[AQ] WHO ARE YOU REALLY? [Keiko/Juon]

[Keiko]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{AQ Details}
Who Are You Really?
+ Description: As Guardian Characters hatch, suddenly you see people you thought you knew in a whole new light.
+ Judge their would-be selves: -1 Guardians, +2 Roost
+ Embrace their would-be selves: +2 Faberge, -1 Roost
+ Find yourself confused as to what to think; re-evaluate: +1 Guardians, -1 Faberge, +1 Roost
+ Requirements: Minimum Level 1
+ Submitted by Hatta
Juon

So Mister Corea, is it okay if we went to hang out at the planetarium?

Keiko’s nails clacked nosily against the wooden desk of her dormroom, highly mobile compared to her dominant hand which clutched tightly onto her smartphone. She was slowly thumbing out the start to a text directed to her favorite ever-eager lackey. While it was fairly late outside- far too late for any proper person such as herself to be thinking about leaving the dorms- she was trying to set up a “date” for tomorrow. Normally this sort of thing was painless and easy for her, setting up hangouts and the like, but this wasn’t exactly a “normal” hangout.

She quickly erased what little she had wrote by tapping the back arrow with her thumb roughly and tried again.

Are you free tomorrow?

After staring hard at the message for a solid minute, wondering if it looked as casual as she meant it to be, she sent it off. Nervously, Keiko had scooped back her long bangs and pushed it back along the base of her scalp, trying to more or less get them out of her way. It wasn’t like her to be uncertain, which is why she kept checking over and over to make sure that her roommate Junko was actually asleep, and after waiting a measly ten seconds she was already furiously tapping in away a more commanding message.

Rephrase: You will make time tomorrow, yes?

It was late. She wouldn’t have been too surprised if she didn’t get reply until the next morning, but as her phone buzzed and lit up in her hands she found herself scrambling to read the simple, but effective, “yeah”. It was very him, she couldn’t help but feel herself smirk slightly as she tapped in another message in response.

I want to go see the stars!

Keiko turned her phone upside down, then rightside up again, as she looked over the message just to make sure that nothing about it came off shady. Deciding that ultimately it didn’t give off nearly enough information, though, she tacked on a little bit more, just to play it safe.

I want to go see the stars! You know the large dome on campus? I’m pretty sure it’s open on weekends for viewings. We could do homework while we’re there!

With another tap, it was sent off. She found herself nervously clicking her nails again on the desk yet again, staring with a furious intensity at the darkened phone screen. This time, though, when it lit up with a notification, she was a lot more at ease with checking its contents. Another confirmation- after smiling a little to herself, she started thumbing away at some information details, hammering it into her precious lackey how he absolutely could not be late, amongst other small details, finally going to sleep after he simply stopped replying to her hassling all together.

As always, she was pleased to have things go her way.

Morning came quickly; after going through the motions of her general routine (including waking up the ironic queen-of-her-world roommate, Junko) she found herself collecting her things for her day out with Juon. A small bag was placed before her, one notably without the vast majority of supplies she would need to follow up with her offer of “doing homework”, and inside she had packed away her wallet, a notebook, a pen, and…

The egg.

This odd egg of hers had appeared only recently, only within the past four months or so, as something of a mystery to her. It was something she could not make heads or tails of, exactly, because although it just looked like any of the decorative eggs that were scattered around the school, this one was warm. It spoke to her in a way she couldn’t describe, and out of curiosity she more or less kept it nearby, on her person, just.. in case. It was a sort of precaution she didn’t think she could ever explain if someone asked, but she ended up doing anyway; even if it was just for herself.

It was pretty, she thought idly, while gently dropping it within a pocket of the small bag that she was now throwing over her shoulder. With her things packed and the bag strap thrown over her shoulder, she exited the confines of her dorm room and went on her merry way to meet Juon at the planetarium- for which her only mission was literally just to “hangout”.

There was no one out there that she was quite as comfortable with just “sitting” with and just “hanging out” properly as she was with Juon- something about him she found to be entirely unthreatening and she was put at ease- but there was virtually no comfortable way for her to ask for that sort of thing. Luckily for her, though, Juon’s lack of… something, caused him not to ask too many questions. Not once has he ever really pressed the issue, and it was a single source of comfort for the self-absorbed queen of Seiyo.

When reaching the building, she took a hand and scooped back her bangs out of her face, doing her best to flash a pretty model-smile for the planetarium’s caretaker. Mr. Kirishigi seemed to be solely operating the planetarium, as usual, but it seemed today the way his dark eyes glanced over her they seemed to settle a little longer on her than usual. Finding the whole exchange to be actually a little unnerving, Keiko decidedly dropped her smile and just went through the motions of buying two tickets for the early morning showings from a helpful student in a red cape.

The only thing to do now was wait for the beloved lackey in question, to which she thumbed out a new text for.

I bought our tickets. Just waiting on you, my prince. Come whisk me away already.

[Juon]

Keiko was insistent as always.

That was something that never changed.

When the invitation had arrived, it was surprisingly welcomed. Everything had been changing so quickly, that the idea of consistency in the form of the personality that was Mori Keiko seemed like a small bit of luck. Though he'd replied to her messages in his usual brief diction, his spirits at the idea were uncharacteristically high. Spending a day in a calm, quiet place, doing homework, being irritated in the same usual way... he was perfectly okay with that.

The small individual who had been staring over his shoulder the entire time, however, was perhaps not so much. The small thief, the--the Guardian Character, as he called himself, had decided that he was now very much a part of Juon's life; and it seemed that Juon hadn't any kind of say in it.

"You're really going to go?" the small thing giggled in his ear. "Why? It isn't going to benefit you any."

"Shut up," Juon snapped back in a whisper, stealing paranoid glances behind him to the sleeping form of Nao. While he didn't necessarily think that he'd wake up from such a simple prompting, it was still terrifying, the prospect of being found out that he had this weird... thing following him, talking to him...

Trying to change him.

He wasn't okay with it. The way that Clip could take control of his body and mouth without any consent of Juon's was, frankly, terrifying. Granted, it had only happened once, but he was afraid of it happening again. He didn't want that--he didn't want that ever. And Clip had the audacity to say that that was what Juon really wanted--but who would want that? And the way that Clip changed him; it was awful--why would he want to be like that?

Maybe there was a bit of liberation from it, but it wasn't worth the consequence that came along with it. He'd already hurt someone, and that was well far from everything he always tried to achieve from how he lived his life. Granted, that wasn't the lifestyle he'd wanted by choice, but--he had a duty to fulfill.

Either way, he was insistent the next morning that Clip was not going to be coming with him to meet with Keiko. He kept insisting otherwise, but Juon was persistent; he wanted everything to go back to the way it was before, even if for just a little while. He needed some kind of normalcy--not that Keiko was one who could readily provide it, but at least because she wasn't involved in all of this egg and Guardian Character nonsense.

At least, not as far as he knew.

He'd packed a backpack--bringing along a couple of schoolbooks to get homework done with, as well as a usual box of jellybeans; he wasn't sure how long they'd be there, but he would never go unprepared. The thing he hadn't realized, though, was that Clip had snuck into one of the pockets while Juon had been pulling out some street shoes from his room's shoe closet; he didn't often go out on weekends aside from trips into town to resupply, so his non-school shoes didn't get as much use as they might otherwise.

Getting Keiko's last SMS right as he started out the door, he thumbed back a weak "be over in 5" before starting his way down the hall, rounding down the staircase, and out of the dormitory building. The planetarium was just behind it, so he didn't have far to walk, trying to adjust himself along the way to try and make sure he was coming off as regularly as possible, running fingers through his bangs and trying to keep his hair in order.

Finally arriving, he spotted her from behind and approached, trying to keep his usual sense about him. He was sure she wouldn't bother to notice if anything was off about him anyway, since she was usually so much more focused on herself, but it was hard not to think about it, anyway.

"So like," he greeted casually. "I was thinking this morning; aren't planetariums usually dark? How are we supposed to get work done, then, huh?"

[Keiko]

The rather archaic ringtone she had set for Juon alerted of a new reply, with practiced ease Keiko had swiped her phone back on and checked the contents, only to be immediately disappointed with the content within. The fact that he had the gall to make her stand by, for five minutes no less, by herself in the chilly spring morning was an atrocity she simply could not forgive. Keiko hardly had patience to begin with; she found little appeal in being kept waiting for something she didn’t owe a lick of time to.

Tongue clicking with agitation, the tall teen drove her heels into the dirt and crossed her arms in a malicious way, mind whirling with all the different sort curt disses she would throw Juon’s way when he finally had arrived. Whatever she was planned to say however unfortunately never got put to use, though, because by the time Juon had actually arrived Keiko had dozed off while standing. Her eyes slowly blinked away the sleep that had been cast over her head when his voice was caught by her ears- by the time he had walked around her and got a better look at her she was straining not to look dopey with tiredness.

“Hah?” her voice came out slow and she blinked a couple of times at Juon, “You’re not wrong… Excellent deduction, Mister Corea.” She offered up a small smile as she more or less had to yank her heels out of the ground she dug them in. After a beat of realization was offered, Keiko raised her significantly much lighter bag and waved it in front of his face like a pendulum. “I never planned to do any today! I already bought your ticket, though, so you can’t back out now.” Now that she was a little more awake she managed to offer Juon one of her too-brilliant smiles, and she peddled backwards a bit towards the planetarium encouragingly.

“You wouldn’t make me waste my precious time for absolutely nothing, would you?”

[Juon]

Raising an eyebrow at her reply (and her hesitation; had she been nodding off standing up? That was unlike her), he waited for a further explanation before becoming too suspicious, watching with narrowed eyes as she raised her bag and announced that studying had not even been on the list of intentions in the first place for their little outing.

"What? Then why did you--" he cut himself off with a sigh, knowing that trying to argue was useless in itself. He groaned internally; couldn't she have mentioned that, then, rather than putting him under a false impression that had lead him to drag along all of his study material in the first place? He was already feeling a headache coming on, and they weren't even inside the planetarium yet.

The exasperated groan made its way external as she'd already started backpedaling in, urging him to be dragged along with her; what a pain, he thought. "No, of course not, your majesty," came his sarcasm-drenched response as he picked up his feet and started along after her. "What are we even doing here, then, if we're not going to study? I can't believe I dragged along all my crap for this."

[Keiko]

Her lips puckered softly with shallow embarrassment at Juon’s raised eyebrow- she didn’t really think he’d catch her tiredness as quickly as he had, and in her mind she had decided she was just never going to touch upon the subject remotely if she could so help it. To Keiko, her image of a benevolent and perfect queen absolutely needed to be preserved- or she might just face what she felt to be social suicide. Unfortunately for her, that image was already long ruined from the literal moment she opened her big mouth to speak, but what she didn’t know hasn’t bitten her in the butt qutie yet.

Juon seemed quick enough to cut off his own complaints for her, which she noted with sincere amusement as he sighed with visible annoyance. It was genuinely sort of heartening that he was the single person on campus who would just go along with whatever she had to say- sort of. There were always the individuals who followed her out of fear as well as the unbiased ball of joy that was Daichi, sure, but Juon… Juon was different. She couldn’t quite place exactly what kind of emotion she felt about him, but it ultimately boiled down that she did feel a form of safety with him.

The following question seemed to actually confuse her, as if the answer was so painfully obvious to the world that she couldn’t understand why it was asked in the first place. The concern spread easily to her face and her body posture as she turned on her heel to resume walking forward, only to stop right on by the planetarium doors in a dead halt. “We’re here to look at the stars, obviously. What else do people do at planetariums? They aren’t exactly the most versatile of places in terms of activities to do, my dear Watson.” With a quiet tsk she remained steadfast- pausing for a short period of time before prompting.

“It’s polite to open the door for a lady, you know.”

[Juon]

'We're here to look at the stars, obviously,' she'd said, and he merely stared at her gaping, unable to formulate a reply. He supposed that was the rather obvious answer, but nothing was particularly so obvious when it came to Mori Keiko; he felt that he always had to keep on his toes with her--a mistake of not he'd already made twice so far today. Letting the non-existent words he was holding release themselves as a sigh, he decided not to argue.

But his brow furrowed at her following statement as he glared at her in disbelief. "Really," was the protest that he gave, but he still complied, anyway; he was almost always willing to comply, but he would for damn sure let known all of his complaints about it, as a type of compensation.

Pulling open the large metal door, he stood beside it as he held it open, waiting for her to proceed before following in behind, tsking and letting his head shake while he rolled his eyes once the door started to slowly shut behind them.

The Planetarium's lobby was dark, paths leading out on both sides to the main projection area, with a small desk greeting them at the front, holding showtimes, ticket availability, educational pamphlets, and some small souvenirs; a Guardians member was on duty and manning the desk, their red cape flowing gently about their shoulders as they called them a gentle welcome.

Juon prompted them to head over into the main area, where the stars would be projected overhead, and a few other students would be found around; they were scattered, heads either craned to the ceiling or buried down in books, a low murmur settled about the space, the floor lights glowing gently to fill what the light from the projection didn't in the otherwise dimness of the planetarium.