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

[reformedsinner]

... Yes, I've thought about it. [Still half-smiling, he adds:] I'm not sure if we can get back, after all.

[But Gojyo's trying to lighten the mood, so Hakkai picks out another piece of meat, and follows the deliberate lightness of his tone.]

Hmm, I've thought about a seaside vacation. Somewhere tropical, with drinks that have umbrellas on sticks.

[erogappa]

A beach?

[ One of the worst things about being a shinki has to be always being hungry... but at least he's not starving anymore. He picks at the remaining food on the table, choosing a smaller piece and leaving the bigger for Hakkai. ]

I would've expected you to say somethin' like a museum or university. Someplace full of smart people talkin' about big lofty things. [ Not that he doesn't like the idea! ] A beach would be nice. Someplace hot, where you can feel it in your bones.

[reformedsinner]

[The face Hakkai makes at that suggestion is mostly facetious -- mostly. He takes the last piece of barbecue from the plate.]

No, no, I dropped out of university once already.

I'd much rather choose the beach. [Someplace hot... it's not that cold, really, here. It's never really that cold here; although the chill is sometimes deep enough that snow can linger in the shadows until afternoon, it never accumulates, and it's already warming back up for spring.

Still, the damp and the chill of winter have lingered too long for his taste.]

I'll bring a book and we can see if gods and shinki tan.

[erogappa]

[ It's tempting to flag their waitress down and get another beer, but the drowsiness starting to settle heavy in the back of Gojyo's mind makes that a terrible idea. He can't risk being out of control, even a little, around Hakkai these days -- his stupid brain and his stupid mouth just can't be trusted.

So he swipes his finger -- his finger, not his wrong hand's pointer -- through the sauce remaining on the plate, and enjoys a last taste of dinner instead. ]

Go out diving, see if there's anything fresh in the sand, then have a bonfire. [ He's never gone diving for abalone or dug for clams, but he's had them enough times in restaurants. They can only be better fresh, right? And this fantasy they're building, this vacation date... it's never going to happen. It's only ever going to be words, here and now, so why not make it as full as they can? ] Bet the stars look great, out on a beach.

[reformedsinner]

I bet they reflect off the ocean....

[It may only be a dream-vacation, but it's nice to talk about. And, perhaps, if they do end up staying, if there's no escape from this place in the end, it'll happen someday.

He can, after all, go anywhere he wants.]

But yes. We could steam clams, or sea snails, if we find any.

[erogappa]

You've never been?

[ He didn't mean to ask -- he's usually better about controlling his curiosity when it comes to things that might relate to his past. But the moment passes and he doesn't get that jolt that tells him he's fucking up, so he mentally shrugs and goes with it. ]

I mean, I guess there's a lot of China that's not near the ocean, huh. Not like here.

[reformedsinner]

I've visited a few times here, but not before that.

[He sighs out a breath, and adds:] There was the training session -- and we did have one summer party on the beach that Amaterasu attended, some time ago. I was still a shinki then.

[He'd found out exactly who 'Ukoku Sanzo' was that evening, in fact, and it'd ended in a fight that nearly involved a murder.

And Sanzo had vanished, overnight, leaving him without a god again.

Ah, memories. His eyebrows flicker up briefly.]

[erogappa]

[ That's right. There was a time when Amaterasu showed up at her own parties.

Having assholes like Gojyo confront her with threats about shinki memories was probably one of the reasons she'd stopped doing, that, huh. ]

Do you trust her? [ Nobody's listening in, but he still keeps his voice casual and low. Just two dudes having dinner, nothing to see here. ] I mean, this stuff with Sensei is gonna come to a head sooner rather than later, and she's already acting like she assumes we're gonna take her side when it happens. So I want to know what you think.

[reformedsinner]

[Hakkai sets his chopsticks down on the plate, neatening them with a touch of his fingertips.]

I think, of all of the Heavens' authorities, Amaterasu is the least likely to be malicious, or to be hiding anything from us.

But I also don't think that her interests are the same as ours.

[He looks up at Gojyo, and a muscle twitches in his jaw.]

Which is to say, I'm not on her side, no.

[erogappa]

Good.

[ That's about what Gojyo figured, but it's nice to have it confirmed. ]

What if you pretended like you were, though?

[ Hear him out -- there's a logic at work here. ]

You're God of Fortune, right? And they love that kind of noble shit. I can't get into Amaterasu's court and schmooze with all those high-up types... but you could, right?

[reformedsinner]

Maybe. [His glance is thoughtful.] I've spoken with Amaterasu several times, and as far as I know, she thinks of me as trustworthy.

[In short: he's been successful at lying to her before. And perhaps it's true that being a God of Fortune will give him more access; she'd said that he could call on her for assistance with his "new responsibilities," hadn't she?]

Which isn't to say the same of her advisers. I've had a few useful conversations with Suijin, but Fuujin wants me dead.

[erogappa]

[ He's not really surprised to hear that. For all that Hakkai pretends to be a mild-mannered school teacher, he's also been involved with a couple of ablutions, standing up for wayward shinki, and generally hasn't done a great job of putting up with heaven's shit. ]

But she's the boss, right? So you could tell her that you're worried about your flock of shinki, you want to use your new Fortune powers to help protect heaven, some bullshit like that. [ He grins, self-effacingly. ] Don't remind her that I'm one of those shinki and I bet she'd tell you whatever you wanted to know.

[reformedsinner]

Mm. The real question is what I could get out of it. [And it's true that Gojyo's made quite a mark: Hakkai isn't sure how that's going to reflect on Amaterasu's reaction to him. The older gods do seem to like the idea of gods controlling their shinki's behavior -- or casting their shinki out -- and he'd assumed responsibility for Gojyo very publicly.]

I've thought about trying to push her to take more control of what's going on, since she doesn't seem to be involved in anything that's directly harmful to us.