Screw it.
Finally got to my appartment and the first thing I notice is that Dusu's flown the coop. The dense siamese? One of my boys. He's taken off, and probably found himself a girlfriend. Maybe he took off after Amou-kun. Amou-kun was supposed to be feeding the cats, after all. Sweet kid. I wouldn't be surprised if Dusu took a liking to him. Dame Dusu never was too bright, and you never know how Darklore'll take to angels.
I get to the front step, and Kiiroi's waiting for me. My little pisser. Except she's not being friendly and perky and frisky like usual. She seems all worked up, and nips at my ankle as I'm unlocking the door with Malik-chan taking a look over the exterior of the place. (He had this pretty disgusted look on his face. Priceless. I warned him. Probably the fresh graffiti on the staircase...)
Turns out there was a reason for Kiiroi being restless. Ranchi was inside, sitting over a corpse like some little sphinx, and he gives me this cryptic look when I come in, like he knows something he thinks I got.
Sure does. The corpse is human.
Even though it's perfectly preserved and looks fresh, I can't see any residual aura on it. It might have been dead a few days. No smell, no nothing. Minor sorcery, but still sorcery, there. Probably Wiz-Dom related if I had to guess. They're more often the dead-specialists. I haven't taken a good look at the corpse to try to identify it yet, because I'm typing this as fast as I can to tell Tomonori to get his ass over here. Plus it's withered. Almost vampire-withered, but there are no throat marks, and no face. It's been peeled off, and the eyes are taken. I haven't checked, but the tongue might be gone too. That's witch-work there, the face-stealing, but I'm not sure about the withered body yet. What I do know is I've got a male mystery corpse dressed in my clothing on my threshold, bloodless, faceless, and marked with paint, and I'll ahve to take a better look before I know what's going down with that.
The obvious point is, someone doesn't like me.
I haven't let Malik-chan in, yet. Told him to sit tight. I considered a binding spell, but decided against it. I'm pretty sure he's playing with Bitch. She got the message that something was up before I did from her daughter. I'm still not all that great with my cats. You learn after a while to treat them like people, but the language thing's still pretty rough. More reason to send her Cole-kun's way with that gypsy lens at this point. Maybe send the others, too once Malik-chan picks out his, and I'm sure he'll guard it with his life, or at least, his fine ass.
Looking this crap over, there's a mark over the chest of the corpse--the rabbit mark.
So it's pretty obvious now. Looks like Shiro's still pissed over our last encounter, and he's sent me a message. A definite message, once I figure out who it is, and what's been done to it, anyway.
So...Change of plans, Father. I'll need some time to change before I head out for my delivery with you and the Egyptian. I can't afford to let my client wait on this, because I owe her big from the last time I pissed off Shiro Usagi from the skinwalker mess a few months back. I've also got to check the appartment. The wards were untouched, which I find pretty creepy. If Shiro's got his hands on a precise dimension bender, I'm pretty fucked over to say the least, and you owe me big, father, so don't argue. At the least, I've probably got myself cursed.
Father? Ask your eraser boy to talk to me. I need to find out the last time he was here and if anything was screwy when he left. I'll talk to my housekeeper in the mean time. Oh, and I think it's probably good for Amou-kun not to run by for the time being--I'll get that out of the way before you say it yourself. Seriously, father, Amou-kun's a good kid. Eraser or not, mindbroken or not, I'm not looking to drag your little group into my shit over here. Call me paranoid, but it seems that's a one-way ticket to get myself made the slave of that busty schoolgirl of yours. Even if it solves whatever thing I've just put myself under, that's not my deal. Not ever.
You get over here, and you come alone.
The place seems pretty untouched aside from the corpse. I'm going to let Malik come in for now because I don't see anythign blatantly swooping around, so what's done is probably after me, not some normal human. I'd still like you to swing by as soon as you can, you hear? Get your ass over here. I've got your mirror, but I can't waste the time scrying when I need to hide myself and figure out what the fuck just happened.
God damn my fucking aura for making me as subtle as a beard on a chick. I've got a delivery to make. Shit. It's not like this kind of thing is known for coming at the right time or anything, but seriously...
Looks like another sudden move for me after this.
(((OOC: Back on the horse with another long-arse note. Sorry there's a lot here this time. (I've been holding it in? ♥?)
Witches stealing the faces of the dead are an old bit of european folklore, along with tying a body's toes together with twine so it won't walk along through the night, etc., etc. Supposedly, stealing the eyes and the tongue make the dead face capable of speech and sight with the right spell. (Think of it as a sort of localized necromacy.)
"Shiro Usagi" has formerly been referred to in Tracer's entries as "Shiro". He's an original character of mine, not part of the Juvenile Orion canon. He's a darklore (A demon) with heavy stock in the underground slave trade. Tracer's former dealings with him in this comm at least have involved hunting down, and skinning a "skinwalker" for him sometime back in July or so. He also pointed out Shiro keeps fallen angels as "blood whores". His name means "White Rabbit". (Anything else, I'm keeping to myself for now. ^^)
Also: I wrote this next bit up a really long while back, (By which I mean early last April XD) but here's an outline of what Tracer's place is like. It's actually a useful OOC note for orientation purposes to anyone who needs it. Apologies for the length. Anyone interested in what the place looks like will find it here.
The place is a half crumbling complex in one of the seedy areas of town, next to an hourly hotel with half its neon sign broken and erratically flickering. Clumps of grass tuft out from the sidewalk amidst beer bottles, wrappers, and old condoms. The stairs leading to the fourth floor where Tracer lives are uneven, chipped concrete, lit by a dull, flickering fluorescent bulb that gives off more unpleasant, constant buzzing than light. The dull orange paint on his door is flaking, the number (812) is lopsided, and the door's hinges are so rusty that opening it makes it sound like a woman-teakettle scream.
The inside is surprisingly warmly lit, and the place reeks of damp cigarette smoke and strongly of cat.
The inner lintel of the door has a series of odd, engraved symbols in it, which seem to twist and move, and hurt the eye with a subtle sort of wrongness if looked at too closely. But they're almost unnoticeable. Sometimes they seem to move if looked at through peripheral vision. They never seem to be in quite the same place twice when glanced at--like objects of landscape in a dream.
Like most japanese appartments, the room is almost unbearably tiny. A few strides would carry even a small occupant entirely across the place. A carpet-covered cat-tower is propped atop one of the arms of a very squashy, sagging sofa, leaning slightly against the wall for balance. Where a chunk is missing, the carpeting has been patched with what looks like a furry, burgundy toilet-seat cover with a hole in it. A little sign at the top of the tower proclaims in spidery kanji, "Home of the Heartless Bitch." Underneath there's been an addition to the sign, "and heartless kittens"
The space in front of the sofa is oddly clear, and bare expect for the well-worn carpet. A few small ashtrays have been slipped under the edge of the sofa, and there are several small, circular burn marks on the rug near them. The room is otherwise open, and the walls are bare, with peeling off-white paint, covered only by a humidity-rumpled poster of the japanese performer Mana in one of his trademark eccentric androgenous postures and costumes. The poster seems to have been glued there to the wall, though, and the corners are slightly torn, as though an attempt was made to pry the poster loose, but it didn't work. The tear-marks look decidedly recent, while the poster itself is fairly faded, and it lies next to a conspicuous spot of fresh paint in not-quite the same shade of smoke-grayed white. The only other addition to the wall is a faint, gray nicotiene ring around the top edges
The other arm of the claw-marked sofa has one lumpy suede accent-pillow in an odd shade of eye-watering fuschia, and a stained orange silk throw patterned with yellow butterflies. The throw almost looks as though it once lived a life as a woman's kimono. The pillow has a faint, sweet smell to it in addition to the powerful smell of smoke, like old incense.
Tucked beneath the other side of the sofa is a slightly burnt, red, knitted blanket almost out of sight, with a few trailing edges of wool giving away its position. Heavy, graying lepoard-patterened curtains hang over the single outlooking window. Anyone pulling the curtains back far enough to view the frame would notice the same odd symbols around the window, next to a strange, fungal-looking cactus on the window-shelf, and a large glass bell-jar top beside it. A handle-less broken teapot half full of water sits on the other side of the window-shelf.
Against the other wall, a Television has been pushed into a bookshelf, which seems to contain two more ashtrays, a selection of beat-up math textbooks, a few volumes of yaoi manga, a sagging grammar workbook with a torn-off front cover, and a brass statue of the Hindu god Shiva, in his incarnation as Nataraja, the lord of the dance. There are a number of carefully ordered notebooks. These seem to contain recipies for the most part, in a very neat, and precise hand. A few pages are dog-eared, and have notes in a clumsier, blockier hand. The shelf closest to the floor contains novels in english--all in decidedly secondhand condition. Most seem to do with the occult, or with fantastical creatures, but a tattered english philosophy textbook sits with them, bearing a small yellow "used" sticker on its spine. Tucked halfway through it is a three-year-old round-trip ticket to Barbados. A few more japanese manga sit next to the sagging textbooks.
A large pottery bowl seems to serve as an ashtray on a tiny, spindly endtable on the other side of the sofa. Scattered cigarette butts linger in the bottom, but do does a quantity of paper-ash. A floor-lamp has been wedged behind the table, poking its joint-posed steel stalk of a neck out from the junction between table, sofa, and wall. A yellow scarf has been thrown over the edge of the glass lampshade, and seems responsible for the warm light in the room. But the torn bottom half of a red paper lantern has been tucked back behind the table, where one of the uneven legs of the thing is propped up on a very abused-looking and waterstained Bible.
A tiny family shrine sits huddles just clear of the door, beside the bookshelf. All it holds are a bundle of wilted white chrysanthemums, and what looks like a battered, tarnished bullet, a tattered and half-unraveled blue ribbon, a small, thin bit of glass, a broken wooden rosary, and a craggy white piece of rock with an almost vertebrae-like look to it, complete with a large hole in its middle. There's also a small photograph of a fairly serious asian young man, with hair falling into his eyes, and several bandages on his face. (Recognizable to those who'v emet him as a young, glasses-free Tomonori Nakaura) He could be coughing into his hand, but the lower part of his face is obscured by his white-gloved fingers. From his uniform, he looks like a high schooler, but the elbows of the uniform are worn a bit thin, and he has a long necklace-chain against his shoulders. What the necklace is, has been cut off by the bottom edge of the picture. The photograph looks several years old, and it's curled slightly around the edges--torn, even, at the bottom. It's been mostly-hidden under the rock.
The room itself is seperated from the tiny kitchen area only by several square feet of tile. Several card tables have been set in a perdendicular row as an impromptu counter-expander, and a fairly traditional and ornate-looking iron teapot rests on the table, sharing a tray tray with four chipped, handleless teacups of different shades of olive-esque greens. He has a few battered saucers beside it, and five packaged, slightly crushed fortune cookies over the saucers. Three large tins hold loose tealeaves, and have been tucked against the wall with a small metal tea-strainer perched atop one. The lone wall-socket's been plugged into by a large burner, with an elaborate glass flask above it, filled with water, and suspended above the little burner on a tricky little metal tripod. The flask is easily of a size that would fill the teapot three times over. Several small, round glass sake bottles linger beside the larger flask, but they seem to be often-opened--far too often to hold their original sake. A small golden crescent with a single star at its base, lies tucked next to the cans, and a little dusting of spilled tea seems to have fallen over it. Beneath the card table closest to the wall, are a few more old sake boxes. The lid is open on the askew top-most one, and it seems as though the bottles on the counter come from that box.
Further along, the makeshift countertop's been spread with a cloth, and a little desklamp. Another burner, this one powered by gas, sits beside it, and large, lead molds take up table space beside that, Bits of metal crust the edges of the molds. A bottle of silver-polish sits beside them, as does a mostly-disassembled revolver, a small arrangement of tiny screwdrivers, a small hammer, and a battery-powered drill. The cloth smells like gun oil. Tucked under the cloth edge of the table are two crossbows, a collection of arrows, and a carefully wrapped leather bundle which looks about the size of a tiny knife--a ceremonial athme.
The refrigerator in the back-corner of the kitchen is over twenty years old, and smells faintly musty. A towel's been put on the floor beneath it, and a whiteboard calender has been magnetized to the freezer portion. The days seem mis-numbered, and a few are missing, or seem dileberately mis-numbered. Across the bottom there seems to be a shopping list, written at an angle in cumbersome kanji. Two markers have been bound to the board on fraying bits of string, next to a few magnets depicting various anime characters. A nendroid magnet has a list of what look like bible verses in English script, and a fragment of the same odd symbols on the doorframe. These ones don't seem to move, and they've been circled several times in black. More magnets are strung along a thin line of metal he's put across the wall, and from these hang various odd bits of things--cards mostly. Playing cards, a few tarot cards, even a trading card or two. Attached beside a few are phone numbers, or other bits of scrawl--occasionally including colors. There are no names on any of these cards.
The remaining real countertops against the back wall have a few partially unpacked cardboard moving-boxes on them, and a strangely cheerful red and yellow bromeliad under a lamp-bulb plugged into the other socket, next to what looks like another teacup, this one half-full of fresh milk. A half-full packet of plant feeder, and a half-full packet of sugar rest beside the plant, and the kitchen sink beside it is full of surprisingly clean, chipped dishes. A small trail of ant-dirt leads from a crack in the grout on the wall, and a little stream of black ants runs from the wall to the sink of dishes. They don't touch the sugar packet, or the plant food, or the milk.
Next to the door leading onto the fire escape in the back is a small, square floor-table with a mat nearest the back-corner of the room. The table is a little scuffed, but otherwise in good condition, and it seems to have a small portable heater under it. On it, there's a smattering of mail addressed to "Izuno Suzuki", along with a small hand-sketching of a man with pale, bobbed hair and foreigner-pale eyes. At the top is written the japanese character for "blue", but nothing more. It sits in its own pile with a single tarot card: "The Stars." A dart-board has been pinned to the wall beside the outbound door, just next to the tiny light-giving window, and pinned to that are a few photographs of various people. Not a single one has a dart or knife mark through them except the darts sticking them to the board itself. A few have colors written on them in japanese-print ink. One has a little plastic bag pinned to it, holding a scarlet lipstick-smeared cigarette butt. Across the bag in permanant ink is the word "Poison" with an 'X' beside it.
The door out onto the fire escape has a deadbolt on it, and more of the strange symbols around the lintel. A small iron horseshoe sits against the wall, but rather than being nailed there, it seems held up by a tiny, powerful magnet, nailed into the wall. Outside, the fire escape platform's been turned into a hanging herb garden, with little pots strung through the underside of the metal-grille floor above. There's a clear glass ashtray stuck beside the roots of what appears to be a turnip, and a trickle of ash can occasionally be seen on the alley below. The herbs all around are unmarked. Some are recognizable, but some are decidedly odd, or from the wrong growing climate. All seem to be fairly enthusiastically green despite the season, the temperature, or the rest of the climate.
Inside the room again, there's a door halfway between the kitchen area and the main room, and it opens into a surprisingly well-equipped bathroom with toilet, sink, and its own little tub. All around the tub, and on the tiled floor as well, are a multitude--dozens and dozens of bottles of different shampoos, conditioners, and styling products, keeping company with a loofah and a pumice stone. A long black kimono hangs off a peg on the door beside a pair of large yellow towels The cabinet above the sink, and the area beneath it seem to hold two remarkably large, well-stocked medical kits, and a selection of bandages in addition to the more ordinary soap, toothpaste, plunger, and bathroom cleaning products. The cabinet above also holds a vibrator and a few varieties of lubricant, as well as a well-stuffed box of condoms. It's behind these that there's a small nondescript black bag containing a makeup kit, and several odd cheekpads, detachable moles, and various other disguising features.
The sink itself shares space with a large blow drier, an electric razor, and a toothbrush. And attached to the mirror are a few small photographs clearly out of magazines, portraying several odd clubbing hairstyles, usually seen on women. Next to the toilet are a few magazines depicting even more of these bizzare styles in addition to plain ones. A small wad of black hair sits on the edge of the sink, hanging by a few strings from a hairbrush, in danger of falling in and inevitably clogging the pipes.
A plain, slightly water-marked full-length mirror covers another door in the bathroom, and this opens into a fairly large walk-in closet which could easily have been spacious enough to store a small bed end-to-end. Instead, a bar's been installed from the ceiling, and from it hang numerous odd coats, and other articles of dress--both male and female. Near the bottom corner of the room are a stack of yet more unpacked boxes, a small pile of boots, and an open crate containing two sets of sheets for a bed, for a bedroom which doesn't appear to exist. There are two cloth hampers half-full of clothes--one of which seems to contain a set of sheets nonetheless, and another lower bar of hanging clothes, some of which are in dry-cleaning bags. A small box at the other far corner of closet appears to contain either sex toys, or various tools for keeping a bounty captive. It's genuinely hard to tell which he uses them for.
Again, it's a lot of text, but if anyone's interested, there it is, so I don't have to redescribe the areas he's going to in comments, etc.)))
I get to the front step, and Kiiroi's waiting for me. My little pisser. Except she's not being friendly and perky and frisky like usual. She seems all worked up, and nips at my ankle as I'm unlocking the door with Malik-chan taking a look over the exterior of the place. (He had this pretty disgusted look on his face. Priceless. I warned him. Probably the fresh graffiti on the staircase...)
Turns out there was a reason for Kiiroi being restless. Ranchi was inside, sitting over a corpse like some little sphinx, and he gives me this cryptic look when I come in, like he knows something he thinks I got.
Sure does. The corpse is human.
Even though it's perfectly preserved and looks fresh, I can't see any residual aura on it. It might have been dead a few days. No smell, no nothing. Minor sorcery, but still sorcery, there. Probably Wiz-Dom related if I had to guess. They're more often the dead-specialists. I haven't taken a good look at the corpse to try to identify it yet, because I'm typing this as fast as I can to tell Tomonori to get his ass over here. Plus it's withered. Almost vampire-withered, but there are no throat marks, and no face. It's been peeled off, and the eyes are taken. I haven't checked, but the tongue might be gone too. That's witch-work there, the face-stealing, but I'm not sure about the withered body yet. What I do know is I've got a male mystery corpse dressed in my clothing on my threshold, bloodless, faceless, and marked with paint, and I'll ahve to take a better look before I know what's going down with that.
The obvious point is, someone doesn't like me.
I haven't let Malik-chan in, yet. Told him to sit tight. I considered a binding spell, but decided against it. I'm pretty sure he's playing with Bitch. She got the message that something was up before I did from her daughter. I'm still not all that great with my cats. You learn after a while to treat them like people, but the language thing's still pretty rough. More reason to send her Cole-kun's way with that gypsy lens at this point. Maybe send the others, too once Malik-chan picks out his, and I'm sure he'll guard it with his life, or at least, his fine ass.
Looking this crap over, there's a mark over the chest of the corpse--the rabbit mark.
So it's pretty obvious now. Looks like Shiro's still pissed over our last encounter, and he's sent me a message. A definite message, once I figure out who it is, and what's been done to it, anyway.
So...Change of plans, Father. I'll need some time to change before I head out for my delivery with you and the Egyptian. I can't afford to let my client wait on this, because I owe her big from the last time I pissed off Shiro Usagi from the skinwalker mess a few months back. I've also got to check the appartment. The wards were untouched, which I find pretty creepy. If Shiro's got his hands on a precise dimension bender, I'm pretty fucked over to say the least, and you owe me big, father, so don't argue. At the least, I've probably got myself cursed.
Father? Ask your eraser boy to talk to me. I need to find out the last time he was here and if anything was screwy when he left. I'll talk to my housekeeper in the mean time. Oh, and I think it's probably good for Amou-kun not to run by for the time being--I'll get that out of the way before you say it yourself. Seriously, father, Amou-kun's a good kid. Eraser or not, mindbroken or not, I'm not looking to drag your little group into my shit over here. Call me paranoid, but it seems that's a one-way ticket to get myself made the slave of that busty schoolgirl of yours. Even if it solves whatever thing I've just put myself under, that's not my deal. Not ever.
You get over here, and you come alone.
The place seems pretty untouched aside from the corpse. I'm going to let Malik come in for now because I don't see anythign blatantly swooping around, so what's done is probably after me, not some normal human. I'd still like you to swing by as soon as you can, you hear? Get your ass over here. I've got your mirror, but I can't waste the time scrying when I need to hide myself and figure out what the fuck just happened.
God damn my fucking aura for making me as subtle as a beard on a chick. I've got a delivery to make. Shit. It's not like this kind of thing is known for coming at the right time or anything, but seriously...
Looks like another sudden move for me after this.
(((OOC: Back on the horse with another long-arse note. Sorry there's a lot here this time. (I've been holding it in? ♥?)
Witches stealing the faces of the dead are an old bit of european folklore, along with tying a body's toes together with twine so it won't walk along through the night, etc., etc. Supposedly, stealing the eyes and the tongue make the dead face capable of speech and sight with the right spell. (Think of it as a sort of localized necromacy.)
"Shiro Usagi" has formerly been referred to in Tracer's entries as "Shiro". He's an original character of mine, not part of the Juvenile Orion canon. He's a darklore (A demon) with heavy stock in the underground slave trade. Tracer's former dealings with him in this comm at least have involved hunting down, and skinning a "skinwalker" for him sometime back in July or so. He also pointed out Shiro keeps fallen angels as "blood whores". His name means "White Rabbit". (Anything else, I'm keeping to myself for now. ^^)
Also: I wrote this next bit up a really long while back, (By which I mean early last April XD) but here's an outline of what Tracer's place is like. It's actually a useful OOC note for orientation purposes to anyone who needs it. Apologies for the length. Anyone interested in what the place looks like will find it here.
The place is a half crumbling complex in one of the seedy areas of town, next to an hourly hotel with half its neon sign broken and erratically flickering. Clumps of grass tuft out from the sidewalk amidst beer bottles, wrappers, and old condoms. The stairs leading to the fourth floor where Tracer lives are uneven, chipped concrete, lit by a dull, flickering fluorescent bulb that gives off more unpleasant, constant buzzing than light. The dull orange paint on his door is flaking, the number (812) is lopsided, and the door's hinges are so rusty that opening it makes it sound like a woman-teakettle scream.
The inside is surprisingly warmly lit, and the place reeks of damp cigarette smoke and strongly of cat.
The inner lintel of the door has a series of odd, engraved symbols in it, which seem to twist and move, and hurt the eye with a subtle sort of wrongness if looked at too closely. But they're almost unnoticeable. Sometimes they seem to move if looked at through peripheral vision. They never seem to be in quite the same place twice when glanced at--like objects of landscape in a dream.
Like most japanese appartments, the room is almost unbearably tiny. A few strides would carry even a small occupant entirely across the place. A carpet-covered cat-tower is propped atop one of the arms of a very squashy, sagging sofa, leaning slightly against the wall for balance. Where a chunk is missing, the carpeting has been patched with what looks like a furry, burgundy toilet-seat cover with a hole in it. A little sign at the top of the tower proclaims in spidery kanji, "Home of the Heartless Bitch." Underneath there's been an addition to the sign, "and heartless kittens"
The space in front of the sofa is oddly clear, and bare expect for the well-worn carpet. A few small ashtrays have been slipped under the edge of the sofa, and there are several small, circular burn marks on the rug near them. The room is otherwise open, and the walls are bare, with peeling off-white paint, covered only by a humidity-rumpled poster of the japanese performer Mana in one of his trademark eccentric androgenous postures and costumes. The poster seems to have been glued there to the wall, though, and the corners are slightly torn, as though an attempt was made to pry the poster loose, but it didn't work. The tear-marks look decidedly recent, while the poster itself is fairly faded, and it lies next to a conspicuous spot of fresh paint in not-quite the same shade of smoke-grayed white. The only other addition to the wall is a faint, gray nicotiene ring around the top edges
The other arm of the claw-marked sofa has one lumpy suede accent-pillow in an odd shade of eye-watering fuschia, and a stained orange silk throw patterned with yellow butterflies. The throw almost looks as though it once lived a life as a woman's kimono. The pillow has a faint, sweet smell to it in addition to the powerful smell of smoke, like old incense.
Tucked beneath the other side of the sofa is a slightly burnt, red, knitted blanket almost out of sight, with a few trailing edges of wool giving away its position. Heavy, graying lepoard-patterened curtains hang over the single outlooking window. Anyone pulling the curtains back far enough to view the frame would notice the same odd symbols around the window, next to a strange, fungal-looking cactus on the window-shelf, and a large glass bell-jar top beside it. A handle-less broken teapot half full of water sits on the other side of the window-shelf.
Against the other wall, a Television has been pushed into a bookshelf, which seems to contain two more ashtrays, a selection of beat-up math textbooks, a few volumes of yaoi manga, a sagging grammar workbook with a torn-off front cover, and a brass statue of the Hindu god Shiva, in his incarnation as Nataraja, the lord of the dance. There are a number of carefully ordered notebooks. These seem to contain recipies for the most part, in a very neat, and precise hand. A few pages are dog-eared, and have notes in a clumsier, blockier hand. The shelf closest to the floor contains novels in english--all in decidedly secondhand condition. Most seem to do with the occult, or with fantastical creatures, but a tattered english philosophy textbook sits with them, bearing a small yellow "used" sticker on its spine. Tucked halfway through it is a three-year-old round-trip ticket to Barbados. A few more japanese manga sit next to the sagging textbooks.
A large pottery bowl seems to serve as an ashtray on a tiny, spindly endtable on the other side of the sofa. Scattered cigarette butts linger in the bottom, but do does a quantity of paper-ash. A floor-lamp has been wedged behind the table, poking its joint-posed steel stalk of a neck out from the junction between table, sofa, and wall. A yellow scarf has been thrown over the edge of the glass lampshade, and seems responsible for the warm light in the room. But the torn bottom half of a red paper lantern has been tucked back behind the table, where one of the uneven legs of the thing is propped up on a very abused-looking and waterstained Bible.
A tiny family shrine sits huddles just clear of the door, beside the bookshelf. All it holds are a bundle of wilted white chrysanthemums, and what looks like a battered, tarnished bullet, a tattered and half-unraveled blue ribbon, a small, thin bit of glass, a broken wooden rosary, and a craggy white piece of rock with an almost vertebrae-like look to it, complete with a large hole in its middle. There's also a small photograph of a fairly serious asian young man, with hair falling into his eyes, and several bandages on his face. (Recognizable to those who'v emet him as a young, glasses-free Tomonori Nakaura) He could be coughing into his hand, but the lower part of his face is obscured by his white-gloved fingers. From his uniform, he looks like a high schooler, but the elbows of the uniform are worn a bit thin, and he has a long necklace-chain against his shoulders. What the necklace is, has been cut off by the bottom edge of the picture. The photograph looks several years old, and it's curled slightly around the edges--torn, even, at the bottom. It's been mostly-hidden under the rock.
The room itself is seperated from the tiny kitchen area only by several square feet of tile. Several card tables have been set in a perdendicular row as an impromptu counter-expander, and a fairly traditional and ornate-looking iron teapot rests on the table, sharing a tray tray with four chipped, handleless teacups of different shades of olive-esque greens. He has a few battered saucers beside it, and five packaged, slightly crushed fortune cookies over the saucers. Three large tins hold loose tealeaves, and have been tucked against the wall with a small metal tea-strainer perched atop one. The lone wall-socket's been plugged into by a large burner, with an elaborate glass flask above it, filled with water, and suspended above the little burner on a tricky little metal tripod. The flask is easily of a size that would fill the teapot three times over. Several small, round glass sake bottles linger beside the larger flask, but they seem to be often-opened--far too often to hold their original sake. A small golden crescent with a single star at its base, lies tucked next to the cans, and a little dusting of spilled tea seems to have fallen over it. Beneath the card table closest to the wall, are a few more old sake boxes. The lid is open on the askew top-most one, and it seems as though the bottles on the counter come from that box.
Further along, the makeshift countertop's been spread with a cloth, and a little desklamp. Another burner, this one powered by gas, sits beside it, and large, lead molds take up table space beside that, Bits of metal crust the edges of the molds. A bottle of silver-polish sits beside them, as does a mostly-disassembled revolver, a small arrangement of tiny screwdrivers, a small hammer, and a battery-powered drill. The cloth smells like gun oil. Tucked under the cloth edge of the table are two crossbows, a collection of arrows, and a carefully wrapped leather bundle which looks about the size of a tiny knife--a ceremonial athme.
The refrigerator in the back-corner of the kitchen is over twenty years old, and smells faintly musty. A towel's been put on the floor beneath it, and a whiteboard calender has been magnetized to the freezer portion. The days seem mis-numbered, and a few are missing, or seem dileberately mis-numbered. Across the bottom there seems to be a shopping list, written at an angle in cumbersome kanji. Two markers have been bound to the board on fraying bits of string, next to a few magnets depicting various anime characters. A nendroid magnet has a list of what look like bible verses in English script, and a fragment of the same odd symbols on the doorframe. These ones don't seem to move, and they've been circled several times in black. More magnets are strung along a thin line of metal he's put across the wall, and from these hang various odd bits of things--cards mostly. Playing cards, a few tarot cards, even a trading card or two. Attached beside a few are phone numbers, or other bits of scrawl--occasionally including colors. There are no names on any of these cards.
The remaining real countertops against the back wall have a few partially unpacked cardboard moving-boxes on them, and a strangely cheerful red and yellow bromeliad under a lamp-bulb plugged into the other socket, next to what looks like another teacup, this one half-full of fresh milk. A half-full packet of plant feeder, and a half-full packet of sugar rest beside the plant, and the kitchen sink beside it is full of surprisingly clean, chipped dishes. A small trail of ant-dirt leads from a crack in the grout on the wall, and a little stream of black ants runs from the wall to the sink of dishes. They don't touch the sugar packet, or the plant food, or the milk.
Next to the door leading onto the fire escape in the back is a small, square floor-table with a mat nearest the back-corner of the room. The table is a little scuffed, but otherwise in good condition, and it seems to have a small portable heater under it. On it, there's a smattering of mail addressed to "Izuno Suzuki", along with a small hand-sketching of a man with pale, bobbed hair and foreigner-pale eyes. At the top is written the japanese character for "blue", but nothing more. It sits in its own pile with a single tarot card: "The Stars." A dart-board has been pinned to the wall beside the outbound door, just next to the tiny light-giving window, and pinned to that are a few photographs of various people. Not a single one has a dart or knife mark through them except the darts sticking them to the board itself. A few have colors written on them in japanese-print ink. One has a little plastic bag pinned to it, holding a scarlet lipstick-smeared cigarette butt. Across the bag in permanant ink is the word "Poison" with an 'X' beside it.
The door out onto the fire escape has a deadbolt on it, and more of the strange symbols around the lintel. A small iron horseshoe sits against the wall, but rather than being nailed there, it seems held up by a tiny, powerful magnet, nailed into the wall. Outside, the fire escape platform's been turned into a hanging herb garden, with little pots strung through the underside of the metal-grille floor above. There's a clear glass ashtray stuck beside the roots of what appears to be a turnip, and a trickle of ash can occasionally be seen on the alley below. The herbs all around are unmarked. Some are recognizable, but some are decidedly odd, or from the wrong growing climate. All seem to be fairly enthusiastically green despite the season, the temperature, or the rest of the climate.
Inside the room again, there's a door halfway between the kitchen area and the main room, and it opens into a surprisingly well-equipped bathroom with toilet, sink, and its own little tub. All around the tub, and on the tiled floor as well, are a multitude--dozens and dozens of bottles of different shampoos, conditioners, and styling products, keeping company with a loofah and a pumice stone. A long black kimono hangs off a peg on the door beside a pair of large yellow towels The cabinet above the sink, and the area beneath it seem to hold two remarkably large, well-stocked medical kits, and a selection of bandages in addition to the more ordinary soap, toothpaste, plunger, and bathroom cleaning products. The cabinet above also holds a vibrator and a few varieties of lubricant, as well as a well-stuffed box of condoms. It's behind these that there's a small nondescript black bag containing a makeup kit, and several odd cheekpads, detachable moles, and various other disguising features.
The sink itself shares space with a large blow drier, an electric razor, and a toothbrush. And attached to the mirror are a few small photographs clearly out of magazines, portraying several odd clubbing hairstyles, usually seen on women. Next to the toilet are a few magazines depicting even more of these bizzare styles in addition to plain ones. A small wad of black hair sits on the edge of the sink, hanging by a few strings from a hairbrush, in danger of falling in and inevitably clogging the pipes.
A plain, slightly water-marked full-length mirror covers another door in the bathroom, and this opens into a fairly large walk-in closet which could easily have been spacious enough to store a small bed end-to-end. Instead, a bar's been installed from the ceiling, and from it hang numerous odd coats, and other articles of dress--both male and female. Near the bottom corner of the room are a stack of yet more unpacked boxes, a small pile of boots, and an open crate containing two sets of sheets for a bed, for a bedroom which doesn't appear to exist. There are two cloth hampers half-full of clothes--one of which seems to contain a set of sheets nonetheless, and another lower bar of hanging clothes, some of which are in dry-cleaning bags. A small box at the other far corner of closet appears to contain either sex toys, or various tools for keeping a bounty captive. It's genuinely hard to tell which he uses them for.
Again, it's a lot of text, but if anyone's interested, there it is, so I don't have to redescribe the areas he's going to in comments, etc.)))