thenearshore | [OPEN + 1 closed]

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[OPEN + 1 closed]

Who: Ren & YOU
What: Shopping for things and experimenting with warding off ayakashi
When: May 1-4
Where: various places on the Near Shore
Warnings: n/a to start

A [ Shopping ]

i. May 1st, OTA

[After the disaster that was Amaterasu's pincic and the very tense days that have followed it, Ren has been in desperate need of getting out of the house and doing something for himself. Or mostly for himself. Besides, taking a break from work to have fun is what Golden Week is all about, isn't it?

So today he can be found flitting in and out of at least one dimly-lit shop full of mostly black clothing, spending far too long in a small shop contemplating coffee and tea choices, and standing outside a paper shop like he hasn't decided if he wants to go in or not.

Late in the afternoon, he can also be found rolling a plastic kiddie pool almost as tall as he in down the street. At least he's being careful not to run into anyone who doesn't seem to see him.]

ii. May 2nd, closed to Shun

[So around midday on the 2nd, Ren sends Shun this text:]

kurosak-ki~ ( ﾟ▽ﾟ)/ i want your advice on something~ could you meet me at [location]? i'm in the back (*＾-‘) 乃

[The location given turns out to be a small thrift shop, and Ren's distinctively mess red hair can just barely be seen over the top of some of the racks near the back of the store, just like he said.]

iii. May 3rd until mid-afternoon, OTA

[Today has a very specific goal and that is to find The Perfect Water Gun. In this noble pursuit, he's already bought several small-but-larger-than-pistol-sized water guns as well as another much larger one, which all all weighing down the bag in his hands.

In his preoccupation with find another place to look for more, he's stopped paying much attention to where he's going and suddenly--BAM. Hope he didn't run into you too hard!]

B [ Experimenting with Ayakashi - OTA ]

i. May 3rd around sunset

[All those water guns he bought earlier were for one purpose--to see what spraying shrine water at ayakashi will do (thanks for that idea, Shun). After all, he's on his own in the Near Shore more often than not, and anything he can do to ward off ayakashi would be a huge help.

So he's wandering around a park, taking aim at any small ayakashi he comes across. In fact, he had to start seeking them out in the first place because it seems to be working! But it's really only working to keep them away from him...]

ii. May 4th around sunset

[Warding off smaller ayakashi went so well yesterday that Ren decided to seek out a bigger one today to see just how big one could get before the water stopped being effective.

This was (obviously) a bad idea.

He can either be found running from the bear-like creature he pissed off, or slumped behind something to hide from it, but either way, he's covered in blight and has zero water left to deal with it. Help?]

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[Since taking care of cats isn't something that bends to holidays, Shun's been in and out of the cat cafe every so often despite it being Golden Week. Mostly minor things, some feeding, some cleaning, but he's just coming off a short shift of that when Ren texts him. His presence relatively close to the requested location is one of the reasons why he doesn't just tell Ren to ask whatever it is over the phone if it's that important.

So around five to ten minutes after the text, Shun comes through the door of the little shop, looking around rather skeptically. Instead of his usual attire, he's wearing a plain black shirt with a high neck and no sleeves, and pants and shoes in the same uniform colour, his red scarf knotted around his upper arm in a mirror to where Shun's used to Yuto wearing his. Ren's hair is impossible to miss poking over the shelves, and Shun looks spectacularly unimpressed as he makes his way through the shelves to Ren's side.]

I'm starting to think I shouldn't have assumed you'd have something important to ask about.

[Hakkai'd just been returning to the little Greek restaurant where Dionysus' shrine on this Shore happens to be tucked when three knee-high, crow-like ayakashi flutter hurriedly across the sidewalk in front of them. The first two keep going. The third turns in his direction, beak gaping as it catches a spirit's scent.

Hakkai sighs, long-suffering, and frees one hand from his grocery bag to slash a borderline down right through the center of the crow's body. It squawks in agony, and he looks up, shading his eyes with his hand, while it struggles and flails singlemindedly towards his ankles.

Oh, there is someone over there, isn't there? He sees a flash of red hair and neon plastic through the landscaped park bushes, and steps around an azalea to head in that direction.]

Excuse me! You're creating a public nuisance!

[At that moment, Ren has a couple of red shirts pressed up against the rest of the clothes in front of him, where he can stare at them and compare them to his heart's content. In fact, he's concentrating on them so much that he doesn't look up when he hears Shun and sounds very distracted when he answers.]

You shouldn't assume that just because I didn't say it was.

[That's not...why he's assuming that...

But see if that matters to incredibly distracted Ren. He goes on staring at the shirts for another moment, suddenly blinks as he realizes that someone really was just talking to him, and finally looks over to say hello--and just ends up looking surprised again.]

Oh, you do have other clothes!

[Amazingly, this was not actually the "something important" he'd texted about...]

[Ren has a surprisingly serious look of concentration on his face as he sprays at another, squirrel-like ayakashi near his feet--at the ground this time, to see if the water will act as a kind of barrier. So having someone suddenly calling to him--or rather, scolding him--is quite startling, and he jumps and immediately turns to see who it is.]

Oh, hello, Hakkai-san! Sorry--

[At that moment, the little ayakashi decides to take advantage of his distraction and leaps at his leg. Right over the wet line on the sidewalk. Yeah, that didn't work.]

Watch out!

[Hakkai breaks into a sprint: he's not close enough to get the right angle for casting a borderline between Ren and the little ayakashi he's spraying with -- a squirt gun? -- but he is fast in this form, fast enough that he covers the dozen meters between them before the ayakashi finishes its leap.

Not fast enough to cast the borderline and stop it from hitting Ren's leg, though. He swipes one clawed hand viciously down towards it, instead, aiming to smack it away with the full force of his arm.]

Milk tea's good.

[ He's kind of been standing there for a really long time, and she has to wonder if he's a shinki, to be having such a hard time deciding. ]

Depends on what you like, though.

[Ren is also not fast enough to stop the ayakashi from latching on to his leg, and it's determined to cling to his pants as long as possible, even as it gets hit dead on. But no matter how determined it is, it can't actually do it, and it goes flying off several feet.

By this time, Ren finally has his wits back, and as the ayakashi scrambles to run back at them, he sprays it in the face with the squirt gun. It immediately lets out an awful shriek and hightails it in the other direction.

Ren lets out a sigh of relief and then turns to give Hakkai a rather sheepish smile.]

Thank you. It didn't blight you, did it?

[Somehow, by some reality-transcending measure, Shun's expression becomes even less impressed when he notices what Ren's doing and the obvious lack of mental presence when he first responds. While he may have had to buy some clothes when he got a job, these days he can't even remotely imagine putting that much thought into it. Whether he can fight in it is about his only major caveat.

Not even bothering to respond to the first comment, since he's not even sure Ren would remember what was said, Shun shoots him a dry look when he finally notices his presence and opens with that particular observation.]

You caught me on my way back from work. It's not like I'm wearing other clothes for the hell of it.

[Anyway, that's not particularly important to Shun, so he goes on.] What do you want?

[Shun is not the only one who can look disappointed here, because Ren sure looks disappointed by that answer.]

Oh. You should wear something like that more often. It looks good on you.

[~~Take pride in your appearance. son.~~ Then he jots down "ask Shun where he works because holy crap he needs to visit" in his mental notes and moves on like he didn't just say something that could be taken as something not completely innocent. Again. And moving on means nodding at the shirts in his hands and frowning at them again.]

Which one do you like better?

[One is two shares of red lighter than the other, and one is a v-neck instead of a boat neck, but otherwise they're pretty much the same shirt. And somehow, this is also not what prompted the initial text.

Well, not the only thing, anyway.]

[Ren lets out a long sound that's a cross between a thoughtful hum and a nasally acknowledgement that he heard her and still isn't sure what he wants.]

It is...

[Maybe if he got coffee flavored milk tea...]

I like a lot of things, so it's hard to pick which one I want the most.

[The faint furrow of the brow Ren initially gets in response to that says Shun has become long enough disused to compliments that he's trying to read something else into the comment. A moment later, though, he's back in the vicinity of sour.]

I don't care about that sort of thing anymore. Appearance doesn't save you on the battlefield.

[Before the war, he had more of a mind for that, but now it's difficult to care at all for something that seems so trivial. And as such, he doesn't quite resist the urge to cast both Ren and the shirts a faintly incredulous glare before closing his eyes and pressing into them for a moment when Ren asks his next question.]

If this is what you called me for, I might throw you into one of these racks. They look almost the same, just pick one if you're going to pick one.

[There's only one shade of red he gives a particular damn about, and neither of these shirts are it, so they don't even have that going for them.]

Just a little! It's nothing serious. [He holds up his hand; his fingertips are stinging and turning purple, but the blight hasn't gone beyond those few tiny patches of skin.]

I'll just wash my hand later. And are you all right?

[He glances around at the odd splashes of water across the pavement, and adds, genuinely bewildered]

... What are you doing?

What sounds good right now?

[ She's helping?? Kind of.... ]

Oh yes, I think I'm fine.

[If it did get him through his pants, it's too small an amount to worry about right now. Kind of like the small amount on Hakkai's hand, but that's not going to stop him from worrying about that.]

You don't have to do that. The water is from my shrine. [He waves the squirt gun a bit just to emphasize which water he means by that, and then unless Hakkai makes it clear he'd rather wait, he'll be aiming at Hakkai hands next.]

My friend and I were wondering if it had any affect on the ayakashi themselves, so I'm testing it out.

It does seem to discourage them, but the ones that I ran across didn't look particularly hurt.

How have your results been so far?

[He holds out his blight-touched hand so that, if Ren squirts it, he won't get his pants wet as well.] Thank you, I appreciate it.

[This was a good decision, because he might have still gone for it otherwise. But now he doesn't have to worry! Goodbye blight.]

It's seemed that way to me too. They don't like it much, but I don't think it's actually hurting them. Discouraging them is all I really needed it to do, though.

[He'd like to be able to do more than that and actually do his job, but getting to that point is a completely separate project.]

[Only everything??? But that is obviously not a helpful answer.]

Maybe something fruity...

[Given the options, that is just about as helpful. New tactic!]

What are you thinking of getting?

So, are you trying to find a way to discourage them when you don't have your shinki with you?

[His eyebrows lift slightly.]

Is Hibari avoiding you?

Edited 2016-10-03 05:09 (UTC)

[Yeeep, those assumptions are both dead on, and Ren nods and shrugs like he's really trying not to let it bother him.]

He's trying to, but even before, he only rarely came along with me. ["Rarely" meaning "once and he doesn't even remember it".] I'm usually alone while I'm here.

But it would be nice if I had a way of discouraging them if something like the chocolates happens again too. I didn't have any way of stopping them from hurting other people either.

[Yukine is just hanging out on the Near Shore, waiting for Hiyori to be done whatever she's doing before meeting him for tutoring, when... there goes something you don't see every day.

A kiddie pool. Being rolled down the street.]

What... the heck...

[Well, seeing that familiar face and head of bright red hair following behind it kinda solves the mystery.
From the railing he's sitting on across the street Yukine calls out,]

Suzugamori-sama! You know, those things are easier to carry around when they aren't inflated yet?

Don't they? But they're still different and I want both of them so how am I supposed to just pick one?

[And with that he face-plants right into them and drives his hands into his hair. Which is such an overreaction to this very simple problem that he wouldn't actually blame Shun for turning and walking away right now. But hopefully it's also such an overreaction that it's clear it's maybe not just the shirts. This is over-the-top even for him.

After a moment, he slides down a fraction so his voice won't be so muffled by the clothes.]

I did text you because of the shirts, but I was also hoping we could just hang out for a while? You're not doing anything, are you? [pause] I'll buy you lunch.

[Granted, there's a decent chance Shun both has had lunch and is really not interested, but enticing people with food is always a good thing to try.]

[Oh hey, someone is yelling at him...and it's Yukine. Ren immediately beams at him and waves hello. It's always nice to see Yukine, especially when it doesn't involve something falling apart around them, and now he won't have to text him later either.]

Yep!

[And with that eloquent answer, he starts heading across the street so they don't have to yell. Luckily, there seems to be very little traffic at this point in time.]

[It's almost tempting to abandon Ren to his shirt-related agonies, but it is a little too much for something that's ostensibly about shirts. So rather than look too disgusted by the display, Shun watches and waits for the other shoe to drop.

When it does, he listens, and though he looks faintly confused again when Ren mentions hoping to hang out, he ultimately relents with an irritable sigh.]

You could have just said that in the first place. [Even if he's about as unused to being asked to hang out with people - unused to people's first reaction to him not being some form of fear, even with the weeks he's been out of his own world now - as it's possible to be, it's not something he would've found as ridiculous as the shirts.] You don't need to bribe me into it, either. I would've probably gotten food on the way back to my temple anyway.

[Someone still doesn't entirely trust Far Shore food. In any case, it's fairly clear Ren has something else on his mind, and Shun feels like it bears adding one more thing.] Just don't act like this the whole afternoon instead of just saying whatever the problem is.

Whaa- no wait don't cross in the middle of the-

[Too late. Yes, thank goodness there's not much traffic at the moment.
Not that a kiddie pool rolling down the street isn't enough to make drivers pause anyway.
As Suzugamori comes closer Yukine sighs.]

Haa- 'yep', you say, but why are you rolling this pool around inflated? Aren't you worried it'll get punctured?

I'd thought the two of you were getting along better than that. You know, Ren, you really are a remarkably patient man.

[Hakkai would have, in his place, lost his patience and laid down an ultimatum long ago. Gods aren't all that useful without their shinki, after all. No more than shinki can safely defend themselves without their gods -- and that must be how Hibari wound up injured and battling an ayakashi too strong for him when Roxas found him, mustn't it?

He sighs.]

Would you like me to talk to him about it, or do you want to work this out on your own?

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[OPEN + 1 closed]

A.ii. something something muffled thrift shop playing in the bg

May 3rd

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a-i, the coffee/tea shop.

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May 1 - pool. kiddie pool.

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