Curiosity killed the... [open]

[wildguardian]

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?]

Comments

[kokuyoyo]

....Room cleaning, but I would have to talk with my boyfriend about that.

[When it comes to inviting people into their room, after the last incident that got Ken so worked up... He has to be very careful. Chikusa can't make that kind of call all on his own.]

[...But they really do have to get it cleared out a bit so that them and Hakkai can start construction.]

[wildguardian]

Aren't you a little young to be living with your boyfriend?

[That sounds like a room Zhao Yunlan does not want to clean. Not that he seems to have much cleaning skill regardless.]

-- Anyway. I'm not great at chores. I could... teach you martial arts?

[He's got long legs, he could make a decent kickboxer. And Zhao isn't about to teach a kid who likes to threaten total strangers how to use a gun.]

[kokuyoyo]

We're both shinki to the same god.

[Fuckin' RIP in peace, Cho Hakkai. It's both an awkward situation to be bonded to, and a horrific room to have to deal with. They're... working on it. Although they could be working on it much better if he could just have some labor working...]

[Whatever disappointment he has about that, however, is hidden under the faint surge of interest at the replacement Zhao suggests. He falls silent, considering it.]

...What kind?

[wildguardian]

Ah, got it.

[Well, proximity can breed affection. Or contempt, depending. Looks like he's snagged this kid with the offer of martial arts lessons, though, and he has to admit it's a fair balance between magic lessons and fighting lessons.]

I'd have to see if somebody else could figure the style out; I just know it's [he tries a hand-wave.] Kinda kickboxy, focused on putting people on the ground fast?

[Memory loss is a hell of a thing, but at least he's got muscle memory on his side.]

[kokuyoyo]

...Kickboxing might work.

[It's not something he's ever exactly tried. Sure, he's done some kicks and such, but that's all untrained and winging it. Something more polished is what he needs.]

Then... That would be fine. [He eyes the many stacks of books.] ...Along with you cleaning up after yourself.

[Or he's going to do worse than dropping a book on him.]

What do you know about shinki magic...?

[wildguardian]

[Good. Zhao leans forward, elbows on the table, and spares Chikusa a quick nod at the demand that he clean the books up too.]

I know you need a shinki's name to cast a spell on them-- the one their god gave them, not their real name. I don't know any spells so far other than the borderline, though, and I'm working on polishing that.

[kokuyoyo]

Then you don't even know where you'd want to start...

[Well, he guesses that isn't too surprising for someone who is very obviously new to the Far Shore. Still, now he has to explain. Ugh. Shuffling over, he goes to get the book he dropped on Zhao's head.]

Then... What are you most looking to do against other shinki?

[wildguardian]

Restrain them. [If he's being attacked, for whatever reason, having an option that isn't going to hurt them could be very useful. Not that he's against violence when it's necessary, but he'd seen Amaterasu's post. He's not willing to risk pissing off any big shots by hurting their shinki, not if he can avoid it.]

I hear there's a spell called "bind"? Is that what it does?

[kokuyoyo]

...So you have heard... [gdi zhao] Yes, that's what it does. It essentially freezes them in the position that they're in...

...Although it doesn't stop them from making noise. [Calling for help, for example.]

[wildguardian]

[Knowing of a spell and knowing a spell are two different things. Besides, it's never a good idea to spill everything in the first conversation.

When he holds a little back, it's easy to tell whether Chikusa's being honest with him in turn.]

All right, once I've got the borderline down, that sounds like a good place for me to start.

[kokuyoyo]

And how long do you think that'll be?

[He'll need to know when it's good for him to get some lessons, after all. He has a lot of other shit on his plate, one of which is the tedious task of organizing an entire blind date event with people to match and reminding places that he does, in fact, exist, and so will all the other people that will be arriving that day.]

[wildguardian]

Oh, how about after Valentine's Day?

[Since Chikusa's organizing all of that; Zhao doubts he'll have time for lessons before it in any case, and it'll give Zhao the better part of a week to step up his practice.]

[kokuyoyo]

[After Valentine's... Mm. Depending on how Hakkai reacts, he doesn't think that should be too bad...]

...Sure. Call me when you have time for a lesson exchange, then.

[That's what this is, after all. A lesson exchange, spells for physical combat.]

[wildguardian]

You got it. [And, just to prove he is trying, he sits up and starts stacking his messy piles of books into neater order. He's not putting them away yet -- he's still got work to do -- but it's a start.]

[kokuyoyo]

[...Well. He guesses that's good enough. Chikua watches silently for a moment before taking the book he'd dropped and starts to shuffle off. Trust him, he'll be back in a little bit to make sure that things are put away in their proper place later.]

[But, for now, he seems to be fine with things.]