2025-08-26: Horsing Around
- Log: Horsing Around
- Cast: Yoko Hirano, Shinjiro Aragaki
- Where: Bookworms, Iwatodai Strip Mall, Iwatodai
- OOC Date: August 26, 2025
- IC Date: July 01, 2012
- Summary: Shinjiro goes to the bookstore to find a present for Myunghon. Yoko is there, and can't help but see exactly what haunts him.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Yoko Hirano does not live in the SEES dorm.
She lives in a different dorm for Gekkoukan students, elsewhere in Iwatodai. It's very convenient to school, but even more convenient to all the little shops tucked into the side streets. This is a very good thing for Yoko's general enrichment levels, but maybe not so great for Yoko's wallet.
The old couple at the bookstore is friendly, too, which is a good reason to keep coming back here in particular. A short stack of large-format books rests on the counter next to the cash register, most of them collections of contemporary artwork (and a single, dogeared volume about Jomon-era pottery).
In the stacks, Yoko has yet another book in each hand, deep inside a cloud of intense concentration. Her Gekkoukan uniform is fairly tidy, but as always her hair could really use a brush. But more importantly, she found volumes three AND five of a series she likes... but should she get five if she doesn't already have four?!
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As Yoko's looking at books, the little bell rings as it swings open, someone else stepping in. A tall third-year-aged young man, dressed in a thick *winter* coat in the middle of the summer and a beanie. As he steps in, step after step, he's got a perpetual scowl on his face.
And a massive thing *behind* him, Yoko will see. It follows after him, never fading or flickering, as if it's chained to him forever. It seems... sluggish, tamed, but like in the wrong circumstances it could go berserk. A skeleton-like mannequin on top of a hobby-horse unicorn, a spear *plunged* through his chest. The young man doesn't seem to notice it, though...
Shinjiro's resonance, on the other hand, is comfortingly reliable if noticed, as he steps forward, brusquely speaking. "That's a lot of books..." he tells Yoko, idly. "You see anything old and foreign in that stack? Maybe rare?" The shop owners could help, but he's been here before. They can be a bit slow and forgetful at times...
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Uh-oh. It's a homeless man! That's Yoko's first impression, based solely on his clothes. Who else wears that much in summer? She hopes he doesn't cause trouble for the old couple. They're really nice...
She was already looking down, ready to keep an ear out for rising voices or, or whatever, when a flash of movement that isn't the older boy makes her raise her head. What... is that thing? A horse in the way a chesspiece is, red eyed, shining black, single leg (how does it balance like that?). A rider impaled. A spike facing out, a spike driven in. Wide eyes trail after the thing trailing after him.
Does he know it's there? Did he bring it with him?!
She's forgotten the books she's holding.
AND THEN THE HOMELESS MAN LOOKS AT HER!
...And asks her about books?
Yoko's heart starts beating again. "...I... I saw a book about foreign art imported during the Meiji Restoration. It was from the seventies. Maybe that's not old enough, though..." But, but, looking at him more closely, maybe she was wrong. His coat isn't dirty. He looks and smells clean. And even if he looks huge and scary (Yoko, everybody is huge to you), he's being polite...
"But I didn't make it to the end yet. ...Does it matter what kind of foreign? What language it's in?" Her voice has a catch to it, a slight high-pitched roughness, but it doesn't sound like she's sick.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
It's... actually, he is homeless, he's just staying in a safehouse. Shinjiro steps forth, looking around some more, as Castor follows behind in Yoko's vision alone.
He definitely doesn't know.
His coat might be worn and patched, but he is definitely clean and so are his clothes, washed recently. He stares at Yoko for a long moment, waiting for her to actually calm down. He tchs slightly at the reaction. "I'm not gonna bite," he says, but as she starts helping...
"Nah, I don't think they'd like that. More... someone named Maupassant was mentioned, but I bet they have all of his." He mangles the French *very* subtly. "English and French should be good options... they read classics, old dead authors..."
Oh, he's trying to get someone a gift...
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
If he knew about it, he'd look at it. Unless he knew about it so much that he was assured of it always being by his side?? Like taking your own arms for granted. He's not going to bite, he says. "It's just-" she starts to blurt out, glancing briefly, warily back at the horse thing, but bites down on the rest of what she was going to say.
Not real, she reminds herself. And then amends, probably not real. She'll keep a watchful eye on it...!!
"I know you won't," she lies instead, stubborn (and a little bit pink with embarrassment). The name he mentions is unfamiliar. That's not an artist that she knows of. "Mo pa san," she echoes, absolutely butchering it. Sorry, foreign author...! "Um. I can help if it's a book about a French artist. Maybe Renoir?" Oh, so she can pronounce French names??? "Or the other Impressionists. Oh! What about Art Nouveau??"
Something like that is enough to even dull the perceived threat of the horse thing. "Or, uh... I don't really know a lot of authors," Yokois forced to admit after wracking her brain for a few more moments. "But maybe if you just pick the oldest-looking books from the shelves and check the title, one of them will be good."
She pulls down a likely-looking candidate, the spine gently frayed. "...'Ducks and How to Make Them Pay'...?"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro tchs again. "It's just what?" He's in enough of a weird mood after talking to Yua that he's curious what this girl is seeing that makes him seem so 'wrong' to her. Is it because he's a delinquent? Clearly homeless? Tall?
But, she seems stubborn and embarassed, so he lets it go after a moment. "I think they like more psychology and philosophy than pure art... lemme guess, you're a Gekkoukan student?" HOW DID HE KNOW- oh, it's an art school, right.
Doesn't know a lot of authors, though... oldest looking books. He glances at the title they mention. "...maybe, but I don't think that'd make a good gift for them, even if I think they'd read it." He tries the same method, though, Shinjiro pulling an old book down.
"...'The Adventures Of the Little Dog Who Could'." He pauses. He stares at it. He kinda wants it for himself, read across his face. In the end, he puts it back, however.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
"It's nothing!" She's already messing this up! It's because she was nervous! She still /is/ kinda but he wants to buy a gift for someone so she wants to help him but she's getting all of it wrong! Her arm tightens around the two volumes she'd been debating for herself, but Yoko silently counts her breaths and pays /such close attention/ to the shelves in front of her after putting back the book about duck husbandry and/or vengeance (she didn't check).
She's still pink-faced, but Yoko digs in her mental heels and keeps at her self-appointed mission of mercy. "Yeah. I'm a first year. ...My name's Yoko," she offers, tugging out another book. "Is Jung a Korean name? But it's in romaji..." Yoko juggles the books to one arm so she can shove her hair behind her ears with the other and bends her head over it again. "pi-shi-chi... I give up," she announces, after a few moments of trying to figure out how to pronounce 'psychology'. Why is English so hard!!
She glances over (up) at him when he reads a title. "..." It's not the kind of book she expected him to pick up, even by chance. She stares at his expression for a moment, and tries to think of how she wants to ask. "Did... was that a book you had when you were little?" Yoko does not know about Shinjiro's vast and adorkable love for fluffy animals.
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro can tell Yoko's getting anxious. He grimaces, but doesn't push. When he grimaces, Castor rides forward, as if his Resonance was to flare, and comes by his side, a wicked look in those skeletal Shadowy eyes. Shinjiro, meanwhile...
"Carl Jung? It's Swiss." He pronounces *that* one correctly. "Shinjiro Aragaki. Used to be a third year." What does that mean?
"Psychology," he also pronounces correctly.
On the subject of the animal book, he turns his head. "...No." Oh.
"You're big into these artists, huh?" he IMMEDIATELY tries to deflect. "Who's your favorite? I've always liked Hokusai." He's not SUPER well educated, but he went to an art school! He knows a bit.
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
Yoko's gaze flicks over past Shinjiro at the motion out of the corner of her eye. Her mouth thins. No no no no go away. But hey, at least it's not just him that seems to set her off...?
"Oh... 'yoong'," she corrects herself. Not 'joong' after all. Breath. Breath. "Um. Aragaki-senpai, nice to meet you." What does he mean, he used to be a third year? You don't just stop being a student. You graduate. And then you're a worker or a college freshman or a shut-in or something. She peeks down at his shoes. Did you die first, she doesn't ask. No, she can see his feet, so he isn't a ghost.
"...What do you mean, you used to be?" Yoko asks, because she does want to know.
This is so stupid. She's standing in a bookstore and horse things don't belong in bookstores and Aragaki-senpai can't see it so why is it still here? "Uh... Katsushika Hokusai... best known for The Great Wave Off Kanagawa," she recites. "More famous than his Thirty Six Views of Mount Fuji. It's the most famous Japanese artwork. Maybe the most reproduced image in the history of art, Eastern and Western."
The mental image of the wavelets rushing and cresting, the trio of boats riding the valleys. The roar of the sea, surrounding the viewer. The creak of wood hulls and the slap of oars. "...I love art," she continues, holding the visual memory firmly in place. "I have as long as I can remember. I want to be a professional when I graduate. Uh..." She looks down at the books in her arms, two volumes of series called Twentieth Century Masterworks. "I think my favorite is Van Gogh. He was influenced by Hokusai, you know? Almond Blossoms was distinctly Asian in inspiration. He painted it to celebrate the birth of his brother's son."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro watches her gaze move. He shivers, as if *he's* starting to get awkward and a little bit of the creeps. (No, he's actually just cold). Castor is still there. Waiting. "Yeah," he says about nice to meet him.
But, she asks that question. "...I stopped going." Oh, he's truant...
Though, she talks about Hokusai, and he nods. "I prefer the Thirty Six Views... did you memorize that?" Why is he doing this? Talking to some random girl about art?
Because it's soothing, that's what.
"I've never heard of Almond Blossoms, but I know Van Gogh. He's good, too. Graduate, huh..." A grimace on his face, as if a memory popped back to him. "Good luck. If you're going to Gekkoukan, you've got a good chance."
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
"Oh." She should have realized. "...I stopped going for a while too. I got sick." That seems to be the right amount to tell him. Not too much. Not too detailed. Maybe that's why he's wearing a coat and shivering. But he doesn't seem weak. Yoko pulls down another antique-looking title. "Mm. I like to read biographies of artists whose work I like. I've read a few of Van Gogh's. And the book of the letters he and his brother Theo wrote back and forth. He was a really kind man, Van Gogh."
"...And I love his use of color. And the thickness of his brush strokes. The paintings really seem alive. And, and even though he was really ill, he went to seek treatment anyway. He painted his most famous works when he was in the sanitarium to get well!"
That's what people don't get. He wanted to get well. He tried very hard. And even if it didn't happen, even if Vincent couldn't be cured, he tried. Yoko wants to try, too.
Yoko's mouth wobbles a little, and she looks straight ahead while offering him the book cover-forward. The title is in French, but Yoko has no idea what it means. But maybe this one...? "Thank you, senpai. I'm gonna try really, really hard...!"
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
Shinjiro nods as Yoko explains she got sick. Stopped going too, huh... "I get it," is all he says, before continuing on the kindness of Van Gogh. "Seems like it."
Though, the comment about the sanitarium gets him thinking. "That's... inspiring. Even when he was at a low point... he still had his passion, didn't he?"
Yoko offers a book to him. French title... Shinjiro tries to read it. "...Alexandre Dumas? Didn't he do those adventure books? They might like this..."
and then he scans the price tag placed on it. "...I'll have to come back for it. I didn't expect to hit the bookstore today, just wanted to get an eye of what they had." A pause.
"It was nice meeting you, Yoko." First name yobisute, yes, but she didn't give a last name! And honorifics are not his style. He's not leaving just this second, letting her respond first, but... he should head off to see Myunghon, huh?
<Pose Tracker> Yoko Hirano has posed.
The book might be right, but the price is not! Yoko nods solemnly, and carefully puts it back on the shelf. "It should be here when you come back, at least." Who would buy a book in French, here in Iwatodai? (Besides someone searching for a gift.) She doesn't know who Dumas is. But maybe she'll look him up later.
She doesn't breathe a sigh of relief when he says he's leaving. What if the horse thing stays behind?! What if he's protecting her??
Wait, who's protecting the old couple that work here?!
Yoko takes a deep breath, and gets ready to. To maybe run, or to stand here and have a staredown with a horse thing, or maybe to just get hopscotch-trampled. Go away, horse thing! "It was nice to meet you too, senpai. I hope you might come back to school." She says it sincerely, and looks him in the eye when she does, but her gaze skitters away soon after.
"I hope your friend likes whatever you get them."
<Pose Tracker> Shinjiro Aragaki has posed.
As the book is put away, Shinjiro nods to Yoko, though frowns at her following comment as she looks him in the eye. "...unlikely," he says.
Then, he turns, nodding. "I do, too." Shinjiro moves to leave, and...
Yoko will definitely notice that the horse thing is following him. Is this an omen? Or something worse? Either way... he probably has never noticed, if it's truly following him.