savethecitydesu | Hark, the smells of coffee beckons to thee!

WHO: Niko, Takeo (open, feel free to make threads and hop)
WHAT: Just another day at work
WHERE: Transcend Coffee
WHEN: Afternoon

He'd probably get tired of the smell at some point. For the moment, the smell alone was good for a caffeine fix until he could find time to sneak a cup for himself.

It was routine at this point: dumping his bag and guitar in the back, writing down his shift time and catching up on note tag, avoiding being swept up in their Boss' antics, and sweeping his hair up in a neat, short pony-tail. Same old, same old...

Transcend, being the hipster artsy place it was, was currently having a special of buy a cake slice, get a little flag art work pointing out of it. The art was all donated, varying from intricate landscapes to abstract who knows what to crude stick figures to suggestive topics that were decidedly inappropriate for younger customers and saved for the late night crowd. Having been pestered to add on to the pile, Niko'd folded a mini-airplane and put it in crash fall into a piece of dark chocolate.

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Kaori regarded the napkin with a strange expression. Should she? She hadn't planned on giving out autographs; it was kind of counterproductive to her goals in coming here in the first place. But this guy looked like he could use some cheering up and she was feeling considerably more charitable now than she had earlier.

"Do you have a pen?" She found herself saying as she took the napkin.

"Yes, I--" Takeo reached into his pocket, only to pull out a hand covered in ink. He began to grimace slowly, lips pursing tightly. "I... think I'll borrow one instead."

"Um, hang on, I need to place an order for someone. I'll see if Niko-san has one. Then I'll give you one, okay?"

She patted his shoulder as if to say 'hang in there', keeping the touch light and careful in case whatever chaos magnet plaguing this guy kicked in.

Whenever Kaori would return to her chair, she would find that Toshio was holding the salt shaker from the table, and looking at her intensely. "Grab some and throw it over your shoulder. Now."

Edited 2013-03-29 23:16 (UTC)

After Kaori placed the order and signed Takeo's napkin with a pen swiped from the front counter, she finally returned to her table. Before she could open her mouth to tell him his milk and cake were on the way, he was telling her to throw salt over her shoulder. Wordlessly, she held out her right hand for either the salt or the shaker.

Of course, she wouldn't see it happening, but for Toshio the true purpose of throwing salt over your shoulder was visible, plain as could be.

Salt is like acid to demons. And so Toshio watched as the one who had curiously slipped away from Takeo, to hover over Kaori, was now screaming and clutching his face, screaming about how his insurance didn't cover this.

And Toshio smiled. Softly. Sweetly. "There you go. Old superstitions and all that. You don't want a jinx to pass on."

Kaori nodded as if she already knew that.

"Salt's a purifying agent, isn't it?" she asked casually. "And supposed to keep the Devil at bay, is it not? According to superstition, of course."

She paused then shrugged. "I read a lot outside of school. This kind of stuff is kind of an interest of mine. Superstitions, folklore, mythology, that sort of thing."

"Superstition is what people call survival tips from before people got all skeptical and such," the boy said, once more subdued by the presence of cake and milk in his life: he only sounded SLIGHTLY bitter, and almost looked like he wasn't a brat. "Those are good interests, miss... and you're pretty, to boot," he said, in a strangely worried-sounding tone, looking thoughtful. "Do you hang out around the Scarlet Road a lot?"

Kaori decided she liked this kid. Not because he thought she was pretty; she wasn't anywhere near that shallow. Besides, he was a kid and she wasn't interested in that stuff anymore, anyway. There was something about him, though, something familiar about the way he spoke. It wasn't quite the same as how she spoke but there was a similar undertone.

"Enough to know I like the place but not enough to learn all its nooks and crannies and secrets. I've been pretty busy with school work since I got here. What about you? Do you go there much?"

She locked her fingers and rested her chin on them, smiling with something that suspiciously looked like fondness.

"I don't go much of anywhere, miss... I live where I live and that's as far as I can get around, unless someone lets me haunt them."

He idly gazed at Niko, significantly.

"But I wouldn't set foot on that place anyway," the boy said, gesturing disgust. "It's just loud noise and colors, and that's fine and dandy if there wasn't all sorts of lousy people there. Point is, as long as I'm here... gotta warn you. There's someone there," he looked at Kaori intensely, "Who will try to steal your name and your face if you give them a chance. If someone asks you to give them your name, you say no."

Again with that creepy talk.

"I gave that jerk behind the counter a way to protect himself, because I know he won't believe me," the boy said, "But I can't raise flowers like that so fast."

"There's an identity thief on Scarlet Road. Got it."

The kid's intensity didn't seem to scare her much. The mention of someone stealing her identity was infinitely more disturbing. As open minded as Kaori was, her mind went toward the more mundane, identity theft carried out electronically rather than the literal body-snatching .Identity theft was serious business, Kaori knew, it was why she never gave out her real name or address out on the internet. That and who knew what would show up on her doorstep.

"So.. you're haunting him, then?" She asked with a slight edge of uneasiness. "Like a ghost? How does that work exactly? Can you haunt more than one person at time?"

The boy did a double take, and for a moment a tragic look appeared on his face.

It was tragic because he looked vulnerable, scared, and so weak.

"W-wait... you're taking me seriously?" he said, sounding close to choking up, and near tears. His eyes, an odd shade of amber (that looked just brown enough to be credible) looked damp and ready to spill out into boyish crying.

Edited 2013-04-09 02:43 (UTC)

She knew that look. All too well. She saw it every day in the mirror when she was completely alone.

"Um, yeah? I've been listening to you, haven't I?"

Most of Kaori's more recent acquaintances may have been stunned to hear her speaking in such a tender, encouraging tone but she did so now. Her expression was one of genuine sympathy.

"I'm open-minded and curious. A lot of people say that and then they're not but I'm the real thing. You can trust me."

The boy looked fragile. A good dozen metaphors about melting snow, withering leaves threatening to fall to the weakest breeze, and stuff like that could apply to him.

"I..." he began, small jaw shaking. "I--I really... um," but then, he caught himself. Hesitation, fear. "Well, it's not like a ghost. I'm alive. I just... can't get out of the park on my own. But he has something that I gave him and is part of the park. So I can roam around him... I can go anywhere the garden goes."

He breathed deep. "But I really should go. I just wanted to come tell that jerk to take better care of him--his plants. Um, thanks for the cake... and the milk. I really appreciate it, miss."

"It was my pleasure. So if I wanted to check up on you, I can find out through him, right?" She nodded toward Niko. "Or come by your park? Which one is it, by the way?"

Kaori glanced up at a clock on the wall. She should get going, too. Her homework wasn't going to do itself, no matter how convenient that would be.

Hark, the smells of coffee beckons to thee!

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