Get Down, Baby! [active/open]

[my_heart_shakes]

Character(s):  Akutare and any other party-goers
Content:  To keep himself entertained, the Dark Hero decided to throw a party.
Setting:  The Wild Ginger
Time:  Late Afternoon going on into the night
Warnings: None as of yet... but I'd suggest you not be the last one out of there.

[Note: Since there's probably going to be a bunch of people in this post

Comments

[ladyepithymia]

Parties were always interesting things. Good places to meet and greet--information might be thrown about, people in power might have interesting chats... And Lust rather enjoyed such places. So, walking in with her usual aura of confidence, she looked the place over.

It wasn't very crowded yet, but it wasn't entirely empty. Good--she would not have wanted to draw undue attention to herself by being first or last. She would just blend in, converse, and see what she learned.

And maybe make a friend or two.

[itsbeanpaste]

Kariya had never been a huge partying kind of guy. But there was one pretty reliable way to make him show up, and that was the promise of refreshments.

He'd showed up fashionably late, of course, although not late enough for the spread to be picked over yet. This was one of those things he was good at. He didn't bother with a plate, just hovered in the general vicinity of the table (not literally - he'd hidden his wings for now) and took stuff as it interested him.

Wasn't too terrible a spread, either. "Check it out," he said to the nearest bystander, who just happened to be Lust. "Meatball on a stick. They thought of everything." (Then he bit the meatball in half.)

((orz I meant to join this thread forever ago. sorryyyyy))

[ladyepithymia]

"A man of simple tastes, hmm?" she said, smiling at the man as she studied him while trying not to look like she was. A bit of a slouch, casual dress, hair that seemed to defy gravity to some degree--aside from that third bit, she had to wonder what had drawn him here. Maybe it was the food.

For her part, she did not select anything off of the table, although she did give it a cursory glance. She was more interested in mingling than eating. And since Paixao was such an unknown place, well, who knew who had power?

So she would entertain this man and try to learn what she could from him.

[itsbeanpaste]

Kariya gave a noncommittal "Mm" in reply. Granted, it was probably true, if you thought about it. He discreetly sized her up at the same time, and came to the conclusion that she could really work the sexy black dress look.

As an afterthought, he plucked another meatball off the plate and offered it to her. "Want one?"

[ladyepithymia]

Lust shook her head. This man was a hard read--his face seemed lethargic enough, but she couldn't be certain it wasn't a mask. But she would find out soon enough.

"So, what brings you here?" she asked. "The food, I take it?"

She smiled pleasantly, folding her arms across her chest.

[itsbeanpaste]

Oh, well, more for him. "Pretty much," he said, popping it into his mouth. He was well-practiced in the art of ulterior motives, sure, but right now, off the clock as he was, it just wasn't his number-one priority. "Yourself?" he added, before he was quite done chewing.

[ladyepithymia]

Not much for manners, was he? "Oh, just seeing who else has found their way here," she said, leaning against a nearby wall. "I haven't been here long."

Really, only a few days. But things were sluggish in a case like this, when she had been removed from her tasks and was reestablishing her base of knowledge. And she had a lot of knowledge to replace.

"How long have you been here?"

[itsbeanpaste]

At a party this lightly attended? It wasn't exactly a representative sample, but whatever.

Kariya shrugged. "Coupla days," he answered truthfully. Both had been hella busy for a vacation, but at least the first one had been fun. It turned out Uzuki really was serious about the ramen shop, as he was finding out the hard way.

[ladyepithymia]

Not even as long as she'd been here. Pity. But perhaps this conversation wouldn't be as useless as it seemed to be; after all, any sort of ties were good. What use was a network of two or three people?

"Anything interesting happen in those couple of days?" she asked.

Perhaps if she just kept him talking, he would say something of interest.

[itsbeanpaste]

Here Kariya paused, though he camouflaged the delay as politeness by having his mouth full. It was too soon to know whether or not the info he had picked up was too sensitive for disclosure - a murdered mayor, mass erasure and the monster mash out on the west side, the complete lack of an RG - but he still needed more dots on the page before he could start connecting them.

But even if it was all harmless, he very simply didn't like being peppered with questions.

"Depends on what you mean by 'interesting,'" he said at last, coolly.

[ladyepithymia]

Was he being evasive intentionally, or did he not even notice? Either way, it was annoying. Not that she showed it--she maintained her pleasant, if somewhat distant, smile, and probed further.

"Tell me what happened and I'll tell you if it is," she said, smiling a bit more.

It did, at least, seem like something had to have happened to merit that particular answer, evasive as it was.

[itsbeanpaste]

Being difficult came naturally to him, true enough. But something about this line of questioning ran up a flag in Kariya's mind. There was a line, you see, between run-of-the-mill gossip and straight-up fishing for information, and she was walking right down the middle of it.

Maybe she had a chain he could yank.

"Nothing much. Oh - I did get to see an evil clown," he said, picking an event that felt relatively innocuous. "Funny guy. Not a lot of jokes, though."

[ladyepithymia]

That got her to raise an eyebrow. "An evil clown?"

Not necessarily the route that would lead her to the best information, but it was something. Sometimes a roundabout route was the fastest one, after all. And an evil clown was... Well, in a place like this, who knew what sort of information might come in handy?

Quality over quantity, certainly, but there was something to be said for knowing a bit of everything.

[itsbeanpaste]

"Yeah. 's probably still out there somewhere," Kariya went on, utterly failing to elaborate. This was assuming the guy was still alive, of course; he and Uzuki hadn't stuck around to check one way or the other.

He probably was. They hadn't summoned that much Noise on him.

"What'd you say your name was again?" he added suddenly, although he knew she hadn't said to begin with.

[ladyepithymia]

"Seems like someone so--interesting--would stick out in a place like this," Lust said, annoyed at the man's lack of elaboration but hiding it.

"I'm Luna," Lust said. "Yourself?"

Again she wondered if he was being deliberately vague or if this was just how he spoke. Too early to tell--but she took into account that the name she got might be fake.

[itsbeanpaste]

But the name she got was genuine. "Kariya," he replied, then, "Pleasure," as if 'pleased to meet you' was too much of a mouthful.

She didn't seem to be buying the whole evil clown deal, sadly. But it made a good segue, one way or another. "I'unno. Could be the monsters drowned him out."