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[img]https://i.imgur.com/gueL6Ps.png[/img]
[h2][color=#F6989D]Nine[/color][/h2][/center]
[hr][center][h3]~??? | JAPAN | UNKNOWN CAFE[/h3][/center][hr]

	In a quiet corner of a cafe, there was a curious pile of clothes. There wasn't anything peculiar about the clothes themselves, really. An ordinary hoodie laid outstretched over an empty table, its frayed logo on the chest boasting some obscure rock band from decades ago. Its sleeves were stained with the occasional coffee spill, scrunched up haphazardly around its current obsession, a paper cup that had the colorful label of the "SunStags". On top rested a similarly rugged rain jacket that was two-timing as a blanket over a misshapen mass, its stripes fading against age and making peculiarly good match with the cheap off-brand pants that hung over the plastic bench. Like most other piles of clothes, this one was inert, barely moving against the gusts of the air conditioner that occasionally looked over to check if the pile of clothes were still there. And for a long time, indeed it was, contentedly shifting slightly as the lone attendant of the cafe lazily shuffled around the arrangements, straightening napkins and chatting up the few patrons for no other reason than to kill the time.

	No, what made this pile of clothes peculiar was that there was a hand sticking out of it. It held a pen in its hand, the ink dribbling across charts that professed some fancy words to do with genealogy, the ink disregarding the pretentious wording as it marched over the letters. Still, this hand and the pile of clothes looked to be perfectly content with being left well enough alone to continue to bleed the pen dry until the end of eternity. Alas, this happy medium would have a tragic ending, for underneath the sheaves of paper was yet another peculiar object. A battered old pager whose digital screen lit up with a set of blocky green symbols. In the case of the pager, its peculiarity was expressed in its sudden insistence that whoever's job it was to acknowledge those blocky green symbols needed to look at them [i]now[/i].

[i]BRRRT.[/i]

	The hand freed the pen from its grasp, letting it jump down to its freedom on the cafe floor. The hand then proceeded to tap blindly around the table, nearly knocking the paper cup also off from the table before reaching further through the pages that now shuffled around to cover the whole table. The mass under the jacket released a deep groan, a sigh, then something incomprehensible to the mortal mind. With a cascade of unkempt pink hair, the mass made itself known as something approximating a woman, though distinguished by the utter lack of animation in its eyes as it took time to blankly stare ahead at the opposing chair, the table, the pieces of paper moist with drool before it, and finally, at its own hand.

	What was it called? Ah, right. Nine. Nines. Comprehension crawled into her mind piece by piece. She commanded her hand to lift up the pager two inches before her eyes, still squinting to block out the light. A croak recited what was lit up on the tiny screen, breath sour with a hint of coffee. [b]"Lucema Regini. Sigrun."[/b]

	An old feeling of disappointment calmly put on its coat and walked out of Nine's mind. Another job. It was beyond routine, at this point, but Nines couldn't help pressing the right arrow key hoping there was some kind of message appended afterwards. Nines creakily gathered her body, her few belongings, and finally the strength to get up from the table that had hosted her for the past...however long she had roosted in this place for. Jacket in hand, she stepped out of the cafe and took her last sip of the congealed coffee in her cup. Though her mind still ran at a slovenly pace, she still pieced together the one constant signified by the pager. Back to work.

[hr][center][h3]~??? | DECIBITUS | LUCEMA REGINI[/h3][/center][hr]

	Nines' punctuality was only really thanks to the early forewarning of her pager. There were a quite a number of procedures that Nines had to go through in the Arch. The first was to dump the cup into the recycling bin. The second was to say hello to the clerk that hurried to catch her from skulking off handing her a letter of disciplinary action for wandering off into "locations without prior authorization". The third was to empty her mailbox of other letters of disciplinary action, all equally worded and all equally looking pretty dejected next to the SunStags cup.

	Her face, still sporting the squashed impression of the table edge, barely changed from her blank stare even as Siggy's voice brightly chirped from the sticker. Something about Dakota. And Missy PP. Weird name, Nines dully thought. It was again time for the creature named Nines to slowly revert to a pile of clothes on a chair at the waiting room, a fresh cup of cappuccino barely clinging unto its dear life in her loosening hands.