you go ahead and dance, I'll just sit (August stuff)

[fruitknife]

🧙 WHO: Shinji and whoever!
⚔️️ WHAT: Don't Treep quest, SEES House shenanigans, some asshole completely forgetting his own birthday is a thing.
🕒 WHEN: early August
🗺️ WHERE: farms, SEES House
⚠️ WARNINGS: none anticipated


A. Don't Treep, Man (OTA)

Shinji can't, as a general rule, be bothered with the quest board. He's tired, okay. He was tired before he got here. Frankly, he was burnt out before he got to Liminal Space.

(He'd say the animal-parts curse didn't stick on him because he has built-in magic resistance, but he's honestly not sure if that's the case anymore or not.)

But. Tell him there's danger of a food shortage and he will do anything in his power to fucking well make sure there's not one. He's done his time with little to no food available, and he's not about to let it happen again.

He's on-site more than once in the time it takes to get the farms back to rights. Sometimes he's helping with the heavy lifting; others, he just shows up with some food for the people doing the heavy lifting to eat.

B. SEES House (closed to people who'd plausibly be there)

It's kinda weird, actually living with people from the dorm again.

In Liminal Space, Minako had her own room, Shinji didn't even live in his since Helena gave him a bed first and it would've been weird, and no one else from SEES overlapped with him. Not long enough to actually need a place to stay, anyway.

It's a good weird, but it's still kinda weird. In any case, it's no one he minds bothering him, if he's there to be bothered, and if nothing else he's bound to make sure everyone has dinner.

C. Some dipshit completely forgot about his birthday (closed to close CR)

It's August. Shinji's birthday is the 11th.

He hasn't thought about that fact at all, between his abysmal self-esteem and Liminal Space's general lack of... well, coherent time, really. Between-jaunts time was guesswork at best, and the jaunts themselves tended to have very weird calendars if they weren't on alternate Earths (and sometimes if they were).

If anything's gonna happen, it'll be up to his friends and acquaintances to make it happen. Mitsuru might be the only person here who even knows when Shinji's birthday is.

(OOC: Basically, a place for a partything to be plopped, if a partything is to be had. ICly, Shinji won't be remotely bothered if there isn't one; OOC, I won't either, since I only thought of this myself on Sunday. XD)

D. Kotone's the Wild Card here-- I mean, what?

[None of those appeal? Feel free to hit me with something else! Shinji works in the kitchen at the karaoke bar, and can occasionally be found Just Chillin' in other places.]

Comments

C~

[vrepit_no]

Some puppy once told him, August was Shinji's birthday, and it really stuck around in his head.

So he may have asked Kosmo to double check the date for him, and now he's got a couple of fabric-wrapped items under one arm. (A two-foot-by-eighteen-inch end grain cutting board with recessed handles, a 16-inch serrated bread knife with hardwood scales with mosaic pins, and a loaf of genuine melon pan because Makoto is amazing like that.) He has Shinryu knock on the SEES residence door.

[fruitknife]

Of course he did. Occupational hazard of your dog figuring out how to piggyback off your connection to the psychic network. (Smartest damn dog Shinji's ever met.)

In any case, Shinji happens to be the one nearest the door, so he opens it. "Hey."

Does he dare hope Shiro's taking him up on the implicit invitation to come be Not Okay somewhere... not really. He's not very good at hope as a general rule, and it's not like Shiro's backsliding was without cause. But Shiro did come over, and that's a good step.

[vrepit_no]

Shiro's grin is instant, bright, and (usually) contagious. "Hey Shinji! Just the man I was hoping to see. I brought a few things over for you! I don't know if you're having a party or just letting it pass by quietly, but still."

[fruitknife]

Shinji does step aside so Shiro can actually come in, but he's... definitely confused.

"You brought stuff for me? Why?"

[vrepit_no]

Shiro's brows rise as he steps in, waiting for Shinji to shut the door before offering him the gifts. "Happy birthday, Shinjiro."

B

[whatsamada]

[Meanwhile, here Ken was trying his best to make the best cake that he possibly could for Shinjiro. It was only fair after he helped Ken make one for his birthday! Although, as he stared at the chocolate cake, he gave a sigh. He had no idea how it could taste as he was only following a recipe he found online.

That and with the help of Kotone, he figured that it would taste good.

So here he was, staring at the cake sitting on the table wondering if he should surprise Shinjiro with it.]

[fruitknife]

It really won't be difficult to surprise Shinji - and that's taking into account the fact that he saw Ken and Kotone messing around in the kitchen. Ken had help who knows what she's doing, so he left them alone.

(If it'd been Fuuka, he probably would've felt required to step in, even knowing Kotone got her to 'more or less edible cooking' while he was out of commission.)

In any case, he just got back from work and is still in the living room, if Ken does want to surprise him.

[whatsamada]

The moment that Ken heard Shinjiro come back, he immediately looked around the area before attempting to hide the cake on a giant lid. As quickly as he does so, he slowly turned around to see him approaching ever into the living room.

"H-Hi, Aragaki-san! When did you get home?"

He said with a nervous chuckle before his eyes looked at the nearby cake. Why no, he's not being obvious. What are you talking about?

[fruitknife]

"Just now. Why?"

...Ken what did you do. Did something catch fire.

[whatsamada]

"Nothing, I was curious!" He said rather quickly before rushing over to grab the lid it previously placed on top of the cake. As he wondered if he should surprise Shinjiro in this manner, he knew this would probably be it.

What other way could he surprise him?

"Hope that you don't mind me showing you what Kotone-san and I made for you."

A

[bakudan_bambino]

"Oh shit! Can you get that bale? I think it landed on the poor thing!"

The heavy lifting is one thing, but there seems to be a goat stuck under a few bales of hay. Maybe it tried to climb and toppled it? Obviously it is stuck, though. This isn't the permanent place of this hay, either, but just to get it out of the way so that the fences can be repaired.

[fruitknife]

"On it."

On the one hand, it's a goat, it could probably eat its way out eventually. On the other hand, bales of hay can get pretty heavy, and Shinji's not that heartless. Especially not for animals.

It doesn't take long for Shinji to have enough of the hay moved that the poor goat can breathe again, at least.

[bakudan_bambino]

The goat doesn't do a great deal of moving, but the more hay that's removed, the more obvious it becomes that this is no regular goat. It's... a faun? Or just a teenager suffering the animal curse and it's only effected him from the waist down. Gokudera isn't in a rush to get up or pull back from where his torso is stretched out on a tight bale.

Arms folded, he carefully lifts his head, and there's a pixie right there, where his face would have been pressed into the bale. He was instead using his head to keep the hay from completely covering the creature. It looks up as well and pinches at his arm, giving him a start bad enough that he jerks back.

"Ow! Sorry! Fuck... I didn't even deserve that..." He pouts and looks at his arm. Gokudera's wearing a black tank top, and an odd necklace with an ornate ring hanging from its chain. He brushes hay off his arms and his legs, but there's plenty in his silver hair. Finally, he looks up to see who helped him out.

"Took you long enough."

Rude, Gokudera.

[fruitknife]

...Okay, no, the curse is definitely not the shoujo-anime virus from Liminal making a comeback. That shit at least only gave people ears and tails, maybe wings at the outside.

On the other hand, this is far from the weirdest thing Shinji's ever seen, and he can meet rude with rude. (That's not saying much. He meets most things with rude.)

"What, you want me to just leave you buried next time?"

[bakudan_bambino]

Gokudera's still not used to his goat legs, but at least he doesn't have to wear pants. It's kind of nice, actually, once he got used to it. His tail flicks about and he moves his hands to his hair, plucking out hay and fixing the center part so it won't be caught up in his little black horns.

"Tch! Just watch out next time! There are pixie nests all around. She could have gotten hurt!" He says and stomps a little cloven hoof, arms crossing indignantly as if Shinji personally pushed that hay bale over to crush the pixie. He may be rude, but at least he's a good? person.

A

[tempredmental]

"Thanks." Keith took the offered food after returning from his latest herding run. It was tough work, and he was due for a break anyway judging by how tired he was starting to feel from using his animal magic to guide the livestock back to the farms. After a moment of just eating and breathing, Keith spoke up.

"You're Shiro's friend, right?" he asked. "You guys met in that... liminal... space... place?"

Keith still didn't fully understand it, despite Shiro's best attempts to explain, but he just knew that there had been another place between Avalon and home for Shiro, and that he'd met Shinji there.

[fruitknife]

"Can't just do this shit forever and not eat." And the last thing anyone wants to do is pass out. It's not a fun time.

"Yeah. Name's Shinji."

[tempredmental]

Keith had done that a few times in his life already, and agreed... not a fun time.

He nodded.

"I'm Keith," he said. He leaned against a bit of repaired fence to rest a little as he ate. "It's good to meet you. He's talked about you a few times."

[fruitknife]

"He has?" If anything, Shinji sounds kind of baffled by the idea that someone would be talking about him in a good way.

"Well, I guess there's no one else around here who really gets Liminal Space's bullshit. But... he's a good guy."

Shinji doesn't make friends easily. He never has, and the same factors that make it hard to believe people like him haven't helped any. But Shiro's worked his way into that little circle.

[tempredmental]

Keith looked amused for a second. "Heh, yeah. He has." He chuckled. "Shiro likes to talk about his friends." But, yeah... he could understand the whole 'shared experience' bond. He had a few of those with people he wouldn't normally have been friends with, too.

"It's good that he found people there," Keith added quietly. "I'm glad he wasn't alone." It was clear that Keith had deep feelings for Shiro with that statement, a concern that his dearest friend would be isolated and alone that bugged Keith because he knew that Shiro had been in that place for four years. "Thanks... for helping him out."

C

[kirijo]

"Happy birthday, Aragaki-san."

Mitsuru smiles warmly in her subdued way, approaching him after the other members of S.E.E.S. had each taken their turn to greet Shinjiro and wish him a happy birthday.

"I hope you'll forgive me for setting this in motion."

To her credit, and that of the rest of S.E.E.S., it was a modest affair. They'd decided almost immediately that he would prefer something more subdued rather than any sort of extravagant celebration, so they'd kept it simple - takeout from one of his favorite restaurants, a cake prepared by Kotone and Ken, and ensuring that they all had the time to spend the evening with him.

Hopefully that suits him.

[fruitknife]

Keeping it simple is definitely the main reason he hasn't bolted, it's true. He barely feels like he deserved this much recognition. Good call, everybody.

"Yeah, well. Ain't like I would've pushed for anything myself even if I'd remembered what month it was. Or like they would've known if you hadn't told 'em."

[kirijo]

It's a response that she anticipated. She'd be far more surprised if Shinjiro didn't treat his birthday as he would any other day ...

"Perhaps not, but I hope that you're enjoying yourself nonetheless."

... but he's their friend, and they wanted to do this for him.

[fruitknife]

Shinji shrugs. "Definitely had worse birthdays."

...That's probably a yes, especially since some of the worse ones in question were his own damn fault.

[kirijo]

"I'm glad that we've managed to avoid the bottom of the list." Mitsuru chuckles, with a teasing edge to her voice.