2025-06-27: Excitement At Paulownia Mall
- Log: Excitement At Paulownia
- Cast: Minato Arisato, Ririka Kawase, Ichika Kawase
- Where: Paulownia Mall, Tatsumi Port Island
- OOC Date: June 27, 2025
- IC Date: June 01, 2012
- Summary: Two classmates (Minato and Ririka) almost literally run into each other. Then, the sukeban arrives.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Paulownia Mall traps girls in glass jars, with its great glass dome surrounding its rich architecture. No depressing tableau is this, though: the Mall is a /hopping/ place, distinctively circular as it curves around that beautiful water feature at its core.
There are dozens of stores here -- including a karaoke bar called 'Mandragora' up the stairs, and Kenneth Arnold, the music store on the first floor. It's the middle of the afternoon, so Club Escapade isn't /open/ yet, with its own flavour of pounding music... though Club Escapade is also an /over-eighteens/ club, technically speaking.
Close by Kenneth Arnold is also... /the arcade,/ Game Parade, a thing which Minato Arisato now walks out of. His hands are shoved in his pockets; he's just played and lost several rounds of Horror House, so his spook-o-metre is currently hovering around 'ghoulish'.
He expresses this terror the same way he expresses everything: with a vague, blank expression as he listens to the rock music pounding in his earphones, fed up through that MP3 stick-player dangling from his neck like a necklace. It's after school, so he's still wearing his Gekkoukan uniform, and most of the students milling around the mall have the same idea. Most, in fact, wear the same /uniform./ This mall is quite a trek for /non-/Gekkoukan students, after all.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Paulownia /is/ a popping place, full of energy and excitement... but there is at least one girl here who seems rather out of place. She'd been sitting in the food court for a while, by herself, her own earbuds in. She's also in a Gekkoukan uniform, with a pair of laced up boots and a leather bracelet on her right wrist. She'd been leaned back, balancing expertly in a chair for... a pretty long time, without seeming to think about it much. Her long brown-black hair hangs behind her, past the chair, and her red eyes seem to been looking at... nothing in particular.
She didn't have any homework out, or any compnay, just a rather large fruit smoothie that she'd been sipping from. And she'd been tapping her fingers on her thigh, over her uniform skirt, seemingly in time with the music from her headphones.
Eventually she sighs, easing her chair down into its properly grounded state and stands up, making her way towards the arcade. She seems to be moving a bit slowly, a bit lethargic. She's been that way for most of May, really. Maybe one of the dancing games will give her a pick-me-up.
But she's almost on top of Minato before she draws to a stop, blinking and taking a step back. She's actually few inches taller than him, at 5'10". She pulls one of the earbuds out, classical music still playing tinnily through it. "Oh, Arisato-san. Sorry, I... didn't see you there."
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Ririka... a girl who has been by turns weary, cheerful, then weary again. Minato averages it out to 'tired', in his mind; he isn't terribly connected with the people around him, though Kenji does invite him out to have a bowl of noodles here and there. It's not that he's unfriendly -- it's just that he's not all that invested, one way or another.
He's caught up in his own beat, like the sound of a heartbeat screaming in his ears, straining against...
anyway.
Minato disconnects, and so barely notices who he's stepping around, graceful enough not to run right into him but not /looking/ terribly closely. For instance: he's not a him, despite being so tall, a thing Minato only recognises when he looks up to Ririka with a dull blink.
Oh. His classmate. "Hello, Kawase-san," Minato offers to her, mildly. He looks at the earbuds in her hand. There is half a second of pause.
/Then/ he reaches up to take his own earphones out. Rock music plays through them, distantly, as they settle around his neck.
"... you're distracted?" He asks, with a tilt of his head.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka is definitely not a he. Though that's a bit more evident /now/ than when she had the initial growth spurts when she was much younger. (The uniform might also help, in that regard.) She's already reaching into a pocket to pause her own music, her earbuds silencing as they're being hastily shoved into a pocket.
She's not moving much faster than he is though, offering a hesitatn smile at the recognition of her name. One hand is still holding her smoothie, but her free hand is dangling by her side. When the headphones comes off, and the rock music keeps playing through them, she looks down at them for a moment, and then back to Minato. The fingers on her free hand twitch a little bit, and if one is sharp-eyed (and sharp-eared) enough, they might recognize she's keeping tempo with Minato's song.
That question though. "S-sorry, I just... looking at something in the arcade." She tries to smile a little, apologetically. "Were you just there?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Not /all/ of the students at Paulownia Mall today are from Gekkoukan. It's a lovely mall, and Ichika Kawase has spent many an afternoon here... But today she's only here for a little while, in theory. She steps into the main foyer of the mall, another girl in a glass jar. She is /very/ tall, standing out quite clearly even before her attire, which stands out even more. Baggy, deep green cargo pants over smooth-laced sneakers for the bottoms, and a midriff-baring black top--long-sleeved--with a skull on it over her bust. Her hair is long, bleached-blonde, and she's wearing stud earrings instead of dangly.
She doesn't slouch. She's 180cm tall, and she towers over even a lot of the boys as she walks across the floor, to look down into the central fountain, aoiding most others.
Then, as she catches a reflection--
Ichika notices Ririka and Minato, and frowns. It's not a big change to her expression, as it happens. But she walks over a moment later, her long strides quickly taking her just outside the arcade, where they are. "Ririka-chan," Ichika says, and the tone is one of disapproval in the moment.
"You about ran straight into your friend there." Wait, maybe not disapproval--
"You're going to get hurt if you don't watch where you're going."
Ah, that's it. Concern.
Ichika traces a red-eyed gaze towards Minato, then. "...Hey."
'Introduce me', she could say, but doesn't in the moment. Instead, "...Your music's still going," she says.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
DEATH IS COMING --
No, wait, it's a sukeban, false alarm.
Thusly is Minato oblivious to the doom descending upon them until Ichika towers over them; he /does/ slouch a little, and he's easily ten centimetres shorter than her even before then, so he's looking up and up to her when she announces herself.
Blink. ... blink.
"Yo."
Minato lifts a single hand in greeting.
He's pretty good-looking, for a boy who's entirely checked out; he has that kind of air which clearly reads /mysterious,/ something carried both by the distance in his gaze and the reserved nature of his tone. But no introduction is requested. Instead...
"Right," Minato says, and his hand drops, from that loose wave, to press a button on his MP3 stick.
And so his dread stops burning, though the tempo, while it played, was swinging and lively.
There is another pause. One, two, three seconds. Four --
"Yeah," he says, turning his attention back to Ririka.
Yeah?
Oh, the arcade.
"The games... today it's Mole Wrackers and Horror House."
He's... helping?
Beat.
"Mole Wrackers has faster music." This, Minato adds as he looks right at Ririka's one-twitching hand.
How did he notice /that/ and not who he was about to run into?!
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
There's always a bigger fish. Or in this case, there's a gbigger sister. The twitching of her fingers--really all of her does, as she hears her name spoken, and that tone. "Neesan?"
She winces a little as she's called out, her tone going a little strained. "I didn't though and I apologized and it was just something that caught my eye in the arcade, so it's not even a big deal." Her teeth are all but clenched as she rushes to get that out. (That last part is a lie. She really wasn't paying attention.)
She sighs a little. "So, Ichika-chan, this is Minato Arisato. He's in my class. Arisato-san, this is Ichika Kawase, my older sister." After a beat she adds, more quietly, "She goes to Kasugayama."
She almost looks like she wants to say something else when Minato goes to turn off the MP3 payer but doesn't.
There's an awkward pause, as she's looking between sister and classmate, and then Minato answers a question she'd forgotten about. Ririka blinks, confusion flicking across her face before she remembers. "Oh! Right, cool."
She nods along, "Oh, cool. Mole Wrackers and Horror House, those are good."
"Oh, really?" she says of Mole Wrackers. But then she follow's Minato's gaze down to her hand and lightly blushes, her fingers reflexively curling up as she shoves her hand into a pocket to try and pretend there wasn't anything to see. "I'll-- I'll remember that. Thanks."
It's not the first time she's done that, really. It happens in class quite a bit, though she tries pretty hard to keep that under wraps.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
There are advantages to pants. Even for a sukeban sometimes.
Ichika is used to towering over people, though, so it doesn't particularly faze /her/. She just waits for the greeting, and when Minato lifts a hand, she nods back. That'll do. Calm, casual...
He does read pretty mysterious. But before mystery, Ichika must attend to, 'Neesan?'. "If neither of you's bothered it's fine," she allows, "But be more careful. You can't keep playing music if you sprain your wrists because you tripped over someone."
She stops for introductions, and nods. "Arisato-san. Nice to meet you."
The pauses again. "Yeah, I do," Ichika answers, immediately on the defensive about her school. "Is that going to be a problem?"
It could be awkward... but Ichika, too, is caught up in a belatedly-answered question. "Are they?" she asks of the games. "I just mess with the little machine here," she admits, out of her depth when talking about arcades. "I got a little Jack Frost out of it once."
Ichika looks at Minato looking at Ririka's hand. She tilts her head.
"Looks like he caught you," she points out, because it is the prerogative of the older sister to tease the younger.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Ririka stumbles over herself. Minato can hear it. She's nervous... right? "It doesn't bother me," he says, in her defence(?), with that same bland tone and expression.
But she's her older sister... is that why she's nervous. Minato files that away for later, to ask Minako. Maybe that's normal. Maybe he never noticed. "Kawase-san," Minato echoes, when Ririka introduces her. Her quiet addition doesn't make him double-take, though he does remark: "... pretty long trip."
Beat.
"Not really," he shrugs a shoulder, answering Ichika's question on what seems to be a typical timer delay.
"I don't have a problem with where you live. Whatever's closest."
As if the only thing that matters about what school you go to is the geographical convenience.
He stares at Ririka's pocket, for a moment, before he looks to Ichika again. "I can't really see what colour her hands are," he replies, deadpan.
...
...
...
........................
That was a joke.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka doesn't really know what she's in the mood for right now. She knows what she's /not/ in the mood for though. "C'mon, Ichika-chan. I wasn't the only one listening to music, you know." Not that she'd blame someone else, at least not directly.
She does wince, a little, mostly internally but a little bit not, as Ichika gets defensive about the school. Ririka shoots Ichika a look as if to say 'Sorry.' She doesn't want to embarrass her sister. Unlike a certain /someone/ in this conversation, that is. But then she turns a slightly puzzled look to Minato.
... It's not really about where Ichika lives, in the slightest. Ririka looks to Ichika, raising her eyebrows a little with a questioning look. 'Do you want to field that one? Because I don't.'
The only thing worse than being caught out is to then be called out on being caught out. Ririka scowls a little in frustration. "No he didn't!" she tries to insist, hotly.
But Minato's comment catches her off guard, and she looks to her classmate for a moment, her mouth trying and failing to form words for a moment. "... Oh." she says, after a moment, registering the joke, even if she's not pleased by it. "Good one," she mumbles, glacning away.
"Ichika-san, what are you even doing here? Can't you go... bother someone else?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Definitely nervous. Ichika can tell, too. But Minato says it doesn't bother him, so, "Cool." She pauses and looks to Ririka, lifting a hand as if to relent. "It's fine, it's fine."
He mentions it's a long trip. Ririka apologizes wordlessly, and Ichika says, "Not really about where I live, exactly. Our family lives around here. I'm just trouble."
Time delay... Hm. Well, it makes it easier to think of what she wants to say in turn, so she doesn't mind. But having caught Ririka--
Minato makes his comment. "..."
Ichika actually laughs at that one. "Right. Because they should be red." She gets it.
"OK, this one's not bad, Ririka-chan. You should hang out with him more often."
"I wanted to do some shopping before I met up with someone," Ichika answers Ririka. Then, she actually smiles. "And you're right. I could go bother someone else."
She doesn't, of course.
"So, Arisato-san," she says. "Same class as my sister?" A beat, "She's been into video games for a while, if you didn't know."
She's meddling.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Well, being fair, Ririka was listening to music twice over, given how she was focusing on /Minato's/ music. Minato doesn't point that out, though. ... that she was 'listening to music' probably covers listening to two different tracks. Right? Right.
He looks at Ririka, who looks like she wants to ask a question but doesn't. He looks at Ichika, and supposes she must have answered it. "I don't really care," he says, again, when she explains that she's /trouble./ "Trouble is exciting."
He doesn't look like he's been excited a day in his life, but anyway.
But he makes his joke, and Ririka mumbles, and Ichika laughs. "Thanks," Minato says, rubbing at the back of his neck.
"Sure," he adds, agreeably, when Ichika suggests they hang out more often.
And, "... it doesn't bother me," he adds, when Ririka asks if her sister can /bother someone else./ "Does it bother you?"
Oh no. He's putting her on the spot.
"Yeah," he adds, to Ichika. "3-F. I transferred this year." There's another of those pauses, like a loading screen in one of his video games. Blink. "Yeah? Cool. Me too." He turns to Ririka, to add: "The Net Cafe at the strip mall by Iwatodai Station sells PC games and software and stuff."
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
To be fair, Ririka kind of listens to a lot of music. Sometimes she can't quite help it. (One might wonder how she survives an arcade.) But yes, it's probably enought to cover both songs.
Minato doesn't mind, and Ririka says it's fine, and she doesn't quite /rellax/ but maybe she isn't quite as on-edge as she was a moment before. "Good," she says, a touch grumpily. "Then we're all fine."
But Ichika's comment that she's trouble gets Ririka to shake her head. "You're not trouble, Ichika-chan," she insists, quietly. "Well, except for /me/, right now."
And then Ichika just has to spell out the joke. "Yeah, yeah," she grumbles. "We all get it." Hanging out more. "I see him all the time, nee-san. We're in the same class." She doesn't say anything in response to the thanks.
She waits expectantly for Ichika to leave, and... instead she starts /meddling/. Ririka blinks, and then through clenched teeth says, "/Ichika/." She takes a step around Minato to get closer to her sister. "What are you doing?" She blinks, and then looks to Minato as he turns the question on /her/ next.
Oh no, now she's getting it from both sides. Her hand in her pocket clenches a little. (The other one doesn't, because it's still holding her smoothie, and that could get messy.) It's one thing to express her displeasure directly to her sister, even in front of someone else.
It's another to express it to someone else, in front of her sister or not. "I..." she starts, looking between the two. "... I just don't want Ichika-chan to miss meeting her friend," she says quite deliberately trying to sound pleasant. (Operatie word: trying.)
"He has a sister who transferred in, too," Ririka comments, quietly. But she does pause and nod a little. "Oh, yeah. I know the one. There's some nice stores over there, too. Um... convenient to get to, too."
She and Minato ahve something in common, now, and Ririka isn't quite sure what to do with this information.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika is used to Ririka's musical ways.
But if it's fine it's fine, and Ririka could stand to relax more. But it's good enough for the moment. Ririka may say she's not trouble, but Ichika shakes her head back. "I am," she insists, and then considers Minato for a moment. She tilts her head at him. "Do you like excitement, then?" It could be an innocent question. It's not, but it definitely could be.
"You can be in someone's class and not hang out," Ichika points out to Ririka. But Ichika is not going to leave. Ririka comes closer and Ichika smiles It's not quite sweet, because there's mischief in it. But it's kind of sweet.
"I won't," Ichika assures Ririka. "I showed up early so I could do some shopping. He'll text me when he gets here."
A sister! Ichika nods. "In the same class with your sister... That's nice."
She says, "I transferred into my school this year, too." A pause. "Oh? Sounds like something good for you," she says to Ririka. "I don't do much computer stuff."
"...But," she says then, "I've been known to like excitement, myself."
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato considers Ichika's question, for a moment, though Ririka insists she's not really trouble. "Yeah." Excitement is the only time he actually feels alive inside the shell of himself; adrenaline revives him from the stasis he's trapped in.
Anyway.
"That's true," Minato agrees, still perpetually agreeable, when Ririka says that she /already/ sees him all the time.
They're in the same class. That's technically hanging out.
"What are you shopping for?" He asks, and in this way shows interest in Ichika, too. Oh no(?)! But...
"Minako Arisato," he confirms, when Ririka mentions her. "She's my younger sister." Younger by all of a day, and even that is a technicality, but she'll /never/ live it down.
It's fine. Minato has things in common with a lot of people, probably.
Ichika says she likes excitement, though, and Minato tilts his head as he regards her. Someone else who needs the threat of oblivion to breathe properly...
"Cool."
Well, maybe it's not just a way of life.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
"No. You're not," says Ririka a bit more firmly, on the matter of Ichika being trouble. Just like Ichika knows her, Ririka knows Ichika, and what she's been through.
She doesn't know what to make of Ichika's question to Minato, but she does look at Minato quietly, curious about the answer. So he likes excitement. Ririka won't catch on to what the issue is for a moment. (She is also, sadly, not too privy to the internal state of affairs of Minako.)
"I mean, I guess that's true," Ririka says of hanging out. "But not everyone hangs out." That almost-sweet smile gets Ichika another glare, though.
"Well then you'd hate to waste all that extra time, right?" Ririka insists.
Ririka might be familiar with the concept of 'never living something down'.
Good for her. That (not-red) hand uncurls in her pocket, and now... she's tapping her fingers inside her pocket. She might not even realize she's doing it. "I... yeah." She's having trouble switching conversational gears. "What kinds of games do you like, Arisato-san?"
But then she pauses, as she processes what Ichika says last. Her head slowly turns to Ichika with a look of disbelief. "/Really?/" she mutters. "Right in front of me?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Excitement! Ichika smiles when Minato answers her. It fades when Ririka insists. So Ichika sighs. "All right," she says, but she still feels like trouble!!
...Still, Minato has a question for her! Ichika says, "Music," she answers. "I was going to see if they had the latest from Aksance Alert." That's a punk band! Ichika at least is dressed for that kind of thing. They're Japanese, too.
Not everyone hangs out. "You two should, though."
Minako! "Oh, so you're a big brother? That's cool. I like a guy who knows responsibility."
But Minato says it's cool, and... Well, Ririka was going to ask about games. And Ichika blinks once, looking all too innocent at Ririka.
"What?" she asks. "He's cute."
"But I guess I already am meeting somebody in a bit... Maybe another time, Arisato-san?"
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Trouble or not trouble... it doesn't really matter.
Accordingly, Minato lets the exchange stand.
"Cool," Minato nods, when Ichika mentions the band. "I don't know them. I'll check them out." He's not going to pretend he knows something he doesn't; he doesn't really see the point. New music is cool, anyway.
"We're hanging out now," Minato points out, looking from Ichika to Ririka. It happened by accident, but it still happened!
He nods, though, when Ichika says she likes /responsible guys./ "My sister and I are combat operations leaders," he replies to her, still with that same blank expression. "We're responsible for everyone's safety."
He's... joking again, right?
Right?
"Thanks," he says, again, as if he hadn't just said something incredibly weird. "You're cute, too. Sure."
Beat.
"I like all kinds of games," he adds. "Especially multiplayer ones. Long games, too. A lot of RPGs have good music." Here, he pauses, and looks to Kenneth Arnold. "Let's go to the record shop," he says, because they /all/ like music.
And then he just... starts walking that way.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ichika /is/ trouble. But not in the way she means. Or at least, not in the way Ririka thinks Ichika means. Either way, she's trying to be supportive, at least.
But Ichika is here for music, and that's catnip to Ririka. "Oh, they're good," she agrees. "I didn't realize their newest album was out yet." She pauses and frowns a little, searching her memory. /Did/ she know about it? She's been kind of out of it lately, hasn't she?
But Ichika insists on hanging out. And Ririka can't figure out a way to politely ask why they should. So instead she settles for, "W-well... If Arisato-san wants to sometime..." But Minato has a /different/ take on it, and Ririka blinks. "... huh. I /guess/ you could call this hanging out..."
"Oh, I didn't know you were the older one," Ririka commands of Mikato and his twin. But then she just kind of stares at Minkato blankly for a moment, blinking. "Responsible for everyone's safety... oh, like, you two do raiding in an MMO or something? That's cool."
Ririka just looks between Minato and Ichika a bit in disbelief. That worked? Really?? She just sighs a bit in annoyance and glances off to the side. "Careful, Ichika-chan. I think Ogawa-senpai heard that." He hasn't, he's not even there, but... maybe she only needs to fool Ichika for a moment.
But she does perk up again. "Oh! Yeah! Some of those RPGs have really great and complex orchestral scores, they're really fun to transcribe and play around with. There's so many /layers/ to them." She starts to follow along, without even thinking about it. "I like me a good fighting game or two, of course. But you get really good stuff on some of the skateboarding games."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Minato doesn't know them. That tracks; he's from a nice school, and everything. But Ririka of course does, despite that fact. Still, "I'm surprised. You're usually the one to tell me this stuff." A nod to Minato. "Cool. I hope you like them."
But they are hanging out now. That's pretty nice. Ichika doesn't explain 'why', but, "Sure are. Guess that's true."
Responsible for everyone's safety... Ichika blinks slowly, much like a cat might. "...So even Gekkou High's got stuff like that..."
But it did work. Thanks, he says, and Ichika smiles more widely than before, obviously pleased. "Great," she answers--and then Ririka, of course, has to rain on her parade.
"Huh?" Ichika starts, looking back and forth quickly. "Sei-kun's already here?"
Then she frowns. "...Mean," she says to her sister.
"Oh, uh, I'm coming too!"
She doesn't have to hurry /too/ hard to keep up. The games talk may be lost on her, but not the music.
<Pose Tracker> Ririka Kawase has posed.
Ririka glances over her sounder at Ichika and smirks. "Made you look."