1989/Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With Just a Hammer

Downright Amazed at What I Can Destroy With Just a Hammer
Date of Scene:	01 October 2024
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Mamoru, Usagi, and Kazuo go to do a little remodeling before the contractors start their actual work.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou, Usagi Tsukino

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's getting dark there on the top floor, despite the windows, so as they come in through the apartment's foyer (!), Mamoru turns on the lights. "Don't," he says, hefting his mallet, "take off your shoes."

He trails in ahead of Usagi and Kazuo, and there's a hallway to the left and a hallway to the right, and there's a door with a stained glass panel in it directly ahead of them.

One hand on the doorknob and he glances back, "We're not smashing that though."

Then the door's open and Mamoru goes in properly, turning on those lights, and they're in an open space that's definitely bigger than Kazuo's mom's apartment.

A lot bigger.

There are a lot of windows already, looking out and down on the busy well-lit street below, and Mamoru says as he looks directly across at the top floors of the buildings facing them, "Maybe less windows actually."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The foyer by itself might be larger than any single room in Kazuo's mom's apartment, for that matter. "No smashing the artwork," Kazuo agrees. "Understood." For one thing, it's hard to mark stained-glass with a sharpie. He has a pocket full of them, at present, for when they get set down or dropped and forgotten.

... there is a long pause, as he stops behind Usagi to look over her head at that line of windows in the vast open space.

"I have no idea why you'd want less windows," he says finally. "Are you telling us that you don't want to be twenty-four-seven live theater?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
Honestly, it might be bigger than the entire main floor of Usagi's house. If the walls were taken down. It's that big.

"We are going to be able to build the world's greatest pillow fort in this room," Usagi says, very seriously, looking over the space, mallet in hand.

The artwork - the stained glass - is marked for safety, and Usagi nods, eyes bright. "That's fair - the pretty things should stay, it's the boring not-so-load-bearing walls that we're after!"

Usagi is in the middle of the pack, since frankly, Kazuo and Mamoru would have to drop to their knees for her to block their lines of sight. Not to mention that, with one of them behind her and another in front, there's very few ways for her to fall over and die.

"Well... I'd say this is a great chance to figure out what it's like to break a window, but we'd probably drop glass all over some poor sap," she hums, "Guess we'll have to leave taking some of those out for the contractors? Oh, oh, or you could get some really cool tinted windows, so you can see out and no one can see in!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru moves to reach just over Usagi's head and shove Kazuo's shoulder gently, grinning. Then he goes over to where he remembers the kitchen counter being. "Those are definitely a possibility. Maybe they're already that. There's also the option of a lot of drapery, but... I think I'd like more wall, really. I feel exposed even without the worry of everyone seeing everything that goes on. Walls are more solid."

He puts his mallet down on the counter and leafs through papers until he gets to the bottom of the stack, where there's a floorplan. "This'll help with what's load bearing," he says. And then he holds a hand out to Kazuo and grins toothily. "Sharpie? I'm gonna mark the windows that need to be wall."

Then he glances to Usagi again. "More walls also means more space for artwork!"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Walls channel intruders neatly to the nicely breakable windows," Kazuo says deadpan, handing Mamoru a marker. Then pausing, and hunting in the other pocket, and offering a chalk marker too, in case the Sharpie doesn't decide to cooperate with metal or glass. Or in case Usagi decides the wants to color-coordinate. "Does the world's greatest pillow fort count as artwork?"

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"I think walls are good! Nice and solid and yes, plenty of space for artwork! And you know, mwaybe if we have some big, notable windows around walls, people will come at the windows instead." Pause. "Actually, more importantly, maybe people won't come at all. Wouldn't that be nice?"

It feels achievable. Her house has never been targetted after all, even if Chiyo-chan's had been, once, on accident. There's opportunities here, is the point, for a home that will feel big and open and safe and maybe even mostly unknown!

She grips her mallet, lifting it up a little. "I think it will be a piece of furniture. Like a super fancy table."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Taking the chalk marker too, Mamoru gives Kazuo such an affectionately grateful look. The things he thinks of!

He does ask him innocently, "Do you think we should remove all the windows and put in TV screens instead?"

Then his gaze falls on Usagi's hammer and he decides, "I'll get the windows in a minute, let's get you some stuff to smash. And yeah! A super fancy table with lots of space underneath to add to the pillow fort, right? And tallish chairs for that table, so you can drape blankets over them to make hallways--"

This as he's going around the counter into the kitchen, and opening the door next to the refrigerator space. "Oh yeah, here are some walls that have got to go!"

Big x's on walls time! "This whole one. Literally nobody needs a shoe room this size--"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Well, obviously I think so," replies Kazuo, his eyes alight with laughter. "But other people like things like 'light' and 'sky' occasionally, I hear." Clearly he will just steal everyone's phones and make a little TV-let wall inside the pillow fort. Maybe with a rack to put them in that folds down from the underside of the table.

Usagi receives an exaggeratedly formal bow at her decision. "Furniture it is," he confirms. A permanent resident, rather than a transient exhibition? ... probably. It'd be convenient for Usanaps, anyway.

"-- I think the genkan might be larger than my mother's bedroom." Finally, the size of this place is starting make even Kazuo show being unsettled, just a tiny bit.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"It's true," Usagi says mock-seriously, "Occasionally, I enjoy a spot of sunlight. And Luna and Anko would probably love getting to lie around in a sunbeam or two."

The mythical beams of light that can only be obtained through a window... sadly, television just won't cut it. She curtseys at Kazuo, smiling brightly.

"But this place is so big, we could probably have a dark room. We could paint it black and have a speaker that only plays rain sounds and moody music." Goth room, or maybe just emo room? In a place this big, why not have ridiculous single purpose rooms? Mamoru wanders through the kitchen, and offers to find her somethijng to smash, and her smile turns into a mischievous grin.

"I heard the song of my people: a call for destruction!" Usagi, please. She follows after him, looking at the walls with X's, and hums, lifting the mallet, judging the angle.

"Got it! Mamochan, out of the way~" and once he's clear - SMASH! Into the wall it goes.

"Well, for it's crimes of being too big, it will be destroyed! In the name of love, we'll stop this genkan!"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"We should set one of the rooms up as a server room with a jillion monitors for you," Mamoru tells Kazuo, eyes sparkling back, "and we should figure out which room soon, but you have plenty of time to figure out what you'd actually do with it."

He steps back and observes for a moment, then adds, "It's maybe a little bigger than the room I shared as a kid. But we had bunkbeds and I was shorter, so it could have been worse, space-wise--" And then Usagi has the single best idea. "The moody black-painted mope room. It can be next to the ball pit room."

He takes a step back, then claps a hand over his mouth, stifling a hoot of laughter at Usagi's smashing through the wall and justice speech. "My hero!" he exaggeratedly flutters, then remembers he left his mallet in the kitchen.

Back through the door he scrambles, and reappears a moment later with the big instrument of destruction (or construction, depending).

He takes a breath.

He summons an anger that's not gone yet, only buried, and he puts a mallet through the wall, too, squinting behind his glasses. He stifles the urge to say sorry, and instead only yanks the mallet out of the wall and goes for another swing.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"What I'd actually do with it would be bring Naru coffee and Luna ... whatever Luna wants." Kazuo smirks at Mamoru's sparkling eyes, affectionate and just a touch self-deprecating, and then makes a show of stepping back from Usagi's malletswing. Then Mamoru's.

Maybe he'll just stand back out of the way rather than participate in the destruction. They have a lot more to work out, here.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"You'd do cool stuff with your room too," Usagi says confidently, grunting a little as she lifts the mallet up for another swing. "Because you're cool like that. But Luna totally has a server room, it's our secret base, she doesn't need Mamochan to buy her another one. She'd probably rather he brought her more salmon treats because she's so - hff - into those!"

The hole is made larger by another swing, the drywall caving in, chips spraying the air. She breathes heavily, pulling the mallet back.

"This is like... not going to lie, this is super satisfying. Mamochan, maybe you should have a like - punching bag room or a mallet room or something too - "

Swing! SMASH!

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"You would do cool stuff. And besides-- Naru and Luna aren't *mine*," Mamoru asys with a huff, glancing back to look at Kazuo, to look at Kazuo and his self-deprecation, and answer it with a ferocity that's maybe a little possessive before it calms down, "like this apartment is my space. There are lots of rooms, even though we're taking some away to make bigger ones."

It's not dark energy. It's just that he doesn't remember ever having a space he didn't share, or being able to choose who to share space with.

"And yeah I think a punching bag room is in order. Maybe a thrown weapons room, though embedding something in a target isn't really as satisfying when you do that on the reg--"

He takes another deep breath, and this time there's a 'Rrrgh!' when he smashes another part of the drywall in, leaving a blank black hole into the area with no lights on.

Then he does it again. And again. And if his chin's a little crumpled, these are the two people he can show that in front of without feeling even a little embarrassed.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The darkness grows smash by splinter, and that's all right, because it's not that kind of darkness, and they're letting the light in. Giving the light more breathing room. Kazuo leans back a little, and there's a deep satisfaction he takes in just watching the two of them. Doing this. Together. Most of all, together.

(Without salmon treats. Mental note is taken on that one.)

"A thrown breakables room?" he suggests. "Targets optional." And not about to say anything if chins crumple.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Mhm," Usagi hums, softly, fixing her grip on the mallet's shaft. "Naru-chan and Luna are mine. Yours too, but mine. This is your place and your house and it's going to be for you and yours."

Does she have to say that she and Kazuo are his? That they're in his umbrella, in his wake, the same way he is in hers? This apartment that they're helping break down to build up is Mamoru's now, and isn't there some saying, about possession being a big chhunk of the law? The possessive ferocity in Mamoru's voice makes it clear that that old saying is true, because this space is his and he's sharing it with them, because they're his too. It's a space that won't be taken away or intruded upon. It's like... a castle, with walls to keep out those unwanted.

In the sense of being Mamoru's, it almost reminds her, a little bit, of the Golden Kingdom. It makes her think about the castle on the Moon, that was home and safe and loved until it wasn't.

There's smashing. There's the hammer rising and falling, and chests heaving and the sound of exertion and the start of sweat, the pleasant ache in her muscles, and she thinks about a room for getting out the anger, for making sure it doesn't stay inside, and she laughs a little, low and affectionate.

"We could ask Tamakun to make some targets. Things he doesn't mind getting broken or stabbed at." She thinks that Tamaki would like that, being asked to help in some ways, and she thinks it would be good for him, too, to get out of his perfectionism by making things for the sake of being destroyed.

"And of course, you'll need a bedroom with a huuuuuuuuuuuge bed."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"That's right," Mamoru says to Usagi, relief in his voice: she gets it, of course she gets it. He reaches over the destruction and the mallets to brush his fingers across her wrist, because his words stopped being great a moment ago, and the feeling of 'yes shared but still distinct' is there, and so much love--

--and he moves that touch back, over to Kazuo a second later, sharing the same thing. You're mine. We're all together, but, but, but. But still distinct.

There's more destruction, then, and Mamoru backs up to swing at the higher-up wall that Usagi'd have more of a problem with, and he squinches up his face because that means he's got drywall on it all of a sudden. Thank goodness for glasses.

There's sputtering anyway, because his glasses don't cover his whole face.

"Tamakun can make targets and also general breakables. Also ramune bottles, we can throw those," he says between untucking his shirt and wiping his face off on the inside of it. "And of course I need a monstrously large bed. With so many pillows! Wait'll you see the master bedroom--"