InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Waffles rule, pancakes drool!"

Nawanaka Toshimi [輪中福美] (thrown_to_winds) wrote in disappear_plot,
@ 2010-06-26 10:43:00

WHO: Kou, Kiriko, Reizo, Toshi, ???
WHAT: Investigation
WHERE: The end of Noodle Alley, near the school
WHEN: 5 PM, sometime soon
WHY: Because.

October meant that the days were getting shorter. By the time Toshimi arrived at the designated meeting spot, a few minutes before five, Noodle Alley was already bathed in the yellow light of a sun about to set. The vendors were beginning to turn their lights on, but the dinner rush had yet to begin. Noodle Alley was quiet...comparatively.

Toshi stood near the street corner and watched people pass, looking for someone she recognized. As far as she knew, they were about to spend a night on the town--there was an investigation planned eventually, yes, but she didn't know where (here) or when (now). She was dressed in a pink spaghetti strap tank and an old, worn pair of jeans that were a little too tight, and a pair of strappy sandals; with all her clothes coming secondhand from the neighbors back home, this was the most appropriate thing she had (although she'd at least found the right pink and sparkly hairclips to match). She adjusted her clothes a little bit. Even finding this outfit had taken more digging than she'd cared to do; she had found things in those boxes that she'd long since thought buried. But it was all right if she was going to have a little fun, right?

She watched a noodle vendor across the street turn his display lights on for the night, wondering what the evening held in store.

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Re: THE NURSE'S OFFICE

checkuptime
2010-07-09 01:01 am UTC (link)

The nurse jumped in her chair when the door collided with the wall, scattering the papers on the desk in front of her. She a made a noise, something like a whimper, before turning slowly to see who had so rudely intruded.

The nurse was a mess - her bleary eyes and red nose made it plenty obvious why there was tissue scattered around everywhere. All the same, she was trying to look indignant instead of simply pathetic.

"What do you want?"

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Re: THE NURSE'S OFFICE

daioujou
2010-07-09 01:31 am UTC (link)

Kouchisei's entrance into the office brought into focus the state of her face, the mess she was at the center of, and the sore quality of her voice. His gaze swayed; though he couldn't shake the fact she was possibly more than she was, something fearful, he was worried at the replacement of a figure he thought might have been strange but also gentle and kind.

He was staring at the office shelves intently, hoping that someone else would talk to her so he would not have to. If this was any other occasion he would be apologising for Shirai's behaviour, though it was like any other in that he was wary of making Shirai apologise for it. And it had helped, because now they were having to deal with this problem and not run from it.

So he looked - from Toshimi to Kiriko and then Shirai, and then the nurse - and opened his mouth to say something. Nothing came out and he felt ridiculous. This shouldn't be so hard.

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Re: THE NURSE'S OFFICE

thrown_to_winds
2010-07-12 06:39 am UTC (link)

Toshi had crept in silently after Kou, and, upon seeing the nurse's state, hoped to somehow remain unnoticed and just slip away from the room before anything happened. Was that the tendencies of that Running-Away-Toshi popping up again? No, she decided, it was definitely not unreasonable if one wanted to back out of the situation and leave the crying-school-nurse-one-had-barely-met-before to her own devices. "If this is a bad time..." she began meekly.

But this was investigation, she reminded herself. So she had to be a little antagonistic. She had to be someone who was good at investigating. Maybe Tom? No--that was bad--she didn't have the gall or the unlimited financial resources to be Tom. Kiriko, maybe--although Kiriko also had a lot of gall and unlimited financial resources--and she was also in the room with them. Couldn't she handle this? Toshi glanced her way, a little dismayed.

But Toshi had gone ahead and opened her mouth, and since it didn't seem like anyone was going to bail her out, she had to follow through with it. Be tough, she told herself. "If this is a bad time, sorry, but we need a moment," she finished. The waver in her voice indicated that she wasn't as confident as her words were, though. "Um. Please don't cry? Crying is a waste." To emphasize this, she gave the nurse her most cheerful fake smile. She was still pretty good at it, as it turned out.

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Re: THE NURSE'S OFFICE

checkuptime
2010-07-14 08:49 pm UTC (link)

Hana dabbed at her nose, delicately - possibly because it was already so red as to have been rubbed raw - and sniffed. Toshi's fake smile seemed to convince her. With a simper back and warbling sigh she pushed her glasses up to wipe her eyes, then turned fully in the chair to give the group her attention.

"I-I'm sorry. It's just that m-my boyfriend just... left me."

Rage flickered over her face, but she was back to looking pathetic and sad in an instant.

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Re: THE NURSE'S OFFICE

some_other_dog
2010-07-15 09:08 am UTC (link)

Reizo, in an amazing display of being a teenage boy who thinks emotions are icky, looked about as awkward as he could. Some color had washed into his face, and he found himself turning conspicuously away from the crying nurse and rubbing the back of his head as he peered around the room. He was trying to look the part of the searching detective, but his slouch and half-frown half-grimace made him look more like a shoplifter.

The lollipop stick swiveled in his mouth as he padded around the room, looking at anything other than the crying nurse, but eventually this plan fell through -- unless she had some detailed diary out in the open about how she was some crazy ass angel lady, he didn’t think he’d have much luck finding anything to pin the thing on her. He couldn’t just do the normal thing and plant shit in the room and then call the cops, either.

He muttered low to himself, something about feathers, and turned around to pin the nurse with a frank and daring look. He forced himself to ignore her awkward girly crybaby emotions, considered how long and what of her he actually knew, and frowned harder.

“Boyfriend? You mean that stupid turtle?”

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daioujou
2010-07-15 07:48 pm UTC (link)

There was something different about the sight of a crying grown woman, Kouchisei thought. She was an adult and he couldn't be expected to understand how she could be childish enough to cry in their presence, they were that different and were expected to be different. With a heavy sigh he opened his eyes to fully investigate the room.

Would she be this sad if it wasn't true? He didn't know the answer to that.

"There's no need to be cruel," he told the younger, bigger, meaner-looking male. He promptly shut up, but now it was not out of fear but a differentation between sympathy and forgiveness and respect towards Hana's situation.

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checkuptime
2010-07-16 12:25 am UTC (link)

"N-no!" she spat at Reizo, vaguely insulted by the suggestion. Her head swiveled to the aquarium where her pet turtle was swimming happily amidst rocks and plastic kelp. "Enzo-sama is a truly noble creature, but he is not boyfriend material."

She adjusted herself in the chair and fiddled with her glasses in a mixture of indignance and nervousness. She'd just finished with the last round of tears and new ones were already beading her eyes.

"My boyfriend was Fujiwara Hikaru, the shopkeeper." A sniffle, followed by a whimper. "Before he cheated on me!" She tried in earnest not to wail that part and failed utterly, pushing her glasses up and dropping her head into her hands as a fresh round of sobs sprung forth.

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daioujou
2010-07-17 06:54 pm UTC (link)

Kouchisei found this information strange. He didn't remember hearing about the shopkeeper till this mess had seemed to congeal into one large rock. Reizo might have pulled it out with a good amount of intimidation, but he didn't remember Hana being as vengeful and nasty as these entities appeared, and believed what she was saying.

It wasn't his place to ask about her private life.

"Do you want something to drink?"

He would have asked that, but there was a level of difference in the respect one had to pay for the other. He simply remained silent and observed.

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thrown_to_winds
2010-07-19 04:08 am UTC (link)

Red flag. Gigantic red flag. Wasn't Fujiwara Hikaru also on their suspicious-persons-list? The nurse being involved with him at all was cause for concern in itself. Toshi had heard some rumor somewhere that they were dating before, but she hadn't really paid it any heed. She made a mental note to maybe listen more carefully to what people gossiped about in the future.

Meanwhile, Toshi thought that this could be an opportunity to turn the conversation their way. "Oh, I'm so sorry, Ozaki-sensei," she said, putting on her best sympathetic voice and trying to level with the nurse. "That's just awful of him. You don't deserve someone that horrible."

She pretended to look thoughtful and said, "I bet he did all kinds of horrible things even while you were dating." It wasn't subtle, but maybe it would lead her into saying something incriminating about the shopkeeper. Or about herself. Toshi chided herself to be careful, though. A wrong move here could ruin everything.

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checkuptime
2010-07-19 05:10 pm UTC (link)

There was another wave of sobs as Hana mumbled something about how wonderful it was to finally have someone who understood. She pulled a box of tissue into her lap and cradled it, hunched over in her chair and snivelling and pushing her glasses back to get at her eyes and her hair back to keep it out of all the wet on her face.

"He did!" she shrieked. "He never held the door for me anywhere, and he never wanted to hold Enzo-sama, and he was barely even grateful when I snuck him into the school, and he was never interested in doing anything fun anyway, and to top it all off I think he might have gone through my filing cabinets."

She glanced nervously back at the work on her desk, shifting uncomfortably in her chair.

"Or let that horrible woman in when I left the office unlocked."

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apathyisboring
2010-07-20 07:49 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko had been hovering somewhere near the back of the room, alternating between looking stern and highly uncomfortable. The nurse was always kind of a mess, but this was more than she had anticipated. More than once during her sobbing fits she'd found herself wishing they'd just walked in on her dissecting small children or something equally evil and incriminating. So far, she was just looking like the same awkward, non-threatening weirdo she always had.

"Your filing cabinets?" She asked, brow raised. Presumably, that was where she kept the medical records. "Horrible woman?"

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checkuptime
2010-07-20 11:16 pm UTC (link)

Hana drew back. She looked fearful, and then only moreso when she lifted a hand to her mouth and started biting at her fingernails. With a sidelong glance and some inaudible muttering she swiveled her chair around and started stacking the papers on her desk.

"I-I shouldn't have said anything," she squeaked, "Nevermind."

Kiriko approached her chair, grabbing the back of it to turn it back around, but Hana whirled around herself. Apparently the subtle threat of insistent interrogation was quite enough. Reizo's presence helped - she was looking nervously up at him when she dared to look up at all.

"Some of my records are missing," she admitted in a quiet voice, like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her head tilted and an expression of dawning realization replaced the fear in her eyes momentarily. "All of yours, actually... I-I was just trying to put the files back together. And I think it was Hika-- F-Fujiwara, because he asked to see them before and I said no when he wouldn't tell me why."

Her lip quivered again, but this time she held it together. She sniffed, more indignant than pathetic, her mouth settling into some strange grimace between anger and sadness.

"I bet that's why he left me for Ishino."

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