[AQ] Rock out talk out [Miuna/Kiyoka]

[Miuna]

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}

Throwing Rock

+ Description: The Arcade is has just installed a new Rock Band machine with all the instruments and an updated track list--why not try it out, or drag some friends along?

+ Try for the high score: -1 Faberge, +2 Roost

+ Put on your best performance: +2 Faberge, -1 Roost

+ Play just to have fun with friends: +1 Guardians

+ Requirements: None
+ Submitted by Teale

Miuna hadn't been near the machine since first coming to the school, but for whatever reason she was drawn back to it now.  She still didn't know how to sing in English but it didn't matter much for a game like Rock Band.  Running her hands over the game she snuck a peek around her before jumping on the stage.  It was still slightly sticky under her feet from just a bit too much spilled soda but Ohno kept it clean enough.  Hopefully Takeo-senpai or any of the other Roost members weren't around.  She wasn't really in the mood to deal with any of them.

Her song choice was completely random, some radio pop song she'd heard while walking around at the mall.  Her fingers were quick but they still slipped here and there from lack of practice.  She wondered how good she would have been had she come here every day instead of fighting eggs.  At that thought her entire hand slipped and she nearly lost her grip on the plastic guitar.  As she tried to catch herself her score plummeted and the song was over.

Sighing, Miuna scrolled through the list of songs again.  The events from the Faberge meeting were still taking away from her usual focus and it was affecting her performance.  If she didn't push aside those feelings soon she'd never make it again out in the real world.  She had to get over these feelings quick if she ever wanted to fight again.

Kiyoka

[Kiyoka]

For as long as she could remember, the Aosaka Arcade had been Kiyoka's refuge. As a child it was to nurse the hurt from arguments with friends, but as she got older the reasons changed. To get away from whatever caused her stress or anxiety, to get away from the source of her frustration-- the arcade was always there ready to welcome her in with it's bright inviting lights and upbeat tunes. To focus on the games and in turn allow some clarity to return back to her senses, the arcade was always there to help do that.

Making her way past the prize machines, she headed to the back of the arcade where Rock Band was, fingers twitching. She knew the arcade upgraded the game and nothing would make her feel better than beating a couple drumsticks over the drumset for a new high score, to release the tension in her chest. With all the recent development and basically the infodump of what x-eggs were and x-characters were on top of the difficulty of dealing with her stepmother and Yue led her to lash out at them and run out of the house. There was so much on her plate already. All she wanted was to be free of her problems, but mostly she just wanted to be heard.

Kiyoka slowed to a stop, blinking at the small figure already occupying the game. She squinted at her, recognizing the short frame and the long flow of hair cascading down the girl's back. "Yamami?" She'd only seen the girl a handful of times since the Faberge presentation, as the girl wasn't showing up to practice as of late for reasons Kiyoka had no idea why. The girl had always been gung-ho about practice.

[Miuna]

Miuna was just about ready to start another song when she heard a voice behind her speak. Only one person called her that and she was hesitant to turn around to answer them. She'd left archery in the hands of Ji-soo days ago and hadn't returned since. Her skills weren't suffering with her new mentor but her time with her team was limited. Not that such an issue mattered much to her anyway, she wasn't really one to care about team sports. She enjoyed archery because she didn't have to rely on others.

Well, that amongst other things. Still, she wasn't really in the mood to talk to any of them. Masahiko-senpai had only recently apologized for his outburst at both events and she was still taking time to forgive him. Captain's affairs were a mystery but the more he spoke at these lectures the more she doubted him. She didn't approve of his words the other day, and she definitely didn't approve of him hiding things from her. Whatever his reasons were she didn't care. She expected full honesty from him even if he was her senior.

Finally there was Kiyoka. She wasn't sure what to think about the girl but her words had left a biting mark. For someone who had been fighting nonstop since it all began, the small words of doubt ate away at her own abilities. "Piyo-chan," Miuna greeted, turning to look at the other girl. With the elevation of the stage, the younger student stood just barely above her counterpart. "What are you doing here? I figured you'd be at practice with the others."

[Kiyoka]

Kiyoka stuck her hands in her pockets, glancing away briefly. Yue appeared by the shoe lockers right after school ended, and she knew there was no way to back out from the forced responsibility of taking care of her little sister and escorting her home, having to ditch archery. "Sometimes other people's priorities take over mine," she said, and there's a bitter edge to her words, but the next second has her smiling back at Miuna. "But I have to listen to myself, y'know?"

She jumped up on stage and walked to the drum set, taking a drumstick in hand and twirling between her fingers. "Though I could say the same about you." Her gaze was fixated on the machine's screen, listening to the default music while she tapped the drumstick lightly against the set. As much as she saw the girl as her friend, there was always this bubble around her that Kiyoka wished wasn't there. "What're you running away from, Yamami?" She knew she was running away from her duties of being her sister's keeper, and believed that Miuna was doing the same. Not that she had any evidence for it, she was only assuming.

[Miuna]

Miuna watched the other with faint interest. There was still something off about the girl that she didn't understand, a secret of some sort she was hiding. Then again they all held secrets behind the origins of their egg. It wouldn't surprise her if the other's home life or previous school life had something to do with her guardian's sudden appearance. She didn't pry though, instead nodding in agreement at Kiyoka's first statement.

"Choosing between what you want to do and what you have to do is difficult," Miuna replied. There was something hinted by her tone but before she could continue she turned back around, flipping through the song selection once more. Without paying much attention, she settled on a track for them to play. Clearly the other was willing to join her and Miuna fully planned on taking advantage of it.

Her question threw her off though and the girl snorted unattractively, sneering afterwards as she looked off to the side. How ironic that of all the people in this school it was Kiyoka to ask her what she was running from. She supposed the other meant it more in a figurative sense than a literal one but both were true. "Lots of things," Miuna replied while the song began. She had left it on a medium difficulty to keep it casual between the two. "There's a lot of responsibility that comes with going to a school like Seiyo. I'm sure you can imagine what it's like balancing most of that by yourself. Sometimes a break is nice."

[Kiyoka]

Despite seeming like Miuna was avoiding archery, the first year didn't dismiss Kiyoka and that was good enough for her. She watched Miuna carefully, picking up that something else seemed to carry the girl's words. Maybe she wasn't alone in her thoughts...she would share them, but she guarded herself very well when it came to her personal life, and Kiyoka knew she and Miuna weren't close enough to share that part of herself with her.

She stood before the drum set, sticks poised and ready to go when the song starts. The song was familiar to her, and that's enough to get her focus back on the screen. She wants to beat out the high score and replace it with her own-- and Miuna's if she felt so inclined. Kiyoka knew the shorter girl had the determination.

Nail hit on the head. "Yeah, thought so." She's quiet as the song began, driven to beat the drum right on each mark. The silence didn't last long, however, seeing as this is Kiyoka, but as distracted as she appeared to become, she continued to play with precision. "I didn't come to Seiyo to get more responsibility. It was just thrown onto me since coming here. It's already a lot on my plate and because of that, breaks aren't easy to come by." It was a reason why she ran, to get away.

[Miuna]

Kiyoka was good, probably even better than Eli. Miuna had a hard time keeping up while talking, incredibly distracted with how Kiyoka was handling that drum set. She had yet to try the instrument herself but the extra pedal always confused her too much to give it a shot. Trying her best now, she tapped the buttons with renewed vigor to beat the other. She had a reputation to uphold with this machine after all. She was the undefeated champion of one battle and she didn't want to lose this one either.

"Breaks are hard as hell to come by," Miuna agreed, tapping out another chord and holding it. That single moment gave her just enough time to zero in on the conversation, "Going out to the mall, stopping downtown for dinner, all these fun high school things... making friends made me think I'd get to experience them. And I do, sometimes. Captain does a great job of making sure we all get the break we deserve. But then we're reminded of who we are, what we were chosen for." She paused, finishing a painfully terrible combo before speaking again.

"I see my friends lying on the ground, Takeo-senpai in the hospital, Captain suffering from despair. He turned X, you know. Our first real battle, Captain turned X and nearly wiped us out. When I think of taking a break or ignoring the problems, I remember the look on his face and the week he went missing afterwards and I think that I'd do anything to keep him safe. I'd take on any responsibility if it meant one more afternoon of practice with him," She hadn't meant to tell the girl so much and in doing so she missed a beat, her finger hitting the wrong key at the wrong time. These were the memories of the fight in the library after all, an experience everyone who was present then shared but never spoke of. It was their dirty little secret to fester over, their reason for fighting when everything else seemed lost. They didn't understand anything at that time except the raw power of an X-egg and the desperate feeling of survival. "Shit, there goes my combo."

[Kiyoka]

Kiyoka always enjoyed using the drumset on Rock Band, as it was a good substitute for beating out pent up frustration. To drown out her vexations and release them, the drumming helped. To Kiyoka it was almost the same as the dartboard in her room, the satisfaction of throwing the dart right at the mark, allowing a new emotion to come through-- relief. It brought her a strange sense of calm and allowed her to get into a zone to focus at the task at hand. And that was beating Miuna no matter what the cost. This machine would have her high score by the end of this.

With autopilot movements strongly beating across the drums with the song's rhythm, she easily responded to Miuna. "I know Captain does a lot for us already. He really shouldn't have to and think of himself for once." Ji-soo always seemed to put the team first, but she didn't think it was fair that he didn't think about himself that much. That was how it appeared to Kiyoka more or less.

Tapping the extra pedal in rapid succession, she almost screwed up her combo but salvaged it. "Captain became X?" She's stunned and she wanted to stop playing, but her body refused to yield and she kept her momentum. This was all news to her, and she didn't know how she felt about it. Kiyoka wanted to understand. That's why she went to all those Q&A stuff, to find out for herself. Honestly, all it did was make her feel a little sick about how in the dark she'd been. It didn't help that on that first day with Kirishigi she got attacked by an x-egg. A rotten first taste into the real secret of this hidden world. "See, we didn't ask to be chosen, so why are we expected to deal without knowing what we're getting into?" She brought the drumsticks down on the set a little harder than intended. "Yamami, if you feel that way about Captain-- you just basically said you wanted to stand by him. Then why are you running?"

[Miuna]

It came as no surprise that the other didn't know. Those who had turned X and those who hadn't were a well kept secret from students that weren't around. Outside of the few individuals that were unlucky enough to stumble in the path of a corrupted student, many only felt the faint backlash of a broken heart or mislead soul. Miuna was still bitter about it all, about all the friends she had lost to black eggs. She knew Ji-soo remembered that time. He'd gone out of his way to try and 'protect' Eli, all for the sake of the classmate not suffering from any backlash.

As the other spoke, she sighed. Her combos were getting messier as she just barely hit the keys in time. Had it not been for the numerous times playing this game she would have already lost. Instead muscle memory took over and helped her continue to strum out the cords. There was so much more that all these new eggs were hatching. Miuna had her own questions, but never did she let it get in the way of her fighting. Until the truth was revealed, she had to keep people safe. It was her sworn duty as a knight.

"I'm not running..." At least not from him, she thought to herself, "I'm choosing sides. There are a lot of different people at this school with a lot of different goals. There's going to come a time we have to choose which side we're fighting for. Takeo-senpai and I are allies, those that break eggs or cause despair are the enemies. To protect, we have to do what's right." She paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to word this. It was a topic even she was having a difficult time processing. How was she supposed to describe the way she felt about Kim Ji-soo? "Maybe I am running from Archery Club, but I'm not running from him. I never run from him. Sometimes, I just wonder what his intentions are. Captain is a gray spot. He's fought beside me, but he's also the reason I was sent to the hospital..."

As there was a slight break in the song, she glanced at the other girl. There was a fierce look in her eye, one of apprehension and suspicion. "Do not trust Captain, Piyo-chan."