banjoanjo

Brilliant Fake Kaleidoscopic Prism

RIM MIKAGURA

Collab with @ERode

---

Rim looked at the coat in his hands, putting it on immediately. He tied his cloth around to secure it too, just in case.

"I... no. I'm alone. I don't need, um." How did he want to phrase this? "Is everything alright at the hospital?"

Zen tilted her head to the side slightly, then nodded. "Yes, the hospital's safe. I was actually gonna head over there again after squaring this place out. Are you sure you don't want to come with? You're not wearing shoes..."

And he had been running pretty hard.

"The staff too? They're okay?"

She tapped her fist against her heart. "Wouldn't be here if they weren't."

He stared unnervingly long. Tightened his cloth.

"Okay," he said. And more softly, "Thank you."

With one last look at the hospital past the girl, he sprinted off with inhuman speed.

Left in the dust of the sprinting man, Zen could only stare in silence.

"..."

She smacked her fist into her palm.

"Oh, so it was him!"

Brilliant Fake Kaleidoscopic Prism

RIM MIKAGURA

---

'Did he say he was working today?'

It was the only thought running through Rim’s head as he stared out across the bay, the dread in his gut growing in proportion with the number of monsters he watched approach the field hospital.

'He was still in bed when I left this morning…'

Fuck. He really had no recollection of what the schedule was like this week. Another failing to add to the pile. At least this one he could fix if he left right now, if he ran till his lungs bled. The usual magical troupe would be fine to handle the gate on their own.

Rim responded to Shinjuku with a half-hearted shrug before leaping off the ship, his cloth once again unfurling and trailing loosely with him. If he was to get on Shibuya’s good side then it would be best to heed her requests. As he floated, he could spot the floundering rookie on the left, just as she had said.

“Aight, let’s try this.”

Still airborne, he manifested a marble sphere about the size of a van below him, planting both feet on its top and straightening his knees with an almost supersonic snap. The giant cannonball rocketed down towards the oni and the girl but Rim did not stay to observe the result. Whether it missed or crushed the oni, or even the girl, there would be others to deal with that. The field hospital was his only priority.

He couldn't recall the last time he ran this desperately.

Brilliant Fake Kaleidoscopic Prism

RIM MIKAGURA

Interaction with @Yankee @Cu Chulainn

---

The driver turned the radio up, rousing the strawberry blonde passenger from an unpleasant dream.

“More o’ that magic nonsense, eh? On the…” The driver – Ta…Tamura? Murata? – dug at his ear with a pinkie. “On the river! Say, ain’t that too close to the airport?”

Despite the biting cold this morning, Rim had his window cracked slightly open, the wind helping to wake him up a little more. Tamu- Murata, like many in his line of work, reeked of smoke, and while today’s job wouldn’t have had him turning down a pack or two, Rim wasn’t looking to get any ambient scent into the fabric of his suit. His borrowed suit. A little frostbite was a worthy sacrifice to avoid the earful Grandfather would lay into him otherwise.

“I dunno,” he said, peering out at the skyline as the car sped along the highway. No magical children on the horizon yet. “Maybe Kim will appreciate the welcoming party.”

“Yeah, yeahh, nothing says Tokyo like a— shit!”

A resounding ‘BOOM!’ shook the car, sending it fishtailing into the roadside barrier. Shattered glass rained on Rim, only marginally blocked by the airbags that shoved a rough grunt from him. Then a monstrous laugh. No, not a laugh, more like… chittering. Rim finally opened his eyes to see a giant lantern bouncing on the car’s crushed hood. A cartoonishly large tongue flailed from it, bordered by enormous teeth.

“Shit!” Tamura screamed again, floundering his way out the door. Rim moved to do the same but unfortunately for him, the lantern must have sensed a good challenge. The tongue wrapped around his arm and yanked him out for a bite. Rim cried out too, and it was only in the nick of time that its teeth, underlit by a blue glow, could find no purchase. Letting out a confused noise, it bit down once more and, again, failed to pierce flesh. Rim took this chance to plant a fist into its face and send it spiraling down the road.

“What the… fuck,” Rim muttered. Blue light shone gently from between the ravaged cuts on his sleeve. The sleeve of the suit that he’d borrowed. Motherfucker. So much for avoiding that earful. A glance in the crooked rearview showed Tamura vaulting off the road, out of eyeshot, allowing Rim to kick the door off its hinges and step out with no issues. Of all the places for a monster to appear…

Another yelp escaped him as a second lantern latched on from behind, tearing his outfit up even more. He fell onto the freezing ground, grabbing at his back, dread clutching his heart as the first lantern locked eyes with him. That terrifying chittering filled his ears once more, and he began to grasp the situation he was in. His own human abilities wouldn’t save him for long.

He was gonna die unless…

He had no choice but to…

…

Ugh, and it was so cold too!

“God…dammit!” he grunted, a plumb bob materializing in his hand, a glowing card flashing into reality below it, before gold overtook blue in an eruption of light.

* ~ S F A V I L L A ~ *

It felt just like the first time, as if every atom of his being was torn apart and reconstructed, every miniscule prick of light in the universe converging into the magical being that was Rim Mikagura. The two lanterns were thrown by the blast that radiated from his transformation.

Where he was previously pinned, he now stood steadfast, naginata in hand and cloth floating gently. Icy wind swirled around him but there were no goosebumps along his exposed skin. The cold was an ambient, almost absent factor. His system was now surging with a vitality he could have never achieved before this. The adrenaline from a monster attack certainly wasn’t a drawback either. With a vengeful roar, Rim lunged at the two paper beasts, taking each of them out with a succinct series of slashes. No time to gloat however, as more monstrous sounds echoed down the road. Many more.

“No,” he said, looking around desperately and deciding to book it for now. Tamura mentioned a river, right? Time to get outta here. “Nope.”

Rim sprinted, bounding over storefronts with inhuman strength. Monster extermination was a magical girl’s job. There seemed to be an approximate fuckton in the area so where the hell was the cavalry—

"Hop on, everyone! It's time to bring the fight to them!"

That worked. The ship on the water was instantly recognizable. With the strength lent to him by his patron, Rim took a running leap. He tumbled onto the deck with a roll, immediately getting back to his feet and gauging the rest of the ship’s occupants. Chiyoda, male, late high school to early university age. Bunkyo, female… high school age.

…Boy, was it windier here than usual? It felt windier. Maybe it was the ship’s momentum that was really drawing his attention to the… swinging.

Clearing his throat and tearing his eyes from the two other magical people on the deck, Rim grabbed his cloth and methodically wrapped it around his crotch into what best resembled a sumo wrestler’s mawashi. Now what? What should he say? What could he possibly say here?

“Ah…” he cleared his throat again, “ 'scuse. Excuse me.”

Brilliant Fake Kaleidoscopic Prism

Rim

Rim Mikagura

( 御神楽 輪夢 )

--



_Credit

--

Appearance

Rim stands at an easy 5' 9". His hair is close cropped and bleached strawberry blonde. Both his ears are pierced but often he is seen with only one silver loop earring on his right. His clothing tastes lean to expensive streetwear with casual, loose silhouettes. Oversized tees and chunky sneakers are a staple. His arms are decently muscular from long days at the workshop but his mid-twenties have placed some flab on his stomach. His resting expression is an absent, almost sullen frown.

Magical

By the will of Il Divino himself, Rim's magic transforms him into a living work of art, rendering him into the human body's most natural state of being: complete nudity. The only relief granted to him is a long, white cloth that gently floats around his person and the silk tassels that hang from his ears. Rim's hair grows to a little shorter than shoulder length and turns into a more natural blonde, specks of glitter seeming to shine across his locks. His eyes turn blue and are bordered by a shimmering golden eyeliner.

Despite all this, Rim is not granted the chiseled physique of David in this form.

Age: 26
Personality: Rim is a man that holds himself with a quiet strength, passion that he has no intention on using for the sake of others. While a younger him may have had some sharp words (and heavy fists) against the injustices he'd encounter, the Rim of today finds that most people aren't really worth the effort. Everyone he meets is kept at arms length, crept around until they pass an invisible trial. Even then he is curt at best, at worst outright ignoring them. In a landscape of magical children and ugly territorial disputes, neutrality is golden. Rim will go to great lengths to preserve it for himself and the people in his inner circle. He holds his temper well with people he does not approve of, with the exception of his family.

Rim also considers himself measured and difficult to fluster but with... recent events being the way they are...

Well.

Background: Rim will insist that he’s satisfied with his life. Although pressured into a BMX career by his father for almost all his adolescent years, a particularly rough final year of high school gave him the excuse he needed to leave the professional circuit. Currently, he spends his days juggling himself between selling bike parts and getting the family trade (the first one) hammered into his skull by his grandfather. There is never a dull moment at Tokyo Steel – BMX and Bowls, nor a silent one with all sounds of clanging metal and generations of family resentment in the shared Suginami store space.

He lives in a penthouse suite in the neighboring Setagaya ward, afforded by convincing his grandfather to make a pivot to crafting lab equipment for anyone that can afford their hefty prices. On paper, the Mikagura brand technology is made of a family secret alloy that increases the potency of whatever is brewed or cultivated in the vessels. In reality, Rim makes sure that non-magical customers don’t overstep their bounds and ask too many questions, all while making a decent buck.

It’s a lot of work, keeping an eye on the magical climate, territorial disputes, the temperaments of other mage families, etc. The situation with the magical girls in particular is what made him refuse a patron’s call a number of times. It was just not worth getting involved in.

Until five days ago. Police are still urging people to come forward with any information about a naked blonde man seen fleeing a Shinjuku drug raid.

Patron: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Patron Tool: A plumb bob – a pointed weight of polished gold attached to a string. There seems to be Latin script engraved around it and glowing lightly, but Rim has not cared to decipher it.
Patron Weapon: A naginata with a blade shaped like a chisel. The blade takes up approximately half of the weapon’s length.
Patron Aspect: Foundational Shape
Aspect Magic:

Primitive - Rim is able to generate perfect marble spheres of varying sizes. They are the only decent shape he can make. Cubes are also an option but they come out with soft, misshapen edges. He can summon them partially clipped into preexisting objects, the result will be a sphere missing the parts where it was in contact. For example, Rim can summon a sphere halfway through the ground to produce just a hemisphere. The object in contact is unaffected. His summons have the durability and general qualities of standard marble.
Primary Form - By plunging his blade into a volume, Rim can gradually compress and reshape the silhouette of an object into what he sees in his mind's eye. It can take him several minutes to several hours depending on the extent of his work. This skill does not increase or reduce the volume of an object. He has great difficulty shaping the object outwards from its initial silhouette and there is a limit to the amount of volume he can reshape. This skill seems to work best against types of stone and metal.
Sacra Sindone - The thick, silken cloth that hovers around his being. It seems impervious to tearing or cutting. To Rim's chagrin, tying it into place or wrapping it around himself doesn't make it remain in place for long. It will gradually loosen itself back into its floating, usual shape. The cloth appears to have some innate danger sense when Rim is in the heat of battle, sometimes finding itself between the mage and a rough landing. It won't break his fall but it will at least mitigate some road rash.

Other skills:

Despite everything, he still dabbles in BMX tricks from time to time. Has a motorcycle license and a Bachelor of Science from Tokyo Metropolitan University. Begrudgingly, he does intend on continuing the family craft for his own ends.

Other Mentions:

His favorite food is kakigori.
His favorite band is The Blue Hearts.

Brilliant Fake Kaleidoscopic Prism

Rim

Rim Mikagura

( 御神楽 輪夢 )

--



_Credit

--

Appearance

Rim stands at an easy 5' 9". His hair is close cropped and bleached strawberry blonde. Both his ears are pierced but often he is seen with only one silver loop earring on his right. His clothing tastes lean to expensive streetwear with casual, loose silhouettes. Oversized tees and chunky sneakers are a staple. His arms are decently muscular from long days at the workshop but his mid-twenties have placed some flab on his stomach. His resting expression is an absent, almost sullen frown.

Magical

By the will of Il Divino himself, Rim's magic transforms him into a living work of art, rendering him into the human body's most natural state of being: complete nudity. The only relief granted to him is a long, white cloth that gently floats around his person and the silk tassels that hang from his ears. Rim's hair grows to a little shorter than shoulder length and turns into a more natural blonde, specks of glitter seeming to shine across his locks. His eyes turn blue and are bordered by a shimmering golden eyeliner.

Despite all this, Rim is not granted the chiseled physique of David in this form.

Age: 26
Personality: Rim is a man that holds himself with a quiet strength, passion that he has no intention on using for the sake of others. While a younger him may have had some sharp words (and heavy fists) against the injustices he'd encounter, the Rim of today finds that most people aren't really worth the effort. Everyone he meets is kept at arms length, crept around until they pass an invisible trial. Even then he is curt at best, at worst outright ignoring them. In a landscape of magical children and ugly territorial disputes, neutrality is golden. Rim will go to great lengths to preserve it for himself and the people in his inner circle. He holds his temper well with people he does not approve of, with the exception of his family.

Rim also considers himself measured and difficult to fluster but with... recent events being the way they are...

Well.

Background: Rim will insist that he’s satisfied with his life. Although pressured into a BMX career by his father for almost all his adolescent years, a particularly rough final year of high school gave him the excuse he needed to leave the professional circuit. Currently, he spends his days juggling himself between selling bike parts and getting the family trade (the first one) hammered into his skull by his grandfather. There is never a dull moment at Tokyo Steel – BMX and Bowls, nor a silent one with all sounds of clanging metal and generations of family resentment in the shared Suginami store space.

He lives in a penthouse suite in the neighboring Setagaya ward, afforded by convincing his grandfather to make a pivot to crafting lab equipment for anyone that can afford their hefty prices. On paper, the Mikagura brand technology is made of a family secret alloy that increases the potency of whatever is brewed or cultivated in the vessels. In reality, Rim makes sure that non-magical customers don’t overstep their bounds and ask too many questions, all while making a decent buck.

It’s a lot of work, keeping an eye on the magical climate, territorial disputes, the temperaments of other mage families, etc. The situation with the magical girls in particular is what made him refuse a patron’s call a number of times. It was just not worth getting involved in.

Until five days ago. Police are still urging people to come forward with any information about a naked blonde man seen fleeing a Shinjuku drug raid.

Patron: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
Patron Tool: A plumb bob – a pointed weight of polished gold attached to a string. There seems to be Latin script engraved around it and glowing lightly, but Rim has not cared to decipher it.
Patron Weapon: A naginata with a blade shaped like a chisel. The blade takes up approximately half of the weapon’s length.
Patron Aspect: Foundational Shape
Aspect Magic:

Primitive - Rim is able to generate perfect marble spheres of varying sizes. They are the only decent shape he can make. Cubes are also an option but they come out with soft, misshapen edges. He can summon them partially clipped into preexisting objects, the result will be a sphere missing the parts where it was in contact. For example, Rim can summon a sphere halfway through the ground to produce just a hemisphere. The object in contact is unaffected. His summons have the durability and general qualities of standard marble.
Primary Form - By plunging his blade into a volume, Rim can gradually compress and reshape the silhouette of an object into what he sees in his mind's eye. It can take him several minutes to several hours depending on the extent of his work. This skill does not increase or reduce the volume of an object. He has great difficulty shaping the object outwards from its initial silhouette and there is a limit to the amount of volume he can reshape. This skill seems to work best against types of stone and metal.
Sacra Sindone - The thick, silken cloth that hovers around his being. It seems impervious to tearing or cutting. To Rim's chagrin, tying it into place or wrapping it around himself doesn't make it remain in place for long. It will gradually loosen itself back into its floating, usual shape. The cloth appears to have some innate danger sense when Rim is in the heat of battle, sometimes finding itself between the mage and a rough landing. It won't break his fall but it will at least mitigate some road rash.

Other skills:

Despite everything, he still dabbles in BMX tricks from time to time. Has a motorcycle license and a Bachelor of Science from Tokyo Metropolitan University. Begrudgingly, he does intend on continuing the family craft for his own ends.

Other Mentions:

His favorite food is kakigori.
His favorite band is The Blue Hearts.

Paramount

JAMES XIAO - Room 804, Marble Heights Dorm Building
Saturday, 8/24/2019 - 7:54am

---

“Listen.” James sighed. It sounded more like a tired growl. “I don’t like muscling my way to an agreement. Ain’t my style anymore, those days are behind me.”

His addressee remained condemningly silent.

“But I’m doing this for the family, yeah? Don’t matter how I feel about it. Whatever it takes.”

He rolled up his sleeves, revealing wiry, muscled forearms. Further down, the skin on his knuckles was rough and worn. Colorful band-aids adorned the fingers of his left hand. Seemed he was no stranger to ‘muscling’, as he put it.

“Nothin’ personal.”

Before him, the mound of frozen dumplings gave no plea, no call for mercy. So be it. James placed both hands on the lid and shoved.

It was a situation, see. Baba had surprised him before he left for the year, hefting a large, large container to the car. Grinned and instructed him to put it in the freezer as soon as he got to school.

“<<Half a day’s stock,>>” Mama had rolled her eyes, giving her son a tight hug, “<<I swear, he always goes too far.>>”

The stockpile would probably last him a week. Not that he doubted the cooking expertise of Marble Heights’ kitchen staff, but there was nothing like the taste of home. He’d eat every single piece, not a crumb wasted! Each morsel would be received gratefully and deliciously. Otherwise, the specter of his father’s disappointment would loom over him until his dying days.

The going away gift suited him just fine until he actually got to his dorm. It turns out that restaurant-grade bulk containers often didn’t lend themselves well to standard home freezers. Condensation dripped onto the benchtop as the August sun continued to rise. Realization twisted his expression. Instead of filling his new lodgings with a frozen but comfy slice of home, it was now a race against time.

It was damn lucky that he was a sculptor because he doubted anyone else would be walking around school with a bunch of plastic tofu boxes on hand. Sourced from the market down the street, their family had kept a pile of them in the pantry for as long as he could remember. A young James had learnt that they were good for storing his clay figures, little works in progress. And sometimes, like right now, you could even store food in them! But he wasn’t a gazillionaire prodigy (prology? progery?) like his classmates, he wasn’t made of reusable tofu boxes! He’d divvied up the pile as best he could between what containers he had available, but the mounds all peeked prominently over their respective rims. This called for step two: compress.

And so, on this fine August Saturday, at 7:57 in the goddamn morning, in his new home for the next eleven months, James Kaishen Xiao was muttering to balls of stiff dough and meat, all the while trying to compact them into containers that clearly were not humoring his efforts in the slightest.

"C’moooooooOOONNN!!!”

It was going to be an interesting year.

Paramount

James Xiao

_{(FC: Gaku Oshida, Dialogue Color: #f7976a)}
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

F O R T H E R E C O R D

| | N I C K N A M E (S) | |

• Jam, as his parents, relatives and… old friends would call him.

| | A G E | |

17 (July 16)

| | G E N D E R | |

Male (He/They)

| | S E X U A L I T Y | |

Demisexual

| | R E L A T I O N S H I P S T A T U S | |

Recently single.

| | C L A S S I F I C A T I O N | |

Senior

____________________________________________________________

A T F I R S T G L A N C E

| | I N D E P T H A P P E A R A N C E | |

James doesn’t seem very well put together. Every morning he arrives with a bedhead that only worsens throughout the day, especially in Chemistry class with the confused head-scratches it generates. His tie is always crooked, if not entirely forgotten. His blazer hasn’t been sighted in months, the boy opting instead for his school sweater when he gets cold. The uniform’s signature colors are made quite unfortunate by the patches of white dust that can always be seen staining his clothes. His hands and face are not exempt from plaster residue either, and it often takes a scolding from a teacher for him to remember to wash it off.

James himself is more noticeable than he’d like to be. Though his eyes and hair are both a natural black, he has thick expressive eyebrows that balance all his features, including the fractured nose that has since been set in place. There still remains a pale scar however, and the angle of his nose is ever so slightly off. Numbers of small scars – and subsequent bandaids – litter the pads of his fingers, all gained from his wire working. The ones on his knuckles had faded years prior. James stands at a wiry 5’ 10” but over the years at Marble Heights his posture seems to be shrinking in, as if he’s consciously trying to make himself smaller.

His casual attire indicates a modest, urban upbringing. Sneakers, sweatpants and a large plain tee is his go-to. He generally prefers looser clothing, or anything that won’t be beyond saving when they inevitably get stained by his art process.

| | R E P U T A T I O N | |

Within a few seconds of talking with him, anyone would be able to tell that this guy doesn’t really… fit. Not at an academy for the offspring of upper-class society anyway. James is too rough around the edges. A little too loud. Too blunt, too honest, almost to a point of ineptitude. It’d be hard for most to believe that he was once one of the kings of the soccer field. The audience at his games would be hard-pressed to not notice the tight unit he’d formed with the captain and center forward. An unstoppable trio, despite all the yellow cards only he seemed to get. This, along with the art awards he’d net for the school, granted him quite the reputation. There was a time when he sat happily at the top of the food chain.

These days he’s just the guy that ‘stole’ the captain’s girlfriend.

____________________________________________________________

O F F T H E R E C O R D

| | H I S T O R Y | |

James was born and raised in San Francisco by immigrant parents determined to thrust the American Dream upon their children. Whatever their children needed for success; they were willing to spend above their pay grade for it. Piano and violin lessons, tutors, weekend sports. The Xiao brothers were decently occupied, but were they engaged by these extracurricular whims? Not exactly. They would rather spend their afternoons practicing kung fu moves on each other.

The word James would have used for him and his brother was ‘unsuited’. Their parents and relatives would use something closer to ‘ungrateful’. Even from the age of seven and eight, their lack of interest in academics was clear, and it would lead to an increasingly tense home atmosphere for the decade to come. Among the last attempts at hooking the boys on an Ivy League approved extracurricular, James found something that enraptured him: a community hall pottery class. Although the pottery wheel held little interest to him, it was the act of shaping wire and clay that really took hold. He first made a crocodile with his small, eager hands. Then a dog. Then a Bruce Lee doing a flying kick.

The materials were readily available enough for him to purchase for practice at home, even if he was limited to only small figures. As soon as he returned home from school he’d rush to his shared room and open his supplies. He’d spend hours at the home computer following tutorials but, in the end, always experiment on his own. The thing about creativity is that it’s only limited by skill, and even then, James would overcome that barrier at a prodigious rate. His work was paying off. His community class teacher would lend him books for extra study. His parents noticed his skill, and things at home were becoming bearable. School was an entirely different matter.

While James had finally found a passion to occupy his time, the younger Cameron Xiao was not so fortunate. Where James would sit with a grimace and take the brunt of their parents’ former disapproval, Cameron would reject it completely, often storming out of the flat to parts unknown. This behavior manifested in the latter half of middle school, and his disobedience would only escalate to fights with his classmates. But James, an ever-loyal brother, would come to back him up every time. It wouldn’t last, as James would have to take his freshman year of high school alone, but the Xiao brothers gained a reputation among the inner-city schools.

James’ freshman year was interesting to say the least. The ones who knew of the brothers’ escapades assumed he would be as much of a delinquent as Cameron, but they would soon find out for themselves. Getting into fights and only winning half of them didn’t make him a delinquent, it made him a dumb musclehead with an even dumber mouth.

Besides the strange fights he would get into, freshman year was an enlightening experience. More and more of his out-of-school time was being spent getting Cameron out of trouble. His disinterest in his studies was growing too. As he sat in lamplight, working on his sculptures, James wondered if the rest of his time on Earth was going to be like this; a growing listlessness towards the duties of his daily life while his passions would sit on his desk with no one but his family to view them. His salvation once again came from community class teacher.

She suggested some youth art contests for him to enter, as well as a scholarship program for some bougie school outside of his district. He placed high in the former but more importantly, he won the latter. He wasn’t sure about the school itself but it felt really, crazily good to have his art recognized by San Francisco’s elites. He accepted the scholarship offer, a decision that Cameron would hold against him to this day. Transferring for sophomore year may be a challenge but James was willing to put in the work. He’d leave his fights behind, work on his grades and most importantly, continue his sculpting work in a supportive environment. His school life was going to change for the better.

Indeed it did, for the most part. But he’s starting to notice a lot of bumps in the road ahead.

| | B E Y O N D M Y R E P U T A T I O N | |

James sits outside of the hierarchy. He’s too loud for an art geek. Doesn’t eat lunch with the jocks anymore. Impulsive. Quickly shovels his food in the first ten minutes then spends the rest of his break in the art studio. He’s still got the energy of a Great Dane but there’s a spark missing in his eyes these days.

He finds it hard to say ‘no’ to requests asked of him. Even if there’s no gain, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s fine to put in an extra bit of effort for others, right? People in his proximity will notice that he rarely takes action without making sure he’s got approval for it first. It’s hard to tell who his friends are these days, if he even has any. Ever since that incident right before the end of his Junior year, things have been different. Harder to trust.

The truth of the matter is that maybe he never really had any friends on the soccer team. He wasn’t a prodigy like a lot of the guys on there, he was just decently fit. Maybe they saw the kid that had just transferred in, some middle-class guy in ratty sneakers whose conversations were always a little tilted and awkward, the odd one out, and invited him to their table out of pity. Perhaps it could have grown into something genuine. But pity is pity, and in the end, he forfeited it when he decided to follow his heart.

No one’s bothered to ask if he regrets what he did. But if they did, he’d answer firmly.

“She was my friend. Still is. Those guys aren’t. I made the right choice.”

____________________________________________________________

A C A D E M I C S

| | E X T R A C U R R I C U L A R A C T I V I T I E S | |

• Fine Arts Club
• Not an official member of the Photography Club but often runs errands for them in exchange for assistance shooting his sculptures for his portfolio.
• Lead benchwarmer of the Soccer Team. Eternal second-string member ever since the mess.

| | B E S T & W O R S T S U B J E C T S | |

| B E S T |

• Art
• P.E
• Math

| W O R S T |

• History
• English
• Chemistry – Yeah, turns out those math skills don’t transfer. Crazy.

| | E X T R A N O T E S | |

• A plaster sculpture of a sea lion posing on an ocean-thrashed boulder is on display in a glass case in the front office, beside the student body’s many accolades. Several other pieces created by James can be found displayed around the school too, albeit smaller than the sea lion.
• The only social media he has is Facebook and an Instagram for his works @xiaojamarts.

【 Spy High 】

YUTO SHITANAGA - Red Dragon Macau
Monday, 10/7/2021 - 5:00 pm

---

Being a Promenade agent meant that Yuto faced a test of will nearly every day, and even though he was exempt from the training exercise, today was included. As he watched the camera feeds beside the Director, he felt his cheeks begin to strain. The corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably, inching wider as Beatrix’s confrontation went on. The look on Static’s face as he was subject to her whims, it was just so… so pathetic!

A quick snort left his mouth before he smothered it with a cough.

God, she sure knew how to press people’s buttons. Even if he’d never admit it to her face, it was… amusing. When he wasn’t on the receiving end.

By the time the agents all returned for debriefing, he was back to his stone-faced self. He nodded a goodbye to the Director before making a quick retreat to his car. Alone once more.

---

It took a few deep breaths to acquaint himself to the new location. He habitually adjusted his attire, grey checkered pants with a matching vest over a crisp shirt, then got to work. First course of action, secure routes to his requested escape vehicles: the R1M, the car, and the backup car. Make sure the valet service wouldn’t be in his way. He was in the middle of checking his watch for the locations when Static started talking. Saying something about couples.

Yuto, currently socialite Akira Shinmei, regarded him with a flat glare.

As… absurd as the suggestion was, it brought another concern to mind. Yuto was properly operating in the field this time. No more just waiting around in the car, he had to, urgh, participate. If he didn’t pull his weight around for this mission…

He coughed, trying to clear the anxious lump in his throat.

“Ideally, you’d all be proficient in Mandarin but…” He supposed it would be too much to make a spy agency enforce its agents to learn the second most spoken language in the world. Yuto clicked his tongue and kept it to himself. “It should be no matter. Macau is hardly a monolingual state and the casino staff are almost certain to all be proficient in English. Still, if you need to convey something in Mandarin without whispering into your smartwatch like a loon, I… suppose you should come to me or Babel. Otherwise, stay on task. Let’s limit the distractions this time.”

His glare shifted to Kingfisher at that.

“Once I’m done with the vehicles, I will be looking around the dining area. Bug, if you could find your way into the restaurants' reservations and cameras, we may be able to find some big names.”

Second course of action was to investigate the five-star restaurants the casino boasted. After all, dinner meetings – and drinking – were the cornerstone of Asian business.

Paramount

James Xiao

_{(FC: Gaku Oshida, Dialogue Color: #f7976a)}
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________

F O R T H E R E C O R D

| | N I C K N A M E (S) | |

• Jam, as his parents, relatives and… old friends would call him.

| | A G E | |

17 (July 16)

| | G E N D E R | |

Male (He/They)

| | S E X U A L I T Y | |

Demisexual

| | R E L A T I O N S H I P S T A T U S | |

Recently single.

| | C L A S S I F I C A T I O N | |

Senior

____________________________________________________________

A T F I R S T G L A N C E

| | I N D E P T H A P P E A R A N C E | |

James doesn’t seem very well put together. Every morning he arrives with a bedhead that only worsens throughout the day, especially in Chemistry class with the confused head-scratches it generates. His tie is always crooked, if not entirely forgotten. His blazer hasn’t been sighted in months, the boy opting instead for his school sweater when he gets cold. The uniform’s signature colors are made quite unfortunate by the patches of white dust that can always be seen staining his clothes. His hands and face are not exempt from plaster residue either, and it often takes a scolding from a teacher for him to remember to wash it off.

James himself is more noticeable than he’d like to be. Though his eyes and hair are both a natural black, he has thick expressive eyebrows that balance all his features, including the fractured nose that has since been set in place. There still remains a pale scar however, and the angle of his nose is ever so slightly off. Numbers of small scars – and subsequent bandaids – litter the pads of his fingers, all gained from his wire working. The ones on his knuckles had faded years prior. James stands at a wiry 5’ 10” but over the years at Marble Heights his posture seems to be shrinking in, as if he’s consciously trying to make himself smaller.

His casual attire indicates a modest, urban upbringing. Sneakers, sweatpants and a large plain tee is his go-to. He generally prefers looser clothing, or anything that won’t be beyond saving when they inevitably get stained by his art process.

| | R E P U T A T I O N | |

Within a few seconds of talking with him, anyone would be able to tell that this guy doesn’t really… fit. Not at an academy for the offspring of upper-class society anyway. James is too rough around the edges. A little too loud. Too blunt, too honest, almost to a point of ineptitude. It’d be hard for most to believe that he was once one of the kings of the soccer field. The audience at his games would be hard-pressed to not notice the tight unit he’d formed with the captain and center forward. An unstoppable trio, despite all the yellow cards only he seemed to get. This, along with the art awards he’d net for the school, granted him quite the reputation. There was a time when he sat happily at the top of the food chain.

These days he’s just the guy that ‘stole’ the captain’s girlfriend.

____________________________________________________________

O F F T H E R E C O R D

| | H I S T O R Y | |

James was born and raised in San Francisco by immigrant parents determined to thrust the American Dream upon their children. Whatever their children needed for success; they were willing to spend above their pay grade for it. Piano and violin lessons, tutors, weekend sports. The Xiao brothers were decently occupied, but were they engaged by these extracurricular whims? Not exactly. They would rather spend their afternoons practicing kung fu moves on each other.

The word James would have used for him and his brother was ‘unsuited’. Their parents and relatives would use something closer to ‘ungrateful’. Even from the age of seven and eight, their lack of interest in academics was clear, and it would lead to an increasingly tense home atmosphere for the decade to come. Among the last attempts at hooking the boys on an Ivy League approved extracurricular, James found something that enraptured him: a community hall pottery class. Although the pottery wheel held little interest to him, it was the act of shaping wire and clay that really took hold. He first made a crocodile with his small, eager hands. Then a dog. Then a Bruce Lee doing a flying kick.

The materials were readily available enough for him to purchase for practice at home, even if he was limited to only small figures. As soon as he returned home from school he’d rush to his shared room and open his supplies. He’d spend hours at the home computer following tutorials but, in the end, always experiment on his own. The thing about creativity is that it’s only limited by skill, and even then, James would overcome that barrier at a prodigious rate. His work was paying off. His community class teacher would lend him books for extra study. His parents noticed his skill, and things at home were becoming bearable. School was an entirely different matter.

While James had finally found a passion to occupy his time, the younger Cameron Xiao was not so fortunate. Where James would sit with a grimace and take the brunt of their parents’ former disapproval, Cameron would reject it completely, often storming out of the flat to parts unknown. This behavior manifested in the latter half of middle school, and his disobedience would only escalate to fights with his classmates. But James, an ever-loyal brother, would come to back him up every time. It wouldn’t last, as James would have to take his freshman year of high school alone, but the Xiao brothers gained a reputation among the inner-city schools.

James’ freshman year was interesting to say the least. The ones who knew of the brothers’ escapades assumed he would be as much of a delinquent as Cameron, but they would soon find out for themselves. Getting into fights and only winning half of them didn’t make him a delinquent, it made him a dumb musclehead with an even dumber mouth.

Besides the strange fights he would get into, freshman year was an enlightening experience. More and more of his out-of-school time was being spent getting Cameron out of trouble. His disinterest in his studies was growing too. As he sat in lamplight, working on his sculptures, James wondered if the rest of his time on Earth was going to be like this; a growing listlessness towards the duties of his daily life while his passions would sit on his desk with no one but his family to view them. His salvation once again came from community class teacher.

She suggested some youth art contests for him to enter, as well as a scholarship program for some bougie school outside of his district. He placed high in the former but more importantly, he won the latter. He wasn’t sure about the school itself but it felt really, crazily good to have his art recognized by San Francisco’s elites. He accepted the scholarship offer, a decision that Cameron would hold against him to this day. Transferring for sophomore year may be a challenge but James was willing to put in the work. He’d leave his fights behind, work on his grades and most importantly, continue his sculpting work in a supportive environment. His school life was going to change for the better.

Indeed it did, for the most part. But he’s starting to notice a lot of bumps in the road ahead.

| | B E Y O N D M Y R E P U T A T I O N | |

James sits outside of the hierarchy. He’s too loud for an art geek. Doesn’t eat lunch with the jocks anymore. Impulsive. Quickly shovels his food in the first ten minutes then spends the rest of his break in the art studio. He’s still got the energy of a Great Dane but there’s a spark missing in his eyes these days.

He finds it hard to say ‘no’ to requests asked of him. Even if there’s no gain, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s fine to put in an extra bit of effort for others, right? People in his proximity will notice that he rarely takes action without making sure he’s got approval for it first. It’s hard to tell who his friends are these days, if he even has any. Ever since that incident right before the end of his Junior year, things have been different. Harder to trust.

The truth of the matter is that maybe he never really had any friends on the soccer team. He wasn’t a prodigy like a lot of the guys on there, he was just decently fit. Maybe they saw the kid that had just transferred in, some middle-class guy in ratty sneakers whose conversations were always a little tilted and awkward, the odd one out, and invited him to their table out of pity. Perhaps it could have grown into something genuine. But pity is pity, and in the end, he forfeited it when he decided to follow his heart.

No one’s bothered to ask if he regrets what he did. But if they did, he’d answer firmly.

“She was my friend. Still is. Those guys aren’t. I made the right choice.”

____________________________________________________________

A C A D E M I C S

| | E X T R A C U R R I C U L A R A C T I V I T I E S | |

• Fine Arts Club
• Not an official member of the Photography Club but often runs errands for them in exchange for assistance shooting his sculptures for his portfolio.
• Lead benchwarmer of the Soccer Team. Eternal second-string member ever since the mess.

| | B E S T & W O R S T S U B J E C T S | |

| B E S T |

• Art
• P.E
• Math

| W O R S T |

• History
• English
• Chemistry – Yeah, turns out those math skills don’t transfer. Crazy.

| | E X T R A N O T E S | |

• A plaster sculpture of a sea lion posing on an ocean-thrashed boulder is on display in a glass case in the front office, beside the student body’s many accolades. Several other pieces created by James can be found displayed around the school too, albeit smaller than the sea lion.
• The only social media he has is Facebook and an Instagram for his works @xiaojamarts.

【 Spy High 】

YUTO SHITANAGA - Shitanaga Home -> 1700 Coolidge Road, Swindon, TX
Saturday, 10/5/2021 - 7:00 am
Interacting with: Director Sokolova @Hitman

---

Yuto woke with his bedside accessories blaring something vicious. He could feel thin rays of warmth squeezing into his room.

“Hiram,” he grimaced, eyes still closed, “This better be bad.”

“Good morning, agent. You have a mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolid—”

“Tell Sokolova I’m not- my apologies. Finish what you were saying.”

“Mandatory training exercise at 1700 Coolidge Road in twenty-six – twenty-five now – minutes. Failure to attend will result in significant consequences.”

“Thank you, Hiram. You can let the Director know I won’t be participating.”

What was the saying - better to ask for forgiveness than permission? Though Yuto suspected that the esteemed Director would be miserly with both, it was worth at least taking a shot. It mattered little either way. Better to take it on the chin than suffer through trust exercises with the little twats – pardon him, ‘fellow agents’ – that had brought this punishment upon the cohort in the first place. He saw no reason to be dragged along with the real failures in the team.

Yuto eyed the clock. There was some time to kill. Muffling a yawn, went through the motions – bathroom, wardrobe, weapon, papers, keys. Once his belongings were in place, he made his way downstairs. Uncle Hirose was already at the dining table, placed in front him a bowl flooded with grain. Granola. It was always granola. He looked away from the morning television and waved.

“Mornin’, Yuto.”

“Good morning,” the teen replied. He searched through the fridge for two dark bottles.

“You drink coffee now?”

“Not the American kind.” The bottles made a clinking noise as they went into his shoulder bag. “I may be busy all day today. Take Kevin to the recital if I’m not home by two, if you would.”

“Hmmmmm?” Hirose scratched his chin, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “Sou da rou? You were home late too. Got a special little lady you’re seeing, kiddo?”

Yuto heard a reflexive ‘tch’ leave his mouth but he managed a shrug. “If that’s what you want. Goodbye.”

It was a less than five-minute drive. Entirely possible to arrive on time, even earlier if he wanted. Instead, he parked a block away and scrolled through his news feed. Viral farm animals. No leads on mystery shootout in Timbuktu. Burberry with a new line of coats. So on and so forth.

Ten minutes passed and he exited the car. He made sure to approach with one of the bottles visible in hand.

“Director,” he greeted her with a nod. “My uncle got a new batch of his imported cold brew; would you be interested? It’s an early morning.”

The woman’s gaze remained cold as ever. She barely gave him a glance. Not ideal. He briefly entertained the idea of an apology, a practiced and insincere apology, but refrained. False platitudes would only worsen her mood. The offer of a gift should be sufficient, if his instructors were to be believed.

Yuto simply sighed and stood a distance away, deciding not to try his luck with any more words.