2025-07-10: Special Delivery
- Log: Special Delivery
- Cast: Myunghon Yeo, Mio Kazama
- Where: The Cardboard Dragon
- OOC Date: July 09, 2025
- IC Date: June 07, 2012
- Summary: Myunghon orders peace burger through delivery...
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
The Cardboard Dragon is a little oddity in Hirasaka, away from the actual hustle and bustle of nearby Kameya Alley or the actual sad glitz of the SMILE Hirasaka Mall. This is a commercial building that exists far away from other commercial centers that people go to, behind an alley that people imagine yakuza could be fighting behind, and up a fire escape...
Inside, half the floorspace has been used up for bookshelves. There's all kinds of books written by authors who died a long time ago that you'd only know your grandfather saying, "Oh yeah, we had to read this in class." Boring nerd stuff. The other half is a card game store. It's abandoned right now because everyone in Kasugayama High School is in, well, school.
Myunghon Yeo is in the middle of this, on a couch, having transcended the very human concept of sitting, with their god-ankles. They're busy typing on a laptop, and there's an unopened eighteen-pack of elementary school glue, and an even bigger tower of Koala March animal cookies that are precaariously stacked ontop of one another, at least seventy two centimetres in height.
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Trying to find a parking space in Hirasaka isn't so bad, you know. The streets aren't so jam-packed like they are on the main thoroughfares, and most importantly, the traffic cops know when they're beaten. There's also the part where, with enough gumption, you can just park *anywhere* if you put your mind to it. For example, the way that someone has parked a motorbike in the alley outside of the Cardboard Dragon: taking up two bicycle stands, obnoxiously. And let's not mention how noisy it was on the approach.
Unfortunately for Myunghon Yeo, the shrill roar of a street bike encroaching on her little slice of heaven isn't the only interruption for the day. There's the telltale sound of feet loping up the fire escape... a low metallic plonk, plonk, plonk, that slowly gets louder as the source of the interruption draws near. It soon turns to footsteps outside, a shuffling noise, a pause...
... and then the door to her shop creaaaaks open. A head pokes through the door, looking left. Looking right. Looking up. Looking down. It's a young lady with a lot of lilac hair, wearing a white baseball cap, oversized black sunglasses, and a flu mask. The classic trying-too-hard-to-hide getup. "Hello~? Is this the store?" she calls, cupping her mouth.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Hirasaka was something a long time ago. These days, traffic doesn't wander here, because the streets haven't been widened, made friendly to the thoroughfare of the 2010's. They don't have to. There isn't money here to be made in Hirasaka, the way Shibuya was remodelled into a tour de force of global consumerism...
Myunghon looks up to the loud, loud-ass fire-escape door opening. What a suspicious young lady. They look to their phone and says, "Delivery? For Yeo. That's the place."
The gangly creature rises, a triumph of lankiness dressed in black dress pants and a white dress shirt with a tie, a suit jacket drowning them like a cape at their shoulders. "Quick. It's really important." They reach and rummage into the little doggy-bag that the lady is holding, with voracious hunger, and takes out a--
It's a Peace Burger Happiness Meal. Myunghon immediately slams her face into its cardbord opening and takes the toy out. It's a little blue plastic racecar, in a little plastic container. The weirdo rips it out of its plastic packaging and--
Puts it into their mouth.
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
"Eh? Wait a s--waitwaitwait!!" Mio protests, albeit not very hard, as Myunghon looms over her like the ghost of dietary failures past/present/failure and then plucks the value meal from her hands. It's still as piping hot as you'd expect from a freshly-made fast food burger! ... which is to say, it's kinda lukewarm despite the incredible velocity it was delivered with. The pink-haired girl's glasses slide off of her face in disbelief as she stares at the world's weirdest doctor eating the 1/64 scale Panda Tru*no toy.
She hasn't even been paid yet, what if the customer chokes and dies right away?
"I... uh... that's 900 yen..."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon's rolling the little plastic tires of the car on their tongue, singular eye bulging like a goldfish's as they do so. Then they turn and slink, shoulders slumped, back towards their laptop. ".... .... it's not correct," they remark, having all the arcane strangeness of someone who will never explain themselves, ever.
"It's not correct!" Myunghon roars to themself, taking the racecar out and threatening to throw it out the window -- then, the violence and agitation in their body language dissolves as if remembering the racecar is, in fact, their beautiful little boy. They slump onto the cracked tile floor and sets it down and lets the saliva-coated racecar slide awy.
"900 yen." Myunghon rises again, always lumbering when they do so, and then takes out a whole-ass yukichi -- a 10,000 yen note -- and hands it to them. "For your trouble. Was there glue in the bag?"
??????
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
For all the surprise of seeing Myunghon suddenly pop the toy car into her mouth and then rerorerorero it, Mio is returning to an equilibrium of understanding surprisingly quickly. Maybe not so surprising, after all, I mean--
. . .GrAtUiToUs FlAsHbAcK. . .
The time is 11:22 PM. The location is a Family Mart convenience store outside of a subway exit. The situation is Mio Kazama wordlessly ringing up an equally wordless salaryman's purchase of 11 cans of whiskey & soda, a bottle of personal lubricant, and a copy of Famitsu magazine. She is unhurried and unbothered by this, or by the two youths in the parking lot entertaining themselves by hitting baseballs into the open dumpster.
So, it's with sudden swiftness that Mio catches the 10,000 yen bill. She pockets it into her rather un-hip belt pack, and deftly produces 9,100 yen of change. In contrast to Myunghon, she's dressed in a black spaghetti-strap top with a white jacket worn on top, and lousy cargo pants probably meant to get dirty on a bike. "Glue?"
She rummages in the bag. Was there glue? No, of course not. Why would there be? Unless????
"No, I don't think so. Sorry. 9,100 Yen change." a pause. "You look kinda thirsty after the, uh, car. Are you okay, ma'am?"
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"No glue. Okay. Keep the change," Myunghon answers, appearing ghost-like as that data factoid seems to stimulate them more than the racecar, which kind of just sits in a sad little puddle on the ground on its own.
... they've completely forgotten about the food. "Oh, you can also have the food, if you want."
They return to their laptop, once more, in emulation of Riker, doing impossible crimes to the couch cushion the likes that human beings should not strive to. No, this one has already been disqualified as a human being...
"Mmmm. Who took your order? Was it the ninja-looking girl, or the brunette who started part-timing there? Was there a blue-haired Sevens girl at the counter as well?" Myunghon starts asking incredibly random questions.
... this is starting to sound really shady. Was Mio involved in some kind of drug trafficking disguised in a Happiness Meal?
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Well, there it is. Mio palms the remainder of the cash back into her pants pocket, rather than the change purse she took it from. Her brows are headed for the roof, as she earns both a handsome tip *and* a warmed-over burger for her troubles. Not bad, not bad. Things are looking up today.
"Huh." Mio clomps a few steps away, curiosity getting the better of her. She's peering at the weird foreign books on the shelves, at first, before making her way towards the strange bandage-ghost who likes to mount chairs backwards. She has expertly fanned open the bag of fast food by this point and is eating Myunghon's fries. "Blue-haired schoolgirl... uh, Nina-chan? Maybe?" the delivery girl has a skeptical squint, unsure if she actually remembers correctly. "Fries?" the conversational swerve. How deft, you. The fanned-open bag is pointed at Myunghon. The fries are accusing her of being an absent parent. They DEMAND to be EATEN. Salt and fat and starch restore so many MP.
"If you're asking, nobody gave me any other packages to deliver to you." the girl's mask is around her chin. This is bad for keeping germs out, but great for eating fries. "Was there a dead drop you didn't mention? Or someone meant to do a hand-off?"
... ah, someone's used to this.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
The brothers Goncourt. Dostoevsky. Hauptmann. Flaubert. Who are these old farts? This is a bookstore for people who want to drown in oldness. Not even necessarily history. This is a perfect bookshelf to exist in Hirasaka, the forgotten ward that has no future.
"No," Myunghon answers placidly, as if that's the end of that. "That's okay. That's all I needed to know." There's a severe clatter of flesh digits on keys. They rip open one of the unopened packs of glue at their table and then lifts it up by the little nozzle, as if they want to get as little surfact contact of their fingers on the bottle itself. "Cloudy..."
Myunghon is offered fries. There's that moment again where their eye bulges once more, straining like they're unhappy to be in their prison of bone and muscle. They take a medium-length fry, which is sad and cold and soggy at this point. Where is Yuarin, at this point? They can hear her concerned, but authoritative voice. Eat your fries properly, Myunghon...
"Oh. Interesting. You're in the know. No, I didn't set you up for a hand-off. I'm Rumourmonger Merry, owner of the Cardboard Dragon. But you can also call me Myunghon Yeo."
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Mio is watching Myunghon's animated reaction to the question without showing much more, herself. It's important to cultivate a cool air of disaffected aloofness, especially after being alarmed when first appearing. And then she stuffs a wad of fries into her mouth and lifts her sunglasses up, chewing thoughtfully. Effect ruined.
"Mmmmmf." pause. "You can call me Mio, nice to meetcha." she has a pleasant tone, kind of casual without drawling to the point of being lazy. She deftly fetches a container of prawn nuggets from the bag and pops one into her mouth. She does not look thrilled about that part. But the proper introduction makes her eyebrows pop again, standing upright with a jolt and a flick of too-long hair. "Oh! So you're *The* Merry. I don't have much to trade at the moment, but... hey, that'll change soon. You need a driver or a courier anytime, though, I gotcha covered."
. o O (Oh yeah. Got you covered. That sounded... cool. Wild women *like* cool.)
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"Mio. Mi...o. Mio." Myunghon is rolling the syllables around, no doubt spidering out possible kanji readings in their brain. "Oh. Oh, I see. You're *Kazama*. I see." They don't appear to be interested in the burger nor the prawn nuggets. There was very little indication that food was even the objective of what they wanted out of the whole delivery. Just that sad little forgotten blue racecar.
"I do... often need a driver. Tell me how to ring you up," Myunghon appears interested in the business. "Khm. I might need you for a job soon, even. How well do you know the streets of Tatsumi Port Island?"
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Mio munching on seafood nuggets one moment, the camera pans away to Myunghon speaking, then back to Mio, who is now drinking a banana milkshake. She has regrets. But she also can't bear to waste food, so here we are. Drinking foodslop with the weirdest woman she's meet all week. Honestly, it could be worse.
"Oh, sure. Here's my number." Mio nonchalantly fishes her phone from a zip-up pocket in her jacket and unlocks it, swiping a few times until her own number is on screen. Someone's got a Schnapple iPhone. Kids these days! "If I don't pick up, just text me. I never check my voicemail." schluuuuuuuurp. "Tatsumi Port Island? It's okay. I've driven there a few times, but not as much as here. Whatcha need?" the girl looks a little more lively at the thought of planning something, eyes agleam. "If you're serious, I can always go for a practice dawdle around there and get a fresh feel for it. The cops there are high-strung, but kinda weak behind the wheel, so it's all good."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
Myunghon definitely doesn't hold any regard for food. Does this person not have anything resembling an interest in food within them? They ate a single fry. Singular. One. Uno. Ichi.
The number is, however, received with gratitude. Their eye bulges again, the reflection of the phone screen reflected on their whites. "Got it." Myunghon places a thumb to their lip, then remarks after several right proper paces' worth of thought:
"I'll need one lift there at night to Gekkoukan High School. You'll also need to wait until I'm done, and I'll need a possibly hot extraction out. I'll give you a set of places to drive to depending on what happens."
Well, that doesn't sound shady at all! What're they thinking of doing at a high school at night?
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
"Gekkoukan... Gekkoukan... Ge...ko...ka...n . . ." Mio is off to Schloogle Maps to confirm her suspicions. "Oh, the rich kids school. OK." app closed, and she folds her arms. Tapping the bottom of the shake against her elbow. The condensation on the cup is probably better for you than anything within. Her eyes follow Myunghon's thinking motion, more attentive than before.
"No guns involved, right? Please?" she's peering at Myunghon over the top of her sunglasses, for effect. A skeptical and comically flat look on her face. Jiiiiiii. "There's an extra charge if people are gonna start shooting. I mean--I don't hear you mentioned in a shooting-up-the-place kinda way, but I gotta say it upfront!"
One finger held aloft. It waggles back and forth.
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"No guns." Myunghon promises with wilful clarity, because Evokers aren't guns. "It's incredibly unlikely you'll be in any danger. But..." A pause as their head lulls around. "How good are you at first aid? I might be leaking essential fluids by the time I come out. No, actually, I'll deal with that part. Just drive me somewhere safe after and your job's done."
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Blue lines appear on Mio's face, her bangs and sidelocks hang heavier for a moment, and her hat sits askew. "E--eehhh..." she non-answers, thinking about the crazy doctor leaking all over her nice, illegally tuned Honda's backseat, and the cleaning bill. But! She swallows and resumes looking normal, because she knows how to ganbarimasu.
"Nah, it's fine. I can do CPR and tie a tourniquet and stuff." she waves it off, and then pockets her phone again as it starts to buzz for a call. She declines it without even looking. "You know..."
The young lady reaches up and adjusts her ball cap by the brim, looking down at Myunghon with an intrigued gaze. "My other rumour hookups like to stay behind a desk, if you know what I mean? You seem pretty... involved."
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"That's because they're SMART," Myunghon reaches again for that bottle of glue. They uncork it at the little nozzle and... oh. Oh no, why are they sniffing it? This doctor is sniffing glue, Mio Kazama. Is this an okay person to work for? "A dead rumourmonger can spread no words. It's in the spirit of the job title itself."
Another full-round action of glue sniffing, then they just chuck the bottle behind their shoulder. "Buuuut.... you can't get intel without brushing up against truth, so hard you can feel the breath of facts running down your spine." A weirdly intimate, passionate, characteristic way of describing it for the weirdo.
"What does 'involved' mean for you, Kazama-san?"
<Pose Tracker> Mio Kazama has posed.
Mio's not thinking about Myunghon sniffing the glue, because if she looks in another direction and avoids acknowledging this problem, it will go away. In fact, it will never have happened in the first place. You can just warp reality. It's *easy*.
"Smart? I guess." her gaze remains averted, but also pointed roofwards. Thinking about her own boss. Running his own rumour gig out of the church. To be fair, it is a sweet racket. "I see some weird types coming and going with tidbits, but the old man never goes out there to do his own legwork. Not like you're saying, anyway."
When her gaze returns, those eyes have a delectable moment of coldness. A burned coal waiting for another chance to be stoked. "I wonder... if we have the same definition of the word in mind...?"
A blink, and it's back to bubblegum and grins. "I mean. Involved, you know, prowling around. Kicking down doors. Stealing computers. Grabbing guys by the lapels." she gestures, on her own lapels. "Being all: 'now you listen to me, dammit!'" and she releases them, sagging for dramatic effect. "Something like that?"
<Pose Tracker> Myunghon Yeo has posed.
"Uhmm... khm," Myunghon is just making grunting noises now as they type something else into their laptop. It occupies their attention fiercely for about thirty six seconds, and then they lose all interest in it. The old man in the church... in Kanda? Myunghon can't see where the threads run between this Kazama and a rumourmonger... they're there, but frayed.
But when Mio is implying something, about the definition of the word, Myunghon looks bored again and slumps back in their chair.
Then there is a surge of Blue, the yawning moan of the chasm into the unconscious, and her Persona rises out of that long suit jacket they're wearing like a cape. An inky-black Shadow in the shape of an indistinguishable man, save for their rennaissance-era cravat, the flowing cape, and the silvery hair upon which peek solid red eyes.
The Persona reaches forward and... picks up that sad, forgotten racecar, with their fingers. And then, with great will and attention, starts nyooming it back and forth.