#nocturneled

Okay well. Being randomly zapped to a whole new city was not on Akito’s list of things to do for the day. The most he could even do with his phone was get Len to pop out and give him a little advice - but that was enough, since the Virtual Singer was able to tell him that Toya was in the same city.

A quick few texts and there was a place for them to meet - and something for them to do, which was the part he was excited about. 

...well, not that he wasn’t excited to see his partner here with him. Better than having no one, even if it was concerning they both got dropped here.

“Toya. Glad Len was able to tell me you were around here, too. But looks like we dropped into wherever this is at the perfect time! There’s a battle of the bands goin’ on. Whole new scene to test our skills out with.”

And of course, music was the first thing on his mind in this situation. Or rather, it was just something familiar he could focus on opposed to...everything else. It’d probably all hit him later in the night, but for now...!

A big festival for the winter seemed to roll around, the same way it did for what happened in the summer. Which...coincidentally turned out to be perfect, since Akito knew Toya had experienced much less winter activities, than summer ones. 

( well. in general, his partner hadn’t done many “standard” activities most kids did in the winter, so both of these festivals were great. )

Apparently, there was some huge ice castle set up as a funhouse which...seemed like a waste of an ice castle to him, but whatever. It seemed like something Toya would enjoy - a large structure of ice, plenty of things to do inside, and...

Yeah, as much as he hated to admit it, he figured Toya missed Tsukasa a lot. Funhouse seemed to fall right in line with something that annoying senpai of theirs liked, which meant Toya would probably like it too. Maybe it’d open up him talking about him.

He could...put up with that for a little bit, if it made Toya feel better about being here. But for now...?

“So, uh...you lost too?”

When he first decided to do this maze - not really for the prize, but just to have fun - he figured it’d be easy enough! Mazes were easy on paper, easy in theory. He could take one look at one and find the right path, no trouble to it. But actually being in one...wow, it was a lot harder to visualize the path in his head based on how far he had wandered in so far.

It seemed like he wasn’t the only one, thankfully, given he had stumbled across a fork in the maze that another person was standing at. A teenager? Either way, he had a puzzled look on his face like he was seriously contemplating which way he wanted to do.

Maybe they could team up? He wasn’t in a huge rush to get out, not that he could rush if he wanted to, but the magic lights that were scattered around the maze were a pretty amazing sight. He couldn’t complain! 

      ❛❛   look !   look !          that one is super cute ,   isn’t it ?!   oh ,   &   there’s more of that kind of character   ...   could it be that this little star is a popular mascot here ?   ❜❜      fingers  pressed  taut  to  the  gacha  machine’s  glass  case ,   any  previous  awkwardness  between  them  seemed  to  have  dissipated  upon  stumbling  across  the  small  arcade  tucked  in  the  street’s  corner .

       gaze  doe  -  like   &   sparkling  with  intent ,   it  takes  the  illustrator  an  embarrassingly  long  moment  to  remember  what  side  of  herself  she  was  showing  to  her  brother’s  partner .   finally ,   her  attention  is  pried  from  the  stuffed  star   [  wouldn’t  it  make  a  really  good  selfie ?!  ]   &   instead  to  the  younger  teen .

CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS // ACCEPTING !

11. If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?

Well given how obvious his passion for music is - you'd probably need to ask or do something he'd only let a select few people know about himself! Ask him how he feels about soccer, dogs, carrots - those sorts of little personality points he tries to keep hidden in favor of his passions or in favor of just looking cool.

14. How do they put out a candle?

Answered here !

22. What simple activity that most people do / can do scares your character?

Walking their dog.

It had been awhile since Deuce had attended a tea party. Or, uh...just generally drank tea. There were too many rules about it that he had still yet to fully memorize, and even if he was sure Riddle wouldn’t care...that much, and even if they weren’t at school, he was still a Heartslabyul student. 

He’d still at least try to follow the rules he did remember. ( and that weren’t absolutely insane ) 

But, here he probably didn’t need to follow the rules. It was late into the night, and the tea and the little finger foods were catered, he didn’t really have control over how they made it. 

He came prepared with a blanket, but it looked like he showed up a little later than other people...there weren’t too many spots left that weren’t next to someone else, but he didn’t have any problems asking. He just hoped other people didn’t have a problem with it. 

Oh well. The best place to start was with someone who looked to be around his age, right?

     “Ah... um... Aoyagi-kun?”  Though with the amount of trepidation in her voice, one would never know that was his name, or that she was even trying to get his attention, for that matter. She certainly knows him well enough by now to recognize him, and she’d certainly be certain were it not for, well... well, she doesn’t really have a good reason for why. Maybe the unfamiliarity of this place is getting to her, making her second guess even the things she does recognize. It is a bit of a relief to see him though... if it really is him.

How frustrating. She should try harder, and have a little more faith in herself, right? That’s easy to say, but... no, it should be easy to do, too. All she has to do is call out his name for goodness’ sake!

It wasn’t like most dreams he had. 

When Akito dreamed - he was in control. Not in the lucid dreaming sense, but he was the starring role of the story. He was experiencing everything in a dream the same way he would be if he was awake. Even if the story was guided, the actions felt like his own.

But this was different. He was watching a memory - a very good one - play out, like if he had pulled up a recorded video of the event on his phone and pulled out his earbuds, handing one to Toya and keeping one for himself. Because...oh yeah, Toya was watching it with him. And it was strange, but it wasn’t bad. 

Because this was their memory. It was when they met.

Vivid Street looked just how he remembered it did that day. It was only a few months after RAD WEEKEND, and there were still ripped corners from flyers people had stolen hanging up on the brick walls and metal lamp posts. He had taken one himself, it was in his bedroom on the wall behind his desk.

He had already formed a rivalry with An, a mentor-student like relationship with Ken, and was a regular at Weekend Garage. He had dropped art entirely to put all of his energy into singing, and sing he did. On street corners, in Weekend Garage, at live events. He had been fine going completely solo at the time - trying to find a partner was too much work. No one would fit with him, no one was passionate about his dream like he was. That’s what he thought, and that’s what he stuck to...

...until that day. Someone new was singing on the corner - and he had started to keep track of who sang where. The power of the other’s voice, the emotion and passion behind it...it immediately made him latch on. The boy couldn’t have been any older than him, and yet he sounded like he had years of professional experience under his belt. Sure, the genre choice he had picked made it seem like he didn’t have much experience in it, but Akito could tell there was something there.

So he waited, hair not yet dyed and middle school uniform hanging off of his body slightly as he grew into it, merging into the crowd of Vivid Street regulars to listen to the other sing. And as soon as he was done, as soon as people started to leave, he pushed his way over to stand in front of the other teenager, a serious look on his face.