Like my father before me I am a working man

[righthandstand]

Who: Okuyasu Nijimura and OPEN
When: June 5th and onward, not including the Golsaucian Gauntlet time period
Where: Around the Curti Center island and Sparks Golsaucia
What: Catchall log for June - housework, opening a bank account, and practicing his Illusionist Skills
Warnings/Notes: None for now

A. Residential area and Curti Center shops

[Okuyasu has never been in a house this clean. The wallpaper isn't peeling off, the kitchen is free of cockroaches, the couches don't smell, the floorboards are sturdy, and the common areas are dusted regularly. It's a combination of living in a relatively new building and having housemates who do chores. They have a pet who sits on the clean countertops, and he attempts to study in the sunny living room as Uendo prepares tea.

It's totally weird.

But having an agreeable living situation doesn't mean he can shirk his responsibilities. In Morioh, Okuyasu managed finances, groceries, and housekeeping while looking over his mutated father (there's no one he's the primary caretaker of. That's what's been missing), and he will have the same responsibilities here. Only with some help.

Okuyasu wakes up at sunrise each morning to jog through the neighborhood, get a feel for the streets. Afterwards, he showers and heads off to school and remedial classes on Vaikuntha literature and geography. Before heading back to his house, he stops by the grocery stores for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's lunch. The Curti Center gave him a stipend for food, and since he can't transfer the credit to his future bank account.

At home, he makes sure to wipe the windows and furniture regularly and take out the trash before it overflows. In the evening, he prepares the next day's meals, studies and practices typing, and goes to bed at 10pm.]

B. Sparks Golsaucia

[Jessie said that the Sparks Golsaucia Bank was good and he's going to trust her intuition. He has 1000 gil he saved up from fighting monsters in his pocket, and it's time to treat himself to a savings account.

Anything else would be throwing away his hard-earned money. He doesn't have his dad's savings account to keep him afloat, and unfortunately that means he starts off with nothing saved up. But if he finds a job, fighs monsters, and saves up, who knows! He could go back to buying an ice cream every Monday before school!

So a scarred delinquient stolls out of the airship, down the main streets, and right to the business center of the city.

And since he's already paid for the ticket here, he'll use the rest of the day to hang around.]

C. Training area

[It's the weekend. That means he has to get stronger. That means he needs to do better with his Jobs. That means mastering Levitation.

And not floating around like a chump. No, he wanted to throw himself off a cliff and survive and not get sick! So rather than equip Monk like he does in battles, he equips the Illusionist asterisk, practices teleporting for a while and gets to work.

Namely by jumping off a rock onto the sandy beach, floating, then dropping to clutch his stomach.

After an hour of this nonsense, he moves onto jumping off a large rock and teleporting to the ground with mixed results. He underestimates the distance he must fall and ends up with more bruises or teleports so that his face is pressed into the sand.

He's getting better as time goes on.]

D. Wildcard

[Want to tag him with a different prompt? Here's the place!]

Comments

C

[melodiouspacifist]

[The beach was always going to be a draw for the Nobody, and he's there often enough to admire the water. He has a connection to it. He's just sitting on the sand, thinking about little, really, listening the ocean as he composes a song.

One note, the next a little higher, and then again, then thump.

Wait, that wasn't part of the song.

Demyx turns to look at the person who's jumping off a rock, and landing on the ground. Thump. He watches him land face first. Should he be worried?

Nah, the guy gets up. Demyx can't help his curiosity, he pushes himself to his feet and the next time this strange idiot falls to the ground, he goes over and crouches.]

What're you doing?

[righthandstand]

[There's sand in his pomp. Okuyasu grumbles while he shakes his cool hair of that pale infestation, but shrugs it off. He's going to be a mess by the end of today no matter what.]

Huh? Oh. [Zombie rock star whose existence and universe makes no sense.] I'm practicin' teleporting.

[Teleporting to the ground, apparently.]

[melodiouspacifist]

Kinda looks like you're crashing.

[Just an observation, don't be mad.] Are you supposed to land like that?

[righthandstand]

No, ain't it obvious?

[He rubs his hands together to get rid of the stand stuck between the creases of his palm.]

I'm working on the part where I land on my feet.

[melodiouspacifist]

Hey, I don't know how your job works. [He raises his hands defensively, for all he knows, crashing is part of the whole package.]

Oh. Well you didn't do that. Is it hard?

[righthandstand]

The hard part is the timing. It works different from my Stand I had back home.

[Teleport by disappearing and reappears is different from magically closing the space between you and the end point.]

But it's better than falling off a cliff and dying.

[melodiouspacifist]

What's a Stand? [Pauses.] Wait, if it's complicated, don't bother. I won't understand.

[He shakes his head.]

Doesn't it hurt when you fall on your face?

B

[mythmaker]

Eh? You're Osuyaku-kun, aren't you?

[Never mind that isn't a name. Azusa approaches Okuyasu while he's standing outside the bank. She's dressed in a stage outfit of some kind, but she doesn't seem to mind. It's been a while since she's seen the young man she met on her very first day on this new planet.]

It's been so long! Are you doing well?

[righthandstand]

[That's close enough to grab his attention. He twists around in search for the source and recognizes the woman he met in the gardens.]

Okuyasu. [He corrects for her. It's a bit sad to think his name is so forgettable, but then again it's pretty unusual in Japanese.] I'm fine. What're you doing at the bank?

[mythmaker]

Okuyasu~.

[She repeats his name just so they're both setting the record straight. It's not the name's fault she forget it, it's her own airheadedness that gets her half of the way there...unfortunately.]

My, my, I wasn't expecting to run into someone I know. I guess you could say I'm on an adventure...doesn't that sound fun?

[She's not lost, at least. A small Moogle walks, not flies, up behind her. She has thick glasses and is carrying a few Moogle-sized books under her arm.]

What are you doing here? Are you opening a bank account?

[righthandstand]

I guess, if you're heading to the theme park, but that stuff's overpriced.

[He looks at the Moogle.] Well, yeah. I need a place to keep my money for the future. Doesn't everyone have one? [So why would she ask...] Oh. Am I too young to open one?

[mythmaker]

Mm...I don't have one yet, actually. With everything that's happened since we last met, it never occurred to me until now.

[She sounds a little embarrassed, but really she's so proud of him for being an upstanding young man. It just helps her maintain that award winning smile of hers.]

Okuyasu-kun, let's open bank accounts together. We'll be bank buddies~. Doesn't that sound fun?

[Wendy sighs and shakes her head, knowing already that she'll have to give Azusa the money to deposit.]

[righthandstand]

[Confused head tilt.] Uh...I don't think we can have a joint account. [Unless she just wants separate accounts opened at the same time?? Because banking isn't a group activity.] And it's kinda boring, actually.

[But she's trying so hard. He feels a bit bad that she'll make a terrible mistake - but he shouldn't really care what happens to other people, but also she's pretty?]

You know how to open one, right.

A

[rivieran]

[ Ena HATED shopping in general, grocery shopping especially. She couldn't cook and she thought it generally a waste of time, especially without a personal chef and since there was a cafeteria serving ready-made food, anyway.

But she was at the grocery store anyway. Why? Because she needed to get her wine from somewhere. She had her bottle for the week picked out and in her basket. Next on the list were some nuts and cheese to nibble on. To the refrigerated aisle it was!

As she rounds the corner into the next aisle, she finds herself practically running into Okuyasu. ] Oh! Pardon me. [ She sounds genuinely surprised at first at almost having knocked someone over, but then she sees who it is. ] Oh.

[righthandstand]

[It's the delinquent neighbor who killed her!

Okuyasu pushes down a bottle of chilled tea into his basket and keeps his frozen gaze on Ena as he shuffles slightly away from her. The last time he met her, he erased her with The Hand, ruining her already low opinion of him. At least that's what he assumes when he turns around. He already took everything he needed from this aisle, but like he would try to walk around her to get to the dry foods. In fact, he didn't need dried foods. Noodles and tea were all he would need this week.]

[rivieran]

[ Funnily, she didn't think any less of Okuyasu after he killed her in the memory. Any negative thought she had a result of it were immediately overridden by the bewilderment of reliving her own memory. To her, it just meant that she had failed her mission.

She watches him as he shuffles away, but something nagged at her to say something to him. She didn't know what that would be, though, considering she didn't even know his name. Quick, Ena, before he gets away! ]

W-wait. [ Don't stutter. That makes it awkward. ]

[righthandstand]

[His feet freeze to the floor.]

Y-yeah? [His voice lowers and he squint at her - a coverup for his unease with more typical delinquent behavior.] I gotta go home and cook, I don't have time.

[A good defense was a good offense.]

[rivieran]

[ She barely hears him as she's flipping through all the things she could say to him in her mind. She barely registers his attempts to hide how he really feels. ]

Did you make it out okay? [ That's the question she comes to, in regards to the memory. Wait, that's a pretty stupid question. If he was here, then that meant he made it out fine. Urgh, nevermind. Just swallow it and wait for what he has to say. ]

[righthandstand]

Yeah, duh. [The stupid question made him feel better, at least.] And you're cool, too. Thought you were gone for good.

[He felt guilty when he returned to the airship knowing that he erased someone that kind of didn't really deserve it. Those few hours sucked until someone told him that death worked differently up there.]

A

[whirluendo_of_puns]

[Being the lone adult in the house is just one more weight on Uendo's mind. It's not that he minds, as such -- he likes kids just fine, and his roommates are all pretty self-sufficient and easy to get along with. Even so... Someone's got to look after them. He's just not sure it should be him.

It's kind of sad to be the only adult and still be the least mentally stable out of everyone present.

It also means he can't just stay in bed when bad brain days roll around. In the end, it's Kisegawa who takes over and drags them out of their room, hair pulled up in a messy updo. Sometimes you have to keep functioning out of sheer spite, and she has spite in abundance.

Noticing Okuyasu studying in the living room, she slips quietly into the kitchen and returns a short while later with two steaming cups.]

Tea's up.

[She sets down one -- black tea with milk, just the way he likes it -- on top of the living room table.]

[righthandstand]

[Okuyasu looks up from the Vaikuntha "classic literature" book he has on his lap as he's sprawled across the sofa. It's pretty easy reading, surprisingly, though the teachers chose it as it did not heavily rely on Vaikunthan cultural references and assume the reader had more than basic knowledge of the world's history.]

Thanks.

[He never expects any of the times Uendo offers tea and snacks despite knowing better that his housemate was probably trained to do stuff like this. Being super traditional and all despite living in America. It's nice, of course, but he doesn't know if he's supposed to do something more in return besides keep the common rooms clean.]

I can make dinner tonight. [He ought to make extra for lunch tomorrow.] You're cool with lotus root? [Or the nearest equivalent for it?] It was on sale today.

[whirluendo_of_puns]

[Kisegawa settles on an armchair. Okuyasu's offer earns him a raised eyebrow, though it's not a disapproving one in this instance. The boy can be quite considerate when he wants to be.]

I appreciate it. And lotus root is fine. [She falls silent for a moment, peering absentmindedly into her tea as she considers what else there is to do.] That'll free up time for me to do the laundry.

[Honestly, out of everyone in their system she's the one who dislikes doing chores the most, but she dislikes an unclean home even more. Someone has to ensure the guys don't turn this place into a pigpen.

At least ironing and folding up laundry is somewhat relaxing. It might be just the kind of distraction they need to get through the day.]

[righthandstand]

[Not all good deeds come without a price. Uendo has to expect Okuyasu to do plenty of work in return. While Josuke never says how much he helps his single mother around the house, Okuyasu guesses that he has a list of chores to do each day in addition to homework. Nothing like cleaning the entire house or paying the bills--

Is this how normal high school students live?]

...It's real nice that you do all this work. [It's strange.] Don't you ever need help with cleanin'?

[Not that he should lend his aid considering the studying and socializing he has to do.]

[whirluendo_of_puns]

Hm. That an offer?

[...How much housework do kids living at home usually do these days, anyway? Uendo's teenage years were such a mess that getting through school and trying to understand what their brain was doing was about all they had the strength to commit to. Shisho didn't have the heart to push chores on them until they officially became a zenza.

Should they be asking Okuyasu to do more? Hell if she knows. They didn't sign up to be someone's guardian.]

...You're still a student. Your job is to study and think about what you want to do with your life. As long as you clean up your own messes, I've got no complaints.

[righthandstand]

Huh.

[He doesn't know how to respond to that. Uendo is essentially saying to do whatever Okuyasu wants, no obligations, no strict rules in what he must do at home. Yes, Okuyasu was the master of his own life when Keicho died, but that was done out of necessity.]

I guess...I still gotta get used to it. Like, focusin' on school and not havin' to worry about takin' care of the house.

[Might as well spill the truth without going into detail about his living situation in Japan. He never asked to have a guardian.]