RP Log: Yukimura & Jackal

[https://users.livejournal.com/-beekeeper/]

Date: 07 January 2006 (Saturday)
Rating: G
Summary: Yukimura and Joaquin meet in medlab (yayfriends!); the latter receives a new nickname. :D


Kuwahara Joaquin was not currently a happy camper. He’d been exploring the small grove of trees toward the south end of Ryuhana’s grounds when a shapeshift had kicked in, and he’d been forced to leave his sneakers behind – as well as his jumper and jeans. Dogs only had single mouths, after all, and that made it difficult to carry many things. As it was (as per usual), he had his boxers by the elastic (there were visible chew-holes through almost every pair) and tried his best not to dribble on them, padding his way up to the medlab. The doctors had said to show up when he shifted, since they’d already tested his default form.

But once there, his sensitive nose caught a whiff of… something different. The garden was over by the dorms, so unless somebody’d brought over some greenery or something… he followed his nose inside, sniffing curiously, doing his best to disregard the sterile smell that ate at his nostrils.

The flow of students into medlab had been minimal over the past few days -- not many were back from the holiday break yet, and even fewer had anything to report to Ryuhana's resident doctors. With the exception of one (too brief) visit from Kaidoh-kun, who was kind enough to keep him company one afternoon, Yukimura Seiichi had spent recent days in relative exile from the other students, and he didn't like it one bit.

One of the very last things he expected, however, was the click of animal claws on the tile, soon followed by the animal itself: a large dog, carrying a pair of men's underwear in its teeth. He couldn't recall sending for undergarments....

Well. Canine company was better than none at all. "Hey there," he greeted the dog pleasantly, holding out a pale hand to be sniffed.

Joaquin dropped his boxers and headtilted slightly at the… person who’d spoken. Boy? Girl? …and green-tinted skin, unless the florescent lights were ganging up on him. Without sniffing, he knew that this person was definitely the source of the sweet, fresh scent, even if it was slightly dampened by the room about them. He nuzzled up under the outstretched hand lightly, and tried to smile – though human expressions definitely didn’t sit right (if at all) on his canine face.

Seiichi rubbed affectionately at the coarse fur beneath his palm. The dog was terribly friendly, despite its wild appearance. It couldn't possibly be someone's pet, though -- he might've noticed an animal this large roaming the hallways, or at least heard it before, if not heard merely about it.

"Where did you come from?" he asked, as though the dog could answer properly, and scratched behind its ears. "You belong here, don't you?"

Joaquin nodded exaggeratedly – an action that was easily enough done – and sat down, wagging his tail. Though it made him think that perhaps a collar would be useful – he definitely didn’t look like your average domestic dog and didn’t want to be shot if he ever happened to be caught out on the streets of Tokyo. Maybe a name, and Ryuhana’s phone number…

This person was nice, though, and apparently alone. He ought to keep him (her?) company. A soothing kind of voice, soft on the ears.

And a dog that apparently understood Japanese well enough. Interesting. Though if it belonged here, Seiichi reasoned, and couldn't be a pet, then that meant ... "Wait," he said, putting the pieces together. "You're a student?"

Joaquin nodded again, but gave up attempts at smiling and tried to keep his tongue from hanging out instead. But almost on cue (for once), he felt his shoulders seize up and yelped. Bowing hurriedly (though it just looked like another nod, really), he snatched up his boxers again and made a dash from the room. Having caught one of his own transformations in a bathroom mirror just days ago, he could say for sure that it definitely wasn’t a pretty thing to watch.

And just like that, the dog was gone. In its absence, though, Seiichi tried to remember if any students that he knew of were, well, a bit fuzzier than most others.

If there was, it wasn't anyone that he'd met before, he decided, and settled back on the stiff pillow. At least the medlab was warmer than the dorms, and it got more sun than its counterpart at the other school ....

Joaquin considered himself lucky Ryuhana’s campus wasn’t that big, this time around. Although it would probably prove boring to lap repeatedly, one could get from the medlab in the north-east to the small forest down south and back again in just a handful of minutes.

Which is what he did, finally returning to the medlab fully dressed, and sneakers back on. He poked his head back in the door, finding things a lot more pleasant now that his nose wasn’t so sensitive. “Hello?”

Seiichi turned his head at the sound of another visitor, this one human. Or, he noticed, with a slight tilt of his head, the same visitor, but in a different shape.

He was no empath, at least not when it came to creatures of flesh and bone, but there was a certain feeling about the guest that marked him as the same as the dog that had been here only moments before. The boy was tall -- likely taller than himself, though he couldn't tell, seated as he was -- and dark-skinned, bald apparently by choice, with a strong, athletic build.

The foreign boy, Yukimura thought. Of course. The one with the name that didn't sound right in Japanese. "Hello," he replied, recognition already settling in. What was that unusual name, though? He couldn't remember. "Back already?"

“Do I look that much the same?” Joaquin asked with a grin. Though it probably wasn’t so hard to figure: the place seemed deserted for starters – maybe it was lunch break? He was sort of glad a doctor hadn’t shown up while he’d been there in dog form, though. As much as he knew it would help somehow, testing was never fun.

He took a seat on one of the benches by the wall, feet set firmly down and elbows resting on knees. He hadn’t met this person before today. “Your name is?”

"Yukimura Seiichi," he replied, with a slow smile drifting across his features. "We talked online. You're the one with the unpronouncable name, aren't you?" They didn't get many new students (though Seiichi had heard that once upon a time, not a week would pass without a new face arriving), and one of the new boys did say he could turn into a dog. It had to be the same one.

“Kuwahara Joaquin,” the Brazilian-half chuckled. “Nice to meet you in person, Yukimura-kun.” He now remembered the curious photo thumbnail the other had used for an icon, and his (her?) full, blue eyes. So it really hadn’t been a case of strange lighting, after all. He vaguely wondered if he’d attached the right honorific to begin with now, but Yukimura hadn’t corrected him online, so -kun it would remain for now.

"Hu-wa ... kiin?" Yukimura echoed, now actually sounding out the foreign name. He felt his brow crinkle at the way it felt in his mouth. "That doesn't sound like it fits the roman letters you use to write it," he commented. "You'll confuse everyone with that." He knew he was being frank, but this 'Hu-wa-kiin' seemed fairly agreeable. Maybe too agreeable -- but pleasant to be around, nonetheless. They'd have to give him a nickname, Seiichi decided. Something he could say easier, or at least looked the way that it sounded. "What was that you turn into? Some kind of dog?"

“Yes,” Joaquin said, neglecting to inform that the spelling of his name made perfect sense in Portuguese or Spanish. “A black-backed jackal.” Which was a mainly nocturnal African dog, a territorial hunter, and long-distance runner, according to the bare-bones research he’d got done alone. Hopefully the doctors at Ryuhana would be able to tell him more.

"Jackal," Yukimura said, as if testing it out. Well, there it was -- still a foreign word, but it had the J sound and the K sound that ought to go with the J and Q of the boy's given name. "We'll call you that instead," he decided, with a smile to ensure that there would be no argument -- because really, how could anyone argue with a pretty person that was so satisfied with their decision? Besides, it wasn't as though he was rearranging the pronunciation of the name; he could still be Hu-wa-kiin if he wanted to on his own time. Seiichi hoped it would stick.

Joaquin blinked. “Jackal instead?” It… didn’t sound like a bad idea. It was still essentially his name after all. And wouldn’t hurt, being easier on the Japanese tongue, too. If it seemed to make Yukimura-kun happy then why not.

Jackal grinned. “Sure.”

Seiichi grinned. "Good," he said, glad that Joaquin -- Jackal, now -- didn't disapprove. He was such a nice boy; Yukimura would like having him around.
 
"So tell me," he continued, shifting in the uncomfortable bed and tucking his feet beneath him, cross-legged, "what did you originally come down here for? There won't be anyone on duty for another half-hour, I think, til they get back from lunch. Something about the dog form?"

“Yes,” Jackal said. So it was lunch break after all. “I morph at random, so they haven’t seen it yet.” A pause of hesitation, then: “Yourself? Are you sick?” He didn’t think being unwell could entirely account for the other’s complexion, though.

Eyelids dropped briefly, hiding behind thick lashes before Yukimura looked up again, blue eyes clear and assertive. "They want to 'keep an eye on me'," he replied, disapproval seeping into his voice between the quotation marks. "I have plant physiology," he went on, explaining, "so I don't deal well with winter. Lack of sunlight, too much cold."

“I see,” Jackal said, the air around him darkening very slightly as he bowed his head for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.” Being put out of commission for half the year didn’t seem like much fun. “Have you been alone in here all through winter?”

"Oh, no. Just the past ..." Yukimura counted quickly, in his head. "... week or so, maybe." The days did begin to blend together after a while, especially with his somewhat erratic sleep schedule, but that sounded about right. This year had definitely been better than last, when he'd been inactive for most of the season. There were at least people here, and people who knew what was wrong with him and knew how to treat it -- or who claimed to know how to treat him, at any rate. He was still here, after all. "Hopefully I'll be out before the thaw -- I do have classes to go to, after all, and I can't very well be expected to train like this."

“How do you train?” Jackal asked. Neither training nor classes had started yet, but he’d heard a fair bit about the former, as well as having been put in a group under a rough-sounding sensei (online, at least) called Echizen Nanjirou. “You, meaning Yukimura-kun,” he clarified. “But also the students in general.”

"Hmm ... generally in some moderately offensive outfits that our esteemed headmistress has picked out for us," Yukimura answered with a smile, only half-kidding. The training uniforms weren't horrid, but he didn't see what purpose they served. "But seriously, we meet with our groups in the afternoons, after we have academic classes in the mornings. There's teamwork exercises and physical training, and well, it all depends on the students themselves. There isn't a lot that I specifically can do to train in this weather, though I imagine they'll be helping you with control. Control is always important," he said, parroting a line he'd heard from all of the teachers here. "Control ensures that nobody accidentally blows anything up." And that, of course, was a reference to Akaya-kun, who'd done just that on any number of occasions. "Not that you or I will, I'm sure, but of course you want to stop changing at random. And I just want to get through the winter alive. Hmm ... would be nice if they thought to help me with that, wouldn't it? Instead of sticking me in with more doctors." Bitter? No, not at all, thanks for asking.

That didn’t sound good – effectively dying thanks to a mutation, and Yukimura-kun’s tone, both. “Can they help you? Put a heat lamp in your room or something maybe?” Jackal asked. If it’d been a week already and Yukimura-kun was still here with no real help, then…

He also wanted to ask if there were a lot of people who blew things up. He’d just met Kirihara-kun who did that, so far – and the ‘moderately offensive outfits’ also sounded a bit alarming. But that could wait. Yukimura-kun came first.

"There was a heat lamp," Yukimura explained. "And windows, lots of them -- enough to let in light during the day, but also enough to let in the cold air at night." He sighed, turning away briefly. "Whatever it was they thought would work ... didn't. Oh, but they assure me they're devising something new. Let's just hope it's sooner rather than later." This, too, he punctuated with a smile, to show that really, he was optimistic about it.

Jackal believed him, of course. He’d never really been one to read much into what people were like anyway – just that they were, and often took words at face value. Things were easier that way, too. “Before the thaw, with any luck,” he grinned. “Keep your chin up, Yukimura-kun.

“Meanwhile–” Granted, he was the new person to Ryuhana, but he wasn’t the invalid, and he liked to be helpful: “I’d be happy to help, if there’s anything I can do.”

He really was too nice. It'd most likely turn into a problem some day, if Jackal ever faced a less-friendly mutant in a dark alleyway with a set of bloody claws against his neck -- surely he'd be offering to help his attacker, then, too, canine morph or no.
 
But in the meantime, Yukimura wasn't about to bite, and -- "I'd really just like the company, more than anything." The medlab was too lonely without many visitors. "I do appreciate your staying with me this long already. But," and here was where he tested Jackal's kindness, "I don't suppose you'd mind bringing me something else to pass the time after you've gone? I can't imagine you'd really want to stay here all evening." Even if it was just to send some other student down. Even if it was as simple as another book or magazine.

Jackal considered that request for a moment. He essentially had running and soccer. But those weren’t very useful for someone who was stuck in the medlab. What else..?

“I read a lot, if you want me to bring some books over?” he offered. He liked to curl up with one and a good mug of coffee during Japan’s winters, which he’d never quite gotten used to, despite having moved over before junior high. He wondered if Yukimura liked coffee – or if he even drank, with his physiology and all.

Yukimura nodded. "Yes -- I'd like that. Later, I mean; it doesn't have to be now. Next time." He settled back, feeling a little more comfortable with the relaxed atmosphere. With someone to talk to, he didn't even feel like he should be cooped up in medlab -- because of that, there certainly would be a next time.