HereComesTheSnow

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

At what point does a character stop being a character and turn into a mouthpiece

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- Armory Scraproom

As always, she seemed to be intent on staring a hole straight through him, arms folded and expectant and pushing her chest up slightly. An imposing sight, yet hour by hour he felt more and more comfortable with it, malleable and adaptive under her piercing gaze. Setting his pieces and bits down onto a free space on the shelf, he turned back to the box he'd been rummaging through previously.

"Binoculars? Okay, then they aren't here either." he noted, shoving the box back into it's shelf and pulling out the one beside it. Opening it up, he leaned back quickly to avoid the now-expected cloud of dust that burst forth from within, and waved it away with an arm where a moment before had been his nose. Peering in once the air had been sufficiently cleared, he began to dig.

Wires upon wires inhabited this box, a tangled mess of cords of every size, color, and purpose you could name.

...Even decorative lights? Really?

Nonetheless, between them and the LEDs scattered about he was almost ready to writ the box off, until he felt something smooth, plastic-y, and round within. Could it be?

He fished the object out into the light.

Caught within a mess of cord was a sturdy old pair of binoculars, as requested.

"There we are." he said, getting to work on untangling the thing. "Anything else?"

A Certain Unique Academy

Karasawa Shinjiro

...

"Tcheh," he grumbled, folding his arms in a childish pout. No matter what he may have thought about how memorable he should be, he couldn't exactly fault that logic. Especially coming from Hat-chan, who had veritably been working in every other store in the city at some point of another. Seriously, did she even sleep?

Get outta here widdat.

"-Seriously bustin' my balls 'ere...-" he muttered in English, before rounding back on the hatted full-time part-timer with a determined fire in his eyes. He knew how to solve this, and he'd make sure she'd not have such an easy time forgetting who she was dealing with next time around.

"Well remember me or not, we're headed to the same school now, so the way I see it we'd best start rememberin'." he said, a sly grin spreading across his face. Weird old-timey pronouns and regional accents and short-term-memory loss could shove it. He'd force her to remember him!

"Name's Karasawa Shinjiro! Know it well, but don't wear it out!" he boldly declared, jabbing his own thumb back to his chest.

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- Armory Scraproom

"Hm?"

He turned, eyebrows slightly raised in both surprise and inquiry, and found himself presented with Gratia's eternally impassive visage, an outstretched hand, and one blank eyepiece-sized screen. Perfect.

"Ah, thanks! That's actually just what I needed. Right size and interface and everything." he said gratefully, swiping the screen and quickly appraising it, other materials cradled in his arm against his chest. Helpful friends indeed. Now knowing better than to expect anything out of her in response, such as a smile or anything more than maybe a small nod of acknowledgement, he looked back towards her.

"What are you looking for? There's a lot of stuff I've sifted through here. There might be something you need."

One good turn deserved another, after all.

A Certain Unique Academy

Karasawa Shinjiro

"Hi."

...

"Hey-- Don't just blow my question off!" he sputtered, letting his voice rise higher than typical Japanese politeness would dictate, but to a level that'd be perfectly at home in NYC. "Where'd that accent come from, anyway? You spoke perfectly normal when you handed me my eclair." he both asked and mentioned, pointing an unnecessary finger at her (as if the moniker "Hat-chan" wasn't enough).

He grimaced as she peered curiously at him. Was she just joshin' him right now, or was she actually serious.

"Don't give me that look, we literally just talked half an hour ago at most. I still have the change you gave me from my thousand-yen bill!" he exclaimed, shoving one hand in his pockets and rattling the coins inside with a pleasant-sounding, uniquely coin-sh set of ching!s.

"And that ain't to mention you bein' in the grocery store yesterday stocking the shelves, or bein' there at the cash register during my 2 AM Big Mig run! You don't remember me popping in and doing any of that?!" he demanded, in a manner that wasn't angry so much as "intensely inquisitive".

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

son of a bitch

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

You basically had to tell them they needed to give JCML some love

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

Luke Schwarz -- Armory Scraproom

Solilukequy

---

I'm in a room.

I'm in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm alone in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm alone in this room, with both Gratia, and Cian.

Was fate doing this purposefully? Two girls, both of which he hadn't known for more than a few days in the grand scheme of things, but nonetheless were likely the closest he had to friends yet on sheer time spent interacting alone. Two girls, who had in less than half as many hours, thrown his psyche for a loop in ways it, arguably, shouldn't have been, but nonetheless was. Two girls that had punched straight through his affable, yet considerate nature, and brought out the panicked, awkward young man lurking beneath the surface through sheer force of their own personalities. Through mere conversation.

Sure, there were arguably some extenuating circumstances attached to each incident, such as their very different general demeanors, but the core of it remained the same.

These two both caught me off guard with little more than words.

It was High School all over again. A world where he had sequestered three quarters of his time away from interaction, and tossed himself into the fourth as if jumping straight into the deep end of a pool in winter. Despite being a perfectly reasonable and eloquent person, he didn't know what to expect, nor how to react. He found circles getting talked around him.

In any case.

Was there some poetry behind putting the three of them in the same room? Likely not. But in his own mind, he couldn't help but notice the coincidence. Whether he would act on it or not, that was a different story for a much less craven, and much more tactless man. Somebody who wasn't him, who wasn't Luke Schwarz.

Somebody who didn't make a big deal out of nothing, and nothing out of a big deal.

Taking off his Metaphorical Rose-Colored glasses for a moment, he observed the situation a little more objectively, even as he fished what looked like a decent earpiece from the pile his hands had sifted through on an almost subconscious level.

He shouldn't get ahead of himself. The Mistralese transplant, Gratia Mindaro, had merely scientific interests in his hair, and she was neither the first nor would she be the last to. Being surprised by her forwardness regarding it, however, wasn't quite as special as that particular conversation could have been. Anyone would be put off-guard by being ordered to meet somebody in their room after classes for their hair being subjected to the scientific method. There wasn't much need to romanticize that quite like he had.

As for Cian, that too would be unfair to be pinned upon her, despite that, yes, her words were almost classically tsundere in nature. He'd escalated it in his head by merit of his own reaction: That is to say, he was the one who freaked out over it, not her. She had presented him with her opinion and offered help in a backhanded manner, it was due to his own overreactionary psychology that it seemed as important and mind-blowing as it did. He hadn't done anything wrong, per se, but wasn't his reaction a tad overboard?

Maybe. That was the answer that he'd been coming to a lot lately. A solid maybe, one rooted between the two extremes of "These girls are driving me crazy" and "I'm selfishly using them as excuses for my own nature."

A lot of thinking for just standing in a room with two classmates. Perhaps he could chalk this up to willfully excommunicating himself from the Church of Society for so long, but nonetheless he had to admit that soul-searching like this over simply standing in the same room as two friends was...

Strange. Strange was the word. How very strange of Luke Schwarz to hold such long-winded, sober, and disjointed thoughts, simply because he got excited about a couple of girls.

I'm in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm in this room, with Gratia and Cian, two helpful friends of mine.

I'm not in a room where I should worry.

"If either of you find a good blank screen for an eyepiece, could you please let me know? I think that's the last thing I'll need out of here, for now."

Knighthood- Closed

Men of the Rising Sun

HereComesTheSnow
Justin and Otto

"Geeeeet..."

The ruby-haired swordsman theatrically sniffed the air, pacing up and down their section of the sizable buffet as if a drill sergeant inspecting recruits, scrutinizing each dish with an audible, contemplative "Hmmm..."

"Hmm..."

"Mm..."

"A-ha!"

You could practically see the lightbulb go off in his head, and he snapped his fingers, whirling towards the 3rd tin from the right. Smoky, greasy, calorically and protein-dense with flavor to die for. Crispy crimson strips of pure flavor, glorious and resplendent with an indomitable heart-attack factor for food that was, in actuality, so light on it's own! But like candy, one could never stop at simply eating one strip, or even a trio. No, it got the large tongs for a reason. He could feel his mouth watering even as he gazed upon it, felt it's smell lingering in the air...

"Get the bacon! They do really nice bacon. I usually grab the scrambled eggs and toss some of the cheese on top, melts really nice. Waffle batter's nothing especial, but they've got a lot of stuff you can put into 'em." he responded, taking the time to go through the motions of each step he described, save the waffles.

"As for your other question, right now things seem pretty hands-off to me. You can take up jobs and tasks on your own, but I haven't heard any big announcements or been drafted into anything yet, so..."

He shrugged, expertly balancing a loaded plate in the grasp of one hand while spilling nothing.

"I'd just keep an eye out. You never know, right?"

A Certain Unique Academy

I need to see woodles in a suit now