Post by Shinpei Minamoto on Nov 25, 2016 1:06:43 GMT -5
Tokyo was a big kind of place.
That was a dramatic understatement. In fact, Tokyo was huge: Shinpei figured he could have walked from one end to the other if he had a couple days or so. That was enough space to get lost in. Make the right wrong turns and there you are, stuck in the city for the rest of your life.
He wondered if that ever happened to the natives.
But people in Karakura had said time and time again, "you have to go there! If you haven't been to the big city, you haven't lived!" And the first time, he'd just brushed it off. The second time, the same thing. The fifth, sixth and seventh times? He started to get tired of hearing it.
That was the problem of a small town, he figured, at least insofar as Karakura tended to think of itself as a small town. Some people thought that moving somewhere bigger, somewhere brighter, would fix all their problems. Did it? Shinpei wouldn't have been able to tell you. I would, and let me say--it doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen. Sometimes people just need a change of pace.
Shinpei wasn't so good with changes of pace. He had always been more comfortable and more expert at a sort of one-track line: he had a singular kind of mind. He didn't like to split his attention. He could only really focus on one thing at a time.
But of course, what he did he did well. There just wasn't much of it to go around.
Now, here in Tokyo, he walked somewhat aimlessly around a well-maintained park. It was a perfectly fine location full of perfectly fine trees and perfectly fine flowers. The grass was wholly, completely unobjectionable and even the lamps lighting the walkway for the evening were nothing to fuss over. All in all it was solidly, roundly average.
He kind of hated it.
This was nothing like the central park he loved in Karakura, and it was one hell of a far cry from his sister's garden. It was soulless. It wasn't all that pretty. It was just stuck there like it had been imported from some locale that had its shit together.
Shinpei tugged his flowery, soft Yukata a little tighter around himself. Usually it hung loosely around him, showing off peeks of skin here and there, but the evening was cold. Colder, the more he walked. He hadn't noticed, but somewhere along the way the night had turned positively frigid. Oddly, he couldn't see his own breath and there was no wind, but he could have sworn the temperature was doing its damnedest to drop below zero.
In front of him, in a clearing, stood a small girl with white hair.
He couldn't see her well through the trees, but he found a path through the underbrush and emerged onto the same patch of grass she'd claimed. And god, it was freezing.
"Hey," he called. "Are you alright?"
If he had been a little more skilled at sensing Reiatsu, he might have noticed that all the cold he felt was emanating straight from this small girl.
But he wasn't. And so by the same token, his own pressure bled out like a giant neon sign shouting "Shinigami!"
He had no intention of becoming prey, now or tomorrow, but he sure didn't do a good job of acting like it.
That was a dramatic understatement. In fact, Tokyo was huge: Shinpei figured he could have walked from one end to the other if he had a couple days or so. That was enough space to get lost in. Make the right wrong turns and there you are, stuck in the city for the rest of your life.
He wondered if that ever happened to the natives.
But people in Karakura had said time and time again, "you have to go there! If you haven't been to the big city, you haven't lived!" And the first time, he'd just brushed it off. The second time, the same thing. The fifth, sixth and seventh times? He started to get tired of hearing it.
That was the problem of a small town, he figured, at least insofar as Karakura tended to think of itself as a small town. Some people thought that moving somewhere bigger, somewhere brighter, would fix all their problems. Did it? Shinpei wouldn't have been able to tell you. I would, and let me say--it doesn't happen all that often, but it does happen. Sometimes people just need a change of pace.
Shinpei wasn't so good with changes of pace. He had always been more comfortable and more expert at a sort of one-track line: he had a singular kind of mind. He didn't like to split his attention. He could only really focus on one thing at a time.
But of course, what he did he did well. There just wasn't much of it to go around.
Now, here in Tokyo, he walked somewhat aimlessly around a well-maintained park. It was a perfectly fine location full of perfectly fine trees and perfectly fine flowers. The grass was wholly, completely unobjectionable and even the lamps lighting the walkway for the evening were nothing to fuss over. All in all it was solidly, roundly average.
He kind of hated it.
This was nothing like the central park he loved in Karakura, and it was one hell of a far cry from his sister's garden. It was soulless. It wasn't all that pretty. It was just stuck there like it had been imported from some locale that had its shit together.
Shinpei tugged his flowery, soft Yukata a little tighter around himself. Usually it hung loosely around him, showing off peeks of skin here and there, but the evening was cold. Colder, the more he walked. He hadn't noticed, but somewhere along the way the night had turned positively frigid. Oddly, he couldn't see his own breath and there was no wind, but he could have sworn the temperature was doing its damnedest to drop below zero.
In front of him, in a clearing, stood a small girl with white hair.
He couldn't see her well through the trees, but he found a path through the underbrush and emerged onto the same patch of grass she'd claimed. And god, it was freezing.
"Hey," he called. "Are you alright?"
If he had been a little more skilled at sensing Reiatsu, he might have noticed that all the cold he felt was emanating straight from this small girl.
But he wasn't. And so by the same token, his own pressure bled out like a giant neon sign shouting "Shinigami!"
He had no intention of becoming prey, now or tomorrow, but he sure didn't do a good job of acting like it.