smash_logs | HALLOWEENIES '13 PART ONE

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HALLOWEENIES '13 PART ONE

Who: YOU
What: A FALL CARNIVAL
When: Friday, October 25th - October 30th.
Where: The fairgrounds
Warnings: General shenanigans.

There's a chill in the air on the morning of the 25th. Students awaken to find that some kind of festival has sprung up on the fairgrounds overnight. How exciting!

title or description

The general theme of this mysterious carnival seems to be fall, with a corn maze, pumpkin picking, haunted house, and similar-themed food, rides and games. However...there's something a little weird about it, and not just the fact that it sprung up overnight, out of nowhere. It's fun, sure, but in walking the fairgrounds you can't help but notice a strange energy from the whole place, a chill in the air that isn't from the cold weather. Everything seems normal, but every so often you might feel a presence. A quick glimpse of a shadowy figure out of the corner of your eye, a gentle touch on your shoulder while you're decidedly alone…it's clear there's something weird about the event.

But only time will tell.

((Hello Smashies! This is a catch-all log for all CARNIVAL shenanigans. No fourth wall shenanigans in this log, please! We'll post a separate entry for the spooky ghost part of the event in a day or two. Feel free to go wild--the sky's the limit for what's actually at the carnival. Here's the event post if you need a refresher, and feel free to contact a mod if you have any questions!))

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One of those arranged ~~dates~~ hangouts was bound to be with Oowada, right? If asked, he wouldn't want to say no. It would be a great place to unwind from unpleasant worries. So far he'd succeeded in doing that. However... considering the nature of the festival, particularly with the 'eastern influences' with the lit up yatai stalls and people flocking about in kimono, he thought it strange that what must be a sort of bon festival integrated within this mishmash of a Halloween celebration was being held at this time of year when he was more familiar with a balmy summer evening than a crisp autumn night. What made the similarities unmistakable was the burning 大 on the mountainside, hearing word of a floating lantern procession. While it wasn't August, the festivities meant to welcome spirits of the dead and send them off soaked him into the spirit of the festival, and his own perished family members clung to his mind like sticky rice. Maybe here he could make up for the one he missed this year.

And then there was the weird... chill in the air. It wasn't something Mondo could ever describe adequately, but it sure as hell wasn't the chill of the changing seasons. Mid-walk with Kiyotaka at his side, he froze, cupping his ear and turning to glare at whoever blew on it.

No one.

What kind of twisted happenstance was it that while everyone could go about their daily lives at school, Kiyotaka heard charming bear laughter and saw shadows, yet at this ominous carnival that had some people convinced they were being followed, the prefect was left completely unbothered? Just one of those funny little ways life worked, perhaps.

So when Mondo suddenly stopped and Kiyotaka noticed shortly after, he could not even begin to guess what the reason was.

"Is something the matter?"

His eyes darted around, seeking a possibility that he might not have taken into account yet. Brows drawn down suspiciously, he asked Kiyotaka, "Is it getting windy?"

"...There is a bit of a breeze," he answered after a thoughtful moment, "but it's not enough to even be an inconvenience. In fact, compared to what you must feel on your motorcycle, this is surely nothing at all!"

Seriously, who got bothered by a tiny breeze.

He was onto something, and Mondo couldn't help but agree. "Yeah, I guess you're makin' a good point, but..." He tried to come up with a way to explain himself. "It wasn't just a breeze. It felt like... someone was blowing on my ear. Sure as hell couldn't be you, since it was on the opposite side."

"There's nobody there!"

Which was something completely obvious and that Mondo had plainly figured out, but Kiyotaka shifted his gaze in that direction anyway. Nope, nobody. Ace Detective.

Still, there was no way he could call him out on how weird it was to be feeling things that weren't there. Not when his own imagination was out to destroy him.

"...Is that the only strange thing you've noticed?"

"Nnno, but..." This was getting a little too creepy for him. And he could go on and on to describe little incidents that were spread throughout his time at the carnival- his hair getting mysteriously mussed up, food he hadn't even tasted yet having bite marks in it, someone stepping on the back of his shoe to dislodge his foot from it when nobody was behind him... But he didn't. It was stupid, but somehow, if he didn't talk about it, maybe he could keep passing it off as his own imagination at work.

"What the hell, I'm probably just goin' crazy. Must be all this boredom I need to get outta my system. Y'know what, let's try out some of the rides!" Not giving Kiyotaka any room for disagreement, he walked forward and swung his arm around his shoulders in a chummy way, then pushed him into walking with him to the rides whether he liked it or not. "Tell ya what, let's start with your favorite!"

Edited 2013-11-02 02:14 (UTC)

Well, if that was the only thing, it probably was just Mondo's imagination. Besides, it was so different from any of Kiyotaka's experiences back at the school that there wasn't likely to be any connection at all, so he dropped it on favour of turning his attention to the rides. Yes! Those seemed... Exciting? And really loud and flashy, but maybe that was supposed to be part of the draw, or something. He'd looked in their direction and watched a bit from time to time during his visits to the carnival so far, but there was one problem in picking a favourite...

"I haven't actually been on one yet!"

"Well, then which kinds do you like? Roller coasters? Tilt-a-whirls? Ferris wheels?"

"...I haven't been on any."

He was getting the feeling this was something shameful to admit and that maybe, just maybe, he should have prepared himself and gone on everything so he could make an informed decision. DAMN IT.

Mondo stopped in his tracks and looked at Kiyotaka with bewilderment. "Seriously? You've never been on a single ride? In your entire life?"

Oh good he definitely missed yet another opportunity to be a regular human being. It was more than a little embarrassing to look back on just how many things he had brushed aside due to the mistaken belief that they weren't all that important, and it was getting him worked up like most things did.

"Frivolous things like that were always beyond our budget! Besides that, I was always too focused on my studies to waste time at amusement parks..." He totally heard a classmate in elementary school bragging about going to Tokyo Disney though, did that count. "But the time to make up for it is now!!" He took a breath and pointed to the tallest ride he could see. "Let's start with that one!"

The Drop of Doom? Perfect entry-level ride.

Edited (I CANNOT BELIEVE I HAD TO ENTER HTML FOR LINE BREAKS) 2013-11-02 13:47 (UTC)

"That one?" It almost sounded like he was going to disapprove of his pick, but then... "...Right on! I knew you'd make a gutsy first choice! C'mon, let's go!" And then they were off, leaving Kiyotaka plenty of time to second-guess himself.

"I still can't believe you've never been on a single ride, not even as a kid. What else did you miss out on?" The answer was probably anything he could imagine. "It's kinda sad."

"I didn't miss out on any necessities or anything!! I simply..." He was kicking himself for admitting to it in the first place. "...did not indulge in a wide variety of things as my peers did. But I certainly watched and heard about a lot of it!! So I wasn't completely lacking!"

Only mostly.

Also, wow, the closer they got the higher that drop looked. But it was perfectly safe, as evidenced by the fact that it was still running, so it wasn't like it was anything to worry about. Those were definitely screams of pure thrill.

"Watching and hearing people have fun ain't the same as having it, idiot," he said, bopping him on the back of the head (lightly, for Mondo). "Damn, you're repressed as hell. No wonder you didn't have any friends."

OW. HARSH. SO HARSH. Both that fact and his head may have been a bit of a sore spot for him.

"No, you're... perfectly right!! I was a truly ignorant child! I didn't think such things were important!! It wasn't until very recently that I realized just how wrong I was, now that there is nothing I can do!"

Good job Mondo you set him off.

Not like he even realized just how much of a butt rash he had over it. So as a result, his overreaction was a bit jarring, and he looked at him in a sort of confused scrutiny. Considering how his face looked and his voice rose in such a panic, it was easy to see that Kiyotaka was embarrassed with himself.

"Whoa, get ahold of yourself. It's not the end of the world. Besides, you got time to make up for some of it, right?" Time that could have certainly not been available to him, had the events at Hope's Peak managed to affect them the way they were apparently supposed to. Weird to think about...

"Right!"

As wounded as his pride was, he could help it recover. There was nothing to be done about the past but learn from it, anyway, and as long as he was able to do that it wasn't all for waste.

(It still stung a little to know that there had always been such simple solutions to his childhood loneliness that he just never thought of.)

"It's decided, then! We'll ride everything... how many times does the average person go on rides by the time they are nineteen?"

Mondo gave him A Look that read something along the lines of Are You Seriously Asking Me This?

"Beats me. Does it matter? I say screw the average. Let's just focus on enjoying ourselves." They reached the line, which wasn't too long, thankfully, and Mondo offered Kiyotaka some tickets. He raised his head to watch as the people dangling precariously from what must be a skyscraper's height plunged abruptly to their doom. The high-pitched screams streaked the entire way down, growing ever louder to their ears.

They'll be next.

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HALLOWEENIES '13 PART ONE

not into man dates or anything

denial does not suit you sir

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