[Thread] From the top...

[black_not_white]

Characters: AU Manjoume Jun, open to whoever
Where: the rooftop of Apartment Building 2
When: mid-afternoon
Summary: Though he's certainly not going to go out completely in the open right now, Manjoume needs some fresh air. Care to poke?
Warnings: Besides Manjoume's easily-irritated nature, it depends on who shows up.

Comments

[eightgemmaster]

Johan didn't often go up to the roof himself. But today he felt like a bit of fresh air, and for once, he decided to go up instead of down. After that whole mess with the Warden...well, he wasn't sure at the moment how anything stood with Yubel and Haou and himself, and he didn't feel inclined to think about it too much right now.

So, he left a note to let Juudai know where he was going to be, making certain to pin it down so it wouldn't fall under a table or anything, and headed upstairs. Ruby Carbuncle was on his shoulder, trilling softly now and then.

When he got up to the top, he saw someone else was already up there, someone wearing black. Johan thought he looked vaguely familiar, and figured he probably lived somewhere on the Paj floor, so he'd likely seen him there.

Johan wandered over to the edge and peered over carefully, trying not to bother the other young man. It did look to be a long way down.

[eightgemmaster]

"I'm honestly not sure," Johan replied. He didn't know what it was that he was seeing, only that it was stomach churning in a way. It reminded him vaguely of those rumors that had been running around the palace before he'd been brought here, about a cult of light. Some people had also called it a cult of death. That was the same feeling he had this time.

"Ruby Carbuncle..." He dug his deck out and found the right card to show so Manjoume would know who he meant... "She's my partner. She showed me something, but I don't know what it is." He hesitated; perhaps Manjoume would know? One way to find out. "When I look at you through the crystal in her tail...there's some kind of white light that's ...in you or inside of you or something. It's hard to be certain just what it is. It feels..." He groped for any word that would be right. "It feels honestly repulsive."

[black_not_white]

Manjoume had little time to register the card that Johan had shown, and the vague thought that it sounded familiar, like he'd heard of it somewhere before. The rest of what Johan said... ground his mind to a complete halt, his eyes widening in a look that mixed shock, fear, confusion, denial, and everything in between as he stepped backwards subconsciously.

When Johan looked through his partner's tail (and Manjoume wasn't about to doubt that this was possible, he'd seen a lot after all), he'd seen... and he used the present tense...

No. No, that was impossible. He had to be lying, or his partner's tail had to be telling a lie, or it had to be something else entirely, but it couldn't be true, at least not in the present! It just couldn't - he'd gotten rid of it himself, he knew he had!!

"There's no way..." he whispered, mostly unaware that he had even said anything, he was in so much shock and denial.

[eightgemmaster]

Johan guessed that it was familiar to him. He peered again, trying to figure out anything that he could. "I don't think there's much of it...it's hard to tell. But it's there." He considered for a moment or two. "Juudai might be able to tell more about it than I can...the one that I live with."

After all, Haou wasn't exactly at the peak of his powers, and Juudai was.

[black_not_white]

Not much... That still didn't change the fact that he had gotten rid of it! It was gone from inside of him! It might not have been out of his life, seeing as his version of the Academy, back home, was saturated with the stuff, but it was out of him! The fact that Asuka's brother's ghost had told him (through her) that he'd stepped in to keep it from taking him again... The fact that his ability to see spirits hadn't returned... They had nothing to do with anything, he insisted to himself

[eightgemmaster]

Johan nodded a bit; whatever it was, he had faith that Juudai would be able to sort it out. That was simply what Juudai did.

Thoughtfully, he began to set out each of the Gem Beast cards, taking a good long look at each of them, the tips of his fingers caressing each one. They'd been threatened more times than he cared to remember here, and he treasured them all the more because he knew how close he had come to losing them.

Love you guys, he thought, knowing they'd hear him. He was still aware that Manjoume was there, though he had no idea if the other could see spirits or not. To most people, it would look as if he were just going through his deck, after all.

[black_not_white]

Johan cared a lot for his cards, didn't he. Not that it was strange - all good duelists cared about their cards, after all. But the way he was acting with them, it was almost like they were even more important to him

[eightgemmaster]

Johan glanced up briefly, his fingers on Rainbow Dragon's card. "Can you see them?" he asked curiously. He didn't think so, since Manjoume hadn't reacted to Ruby Carbuncle at all. But he wanted to know.

[black_not_white]

It took him a moment, to decide how exactly to answer the question. It was kind of unsettling, to be asked that question directly like this. There was a reason he tried to push thoughts about it to the back of his head - he wasn't sure how to deal with everything that had happened, with the memory of how everything had just gone quiet the moment they had left his hand...

After a moment, however, he hid his expression even further and settled on "No. I haven't been able to see spirits for a while now."

[eightgemmaster]

Johan frowned, looking at him again. It was obvious that bothered Manjoume quite a bit. He couldn't be sure if the other would want to talk about it, either. Especially not to him, since they'd really just met.

Finding some way to respond to that wasn't easy, either. Johan considered a few options of his own and finally nodded slightly, starting to gather up his own cards. "If you want to duel sometime, just for the practice of it, let me know. I'm always up for a good game." He grinned some; he'd been trying to think of someone he could duel, not just for the practice, but for the fun of it, and hopefully to show Haou that he was a duelist.

But mostly for the fun of it.

[black_not_white]

A duel just for the practice of it. Internally, Manjoume couldn't help but smile. One would think that a game would be just that - a game. Certainly, something that a myriad of different kinds of careers could be - and were - based from. But it seemed as though almost all of the rounds he'd played, for the longest time, had had some kind of catch to them. A duel just for practice, without any strings attached... That could be a nice change of pace.

"I'll let you know," he replied.