His bag was pretty durable against the rain with where he was standing, his papers were usually in a plastic folder considering that Morgana sometimes liked to hitch a ride in his bag. Good thing his cat wasn’t in his bag today.
Kyouhei could say those things but it doesn’t change the fact that if he doesn’t dry off soon, he’s highly vulnerable to catching a cold or hypothermia at the worst.
“Ah. No problem….–Torrential rain was pretty common I was from during specific seasons. They usually sell these easily stored umbrellas at convenience stores. – If you have somewhere you need to be, I could give you my umbrella.”
He decided to keep shy yet calm personality for this interaction, just to see how things went.
Determined not to remain soaking wet for much longer, Kyouhei peeled off the overcoat part of his uniform and shook it out, away from the other person hiding from the rain.
He was starting to get cold, but he wasn’t really shivering so it should be fine - he’d take a hot shower or bath when he got home and would get to sleep early and if he still got sick after that, oh well!
“Ah, izzat so -” That was interesting. The weather rarely changed where Kyouhei used to live. This was so much better.
“I have yet to update the location on my weather app so I’m a little behind.” Not that the biochemistry student really minded, sometimes the surprise was nice. “I’m in no rush to get anywhere - if you are, though, feel free to go!”
A small laugh leaves Dongmin and he shakes his head. “No problem. I figured you needed someone to bring you back.” He joked. He had seen Kyohei suffering but wasn’t sure when or how to call out to him until the young male threw up his cards in likely desperation?
“Hm… you ask a good question. Could we?” He thought about it, tilting his head to the side. The quality of the cards determined how easy or hard of a time you would have to stack all of the cards to make a castle. “Though the only way to know the answer to that is to try it out, right?” He smiled, finding the idea to be pretty amusing.
Leave it to him to just nonchalantly further the notion of moving away from one’s studies. He was more interested in having some fun, really. He handed Kyouhei some of the cards that he’d picked up. “Should we start then?”
Kyouhei can’t help but flush slightly in the face of the undeniable facts - he’d kinda lost it in the face of study-pressure. Not that it was a large breakdown, but still! He needed to pay more attention to his surroundings.
“I guess so…” After all, if it could be done with paper cups, surely index cards couldn’t be that far off. They weighed about the same, probably. The biochemist accepted more cards and brought them over to a table, head tilted slightly in contemplation.
A smile flickered onto his lips as he moved a few chairs away from an empty table with his feet and plopped down without looking. He divided all the cards into two piles and held one up to Dongmin. “Ready to get this show on the road?”
[水] - Hmmm cookies were nice, as was popcorn! Veggies and fruits? Yeaahhh sign him up! The essentials for any athletics buff! Gotta eat well and stock up on calories!
“A smoothie sounds great! A healthy snack alternative. Popcorn is great if you want to have a competition.”
A– ‘see how many popcorn pieces you can throw in the air and catch in your mouth’ competition. He was pretty good at it you know? By now Mizumachi had already long since forgotten what it was that he was supposed to do– which was doing his work. Sustenance was the most important thing on his mind now.
At this rate, it was a true wonder whether or not they were going to get any work done. Mizumachi needed to find someone like Kakei who would constantly nag him into doing his work. Boy did he miss Kakei.
“Smoothies it is~!” Kyouhei sang out, running a quick eye over all his kitchen wares while taking out the pieces of his blender and putting it together with practiced ease.
He was no master chef but smoothies and shakes were super easy, not much to mess up. First came the bananas, yogurt, and milk which he usually used as the base for the refreshing meal or snack - wait.
[水] – He’d met a lot of people in his time being a student at Oakville. People were getting lost here and there in various areas of the campus, and sometimes like Kyouhei here—they ventured quite the distance away from where they had wanted to go.
“Haha! Yeah, really. Nothing wrong with an adventure though, right? You never know what you’ll find or what friend you can make.”
Leave it to him to look on the bright side of things. This was the guy, who had dislocated his shoulder from rough-housing around too much, and could be found later trying to ‘surf’ down the hallways with the hospital beds or a wheelchair the moment someone took their eyes off him. He simply couldn’t be controlled very well.
“Ohhhhh—I don’t really get it, but it sounds real smart! Good luck, dude! I’m sure ya got this! Nhaahaa~ Yep! I wanna be a bombastic announcer!”
Just like a certain announcer back at home. That guy was so full of energy and it was always fun listening to him scream into the mic!
“See? You get it! Sometimes all you need is to walk around and see what’s there in order to find something interesting.” Kyouhei became gradually quieter as he kept talking, not wanting to draw too much attention to himself but! Still excited to talk about exploring the unknown!
“ Not that I would do it all the time, of course, I do have responsibilities, but the sentiment is still there.” His smile was wide and honest as he finished. “I’ll always be in the mood to investigate everywhere.”
It was that sweet sentimentality that would probably end up with the brunet being kidnapped (or worse) one day, but for the moment he was happy to look around with optimistic idealizations.
“It is kinda smart I guess?” Biochemistry had some complex mechanics, but Kyouhei didn’t feel as if he should comment too much on it if he wasn’t enthusiastic about it. “And you’ve got the bombastic part covered!
“You also… have the voice for it? You’re loud and attention grabbing,” realizing how that might sound, the aspiring biochemist held his hands up defensively, “not in a bad way!”
Grocery shopping was something Eita had grown accustom to in his year of living on his own. That being said, though, no matter HOW many times he ventured out, he still wasn’t all too fond of the chore. The crowds of people, the lines, spending money─ all of it was tedious, but unfortunately, it had to be done ( lest he was to starve, of course ).
At the very least, Eita pretty pretty much had a routine down for his shopping trips. He knew exactly what to get and where he needed it from, even having an order in which he trekked each isle. It made the chore tolerable enough, Eita thought. However, this particular trip, his routine was interrupted as he felt another person collide with him while he was minding his own business. How careless.
Luckily, Eita hadn’t been holding onto anything, so no real harm was done. He sighed as he was given an apology of sorts and brushed off his shirt.
“I’m fine,” he confirmed, “You should watch where you’re going.” he added, though no hostility was intended. Looking at the boy, Eita could recall him staring at the shelves just as he’d arrived in the isle himself. Eita raised a brow, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Do you need help finding something? You look a little lost.” Eita commented. It really wasn’t any of his business and he wasn’t even a worker, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“You’re right, you’re right, sorry about that!” Kyouhei felt a little humbled by the serious tone and appearance of the person he’d bumped into, mentally forcing himself to promise to pay more attention next time. “Won’t happen again.”
He adjusted the shopping basket on his one arm so it sat comfortably in the crook of his elbow, trying to regain his composure - hard to do when he was so out of it.
Surprised by the question, the brunet couldn’t help but smile sheepishly.
“I’m just… trying to find something I recognize? The reason I bumped into you as because I as trying to check the upper shelves.” He probably sounded really ignorant, not that it mattered at this point. “Ah, do you have any brands to suggest?”
[水] - Mizumachi laughed at his joke and was playing along with Kyouhei. Always good and fun to play with other people, right? It was much more fun to just laugh along with people than to fight against it. He personally enjoyed being happy at almost all hours of the day.
“Hm? Nahhh not really that obvious, it was just a guess. I just meet a lot of people who move here from elsewhere. Local people can get lost too, ya know?”
Just because they were locals, it didn’t mean they had to know their way around every campus, but just something about Kyouhei made him seem like he wasn’t around from these parts. Not sure what.
“Bio…whatywhat? Sounds real complicated and smart. I’m a sports communications major. I wanna be like those sports announcers, ya know?”
Just shouting plays into the microphone, telling the audience an enthusiastic play by play to help them feel more involved in the plays.
“Really?” Kyohei wondered if anyone else had gone to Mizumachi for help - honestly, it wouldn’t be a surprise seeing as the sportsman seemed to ooze a friendly, approachable aura.
Still, it was a weird concept, thinking that other people explored and became lost just like him, but when he thought about it…. he couldn’t be the only unfortunate person around, right?
“Chemistry. It’s a science… the science of chemical and physicochemical responses. It is really complicated,” but not so once you got the theories down, or so his professor had assured.
“Sports Communications… huh, that sounds really interesting! I can totally see you as an announcer at a game, directing everyone’s attention and explaining what’s going down…!”
Dongmin only chuckled in response, finding the reaction to be pretty humorous. It reminded him of his friend ‘Ju Ingong’ whose name translated would mean ‘main character’. Funny, right? “My name is Dongmin, what’s your name?” He asked as he got out of the chair that he was currently sitting at to start picking up some of the cards.
He was a bit curious as to what it was that he was studying that made him just rage quit and throw up his cards in the air in defeat. “With this many cards, you could probably make a card castle.” The final resort to anyone bored enough or absolutely through with studying. Turn your study materials into play things.
“Kyouhei. Thank you for bringing me back into reality, Dongmin.” Mid-introductions, the brunet joined the boy who called him out on his act of brief insanity and began to collect the index cards in one hand.
He perked up a bit at the idea of stacking cards - it would be easier with an actual deck of playing cards but with some patience and determination, it could probably be done?
“Do you think we could…? There are plenty of empty, flat surfaces around for it, I guess.” And it wasn’t like his mind would allow him to do anything else now that it was done with theory. Experimentally, he bent a card between two fingers.
Yoichi slowly chewed his sandwich as he watched the younger man make a desperate attempt to open the door to the dormitories. His patrol had taken him out to Oakville University, which usually had something going on to keep him entertained. It was just a little past midnight and it seemed the poor kid had lost his keys to the dorm.
He finished off his late dinner and clapped his hands together to get rid of the bread dust before standing up. He’d let the poor guy suffer long enough, and he had another 7 minutes and forty-three seconds until his break was up. Yoichi slowly made his way towards the poor, locked-out college student; he yawned as he approached the other from behind and placed one hand on his hip using the other to cover his mouth.
“Having some issues, hmm?” He dropped his hand to his side and eyed the door. The lock looked simple enough, but he didn’t expect this kid to be looking at the issue the same way he was. “Did you lose your key or something?” Reaching for his flashlight, he clicked it on and swung the beam in a wide arc around the nearby grass.
“I can help you find it. Or I can open the door for you if you ask in the next,” he looked at his watch, “five minutes and twenty-seven seconds.”
When Kyouhei was a little kid, he would’ve lost his head if his neck wasn’t attaching it to his shoulders. It was a well-known fact - you never trusted toddler Kyouhei with anything important.
Fortunately, he grew out of it by age twelve or so.
Unfortunately, it was Throwback Thursday and he might’ve misplaced one of the most important items he owned. It was way too late to backtrack to find them too, and mentally he’d already given up.
“I think I left it at work?” He still peered in the direction the light revealed, hoping it would magically appear on the ground somewhere. No such luck. “Or maybe I dropped it on the way here….”
Either way, it was terrible and unlucky.
Curiosity made him peer up at the person offering their help in a professional manner, his interest mostly focused on the offer to open his dorm’s door within a certain time frame.
“Who are you, actually? Not that I don’t appreciate the help of course….”
[水] - Snacks would definitely help. His brain needed the calories. They say that your brain uses up a lot of your calories when you think hard. Pretty selfish of it, huh? He needs those calories for his muscles during practice! Don’t be stingy and share.
He slumped himself over onto the table, groaning. He felt like his heard was going to burst. He was just not very smart. It was a grand thing he got in on a scholarship for the swim team.
“Snacks would be great. I feel like my brain is mush. I could tell you how to make a lineman see ‘Sky blue’ but not this. I don’t know how to do this stuff. Physics.”
Gross. It was important, sure, but did he really need to know how it worked?
Kyouhei honestly felt like lying on top his notes forever - ignoring emails, homework, any adult-like responsibility that would dare show its ugly face in his life.
Still! Grabbing snacks (and eating them) was the perfect temporary excuse for a break. Mizumachi didn’t deserve to suffer at the hands of physics for much longer.
“I have some chocolate cookies in the fridge and some popcorn I can pop - on top of fruits and veggies. Want me to make a smoothie?” The aspiring biochemist put away his scientific theory for food art - a much-preferred activity.
[水] - Mizumachi laughed a hearty little laugh. He wasn’t making fun of Kyouhei in the slightest. He just felt like laughing? The fields were nice, weren’t they? It is a playground for all athletes pretty much and just looking upon all the fields… yeah, it made him happy. When you’re happy, you LAUGH, don’t ya?
“Yeah, for real dude. Haha, what’s to apologize for? You’re good. The dorms are clear waaaay over there, but it’s not too bad.”
There wasn’t really such a thing as a shortcut, but there was a lot of beautiful scenery to take in. If you timed it right, you may be able to catch a bus and ride a few stops and get dropped off at the dorms. Those were for those days you were dead tired after practice.
"So, you moved in pretty recently, huh? What are you majoring in? Undecided?“
He was just making some small talk to just get a better feel for what kind of person Kyouhei was. After knowing a bit more about him, he could offer to walk him the rest of the way over to the dorms. Can’t let him get lost again, right?
“It could be worse, I suppose - I could’ve walked off campus completely!” Kyouhei joked, unable to help to laugh along with Mizumachi - it was infectious, and hey, not hurting anyone!
Still, he couldn’t help but squint back at the direction he’d been provided - trying to find a familiar sight, like a landmark that he’d walked past earlier. Maybe he should try to pay more attention to his surroundings….
“Yeah, I only moved to Bellevue recently, actually.” From the western coast of California, not that he would say that bit out loud. “I suppose it’s a bit obvious, huh?
“I’m majoring in biochemistry, actually. Already decided and have a plan set up and everything! What about you?”