harmonize_rpg | (no subject)

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Who: Mirai, Miyume, Shizuru - and interested parties.
Where: Archery Dojo.
When: Weds 12th and Fri 14th April.
What: Watching and meetings.

An irritable low hiss came out of the third-year student's mouth as the arrow slipped out her fingers and clattered on the floor. In the quieter atmosphere of the club, she had found it easier to relax than where the loutish young men were practicing their soccer and swimming. This would be where her plans fell through, though - the noise of her failure was drawing the attention of people in the room. "Has it gotta keep missing?!"

"Yeah," Mirai said. "The way you're drawing the bow is wrong. It needs to be this way instead."

He was approaching quite slowly. He had given his apologies and was sauntering away from another third-year to help. But how silly to imagine he was doing it for her good! He was picking up the arrow from the floor before he had quite gotten there. He handed it over with a smile. And he gave a guiding hand. His offer of help didn't come from the front, though. It came from behind. He looked down at her over the shoulder of her hakama and stood peacefully behind her. The gap between them was quite close, almost non-existent. When he did move, he shifted and encircled her with his arms, and getting her to move against him didn't take very much.

"You load it like this." Something brushed on the fingers she had over the bow - his own. He gently pushed her arms down toward the ground and kept the bow pointed down with his right, thinking about safety till he knocked her legs into the correct stance by breaking them apart with his knee. "You'll turn into a tree if you stand like that."

There was a moment or two of further adjustment where he was taking his time. His hands slid back down her arms to keep the bow and its arrow in the best position he could, and the emotion in his eyes was the most warm thing. He gave her right arm a subconscious rub and tried to keep her elbow out the way, "Three fingers, not two", till he was satisfied with her stance and gave a kind smile - simply because he thought she would let him get closer that way.

That happened to be the moment he let go. There was a moment of silence as the student's white arrow flew through the air, and they watched with bated breath - till it flew a few more yards ahead then clattered to the floor a second time.

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Later, towards the later end of the practice, Haruka found her way to the archery dojo, listening from the near the entrance and ignoring the occasional glance her way.

She distinguished voices and who seemed to be doing well and who were cursing more than others and who sounded like they were getting smacked by their stringbows. Arrows clattered against the ground, thunked against boards, and whistled through the air (or in one particular case, the archer was distracted and the arrow only got a few feet).

Overall, she'd developed a decent mental map of things.

Mirai stood at the end focusing, with noises of arrows flying past him at his left ear. The conversation with Miyume had happened so fast that, at first, all he could think of was releasing his energy. He lowered his bow to load an arrow against the string and the slender fingers of his left hand pulled it back tight. Though he could feel the weight of the bow when he lifted it in front of him, there nearly wasn't as great a weight on his shoulders.

He was letting the string go. The release was a great weight off his mind, and as soon as he dropped the tension the arrow penetrated the target with a satisfying thud. Although he had no idea Haruka was that close, and he simply murmured "ch!" to himself in frustration.

Somewhere in Haruka's mental map, she started mapping where she heard Imaizumi. He was pretty close to her right now.

She'd been hearing a lot of things about him too, in the sound-scape.

'Wow, most be great to be captain.'

'Tch. Already after first years? Seriously?'

'He corrected by stance and I started hitting the middle consistently! I almost to mess up my stance again teeehehee...'

'Did you see the way he was touching her? Am I really the only one noticing that? He totally chased me away just so he could have her!'

The gossip seemed to have winded down mostly but she still caught snatches here or there.

Interesting mix.

After hearing Imaizumi's frustrated sound, despite his arrow going 'thunk', she commented, "Miss what you were aiming for, senpai?"

Edited 2013-08-22 09:44 (UTC)

After another round of firing arrows and listening to the rumours, Mirai was forced to accept that he would be the topic of conversation for a while. He carefully fired another arrow into the centre - again without regard for what was happening around him. They were firing weapons and too stupid to understand what had happened.

He drew his hand slowly down his own bow and smiled. That was all he needed. He lay the weapon on the floor when he heard another of his special friends speaking to him, and it lay there as he turned to give her a smile.

"Kiri-chan! You just can't stay away, can you? What if people talk?"

Haruka tilted her head, listened for a moment, and then nodded towards the direction of general chatter.

"Huh. Already sounds like a lot of talk without me here," she replied. She shrugged. "I can always still leave."

"No, please. It's very nice having you here," Mirai said to her. His voice was very quiet and unemotional. "You don't even seem afraid. I can't believe you would willingly come here knowing all that." He looked around - no doubt meaning the crowd and the rumours it spread. "If you come here of your own decision, you can't really blame me for anything."

His tone began sounding hopeful. "... So now, this means you will stay a little longer?"

"I'm an actor. I could be secretly trembling inside," Haruka said with a straight face, but she didn't show a trace of it fear or bother. At the crowd or being around Imaizumi.

"But I choose this fate of my own will, to increase my spiritual experience and to just hang. And I said I'd show so yeah."

Mirai collected his weapon and arrows together and arranged them in a pile beside his feet. "True. But I also told you - come to me an hour before the end and I will show you something special. Maybe," he said, "you should be more careful with your time."

Nothing was said, either then or for a while. Mirai finished collecting the arrows into the vessel and climbed to his feet. "That tardiness will become dangerous as you near finals, won't it? Or is it possible you were lying and didn't want to visit me at all?"

"Sorry. Surprise drama club practice happened," she replied, looking and sounding completely genuine. After a moment, though, she turned her head skywards,

"Pretty sure those weren't your exact words. But sucky for me. At least I caught you for part of it?"

Edited 2013-08-22 11:17 (UTC)

Mirai laughed and stood up to speak to Haruka directly. That had been quite the answer. "I guess you did. I feel so glad."

Haruka would hear the amusement in his voice as he asked, "You came here to have a spiritual experience, right? I will feel so bad if you leave empty-handed."

"That's how you put it," Haruka replied, but nodded. "I'm open to it if you want to provide. On this day or some other day."

Mirai began walking away. A rustling of clothes would provide at least some noise on the sound-scape for Haruka, because there, inside, was his phone. He kept it in there because he had been busy lately. He hoped someone would call him soon.

"You're just so eager, aren't you?" he said, "... To want spiritual cleansing by me?"

Hadn't she heard the rumours?

"Sure, I guess," Haruka replied with a bit of a shrug. Her head tracked his progress absently. "That's an expression, right? When the student is eager the teach appears?"

As always, she seemed unperturbed by things. As though she really didn't see what the problem was.

For a while Mirai was silent and watching Haruka think through the question he had given. "Very good," he said. "I see you are quick at grasping at things." He sounded a little distracted as he spoke. "... I've got to finish some things I must not put aside. But then I'm all yours." He handed over his bow and vessel to one of the junior students to put away.

Haruka nodded with a light shrug. "Whenever you're ready, senpai."

She backed off a little. Like before, she stared out across the floor, listening to the sounds of arrows flying and chatter.

"... Okay. Let's go."

Mirai gave up on assisting for any more of the day and went over towards the door, strolling whilst half-asleep. He hoped something interesting would happen. He dreamed of all the different conversations he could think of, hoping one of them would bring him some entertainment -

And there, by the dojo's exit, he blocked the way by leaning on the frame.

Haruka tilted her head slightly, bemused, before following...

...Up to the point she heard him stop. She had a guesstimation of where the door was so that meant he was right there.

"Huh. Short trip?"

So she foiled what he'd planned, Mirai grumbled - this conversation had taken a rather sour turn. How his plans for the day - his plans! - would turn out now he had to change. But it was within him entirely to adapt.

"... Yeah. It'll be a short trip indeed if you don't come with me. Will you?"

"Thought I was," Haruka said, tilting her head again. She kept looking in his direction before something seemed to click and she sighed softly, a bit like dealing with a naughty puppy. "Okay then. Please take care of me, senpai?"

And then she promptly walked forward into the roadblock she knew was Imaizumi.

Mirai stumbled from the heavy contact and gravity as Haruka walked into him. He was giddy with infatuation because of his success, which was in fact a rare thing to taste.

He was speaking from further aside than she would remember - and sounded satisfied by his pleasure.

"How good."

Or rather, he did only for a second. There was nothing he could say to Haruka, who only seemed to draw the tiniest of speeches. "Well, then you shall have to do exactly as I say. Otherwise I'll just have to punish you, you impertinent child."

Though she didn't aim too hard, the impact still sent her backstepping momentarily. Hearing him now at her side, she took a few steps forward to get out of the doorway.

"Exactly what you say, huh? That can go wrong really quickly," she replied non-nonchalantly. "What sort of punishment, esteemed elder?"

Haruka would feel a hand coiling around her wrist, with its fingers pressing her skin. Mirai was leaning over her. Then he began pulling her out the doorway. "Well, I am rather busy today. Maybe you ought to just wait and see, Kiri-chan."

Haruka let herself be dragged along, in the process, memorizing the feel of his hand (pretty large, still wearing a leather glove, felt like a left hand?) on her wrist and adding it to her map of Imaizumi.

"Busy with senpai things?" Haruka asked. "Sucky. So I should listen to you and just come back another day or?"

Edited 2013-08-23 08:04 (UTC)

He dragged her along the floor, but walked at an easy pace that meant she could keep up. Then she spoke; he stopped moving, and nothing could make him stir. She may have heard him speak coldly a few times, but she had not heard it underlined with this sort of frustration.

"Kiri-chan. Didn't I give you my number?" He was wondering why she was asking him for the answers. "Why, then, are you asking me?" His tone was rising at last, back to the merry state it had been. "Well, it cannot be helped... I guess? Never mind!"

She heard that frustration, and met it with that sort of chill expression and querying head tilt.

"You said to do exactly what you say or face punishment. I figured I'd clarify," she replied, without a trace of shame. "So I should just bombard you with texts?" Lowering her voice to a ghostly whisper, "'Three days till your next practice, senpaaaaai'....'Two daaaays....', 'One and hiiii'?" She switched back to normal mode. "So you'd be okay if I texted you and asked if you wanted to hang?"

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