1210/A Stellar day in the life

A Stellar day in the life
Date of Scene:	29 February 2024
Location:	Plot Room 1
Synopsis:	Hotaru and Kyouka hang out in the latter's home while she's in hiding. They discuss breakfast, the past, the future... and mouse trap. It is the BEST game.
Cast of Characters:	Hotaru Tomoe, Kyouka Inai

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Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
It was early in the morning when Kyouka would likely wake up to the sound of... cleaning. Hotaru was... generally... pretty good about that. She wanted to be useful, so she'd been dusting, cleaning, organizing...

... Had an odd fascination with lamps...

One thing she was atrocious at was cooking. Like, it was edible? But not what one might consider a 'delightful meal' the time she'd tried.

Yochu, at least, mostly just stood there and watched. Sitting on the counter during the day, like a good haunted doll.

Hotaru was, of course, enamored with the doll and it kept her safe, so what could you do?

Of course, she'd been here for days now and so it wasn't like there was a lot of cleaning left. That was the advantage of having such a tiny place. So she was really just doing some dusting while she waited for Kyouka to wake up. She couldn't turn on the television until after, she didn't want to wake up the woman.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    When Hotaru had come asking for a place to hide for a few days, Kyouka had been a bit unsure. Mostly because the girl had a maniacal killer inside of her who had already wounded Kyouka once. But also because her apartment is really tiny. It doesn't have rooms, which means there's no way to escape from a 'roomate'... especially one who is in hiding, and therefore isn't exactly going to be leaving to go out regularly.

    That said, Hotaru was still a child in need, and Kyouka found herself reluctantly agreeing to give the girl a safe place to hide, so long as it was just for a little while. While those plans are proceeding, she finds herself with a temporary guest who has rendered her living space cleaner than it has been... well, ever.

    She isn't the type to laze about in bed all day in any case, so Hotaru hasn't been dusting that long before she's sitting up and rubbing her eyes, glancing over to find the girl hard at work. "That can wait until after breakfast, you know." She says, as she stretches and gets up to go use the bathroom and wash her face.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe yeeped, jumping a little. Yeeped, not yelped, full on just 'Yeep!' Odd how a girl could be startled so easily... and consistently. Especially considering her penchant for horror movies and the like. Who knew?

She turned to face the counselor and bowed politely. "S-sorry, Inai-sensei, I didn't wake you, did I?" she asked sheepishly.

She, at least, knew it likely wasn't the easiest for the woman. After all, the place was tiny. Her room was possibly bigger than the whole apartment. You could only fit like... three lamps in here! If that! But at least it wouldn't be long. She was sure Takashi was working on a plan to get her out of Kyouka's hair before long. "So, ummm... do you have any big plans for today?"

Truth was... she hoped the counselor didn't. She'd love to play a board game or something with her, if possible. Now that she had Luminous Titan back, she even could! He was where he stored a lot of her games, after all.

"Want me to get started on breakfast?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Nah, it's time to get up anyway." Kyouka dismisses the concerns about waking her without really specifying if the girl did or not. She's in the bathroom for a few minutes, coming out looking suitably refreshed and put together, dressed in casual clothing.

    "Define 'big'." She says in response to the question, with a dry lick of humor, though she shakes her head a moment later. "I'll probably go out and get some food for later. Maybe do some sniffing around town to see if I can find anything new on a few ongoing matters I'm looking into." She doesn't say what. She never does.

    As much as she trusts that Hotaru doesn't intentionally mean her any harm, the girl still has contacts inside Obsidian, among other things, and Kyouka is careful about letting too much slip in front of her.

    "That said, I'm not in a rush, so I'll probably wait until it warms up a bit before heading out." She says, with a shrug.. then quirks a brow at the question of breakfast. "You know I bought us some melonpan last night, right? It's in the bag by the sink over there.." On the tiny counterspace which passes for a kitchen.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe went a little red at the mention of the melonpan. "O-oh. I mean, I didn't know if that was for... I mean, ummm... s-sorry, Inai-sensei," she said sheepishly. At least she didn't just assume food was for her. Granted, the girl barely ate as it was. She'd often feed things to Yochu, possibly more than she herself ate. No wonder she was so small.

And, on the upside, Takashi and possibly Mami were likely bringing things by when they could. Not for long, in case they were being watched, but they did have a... desire to see the girl well fed and happy.

"I hope the sniffing goes well!" Hotaru said, not questioning any further. Just as Kyouka didn't want to give too much away.... Hotaru never asked. She knew, in the end, she was a 'bad guy'. She didn't want to get information that she'd feel obligated to give to Takashi... or her father.

"Do, ummmm... do you think you'd wanna play a game or something? Until it warms up, I mean. If you're in the mood, of course."

Play with meeeeeee. Play with meeeeeeeeeeeee!

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Haunted dolls are plenty creepy already. The fact that Yochu apparently actually eats food only amplifies the effect. In truth, maybe Kyouka's seeming hurry to send Hotaru on her way has as much to do with the creepy doll sitting on her counter as it does with the fact that her apartment is definitely not meant to be inhabited by two people.

    "Yeah, I mean, there's two. One for you and one for me." Kyouka tells the girl, with a little grin. "I know its not the healthiest breakfast in the world but it's kinda been my thing since I was a kid, so.."

    She eyes the girl suspiciously at the mention of playing a game. Not that she has anything against games, just that she's not sure exactly what sort of game is going to get proposed to her relatively early on a weekend morning. "Like what?" She finally asks, cautiously.

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe gasped. "You... you've been eating those every morning since you were a kid? That's so cute!" Hotaru said, even clasping her cheeks a little and having the biggest grin on her face. Likely... not how Kyouka expected to be talked to in the morning somedays.

She then urked, realizing... this was her sensei. "So, ummm... are those pictures of Yuuhi-sensei? The HR lady?" she asked, motioning to one of the pictures on the shelves. "Were you and her friends?" Pause. "Are... you... still friends? Even if you work for ummmm... different... sides..."

She then gently reached down to hold up the necklace of Luminous Titan. "Wellllll... I have a lot of board games. Life, Risk, hungry hungry hippos, mouse trap," Though, admittedly that one was always more fun for her to setup than actually play...

"Sorry, ummm... monopoly but that one never ends well... yawtzee!"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Not every morning." Kyouka protests. Melonpan are very sugary, after all. "Just on weekends." As if that makes it so much better. She walks over to the bag and grabs her own, tossing the other one to Hotaru. They're from the nearby convenience story, individually wrapped, and she tears hers own after doing so.

    She glances at the pictures, perhaps mentally kicking herself for letting them become so much a part of the scenery she forgot that people might actually recognize them (although she has one of her and Fuyuko (and their other friends) in her office as well, so clearly she isn't trying too hard). "That's right. I'm surprised you recognized her. That was a long time ago."

    She shrugs her shoulders at the question. "Were, yes. Still? Seems to depend on the day."

    She heaves a tiny sigh at the list of board games- but eventually just waves her hand. "You pick." Which is an agreement, at least!

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe was still grinning when she caught the Melonpan, none the less. That 'oh my gosh my sensei was so cute!' grin. Poor Kyouka. She then walked to the counter and picked up Yochu... The doll's head shifting slightly to the side. Like a puppet that had its strings cut. She then walked to the side of the room, humming lightly as board games came out.

"I spend a lot of time watching people," Hotaru said. "I didn't get to help before, so whenever I came to Obsidian I'd mostly just sit there and watch. People forget you're there after a while and you see a lot of them."

She finally picked up a game and... mouse trap. Of course. IT WAS FUN TO SETUP! OKAY?!

She started setting it up, giggling as she worked with the cage. "So... were you two on opposite sides when you were kids? Or... well... were you... allies then?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    If Kyouka is upset or offended by Hotaru deciding to think she was cute as a child, she doesn't show it. She just munches on her melonpan, sitting on the floor next to the kotatsu and watching the girl break out the board game and start setting it up. She doesn't move to help, both because she can tell Hotaru is having fun and because it's not like she's in some great rush to actually play.

    But she's asking questions about Fuyuko, and Kyouka has to consider how much she wants to say. The truth is she's never considered her past to be a secret, it just sort of became one by default because everybody else forgot about it. That said, she also doesn't want to give Hotaru, and by extension Takashi and possibly Fuyuko herself, any free ammunition to use against her later.

    "I doubt we would have been friends if we had been on opposite sides back then."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe nodded, giggling a little more when she jostled the machine and set off the mouse trap again, fiddling with all the little bits. It was going to take a while, but she was enjoying it. She took a small bite of the melonpan, before feeding a small chunk she tore off to Yochu.

"So... does that mean if... I started helping the sparkle skirts, I wouldn't be able to be Takashi-senpai's friend anymore?" And therein lied the reason she was so curious. Takashi WAS her first friend, after all.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka watches Hotaru fiddling with the board game, chewing on her melonpan, and seeming more than happy just to sit there and let the girl do her thing.

    At the question about being Takashi's friend, though, she shrugs her shoulders. "That's up to you, and to him." She says. "In my experience, some people take their work personally.. to others, its just a job. If you care about what you're doing, it can be hard to be friends with someone actively trying to get in your way. If its just a paycheck.. maybe not."

    "And sometimes relationships are strong enough to weather even that kind of animosity. Though I won't pretend that's exactly common."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe gave a small nod, before taking another bite of her breakfast. Yes! She got the whole thing setup properly.

It was possibly a little creepy how when Kyouka looked, sometimes Yochu's head would be resting on the left... other times on the right. But never seemed to really move when she was watching, unless Hotaru moved it herself.

"I think he takes it personally, but I really do believe he's doing things for the right reason. I don't... know if he's right, though. He sometimes has terrible ideas. Some of them suck. But he has a lot of good ideas, too. And he's helped me a lot. And he's trying to help Yochu, too. And there's others. And... if not for him... some worse things would have happened. So... I think he's good. In the end. Mostly."

"... I hope we can keep being friends forever... even if we ended up on opposite teams. What color mouse would you like?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is well aware that the doll is creepy and haunted, and all the reminders of noticing the little differences do is make her further convinced that the sooner Takashi can come up with other arrangements to keep Hotaru safe the better. She holds her peace about it though, not wanting the girl to feel like an imposition.

    "Have you ever heard the phrase 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'?" Kyouka asks, in a bit of a dry tone. "Sometimes the worst acts are perpetrated out of a desire to do good, or at least what the person things will do good. It can be hard to tell what's 'worth it'.. but making that decision more often than not determines how those relationships develop."

    "We're already on opposite teams." Kyouka points out, before saying, "Red, of course."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
"Because the red one goes faster?" she asked before taking the blue one. She then nudged the dice towards her. "You can go first. And... I've heard it. But you know, sometimes the road to good has a lot of potholes and you just need to go through it, even if there's some bumps along the way. I know he'll make mistakes as he goes... but in the end? I believe he'll be where he needs to be. If... not for him, what happened to Yochu would have happened to others." She then glanced to Yochu.

"I've never seen him so angry..." She then hmmed and lightly poked at the half of her bun that remained, even with her feeding some to Yochu. "You want the rest of mine?" she offered.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Because red is my color. The fact that it goes faster is just coincidental." Kyouka says smugly, as she takes the dice and rolls them onto the table top, moving her mouse the requisite number of spaces afterwards. It's clear she's more focused on the conversation than the game, but she's at least making an effort to placate Hotaru.

    "I don't disagree," she says, with regards to the road not always being smooth sailing, "I just think that you need to make a decision about which potholes are worth going over and which need to be avoided." She glances at the picture of herself and Fuyuko as teenagers, then shrugs. "Different people have different answers to that sort of thing. And that's where friendships get tested."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe rolled the dice a few moments as well, continuing the playful lull of gameplay. She was mostly excited to play with the game pieces, she'd just play for now... until it was time for the trap to go off.

"Yeah, Takashi-senpai is more the type to hit every single hole in the road just so he doesn't miss anything important. But that's one of his charms, I think. And sometimes he finds good ideas in there! Not... always. But sometimes."

She uhhh... believed in her senpai. But she apparently didn't have the most... supportive view of his ideas. "He's helped me almost as much as daddy. I just... think he's under a lot of stress. He wants to help everyone and he just thinks he's the only one who can."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka will keep playing the game, but she's mostly doing that on autopilot, though she does try to respect the rules and play the game properly even so.

    "There's nothing wrong with being thorough.. but I do think there's something wrong with thinking you and only you have the right answer." Says Kyouka, and it's a good thing Fuyuko isn't actually here or she may just do a spit-take at the hypocrisy. Thankfully, Hotaru can remain in blissful ignorance of Kyouka's own self-delusion for the time being.

    "But look, I'm not going to tell you who to believe in. Just know that those choices have consequences." A shrug. "Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you can't be friends with everybody."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe was, mostly, just enjoying playing with another person. "Yeah. There's a lot of answers. But I don't think he likes to think that. He has a uhhhh... delusions of grandeur, I think? But so do most people in Obsidian. Sometimes they teach me! We have a lot of really funny people there."

She paused, sliding over a piece of cheese when Kyouka won one. "Everything has consequences, Inai-sensei. Always. It's just a struggle of finding the ones you can live with. That's where I think most people mess up. I've messed up there a few times myself. But I'm getting better, I think. And I know he will. I believe in him. Is there anyone you had like that? Who you believed in, even when they made mistakes or did bad things?"

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "You don't really have a choice but to live with the consequences of your actions." Kyouka says, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I think it's that fact which drives some people crazy in the end. Not that they couldn't find the right consequences, but that they couldn't handle the ones they caused after the fact."

    "It's tricky to know what the true outcome of your actions is going to be. I find the best path is just to buckle down and come what may, stick to your guns." She pauses, and then adds, "Which I guess is what your Takashi-san is doing. Though hitting every pothole along the road seems like a damn slow way to get to the end, if you ask me."

Hotaru Tomoe has posed:
Hotaru Tomoe nodded, slowly moving her piece. "Yeah... it's... not always the fastest. I don't know if he'll be happy in the end. I hope he will be. I think... I think he'll be happy if he can save everyone he cares about. But if he can't? Not so much. He managed to help me, though. He had to ask for help." Pause. "He realllllly hates that, though. He's got a liiiiiittle bit of an ego. Sometimes... sometimes it's those potholes that make us who we are, though."

She then paused and... "Yesssss!" Why yes? Because she just triggered the trap! ... On herself.

......... She cackled like an over the top... like her father as it all went into production. The ball, the statue, the cage, cackling like a madwoman as her mouse was soon captured and...

... Yeah. That was it, really. This was why she played the game. The BEST part.