81/Birds Of A Feather

Birds Of A Feather
Date of Scene:	14 July 2023
Location:	Radiant Heart Academy
Synopsis:	Lana, Takashi, and Michiru attempt to enjoy a quiet lunch. Too bad the birds have something to say about that.
Cast of Characters:	Takashi Agera, Michiru Kaiou, Lana Voselle Miata

---

Takashi Agera has posed:
It's a sunny, warm afternoon back at Radiant Heart Academy. Lunchtime. Such a big school has multiple lunchrooms, and they're always chaotic and loud. As it happens, students who want peace and quiet - or just to be surrounded by slightly less people - do have a few options. One is to eat lunch on the grounds, under the trees. Another, even less often taken option is to hike up to the top of the stairs and out the heavy door that leads to the rooftop. Here there are a couple of benches, and those who have bentos or other portable lunches can likely attain a rare slice of peace and quiet on the busy campus.

And that's where Takashi Agera has found himself. His bento is on the bench next to him, though, and in his hand is a notebook that he's been carrying around for a few days now. He's trying to solve a particularly vexing problem with one of his magical tools, and not only are the school grounds full of prying eyes, most places are so loud he can hardly hear himself think.

But he doesn't need solitude so much as he just needs a little space and a change of place to think. So he's tapping the pencil in his hand idly against his glasses and looking up at the sky. Others who come up here looking for a little peace won't draw his ire, but rather his greeting, unless they are the loud and brash types.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Solitude is very much what Michiru Kaiou is looking for when she emerges from the heavy doors onto the roof top, her bento in hand. Her first week at Radiant Heart Academy has been full of awkward silences and extreme enthusiasm. Everyone is treating her so carefully because of the passing of her parents. It was all over the news just a few months ago, shipping magnate Masaru Kaiou and his wife Minato Kaiou were mysteriously lost when their private plane just disappeared, presumed crashed into the Philippine Sea. She is used to all of this, but it is taxing to endure, and so she came to the rooftop hoping to eat in peace.

But then here's Takashi. Well, if he doesn't bother her, she won't bother him. She walks over to sit down on the _other_ bench, and starts to open up her bento.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Loud and brash are not words which describe Lana Voselle Miata. Not out of henshin, anyways. The spiky brown haired lady walks through the door to the roof, with an open manga in her free hand. She's wearing a pair of reading glasses along with the fairly standard Radiant Heart uniform. It's well tailored, and there's a faint hint to the observant that there's a necklace hiding underneath it, but otherwise there's nothing special about it to make it stand out. She's not trying to grab attention right now.

    As she walks forward she occasionally glances up to see where she's going, but for the most part she's absorbed in her book. She's not hiding the cover, but most probably wouldn't recognize it anyways, and those who do would know it as fairly uninteresting and derivative. It's not even offensively bad, just not noteworthy.

    Upon looking up and seeing Takashi, she waves in his direction. She doesn't really so much sit as she does lean against a wall, lost in her book as if it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

    She's always been kinda like that, though. Always quiet, sticking to herself, and reading. Always reading.

Takashi Agera has posed:
Takashi looks up from his calculations for a moment, seeing first Alana, nose in a book, and waves back to her, quietly. He pauses at the book, surprised someone's putting that much effort in. He doesn't recognize the girl, maybe she's not in his grade? Not that he knows everyone in his grade, either. Stupidly big school that it is."Good book?" he asks her.

But the girl with the aqua hair, he does know a little bit better. At least, from gossip, and from one other place. "Oh, I bet you're the one everyone's going crazy about. I think I've seen you on an album, right?" He doesn't sound overly excited or dramatic like most people do. He commented on it like someone had just commented on Lana's book. That's all she gets, for the moment, rather than a group of people who are whispering all around her or excited requests to sign this or that or play or paint. Nor a cold shoulder for either of them, anyways.

Takashi puts his papers down and breaks into his own lunch bento. Above, a couple of birds with spotty plumage circle above. That is, until one of them interupts the calm suddenly, by flying down and trying to rob a peice of sashimi out of Michiru's bento!

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru foolishly looks up from her bento at the sound of Takashi's voice, leaving it completely unguarded. She doesn't immediately reply, instead seeming to just take him in for a moment. But she finally nods. "Yes, that's me," she says, her voice lofty and light as she smiles. Actually looking up, she sees Lana, and she's about to acknowledge the girl's presence when her lunch is suddenly being pillaged by the local wildlife.

"No! Bad bird!!" Michiru shrieks, not calm, lofty, or light in her tone. She smacks her hand at it, but the bird is already gone, its reward already eaten. The young woman looks down at the rest of what's in her box, which is absolutely plenty of food and then sighs. "I just can't catch a break," she murmurs, loud enough to have obviously said something, but not quite so loud as to actually be understood.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    "No," says Lana, nonchalantly before flipping a page. "Not even remotely. If it were the best shoujo manga in the world, the genre would likely not exist. If the main character makes another bad choice I might--" She pauses, rolls her eyes, shakes her head. "-- too late she just did." Yet, she is still reading it. Weird. Maybe she's the type who hatereads?

    The sudden motion of the bird does grab her attention. When she figures out she's not the target, she almost looks away, but then she notices Michiru. She's sure she's seen that face before. On the news somewhere. Unfortunate, but such painful tragedies are why--

    She loses her train of thought as a bird comes along to pilfer a piece Michiru's food. "Can't lower your guard for one second around here," she notes, loud enough to be heard. Then, thoughtfully, she looks up at the top of the wall she's leaning on, to see if any birds are planning to to harass her next.

    "At least the weather's nice."

Takashi Agera has posed:
Takashi tilts his head at Lana's explanation that the book she's reading is obnoxious on some levels to her, and smiles. "Well, sometimes I like things that are difficult, but usually there's a reward at the end. Maybe your reward is not having to read it any anymo-" and then comes the bird, and its theft is accomplished.

Takashi just blinks, as the bird gets away with some of Michiru's lunch and she wonders something. And Lana comments about lowering her guard.

"I've come up here before and seen those birds, but I've never had a problem with the birds eating my lunch." He said, blinking. "Maybe it just wanted to steal from a celebrity." he muses aloud. "Or chaos is just so used to being around you that even up here something had to happen."

The second bird slowly pulls its head back in when Lana looks up, caught. Takashi glares at it and puts the top back on his bento for now.

"Did one or both of you somehow upset the Bird Yakuza?" he asks, perking an eyebrow up.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru sends an icy glare up toward the other birds. But then she looks back down toward Lana and laughs lightly, bringing a hand up to brush some of her hair out of her face. "Apparently not!" She's all smiles again, but her hand rests across the top of her bento as she glances over toward Takashi and shakes her head. "I'm sure that bird simply has good taste and so naturally it stole from my lunch," she says and laughs lightly. "I really should not have been so careless."

She came up here to eat, and that bird is the only one that's had any of her lunch. But now, the minimum of polite conversation made, she turns her attention back to her meal in her lap, and picks another, identical piece of sashimi up to pop in her mouth. Mmm, that's the stuff. Really, she can't blame the bird at all. It's good sashimi.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana peers at the bird overhead, then closes her book, deciding after a moment not to risk it. It's not, after all, her book. Failing to return it in good shape might hinder her ability to take out a new one. She slips it safely into her book bag, then folds her hands behind her back.

    "It wasn't me," says Lana, on the topic of the Bird Yakuza. "At least, I don't think it was. Perhaps they are restless or hungry, or maybe the grounds are too noisy for them." She casts a suspicious eye at Michiru, as if bad blood between her and the Bird Yakuza is a real thing that could actually happen. That's... that's her idea of a joke, right? It has to be.

    "Maybe it picked up on the smell," she notes. Lana is the only one here without a bento, but with the way she seems uninfluenced by food, one might be tempted to think she's already eaten.

    Looking back at Takashi, she responds to an earlier statement. "To me, any information, even false or nonsensical, can have some value. Someone at some point felt like they had something important to say. Often, they are wrong, yet the fact remains that they said it." Her lips curl into a lopsided grin which seems more indifferent than friendly. "Or perhaps that's something that I tell myself to justify being overly stubborn about finishing what I've started."

Takashi Agera has posed:
Takashi sighs and looks at the other bird, still resting up there."I don't want to guard my bento for the entire lunch. Bird only has to get lucky once." He says, digging into his lunch with the chopsticks and throwing one of his own bits of food on the ground between himself and Lana, whereupon the bird scoops it up in its beak and flies off. "There, I suppose we've paid our tribute. No more birds, I think, so we can eat in peace."
    "Maybe every other time I've come up here somebody's already fed the darn things. Or, maybe someone started feeding them recently and they got used to it?" he asked aloud.
    It seems as though Michiru wants to eat her lunch now, and that's fair. Someone other than the bird should. But he has to respond to Lana. "I think you're being overly stubborn, yeah. People make all sorts of things that don't have value, and the world doesn't really gain or lose much by it. Take our friend here, the musician. Her playing the violin and me produces entirely different sounds. One of these two things has value because of its level of quality. I think it's a bad idea to ascribe value to something simply because it's said or done. Lots of humans have had bad ideas or bad acts that would be more valuable never having happened at all."

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
In the time it takes Takashi to sacrifice some food to the birds and opine about the intrinsic value of things, Michiru eats three more pieces of her lunch. In this moment she is _not_ the epitome of elegance and sophistication. In this moment she's a hungry teenager, her chopsticks moving so quickly between her box and her mouth. But, eventually, she must interject.

"The value of things is entirely subjective. Yes, my violin playing is superior to yours, but that doesn't mean yours is without value. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly," she says, looking up toward Takashi. There isn't a hint of condescension or meanness in her voice.

Turning to look at Lana, she adds, "If it were _me_, I'd have to finish it, or else I'd forever be wondering how the story continued from the point I stopped. I would finish it just to put it to rest in my mind."

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana glances over at Michiru as Takashi compares the sound of her music against her own, and she simply shrugs. "And yet, I'm sure I would find myself listening intently to both. Even if others would find yours unbearable by comparison. Besides, if there's something to learn from failure, it may still have value."

    She finds herself silently considering all of the things that have never been said or done. The futures cut off from the timeline like branches being pruned from a tree. The things that will never happen. Her mostly uncaring expression takes on slightly melancholy form, but only for a fleeting moment.

    The brown haired girl smiles, actually, at Michiru. The one might would a kindred spirit. "It's true. I might feel the same way. It's worse, even, when the story ends on a cliffhanger or doesn't finish at all. I make no apologies for my habits. I'm simply an addict for information, and info longs to be complete."

Takashi Agera has posed:
Takashi considers. "I'm surprised to hear you feel that way, Kaioh-san, given you've made your celebrity and fortunes partly on being a cut above the rest in your artistry, haven't you? On the value of things, which may be subjective, but I suspect many would rate yours above mine to the point where the other direction would be a rarity indeed. And you could have spent that time doing something poorly, but you wouldn't have what you do now, nor would you enjoy it as much, I believe."

"Now, finishing the book I understand, since the feeling of an unfinished... well, not just story but any unfinished project... that can nag at you like a tiny little gremlin. And I don't think you need to apologize so much as the answer can be that you feel the need to finish it so it doesn't nag at you, distract you. And certainly, really no need to apologize to me for following your own beliefs anyways. In the end that's all we can do right? Follow our own beliefs and dreams, and... feed our hungry stomachs." He said, before going to town on his bento like he only had a few moments left to eat them, a sudden and stark contrast just like Michiru's. Hungry teens were still hungry teens, magic and elegance or no.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
"Who cares what others think when there's joy in simply playing?" Michiru asks, after she finishes the last bite in her bento. The girl is a rather efficient eater. "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly because there is no other way to become good at it. Even I was once bad at playing violin," she says. She does not mention that she was three at the time. Everybody knows.

She puts the lid back on her bento, then, and rises up from her seat. She offers both Takashi and Lana a warm smile, dipping her head to both of them. "Thank you both for this," she says, gesturing with her free hand around the rooftop. "It was a pleasure to meet you both."

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    Lana subtly glances off to the side as Takashi says, 'feed our hungry stomachs'. Whatever that means to her, she doesn't explain.

    "Indeed, follow our dreams, and our desires. Perhaps even make things... better, in our own sight. If one dream dies, there's always another. The only one who can pursue your goals is you."

    Lana remains the odd one out on the bento situation. Surely she already ate. That must be it, because she doesn't seem to be in the least bit hungry.

    When Michiru gets up to leave, Lana bows slightly, perhaps a little overly polite. "Lana Miata," she offers, leaving out her middle name. "The pleasure was all mine. I'm sure we'll see you around."

Takashi Agera has posed:
"Ah, I know your name but I didn't give you mine. How terribly rude of me, my apologies. Takashi Agera. I'm actually in your grade but I think you're always too surrounded or too isolated for us to have interacted before. But I've started to take my lunches up here if you want to share a conversation - or share mostly-solitude, what little of it there is around here. Goes for both of you." he says to the two of them as the time for lunch mostly ends to give way to more classes. "Just try not to get seen heading up here, Kaiou-san, I'd hate to lose the solitude because you're being hunted by the junior paparazzi." he says with a smile. He boxes up his own bento and moves to head out on his own.

Michiru Kaiou has posed:
Michiru laughs lightly and gives her hair a little flip with her hand as she waves it almost dismissively. "I'm quite good at giving the paparazzi the slip," she says. "Perhaps I'll see you up here again," she says glancing first toward Takashi and then toward Lana. She gives them a little wave of her fingers, and then heads off toward the heavy doors. Back into the fray, as it were. Only one more day until the weekend.

Lana Voselle Miata has posed:
    "Until we meet again," says Lana before watching as the others two leave. Once she's alone, she pulls out her terribly mediocre manga and starts reading again. She walks towards the exit, seeming to dodge every obstacle despite apparently not even watching where she's going.

    Another pageflip. Open the door. Walk through. Unapproving noise. Another pageflip.