InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I love when you order me pizza"

the_calm_before (the_calm_before) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2010-09-11 20:02:00

Entry tags:

mikaboshi, raijin

Who: Ren and Momoko and open to anyone else who would like to drop in as well
What: Moving in
Where: outside the building with a moving truck
When: Mid-morning-ish
Warnings: None that I can currently think of.

Moving always made Ren feel like he just might have too much stuff. He looked at all the boxes he had in the U-haul styled rented trailer and rubbed the back of his head in thought. This would probably take him all day. Maybe he should have looked into getting an apartment on the first floor rather than the fourth. He didn't even have any neighbors yet who could possibly convince to come down and help him. Oh well, at least he wouldn't disturb anyone on his floor when he played the drums. His neighbors above and below him might get a little upset though.

Ren stacked a couple of boxes that he knew weren't too heavy, and picked them up. He had already taken a few boxes up to his apartment, but there was still quite a few left to go. He probably should have taken the time to think this over and get some help, but he couldn't exactly pay for professional movers. The money he was making at the Disney theme park was hardly enough for him to pay for something like that and make the deposit on his new place. Maybe he should have called Chris. Perhaps he was just being stubborn.

He needed to adjust his glasses before he tried to head back inside, and he moved his knee so that he could brace the boxes on it. He then tried to unsuccessfully push his thick-framed glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

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obakemono
2010-09-13 04:49 am UTC (link)

And which demon lived in the gloomy bowels of the first floor ditch, perfectly capable of seeing, hearing, bumping into and otherwise being irritated by the new, uncoordinated arrival? Why, the shadow geisha of course, with her disheveled long sheet of midnight hair, atrocious morning wrath of an attitude, and a scolding hot black coffee she'd just corralled from starbucks.

It was not that she wanted to be helpful, no, as the black-hearses of her nettled eyes drove a rotary underneath the velvet bridges of her chamfered-thin line brows, it was that she wanted to get inside of the building sometime this year. Why'd he think he could move all that stuff by himself? A pale, bony hand crept into the center of the glass door to pin it to its grave, away from the boy with the glasses.

Despite having to be somewhat near his shoulder to achieve this maneuver, she somehow managed to be very, very far from him. Bruises here, scratches there, and knuckles just as stained, the entwined marionette's faintly evocative acrobatic pose wouldn't do for long, he needed to get a move on.

"Go."

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the_calm_before
2010-09-16 06:18 pm UTC (link)

Ren adjusted his glasses and stared at the young woman who was holding the door for him. He was able to move his arm back down so that he was holding the boxes in a stable way now. She was pretty, but she also seemed pretty annoyed. He sighed a little nervously and managed a smile. He wasn't that good around new people, and even less so with new hostile sounding people.

"Uh, Thanks." The inflection at the end of the word made the thanks sound more like a question. From the tone of her voice, he had gotten the impression that he was being bothersome. He hadn't realized he was holding anyone up. "Sorry."

He shifted the weight of the boxes in his arms so that it was against his chest, feeling the stuff inside shift as well, and went inside the apartment building that used to be a hotel.

He looked back at the girl. "Um, do you know if there is a dolly or something I can use around here?" If he had one then, this would go significantly faster.

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obakemono
2010-09-16 08:45 pm UTC (link)

The Scream Queen dangled in after him with a swagger that spoke of either a hang over or a coming revolution. There was little examination of any of his qualities save for the glasses, which unfortunately reminded the ghoul about her father. If there were anything existing in the world which could tack the black lace puppet and her wrathful ribbons away from being crooked and onto the tail of a more tender-hearted donkey, well... it was that

Without answering him with words, but rather a more approachable slouch to her demon shoulders and a chew on the side of her mouth, her black hearses swooped around a few corners she'd already looted late at night once for things useful, or things she could sell. And he thought he was socially awkward.

Before proceeding to walk toward the closet next to the mailbox, probably a cubby for the nightly master of custodial arts, she'd motioned with her chin toward the destination. Marched right on over, bony hand giving the knob a twist, and voila. The dolly of his dreams painted daydream blue in the closet.

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the_calm_before
2010-09-17 09:52 am UTC (link)

He grinned at the sight of the dolly. It truly was the dolly of his dreams. The smile that broke out across his face caused him to look more like a little boy than the 20-something man he was trying to actually be. He had been wary to follow her at first, and had left the boxes near the doorway, but out of anyone's way who would actually need to leave or enter the building.

"That's perfect!" He reached out passed her and checked the wheels, to see if they stuck in anyway, a little, but he was just lucky there was one. "This is great. I won't have to lug the rest of my crap up all the way to the fourth floor. Sweet!"

Ren looked up at her in the midst of his excitement over something so simple as a dolly, and couldn't help but be amused at himself. He reached out and offered his hand in greeting. "Hi, I'm Ren. Just moved into 404. And thanks, this really will save a lot of time."

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obakemono
2010-09-17 07:35 pm UTC (link)

A hand? His hand? She stared down at his offer at first as if it were a rare sideshow for somebody to barter touch with the baleful geisha of gloom. Was he trying to shake hands with her? Here the akuma inserted the red spider lily of her masquerading manners, feigning underneath the golden malice of the indoor lighting to be used to shaking hands. She shook it, bony and cold, firm but lax as a ribbon holding together a funeral bouquet. Maybe the grin that volunteered itself for slaughter, stringing itself across her pale face prettily, was the genuine article.

Maybe.

"Momoko, one-oh-two, and you're welcome..." consideration of withholding what next she'd confide was brief. "Watch out, place is haunted."

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the_calm_before
2010-09-18 05:54 am UTC (link)

She didn't have a very firm grip, at least he didn't think she did. There was something about her that seemed like a contradiction. He watched her as she returned his smiled and he suddenly felt a little awkward. But then that was how he always felt around most people.

"Momoko? Really, that's your name?" His eyebrows raised in surprise and he blinked a couple of times. That was his mother's name. This girl had Japanese in her? He tilted his head slightly and studied her features. Certainly not full, but then his gray-blue eyes certainly meant that he couldn't be full blooded either. He had paid a little attention in Biology and he remembered the Punnett squares. Two brown-eyed Japanese people do not make a blue-eyed child normally unless they both possessed recessive genes.

"Peach girl...What do you mean haunted? I know it's an old hotel, but none of the information I found said anything about ghosts."

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obakemono
2010-09-18 06:42 am UTC (link)

"Information you found?"

Armed with a bittersweet drawing in of both carnation pink lips as if she could steal the introduction back by swallowing it like a prison key, she clamped down on their plump with her teeth momentarily like windowpane trapping in the sorcery of poison. Barricading it, instead of trapping it out. She was saving him from her bite, not her bark. She wanted to ask why that specific cemetery stun from Mr. Glasses had occurred. Really, that's your name?

But she knew she was only being cranky, released her lips with an unintentionally audible pop, and let it go.

"Of course none of the information will say it's haunted... who would wanna move into a haunted place?" said she, and this time when she grinned it was laced with mischief and humor. Was he afraid of ghosts? Demons? Oh, she had stories about this place. The livid pools of her eyes gleamed and thinned to look at him narrowly, studying him as she stood there gravely still as if fearing phantoms was an observable quality. Would it be hiding somewhere in his eyelashes? Maybe on his neck. "Will you mind them? The ghosts?"

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the_calm_before
2010-09-19 07:17 am UTC (link)

Ren figured everyone looked up information about a place before they moved in. Perhaps it was something that his parents had just instilled him. "Yeah, like the place used to be a hotel, and stuff like that." His research had really only lead him to that and details about the location of his new home. He figured though that if there had been rumors of hauntings then he probably would have come across something.

He could tell that he had upset her. He reached up and rubbed the back of his head and looked pretty contrite. "Uh, sorry about that. I didn't mean it how it sounded. It's just that, that is my mother's name and you don't look particularly Japanese." A smooth operator he was not.

His eyes wondered up in thought. He had never really thought about ghosts much. He liked scary movies and he had visited fabricated haunted houses back home during the Halloween season. He wasn't sure if he was scared or not, but he was curious.

"Have you seen them?"

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obakemono
2010-09-20 03:39 pm UTC (link)

There was a detailed reason as to why she may have not looked particularly Japanese, but she wasn't the type of ghoul to explain anything about her graveyards, or her funeral history to modest little mouse strangers in lobbies. However, if he'd been watching her eyes closely while he recited the syllables of his sorry, the instant that he'd mentioned her namesake was identical to one of his parents, they'd widened. Just for the briefest of seconds, the merest of moments.

Ghosts, of course, were a more interesting topic.

"Yes." there was zero hesitation in the response, zero sugar. The response was black coffee, take it or leave it. No frills or strings attached. Cream wasn't on the table. "Recently... there was a lot happening recently. Everyone here was... seeing things. It stopped now, but not for me."

She added as if an afterthought. "Good luck."

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the_calm_before
2010-09-21 05:36 pm UTC (link)

Ren wasn't the most observant of people when he wasn't just sitting back and watching. Participation normally took all his focus and concentration away and left nothing for thinking about others actions or reactions to his comments unless they were pretty obvious. Momoko's delicate and minuet reactions unfortunately went completely over his head, and what he perceived as a lack of reaction made him feel weird for mentioning his mother's name in present company. Did people normally talk about their parents when they first meet?

She seemed far more interested in talking about the ghosts. He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and listened to her.

"Seeing things? What kind of things?" He was actually starting to get a little curious too. She was starting to remind him of some of the people he met at art school. It was there that he found out some of the most creative people tend to also be some of the most strange in habit, dress, and speech.

"Why would I need good luck? I've never seen a ghost before." He looked a little confused. Unless she meant about getting all his crap up to his apartment. He might need a little luck for that feat.

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