do ya need a break from modern livin' part 1

[tadeadshi]

WHO: Hamada Brothers, Honey Lemon, Gogo, Ken, Shinjiro, Akihiko, Minato, Jaime Reyes, Magicman, anyone else tangently involved in this travesty
WHERE: De Chima, then on the road
WHEN: June 10 - *waves hand vaguely cough*June17*cough*
WHAT: A bunch of teenagers pile into two cars and road trip to California
WARNINGS: exactly what you'd expect on a cross country road trip - a lot of yelling at some point



Months of planning and coordination and the day finally came this road trip could start. De Chima #1 has Akihiko's smaller car and a larger rental van parked outside and both half-loaded with luggage, camping gear, coolers and room for everyone else's things. Tadashi himself is sporting bags under his eyes from having gone and bailed the Pines twins and their uncle out of Heropa jail and taken them home in the wee hours of the morning before finally getting a few good solid hours of sleep. It only hit him the day before that half the trip goers likely haven't met the other half...

It should be fine. Until everyone gets there and packed and ready, he's just going through his phone's map and gps to make sure he's got the route taken care of.

Comments

[honeyxlemon]

[ Camping means campfires, and campfires mean horror stories.

Honey Lemon, as sweet and bubbly as she can be, thoroughly enjoys a good horror story.

Even more so, she loves to tell them.

In classic scary story telling fashion, she is leaning close the fire, her face eerily illuminated, arms slightly up and fingers curled to mimic claws. ]

…and then they never saw him again!

[hoboagogo]

[Shinjiro's wondering if he should act frightened. It was a good story, sure, and well told. Nice atmosphere for it, dropping her voice and pausing at all the right moments. But it's kind of hard to be scared by the idea of killers or ghosts after everything they'd been through- both here and back home.

So in the end there's just a sort of- pause after she finishes, followed by a neutral nod.]

Damn. Wonder how it found 'em.

[Idly, he'll jab at the campfire with a stick, the embers flaring up red again, and sending a few sparks and embers up with the smoke. When he speaks, it's more of that same, deadpan neutrality- as though just recounting a fact for history class, or commenting on something as mundane as how traffic was that morning.]

There was a ghost story going 'round back home. These chicks bullying another girl, locked her in the school overnight, supposedly made her kill herself or something. People wanted to claim it was her spirit causing weird shit to go on.

Whether that bit's true or not, every morning one've them girls would be found laying out front've the school. Alive, yeah, but their minds weren't there anymore. Just babbling nonsense shit like 'it's coming, it's coming' and whatever, if they could even figure out words instead've just gaping like a caught fish and waiting to die.

[Granted, the truth just involved nightmare monsters devouring humans consciousness, and the aforementioned girl locked inside a space/time distortion for ten days. But hey, why ruin a decent story.]

[honeyxlemon]

[ She is never one to expect a reaction, though she is usually quite pleased with herself when the listener displays a sign of interest. Although it would appear that her story was not too frightening to Shinjiro, she smiles at the nod, happy that he listened and gave her attention as she spoke.

While he reflects, her positive expression slightly drops. Bullying. That's a real issue, something that exists, and, of course, the stories that revolve around instances of bullying are more terrifying than any fabricated tale. ]

That's so sad. [ Referring to the bullied girl. ]

[dormition]

It's okay, [Minato puts in from across the camp fire, wanting to reassure her.] We rescued her. She joined our team.

[Yup, just life as normal in Persona land. He placidly withdraws his marshmallow from the fire to contemplate if it's done enough yet.]

[hoboagogo]

[A pause- and he nods after Minato's explanation.]

Yeah- She was fine. And I know at least one've the other girls involved ended up okay.

[He never kept up about the other two. Probably eventually snapped out of it, since they'd been found and could at least be treated and taken care of-- unlike so many other apathy syndrome sufferers.]

But for a while, it was this big urban legend bullshit.

[honeyxlemon]

Oh! [ Well, that is a happy ending (she thinks, at least). ] That's good, then! [ The circumstances seem odd, but as long, from her understanding, that people are happy, then it doesn't matter, right? ]

I'm sure. It does sound like a story, especially when strange things like that happen.

[orangehoodie]

[Ken's been jumpy through her story, but it's a calm kind of jumpy where he's mostly startled by the sudden ups and downs of her voice than the actual story itself. She tells it better than Junpei tells his tales, but ghosts never scared him too much.]

... And that's it? [is his protest now.] He just disappeared like that? That's horrible!

[honeyxlemon]

[ With a head tilt, Honey appears thoughtful as she taps her forefinger against her chin. ]

Well, it's a ghost story. They don't usually have happy endings. [ And then, with a smile: ] I could change the ending if you'd like though!

[orangehoodie]

Well, it's not that the ending needs to be changed... even if that would be nice!

There's no explanation? It was really a ghost?

[maglevflash]

[Honey has an entire audience of difficult to scare people, it seems, but Gogo's got a fond smile on her face and gently applauds at the end.]

Picking up tales from De Chima in preparation? That was a good one.

[honeyxlemon]

[ Of course she can always rely on Gogo. Honey beams at her friend before glancing off to the side with a shrug. ]

Thank you! And you've heard all of my other stories! So, I had to think of something new.

[maglevflash]

Still just as good as ever. I swear I got a chill.

[Matter of fact. She doesn't pander, it was legitimately exciting.]

[honeyxlemon]

Really? [ She smiles widely, and makes a small, excited noise. ]

I wouldn't call it my best, but I'm so happy you liked it!