thenearshore | /man in black lyrics

Who: Gojyo and anyone who wants to stop by!
What: Hanging out, having adventures, engaging in healthy coping habits
When: Any time of any day from May 12-15ish
Where: chez Dinosaur
Warnings: Homo-antagonistic language in the Niles thread.

He's never going to sleep again. Which is fine -- he knows from experience that he can go weeks on end with only a few hours of sleep snatched here and there between youkai attacks. It won't kill him. He doesn't even feel all that tired, not really. He more feels like he's asleep and dreaming than anything else -- everything is at a bit of a distance and his reactions are slowed, like the air's gone thicker or something. Like he's a little drunk, even though he hasn't touched a drop since his return. It's weird and unsettling, but he's sure it'll wear off. And even if it doesn't, it's not something to bother anybody with. He's been enough of a bother already.

So during the day, he sticks close to Hakkai -- he's worried the other man enough already by vanishing, so it's the least he can do to stay near (and if that means running errands or sitting quietly in the back of the classroom while school is in session, he supposes that he can manage). And at night, when he wakes after only an hour or two of sleep, he tracks down Asshole and drags the half-man out to the porch with him, for company while he smokes pack after pack and watches the moon.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He glances at her instinctively as she steps back, and a pang of guilt immediately softens his scowl. Shit. Here she is trying to do something nice, and he's bitten her head off. Worse, it looks like she's about to start crying. That's right, Gojyo, he mentally chides himself. That's all you're good for, isn't it? Making girls cry.

"Hey," he begins, reaching out a hand to stop her from leaving. "You're right, it was both nice and good, I'm just an asshole. I'm sorry. So don't cry, okay?"

"You're not an asshole," she said while regarding the apology. It didn't change things to how they were before, but it was enough of a sign that perhaps she went into this with a little too much energy. So the blonde looked less like she was about to cry, but still remained a little reserved. Perhaps she should have been more considerate as well, given that she was a stranger in all of this. "And I wasn't going to cry. Run away and be mad at myself for messing up, probably, but not cry."

Because that was so much better. "You didn't mean to be like that, though. Whatever made you disappear was probably really scary, and I can imagine that it would be hard to move past that. So you're forgiven. Here-"

She stepped back forward, reaching her own hand out but not grabbing at Gojyo's. It was an offered handshake, not wanting to force anything. Though if he took it, Gojyo would probably realize that she was about room temperature. At the same time, the golden-skinned woman had a smile back up- not quite as bursting with energy as before, but still kind. A brand new beginning, trying with a new introduction. "I don't believe we've met. My name's Trance; Trance Gemini. I recently arrived and thought I would get to know the area better."

He takes her hand -- he's been rude enough, and holding a pretty girl's and will ever be a hardship. Even a pretty girl whose hands are kinda cold.

But she's not acting like she's cold, so maybe she's just one of those people whose hands are always cool. Nothing weird about that. (The gold skin is a little weird, he's not going to pretend it's not, but he's come to accept that people get brought in from all different worlds. And he's sure not going to make a big deal about somebody's skin color, I mean come on. He's an asshole but he's not that kind of asshole.)

"Sha Gojyo." And then, since she clearly does name order in the Western way... "Sha's my, uh, family name. Call me Gojyo." It was probably really scary, she says, and fuck, she doesn't know the half of it. "Did they make you a god or a shinki?"

They certainly do bring in people of all kinds and colors here. Some had also thought she was a kind of demon when they realized her ears were pointed underneath all of the hair, but the lack of temperature seemed to put that aside.

"Oh," something clearly clicked when he introduced himself. So if Gojyo was his given name, that meant Cho was Hakkai's family name, which really fixed a lot of her perspective. So Trance gets the phone out to quickly fix that contact while answering the question. "They brought me here as Youji- Hedone's shinki. I'm still getting used to how everyone has two names, and it didn't occur to me until now that the order of the real name varies as well. Hakkai never corrected me when I called him Cho, you see."

With that fixed, the phone goes back away. Of course she silently questioned why Hakkai had let her continue that, but reasoned it off as a misunderstanding. She'll apologize later. "You're a god, right? If you ever need more help, just let me know."

A misunderstanding. Sure, that's one word for it. "I think I've got all the help I need with Cho in there," he deadpans, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the temple. But he's not going to pretend he didn't understand her offer.

"You much of a fighter, Trance Gemini?" He suspects the answer is no. He suspects that she's one of those helpful people who makes themselves available to everyone (not unlike a certain female version of some surly old man priest), and that she doesn't really know what she's offering. He suspects also that she hasn't made this offer to many people so far, because given some of the assholes calling themselves gods, her casual offer of going nora would have beeen squashed good, especially by the old ones.

Still. It's a nice gesture. "Gone hunting ayakashi yet?"

"I mean, I don't like fighting. It's pretty scary," she admitted, not commenting on how it's a little too scary for her. Really Trance was something of a coward, hiding more often than not, but she'd feel kind of bad admitting to that. However she hated people getting hurt even more, which is where the offer started to come up. "When the people in the city were getting drained, over a week ago, there were a lot of bat ayakashi in the park. I don't know if it counts for hunting them, but I helped Kurama with them."

Which is clearly where she got the idea of offering to take a name from those that might need an added shinki. Some people are just so impressionable. For as naive as she seems, Trance's tone goes a little more serious.

"Whether I like something or not doesn't change it from happening. As easy as it is to hide, I'd rather people not get hurt when it's avoidable. That's far more important."

Nope, he stopped listening at the part where people were getting drained.

"Drained? What do you mean, drained?"

"Hm? Oh," she doesn't really waste time going into explaining. Though how helpful it would be...

"Well, it was the day that I arrived so I don't completely understand, but something was done in a city that was draining everyone that was in the area. Over in the park, there were a lot of lines on the ground and a big cup with this eye symbol, like um... A ritual, I think?

"Youji and some others handled the one behind it all. I guess it wasn't an ayakashi, because he never called me to help him."

See, she says draining, and what he hears is that people were being bled dry, hung up like pigs with their throats slit. "That's dark magic," he mutters -- he's seen enough of it in the past few days to have a good idea what human sacrifice looks like. "The magician... he's dead, right? Your god, he killed him? That's good." That's a relief, is what that is. A visible relief, written all over his face.

"Think I'm glad I missed that one."

"My god and some other people, yeah. It was really a strange feeling being there and just slowly losing all of your energy, but worse watching it. So many people were walking right into traffic."

Not to say anything of the people that were driving. Though it's that Trance didn't know that there was a misinterpretation of what she had said, and continued on. "Hopefully the next time something happens, it's not so dangerous. I think someone mentioned that there's picnics once in a while?"

/man in black lyrics

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