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 Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 8:28 pm
It had only taken Riyo a few seconds to register that the long black thing in the corner of her eye wasn't her tail. Her glance shooting over, She was only half in disbelief. So the pictures hadn't been lying. What'd that mean?
"Holy s**t Neko, you're an espeon!" Riyo exclaimed with a smile, sure he wouldn't get the reference.
Jess, not taking well to the fact that he was being under-minded, shot Neko a glance. Since he didn't actually know the guy, the tail thing barely caught his attention. "Hey. You're not her dad. I'm her dad. I had to watch the disgusting process of how a baby is born. It's not magical like they tell you. It's gross. I earned the right to tell her what's a good idea and what's not. Knock up your own chick." Jess said bluntly, folding his arms with a scrunched up face.
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Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 8:41 pm
"Whatsa s'peon?" Neko slurred, proving Riyo very right. He didn't know the first thing about Pokemon or how to catch them all.
Then hearing Jess, Neko's eyes narrowed, his tail flicking now in agitation. "You've been playing dad for five minutes, take a chill pill and call me when you've dealt with children longer than I have. I was a teacher after all." Though half of the words Neko spoke were slurred or stammered from his drunken state. And if he had half a brain cell still sober in that head of his he never would have said that. At least not in those words.
"She's nearly eighteen and has been raising herself, I think she can make her own damn decisions." It was a struggle to not follow that up with 'dear.' This felt similar to the husband and wife feuds he had seen on TV.
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Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:08 pm
Riyo held back a snicker at Neko's drunk question, giving him a gentle pat on the head and scooting away. She wouldn't even try to answer that with him as drunk as he was. "Don't worry about it." Was all she offered, unable to pull her eyes from his tail. She'd never seen one like that before.
"Yeah, but-... Wait... You were a teacher? Hah, man. That's quite a drop. Teacher to janitor. What's up with that man?" The overuse of the word 'man' would probably be the highlight of the night.
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Posted: Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:33 pm
"Ha ha, I know right?" Neko chuckled at it himself now, slouching back into his seat until he was almost laying. He was well out of his mind at this point. "It only takes one kid to go crazy and kill themselves to do it. It was more my choice though. Who can beat the glamor of the job? I usually get the students to clean."
Neko didn't seem to realize his slip as he continued. The school had done well to hide the fact that a child had became so obsessed with the power that black magic could offer that they no longer wanted to control it. They wanted to use it...and they were consumed by it. Not that Neko hadn't started to figure out by then that he too was suffering some ill effects.
Leaning forward a bit Neko did much like Jess had by cupping his hand beside his mouth and whispering loudly. "While they clean all day I just gamble online. It's a pretty sweet gig." Though thankfully he neglected to mention his 'real job' and the reason he was still employed.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 2:02 pm
Riyo had often wondered about why Neko had dropped from the status of a teacher to a janitor (besides the fact that he was lazy). Though... This answer filled her with dread. Along with the ease that he had let it slip from his mouth... As if it was just an afterthought. Scooting a little farther away, the voices filling the room slowly faded out and the ones that clouded her mind grew louder.
She could end up like that. Hell. She was half-way there already. Then what? Would Neko jokingly mention her death in passing to someone else while he was s**t faced?
The room suddenly seemed less friendly than it had minutes before. Maybe she'd fooled herself in thinking he was anything more than an acquaintance who enlisted her to do his chores because he didn't want to lift a ******** finger. And she was getting the short end of the stick, because there was no guarantee that she wouldn't lose herself anyways.
"Indeed, there's no way to guarantee anything. Quit while you're ahead. Enjoy the rest of your days. Hell is only a short trip from where you are, after all. By now you've noticed that all good things die as soon as they fall in your lap. Just... Let it go." The words echoed from behind her, an audible smile attached to each of them.
Jess's laughter silenced for a moment at the mention of a dead kid. Even drunk it surprised him how nonchalant Neko was about it, but as the drunk banter continued, Jess couldn't resist laughing. "You lucky b*****d." Jess mumbled with a cheesy grin. "That's alright. When I'm feeling lazy I got a guy who serves as my double and does the show for me while I gather a couple of groupies and 'show them the tour bus'." He whispered back loudly, not realizing Riyo could hear everything.
"I'm leaving." Riyo declared in a quiet voice as she stood up and shoved her hands in her pockets, unsure how much longer she could stand to listen to the two of them. "Have fun getting s**t faced."
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 5:00 pm
"Sounds nice," Neko admitted. He could only imagine what it was like to have so many girls at his disposal. Not that he didn't have a good time now and again but it was usually a one night stand, he really couldn't afford to get close to anyone for long.
The feline still didn't seem to realize what had come out of his mouth, so when Riyo had so suddenly decided to leave, an odd tone to her voice, he turned toward her. "Hey, where you goin'?" His eyes had already changed a short while ago, ice blue clouded over with gray. Though the gray in his eyes kept shifting like storm clouds in the wind.
"I thought you were trying to do your report." Neko slurred trying to push himself back up into his seat.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 6:18 pm
"Why the ******** do you care? I cleaned your house. That's all you're really concerned with anyways, right?" Riyo asked with a twinge of disgust, only half-noticing his eyes. Yeah. She was still missing details from her report, but right now that didn't seem to matter. So what if she failed the class? So ******** what? It wasn't like one class was going to save her from a path of destruction. Or even graduating, for that matter. She was screwed.
Obviously her mind was jumping to conclusions far beyond anything that was stated, as it usually did when she was upset. Marching over to the door, she felt a little shadow hovering next to her. Looked like she wouldn't be alone no matter where she decided to go...
"Yeah, it's- Riyo?" Jess asked in a daze as his daughter started to leave, an upset tone to her words. But there was something else. He could see a familiar figure following her steps, but it was blurry at best. "Riyo, waiiiit." He called, trying to stand. He wanted to punch that guy in the face, but getting to his legs proved more of a challenge than he thought it would.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 6:30 pm
That upset tone and words combined seemed to snap Neko back into some sort of state of sober. The gray started to clear from his eyes as his focus returned, a look of confusion on his face. "What's with the sudden hostility?" His words still weren't as clear as they should have been but he seemed to have an easier job of getting to his feet than Jess. Though walking was an entirely different matter.
"Did I say something to piss you off?" He was trying to backtrack in the conversation but honestly the words he was speaking now were barely registering in his memory. He still didn't even realize his tail was showing or he would know that something was up. Instead the forked appendage swayed behind him, the two ends now flicking separately.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:04 pm
In her mind, Riyo debated on whether she wanted to argue with a drunk. It wasn't like it would be hard for her to make a run for it. But being the verbal creature she was, resisting the urge to tell him what was up was like fighting the urge to breathe.
"You're obviously drunk and not paying attention." The tail kinda gave that away. "So let me remind you." Turning back around to face him, it was obvious her eyes were full of hurt. "The two of you were just discussing why you'd dropped down from a teacher to a janitor and without so much as a flinch or a frown you recalled how some kid 'went crazy and killed himself.'"
Giving a small pause to let that sink into Neko's inebriated brain, Riyo continued. "What if I die, huh? What if by some twist of fate I ******** up so bad that I end up in the same boat? You gonna get drunk some years later and nonchalantly talk about why your house is a pigsty?"
"Look at him, he's probably not even paying attention. Some friends you've got there Riyo. One tries to kill you, one stabs you in the back, and this one just sees you as an employee. What's the point of having friends again?" The shady figure whispered into her ear, making her stomach churn with the frighteningly true words.
Moving to the doorway with a great mass of difficulty, Jess grabbed the wall and held on for dear life. "Riyoo." He called, trying to find a good way to say what he wanted to say. "Don't listen to that guy. Cover your ears like th-" The vocalist had let go of the wall to cover his ears, and ended up taking a tumble to the floor. Smooth.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 7:39 pm
"I....I mentioned Mel?" Neko's eyes were suddenly wide as he took that in. He didn't seem to recall the slip but obviously he had....Riyo knew. It wasn't something he talked about...it was often something he tried to bury in his mind though how impossible it was to do so. It was his greatest screw up.
"Riyo," Neko wasn't sure what to say, though the truth came to mind. "I can't stand here and pretend that I am kind, but I honestly didn't realize that had slipped." At least his speech was a littler clearer with each word, though his stance was unsteady. To prove his lack of control the tattoos were moving around his arm, barely visible under his sleeve, but his magic hadn't been called into being just yet. "Mel...." Thinking the name just brought back a wave of horrible memories, all of which he really didn't want to focus on.
"Mel is the greatest regret I will ever have." Neko finally said. "I wasn't able to help him...because he didn't want help." Suddenly it seemed like Neko had some sort of sense of what was going on, his tail suddenly vanishing from sight though his eyes were still slowly clearing away. "You aren't like him, Riyo." Though when Jess said to not listen, Neko looked rather put off. His vision wasn't very clear or he might have been able to see the shape of which Jess was referring to. At the moment he was still drunk enough that he didn't sense the other presence among them.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:38 pm
Looking down at her father, Riyo shook her head. Good thing he was drunk.
"He's not talking about you." Riyo assured, though made no effort to say who he actually was talking about. Why was she bothering to try and save her father? Riyo couldn't say.
Sighing, Riyo rubbed her forehead and looked at the ground. That had only been half her point, but she supposed she shouldn't expect much. "Whatever.. Go back to being drunk. I'm not mad anymore." Moving behind him, Riyo put hands on Neko's shoulders to lead him back to the couch. Sometimes it felt like she had two fathers. Other times it felt like she had two mentally retarded children. "I'm sorry I brought it back up. I'm sure you didn't want to think about that..." Though her tone was still somewhat annoyed, it had lightened a little. The fact that he had snapped out of a drunken stupor probably meant that the situation had been very... tragic. But there was still that little shoulder devil hanging just behind her. Making her question things like it always did. Why did he hide himself like that?
After a minute of silence, Jess started flailing on the ground like a fish out of water. "I've fallen and I can't get up!"
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 8:57 pm
Neko seemed to recede back into himself at this point slightly realizing he had let himself get too comfortable. Guess that was one of the many side effects of drinking heavily. But now, even though he was drunk, he was guarded again trying to be careful about what came out of his mouth.
"Ask me about it..." Neko said softly as Riyo approached. "When I'm not drunk. You should probably know." Though when she came behind him to lead him back to the couch, her touch seemed to make the markings go mad. They had already been moving and shifting across his skin, though slowly and out of sight, but as soon as she touched his shoulders the markings spread further down as if trying to find a new place to take hold. It felt like Neko's skin was crawling and he couldn't help but rub at his arms, Jess' words hardly audible on his ears.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:19 pm
"Alright." Riyo answered simply, trying to shoo her irritation away. It wasn't like she hadn't said stupid things when she was smashed... She just didn't remember them very well.
She had been about to say something, but a shiver had caught her off guard. Looking down at his arms, her eyes widened. Immediately she drew her hands back, unsure of what was happening. "Neko... What's it doing?" She asked with a twinge of worry.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 9:39 pm
As soon as Riyo pulled back the markings on Neko's arms grew suddenly calm, slowly pulling back under his sleeve and falling into their previous place, though still shifting slowly. Neko seemed to be watching with a detached interest like it really wasn't happening to him. "Spreading..." He said simply like it was nothing new.
That was when his eyes drifted over and spotted Jess on the floor. The man seemed to be flailing about like a headless chicken. He was really in no shape to help with his shitty balance so instead he made his way to the couch as Riyo had been directing him. "Sorry....for the mess." Neko didn't utter the word often, so to hear the word sorry was quite a feat in and of itself, though what mess he was talking about was unclear. Everything was a bit of a mess. The photographer, her dad on the floor, him at the moment, the topic of conversation, the list probably went on from there.
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Posted: Sat Mar 19, 2011 10:00 pm
Spreading? Why had it suddenly calmed when she pulled back?
... Had she done that?
A sense of dread filled her as that thought struck, hoping that hadn't been the case.
Riyo had zoned out as Neko made it back to the couch, snapping back to attention when he apologized.
Walking back over to where he sat, she lifted a hand and ruffled his hair like he did to her sometimes. "Don't worry about it." Secretly she liked taking care of people. It made her feel valuable.
With only a couple of steps, Riyo made her way back to the drunk laying on Neko's floor, grabbing his arms, flipping him over, and dragging him back into the den. "Riyoo... Is he gone?"
"Yeah, he's gone. Now shut up." In truth he was never gone. She could always feel him. Watching her. Waiting for the perfect moment to tell her what she didn't want to hear. But there were times when she could almost swear she could touch him, too... Just then... Had been one of those times.
Once Jess was replaced on the seat he had left moments prior, Riyo looked back to Neko. "You want me to refill your glass or are you done for the night?"
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