jigokulogs | [OPEN] Hell in Bottles

Who ⬤

frogmarched / Kawase and

fuckdogramagra / Tamamori
What ⬤ September Substories time baybee!!!! (also a general bookstore prompt, and some closed headers...)
When ⬤ All throughout September
Where ⬤ Literally anywhere in Jigoku-cho, Tama had gone mad over EMBER Go!
Content Warnings ⬤ Will add if they come up!

EMBER GO!: Substory #1
EMBER Go! may well have taken Jigoku-cho by storm- the amount of active users had jumped about as fast as the Enma Department’s sudden spike in "breaking and entering" calls. Not that, uh, Tamamori would know anything about that latter data point…because he’d not been caught yet, thank you very much! You can find him hunting for shiny Little Lost Souls all over Jigoku-cho, especially those of his close CR…what might be more surprising is that he’s roped Kawase along with him, who was decidedly not trying to hunt down little souls on his phone, but still seemed to look perpetually annoyed as Tamamori dragged him (literally sometimes) around the city.

DRIFTER GRIFTER: Substory #3
It’s been more than a week since the mysterious ’Drifter in Black’’s first con, and almost all businesses in Jigoku-cho are on high alert for suspicious individuals. la sonnerie is no different, except…well, the twin owners of the cafe have their non-existent eyes on the theoretical prize, more than anything. While Melody dreams of the social media boom that catching a crook would bring, and Harmony wonders if this would allow them to meet one of the faction leaders in person for helping out, Tama is stuck helping his bosses’ plans by keeping his eye on suspicious customers and disheveled wanderers while waiting tables. The only thing keeping him from losing the plot and suspecting random people is the presence of his much more level-headed ~~boyfri~~ best friend Kawase, who has a much better head for noticing suspicious individuals, as well as unraveling mysteries. Between the two of them, surely they’ll be able to catch the grifter- but feel free to distract them as much as you want. Tama’s still on the clock, after all, and it feels like Kawase’s been sitting at the same table with a view of the front door for hours.

IN PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE: General prompt
Dog Ears has become the favorite book store of the Aizu trio for a number of reasons. The impressive stock is certainly near the top of the list, and he’d come here to buy countless books for his projects, but Tama had never imagined he would be taking advantage of that selection to look at…children’s books. A "junior reader" corner had been set up to promote the Jigoku-cho READING IS FUN! program for young yokai, and that was exactly where a little two-foot tall frog was holed up, with a cozy-looking sweater on, and squeaky-sounding galoshes that were a bit too big for him. Every time the frog spotted a book that made his overly-round eyes (literally) sparkle, he would inevitably spot another and rush off to check it out. Honestly? Tama joked about being a father, but at times like this…he did sort of feel like one.

(On the other hand, Kawase seemed far less interested in fatherhood, and was more inclined to not read everything in the children’s section. Most of the time he ends up drifting off to the romance and classics sections, before returning to the father/son pair.)

[ Please let us know if you want only Tamamori or only Kawase; otherwise we’ll default to both! Frog Man/Kerosan also available upon request. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah, I was meaning to tell you...

That had been three months ago.

Being fair, there had been too much on his mind following that lazy conversation by the bonfire. Not for the first time, Minakami wishes he could forget; that the nightmare of June (and the irony of it doesn't escape him, the calendar rolling around again after the June they'd survived back home) could fade away with time. At least maybe then he could blame something other than his own cowardice.

He'd walked out of the Arena in a daze, feeling like his head was floating somewhere else, detached from his body.

At Tanabata, he'd made a wish for his friends' safety. Even after the shock at the end of the festival, he'd held onto that calm certainty that something (Hikoboshi, Orihime, her magpies -- maybe even the raven that someone said was the heart of the city) had listened. Swirling through that calm now is Kagerou's bounty, that had gone from ridiculous hypothetical to a dangerous competition, one they'd all been sucked into. His brief meeting with Shuten's leader only made that swirling unease all the more solid.

However this ends, he can protect Kawase. That's more than he's been able to do for their whole lives. He doesn't know anymore if either of them can protect Tamamori.

He taps out on his phone, to both of them:

Are you both home? I had a meeting with Toraguma.
It's nothing serious, I just need to ask you two about something.

Should be back soon! I was down at the 7/11 supporting Kamui-san.
I'm bringing home mochi kinchaku- and don't complain I'm eating oden early! If it's out at the konbini, it's the season for it!!! ♨.ヾ(〃ヘ〃)ツ.♨

...things have been strange, lately. Not bad, not uncomfortable, but...certainly strange. It was probably his doing, which was why he was going out of his way to get little things like konbini oden for a hopeful pick-me-up, but he also couldn't quite place what had caused it. Maybe it was the meeting from the other day sitting too squarely on his mind...yeah, that would certainly be on him.

Had things been strange? If they were, Kawase had certainly not noticed it; or maybe it was more like, that kind of silent, casual stalemate was something he was used to, when you were surrounded by people that hated you. Maybe after that whole incident with the yokai harming Tama and Matoba, they were all just waiting for each other to snap?

I'm here putting some supplies together.
But it's definitely too early for oden.

...Well, thankfully he'd mostly healed up after his gamble with Leshy (and his black eye was gone by now), but it was still a good time to make sure nothing was opening up and healing properly, before the worrywart brigade got on his case about it.

Divining the seasons through the konbini?
If that works, I wonder if they could provide omikuji...

So maybe he's still dithering. Not for the first time, he wishes this could be easy. There must be people for whom this is effortless, right? He's never met anyone like that, but they must exist.

I'm almost home, coming up now.
---

He lets himself in, shucking the uniform shoes as soon as he's able and intercepting Nana-chan before he can slip between his ankles and into the corridor. Even with everything, Minakami can't help but feel something loosen once he's in the flat. It's still more cramped than he'd like (he thinks wistfully about Madam's house and gardens, or the inn back home) but it's -- theirs. A place he's defined with the other two.

"Ah, this is what Toraguma called me in for." He scoops the cat up in one arm, with the other hand placing a slip of paper on the kitchen counter: a sub-lieutenant's paycheck. There's a hesitancy there that shouldn't accompany this kind of announcement, but then again, Minakami's never lost the quiet discomfort about his placement.

By the time Minakami is coming in, Tama's already shed most of his outside clothes in favor of his lougewear, with Nana leaping off his lap, and Kerosan carefully trying to peek under one of the three containers of oden sitting on the kotatsu. The frog only stops his curious and eager peeking when the paper hits the counter, Tama craning his head around to glance up, but he knows a payslip when he sees it.

"Did you get a promotion?" He wants to sound excited, and he was to a point, but...it sort of made him worry, too. Tama wasn't exactly going to pretend that their division across faction lines didn't worry him at times like this.

As both of them filtered home, Kawase had taken over half of the kitchen counter with medical supplies, some from his bag and some that he had bought and saved for an emergency-- or a trip into the uninhabitable wastes of hell devoid of all life, as it were. Bandages, ointments, gauze, cleaning pads, medical tape, painkillers and sedatives-- stuff that was far higher quality than anything they could've gotten at home. Everything piled neatly for whatever inventory and inspection had been percolating in his mind to meet his lofty standards, and sleeves rolled up and a pair of latex gloves on to contain the spread of Natsume's fur and dandruff.

"Aah?" He smiles with amusement at the sight of the paper, and Tamamori's no doubt correct conclusion. Though it wasn't surprise, because he couldn't really think of any other reason for Toraguma to want to speak with Minakami. "How impressive. So what did he do? Another round of drinks? A spat in the arena? Keep this up and you'll be as much of a mess as Nishitani-san was..."

...He was a lot more relaxed about it, though between the three of them, the faction divisions had probably mattered to him the least.

[OPEN] Hell in Bottles

i have canonized the group chat for good or for ill

this is a mistake (also im assuming this is after sutoku town hall for my own sanity)

shout out to not being blown up by bombs yet

this is the thread version of sitting on a rowboat with a whale silhouette underneath

we finally found the fabled JIGOKUCHO SPACE WHALE of myth

soflty it's not a whale