the ocean breathes salty
There was dried semen itching between his legs. That was the first thing Tooru noticed when he woke up. He had fallen asleep on the couch, fully clothed, with his bag drooping off one arm the moment he walked in the door. Too tired to bother with a shower, his mouth still tasted like old man. It was in the second second he was awake that he felt the heat of the sun, the sand beneath his cheek, the breeze, and more importantly the sound and smell of the sea. He opened his eyes quickly and then closed them again against the mid-day light. In the third second, his head hurt.
The next few minutes were spent breathing, not moving. The beach. It felt like someone had taken hold of his heart and squeezed it. Had he finally died? Finally given a chance to visit Thailand with Matsuoka-sempai... It was that thought that got him scrambling to his feet and dashing through the sand towards the water without thinking, looking around frantically. "Sempai!" he called out, feeling the pain grow even worse when there was no response. "Matsuoka-sempai!"
The only voices that came back to him were those of the birds. Despair, such an old bedfellow, overwhelmed that moment of hope, and he squinted up at the sky helplessly until a wave washed up over his shoes and he was sent skipping back onto dry sand, cursing. They came off and he rolled his pants up towards the knee, just as suddenly calm and resigned; in shock. The possibility of this being a dream didn't even cross his mind; it was too real. He could be dead, but he had a nagging feeling that he didn't really deserve a peaceful island afterlife. Besides, young men like him didn't just die in their sleep.
His bag was still back up by the treeline and Tooru slowly walked up to retrieve it. All signs of the excitement and panic of the moment before had disappeared from his face. He knocked the sand off his shoes and tucked them into the bag. Where should he go? Should he go anywhere at all? It was hot in the sun and he was already starting to sweat, plus the itchiness of last night's client was making itself noticed again. With nothing better to do, he mechanically undressed and dropped his clothes onto his bag until he was naked under the sun. It was a long time since he had been to the beach. Getting arrested for public indecency was the last thing from his mind right now.
###
Later, safely within the Compound, Tooru helped himself to a seat in the Lounge, put down his bag, and stretched out a little. After a shower he paradoxically was starting to realize how damn weird it was to be here. A government-like building on a tropical island of mostly white, English-speaking people who all had come from different worlds unintentionally. It was as non-urban as anyone could imagine, and Tooru had grown up in a relatively rich family in Tokyo. Avoiding monsoons was not in his repertoire. He was aware of the strangeness of how little he had reacted to this monumental shift in what was real and natural. He could feel guilty about not caring, but that didn't stop him from feeling detached from almost everything. There were people here, at least, kind people who had helped him out even though they didn't know him or even speak his language. If he had been alone it would have been much worse. As it was, he had somewhere to be and he could figure out his place in all this eventually.
He sipped a cup of water and wished it was tea, but hadn't wanted to go digging around through the kitchen where it seemed so many other people congregated. He did have some sense of politeness. When he got hungry, though, he'd find someone to ask for food. He reached into his bag and pulled out a small ring schedule book which flipped open to the back cover easily. Inside there was a carefully preserved Polaroid of a young Japanese man sleeping. Looking at it made his heart ache, but he couldn't just forget either.
[ooc: LT/ST are fine, no time limit on this post. anyone who would like to be Info Person please do, otherwise infogathering will be assumed and he will find his way to the Compound. I will post a tag to that effect in a few days for people to reply to. Anyone coming in as of July 22nd should go for the second EP set in the Compound, to prevent more overlapping tags. Hope that works for everybody.]