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Is there such a thing as a cube-shaped dog?

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Post by Kohaku Honda Wed Jun 15, 2011 4:10 pm

Sunday, June 12th

Kohaku didn't even unpack when he first got to his apartment. The boxes were all waiting for him, like puppies waiting for their owner, except they were silent and made of cardboard. Kohaku wondered if there was a breed of dog that was shaped like a perfect cube; there were thousands of different breeds of dogs anyway. And there was such a thing as a cube-shaped fish. They were called Box Fish... literally. They were yellow and black spotted and if you scared them, they released a poisonous ink, thus killing themselves without meaning to. Kohaku learned that the hard way as he was looking for hamsters in the pet store when he still lived in the city. He decided not to get one, even though saying no was excruciating, because it would be kind of hard to take a hamster on a plane.

He didn't want to unpack; he was too excited about exploring the island, so he pretty much just threw the boxes in the living room area and he would deal with them later. The kind UPS workers, who probably hated their lives because they worked at UPS, happened to deliver Kohaku's bike exactly as it was when he packed it away.

Kohaku couldn't decide what he was going to do first. He already had a million ideas. But, since this was an island, it probably had a beach, right?

His face lit up as he started to dig into one of the boxes with his clothes in it, and found what he was looking for. The full-body, green dinosaur costume that he got in Japan that one year. He didn't wear it very often, but he knew exactly what he was going to do. It kind of looked like a yoshi, but it had spikes- it was probably cosplay costume (As there's no such thing as Halloween in Japan... duh) for teenagers with no lives, but Kohaku knew that the latter about that statement was true about him. He didn't have a life; he'd already accepted it. But at least he was having more fun than the stuck-up dickheads who claimed they had lives, smoking pipes in their bathrobes and growing gray hairs around their bald spots. Kohaku definitely did NOT want a life like that. Ever.

"Sweet!" He exclaimed excitedly as he slipped his legs in, then his arms, pulling the spiky dinosaur head over his head. It looked like he was inside of the dinosaur's mouth, but he didn't mind.

"AHHHHH!" Kohaku ran with his bike battle-crying through the hallways, not thinking if he was disturbing anyone, and went out the door because his apartment was on the ground floor. He mounted his bike as it glided down the steps. He didn't crash, or hurt himself, so that was always a plus. Now Kohaku was in a green, spiky dinosaur costume, at age twenty-five... riding a bike in public. He didn't even see the confused looks he was getting from pedestrians because the dinosaur head blocked his peripheral vision. But if he did, he would have gave a thumbs up or something. Kohaku rode aimlessly down one road and down another, passing a bunch of houses until he saw it.

The beach. Hell yeah!

Kohaku practically jumped off his bike, leaving it on the edge of the rocks near the beach, and ran toward a flock of seagulls.

"AHHHHHH!!" He hollered, waving his arms and making the seagulls fly away and gather together somewhere else on the beach. He chased after them again.

"AHHHHHHHH!!"

And again.

"AHHHHHH!!"

And again.

Kohaku chased the seagulls, flailing his arms, screaming. He hoped that the dinosaur costume gave the added effect of danger- dinosaurs had eaten seagulls back in the day, right? Ah well; his degree was in the civilizations of World History... aka PEOPLE. Not the biology and evolution of dinosaurs. He wouldn't have known that birds evolved from dinosaurs. But the seagulls were scared, and probably pretty pissed off that they were being chased, but that was the fun of it. He was having so much fun that he didn't even notice anyone was watching him.
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Post by Ace Finn Thu Jun 16, 2011 10:46 pm

Once again, Ace had two days to himself, and he didn't honestly know what he was going to do with himself for those two days. He sat on his bed, lazily brushing a powder brush over his cheeks and forehead, even though there was already a translucent layer of mineral powder over his skin, and no more on the brush. His roommates had presumably already left; Niall probably to the riding school, and the others to God-knows-where. He slipped the brush back in its roll with the others and exchanged it for a smaller, thinner one for eyeliner. His fingers tapped on the flimsy plastic handle as he debated: which color, what style... and then he slipped it back where it came from. His swim trunks were lying on the foot of the bed, and what was the use of putting on makeup if he was just going to wash it off? Mostly now, he only used his daily makeup ritual as another excuse to play around with it, since he'd decided that he liked cosmetology so much that he may as well pursue it. He didn't want to be one of those old geezers sitting around throwing parties that no one came to because he was bored because he didn't have a job. Emily was, or at least he thought, intent on becoming a veterinarian, so Ace had to do something to keep from going crazy--er--crazier--while she was off working. Of course, that was pretty far into the future.

Chucking the brush roll back in his train case, he got up and changed from his lounge pants to his swim suit. He'd been a beach bum all his life, so why not keep the trend going? He could work on his tan. He'd gotten awfully pale being indoors for the past two years or so, and he just didn't like looking like... well, like he'd spent all his time in an institution. Ace missed his darker, sun-kissed tone. He remembered vacationing with his mother and seeing girls walking around on tropical islands in jackets with umbrellas, thinking that they must be nuts for not wanting a bit of sun. Then again, maybe he was the crazy one.

Along his walk to the beach, he went a block out of the way to stop at the general store and pick up a tube of sunscreen. As he set out again, he tied his overshirt to his waist and started rubbing the stuff into his arms, on his face, and the tops of his ears. Then, he turned off the road and cut through, heading toward the beach.

He blinked when he got there, because that was all he could do for a moment. Then his face split into a wide grin at the flailing dinosaur screaming at seagulls. "Oh... my... GOD," he whispered and broke out into a run toward the flock of seagulls being chased at the moment. "AHHHHHHHHHH!" He yelled, just trying to help. "Move out! Move out! Get the fuck off my lawn!" He shouted at the birds, giggling as he stopped to gather a wet sand-ball, which he lobbed in the birds' general direction.

Then his attention turned toward the dinosaur. "Dude! Did you get that on island somewhere? I want one!" It had completely eluded him to ask why this guy in a dinosaur suit was chasing seagulls, probably because that would've been, to anyone mature (which Ace had resolved never to be,) the obvious question.

"Seagulls are kind of evil," he said. "If you have fries, they'll like, divebomb you for them. I've lost many a French fry to seagulls." He paused. "I'm Ace... Nice to meet you! I think." Bending down, he sifted more wet sand through his fingers and started packing his next sand-ball.
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Post by Kohaku Honda Sun Jun 19, 2011 2:32 pm

This was the last thing Kohaku had expected; someone was helping him in rid the beach of the seagull's reign of terror. Kohaku had many obscure hobbies that were fun but no one else understood, and he always did them alone. It was too much work trying to explain the art of immaturity to someone who actually acted their age. The only person who ever joined him in his unique way of fun was Yuto, and that was only until age twelve, when he finally figured out that all of his twin brother's schemes were constantly getting him into trouble.

So, it felt pretty good that someone else was joining him. Kohaku let out a laugh as this guy (or, teenager, when he looked closer) was chasing seagulls with him. Get the fuck off my lawn... that was pretty good. Whoever this kid was, he liked him already.

"Dude! Did you get that on island somewhere? I want one!"

Kohaku laughed again as he looked at his dinosaur suit. "Nah, I actually got this in Japan on an impulse purchase. I was visiting the old folks. To be honest, I don't really know what it is. It's probably a cosplay costume, because there's no such thing as Halloween in Japan. I actually found that out the hard way when I was visiting my grandparents."

Kohaku knew that he was rambling, but he continued anyway: "When my brother and I were kids, I had the brilliant idea of dressing us up in costume, knocking on people's doors and demanding candy. It was funny because they were scared out of their minds- they didn't know what to do. But we ended up scoring some ice cream... this really cool fruity gum... strawberry soda in a bottle that, unmistakably, looked like an erect penis... and I remember trying a candied squid and that went over horribly. But we got other things too."

"Seagulls are kind of evil. If you have fries, they'll like, divebomb you for them. I've lost many a French fry to seagulls."

"I know right?" Kohaku exclaimed excitedly. "And even if you feel bad for them and give them something so they'll leave you alone, they keep coming! What's worse, is that OTHER seagulls come for your fries too after they see little Johnny So-and-So eating one! And it's like, 'What the hell, man? I feel bad for you and give you a fry so you invite your friends to keep stealing my food? That's just dick.' And they just don't care. 'Finding Nemo' portrayed the seagull species perfectly."

Kohaku heard the kid call himself 'Ace'.

"Ace? That's a pretty awesome name! I wish I was named Ace. It's badass and yet it's easy to pronounce. Most people I come across can't say my name right if they're reading it off of a page."

Kohaku paused, and then thought it would be polite to say his own name, since Ace told him his.

"I'm- WAIT!" Kohaku held out his hands outward dramatically. "Are you going to be a student at Drayton Academy this fall?"

Damn! That was a close call. If Ace was going to be his student sometime in the future, and he told him his first name, that wouldn't just be bad in the literal sense. Imagine having Ace magically appear in the classroom...

'Yeah, you can't really call me Kohaku anymore because I'm your teacher now. And would you mind not telling my name to the other students?'

Kohaku judged that as the definition of 'asshole', and he didn't like to think of himself as an asshole... even though he could be without meaning to be.
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Post by Ace Finn Mon Jun 20, 2011 2:33 pm

The next sandball whacked a seagull right in the side and Ace giggled, watching it flail, feeling proud of himself. His aim had never been all that great, which was probably why he never tried out for any sports (not to mention the shit he would get for being a gay, or now more likely bisexual, guy in the locker room...) He smiled brightly. "I got one! Holy shit, I actually got one!"

He turned to the man. He'd wondered... but now his question was answered. Ace perhaps now had another person who he could possibly ramble on in Japanese to. Even years after his mother's death, and about one year after his friend Eva, who might not have been fluent in it but was still good enough and learning, had gone... he still found it the language that he was most comfortable with. He'd learned a while back that he'd picked up Japanese before he had fully picked up English, so that could have had something to do with it, but... he shook his head. "Yeah, I never visited my grandparents at Halloween. They live in Shimoda." He listened intently, smiling at the ice cream, remembering the fruity gum... "I love that soda! You can find it at Asian stores here, too! And they have melon flavor, which is awesome, because Coke and Pepsi aren't awesome enough to make melon soda..." And he cringed at the squid. Candied squid, he'd never had... but he'd seen it in bags. Once, he'd picked one up and showed it to his mother, who had smacked it right out of his hand. You wouldn't like that, Midori said. It's absolutely vile.

Finally, someone understood. About the seagulls, that is. "Yeah... they're all like, Mine! Mine! Mine! No, seagulls. Not everything is yours. Some of it is mine, and sometimes I just want to eat my own fries. 'Cause other than the frozen mocha, that's the only thing good from Mickey D's. Okay, and their chicken sandwiches are okay...and the stupid seagulls always try to steal the bun." He was sure that if he'd thrown a chunk of chicken at one, it probably would've eaten it. Fucking cannibals. "I know! They're just so needy! It's really bad when you live in a tourist place. Like, since I was two, I lived in San Diego, and it's not a tourist trap per se, but there are still tourists who will go feed them, and then they associate people with food. I guess they don't read the signs at the zoo that tell you why you shouldn't feed the animals. So I was minding my own business, sitting on the wall at Ocean Beach, eating my fries... and here come the seagulls."

Ace smiled wistfully; he probably would have hated his name, if it didn't remind him so much of his mother. "Yeah, it's awesome, but see, my last name is Finn, so when I was in middle and high school, people thought it was amusing to call me Huckleberry Ventura. That kind of sucked, but... You're right; it is nice to have a cool name that's easy to pronounce. I still had to explain to people that I'm not named after a card, though. See, my mom used to be a pilot in the Navy, so when she was pregnant with me, she and the people on her ship started calling me the mini-Ace, before they knew the gender, and it sort of stuck. Um, sorry, if I'm talking too much. I'm not really used to talking this much, but there you have it. I'm just... It's awesome to meet someone new who's actually cool... Sorry!" He put a hand over his mouth so he could listen rather than prattle on about things he was sure the other guy didn't care about.

"Um, I'm going to be a student at wherever they send me. So, maybe. What do you want me to call you?"
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Post by Kohaku Honda Fri Jun 24, 2011 11:35 pm

Kohaku watched Ace lob sand at the seagulls, who were likely very pissed off by now, and chuckled to himself. Whoever this kid was, he seemed to get him... he was a bit weird, but just at the right amount of weirdness- boundless. He was pretty sure a few minutes into knowing him that they were at had the same level of maturity (close to none) and from the way he spoke, Ace gave a new and silly perspective on things that most people wouldn't give- and that was a quality that was hard to find nowadays.

Kohaku saw that Ace was amazed at his newfound, sand-throwing skills, and he guessed that Ace wasn't very athletic. There wasn't anything wrong with that, and besides, not every single person in the world had perfect aim. Kohaku sure didn't, and he played pretty much every sport you could think of. He never pursued any of them seriously after a few years at a time because he wanted to try them ALL. He had the attention span of hungry yeti. On the subject of yeti's...

"Nice shot, Ace. But do you know if yeti's eat people?"

In truth, Kohaku didn't know what yeti's ate while being massive and all emo in the caves of the Himalayas. But he'd always wondered. He turned his attention back to Ace, who told him the whereabouts of his grandparents.

"Your grandparents live like, 4 hours away from my grandparents! That's so weird- mine live in Noda, which is in Chiba Prefecture, while your grandparents live in Shizuoka Prefecture. That's so close!"

Kohaku didn't exactly know WHY he was getting all giddy and excited over whose grandparents live where, but it felt nice regardless.

"I forget what the soda is actually called though. It starts with an 'R', I know that much. And yeah, melon soda definitely kicks the beans out of any American cola. Maybe I'm a biased opinion, because I hate cola."

He saw Ace shrivel at the mentioning of the candied squid and stuck his tongue out. "Yeah... that shit will ruin your day. Don't ever try it. Wow... I just realized I'm not even telling you to stay away from heroin or cocaine... I'm telling you instead to stay away from a candied squid. Although, if one hit doesn't kill you, heroin and cocaine won't ruin your day but they will ruin your LIFE. So don't try those either."

Ace then rambled on about seagulls and their selfishness. "Yes... that much is true. I'm sure if you threw ANYTHING at a seagull, he'd eat it. Even a candied squid."

Kohaku shuddered. Then he listened again.

"You're from San Diego? That's cool- I'm from New York... WAY across the country."

Kohaku let his index finger sail across and point east, toward the horizon and the ocean. "That must've been nice. San Diego's a major city- I'm from a small town. The population has to be under 30,000. What was it like where you're from?"

In truth, Kohaku had been to California, but only to Sonoma to visit Yuto, Téa and their child in the early development stages. In the part of Kohaku he constantly ignored, he wondered what EXACTLY happened to make him lag behind his twin brother. Yuto had a steady job, a wife and they were about to have kids and start a family. Of course, if Kohaku magically switched lives with Yuto at this very second, he wouldn't know what to do with himself. He would descend into an anxiety attack, and he'd never had one of those. In fact, even growing up Kohaku didn't have a danger sense. He probably would have died if it hadn't been for Yuto to keep him in line. Oh well- that's what Lithium was for, and he'd rather be the fun uncle than the father any day. Anyway, back to Ace:

"Huckleberry Ventura? That's longer and more complex than Ace Finn. It's like bullies were taking 5 syllables longer just to make fun of you. You should have been like, "You just spoke longer than if you just said my name... dick." That's kind of pathetic to be honest. I hope that fucker's name was Milton."

Kohaku was NOT the type to put up with other people's bullshit, and he quickly reminded himself to be on the lookout for bullying when he taught at Drayton.

"I never got bullied myself, but while I was interning at Stuyvesant High School in the big apple, I had my ways of dealing with kids who were bullying other kids- I escorted them and the entire class to the cafeteria, and ordered the asshole to stand on a table and sing "Twinkle Twinke Little Star". My students were care bears to each other after that incident."

Kohaku laughed to himself and grinned at Ace. "Humor causes more damage than punishment, in my opinion. And hakuna matata about the talking-for-a-long-time thing- I do it too. I'm not holding any grudges. As for my name..."

Kohaku cupped a hand over his mouth in deep thought. "So you don't know what high school you're going to? Well, I don't want to take any chances, so you can't know my first name, and I don't want you to call me Mr. Honda if you're not my student... hmmm.... Well, just call me Guy in the Dinosaur Suit. GDS for short."
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Post by Ace Finn Tue Jun 28, 2011 3:17 pm

Still sporting a delighted grin, Ace started quickly batting his hands against the legs of his swim shorts to get the sand off; he had almost forgotten to put sunscreen on his shoulders, which tended to burn more than anything else for some reason.

"Thanks," he smiled as he chucked his bag onto the sand and shrugged out of his shirt, his bottle of sunblock in hand. "Um... I haven't met a yeti, like, ever. But yeah, they probably would eat people. I mean, unless they're like that stupid grumbly yeti from that... umm... that cartoon Christmas movie. I don't even remember, all I know is it had a yeti in it. I think maybe it was Rudolph--the reindeer, not the yeti." For a moment, he concentrated on his shoulders, rubbing the lotion into his paler than usual skin. "I don't think things are allowed to eat people in children's movies. Maybe that's why the yeti was so pissed off. He was fucking hungry." He had never really paid attention to what yetis ate. He pondered more on it as he started on his left shoulder, but came up with nothing.

"Our grandparents should party," he smirked. "Tell yours to go get mine out of the house once in a while. They're kind of homebodies now, which is sort of weird because they never liked being homebodies. But, I don't know. It's been a while since I've seen them. Last time I did was like almost two years ago, when they came to Cali for my mother's... thingy." Memorial. He remembered that all too well; the sun was shining and there was a cool breeze to shield the attendees from the heat. Ace's father was sitting next to him, but Ace's head was buried in his grandmother's shoulder. He remembered his dad sort of gazing off with a blank look on his face, and Ace had thought that it was because he was drunk, but now he figured it was probably because he was too upset to cry. That morning, Ace had mistakenly put on eyeliner, and before the service even started, it was making black trails down his cheeks. He remembered cringing at the noise and trying to shrink his body as much as he could, clinging to his grandmother as the men in uniform performed a gun salute for the fallen captain. Once they fired, then twice and he was sobbing again, and the third time, Ace was screaming inside. That was his mother! And they came and gently handed a folded-up flag to Ace; by that point, as he took it, he was crying so hard that his grandmother stood up and wrapped an arm around him and walked him away from the pavilion as he clutched the flag tightly to his chest.

Then, Ace realized that he wasn't there anymore. He stopped staring wide-eyed, blankly, at the ocean, and turned to the other Asian man, who was now talking about soda. "Ramune," Ace said softly. Then, he shook his head. "Sorry, I just... remembered something not-so-pleasant."

"Too late," he said. "I think ecstasy is worse than candied squid, and... I took way too much of that."

"Yeah. San Diego. It is what it is. I went to Los Angeles sometimes... And I was born in Japan, but only lived there for two years. I don't remember living there at all, so..." He sighed. No, Ace. Don't get depressed now.

No, Ma's dead, and Emmy's hurt, and I haven't heard from Jocie, and--

He wiped at his eyes and managed to make himself laugh. "No, I didn't mind. Well, there was Ace Ventura, who was hilarious, and Huckleberry Finn, from one of the great literary masters, and... yeah, I just wasn't offended. I took it as a compliment. Even though I wished they'd just use my actual name... And, no. His name was Trevor... I think. Trevor, the name of a toad in Harry Potter. I'm a hilarious, famous movie and literary work, and he's a toad."

Again, he snickered. "Best way to punish a kid, ever. Embarrassment, but not so bad that it scars them for life. You're a fucking genius."

"No," Ace shook his head. "I'm not sure."

He didn't really want to call the guy Mr. Honda... but he didn't like the sound of GDS, either. "How 'bout Kyouryuu?" he asked, staring at the dinosaur suit. He was Japanese, and a dinosaur, so Kyouryuu sounded good enough. "Can I call you that instead?"
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Post by Kohaku Honda Fri Jul 08, 2011 10:27 pm

"I haven't met a yeti either." Kohaku chimed. "That's kinda why I was asking. I've wondered about it all my life though. But I'm gonna agree with you about this one- people wouldn't be afraid of them if they didn't eat people. Unless EVERYONE living in villages of the Himalayas judges based on appearances, which I don't believe. I'm sure there'd be that kind, gentle soul who tried to befriend a yeti and got eaten."

"Oh! I know Rudolph wasn't a yeti- he was a dorky little reindeer. But I'm sure there's yetis out there named Rudolph. They'd probably be like, "I am NOT A FUCKING REINDEER! See any horns sprouting out of this fur? No!" He laughed at the hungry comment. "Of course!"

Kohaku grinned again at the idea about their grandparents. "They could seriously have a house party for Japanese old people. Old people don't have house parties enough. Bingo nights on Sundays that only last until 6 in the evening don't count."

Kohaku heard a short sentence before he saw Ace wilt as he remembered something. It was like the aura of the conversation completely changed with one memory. Whatever it was, it must have been pretty painful and significant. 'Thingy'... 'thingy' could mean lots of things. Disease... Departure... Death... But it wasn't his business to know.

He reached over to place a firm, comforting hand on Ace's shoulder. Kohaku Honda of all people, the King of Insensitivity, was NOT the best at comforting others and was a firm believer in the 'Talking makes things worse' ideology. But when he did show concern it was usually for a good reason, and it would take someone pretty damn special for him to not make fun of them at showing sadness. Although Kohaku had only known Ace for a few minutes, they seemed to get each other. There was one part of Kohaku that he didn't show to too many people that was steadily rising with Ace- he was protective. He knew he would be that way with his incoming nephew or niece, but right now, this was a Make Ace Smile Challenge. Ready, Set, Go.

"I can do a pretty good zombie impression. Wanna see?"

Kohaku stood up and ran a few steps in the opposite direction. He then looked at Ace, then went limp. His eyes rolled upwards as he inched to Ace with one of his feet dragging in the sand. Without warning, he sprang forward making a sound that he was eating Ace's flesh and started tickling Ace's sides repeatedly. His fingers fluttered up and down Ace's ribs.

"Awwaararararaaaa BRAINNNSSSS... Oh shit!" Kohaku stopped tickling Ace to think. "I'm in a dinosaur suit. It doesn't work. Were there zombie dinosaurs? Well... dinosaurs DID eat other dinosaurs..." He shrugged and grinned widely at Ace.

"Ecstasy huh? You off it now?" Kohaku looked into Ace's eyes again. "Nice! You were born in Japan? Our parents were born there, but my twin brother and I were born in the States."

Kohaku grinned widely when Ace got a kick out of his way of punishing students. "I always do that to the kids who can't afford to have any more absences, so they'd be like, 'No way in hell!' and I'd be like 'Okay, then get suspended for a week. One song, dude! It's either this or you don't graduate from too many absences. Your choice!' And the way they'd sing it would be really awkward because everyone in the cafeteria would be dead silent. A lot of the times they cheered for them to do it, so that made things easier."

"Kyouryuu! Of course! That's much more fitting- it's close enough to my real name anyway."

He paused for a moment before standing up.

"I think those seagulls are getting spoiled with our silence. Let's take a stand. AHHHHH!!!!"

Kohaku ran blindly towards the flock of seagulls, assuming that Ace would join him.
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Post by Ace Finn Sat Jul 09, 2011 12:18 am

Giggling, Ace nodded. "Yeah... there's always that kind, gentle soul that gets eaten. Or, like, maybe some scientist or yeti enthusiast or whoever that wants to go study them. So they dress like a yeti, and try to live amongst them. But the yetis have an impeccably good sense of smell. They can just tell that this thing is not one of them." He stopped a moment to think, smiling a little when he realized he was just making up a story. He approached the dinosaur guy slowly, making his hands into claws. "So, they gang up on it and kill it, then as they start to rip it to shreds with razored claws, the costume comes off, and they find out the truth. Relief washes over them as they start to feed; they've realized... dun dun dunnn... They're NOT cannibals! Not this time, anyway." Ace clapped his hands together, grinning. "Yetis are always afraid of that. 'Cause people are kind of the same shape, so someone with a horrendously furry man-pelt might be mistaken for a yeti."

"Yeah, the yeti named Rudolph... it's probably actually a very noble name for a yeti, but people kind of ruined that. Others are named Svenn and Klaus and Gertrude and stuff. Or... ah, I bet my friend Serenity can make up better yeti names. She's good with making up names for creatures. Unfortunately, she's in California."

"I bet my grandfather used to throw excellent house parties before he got old," Ace laughed. "Even old, he's only slightly stuffy. And he's a really good cook, though. And he knows a lot about wine. So they could at least have a kickin' dinner party, and of course it would have to start at about seven. Last I knew, they didn't go to bed until about ten or eleven anyway, so that would be no problem. Add some music, and they're golden! Drunken old people dancing!" The problem was, how were Ace and Kohaku going to get their grandparents together, anyway? How would they manage to find each other? If Ace told them to find people named Honda in Noda, they'd probably laugh. And he figured it would probably be the same for the man telling his grandparents to go to Shimoda and find some Yamadas.

Ace tried to shake the memory. That was a long time ago, or at least, in a bit less than two months, it would be two years ago. But two years he'd survived without her, when he never thought he'd be able to. It made him realize that people cared about him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and smiled. Here was another, someone he'd just met, who picked up on his sadness and tried to comfort him. Most of the people he'd met in the past two years were caring and supportive, and they didn't want to see him leave the world. Ace hoped he'd made a friend in this guy in the dinosaur suit, because without friends, he knew that he would just relapse into his old ways, make another attempt, and maybe succeed. He started to realize now just how many hearts he'd break if he did that. He didn't want to see his father get worse and end up drinking himself into...whatever end. Ace thought about his grandparents, now childless as they'd lost their son to cancer and their daughter to a freak accident; could he take away their only grandchild? No. His foster family had become almost like a real family to him, and they'd be devastated. And now that he and his girlfriend had plans: to get married and adopt children and whatnot, he couldn't go back on those promises he'd made to her.

"Yeah," he said. "I like zombies. If they were animals, they'd be my favorite animal. I wish I could have a zombie pet, like in Fido. Have you ever seen that movie?"

He watched as Kohaku ran back and started to do a marvellous zombie shuffle toward him. "Impressive!" Ace nodded, giving him the thumbs up. He was caught off guard though, when Kohaku lunged forward and started tickling him. Ace shrieked and squirmed, laughing and gasping for air, all while yelping, "Tickling is torture! Uncle!" He was extremely ticklish, so it never took him long to say uncle. Briefly, he wondered where 'say uncle!' even came from.

"I don't know, did dinosaurs come back from the dead? Wait, no, obviously not. They were just cannibals. Besides, can you imagine a T-Rex trying to get to something's brain? They didn't have lobotomy tools or can openers or whatever to get into their skulls back then... and even if they did, they had such short arms that they probably wouldn't be able to use them." Ace made his fingers into claws again and pulled his elbows up against his sides and began to swat at the air. Then he tried to reach Kohaku's brain with the claws. "See? Can't do it... Well, I guess they were heavy enough that they could've just stepped on their heads and cracked their skulls and got their brains out that way. But they'd be smooshed, like mashed-potato-brains..." It could have been a dino delicacy, for all he knew.

"Yeah, I'm off it. I've been off E for like, over a year. I couldn't get it in the hospital, or at Hadley, and I'm guessing I can't get it here, either. But my old roommate Khavin told me that, um, well something about it depleting your serotonin and it never comes back, and then you end up with depression. I didn't really know it did that, before. So knowing that now, I doubt I'll ever do it again." He already had depression, pretty severely, and he didn't need it any worse. But now that it was starting to ease up quite a bit, and after knowing how it felt to want to die, and to no longer enjoy anything, he didn't want to go back down that road.

He nodded. "I was born in Yokosuka. My mother was stationed there. She put in for it 'cause she wanted to be near her parents, and they gave it to her. Then she had me when she was there. But then we moved to San Diego. My parents met there, and my dad's family is from there. I don't think my dad really liked Japan much, but oh well."

Laughing again, he said, "Yeah, I'd rather get up on a table and sing than get suspended. At least I've been told I have a decent voice; it's not great, but not bad. I guess. I'd Rick-roll the cafeteria or something. Maybe even dance." Wait... no, now he was going to make him do it... "But if I end up in your class, please don't make me do that. I mean, unless I deserve it. Like, really deserve it. But if I do, I'll put on a good show, I promise."

"Yay! Kyouryuu it is, then! So I'm guessing your first name is Japanese... it's always amusing watching people try to pronounce those. Like, watching them try to pronounce my mom's name in the doctor's office or wherever else... And then she'd pronounce it, and they'd be like, 'Oh! Midori like the alcohol!' and she'd go, 'No, Midori like the color...' They'd be so confused." He giggled.

Imitating Kyouryuu's battle-cry, Ace bent down to pick up his shirt and swung it around as he charged into the nearest flock of seagulls... huh. Flock of seagulls. "And I raaa-aa-aaan, I ran so far awaaa-aaa-aaayy!" he sang. "Yeah, seagulls, you better run! Move it or lose it!"
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Post by Kohaku Honda Tue Jul 12, 2011 1:59 am

"That could definitely happen." Kohaku laughed, completely agreeing. "You know, you do that story telling thing way to well. My heart was starting to race." He was being completely serious, too.

Kohaku gave some thought to other names that were considered lame or hilarious, yet might be strong-sounding to a yeti. "Trout... Alotta Vagina... Obamaniqua... I knew a Cholera... Audio Science... Oliver Clothesoff... Mike Hunt... although, the yeti translation for Mike Hunt might be Noble Furry Snow Monster Who Has Eaten Many A Human... or something."

He listened to Ace speak about his grandparents, then gave a whole-hearted laugh. "This seriously needs to happen- my grandparents need to have more fun. Although, Yamada is a pretty common name- they'd be searching for a long time. And the same can be said about Honda. Wow, you know what I just realized? This is kind of like when parents go visit their friends houses and set their kids up to be friends, and it's an awkward experience all around. We're like, setting our grandparents up on a play date! But I'm sure they'd love it anyway."

Kohaku was relieved that Ace was happy again, A. because he was absolute shit at comforting people and B., more importantly, because he genuinely wanted Ace to feel better and forget his troubles... at least for the time that he spent on the beach with him. Kohaku decided that was his mission for the afternoon- to make whatever Ace's life was like more enjoyable... even if it was just for today.

"I've never seen Fido, but I have seen Shaun of the Dead. Zombies can be trained, apparently. It was wrong of the media to give up on zombies like that by claiming that all they do is kill. Of course they kill- they're zombies. But they can be trained to play video games and work in supermarkets too. What's Fido about?"

Kohaku was ecstatic that Ace liked his zombie impression, and laughed when Ace cried for mercy with the tickling. That would definitely be his go-to response if his nephew or niece was sad... at least when they're little. He promptly took his hands off of the teenager. "Granted! Speaking of uncles, I'm an uncle. Well, I will be one in a few months anyway."

Kohaku smiled at that thought. He was excited- he would definitely love being an uncle. This would be fine until he was ready to be a father... which he didn't want happening any time soon. It wasn't any offense to kids or anything- Kohaku admitted to himself when Yuto told him Téa was pregnant that he wasn't nearly ready to have kids. There were a lot of things he had to sort out first. For now, he'd be the fun uncle, and he was perfectly fine with that.

Kohaku laughed at Ace's burst of t-rex knowledge... and impersonation. "I agree. My degree is in world civilizations, not paleontology. I wouldn't know about dinosaurs- thanks for informing me."

He was glad Ace was off of ecstasy. "Yeah, it's not a good idea anyway, but if that's how your brain chemistry is, it's best if you're off it. You're a patient at St. Christina's? I won't judge or anything if you tell me."

If Kohaku didn't enjoy history so much, he definitely would have been a psych tech at a mental hospital (teen ward of course) or a social worker like his brother. He'd wanted to be a psychiatrist once, but he would never have actually sat through all the schooling required. He barely survived concentrating for six years of college- he would have never survived double that amount to become a doctor. He could connect with teenagers, and he could also connect with mental patients, because he had been both at one point in his life. He knew how it felt to be cooped up in a hospital, even if his stay lasted only a little over a week. That connection was why he'd chosen Green Ridge of all places instead of Stuyvesant- he could teach mental patients and not.

"Your mom was in the military?" He asked, wondering if that would stir up any unwanted feelings in Ace like before.

He laughed when Ace begged him not to punish him Kohaku Honda-style. "Nah, I only do that to the assholes who won't get reformed by not being in school for a week. It would have to take a really good reason for me to do that to you. Besides, you're not an asshole."

Kohaku smiled to reinforce what he said, then rolled his eyes. "Yep... my first name is a Japanese name that no one can pronounce if they were reading it. And yeah, green, I get it... that's funny!

As he and Ace were chasing seagulls, he was relieved that Ace decided to join him. It would have been pretty awkward if he didn't.

Kohaku laughed as he panted from running and screaming. "Ah... chasing seagulls. Nothing like it." He said as he plopped down into the sand again.

He finally realized that Ace had been his first friend since moving to the island... half an hour ago. And his age didn't bar him from being a friend- he was a great one at that.
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Post by Ace Finn Fri Jul 15, 2011 2:33 am

Ace giggled at his friend's yeti names, though two or three of them honestly just went right over his head. "You...knew a Cholera? Really?" He'd heard of people naming their kids strange things, after genetalia and diseases and food, without realizing it, but Ace had always disregarded the stories. He figured they weren't true. "Hm, I knew a guy named Hunter Green once. But...that's it. Anyway, I think the yeti translation for Mike Hunt is probably just Mike Hunt. I refuse to believe yetis don't have a sense of humor."

He nodded, the left corner of his mouth twitching up in his trademark amused grin. "Well you call yours and I'll write to mine. They totally sound like they all need a playdate. They can, um, sit around and brag about their grandchildren... well, mine only have me... And they can... Hey, do you know what old people do in their free time? You know, like, with other old people? I don't. Er, my grandmother collects these creepy hina dolls. I don't know why; I guess 'cause she has money and she likes them. They're all in Ma's old room. One time, I slept in there, and it was like they were going to pop out of the shadows and gnaw my brains out." Blinking, he shook his head to get out the image of rows upon rows of deathly white faces behind jet black hair... "Anyway, it'll be like a scavenger hunt. 'Go to Shimoda and find some Yamadas.'" He giggled. "Actually if you're serious, give me a day or so to go back and find their address. I've got it in my book O' peeps."

"Fido," Ace said, smiling, "is about this boy and his pet zombie, named Fido, of course. See, they invent these collars that make zombies docile. So people buy zombies to, like, do their housework and stuff. Anyway, the boy's mom buys a zombie, 'cause they're status symbols, I guess, you know, how many zombies you have... and the boy manages to make friends with it and gets it to be obedient and nice to him, even when the collar malfunctions. They find out Fido ate the neighbor and they take him away, so they have to save him."

When asked about it, whether or not Kohaku would judge him was something that didn't go through his mind at all. He could honestly care less if he was judged. Had he not been already? Would he not be? There were bound to be those on the island who looked at the boy, in all his glorious eccentricity (or so it had been called) and jump to the conclusion that he was nuts.

"Yes," he nodded, flipping his arms over to display a labyrinth of scars, some lighter, some deeper, that lay in various positions with regard to the big ones. Each arm boasted a deep, dark-ish one. On his right arm it went from wrist to elbow and was somewhat straight. The one on the left was more jagged and a bit shorter. His eyes flicked from them to the dinosaur-suited man. "Looks pretty bad, doesn't it?" But, they were all old, the newest, lightest ones having been from probably eight or so months prior. "I really did a number on myself. Anyway."

At the next question, his expression became just a bit more distant. "Yeah... she was. She was a pilot. She loved those godforsaken planes." Of course, he used to, as well. Sometimes, when he wasn't at school and there was room, he'd ride around with her on commercial flights. Taking a deep breath, he asked, "Do you remember about two years ago, there was that commercial plane that went down in the Mojave, and it killed everyone? Something happened to one of the turbines that wasn't caught in inspection, and it blew up. And then, it started going down, and it was on fire, and the fuel blew up, and the plane... blew up..." Blinking, he realized just how much he really didn't understand about what had happened. The science and mechanics behind it made no sense to him. All he knew was that something had triggered a series of explosions all within seconds of each other and the whole thing fell from the sky. Those who didn't die in the explosions were probably killed from the impact, or from the fire. Or... he didn't know.

Ace only knew that it hurt. He was left essentially alone. His house was no longer home, and his father was no longer the same person he had been, and his mother wasn't there to protect him anymore.

"She was flying that," he said, trying to sound nonchalant for his own benefit.

After another round, he didn't really feel like chasing seagulls anymore, so he sunk down in the sand next to his bag and shirt. He watched one of the wheeling, screeching gulls, and sighed. What, Ace wondered, had ever possessed his mother to want to imitate that?
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Post by Kohaku Honda Fri Jul 15, 2011 7:23 pm

"Yep. Cholera Mullen- she was my remedial algebra professor in community college. I'm surprised she didn't quit after teaching our class. So, I went to a community college for the first two years- Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York, to be exact. It's basically a ghetto town, but some parts are really nice. Anyway, so when I took the placement test, I was put into remedial algebra because my study skills back then were... kind of nonexistent. Our class wouldn't have been so bad if Shaquana Dawson wasn't in it."

"She was this obnoxiously loud, gangsta', I-do-what-I-wan' kind of girl. Unfortunately, I got the privilege-" Kohaku emphasized that word for sarcasm. "- of sitting next to her the entire year, because we both failed the first semester. She called me China, even after I told her countless times that I'm Japanese. I even bitched her out once. I was like, 'Okay, Bon Qui Qui! History lesson! China is part of the Asian continent, and Japan is a chain of islands off the coast of Korea. The two have been feuding for quite some time. Throughout history, Japan has invaded China, mostly because Japan is arid and mountainous and has limited resources. Narrow-minded Japanese people and narrow-minded Chinese people hate each other. It's not the same thing.' And she'd still called me China- eventually, I stopped wanting to gauge my eyes out in frustration because I learned quickly that she was the dumbest bitch on the face of the planet."

"One time, we were taking a test and thankfully she was across the room, and she stood up. Literally, stood up in the middle of the test and was like, 'Yo, China! What's the ansa' to numba' five?'" Kohaku did the best ghetto girl voice he could. "And I said, 'Well Shaquana, I can't tell you that'. And she goes, 'Why?' and I'm like 'For one thing that's cheating and for another, the professor is right in front of you.' And she sank back in her seat as inconspicuously as she could going 'Oh shi-et...' as if she forgot the professor was there."

Kohaku had to take a deep, cleansing breath to rid himself of the memories. "Thank God I haven't seen her since- she's actually the reason why I passed Math 091 the second time around... I didn't want to deal with her again. She probably has five children and has to work full-time at a gas station. Oh, and the kids are probably from different fathers too. Wouldn't surprise me."

Kohaku had the tendency to be an insensitive asshole- secretly, he would never wish that on Shaquana, however annoying she may have been. He counted his blessings that he wasn't a single parent without an education trying to tread water in society. The irritation that resurfaced in his voice was only a taste of what he felt when he was sitting next to her.

"I knew a Ben Dover too," He changed the subject. "I'm sure there are yetis who can take a joke- what else would they do in the caves of the Himalayas? Like, one yeti could definitely shout across the caves, 'I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves... everybody's nerves... everybody's-' 'SHUT UP!'. They wouldn't survive in isolation in the mountains without humor."

"HA! Yes- I love it. Old-people play date. And I have no idea- that's always puzzled me too. I mean, they do a lot of stuff alone, like cross-word puzzles and watching TV and petting cats... but I have no idea what they do together besides bingo and religious gatherings. I've seen hina dolls- most of the ones I've seen weren't that creepy. But I guess if you're in a room surrounded by them while they all seem to be staring at you at once... that would be creepy." He shivered. "Book O' Peeps? I like it- much more creative title than 'Address Book'."

Kohaku listened attentively to the story of Fido, and made it a point to watch in illegally online or something. But his mind was silenced when Ace showed him his plethora of scars. He saw a huge one that went up and down instead of side to side- Ace must have been intent on killing himself... however many months ago that was. Kohaku's heart tugged in sympathy.

"Sorry for prying," Kohaku looked away, trying not to imagine what Ace's arm looked like after a fresh cut. "But I've been in mental hospitals too- just not in a long-term facility. My stays weren't over a week and a half."

Kohaku's voice wasn't sad or broody, but casual and light, the way his voice always was. "I have Bipolar Disorder, if you haven't guessed that one already- I'm nearly always manic. Hyperactivity and impulsivity get me into a lot of trouble. I've been trying my whole life to level myself off, but sometimes it gets the better of me. Mostly because when you're like, too happy, you want to stay that way. I sure do. But when I was around your age, I wanted to stay like that all the time, no matter how much money I was spending or how many people I was hurting with my insensitivity and schemes. When I was a... junior? Yeah, a junior in high school, I went into psychosis because of how high my energy was driving me- I started to see a huge, black dog disappear and reappear into the walls. It was scary shit, man- I had to be hospitalized for that because I was crying hysterically and babbling and screaming, seemingly for no reason."

Kohaku shrugged. "But I got the help that I needed. And hopefully you are to."

He smiled at that. He hoped Ace was getting better, although he didn't really know how long he'd been at the facility for. Hopefully the doctors there were worth their degrees.

Kohaku's smile disappeared in shock however as Ace told him what had happened to his mother.

Fuck. Kohaku Honda, you are a fucking douche bag.

He didn't know what to say at first. No wonder Ace was pained enough to slash his arm to ribbons. Kohaku didn't know what else to do other than what his instincts told him to do- wrap a strong arm tightly around Ace's shoulders.

"I never heard it on the news," He began, frantically combing his mind for the right words to say. "And I'm... really sorry that happened to you."

He was silent for a few moments, trying to decide to whether just hold Ace and be all serious... or do something else. Kohaku decided on the latter, even though he wasn't sure what he was going to do yet- he just knew that he hated staying dipped in sorrow for too long... and bet that Ace would probably cry if they were silent for too long, and then Kohaku was sure he wouldn't know what to do.

"And I'm also sorry that you're so... ticklish!"

Kohaku's fingers fluttered up and down Ace's ribs furiously.

"Mwahahahahaha!" He cackled like an evil super villain, then changed the tone of voice to fit a TV show narrator. "Will Ace survive the tickle attack? Or will he... not?"

Kohaku finished awkwardly, but he hoped that this would provide a welcome distraction from everything that was troubling his new friend.
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Post by Ace Finn Sat Jul 23, 2011 6:34 am

"Shaquana?" Ace laughed, his left hand flying to his right side to clutch the stitch caused from his near-incessant laughter. "That's like--! That's the most aswesome ghetto-licious name ever!"

He listened to the story, giggling the entire time. Ace had met stupid people. He'd had the pleasure of being in classes with stupid people. And, of course, there had been those who automatically wanted to cheat off his papers in math, just to find that they didn't get that perfect score they were looking for so desperately. "I had problems in math, too," he sympathized. "I had advanced English, and the rest were normal, but I probably should have been in a stupid people math class. And then, near the end, I was just like... fuck it, and I pretty much bombed math all together. My study skills involved opening my book, boggling at it for a minute, and then throwing it aside in favor of curling up on the couch and wasting the rest of the day."

At the end of the anecdote, he burst into laughter again. "Wow... What a dumbass. Well, at least if she has a full time gas station job, she could buy a graphing calculator and program the equations into it and maybe pass without cheating off China next time. Uh. That's what I did for geometry. I told my ma that if she got me one of those, I'd do better in math. So she did. And Mr. TI-89 passed math for me second semester."

Ace twitched when Kohaku started singing that...song. "No! No, oh my god, if I were a yeti, and someone started singing that, I would shoot them. Yetis probably have guns. I bet they take them from the people they eat, and since they can't very well walk into the closest Bass Pro shop and get a few rounds, they save up the ammo for shooting yetis that get on their nerves." He shook his head--fucking song. Now it was going to be making circles around his mind for the next three hours.

"I think my grandparents like dinner parties. They had them sometimes when we were there, with a bunch of old rich bats and dudes I didn't know. But a lot of them would be like, "Oh hey Ace, want some candy?" or whatever. So they'd pretty much stuff me full of chocolate the entire time. I was fine with that. Except then, my grandparents would be kind of tipsy at that point and start bragging about me, and then they'd make me play the piano for them, and I had to give like, a bajillion encores." Something popped into Ace's head, and he pondered it for a second. "Aha," he said. "I got it. Old people love bragging about grandkids. More than anything. And mine have me, and yours have you, so I'm sure they'd get along fine. Old people are always cool so long as they're bragging about grandkids."

He shook his head, though, disbelieving. "No, hina dolls are creepy. Like. I guess they sort of have a purpose... I don't understand why they have a purpose, but yeah... it's kind of that. I don't like being in a dark room surrounded by their pale-as-shit faces. In the daylight they're not bad at all." He thought that they were actually somewhat pretty in the daytime. But he did not like sleeping in a dark room with them; it was effectively like sleeping in a room surrounded by pale-faced porcelain dolls. "It's just, like, if you wake up in the middle of the night wanting a glass of water, and you open your eyes and BAM! you're face-to-face with what looks for a moment, in your exhaustion, some sort of midget ghost, well. You'd think they were creepy too."

Ace reached up to pat the man's shoulder. "Hm, I didn't really peg you for being bipolar. I just thought you were a kid at heart. No reason why you can't be both, I guess."

But he shook his head. "No... Well. I wasn't really getting any better, at first. Like, at all. I mean, I know what that's like. Not the psychosis, but the crying and screaming and babbling. I've done my fair share of that, for sure. Anyway--wait. Um, yes, I think I had psychosis, actually. For a while--don't laugh--I actually thought I was dead. Like, seriously. I recently got over that. But anyway, last November I tried to drown myself, and then after that I had one psych appointment. And he told me that he would help me cross over and that I should show him where I died, so I did. He didn't actually tell me that I wasn't dead. Only people who tried to tell me were my girlfriend Emmy and my friend Pandora, but Pan's not here anymore. Like, I think all the other people just played along with it, so I didn't realize it wasn't true. But then, I talked to this chick... you know Lux? She works at the Broom Closet." He laughed, shaking his head. "Honestly, I doubt this place helps people, like, at all. Because you know what? All that therapy and all that medicine, and it's a psychic who helped me most. But I mean, that's between us. I wish I could get out of here. I just want to go back home, you know?"

Talking about his mother was still really hard, though, and Ace supposed it always would be. He was surprised, though, that Kohaku hadn't heard about it. But maybe for a lot of places, it was less of a headline. In San Diego it was bound to be a big one, as the plane had left from there, and the pilot, the co-pilot, most of the attendants, and a large number of the passengers were locals.

"Ah, well, it was... I wish I'd never seen it on the news. Like, it was bad enough when they came to tell us what happened. And then a lot of times, flipping through channels, they'd show reports on it. It lasted for a while... they had to cover the crash, then they had to cover the investigation, blah, blah." Impulsively, though, when his friend said he was sorry, Ace hugged him. "No, don't apologize. Unless you had a sniper rifle and sabotaged the plane, which--" his voice cracked. "Which I highly doubt. But I'll live, you know?"

Ace shrieked again when the second wave of tickling came. "No! Kyouryuu, bad dinosaur!" He could hardly get the words out, he was laughing so hard. "I'm going to call the yetis!" Squirming away, he picked up a handful of sand and pegged Kohaku in the kneecap with it. "I'm going to bury you up to your head in the sand and slap you with a fish!"

Speaking of fish... Ace had come to swim. "Hey, Kyouryuu? Do you want to come swimming with me?" Already, Ace started strolling toward the water, sinking his feet into the cool wet sand. "I'd take off the dinosaur thing, though. I'd think that's sort of a pain in the ass to run through the wash."
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Post by Kohaku Honda Sun Jul 24, 2011 2:22 am

Kohaku laughed. "Yeah, I guess you can't get any more ghetto-licious than Shaquana. Maybe Shanaynay or Jemima could top it, but I'm not so certain. Basically, black women seem to like naming their daughters any name that starts with 'La' and ends in '-eisha'. Trust me, I interned at a high school in New York City- I taught kids with the names LaKeisha, Leshaya, Laquisha, LaWanda, Fanteisha... um... Aiesha! And a few Shaniqua's. Yep... that's New York for you."

"HA! At least you were in advanced classes. The 'You need to get your shit together' light bulb didn't come on for me until half-way through my second year of community college. But hey- it's better than nothing. At least it went on eventually. If it hadn't, I wouldn't be here right now, talking and chasing seagulls with you."

Kohaku had been telling the truth, and not only because he didn't like lying. He was chasing seagulls in a dinosaur suit and had met Ace through doing so because he had been hired at Drayton. And he got hired at Drayton through submitting an application because he thought that working at Stuyvesant was too easy. And he thought it was too easy because he had interned, and he interned because he graduated college with the necessary degrees... you get the idea.

"Yeah, somehow I doubt Shaquana would buy a graphing calculator over a new pair of shoes, or maybe even drugs. Becoming intelligent wasn't on her list for life values. Although, who knows- she probably turned around the same time I did. I mean, the last time I saw her was... wow. Way back in 2005. So, I have no idea what went on after that- maybe she graduated from community college, went to a four-year to receive a bachelor's, then went to graduate school... like me. But anyway, you really shouldn't go around telling school teachers ways to cheat your way through a math course. But luckily for you, I'm not a math teacher." He grinned.

"Haha! Yeah, yetis probably do carry guns. It'd be a waste to leave it in the snow after eating someone. I mean, Chewbacca knew how to work a gun. Why not a yeti?"

"Grandparents don't have anything else to do besides brag about their grandkids. That, and they love you. But it's funny because my grandparents used to pressure me into playing piano in front of them too- Yuto would be playing the violin and we'd jam without actually practicing beforehand. They didn't know the difference. They were just proud of us. Oh! I didn't actually tell you who Yuto is, did I? He's my twin brother. We're fraternal, so it's pretty easy to tell us apart. Unless someone isn't too skilled at differentiating between Asian faces. Anyway, he's a social worker, and he and his wife Téa are going to have a baby soon."

Kohaku couldn't help but smile when he said that. He was going to be an uncle- he was almost as excited as the baby's parents. When he or she came into the world, Kohaku would undeniably be a part of their life. Kohaku couldn't fathom parents or aunts/uncles who ignored or abandoned their children or nieces/nephews. As far as he was concerned, it was one of the most fucked up things someone could possibly do. They wouldn't be parents then.

Kohaku shuddered after Ace talked about the hina dolls. "I've only seen them in the daytime. Knock on... sand."

He tapped his knuckles against the beach as Ace patted his shoulder. He smiled to show he was appreciative of the gesture, then sighed. "You'd know I had it if you spent great lengths of time with me. You'd see that I'm impulsive and don't usually think about people. I do lots of stupid or socially unacceptable things while I'm manic- chasing seagulls in a dinosaur suit isn't unacceptable... but it's kind of awkward. Mania drives me to do stupid things all the time- like, I used to get arrested a lot as a teenager. Don't worry- it was for things that were funny and things that I don't really regret. Like, this one time, I took a camping tent and set it up in the middle of Starbucks. I was convicted for disturbing the peace, and then I was convicted of disorderly conduct when I wrapped my body fully in paper towel and ran around Rite Aid screaming like a howler monkey. Kids thought I was a resurrected mummy. I was just given community service for my offenses because the policemen found all of my stunts hilarious, so they went easy on me. But there was also a bunch of stuff that I wasn't caught doing- like this one time, a friend of mine had a guinea pig that just had babies. So she was frantically trying to get rid of them, and I took all of them and let them grow up. I took a sharpie to each one and labeled them 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6. Then, I set them all loose in an office building and, of course, they freaked out and were hell-bent on capturing all of them. But after they'd found all of them, they were still looking for 5."

Kohaku laughed, and sighed pleasantly. "Yeah... I did lots of stuff to burn off my energy. I mean, I don't pull schemes like that so much anymore, because there's a lot of risk now- getting fired, getting evicted, things of that nature. Anyway, Bipolar Disorder is fun for me because I'm predominately the manic portion of it, but it also gets me into a lot of trouble. Yuto's bipolar too, but he's the opposite of me in most aspects so it's only natural that he'd be the polar opposite of me in this too- he's predominately depressed, and is manic as often as I'm depressed, which is basically never. It was a struggle for him to get out of bed and function some days, and he had his fair share of suicide attempts too, but he has it mostly under his control now. Better than I do with my mania."

Kohaku listened to Ace talk about his issues, then shook his head at Ace's self-diagnosis. "That's not psychosis- you didn't hallucinate, you were just... deluded. I'm glad you're out of that now though, and the fact that the doctor egged you on seems a little peculiar to me. But at least you're okay now. Sounds like you're doing better than you were. And I've never met Lux- I just came here a few minutes before we met. I still haven't unpacked my boxes."

He was caught off-guard when Ace hugged him, but he smiled and let him. Ace had definitely been through a meat grinder throughout the years that he was in grief, but it seemed like he was doing better now, and that was what Kohaku was hoping for. Of course, his mother's death would stay with him for the rest of his life, but at least now it wasn't the driving force for doing things such as trying to kill himself.

As he tickled his friend, Kohaku was having fun too. He would definitely get used to tickling his nephew or niece. He laughed as he let go when Ace was trying to squirm away, and also when Ace threw sand at his knee.

"Ohh no- the dreaded fish! I don't think I'll survive!" Kohaku was sarcastically dramatic when he said that, but then sprang up when Ace offered to go swimming.

"Hell yeah! I forgot we were on the beach for a second!"

Kohaku practically jumped out of the dinosaur suit, leaving it crumpled in the sand with his shoes, socks and shirt, keeping his pants on.

"Last one there is yeti-food! WOOOOO!"

Kohaku made a mad dash for the water, steps becoming slower as the water went up to his knees. It occurred to him that Ace would see his tattoo. The Japanese symbols of 'Knock on the sky, and listen to the sound' were written in black kanji down the entire length of his spine. It was easy to conceal when he had to teach- he had to wear a shirt there.
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Post by Ace Finn Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:57 am

"I didn't think Jemima was ghettolicious," Ace said. "I always just thought she made really kick-ass pancakes. I think Ma always saw it as sort of racist, you know. Aunt Jemima, Uncle Ben... all they can do is cook pancakes and rice. But then again if it were racist, I think Uncle Ben should've been Asian." He giggled. "Ahh... stereotypes."

"Do people in New York really have weird names like that? I knew... well, I think there was a Quinnesha once. I think LaKeisha's kind of common now, though. As well as LaTeisha and stuff." He shrugged. "Maybe they just weren't really in the school I went to. I think there were a ton of Navy brats at mine, since I lived really close to the sub base and the auxiliary something-or-other base. Other than that I just met people with abstract nouns for names. Serenity--she's one of my best friends... and there was Luv... spelled L-U-V even. There were always Princesses and Angels, and a Precious, too. I've also known girls named Asia and China. And neither of them were Asian." He shrugged and rolled his eyes subconsciously at this. "I'm gonna name my kid Antarctica."

Shrugging again, Ace stuck his tongue out, his eyes closed tightly. "I was in one advanced class. Just English. I don't like science, I suck at math, and history was always dumb because all the teachers were coaches that didn't really know about history. They just had to be a teacher in order to be a coach. Before I got taken out of Sophomore year, my American History class was just, 'Sooo, how do you think the Chargers are going to do this season?' 'They always suck. Why would they suddenly not suck? Jeez.' But I ended up missing like six months of that year. So then I had to repeat it, which concludes the story of How I Became a Nearly-Seventeen-Year-Old Sophomore. But I get to actually be a junior now, I guess." He threw his hands up in a gesture of mock-excitement. Really, if he could just kick school to the curb, get his GED, and go on to cosmetology school, he probably would. He didn't want to be going-on-nineteen graduating high school. It wasn't as if he needed a mathematical formula to rip out someone's eyebrows, or a history of the Napoleonic wars in order to perm some old bat's hair.

On the topic of Shaquana... "She probably became a lawyer. Just for spite. Trust me, I'd rather buy shoes than a graphing calculator, too... or nail polish. I'd love a hundred bucks worth of nail polish. However..." he grimaced, remembering his mother's 'disappointed' face. "I think Ma might have cried if I failed math, not to mention if I didn't, she gave me monetary gifts for my grades. That and I don't have that calculator here. From the sound of it, you'd make as awesome a math teacher as I would," he laughed.

Finally, though, a topic that wasn't school. Ace hated school. He used to try, way back when, when he was younger and afraid that failiing a subject would make his mother cry. But after he stopped caring, he just couldn't bring himself to start again. "Ooh!" he said, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet, "You play the piano too? How long? Almost twelve years here! For. Fucking. Ever. I'll play until my fingers fall off, and then I'll use my toes. I liked to play random stuff for my grandparents. I can listen to, like, any song, and figure out within a few hours how to play it."

"I wish I had a real sibling," he said. "I have Jocie, but she's just my foster sister. Not even really related to me. It's weird. I'm an only child, my mother was... well. Not originally, but she ended up being one. So, on my mom's side, I don't have any aunts, uncles, cousins, anything. Just me and my grandparents. Well, and their siblings, but they're all old, too."

Ace laughed hard at all of Kyouryuu's antics. "I'd rather have gotten arrested for that! That at least makes an interesting story." He thought of the time he'd been arrested. "Yeah," he sighed, shrugging. "I've been arrested too, but it was really dumb. I got some 'random' search, coming into school. I mean, they did those, but we kind of learned that it was usually because someone tipped them off, or someone 'looked suspicious...' Could have been either one, in my case. But it was probably the latter, because I didn't really know anyone then who knew anything about me anymore." That was certainly true, at least. He remembered what he'd been before: short, goofy, flaming, silly, awesome. And then, it was all, Ace has changed, a lot. Well. Of course he has! His mom died. I heard he... cue all sorts of rumors, only two of which were true. He had attempted suicide, and he had been hospitalized. However, he never stole his dad's car to joyride, he never nicked beer and smokes and condoms from the 7/11, some of the more out-there rumors. Then again, maybe they had tried to tip off school security.

"Ah, anyway," he continued, "I had to turn out all my pockets, empty my backpack, they kept telling me they needed to search my car, but I didn't have a car. I couldn't drive. They found a pill in my pocket, were all, 'Well what were you going to do with this?' And I was like, 'I was going to fucking eat it!' I didn't even know the fucking thing was in there. I probably left it in there from the weekend, was going to take it, but forgot I had it or something. So, I was, like, some sort of criminal or something." He laughed. "It was hilarious, for a few days, I was like, a druggie god. Kids would like, as I was walking past, be like, 'He was going to fucking eat it!'"

Ace listened, knowing probably exactly how Yuto felt. Poor guy. He couldn't really say anything, because as he'd always found out, it was something most people didn't understand until it happened to them.

"Yeah, I didn't know what it was... Cotard delusions, something. I think. There's a name for it; I think that's it. Thinking you're dead. And, yeah... it was just... I think my girlfriend was about ready to punch me in the nuts or something. She was so frustrated with it all. Wouldn't be surprised if she was always frustrated with me, but I guess that's just what happens when you love someone. You get frustrated and kick them in the nuts." Thankfully Emmy hadn't actually gone near--wait, no, she did. But not with violence on the brain. At this, a grin spread over Ace's lips, and he started subconsciously combing through a lock of his bangs with his fingers. Maybe he was trying to bore himself, to get that silly smirk off his face. From there, he could just make out that patch of tall dune grasses and dry brush. It then occurred to him that he hadn't been 'alive' for all that long. Just nine days. Some days he felt better, and some he felt the pain again, the pain he hadn't felt as keenly as he had when he was 'dead.' Most of the time now, he tried to be nonchalant about it and hide it. But now that Ace was well aware that things weren't changing like he thought they were, he would swing back to his hopeless moods. Not too often, but they were still there. Fortunately, though, he hadn't been afraid of what he might do to himself in a while.

"Yeti-food," Ace laughed, pointing at his friend. He'd already been a few short steps away from the water, and now he stood with it lapping about his ankles. Kyouryuu passed him by, and Ace just stared into the ocean. For a moment, he wasn't sure if he was actually allowed to go in it. Didn't they ban people from things that were dangerous? The entire place, or at least those that had come from New York, knew that Ace had attempted to drown himself last November.

Shrugging, he waded deeper. No one had said anything to him about not being allowed in the ocean, and if they had, he would've remembered, because he would have been heartbroken. If Ace was separated from the ocean for too long, he started to get anxious. He'd grown up on it and learned to love and respect it.

"I wish I had my board," he said as he ducked down a little, cupped water into his hands and spilled it over his own head. "Well, the waves aren't that awesome, but I could at least float around on it if I had it." Instead, he dove under the water to get himself fully wet, then flipped over onto his back and paddled slowly in circles. "Nice tat," he complimented when he got a good look at the man's back. "I like it."

Then he ducked under the water again, and, staying as low to the seabed as he could, he started reaching blindly for Kyouryuu's ankle...


((Sorry this took so fucking long, lol. I had like five million things all going on on the home front... :/))
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Post by Kohaku Honda Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:28 pm

"Jemima was the first thing I thought of. I guess I've got a hankering for pancakes..." Kohaku sighed. "I can't cook worth shit. Even when I try to make pancakes they end up either thin silver dollars with batter on the inside or charred remnants... and that's if I flip them properly. My diet is strictly of the bachelor variety- peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, canned soup and ramen noodles."

"I thought Uncle Ben was Spiderman's uncle." Kohaku attempted to do his voice. "With great power comes great responsibility."

He laughed. "Of course! It's New York City- it's a melting pot if I've ever seen one. I got sassed by one of my 3rd period's whose name is Eva. I pronounced it Ee-vah instead of Ay-vah the first time I took attendance. Although, I have to count my blessings- New York is better than, say, Georgia, for weird black names."

Kohaku stretched his legs out and crossed them. "I guess there's lots of weird names out there. I mean, think about it- you can name your kid anything, and change your name to anything. Antarctica would be interesting- wish my name was Antarctica. Well, no I don't- it sounds too much like a girl's name because it ends in 'A'. Although... Akira is a guy's name and it ends in 'A'. You understand that."

Kohaku knew he was rambling, but he usually didn't mind if he did, then chuckled when Ace talked about school. "It's good that you find your niche though- something you're good at. One favorite subject is better than no favorite subject. If you like English, you'll be good at history- it's all reading, writing essays and taking notes anyway. Teachers should know how to teach- I had this one business teacher in high school who talked about her cats the entire time and didn't teach anything. And don't sweat it about being left back."

He patted Ace's back and smiled. "At least you didn't give up entirely and drop out or something. And even if you did, just get your GED and continue SOME form of education... like welding school. All you have to do is keep going."

"Hey, if I can become a history teacher after most of my schooling was taken up by not trying and not paying attention and pulling pranks on teachers, then she can become a lawyer. I should like, look up Shaquana on Facebook just to be sure, because now I'm curious."

Kohaku stuck his tongue out. "Bleh... I hate math too. I could never become a math teacher- it wouldn't be as fun as teaching history. Whenever I teach, it's like telling a story about what they need to know on final exams while making people take notes. The titles of my power points are really funny too- 'It's so easy, an Australopithacus can do it' is about finding Lucy in Africa and 'King?! I didn't vote for you!' is about medieval Europe. That was a Monty Python reference. But it's never a good idea to fail math because it's in most sciences too."

For most of his life, Kohaku hated school as well. Mania had robbed him of his ability to pay attention, and he was too busy messing around to actually pretend like he cared. Yuto was always on his ass about that though, and once he got really mad: 'Life is a huge joke to you, isn't it? You know you'll be kicked off the wrestling team if they see your grades.' And that semester, his grades were in the high C's all across the board because he didn't want to have nothing to do.

Kohaku was taken by surprise by Ace's enthusiasm about piano, but instantly got as excited as he did. He high-fived him. "Hell yeah! Awesome! Someone else who lives off of hitting the keys. Um... let me think about that one. I started playing piano the same time Yuto picked up violin... and that was when we were in fourth grade. Sixteen years? Maybe? Because fourth graders start out as nine-year-old's usually, right? But that's great- never give it up."

Kohaku listened a little sadly to Ace talking about his family, then asked: "What's Jocie like? Like I said before, Yuto's my polar opposite- he's my voice of reason and I'm the one who brings fun to his life. In a way, both of us counteract each other's bipolar- he brings me back to Earth when I'm hyper and I cheer him up and force him to socialize when he's all... depressed."

During the pause between his words, Kohaku remembered something from his and Yuto's childhood.

"Yuto! C'mon and join us! Everyone's playing Steal the Bacon!"

"I don't want to..." Yuto's quiet and sullen voice brought a small frown to Kohaku's always-smiling face.

Kohaku reached over and held both of his brother's hands, giving it a slight tug to help him off the ground.

"Please, Yu-chan?"

"No. Everyone will laugh that I can't run as fast as you can."

Kohaku's shoulder sank, then the corners of his mouth formed a mischievous grin.

"Yu-uto..." Kohaku jeered. "If you don't come and play, I'll yell really really loud that we're holding hands!"

Yuto tried desperately to pull away as his face emanated his panic. "Y-You can't be serious!"

"One!"

Yuto struggled more.

"Two! Th-"

Yuto then made a mad dash to the line of kids and Kohaku followed him. He saw his brother blushing and put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

"When will you learn, Yu? That stuff doesn't bother me. It never did."


Kohaku sighed, taking himself out of his personal pensieve, and said finally: "We're really close."

He couldn't help himself from laughing when Ace talked about his arrests. "Ha! Community service at the end wasn't as awesome. But I never learned my lesson no matter how many cans I picked up at the side of the road. And that sucks- those pesky random searches..."

Kohaku listened to Ace talking about his delusion and made a mental note to look up 'Cotard delusion' on Google. He was curious, and he should study up on psychological disorders if he was going to be teaching crazy kids.

When Kohaku ran toward the water, it felt cold but rewarding at the same time. 'Refreshing' was probably a better word. Nonetheless, it felt great. He was struggling to run as fast as he was when he was on the sand because the water provided more resistance. He waded there for a while, then dunked himself to his shoulders and rolled for a while, laughing with delight.

"You surf?" Kohaku asked as he submerged his head in the water, whipping his head back as he wiped his eyes afterwards.

He heard Ace compliment his tattoo and didn't notice him going under the water. "Oh! Thanks! It's a Japanese prover- Eep!"

Kohaku let out a somewhat girly shriek when Ace grabbed his ankle, waiting patiently for him to resurface so that he could splash him. He was having a lot of fun- he could get used to this.

((Hakuna matata! What a wonderful phrase! Hakuna matata~ ain't no passing craze! It means no worries... <3 I'm not mad at all- I'm not even expecting a reply for this one because I know you and your mighty Mod powers are going to be busy on the new Hadley. Don't worry about it. <3))
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