Scene #8912: A Cat's Desire - An Elephant's Wish

Owner	Pose
BB	TOKYO, Early Afternoon... Not too far away from where Neon performs her morning escape routine stream is a delightful park, the mid-late spring air filled with the loud report of summer's cicadas. The buzz of summer will only increase in volume, but for now spring brings bright skies and lovely atmosphere for a day eating out. On a stone-edged and metal railed bluff overlooking a small copse of trees, the rise in the park-garden path serves as the highest loop on a small hill, secluded in the center of a city. There, bench seats allow people to take a rest and look out over the hill, and a few square stone picnic tables have been set out. At one of them, in tan tank top and blue jeans, is Jinako. She wears her hair in a red scrunchie controlled ponytail, and her messy bangs are unrestrained by a little red bow-tie accessory. Her large-framed glasses droop down her nose as she manages two phones, one in either hand, with flicking thumbs. In front of her, on the stone table, is a greasy brown paper bag, and besides a pressed paperpulp holder in grey crimped around two colorful and well-topped parfaits. With her shoulderbag collapsed into her lap, Jinako mutters into her more bulky and spider-like 'phone'. "Okay, I've got the falafel. I think you know... the park I'm at? I'm pretty good at Geoguesser. Need a pin?" She provides any further locational data needed to guide Neon to... ... Well it's not that far from her house.
Desire Stars	A woman in a lavender square-neck short-sleeve blouse and a bold yellow skirt approaches. Her shoulder-length brown hair is accentuated with a hairband matching her blouse, allowing her wavy locks to frame her slightly round face and her bangs to emphasize her brown eyes nicely. It's Neon! She didn't end up needing the pin, though she'd been courteous enough to say so rather than keep Jinako on read. "Hi, Jinako!" she says, with a little wave. "I love that bow," she remarks, taking a seat opposite the geoguesser pro. "It goes really well with your glasses." She pauses, then, sniffing the air indulgently. "You must know a good place for that," she says. "It smells great. I haven't had falafel in so long..." she utters dreamily. "Thank you," she declares, bringing herself back down to earth, "For answering my questions the other day. And especially for the advice."
BB	On the checkered picnic table - black and white, set for chess - Jinako looks up from hunched over looking at her phones to Neon and grins with a dopey turned-up look, soft cheeked and pleased, almost-smug but eroded by simple enjoyment. 'I love that bow.' Jinako's Spider Phone wielding hand sets down the thick phone to bring her hand back to touch the hair bow, her grin widening and turning pink with a bashful flush. "O-oh! Um," Her chin turns down, and her eyes drop to her busying hands with the food. "Thanks." She admits-into-vocalization, audibly unused to physical compliments especially from exceptionally radiant young idols. "I think it goes with my glasses, too." She continues, pulling out paper plates and little containers of sauce, loading up Neon with three pieces of steaming-fresh Naan and a half-dozen falafel balls overflowing slightly the confines of her plate, portioning the other 'half' for herself. "I know a bunch of good places for it, mmhmm!" She explains while portioning. "Most of them I just find by following my nose, because the trunk knows!" She jokes, tinted a little awkwardly by the repeated thanks. Drawing her hands back, Jinako back-of-wrists her glasses up her nose. "The advice? Oh..." Tracking away, Jinako's eyes linger on the grease stains of a bag, easier than any real person's too-intense eyes. "I wish someone had put a tutorial or two for me, looking back. The first few steps are too hard. There's so much in the way that..." Jinako pauses, sighs hard, and tracks her eyes guiltily to Neon across bags and fragrant steams that fog glasses and wreathe senses. "Well, even I thought it was a little much." Jinako suggests with that guilty-on-another's-behalf half-smile.
Desire Stars	I wish someone had put a tutorial or two for me, looking back. Neon tears into a piece of naan almost right away. "Mmh... even better than I remember," she emphasizes between bites. "I'm glad it's still warm. That's how it's best, you know? When it's still steaming, and has that... fluffiness." She pauses, then, enjoying it quietly, before wrapping a falafel ball up in the otherwise-intact bit of naan and tearing into that. After a few bites in blissful silence, she then speaks up about 'tutorials.' "What do you mean by that?" she asks. "'Tutorial.' Something in-depth? More than just pictures and words? Maybe I could get behind something like that," she muses, drumming her fingers on the table. "And maybe not. I guess it all depends on how... overbearing it is. I've had my fill of 'overbearing.' Is it bad, to want to make some of my own mistakes along the way? To want... the freedom to decide when I reach out for help and when I stumble through it myself? I'm sure I'm going to be doing a lot of reaching out, a lot of asking, at first. But... for me, being able to do something myself, even if it means messing something up, is important, every once in a while."
BB	Jinako can appreciate a good appetite for excellent food, and offerings ease and appease the humors and feelings. After her admittance of her own personal feelings, she switches to eating in earnest. Loosely holding a piece of naan in one palm, Jinako places two falafel balls in the bread and rolls, drizzling from one of the sauces to complete her simple wrap and biting down with a knowing eagerness. It really is good fresh, her agreement in nasal noises and happy snarfling and 'mmhmm mmhmm's as they eat. When she does speak - around bites, between swallows - it's further warm agreement. "Falafel is one of those best-fresh foods that becomes just awful in the air, but ah, what blessings air fryers are when you get home." When the conversation shifts to tutorials, she listens while sucking a bit of sauce off of her fingers that rolled down her knuckle. "Tutorial?" She repeats, having thought it obvious but having difficulty on re-examination. "... The belts, the cores, they don't show you how they work. They might make sense, but that was a real fight that I went to. Until that Shadow Servant showed up, Fuyuki was probably safer than the Jyamar Area that formed. There was at least a half-dozen Riders, and whole blocks to fight over. That's a war, Neon, and you didn't..." Jinako pauses, sitting back on her hard stone seat and searching the empty park bluff sitting area, before leaning forward again anyway, hushed. "You have the will of a fighter, I can tell," Her eyes take on a squint of concern. "-but self-defense classes aren't the right tutorial for a wishing-war."
Desire Stars	That's a war, Neon, and you didn't... From the moment Jinako starts talking about the ins and outs of being a Rider, Neon's confused, blank expression only seems to grow louder in its silently spoken puzzlement. "Oh," she says, at the last part. "You meant... that." "No, I agree with you there. I thought you were talking about... something else," she says, hiding momentarily pinkening cheeks behind a hearty bite of naan-and-falafel. "Besides just what I was taught there, I've been asking for help from the people on this other world. The kind of world that you'd--well, that I'd expect wizards to be running around in. There's war, there, too." "That's not the kind of place, the kind of environment, that you want to learn in by making mistakes. The other night, when you were talking about dancing, I thought you meant..." she pauses, lowering her food. "You know."
BB	Jinako had called Neon here to talk about wars, and is instead surprise assaulted by the idea that they were talking about-- --"w-w-w-w-what did you think we were talking about?" Nervously toots the taken-aback Jinako, rapidly recalculating mind no match for the huh-what disasterpiece of her aura of lightly smug-assured intelligence. "D-did you mean for your wish?" No. Perhaps, not precisely. Or yes, perhaps emphatically. Jinako's expression is no more composed for a few moments to breathe and think, and another round of biting down and chewing on falafel doesn't bring her back down. 'I thought you meant... You know.' Jinako's eyes hide behind the glare in her glasses and the downturn of her head. "No." She murmurs, fingers picking a bit of fried ball off of the plate where it had been knocked off and squeezing between index and thumbfinger for a moment, waiting, distracted, dithering pointlessly. "I'm not that much more... exp-perienced than you." Stammering a bit. "I just knew you danced on your stream? I-it's a kind of strategy," Her eyes droop further, her bangs occluding the softness of her face and the peek of the top of her frames. "... starting with something you know will get the other person to say 'yes'. People like saying yes. So... I knew the metaphor would work, when you were ready to hear it."
Desire Stars	I'm not that much more... exp-perienced than you. "You could have fooled me," Neon notes softly. "I thought... that was what the whole thing was about, after you brought up your... 'weapon.'" She smiles, in spite of the embarrassment, scooping up another falafel ball. "Well," she says between bites, "Even if it wasn't advice that you meant to give, or knew you were giving, necessarily, I think it helped." Neon nods. "I know that technically we're competing against each other. And I'm going to fight for my wish as hard as I can. But if I do that, and end up losing to you, that wouldn't be so bad, I think."
BB	Jinako continues her oddly uncomfortable state of flusterment when Neon presses, not able to deflect the meaning. "No, I--" Jinako's chin lifts, breath puffing, but she can't even get back to looking at Neon fully before she loses steam. Because she's kind of right. It wasn't 'why' she brought up her experience, but... She had basically said she was more experienced, right? In love, in-- "--agggh! I'm such an idiot." Mutters a dejected, headshaking Jinako, sitting back and looking up at the sky as if to invoke someone, but... mostly just gazing into her bangs. "If the parfait will buy me a second try, I can explain." Jinako grumbles, reaching over to pull the bag and napkins away from the sweet cream parfaits still getting warm in the paper carrier and spring air. "It's not like - that - like - that." Rolling her attention forward, and slouching a little, Jinako takes a deep breath and blinks her eyes open. "I told you I fought in a wizard war, before. Not Fuyuki's, um... One online. Like one of those popular manga characters, but," Much more pathetic? Much more Jinako at least. "Me." Picking apart a piece of naan with her hands, shredding and squeezing the corners, Jinako's eyes keep sliding off of Neon's face, to the left and right, and is placed back on point like a ball on a desk. Something to be managed. "You're welcome, for the advice. My first war, I... hid in a closet for a while, even though I was given the strongest warrior." Her eyes start to drift again, but it's not out of an anxious fear of Neon's gentle judgement. Now she's thinking about someone. "Karna. Like from the stories. He could destroy with just a glance but he was so gentle, and..." Jinako's gulp, just on her own tongue, brings her back, eyes and expression more pensive. "... I hid in a closet until it was mostly too late. Nobody told me what to do, and I couldn't... figure it out in time. So, if it's for love..." The brown haired woman's eyes fall closed, as her droop increases. Weary from just the emotional effort. "... I can't let you make stupid mistakes you'll regret, can I? There are enough obstacles."
Desire Stars	If the parfait will buy me a second try, I can explain. "You can have the second try on the house," Neon smiles. "But don't go telling everybody," adds the streamer teasingly. So, if it's for love... I can't let you make stupid mistakes you'll regret, can I? There are enough obstacles. The last falafel, and the last bit of naan. "When it comes to 'a war of wishes,' I'll be as careful and considerate as I need to be, to avoid making mistakes. Don't worry about that part." She smiles, wistfully. "For... 'that,' though, that requires a little risk. It... it has to," she says, as much asserting as reassuring herself. "Doesn't it? In 'war,' playing it safe is what keeps you alive. But people who love each other, they don't... love in the way that people love priceless works of art. From behind cordons, never touching for fear of damaging. Or if they do, I don't want to be loved that way. The way my mother loves her dolls." She heaves a sigh, and stands up. "Sorry, I'm just thinking out loud. I should start my stream soon," she says, "Here." Procuring her phone--her real phone--she pulls up a messaging app and types in her number. "That way you can reach me without using the DGP stuff." Neon takes her parfait, and moves to leave, but hangs at the periphery of the table. "I think... you're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for, Jinako. For what it's worth."
BB	There always seems to be a little more food around Jinako, another half a falafel, another slip of naan, a crumb, another little dish of sauce - plenty enough for another bite. Plenty practically arranges itself around her, drapes on her, rubs her shoulders and gently cups her cheeks. Despite that, she's starved in a different way, bashful and halting and shy in a hundred ways across from the brightly-realized streamer. A woman content-enough with her closet, with being an accomplice. A woman who would say 'screens are enough' and mean it, not because she was fully satisfied but because it was the satisfaction she thought she was due. Ever-frustrating, ever-frustrated, ever poised to start anew if she could just commit to doing so. She smiles, a helpless flush to her cheeks, guilty even if the tab was picked up by Neon's good graces. "It does require risk..." The messy-banged woman drawls in agreement, lingering in her own thoughts. "You have to leave safety, sometime. And... Even if you have every advantage, if you don't know, don't try... You can't know. And eventually, in war, 'safe' just means losing . . . slowly." Talk of parents brings Jinako to a kind of dissociative quiet, a without-standing ending to her commentary that's only revived when the dregs-of-munching woman is aggressed on by -- a phone! Immediately fumbling out her own, Jinako nods and types the number into her own device, nodding along a lot more animated now. This -- this!! -- she understands. Turning an internet friend into an RL friend, and going from jinaKO to 'Just Jinako, thanks'. "I was going to ask!" Bubbles the once again pleasantly buoyed pink-cheeked red-ribboned and brown-banged. "Thanks, Neon. Now I can bug you only being spied on by the Samsung corporation and your world's version of Google and not whatever weird spyware is on that spider." Packing up, Jinako seems deeply sympathetic to a streamer's schedule. "Do you want some wipes? So your stuff doesn't get greasy." By the end, Neon Kurama is equipped with the secret mission reward: of a handful of crushed individual handi-wipes. They're super-effective against grease and the little stains caused by fearless touching.