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 Posted: Mon Jun 26, 2023 1:56 am
Quote: Nature’s Boon (10) : Flowers are blooming at an incredible place across the city and sometimes barren patches of grass can be overrun with flowers overnight. There have been heavy showers and a high pollen count but there doesn’t appear to be any other explanation. It is not uncommon to find trees with nearly double the leaves they usually have, with vines twisting up houses, flowers covering the front yard, or local fruits to have doubled in size. This isn't the first time Destiny City has seen such oddities, and there doesn’t seem to be any negative effects to this; scientists are questioning climate change. Or is it radiation?? follows orchids.
Not that his lack of complaints had any effect on his song choice of the evening. As he wandered through one of Destiny City’s fine parks, looking for any trouble that might have needed a brave magical knight to take care of it, Kaifeng kept to his usual custom of singing something. Definitely not the best for sneaking around, he had to admit, but!!! The quite!!! It grated so much on his nerves!!! As if they were exceptionally fancy cheese!!! And he had The Killers on the brain tonight, so as he wove his path through some trees that seemed to be quite a bit more in bloom than he would have expected, Kaifeng sang, “Now I’m falling asleep, and she’s calling a cab, while he’s having a smoke and she’s taking a drag. Now they’re goin’ to bed, and my stomach is sick. And it’s all in my head, but she’s touching his chest! now! He takes off her dress! now! Let! Me! Goooo……”
Still. As much as Kaifeng loved this song—and as much as he rather enjoyed all the flowers and vines and vibrant leaves that had sprung up around all the parks in town of late—he couldn’t help but feel like this would’ve been much nicer if he could’ve had somebody here with him. Fortunately, there was something to be done about that. Reaching into his subspace—still very much humming the tune of “Mr. Brightside” because why not—he pulled out a pen and one of the pads of Hello Kitty stationery he’d picked up at Hot Topic specifically for this purpose. Then, he jotted down a quick note and sent it off. Quote: Hey, Selenga!!!
You maybe wanna do a patrol with your favorite cousin-in-law? This Kaifeng-ge knows you can’t message me back yet (you really need to visit your cool place in space and get your signet ring!!) but anyway, I’m out right now in Southside Park!! So yell or wave or something and I’ll come find you!!! emotion_bigheart , your loving gege/cousin-in-law
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2023 11:23 pm
Selenga still couldn't really move. Though he wasn't sure if it was due to a lack of physical power, mental power, or both. Regardless, he stayed in the grass, splayed out, trying to keep his breathing even and his eyes shut. If he opened them, the orchids not far from his face would mock him. The heightened senses from the magic had long since faded, but finding the strength to do anything after dealing with something like that was difficult. He wished he knew why these sorts of things set him off so hard. When a letter popped into existence, he flinched at the slight breeze it brought, and carefully opened his eyes to read the note. Studiously ignoring the orchids, he barely skimmed it and as he realized it was from Kaifeng, he sighed and dropped the note. Whatever it said didn't matter, not when he planned to lay here until morning.
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Posted: Tue Jun 27, 2023 11:55 pm
Kaifeng let himself wait a few moments for any kind of sign from Selenga that maybe he was out and about in the same park……but nothing came, so maybe they’d just not wound up getting lucky in that particular way, tonight. Well, that was a little bit sad. For all Ming-er had been a serious p***k when he and Qi-jie had first started seeing each other, he really had turned over several new leaves, and regardless of anything Kaifeng ever said while bullying him, he didn’t hate sharing this magical knight thing with Ming-er. It was, if Kaifeng had to be completely honest with himself, actually kinda fun.
As he resumed patrolling through the park, Kaifeng picked up half-humming, half-singing a different song—“Where have all the good men gone, and where are all the gods? Where’s the streetwise Hercules to fight the rising odds?”—because……well. He was on his own. Had Selenga turned up, it might’ve been a bit easier to handle the quiet; Selenga’s presence would’ve comforted Kaifeng somewhat, just by virtue of Selenga being here and reaffirming in being here that everything was fine.…… But Kaifeng’s feet were bringing him closer to some hedges full up of orchids and, with them, another White Moon aura. Maybe they wouldn’t necessarily be Selenga. They and Kaifeng probably wouldn’t know each other, wouldn’t have a rapport yet.
Still, he liked meeting new people, and awkward ice-breakers were always better than being alone.
“I need a hero,” Kaifeng sang as he closed in on the hedges with the orchids. Maybe it was a good way to tip people off about what he was doing, but it was also a good way to let whoever had the Order aura know that he was coming. “I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the end of the niiiiiight. He’s gotta be strong, and he’s gotta be fast, and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight.” In the place where the version of this song currently in his head would’ve played up the energetic tinkling of piano keys, Kaifeng flitted around one of the hedges and its Technicolor vibrant flowers. “I need a heroooo~ I’m holding out for a hero ‘til the morning light~! He’s gotta be……”
A quick glance to his side and Kaifeng let the song stop dead. A slender, golden-ponytailed little heap of purple, green, and gold lay curled up over where the orchids seemed the thickest, with an aura that matched Kaifeng’s own. He only hesitated long enough to tuck his fan into the sash around his waist. Once it was safely in place, he darted over to the other Page’s side and dropped to his knees.
“Hey,” Kaifeng said, keeping his voice low and his touch gentle as he jostled their shoulder……and then he spotted his Hello Kitty stationery on the grass. “Selenga? Hey, you can hear your gege, right?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:01 am
Selenga groaned lightly when he heard the singing—it wasn't that Kaifeng didn't have a nice voice, because he did—but everything felt scraped raw enough without additional noise or touch applied to him. He couldn't help the high pitched whimper that left him at the shoulder shake. "Ge," he sighed, lifting his hand an inch off the ground before it flopped listlessly back to the grass. "Tired... drained... magic, too much." At least Kaifeng had gotten quiet when he approached Selenga, he reflected, because if his cousin-in-law had still been loud, he probably would have found some kind of strength to just ball up in the fetal position and ignore everything.
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:15 am
Oh, whoever had done this to Selenga was going to be on Kaifeng’s s**t-list, as soon as he found out who they were. But asking Selenga about who’d put him in such a bad way was not—could not be—the priority right now. Kaifeng could ask him about that later, when he felt better. For the moment, the main concern had to be making sure that Selenga got out of here, somewhere safe, where he could recover from whatever had happened to drain him like this.
Noting how his cousin-in-law had whimpered at his touch, Kaifeng dropped his hand from Selenga’s shoulder into the grass. “It’s okay, Selenga,” he promised, gently, working very hard to keep his voice soft when Kaifeng’s natural inclination tended toward being loud. “Whatever happened, you’re still here, and I’m here with you, so it’s gonna be okay.” The big problem with not being touchy about trying to comfort him was that it made Kaifeng feel like he wasn’t even doing anything. Which grated his nerves more than a little because?? A magical knight had to be able to take care of his family in addition to protecting other people, didn’t he?
But without knowing the truth of the matter, Kaifeng’s ability to help remained somewhat limited. Still, he had a guess, and if he was right, he actually had something in his subspace that might have helped. “The magic,” he prodded, “it causes overstimulation? Or sensory overload?”
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:19 am
Selenga gave a shuddering sigh when Kaifeng stopped touching him, not sure if he liked it better now that he had actual company. He hated being seen so weak, especially by those overgrown orchids that mocked him and his ability to be a good Knight for his Princess. But Kaifeng... was family. He could... He could handle this. "Yeah," he answered in a soft whisper, eyes sliding shut again. "Sorry... I'm useless right now... Thank you, gege."
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:27 am
“Hey,” Kaifeng said, a bit more firmly (though not quite as firmly as he would have spoken, had Selenga been well right now). “That’s my didi you’re insulting. Not cool.”
With a soft huff, he shifted off his knees, sitting in the grass beside Selenga instead. “You are not useless,” Kaifeng insisted as he reached into his subspace pocket. Since he was right about the magic causing some kind of sensory overload, he may not have had Ming-er’s weighted blanket or a darkened room for him……but he did have something. “You’re sick. And very lucky to have a musician as your gege. Can you lift your head a little bit? Wanna give you something to help.”
The something in question was a pair of over-ear headphones, made to isolate the wearer from outside noise so they could better appreciate whatever they were listening to today. Without anything playing in them, they weren’t quite as good as earplugs? But they’d help reduce one source of unwanted stimulation. Plus, they were loosely fitted, which made them seem like a safer bet than the RayCon earbuds Kaifeng had gotten out of a sponsorship deal he’d taken for his Youtube channel before. Maybe, if he could slip the headphones on Selenga’s ears, they could help get Selenga’s nerves to calm down enough that Kaifeng could carry him home.
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:35 am
Selenga let out a breathy chuckle. Hearing Kaifeng defend him, even loosely like this, was something special. He managed to lift his head enough for the headphones to slip on, and the world slipped into blissful near-silence. With that reduced, he was able to breathe, eyes still shut for a long moment. In, out. In, out. Slowly, he forced his arms and legs to move him upright so he could shift his body and look away from the dazzling orchard of orchids that mocked him so. "Aiyah. After I promised Qiye I'd come home safely, I go and do a thing like that," he said, shaking his head at himself. "I'm glad you were out, too. This... this is so hard."
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 12:56 am
When Selenga went to move, Kaifeng had to fight the impulse to rush in and give him physical support. The touching probably would’ve set things back, exacerbated Selenga’s overstimulation so he would’ve needed even more time to get stable enough to get back home. Still, Kaifeng shifted himself into a better position for spotting his cousin-in-law. In case touching Selenga became necessary to keeping him healthy—like, if he tried to pass out or something—Kaifeng could be right there to catch him.
“Hey, the blame here is on whichever senshi or officer drained you,” Kaifeng pointed out, giving Selenga a very serious, very earnest look. Yeah, Liánlí and Ming-er had had their differences before, and their disagreements (several of them), and even getting along better these days, they remained, in many ways, very different people. Until very recently, Liánlí hadn’t had anything nice to say about Ming-er……but Kaifeng did have good things to say about Selenga, and it worried him, hearing Selenga blame himself for getting energy-drained. “And yeah, being a magical knight is hard. And both of us got messed up pretty bad on one of our early nights out. I got stabbed, you got energy-drained. But it’s like learning anything else, right? You have to mess up and be bad at something for a while in order to get good at it. So, just……”
Kaifeng sighed softly. “Please try to be patient with yourself, okay? This is a whole new phase in your life, and it’s only natural to struggle with getting used to it.”
Then, like a magpie, Kaifeng allowed his gaze to get caught in something shiny, laying a couple feet away in the grass. Two somethings, he found, after scuttling over to them. When he returned to Selenga’s side, Kaifeng came with two star charms in-hand: one a bright, shimmering green and the other a vibrant, lustrous violet.
Holding the green one out for Selenga to take—after all, both of them wore purple, but only Selenga’s uniform had green in it—Kaifeng gave him a smile. “There, see? The universe says I’m right. That’s why it showed me where your charm was.”
He knew that didn’t logically make any sense. But as long as his silliness got a smile out of Selenga, Kaifeng didn’t care if it made logical sense or not.
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 9:55 pm
If only you knew what I'd been thinking, Selenga thought to himself, letting out a soft sigh at Kaifeng's refusal to put any of the blame on Selenga. Of course it was his own fault. He'd... chased a high he shouldn't have chased, and offered himself up on a silver platter to one of those... poor souls warped by Chaos. Though he couldn't be sure the one who'd taken from him didn't actually delight in it. Perhaps in the same manner he delighted in things that were bad for him, but at least they only affected himself. He did chuckle at the appearance of the charms, delicately taking the green one from Kaifang and hooking it on a finger. "Sure, sure. Thanks, gege." He heaved a shuddering sigh. "Help me get home?"
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Posted: Wed Jun 28, 2023 11:21 pm
Kaifeng nodded, giving Selenga a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “Good thing you’re really light. Makes that a lot easier to handle,” he said without thinking about it because……why would he, really? It was just a simple fact of reality, as far as Kaifeng was aware. As objectively factual as fish needing to swim, plants needing water and sunlight to grow, and Kaifeng needing music to live. Selenga was on the shorter side and Ming-er’s work as a jockey meant that he kept fit without gaining too much dense, heavy muscle that might have slowed him down in a race.
Stretching out like a Táotáo doing a biiiiiiiiiiiig stretch after rousing from a mid-afternoon nap, Kaifeng clambered to his feet. “May still need the knightly strength boost for it,” he grumbled, absentmindedly rubbing one eye, “but that’s on me for spending thirteen years not listening to Hayden about blah blah strength-resistance training, blah blah good for me, blah blah he told me so.” With a soft huff, he looked to Selenga to tell him, “Gonna get you up in a princess carry on three, okay? One……two……three……”
For real, though: at least Selenga was light and easy to carry. It didn’t change all the other reasons why Hayden had probably been right this whole time, but it did make getting Selenga home to Qi-jie significantly easier.
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Posted: Thu Jun 29, 2023 5:24 pm
Selenga gave him a weak smile. Yeah. He worked hard on staying light, gege. That felt... really, really good to hear. Good for his job, good so that Kaifeng didn't need to hurt himself to help Selenga get home. He didn't need anyone else to suffer even slightly for him. Wincing as he was lifted, he couldn't help but to briefly snuggle into the warm embrace before the embarrassment caught up to him and he squeaked out a small apology. He couldn't wait to get home and cuddle with his QIye, even if it meant explaining how ******** up he'd gotten on his first night being someone important.
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