Snippet #2133852

[so my post is gonna start a bit far back because im so far behind and i need to write reasons for why he was absent :/ ill try to be brief]

Riku had spent a good few hours doing nothing. Pointless, absolute, nothing. That is, until he remembered that he still had things to settle with Kaoru and Aimi from the day before. Might as well get it over with, now that it was nearly noon. He made sure to stop in an electronics store, recalling that he in fact did need a phone. It would probably come in handy later on. But as soon as he set foot inside, he felt overwhelmed by all of the technology he'd never seen before. Everything he'd ever dealt with in his old life had been so.... simple. He just got the cheap stuff and it did the basics and the bare minimum. Now the bare minimum seemed so complicated, and he almost wasn't sure he'd be able to handle it or even figure it out. It wasn't long before an associate noticed that he looked like he was lost.

"Hey, is there anything i can help you with?" The woman asked, giving him a friendly smile. She was taller than Riku by what looked like half a foot, and it was making him uncomfortable, but he couldn't help but consider that she could always go into modeling.

"I.... Well, i need a phone," he said, readjusting the strap of his weapon and gazing around the store some more before finally making eye contact with her. "Mine broke when i dropped it.... off of my balcony.... from the top floor.............. into a puddle..." He kept adding things to his story. But hey, he had no idea how sturdy they were making phones these days, so he figured having the worst case scenario might ensure that yes, his phone was indeed broken.

She giggled lightly at his continuing to add more and more to the explanation. "Alright, i see. Quite a mishap you had didn't you? Anything you wanted specifically?"

He shrugged, chewing his lip. "Just something simple and easy to use? Probably something on the cheaper side if you have anything like that..."

"Alright, no problem," The girl said with a friendly smile, leading him over to the check out counter. "How about an older model iphone? Its two models ago. Its on a good sale, because we aren't getting any more like, ever. And its missing a few of the newer applications, so i guess that qualifies it as simple."

"I guess," he gave a short pause, crossing his arms over his chest. It was far from a cheepo pay-as-you-go phone. "Yeah, i think that should be okay. I'm just not very technologically versed....."

"Don't worry, its simple to figure out," She giggled. "just let me get that for you." The girl quickly jogged to the back and fetched the phone, and when she returned, helped him with turning it on and activating it. He had just barely enough money to pay her, and quickly realized that he'd need to pick pocket a few more people to bring his funds back up to where they had been. He thanked her quickly and headed out in the direction of the little salon and boutique he'd been in the day before. He tried to make good time, but now he was distracted. He started fiddling with apps like there was no tomorrow, trying to figure this and that out, and more often than not, clicking the wrong thing and going to a weird place that he didn't completely understand. At least he somewhat understood it. After all, he'd had a friend who'd had an iphone back in his old life, and remembered using it to prank call every single person on their contact list. It was funny.

It was only a few minutes before he found Aimi and Kaoru again, and stepped into the boutique where the two mid-twenty-year-olds were having a take out lunch in Aimi's back room. They gave greetings and asked him how he was doing on his second day, asked him why he wasn't in school, and blah blah blah. It wasn't much longer before Kaoru was snatching the fedora off his head and chastising him about two things; one, the pony tail and hiding his hair, two, not taking care of his hair properly. It wasn't long before Kaoru was making him over and conditioning down that frizz. He gave a little red eye-liner and mascara and had him swap outfits into a black, shoulder-studded tee-shirt, short red overalls, black and grey thick-striped, knitted socks that came up to his mid thighs, and a pair of, surprisingly, flat, lolita-looking mary-janes, despite him very clearly being male. He looked adorable, in an edgy doll-like sort of way. Cool cutesy. Edgy cute. He almost couldn't handle it, but he figured that it was necessary. He'd deal with it, and as much as he hated to admit, he sort of liked the outfit at large. He just wished he was lanky and awkward and dark again. Freckled and course-haired. This just sucked. The photoshoot seemed to go easily, quick few shots for Kaoru, a few more full body and posy shots for Aimi, looking cute around the store but in a professional commercial photography sort of way. He figured he was done, but Aimi and Kaoru had a little more up there sleeve planned, apparently.

"Okay, just a couple more photos, Riku, i promise." Aimi said, waving off their photographer friend and taking Riku aside for a second. "Well, there's just one little..... thing..."

Riku raised a brow. "What kind of thing? I'm worried now..."

"it's only for a few moments," She assured before stating what she meant. "I promise!"

"Are you going to tell me what this is?" He asked again, stressing the statement to be sure he would get answered.

"Well, my store mostly caters to girls, and well....." His brows furrowed and he crossed his arms. No. Absolutely. F*cking. No.

"Only a few pictures and if anyone asks i tell them that i photographed twins!" She pleaded, hands together and trying to look as cute as possible. Which the answer was: very.

No.

No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Aimi had a cosplay section upstairs, apparently. In the end, she managed to stuff him into a white lolita dress with black and red accents, matching headpeice, laced knee-socks, and white mary-janes with a black cat face on the toe and a black cat tail on the heel. Not to mention full-on make-up and a long blonde wig full of curls and waves and red undertones, thick bangs. He couldn't believe that she'd managed to talk him into it, but could only be thankful for the fact that no one else from the group was able to see him like this. He looked way too much like a girl with a flat chest. And a cute girl at that. The rest of the pictures were taken and he quickly changed back to the outfit Kaoru had previously selected for him, removing most of the makeup aside from that on his eyes, but keeping the kitty-cat mary-janes instead of the plain black ones. He stuck around while the photographer edited and photo-shopped, splicing some of them so that both Riku and FemRiku were in the same scene, just to make the "twins" story a little more believable. The photographer printed all of the images out regular size and gave them in a folder to Riku, claiming that the boy could make a good model if he wanted, and that he could use the pictures for a portfolio in case he wanted to get started. Riku wasn't interested, of course, but so far he'd done a ton of things he didn't want to do.... He left just as the first few posters were being taped up in the windows, feeling embarrassed that people were going to see them.

God did that suck. He could only hope that no one would make the connection between the photos and him. He could only pray and hope.

Riku walked around blindly for a few more hours, stopping only once to buy that hair straightener he wanted, and getting a lot of looks about his cutey-boo-trying-to-be-edgy look. A couple people said aww, and he simply felt more and more embarrassed. People looking at him like that. He wanted to avoid them. Perhaps he'd spend the rest of the day under the bed or something, but he wouldn't get to do that.

The rest of the day leading up to reconnecting was spent in another fight, this time not bloody, but enough to get a heavy bruise across his cheek that felt so painful he sort of had to put that weird healy juice on it. He still ended the fight in a complete knockout, of course, and the other boy had no chance of winning in the first place. Even the hit that Riku had let through was because Riku had wanted it that way. He didn't even bother with stopping to see if the bruise faded or anything, and honestly, he wasn't even sure if it was supposed to. Whatever. He simply picked up his bags and his weapon and continued to keep himself busy.

He pick-pocketed a few people on his way of wandering, emptying the wallets and pocketing the cash, then tossing the wallet to the ground. He didn't care about the rest of the wallet, all he wanted was the cash. He brushed past one more man, tall and staring at him, and muttered his small apology. He was plucking through the contents when he heard a familiar voice and and blonde head trudging over to him, seeming agitated and dragging that guy from earlier behind him.

"Riku! Where have you been all this fu- freaking time?!" Miki demanded. She dropped Shiro in his arms and the cat quickly scurried up to lay across his shoulders, tail swishing.

"Well, you were pissed at me i didn't want to bother you," He muttered, moving a hand to ruffle his own pale blonde hair. But his comment was getting stepped on almost immediately.

"Here's your cat. I'll explain later, but what we need to know is what you-" She turned toward Yuuka this time. "-know about us."

Riku raised his brows at the comment at the gunslinger school boy. Damn, who knew things had progressed thus far. Miki made some sort of comment about Kumo being weird and tickling her, and continued to restate her question with an apology attached. Riku simply eyed the both of them with raised brows.

"Uhh, i'm guessing i missed something pretty big here... Is there something going on?" He pulled the money from the wallet and stuffed it in his pocket, proceeding to toss the wallet over his shoulder as if pick-pocketing was such a normal occurrence that it was legal or something. He fidgeted after, now that his hands were empty, and adjusted the bags hanging in the crook of his elbow, making sure nothing had fallen out from earlier like the clothes he'd been wearing before the thing with Kaoru and Aimi, the folder they'd given him with all the finished pictures (that he sort of wanted to burn, due to the shots of him in full-on lolita), and his new hair straightener. Everything was fine. He just wanted to figure out what the f*ck was going on. And with that guy none-the-less.