He pulled his coat tighter the moment he'd stepped out of the office building, throwing a squinted gaze up to the overcast skies lording over New York as he climbed the rest of the short steps down. Considering the generally sunny day he'd spent with his father just yesterday (he was supposed to go on Saturday but as the weather wasn't looking nice then, his father pushed the date to Sunday and much to both their lucks, it pulled through) in Washington DC, he would have thought that last Saturday was the end of the gloomy days if the news hadn't warned everyone about a stormy week ahead.

Shiro dearly hoped it wouldn't suddenly rain on him. He also made a mental note to bring along an umbrella tomorrow.

Turning around to Jacobs who called for him to take care, he smiled, raised a hand to wave and nodded, telling him to do the same. Left hand in his coat pocket, right just by the bag strap slung over his shoulder, he started over to the sidewalk and to his usual taxi waiting spot.

It was just when he was about to put on his Ray Ban glasses when two beeps would honk just behind him and he would turn in time to see that familiar blue-green Second Generation Nissan Sentra pulling over to his part of the sidewalk. Shiro grinned as he watched and he turned back to approach the driver's side of the vehicle. Leaning low enough to meet the driver in her eye level by the time the window would be rolling down, he said, "Ms. Irene."

[ Open to: Irene ]

Despite the fact that aside from the soap-joke or the rainbow flowers, she hadn't seen any other pranks roll her way, Wanda still couldn't help but give the marshmallow bag a little eyeing when she plucked it from the cupboard. Hand on her hip while she scanned it up and down, left and right, she strained to look for anything suspicious.

When there was none, she was a happy occupant.

She sat herself down the kitchen table with her early evening snacks, one hand taking a squishy white thing from the bag and pinching it a few as she scrutinized it, narrowing her eyes in case Jubilee had planted a maggot in each and every piece of these sweets -- can anyone blame her for being extra careful? Footsteps echoed from the outside, she imagined something glowing brighter and brighter at every beat that walk took as she began to eat the marshmallow.

When the footstep had presented itself in the form of a human entering the kitchen with a tray of what looked like jellos in rainbow colors and something else, she strayed her eyes to the man in a white open polo top, sleeves folded, a black tank top underneath, and matched with a pair of khaki denims, "Oh, very colorful."

"Good evening, Wanda," was what Shiro had said to her in return by the time he had set the trays down to the kitchen table then proceeded to the counter to pull out a knife from the wooden holder then a fork from one of the small drawers just to the sink's side. "What happened to you today?"

"Nothing out of the norm. My soap has been rendered useless, my flowers all ruined and my pictures transformed to a mini-circus," dressed in a simple white dress (yes, that one she'd been looking for) Wanda was very slowly nibbling through her marshmallow when she watched the taller man drag a seat beside her. "Who do you think did it?"

"Who else?" Shiro rolled his eyes before cutting through a jello holding what looked like one of his Bulgaris in hostage. "Even if Sun's the youngest, you don't imagine him to have the mind of a six-year old."

Wanda must have giggled a little there before popping the rest of the mallow into her mouth. "That prank," she gestured to the one on Shiro's plate, "doesn't look like the prank of a six-year old."

"I'm sure you know who I'm talking about."

She sighed and shook her head, "We all do." She slipped her hand into the bag of mallows for another one.

"You don't have work tonight?"

"Night off," Wanda answered, the mallow halfway into her mouth as she glanced at the younger man, "The manager has a special someone singing on stage and after her, Barbara Cook's coming on."

"Barbara Cook?"

"You don't know your broadway."

"I never got into broadway," he returned to his extraction. With the fake pair of glasses dangling on his fork, he scraped the rest of the jello off with the knife before setting it on an empty space on the tray.

Wanda clapped her hands delightfully at this, "Congratulations, Mr. Yoshida! You have seven more plates to go."

"I know," Shiro slid that plate aside and sliced open the adjacent yellow one for another pair, "I'm well aware, actually..."

[ Open to: Xavier's ]

Issuing the challenge:

( Put on top of a pile of Shiro's paperwork late Wednesday afternoon. )

Who: Shiro Yoshida and Jubilation Lee
What: Drinks all 'round! Plus a little lot of chitter-chatter on the side
When: [major leagues backdated] Monday night
Where: APT
Rating: ~PG-13 (for words)

( Strippers? No, I'm not too fond of strippers like you are, thanks. )

Continued here.

He was careful to make sure the silence of the kitchen wasn't broken as he set his white cup down on the table top, smoke wafting from the warm content of it as he sighed and leaned on his good hand whose good elbow was on the mahogany. In one word, Shiro sulked. Despite Jean's good efforts, his tummy still hurt if he wasn't too careful with the way he moved and worse, his left arm was in a sling because of a bloody bad thumb.

So much for thinking he could catch a bone like a baseball...

The nth sigh escaped from Shiro's lips as he was reminded of his latest match and he scratched his head then moved his fingers towards his notebook's trackpad; e-mails and YouTube were the in-thing today. The news, one he had been so fond to read whenever he started his day, was not. Fresh from the mission (if you could even call it one), he considered it a bad memory and wanted nothing more than to forget about it and just move on. Because of that, the idea of skipping work did not really settle nicely with him since it meant skipping a mundane life which did not have a Shiro who was also known as Kamuro who went into battle and lost to a bloody boy.

A bloody boy.

But Jean was keen to make sure he didn't go to work.

That had done nothing but make Shiro feel the general suck of losing gnawing on his skin. How was that possible? Last he knew, he was in check with his danger room sessions (and ate well and slept well...or close-to-well) but to lose to his half-cousin? Who was most possibly a decade younger than him? He despised the idea that he was getting on his years, thirty-three isn't a very old age.

...but who lost to a boy like that?

And what did he do wrong? He'd used his powers the way he knew how to use them best, hadn't he? How did that not work at all?

His head fell on the table with a low thud, right arm still stretched towards his notebook. If anything, skipping work for the day had only made him decide that in a few week's time and as soon as he's all better, he is going to treat the danger room like it was his lover.

[ Open to: Anyone within the X-Mansion ]

It was by nobody's standards an ideal day to hold a protest. The weather was overcast-- rain was definitely on the horizon, and while the streets had been closed by the local council in order to let the protest march peacefully and safely up the street, by standing in the middle of the road in a thunderstorm the marchers truly were trying their luck. None of the weather forecasts had predicted lightning, but every single one of those forecasters knew that the weather could turn on you as quickly as a wild animal, that trying to predict it was a fickle art, and while you could monitor trends, you could never be one hundred percent sure of what was to come.

It was the only legitimate form of fortune telling out there, but it would not take a climatologist or a psychic to predict that trouble was looming on the horizon today.

The protest was walking down Waterbury St towards Cromwell High School. The roads were cleared ahead of the march, and leading the pack was one of the higher members of the Friends of Humanity, a society dedicated to the continued preservation of human superiority. Their aim was not, as their signs preaching Safe Schools declared, to keep society safe, but to keep society pure of the unpredictable, the unknown, the new.

Half a block in front of the protest, a man rose slowly up through the bitumen. He was dressed very nicely in a suit and tie, with his black leather shoes polished enough for them to shine. Erik had always had a flair for the dramatic. Perhaps it was because his home life was so terribly unassuming, and the nature of his powers was made more for stealth and secrecy than for theatrics, but whenever he had the attention of a crowd he certainly came into himself. The protest slowed down to a stop, moving no closer towards the terrorist.

"Surely you would have learnt by now." He said loudly, projecting his voice in a very theatrical manner. He would've been at home reading the bard. "Cromwell High School have made the right decision. I suggest you disperse now, while you're still well enough to take your children to school tomorrow morning, or you can stay and suffer the consequences."

For several seconds, the march stayed immobile, as his message was murmured and carried down through the crowd so everyone could hear what he had said. But they were not the kind who idly accepted and yielded to threats, even when it would've been the sensible course of action. Instead, they slowly began to march towards Erik once more.

For every scratch-y sound that the little handheld device hissed out, a corresponding bell-like sound would answer to it. This went on for more or less a minute and he ran through all the mathematical equations with a good ease -- back against the wall just beside the laundry room's door frame while inside the dimmer space was the constant clicking and whirring of the machine. Today was his day off after having spent 56 hours with nothing but caffeine and sandwiches in his systems and Shiro Yoshida was enjoying it by performing activities that had been waiting for him since the weekend.

And this game he was playing while he was waiting for his laundry to finish was one of them.

After a number of scratching and twinkling, a set of chimy sounds played and Shiro let out some air through his nostrils as he stretched his right once to that side then retrieved it to tap his stylus onto one of the two screens of his black Nintendo DS. Ant-like sounds now dripped out of the small stereos.

And now the moment of truth.

Your Brain Age is...

Shiro waited with the midi drums.

A big flat '43' came out to his screen.

Forty-thr--

"What?" no, Shiro could not accept this. How could that have happened when he went through the entire course with such ease? And who would have thought that seeing nothing but figures for almost three days hadn't done much good? Eyes squinted behind black-tinted glasses as a rather disappointing music played through the stereos, Dr. Kawashima telling him how his brain must be getting too old and tired but how constant practice would be sure to help it. (Shiro noted his digital optimism.)

Lips twitched as he turned his console off and then closed it, sliding the stylus somewhere by the spine of his play thing until it locked. With a small sigh through his nostrils, Shiro slid his DS into his jacket's pocket as he slid his shades off his face and began to wipe it off any print or dirt.

Maybe he should take Dr. Kawashima's advice and take another day off...

[ Open to: Xavier's ]