2025-06-28: Some Things Can Be Simple
- Log: Some Things Can Be Simple
- 'Cast: Minato Arisato, Yukari Takeba, A Man Full of Distortion
- Where: Iwatodai Station, Iwatodai City; Port Island Station, Tatsumi Port Island
- OOC Date: June 27, 2025
- IC Date: June 01, 2012
- Summary: Yukari has been avoiding walking to school with Minato without a reason she could justify ever since people started talking about that day they walked together. On the Monorail though, an incident occurs that lets Yukari think about her own personal prohibitions.
- Trigger Warning: Sexual Harassment, Upskirting
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Iwatodai station in the early hours is packed. While it's nowhere near 'Tokyo' station crowd size, it's the main hub of transportation between Iwatodai City, and Port Island. The Monorails runs back and forth sleekly like clockwork, people depending upon that punctuality for their lives to move on, and not hang in limbo.
It's something for SEES to be proud of, as they prevented this place from being shut down for probably weeks not too long ago.
It's something Yukari thinks about herself, in her Summer Uniform, her pink cardigan tied around her waist as she enters the train, her hefty bag held at her side like it's an extention of her arm.
"G'Morning." She says to a bunch of Second Year Girls from Gekkoukan who are also gathering together on one side of the packed Monorail car, all smiles, as she turns her head, and- notes Minato. There's a nod his way, as if to say 'Arisato-kun' but without further greeting for now. She'll wait until they're in front of school like usual.
If she is overtly walking with him, after all, people talk. She knows people are talking, by the fact one of the girls asks her...
"So are the rumors true, that you're going out with the new transfer student?"
Yukari has a pinched smile on her face, as she chuckles, "As if. We just stay at the same dorm, so I walked him over that one day."
"Aww- I was hoping that it was true. When are you going to get a boyfriend Takeba-san?"
"What's the rush anyway?" She replies, "I'm not even looking for one right now."
The chatter continues, and while they're not too loud as to be disruptive, they are all thoroughly distracted by each other in the standing room only car.
It's so full, that it's difficult to notice the slender guy in his 20's, in a Hoodie, clean shaven slipping expertly through the car, like he's simply readjusting to be closer to the door to get out. Minato will notice already though...
... he's got a phone in his hand, a hand that's below his own waist level, and every time he moves, he's getting closer to the three or four second year girls, that Yukari is apart of. None of them notice, lost in conversation.
"Hopefully Ekoda-Sensei will be in a good mood today... I don't wanna be up all night doing some essay on the Tale of the Heike again." Yukari tells them, all of them caught up on the concerns of their daily lives.
As the guy, discreetly, starts sliding his phone low, and towards them, without quite looking at them to try and... well...
... do something that polite society disapproves of, even if many men would sympathize. After all, girls like Yukari who wear shorter skirts than the uniform standard are asking for it, in their minds.
It's not obvious who their target is yet, but with that short skirt, Yukari is perhaps the most enticing... and she's utterly oblivious to his presence.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
How did Minato know what lever to throw, back then, when the train was running out of control in the Dark Hour? Well... it's because Yukari said they didn't want to die.
Huh? How, not why? Oh, a video game in the arcade.
It made them happy, anyway.
He doesn't think too much of it, as he steps onto the train again. It could go berserk and kill them all, and there'd be too many people to get to the conductor's station now... but that isn't a big deal. It might happen, it might happen. Whether it happens or not doesn't bother him.
No, he's bothered by very little, packing into the monorail. He does notice pink, though. Yukari.
He nods back to her.
In a sense, they're still travelling to school together... they're just not standing beside each other. That's nice.
Huh? They're talking about him?
Anyway.
He looks forward, as they go, only to catch that movement from the corner of his eye. His head turns, just slightly. Movement... and a phone.
Minato is the combat operations leader, alongside his sister. He took responsibility for his team's safety. For this reason, he pays more attention, as that man moves closer --
And sways forward, as the monorail jostles. As he does, his hand swipes, knocking that phone to the crowded floor.
"Oops." He says, grasping onto the man as if he were just stumbling. "Sorry. Guess I wasn't steady." And if he raises his voice a little to be heard by that group of girls... surely he just wants to make sure the man he bumped into hears him.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
It's funny - even not knowing how to live. She still doesn't want to die. That desire to live was so strong that it was difficult to put the Evoker to her head. She had panic attack after panic attack trying to pull the trigger.
Logically you know you won't die if you pull the trigger, logically. But something will die. How can you treat it so casually? How?
So that day she yelled that someone needs to put on the brakes! Or...!
Or what? The train would crash. Who can say how disastrous that'd be? But the fear in her voice, the anxiety.
She didn't want to die.
And now she's standing there as if it were any other day, as the Monorail sleekly and almost soundlessly moves without even a real lurch. It's not that she's treating the incident casually, it's just that life has to keep going. She has to take the Monorail to school every day.
The guy is stretching his arm, as Minato approaches, his head turns at the last second, as the Monorail jostles and- 'Oops!'
"Wha- hey!"
His phone hits the ground, slides to the floor, right by Yukari's feet. She looks down, it's on the camera app, and she can see it now, the hem of her skirt reflected, the smooth skin of her thigh. "Huh!?" And instinctually she uses her bag to press her skirt against her leg, preventing any more from showing up.
"Watch where you're going, you clumsy bastard!" One of the girls crouches over, and grabs the phone, and holding it up, as she hands it over, "Here you go Sir."
The man feigns gratitude, "Thanks, cutie." As he takes it back.
"Don't just-!" Yukari starts as if to admonish the girl from her class, but then stops, staring at the man, giving him a suspicious glare, her eyes boring a hole in that phone, then, as the man turns on Minato.
"You think 'Sorry' is gonna be enough? That phone is expensive. You need to apologize properly."
"No he doesn't." Yukari's tone turns icy, "I think he's said more than enough. Let it go and walk away, if you don't want to cause a scene."
The girls look at Yukari as if puzzled themselves, "Takeba-san..."
"You don't want to cause a scene." She warns again, and the man looks ruffled, like he wants to yell, but then... "Fine... whatever, stuck-up little bitch."
He drops his phone in his pocket, glaring at Minato, like he's memorizing his face, as someone who might cause him problems in the future.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato has no trouble at all -- putting it to his head. Pulling the trigger. He is comfortable with his death, as if it were his dearest friend. The only thing which bothers him...
Well. It's fine. She isn't going to die on the monorail to school. After all, they take it every day.
An invasive photo would still hurt her, though.
"Excuse me," Minato says, blandly, as he's sworn at. He gets his phone back from one of his victims, and Minato regards him with that same blank expression he's worn the whole time.
He opens his mouth,
and Yukari cuts in.
Oh. He's 'causing a scene'. That's a terrible crime... apparently. It's why you need to learn how not to run into people in the city, even though you're distracted. Minato is good at that, by now. He doesn't run into people any more. ... well, that means this entire incident was a lie, but that man doesn't know that.
Minato looks to him, with that same blank expression, as he memorises his face...
... and then turns away, looking to Yukari instead.
"Looks like you saved me," he remarks, dispassionate, after a pause just long enough to suppose the man's moved away. "Thanks."
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
At the very least, the man was the one causing the scene in Yukari's eyes, not Minato. And after he's got a good look at him - a time frame that was a little unsettling for him too, given the way Minato's face looks...
He nudges through people, to get further away from them all.
Yukari's still processing this whole thing, as it just happened so fast, but she has enough jigsaw pieces that she put it all together, even as Minato says he saved her.
"... I didn't do much of anything." She replies, mildly, trying to keep her face neutral. As the other girls start whispering behind her...
Yukari of course hears that too, "Here let's... let's talk once we get to the station."
It's a silent ride, for a little ways, well silent except for the other girls chattering, though the conversation changes once Yukari turns around, reluctantly.
Like she wants so badly to say something right now, but has to wait.
It's a few minutes, and then the doors slide open, "Bye! Takeba-san!" And people filter out of the Monorail car to Port Island station, as Yukari sighs, "That's going to cause talk." As she glares momentarily at Minato like he was the cause, then- "Come on. We've got time before the bell rings." She steps off the Monorail, then over towards the Tatsumi Mall, expecting Minato to follow.
"I could have handled him myself, you know." She starts with, the edge taken out of her voice somewhat by him saying she saved him. It's just - it feels unequal. She's not the strong, independent girl she wants to be.
And Minato? It's like he's competent in all the ways she's not.
But, she did save him too, with the one way she feels she is competent over him, and there's a sigh. "I want you to know that I am grateful though. It's not like I'm mad at you for doing that. I'm just... frustrated, at creeps like that existing."
And herself being so caught up in chatter that she didn't see him coming.
"So thank you. You saved me too."
...
"Again."
She adds, like her mind needs to keep score, and balance the scales somehow, but there's something more important in what she says next. "Why though?"
It's so rare that Minato acts without being asked to, she's found. But the times when he does...
... the times when he does...
She can't get it out of her head.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Was it that man causing the stir? Minato bumped into him. ... what does it say about society that a photo angled upwards wouldn't necessarily cause a scene? Hm.
But Yukari wants to talk at the station. "Sure," Minato says, agreeably.
He's always -- so agreeable.
He takes a step or two away from the group of girls, to give them their space, and puts his earphones back in. (He slipped one off, before he commenced his mission, obviously.)
Tick, tock. A minute passes. Another minute. That's enough time for one song to play, the beginning of another --
-- oh, they've stopped.
Minato slips his earphones off again. Holds them in his hand, a moment, as if to silently say, 'whatever you were talking about, I wasn't prying'. Of course, that's not what Yukari means by talk, so lets them dangle around his neck as he puts his hands in his pockets and follows her along.
"Yeah," he agrees, when she says she could have handled him herself. "I just saw him first."
And that's true. SEES are competent enough to handle threats that come their way -- it's just Minato's job to keep an eye out for threats which the others are distracted from. Yukari surely could have knocked that man's phone down herself...
... but she was busy talking, and Minato wasn't.
"You're welcome," he answers her, politely and simply, as mild as ever.
He looks forward, then, with a bit of a shrug. "Taking photos like that isn't accountable. A man should be able to stand behind what he does. He's upset that I called attention to him because he knew he was going about it the wrong way." He tilts his head, with a thoughtful grunt. "And you were there, too... you're part of the team. I'm an operations leader, so it's my duty to keep everyone safe. I heard stories about how those photos can ruin a girl's life, so I thought it was important enough to count as a threat to yours. That's how it is."
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Yukari isn't worried really about him overhearing, the conversation had shifted away from it being about them believing Minato and Yukari are together the moment Yukari turned back. It became normal stuff, school stuff. Girls absolutely can choose to gossip in boy's earshot if they want them to overhear, but these three have no reason to.
And besides... he already gave them amazing material to talk about for later.
Minato saying he saw them first, deescalates the tension in Yukari's eyes. She can get that to a degree. In Tartarus, on Operations - they're a team.
She'd never go 'I could handle that myself' if Minato blocked a shot coming at her that she didn't even see.
It's just, there's a difference between Tartarus, where she knows her limitations, and real life, where she is supposed to be strong - independent - capable.
She hasn't needed a guy to live her life for years, so why would she now?
Why?
She takes a breath, seeming somewhat relieved, but then she waits for his answer on why.
"So it's about him taking responsibility." Yukari says quietly, as if that made a certain amount of sense to her as to that being the reason.
But then... 'can ruin a girl's life.'
She bristles momentarily, "It wouldn't ruin my life..." Then she second guesses that comment thoughtfully, "... but it wasn't just me that was involved." She looks down, somewhat mollified by her own thought. It wouldn't ruin her life to have to handle that kind of crisis, but what about the other three? They just innocently handed the phone back, didn't really get what was going on.
She's gonna warn them later, when it can't be overheard, "I guess it's alright then." She says quietly, as if deciding that, "You did good." She says, a dim smile coming onto her face.
"... as, our leader." She qualifies, even though she means 'as a man' too.
"Just be careful? If a guy like that raised enough of a fuss, he could cause you a lot of problems. And it'd really inconvenience Officer Kurosawa if he had to rescue our leader from jail."
It's not that she wouldn't do everything to avoid that - be as stubborn as necessary. Demand for them to check his phone. But what if he'd deleted his photos already? What if the officer didn't listen?
Even working towards the outcome she wants, she could see that happening very easily. She learned that growing up as a girl in Japan, and countless people not listening to her, no matter how stubbornly she defended her Dad ...
... it never mattered, to anyone.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato nods, when Yukari realises that he took offence at that man not taking responsibility. But when she bristles, he blinks, looking to her. In the wake of her second-guessing, he says: "Sorry. I wasn't specific."
... he's not entirely sure whether she's upset because he's reporting something he's heard or because she didn't think it would ruin her life, but he notices the spike of irritation. Turning it around in his head, he thinks it's probably that last one... but he'll have to pay more attention to how Yukari feels about hearsay, too.
(Uh. Not that he can really understand what it's like to be a girl personally. ... does asking Minako count as hearsay? ... ... maybe it does, since they're different, now. ... ... ... weren't they the same, a long time ago...)
He's distracted from his thoughts by Yukari coming to a decision, though, and he turns his attention back to her as he nods. Doing good as their leader is fine. That's his duty, after all. It's what they asked him to do.
But he should be careful...
"Understood," Minato affirms, mildly.
No matter what the advice is, he goes along with it so easily.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
Yukari doesn't say 'it's okay'. Apparently just accepting his apology by the fact that she took back her criticism.
She does try to think of how Minato regards... girls, many guys who grow up with a sister don't know the first thing about girls, she's found.
Just some things.
But thinking about how a guy thinks about girls kinda is embarrassing, a little. Because really she wanted to know how he thought about her.
He keeps saving her but... he's the leader.
It's just... back then, that first time...
... he wasn't the leader. He wasn't anyone. She was trying to save him and messed up and...
... she doesn't know. She just remembers that disturbing, euphoric look on his face, that smile as he so casually did what she couldn't so easily.
But... despite his oddities, he does listen to her, and - that's a novelty for Yukari. Guys don't listen to her. They talk over her. They want to talk about themselves, and want a girl to listen to them.
She likes that about Minato.
"Well... okay then." Now she smiles a little more brightly, "Wanna walk the rest of the way together? People'll talk, but, they're gonna do that anyway after this morning. And it's not like it means something walking together. We live in the same dorm, we're in the same 'club'."
It's an offer, and maybe she says it doesn't mean anything.
But she's lying of course, because it does.
She wouldn't be caught dead walking to school with Junpei after all... it's just the one she's lying to most of all is herself, in that regard.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
There are some things it's difficult to talk about.
... but Minato doesn't want Yukari to die.
'If we don't stop this train, we're going to die!'
'Oh, you want to stop the train?'
He asked her if she was happy, when it stopped.
But it was nice that Junpei was happy, too.
Since he's the leader...
Yukari smiles to Minato. Minato blinks. "Sure." She hadn't wanted to before, because there wasn't a good reason...
She changed her mind. She's smiling. Something as simple as an incident on a train can change that... that's exciting.
Even if it doesn't mean anything.
He might not smile about it as much, but he's happy to go along with what she wants.
<Pose Tracker> Yukari Takeba has posed.
It's true, she had to justify it, as if it were for his health... like he was going to pass out again, but...
... she's grateful.
And some things can just be simple.
She starts to walk, but keeps pace with him, not walking ahead or falling behind.
"Did you sleep well last night? ...You know - I really hope Toriumi-sensei doesn't go on a tear this morning. Her jealousy over Terauchi-sensei is getting my nerves."