you're facing down a dark hall | may and june catch-all

[terriblepurpose]

Who: Paul Atreides, Chozen Toguchi, various
What: May and June catch-all, closed and open starters
When: May and June
Where: Throughout Trench

Content warnings: Marked as needed in threads

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Paul Atreides

[terriblepurpose]

Chozen Toguchi

[toguchi]

closed

[toguchi]

daniel larusso

[toguchi]

[ The rain persists, a constant warm drizzle that reminds Chozen of summers far away from this place. Some nights, it deepens to a heavy patter on the roof above, and on those nights Chozen is glad of the distraction from his troubled thoughts and fevered brow.

Rain has long served as a reminder of what is important. Where it may wear on the nerves of others, it calms his.

That is part of why he has been training in the rain, letting it soak through what clothes he can stand to wear over his heated skin as he goes through exercise after exercise, electric arcs flashing off the tips of his sai as he lunges, guards, and stabs.

The other part is what has drawn him back inside around midday, scrubbing at his hair with a towel he hung by the door, cotton shirt patterned with whirling petals and pale shorts both drenched and clinging. Daniel is usually in the kitchen at that time, and it seems appropriate to discuss Chozen's upcoming tentative dinner plans there. ]

[miyagimagic]

[ The kitchen is definitely where Chozen will find Daniel - the man being occupied with a different set of dinner plasn entirely. Robby may have returned to the house after having ran away for a while to Johnny's place, but it hasn't made things less awkward in the house. It's why Daniel is sitting in the kitchen right now, pieces of paper strewn about the dinner table with various scribbled notes on them. Dinner plans, recipes - half-finished plans on trying to make a dinner that Robby can enjoy, even if talking to the boy is hard right now. Things that might put him at ease, while also being something that Chozen could still enjoy too.

The man seems so caught up in his work that it takes him a moment or two to even realise someone else is standing there. Daniel looks slightly startled when he looks up from the papers, though he seems to ease a little when he realises it's Chozen.

Only a little bit, though. The rest of the startled emotion seems to instead change into worried fussing, Daniel standing up and grabbing a dish towel even when Chozen is already very much busy drying himself off. ]

Chozen! Were you outside? You'll catch a cold! [ Nevermind the fact that it's incredibly humid right now, making the whole catching a cold thing kind of hard.. Or nevermind that this is probably a little bit too much fussing about another grown man, but it's not like Daniel hasn't been a little on edge lately with all the worries haunting the man.

Regardless, he's already reaching out with the cloth to help dry the other man's face, not even making a fuss about the mess Chozen is making by dripping all over the kitchen floor. ]

[toguchi]

[ Chozen flaps a free hand around Daniel's outstretched towel a few times, an ineffective warding off he doesn't mean in the slightest. He doesn't really mind Daniel's fussing, the way he always seems to need to have his hands involved in any problem that presents itself. It has been an adjustment to get used to having his shirt collar absently straightened, his back patted in passing, the crook of his elbow touched whenever Daniel wishes him to move out of the way, but not a bad adjustment.

Thus, he eventually submits, turning his face into the towel more like a kitten scrunching up its face to receive a mother's tongue than one grown man letting the other pat him dry. ]

I never get sick from rain. Green tea and long walks.

[ Local beverages and meandering exercise: the tried and true remedies for all that ails you recommended by aging populations around the globe. ]

What are you working on, Daniel-san? Plans of attacks?

[miyagimagic]

[ As long as the towel isn't actually being batted away, Daniel just continues his attack fussing if it's not being met by enough resistance. Maybe it's just that everything feels so rapidly out of his control lately that he's helplessly clinging to the one thing he feels like he can do here.

Even if that one thing, right now, is just helping his friend dry off.

Though the fussing seems to stop when Chozen arrives at that question. Perhaps because Daniel believes the other's face is sufficiently dry, or maybe just because the question catches Daniel off guard, his expression turning a touch more sheepish - perhaps even outright embarrassed. ]

Ah.. Something like that.

[ Even if thinking about it that way feels embarrassing too. Like him overly fussing over his own failure. ]

It's just-- just dinner plans for Robby. [ Daniel shrugs, but there's something helpless about it. Like he's trying to present it as something casual, but is rapidly failing in said execution, always a little more honest than he'd like to be on the outside. ] I thought I'd try making something he'd really like.

[ As if that would somehow be enough to turn the tide on the awkwardness that has resided between the two of them for a bit now. ]