Incommunicado (Misaka, Ryusuke, Open)

[chinatsu]

Ice-cream.

Despite her perfectly-calculated tan, Chinatsu was not used to being outside for long periods of time. Or more than a few meters away from a fan or cooler or assistant with a chilled water-bottle. Kyoto's summers could get pretty hot and muggy, but she had enjoyed them quite comfortably from the inside looking out.

Now she was on the outside, and the outside happened to be hot and sweaty. Chinatsu hated the feel of sweat, and she kept on taking out a cloth to dab at her forehead as she waited in line at the ice-cream stand. She had to resist tugging on the front of her dress to fan herself as a child would, as that would have been completely un-ladylike, though she dearly wished she could. She wished she could do anything to beat back this insufferable, oppressive heat. Thus the trip for ice-cream.

The people in front of her were always in twos or threes; groups of friends going up together. The few solitary people in line were mostly the ones sent up by their friends to buy a round for everyone, and they would walk away carefully gripping three or four different purchases to share. It seemed like no one was alone except Chinatsu.

Chinatsu had been matched up with a 'buddy' when she had arrived at camp, but the other girl had found her to be particularly boring and had ditched her the first chance she got. It was hard to keep a 12-year-old interested in a playmate who was shy and never spoke. Chinatsu didn't blame the girl, and she hoped their not sticking together wouldn't get the other girl in trouble on her account. Adults tended to scold others who didn't treat Chinatsu extra nice now that she was mute, thus driving the wedge between her and others her age even deeper.

Finally it was Chinatsu's turn. She moved up in front of the stall and took out her notepad.

"What do you want?" the vendor said in a tired tone. He was obviously suffering just as much from the heat as everyone else. The back of his neck looked red and sunburned.

Chinatsu made a sort of 'please wait' gesture by waving one hand, and then began hurriedly writing her order on the pad. But sweat was stinging her eyes, and she felt the stares of the people in the long line behind her. She heard whispering, then tittering. Were people talking about her? How long was it taking her to write this simple thing? A drop of sweat landed on the paper and she realized she had made a mistake in one of the kanji. Why was she writing it in kanji? She could have just written it out simply... hurriedly she scribbled it out and started anew, cold sweat beginning to run. Now the voices behind her were grumbling louder.

"Hey, if you're not gonna order get out of the way? What's with this kid?" the vendor growled, first to Chinatsu, then addressing the latter part to the person standing right behind Chinatsu, as if assuming they were Chinatsu's guardian.

It wasn't just sweat blurring Chinatsu's vision now. She bit her lip and tried to finish writing what she wanted. Her heart was hammering, and she was trying to hold back the tears of embarrassment and shame that were stinging at the corners of her eyes.

If only she had a voice. If only if only if only.

[misaka]

"Oh! Sorry about that!!!"

A voice came from among the crowd as she squeezed her way through the grouping of people and grinned before arriving beside the young girl. Misaka hadn't exactly been craving ice cream, but being somewhere cool was defiantly helping in beating the heat. Of course, as she sat in one of the booths, the young teen heard the commotion over at the front counter,blinking as she wasn't sure what was going on? As she stood up and looked over the crowd, all she could make out was a girl attempting to write out something.

It was an odd way to order, but she wasn't going to judge someone for being different. But as the vendor seemed to get rather upset, only increasing the mood of the customers waiting upon her, Misaka decided that she should probably help. It was just like her to jump into something without knowing full well the contents of the situation. After all, the girl could be writing someone very offensive, or even just playing a joke. Yet, there she was,standing right beside the 12 year old with a sheepish grin on her face.

"Sorry...I totally lost track of her with the crowd. That's my fault..."

Giggling lightly as she could hear the grumbles of the people around her, Misaka then looked towards Chinastu and smiled kindly. She could already see the tears that had started to form in her eyes. Some people were just either too cruel or in so much of a hurry that they didn't think about the feelings of other people. It was odd how she always seemed to, or at least she tried. Some things were just imprinted on the souls of others, causing them to act almost as if on pure instinct. Perhaps she was one of those people.

"So what did you want to order?"

[yagami]

While Ryusuke did generally enjoy warm and mildly hot weather, the kind of heat that had struck Odaiba that day was, rather bluntly put, oppressive. It didn't help that his prothetics were metal - while they were much more durable than most of the plastic and composite models that other amputees generally used, and by extension much more useful, one of the few downsides was a rather nasty side effect that annoyed him to no end on hot, sunny days like this. Metal absorbed heat - it was a basic physical attribute of a conductive substance. While that made it usually unnoticed since it usually matched his body temperature, hot days were hell for him since the arm and lower leg had a tendency to get unbearably hot during some of the summer days, and he'd long since learned to stay out of the sun after being scalded by the metal the first handful of times.

It was precisely for that reason that he was at the food court, having just finished his shift for his weekend job for the day. While they'd been understanding in giving him the morning and evening shifts on an alternating basis during the summer months, the fact still remained that there were still several miles between the mall/food court and his house, and he had no desire to cross the sun scorched streets until it started getting cooler out, which unfortunately meant he was stuck there until sunset unless he wanted to risk rather nasty burns to his shoulder and thigh. And thus there he sat at the mall's food court, dressed in his usual grey hoodie and black pants that hid all but his hands and with his hair tied back as he simply waited there in an attempt to kill some time before he could safely leave. As it was Ryusuke had been sitting there for nearly an hour before a commotion over by one of the food vendors caught his attention, the teenager, leaning to the side to get a better look at what was going on, an eyebrow raised in mild curiosity until he saw that a girl was at the front of the line and scribbling on what looked like a paper pad. It took a moment for him to realize that she was probably mute - if he hadn't seen it before with a handful of people at the rehabilitation center a few years back he probably wouldn't have recognized what she was doing.

Either way, though, the line behind her was getting impatient and the vendor didn't seem to realize that she was disabled, meaning that she was likely going to either get shoved aside by those behind her or ignored by the vendor as he called up the next person in line. Figuring that he really had nothing better to do while he was waiting to leave and somewhat sympathetic, Ryusuke got up from his seat and began moving over to the front of the line, ignoring the cries of protest as he moved to the front without a word, speaking only once he was close enough to be heard by the vendor. Ryusuke had closed into about two places behind the girl when he saw a rather familiar face, with her having already moved in to defuse the situation before he could.

"Misaka? Didn't expect to see you here."

[chinatsu]

Chinatsu jumped a little as the girl pushed through the crowd to stand by her side. She thought she vaguely remembered the girl... maybe she had seen her at camp or around town? But since the girl was older they probably had never met face-to-face before. So then why was she pretending to be with Chinatsu? Did someone at the camp send the girl after Chinatsu?

It didn't matter. Chinatsu's gratitude washed away any doubts. Quickly wiping away a tear from one eye that was threatening to fall with her wrist, she gave Misaka a small, tremulous smile and then took a deep breath, finally managing to write out her simple message on her notepad. She held it up to Misaka instead of the vendor, as she was scared of the sunburned man now and was afraid of him snapping at her again. Besides, ordering vicariously had been part of her life for many years, thanks to her always having an assistant looking after her when she was working.

Her notepad said, in tidy handwriting:

Strawberry

Then, with a sudden blush, she turned the pad around and quickly added something, before turning it back to Misaka, now reading:

Strawberry please

She hid shyly behind the notepad, holding it up so that it obscured all her features but her eyes as she looked up at Misaka. She was still holding it that way when the boy came over as well. She looked at him over the top of notepad and blushed even deeper, for a moment considering hiding her whole face behind the notepad except that would look too silly and childish. Instead she merely regarded the two of them in embarrassed silence.

[misaka]

The girl seemed to be doing much better now that a friendly face was there beside her. It was likely that the heat was what caused everyone to be so cranky, though it didn't excuse what they were doing. But it wasn't up to her how people acted, and Misaka wasn't going to try and do so. All she would do was just try and keep everyone calm and collected. Though it seemed that the young teen beside her wasn't able to physically speak, so instead she simply wrote her order out on a notepad.

"Ok....One Strawberry....Wait..."

Misaka then blinked as she saw the girl blush before writing something else on the pad of paper.

"Oh...please?"

With a giggle, Misaka then blinked as she turned and saw a familiar face approach them. It was a surprise to see Ryusuke here, especially since she didn't figure him for an ice cream guy. But still, she smiled as she waved towards him.

"Hey Ryusuke"

As she listened to his comment about how he was surprised to see her there, the teen shrugged before grinning.


"Well...Its so hot out there..."

[yagami]

Misaka's response seemed perfectly in place given how oppressive the heat was and given the fact that it was much cooler inside than it was outside, but he was still surprised to see her there. As it was he himself was only there because he both worked in a nearby store and didn't want to risk leaving at the height of mid day - he'd figured that the small handful of friends he did have were probably at home either trying to escape the heat and relax or doing their schoolwork to leave sunday free, or at least he had figured the latter to be the case with Misaka.

"Friend of yours?" Ryusuke asked, nodding once to indicate the mute girl before almost getting shoved back by another much bigger member of the crowd that very well might not had seen him had he not shoved right back with equal force. Crowds were not a good place for him to be, for a number of reason.

"Sorry, but I'm heading back to a table - there are too many people here, and crowds never suited me." Ryusuke said, pointing in the general direction of the table he'd been at before allowing himself to wander to the edge of the crowd before finally slipping free of it and moving over to the table he'd gotten up from.

[chinatsu]

Chinatsu smiled brightly as Misaka repeated her order out loud. The vendor grumbled and prepared the requested cone. Chinatsu dug into her pocket with a free hand and pulled out some change which she used to pay the man in exchange for the cone. As soon as it was in her hand she took a step back, allowing the next impatient person in line to finally step up for their turn.

Standing beside Misaka still, Chinatsu took a taste of the ice-cream, letting its chill seep into her body and relieve some of the heat of the day. The taste and feel of it instantly brought a look of joy to her face, and she grinned up at Misaka.

When the boy left their side to go over to a table Chinatsu watched him go, giving him a light bow of her head when he looked at her. She then looked up at Misaka again, eyes uncertain. She was grateful to the girl, but she didn't want to be a burden by clinging to her too much... but then again she didn't want to be alone again. Unable to express herself with her right hand taken up by the ice-cream cone, she could merely look up at Misaka, glancing back and forth between her and the boy waiting at the table. If Misaka chose to say 'well, see ya' or something at that moment, then Chinatsu would have to accept it and go off alone again. But... if she could stay, even if it was with an older boy and girl whom she didn't know yet, she would much prefer that to solitude.

As she gazed up at Misaka, waiting to see what the girl would do next, she continued to lick neatly at the ice-cream. She was much more tidy than most girls her age would have been. Also, the way she held the cone... she kept her pinky extended, just like a person of high class would do when holding a tea-cup. It was obvious just at a glance that this girl was born to a well-off family.

[misaka]

Watching as Ryusuke walked off towards a table, Misaka then turned back towards the young girl beside her as she recieved her cone of ice cream. She seemed to be looking up at her, almost as if waiting for her to say something. At this point, the older female was in the right to completely depart from the silent girl and go about her way. But, she didn't seem to have anyone with her. Not to mention that she looked even somewhat lonely.

It wasn't too hard to settle this in her head. After all, if she had been in her position, she'd have wanted company.

"Come on...Lets go sit down with Ryusuke ok?"

Grinning down towards Chinastu, Misaka walked past her, moving in the direction of the boy as he seemed to have just settled down in his spot. Doing the same, the teen then looked towards the girl to make sure she was seated along with them. It was at this point that she figured that she should answer Ryu's previous question.

"Well...Not yet.....I saw her about to get into a shouting match with the ice cream vendor and...I stepped in...."

Shrugging while resting her head on her hands, Misaka sighed as she shook her head.

"People just act so weird during a heat wave. Like they just forget all their manners.."

Returning her gaze back towards the young girl with them, she smiled before asking her a question.

"So...Whats your name? I'm Misaka....and that's Ryusuke"

[yagami]

Ryusuke was about to raise one of his hands to catch the attention of the other two teens before he saw he already had it, instead settling further into his chair as they approached the table and sat down themselves, with Misaka explaining what had happened right after they did so. While he was still curious as to why she'd ventured outside of her house on a scorcher like that day, it at least explained what had happened at the food vendor - as usual she'd seen something wrong and had stepped in to break it up, in this case simply beating him to it.

"Speaking of weird, why'd you even leave home on a day like this? I get that you like the sun, but this kind of heat isn't exactly safe to be walking around the streets in. Only reason I'm here is because I have one of the morning shifts at a nearby store, and I'm stuck here until it cools down a bit outside." Ryusuke asked in reply to her comment about the heat wave, raising a hand in brief acknowledgement of the mute girl. For that matter, he had to wonder exactly what the other person had been doing out in the heat themselves - to be awfully blunt she didn't look like she could take much either in terms of the elements nor physical activity, and he had to imagine that the heat had taken a toll on her, wherever she'd come from. Still, at least he had a way to kill the time now - his mind worked too fast for his own good, and simply sitting in place while waiting for the sun outside to begin to abate would have driven him just as mad as the heat would have.

[chinatsu]

Chinatsu took a seat near Misaka and split her attention evenly between eating the ice-cream and listening to questions and conversation. When asked for her name she set her notepad down on the table, transferred the cone from her right to left hand, and wrote the reply deftly with her right hand before turning the pad around and pushing it on the table to where the other two could see it:

花遊千夏

Then, realizing that kanji names can be read any number of ways she pulled it back and added:

Kayuu Chinatsu

As she presented it this time she gave a small polite bow from where she was sitting. She then continued to eat the ice-cream while she listened to what Ryusuke was saying. The two seemed like good friends. Perhaps... lovers? Chinatsu blushed a little and hid her face behind the ice-cream at this thought. That would be so awkward~

At a natural break in the conversation Chinatsu drew back the notepad and wrote out a question:

Are you also attending the summer camp?

She thought for a moment, then pulled back the pad. Here she hesitated, then began to write something else. Then, about halfway into whatever she was writing she suddenly paused, stared at what she had written, and drew some lines through the last part of it. She showed it to them, and the struck-through part was still just able to be made out:

My parents sent me here to re

Chinatsu looked like she wished she hadn't written anything at all. Her eyes clouded over for a moment as she looked at the notepad, and her countenance fell quite a bit. She didn't look up or try to meet their eyes. Why had she even started to write that? Was she trying to fish for sympathy? They had already treated her nice, there was no reason to upset them by telling them the whole reason she was there.

This was what happened when she tried to talk to people... it was depressing that it even happened now that she had no voice. She always just ended up ruining the mood with her shyness.

Without looking at them she continued to eat her ice cream in silence, the notepad with its half-scratched message revealing a tiny crack in her shell of solitude.

[misaka]

Laughing lightly as she heard Ryu's reason for being out here, the young teen held a blank expression when he asked for her own excuse. While it wasn't really a good reason, Misaka figured that obeying your Kendo instructor counted as a valid excuse for suffering through intense heat."Well...I was outside training. Sensei wanted me to practice some more of my swings for a test next week. But after about an hour of being outside in the part behind the school, I figured that I deserved at least a chance to cool off.."Misaka grinned as she moved some hair back behind her ear as she then giggled lightly.

"That and I didn't want to get too much of a tan...Though I think a bronze color would look good on me..."

The girl was joking of course. While she cared about her appearance, she wouldn't risk tanning if her life depended on it. Mostly because she couldn't stand being outside for a long period of time, only to be burned by the sun. All just to get a new shade of skin tone. It just wasn't worth it. Besides, Misaka like her creme colored complexion. Many thought it suited her perfectly.

Though her attention was soon shifted towards the girl with the notepad, blinking as she looked down to see her name.

"Chinastu Kayuu....Well its nice to meet you..."

Grinning as she looked towards Chinastu, Misaka expression then became blank once more as she began writing something else. This time, the question was if she was attending summer camp? It was strange. The last time she went to summer camp was a few years ago. It was back around the time she was 8. The girl recalled having a good time, enjoying nature and the wildlife there. But this year, she hadn't planned on attending, mostly because she figured she had somewhat outgrown it.

"No...not this year. But Im sure your gonna have fun.....I know I did....."

Looking back towards Ryu, her gaze then once more returned towards the pad and saw that the girl had stopped writing for some reason. Her expression looked almost sad, which caused Misaka to worry even more if something was wrong?

"Hey hold up? Why did you parents send you here? Its ok...You can tell us..."

[yagami]

As Misaka gave her reason for being outside in the unbearable heat Ryusuke found himself simply staring with an eyebrow raised and his mouth slightly agape in equal parts confusion and disbelief, unable to comprehend. Her instructor was insane. As it stood there was a heat advisory in effect, and to top it off it was the weekend - why she'd obeyed such an unreasonable command was beyond him, although from past experience still well within what Misaka was willing to do if asked to by an instructor or club advisor for the sake of training or activities. Ryusuke was still trying to understand exactly why she would've risked her health for a simple club activity, Misaka's follow up comment regarding a tan going completely over his head in the process, when he noticed that the third person there was writing something on her notepad, drawing Ryusuke's attention and wiping the confused look off of his face. While still at a temporary loss for words he nodded in response to Chinatsu's quick bow, having never exactly been one for formalities himself outside of the dojo, and only there for safety. His attention was futher caught when Chinatsu mentioned the summer camp, though.

"That place is still running? How long has it been around now, thirty, forty years? I'm amazed they still even host camping groups." Ryusuke said in response to Chinatsu's reference to the summer camp. In truth he hadn't heard of the place for years, having only gone there two or three times as a kid - it had given him a few skills he normally wouldn't have had, but he really didn't see the point or appeal behind it beyond a day or two away from the normal bustle and haste of everyday life. They were obviously doing well enough that they were still going strong, but that brought up another question.

"Wait, if you were at the camp how did you even get to Odaiba? It took the bus something like an hour to get there when I went as a kid." Ryusuke added as an afterthought, unintentionally layering it over Misaka's comment regarding why Chinatsu had scribbled off the end of her last sentence.

[chinatsu]

Chinatsu froze at the two simultaneous questions. Both were equally difficult to answer, and would involve her baring her innermost feelings. For the shy girl it seemed an impossible task, and she considered getting up and running away.

But then she looked up and met the two others' eyes. They had been so nice to her, not paying any special attention to her disability. Besides, hadn't she been praying for just this; for a chance to speak with another person and share her heart? How could she shy away from this chance now that it had been set in front of her.

A look of determination crossed her face, and slowly she began to write out a long paragraph on the paper, aiming to answer both questions at once. She hoped the other two wouldn't be too hot or bored while she took her time writing, as she believed it best to get it all out at once.

She paused several times while writing, chewing on the end of her pen as she decided what would be best to write. Finally she turned the paper around and again pushed it out to the center of the table where the other two could read it. It read thus:

Today we were supposed to go shopping together in groups to buy fireworks and snacks for tonight. The staff put me together with some other girls, but I left them to walk on my own. As long as I'm back by the bus in an hour or so there shouldn't be any problem.
I was sent here by my parents to recuperate. A few weeks ago there was an accident in the recording studio where I was working and my voice was taken lost. I haven't had time to learn sign-language yet, and even if I knew it not many other people would understand. No one wants to wait to read what I write. No one can hear me, and I feel bad tugging on their sleeve or touching them to get their attention, so no one ever looks my way. I feel like I'm invisible. It's painful. My parents thought that spending time with other kids in a camp would help raise my spirits, but the more lively everyone else is the more I feel like I'm fading away to nothing.

Biting her lip and blinking back tears brought out by pouring out her true feelings like this, Chinatsu waited for them to read what she had written. After a moment or so, she reached out and added a line:

I think my voice was stolen by something in the computer

Her face was grim as she wrote this, and her hand shook. The adults hadn't believed her and had told her it was just her feelings of confusion at suddenly losing her voice. But they hadn't felt the strange sensation of having her voice ripped away. And they hadn't heard the strange sound files that had played through her computer... her voice, singing songs she had never sang. The program they had been working on had never been completed. There was no way it could possibly be out on the internet for people to use. There was no way her voice could be there, and yet it was.

Thus, despite her fear of being laughed at yet again for 'voicing' her concerns, as it were, she felt like she could trust these two with this secret.

[misaka]

There seemed to have a mixed arrangement of emotions going through the young girl's face. It was hard to tell which was the actually feeling occurring within her, but Misaka could understand the challenge of deciding. Many days she didn't know how to feel either about certain things, but the teen had always managed to put on a smile or a rather content expression. But soon her questions were answered as a look of determination appeared over Chinastu, followed by her once again returning to writing upon her notepad.

Her explanation was so heartbreaking. It made Misaka think about her own feelings, and how many times she herself had felt invisible. Of course, the difference was she had a voice to be heard, while Chinastu did not. But yet, the idea of not wishing to be a bother and only wanting to be seen couldn't be closer to one another.

It was interesting to see how one person could communicate by simply placing words on paper. Though through reading she could understand why she didn't use an alternative means. She didn't know how. But the reasons behind her lack of voice were what really interested her. The first word had been scratched out for some reason, replaced with lost, but from what she could make out, it had been the word,"taken".

Misaka had never heard of such a thing, especially with someone's voice. But what she wrote after made the situation even more confusing.

"Something in the computer took your voice away?"

Holding a blank expression as she stared towards her, Misaka then cupped her hand under her chin and closed her eyes in thought.

"What could possibly do something like that?"

[yagami]

Seeing Chinatsu freeze at being asked two simultaneous questions, Ryusuke glanced over at Misaka and was about to apologize to both of them only to see the mute girl busily scribbling away at the pad after a moment of thought. Not wanting to distract or interrupt her, Ryusuke simply leaned into the chair, draping his arms over the back of it as he looked up through the window in the cieling of the mall's food court, squinting at the bright sunlight. It was strange, really - while it was admittedly summer, this kind of heat was almost unheard of this early into the season, and it came very close to breaking record temperatures from nearly thirty years ago. It wouldn't have been noticable were it not for the fact that it had arrived over the course of a mere handful of days, and had been persisting since then. While it was little more than a very uncomfortable nuisance to healthy individuals like Ryusuke and Misaka, the teen knew that many of the nursing homes, sick people, elderly individuals and the very young were starting to get hit hard by the sudden and drastic temperature increase, and that there were going to be problems if the heat wave continued for much longer.

As soon as he couldn't hear Chinatsu's writing anymore Ryusuke lifted his head to look across the table at the notepad she was holding up for them to read, quickly glancing over it before giving himself a mental slap for not realizing that she'd likely recently become a mute based on the notepad being her primary means of communication - more likely than not it was the heat messing with his head. His question was answered though, and while that somewhat slaked his curiosity and he could easily understand the feeling of suddenly losing something you took for granted after being able to use it day to day without a second thought, it was what she wrote as an afterthought that really caught his attention. As he tilted his head back again, this time keeping it upright enough so that he could still maintain eye contact, Ryusuke stayed silent as Misaka asked the question that was at the top of his mind. While he normally would have dismissed such a claim out of hand, she had no logical reason to lie and had been truthful if admittedly hesitant so far. Then there was the fact that she didn't seem at all disturbed beyond having simply lost something most people took for granted - the few other mutes he'd seen in the hospital that had been his age had mostly lost their voices either to disease or after being exposed to sudden trauma that no one so young should have been forced to see or deal with, which did not seem to be the case with Chinatsu.