2026-01-28: What's it Like?
- Log: What's it Like?
- Cast: Kanae Fuyuki, Kazusa Motojima
- Where: Shujin Academy, Aoyama-Itchome, Tokyo
- OOC Date: January 28, 2026
- IC Date: Monday, September 17, 2012 (After Class)
- Summary: Kanae is unfortunate to get caught up in a conversation with a horrible face-stealing monster. (Namely, Kazusa.)
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Classes are out, and Shujin Academy is bustling with students on their way to clubs and the like. The halls are filled with people; the best stuff at the school store is probably selling out at this very moment. Kanae Fuyuki is just steppinng out of classroom 2-A, her bag over her shoulder. There's a Tennis Club meeting, but not for a few minutes yet, so she's not in too much of a hurry at the moment.
But it's the perfect time for someone to walk past and ruin her plans. Particularly if someone jarring comes by and causes her to drop something...
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
It shouldn't be surprising to see Kazusa walk by. She is, after all, a fellow second year student, and all of their classrooms are connected by the same long hallway. It shouldn't be a surprise to see any second year in this moment, in fact, as they all file out to classes and their various obligations.
Even though it's been two weeks, most people are still getting used to the gentler, kinder, softer Kazusa wearing a pink headband instead of silver bracelets. That might be jarring enough.
Sadly for the handful of Persona Users at the school, she is also utterly inhuman, and there is no getting around that fact as Kazusa suddenly starts to walk through Kanae's field of vision with a cheerful smile.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
It shouldn't be, and yet...
Kanae drops her racket! It's in a nice case for it, but the shape gives away what it is. She just feels that sensation of wrongness and it startles her. "Ah--"
But there she is, with that pink headband. It is jarrinng enough.
"..."
She'll go for it in a moment; she finds herself not wanting to let Kazusa out of her line of sight for now.
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
"Hmm?" Kazusa stops... and turns to look at Kanae with a look that is wide-eyed and concerned. It might be innocent enough, if not for the monster hiding behind the innocent facade. "Oh, Fuyuki-san... are you okay?"
And then because she doesn't go for it right away, Kazusa stoops down and picks up the racket in its case, then presents it to Kanae with a cheerful smile. "Here! You dropped this!"
Like she thinks Kanae somehow didn't notice.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Wide-eyed and concerned... That's exactly how she heard about her being these days. 'Nice'.
"I'm fine!" Kanae says, putting in a little extra cheer to her voice to avoid letting on how utterly weird Kazusa feels to her. Kazusa reaches down, annd...
"Thanks," Kanane says. "Can't go to tennis without my racket, huh?"
Her eyes linger on Kazusa anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
Kanae says she's fine, and Kazusa beams at her. "Glad to hear!"
"And you're welcome!" she says cheerfully. "So you have to carry your racket to practice, huh...? We keep all the apparatuses we use with the mats and the other equipment."
She lowers her voice and leans in a bit. "Don't worry, I drop things sometimes, too. I won't tell anyone, okay?" Straightening up she says, "It's a good thing your racket has a case on it, huh?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Kaane smiles back. It is pretty fake, but it's a convinncing fake; she's gotten good at those, both to fit in and when she wants to be nice whether she feels like it or nnot. This is... one of those times.
"It's because I can practice at home or on the go, too," Kanae explains of her racket.
Kanae lifts an eyebrow. "I mean, it's not like I make a habit of it," she says.
"Yep! Real handy."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
The old Kazusa might have noticed the fake smile--the current one--or the thing wearing her skin, at least--doesn't seem to notice in the least.
"Ooooh, that makes sense," Kazusa says, as if it hadn't occured to her. "It's kind of hard to practice our gymnastics places where there aren't a mat... though I guess we can practice the dance moves."
Doesn't make a habit. "Me neither!" Kazusa says brightly, with a giggle. "They dock points for that, you know?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Right," Kanae answers. "It's pretty cool what you do, all the same. I hear a lot of things about your club around here."
Pause. "I bet they do," she says of docking pointns. "Tennis it's more like you can't score points if you can't keep hold of your racket, so..."
Hm.
"So how's it been going lately?" she wonders. "You seem... differennt."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
"Oh, thanks!" Kazusa says, beaming a big smile at Kaede. "We're all working really hard to make sure we represent Shujin to the best of our ability."
Ignore the fact that for most of the spring semester Kazusa was one of the ones spreading rumors and gossip about the 'Olympic hopeful' Kasumi.
"But I bet that Tennis Club is really intense--you gotta have really fast reflexes to be able to hit the ball back and forth, right? Everything we do is rehearsed..."
"Things have been going great!" The old Kazusa was never this... bubbly. "Oh, do I...? Well, I'm just trying to focus on the things that are really important now, you know?" She thinks for a moment. "How are things going with you and your boyfriend?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"That's important," Kanae says. "I bet the teachers'd say it's especially important now." She shakes her head. "Anyway."
"It is," Kanae agrees, "But most of us are also there to have fun. It's not only about winning, it's about buildinng a team."
But indeed, the old Kazusa... wasn't. "Right," Kanae says. "Sometimes people really find out what matters to them," she says. "How'd it happen for you?"
A beat, "We're great. Touma-kun's busy today, but we're going to meet up after class tomorrow, so that'll be nice."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
Kazusa sighs. "Yeaaaah..." She's thankful she was nowhere near the volleyball team. Or the track team, for that matter. But even so... "Oh, I take my work in the Rhythmic Gymnastics Club very seriously. I have to, if I'm going to build a future on it, you know?"
Having fun is fine, but... she's under pressure to get a lot of results. Even if she doesn't seem that stressed about it.
"But the teamwork is important, too, when we do group routines..." she says in something approaching but not quite reaching 'thoughtful.'
How did she find out. Kazusa pauses, glancing off to the side for a moment, her sunny disposition growing decidedly more cloudy. "Well... my father caught me doing something he didn't approve of, and I realized I shouldn't have been doing it. That I was making things more difficult when I didn't need to be."
But she brightens again. "Oh that's so good to hear! I hope you two have a good time, tomorrow. Do you have a date planned or anything like that?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Cool," Kanae says. "It's not fair to your teammates if you don't take it seriously, right? ...but especially if you want to build a future on it. You thinking of tryign for the Olympics too?" she wonders.
Pressure!
Still. "Ah."
"...Just like that, huh?" Pause. "Well, that's cool. I wouldn't know much about your relationship with your father, obviously. But it's good you made up?" Kanae, after all, is an orphan.
"...Thanks," she says, a little surprised at how bright that is. "Um, yeah, we've got plans. It'll be nice."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
Kazusa giggles a little and lowers her voice to a hushed whisper. "Wellll, don't tell anybody, buuuut, I might be looking into it."
The rumors have been flyinga bout Shukin's 'Demon Queen', especially in light of her radically changed personality since returning from break.
People seem skeptical that she would ever be caught dead cosplaying but that's what the most consistent rumor is. That she was out cosplaying and her father caught her and dragged her out of the con.
"Wellll, maybe not just like that, but... I'm really trying, you know? My father works so hard to provide for me, it's the least I can do for him, you know?"
... Doesn't that sound kind of transactional?
But then Kazusa gasps softly a moment later. "Oh, but we don't ahve to keep talking about my father if you don't want to."
Kazusa... the kinder thing would be to just hcange the topic without calling attention to it. Or just not making a big deal about it. She's trying to be nice, just... being a bit inept at it.
"I hope you ahve fun, then!" she says with a smile. "... Hey, Fuyuki-san. Can I ask you a question?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Sure." She's definitely going to keep that secret. Definitely*.
But the rumors... Kanae's heard them; cosplaying, as if that's such a big deal. But still...
"Mm, yeah. That makes sense." Trying. But Kazuza gasps and--Kanae frowns, because she knows precisely why. "It's fine," she says a little tonelessly. "I donn't mind."
Still...
"Sure," Kanae answers. "Ask away."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
Kazusa knew Kanae was trustworthy!
It's a bigger deal when you've spent most of the past two years tearing down anybodywith nerdy interests.
"Well... if you're sure you don't mind..." Kazusa says cautiously.
But Kanae will entertain the question, and this time Kazusa does step closer, lowering her voice. "... so what's it like to go out on a date? I've..." She smiles a little, in a sort of embarrassed way. "... I've never been on one, so I was just curious."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
True. That does make it a big deal.
"Now you're making me nervous," Kanae quips, but she does indeed entertain the question. Kazusa asks and--
Of all the thigns she expected some sort of inhuman body snatcher to ask, this wasn't it. So she blinks a moment--before--
"It's a lot like hanging out with somebody," she says, "Except you might be kissing them later. That's the big difference. So there tends to be a little more... sort of, tension? Excitement? Something like that."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
It is interesting what the inhuman body snatcher wearing Kazusa's skin is deciding to prioritize, isn't it?
And yet, for all that Kanae can tell that the thing under the skin is not human... the face it's wearing seems so... sincere and genuine in the asking, somehow.
A lot like hanging out... but with the potential for kissing... "So there's tension, huh...?" Kazusa tilts her head a little, considering it. "That's really interesting, Fuyuki-san... I never would've thought about it that way."
She should probably be stepping back to a more formal conversational distance now. But she's still thinking about it.
"So have you and Okazaki-san kissed yet? Do you mind if I ask what that's like?"
Kazusa what the hell you and Kanae definitely don't have that kind of relationship to be asking that.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
It's very interesting, except that Kanae's a little nauseous about it. "Mm-hm. Not the same kind of tension as when you're fighting with someone," arguing? or fighting?, "But you know. You wonder how he's feeling, what he's going to do, and he wonders the same things about you."
"Yes," she ansnwers, "And yes, I do mind; that's a little more than I'm willing to give out to an acquaintance, you know?"
She hedges, annd glances to her potential exit route.
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
Kazusa nods along, listening intently as Kanae explains about tension--she doesn't seem to catch the slip-up of 'fighting'. "Ohhh, I see... I guess you can't really know what's going on in someone else's head, huh...?"
Kazusa blinks as Kanae, rightfully, points out it's more than she wants to talk about with an acquaintance. "... Oh! Okay." Somehow she still smiles, seemingly not embarrassed. "That makes sense, sorry."
It's at that point she takes a step back, since they're not discussing ~personal matters~ anymore, which also has the benefit of giving Kanae more of an escape route. "Well, I hope you two have fun tomorrow."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"You can't," Kanae agrees. "That's kinda fun, but kinda frustrating sometimes, too. It's just how people are."
She pauses. Kazusa is... not embarrassed? "Uh, it's fine, then."
Kanae has her escape route. Annd she's about to use it. "Thank you. I'm sure we will."
"...See you around, Motojima-san. Good luck with the gymnastics."
<Pose Tracker> Kazusa Motojima has posed.
She probably should be embarrassed, but... if she were going to be embarrassed she probably wouldn't ahve asked that question to begin with.
"Good luck with Tennis!" she says cheerfully, and then turns to head off in her own direction to get to her practice.