Out of It (Takeuchi)

[Ian Garner]

The cafe was completely illuminated by the brilliant light of the late morning sun. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day. Inside the bustling cafe attended to anxious hordes of students and workers for whom arriving on time was apparently at least as important as breathing. Even as the crowd gradually thinned, to the harried employees everyone seemed to be in a rush. Except for one boy; a foreigner who quietly asked for just a coffee before sitting down with a book in a comfortable booth away from all the noise. Every once in a while someone looked at him; he was a good-looking kid, if somewhat soft-spoken. He didn't look like the soft-spoken type. Maybe he just had a bad night and his head was dealing with the consequences.

Ian massaged his head with one hand and held his book in the other. He still felt strange. Not sick but just unwell; like something was out of place and he couldn't put his finger on what. He was still kind of tired, maybe he felt that way because he was still waking up? Nah, that couldn't be it; he'd never felt this way because he was just groggy. God, he hoped he wasn't getting sick. That's the last thing he needed. He sipped his coffee and continued to read. He had a wide range when it came to reading; he loved Steinbeck and Hemingway and science fiction by Heinlein and Philip K. thingy Borges, history books, and philosophy, among other things; he was currently reading a work by a Slovenian philosopher, on political theory and capitalism. It was heavy reading which took a lot of thought and probably not the sort of thing he should have picked for a morning when he was feeling out of it and really wasn't up to reading stuff about Hegel and Marx.

His head grew heavy as fatigue renewed hit him; something had really taken it out of him. He'd gotten enough sleep last night, that was certain, but now he was just feeling weak. Almost like he'd felt when he used to stay up for days at a time doing last-minute studying for exams. His eyes grew heavy and the book drifted further from his mind even as he read it. Words drifted up to him with no significance, passed through his mind acknowledged but with no meaning attached. Ian took another swallow of coffee, his drink almost finished off - before returning to his book and promptly falling asleep, face in his book, head on the table.

[Takeuchi Chiasa]

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There's nothing you could say, Nothing you could do, There's no other way when it comes to the truth

So keep holding on

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Okay, so she had woken up late. It wasn't her fault that she was up until the ungodly hours of the morning playing Skyrim. No, that definitely wasn't her fault. It was the dragons she was fighting, it was their fault. It was definitely their fault she was going to be late for a test. A test that could decide if she would pass the course or not. Despite her university course being entirely online, she still had to go to the actual building on test day. Once the test was over, she had a mock interview, so she had to dress nicely. Once the mock interview was over, she was free to leave.

It took her all of fifteen minutes to take a shower, dress in her nicest clothes, brush hair, teeth, and grab something to eat. She was already running late by twenty minutes. Chiasa was not about to fail this class to a twenty minute disadvantage. However, high heels were not the kind of shoes made for running. Luckily, the young adult had grabbed her tennis shoes before heading out the door along with her heels. She would switch shoes once she got to the building.

No, no. She wasn't going to make it in time. If only she could use a Shout in real life, she'd get there much quicker. It was almost time for the exam, and she was still so far from the building. She could see it in the distance, it was only a few more blocks away. She did however, make it just barely in time.

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That had seriously been the longest two hours of her life. An hour for the test and then an hour waiting for her mock interview. She was just about exhausted by this point. Chiasa just wanted to go back home and curl up to sleep. But first, she would stop and grab something to eat and drink, her stomach was running close to empty after that rushed breakfast this morning. She was lucky, there was a cute little cafe nearby that seemed not all that busy at this time of day. It was right after the morning rush, everything seemed to be calming down inside.

Stepping inside, it was well lit by the sun peaking through the window. She slipped off the heels she was still wearing and hopped into her tennis shoes. Excessive wearing of heels made her ankles hurt terribly, so she switched them out with flatter heeled shoes. Stepping up to the counter, Chiasa ordered a small cup of masala chai and a muffin. Despite being not all that busy, most of the booths were taken up by many different people. There was one booth though, with just a blonde guy who looked to have fallen asleep on top of a book.

Attempting not to spill her tea, she stepped over to the man and set her drink and muffin on the table. She gently shook him.

"Hey, you. Wake up. Your face is crushing your book. You're going to end up with words imprinted on your forehead you know."

Sighing, she shook him a bit harder, setting a hand on each shoulder to wake him up.

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taged: Ian ~ word count 534 ~ notes: Hm. I wonder what will happen...

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[Ian Garner]

Most people have extraordinary dreams where their brain imagines vast realms of fantasy; incredible adventures that see their greatest wishes granted. Ian dreamed about mundane things; while his body was dormant his brain needed little more to entertain itself than visions of him relaxing or going about a typical day. He didn't think of himself as a simple person, but as far as dreams went he certainly was.

As he settled into a reclining chair on a balcony, content with the knowledge that he had nothing to do for the next few days, the voice of God beckoned him from the high heavens: "Hey you, wake up." He did not expect God to have a young woman's voice, but then he never expected God to summon him personally to tell him that he was crushing a book with his head. Then he woke up.

He mumbled confusedly in English as he woke up, "Wha? What're you..." before continuing in Japanese, "No, that only happens with stuff that's just printed; I'd know, I fell asleep on my Russian term paper last year and I had all sorts of stuff on my forehead."

He rubbed at his eyes before looking at the person who stirred him from his slumber. A pretty girl around his age, maybe a little younger. Ian smiled slightly, "Oh, guess I passed out," he shrugged. "Must've had a bad night. You ever have a morning where you wake up and something's wrong but you just don't know what?" He asked before continuing.

"Thanks for waking me up, at any rate. I'm Ian, by the way."