#feurst

Cynthia stood outside the door of a local coffee shop, bouncing on the balls of her heels as she waited for Lien.  In reality he had no idea she was there -- or at least she hoped.  It didn’t take long for her to catch onto his daily routine, which he followed like clockwork.  She peered through the shops window, watching him dig in his pocket for money.  This place was always so busy and she was quickly growing impatient waiting for him.

When he finally exited the store Cynthia practically collided into him.  “Lien!  I’ve been waiting for,” she glanced down at her cellphone, “30 minutes for you to drag your dumb butt out of bed and into this shop.  Jeez, you need to move it along in the morning.  Now you’re going to be late for work.”  She pressed both her hands into his back to steer him in the general direction that the local precinct was located.

When Lien invited Cynthia to the movies she was slightly hesitant considering she could clearly see where this was heading.  In the end she decided to ignore her hesitancy and agreed to meet up with him regardless.  Besides, she’d mastered the art of shutting him down already, considering she had to do it on a near daily basis.

Sitting on a bench outside the theater she rocked back and forth and hummed to herself waiting for him to show up.  She was mildly surprised he hadn’t shown up two hours early considering it was his idea, but eventually he arrived around 15 minutes before the movie started.  Although she still wasn’t entirely sure what he planned on seeing.  Cynthia hopped out of her seat to see him.

Cynthia had done a lot of stupid things in her life.  If she made a list of the top five dumbest things she’d ever done, this was probably number three.  Maybe even number two.  She really wished she had another time jump opportunity so that she could go slap herself and prevent this from happening.  Too little too late, she supposed.

Regardless, she needed to help to get out of her current predicament.  Cynthia scrolled through her contacts, debating on who was the most likely to pick up and/or drop what they were doing to come help her.  She finally settled for Lien, and hit to call button with her fingers crossed.

☏ CALLING LIEN...CONNECTED

Straight to voice mail, but it was better than nothing.  As soon as she heard the beep she dove into a rather convoluted explanation of her current situation.

“Alright so, I was at Iris Market, right?  I was looking for something to give to a friend and I think I found the pe-- wait that’s irrelevant.  Anyway, I was walking around and I may or may not have stumbled across a rather unsavory deal involving guns that probably aren’t legal and the dastards may or may not have locked me in a nearby warehouse for the time being. So if you could come get me that would be great, bye!”

 Untrembling, the fiery haired woman dressed in a white tank top and a pair of black shorts held a set of weights in the main gym of the recreation facility. The gym consisted of mostly men, and a handful of women. Without shifting her posture, Carolina kept her back straight and lifted the weight up, then down, up then down. The level of training equipment here wasn’t even a sliver of the level of equipment project freelancer provided. The equipment available here built muscle, only if used properly. However it lacked the development of skill she was used to. It was easy. And skill was far more valuable. The strongest person on earth would be no better than an ape with a blindfold without skill. 

  Better. She needed to be better. Even now being stranded in this joke of a city Carolina wanted to thrive. There was no leader board, there was no reason to crave being the best. In Koi, there wasn’t any real threat. There was no war. People didn’t need to be prepared for battle any given moment, people may die, but no so much as a fraction of what she was used to.

feurst

“Was it.... that way?”

“Or was it....”

A simple trip to the store for a few supplies that he would need to keep on hand took a turn for the worse when Chihiro had lost his way. Now he wasn’t usually so bad with directions and normally had no problems remembering how to get home, but this was a new city. The streets weren’t the same back home, the neighborhood he had remembered from his youth wasn’t the same as the one he had grown up in. Maybe he should have asked his roommate to come with him seeing as they had been here before he came to the city, but he didn’t work up the nerve to bother him in his daily routine with a trivial trip. Instead he shuffled out of the apartment and set out for the convenience store he had passed by on his way to his apartment. 

However with his newly acquired groceries bagged and totted at his side he found himself lost in the surprisingly winding streets. It was a little disheartening and a tad bit frightening when he couldn’t remember any of the buildings or roads around him. Still he wandered on not satisfied to just sit there and hope to be found or bothered so he doesn’t have to bug someone else for directions. He’d hate to make someone he didn’t really know mad at him. Fate was really unkind to him as some teen bumped into him without so much as an ‘I’m sorry’ though Chihiro spewed several apologies out instead. The teen made a swift escape before he could even realize what he had just lost through that small strange event.

“M-m-my wallet’s gone!”

And it was, that familiar weight of his wallet was missing off his person, no doubt in the hands of the teen who was now long gone probably taking all its contents before dumping it into some bin never to be seen again. What a truly wonderful first day in the new city, lost and then pick-pocketed.