thecapitol | (no subject)

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Who| Adachi and you~
What| Adachi's introduced to Panem and the Hunger Games. He is not amused.
Where| District 1 Apartment level, exploring the floor(s).
When| Day of his arrival
Warnings/Notes| N/A as of yet

You are honored to be brought to Panem to compete in the Hunger Games.

Like hell he was.

Adachi kept up the innocent act at the brief explanation as to why he was suddenly in this place. It was how he protected himself, after all; playing the role of the clown and let people just assume he was nothing special. It helped him get dismissed by those "Gamemaker" creeps rather quickly, so he could get on with figuring out how he got to this messed up world, and better yet, how to get out.

So far, though, he wasn't having any luck, not that he had much of a chance to explore yet. He was shown to his quarters -- which was really ridiculously lavish and maybe the little starry-eyed act he gave when it was revealed to him would have been genuine if he wasn't going to be shoved into some death battle. Seriously, he had never even seen this much expensive stuff in his life, not to mention be able to afford it on his salary. He flopped down on the bed as his guide explained to him his new communicator and credit card, before finally leaving. It was about damn time, because Adachi had just been waiting for the opportunity to wipe off the clown make up and glare at the door.

He fiddled with the communicator first, briefly trying to figure out if it was supposed to be some kind of new fangled cellphone thing, before giving up and shoving it into a pocket. The credit card got a particular look of distaste before he shoved it into a pocket as well; yay, he has money to spend as compensation for being sent to his death. Fabulous.

After that? He was so out of that room, and the happy-go-lucky look was painted back on his face as he headed down the hall, trying to see who else was on this floor, if anyone.

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And Adachi ran right into a turtle.

"Excuse me."

Howard lives on District 1's floor, not like anyone would know it from observation. He's been doing his best to avoid it, and is only returning now because he's returning some stolen items from a garbage can to his hoard of treasures under the bed (right now it's some batteries and a broken radio that he plans on fixing). He has them tucked down the front of his oversized jacket and is acting, for all intents and purposes, shady. He sneaks and peeks around corners, closes doors behind him extremely silently, and is about to make it to his bedroom when he notices that that means crossing the hall where Adachi is walking.

He pauses for a moment in the doorway, then slips back into the room he came from, hoping that he hasn't been noticed.

It was astounding how far wide-eyed bewilderment could take you when you wanted to move unhindered. Neffa was half a morning into his own exploration of the Training Centre, a long, slow circuit in which he intended to make a mental note of every unfamiliar thing he saw, to take back to the bedroom they'd given him and sort out on his own.

The problem, thus far, was that everything was unfamiliar. The building was impossibly large, to begin with, and the walls too far apart, and the ceilings too high. The purposes of some things Neffa could glean through intuition (the switches that turned the lights on, for instance), but others were lost on him - above all, the lights themselves. There were strange lamps standing in certain corridors, throwing the light artfully from twisted, brightly-colored stands, and he'd passed three of them before he finally gave up and decided that a closer examination couldn't wait.

Neffa glanced both ways, confirmed that no one was around (the tiny red eye of a security camera, far above, meant nothing to him), and leaned forward to squint into the lamp, bending close as though it were some large, glowing flower. It wasn't running on fire, that was clear - it burned too steadily, and the wrong color. It was silent, too, and he thought he'd at least be able to hear the quiet murmuring of the spirit inside it, to ask it who was paying it to be there, but whatever was powering it had nothing to say.

It made him uneasy, and he leaned still closer. He shut his eyes against the glow and listened harder - and didn't even notice Adachi's approaching footsteps over the sound of his own concentration.

Oh... hunh... a talking... walking on two legs... massive turtle...

...nope. Still didn't beat the massive creepy death eyeball.

"Hunh? Yeah?"

Howard was completely out of luck, because although Adachi had the look of someone that was completely out of his element (which was so painfully true; hell just one of the curtain panels probably cost his entire month's salary) and didn't know what the heck he was doing (which wasn't true), it was hard for him to miss someone sneaking around like that. Even still, he just barely caught him out of the corner of his eye, and had to debate with himself a moment if he had really seen someone or not... and then there was the whole issue of how to deal with it.

Never know who's watching...

Adachi settled on continuing as he had been, pausing outside the room the person had disappeared back into.

"Hunh..." he said loudly, "wonder if I have this whole floor to myself."

...what was that guy doing to that lamp?

Adachi had to pause and stare for a moment, because it wasn't exactly every day you just walked up on a guy that was staring at a lamp for the hell of it. He opened his mouth a few times to try and say something, but he couldn't quite get out just how baffling this was for him. Seriously, man, you're going to burn out your eyeballs; didn't you ever have an annoying grandmother preach that at you?

"Hey, uh... that's really not a good idea, 'ya know," he finally managed to get out.

Well. He's clearly been caught. Howard stays very still in the kitchen, the room he's retreated to, for about ten seconds before saying "no, I live here too". It's far too late for him to sound as if he wasn't trying to hide that fact, but maybe he can pretend he was just distracted.

He pokes his head out into the hall, noting Adachi and then glancing each way as if he's about to cross a busy street. "Is anyone else up here besides you, new guy?" He slinks a bit towards the door to his bedroom, not afraid of Adachi but of other suitemates showing up.

Adachi let out a curious noise at his behavior, though on the inside he felt his stomach bottom out. This was... a kid, wasn't it? Had to be around Saki's age, maybe... man, this place was messed up.

"Er... I saw a turtle before, but I think he wandered off," he replied. Things he thought he would never have to say...

Howard sizes up the guy. Older than him, but that's nothing new. Bigger, too, although as Howard just may be the smallest person in the Arena that also isn't saying much (the ten year-old might have him beaten in both weight and height, how sad is that).

Adachi doesn't seem to be a threat at the moment. No weapons that Howard can see, and Howard bets he can outrun him, if he has to. And Adachi looks a little taken aback at Howard, which seems to be the running theme between 'people who don't like the idea of killing a scrawny fifteen year-old'. Howard could use more of those people in the arena.

"Oh. Yeah. That guy. He broke my nose once." Howard taps the tip of his nose to illustrate, then drops his hand back down to keep the radio from sliding out from under his jacket. "You seen the television yet? I mean, what's on the television?"

"Sorry." A sheepish smile. "I almost ran right into you."

Massive...creepy...eyeball?

Adachi slouched over a little more, not that he really needed to. The age thing did bother him, and he was really having a hard time picturing these people forcing kids to fight and die for their entertainment until he mentioned his nose getting broken. His eyes followed his hand down to his jacket, not sure if that was a weapon under there or what. After all, he wasn't sure if Tributes would wait until the Game actually started...

"Er... that's not very nice," he muttered, before shaking his head at his question. "Nah, I just got here. 'Sides, me and TVs have an awkward relationship."

Damn. Neffa jerked back from the lamp, searched for the source of the voice over his shoulder, understood that staring into the bulb that long had been a terrible idea - Adachi was just a vague shape around the burning bright spot at the center of his vision.

"I--" He blinked, tried a winning Er, just a moment smile, and realized that he had just closed off every possible approach to this conversation that wasn't Helpless Fool From A Backwater World Seeks Friendship. Wonderful. "I couldn't tell how it worked. They're on every floor, I thought it must be simple, but..." He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and let a sheepish grin finish the thought for him.

"Oh...!"

Adachi let out a sheepish noise, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well, my bad too. I wasn't really watching where I was going."

"Eh? You've never seen a light before?"

Wow, they brought all kinds into this place. Still, Adachi kinda felt bad for the guy, considering the fact that if he didn't know what a light was, how the heck was he going to react to everything else?

"Er... I guess it's hard to explain. I guess electricity isn't something you'd be familiar with either..."

"Oh? Did one try to steal your soul or something?" He reaches over and feels the knob to his door behind his back. "Or did a creepy ghost girl crawl out of one and try to murder you? Because I hear that can happen if you watch the wrong home movies."

Howard's voice is the kind of inane chatter one would expect while trying to talk themselves out of a bind; too fast, and relatively pointless.

Adachi visibly flinched; Howard, you are hitting way too many sensitive subjects all in the space of a breath.

"Ah... l-let's not talk about... that..." he replied quickly as soon as the chattering paused. "What's so important on the TV anyway?"

"What? Why? Are you from that religion that's afraid of cameras or something?" Because if so, Adachi's going to hate Panem. "And the television just shows you exactly what you're getting into."

"...it's complicated."

Because really, he wasn't about to explain Shadows and Personae, and little dead girls and the goddess that spawned them and everything else that happened since that first time falling into the TV. Besides, he already had a feeling that the less people -- especially the jerks watching them -- that knew about his abilities, the better.

"What I'm gettin' into, hunh..." he muttered, folding his hands behind his head. "So... what? T-they're just kidding when they said we're fighting to the death, right...?"

Oh, he already knows the answer to that one, and he still doesn't like it.

The word meant nothing to Neffa. It was intensely frustrating - back home, if something moved or hummed or glowed with no discernible source of power, it meant that there was a spirit in it, and considering that near everything here seemed propelled by some invisible force, the place should have been crawling with spirits. But four hours shut into his room muttering every summoning he knew had availed him nothing. The feeling of-- of blindness was maddening.

But he let an apologetic sort of defensiveness stand in for frustration in his expression - Well, would you really expect me to know? "They have these where you come from, too, then?" Adachi was coming into focus now, finally. "...Is this your world?"

He didn't sport the manic explosion of color Neffa was learning to associate with the people of this city, but one never knew.

Adachi held up his hands at that, shaking his head emphatically. "No! No way, not me," he responded quickly. "A more modern world than yours, sure, but I think this place might be more advanced than my world too."

"Its ok." At this, Don blinked. "You're...new here, aren't you?"

"Who, me? Ah…!"

He looked like he was going to try and come up with an excuse, but he quickly deflated.

"Kinda obvious, hunh?"

Howard shakes his head, then stops. He turns the doorknob under his hand. "Well, it's for a given value of death, I guess. Since you get brought back."

But Howard doesn't know if that makes it easier, and that's written into the way he says those words, dull and dead as if they're coming from far away. It's written into the look in his eyes as if he's seeing something past Adachi, the way he keeps glancing around like the air itself is going to attack him if he doesn't keep an eye on it.

Man, the kid was all jitters... After a moment, he let out a sigh.

"Hunh... guess I was being obvious, hunh?" he asked, scrunching up his face. Weird, normally it's hard for people to finger him as a detective. "Hey, kid, whatever you're carrying, relax, all right? It's not like there's a department I can drag you to, or anything."

Even if there was, like hell he would rat out on a kid in a place like this. If anyone needed to be arrested, it was those Gamemakers.

"Just wanna know what this place is all about, 'ya know?" he continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "Like, what do you mean they bring you back? I mean... when you're dead, you're dead."

"You're police?" Howard hadn't put that all together, but that doesn't seem to calm him down even a little. If anything, it seems to make him even edgier. But he unzips his jacket and reveals his prize, the busted radio with smears of garbage still on it and the handful of batteries. "It's just stuff from the garbage, you can't get me in trouble for that anyway. You can't."

He places them on the carpeted floor in front of him, then stands back up.

"You don't die for good. They make you do it over and over and even when you're not even over the last time, they're getting ready to throw you back in."

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How has no one tagged you yet

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They were all waiting for me to get off of work? lmao XD

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XD

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