495/I'm Glad You're Here

I'm Glad You're Here
Date of Scene:	23 September 2023
Location:	Cafeteria Plaza
Synopsis:	Makoto Kino meets Darien Shields again for the first time.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Makoto Kino

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's the weekend, and school's out, but there are some people who live on campus in more ways than one. One of those people is Darien Shields, who's got his phone out on the otherwise empty table at which he's sitting, face-up. He does have a tray with food on it, very fussy buffet-picked bento bits, no daikon nope not today.

He's eating the food slowly, and paying considerably more attention to the careful structure he's building out of coffee stirrers and drinking straw wrappers and sugar packets. He keeps looking at his phone, brow faintly furrowed.

It's maybe a little weird that he's sitting alone, but it is a Saturday. He's in black jeans and a black t-shirt underneath an open white button-down shirt, and his long black hair's tied back in a messy ponytail, scruffy hair tucked behind his ears. His glasses aren't anime-trope reflective, they're just there.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Here's another of the full-time campus denizens, one of the students who turns up in the cafeteria even on days when most others have other places to be. Perhaps Darien has noticed her in passing on previous days like today - a tall girl, taller than many, with a curly reddish-brown ponytail. Today she's wearing a sleeveless yellow button-front top and what looks like men's jeans from the way she's had to belt the waist in.

Coming away from the buffet with a tray in her hands, she takes a moment to look around for a likely place to sit. There's no shortage of empty tables... but her eye falls on Darien and his construction in progress, and she hesitates, brow creasing faintly.

A moment or two more and she makes up her mind. With purposeful steps, she carries her tray over to Darien's table. "Sorry if this is weird, but... would you mind if I sit here?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien glances up and almost instantly does a doubletake. "Oh-- no, that's... that's fine," he says, and looks down at his 'sculpture', and colors slightly. He starts taking it apart like a civilized human person. "Sorry. Nerves. I'm waiting on a call. Or a text."

He shifts his chair over a little, and that makes the tallest part of the tower come down, and he laughs a little. "Anyway, have at! There's plenty of room if you don't mind a tablemate with the jitters."

Makoto Kino has posed:
"Oh, you don't have to--" She has the grace to look abashed when he starts taking apart the condiment-tower. "There's plenty of table, right?"

He gave permission, so she sets her tray down - leaving him plenty of room for arts and crafts, if he doesn't persist in demolishing his efforts - the plate she's put together from the buffet is an artfully-arranged assortment of small servings of quite a few different things. What middle school student pays this much attention to plating from a cafeteria buffet? This one, apparently.

"I promise not to judge any jitters," she promises. "Makoto Kino. I'm a new transfer, this year." She regards him closely, like maybe she's waiting for a reaction. Or just trying to figure something out. Her smile is friendly enough, in any case.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
--ah. Ahaha. For a moment, Darien looks like a deer in headlights at Makoto's introduction.

Of course he remembers that name. She was tall, she had a thing for his unfortunately jerky classmate, the teachers looked at her askance, rumour had it she was an orphan like him...

"Darien Shields," he hazards, "is unfortunately what I'm going by, but I should get past it soon." That's a surprisingly pleading look, actually. He stacks a stirrer on top, rebuilding the fallen part of the tower. "Do you, uh." He's not meeting her eyes. He's looking at the tower. "Do you like it here?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Peer. Peeeeeeeer. For a moment, under his deer-in-headlights regard, Makoto tenses; some of her openness shutters away into a more defensive sort of attitude. Whatever blow she was half expecting, though, it doesn't come, and before he looks away from her to the tower she's already starting to relax again.

And then he's not looking at her, so she's free to squint at his face. The face is familiar, but - Shields?

She doesn't ask. Not yet, at least. Instead, she occupies herself with separating the disposable chopsticks from the buffet line. "It's nicer than I was expecting," she admits. "I don't really feel like I've settled in yet, but... yeah, I do like it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"So do I," says the boy, and he carefully folds a ripped strip from an empty sugar packet around two stirrers to make a connector for a bridge. Of sorts. It's an extremely sketchy excuse for engineering. He glances at his phone again, and the thing might as well be dead, for all the notifying it's not doing.

Then he looks properly at Makoto and smiles, and it's an apologetic and lopsided little thing. "I like it a lot. Better than a lot of other options, and everything's taken care of. There are a lot of awesome classes that aren't offered elsewhere, too."

Hesitantly, he finally asks, "Do you know me?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Immediately she flushes and looks down, embarrassed. "That's - I was just trying to figure that out. I think I might. You look awfully familiar."

She fusses a bit with her chopsticks, picks up a snow pea from among the veggies on her tray, then puts it down again without even pretending she's going to eat it. Her bright green eyes find his again. "I'm pretty sure I'd remember 'Darien Shields,'" she says, "but I'd swear you were in the same class as my senpai, a couple years ago."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
And his are blue, dark blue like the ocean from space, and they regard her for a moment before he says quietly, "Mamoru Chiba. But I can't use my name right now. I know it sounds stupid, but-- it's complicated. So."

A little louder, and much brighter and more relaxed, "So it's good to see you again, Makoto Kino. I'm glad you're here. It really is a better school, and a better place in general."

He picks up a piece of tempura-- carrot-- and gestures with it. "I'm going to make a stupid assumption, please feel free to shun me forever for it if you like -- if you happen to be interested in this sort of thing, there's a new self-defense class that counts as gym and involves sparring. Have you heard of it yet? Because I go, and if you want to go and want company I can go with you and introduce you to some people."

Makoto Kino has posed:
He can see the recognition that clicks in her expression when he says his real name. "That was it! I do know you, Chiba-senpai. Not that we talked very much back then, but..."

She trails off, the relief of confirmation giving way to confusion. There's any number of questions in her eyes: what happened to him? Why did he go missing? Why can't he use his real name?

She doesn't ask any of these things. Looking down, she toys with the same snow pea without picking it up. "Sorry. Shields-senpai." Yeah, she kind of mangled that pronunciation.

Fortunately he offers a change of subject, and it's a welcome one. Makoto brightens up as she lifts her gaze from her food once more. "I heard about that," she confirms. "The guidance counselor teaches it, right? I've been meaning to see if I can still sign up. It's that or try and find a dojo near campus, and I'd rather save my pocket money if I can."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Everyone mangles it, it's terrible. It's just absolutely terrible. Mamoru doesn't go into any explanations of it, either. He is also terrible.

"It's great. I'm positive you can switch classes easily, especially for this one. With all the trouble that's been going on-- even more than the usual types to attack random people-- the school's pretty interested in making sure us students are able to get away in a hurry even if there's someone in the way," he says firmly. And then he eats his carrot!

His phone still does not buzz.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Right. Food. Lunch. Makoto finally gets around to putting the snow pea out of its misery, frowning a little as she chews and swallows.

"I'll go talk to the counselor tomorrow, then. And if I can sign up, I definitely won't say no to some company. It'll be good to meet more people, too. But--" She pauses a moment, her concerned frown deepening. "What's that about random people being attacked?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Well, my girlfriend's best friend gets attacked a lot," Darien says, one corner of his mouth turning down, "and we know it's not any kind of bad boyfriend or specific abuse going on, because she's Usagi-chan's roommate too, and they don't keep secrets from each other--"

That expression says they really don't keep secrets from each other.

"--but she's only one example. There've been a lot of rumors of things like people starting riots over stupid things, or getting poisoned by a bad batch of street food and then getting attacked afterwards... I only know the rumors, but Naru Osaka -- that's the one who keeps getting attacked -- could definitely tell you more. I'll introduce you if you haven't met yet. Kazuo Saitou knows more about it too, have you met him?"

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto sits up a little straighter at the first part of his explanation. It's the sort of posture that suggests that someone would be in trouble, if only Darien had a specific name to attach to whoever's been attacking his girlfriend's best friend.

No perpetrator is identified, though, and she settles back again, a little. "Rumors don't necessarily count for much," she temporizes, "but... I've actually met Osaka-san, once. I, um--" She ducks her head sheepishly. "I might have hit a girl who was trying to bully her. She seemed nice, not like--"

The thought derails abruptly when he drops that other name. Her eyes open wide, surprise chasing every other emotion off her face. "Kazuo... Saitou? He goes here, too? Wow."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Good for you! She is nice, and we're trying to get her trained to hit people, too," Darien says cheerfully. And then he blinks, and his hand, holding his chopsticks, lowers to the table. "You know him?"

Oh he looks terribly pleased. "Are you friends?" Oh he sounds eager. "He needs more frien--"

Abruptly he flushes red. "I mean--"

No there's really no way to recover from that one.

Makoto Kino has posed:
"I mean," Makoto flusters. "We kind of beat each other up one time? Like a year ago? I swear I don't get in that many fights, you're going to have completely the wrong impression of me--" She's running off at the mouth out of embarrassment. Catching herself, she very determinedly nips up a piece of sweet potato tempura and eats it in order to not be talking for a few seconds at least.

When her mouth is no longer full, she takes a deep breath and tries again. "I had no idea he went to Radiant Heart. What's with running into both of you like this?" Never mind that, strictly speaking, she hasn't 'run into' Kazuo here at RHA yet. "I don't know if I can say that we're friends or not, but... I'd like to be."

She's not asking about how red he's turned. Nope. Not asking at all.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The lack of calling attention to it does, in fact, make the red less red gradually, as it is wont to do. Mamoru breathes. He eats some more lunch and listens, and he smiles wryly, and he shakes his head in protest when Makoto says he'll get a wrong idea of her--

"I think it's great that you fight," he says honestly, face open, defenses down. He takes off his glasses and looks younger and brighter, somehow, which is weird because he wore glasses when he was younger. "I think it's awesome to be able to stand up for other people when they can't stand up for themselves."

Then he grins. "And that's really great too, that you want to be friends with him. He's just started doing the self-defense class, too. So is Usagi-- have you met her? Sometimes I think she knows everyone."

Makoto Kino has posed:
The answer is evident on her face even before she says anything. He'll be able to tell by the smile that forms involuntarily at the mention of Usagi's name. "Usagi Tsukino?" she asks. "Little, blonde, adorable?" The hand that isn't occupied with chopsticks goes up to gesture near her head, vaguely shaping the suggestion of a bun. "Yeah, we've met. Now that I think about it, I should've realized when you mentioned Osaka-san."

She's finally loosened up enough to remember that she's eating lunch, and actually takes another bite of her lunch. "With her and Saitou-kun both in the class, it must be a lot of fun."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Yes!" Little, blonde, adorable. "She's amazing. I l-ike how she... knows just what to say to make people feel welcome," says Darien, and now he's leaning an elbow on the table and propping his head up, just smiling. "And yeah, the class is really funny with the two of them in it. Honestly, most of the people that show up are nice. Or maybe they're just nice because Usagi-chan is there making sure of it."

This is Mamoru Chiba trying hard to be normal about Usagi Tsukino.

Makoto Kino has posed:
Makoto tries, and very much fails, to hide a grin. Aww. "We didn't talk all that long, but she definitely seemed like that kind of person. You're lucky to have such a cute girlfriend, Shields-senpai." No, it has not gotten any easier to say.

A good-natured little hum, another deliberate bite of her lunch, and then Makoto raises her eyebrows at him cheerfully. "She's lucky to have such a devoted boyfriend, too. I bet you two are really cute together~"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I am so lucky," says Darien fervently, and then-- he laughs. "No, I'm terrible. But she likes me anyway! And she otherwise has such good taste... anyway, please call me Darien-- or some shortening of it that doesn't make you want to scream. The name was not my idea."

He goes to pick up another piece of lunch (no daikon no daikon no daikon) and that is when his phone decides to do a little buzz-dance a centimeter across the table. He jumps a little, then puts down his food again and looks at the text on his screen, and he looks... considerably less convivial.

"Work call," he says apologetically, starting to pack up his lunch in a hurry. It doesn't take much effort, it was already in a to-go container on his tray, it just needs the lid on it. "Hopefully see you before self-defense class, but if not, meet me at the pavilion door ten minutes before, okay? Bye, Kino-san!"

With that, he leaves with his satchel over one shoulder, his lunch tray and bento in one hand, and his phone in the other, already calling someone and lifting the phone to his ear.