1.) Under no circumstances are the following individuals allowed inside:
Peyton Creedy: Sun, blond and pink hair, goldfish tattoo, smug b***h Chelsea Craft: Sun, vivid pink hair, may have Southern accent slip in Leslie King: Mist, shaved head with dead rat on top, foul attitude Finn Connor: obvious "Fini" Wynaero: obvious
Unsavory characters beyond this list are subject to your discretion, though my room should not suddenly become a tourist attraction while I am away.
2.) In spite of being the one to watch my room, you do not have to touch anything. In fact, not coming into contact with any of my possessions not listed as exceptions is greatly appreciated. Highly recommended.
3.) No food or drink is allowed inside. You are to treat this as you would a lab: as cleanly as possible.
4.) Your only jobs are simply to check that it is locked and that intruders do not decide to become curious. You will be given the key. You are the only one who may have that key until I return.
5.) I don't believe your breaking in story for a second. I am placing trust in you to watch my belongings because you consider me a friend. This is your chance to prove it means something, that is all.
6.) As per our agreement, this does not in any way fulfill the favors you owe me.
7.) Attached are instructions on shoe care should they appear dusty, or should something happen. This is merely a precaution: nothing should be near either my shoes or my clothes, or even my closet.
8.) You may peruse my bookcase as compensation for your time. There is not much to it, however. These books must be back in place before I return.
9.) By taking this responsibility on, you are also agreeing that any damages done to my room while I am away will come out of your paycheck and time.
10.) I am trusting you not to invade my privacy. That is not something I give out lightly. Remember that.
Regards,
kuroopu
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:26 pm
the room
Unsurprisingly, the inside is spartan: the usual white walls, ceiling, and floor. It looks spotless to the point of being mistaken for a room at a clinic, though rather than a sterile scent, there is something like a "coffee shop within a bookstore" smell in the air.
The bed is nothing special to speak of besides being ridiculously long and is pushed into the corner opposite the door. Beneath it are his minifridge (empty) and a large wooden dresser which contains his clothes neatly folded and arranged by dominant color or pattern. The bottommost drawer is locked.
➤ Attempt to open with dorm key
The key does not fit, but nice try.
➤ Attempt to lockpick
Each character that tries only has 3 attempts total. Roll 1d12: If you roll a 1, you have successfully unlocked the drawer. Mists may roll 1d10 instead.
Upon a successful roll, the following items may be found inside: x1 bottle of expensive cognac (3/4 full) x1 pair of shoes placed inside a box with obvious care to its contents x1 small photobook (late highschool to early college years): Among them is a familiar giant, though his hair is a honey blond in the beginning, interspersed with photos of his family (a shorter Korean woman whose blank look looks awfully familiar to her son's, a taller but not gigantic man who has a wincing smile, and his maternal grandmother who seems to exude a commanding aura even in just a photograph). Some photos are dedicated to Jack playing basketball at various meets, while more are with a tan, curly-haired brunette who is without fail smiling in every photo she's in; Jack joins her in most of them with what quickly becomes an apparent lopsided smile. Helpfully, on the back of some photos names have been written down (some in Korean--"mom", "dad", "grandmother", sometimes their actual names, only notable by the fact that somewhere towards the end the father and mother are referred to by separate last names--the girl in plain English as Lina, followed by the place and time the photo was taken at). Halfway through, his hair turns green and hers gains red undertones if it isn't in some amateur artistic attempt at monochrome or sepia. Past a certain time, the photos focus only on some of Jack's selfies. The book is not completetly filled.
Next to the bed is Jack's bookcase, which is a pitiful and mostly empty sight. Several old Time magazines are on the top rack, followed by a thick hardback cover of the complete collection of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and poems with gilded pages and a built in fabric bookmark, the first three hardback Harry Potter books (the second of which has a bookmark stuck in the first chapter), and at the bottom sits a copy of Gray's Anatomy and a semi-used but currently blank pad left forgotten.
Opposite the bookcase is his desk. It appears conspicuously bare of reports and files: only his thermos and a small group of pens and pencils in a cup can be seen.
➤ Search drawers anyway
Every drawer is empty save for two: one which houses several thin books of guitar sheet music for classic rock songs, and one which has a single page that reads AS IF IT WOULD BE THAT EASY in large letters. Apparently even Jack has a sense of humor.
Opposite the bed is his closet where his classier cloths, vests, and shoes can be found. Of the lattermost items, his taste becomes very apparent (only the men's shoes are on display); the vast majority of hunters couldn't hope to fit his shoe size. Several empty boxes are stacked inside with company logos as evidence as to which shoe came from where. Should someone remove them and open the bottom boxes for whatever reason, they will find thesetwo pairs.
A guitar case leans against the wall by the window. Inside is, of course, a regular acoustic guitar with a pick stuck in the strings.
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:31 pm
stormy journal one
x x x x x
september 29th, 2013
I forgot how outrageous you could be. You act like you're the unluckiest person in the world, but God if you didn't have some select luck showing up here anyway.
I have just as much a right to be here as you do, so go ahead and be unhappy. I lied. I always do if it means I can escape. You weren't any better towards the end. We were both at fault. The fact that you asked if we could give it another shot literally the day you barge into my room tells me you haven't changed one bit.
I don't owe you anything except months of angry words that I should have let go of a long time ago. Maybe you did rub off on me. It's the closest we've come to real touching in years.
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:35 pm
stormy journal three
How long was it before you said, "I love you"? Three months or so? In a year and a half I've never said it to you, Gale, not once. This entry can't explain why, but it's a start.
I did used to think it was a game, back when I didn't think this would last. How long could you stay before something changed your mind, and how long would it take for those words to appear? And I put you against his record: two years and two months, and three months, respectively. Two and a half months really, because he did things you don't just do for a girlfriend you like. You don't wait up at four in the morning, two hours before the alarm to get ready for school, and talk them down from having a discussion with the razor for just someone you like. You don't write and rewrite and rewrite a song without words to try and communicate with someone you only like on an emotionally intimate level. You don't miss a basketball game so that you can land seats at an expensive and exclusive restaurant in Chicago to start "the perfect date" for just someone you like.
It was Valentines Day. The amount of cheesy dramatic action he was feeding me all day was incredible: a limo pick up, a sharp suit and a witty one liner kiss greeting at the door, It's been so long, I couldn't wait another day, Can You Feel the Love Tonight? He actually tried to serenade me with it, forgot the lyrics, and then filled it in himself. Later he told me that was just a ruse and that of course he knew the lyrics by heart, but that stumbling over that one word had made me smile, and that smile was worth a hundred mistakes and other pretty things besides, and that was why he purposefully fumbled the whole song just to watch me laugh, and I had to think to myself, I had to think about what sort of person didn't mind putting themselves down for a laugh, and I had to think that it was something we had in common.
But the song was an omen. He always had been the kind who sometimes stared at things too long, and I always wondered what he was thinking about that kept him so preoccupied, or if he really had such sharp vision that he could mentally break things down by looking at them. He was so analytical I could believe it. Lately I'd caught him staring when he thought I wasn't paying attention: sometimes my hair, sometimes my face. He'd always turn away before I faced him before, but on this date his eyes lingered. There was something there I didn't know. He had hidden streaks of passion, but it didn't click for me why I'd seen those depths there. Maybe I spent too much time laughing to comprehend it, just giggly and helium-headed and overall just following wherever the ride took me. I felt his eyes on me more than usual and just chalked it up to the fact that it was Valentines Day, he'd gone the whole nine yards for this date, and I'd really tried my best to impress him with how I looked and acted.
So when our eyes did meet like that in the gaps between conversations, I thought it was just silent communication, acceptance. A smile from him--the genuine, warm, easy smile--was so hard to find normally. But that Valentines day it lit his face up so much that I was hooked. It wasn't a drug but it was as compelling as one, as mind-altering. Every touch, every hand hold, every kiss (chaste or otherwise) just pulled me more and more into this world where neither of us had to remember we had problems to go back to. I wanted so badly to ask him what he saw when he stared like that: what exactly did he see when he penetrated layer after layer of Lina Ortega with just his eyes? But I was just as afraid of the answer as I was curious.
And then, sated by desserts and leaning on each other in his backyard and under the stars, he said it: I love you. His arm around me, his head leaned down so close each word tickled me. And I didn't get it at first--my eyes were skyward and dazzled. Maybe that was what prompted him in the first place. I remember I jerked a little when he squeezed my arm, and he chuckled a little and teased me for spacing out on him and said it again. And I was quiet.
I waited for the swell in my heart. I was well past the point of butterflies and into live birds run amok in my stomach. There were feelings there, surprise and pleasure and nervousness, all twisting and vying for the most attention, and I wondered if that was what love was supposed to be. The one that I felt with my family was steady and warm, but that was different. He was different. When we were together it was a constant current of water, and sometimes we weren't at the same speed, but God when we were in sync it was a high I'd never thought could exist. We could intuit things: moods, needs, thoughts. He rarely got mine completely right, but he was getting better.
So I waited. He waited. I waited. I watched. He watched.
I tried to do the same thing he did, gaze and scan and try to understand by taking him in, because somehow he had shifted in the starlight, changed into something else. He wasn't some rich kid with an attitude, or a charming sports player, but a vulnerable human being in that moment, and it was bizarre to think of him as anything less than confident. I could swear the sky itself was tilting, the earth one step away from forgetting what gravity and air was.
He wasn't just being patient for my answer, he was anxious. It made me even more nervous by proxy. I was fifteen and finally learning the hard way just how close-minded and petty people could really be, what did I know about love? I was messing things up left and right in my life, and truth be told the relationship I had with him was one of the few remotely good things in my life. Throwing something as big as love into the mix made it so tempting for me to just stop everything dead in its tracks before that too could get royally screwed.
I love you, too, I said with a warm smile, before it got too awkward. And maybe I did? My heart twisted with something like happiness when the words left me and did it again when I saw just how relieved he was. Here I should have known better, I should have said to myself, Self, he's being serious about this, you can't just say what he wants to hear if you're not fully committing, that wouldn't be fair. There's more than one kind of love, you should clarify.
But I couldn't take it back now. He was happy. I felt happy. Whatever else was there could be worked out over time, I told myself. Expecting something to go perfect, like having some gut feeling that it was the right thing, or getting a sign from above, was impractical and over idealistic. Real things were full of uncertainty and uncontrolled emotion. And what I felt was something like love, I think. It isn't hard at all for me to love people, whatever you want to take from that.
I was convinced it was okay, but I was stupid that Valentines night for getting his hopes up. Getting caught up in the moment like that was my downfall. But I had optimism, right? I always do. Things would work themselves out. We had a few problems here and there, but who didn't? If I was being brutally honest, I just didn't want to be alone.
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:39 pm
stormy journal one
x x x x x
december 27th, 2013
Why did you think you weren't good enough for me? Because he came back? You think I'd stay until something better came along and then leave you? You think I'm that shallow? Please believe me when I say I never will. Please believe me. God please don't ever doubt that part, everything else fine, I know I'm a mess when it's not smiles and games, a horrible, Secret mess, and I know I frustrate you because I don't make sense sometimes, but please believe me someday soon
(3/12/14) reminder: human nature to doubt, makes me very human indeed; silly thing to write, that's the whole point of this one I guess
Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 11:43 pm
stormy journal one
x x x x x
december 26th, 2013
(heavier pressure on the ink, messier writing)
I'm still trying to figure out if I hate myself or pity you more.I never get violent, or Ididn't before coming here at least. I don't know if it's just you being here or the island, but more than ever I wish you were gone. Not dead,not killed,just gone.
You'd never believe me, butI didn't mean to leave a scar. Maybe that's all you were looking for: somethingto scratch and pick at instead of the one on your heart.
MErry FUCKING CHrISTMAS!
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:12 am
stormy journal two
x x x x
I am Leonardo da Vinci. I make many things but leave most incomplete. (11/11? 11/10?) incomplete or broken, which is worse?
(5/15) My I love you's sound like my Sorries and my Sorries sound like I love you's.
(1/1) I may burn, I may drown, I may be eviscerated, I may go mad, I may hurt you--but I will never let you go. I will make you suffer with me because misery loves company and so do I. but that's him talking isn't it, the piece I can't get rid of what's the point of misery if you share? take it from them and keep it yourself and they won't suffer, that's the best answer
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:25 am
stormy journal two
x x x x
I accept that different roads can lead to the same destination. I accept that I am a child at heart and also childish. I accept that in the grand scheme, I don't mean anything at all. I accept that I will never get tall enough to look most people in the eye. I accept the fact that sometimes it's better to go unnoticed. I accept the fact that what I may see as green is another person's blue and that it's a wonderful facet of life. I wholeheartedly accept that the world is a realm of every possibility imaginable. I accept the good and bad in it. I refuse to accept a world that tells me I have to be stoic in order to be strong. I refuse to accept a world that tells me not everyone can be happy. I believe there is always a way. I accept that this twilit life of concerning myself over others' happiness and health will sometimes mean forgetting about mine. I believe that you are only as good as the memories you leave with others.
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 12:28 am
stormy journal one
x x x x x
may 2nd, 2014
I will steal from you what I can. I will make a hole inside you that can never be filled except with thoughts of me, so that I will never be forgotten. You are kind and chivalrous, but on the inside, at the very bottom of it all, I am not. You are patient. I am selfish. You are happy. I am hungry for more. You will remind me that I am my own person, unbeholden to anyone. I will tell you that you are mine and mine alone, that anything less is insufficient. I will consume you whole and you will think it's love.
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 1:28 pm
stormy journal three
x x x x
I love you. That isn't the surprising part.
In reality, I love everyone easily: sometimes a few moments into meeting them, sometimes before, sometimes a while after. I suffer from a universal love of all things, from food to sleep to comfort to people, the sort of love people refer to as just "liking" something. It's what makes me want to help others when I very well shouldn't; but helping them helps me ease something inside I find it hard to describe.
People use the word "love" too much, I think, maybe just the US, maybe other countries too, maybe me. Most of what we ascribe that word to could be substituted with "like" instead.
"I love what you did with your hair." "I like what you did with your hair." "I love the food from x!" "I really like the food from x!" I don't think this is necessarily our fault: rather, it's the English language who is failing to have the variety of words for what we want to say. This is the problem I find myself with now.
It isn't that I like you. It isn't even that I love you, now that I think about it. The more I write, the more I realize there's something more there, something deeper and more innate. But there isn't a proper word to give to it. To think, not even when I'm at my most clear and communicable can I tell you how much you mean to me! Instead I have to carry this horrible, wonderful, burning weight inside without any means of release, where every stroke of the pen only incites it like flint to fire. What sort of joke is that?
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Sun Jul 27, 2014 9:06 am
stormy journal two
[8/10/10] They're just thighs They're just thighs. everyone's got them fat and skinny and muscled and connected to hips but yours are disgusting and small but wide and so very unHispanic it's got to be adoption at work
[no date] Smile in the mirror enough and they say your body will be tricked and make you think you're happy. Is there a trick for love? Real, palpable love? Can you actually fool yourself?
[2/28/08] Wrists are so blasé. I'm more creative than that.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2014 1:18 pm
stormy journal two
To-do list for 11/30/12: ■ Smile □ Make someone smile ■ Help someone or offer to □ Exercise ■ Write something good about yourself: I cleaned my new room some more! The dust bunnies are gone and I was productive! □ Write something good about someone else: Don't really know anyone yet, but I will soon, journal! ■ Stretch ▧ Love yourself ■ Go to bed at a decent hour ■ Eat right (mostly) □ Socialize
To-do list for 4/25/13: ■ Smile ■ Make someone smile ■ Help someone or offer to ■ Exercise ■ Write something good about yourself: I looked really cute today! Someone complimented my hair. (Rapunzel style: small flowers in braid) ■ Write something good about someone else: Evan and Tuck are super pro people and cool brothers! ■ Try to cook your own meal instead of eating out ▧ Love yourself □ Go to bed at a decent hour ■ Eat right ■ Socialize
To-do list for 10/04/13: ■ Smile ■ Make someone smile ■ Help someone or offer to ■ Exercise □ Write something good about yourself: ■ Write something good about someone else: Nevada is a great fighter! ■ Do one extra activity: Practiced for tournament ▧ Love yourself ■ Go to bed at a decent hour ■ Eat right ■ Socialize
To-do list for 3/15/14: ■ Smile ■ Make someone smile ■ Help someone or offer to □ Exercise ■ Write something good about yourself: I will save her. □ Write something good about someone else: □ Call someone you haven't seen in a while ▧ Love yourself □ Go to bed at a decent hour □ Eat right ■ Socialize
To-do list for 6/08/14: □ Smile □ Make someone smile □ Help someone or offer to □ Exercise □ Write something good about yourself: I picked up this pen □ Write something good about someone else: □ Take a walk outside □ Love yourself ■ Go to bed at a decent hour sleeping all day counts ■ Eat right enough □ Socialize
To-do list for 7/13/14: ■ Smile ■ Make someone smile ■ Help someone or offer to ■ Exercise □ Write something good about yourself: □ Write something good about someone else: □ Pray □ Love yourself □ Go to bed at a decent hour □ Eat right □ Socialize
medigel
Anxious Spirit
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medigel
Anxious Spirit
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Posted: Fri Aug 01, 2014 4:10 pm
the night before
The fact that the only things he was looking forward to after the mission were stoic ghosts, cognac, and planning a fake relationship said a lot about Jack's life. A whole year later, and the only things that had changed were the faces surrounding him, his appearance, and the lengths he would sink to get what he wanted.
Faces. Friends...? He tried the word out in his head as he packed, but it was like trying a foreign dish: not inherently wrong, but not entirely palatable either. Jack wouldn't bother correcting anyone as far as what they might call or consider him, but the word didn't suit him the way size eleven shoes no longer did.
And how could he use the term "friends" at all when the very idea of letting Ian—perhaps one of the most trustworthy people of his social circle—watch his room made him feel vaguely uncomfortable? What more did it say about him that said "one of the most trustworthy" was a man who had attempted suicide by cop just to punish himself for upsetting his homo lover? Or that his social circle also included Shiloh, said homo lover who had died and come back still freakishly and eerily cheerful; Finn, a one eyed half-f** who was either a danger in disguise or the most unrepentant retard he had ever encountered; Abbi, a girl so obnoxious and childish that even when she turned eighteen he still wouldn't tap that because by then his brains would have leaked out of his ears listening to her; Chel, another girl equally as obnoxious, as unfortunately determined to hang around him (though at least able to be useful, he conceded, for coffee runs), and annoyingly sassy; Ripley, who he had barely seen around and had chalked it up to the man being sane enough to realize the giant was not good social company; Fini, who had all but disappeared now that Finn's d**k wasn't magnetically drawing her in (what a shocker, bitches only wanted to get ridden on their terms); several lackeys like Oliver and Leslie and Noemi, each very irritating in their own way; and now one Hanna Nowicki, a coworker who probably pitied him so much that this so-called plan they would be hatching was half out of entertainment for herself?
He used to have a basketball scholarship, double majored, and had maintained a 4.0 GPA. What the ******** happened?
Jack still didn't know why he was allowing this concession to watch his room to begin with, aside from the weary acceptance that denying Ian would change very little in the result; he had a suspicion the guy would "guard" his things even without his blessing and what had amounted to a signed permission slip left under the Moon's door. At least by saying yes, Jack could have a say on how things should be.
Still, he had his reservations about the whole thing. His room was mostly bare of decoration, but appearances weren't everything; the paranoid part of him was assured something would happen whole he was out for God knew how long. He needed to move the important things out—and that was how he spent his final ("final", how dramatic) two evenings before the mission. Files were removed. Certain shoes were secured in their own boxes and pulled out. The desk was wiped clean, notes stacked and listed alphabetically and triple-checked against a manifesto. The floor was swept, his clothes were reorganized, and his single backpack of belongings was set at the foot of his bed. All in all he spent several hours both nights getting everything prepared.
Several women's shoes were left behind "accidentally." He wouldn't be Jack without conducting an experiment. Then he finished off everything by taking multiple photos on his phone of his possessions, cataloging their exact locations and proximities, directions turned, degrees angled in some cases and condition for others. It would be next to impossible to not know if his things had been disturbed, an act of true balls which Jack knew innately would happen regardless of his warnings and this felt justified in preparing for.
(His skin prickled at the idea of someone else breathing that air, standing in his room and looking at his things, shedding dead skin cells and dandruff and god only knew what as his stuff was touched. Part of him hoped it wouldn't be a problem, while the other part begged for an excuse to get angry at someone.)
It was only when everything had been brought to a pristine shine, with his choice to wind down being polishing a set of dress shoes, that Jack realized his characteristic disgruntlement was not situational, but rather a constant companion. Even when he thought he was finished and at peace with the job, there was an itch inside that made him feel uncomfortable in his own skin; and no amount of cleaning or socializing could fix that.
