2026-04-01: The Eye of Fortune
- Log: 2026-04-01 The Eye of Fortune
- Cast: Jun Kashihara, Hitomi Mandai
- Where: Yumezaki - Main
- OOC Date: April 02, 2026
- IC Date: Thursday, October 19, 2012
- Summary: During midterms, Hitomi and Jun happen to run into each other in Yumezaki. Recognizing each other from the Aerospace Museum zeppelin, they get a drink together and chat.
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
Midterms are nearly done. Just Friday and a half-day on Saturday left, and then it's sweet, sweet freedom for the student body. ...For a little while, anyway. Jun is fine either way, except for the exams he'll have to make up for from Tuesday, but he's already got that set up. After today's tests, which went swimmingly, he opts to take a break and take his mind off things for a while by heading to Yumezaki.
Giga Macho's musical selection is wonderful; unfortunately, after a bit of browsing, he decided that there's nothing in the recent releases that catches his eye. From there, he heads to Yumezaki Center to hit up Peace Diner; Jun doesn't care for fast food, but they do have a chocolate milkshake there that he enjoys, so he gets that.
Afterwards, he walks the streets a bit aimlessly. He passes by Club Zodiac without a second glance; he doubts they do any kind of astrology there. Mu Continent gets his momentary interest, and he spends some time observing it from outside. He's heard conflicting things about it being a game center or a casino... Which is it? Before his Awakening, he would have assumed the former, since casinos aren't supposed to be legal in Japan, but now that he knows about the power of Rumors... anything seems possible.
After that, though, he starts heading his way towards the train station. Somehow, he finds he's not in the mood for anything right now. Maybe it's best to just go home.
He wears the teal Kasugayama High uniform, but there is no flower in his breast pocket right now.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi Mandai didn't go back to the dorm when midterms were done. She had to beg off a little, but when she obscurely referred to 'family stuff,' nobody minded. It doesn't sound good.
It was a little bit of a lie. The family stuff is kind of irrelevant. Her parents are out of town; her brother is minding the temple. There are no services planned for the next several days. A small stroke of luck.
The visit wasn't long. Hitomi didn't even come to the temple; she went to a place not far away to meet her brother, and they had supper together. An okonomiyaki place; a common site from their youth, a reasonably priced place for modest celebrations. There wasn't anything to celebrate, exactly, but they talked.
It was tiring, thought Hitomi, but it was alright. She got on a local bus to get to the train station, coming after all from a different angle than was usually the case; she watched her brother, shaved head and goof-ass T-shirt (no need to dress up at THAT place), disappear into the middle distance before the bus made a turn.
Then she got off the bus, a block away from Jun Kashihara. Total coincidence.
BUT... a girl in an unfamiliar school uniform comes from around a corner. The uniform isn't familiar (Hitomi was wearing something casual at the time of the battle and the horror) but the face and the hair-do is. Hitomi turns her head and she catches sight of Jun from across the street, where he is momentarily reflected in a window made tinted by the oblique angle of the sun.
She blinks.
From across the street, she calls, "OII!" and raises a hand to wave. After that, she vectors back a bit - the light turns, there's a crosswalk - soon enough she's on the same side of the street, and she's walking towards Jun, and she's smiling.
"Hey," Hitomi says, in a less 'hail there, sailor, what wind from Tanegashima?' level of volume, grinning a little crookedly. "Sorry I yelled. Uh. I saw you the other day! At the, museum," Hitomi concludes, before adjusting her glasses. A passing salaryman routes around them, giving both of the younger people a disapproving side-eye on his way to his appointment with six honks of Suntory whiskey.
"Hitomi Mandai," she says, with a little bobble of a bow.
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
A bus passes by Jun as he walks down the street. Someone has gotten off at the stop ahead. Jun doesn't immediately pay her any mind, but then she shouts and waves for his attention before crossing the street and approaching. As she does so, he slows, studying her; it takes him only a moment to place where he's seen her before.
After all, it was only two days ago.
As grim as that day was, her smile helps him reflect the friendly gesture back to her. "That's all right. I remember seeing you," he replies. They shared a nod while she was evacuating with those three children, even! He glances at the salaryman who winds past them with a side-eye, and he steps to one side, further away from the street, to avoid blocking any other pedestrians.
"Jun Kashihara," he replies, bowing back. "It's nice to properly make your acquaintance, Mandai-san--especially under much better circumstances." When he stands up straight, he gives her a considering look. "You were with... Kawase-san and Aragaki-san, correct? And Yamagishi-san, too." Hitomi might not have been in uniform at the time, but presumably the members of SEES were still wearing their armbands. Jun's not familiar with the group, but he has met several of its members.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi pushes her glasses up her nose. "Yeah," she confirms, nodding along. "Ohh, nice - It sounds like you know them all already," Hitomi continues with a slight cant of her head. Her palms come together for a moment. "Then I'm *additionally* glad I ran into you!"
Hitomi also steps a bit out of the main flow of traffic. One hand rests on her hip as she looks back the way she came - towards the station.
Back to Jun. She brings one hand up over her left breast pocket area, covering her emblem as well as the clasp of the coat's zipper. "What happened to your flower?"
After that, her lips purse for a moment. "... were you heading somewhere? Heh; sorry for the double questions." She has her back to the window behind her as she says this, her head lifting slightly to look at Jun more plainly. It's a slight downward angle, inevitably.
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
And, of course, when Hitomi gets close enough, it's very easy to recognize her considering she's a significant chunk taller than Jun, who is slightly below average when it comes to teen boys. Jun manages to swallow his surprise in that regard, though. No doubt she's heard plenty in her time.
"We're acquainted, at least," Jun replies. He likes to think of Ririka as a friend, considering how personal their last conversation was, but they've only met a couple of times and he doesn't want to assume. Fuuka likewise he's only met twice, though they also had a serious conversation, and Shinjiro naught but once. At the least, it's enough to see a bunch of familiar faces in one place.
He looks down at his breast pocket when she asks about his flower. It's a little surprising to hear the question, considering how many other things there were for Hitomi to pay attention to at the time, and his expression twists a bit with something bittersweet. "It seems like when I landed in the ocean, it tore off. At least, it was gone by the time I made it to shore," he replies. "I haven't... decided what to replace it with, yet."
Another yellow iris... somehow doesn't feel appropriate. But he doesn't know what would be just yet.
"Nowhere in particular. Home, probably," he says, glancing past her towards the train station. "I was just walking around the area after the day's exams. I was feeling restless." He looks back at her and her Gekkoukan uniform. "What about yourself? You're clearly a long ways from home, if I may say so."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi's eyebrows lift a little at the statement of acquaintancehood. A fine and honest relationship, yet one that holds its own ambiguity. She does not speculate aloud, and then: "Ahh. Was it preserved or something like that...? That sucks, though." She takes a deep breath and lets it out.
"Technically," Hitomi begins, raising a hand and wagging a finger for a moment, "I'm closer than I usually am." Now she smiles. "I was born here; my family's over in Konan."
"It's a hell of a thing. I grew up like... eight blocks from that museum," Hitomi says, straightening up then and looking momentarily back towards the train station, where Jun is looking too. "All this time, and then we go there on this whim of sempai -- Aragaki, I mean -- and then all -- *that* happens. It was nuts."
"You want to get coffee for a minute? It's, what," Hitomi says, drawing her phone out of a small shoulder bag that presumably only has test-taking materials and other such contraband. Her phone is a reasonably new model - a smartphone - and no charms on it. "Yeah," she says, "there's like twenty-five minutes to my train. I think we're blocking traffic..."
"... weird question, but, is that pachinko place still there? The one by Mu I mean. Pachinko Silver."
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
"To an extent," Jun replies, because flowers wilt quickly if you don't do something to preserve them, but it's not as though he'd had it spun in plastic or anything like that. It was a real flower, as all the flowers he wears and wields are.
He also needs to get a new weapon, on that note. But that's a separate, if related, problem.
"Oh? Oh, my--that explains everything." Jun's beautiful features soften with sympathy. Hitomi must be in town to check up on her family, in that case. Eight blocks away... It must be very scary for them, having something like that happen so close by.
'Whim of sempai,' though, huh... Somehow, Jun doubts it was truly a whim. However, if that's what Shinjiro is claiming, he's not going to disclaim him. For all Jun knows, maybe it really was.
"Coffee? Hmmm... I don't mind," Jun decides. He had that chocolate shake earlier, but it's hardly filling. He looks over his shoulder at the question. "I believe so," he says, "but I've never been inside." He looks back at her. "Why do you ask?"
Either way, if it's twenty-five minutes to her train, there's a coffee place near (at?) the station they can drop by to hang out and chat for a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Oh," Hitomi says, taking off her glasses momentarily and grimacing slightly at something, "that place is just really bad luck, so I had wondered if it had closed."
Hitomi then moves towards the station. Cross the street...
"When we were going up - I don't know what you and... your folks there were doing, exactly, but I guess you were ahead of us, as it were - I told some kids that when they got out they should go to Mandaiji, right, because I knew they'd be safe there. It's a safe place."
The glasses are put back on (she was able to detect the crossing signal without them) and she exhales. "I need to get new frames..."
"So my brother had texted me and I didn't notice it until the next day, since I... well, I could have gone to sleep at any moment, but I managed to gut it out to get back to the dorm on Port Island. We were lucky we didn't miss the last train. No way we could've gotten a hotel."
So much for that block. Another cross and the station is like right next to a small pod of commercial stuff, including a Master Donut. Hitomi slows down a little, not quite to the point of entering. "Other than that it was mostly boring. At least we got to catch up a little on sleep before midterms. I hope it's not tanking my scores."
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
"Oh, is it?" Jun takes another look down the street towards Pachinko Silver. There's a question inherent in how a high schooler would know a pachinko place is bad luck, but he decides not to question her on it. "It seems like it's still doing business, at least," he replies as he walks with her down the street.
Him and his folks... "Who exactly do you think were 'my folks' there?" he wonders, a little morbidly curious what her perspective is. After all, the only person he personally ascended the museum with was Eikichi, but he certainly did spend that fight sticking close to Tatsuya... "But yes. Sudou-san has been... a personal threat to many of us."
It seemed like he'd done Shinjiro dirty personally too, though Jun hadn't been able to pay close attention to that at the time. From what he'd gathered, though, it sounded like Sudou had murdered someone he cared about... Another reason why Jun thinks it was no whim. Curious that he wouldn't tell his friends, though--unless, of course, Hitomi is the one who's lying. Another reason not to push back. It's really not his business either way.
"Mandaiji... So your family runs a temple?" Jun asks as they cross the street together. "That does sound like a good place to send children." He nods as she continues--so much for her frames--but at least they caught the train in time.
"Boring is good after an experience like that," Jun says with mild humor. He opens the door to the Master Donut and holds it for her, then follows her in. "Good luck with the rest of your midterms. Sudou-san's attack certainly was ill-timed."
At least there won't be any more, he wants to say, but after that voice that claimed the Joker won't die... he's not so sure about that.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Ah," Hitomi says, quietly.
But then she has a question to answer. "Mmm... those snappy looking old guys, mostly," Hitomi says, even as she passes into the Master Donut, whose warm pastel colors and iconography reach out to hold them gently, like burger.
(There are no burgers here. Not yet.)
"Am I right?"
As she makes it to the counter, she folds her arms loosely. "Yeah," she confirms about the temple. "I had figured... mm... well, I went to that museum a bunch on field trips, so I figured there was a good chance they were local, even if I had no idea who they were. I mean Konan's pretty big, you know, and it's not like I hang out with second graders. - Oh, yeah! Blonde roast and a pink frosted~"
Hitomi scoots over in case Jun wants to get in on this. "I"m not too worried," she continues, "but pride and arrogance and all that. I am pretty sure I rocked it on math... How're yours going?"
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
"Snappy-looking old guys...?" Jun echoes, blinking wide. "You don't mean Suou-san, do you? The police officer?" To say nothing of the long-haired bearded man who seemed to be with him and Maya, but Jun doesn't actually know who that (Baofu) is. "We know each other, but I don't know that I'd say they're my 'people'."
Who are his people? He has dear friends, including ones who came to his rescue--which includes Ririka and Fuuka, in fact--but when it comes to the supernatural... he's not sure he has a 'people.' Certainly no one he shares armbands with. Maybe he ought to ask Eikichi about that... Jun's always avoided joining any of the gangs at Kasugayama, preferring to remain neutral, but if the Death Boss has any Persona Users he runs with, it'd be prudent for Jun to do the same. Otherwise... there is the Kuzunoha Detective Agency...
Maybe he could "volunteer" there. Something to ask Tamaki about.
"That's a sensible guess. I live in Hirasaka, myself, so I've been on field trips there when I was a child, but not anytime recently." Jun sighs. "It's a true tragedy, having such a wonderful museum burn down... I hope they were well-insured."
He smiles as Hitomi assures him that she did will. "I'm very good at studying, so I'm not worried either. I've already set up a make-up exam for the day I missed," he assures her back. To the barista, he says as he takes out his wallet, "One mocha latte, please."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"And the guy with the beard," Hitomi continues, with enthusiasm. "I liked that guy! I saw him at the sanatarium," she continues, though the retail drone is not paid enough to care. Probably a video game.
Jun's thoughtful distance and pause brings a slight cant of Hitomi's head. She doesn't interfere. Chewing on it herself, perhaps. She doesn't have a lot of context about the beautiful young man. At least not yet.
"Insurance isn't going to do anything about the artifacts... though I guess they could reproduce some of them. I think that was a real A6M there, you know? I doubt somewhere like that's going to be able to just... buy it from another museum."
The order is taken! Pouring continues on, even as a tray - two trays - are set out, for maximum convenience and perhaps to control future dish-bussing problems. For when you eat in, you get plates here at Master Donut. Such luxury in pastry and coffee!!
"How'd you get them to do that for you?" Hitomi asks, with a purse of her lips. "I suppose if you said you were sick they'd have to at least give you a shot, right? Or if you broke your ankle or something, and had to go to the hospital. Otherwise it's a lawsuit. What's your strongest subject"
Once all is in readiness, she moves towards one of the booths.
"So everything with Sudou... I didn't hear much about it until recently, but it sounds like you were kind of under siege in here. I suppose we're lucky, heh," Hitomi grimaces about the luck, "that the Joker Killer thing wasn't going crazy down at Port Island. At least to my knowledge."
"And now it won't, will it?"
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
Wh-why is Hitomi so enthusiastic about the beard...? Jun shoots the retail drone a concerned glance when she brings up the sanitarium at that, but they don't so much as bat an eyelash. So much for the better, he supposes.
"No, it won't--but it would at least give them funding to help get them back on their feet." Though Hitomi does raise some good points about where they'd get new exhibits, which makes Jun muse, "Then again, the entire building is cinders... If the city decides it doesn't want to rebuild, there won't be anything the museum staff can do."
He hopes they'll be able to rebuild, but it'll take years at best.
He accepts his tray, though he hardly needs it when his order is a single drink. Perhaps it's policy for the shop. As he walks with Hitomi, Jun shrugs a bit. "I'm the best student at my school, I already had a 'family emergency' earlier this year, and unfortunately, most of the teachers there don't really care. They're going to let me stay late on Saturday for make-ups, and then I have to submit the extra exams on my own, which is less about trusting me and more about the teacher not wanting to stay late. I don't know that they'd let you do that over at Gekkoukan."
As for his strongest subject: "Mathematics--specifically physics--" He smiles. "--though I also have a love of science and literature. I'm well-versed in several languages too, though of them, only English is an official subject at Kasugayama."
He sobers on the topic of the Joker Killer in Port Island. He notes the way Hitomi grimaces, though he doesn't realize it's specifically about luck just yet. "I... certainly hope not."
'The Joker won't die'... How exactly will that manifest...?
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Maybe... It was a private museum, right? Maybe they'll sell the land," says Hitomi on the way over. She has had a rather breezy tone, overall, but this one seems to come from the heart. It sounds like sadness, if rather measured.
Everything has to fade, anyway.
"... Wow," Hitomi concludes about the school. "That's... awful, damn. I couldn't get away with something like that. Not unless it was," her throat clears, "other stuff, but, hm, well, I don't know how much Aragaki told you about how we do stuff..."
There's another topic. "Oh! What languages? I like history, mostly," Hitomi says, breaking her donut in half with a gentle motion of her hands. "Like that's my other strong space. I probably did OK in Japanese... don't know about English, though. It's hard, right? I mean I know it's global, but."
Dip! She dipped the donut in the coffee. After biting the saturated pastry, which lets her swallow it without too much chewing, she pivots the donut-half slightly, her elbows on the table. Indicating Jun, loosely.
"But," she says, "I was going to go to Kasugayama, probably, before I managed to get in at Gekkoukan. What year are you?"
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
"Maybe," Jun echoes back. Like Hitomi, there is a sadness from the heart in his voice.
Everything has to fade, but that doesn't mean it's without pain. At least no one besides Sudou died; that's the second-best outcome they could have asked for.
"Kasugayama has a bad reputation for a reason," he replies with a shrug. "Its academic standards aren't very high, I admit, but as a social study, it's second to none. Anyway, it's not all the teachers, at least." He smiles. "Marlowe-sensei and Ooshiro-sensei," oops, that should be Ijuuin-sensei, how forgetful of him, "both care a great deal." Sadly, Yua is not actually that good at being a teacher...
He shakes his head. "Nothing. I only met Aragaki-san once, several months ago, long before I, er, Awoke." He lowers his voice: "This is not really the place to go into that sort of detail, anyway..."
At least midterms are an easier topic to discuss. "English, as I mentioned; French; enough German to get by; and after I graduate and start college, I'm thinking of studying Cantonese or Korean. Perhaps both." He nods once at her mention of history, though that makes him think of the recent History Boom and how that might be a wholesale fabrication. That's something else to maybe not discuss in a random donut cafe. He takes a sip of his mocha latte. It's tasty, at least.
"English is challenging, certainly. It doesn't seem to follow its own rules half the time," Jun agrees. He gives Hitomi a thoughtful look about her almost-school. "It seems like there's a story there." A beat. "Third. And you?"
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi smiles at the news about Kasugayama. She doesn't interrupt (not least because she picked up the coffee and took a modest sip) but she doesn't look *shocked*. "You don't seem like the type... how did you get into that place, anyway? Is it just your local school?"
And then her eyes widen at that list. "Oh wow-- have you travelled abroad? That sounds amazing. I guess Cantonese is the easy one, right, but maybe I'm being parochial about it. You could do Arabic," Hitomi muses, "but that's another writing system. Of course, so is Korean, and basically Chinese, right?"
Another sip of the coffee.
"Second," Hitomi says. "If I wasn't in the uniform, it'd be hard to tell, right?" She grins, briefly. "I hope it doesn't stay, the looking older than I am thing, though."
But then. There's a story there.
"I'll tell you all of it, since you've got a trustworthy face, if you really want to hear it," Hitomi says. Her voice lowers slightly. "I haven't told the rest of 'em. At Gekkoukan, I mean. But I guess it might be small change compared to what you're hearing in class..."
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
"I took the entrance exam," Jun replies without batting an eyelash. "As I said, as a social study, it's second to none. I've learned a lot there that I never could have at a more reputable school." He chuckles. "It does help that it's local, though, yes. It's nice to be able to walk home."
It's another writing system! "So are English, French, and German," Jun points out, "though it's true we're more used to Roman letters compared to the Arabic or Korean writing systems. At least Chinese kanji are mostly similar to Japanese. And yes--my father teaches World History and my mother's an actress, so we've gone abroad a number of times when I was younger." With deep fondness, he adds, "My father's a brilliant man. He taught me so much of what I know all on his own."
A second year. Jun really wouldn't have guessed with how tall she is. He simply nods, though, as much in acknowledgement as in agreement, and smiles back when she grins. "It must be useful right now, though."
He didn't expect her to share that story--he only remarked on it. "I appreciate the gesture of trust, Mandai-san. I don't know if it'll be small change or not, but I promise to keep it to myself if you feel like sharing," he murmurs back.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
"Oho~. So you're observing the mating rituals and tribal customs of the wild idiot," Hitomi says.
"What's even comfier is a dorm, but of course that's not something they'd do here," Hitomi admits/concurs, and straightens up, pursing her lips for a moment. "Mm. Yeah - I read that the kanji readings can trip you up - no," Hitomi says, looking up at the ceiling for a moment, "I heard that. Hah! It was my dad." She takes another sip of her coffee.
"Alright," Hitomi says then. She takes a deep breath and --
(Nerves herself up. On the one hand, while Jun seems like an excellent sort of person, he's also just admitted - even if only in jest, maybe - that he's in Kasugayama to study people. He's excellent at languages by Hitomi's estimation. He might have an angle. And yet, even so:)
-- starts talking. Her voice is animated but quiet.
"I stole money and snuck into that pachinko parlor," Hitomi says, her eyes brightening. "And it went great. I was *great* at pachinko, apparently. I mean it's not like it's heavy on skill but if you get into the groove you actually -- anyway, I don't, I don't really want to focus on that, since I really got stupid about it."
Another sip of her coffee. A beat. Two. Hitomi glances to the side, glancing perhaps at a clock. She leans her head forwards slightly.
"When I say I got stupid I don't mean I was caught," she says. "Not exactly. I did get sloppy but my real mistake was when I was invited to come back for a table night in what they said like it was a VIP lounge. Since I was an idiot, I said yes, and I just about got eaten by a demon."
She sips her coffee.
If nothing else, Hitomi thinks, he'll believe me about the demons.
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
Jun bursts into laughter at that. "Yes, something like that," he says with warm humor, brown eyes twinkling. "I want to be a teacher in the future, so it's important to understand people--especially troubled youths." His humor fades into a more serious look. "I want to be able to help the students that other teachers would give up on."
There are dorms at Kasugayama, apparently, but Jun doesn't know much about that. He walks home, after all. Kanji readings can indeed be troublesome--but Hitomi is committing to telling her story, and it's more important to listen to that. He sips on his mocha latte as she speaks.
She admits to having stolen money to go gambling at pachinko. Jun doesn't bat an eyelash. He has indeed heard worse. She goes off on a tangent but rescues herself from it, and he simply nods when she makes herself move on. She leans in; so, too, does he. And then she confides in him that she was nearly eaten by a demon.
"I see," he says quietly. Not a single eyelash twitches. "That must have been a terrifying predicament. How did you get out of it?"
Clearly he does indeed believe her about the demons.
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
Hitomi does an exaggerated silent mouthing of three syllables.
Per
So
Na
And then smiles, a little sheepishly. "I want to make it sound cool but I'd be lying... it just meant I was able to get away. I guess I *didn't* start a fire, though. I didn't understand anything and when I got out of the place, my phone rang. I was busted."
She takes a deep breath and lets it out afterwards, before picking up her donut half, though it's more like a donut three-eighths now. "I don't even remember the thing. It had a huge mouth, though. At least, I thought it was huge."
"They're not like Shadows, are they?" Hitomi muses.
She eats the donut portion.
Once that's done, she says, "That's admirable... wanting to be a teacher. You've got the attitude. What would you teach? If you could pick."
<Pose Tracker> Jun Kashihara has posed.
So Hitomi awoke at that time. That explains everything. Jun nods like he understands completely.
"So you weren't that lucky," he says with some humor when it gets to the part when she was busted. "At least you got away, but yes, I can see why you're not so fond of Pachinko Silver now."
A huge mouth... A detail that might be worth remembering, since it sounds like she didn't defeat the thing, only escaped with her life, and if she hasn't told her friends about this, they wouldn't have helped her go back to take care of it either. "Demons? I suppose not, but if you're asking for an explanation, I'm still very new at all this myself."
She finishes off her donut; he too drinks more of his mocha latte. When he sets it down again, he smiles. "Thank you," he replies. What would he teach, though? Jun considers the question thoughtfully. "Mathematics," he decides. "It can be a tough subject if you don't have a head for numbers, but it's not as unfriendly as some think, either. I think I could make it easy to understand."
He checks his watch--no he doesn't, because there isn't a watch on him. But he pulls up his right wrist as if he were going to check a watch. He frowns, then pulls out a flip phone and checks that instead. "Your train ought to be arriving soon," he says. "Shall we get going, Mandai-san? You've got a long ways to go."
<Pose Tracker> Hitomi Mandai has posed.
<poem> Hitomi smiles. It's a peaceful kind of smile. "I think you're right," she says. "I didn't really get into it until I started to understand about probabilities. That kinda unlocked stuff for me." Pachinko secrets revealed??
Then, when she sees Jun checking, she pulls out her own phone. "Shit," she says, before lifting up her coffee cup and downing it, picking up the half-donut too, perhaps, nibble at on the platform. She'll also give over her phone number for texting and similar purposes in the future. BOOM, victory.
"I got a round trip when I got here," Hitomi half-complains, "but if I show up in the middle of the night, I'm doomed tomorrow, and *that's* English for us--" </pose>