Post Munchies [Social] [Yumina]

[Kyle Shibata]

After leaving the money for the snacks he'd grabbed, Kyle went back to the girl and almost absently, held the open can of Pringles at her, offering her a bit. "Thought I was gonna just steal it?" he asked with a small smirk. "Everyone says I'm a bastard but I ain't a thief," he said, cracking open his beer with one hand.

"Fun little Persona you got," he said after taking a gulp. "What'd he do to the big guy? I swear he felt like a pushover compared to another one I fought. Oh, heh, sorry. I'm Kyle."

Maybe it was that he'd just vented through a fight, or maybe because he'd put some alcohol in his system, but Kyle was feeling pretty mellow just then.

---

 {{Yumina Makino}}

[Yumina Makino]

Yumina watched the guy pay for all the stuff he was taking, but something about it still felt like cheating. Did this food not count as stolen anymore, just because he gave some money? Maybe this guy wasn't as bad as expected. She couldn't remember the actual definition of stealing, so she denied the offer to take any of the chips. Better to play it safe.

Once he started talking about her Persona, Yumina couldn't take much of it seriously. She covered her mouth to hold in any laughter. No one with an actually useful partner would be that interesting in her boring one. A skill that does something and a bunch of statuses that never work aren't as cool as literal fireballs and lightning bolts. Still, she couldn't avoid the question entirely. It's easy enough to talk about one spell before quickly moving on.

"Who knows anymore?" Yumina shrugged her shoulders. These abilities didn't come with an instruction manual, and it's not like Oberon could do something useful like explaining what the hell was going on when he did things. "Used to be something that slowed them down, made them miss for no reason. Now it does some extra things too. Attacks might not hurt as bad, but I'm not seriously about to test that."

Right, she never asked for his name earlier, so they still had to get that part of the conversation out of the way. "Makino Yumina. Honestly though, just stick with Yumina. It's faster." Okay, it's the same length, but barely anyone actually used her surname. Not with two other friends named Maki.

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle quietly studied her while she talked. Fairly normal-looking girl, by all accounts, but who knew? He looked pretty normal but then again he'd almost beaten his father to death with a chair.

Except his old man was a shithead.

"Hey, given how stupidly strong some of these Shadow sonsabitches are, dumbing them down in any way helps, way I see it," he said and took another gulp of his drink. "Sure helped back there. Don't sell yourself short."

He looked her up and down again. She looked kinda familiar but Kyle couldn't place her. "Say...do you go to Toshima Gakuin High? I'm pretty sure I've seen you around but I ain't sure. Either at school or the coffee shop I work at."

[Yumina Makino]

Yumina shook her head, to disagree with everything Kyle just said. It did not matter how strong the enemies were, she was supposed to be better. Regardless, she certainly appreciated moving on from all the magical nonsense. Didn't stop her from feeling bad about sucking, but any improvement was useful right now.

"I live nearby, but no. My cousin goes there." For some reason she felt like talking a lot tonight. Yumina didn't usually worry about getting to know people she met like this, but this didn't seem so bad. Maybe she should try being more social. "By the time I moved in, more people I knew were already going to this other high school, so. . ." The rest of the story didn't matter, so she left it at that. There's no reason to mention the other reasons when they had more interesting things to discuss.

"It must be the shop then" she nodded. If Kyle did know her from somewhere, that was the most likely option. She often avoided going home right away, finding some other place to read or do work for a while. Yumina couldn't remember seeing this guy before, but it's not like she ever paid attention to the different employees. First, she had to make sure his store wasn't all the way in Adachi or some other special ward. Not likely, but it's important to check. "Where's the one you work at, exactly?"

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle sipped some more beer thoughtfully, watching her. Not much for society, it seemed. Kyle was fine with that, he wasn't a social butterfly either. In fact, it was kinda nice to talk to someone who didn't know of his reputation and wasn't perturbed by the fact that he was a bit of a delinquent.

Okay, more than just a bit.

"Aah, I get it," he nodded. "Yeah, I know that kinda feeling. I moved here from the States. Things were iffy for a while 'cuz I didn't really know anybody."

He smiled wryly. "Don't sweat it. Lots of people don't really notice who makes their drink," he said. "I just have a knack for remembering faces. Helps keep track of regulars and their tastes. I'm part-time so I mainly work evenings in Akihabara. It's a pretty tame little place; they hire 'pretty boys' for the service. Nothing racy, but you gotta make good beverages. A buddy of my uncle's runs a more straight-forward coffee shop here in Shibuya and I work there some times too when he's short-staffed. Might've been either of the places."

[Yumina Makino]

His coming from America shouldn't be as unexpected as it was. Of course, his name sounded weird compared to most normal people around here, if one actually thought about it. She just played along without questioning anything. Whatever. It's late, and she hasn't had a good night's sleep in over a week. Tired people forgot things.

She considered asking how he ended up all the way over here, but that probably involved a lot of complicated details that were inappropriate for a first meeting. Plus she didn't want to fake sympathy at this hour.

Oh, Kyle usually worked in that nerdy part of town. If he only rarely did anything on this side, then Yumina didn't feel so bad for not noticing. That uncle's friend's coffee shop could be one of the places she visited. "Guess I'll just have to pay more attention from now on."

If they were going to be together for a while, she could afford to be a little more comfortable. Yumina sat down on the floor, trying to think of another topic to ask about. Knowing more about him (and other Persona users as well) could come in handy when there's an enemy too strong. . . er, completely overpowered and unfair to fight alone.

"You do this often?" She pointed a finger at the bottle he held. "Not the stealing, the killing. You seem pretty okay with all of this."

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle'd leaned back against a counter, sipping his beer. She didn't seem like the kind of person to show up in Akihabara a lot, so it was probably in one of his moonlighting hours at Shibuya. Well that was fine. He was kind of running out of steam with subjects to talk about, when her question caught him a little off guard.

A lot of things went through his head. His asshole of a father, his weakling mom and the chair. The chair he almost killed his dad with. He remembered holding it from the back and just swinging it like a madman and he remembered the crunch and crack it made when it contacted bone and flesh. He remembered the choked, confused gasp his stupid old man gave and he remembered his mother's whimpering. He remembered his own exploding rage and crying.

All of it tucked away in a neat little pocket of his soul, with a big rock sitting on it all, to keep it out of the way.

"Well, I'm not a serial killer if that's what you're asking," he chuckled, but it dropped off pretty quick. "Bad joke -- ahem. I ain't gonna beat about the bush. I get in trouble a lot. I don't like starting fights but I sure as hell finish them when they run into me. But I'm used to scrappin' it with humans. These Shadow things don't just roll over and give up. So I figure, so long as they're trying to kill me, I'm in my rights to pay 'em back in spades."

He took another sip of beer. "Doesn't mean I like it, though. Does it trouble you?"

[Yumina Makino]

"I hope you leave the axe behind, then." The attempted joke lacked the sarcastic tone that let others know she wasn't serious. After listening to all that, she did feel the need to move a little farther away from him. She resisted the urge to scoot back, since he didn't need to know that it secretly bothered her. Guy simply had a creepy way of talking.

"I mean, it's not like I had a perfect record either." Technically she spent most of her childhood getting into trouble, before she knew better. There might not have been any physical fights, unless she just forgot about all of them. She avoided looking him in the eye, or the next part wouldn't work. "Probably never went that far, but you don't, like, actually scare me, or anything."

Yumina fidgeted with her hands. They had to move on to something else, fast. "At least we agree about taking out the Shadow bros. They're just dumb bullies. I don't like messing with Demonland 'cause some of them seem more intelligent, but nobody would miss any shadow monsters. Aren't we all trying to get rid of them anyway?"

She couldn't make such a large generalization and just leave it at that. It got on her nerves when other people talked like that. "Well, I am. Don't know about you and the other guys."

[Kyle Shibata]

Kyle fought back a grin. Oh-ho? So he made the little miss nervous? He wasn't being mean, but it was kind of funny to watch her go wary. He just smiled lightly and polished off his beer.

"Aw this axe is my baby now," he chuckled. "Saved my hide from the Shadows and I think I'm getting attached. I wouldn't hurt a hair on a human with it, though. It's a fireman's axe so I guess it'd be totally unfair to its original purpose to hurt anyone with it," he said thoughtfully, staring at the axe lying at his feet.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Demons... ya mean like the dumbass fairies in the park?" he grumbled. "Damn shitty things. They're kinda smart alright but they'll go down in a couple of hits - at least, that's what I worked out. You gotta be a little smart fighting them. But yeah. I don't like these sonsabitches any more than anyone else," he admitted. "I ain't pretending to be a hero or something but they're totally messed up."

[Yumina Makino]

Listening to the guy talk about how he wouldn't hurt anyone. . . did not make her feel better. Although, if one replaced axe with knife then her weapon sounded pretty creepy as well. So if Kyle was weird, she probably was too. She just didn't talk like a psycho half the time.

"Well yeah, but the demons got this whole city and trains and everything." She held out her arms as if the distance between both hands was somehow large or impressive. "Sure, it's a lot like they copied part of our stuff, but it all seems normal. They don't come over here and start shit, so. . ."

She felt capable of going on further, with how the enemies look too human to fight against. Now that she paused, however, the question came up of why did she care so much about those guys. Most of them were jerks. Yumina just started talking and almost forgot to shut up. Again. She turned away again to obscure how much she started to turn red. "There's a point I was making somewhere. Probably biased since I have the supposed king of fairies helping out."

Half the point of this conversation, at least for now, was to see if Kyle was alright enough to seek out later. Since this wasn't the last night of fighting, and other people kept showing up, she might as well stay with the same people. The idea wasn't fully formed yet, it might still suck. "At least we seem to agree on the important parts. Shadows and all this midnight nonsense need to go away, and we'll keep beating them up until they do."

[Kyle Shibata]

"Pretty much the fact," he agreed with a nod. "Speaking of midnight... I think the Dark Hour's about to... er, close? Soon, anyways. I better get my ass home before my uncle... uh... wakes up and sees I'm not there. He'll tan my hide."

He picked up the extra soda he'd grabbed and his axe, swinging it up and resting it on his shoulder. "I guess I'll see you around. I pop in here sometimes just to kick some Shadow ass, or the park. Give me a holler if you ever need backup."

With that, Kyle took off, casually striding over the remains of the earlier fight and making his way out of the shop and towards home. He was looking forward to faceplanting in the bed and losing touch with the world till morning.