2025-08-31: Laundry
- Log: Laundry
- Cast: Masao Inaba, Ichika Kawase
- Where: Inaba Dry Cleaning, Hirasaka Ward, Sumaru City
- OOC Date: August 31, 2025
- IC Date: July 04, 2012
- Summary: Ichika Kawase digs out some of her nicer clothes--to get washed!! ...this is mostly an excuse to talk to Masao Inaba, who is proving to be a reliable friend.
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
Inaba Dry Cleaning is relatively new to Sumaru City after its owners decided to relocate from Mikage-cho. It's found an immediate niche in the Hirasaka Ward community and modest success. The worst thing someone has to deal with is when one of the owners talks at length about their son in a loving but kind of overbearing way!
(This is even worse if you are the son in question. He loves her, but some days...)
Masao Inaba, whose life has taken some interesting twists and turns in his burgeoning art career and upended college situation, has been gently strongarmed into being present for business hours today while his father's visiting the doctor over some matter not of any immediate relevance beyond the absence. It's busy, it's menial, he knows the work by heart because it's his family's trade.
Not even his handful of years overseas had him lose a step in what his father hoped to ingrain in him so he'd take over in time, but everything about him is filled with the language of 'I'd rather be doing something else right now' as heads towards the front of the humble business, hand on the back of his head as he remembers to straighten up, sound a bit more enthusiastic, and maybe not have his mom burst out the back and worry if he's been feeling 'Apathy Syndrome' or what have you. (This has been the latest trendy thing for her to worry about.)
"...Right then." He exhales, from behind the counter, as the afternoon continues on.
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika Kawase remembers Mark. His cool art, the fact that he still does it even as an adult (if a young adult), and... the dry cleaning business!
In her Kasugayama uniform, the tall young woman steps through the door of the business, a clothing bag over her arm. She knows if you're going to show up to a business, it's better to actually have some business.
Nevertheless, she looks like a delinquent, because she's in her long teal skirt and tied-up white blouse with the sailor collar and black neckerchief. Midriffs for everyone!
And...
"Oh, hey," Ichika says to Mark when she shows up and sees him.
"Thought I was gonna have to ask around to find you."
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
The man of interest - and he's kinda short, as far as adult men go in this part of the world - looks up as a customer steps through. "Hey! Welcome to Inaba Dry Cleaning!"
'Thought I was gonna have to ask around to find you.'
"Heh, well, you found me, yeah. This is my family's business--"
"Maa-kun," comes a voice who can be charitably described as the Purely Distilled Element of Well-Meaning But Overbearing Mom, stepping through the back. "Oh! A customer! Excuse me for a moment," she bows to Ichika.
"I need to head out for a short while. Keep up the good work while I'm gone, Maa-kun."
Maa-kun - or rather, Masao "Mark" Inaba - looks a bit sheepish and even embarrassed about it. "Y-Yeah, I got it!"
She takes her timely leave, and so...
"That's my mom, she's... well, I love her, just." He awkwardly laughs a bit. "...Perfect timin'. I can take what you need cleaned, but if somethin' is up, well... guess we got a few minutes between us. What's up?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
His family's business! And--a Mom. Ichika returns the Mom's greeting. "Oh, hey." A pause. She's heading out, so...
Mark looks a little embarrassed, but that's nice, isn't it?
"It's like that," Ichika reflects of Mark and his mother. "That's OK. Worse things a parent can be than embarrassing, right?"
She hands over the bag, first. "Got a couple nice dresses that want dry-cleaning, but I don't wear them much. It's kind of an excuse to see you."
"...I wanted to talk about weird stuff. Like the Joker, and that girl with the Ogre mask who was there when you were... You know. She's... a friend of mine."
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
"All right," he goes over the bag and their contents, nodding along at the excuse. Still, his hands are moving towards a computer to prepare the order and get the tags ready for each. His mind is already going 'blah, blah, blah' to the process so deeply drilled into him.
"Y'mean that night in the school..." He slows down, looking up. "There was a whole lot goin' on at once then." A free hand goes to the back of his head again, once more seeing that stoic young woman in gothic lolita dress whom seemed prime to take him out with her own axe as a treasured classmate and an acquaintance had to rely on him to hold on as long as he could.
Along with other assorted frightful, distressing sights.
He nods along. "I'm followin' so far. Sounds like... she's a really good friend to stand up to that, yeah?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"Thanks."
But that night in school... "Yeah," Ichika says. "The boy who got chopped... I hear he's doing OK now. Still recovering, but out of the worst of it. But it was still pretty rough."
"Cool. Yeah... So, basically, I know things, I put things together, and she's got at fighting. We work together that way." It's her cover story; it works OK. "I wanted..."
"I wanted to ask you about this stuff," she says, "And then ask your help with something, maybe. You seem like a reliable guy. Have you been at this long? ...You didn't seem freaked out or anything."
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
"I'm the only guy here right now, so it's gonna be a while before your clothes here are ready." At some point he'll have to disengage to start working them through the processes involved, but that can wait for a nebulous point where the conversation ends. He grabs a pen to write down the tag IDs so Ichika or someone else can redeem them later.
Anyway, on to the supernatural business at hand. The boy got chopped is doing okay, he nods. Tsubasa filled him in on that much, that's good to hear from someone else on top of that. Nobody deserves to go out like that. Not even the likes of Hannya...
He listens intently about Ichika's relationship with her friend. "It's like that, huh. All right, I'm followin' so far..."
To ask him about it directly instead of the theoretical friend, there's a small jump there - but she needs his help with something. "Been at this this long-- oh, y'mean like what happened at your school." His mind was about to slip towards dry cleaning again.
Dang it, man, he thinks to himself, sometimes it feels like working this place saps at his essential identity as an artist!
Humorous slip-up aside. "If you've seen the stuff happen where some of us do a thing and make what looks like other people appear and then do stuff like throw fire, or lightning, or gravity," that's his, "yeah. I've had a Persona for a few years. People who have and use 'em are called Persona-users, and..." There was something about that one in the Oni mask that seemed kind of tough to follow or notice, but that's anecdotal at best when an implacable stoic lady was within inches of cutting the lives of several people short.
"I'm guessin' your friend is one of 'em, yeah?" He looks down. "I'm not gonna downplay it, yeah, shit gets weird when you become a Persona-user. I'm not gonna say I can play everything out there cool, but," he straightens up some. "I'm an artist, that's how I live." Beat. "...When the family ain't pressin' me into working the family business, but... y'know."
"Did your friend need help with any of it?" He thinks to ask. "I got lucky and got my Persona alongside my best friends. Does she need someone else to bounce off of about it?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
"That's cool," Ichika says. "I don't mind if I have to come back or whatever."
But supernatural business... "Yeah," Ichika says, confirming she means what happened at her school. "Right. Personas," Ichika confirms. "I see... So it's gone on that long, huh?" She considers. Hyousuke had asked her how long it'd been going on; now hse has more of an answer.
"Yes," Ichika says. "...It's cool that you can just roll with it," she says. "It was harder for me--for us. But you just go 'I'm an artist', and it's... fine."
A shake of her head. "I think she's got the 'power' part covered--we've got other contacts who've put us in touch with stuff like that."
"...But she's planning a dangerous mission soon... to help me."
"You ever hear of something called a Palace? ...it's like a weird alternate dimension based on the 'distortion' in somebody's... heart."
"I know it sounds stupid," Ichika says. "But it's real."
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
A dangerous mission.
She's got his attention. He can't begrudge teenagers getting up to dangerous stuff or magnifying and exaggerating the scope of things as they slowly grow into a broader, wider worldview in their search to find their place in what's ahead of them. With absolutely every dangerous, otherworldly thing that seems to be happening in Kasugayama High and - hell - it's starting to look like Sumaru City as a whole...
'You ever hear of something called a Palace?'
"Yeah," he confirms, as she finishes explaining the idea in full. "Yeah, I've heard of 'em." He rubs the back of his head, and there's a worry in his eyes that he can't fully hide - like he's heard of the idea before and it might mean something more to this grown-up even if he's at the periphery of whatever particular flavor of supernatural intrigue this is.
"If it ends up anything like what happened that night, I'm not gonna let that run roughshod over you or anyone else. You all deserve way better than whatever the heck is goin' on." That, and he needs to call Elly - and maybe some of the others, if they can spare the time.
"I got my hands full between online studies, this, 'n art stuff on most days," he says to Ichika, "but keep me in touch on when your friend's thinkin' about goin' in, all right?"
It better not be what he thinks it could be, he's thinking. It shouldn't be possible after all that happened before, but after what happened a few years before...
He pulls out his phone. "I'll give you my number to give to her, OK?"
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika is at least older than some of the teenagers who get wrapped up in this stuff. Wait, that doesn't make a difference? Hmm.
Masao's heard of them. He's heard of them and has some kind of worry about them...
"Thanks," Ichika says, but it's a little weak. "I appreciate that. ...It's..."
He's got his hands full, but he's up for it. "OK," Ichika answers. "Cool."
She pulls out her own phone, to trade numbers. "She'll give you her number after I give you hers."
"But you should know..."
"If you go," Ichika says, "You'll... probably learn some stuff about me. Maybe some stuff you don't want to know."
"The guy whose Palace it is..."
She glances to the side, uncomfortable. "We were supposed to get married. And he still wants to."
"...It's why I can't go. Why i have to rely on the Ogre."
"Just be careful, OK?"
<Pose Tracker> Masao Inaba has posed.
"Hey," he holds up a hand as Ichika expresses concern about seeing parts of her that might be upsetting and awful to see. "It means a lot you're reachin' out for help at all, yeah?" ...Guess he's a friend of some of the kids going at Kasugayama now. Given all they've been going through now and all that might've happened leading up to being placed in the infamous reform school...
He's listening as she describes the guy whose Palace it is. That Kaneshiro guy was already about the worst thing to happen to this part of town in a while. While this guy may not quite have the reach of influence that the (now, very recently and abruptly, former) crime boss does from the snippet of info of 'someone being set to marry against the will of the other,' well...
"Yeah," he rubs the back of his head. "I'll be carefu-- ah shit," he accidentally knocks the stack of blank claim tickets behind the counter, which provides a convenient cover and excuse for him to not sneak a peek at that mysterious red-and-black eye app that he saw on Myunghon's phone that otherwise might be at risk of being seen.
"Sorry," he stands back up as soon as the coast would be clear on Ichika's part, setting them back on the counter, and sets down Ichika's for her. (She gets a good price, apparently there's a promotion today!)
"Here's your claim ticket for later when your dresses are ready for pick-up. Worst case scenario, they'll be ready tomorrow."
<Pose Tracker> Ichika Kawase has posed.
Ichika pauses when Masao holds up his hand. "Oh," she says. "...I guess that's true."
She likes Mark. He's a cool artist and is kind of like them, except... he's gotten somewhere. Maybe not somewhere big, but he's alive, still doing his thing.
"OK," Ichika says of careful, and--oops!! Conveniently, Ichika's phone doesn't show off that app!
That's prety convenient.
"You OK?" she confirms. Then, she looks at the price, and...
"Oh, thanks," Ichika says, and smiles. "...Cool. I'll uh. I'll go hang out for a while, and come back."
"...Thanks. See you around. Maybe we can talk normal stuff sometime."