InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "ROMAN does not overcome things"

Ikeda Kiriko | 池田妃凛子 (apathyisboring) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2009-10-27 11:40:00

Entry tags:

kiriko, kozue, reizo, tora

OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD
Who: Kiriko, Kozue, Tora, Reizo
What: A HAPPY VISITATION
Where: Kiriko's dorm room
When: After or just as Kozue gets home from Wild Duck Burger
Why: Kiriko has not suffered enough.

The longer Kiriko looked in the mirror, the harder she frowned. Really, how was she supposed to know which pair of earrings was the least likely to get her strangled to death and buried in concrete? She adjusted her top for the millionth time, though it was already showing the correctly calibrated amount of cleavage, (and making her rather uncomfortable all the while - she was more of a legs girl when it came to showing off, anyway) just enough to avoid negative reactions from both the people she saw at school every day and the woman who was quite potentially about to murder her, however much Reizo insisted otherwise.

After a few different necklace swaps and a sigh in the general direction of the clock, Kiriko sulkily tore herself from the mirror and went to retrieve her bag from the bed.

"I'll be back later. Thanks for bringing the food."

She stared moodily at her mostly unfinished burger and fries, then waved to Kozue and headed for the door... then jumped at the sudden, thunderous knock.

That... couldn't be... they wouldn't... would they?

Hesitantly, nervously, hoping against hope that it wasn't, Kiriko opened the door and immediately discovered that it was.

The slack-jawed expression quickly hardened into a much sharper look in Reizo's general direction.

"I was about to leave!" she protested. After a weak smile and a quick bow in the direction of Mrs. Shirai she ushered them in, checking hurriedly for how many people saw them arrive before shutting the door behind them.

"Um, Kozue-san? We have guests."

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anthesphoria
2009-10-28 03:36 am UTC (link)

Honestly, seeing Reizo as pale and embarrassed as he was made Kozue feel slightly better, if for different reasons. After all, you didn't look nearly that sullen—or get nearly that knocked around by your mom—if you were here to murder high school girls.

"It's our pleasure, please make yourselves at home," Kozue responded to Reizo's somewhat-forced (okay totally forced and kneeling) greeting. She bowed slightly in the general direction of the Shirai family. And then she fell quiet so that they could deal with their issues, whatever those might be… since hopefully, it didn't involve her directly. While listening, she reflected: it was a bit odd being confronted with a nearly-legendary figure right there in your own room, and Kozue realized that really, she'd have been quite happy to never actually come face to face with the Tiger of Iburi. The Tiger of Iburi was kind of scary. And. Mother Shirai?

Kozue's eyes widened slightly with surprise, followed immediately by realization: this was from Kiriko's scheme. Where she'd introduced her parents to Reizo, claiming he was her… And now karma, in the shape of a blond woman with her breasts sticking out to the next province, had come to call. (Why karma had drawn Kozue into this strange meeting? That one was kind of a mystery to her, and a distinctly unpleasant one.)

She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling self-conscious, and uncrossed them again a moment later. It was ironic that her breasts were the ones that were decently covered at the moment, really. What did she have to worry about, besides appraising stares from Shirai Tora? And that was kind of already over with.

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some_other_dog
2009-10-28 04:47 am UTC (link)

Tora nodded with the self-satisfaction of being such a great mother and plopped down with all the grace in the world on Kiriko’s bed. Then she unabashedly stole the thing she’d been eyeing since after she’d confirmed the tall, dark-haired girl as Ikeda Kiriko and started popping fries in her mouth. She would undoubtedly eat the burger as well-- these girls looked cleanly enough.

“He explained it alright,” she said after a swallow of potato starch, bright eyes flickering around the room curiously. She was very interested in just what the girl who’d suckered her son into fake marriage and consequently her friends were like, and a person‘s room really told a lot about ‘em. “And, ya know, I know it was a favor, but what were ya trading to get my scary little Rei-kun to play monster for ya?”

The tall woman frowned, head turning to scope the room for a drink-potatoes always made her thirsty, dammit- and sighed when she could find none.

“Get mom a drink,” she commanded Reizo once she’d taken a monstrous bite out of the burger and daintily wiped her mouth with a napkin. Once Reizo was out of the room, looking mortified that his mom had decided to drop any sense of DEMURE JAPANESE HOUSEWIFE and enraged simultaneously over being made butt monkey in front of his classmates, Tora stretched with the obscene languor of a cat, smiled affably at Kozue, and then set her sights on Kiriko.

“So what’re ya tradin’ him? Bribes, homework?”

Then she snagged the tiger-print bra she’d found peaking out from beneath the bed and lifted it up, one meticulously plucked eyebrow lifted as she finished the question, the dangling brassiere just as insinuating as her tone, “or something’ else?”

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apathyisboring
2009-10-28 05:16 am UTC (link)

This was far from the first time she'd tried to keep a blush from rising through sheer force of will, and far from the first time it had completely failed to work. She commited herself into looking into self-containment training or de-blush cosmetic surgery or anything that would keep embarassing situations being made all the worse by fluster she couldn't help. But, this was her own fault for dropping her guard so quickly.. And saying that with Kozue in the room, too, after she'd already made that shirtless comment!

"I-it's not like that," she said as firmly and as neutrally as she could. "And I already do half his homework, since our teacher's fond of group projects and I'm... not."

She cast around for an answer she figured Tora would find satisfactory. Finding nothing, she tried for a joke instead.

"Maybe he's just nicer to pretty girls, huh?"

She followed up quickly with a shrug and a more serious expression.

"I said I'd pay him back, and we've..." been friends? "... known eachother for a while, so he knows I'm good for my word, I guess.

"Oh," she couldn't supress her grin here, "and I reminded him it was a great opportunity to crush dreams and make a man more than twice his age cry."

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anthesphoria
2009-10-28 05:49 pm UTC (link)

Must. Suppress. Giggle. Must. Suppress. Giggle.

But the insinuating tone, coupled with the tiger-print bra (man, Kiriko did like those animal prints, apparently), coupled with Kiriko's blush? God, it was funny. Kozue swallowed, and reminded herself that they were still like, half a foot from getting brutally murdered and dropped in the Sea of Japan to be eaten by sharks and eels. That helped with the giggling, although she did look just a bit too amused as she watched the undergarment-in-question swinging from Shirai Tora's grip.

And damn it, the Yakuza was eating the hamburger that she had wanted to steal! It was rotten luck all around.

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some_other_dog
2009-10-29 01:22 am UTC (link)

The door cracked back open, and Reizo shuffled back in, canister in hand and still completely unaware of the avalanche of embarrassment that was about to smother him. Oh, he’d been considering just what the hell his mom could do to mortify him by the time he was back from fetching her drink, and that’s why he’d nearly sprinted to the machine and back, and though he was keenly aware of how bad mothers could be, nothing had really come close to this.

So Reizo stood there, door hanging half-open behind him and mouth agape at the new development: his mother was holding a bra that, judging from the hideous tiger print pattern, belonged to Kiriko and had been used to humiliate her and entertain Kozue.

His mouth closed with a click of teeth, the door slid home on its hinges, and Reizo had the sudden urge to break his skull open against one of the walls of the room.

Instead he protested “Mom!” and for some unknown reason tried to snatch the bra away. Him holding it would probably be worse than his mother, but he wasn’t lucid enough to think that far ahead. Or to remember that as quick as he was his mother was quicker.

The bra dropped, something flashed, and Reizo choked out his surprise when he ended up in an almost casual headlock and sitting beside his mother.

Unruly spawn in hand (literally) and grinning like a madwoman, Tora ruffled the boy’s dyed hair and rolled her eyes visibly at Kiriko.

“So basically he’s got a pretty girl in his debt. That’s my boy!” She added, ruffling his hair with a new burst of vigor before she let him go and he stumbled to his feet.

“So who’re you?” She asked, fixing a stare on Kozue. “And whaddaya think of yer roomie?”

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anthesphoria
2009-10-29 04:31 am UTC (link)

Kozue thought it was probably appropriate to bow again, if more shallowly than before, so she did so, and then straightened. Giving the Tiger of Iburi slightly more respct than necessary? Not as bad as the opposite, surely. "Kondo Kozue. Um. I'm in the same class as Kiriko-san and your son." And she lived here, but judging by the haphazard pieces of a school uniform she was wearing (the shirt, no blazer, untied tie and, thankfully, the skirt), and the house slippers? That had to be obvious. That answered the first part of the question. The second part rather stalled her in her tracks; what did she think of Kiriko? That was…

Well, she would have asked who asked that kind of question, but the answer was clearly 'an oyabun's wife who puts her terrifying son in headlocks, eats other people's frenchfries and likes to swing underwear all over the place', so what was the point in asking?

"We're good friends." She settled for a carefully positive position, although, at the end of it, she really wasn't sure what Tora wanted to hear. Dirty gossip? A glowing review? God forbid, truth? "And—I'm glad to see that she's no longer stuck in a bad engagement," she added, although a bit doubtfully, as if she wasn't sure whether Tora cared a whit or not. She suspected not up until the point that it involved Reizo, at least.

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apathyisboring
2009-10-30 01:07 am UTC (link)

As Kozue gave her answer (pretty diplomatic, in Kiriko's opinion), Kiriko took the opportunity to do two things. One, she flashed Reizo an appropriately apologetic look. Seeing him in a headlock was both amusing and enough to elicit some sympathy (she knew a thing or two about embarassing mothers), and though it was mostly amusing, she had enough presence of mind to know that she'd be answering for this later and it was better to look adequately repentant now to mitigate any punishment he was thinking of meteing out.

Two, she snatched her bra from Tora's hands and shoved it haphazardly into her bag as if this was the most normal thing in the world to do.

"Can I get something for either of you?" A slightly uncharacteristic offer, but really, what was she supposed to say?

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some_other_dog
2009-10-30 01:28 am UTC (link)

Tora Shirai listened to and watched Kozue with veiled interest. She’d hoped to get something out of the thin girl, but the acquiescing bowing and prim and proper manner she’d been conducting herself with made the woman doubtful of anything of use coming out.

Which was why it was a little shocking to hear about the engagement. Was Reizo the bad engagement she was referring to? Surely this girl that she’d, mistakenly, taken for a proper little Japanese princess wouldn’t shove her foot that far into her mouth?

The tall woman leaned forward on the bed, ignoring Kiriko’s snatching, and frowned at Kozue in question.

“Engagement? To Reizo?” Apparently she was more interested in getting answers out of the roommate rather than straight from the horse’s mouth.

Reizo slapped his forehead with an audible thwack, and shook his head disparagingly at Kiriko.

“No, we’re good.”

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anthesphoria
2009-10-30 03:25 am UTC (link)

Kozue blinked, surprised at the question and a little nervous as being the object of further scrutiny. She'd just assumed that Reizo's mother would have the whole story—she at least appeared to have some of it and wasn't that, like, a criminal thing? Knowing everything?

"Oh, oh, no," she shook her head, denying, although it wasn't entirely necessary after Reizo's display. "She was engaged to an old schoolmate." A pause. She dug at the floor slightly with her slippered foot, feeling uncomfortably interrogated. "That was, the, uh, dreams he was crushing. Her parents'." You know, that old man with those crushed dreams. "Maybe Abe-san's too—I'd bet so."

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apathyisboring
2009-10-31 05:06 pm UTC (link)

Kiriko was not particularly pleased to have been bypassed, though pursed lips were really the only sign of this. Plus, she didn't even have an excuse to play hostess and run errands to keep herself busy. The whole thing made her feel a bit like a kid at the adult's table, though she was reluctant to lay blame for that at the feet of the mildly terrifying woman eating her hamburger, so instead she tried not to worry about it. She crossed the floor to take a seat next to Kozue on her bed, leaning back on her palms and listening to her friend answer.

"Yeah, his too."

She nodded cheerfully in confirmation and supressed the urge to add that Reizo had crushed his nose, too, once upon a time, and so really this was all just doing a round job of it.

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