969/Flood

Flood
Date of Scene:	27 December 2023
Location:	Dorms #2
Synopsis:	Koji and Mamoru come back to their dorm to find it exactly one-half flooded. Mamoru's half.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Koji Silvia

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Winter Break has started, classes are over until the sixth, and people's New Year's celebrations have already begun -- and this is not a celebration.

They were both out for the day, Koji and Mamoru, and the bakeneko's been hanging out in their room again, mostly sleeping on Mamoru's bed. They're definitely coming back from lunch, it's maybe 2 in the afternoon, and it looks like someone spilled something on the floor by the door to their room.

Mamoru, whose hair is short now, short back and sides and floofy on top, and who is decidedly not carrying around any dark energy at all anymore, makes a 'tch' sound and scowls. "I'll get a towel," he says, and opens the door to the room--

--only to get a VERY ANGRY WET DEMON CAT TO THE FACE. She's going 'FFT FFFFFT FFT FFFFFFFT' and scratching and Mamoru pinwheels back and thuds against the opposite wall, and a half second later he's holding his face as the bakeneko rockets down the hall.

His muffled voice, "Why was she a wet cat."

There are definitely scratches on his hands too, but there's a dim gold glow just sort of... happening...

Meanwhile, in the room itself, everything looks all right at first glance-- except that it looks like Mamoru's half of the rug is much darker and a step inside will squish. Thereafter, there was apparently sheeting rain on Mamoru's side of the window, electronic things glisten, paper things are wrinkled and translucent...

...the comforter on his bed is dripping.

Koji Silvia has posed:
There's a moment of curiosity mixed with dread when the bakeneko comes barreling out of the room, crashes into Mamoru like a clawing hissing terror of flying fur and attitude, and then proceeds to scamper down the hallway in the manner of all felines everywhere when things are 'not right' and they do not want to be involved or blamed for it.

As he watches that tail whipcrack around the corner towards the stairs, complete with a little puff of floof that floats gently to the ground he mutters out, "She's usually not THAT bothered to get out on her own... it's not like she can't use the do-"

And then he stops...

And he looks...

And then steps inside to the point that when he stands in the doorway that his left foot squishes on the completely soaked carpet, while his own boot just settles easily on the carpeting on the right.

tilting his head, he just sways back and forth with the *squish* *squish* *squish* of the alternating pressure. After a couple seconds, he steps back out into the hallway, and says to his taller and much cleaner friend, "I don't know about you Mamoru-san... but... I'm not sure if I should be horrified or impressed. However..." Speaking as he adjusts his glasses, "I am very glad I moved all our electronics to my parent's place. Really..."

He looks once more...

"REALLY glad."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Why," asks Mamoru with this icy ball of dread settling in his stomach, hands dropping from his face, bloodied scratches smeared but healed for the most part. "I have to wash my face, it's gonna be weltssssoooohhhhh the hell..."

He has in fact come to the door, and just looks down. And then up. His gaze lingers on the bed, then on the cat-shaped wet well of leftover anger on Koji's otherwise perfectly dry side of the room. He just... looks, for a long moment.

"I'm glad too. I... I'm going to blame Adrien and Chrono until the joke's not funny anymore," he decides, and then backs away again to take off his shoes and socks, and roll up his jeans a few times. Only then does he step into the room, squish thump squish thump thum thump to the bathroom so he can wash his face. "Can I put my coat and stuff on your desk for now? I don't... I don't know oh gods this is awful, what am I gonna do?"

Despair is a rare sound in Mamoru's voice. Even the Dark Kingdom didn't make him despair.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Blowing out a breath, Koji tilts his head and considers this whole scenario for a moment, and then he just nods, "Here..."

Walking over to his side of the room, he takes his name-plate off his desk and puts it into his backpack, then leans over far enough to swipe the one off of your side and slips it into place, "Until this whole... whatever... this is... is cleaned up, you can consider my side of the room yours. I'll just sleep at home until Winter Break is over, and then I figure it should be all done by then."

Patting his/your desk a couple times, he nods and seems to think that that settles all of it, "What you're gonna do, Mamoru... is spend every moment you can NOT here while the school cleans this mess up."

Again he looks at the clear delineation of things, and then adds, "Maybe talk to Miss Inai about this. I'll bet she can get it taken care of..."

Clapping his hands together, partly to give a small prayer to the gods to fix this mess for his friend, and partly to break the tension of the poor guy he adds, "Would you like your Christmas present, Mamoru? I was going to put it on your bed... but the bakeneko would've torn the paper and played with it."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I'm-- we should both-- not be here. All my stuff though, I have to get out the stuff that, I mean, my laptop and tablet weren't plugged in, if I just take out the battery on the laptop and let it dry out," Mamoru says through the wet washcloth, getting cat-scratch-blood off his face and hands, then doing his best to heal the welts that are, because of his poor planning, forming anyway.

"And my clothes, I have to do laundry, my sneakers... and... I don't think either of us should stay here while it gets cleaned up, this is... Koji how? How could someone even do this so precisely? I mean obviously magic, but what kind of magic??"

He rinses out the washcloth and wrings it out, then tosses it in the laundry hamper in the bathroom, then comes back out and puts his coat and his phone on Koji's desk, and he hugs his arms around himself for a moment, watching the water drip from bed to squelchy carpet wordlessly. He glances back to Koji and brightens a little. And then looks dismayed. "I got you a new year's present but guaranteed it melted if the closet got flooded too. It's fine. It's fine! I'll get new. Dammit... I mean. Yes. I'd love it!"

He looks forlornly at the lumps to either side of his pillow under the sodden comforter. And then he looks at the closet in alarm. "Oh, no, my box, the box of my-- I had-- it's a cardboard box what was I thinking--"

And he squishes across to the closet and opens up the doors and yes, his clothes are in a heap at the bottom, and maybe five inches of water pour out with some papers, and he looks at the top of the closet and there is a very wet cardboard box.

He slowly shuts the doors. And turns around. "I like presents..." he says despondently.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Taking a breath, Koji comes up behind Mamoru and puts a hand on his shoulder, then says in that soft and assuring tone he uses, "Between all the friends you have, including me, I am sure we can find a way to fix this... I think you forget..."

And he switches to being a bit more of his old self, "I'm a nosy jerk who was cleaning the room of dark energy as best I could every night you were out late. Sometimes Hanzo had to go into some daaaank corners to get the worst of the stuff."

Patting once more, he goes over to his closet and opens it up, seeing the odd juxtaposition of just how... perfect... the separation of spaces is, but he takes down a moderately sized box with proper wide ribbon and wrapping paper... the perfect bakeneko bait... he moves over and puts it on his/your bed.

Stepping back he smiles and then nods, "Go ahead and open it. And you can also borrow my winter tracksuit from my closet and the winter socks tonight. You're only a little taller than me but it'll work for a temporary thing."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Before unwrapping the present, Mamoru does something he never did when full of jerk energy-- he warns, "I'm gonna hug you," and provided Koji doesn't duck away or look uncomfortable or otherwise stop him, he does, and it's a good tight hug, warm and self-assured and lacking any bro-claps.

"Thank you," he whispers, "for literally everything you keep doing for me."

And then he's stepping back and looking a little overbright around the eyes, and he moves over to the bed to sit down on the edge and take the present into his lap. Then he unwraps it carefully -- as carefully as if he's planning to re-use the wrapping paper and ribbon -- and blinks at the contents. And then his face is wreathed in smiles, because look, his real name is on it--!

"I've never had a bento box this big! Or nice! Thank you!"

Koji Silvia has posed:
He laughs at the hug, laughs a bit, and then reaches up and under to pat Mamoru's back gently a few times in return.

Once the present is unwrapped, he nods once and ends up sitting on the edge of his desk while you get a chance to undog it all and look everything over, "Wellllllll..." He starts, letting the word stretch out a bit, "I wasn't just thinking of you with this too. I figured... it's big enough for lunch for two if you use all three layers. You can thank my dad for the engraving. Apparently having a ton of vagrant jobs over the years build you up a big pile of phone numbers. So... now you can plan to take Usagi out for a lunch every so often. Or make sure when she finds you eating and raids your meal, you've got a spare!"

He winks and brushes his heels on the carpet on the dry side, "Oh yeah... when you were off doing your thing, I had to handle some stuff too. Hanzo was broken and was kinda... dying... but thanks to Hannah's help I got him back to where he was supposed to be. I won't be able to do teleport anymore and I don't make flying knives appear... but I've still got magic. So I guess the new year is a new start for both of us."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There is definitely unstacking going on. And unpacking and laying out pieces in order on the bed, and Mamoru is grinning; who doesn't like a stackable thing that fits together? That you can put food in.

"The spare definitely works-- she'll have eaten her lunch already and still be hungry," he says with a laugh, carefully putting the parts back together again.

And he listens to Koji, then -- at 'doing your thing' he rolls his eyes briefly, but it's not mean -- and then his eyes widen. "Dying? Kuso-- Koji-kun that's awful! I'm so glad Hannah could help you-- gods, I... I'm glad she could help, because as much as I would have wanted to, I wouldn't have had the first idea what to do."

After folding up the wrapping paper, too, he lays his hands overtop the box with his name engraved on it and looks at Koji. "I'm still figuring out what I can do. A lot less, obviously, but-- I can finally heal again, and that's-- that's such a relief. If you get hurt, you have to let me help you!"

Koji Silvia has posed:
Taking out what looks like a newer model folding cellphone, one of the ones that does it with the screen without leaving a seam, Koji holds it up and lets you see the teal gemstone in it that was in his old smartwatch, "Say hello, Hanzo."

Flipping it open, words scroll across it like a marquee, <<Hello, Mamoru Chiba. It is good to meet you.>>

With the same newly practiced motion, he closes it up, and just keeps it in his hand, "Of course I'll let you help me, you big goofball. I still feel like I wasn't there to help YOU! And I don't even know half of what went down... and the stuff that's STILL happening. I've been just trying to get back to something close to where I was too. So how about... we watch out for each other, okay?"

He chuckles, just a little, "Let me tell you this. Movie nights for us will be killer... Hanzo can project them like we're at a theater, and the sounds are just... astounding. Better than any projector you can buy!"

<<This is my life now. -_-;>>

Those words appearing in the air before you.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"It's good to re-meet you, Hanzo," says Mamoru, and he may be blinking a little fast, but he should be forgiven -- it's a very emotional situation he's in, with his side of the room like it is, while swimming through the vast relief of not being full of dark energy anymore and all his Shitennou freed, while knowing, finally, all of who he is, and while being shown the real name he grew up with right on Hanzo's screen.

He looks back at Koji and smiles, and it's a slow-blooming thing that's full of affection. "You always helped me. I'm glad you weren't there to see the mess, it's kind of embarrassing in retrospect. I got played and you would have had to have been in on it, it was truly necessary."

He puts the bento box down on the bed and leans way over to very lightly punch Koji's shoulder, still smiling like that. "We'll look out for each other, all right. And you should meet all my other friends now that it's safe, now that they're safe. And probably also work with Kazuo on keeping me out of trouble, I hear team-ups are all the rage."

Then it's just a grin at Hanzo's words in the air. "It can't be too bad, Hanzo!" A beat. "I mean unless you hate movies."

Koji Silvia has posed:
Once more, the words float in the air: <<Due to lost or corrupted memory sectors, Earth culture and media is a proper touchstone. Especially to understand Master and his friends.>>

Koji then decides enough is enough, and slips the phone back into his pocket, and pats it a couple times, following it up with a half-hearted rub at his shoulder where he was bro-tapped and then does a false punch to the Mamoru's stomach. Just a touch really as he moves to get up and off to the desktop for his friend and roommate, "In 5 days it's a new year. So let's put Darien and my sneaking around behind your back behind us both. We're both kinda out of secrets we know we have, anyways. If any more come up, they'll be ones we DIDN'T know about and can't blame each other for."

Turning, he goes towards the door, stopping just long enough to look over his shoulder, "I can't wait to make the first ramen batch for the new year. I'm gonna grab some new stuff, and we can even make it a party for friends like we did in the woods. What do you think?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I think that's a great idea," says Mamoru after over-exaggeratedly miming getting punched in the stomach and 'oof'ing, "but maybe after we find out who so precisely magically flooded half the room. Wouldn't want it to happen again with the electronics in."

"As for the new year and secrets-- hey did you know my name's also Endymion, Crown Prince of the lost Kingdom of Earth?" Now that's a shiteating grin.

He may not be Darien anymore, but there are some things that absolutely haven't changed.

Koji Silvia has posed:
Koji cannot really help himself, "You know there's a Burger King along the rail station between here and downtown Tokyo, right? Keep talking like that and I'm going to bring you back 99 paper crowns and decorate the room with them for your auspicious coronation, Your Majesty."

He sweeps a badly done european-style bow, and then starts chuckling.

"Oh, yeah... I'm half alien. My mother is from the same place as Chrono. So... I'm JUST as weird."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Well! I'd welcome you to my kingdom but it's been gone for like fourteen thousand years," snorts Mamoru, standing up, "and besides, you were born here. But I'll definitely take a Burger King crown. Not 99 of them though, I only have one head."

Then he steps over into squish-land and sighs at the dripping mess, then smiles up at the boy hovering in the doorway. "Don't worry, I won't spend too much time in here. But I'm definitely going to do some laundry. I'll see you later, Koji-kun."