Zhao Yunlan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wildguardian) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thenearshore2018-10-29 10:46 am
wildguardian) wrote in thenearshore2018-10-29 10:46 am
Curiosity killed the... [open]
Who: Zhao Yunlan & OPEN
When: The second week of February
Where: Far Shore - the library, near Ebisu's temple, the Western District; Near Shore - the ruins of a burned-out department store
What: Exploring, unwisely.
Library
[Zhao Yunlan is becoming a regular sight at a corner table in the library; he's accumulating a stack of books, filling them with bookmarks, taking copious notes in a cheap black notebook, swearing at them and not putting them away again when he leaves.
Research! He hates it. He needs an assistant who will do it for him, but in the absence of that helpful whoever, he's stuck hitting the books himself. It's going to age him posthumously.
Hopefully, no one minds the fact that a largely useless pile of books keeps being renewed on the corner table, and filled with paper scrap bookmarks that have to be removed before they're put away.]
Ebisu's temple
[Since he's died young regardless, Zhao is seriously considering switching from lollipops to cigarettes. There's something enticing about the smell of burning tobacco, and, besides, importantly: smokers can take smoke breaks. As a non-smoker, he's having to find some other excuse to sneak outside and see the sun every once in a while during his workday.
His excuse today is picking flowers. He doesn't recognize the flowers sprouting from the grayish soil clinging to cracks in the temple's modern-looking concrete courtyard, but they're bright, colorful, and have a non-zero chance of brightening the day of the poor white-collar workers typing their fingers to the bone on either side of his temp desk. Fresh flowers, an important part of office feng shui: or something like that.
(He's considering bringing in a houseplant. Those also make great excuses to take a break.)
He nips off the stem of a bright red daisy-looking thing, considers it, and turns with a shameless grin. Whoops, there's somebody, has he been caught skiving off?]
Here! It goes with your eyes.
Western District
[It's late on the night of the 12th, and Zhao had been working his way back home to Bakugou's place after a long day doing accounting and a few drinks out afterwards, except, annoyingly, his stomach is killing him. All right, so he'd skipped breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and: all right, the last time he ate something was yesterday when Bakugou'd made breakfast. But it's not like he ever gets more or less hungry no matter what he eats! He'd thought it was no big deal.
Apparently even dead men can get heartburn from strong liquor on an empty stomach, he reflects, and slumps down onto a comfortable rock at the edge of the road, indulging his solitude with a wince as he bends over and puts his head on his knees.
This is really embarrassing. He'll just give it a few minutes, and once he feels a bit better, he'll just drag himself back home to bed....]
Department Store
[Mysteries abound. These mysteries, though, don't look like they're going to be solved anytime soon. Zhao ducks under plastic disaster cleanup sheeting and looks around the dripping, ice-cold, smoke-blackened floor of the unlucky department store, and shakes his head. Any clues that might've once been here are long since gone. If the fire hadn't gotten them, the months of abandonment and subsequent investigation would've.
Maybe he can sneak in and pull the investigation files somehow. Shinki do tend to go unnoticed, so he's willing to bet he can shadow a cop into any police office he wants. Getting keys to get into their files might be a little trickier, of course....
Sighing, he turns to go, just in time to spot a pale, whitish, sheet-like thing that's not plastic lashing out towards his ankle across the debris-strewn concrete floor.
With a shout, he jumps back, landing in a puddle. Filthy water splashes everywhere, and the sheet rears up like it's been possessed by a cobra, striking out at him again. The edge of it brushes his hand as he scrambles out of the way, raising an instant, aching, purplish welt.
Well, fuck. He's just found his first ayakashi all on his own, he realizes, turns, and bolts for the stairs with a possessed sheet in hot pursuit.
This is making a lot of noise.
Hopefully someone's passing by.
Help?]
When: The second week of February
Where: Far Shore - the library, near Ebisu's temple, the Western District; Near Shore - the ruins of a burned-out department store
What: Exploring, unwisely.
Library
[Zhao Yunlan is becoming a regular sight at a corner table in the library; he's accumulating a stack of books, filling them with bookmarks, taking copious notes in a cheap black notebook, swearing at them and not putting them away again when he leaves.
Research! He hates it. He needs an assistant who will do it for him, but in the absence of that helpful whoever, he's stuck hitting the books himself. It's going to age him posthumously.
Hopefully, no one minds the fact that a largely useless pile of books keeps being renewed on the corner table, and filled with paper scrap bookmarks that have to be removed before they're put away.]
Ebisu's temple
[Since he's died young regardless, Zhao is seriously considering switching from lollipops to cigarettes. There's something enticing about the smell of burning tobacco, and, besides, importantly: smokers can take smoke breaks. As a non-smoker, he's having to find some other excuse to sneak outside and see the sun every once in a while during his workday.
His excuse today is picking flowers. He doesn't recognize the flowers sprouting from the grayish soil clinging to cracks in the temple's modern-looking concrete courtyard, but they're bright, colorful, and have a non-zero chance of brightening the day of the poor white-collar workers typing their fingers to the bone on either side of his temp desk. Fresh flowers, an important part of office feng shui: or something like that.
(He's considering bringing in a houseplant. Those also make great excuses to take a break.)
He nips off the stem of a bright red daisy-looking thing, considers it, and turns with a shameless grin. Whoops, there's somebody, has he been caught skiving off?]
Here! It goes with your eyes.
Western District
[It's late on the night of the 12th, and Zhao had been working his way back home to Bakugou's place after a long day doing accounting and a few drinks out afterwards, except, annoyingly, his stomach is killing him. All right, so he'd skipped breakfast, and lunch, and dinner, and: all right, the last time he ate something was yesterday when Bakugou'd made breakfast. But it's not like he ever gets more or less hungry no matter what he eats! He'd thought it was no big deal.
Apparently even dead men can get heartburn from strong liquor on an empty stomach, he reflects, and slumps down onto a comfortable rock at the edge of the road, indulging his solitude with a wince as he bends over and puts his head on his knees.
This is really embarrassing. He'll just give it a few minutes, and once he feels a bit better, he'll just drag himself back home to bed....]
Department Store
[Mysteries abound. These mysteries, though, don't look like they're going to be solved anytime soon. Zhao ducks under plastic disaster cleanup sheeting and looks around the dripping, ice-cold, smoke-blackened floor of the unlucky department store, and shakes his head. Any clues that might've once been here are long since gone. If the fire hadn't gotten them, the months of abandonment and subsequent investigation would've.
Maybe he can sneak in and pull the investigation files somehow. Shinki do tend to go unnoticed, so he's willing to bet he can shadow a cop into any police office he wants. Getting keys to get into their files might be a little trickier, of course....
Sighing, he turns to go, just in time to spot a pale, whitish, sheet-like thing that's not plastic lashing out towards his ankle across the debris-strewn concrete floor.
With a shout, he jumps back, landing in a puddle. Filthy water splashes everywhere, and the sheet rears up like it's been possessed by a cobra, striking out at him again. The edge of it brushes his hand as he scrambles out of the way, raising an instant, aching, purplish welt.
Well, fuck. He's just found his first ayakashi all on his own, he realizes, turns, and bolts for the stairs with a possessed sheet in hot pursuit.
This is making a lot of noise.
Hopefully someone's passing by.
Help?]
no subject
He ignores Yunlan's question, glossing smoothly over it and carrying on like the man never spoke. ]
Oh. So it really is like a big sports ring in there? That's pretty cool.
no subject
Not that we've got enough people for a team.
no subject
There's a bunch of soulless, out at the edge of town. [ He's not really sure why he suggested them, instead of something like post on the network, make friends, do sports! Blame the exhaustion. ] If you're lookin' for teammates, I mean. They've got t'be pretty bored out there.
no subject
He'd heard there wasn't a whole lot to them, at least not anymore. Even house pets get bored, though, and these are people, "soulless" or not. After a minute, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, he shrugs.]
Guess I'll check. Why's there so many? Have they all lost their gods?
no subject
[ Ah, shit, that was dark, wasn't it? He's trying not to do that. He's supposed to be a happy-go-lucky idiot -- that's the Gojyo that both Goku and Hakkai seem to like best -- and not somebody who talks about depressing deep shit. ]
Sorry. [ And he forces more enthusiasm into his voice, even straightening up a little taller (although there's only so far that can go, what with Yunlan still attached to his side. ] I've got no idea if they ever had gods. Some of 'em are new, like us... dunno about the rest.
[ Are they there yet? Seriously? He's so tired. ]
If we die again, sometimes we disappear forever, and sometimes we get brought back. But then we don't remember bein' here before. Maybe the soulless ones just died too many times, until they forgot everything.
no subject
He hasn't been in close proximity with one of the poor "soulless" bastards for long, yet; Bakugou doesn't have one, and it seems like they stick close enough to their gods. He's met a few, though. They give him the cold creeps, through no fault of their own.
They really do seem empty; they'll answer, but it's impossible to tell if they ever have any feelings about it.]
You think that can happen? Die enough, and everything gets drained right out of us?
[His tone's low, but dead serious, even though he waves his free hand a little in a down-the-drain gesture to match his words. He hasn't been here that long, after all. It's clear enough that there's a whole lot wrong with this place; but he doesn't have a good read on how much.]
no subject
How many memories would he have to lose to turn into somebody like Banri? Banri likes him, likes to be close to him. Keeps cleaning things nearby -- it's weird, okay? -- but that's got to be because Gojyo was his god. There's no way the Banri Gojyo remembers would want to hang around him and clean things.
Banri's just gone. It's a sobering fucking reminder that things really could always get worse.
Gojyo shakes his head. ]
I haven't seen it happen, but I know of at least one soulless shinki that used to be a person. A real person, like us. [ And he's been such an as-- such a jerk, but was this really what he deserved? ] He cared about shit and everything.
no subject
Well, shit.
[What else is there to say? He doesn't know who he is, right now, doesn't know who he cared about or what he did for a living, but he's still somebody. He has strong opinions on nearly everything he's run across so far. He's got feelings.
The idea of death wearing him away like water on a stone, until he's sand indistinguishable from every other grain on the beach, is a deeply horrifying one.]
Guess you and me'll just have to be careful, then, won't we.
no subject
I dunno about you, but I've had don't die on the top of my list of weekend chores for awhile now. [ Not that long, honestly, but that's not anything his new friend needs to hear about. ] Laundry, groceries, kick the drunks out, don't die, check check check.
no subject
(All right, to be quite fair, Zhao's found a laundry service and drops his clothes off there every so often, so that kind of counts as his doing his own laundry.)
And there are kid gods enough around here. They can't all be as domestically competent as Zhao's turned out to be.]
Yeah, well, what with all the man-eating ghosts around it's trickier than it sounds.
[He's trying to lighten the mood himself, though, frankly, it's not like he was having a great night before.]
So you're a bartender or something?
no subject
Somethin' like that! [ Sorry, sorry... he neesd to pause for a moment, straighten up, stretch the crunchy noises out of his neck and back. How's that gut doing, friend? Any closer to walking solo? ] It used to be a bar, now it's, I dunno, a clubhouse for ghostbusters. Bunch 'a folks who think Bigfoot's real, you know?
no subject
(This may not last long, but he's got some pride.)]
A ghost running a ghostbuster clubhouse? You've got big brass ones.
[He tosses Gojyo a grin and throws his shoulders back, squinting at the colisseum. The door's somewhere down in that Stygian blackness at ground level.]
-- you know what Heaven needs, streetlights.
no subject
[ Sure they can dance on telephone wires and shit, but sometimes people get tired! Why isn't there public transit for tired people? It's so unfair.
Yunlan's place is even bigger close up, and the ground floor even darker. It looks pretty deserted... although, to be fair, a place that big? Would need a army camped out front to look occupied. ]
You think anybody's home?
no subject
[Only off of tired shinki, if all the gods can flit around the way Bakugou can, but there's more shinki than gods by a lot.]
Bakugou and Midoriya're probably asleep already.
no subject
[ He wasn't worried or anything! It's just that this Yunlan guy's still sick, and leaving a sick guy by himself isn't, y'know. Nice. Or responsible. And he's trying to be both those things. ]
Then I'm gonna drop you here and go crash. You're good, right? [ --he asks, yawning so big the top of his head nearly falls off. ]
no subject
[The door's really not that far; he can make it, he decides, and shifts himself in its general direction, wincing. Yeah, okay. Get back inside, ditch his shoes, crash, feel better in the morning. That sounds like a plan.
Maybe someday he'll even be able to look up his mystery rescuer and say a soberer thanks.]
no subject
[ Gojyo's shoelace might mysteriously come untied and prove too complicated to retie until after Yunlan disappears into the building.
But then, Gojyo's turning right around (after getting his bearings -- where the hell is he, anyway?) -- and heading straight for Goku's treehouse. He's going to sleep until sundown, and god help anyone who wakes him before then. ]