shounenphelps | if you want to get to heaven / you got to raise a little hell

if you want to get to heaven / you got to raise a little hell

Characters: Mouri Shin

shounenphelps and Hara Akiha

provoyeur
Status: Open for interruption; knock first please~
Summary: After bobbing for apples in the Mirage lobby, what does Shin do? He wants to bake them, of course! Unfortunately there do not appear to be any kitchens available ;_;
Location: Mirage lobby
Warnings: lulz none for now

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Shin's hair was still damp from having bobbed 4 apples out of the basin not moments ago, some of the water running down his shirt thanks to both his hair and the apples he was now holding in his arms. The event made him aware of the fall season in this region, despite it having been summer when he'd left-- been taken, or something, from his friends in Africa. It was all still very strange, and so to calm his nerves, Shin sought a kind of normalcy that he'd always enjoyed back in Japan -- baking! He started to wrack his brain for a recipe, but then realized he didn't have the means to bake anything up in his hotel room.

Maybe there's a communal kitchen space that I can use...

Unfortunately, Shin spent a good few minutes staring at the lobby map with a frown on his face. "Kitchen... kitchen... isn't there a single spot to cook in this place?"

Frustrated, he walked back to the lobby to inquire at the front desk about it. Within a few moments a shout could be heard echoing throughout the open space.

"EH?! What do you mean they aren't public!? All I want to do is make an apple pie!"

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Never having quite set aside his initial agenda--he would earn his camera back, and soon, never mind that he didn't even know if he'd have a proper darkroom to work with here--Akiha had been diligently applying himself to earning more chips. The apples had seemed like an easy place to start, though he was then left with a small armful of slightly-wet apples and nothing in particular to do with them. He was considering presenting them as some sort of gift to Umeda, but it seemed like inviting bad luck, since the last thing he intended to do was keep the doctor away, when his path took him through the lobby and past a very interesting conversation.

Which required that he double back.

"Pie?" he inquired hopefully. THAT was a cause he could support giving his apples to.

Shin spun to face the man whose voice he didn't recognize. He smiled and remembered to be polite - for this man hadn't done anything to cause his frustration.

"Ah, yes..." Shin began through wet bangs. "I wanted to use these apples to make a pie, and I had just started to think about ingredients when I realized I had no place to bake..."

He jerked his head towards the Mirage's front desk. "And these workers are telling me the kitchens aren't public."

"Really? That's no way to treat a guest."

He looked halfway between disapproving and crestfallen, glancing down distractedly at his own armful of apples. Those, plus the stranger's, would be enough to make a big pie, too. And if there was one thing that could brighten his day about being abducted and having his precious possessions stolen, (OTHER than draping on a protesting Umeda, anyway) it was probably sugar.

That was when Shin noticed the other man had apples as well, and had much the same thoughts about offering to bake a pie with those apples. Really what else were they good for? Drying in the sun for a few days?

He leaned over and lowered his voice. "Hospitality appears to be very differently defined here, as compared to my native Japan."

Apparently the staff caught wind of that and stiffened in response. "If you would like to acquire a luxury item, you may speak with Arni at the Bellagio. It will cost 6 chips. And the baking supplies will be another 3 chips." The attendant cocked an eyebrow in Shin's direction. "Per ingredient, unless you happen to find them in the vending machines."

Hearing that, Shin frowned and looked down at his apples mournfully. "I see." And I was trying to save up these chips to force that Loki-god to return my orb... He turned to the other man. "Unless you know of some other way to get access to a kitchen, I'm afraid that's a no to the pie."

"You can't expect much from a city of kidnappers," Akiha agreed cheerfully, without any particular attempt to moderate his volume. For good measure, he offered another sunny smile to the doubtless outraged hotel staff, and a faint shrug that was in no way apologetic.

"Aaah, that's too bad. I didn't really have anything else to do with them..." Offering his armload of apples vaguely in Shin's direction, as best he could without dropping any of them on the ground, he blinked consideringly.

"But maybe I could help you earn some of those chips?" --And then, belatedly, he remembered that pickup lines no longer qualified as an achievement. Drat. It wasn't the best habit to be making.

"I suppose I could always store the apples until such a time as I can bake." He didn't want to assume he'd be here for any length of time, but... all the same if he had to remain here thanks to that Loki-god person then he should at least find some ways to stay sane. Shin smiled back at the blond. "At any rate, I'm called Mouri Shin. Maybe there's another way..."

But then Shin stared back at the other man as realization dawned on him. Earn those chips...

Oh. Right.

He couldn't stop a faint blush from crossing his cheeks. "That... won't be necessary, thank you."

Edited 2010-10-04 03:39 (UTC)

"Hara Akiha."

Akiha's grin widened just a little, and he wished again for his camera. There were so many people here with a variety of cute reactions, and it was a shame he was missing so many great candid photos. At this rate, he'd have nothing at all to remember this unplanned vacation/abduction by.

"Sorry, sorry. The pickup lines were starting to be a reflex already! Nice to meet you."

So it was a pick-up line... and he was so forward and casual about it why?

"Hara-san, then." Japanese? Maybe, but more of a troublemaker type for sure. "I think I'll at least go down to this Bellagio and see how long the delivery time is after I put in an order."

He looked down at the apples in his arms. "I guess I'll need to drop these off upstairs first, in my room. You're welcome to come along, Hara-san..." Pause. "I mean to the Bellagio. After I change." He suddenly remembered he was dripping wet.

This was most definitely, 100% guaranteed the first time that Shin could ever remember being hit on... and it came from a guy.

"Ah, please, 'Akiha-san' is fine."

Cocking his head in consideration, Akiha smiled and nodded agreeably. He really didn't have anything else to be doing, since there were only so many times he could bob for apples to get achievements. Without the distraction of photos to take and develop, he really had pretty little to pass the time, other than being sociable. The prospect of sweets at some later point in the future was pretty compelling too.

"Do you want mine? Maybe you can bake them later," he added hopefully.

Direct too...

"Akiha-san. I'll gladly take them, ah..." He looked down at his hands, then back at Akiha's. "I don't suppose I could ask you to follow me upstairs? Then I'll be off." It was completely lost on Shin how that could've come across.

He walked towards the elevator and used an elbow to call it. As he was waiting, he debated about talking to Akiha about this place more.

If he's the type to use pick-up lines on random strangers, maybe this place isn't as odd to him, and he's figured out more about it already... Like Mr. Balthier.

"Sure."

Akiha followed unhurriedly along, watching the top of Shin's head with apparent interest. It was a little bit too bad that the fluster had already worn off, but the potential was clearly there. The nagging temptation to provoke the reaction again had settled somewhere in the back of his mind, casually ignored--for the moment.

"Are you new here?"

The question itself was innocuous enough, usual elevator talk. The sidelong glance Akiha shot him was only slightly knowing, and might have been purely coincidental. So perhaps the impulse to tease was a little bit harder to bury than that.

"Yes, I'm new to the area. The closest I've ever been was California last year." Not exactly a vacation, but...

He caught Akiha's eye and wasn't entirely sure what that look was. He started to wonder if there had been some double-meaning in Akiha's words. What would being new here have to do with... The light blush was back. Right. Those rules about the acts. Meaning if I'm new then likely...

He stared down at the floor. I have to get a hold on myself. Easier said than done.

Akiha smiled sunnily; if his arms hadn't been full of apples, it was more than likely that he would have been reaching over to pat the top of Shin's head. That it had been that easy to provoke another blush was very promising for the future entertainment value of his new acquaintance. Even if it was positively subdued, after he'd become used to Mizuki's wholehearted enthusiastic directness.

"Aah, California. The bridges there are really something." His expression went a shade abstracted, mind wandering for just a few moments.

"Yes... they really are."

Shin was more than happy to talk about bridges instead of the alternative, but try as he might he was still stuck in Trooper mode. Had he actually had a prospect for baking in the near future, then he might have been more relaxed. And the bridges reminded him of the funeral ceremony he and his friends had performed for Luna.

The elevator bell dinged and Shin stepped out, then walked off down the halls until he arrived at his room. "Please just put the apples here on the counter and I'll see about preserving them until a pie is possible." Shin put his load down and then walked over to get the lone spare shirt he'd been provided in this place. He then jerked his thumb towards the bathroom. "If you don't mind, Akiha-san, I'll just change shirts real quick. Please make yourself comfortable."

"Oh, thank you."

Akiha smiled back, the picture of politeness, and lined his apples neatly on the counter where Shin had indicated. Absentmindedly, waiting for Shin, he rearranged them a few times--different configurations that felt haphazard, then orderly, then gave a sense of lived-in-ness without seeming too tidy... Abandoning the apples in this last pattern, his favorite, he poked his head curiously around the room. You could sometimes tell interesting things about people, from how they kept their homes. Even temporary ones.

If Shin weren't so meticulous in trying to hang up the wet shirt and dry his hair before putting the new shirt back on, Akiha would've never had enough time to catch much.

But meticulous Shin was, and so Akiha got to be a creeper and look around. On Shin's bed, he could find one of the two pillows provided was still near the head of the bed. The other pillow, however, was at a 90-degree-angle from the other and further down the bed. The blankets were tossed back around the same area as the second pillow, but towards the end of the bed the blanket was still tucked into the mattress.

In the dresser drawer, the bible and the other book appeared to be arranged to completely cover the porno magazine underneath. It looked like everything on top of the dresser was arranged to provide negative space on the corner nearest to where the person would sleep. The only thing occupying it was a white napkin, folded up into a square.

Other than the shirt that Shin had taken from his second pair of clothes, the other parts of the outfit were folded up in a neat pile in the corner of the room near the bed.

The drapes were open on the side further from the bed, with an empty glass on the ledge.

Everything else? Looked like it had definitely been cleaned recently, and not by the hotel staff.

Of course, the sheer amount of time Shin was taking on something as straightforward as changing his shirt--which, for Akiha, would have been a two minute process of tossing his old one haphazardly on the floor and pulling on the replacement--told him volumes about his personality as it was. The room offered a few more minor clues; overall, it was neat in a not quite unoccupied way, more as if it had been cleaned than just that the occupant hadn't had time to accumulate possessions yet. The napkin on the dresser seemed like a placeholder to put something on, but Akiha couldn't see anything available that would take that position...

Well, at least the blankets had been moved SOMEWHAT. He hadn't remade the bed, which was a point of interest, but it didn't particularly look like it had been shared. Completing his inspection, Akiha stood contemplating the glass by the window with an intrigued but perplexed look on his face. Art?

The reason Shin took so long was specifically because of Akiha's presence. Had it been one of his buddies, he'd have gladly just removed his wet shirt and put the other one on without even blinking.

The door opened away from the bedroom area, so Akiha had a moment or two to recover - if he even bothered to hide what he'd been doing.

Shin closed the door and went over to the apples, trying to get a visual gauge for how big a bowl he'd need to preserve all of them. "Alright then..."

[[There wouldn't really a break in his comment but I'm giving you the chance to have Akiha react to Shin coming out of the bathroom XD ]]

Akiha lacked the sense of social delicacy to make any particular effort at hiding his curiosity, but he turned around to yield his study of the glass to the superior distraction of human company and smiled brightly at Shin again.

"To the Bellagio, then?" He tucked his hands in his pockets, looking pleased by the prospect of the outing. It wasn't as though he hadn't done his fair share of meandering aimlessly around the city, but at least this had a sense of purpose and might get him better acquainted with certain aspects of the system.

Shin wasn't sure what Akiha may have been doing by the window, but decided to seize his chance while he still (mostly) had the guts for it.

"I was hoping to ask you a few questions first, while we're not out in public." He looked away momentarily, trying to decide how best to ask this and do his best not to offend Akiha.

Well, best to switch to direct address at any rate. "Just how have you adapted so well to this place?" Of course, this was Shin assuming that Akiha had changed his ways upon arriving. "Or a better question would be... would you have said that same thing about earning chips were we not in this situation?" Formality was a hard habit to break, and vagueness was a part of that.

Akiha blinked, taking a long moment to process this rather roundabout (by his standards) question. He wasn't sure if Mouri was asking if he would have approached him about chips--in which case, of course the answer was no, and that would have been silly--or if he was asking if he would have made a pass at him, in which case the answer would be that it depended very much on his mood. He shrugged mildly after an extended pause, pinning Shin with a measuring look.

"A photographer has to travel to all sorts of places. If you can't adapt to the local culture, then you can't understand it well enough to take good pictures. Don't you think?"

Pausing for another moment, he added brightly, "Besides, I just like cute things."

Shin didn't catch that Akiha meant he didn't care about a person's gender; he was trying to wrap his brain around being 'cute' to someone.

"So you're a photographer and a traveler. I can understand a bit better then." He tried to set his face neutral, but he was more than a little frustrated - with himself, primarily - and trying his best to deal with it all. "The question that was implied, then... was if you have any suggestions for someone like me."

Oh how many layers were piled onto that single phrase. Someone so new to sexual awakening regardless of gender, someone who'd been raised in a conservatively heteronormative culture... basically someone so very unlike Akiha.

"I just went through a lot to try to take the reins of my own destiny again, and now I can't help but feel like I'm being forced into a corner..."

His hands balled into fists. He really didn't want to just unload on someone like this, but really what choice did he have? None of his friends were here, no one who fully understood the pain they'd all gone through. Then again, his friends had been the victims of his recent outburst so that portion didn't matter anyway.

"I don't want to change- no, I won't change everything about myself just to survive here!" He noticed how his voice had raised at the very end and clamped his mouth shut, but didn't look away from Akiha. He needed to hear Akiha's response, even if it was chiding or reproachful.

Absorbing this outburst with relative calm, Akiha raised an impassive eyebrow at his new acquaintance. Beneath the polite reservation, it wasn't even that hard to trigger an explosion like this--he couldn't help but think of Mizuki's righteous tirades, a little, which almost made him smile.

"That would be stupid," he told Shin plainly, tucking his hands in his pockets. "If you want to make it your destiny, then live it how you want it. Don't ask for easy answers from someone who doesn't know your life."

Akida paused, more for thought than anything; if he'd yet considered how Shin was likely to take his words, it hadn't registered on his face. "If that's your resolution, then go with it. Whatever you do, it's a choice, isn't it? If you play by the rules, or do whatever seems right. Either way, it's what you chose."

Shrugging, he seemed to have exhausted his opinions on the subject.

It was a good honest answer, but not at all what Shin wanted to hear. The only thing that tempered his response - and made him shut his mouth when he first opened it to speak, and instead think some more - was that Akiha admitted to not knowing Shin at all.

The only ones who know me are the guys... and Nasté and Jun... and Kaos... He remembered Kaos' words of wisdom in that moment. 'Don't fight the current; use its force to propel you forward', wasn't it? But right now... I don't know what that means for this...

He closed his eyes and fell back against the countertop, emotionally drained just thinking about the fight he'd just had with his friends over this sort of thing, and how much he wished Shuu were around now... the one who knew him best out of the guys, easily.

"What I... chose..."

The choice was there, but he wanted more options. He hadn't ever dated before, let alone had sex. With women. Of course with women. But now that option was stripped from him. He couldn't help but wonder what any of the other guys would have done in this situation, given how much stronger they were than him.

Seiji and Touma would have started an escape plan, while Ryou and Shuu would have charged the gates of Loki's abode, never mind Shin didn't even know where that was. He didn't think they'd even bother with Loki's rules, any of them. That wasn't how Samurai Troopers reacted to anything thrown at them. They confronted it head-on, even if the payment came in blood and sweat and tears and battles that just never seemed to end no matter how much Shin wished for them to.

This was a completely different kind of battle though.

"Sorry."

Apparently mollified, Akiha moved to pat Shin on the head, too uncalculatedly to really be condescending. He wondered if it made sense to be feeling so old at twenty-five, but first Mizuki and now this... He definitely seemed to gravitate towards the kind of young people that got excited about every little thing. It wasn't that it was impossible for him to understand why Shin was worked up, but rather, that it seemed to him that he was overcomplicating the situation. Of course, being able to just shrug off some of the worries he was experiencing could just be attributed to him not thinking quite so hard about things.

"Don't worry about it." Whether he meant the situation--which would have been a severe simplification, even for him--or the outburst, he didn't say.

It wasn't exactly a familiar motion to experience, being patted on the head. It was what Ryou and Shuu did to Jun, and it put into perspective just how childish the outburst had been.

But Akiha's voice wasn't condescending, and that helped immensely. So did not getting punched in the face, but then Shin hadn't resorted to punching Akiha either.

"So, are we still on for the Bellagio? Apple pie is sounding better and better by the second."

And Shin felt like he owed Akiha a little after all that. Not exactly the best way to go about making friends.

((PSSSSST since you actually got a mod response I wanna ping you on AIM before we proceed to figure out how much we're changing? It seems like minimal tweaking should do us fine but :3 Just so I don't go haring off in a funny direction. I KEEP MISSING YOU so, leaving a note here for the moment, will remove later.))

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if you want to get to heaven / you got to raise a little hell

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