estoria | ( OPEN ) red light, green light

Who: Haruka Nanase (

freed), Makoto Tachibana (

cordated), and YOU!
When: IC 1/9 —1/11
Where: Nearly every district! Not limited to: CERES Food Stop, CERES Game Center, a bunch of nondescript street corners, and jail.
What: Bending the rules, breaking the rules, and ~~cheating~~ beating the system?! Or trying to, at least.
Rating/Warning: PG.

1. CANDY SHOP.MP3 (ceres food stop.)

[ upon entering the shop, a one-sided conversation ensues as the only shop attendant speaks in stifled tones to ... what seems to be himself, if his gaze wasn't stubbornly trained to a certain spot behind the counter: ]

both

[ but once the door opens with a protracted tinkle of a bell, he turns. eyes drawn in assiduous focus, he dolefully grins as he angles his attention to the customer venturing out to browse the wares. ]

[ at this point, he's interrupted by a rather plaintive mewling (miaow, miaow) warbled from somewhere around his feet. visibly paling, makoto coughs a few times and resumes speaking. ]

haha

[ one hand sweeping over the display case, he makes a point to tap the sweets display case several times in quick succession. ]

2. TMW YOU CAN'T WIN HELLO KITTY FROM THE CLAW MACHINE (ceres game center.)

[ or you might find makoto situated in one of the various arcades in the conglomerate sprawl of game centers, studiously trying his luck (and a substantial amount of his daily paycheck) on one of the claw machines. mouth puzzled open on a sigh, he's even got his head tilted a few degrees to the side in a futile effort to win the only cat plush in the glass chamber, only to come up with empty hands on his last try, not any closer to his goal than he was on his initial run. ]

[ retreating from the machine, he holds out his only inadvertently-won prize (a rather squashed-looking stuffed animal of indeterminate origin) to the bystander standing in the line right behind him. ]

[ a beat or two passes, and then: ]

3. KIND OF LIKE A SLASHER FLICK EXCEPT NOT (random street corner ... seedy alleyway, perhaps ...)

[ so: you're in a derelict alleyway sometime in the evening. nightlife solidifies with all the risqué robot models strutting over the various walkways when you get the distinct sense you're being followed.

it's just an inkling of a doubt, but it's enough to take caution, all up until the point someone's hand clamps tightly on your shoulder. assuming your heart didn't stop and leave us one man down in this scenario, you are now very near to one tall and mildly anxious looking boy with green eyes and brown hair, as well as a shorter boy with black hair and blue eyes. it is the latter of these two who speaks to you.]

[a flyer is held up to you with THIS FACE]

[a second flyer with THIS FACE in his other hand appears!

upon closer inspection (as if you need it to be closer than RIGHT IN YOUR face but you know…) one will notice descriptions under the pictures as follows:

RIN MATSUOKA:

— answers to rin-rin
— likes romcoms
— really pointy teeth

KISUMI SHIGINO:

— tends to sparkle
— liberal use of emojis when texting/speaking/breathing
— pink

if you're quiet/silent/have been startled into death for too long, well, eventually the blue-eyed one here will simply….

…blink expectantly as if to say well?…without actually saying it at all. ]

4. IN THE SLAMMER (ceres government center.)

[ the first day in central holding, makoto learns two valuable things about going to prison:

a) it's actually called jail, not prison, for a short-term stay behind bars. more specifically: an overnight stay for a benign misdemeanor, or so they inform him.
b) the "one phone call" bit is a complete hoax. if anything, calls are encouraged. not that knowing that helps him in particular, but it's good to know, nonetheless.

notwithstanding the fact he couldn't ask haru to bail him out, considering they were held up in the same communal cell with at least three other people with them, makoto's absolutely terrified. over the course of two hours, he's kept his eyes peeled staring at the clock and trying to will himself to remain silent and moderately low-key. and makoto fails spectacularly, for the most part, his voice rising entire octaves as he babbles on and on to a relatively levelheaded boy sitting beside him. ]

bad

when everyone we know publicly disowns us

streets

[ when he doesn't get the validation he desperately needs (you know, something beyond placid one-word remarks), he turns to the closest onlooker, doing his absolute best not to stutter. ]

( NOTE: this is a partial joint post with

freed for part 3 + 4! it'll go: you > one of us > you unless you'd prefer no tag order or you'd like us to tag you separately. )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[to this, haru only shrugs. he wonders at the person in front of him, as makoto seems to be familiar with him already (at least to a point) and that in and of itself is enough reason pay attention. on top of that though are his intriguingly bizarre powers. it has not occurred to haruka yet that maybe he and makoto are the one percentile of Actual Bizarre things in that they have nothing supernatural going for them. unless one counts their daily commitment to not wholly believing all that has happened around them.

in haru's pockets: two flyers with the faces of friends (more or less) folded neatly and precisely.

in haru's tone: another lift of his shoulders and a glance away.] Not sure.

We didn't mean to; we were looking for someone.

[he pauses then relents to some invisible imploring,]

Two people, actually. So we didn't notice.

Oh.

[ Makes sense. He sometimes goes looking for some people from his world, after new people arrive. He never thought he was the only one, but for someone to get arrested during it. That's sort of hilarious, but also sort of ridiculous. ]

So it was an accident. That means you probably ended up somewhere they don't want people, if they're that insistent on locking you up over a mistake.

[ It's the only logical answer, really. Which of course makes him curious, and wonder just what it is that those people are hiding. They act like they're all open and welcoming, but there's always been something - a lot of somethings - fishy about this place. ]

I guess.

[not especially conducive to continued conversation, haru's words are somehow at odds with his demeanor at the moment -- his gaze returning to this person sharing the jailer's hold with them. considering the supposition at hand, he honestly thinks it makes plenty of sense. for what other reason would the disciplinary types here have to lock up two high-school boys who were essentially doing nothing but looking for their friends? it makes haru wish, just a little, that he had been paying more attention to where they were also. as things are now, he remembers only the especially useless things, though one might wonder if that too is not the doing of tellus itself.

eyes dropping from survey of the stranger's expression to the clean line of his shoulder, haru blinks.]

They didn't say how long we'll be here.

[but this he says almost to himself, even though it is certainly audible to everyone else in the cell already.]

[ Well, it does make a lot of sense. It's the most logical explanation to the two humans' situation. But in the end it doesn't matter if they don't know where they were when they got caught, because then there was too much a space to investigate. And Hokuto sure doesn't feel like searching all over for a place that he might not find. Or at east not easily. ]

Then I guess that'll depend on how long they feel like sticking around.

[ But the same went for him, really. ]

Unless they leave us alone during night or something.

[ That being said, they might of course just get other guards, if they're supposed to stay locked up. ]

[ makoto's expression goes from unnerved to petrified in the span of a few seconds, starkly operatic. under the clinical glare of green fluorescent lights, striated beams slant through the bars, flooding over them all in ghastly hues. there's a sickness building in him, too, strange and warped and full of remorse that he attempts to talk around, if just to keep his fears at bay. ]

I don't really know either? They wouldn't make us stay for the whole night, right?

[ even if he resembles a deer caught in headlights more than a human being at this framed moment in time, he's still capable of semi-coherent speech, which is a contextual joke, considering all he's brought to the conversational table are the wasted bullet slugs of penitence, regret spoken — and acted upon — far too late. ]

I can't see them turning off the lights anytime soon, though. It seems like it'd make it easier for people to escape.

[ Isn't that a funny face. Hokuto snorts in amusement. ]

Why not? They could if they wanted to. We're in the lock-up after all, we're supposed to not be able to do anything at all.

[ More or less, at least. ]

They have forgotten to turn off our powers, I could easily turn off the lights myself.

[ He might not be a poltergeist, since the method of becoming one is taboo, but he likes to play tricks with his spiritual energy. ]

Because we could use the lack of visibility to escape?! Or someone in one of the other cells could riot, and then we'd be in really big trouble if they came in and decide to m-maim everyone else, or something ... !

[ god, it's not like his fears are unfounded or something. he's seen documentaries and prison dramas, he knows how jail works. it'll be lucky if they make it to morning remotely intact. ]

... Anyways, that'd just get you in more trouble. Isn't it better just to wait patiently in the meantime?

You sure don't think the worst, even in situations like these.

[ It could get much worse than a little maiming. ]

But who knows, maybe it'll get us in more trouble to just sit around and way like patient little sacrificial lambs.

I can't help it! Aren't you a little concerned what might happen if they turn off the lights? And besides, they can't punish us for following the rules. That's counterproductive to keeping us here in the first place! People are jailed so they won't commit crimes the next time around.

No, not really. [ If something dangerous happened, he's already died once so he's not overly concerned. Not that all spirits think the same about it, but he's pretty apathetic towards it. ] You haven't been to prison before, have you?

[ his shoulders sink, a hangdog gesture that further highlights his inexperience when it comes to paying his just dues for a crime. ]

N ... No, I haven't. It'd be really bad if this was a regular occurrence or something.

[ It's not all there is to it but Hokuto feels that times have changed since he was alive. ]

Your criminal record doesn't really matter in the end.

Wait, then — ... aren't we here to learn a lesson from all of this? I don't get it. There's no reason to throw someone into jail unless they've committed a misdeed. I mean, our criminal records are the reason we're here now.

I did say "in the end" but I never said "right now", didn't I?

( OPEN ) red light, green light

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sjdkf, sorry for the belatedness of this tag

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