2026-06-11: Without Spiders
- Log: Without Spiders
- Cast: Kanae Fuyuki, J. Itsuki Hayashi
- Where: Shujin Academy - Practice Building
- OOC Date: June 11, 2026
- IC Date: Friday, November 23, 2012
- Summary: After Tennis practice, Kanae finishes glaring after Isabeau to instead talk to Itsuki. He provides horrifying spider lore; she provides advice. There will be chocolate later.
(|==================== Shujin Academy - Practice Building ====================|)
-==================================================== Tokyo/Aoyama-Itchome ====-
Shujin Academy's practice building hosts rooms for the school's various clubs,
but also boxes in the school's courtyard gardens, which are lovingly kept. There
are plenty of places in the courtyard to sit for students looking to eat lunch
outdoors or just enjoy the weather, and the walkways have roofs for when it
rains. The gymnasium is large and well-equipped; thick red curtains block off a
stage and podium in the back, so setting up folding chairs can convert it into
an auditorium as necessary.
The interior is both like and unlike the classrooms building: the floors are
still wooden but in a latticed design; the walls are still white and gray, but
with only a small strip of gray at the bottom; and the sliding classroom doors
still have windows, but long, narrow rectangular ones. Vending machines dot the
premises here and there, as do well-kept bathrooms.
The first floor in particular hosts the nurse's office, a surprisingly
comfortable room with green-tiled floors, potted ferns, medicine cabinets,
hospital-style beds behind pink curtains, bookshelves, and plush couches around
a tea table. One can seek counseling here from Dr. Maruki, the kind-hearted
temporary guidance counselor, for any reason.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
Wednesday, Kanae and Isabeau got kicked out of practice for knocking the cooler over. Today, it's gone better, mostly because Isabeau stormed off as soon as practice ended.
Now, it's a lovely (cool) day in November, and Kanae hasn't changed out of her tennis outfit because practice has only just started ending. People are milling around, but for the moment, Kanae herself is actually looking after where Isabeau ran off.
"...Tch," she vocalizes, and turns around huffily.
This brings Itsuki into her field of vision! "Oh!"
She'd meant to talk to him...
<Pose Tracker> J. Itsuki Hayashi has posed.
The girls are fighting.
That, in full, is Itsuki's summation of events. He's a teenage boy, he has sisters and a mother he respects, he's well aware that girls are complex individuals in the same way that boys are. At the same time, though, there's definitely a large part of him that just... girls might as well be from another planet.
He's not even sure why they started fighting in the first place. It's not like with guys, where you just don't like the way they look, or because you want to make sure everyone else knows you're not to be messed with. What do girls even fight about? Why is Isabeau acting like she's been personally offended?
He doesn't know, and he's also not about to go and ask. After all, Itsuki has two sisters and a mother he respects. Some things, you just don't get to know about because it's 'girl stuff'.
But here's Kanae, and here's him on his lonesome as he packs his stuff up after practice, and she's just noticed he exists.
"Hey! Sempai!" he calls out, giving her a nod as he pulls his hair out of the small ponytail he usually wears it in, and gives it a shake. Cool day or not, he still built up a sweat and he wants to give things a moment to 'air out' so to speak. "What's up?"
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
The girls are often fighting, when those girls are Kanae and Isabeau, and getting in the middle of that is widely-agreed to be a terrible idea.
But Kanae is here, and talking to Itsuki now. "First, I wanted to tell you..."
"Your swing's getting really good!" she says with a smile, walking the rest of the way over and trying to put Isabeau right out of her mind. Kanae's been kind of out of sorts today, but she's trying to be nice.
"Have you been practicing extra?"
<Pose Tracker> J. Itsuki Hayashi has posed.
He's not averse to fighting and he still doesn't get why they fight so much. Even with his bullies over the years, he's sometimes been able to get to a sort of grudging respect; if the other guy doesn't like him at all and a good fight doesn't sort it out, well, you just give the guy a wide berth.
...Given that Kanae and Isabeau are both in the same club, though, he supposes that's just not possible. Maybe that's part of what's up: neither of them can give the other enough space, and they're both competing for the same sort of role. It's kind of a pain in the ass, honestly, especially considering he likes both of them well enough, but...
"Yeah?"
The first thing from Kanae is a compliment! "Hey, great! Thanks," he says, thumbing towards his chest. "Of course, that's not a surprise. I used to do tennis back home, too. So it's not like this is new," he explains.
Has he been practicing extra?
Itsuki shrugs. "Not really. I'm just getting started," he tells her.
He has been. He's been taking Isabeau's remarks towards him as a personal challenge, which has provoked him to actually try a bit for a change.
"You were pretty good out there, too, sempai. Too bad about... eh," he says, shrugging as he strays a touch towards the island of forbidden topics.
"Got any plans today?" he course-corrects, righting his boat in the one way he can.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Oh, true," Kanae says. "That tracks; you definitely don't act like a newbie. Do they do things any differently there about tennis?" she wonders, legit curious about 'back home'. But, he's just getting started... Hmmm.
"Cool."
"Thanks!" Kanae answers, and glances away, her eyes catching on a bench. Then she looks back with a wry expression as he course-corrects, because he is pretty sure what it's 'too bad about'. But if he wants to avoid the topic of Isabeau...
"Nah," Kanae answers of plans, shaking her head. "I was going to go out, but... something came up," she says, "So I'm just going to head home in a while. Maybe stop by somewhere on the way. How about you?"
<Pose Tracker> J. Itsuki Hayashi has posed.
"Hah, no, I'm not a newbie," he tells her. "I used to do soccer and swimming back home too. These days, just tennis suits me fine." He raises an eyebrow. "Different? Like, what kind of different? Tennis is tennis." He shrugs. "I guess there's more scorpions, though. Mosquitos, too."
He gives Kanae a look and grins in a way that suggests he's taking more amusement out of this than offense. "Everyone worries about the spiders, but it's the scorpions you have to look out for in São Paulo. Though... eh," he says, his smile taking on a more strained quality, "I'd stay away from the wandering spiders if you do see any."
He shrugs. "If you're ever in São Paulo, anyway. I don't think Japan has a lot of scary animals."
Other than bears, and hornets, he thinks to himself. He doesn't think he'd like to fight a bear or a hornet.
He reaches back at last, pulling his hair back; he'll have to wash up properly at home, but at least he doesn't feel like his hair is quite so gross now.
Maybe some guys don't care about that, but it's also why they're dateless. ...Never mind that he's also dateless...
"Huh, really?" he says to Kanae, glancing back at her. "Too bad. It's pretty nice out for November. I was going to head home, but... my mother's not expecting me anytime soon." He thinks about this for a moment. "Got room for one more, sempai? We can call it extracurricular or something, if you want. I'm still getting used to the area around here anyway."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Oh, cool!" Soccer and swimming, too. "I like tennis; I got into it younger, and just... stuck with it." But different!
He does seem amused at least, and Kanae laughs faintly. "I don't know, I thought there might be some rule variants or something. Scorpions and mosquitos make sense, though." Pause. Spiders... "...Iiii'm inclined to stay away from spiders anyway," Kanae admits. "My uncle's a carpenter... we got a lot of spiders."
"I'd like to go sometime."
Nobody wants to fight a bear. Except that one bear...
Good luck, itsuki...
"Hmmm," she says. "You know what? Sure." She had her reasons for wanting to be alone... but they don't really apply to Itsuki anyway.
"You cool with Shinjuku?" she asks. "I live in Kagurazaka. There's this great chocolate shop out there..."
<Pose Tracker> J. Itsuki Hayashi has posed.
"Tennis is pretty popular back home." Not as popular as soccer is, of course, but there's no topping soccer. And swimming, especially when you're only a few hours from the sea...
Not that he did a lot of that, though, when he thinks about it. Even a couple hours by transit is still a couple hours by transit; it's easier to use a swimming pool if a swim was all you had in mind.
"Nah," he says. "It's like other sports around the world." He pauses, though. "Have you ever done beach tennis? It's more of a Rio thing," Itsuki explains. "There's a few rule changes to regular tennis, like the ball can't hit the ground." Because it's sandy. Even though apparently the game has been adjusted to regular courts but using more or less the same rules, too, he's heard.
He laughs at Kanae's reaction. "The spiders here are easy compared to back home! Some of the ones you see are biiiig," he says stretching his hands out. "The tarantulas are just kittens! They're not that dangerous at all," he tells her. "It's the fast ones you have to worry about."
He may be layering it on a little, just to make her cringe, though.
"Yeah. It's pretty nice," he says, of his home. "I might go back someday. My older brother and the rest of the family's back there."
It would be easier to slip in back there, he figures, but for now... he's got to make this work.
Somehow.
"Yeah? Que legal," he tells Kanae when she invites him along. "Great," he continues in Japanese, stooping for his bag. "You can tell me which places are good. --Shinjuku? Sure. I mostly go home after school and clubs, so," he says, shrugging. He's only been going to Shujin the last semester, anyway. "Got any places that stand out? Cafes? Bookstores?"
What places are good on a date, he also wonders.
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
"Yeah? Good. Tennis should be more popular," Kanae thinks. Nothing tops soccer a lot of places, but she really likes tennis. And...
"Beach tennis!" Kanae says. "I haven't, but that's the kind of thing I was wondering about." She thinks about it. Ball can't hit the ground... Hmmm. "Cool."
But spiders... She shivers lightly. "No thanks," Kanae says of those spiders. "Tarantulas are gonna be a 'no' for me."
Let alone the fast ones!!
But still, "Oh, that's cool. Having family out there. ...I guess I might have family out in France, but I've never met them."
Legal! But Kanae also picks up her bag, as she goes. "Sure," she says. "Let's see... Shinjuku proper has some great movie theatres--but they're close to a lot of areas you don't really want to go as a teenager. The host bars and... well, bars, and stuff. Stick close to the movies if you go out there."
"Kagurazaka's a nicer part, though. A lot of bakeries... The Patiserrie Kurayama stands out there. They've got an old single-screen theatre too."
"And yeah, a few bookstores--though some of those are French-language. And the chocolate shop I'm gonna show you," she says. "If you want to bring a girl out there sometime, I recommend the bakeries, the movies, or the chocolate shop. But don't cheap out, either."
She can read his mind!! ...No, she just assumes that other teens have romance on the brain like she tends to, and since she has a boyfriend, she can dispense a little wisdom.
"We'll have to hit the connecting train first, though."
<Pose Tracker> J. Itsuki Hayashi has posed.
"Heh, nothing beats soccer, but..." he says, shrugging, smiling. "Tennis is pretty good, too. I've only done beach tennis once, but it was kind of fun. Sort of like volleyball and tennis," he summarizes."
Kanae seems less than impressed by the spider talk. "Really? You're sure?" Itsuki teases, looking down at Kanae (those 5cm count...?). "They make good pets! And they don't wiggle too much when you pick them up!" He wiggles his own fingers for emphasis. wiggle~
He's just messing with her. He's had encounters with tarantulas back home, sure, but picking them up can be itchy. He'll leave that to the actual arachnophiles.
His own natural history-type interests are a little different.
"Yeah, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, my oldest brother and his wife... they're having a kid soon, too. I guess that means I'll be an uncle too, heh," he says, rubbing at the back of his neck. An uncle at fifteen... it seems a little funny.
"France, huh? Like Isabeau? Her father's French, or something like that," he says, recalling that trip. "Wait, but you don't know them? ...Distant relatives?" he wonders. His grandfather's family is probably somewhere in Japan, but he wouldn't know them from Adam.
"Right? Got it," he says, considering what she's said about the dangerous parts of town... or at least, that's his takeaway. "We had places like that back home too, yeah. Tokyo's really something else, though." Even after two years of being in the area, ish, it's still a lot to consider.
"Ah, so that's the..." Now he remembers. Someone mentioned that was the French expat area, probably in some conjunction with Isabeau and her father. "Right, right. Makes sense! The French do that," he gestures, "cooking, baking stuff. I'm kind of curious if it stands up to the hype, right?" It was supposed to be some kind of next level thing, but can it stand up to the best that Brazil has to offer?
Which is, in his view, pretty top-shelf anyway. At least he can trust that a French place will definitely use the good cheese.
"...Eh?"
Aw, he's been seen through.
"Well, fine, fine," he decides, shaking his head as he gets over the initial surprise of being so 'seen'. "I figure, I might as well go forewarned, yeah? Didn't Sun Tzu say, 'if you know others and know yourself, you'll go unimperiled in a thousand battles'?" Itsuki pauses. "I mean, he was talking about war, but love is war sometimes, right?"
At least, that's the impression he's gotten.
"No such thing as winning a battle while skimping on supplies, either, heh," he asides at Kanae, before hefting his bag.
"Let's go. I don't want to miss the connection, either."
<Pose Tracker> Kanae Fuyuki has posed.
'Volleyball' always puts a little crimp in Kanae's style--and probably will for a while, even though Kamoshida's done with. But she doesn't say that, instead saying, "Yeah? Cool."
But spider talk is at least normal to be skittish about!! "I'm sure!!" Kanae answers with a little more heat than she quite intended. "Aaah," she says of wiggling, shaking her head quickly. "Nooooo thanks!"
But he has a lot of relatives, apparently. Kanae almost misses the part where--"Wow, already an uncle. That's something."
Almost.
"Mm-hm," Kanae says. "My mother was French." 'Was', she says. "...But I never met my grandparents or anything."
But still, Itsuki gets it. "I guess every big city has places like that," Kanae agrees. Not 'everywhere', but definitely the cities. ANd indeed, "They do. I think it does, but I guess I'm a little biased."
But eh!!!
"Heh," Kanae grins. "It's fine. That's not a bad quote... If you approach it with that much care, maybe you will get a girl. But don't be too eager, either." Love is war... Kanae thinks of how Isabeau reacts to her boyfriend. "It sure is."
"Ha! That's just right. Tokyo girls will expect you to pay for stuff. Just remember!"
She walks along out with her bag, "Totally. Just this connection..."