(no subject)

[shiromadoushi]

WHO: Bakura, Matsuka and quite likely Safeguard and any Hell Towers sorts who wanna be around when they get there
WHERE: Upper West Toys, then Hell Towers
WHEN: Monday mid-day
SUMMARY: Matsuka is not having such a good time with the stress of the impending war. Returning the favor of cheering up, Bakura invites him over for lunch and some chill time in the mostly empty top floors of Hell Towers.
FORMAT: Para. it's always para



It was quite obvious that a large load of stress was off Bakura's shoulders. The aura of poorly hidden emo was gone and his smile was far easier and more relaxed.

He was also working twice as hard as he had the previous week, fixing up a lot of oversight and careless errors he had made while upset. A good nights sleep and two cups of tea had given him the boost needed to power through everything.

Despite the impending rumble of war, life was good again!

Relatively speaking.

Comments

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Matsuka was glad to see Bakura genuinely feeling better. For his own part, though, the atmosphere of worry and anger and fear that had risen in the City thanks to recent events continued to weigh down on him, something next to impossible for him to truly escape. He'd been nervous and distracted all day, and though a lot could be explained by the fact that he was still new to the job, every fumble only left him feeling that much more anxious.

"Ah--!" There was a thump and a rustle of spilling papers from the office. Matsuka dove to retrieve the binder he'd dropped, scrambling to collect the scattered pages with shaking hands.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura looked up at the small exclamation, pushing his chair back and getting up to help retrieve the falling papers. "Here, let me help with that," he smiled, noticing Matsuka's shaking with a slight frown. "You don't have to be so nervous, it's just a binder. It does this sometimes, see?" he smiled, moving to adjust the rings in the binder so they closed properly again.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry," Matsuka said. "I'm just clumsy today..." At least he hadn't broken anything, but now the pages would have to be put back into order again. He reached to take the binder from Bakura, but seeing his own hand trembling, he drew it back, curling it closed to stop it from shaking, and straightened back up awkwardly onto his feet instead.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura blinked, looking up with concern. "Are you all right?" he asked, getting to his feet and placing the binder on the table, attention completely on his friend now.

Would Matsuka be that upset just about dropping the binder? No, even for Matsuka, that would be unreasonable.

With a small glance towards the stockroom, Bakura moved to close the door. "Here, sit down for a bit," he offered, nodding towards the nearest chair.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine, really." Matsuka's first instinct was to refuse the offer, insist nothing was wrong. It wasn't anything anyone could do much about, after all, and there was no point in worrying Bakura over it when he was feeling so much more cheerful today...

Realising the direction his thoughts had taken, Matsuka ducked his head, abashed, and moved to sit. "...It's just that so many people are upset, with everything that's been going on."

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura gave a small nod. "And you can feel it, can't you?" he half asked, half realized, sitting in his own chair. Like how Blue seemed almost lost in the crowd, overwhelmed. "Is there anything I can do to help? Like... like think really hard about something silly to drown out everyone else?" he offered with a smile.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

The suggestion brought a smile to Matsuka's face, although it was a bit wan. "You've already helped a little, since you've been so cheerful today," he said. "With so many people around everywhere, it's impossible to block it out." He fidgeted a little with the papers he'd picked up, shuffling them back into something like order.

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura gave a soft laugh, looking down with a warm smile. "Alastair-oniichan and I... it's all worked out," he explained before looking up again. "Ne... would it help to be somewhere with less people? There's barely anyone on my floor, and I think only one person on the floor under it. And we're 10 flights up, so there'd be distance from the street."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"I kind of thought so," Matsuka admitted. "It felt like something had been resolved..."

He looked up in vague surprise at the offer. "That much space would probably help a lot. But I couldn't just impose--"

earlier in the day...

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

It hadn't been so bad at first - as always, Bakura's good mood was infectious - but before long, Matsuka started noticing one mental voice among the sea of them that... wasn't exactly a voice at all.

Modem noise. The quiet beeping of a computer.

He did his best to ignore it. This wasn't his world, there was no SD system here, no Mother; he'd become sure that, if nothing else, at least there was no need for him to fear any sudden psych exams. But the voice didn't go away, and with the atmosphere of the rest of the City, having it that near started tying Matsuka up in knots. What was it? What was it doing to him? It didn't seem hostile or painful, but...

Finally, on a break, he ventured out into the stockroom in search of the source.

Re: earlier in the day...

[spacetimeguard.livejournal.com]

Safeguard was mentally humming a song that he'd heard back home, and trying not to hum it aloud. He knew that some of the other employees didn't find his native tongue to be that... enjoyable. Their loss.

It didn't really cross his mind that they might have a telepath, or at least a thought sensitive person, now in the employ. He knew they had another worker, but that was about it. He thought he'd seen him around, but not much.

As it was, the boy was several feet in the air, looking over stock, a pad next to him as he marked down what they had, with a pencil. It was, to anyone, obvious that he was an imPort.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

A startled sound escaped Matsuka when he rounded the side of a row of shelves and found the source of the mental noise... hovering in the air. That was not what he'd been expecting at all. "You're--"

He cut himself off before he could finish that thought, suddenly feeling a little ashamed, and beginning to remember at least one conversation he'd had over the network.

[spacetimeguard.livejournal.com]

"An import? Yea." Safeguard nodded, and dropped the few feet, landing with a slight crouch. He had a grin though, friendly as he always was. His thoughts his quietened down though, as his attention was now on the new comer, and he tiled his head a little.

"You're the new employee, yes?"

-- Hadn't he been on the network, or was the minicon imagining things?

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Matsuka took an involuntary step back as Safeguard dropped down - almost a flinch. "Yes... that's right." He hesitated awkwardly for a moment. Really it was probably remarkable that he'd gone this long before encountering someone whose thoughts he couldn't read, but it still put him off-balance, and he hadn't been all that steady to start with. "Ah - I'm an import, too, so..." Another brief hesitation, and then he tried again: "I'm Matsuka."

[spacetimeguard.livejournal.com]

"I thought the voice sounded familar. I'm Safeguard, but sometimes I go by Sean. We've spoken on the network." He grinned happily, pleased to put a body with the face and voice.

Safeguard's thoughts would have been revolved around work, though his emotions where clear as day, and mostly at a constant level, or the normal ups and downs of the day, Right now, there was contentment. If Matsuka ever looked deeper, there's be, hidden under Safeguard's own emotions, another set - weaker, but there, coming from else where.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"Right - I remember now." Matsuka let out a breath and tried to steady himself. No reason to be nervous after all. The situation in the City was just making him jump at nothing. Taking some reassurance from the feeling of contentment that radiated off of Safeguard, he summoned up a smile. "It's good to meet you in person. I feel like I should apologize for misunderstanding."

[spacetimeguard.livejournal.com]

"Missunderstanding?" He tilted his head to the side, confused. "I don't understand what you mean."

He nodded though. "Yea, it is. You're taller than I though you'd be..?" Safeguard on most days was a ball of contentment. Or, the rare times that he got his hands on soda, extremely hyperactive.

Later in the afternoon!

[shiromadoushi]

After calling over first to make sure it was all right, Bakura and Matsuka headed over to Ben's new apartment. Bakura was rather hopeful that Ben would be able to help his friend keep out the outsize anxieties, at least a little since really, Matsuka had enough of his own with out adding the worries of the City on a whole to his already full plate.

He gave a knock as they arrived, idly wondering if any of Ben's charges were home. While Anakin was fairly normal, if hyper, Fakir could be an impossible grump and Mytho... well... Bakura wasn't quite sure what to make of him. Between how odd he acted and the fact that he looked like Bakura if he had shorter hair.. it was just strange.

But they tended to be out in the daytime, so it probably wouldn't be an issue.

[taughttolisten.livejournal.com]

Attendance at his proper, non-imPort classes had been down somewhat lately, so Ben found himself returning home earlier. Most days he'd found himself wandering the City, memorizing its layout or finding quiet places to go through saber drills; at the moment, however, he was content to sit cross-legged in the living room, reading a book as he waited for the boys to return from school.

He sensed Bakura and an unfamiliar presence a moment before the knock, and was at the door within two more heartbeats.

"Bakura," he said pleasantly. "Hello again."

[shiromadoushi]

"Hello again, Ben," Bakura smiled, giving a small, polite bow. "Thanks for letting us come over. This is my friend, Matsuka," he introduced. "Matsuka, this is Ben."

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

Matsuka had his hands clasped behind his back and was trying not to fidget. Some time spent more distant from the emotional noise of the city - not to mention in the company of Bakura's kitten - had done a lot to alleviate the stresses that had been building up on him over the past couple of weeks, but now his nerves were starting to wind up again, in spite of his best efforts to remind himself there was no need to be anxious.

He inclined his head briefly in confirmation of Bakura's introduction. "Jonah Matsuka," he offered politely, filling in his full name. "It's nice to meet you."

[taughttolisten.livejournal.com]

"It's good to meet you too. Please, come inside," he added, taking a step back and gesturing for the boys to enter. "Can I get either of you something to drink, or perhaps some party leftovers?"

[shiromadoushi]

Bakura gave a soft laugh. "Maybe some tea," he smiled stepping inside with a small bow of his head.

Almost the moment he was inside, Mirin and Gon came bounding out and Bakura crouched down to pet them with a warm smile. "Hello again to you too," he greeted, giving a small laugh as Mirin jumped up to his knees and attempted to climb up him. "Aaa, dame yo, Mirin-chan!" he laughed, trying to carefully pull her off.

[loveyourenemy.livejournal.com]

"Ah, I'm all right," Matsuka said, ducking his head a little as he followed Bakura in. "You don't need to go to any trouble for me, really."

The enthusiastic greeting Bakura received from the cats drew a laugh out of him, one that he tried unsuccessfully to hide behind a hand. "It looks like they're happy to see you," he said to Bakura, watching with a trace of the same fascination he'd met Pelor with earlier.

sorry this is so late guys ._.

[taughttolisten.livejournal.com]

"Please, make yourselves at home. There are chairs in the kitchen and the living room, if you'd like to sit down."

Obi-Wan shot Matsuka an encouraging smile. "Mirin and Gon make friends very easily, but they really took a shine to Bakura," he explained. "I think they can sense a kind person when they meet one."