rakuen | hold the milk put back the sugar [OPEN]

Like clockwork. She promptly ignored Gino's question and put down her book. "I wanted to apologize."

And isn't that a surprise. He has the sneaking suspicion that he should have expected it, but the majority of their conversations thus far have been obscured in an amnesia-induced haze. "... What for?"

"For... the whole memories thing." Her words were said quietly, but carried all the sincerity in the world.

"Run on..." She blinked, stared and shook her head. Run on what now? Too late she realized her reaction had thoroughly made the situation rather unsalveageable. She shook her head slowly again and studied Gino while he made a fairly impressive tower out of bits of breakfast.

What did he want, anyway? They had talked a little before the fight, of course, but there seemed to be no connection between that and this random conversation...

"I don't recognize that fuel," Grenn said with a shrug. Because it was obvious it was some sort of fuel. Randomly, her brain settled on that fight with Gino, and the... contortions he'd gone through to... Not immediately win the round back then. Why?

"Gino... Why did you..." Should she even bother? She hoped it wouldn't sound like an accusation. "You could have won the last round. Why not?" In her experience, you always should try to finish as soon as possible when it came to blood sports. And in Grenn's mind, this... Exaclan was a blood sport.

Maybe not as literally bloody or deadly as the frisbee race back home, but that didn't really matter.

When Fletcher sits down with his cereal, juice, and fruit, he's hardly expecting the person across from him to be asleep. He peers over worriedly. "Um-- are you okay?"

"Apology accepted!" His reply is given a bit too early, with an easy shrug, but he appreciates it anyway, "Just make you you tell me again when I remember why, okay?"

"Because," he blinked, then grinned at her slowly, "That wouldn't be as fun, would it? Though I kinda misjudged how much time we had, in the end."

Fun? She must be missing something. Right?

"... It's not very fun when someone gets disemboweled..." Then she snapped her mouth shut and felt an embarrassed smile slide over her lips. Her sister had been kind of livid when she found Grenn in the stands that time. Well, she had only been eleven. Shaking her head, Grenn tried to reign in her thoughts. The pain was real, the weapons not. There was no damage done. Exaclan, however real on a level, would not (hopefully) kill anyone.

"Do you... um..." Grenn looked around, but her brain stalled. Come up with something, mentions of disemboweling wasn't a particularly logical reaction to what Gino had said... "You think... you'll prefer being a Weapon or a Player?" That seemed safe enough. Thank you brain.

"Who knows?" He allowed the second subject change without comment. Disemboweled? He thought for a second that he'd missed something, but going on the sudden change it was something from her own past. "Mei hasn't fought anyone yet. But, let's see... Weapons have more free time."

Huh...
"So Mei got you too?" It was kind of amusing, the girl had seemed rather insulted at how things had played out during their fight. Grenn was relieved Gino let the subject change go without comment. Disemboweling probably didn't make a good breakfast topic.

"Too?" He glanced at her hands, and noticed the mark. "Ha, so you're her other Weapon."

"What?" She honestly looked up at the male in confusion.

"Gino! Miss Grenn!"

Apparently just mentioning their Player had acted like some sort of ~~terrible~~ summoning, because guess who just popped on the other side of the table? She stood on a chair, of course. It did not help much to make her look taller. Not much at all.

"I figured out how to help Fletcher!" She dropped the game's rulebook on the table and paged through it, looking for a rule. "...what page was it on, um, somewhere here...?"

It took a moment-Sulu's not exactly a light sleeper at the best of times, but after a long moment he blinks, raises his head, and then, an eyebrow.

"'m sorry?"

"You--you were asleep," Fletcher stammered, and then he repeated himself. "Are you okay?"

That was sudden. Grenn blinked and then smiled, though Mei seemed very busy with whatever she was looking for.

"Help... who?" She didn't recognize the name, but Mei seemed very happy about having come up with whatever it was, so obviously she felt strongly about it.

The little girl hadn't so much walked as sneaked in, but, while giving suspicious stares over her shoulder at the rest of the people inside the dining hall, was walking normally enough while she piled fruits not onto a platter, but in the 'pocket' her jacket made when the ends were held up. She had not changed into the school uniform yet, and would resist as long as possible.

Compared to earlier times, Huashi didn't, at least, dash out of the room, but settled at a seat at the edge of a table closest to the doors. Most people here could be counted as 'adults', and this little monkey didn't trust many adults.

A moment later, when he'd collected his own meal, Kotarou came to sit next to her. Although his clothing was, technically, what would be classed as the uniform, it was so dirty and torn from a week sleeping outside that it might as well have been his old clothing.

He didn't really mind, though. It was warm, and he had a new follower.

"See?" He said, proudly, "I told you it was easy to get food here."

"Uh huh," Huashi mumbled with food in her mouth, almost spitting out a chewed-up piece of orange. Then Xuanzang's snippy voice echoed in her head and she swallowed. She didn't want to know what endless litany of complaint he'd lob at her when she came back and had forgotten the "manners" he'd taught her.

"Yeah! All these people though..." she gave a narrow-eyed stare around the room. "Smell strange. Not all bad though." She had been relieved, when she ended up here, and met Kotarou in the forest around this place. He'd almost smelled of home.

Of course, that could be the dirt they were both encrusted in, but Huashi hardly thought of that.

"It's good food too. Those people are strange to not have better eye on it!" Huashi said and waved a hand with a piece of banana in it at the end of the room where the food could be gathered.

"Some of the people here are good," he agreed through a mouthful of dry cereal, "Like Dave, and like Ichi." He took a bite of an apple, so both cheeks were full and he looked more hamster than boy, and glanced around to follow her banana-enhanced point. And shrugged. They wanted them all alive, he guessed. What was the use of stealing all these people and then not feeding them? He didn't voice this, because it was bound to upset Huashi, but it seemed pretty obvious.

Huashi nodded distractedly as she chewed the banana, picked up a kiwifruit, and, after studying thoughtfully, stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. ... Maybe she should have gotten a bowl of water and scrubbed off some of the floss on the skin of it, first...

"Yeah, well," though that wasn't exactly what came out, due to food-in-mouth syndrome, and she chewed and swallowed before trying again. "That lady... Ichi? She smells off. She nice, though?"

Huashi hadn't gotten out to greet Kotarou's... "Player" when he pointed her out, but if Kotarou said she was okay, Huashi was slightly more inclined to believe it. She stilled smelled off, though.

"She's nice!" He said it mostly out of misguided loyalty, but then realised that some caution was needed and added, "A bit weird, though."

He demolished the rest of his apple, and went back to his cereal. "What d'you mean by 'she smells off', anyway? You keep saying that."

She'd head how Ichi spoke, yes, and out of an urge to reassure Kotarou, Huashi shook her head.

"Don't worry about the way she talks. Some people do it like that!" She wasn't going to tell him that one of the few she'd met that talked like that was a demon who had been trying to eat Xuanzang. But then, they all did.

"Ohh... Well!" Huashi said brightly and help up her own apple. "Everything has a smell, right? Apples smell like apples, but people all smell different. You smell like you!" She paused to nod decisively and then tilted her head.

"Ichi... Smells like she should, but... It's like something's wrong, you know? Like she forgot a rotten fruit somewhere." Huashi couldn't explain it better than that. She didn't smell like the demons did, though, so Huashi didn't think she was evil.

"Rotten fruit..." Kotarou mumbled it, then blinked. A human who smelled of something gone bad. To him, that didn't mean 'demon', that meant... He dropped his apple core as he half-stood on his chair, "Is she sick?"

Staring, Huashi gaped a bit, then snapped her mouth closed.

"Oh, no..." She thought hard, comparing the 'sick smell' to that of Ichi's. It was... close, yes. "I'm sorry Kotarou! I shouldn't have... That's kind of what she smells like, yes." It was closest, at least, so to Huashi, it was one and the same.

"I'm sure she'll be okay, though!" Sick people either got better, or died, and Ichi didn't smell of near-death, just faintly-sick.

"She doesn't smell like she's gonna die soon," Huashi said with a nod, certain of her conclusion.

hold the milk put back the sugar [OPEN]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

/threeeaaadjaaack like a boss

no subject

no subject

Re: /threeeaaadjaaack like a boss

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject