2075/Clubbed Over and Out

Clubbed Over and Out
Date of Scene:	16 November 2024
Location:	Radiant Heart Academy
Synopsis:	Every few weeks, the clubs at RHA decide to try recruiting, and this Saturday happens to be one of those days. Not every student wants to join a club though, and in a stroke of luck, Usagi, Takashi, Amy, Emi, and Mamoru end up finding each other. At least the taiyaki is on Takashi.
Cast of Characters:	Usagi Tsukino, Takashi Agera, Amanda Faust, Emi Hoshino, Mamoru Chiba

---

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
It's Saturday afternoon on campus, a number of clubs are recruiting, and Usagi Tsukino is studiously avoiding them all, especially the Supernatural Research Club. Ahh, who knew that going on a day trip with Kotono-chan would result in recruitment efforts! She was just having fun and hanging out with people.

Crumpling the Supernatural Research Club's flyer into a tight ball (with a vaguely guilty expression), she sighs, and tosses it at the nearest trashcan. Given that she is Usagi, it does not hit the nearest trashcan. In fact, it definitely bounces off someone's head, a fact she does not notice, because she's already ambling down the path.

"Ugh, do the clubs have to recruit people all the time like this? They all already have enough members to get funds, why bother?" She's grumbling to herself, of course, not meaning to speak to anyone.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    Takashi Agera is not interested in any clubs either - he's already got the science club, and the far more personal and important SCIENCE! club. Which doesn't prevent him from being the recipent of the refused club invitation via lobbed paper ball, which has bounced off of the trashcan and, frankly, quite high up to bop him on the head before bouncing off and continuing.

    "Hey! Girl-san, I'm not a trash can or your boyfriend, you know!" Then he pauses. He knows that hair. "Tsukino-san?" he asks. "Why are you throwing things at me?" There were a lot of reasons to do so, just none that she was fully aware of.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    "I mean." Amy, who just came around a corner, has her own share of gathered fliers. "I can see how, if you're really into a thing you'd be eager to find other people into the same thing. We didn't have an RPG club in my high school, and--" and in college they kept getting people asking if roleplaying club meant something else, but she doesn't relate that as she hears another voice, and looks over at Takashi. "Do... do people normally throw crumpled up paper at their boyfriends? Is that a thing? That seems weird."

    She's certainly seen him around before, but is bad with names, and is awkwardly trying to recall.

Emi Hoshino has posed:
Emi Hoshino had had a long night.

Waking up at noon with an abundance of soreness as a result, the teenager had decided to do what she does best. What, in fact, many teenagers seem to do best the world over: sleep. And sleep some more atop that.

Still, Saturdays are never exactly quiet and ultimately she was roused from bed by the abundance of other children who actually do sleep through the night properly. Eventually, she emerged from her room in with her Goth quotient dialed up to the max, fully decked out in an intensely modest, Gothic dress full of frills and appropriately done hair and makeup leaving her with the appropriate pallor.

The clubs and their recruiting are truly no business of her's, but she does find herself getting stuck with countless fliers as she pushes her way through the crowd, her expression becoming one of increasing strain at needing to get by so...

...many

...people.

And then, on her way to pass to the cafeteria, she hears a voice. A voice all too familiar to her ears now, and her eyes cut across the field of students to eyeball Amy. Ah. Yep. There she is.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
The sound of (admittedly righteous) indignation stops Usagi cold, and she turns around, already grimacing in apology - only to blink when she recognizes Takashi.

"Takashi-kun!" Yes, she is first naming and kun-ing him while he relegates her to last name and -san zone, that's her specialty. "Sorry about that, ahaha, I was aiming for the trashcan... I must have missed it, whoops!"

She bows quick, in apology, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck.

"Aaaand Amy-chan, yeah, I guess... but counterpoint, it's hardworking having to dodge all these recruiters every like, two weeks. Kotono-chan is so nice, do you know how hard it is to disappoint her all the time?"

She is pouting! Look at her pout. She's also looking appropriately warm, wrapped in an intensely ugly purple jacket with many, many pockets, forest green leggings, and a black mini-skirt.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Takashi Agera." he says to the redhead, by way of greeting. It's possible she's seen him at the Crown, or on school grounds. He's also taller than the norm, so it's possible she's seen the upperclassman's head popping up over a crowd of students. "I just figured somebody throwing stuff around would expect someone else to take care of it."

    He's in the boy's school uniform, though he's swapped the burnt orange accent for a different shade of blue, as he has like so many others taken advantage of Radiant Heart's openness on uniform colors to dodge the burnt-orange and navy blue mix of the school's usual uniform.

    "It's fine, Usagi-san." he says, switching to her first name but not quite going all the way to -chan. "It's been a while. Are you keeping my brother out of trouble?" he asks her, moving closer to the person he knows best. And well, Usagi's just kind of radiating that weird aura of comfortable. "Who would have guessed when we let you guys get stuck having that dinner together, it was going to work so well. I thought his other friends were just messing with him. Still hillarious though."

    Takashi's escaped with very few flyers, himself, like perhaps some people find the tall silver haired boy a little bit not worth the effort.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Takashi? She doesn't think she's heard that name much...

    She nods to Usagi, also looking guilty. "Yeah, but..." She rubs the back of her head. "I'm busy. I'm in two clubs and read manga and have my part-time job at the hotel... And you're busy too. I just can't really do more clubs..."

    Red shirt. Under black hoodie. And her school skirt. And black leggings. She must've gotten the hoodie and leggings recently.

    "Agera-san! Well, nice to meet you, I'm Amy Faust... I'm American, so I don'tr mind going by Amy, but Faust-san is fine too. And ahh, that makes sense. Not throwing it at someone but for them to throw away. Well, it makes more sense, anyway."

    She quirks an eyebrow and looks between them at their use of friendly names. "Oh, are you friends? Brother?"

Emi Hoshino has posed:
For her part, Emi makes no effort to butt into the conversation. She's not that sort of girl, and frankly, it would be incredibly rude to just jump in!

Of course, Emi has *also* made a colossal error.

She has stopped moving. Never stop moving, Emi. That's how they get you. Putting her hands up in a warding, apologetic gesture of 'no' to the first to approach her, allows the second to begin nattering in her ear and sticking a flier in her hand.

Emi's heterochromatic eyes begin to have the look of a captured wild animal in them that knows that the net is closing rapidly and that their ability to escape will soon be permanentlycompromised.

Slouching, she puts on an air of defiant insouciance and begins to back away, waving her hands with a carefully cultivated teenage indifference.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"...-ule, I don't have time for clubs," Mamoru's telling a recruiter as he tries to join the group, holding his hands up as a stay against the very suggestion. Tries. He ends up walking backwards. "You have no idea how complicated my schedule is!" he finishes with a laugh--

--right as he backs into Emi, very close to but behind Takashi-- everyone's got a pretty great view of the near-catastrophe as someone of a normal height backs into someone as tall as a lamp-pose who's also backing up.

"Oh sh-- sorry-- sorry!" Mamoru says, mildly offbalance and taken a step forward again, and then he spins in alarm, ready to lunge for Emi if someone else didn't soak her momentum.

He's not in uniform, he's in a black Babymetal t-shirt and his black leather jacket, jeans, and expensive dress shoes. His glasses are smudgy but his hair is perfect.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Thanks for forgiving me!" She claps her hands cheerfully and bows, as though she were visiting a shrine, then pops up, smiling brightly. She doesn't mind Takashi moving closer, not when it's obvious he and Amy don't know each other.

"Amy-chan, Takashi-kun is Mamochan's brother," Usagi says cheerfully, like it's obvious, as though Mamoru weren't dark-haired with deep blue eyes while Takashi has long silver hair and bright green eyes. "So he's my future brother-in-law! And ages ago, he, Koji-kun, Chiyo-chan, and Naru-chan ditched me and Darikun together for a fake study night. It... kinda helped break the ice a bit, because Darikun and I had had a bad first... couple... of meetings."

It's funny to think about it now, how frustrated she'd been with the handsome boy who kept snatching things out from under her hands.

"Honestly, that disappointment is why clubs should only be able to recruit once per term! I don't have time for clubs, I have a fiancé and a girlfriend and I stream and read manga. That's so much life to live. The Supernatural Research Club can do withou- oh, dang, they're swarming on that girl huh?"

That girl, of course, is Emi, who was just bumped into by -

"Mamochan! We were just talking about you!" Wow, how did she get right next to him that fast, linking her arm with his?

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "We adopted each other as brothers." Takashi clarifies, before Amy can try and figure out how the two 'brothers' are related. "Orphanage things. Still, he's family. Which makes her family." he says, pointing to Usagi.

    And then speaking of Mamoru, his tall brother backs into a small girl and while Usagi's over there with Mamoru at light speed, Takashi moves over smoothly to make sure the girl Mamoru backed into didn't hit the ground, with one hand. Very easily. Just to make sure.

    "So that's a no on keeping Mamoru out of trouble." he says as his way of greeting his brother and continuing the conversation. "You okay?" he asks Emi.

    Then finally he turns back to Amy. "Good to meet you too, Faust-san. I can't call you just Amy because that indicates a level of familiarity or disrespect that I lack for you in both cases. Nothing personal, just if I start getting lazy about it I'll start calling someone random by just their personal name and then it's chaos all the way down." he says.

    Someone comes over to give him a flyer and he crumples it up and throws it in their face, which is a slightly rude act for the otherwise polite and upstanding boy - but sometimes it does leak out. He doesn't say no, that is implied.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    Chiba-san's brother? Amy's eyes widen a bit. And then remembers... Oh right. The orphanage. She remembers just before he says it, and nods. And it's also revealed that: "They set you two up? Damn, I guess that sure worked out, huh? Well, if you're friends and family with all them, you can be friends with me too!" She smiles and offers a handshake as he talks about familiarity, and nods at the potential chaos.

    As for clubs... "I guess we could join manga club for all the manga reading, but... do we both have very specific tastes...?"

    And then she sees

    a collision with Emi

    and winces, and takes a step that direction and reaches her hand out towards Emi, and Agera-san is there. Phew.

    "Hi again, Hoshino-chan. They're starting to seem a bit like sharks, huh...?"

Emi Hoshino has posed:
"GWAH."

Emi's carefully calculated indifference goes out the window, onto the street, and gets run down by apparently a very tall person.

Having whipped around to face him, she stops dead to stare up at this, what must be to her, a mountain of what she presumes is a fellow student and the girl attaching herself to his arm like a climber whose safety rope just broke. Either way, she almost came out of her boots.

"Gnuh?!" She stares up at him a moment, mismatched eyes entirely wide before she places a hand to the back of her neck and carefully -- very carefully -- takes one step back.

"I -- I --- yeah. Fine. I'm fine," she croaks out, her contralto managing a bit of a squeak all the same. Throat clear.

"Yeah, I'm good. We're tall. I mean cool." HE'S SO TALL.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Takashi-kun!" Mamoru seems flustered, glancing to Emi even as Usagi links her arm with his; he at least also seems genuinely delighted to see Takashi, and to hear the talk of them being brothers. It's a relief, it's a relieving thing to hear after the skirmish at the escort mission.

He hugs Usagi's arm to his side and looks down at her, and then up again, and he says, "Amy-san-- you can call me Mamoru-kun. I have to text you about karaoke later." He's specific about which honorific she can use for him since Takashi's explaining his reasoning.

Then he covers his mouth with his free hand as Takashi throws a wadded-up flier in the hander-outer's face and stifles a laugh. Nooo. Rude. He cough-laughs and shakes his head, then looks apologetically at Emi. "Sorry. I don't think we've met," he says, then bows slightly (still linked with Usagi's arm) and introduces himself, "Mamoru Chiba, eleventh grade here. I'm about to start lying to every recruiter that I'm in a different club."

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Oh, no, Chiyo-chan invited me to manga club once. I don't want to join a club. It's good that people are in clubs and stuff, but I'm good."

That's what was said before Usagi practically teleported over to Mamoru's side the second he was interacting with another pretty girl.

"He is tall," Usagi says, cheerful, the fingers of one hand wrapped around Mamoru's arm with casual possessiveness I mean protectiveness. She smiles at Emi with genuine welcome. "Usagi Tsukino, grade 10! It looks like we're all in the same boat of avoiding the recruiters. I never remember when the clubs are doing this whole, thing, and walking this way is the only way to reach the taiyaki stands."

Woe is her, that she must endure this.

Takashi Agera has posed:
    "Plenty of students with time for clubs, but I've already got work that takes up a lot of time." Takashi says, as a sort of 'that's why I threw it at him' answer. "We should just pretend like we're already in the 'shut up and go away' club together, though." he says. "Also, Mamoru-kun, have you noticed Usagi-san seems as though she's afraid you'll dry up and blow away like a fall leaf?" he teases.

    "Come on, let's fight through these jokers and go get that tako. I'll buy for everyone who makes it through with us!" he announces. "... should we like, shift the girls to the inside, Mamoru-kun, before they get weighed down by flyers and we have to fight them off like they're heynas or something?" he says, sounding quite serious. "Oh, or sharks, that's a good one too Faust-san." he says.

Amanda Faust has posed:
    We're tall. I mean cool. Amy observes Emi being kind of adorably flustered. Like a lead in one of her mangas having a 'since when is <my childhood friend / any guy> so tall and reliable?' realization. Although Chiba-san would seem tall to anyone.

    And then Chiba-san, no, Mamoru-kun says he sees her as a close enough friend to be more familiar, and she's pleasantly surprised, and smiles at that and the thought of the karaoke get together. Yeah that's gonna be really neat... "You can call me Amy-chan, then!"

    She doesn't butt in further with the conversation with Emi, not sure what to say about the delinquent goth anyway, although she does wonder: "Are you in any club?" Although if Usagi's not, and he's got his building to manage on top of that... "I guess probably not, huh..."

    He is tall. Even oblivious Amy can pick up on Usagi's possessiveness. Now the lead has accidentally stumbled into feminine jealousy over an accident, which they're absolutely unprepared to parse and recognize let alone deal with, leading to further-- no, this isn't one of Amy's manga, and Emi, a sukeban like Emi has surely dealt with social stuff plenty. It'll be fine.

    Instead of thinking about that further, Amy sort of cocks her head to the side at Agera-san's expression. "A... leaf? But... he's not dried up or likely to blow away at all..."

    She blinks. And then smiles at Usagi and Mamoru. "Hey, since I'm in some clubs, I could text you and warn you next time recruiting season comes! An' we could like, all go do some avoid-the-clubs social activity together!"

Emi Hoshino has posed:
The words left Emi's mouth and she was already cringing at them. She is, by the look of her, painfully aware of this as well. She's about to say no, that she's got it, that she's cool, and ready to start moving on, but then the images of ravenous club-member-seekers fills her mind's eye, grasping fingers piercing sticky-paper fliers as they moan 'joiiiin uuuuuuus'.

"Yeah, sure. I'll go," she says after a moment's hesitation.

"Emi," she adds, eyeballing Amy. This is her fault. Somehow.

Usagi Tsukino has posed:
"Mamochan isn't dried up like a leaf," Usagi agrees with a little huff, "But I'm cold and he's keeping me warm, so nyah!"

She sticks her tongue out. She's still wearing that hideous but very obviously warm jacket. It is incredibly obvious to everyone that he is not keeping her warm.

"That said, I would with almost anything for free taiyaki, so let's go! Here, Amy-chan, you get behind Takashi-kun, Emi-chan can get behind you, and I'll get in front of Mamochan." That way, we accept these two tall-things' brave offer to protect us."

Her smile is bright, as she lightly tugs people to order, getting everyone in line. Before long, they're making it through the long row of club stalls and students, with Takashi and Usagi teaming up to callously throw away flyers to make their point and Mamoru telling blatant lies, they make it to the gates of the school, and the carts of taiyaki salesmen outside of them.

The taiyaki salesmen are used to students flocking hungrily, and before long, the five of them are companionably enjoying a snack, and their freedom from club obligations.

It's a pretty good way to spend a Saturday, honestly.