( closed ) these sweet instincts

[virtua]

Who ⬤ mima and yang
What ⬤ substory stuff!! mima finds a watch at her new job
When ⬤ early-mid july? shortly after the mingle
Where ⬤ tamamo district, around town
Content Warnings ⬤ none atm!


[ Well, he was right about one thing: she's certainly thinking less and less about the cage that's come down on top of them all.

At least part of that is thanks to her new job - found while in the thick of the Stardust high that seemed to cloud in everybody at the festival, a club in Tamamo territory where she dressed herself up to light cigarettes and entertain men. Between Aster and the promise of something, the job had (at the time) felt like an blissfully easy decision, a direction to run in. She had been greedy for purpose above all other things - anything to crack the dismal, blank routine she'd trapped herself in since finding herself in this strange funhouse-mirror Tokyo. By morning, the decision sat in her gut like a cold stone, and she dreaded her first shift.

At the end of the day, though, it's not so bad. Mima even comes to realize how similar it is to the work she'd taken such pride in before her sleepless death here - dressing up in clothes and makeup that don't feel like her own, taking a new name, following scripts in her head, plying men in expensive suits. It was certainly easier to avoid thinking about Mima's problems when she got to be Yoko for the evening instead, and she even had a friend with her this time. It wasn't so hard when there was someone on your own level to walk home with.

She's only on her third evening as Yoko when she meets the watch - shelled in diamonds, with a flashy, black face and a lustrous band. She'd seen similar pieces on the wrists of producers and other film professionals she'd had to mingle with back in Tokyo, but none so exquisite as this one. She spends a moment simply turning it in the moody club lighting and watching the diamonds catch the light before she comes to her senses - someone would be missing this.

She takes a quick look around the club. Nobody heading for the table. Nobody standing between tables. Nobody looking for her. Nobody speaking to the floor manager. Nobody.

She straightens herself up fully, tugging her little blue dress down a little further over her thighs, and she trots on pinned heels to the door. Nobody's coming back.

So, watch hanging from her fingers, she click-click-clicks her way a little further out the door. She holds the watch's face to her chest and scans the street.

Nobody here cares about the watch, either. ]

Ah-- excuse me, [ She can feel someone closing in behind her, readying to round the corner before she sees him, and she turns, ] Have you seen anyone who--

Comments

[worsening]

[ And she, too, was right about one thing — this experience is like a mirage. A dream that they were permanently fixed on the precipice, the dawn of an awakening seemingly always on the corner, if one dwelled on the possibility. As always, Yang focuses on the present, his immediate situation, but sometimes when he’s washing glasses and restocking liquor bottles, his mind can’t help but wander.

Serving as a barback at a Izakaya isn’t the only thing he’s doing, nor the only job he plans on having. It is easy pay, with a talkative, affable elderly Tengu bartender attending to his small clientèle, sincerely interested that everyone’s able to unwind after work. But, that’s just a starting point. On the side, Yang already works to establish connections in the black market, unraveling that network into something he knew like the back of his hand. Soon, he’ll have ways of smuggling small shipments in. Stealing? That could wait.

It’s after his own shift, smelling profusely like secondhand smoke that overwhelms his cologne, a mixture of amber and sandalwood, that he turns that very corner. His long hair, held in a side ponytail, falls against the black fabric of his turtleneck, hands sliding into the pockets of his grey trousers as he faces the woman on the street. Gaze flickers to the diamond-crusted watch, to the dress, to the made-up face.

Recognition finally comes when his eyes meet hers. He raises his brows and notes that she was beginning a question, but Yang will get to that later. ]

Oh. It’s you.

[ Mima Kirigoe, 21. Well, that application’s useful for something. He knows more than he did before. But apparently, happenstance also provides him with even more information.

And because Yang finds it impossible to actually be nice, especially when words are concerned, he says this: ]

And here I thought you were just some sheltered girl. [ He smiles at her. ] Are you working, or playing around?

[virtua]

[ He's dressed differently, but it'd be difficult to mistake him for anyone else - red hair bundled as it was was still too red to be anyone else's. He could still be himself at work.

Yoko is a little different from Mima, but only as different as she can afford to make her - her makeup is visible but sparing, clothes stylish and just a little skimpier than Mima would normally dress, the shoes sharper, tense in her calves, each step now appended with a coltish click.

The passive-aggression in his words is unbearable for a moment, and her nose cringes. She can't say she's hurt - customers had said some similar things about her face, young and too pretty to belong in the beery cabaret club, statements intended to be complementary even as they tore down the other hostesses she worked with nightly. She isn't unused to the sentiment, but Yang seems to have a talent for making her feel smaller than she is.

She sums him up quickly with her eyes, even as she feels herself shrinking. ]

Same as you.

[ Which is to say - doing things they probably wouldn't normally for profit and survival. ]

Did you see anyone leave this way? [ Mima pushes herself a bit straighter and peels the watch from her chest now, showing the black, shining face and the glitter of the gems lain in the gold. ] A customer left this watch at our table.