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

[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."

[fruitknife]

"...Made for me? Why?"

Now he's just baffled. Why would you make something for him.

[whatsamada]

Ken simply stared at Shinjiro before looking back at the cake. He wondered why he would be surprised at the idea of them making him something as he tilted his head to the side.

"Because it's your birthday, why wouldn't we make you something?"

[fruitknife]

"...Shit, that's today?" Sure, Ken's birthday was recently, but he didn't really pay attention to the month on that one. Just that the kid wanted a cake, so a cake he got.

"Well, thanks, kid. You didn't have to."

He's not surprised Kotone would do something, whether he asked for it or not, but Ken jumping on board... it's still difficult to think he has any reason to want to.

[whatsamada]

Ken wasn't sure if he should be surprised. While Shinjiro is probably someone who would forget about his own birthday, it was still shocking to hear it from him.

"But we want to. It's the least we can do and especially after everything we been through."

That and it seemed like it would be a good way for Ken to restart a friendship with him. Although, as he opened the lid, there was some hesitation. Should Shinjiro look, there was a vanilla cake that was decorated with various sprinkles. However, he wasn't sure how he would react to seeing such a thing.

Would he like it?

[fruitknife]

"Kotone wanting to ain't the surprise here." It's a good surprise, don't get him wrong. But it's still one hell of a surprise that Ken wanted to do something for him.

"Who told you, Mitsuru?"

The cake... looks good, and smells good, both of which are promising starts. But Shinji's not going to say anything about its quality until he tastes it.

[whatsamada]

"Yes."

He said rather bluntly before shifting his weight to the side. He didn't know if he should say something or just drop the topic from his mind. However, he couldn't help but ask.

"Is that a bad thing? Me wanting to make you something?" After all, he wanted to make up for everything he did for Shinjiro. Hopefully this would be a good start?

[fruitknife]

"No, it ain't bad, it's just..."

Look, he doesn't really have words for this. He knows why he's trying to do shit for Ken - he owes the kid. Ken doesn't owe Shinji a goddamn thing, though.

(Depression: It's a bitch!)

[whatsamada]

There was a long pause on Ken's end as he didn't know what to say. There were a lot of things that he should tell Shinjiro but he didn't know how. As he kept looking at the ground, he wondered how to describe his feelings in a simple manner.

Is this a part of growing up?

"It's okay, I'm not mad at you anymore." He said before mumbling to himself. "I should be the one to say sorry."

[fruitknife]

Well, that's something, at least.

Shinji sighs. "You got nothing to apologise for. There was nothing you coulda done to me that was worse than what I was doing to myself, and you had every right to be that angry."

[whatsamada]

"Doesn't mean that I don't owe you my life."

While there would always be a part of Ken that would never forgive Shinjiro for what he did, he couldn't deny there was regret. Right now, he didn't dare to look at him as he was struggling what to say back.

"The very least I could do is apologize for what happened."

[fruitknife]

"You really don't, kid." And that's not a debt Shinji would ever ask him to shoulder. There was just... no point to basically anything Takaya did that night, as usual.

Especially not to threatening a grade-schooler.

"Like I said, you got nothing to apologise for. It was an accident, but it was still my fault and it still fucked up your life."

[whatsamada]

"Doesn't mean that we shouldn't start over." While Ken couldn't deny that Shinjiro did kill his mother, he also couldn't deny that it was indeed an accident. He couldn't completely blame him for what happened.

As he bit his bottom lip, he took a deep breath in. "It's in the past so it's more important we try to get to know each other."

[fruitknife]

"Been tryin' to do that since I got here, kid."

You know. Just in case Ken hadn't noticed.

[whatsamada]

"I can tell. Especially if you actually went on a quest with me."

He said with a sigh before shaking his head. "I guess I just want to make it official or something."

[fruitknife]

"Kinda figured when you moved in here, you know."

It's not that Ken wasn't welcome, but Shinji didn't want to pressure him into sharing space if he didn't want to. There's figuring out how this works now and then there's too much pressure.

Sorry for the late response!

[whatsamada]

Again, Ken stared at Shinjiro before giving a small sigh.

"Guess I was kind of obvious, huh?" Not that he was one to hide things anymore but he didn't expect to hear it from the older teen. "Well, what do you think of the cake I made you?"

No worries!

[fruitknife]

At this point they're all pretty transparent, give or take other people's bouts of 'I'm fine what are you talking about.' (Shinji hasn't been in the same book as 'fine' in years, and doesn't pretend otherwise. he might finally be back in that book, but the same page is still a long way off.)

"Can't say until I eat it. Doesn't look bad, though."

[whatsamada]

"All the more reason to go and give it a try, right?" He said with a smirk before leaning a little.

"It should be a shame that Kotone-san and I wasted all that effort. You wouldn't want it to go to waste."

[fruitknife]

"Well, cut it, then."

[whatsamada]

With that, off Ken went to grab a nearby knife before attempting to cut the cake. As he did do, he managed to get a slice for him.

He didn't say anything but looked at the older teen. Holding his breath, he was waiting to see what his response was.

Will Shinjiro berate his baking skills? He didn't know but he'll have to find out!

[fruitknife]

Berate? Only if it's completely inedible. And Kotone was helping, so it shouldn't be completely inedible - and, in fact, it's fine.

"Not bad."