2026-01-06: Purrsimmon
- Log: 2026-01-06 Purrsimmon
- Cast: Minato Arisato, Yoko Hirano
- Where: Gekkoukan High
- OOC Date: January 06, 2026
- IC Date: September 06, 2012
- Summary: Minato and Yoko act SO normal.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Track and Field practice takes a good chunk of Minato's time -- luckily, he has plenty to spend. (Doesn't he?) The afternoon's getting a touch late by the time he ambles out from the entry to the track, changed out of his gym clothes after hitting the showers but still a bit damp of hair; most of the members of Go Home Club have Gone Home, already, but teenagers who have clubs have had more reason to stick around.
And as for reasons to go check out the little garden with the persimmon tree near the gym...
Well, Minato's here because he heard a cat. There was a cat. "Here kitty," he says, his face and voice as flat as ever. "Puss, puss, puss."
He crouches by one of the benches, looking beneath it...
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
The Go Home Club is probably nice and all, but what if you don't want to be home?
Besides, Yoko's dorm doesn't allow for the use of substances that offgas toxic vapors, which disqualifies her from using any of the really interesting sculpting mediums that don't need firing. And that dorm's oven does not reach kiln temperatures. (She didn't have to check. She already knew that.)
So the Art Club is perfect for her, because she can stay in the art room and work until she's ready to go home. Or not-home.
"Senpai," comes a voice from behind Minato. It's Yoko, hands clasped around the strap of her messenger bag, standing between the walkway and the little garden area. "Did it follow you here?" Or! Or maybe it's another cat. Did Yoko ever consider that??
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Fire and toxic gas... sounds dangerous. Girls can be scary, huh...
"I'm not sure," Minato says, as he straightens up. "But I definitely heard it." Miaou... that was definitely a miaou.
He does not look surprised, in the slightest, that Yoko showed up while he was looking for a cat.
This is a normal thing to happen, Minato thinks.
"It isn't in this area..." He goes over to peek around the fence, at the trees growing outside. "Here, puss. Puss puss puss."
"..."
"No dice," Minato concludes, turning back to Yoko. "Let's act normally. Maybe it will show up, then."
He gestures, to her, as his other hand slips back into his pockets. "Were you at Art Club?"
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
It is dangerous. That's why the dorm doesn't allow it! And that's disappointing, because Yoko is a Trained Semi-Professional and more importantly she actually reads the material safety data pamphlets that come with her art supplies. This is why she owns a respirator and uses it.
Do not look up what aerosolized sealants do to healthy pink lungs. Do not.
She stands there on the borderline, watching him search. Minato is also a kind of professional, and it's important to learn from the masters in a field. "..." Ah. The cat must be shy. "Mmm," Yoko hums, nodding, but then she's struck by the dilemma of 'acting normal on command'. "....."
Her lips thin briefly before Yoko takes a breath and stands up a little straighter. "I was. I finished a painting so I had to clean my palette and brushes afterward. And oil takes longer than other paints..." Her loafers scuff minutely against the threshold before she steps into the grass.
"What club are you in, Senpai?"She's doing her best!!
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Yeah... scary...
"Oil takes longer... oh, yeah. Because it's older, right?" Minato asks, having half-remembered things he's read on the internet and from history classes and things. "So it's a more complicated process... you must be good at this."
Pause. "Congratulations," he says, another beat of a pause, "on finishing a painting." Normal things which normal people say, normally.
"I just came out from Track practice," he explains, gesturing back to the gym. "Hayase-kun will beat me if I don't practice regularly... if that happens, I'll be letting Miyamoto-kun and Nishiwaki-san down, too."
Mamoru is inspiring Minato to fight harder to inspire his allies, too...
Wonder if there's anything to that?
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Because it's older? She doesn't get it right away, not until he mentions the 'process' of it. "Oh. The chemical process?" Does senpai paint too? "There are more steps to removing oil from brushes. Acrylic and watercolor are made to be washed away easily. There really isn't a 'best' medium, that way." Did she skip a thought? "Because oils take longer to clean up but they also stay workable longer. But they dry and dry and dry without stopping, so eventually they can become brittle."
Yoko suddenly started getting better grades in chemistry once the class moved on to polymers. For some reason. "Ah-- I want to be a professional artist after graduation. So I practice a lot. ...Thank you." Has she ever been congratulated for something like that before - for finishing?
It feels nice. It's satisfying to complete something even if it won't be seen or graded.
'If' he doesn't practice, though. "Does that mean you're the fastest right now? Or is he your rival?" Athletes have rivals, don't they? But it's hard to imagine senpai getting heated about much of anything...
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"I figured acrylics were probably invented later, so they'd be easier... you know, like technology." Minato says, dashing all hope that he knows. "Brittle... they always looked textured when I went to museums. I thought they'd be fun to touch, but since you're not allowed to, I wouldn't know."
He nods, though, when Yoko confirms her hopes and dreams. "Cool. Sounds like you already know a lot... I do music, not painting, so I don't know the details. But if acrylic is easy to wash away... I'd better remember that the next time we need to decorate stalls for school festival."
That's also a normal thing for a school to have!
"I guess he is my rival," Minato wonders, thinking of Mamoru. "A rival athlete... that's how he's related to me." See, he's officially labelled as the Rival Athlete Social Link and everything!
From the depths of hell, a second time...
'Miau'...
Minato blinks, and looks at Yoko. "Did you hear that?" He asks. "There's definitely a cat."
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
...Is that why acrylics are easier to clean? "I didn't really think so hard about it before," Yoko admits. Just because she may know a 'how' doesn't mean she knows a 'why'! "But it makes sense. Like washable markers. More people will try them if they can boast 'easy cleanup', right?" And acrylics are definitely the popular choice for paints! "Oils do have a reputation for being old-fashioned..."
That's right, oils. You're grandma paint.
"They do have texture! Or they can," she amends, because not everybody trowels it on like Van Gogh. Even though they could. "Varnish protects it somewhat, but..." she trails off, gaze wandering. What was the line from that movie? 'Even the Mona Lisa is falling apart'?
Miau... "I definitely heard it," she nods, attention snapped back to the present. Hands in loose fists at collar height, Yoko casts around for a likely hiding spot.
"...The tree?" she wonders out loud, looking up.
...Not very far up, though. It's kind of a piddly tree.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"They're fancy," Minato agrees, of oil paints.
Does that mean Yoko is also fancy...?
"I wonder if they make oil paintings designed to be touched," Minato says. "That would be neat. But I guess if varnish doesn't protect it completely... probably not."
Mi a uuuuuu. . . . . . . .
Yoko looks up, and Minato looks up.
Slowly, the camera pans up...
... until it reverses view, looking down on Yoko and Minato...
... and finally swings back around to show a little black kitten curled up between two branches of the persimmon tree.
'Miauuuuuu,' the kitten meows, again, watching them with wide, yellow eyes.
"There's the cat," Minato says, looking up.
He proceeds to spend the next solid minute in silence, looking up to the cat, hands in his pockets.
'Miauuuuu,' the kitten meows, plaintively.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Surely someone has made an oil painting that should be touched. Not 'can be', but should be! That seems like an exciting new field in traditional art. Maybe it would have to be some other kind of paint though. A compromise.
"Maybe," Yoko says instead, because her mind has just been pried open a little further and now all her thoughts are running wild. How thickly could she layer paint before it had little hope of ever drying completely? What if she did it in layers? Could someone freeze dry paint? What happens if you do?
Everything threatens to stretch out before her or spill on the ground, ideas scattering all over. Exciting!! She wants to try it! She can definitely do it!
And among the ideas still clinging to the branches of the school's persimmon tree, there's... "Inky," she pronounces, smiling up at it. Eyes wide, mouth open on the exhale. It was here all along!
And like Minato, for a moment Yoko is so delighted by the sight that she just kind of. Stares at it.
Until it meows again, and again, this time with feeling. "..." She looks over at Minato. "Senpai, I think it's stuck..."
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
Minato wants to touch the art. Let him touch the art. It would be interesting to touch he thinks.
He will be no help here; he wants to touch the art. Let Yoko make the touchable art.
And then...
'Miauuuuu...'
They are spellbound, until Yoko breaks their curse with a word. He blinks, slowly. "Oh."
Minato reaches uuup, above his head... and he's tall enough that he can reach into the tree, because it's only been growing as long as a man's been dead. The kitten fits into his palms quite snugly, as he lifts it from the branch and lowers it back down.
'Miiii!' The kitten meows, happier now he's not SO high up. He's clearly someone's pet, he's very used to being handled.
"Inky..." Minato repeats, cupping his hands to hold the kitten.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Don't threaten Minato Arisato with a good and only slightly toxic time. Pinky promise, like a real man.
Even as small as the tree is, Yoko is smaller still. She was prepared to go get a stepladder or maybe even climb onto Minato's back but thankfully she won't have to. She would probably expire of embarrassment if she fell off of someone's back at school...
She hovers at his ebow when he's got the kitten securely nestled in his hands. "...Cute..." This just goes to add more evidence that senpai is a Cat Whisperer. "It's so little."
She could fit like four of them in her messenger bag!! That's so small!!
This one looks much more friendly than Enigma. Her hand, paint-smudged, passes gently over its fur once, twice.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
'Miiiii~', Inky the Kitten (probably not his real name) meows, as he headbutts Yoko's hand.
"I think he wants you to pet him more... hang on, I have an idea." Minato slowly tuuurns, because he is holding a cat, and walks to one of the benches dotted around the persimmon tree. He sits on one end of the bench, and carefully deposits Inky down in the middle.
Luckily, because Minato pets him as soon as he puts him down, he's happy to stick around.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
This is a familiar and welcome variation on Cat Coaxing. And they already coaxed the cat, so it's surely some kind of double success, isn't it? Yoko can't dwell on the idea too long, of course, because as soon as she sits down on the other end of the bench she's rubbing the little guy's cheek with a fingertip.
"It's kind of amazing that whenever I see you, there's a cat nearby," Yoko smiles. "Lucky!"
And lucky for the kitten in particular, because now it has two human devotees to cater to its every whim and pet it and call it G-- Inky.
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"Very lucky," Minato agrees. "I don't always find a cat. But I'm always finding cats when you're around... maybe you're good luck."
Inky the black kitten is EXCELLENT luck, judging by how he's lapping up all this attention. He rubs his whole little body against Yoko's hand! He is purring SO loudly now you might expect him to be 100% motor.
"I like cats," Minato adds. "They're always helping me." In Tartarus, that is... when they give him Twilight Shards in exchange for a lift down to the entrance! Is it really rescuing the cats when the cats seem like they're not having that bad of a time...?
"Though I like dogs too," he says. "We have a dog living at our dorm now. His name's Koromaru. He decided to stay with us after he fulfilled his duty to protect the shrine." This might even be a story Yoko knows -- everyone in Iwatodai is familiar with the bravest good boy who kept constant vigil over Nagasaki Park after his owner, a priest, passed away. Minato adds, after a thoughtful moment: "Don't worry. Koromaru-chan is kind to cats, too."
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
It would be nice to have magical cat-attracting powers! Even if she had to spend almost all of her time petting them and not working or studying, somehow Yoko would find ways to endure...!
"Helping...?" she wonders out loud. Because it's unusual to hear anyone thank a cat, much less several of them. It's very nice of them to help him, even though Yoko isn't sure what they could be helping with. Maybe pest control or inspiration? The kitten is so soft. Her thoughts are turning soft. Fluffy fuzzy sunbeam syrupy. Because it's just that good to pet a tiny kitten with a friend.
"Oh, it's that Koromaru?" THE Koromaru! Even Yoko knows about him. "I saw a photo once... He's such a pretty grey, and with red eyes too." A striking dog, but his face had looked sweet. "But it's good - even if you take the kitten home, that it'll be safe."
Maybe it will grow up riding around on Koromaru's back!
<Pose Tracker> Minato Arisato has posed.
"The one and only," Minato confirms, with a stern nod. "We take him on walks every night, so you might see him if you're ever around the dorm."
He'll take Inky back towards home, when they're done petting him...
... only to be stopped on the way by a grateful student who explains that he followed her to school.
Cat... success!