#ouropro starter

Motive? What motive. What point was there worrying about someone else's dumb secrets and getting people hurt over them anyway? Okay, sure, she'd been a little curious about the ones she'd gotten, but..  why worry about it. There's so much other wicked stuff here to look at, anyway, and getting yourself down over a few dead kids and leaked gossip was no fun.

Plus, right now, this performance artist in specific had a very particular mission. A mission she'd taken on to get her out of her grieving funk. A mission, of course, to cheer herself up- who cares about these other punks. She was ducking in and out of aisles and departments, looking for someone. Not just any someone, but her good buddy....

"......Aoki-kun."

Talk about mood whiplash.

Hokori hadn't exactly taken the trial seriously. At least, not at first. Then again, he'd never really been the type of person to recognize the gravity of a situation until it was too late. Someone was fated to die anyway though, weren't they? There was nothing he could have done, except for try his damnedest to help them all in the right direction so that someone innocent wouldn't die. And that's exactly what they all managed to accomplish, isn't it? Even if it was by the skin of their teeth, and Hokori himself barely had anything to contribute, they nailed the culprit. So why does he feel so sick?

He watched someone die.

After a long, tear-filled hug with Tokiyo, he returns to his own room, wrestling with the day's vivid memories, and he wonders if his insomnia's to blame, or if he'd be up all night either way. He has no recollection of falling asleep, but it must have happened, because there's no denying that he wakes up on the floor of a department store with absolutely no memory of how he got there.

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

That stupid legless lizard is just trying to piss them off now. Well. It's working. Are they really here? After all that? God, who even shops here? Not rock stars, that's for sure.

"Well, Toki-san, we did it. We found hell on earth."

He waltzes over to the bassist, cringing at their surroundings. The theme park was pretty legit. This is just sad.

Holy Toledo.

Is this...?

Akito was left, staring at the aisle labelled "Baking Goods". Had he gone to Heaven? Shoot, had he been a murder victim? Who was the killer? Who would avenge him? Would anyone care? Damn, he didn't even have time to frown. Instead, his eyes glazed over the various lineups of baking related goods. It called to him, the way metal did, but... fluffier. Softer. Not so violently, for the most part, which appealed to one half of him. Hey, it wasn't like they were going to have a metal-smithing aisle. This would do.

Akito clucked his tongue, though, realizing that in the midst of spontaneous teleportation, he hadn't brought his Easy Bake oven companion. He missed it, thoroughly, but nonetheless was already picking out various ingredients and piling them.

What, ho! Anyone care to bake some cookies?

As the days had gone by, the apprehensions that Hokori had over their new life had whittled away significantly. Each day, he'd either spent his time alone locked in his room, or clinging to Tokiyo for safety, lying in wait for something, anything to happen. But nothing... ever happened. There was no murder to speak of- thank whatever god is out there for that, but his fears had left the pit of his stomach inch by inch until nothing was there at all. Nothing but boredom. The new living situation wasn't ideal, by any means, but there hadn't been any murders. Perhaps barring a few shows that they'd already missed, things would be just fine.

Of course, that's when Monocobra decides to up the stakes.

Wordless for once, he'd followed quietly in Tokiyo's shadow until they parted ways. The words hung low in his throat, but he never found the ability to verbalize them, and so he simply didn't.

Even now they don't find their way into the paper, only known as meaningless scribbles that are symbolic of nothing. Of course, it's not as if it's too dissimilar to another sleepless night, aside from the fact that he doesn't have the words to from songs or even coherent sentences. Rising to his feet, he crumples the paper and chucks it at the wall, barking out his first word all night in the form of a curse. Who cares if it's well after midnight? He's already on his way down the hallway to Tokiyo's room.

"Toki-san? TOKI-SAN? TOKI-SAN?!"

The fuck is going on?

The events of the previous day seemed like a nightmare, if even that. Maybe just an odd dream with a few prophetic undertones about how shitty of a person Hokori's bandmates think he is (self-betterment or something), but he wakes to find that unless he's still dreaming, that simply isn't the case. Seriously, he's not a shitty person at all. He doesn't need self-betterment! Oh yeah, and he's waking up to the walls of that pink room that he fell asleep in just a few hours ago. It was probably one of the loneliest nights he'd suffered through in a while, the usual tossing and turning and rampant thoughts exacerbated by only being to focus on if his bassist is okay or not.

He hopes that he'll run out into the hall and finally wake up to the harsh light peering through the blinds of his tour bus.

But that isn't the case either. He's lucky that his 'dream self' took the time to get dressed and straighten his hair.

That was a series of things that happened. Manami remained relatively disinterested in the beginning, though she absolutely hated being paired up with somebody for dancing. Especially Toshi. She'd much rather have someone nice like Tamashi dance with her, but she made no audible protest.

At least it didn't last that long. Manami couldn't even be bothered to respond to the lights going out then coming back on in an ominous and foreboding shade of red. Wait a sec. Was that a snake? Or, a cobra, she guessed, but that was still kind of a snake, wasn't it?

It...was a robot. That was disappointing. Manami much preferred living snakes as opposed to fake, fake, animatronic ones. Still, she was sort of curious and was now watching things unfold more attentively. Ouch, that's gotta smart for Monogoose, huh? That was a little embarrassing.

Frankly, Manami didn't have much inclination to leave this place. However, when the word 'killing' was mentioned she narrowed her eyes. Killing...? Her attention was focused solely on the cobra and his words.

What did she do upon the new robot's departure? It was hard to read Manami's expression, and she made nary a single movement for anyone inept at reading body language. After a long, long pause, all she whispered was a single word.

"Killing...?"

She took a few steps backward. Not necessarily stumbling back or anything, but just kind walking back like she was trying to sneak out of the place. She didn't realize there was someone there, though, and ended up walking right into someone else! 

Alright, who was it that was standing there in the first place? Manami slowly turned around to face them, the same expression on as before.

..What on earth was that.

Self-betterment program?.. Did she ever sign up for such a thing? Sure, she had her problems.. but was something like this.. well, necessary? Who knows what her past-self has done. For all she knew, she could've signed up as some test subject in a lab and she wouldn't remember it even today. Maybe that's why she's always zoned out.. she should find the antido-

Oh.

Blinking her dark eyes, that robot was gone.. Was this some game of hide-and-seek? How peculiar. What did she even make of all this? Even she didn't know.. maybe later everything will kick in, but for now, she just stood there perfectly still. Of course, besides her picking at her sweater subconsciously. Maybe a nervous tick, even though she seemed perfectly calm, perhaps even.. asleep. 

Looking around, there still seemed to be quite a few people around.. she wondered what they were like. Instead of actually approaching them, she stood at the sidelines, watching. Waiting for someone to maybe strike up a conversation with her. Of course, there probably wasn't much chance of that happening, with people either being too distracted to care or too nervous, which it was a good division between the two.

Manami was starting to wonder how many people are here. 'I hope there isn't a whole amusement park's worth of people here,' she thought. How many was that exactly? Well, amusement parks were crowded, weren't they? Okay, so this place didn't seem crowded, per se, but she had a feeling there were still a bunch of people she had to meet. Groaaan.

Maybe some cotton candy would ease Manami up. It's not like there were any police around, were there? Would anyone care if she took this cotton candy, right here? Eh, probably not.

Turning around after claiming her treat, she noticed someone in her line of sight. And boy, what a sight this guy seemed to be. Taking a bite, she approached the boy. She tilted her head downwards, as though she was going to look at him, but instead looked to the left as always.

She took another bite, just casually eating in front of this guy. After a few moments without saying anything, she extended her arm a little.

"Want some?"