[AQ] It's Not Karma! [Ai/Juon]

[Juon]

SPOILER: Click to show

Talk About Unlucky...
+ Description: The day started off okay-- or at least that was the idea until a bunch of things started going wrong. Now you seem to be most unlucky person on the planet right now…
+ Just roll with it; nothing you can do it about it Sometimes people just have unlucky days: +1 Guardians, -1 Faberge, +2 Roost
+ Stress out about it; today is just the worst: -1 Guardians, +2 Faberge
+ Starting helping people out in order to get good karma: +2 Guardians, +1 Faberge, -1 Roost
+ Get a friend(s) to tag along with your bad day, they actually might turn things around: +1 Guardians, +1 Faberge, +1 Roost
+ Requirements: None
+ Submitted by Teale

Corea Juon had a reputation at Seiyo: he was often known as the jellybean guy.

This wasn't totally a bad thing. It was much better than the alternative--the thing he was known for at his old middle school, before he transferred to Seiyo: his status as the King of Bad Karma.

He always argued he was merely unlucky; that was all. It had nothing to do with karma. And even if he may have been able to escape the title, he was forever unable to escape from the reason he'd gotten it in the first place: he was just a generally unlucky person. And people told him it was his karma. He refused to believe it.

He was a good person, dammit!

... Or at least, he thought so. But from his relationship with Keiko Mori to the fact that he had a Guardian Character at all, and the whole mess of eggs, on top of the nightmare of a trip back home for summer break, on top of the plethora of small inconveniences in his life, his luck was pretty awful.

Today, especially.

He'd forgotten to turn the handle on the sink again, so upon going to wash his hands in the morning, he doused himself from the shower. He'd gone to get coffee from the vending machines, and when the pour activated to fill the cup, it knocked over the cup instead. He'd gotten to class, only to realize he'd completed the wrong assignment. He went to lunch, having not gotten to time to prepare his own, only to find that they were serving his least-favorite thing on the menu: croquettes. During PE, a classmate had triggered his Character Change, only for him to get overly-aggressive in his participation in volleyball, which only ended up with him taking one to the head from the induced frustration of another classmate. It just wasn't his day. Well, it rarely was, but especially so today.

After classes had ended, he figured he might as well skip swim, maybe skip Guardians, too--just for the sake of avoiding anything else awful that could possibly happen.

A seat on the fountain--a harmless place, perfectly safe, nothing bad could happen. He'd just chill out and do homework by the sound of water. That'd be fine, right? Perfectly fine. Set his bag down, pull out his phone, grab some bea--bag. Bag fell. Bag has spilled all over the sidewalk. Contents of bag have strewn so far out of bag that they are now blocking the entire path. A scene has been caused. And as if his nerves weren't frayed enough, his Guardian Cahracter, Clip, was hovering over his shoulder, giggling madly.

Goddammit.

Ai

[Ai]

If Okazaki Ai was ever known for something at Seiyo, it was unfortunately, not his musical talent. Ever since he enrolled in the academy at the start of the school year, the student had been labelled as ‘that guy’: the delinquent…the one people were always trying to avoid. Were the rumors true? Not so much. Ai indeed looked like one who would engage in these sorts of dangerous and rather frowned upon activities, but he was a nice guy despite all that.

Ai was used to getting occasional stares even before Seiyo and he didn’t mind it, really. He wanted to be a rock star and his image had to be as such. He had no problem with standing out in a crowd, but while his looks were fit for a stage, they weren’t fit for a strict school like Seiyo. Ever since the first day, he’d been avoided and labelled as a bully. Naturally, that came as a shock for the second-year student, who wanted to make friends and get along with everyone more than anything.

While things seemed to improve as time passed, namely his classmates getting to know him and thus, stopping being as apprehensive, others were the same or worse. The rumors of him being a delinquent were slowly starting to actually become true thanks to his guardian character, Nagamasa. The boy started to actively get involved in school fights, trying to protect other students and injuring himself in the process. While Ai didn’t like that all too much, he had yet to find a way to stop his character change from kicking in at random times.

Ai had always thought that good things should happen to good people, and he had a fairly good opinion of himself, but the world wasn’t always as fair as he wanted it to. When it came to bad luck, he probably had enough based on the fact that most people were avoiding him, but today it seemed to be especially bad. While he was on his way to school, he witnessed a robbery and his character change triggered, forcing him to chase down the perpetrator. Naturally, he got into a pretty rough fight and ended up arriving bruised and very late to school… on an evaluation day.

He'd spent half an hour trying to convince the teacher to let him retake the test and tried to come up with a valid excuse as to why he was late. He couldn’t just explain the whole guardian character change thing, so he had to resort to some other method. Unluckily for him, the teacher wouldn’t have it, mostly because the bruises on his face spoke for themselves, so Ai’s final grade would definitely have to suffer. Unless he wanted to drop to 3-C next year, he’ll need to get some serious studying done.

After classes were over, Ai decided he definitely needed a break to sort his thoughts out. This day had been one of the worse he’d had ever since starting school. And what place better to relax than the fountain. He could chill there, maybe play a few songs… maybe call Demi to join him.

Nagamasa was out of his egg, following Ai quietly as they were headed to the fountain. The little guy, observant as always, spotted two children who were playing with a football nearby. One of them icked the ball so hard that it was sent flying straight towards Ai’s head. “Ai-sama! Watch out!” At his guardian’s warning, Ai turned around and he was able to avoid it just in time. However, as it missed him, it continued going towards another student who happened to be in its way.

[Juon]

What did I do to deserve this? Nothing--nothing at all. This always happens; why does it keep happening today especially? Goddammit. Why does this always have to ha--

The third year was quickly thrown out of his grumbling gaggle of thoughts by a shout of 'watch out!' only to look up and see a football headed straight for his head--it was so close, it looked as if it were four feet tall; he didn't even have a moment to react before it hit him square in the forehead, immediately knocking him back, making him lose his balance, and ending with him crashing to the ground, banging an elbow on the sidewalk below him as it had conveniently been there to catch his fall.

"F-owwWW?!"

Reeling for a moment as he waited for his vision to fizzle back into view, he scrambled back up to a seated position, only to immediately bend over and cup his head in his hands as dizziness took over in an instant. Nevertheless, he tried to look up at the perpetrator, catching a blurry figure in front of him--he'd seen this kid around before. The pale hair, the angry face; this kid was a delinquent, right? It had to have been him!

... Ugh, but was it really worth dealing with this guy? But he didn't want to take abuse sitting down; but at the same time, he wanted to fight back and ye--

There was a pop feeling in his head--and on it, too--as he felt Clip's Character Change trigger in an instant, hearing the little thief giggling over his shoulder having whispered, "I, me, mine!" into his ear. The frustration that he'd been letting bubble in his stomach all day was beginning to rise, stirred again by this guy in front of him and uncorked by Clip's power, until it started to overflow out of his mouth.

"Hey, what the fuck, man?!" he tried, immediately stumbling to his feet to try and get up in the guy's face, his own twisted in irritation. "The hell was that for? You think I'm going to just take that?!"

... As threatening as his words may or may not have been, they were not aided by the fact that he was barely keeping his balance after the blow to the head, and the fact that the arm he'd landed on in the fall had basically turned to wiggly jello.

[Ai]

Although Ai had been warned by his guardian just in time to avoid the ball, the other student hadn’t been quite that lucky. The second year could do nothing but watch the ball hopelessly fly towards his poor fellow student and collide with his face. The impact was big enough to make him lose his balance and knock him to the ground. “Oh shoot!” Ai bit his lip, worrying a bit for the other. Eventually he ran over to try and help him out.

“You alright? Let me help you up.” Ai offered his hand for the other to take. The second year felt a bit bad… that ball had been meant for him. But he wasn’t quite the type of person who would deliberately let himself get hit in the face by a ball… not for just a stranger, at least. Regardless, there was a trace of guilt in his expression.

The silver haired had nothing but good intentions, really, so after seeing the other look at him with accusing eyes, his heart sank a little. He was spewing out angry words, acting as if Ai had sent that ball towards him. However, in his state of dizziness, the boy did seem somewhat less threatening. “H-Hey! It wasn’t me, I swear.” Ai waved his hands in a defensive manner. The last thing he needed right now was to get into another fight. Luckily, Nagamasa didn’t usually change him unless there were some bullies nearby, so he’d be safely in his own skin for now. But if the other really felt like picking up a fight, the situation might just change.

Ai stole a glance at the kids who kicked the ball in the first place, not entirely wanting to blame it on them- they were just kids. It would be bad if this aggressive guy tried to pick on them.

The second year picked up the ball and threw it over to them, hoping that by the time the other student re-gained his balance, they’d be able to get away.

[Juon]

"I'm fine! Leave me alone," Juon belted, instantly trying to reject the hand offered in aid. What, was he being pitied now? Did the asshole immediately regret basically kicking him in the face, or was he so full of himself that he was trying to be decent just for show, framing himself as thisngrand hero out of nothing? Who did that?

... Not Ai, in reality, but Clip's character change tended to twist facts in Juon's mind to best suit him, to put things in a way that would protect Juon first over anyone else he'd attempt to consider (even if it often ended with terrible consequences as a result...).

"I don't need your help; even if it wasn't you, it was headed in absolutely your direction first--so why the hell did it hit me? That really hurt, man!"

He'd managed to get himself shakily to his feet again, trying to get up in Ai's face, but the other towered over him a bit, and it only ended up feeling kind of pathetic on his part. But his chest was filled with pent-up frustration from the entire day that Clip had uncapped, only for it now to be spilling out and flooding all toward Ai.

[Ai]

The help he tried to give had been rejected, but Ai kind of saw that coming. The way this guy was acting now was pretty similar to his character change with Nagamasa, at least in terms of aggressivity and not selfishness or unfair judging. Perhaps he was character changed himself? Upon closer inspection, the clip on the boy's head vaguely resembled a character change item. Hmmm. Was that hit so painful that it caused the other to character change?

" Dude, I AM sorry, alright? But it's not really my fault for avoiding it." No matter how self-sacrificing Ai was in general, getting hit by a ball for the sake of sparing a guy he didn't even know from the damage was a bit much. Besides, it was mostly out of pure reflexes and not consideration that he avoided the ball. " It's understandable that you're mad, but it would be better to actually let me help you a bit. Maybe you need to go to the infirmary and put a band aid on that scratch on your forehead, at least.

As the guy stood up, Ai realized he was mch shorter than he thought, but that wasn't too important. He seemed fierce enough to stand up for himself. "Let's just calm down, ok? My name is Ai. What's yours?" He was still trying to coax the other into his normal self, hoping that he won't take things a step further and pick a fight. If he did, Ai won't be able to hold back from his own character change, and that might end up messy