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[OPEN]

WHO: Rei Ryugazaki and YOU
WHERE: Around Heropa
WHEN: September 18th and the days following
WHAT: An assortment ~~Dandy stop~~
WARNINGS: Nah.

[Option A: The Bookstore]

Rei'd started out shopping today because he needed new running shoes (he's already worn through the soles of two pairs and it's starting to get frustrating), but now he's ended up at the bookstore, which isn't really that big a surprise. He just got his paycheck and he supposes he's being a little irresponsible with it, but he has so much reading he needs to catch up on.

So he's carrying around a rather frighteningly large collection of books in his hands and walking around the store, a bag with a shoebox in it dangling off his arm. He's thinking that the plastic bag handle is cutting into his circulation and he should probably move it when he runs into the corner of a display table, causing him to lose his hold on the teetering pile.

He somehow manages to catch most of them, even snagging one or two straight out of the air, but some of the books still end up in the floor. Some are on swimming, most are memoirs from previous superheroes or are historical and political texts about the roles of superheroes in society.

Someone might be getting a little interested...

Rei looks around quickly to see if anyone saw that (probably) before bending to pick them up.

[Option B: A Running Trail]

It wasn't like Rei used to run at full speed all the time, but it's still hard to force himself to move slowly when it seems like every cell in his body is screaming at him to go, run as fast as he can, like he's trying outpace some imaginary opponent. He's not, though, he's just trying to get better at moving with less-than-super superspeed.

He's getting a lot better at it. His reflexes seem to have sharpened, he doesn't run into things as much as he did, and he can get himself to move in a way that's still way to fast for normal human jogging, but isn't just a blur as he shoots by either.

That's improvement.

You might catch him as he's jogging around, or as he's taking a break, sitting on the ground idly stretching out his legs and watching the ducks out in the pond at the park. Every now and then he might throw them some crumbs from some crackers he might have brought with him for this purpose.

He kind of likes the ducks, okay, don't judge.

[Option C: Residence #34]

Rei is baking cookies.

They're very special cookies, with actual nutritional value (as much as a cookie can have), in the shape of a lightning bolt and a little too sweet but not as sweet as he usually makes them (he's learning!), and he's making them as a thank you gift for a certain person.

But if any housemates come around, he smiles at them and indicates the tray of cooling cookies on the counter.

"I made plenty, if you want some."

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[ Kaneki isn't there because he is interested. Well, that's not entirely true, books interest him SO much. But he is at the store because he is the store's clerk and this is his job.

His eyes peel away from the book he was reading when he spots Rei. Of course he is expected to keep an eye on the clients, but he also doesn't want to pry; buying books is something each person should do without having someone breathing over their necks.

However, when he realizes Rei might just have picked way too many books to handle, Kaneki leaves the counter and approaches with a helpful smile ]

Hello! Do you need any help?

[Rei looks at the books still on the ground and nods.]

Yes, thank you very much.

[He grabs up about as many as he can carry.]

Sorry for making a mess.

[ kaneki moves to grab the books as well, so he can help him, and smiles with a shake of his head ] It's quite alright.

Aha, are you interested in superheroes of this place? [ he glances at the title of a book ]

...Yes.

[He hesitates a little on that answer, looking slightly embarrassed.]

I just thought, as long as I'd been brought here to be a hero, I should learn a little about what that entails for most of us. And I thought reading about previous heroes would be the best way to do that.

[ ah, he is am imPort, too. Kaneki places the books in his hands, listening to Rei, before he glances at them ]

Well- I'm not sure if it'd be the same. [ he says thoughtfully ] After all, we all come from different places, and we all see the government differently. Different times, I guess.

[ OH. But he isn't trying to be a stick in the mud ] I mean, I kind of want to see it for myself. Even though there are so many heroes around, in the end, the best option is to see it without someone's biased opinion.

... I think.

Oh, are you an imPort as well?

[He realizes a bit belatedly that he gave away that he is one. But he also has no real concept of a secret identity - he wasn't into the superhero genre before.]

You think that would be best? [An unbiased opinion makes some sense, but...]

But I find it hard to make a decision without at least some information. And if the government has been reluctant to give it, then I should use what I do have available to me.

Yes. [ another smile. he should have said so from the get go, he realizes.

Kaneki nods as he hears Rei, looking down at the books again ] Books are great. You can learn a lot from them, see a lot from them and get to know many things you never expected. But books still only describe it to a point and we are tied down to the author's personal opinion and view of a certain subject.

[ Meet Kaneki, the literature student before he arrived. ]

We are new here and there is much we don't know. We are told things by the government and we are told to accept them. Books will help you, but they will end up doing the same, in a way. [ he looks at Rei again, with a smile ]

If we want to know by ourselves, we also need to see by ourselves, beyond books and government. That's what I meant.

[Rei listens to all this carefully. Normally he would agree with Kaneki, because he'd learned that, that the world outside his books and his calculations is big and ever-changing, but in this case he's so far out of his element that it scares him. And when things scare him, he doesn't want to go in unprepared.]

Ah... I understand what you're saying, I do, but I don't actually want to go out and experience superhero work for myself before I know more about it. It's dangerous to just... go after criminals, without any kind of training or information.

So that's just what I was thinking.

Given a sudden and entirely unaccustomed amount of spare time, Dana Scully finds herself oddly lost, as though her years of yearning have left her with unattainable expectations as to what idleness might entail, and everything about it now falls short. The truth is that she simply can't bear to be left to think, or worse, to feel, to map out the various aches and pains sustained in transit, as it were, from there to here. She's lonely, that much is to be expected, but the particular sort of loneliness isn't worth dwelling on. It feels suspiciously like loss, and will therefore, she knows, absorb her in due time, but that hasn't yet stopped her running. Maybe not in the sort of way which would have her wearing through the soles of her shoes, but certainly in the sort of way which leads her here, to this bookstore, to peruse the selection of literature fine and perhaps not so fine in pursuit of some genuine distraction.

It's not utterly hopeless. Her wandering has lead her through aisles of nonfiction which still reads in synopsis like it ought to be fiction, and she's kicking herself for not having thought to try to get her footing in this way before. History is important. It's going to be important if she's going to be stuck here, if she's going to have the background necessary to get her the information she wants. To get out of here, ultimately, is the goal, but in the mean time, two birds with one stone isn't so bad, surely. She's in the middle of trying to convince herself of that much when the crash of fallen books the next aisle over startles her out of any attempt at ritual optimism.

"You need any help with those?" Poking her head around the corner of the bookshelves has allowed her to appraise herself of the situation sufficiently as to discern the problem. Somebody's either quite the reader or extraordinarily ambitious.

Edited (specificity is key) 2014-09-19 22:43 (UTC)

Both.

Rei blushes a little, embarrassed to be caught in such a moment. He'd hoped to grab up his books before anyone noticed he'd dropped anything, but of course circumstances weren't in his favor.

"It's alright, I've got it." He doesn't want to inconvenience anyone, even if he's grabbed more than he can hold. It doesn't help that some of them slip around on their slick soft covers.

One of the books he'd just picked up slips off his stack for that very reason, and he huffs in irritation.

"And I've got time to spare. Here." Scully bends to pick up the dropped book, and gently lifts a few more off his stack besides, carefully lightening the load. It isn't quite that she's feeling generous -- anything that keeps her out of her sparse, lonely little apartment for even a few minutes longer is for the best at this point. It's starting to look passingly serendipitous, besides -- the titles of the books he's carrying imply, even if they far from prove, that he's as much a stranger here as she is. There's something that makes her feel just marginally less isolated in that, for which she immediately feels a pang of annoyance and guilt.

Given her internal wrestling, Scully's smile is somewhat less warm than it should be, somewhat wearier, but her tone of voice is no less kind for it. "It's no trouble; I don't have anywhere else to be."

Not true. Not at all true. She could be home. Scully swallows and glances down at the floor for a moment before the smile finds its place again. "Come on. Let's get these paid for."

Rei feels extremely grateful as he lets her take some of the books. "Thank you so much."

As they walk toward the front, he adds, "I know it's a lot of books. I'm spending a week's wage on them. But I feel like I need them all."

He doesn't know why he feels the need to justify himself to this woman, but he does anyway. Normally he doesn't buy this many books at once, but not owning any books to his name feels strange, and he has so much to learn about this world, so he doesn't mind splurging this once. It should at least hold him over for awhile.

"It's no trouble." Less trouble, certainly, than loud, abrupt noises are to someone who's heard entirely too many gunshots. The sound itself might not be comparable, but the brain takes a few moments to process that, and she's still a bit off-kilter in subtle, half-imperceptible ways from that first burst of sound.

"I understand. You've got a lot to catch up on." A small, sympathetic smile. "I do too."

Meaning, that is, that she suspects he's at least as new here as she is.

"You'd think they'd include some of that in the briefing." But that, of course, would have been marginally helpful, rather than simply exploitative. Probably too much to ask.

He gives her a bit of a surprised look, and then he smiles back, a little embarrassed.

"I guess I'm not very good at keeping a low profile. It's so obvious that I'm a fish out of water." Ha ha.

He sighs into his pile of books. "They're determined to make sure we only know what little we absolutely need to, or that's what it seems like. That's why I'm getting these." At least the ones on superheroes. The ones on swimming are just because he's obsessed.

Aha. Another smile, this one kind. "I was looking."

Old habit, new habit, bits of both; once a fed, always a fed holds true, on the one hand, and on the other... well, she's here. "Besides, it's a good idea. There's bound to be something like the truth in there somewhere."

She wouldn't trust it out of hand, exactly; revisionism is a fact of history at home and likely even more so here, but Scully has spent long enough searching for it to know that truth is a meaningless concept anyway, unquantifiable, unmeasurable, an attempt to rationalize and ratify degrees of distance from some fundamental reality which inherent perception bias forbids human beings as individuals from ever understanding anyway. There are platforms from which they can start, constructs which can be shared, and even if they're wrong, it's useful to know what they are, which is enough to be getting on with. A lie told in a place like this is a lie told to everyone.

"Though I wouldn't necessarily advise believing it all out of hand."

"I won't. But it's better than nothing at all, right? Or nothing but what the government has told me."

He knows about revisionism as well, but he feels like being armed with any knowledge at all, even altered knowledge, is better than being completely blind. Because that's how he feels - blind and out of his element. This isn't like a physics problem he can solve, or a chemistry formula he can learn, this is something so much bigger, and potentially more frightening by far.

If he ends up delving into this world, he wants to be prepared.

"Ah, my name's Rei Ryugazaki, by the way." He'd shake, but they've both got books in their hands.

"Dana Scully." She gives a nod in place of the handshake. "A pleasure, Rei."

And it is, too, regardless of the circumstances of their meeting. It's nice to be marginally less alone, on the one hand, marginally less put upon, even if she wouldn't really wish this kidnapping business on anyone. Of perhaps greater importance, though, maybe now she'll have someone with whom to compare notes.

"And you're right, it's much better than nothing. At least you'll know where everybody else is standing." Which might as well be the truth, at least some of the time. If nothing else, knowing what other people believe to be true is foundational to understanding them, and the state of this world at large.

"Sometimes that's the best you can hope for."

They get to the counter and he pays for the books - the total is a little painful to look at, but he made sure he had enough for things like food before making this excursion. Once the books are all bagged, he can hold them by himself.

"Thank you again for your help, Miss Scully," he says, nodding his head. "If I can do anything to make it up to you, please let me know."

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[OPEN]

Bookstore

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option A

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