route_1065 | (no subject)

(no subject)

Who: Jin

angerpoints
Where: Violet City
When: 07/03/13
Summary: Jin and Touya have finally come dragging into Violet.
Rating: PG-13 for some damns and hells, probably
Log:

So it turns out that even when Jin is really excited to go somewhere, the chances of him arriving in a timely fashion are only slightly greater than nil. It wasn't his fault, however, since they had to wait in Cherrygrove an extra day for Touya to get his present, and then they just decided to take the woods at an even more leisurely pace because the outdoors were something that they knew frontwards, backwards, and inside-out, be it in the human world, demon world, or wherever this place was.

But they made it to Violet City, you know, only four days later than the could've. No big deal.

And boy did the inhabitants hear them coming- although Jin only particularly cared if one heard, bellowing as he hit the city limits, hands cupped around his mouth. He was clearly capable of being just as loud as usual - the size of his mouth had changed none.

"URAMESHIIIIIIII!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Of course he had wanted to go a bit faster--It wasn't that far away. Then again, he should have known better, considering his travel partner. On their way though, they had seen quite a few different pokemon species. It was interesting seeing how different they were physically and how they attacked. He had learned that his Sneasel wanted to fight other pokemon--Hiyami was growing stronger as a result.

Touya also had a new companion to consider, no thanks to Jin. She seemed to be attached to him, and according to the PokeGear, her species was a "Smoochum". She would make noises if he didn't carry her, which he found himself doing most of the time now. She appeared happy when he did that. Needless to say, all of this was quite contrary to what he was used to from his career with the shinobi. Caring for any being other than himself was something they did their best to train (or beat) out of any young shinobi. Yet here he was, Sneasel on one side and Smoochum in arms with his red-haired companion.

...His loud red-haired companion.

Both of his pokemon covered their ears at the shout, and Touya used his free hand to do the same. That name...

To say that today had been full of unpleasant surprises would be an understatement.

No, really. As if it hadn't been bad enough waking up to a text from Botan letting him know that certain members of their teams had, ahem, done the nasty and that they now had a shitload of eggs to cope with as a result, Yusuke found himself suffering yet another nasty shock when he later discovered that their friend Xiaoqiao had vanished, leaving no evidence of having been in Johto in the first place except for the Rapidash he'd found in his PC. This wasn't the first time he'd lost a friend from this world to whatever messed up glitch in the universe it was that caused people to appear and disappear at random; that particular honor went to Namsoon, who had gone home roughly a month or two after the two of them woke up in New Bark Town on the same day. That said, however, Yusuke felt he had been given more time to form a tumultuous but pretty decent friendship with Xiaoqiao, so needless to say, the sudden loss combined with the aggravation of having to deal with all those eggs had left him feeling pissed off and rather sorry for himself, a mood that had persisted all throughout the day thus far despite efforts on his part to correct it. Training, walking around, playing yet another game of Rainbow Rapidash Attack (and cussing out the 'Gear as he did) - none of these things had made him feel any better, and by this point, he was starting to lose hope that today would ever improve.

Of course, there was one more thing he hadn't tried, and that thing was purchasing a new pack of cigarettes and loitering outside the PokeMart to smoke them. Given that the nicotine was having at least somewhat of an effect on his mood, Yusuke was pretty keen on working his way through the entire pack, but he was only about halfway through the third cigarette when he as well as everyone else in the general vicinity were suddenly startled by the sound of someone bellowing his name. His cigarette half-raised to his lips, Yusuke stared out into the direction from which the voice came from, bewilderment written all over his face. What the--

It was at that moment that Yusuke realized who the owner of that voice must have been, and so, without further ado, he flicked the cigarette to the ground, made a quick and half-assed effort to stomp it out beneath his heel, and then began jogging toward the eastern checkpoint, which led the way out to Route 31. He only knew a few guys with stupid accents that could project their voice like that, and as far as he knew, only one of them was currently in Johto right now. Yusuke grinned. Maybe today stood a chance at ending a lot better than it started after all.

For a place designated as a city, Violet wasn't actually that big, so it wasn't very long at all before Yusuke rounded the corner and spotted Jin and Touya standing there across the way, the latter of the two accompanied by the "rabbit thing" he'd had with him in his video broadcast and a weird pink thing that Yusuke'd never seen before. No time to try to figure out what that weird pink thing is right now, though, because that tall red-headed guy there? THAT'S HIS WINDY BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER, whom he hasn't laid eyes on in literal AGES. AAAHHHH--

"JIN!!"

Here, Jin. Have one (1) Spirit Detective barreling at you (and at Touya) at full speed.

Jin had his own pokemon out with him as well, a small, sulky puffball of a bird, a little orange lizard with a flaming tail padding along next to him, and the brightly colored music note-headed bird, who let out a squawk of her own of "URAMESHI!" In perfect mimicry of Jin's voice when she was rousted from her perch on Jin's head by the redhead exploding forward like a greyhound out of the gate when he saw the spirit detective come jogging around the corner. The tall, almost criminally skinny redhead bolted forward to meet his brother from a human mother, swooping in for a hug that would lift the shorter human off the ground. His ears were so long they were bouncing with every twitch.

"Well there ye are! 'S a crime ta keep friends waitin', Urameshi! Been looking forward t'seein' ye all week, I have, and poor Toy ain't heard the end o' it yet, I'd say! Figured the best way ta find ye was t' jes' come in bellowin' loud as I could, in case ye were shut up inside somewhere, rather than havin' t'go 'round askin where ye was!"

Touya stood back away from the two. After Yuusuke clarified what was going on with the whole different timeline thing, the Ice Master wasn't as leery of the human. He had been in and out of consciousness during Jin's fight with Yuusuke, and so had only caught glimpses of it, but he knew Jin was quite fond of the leader of Team Urameshi. Well, before the constant chattering about him the entire way from Cherrygrove. He had seen how truly happy the other was during the fight. Not to say that he wasn't usually pretty cheery and bubbly, but there was a more free quality to his fighting--probably because he knew his newfound friend could handle it; they were very similar after all.

Still, he hadn't been that fond of the human when they had initially arrived. He was a bit apologetic now, but that didn't much change the situation. Though with the predicament they were in, all of that was irrelevant.

His arms would have been across his chest if the Smoochum wasn't there occupying them. She was waving her arms around and smiling at the excitement the other two were creating.

The way the people around them were staring, one would almost think that none of them had ever seen two men hugging it out. To be fair to them, though, this wasn't exactly the most subtle of Manly Embraces - quite the opposite, in fact, because not only had Yusuke more or less flung himself into the hug (and never underestimate the force with which he can tackle-hug people), being lifted off his feet all of the sudden had startled a laugh out of him, a laugh that was, predictably enough, loud as fuck. Had Jin been anyone else, picking Yusuke Urameshi up like that probably would've resulted in him being flipped face-down into one of the sewer drains; given that he wasn't, however, that was obviously not an issue, and Yusuke was perfectly content, at first, to dangle there and return the hug with MANLY VIGOR, giving Jin a few hearty thumps on the back while he was at it. LONG TIME NO SEE, BUDDY. Yusuke literally hadn't thought he'd ever see Jin again after the Dark Tournament was over, so good on you, Johto, for making this possible!

As happy as he was to see his bro, though, it didn't take long for Yusuke to start thinking that being back on the ground would be swell, and so he loosened his grip on the wind master and began trying to squirm away, a big fat grin still taking up the majority of his face. "Yeah, whatever, you crazy bastard. Lemme down," he told Jin good-naturedly, dealing him one final whack on the back. Once Jin obliged, Yusuke turned towards Touya and gave him a little nod of acknowledgement, saying, "Hey, Touya. Good to see you."

... you know, despite the, ah, rather tense conversation they'd had over the network a little over a week ago. Now that Yusuke knew that Jin and Touya had just been defeated by his team where they came from, though, he really didn't have any hard feelings towards Touya for being hostile at first; while he didn't fully understand the significance of that whole "light" thing - and wouldn't claim to, given that he himself wasn't a shinobi - he at least respected the fact that it had obviously been important to Touya, and wasn't about to hold it against him if he was holding a bit of a grudge. He would, however, try to be friendly with him, at least: they might not be the best of friends, but they were in this kidnapping situation together, and as far as Yusuke was concerned, that made them part of the same team. SO THERE.

Anyway, now that he had greeted them each individually (with, uh, varying levels of enthusiasm), Yusuke addressed Jin and Touya as a unit, asking them, "So what took you guys so long gettin' here? I was expecting you to show up ages ago."

Yusuke had none of his own Pokemon out with him at the moment, but he did take note of the small menagerie that had accompanied the demons into the city, including, of course, the "weird pink thing" he'd seen at a distance that he now saw was wriggling around in Touya's arms. It required a truly Herculean amount of effort, but somehow, someway, he managed to restrain the urge to grimace at it. Geez, what the heck, nature? It looks like some kind of demented doll! (And for the sake of maintaining some semblance of peace, Yusuke kept that particular observation to himself. Let it not be said that Yusuke Urameshi isn't capable of some restraint, because goddammit, he totally is.)

It's funny how one fight - that was just a little over a week ago for Jin, and months ago for Yusuke - could bring such understanding between two dumb boys like them. Jin laughed loudly himself when Yusuke laughed, effortlessly holding the human up despite his own strength and powers handicap.

"Yeah, Yeah, alrigh', alrigh'," he laughed good-naturedly as he plopped Yusuke back onto his feet again, giving the human a hearty clap on the shoulder with one hand when Yusuke was back on his feet. He also looked at Touya, a sort of sheepish look on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand. Sorry for being embarrassing in public. Except not sorry at all, really, but sorry that he's not sorry.

"Now don't ye be gettin' started on me now too!" Jin cried melodramatically. "We stayed an extra day in that Cheery-Grove, 'cause I got this boyo here-" he gestured at the Charmander "-in the mail, and so I had to figure out how to get an egg thinger fer Toy, too, and I wasn't jes' gonna let it sit there while we were walkin' through the woods!" He crossed his arms. "And then we jes' enjoyed the walk, really. A lot like home! Since we never had a real place to stay back in Makai 'n all. We're only a couple'a days behind! If ye get t'be as old as us, a few days sure isn't ages!"

Jin reached over and ruffled the little pink baby thing's hair with a grin, causing her to fuss and smooth her hair back down. "So anyway! Where can a guy go t'get a bite t'eat 'round here?"

He wasn't even that particularly bothered by the boisterous display--coming from centuries of hanging around Jin especially. His face was completely neutral when Jin gave him the apologetic look. If he wanted to look like a fool in this environment, that was his prerogative. So long as he didn't do it whenever they got back to Demon World...Although after talking to Urameshi, he wasn't too hopeful of that being anytime soon.

"We didn't have to get another egg," he retorted, thinking of how he had to carry it around. It was currently sitting in his backpack taking up room. If it was anything like his Smoochum, it too would not want to sit in its ball. Which would mean three pokemon around him at all times. His Sneasel, because she was the first one he had ever seen, stayed out with him, mostly as protection, considering his own helplessness. Other than that, she didn't really have an objection to being in the pokeball. His Smoochum hated her pokeball...and insisted that she be carried everywhere. She would tug at his pants to get him to pick her up. He had to constantly remind himself that they weren't in as much danger here as back home to alleviate his instincts which told him There are too many around to protect, even though both Pokemon could protect themselves to an extent.

They may have been essentially human, but that certainly didn't calm the Wind Master's metabolism. There wasn't too much to eat in the forests either that he had seen either, so he waited for Urameshi to answer.

In spite of how long it'd been since he'd actually been out on the road (because fuck the great outdoors, he's a city kid through and through), Yusuke can distinctly remember how famished he'd been when he'd first arrived in Violet City all those weeks ago; he'd seen berries out there in the wilderness, but after hearing that consuming them'd either make you trip balls or shit your brains out for days on end, he'd been reluctant to test them, especially what with how miserable traveling around in the damp, smelly forest had been in the first place. He and his travel partners had still managed not to starve, thanks to all the snacks they'd picked up back in Cherrygrove, but given how even that had barely managed to sustain them, he really isn't surprised when Jin asks about food almost right off the bat. He himself had already had lunch, but he wasn't at all opposed to the idea of sitting in a restaurant for a few hours just so the other two can have a meal. It'd be a hell of a nicer place to talk than just standing out here in the middle of street was, that was for sure.

"I know a place," he said, already turning to lead them down the road. "It's only a couple blocks away. C'mon."

And with that, they were off, with Yusuke at the front of this mixed procession of demons and Pokemon. As promised, the diner they eventually entered was just a short hike from where they'd been standing previously. It wasn't a big place by any means, but it was certainly a bit claustrophobic: not only was there a virtual wall of people sitting at the bar, there were several people already occupying many of the booths, a number of them families with children. Near the front door, a grizzled, tired-looking man stood feeding coins into a jukebox, apparently so out of it that he didn't quite notice right away that he was sort of blocking Yusuke and company as they were trying to get in. Fortunately, Yusuke didn't end up having to say anything to him; just as he was about to, the man glanced over and quickly side-stepped away, muttering something that sounded like an apology. Yusuke, polite as ever, walked past him without a word.

"You guys ever been to one of these places before?" He asked Jin and Touya, sliding into the first open booth he saw. "I've only ever been to Demon World once, but from what I saw, the restaurant industry isn't exactly anything to write home about."

This comment was, of course, intended to be tongue-in-cheek. God knows he didn't visit The City of Ghosts and Apparitions as a tourist.

Touya had had to remind Jin multiple times that the berries here weren't fit for consumption, which was only slightly different from the berries in Makai. Jin could recognize Makai berries that could kill you, but some of the berries they had found along the route had borne a resemblance to some of the edible berries from their home world, and Jin had many times been almost hungry enough to eat them.

Jin's ears twitched upward (they were already about as pointy as they could get just from the excitement of getting to see his pal Urameshi again) at the prospect of food, though, and he grinned widely.

"Aye, well then lead on!" he cheered. "We're right behind ye!" Jin helpfully recalled all of his pokemon but his starter as they walked, with the promise that he'd feed them all later. The Chatot nestled down further into his mess of hair, digging in with her claws when he pulled out her pokeball, so that was kind of a no-go.

But the wind master's demeanour changed a little when they actually entered the establishment. His ears retracted like he'd just had cold water dumped on him, and his wide blue eyes glanced around as if looking for an escape route. He managed to laugh when Yusuke posed his question.

"Nah, this many demons in one room, someone'd be dead before ye got yer food on the table surer than sunrise," he said, recovering a shade of his earlier cheer. "Besides, bein' a shinobi and all usually meant that dinner was on yer wits and skills." Then an idea came to him, as they were seated in one of the booths by an NPC who was used to weird-ass comments from people.

"How about ye order fer us? We trust ye! Right, Toy?" he asked, looking at his companion and nudging the smaller ice demon with his elbow. If he seated himself close enough to Touya that their thighs were touching, to reassure himself that his partner was there, he sure didn't act like he was unsettled enough to do so.

Touya could almost feel Jin's energy curl in on itself (had it been there for real) when they entered such a crowded place. Not only was it loud and busy inside, but it was cramped and crowded. He looked up at his partner and saw him look around, noting how uncomfortable he looked. Touya nudged him slightly, a subtle way to remind the wind demon that he was there, if not that things were okay.

When they sat down, Touya found himself looking in all directions out of curiosity. He had seen a restaurant from the outside before, but had never been inside one--they were pretty few and far between in the Demon World. Besides, why should they pay for food when there was enough to be found outside that they could get themselves?

He noticed how closely Jin seemed to be sitting next to him and excused it, knowing how anxious the other might possibly be feeling. He nodded. He wouldn't know the first thing to order to be quite honest.

... huh. Maybe coming here wasn't the best idea. Yusuke wasn't the most perceptive guy on the planet, but he could tell that something about the setting was putting his demon bro a bit on edge. Naturally, he himself wasn't very bothered by how loud and crowded the diner was, as he was used to such environments; this was also why he hadn't really given any second thought to bringing Jin and Touya there until he noticed how Jin's expression dimmed, at which point he wondered if he ought to suggest that they go someplace else. It wouldn't be any problem for him if they wanted to leave - after all, it was them who needed a meal, not him, and if being in this place was gonna make them feel uneasy, he really didn't see any use in sticking around.

Of course, just when Yusuke was about to offer to find them another place where they could eat, Jin asked him if he could order for them, seeming... somewhat less uncomfortable than he had been before, but still not nearly as cheerful as he was when the two of them were huggin' it out on the street. Yusuke regarded him uncertainly at first, still considering suggesting a change in scenery. Then he nodded and reached for one of the menus set out by the NPC, playfully telling the two demons: "All right. Just don't get pissed at me if I order you something you don't like."

Welp. Looks like they weren't going anywhere after all! Don't get him wrong, Yusuke was still a little concerned about how anxious Jin looked (he wasn't sure about Touya - maybe it was just because the guy had such a good pokerface, but he seemed more curious about this place than freaked out by it), but if he wanted to stick it out, he wasn't gonna argue with him. He just hoped he would say something if it turned out he really needed to leave later on.

Anyway, loud or not, one could not accuse this diner of not having a variety of dishes. Hell, they had such a wide selection, Yusuke couldn't even decide what he wanted to have on some days, much less decide for someone else. "Uhhh..." Yusuke stared down at the open menu for a moment, tapping a finger on the side of the page. Fuck, he didn't know what to get them. He didn't necessarily expect them to know what they wanted, either, especially if they were used to hunting down their food themselves; still, in the interest of getting something on the table before they ended up sitting there for another ten days, he figured it'd be a good idea to ask for some input so he could narrow their options down a little.

"Actually - okay, help me out here," he said, looking up at them. "What d'you guys normally eat? Fish, meat...?"

Yusuke doubted he would be able to order them anything that was exactly like what they would find in the wilderness of Demon World (whatever the hell that would be; did he want to know? Probably not), but he'd try!

Really, if he hadn't come in with ears fully out to there and if it had been less crowded, it wouldn't have caught him so off-guard. But the bigger they get the more sound they catch, and the more sound they catch the more sensitive they are. He could've heard a fly fart in the packed stadium at the Dark Tournament, and that place was open to the air.

Which was all to say that, even though his ears were shrinking, as they got smaller he also seemed to get more comfortable (he still stayed pressed against Touya, but his grin was genuine and his eyes brightened again) in their new environment. A key part of being a wind master was being able to go with the flow. Tl;dr, don't be fussing yourself over old Jin, Yusuke, he can take care of himself.

The wind master laughed when Yusuke joked for them not to be mad. "So long as it's nothin' too spicey - we did get some human world food whiles we were at the hotel fer the tourney, and some o' it was H-O-T hot, I'm tellin' ye. Not that I was mindin' all too much, but Toy wasn't too keen on it - bet ye can guess why!" cue obnoxious cackle that made even the NPCs glance. And then, after dropping that particular useful hint, Yusuke proceeded to stare at the menu. Jin stared at him intently.

The question came, and once again, Jin was the one to open his mouth to answer. "Depends on where we're put. If there's a river then it's usually fish that's easiest t'catch! Jes' freeze 'em right up and toss 'em out! Inn'at right, Touya?" he looked down at his little buddy and gently nudged him with his elbow. "But anyway, I'll be eatin' whatever's in front o' me, don't ye worry too hard 'bout that. Toy's the picky one out o' us two."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

(no subject)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

sorry for the wait!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject