OPEN💗 LATE VALENTINE'S DAY PARTY

[peoplewatch]

WHO: Newbies, oldbies, everyone is welcome!
WHAT: A Late Valentine’s Party mingle, since Valentines’ Day was over Kaiju month…
WHERE: “MANTRA”, an underground, alternative club in Neo Toyko
WHEN: March 10th
WARNINGS: Romance and shippy things, alcohol, hookah, suggestive things. Anything NSFW is to be appropriately labelled.

Around the 10th of March, Outsiders will receive a message in their ocular inbox from Kabru, the Outsider also known as @ rasgulla. The message reads:

“To my dearest friends and teammates,

If we haven’t met before, call me Kabru. When not on missions as an Outsider, I work as a freelance event planner for various businesses and private organizations within Neo Tokyo.

Valentines’ Day is a popular holiday in Japan that was sadly interrupted last month by the kaiju. My current client is holding a belated Valentines’ Day event and they would really like the Outsiders to come. There will be plenty of food and things to do. Even if you're not looking for a romantic time, I'd encourage you to come!

Please wear something comfortable. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Yours sincerely,

Kabru.”



A location pin comes attached with the invitation. It looks like Kabru’s become more adept at technology over the months.

Follow the location pin and you’ll find yourself in front of ‘Mantra’ in metro Tokyo, an underground, alternative club making waves for its uniqueness in the club scene. Outsiders will all be allowed in without much fuss. The owner of the club is a gentle woman who kindly requests that all guests take their shoes off and leave them at the side. There is a lingering scent of incense and the people hanging out in the club look remarkably calm as they relax; cuddling and enjoying each other’s company. What kind of Valentine’s day party is this? A New Age, alternative kind, apparently. The owner of the club wants to be promoting togetherness in a completely different way.

Thankfully, finger foods and alcohol appear to be abundant, even if Kabru would really like you to be mingling with the people! There is a bar with free flowing wines and spirits, and a table with hors d'oeuvres and small desserts as accompaniment. These can include sushi rolls, small sandwiches, crab cake bites, small skewers, chocolates, little cakes and tarts. Food aside, there is live music playing and guests are highly encouraged to dance.

Naturally, couples are also coupling up, but anything too raunchy is of course cordoned off to a private room. Also, ignore the people smoking electronic hookah at the side…

What can you do besides eat and drink?

1. DANCING 💗

The DJ mostly plays trance and synth pop music in the background but he’s happy to take requests. On the dancefloor,there’s always a group of tipsy guests dancing their hearts out, some dancing alone and others dancing as a couple. There’s no right or wrong way to dance and most people will not cast judgement. Give it a try? Better hurry, before some of the overeager guests try to drag you in.

2. CUDDLE PILE 💗
Numerous cushions are set out around the venue for guests to lounge in and cuddle. It’s highly encouraged, in fact! Especially after a vigorous dance session. There are people lying together in larger groups, and couples choosing to spend their time lounging and enjoying each other’s company. Finding it difficult to relax? The owner might give you a whiff of her special perfume that’s guaranteed to put you in a state of complete calm. It might even make you more open about lying together with someone else.

3. SPEED DATING 💗

There’s a speed dating round going on in one side of the club. Guests are numbered and paired up randomly, then given a short amount of time to get to know each other on a speedy little date. Don’t know what to say? A list of questions will flow in through the oculars to give you a prompt. (Please refer to here and here for some examples or make up your own!)

4. MAKE SWEET TREATS 💗

In the spirit of Valentines’ Day, the owner of the club is hosting a quick desserts-making workshop at the event. Guests will be provided with ingredients and taught to make chocolate or cupcakes, and they will get the chance to decorate it however they like. It’s highly encouraged to make something to give to your sweetheart or the person you admire. Do you really want to be the person eating their own chocolate on Valentines’ Day?

5. PARTY GAMES 💗

What’s a party without party games? Throughout the night, people will be getting drunk and playing local drinking games such as the King’s Game. Eventually, other games from the West get introduced by other people. These games include Truth or Dare, Spin the Bottle and 7 Minutes in Heaven.

6. TAKE SOMEONE HOME 💗

If it looks like you're having a pretty good time with someone else, a helpful robot will approach you and provide you both with a key to a private room. Some of these private rooms are normal and some are themed, similar to a love hotel. There's no need to actually do anything raunchy of course. You could just cuddle up and enjoy the warmth of the digital fireplace! Everything one might need for a nice time together (condoms, lubricant etc) will be readily available.

As the event planner, Kabru will be buzzing around and making sure everything runs smoothly, but he can be stopped for questions or concerns (pls be nice to him he has anxiety). Characters can sit out of anything they want, but drunk and overeager guests might decide to drag them in.

[ OOC: I put this up so everyone can enjoy a chill mingle after the chaos of last month! And also because we didn’t get the opportunity to have do much for Valentines’ Day given the timing. Naturally, please label any NSFW, add your content warnings appropriately, and state your boundaries and preferences in terms of shipping/gen/being tagged by younger/older characters. ]

Comments

[zauneyete]

[ You marinate in it like an old steak, he says.

His eyes don't leave his. Staring at him, watching the enjoyment flicker across his face. Swipe for swipe, he says he's no monster, but they keep circling one another, like beasts — like monsters. He'd told him recently he was a man, but this tells Silco otherwise, they are still monsters, finding those weak points, digging in.

A burr under his skin, just like he is to him.

He doesn't take the flask, but his fingers itch to. Displacement. He folds them, an ankle over his knee. He looks casual. Comfortable.

They both know he isn't. ]

Do we not bring it with us? The past? [ He lashes out, and Silco does in return. ] Mine is plain as day, for all to see.

Where does yours linger, I wonder?

[ His eyes dart lower, away from his face, the rest of him. He hasn't yet memorized the map, but he knows the shape, the path it takes. His lips twitch, back to his eyes. ]

[immortalpoet]

[He doesn't see the fingers itch. But now, he reaches forward, pulls the flask towards himself.]

[But doesn't drink. He simply wants to keep it out of his reach. Pure spite, what a great motivator.]

Yours is much deeper than a scar.

[He sees that wandering eye. He knows he knows what's underneath, what places he's already traced in dark rooms over and over again. He clicks his tongue, tries not to think about it. Silco's lips twitch. He wonders if it's impossible not to think about it.]

But I think you know that.

[zauneyete]

Hm.

[ He doesn't fight him on it. He carries it with him, that day, the days before it, Silco was a man forced into a mold by it, and it dogs his every step. Here, it is easier, without the reminders of everything that was built with two sets of hands, instead of one, even as he watches the ouroburos consume itself before his eyes as he stokes its hunger. ]

And yours are only skin deep?

[ He asks, trying again. He's taken the drink, but doesn't drink it. The pettiness gets a little twitch of annoyance, from around his nose, but no more than that. Just a little sign. Petty. ]

Or is that something you are looking to excise?

[ From himself, from him, it hardly matters. He tipped his head, an implied little tease, trying to play that anger back off, but the self-satisfaction didn't return yet. ]

Oh, go ahead, I already drank from it. You know it isn't poisoned.

[immortalpoet]

I'm not interesting in drinking.

[His index finger makes a little circle over the side of the flask, absentmindedly.]

You ask more than one question. Don't be greedy, Silco.

[And yet he is. To his core he always is. The yawning hole. He could put his hand in it and never have it come out.]

[zauneyete]

Oh, you aren't?

[ His eyes watch his finger move. Maybe he just needs something to do with his hands, but Silco imagines if this wasn't happening here, it would be his wrist there, instead. His eyes center back on his, a twitch of lips and brow, before it returns back to where it came from, that thin-lipped neutrality. ]

Don't like it when people [ me ] are greedy, hm? I had to try...

[ He was always greedy, he knew it too, they both knew it. He couldn't help himself. ]

The first. Are yours only as deep as your scars, then?

[immortalpoet]

[It would be his wrist. His shoulder. His chest. His leg. Like that night in the camper, holding their breaths.]

I don't like it, no. [His eyebrows furrow at the questuon. Scars, scars, scars. Skin thin and yet not. He taps the flask again.] Depends on which scars we are talking about.

[zauneyete]

Hm.

[ And yet, he lets him do this, try for it anyway. Sometimes, he thinks, he lets him be greedy. Maybe he'll convince him to allow him his greed later.

It never seems like it's enough. ]

The ones that bring your past with you.

[ He has so many, he knows. They both do. He wonders how many of them have weight, how many have meaning, or if they've all lost it, by now. Did they ever? ]

[immortalpoet]

...Sure. They're as deep as those.

[The physical ones? The ones that can't be seen with eyes? That can't be gazed at? Who knows. Maybe he, himself, doesn't know.]

[Silco marinates in his past by choice. For Vergilius, its more of the cross he bears. The thorny crown that digs into his scalp and lets it bleed.]

Does that satisfy you?

[zauneyete]

Hm.

[ It doesn't, how can it? It never does. He wants to reach out and take those scars and peel them open, look inside. Which ones are significant, and which ones are surgical? He knows he has plenty of both.

He's silent for a long moment, staring. Calculating. He could push, but they are in public. He wants to push, but there's no rush to the finish line for this... arrangement that they have. If he pushed, he would snap back, he thinks.

They've both exposed wounds today. Their pasts hang like specters over them. ]

You should know me by now, Vergilius. [ He keeps his tone light. ] Am I ever satisfied?

[immortalpoet]

...

[No, he isn't. Silco, black-hearted, and black-holed. Always wanting. Never filled. No matter how many times he asks for it, he'll always want more.]

[He scoffs at that, grimacing. Really, how did he get entangled with such an example of humanity as this?]

I suppose that was an idiotic question. But it'll have to do.

[zauneyete]

[ He silently smiled at him, didn't open his mouth, just accepted the acquiescence for what it was.

It might be a wasted question, but Silco wasn't about to take it easy on him, now that he's wasted it. ]

Oh, I don't know about that. Perhaps you could have found out something new about me, like when I am satisfied.

[ Unlikely. But it makes him think... ]

You talk about satisfaction. Do you seek it out? Accept it, even if you held it in hand?

[ He thinks he knows the answer. He asks anyway. ]

[immortalpoet]

You just said that was practically impossible. Unless...

[He taps the side of the flask a little, thinking - before a smirk crosses his usually dour face.]

You mean when you and I have our...meetings, do you? When I get to see you at your well-behaved?

[But his expression settles with the question. He thinks about it. It pains him in a way he can't describe.]

Neither. I mostly do my job. And that's that. I do not hunger like you.

[zauneyete]

[ A flicker of something there — indignation — his eyes slide away from his only momentarily, as if to confirm that there's nobody close by enough to be listening in. Always paranoid, Silco is, always carefully holding tight his secrets, everything he kept hidden away under careful lock and key. This most of all, maybe, now that his other secret has been let go thanks to the data sheets. His eyes slid back to him. ]

My well-behaved? [ He finally scoffed. Excuse you! ] I'm nothing of the sort.

[ His arms crossed, not quite a huff, but... well. A little roll of his eyes gives away the game, maybe. That this is just a part of it, their little dance back and forth. ]

You don't hunger, do you?

[ Again, implying something else, with the exact words he used. He'd remind him of one, if he's given the opportunity. Later. Not here, where they're both playing the steps to a game that's been going on for some time. Even though the tune changed a while ago. ]

[immortalpoet]

Of course not.

[Silco, the ever rebellious. He sees the way his eyes float over the room, like a man who's holding something precious he doesn't want anyone to see. He may not be as overt in his own secrecy, but...]

[He feels it, just the same. This game is more than just a game. If the game ends, what will people see? What will people do? No, it has to be between them, and them alone.]

Hm. [His finger slides up the side of the flask, thoughtfully. Intentionally.] I never said I don't hunger at all. Just not as much as you.

[zauneyete]

[ His eyes watch his finger move along the side of the flask. It draws him away from his eyes, keeps him focused on his hands instead. It's intentional, of course it is. He knows what he's doing in the same way Silco knows. His lips twitched, before they returned to his eyes, as if silently asking him: 'really?' ]

No? Some would say I hardly hunger at all.

[ They both knew the truth, of course. That this was different than other things, Silco had his hunger, for control, power, legitimacy; something that nobody else really could understand or get. Maybe Vergilius did, maybe he didn't — he was a black maw of it, sucking that hunger in, using it as a weapon and fuel to get what he wanted.

This, though. His eyes instinctively flitted back down to watch his fingers again. He protects this little game of theirs jealously, as he does with so many things. It's theirs, left in pretense and unspoken, the shape of the edges something to not look too closely at. He doesn't know what will happen if they do. ]

Perhaps we'll —

[ Hairs on the back of his neck rise. That unblinking eye swerves — reluctantly — away and towards... seemingly nothing. Just the corner.

His lips thin. He was caught up in their little game, that he'd perhaps been more lax than he should have been. He enjoys the steps too much. Maybe it's nothing, but it's like the chill seeps back in. ]

— talk later. I'll schedule us a meeting.

[ Business terms — they both know the context. It's neutral, that old paranoia putting that armor back up.

He's standing. He's forgotten his flask entirely. He'll collect it later. ]