dead. He decides to stop his first approach and instead waited to find a certain kind of person. He looked around for girls that looked overwhelmed by the lights and pretty people. Sure, it might be kind of like taking advantage of someone, but it was just a number. The moment the right kind of girl hesitated nearby against a building, Shin lands on his hand in front of her, slamming his palm against the wall. It would be hard to miss that sound, even if he was otherwise easy to miss. But he wasn't putting on some cheesy tough line, he's instead asking with a surprising gentleness, "Is everything alright, miss?"

IIIb. This is Fine
It works at least once during the night, though it's possible they egg him on to get another number. By the end of the night, though, he's agreed to work at the host club and set up his first working days. It was nice to see that he'd have a pretty flexible schedule, mostly working when he decided to come in. Of course, it would be having regulars that brought in the best cash. It was an easy swing to get into, and one he enjoyed. He mostly did daytime and early evening dates so he'd not worry Adrien too much with nights out, but he knew that was where the real cash was, and it was bothering him to be missing out on it.

But he was worried that Adrien would judge, so he hadn't actually told basically anyone from the Far Shore, at least anyone that hadn't gotten caught up in his trying to get a number, that he'd gotten this job yet. Not when Adrien gave off this rather disgustingly obvious vibe of overly sheltered rich boy. It wasn't that Shin held it against him, but he didn't need to remember anything about his life to know that Adrien's type did not really get involved in this kind of business unless they were the ones paying for the date. Needless to say, if he recognizes anyone as being from the far shore, while he's entering, leaving, or taking a cigarette break outside of the club, he'll be trying to blend in with the surroundings as best as he can.

He's definitely not hiding, he's just trying to make things run smoother.

IV. Riverside Music
Shin usually practiced bass in one of the studios he had access to, either in Adrien's mansion or with Yui at Mirei's place, but sometimes it is nice to actually get some sun. He found that one of the bridges over the river in the Far shore actually gave pretty great acoustics, so some afternoons he can be found out there, practicing some kind of rock music, though it almost all leans towards grunge and punk. He's able to pick things up quickly, playing most songs decently well after a day or two without the tabs in front of him. He is able to play things much faster with tabs in front of him, and even has an app and a stand for his phone so he had access to a much larger list of music than he could easily carry printed out. The portable amp was already more than enough bulk attached to the guitar case.

V. Wildcard/Other Did we discuss something else? Got an idea that didn't fit into the others? I'm still open to it. I'll let you know if there's any reason something wouldn't work.

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Shin continues to be unimpressed. "My god doesn't hear 'such cheek', because he's not an ass."

He's not moving, so it's probably for the best that she has some alternative to this. He's already clearly a bit more bothered by the very thought that Adrien might be failing in his duties by denying him to speak up for himself, even against another god.

"Then, let's do this." Hibiki sidles up next to Shin, positioning herself between him and the edge of the bridge so he has no choice but to stare at her if he continues to face this direction. She has her own guitar out, now, and her fingers are ready to go.

"We compete," she proposes, "for the position. The first person to exhaust or lead the other player astray claims victory."

She gets to test the guitar by defeating him. And she gets to witness his skills the way she likes best - wills and abilities clashing, polishing each other! It is the perfect plan. She can't even stew at his continued insolence, she's so taken with her own brilliance.

Honestly, there are days she wants her own autograph.

Shin laughs at her suggestion, "Exhaust the other? So you don't have any actual skill." He stands up, loosening up his fingers a bit, already looking serious, "Picking endurance because I've been practicing all day like a real musician is cowardly."

He leans into one leg, strumming, "If we're going to have some music battle for the space here, then it's going to be based on actual skill, not who gets tired or stumbles first. A real musician can recover from even that." His expression is both cold and on fire. At some point his platform boot ended up on his amp, and he looks almost like he might just start swinging his bass at her.

"If you on your guitar can out play me playing my bass, fine," he's sneering, pointing out that they have two different instruments, and hers is clearly more suited towards your typical guitar battle, since the bass doesn't usually do much in the realm of solos.

Hibiki smirks right back, liking this gentleman more and more despite his attitude - or perhaps because of it. Even when directed against her, she doesn't dislike pride.

Particularly not about one's skill.

"Conditions accepted," she informs him. "I'll make the first move."

And she launches into an intricate, baroque set of chords (or as baroque as one can get on an acoustic guitar.) If he thought she'd picked endurance because she figured he'd be exhausted, he is sorely mistaken. The form the competition takes doesn't really matter.

Shikyoin Hibiki has confidence she can overwhelm anyone, at anything, at any time.

Shin takes a few of those chords and phrases, warping them into a sense of Moonlight Sonata before quickly breaking it down into something much deeper and dirtier, and speeding it up. If he made a mistake of fingering it was hard to tell because the next phrase would be so purposeful that it just came off as the design of a grunge style of breaking lines and phrases.

It's a shame no one was getting this on video, but Shin's from the era just before everyone recorded everything they did.

Did he just bring in Peethoven? More and more intriguing. Hibiki smirks, getting the near-reference, but also taking the genre shift as a challenge. She can roll with it, however, as best as one can on an acoustic guitar. Genius excels at all genres.

As befits the guitar, she starts trying to weave a melody around his bassline, pushing against it while also pulling it along. She has ~~the lowest voice in her whole canon~~ a great deal of respect for bass! It grounds and drives the piece. But when it comes to taking center stage -

Well, that's what the star of the production is for, isn't it?

That was just what Shin had been expecting her to do. The bass isn't the best at taking a solo from a guitar. It had to do with how people just heard sounds, and the deep tones weren't as easily heard over the higher sounds of the guitar. But that also meant in a live setting like this, the sounds were also more able to physically move through a person. And he's the one with the amp.

He adjusts the pickup volume as he kicks the volume up on the amp itself, just enough to be more noticeable under the sound of the guitar. He moves it slowly as they fight through a crescendo, hiding the physical volume adjustment with the increasing intensity.

When they hit the peak, he drops two octaves, playing closer to the base of the neck and making the entire bridge overhang rumble with his beat. He makes his tune disrupt each phrase she makes, undermining her notes. So the bass giveth, so the bass taketh away.

Of course, he made sure to keep the volume at a level that kept him far from actually drowning out the acoustic guitar. He wouldn't want to give her any good reason to call this off, but he's serious now. His amp isn't set to a soft polite level meant mostly for just him to hear. Her acoustic had announced to everyone that they were playing, but like hell Shin would just give her the spotlight without trying to shake this bridge down.

The more Shin tries to steal the center position from Hibiki, the more she'd been smirking - but when he shifts tactics on her, the smirk fades to be replaced with concentration. He's skilled. She'll have to actually focus.

Dissonance isn't her normal weapon of choice, so instead of deliberately playing off his disruptions she tries to work around them, almost but not quite ignoring them. The best way to throw him off is to refuse to shift for him, yes? This can work. It will work.

Yes, she could use her illusion powers to turn her acoustic guitar into an electric guitar, but that would defeat the point. It would be admitting she needs to throw away her handicap. And while she'll be able to do that for someone who deserves it - she's not sure they're there yet.

Hibiki is so focused on her performance that she doesn't notice her phone has fallen out of her pocket. Or that drips of water have formed around it.

Or that it's recording.

Shin has no way of getting rid of his own handicap. But he wouldn't want to. He wanted to get her to admit that he's the more skilled player with his bass.

It was a little annoying that she didn't let the bassline under her get in her way. If he kept trying that it would just sound like he didn't know how to support his potential bandmates. It was a bit of a dirty trick he'd tried anyway, but it kept her from resting on his laurels.

So he's playing along with her again, more subtly trying to pull her into lower tones while working his way back up the bass neck so he has a more natural range to work in.

What he exchanges for working with her he makes up with playing more creatively, rolling from one genre into the next as best as he could without changing his tuning. He is tempted to speed up the tempo, but he also knows that after spending the day practicing, going too fast would likely lead him to mess up, though he's trying to determine if she'd be able to keep up before stumbling too hard over something to recover.

Hibiki is able to keep up with Shin the whole way, pressing him, but any sense that she might be able to overwhelm him or yoke him to her melody is gone. Instead, she's pushing for the sake of pushing - almost for the sake of being pushed back, for seeing what he'll do. This is fascinating. He's.

He's making her work. He's a shinki she's never seen before, and he's making her work! This is what she's thought performances should be for years - a competition of wills and ability between the performers, polishing each other through rivalry even as they work together to sculpt a greater and greater entertainment for the benefit of their audience. Finding someone who's an actual challenge, who could actually thrill the populace to witness pitted against her: she'd all but given up on that here when Queen Maria called a cease-fire between Sparkle Motion and CelePara. Could she have been delivered a piece her master plan for becoming a God of Fortune was missing, after all this time?

Are the gates of PriPara, where she longs to return, drawing closer?

Hibiki smirks. She sniffs. And then, she does the unthinkable:

She drops her hands from the guitar. Because she can't offer him a hand if it's busy strumming.

"I've heard enough," she declares, as if her getting to hear him play was the whole point of this instead of a fight over the bridge. "Your abilities are genuine. I'll acknowledge them for you."

An eyebrow arches. "You're close enough to my level to be exciting."

Hibiki may be incapable of saying a nice thing without immediately trashing it.

Shin slows to a stop, letting his bass ring out his last notes. He's surprised to see her admit anything of the sort, but he's going to accept her praise. She might be used to people getting upset when she says something to undercut the little praise she gives, but Shin just smirks. He lets his bass hang from it's strap over his shoulder as he pulls out a cigarette, "Well, I wouldn't want to leave you too far behind."

Pointedly Shin lights his cigarette while his bass is still rumbling out the last of the note just to mock her loss.

"..."

Hibiki is left with her hand extended when Shin decides he'd rather light up than shake. Determined not to let it throw her off (any more than it already did), however, she withdraws the gesture and shoulders the guitar again. As for his bravado....Well. Skilled though he may be, it's nice he has a dream.

"I wouldn't mind letting you indulge yourself as my opening act someday," she offers. "Keep practicing here in anticipation."

You can have the bridge for now, in other words. She's both satisfied that the guitar is in good condition again, and busy planning far grander schemes.

Now that Shin is good and ready Shin offers his own hand to shake with a smirk. Yes, he did that just to slight her. He laughs, "I might let you guest in our band if you keep practicing yourself."

He'll take the bridge and the compliment, still holding out his hand, "The name is Shinichi Okazaki. Yours?"

"Shikyoin Hibiki." What, now he'll offer a hand? So be it. Instead of shaking, Hibiki deposits her business card in his palm (God Apollo, Central District/CEO, CelePara Talent Agency). "I'll look forward to hearing your entire band someday."

From box seats. Of course. Or the wings, waiting to be ushered in as the main event. Or, perhaps, in competition.....To draw out.....

She can use this. This will work.

Revolution draws nigh.

Shin will take her card like that's exactly why he'd put his hand out in the first place, turning it over. He goes to put it in his wallet, and if they're handing out business cards, he'll hand her his.

It's a sleek matte black with gold lettering, including the name of the Host Club he works at and 'Shin', and then a rather charming picture of him seducing the camera and contact information on the back. "In the mean time, feel free to come by if you get lonely~♡."

"Oh..." Hibiki lets that heart bounce off of her (though she might give it a slight Look), pocketing the card. He's also in the business of amore, it seems. She wouldn't have guessed that from his demeanor, but there are a wide variety of hearts in the world - that's what gives it such depth. Some are likely moved by his daring roughness.

Maybe she'll spy on his workplace someday. Just to see. Sounds entertaining.

But, for now: "Well, then, I'm off." He doesn't know that these are the last lines her guitarist character plays in the new smash hit movie Battlefield Guitarist, as it only aired in her puniverse and he didn't attend her screening. Maybe she'll show it again sometime.

Hibiki raises two fingers in salute: her guitarist also does this. Cocky, boyish rebellion is not an air only Shin has perfected. "I'll leave the rest to you."

Honestly, he just hoped that if she did decide to come once she'd end up pouring money into the occasion.

Shin nods and gives a casual wave as he turns the volume back down, not wanting to continue bothering what temples might be close as he goes back to practicing.

[[ ooc: maybe wrap here but say hibiki didn't realize her phone had fallen and comes back for it? ]]

Conscientious. Well, Hibiki can't speak against someone who doesn't wish to cause a ruckus in the neighborhood.

She'll just be on her way, then. All is well, and she has not forgotten anything. Yes, this turned out just fine.

[Shin doesn't pay attention to her leaving, but as he's practicing he looks up and notices Hibiki's phone on the ground. It's not where he thinks anyone will step on it so he just smirks and keeps playing. Watching her face when she comes back to pick it up would be well worth it.]

[ ...Unfortunately for Shin, her face is completely shadowed over when she comes marching back to retrieve the phone. She'll just. Snatch this. And be on her way!

Except when she approaches.....there is a health hazard on the screen, just beginning to gush.

And her cutphones are in her temple. ]

See you around, Hibiki-kun.

[And he's going to grab his own phone to jump into that conversation soon enough. Once she's probably out of earshot of his music.]

[ TODAY WAS GOING SO WELL TOO

WHAT HAPPENED ]

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Isn't her phone still on the ground?

a genius's thread continuity and the average man's thread continuity are different

hohohohoho

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I'm sorry Shin's such an impudent little wanker? Except I'm also not

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