34 - Love is in the Air

[godsoffortune]

Who: Everyone!
What: An enterprising pair of shinki is trying to spread love throughout the Far Shore with exciting blind dates.
When: February 14
Where: Hot romantic spots throughout Tokyo
Summary: Blind dates on Valentine's Day? Sounds like fun (or possibly a disaster, but everyone needs some good disaster stories.) That's not all that's going on, though. Ayakashi are looking to chow down on the negative emotions that a romantic holiday can generate, and those who aren't busy with their own dates might be sucked into helping out followers who need help to make the day go well.






The Dates

Blind Date Matchups

Those who have signed up -- or whose friends and colleagues have signed them up -- for dates will get cards with specified times and meeting places inside for the big event. The cards don't list their dates' names, but instead have a matching symbol to allow everyone to find their proper partner. If anyone tries to stand up their date, they can expect a small and angry owl to harass them until they give in.


• Date One: The Romantic Brunch.
  Couples will find themselves with reservations (and pre-paid coupons for the prix fixe menu) at a swanky French restaurant with a wide balcony overlooking the lake in a central Tokyo park. They can dine on dainty pastries, sweet milk coffees, bowls of grapes and hothouse strawberries, and a selection of fancy chocolates and petit-fours-- plus, some of the trees in the park are blooming in holiday-appropriate red and white!



• Date Two: The Aquarium.
  Couples scheduled for this date have tickets to a rooftop aquarium in Ikebukuro: brightly colored fish, animals including penguins, seals and pelicans, a small petting zoo and plenty of shadowy, secluded nooks to cuddle in make for a fun lunchtime date. The tickets even include admission to the one o'clock penguin and seal show!



• Date Three: The Amusement Park.
  This date sends couples to spend the evening enjoying themselves at a seaside amusement park. Ride the roller coasters! Take selfies with the costumed attendants! Share an overpriced ice cream cone while you watch the fireworks after sunset, then wind up the night with a ride on the colorfully lit Ferris wheel with a romantic view of the Tokyo skyline.

Ayakashi Menace

There's more than just romantic couples out to enjoy themselves today. Romantic holidays can be tough for those whose love lives aren't so rosy, and as always, those negative feelings draw in ayakashi who are ready to ruin everybody's day.

All across the city, besides the usual ayakashi, characters might encounter the following:

Flocks of dove ayakashi whose mournful call induces self-doubt, suspicion and paranoia in everyone who hears it. Are your friends really your friends? Is your lover betraying you? Shouldn't you hurry up and stab them in the back before they can do it to you? These ayakashi are small and agile, difficult to catch but easy to destroy once they're caught... if you can overcome the urge to turn on your allies first.

Long-fingered shadow ayakashi, large and powerful, and capable of sneaking around by blending into genuine shadows. These ayakashi draw those who are alone into their clutches, filling them with resentment and despair. Anyone battling them needs to watch out for the humans they might already have influenced, who may become unpredictable and violent as the ayakashi influencing them grows more desperate.

Cute teddy bear ayakashi, that influence anyone they cling to into greedy obsession: they need attention, affection and gifts, and they can never have enough. When attacked, the teddy bears turn out to fight a little more like a grizzly bear than a stuffed toy, so gods and shinki beware!

Praying for Love

Those who aren't busy with their own dates might find themselves busy taking care of other people's instead. On a day like this one, everyone's praying that things turn out perfectly! Prayers gods might hear include:

"He's just got to ask me out! I made him the biggest box of chocolates... please, let senpai notice me!"

"Does she really like me? Please, give me a sign."

"I got concert tickets for our date, but it's supposed to rain. Please let me find a way to make this work out anyway!"

"The restaurant I wanted to take him to isn't taking any more reservations for tonight. What can I do? I can't cook!"

Wild Card -- players are free to make up their own romance-adjacent prayers for their characters to fulfill.

In Summary:

• Enjoy your dates
• Fight some ayakashi
• Make sure to answer prayers for a good Valentine's Day
• Have fun~

Comments

[erogappa]

[ Hakkai sounds mad. Gojyo doesn't set his chopsticks down, doesn't really react, but there's a decided set to his jaw as he reaches for another bite. ]

Dunno. I didn't want to risk anyone followin' me so I haven't been back.

[ Should he admit that Goku helped? ...No, he dragged Goku along, the kid didn't volunteer. Hakkai can be mad at him, not at the shrimp.

Oh, speaking of... mmm. Shrimp. ]

[reformedsinner]

[Gojyo's jaw sets mulishly. Hakkai's lips flatten -- of course, he should've realized that being worried about the risks Gojyo's running on behalf of a child would only annoy him -- and he moves briskly ahead, picking up a bit of something that looks like carrot and seaweed.]

It'll need human attention if it's going to do her any good. We should ask her, when we meet.

[Which they are still going to do, even if Gojyo's decided to get defensive again. Aren't they?]

[erogappa]

[ Damn right they are. She needs help, and Gojyo's come to accept that he can't help her by himself. ]

I'm not stupid, you know. [ It'll need human attention, come on. ] I know it needs humans around. That's the whole point.

[ Pettily, he helps himself to the last bite of that wonderful pork. ]

I did my research.

[reformedsinner]

I know you did. I'm just not sure if something built by a person from the Far Shore will get mortal attention.

[Ah, there's the sound of Now you're calling me stupid! again, lurking in Gojyo's voice. It's more that Hakkai's afraid it'll draw the wrong sort of attention, and if the shrine doesn't have any human traffic concealing the signs of a shinki's hard work--

-- then will they be able to track it back to that shinki? Will he be able to defend Gojyo against Amaterasu again? He isn't willing to trust his God of Fortune title too far. Ebisu had been executed, after all.]

[erogappa]

Sure it will.

[ Look, there's a lot of issues with his plans, and he can't be mad that Hakkai thinks he didn't consider all the options. Amaterasu's people will probably find the shrine, eventually, and they'll probably be able to tell he's the one who set it up. He's accepted that risk from the first. But the idea that humans might not see it? That doesn't make any sense. ]

Heaven didn't have a human go set up your shrines, right? [ Actually, he doesn't know the answer to that, but he'd be really surprised if any humans had been involved. ] Plus, the book I found, it was instructions for gods to set up shrines for themselves. No mortals required.

[ He is right about this. Isn't he? ]

[reformedsinner]

There have been humans caring for my shrines for as long as I've been a god -- longer, I suspect. I've never heard of a god making their own shrine.

[He shakes his head, slowly, frowning in thought.]

But just because I haven't heard of it doesn't mean it's impossible. I know they often fail to notice things we do, though, as well as not noticing us.

[Online postings, for example, seem to elude the living even when they're not just on the Heavens' bulletin board.]

[erogappa]

[ Humans caring for his shrines? Aw, shit. That's different. Gojyo's face falls. ]

Th'book didn't say anything about that.

[ Or maybe it did -- it's not like he got to finish reading the section, what with some asshole interrupting him and throwing books at his head. ]

Shit, what if it's not working? [ This is actually serious. ] If she doesn't have any other followers besides this Sensei guy, she could vanish at any time.

[ He looks up, meeting Hakkai's eye with his best let's go break shit grin. ]

Want to take this date on the road?

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai checks his watch, looks up and around for the server, shrugs slightly, and tosses a crumpled few bills on the table. It's too much, but they can come back once they've checked Votelli's shrine.]

Let's. Where is it?

[His smile is a little sharp-edged as he adds:]

As soon as we're sure she has a few other followers, we can do something about that 'Sensei.'

[erogappa]

[ Gojyo's mouth goes dry, and he makes a mental note to find other excuses to get Hakkai to smile like that. Maybe they don't need to cuddle much. Maybe they can just kill people. ]

It's next to that big gardening store, on the north side of town. [ He's not really dressed for this adventure, but at least his coat is warm! ] You know where that is?

[ Can we teleport instead of taking the bus? is the real question there. ]

[reformedsinner]

I think I do. [He knows of a big gardening store on the north side of town, at least. He steps around the edge of the table and offers Gojyo a hand. They can teleport-- which means, if this doesn't take too long, they might even get back in time to finish dinner.]

Shall we?

[erogappa]

[ Hakkai holds out his hand so casually, and Gojyo takes it without hesitation. It's just so they can teleport, he knows. No need to make a big thing about it. ]

Let's do it.

[ The gardening store Hakkai was thinking of is the right one -- it's big, big enough to carry small trees and pallets of brick and stone, and not just the little houseplants and bug traps that some of the other shops in the area offer. Big enough to have its own parking lot. Around the side of the building, where the parking lot wraps around, is one of those heavy plastic gardening sheds, just big enough for a person to stand inside, and it's this shed that Gojyo had turned into a shrine.

To his amazement, it's still intact. There's the bell that he stole from Kali's shrine, the carefully painted TORIMOTO down the inside of the doors, a scrap of curtain across the back. There's even water -- the shrine is pushed up against the wall where a spigot juts out, and there's a hole cut in the plastic back of the box to let it poke through, over a (thankfully empty) basin. The donation box is missing, of course, but that's to be expected. The body of the shrine is still here, and maybe that's enough. ]

[reformedsinner]

[It's in one piece, at least; and it looks like a real shrine. The bell, the name, the water basin, the name written down the shrine doors--

Bird forest? Hakkai blinks at it.]

Where did you get the name?

[He takes out a tissue, running it lightly over the top edge of the empty basin, and checks. There's a smudge of dirt visible against the tissue, but not too much.]

-- I think someone must be coming in here.

[erogappa]

[ After an initial and very brief once over of the shrine, Gojyo's instead been watching the streets around them. There's plenty of people out, but they're all on the street, driving up and down. Nobody's paying attention to a box store that's closed for the night, and that's a good thing. Gojyo's just going to keep an eye out and make sure it stays that way. ]

She suggested it. The name. [ Although, would he even know if they were being watched? If one of Amaterasu's shinki stumbled out from behind a tree, maybe, but she's not that sloppy. ] Can you tell if it's been working?

[reformedsinner]

[He nods, and continues wiping down the basin as he looks over the shrine. His own shrine has a certain atmosphere, something that even his chi training can't help him parse out but that he's learned to recognize; he hasn't felt it in other shrines, though, and he doesn't feel it here.

Which doesn't mean it's not working.]

If people are visiting it, then they're doing something. I don't see any offerings, though...

[After a moment, still frowning, he shakes his head.]

I think we'd have to ask her.

[erogappa]

[ Gojyo glances over his shoulder briefly, frowning at Hakkai. What's he doing? Wiping out the bowl? Why? Why the bowl, and not any of the rest of it? ]

I figured any offerings would get stolen, but I didn't know if it mattered, so long as they'd been offered. [ The book hadn't been clear about that. The book hadn't been clear about a lot of things -- fuck but he wishes he could have just asked somebody, instead of having to figure all this out on his own! ] Guess I'm not very good at magic stuff.

[reformedsinner]

[The bowl first, and he's folding the tissue to reveal a clean side as he moves on to wiping down the rest of the little shrine. Name first, then the bell, which is a bit less dusty, it seems.]

If humans are coming here, you've done something right.

[He glances up, the curious frown shading into a small smile.]

I don't know nearly enough about metaphysics to guess what, that's all.

[erogappa]

[ Oh. So he's just cleaning it from the bottom up, okay. Gojyo shrugs it off, attention going back to their surroundings and any potential threats. Hakkai likes to clean -- that's nothing unusual. ]

I've tried to find her. A couple times, now. [ Now that he knows she leaves the forest sometimes with Sensei, that makes more sense -- and it's certainly a nicer thought than the idea that the shrine didn't work and she's dead. ] How long ago did you say you saw her on that video?

[reformedsinner]

The footage was from a little over a month ago, but I didn't find it until recently.

[He quirks a brief smile, and adds, apologetic:]

There was a lot to cover.

I suppose the forest's rather large, too. I'll help you look for her.

[erogappa]

[ A month. She was alive a month ago. That's something.

That's also not that long after he'd set the shrine up here. Gojyo doesn't turn around, keeping his eyes on the road, but his voice drops low like he's speaking right into Hakkai's ear. ]

A messed up shrine wouldn't hurt a god, would it?

[ What if tying her name to a shrine that was set up incorrectly somehow drained her magic, instead of recharging it? What if using another god's shrine parts meant that the prayers went to that other god? What if? ]

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai glances up -- well, yes, of course. He hadn't been able to find her in the last few times he'd visited the forest; of course he's worrying.]

I can't imagine how it could.

[He folds the soiled tissue and tucks it into his pocket, since there's nowhere to throw it away here, and he's not going to litter Votelli's shrine, small as it is. Hands free again, he straightens up, and puts a hand, lightly, on Gojyo's shoulder.]

The worst that might happen is that it doesn't work.

[With a different name on it, far away from where she stays, it wouldn't even provide much of a clue if the Heavens found it; there's no way she could have been hurt by Gojyo's efforts.]

[erogappa]

[ The touch is unexpected -- Gojyo's shoulder jumps beneath Hakkai's hand, but there's no mistaking the relief in that smile. ]

Okay. [ Hakkai doesn't know as much about shrines as Gojyo wishes he did, but if he says that the shrine didn't hurt Votelli, Gojyo's going to believe that until proven otherwise. He takes a deep breath, his breath fogging in the chill air. ] Okay, so let's go find her.

[ Not right this second, obviously. ]

Tomorrow?

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai returns his smile; it's embarrassing how much better he feels to be trusted enough to see this little handmade shrine.]

Tomorrow. I'll meet you at noon.

Ah, if you'd like, we can probably get back to the restaurant in time to finish dinner...

[If they're lucky, the waitress won't have noticed their table and cleared it. He's not particularly hungry, but the food had been good, and they'd barely had time to start eating after their fight and before leaving the table. He offers Gojyo a tiny quirk of a smile.]

[erogappa]

[ I'd like to spend more time with you, says Hakkai, and Gojyo can feel his mood lifting.

(Not just his mood, to be honest... although with how tight his pants are there isn't room for much lift.) ]

I'm not gonna say no! [ Little smiles, private meals, working together to overthrow the people in power. This is okay. This is better than okay. Maybe Hakkai's right, maybe sex would just get in the way.

He's got his memories. That'll be enough.

He meets Hakkai's tiny smile with a broad one of his own, and holds out his hand. ]

I'm starving.

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai's smile widens, just a little, in response, and he folds his hand around Gojyo's to take them both back to the street just outside the restaurant.

He doesn't release Gojyo's hand immediately; it's warm in his, and the mid-February breeze is brisk.]

So am I.

[He lets go, and steps inside. There's a plate of sliced meats ready on their table -- the main course, good -- and the waitress is standing next to it, counting the money he'd left, looking confused.

Perfect timing.]

[erogappa]

[ She looks so confused, poor lady. Confused, and when she spots them, guilty. Does she think they think she's stealing from them?

Well, that's easily fixed. ]

Don't mind us. [ He shrugs out of his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair, casual as anything. ] Just stepped out for a smoke, and didn't want you thinkin' we'd bailed on the tab. [ He nods at the cash, favoring her with his smoothest, flirtiest grin. The grin is actually for Hakkai, of course. ] Don't think we're done yet, though.

[ Things get a little squeezed as he slides into his seat, but it's a good reminder to keep his mind out of his pants. His palm still holds a ghost of the heat from Hakkai's hand, and he rubs it casually across his mouth, breathing in the faint scent of Hakkai's soap. ]

Think we could get some tea?