Opening Day [OPEN]

[astonishing_xmods]

WHO: EVERYONE
WHAT: Mingle/Figure out Room Assignments/Meet old friends again
WHERE: The whole campus.
WHEN: September 1st, 2018
WARNING(S): None. If anything goes into warning territory, please create a new log for it.




For all of the newcomers, welcome to Professor Xavier’s Institute of Higher Learning! For all of our returning students and staff, welcome back! Once Professor Xavier’s welcome speech wraps up, it’s time for everyone to get themselves situated in their dorms and, more importantly, get to know your fellow mutants! Even if you’re not sharing rooms, you’ll still be sharing the same campus with each other, so don’t be afraid to get used to all of those new faces! Or even catch up on old ones! You have options; don’t be afraid to use them.

[[ ooc: This is the general mingling post for all of our characters to get settled into their rooms, get to know each other, reminisce with old friends, all that jazz. The log will be split into multiple locations. ]]

Comments

[icy_heavens]

It had been an . . . interesting conversation with Granny about his staying here after all that. Not an argument, not really, but . . . She was just worried about him. He understood that. Hell, it wasn't like he could blame her. But he'd convinced her to let him stay. Other than that, the only thing to do other than get his class schedule together would have been to sit around and brood.

He would take busying himself with work than thinking too hard about stasis, honestly.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Just keeping on with the grump as ever as he passed through the door. "Starting with the basic to get myself back in shape. If I get too good for it, Toph's going to see about making me a spotter for the stuff she can't catch the rest of the semester."

There wasn't much getting around mentioning her name when talking about combat classes. There you go, Shindou. That blind girl who was about the ages of the both of you was now an adult teaching combat classes.

[presto_turn]

"I was only asking."

With his arms still full, Shindou couldn't quite shrug, so he settled for a nonchalant cant of his head to one side. They both had a huge amount to deal with, getting back into the swing of things. It had been worth asking, even if already could've guessed the answer.

A short jaunt down one of the main halls, and they'd turned into the boys' dormitory. Shindou's room sat immediately inside the first floor hallway's entrance, already unlocked. He nudged the door open with his foot, then stooped to set his cargo down in front of one unoccupied bed.

"That might be what I should do, too. With Principal Summers on leave..." That was his team supervisor and combat instructor gone in one blow. "Toph was in your year, before, right?"

A sympathetic glance back towards the cryokine. He'd never gotten to know the girl personally, not even after the kidnapping incident, but he could already imagine how surreal that felt for 'Shirou.

"She was already good, then, wasn't she?"

[icy_heavens]

He set his boxes down beside Shindou's. "Year ahead, actually."

He wouldn't claim to have known Toph particularly well overall, but they'd used to exchange sarcastic comments about mutant news and such. And about what an asshole her father was. So they'd been friends of a sort, he supposed.

"She was a . . . team leader." That sentence had started off just fine, damn it, but his voice dipped as he finished it. He closed his eyes briefly and sighed. Above everything else -- how he should be eighteen, how he should be in college, how he's missed five goddamn years of life -- that was what stung the most. He'd blinked, and his team had been gone. They'd moved on, Fai was his teacher now. He had no one to lead anymore, and without that, he couldn't help feeling lost.

They'd been idiots, of course. But they'd been his idiots, and now he didn't have any.

[presto_turn]

"Oh."

Maybe, now that the first load of luggage had been stowed, the best plan would've been simply to rush back for the door. There was still more to get, and even once they'd gotten down to the rolling suitcases, he had over-packed heavily enough to keep them occupied until the dorms were (hopefully) swarming with new faces. It'd be a plausible distraction, right?

Except, with the way 'Shirou broke into that sigh, Shindou couldn't quite manage it. He turned, leaning against his bed's footboard, and crossed arms somberly over his chest.

"Do you know how many of your team's members are still around?"

Sorry, 'Shirou. Apparently they were Talking About It after all.

[icy_heavens]

And they'd been doing so well not talking about it, too. Except . . . they hadn't really. They'd been tiptoeing around it all, pulling back when they made missteps. And they'd made a lot of them.

There was no pulling back on this one though, was there?

He didn't even pretend to take on a more relaxed posture. "Fai is teaching biology. I'm in his class."

Which, frankly, was more surreal than Toph teaching combat. He and Toph were friends, yeah, but that was different than being on his team. This? Was almost a complete role-reversal.

[presto_turn]

"That has to be surreal."

It would have almost been funny, actually - outright hilarious - if they'd just had time to prepare for it. Fai in charge of an entire science class? (And not just because he'd given the real instructor a dose of his powers?) Toushirou having to put up with taking notes from him most days? The whole thing was like the set-up to a joke.

Just, it was less amusing, having their lives made out to be the butt of it. Shindou crossed his legs, one over the other, letting a slow sigh of his own hiss out between his teeth.

"It'll be good that he's still here, though. Right? He was always good at being understanding." In his own, occasionally inscrutable way, at least. "He could help walk you through everything that's happened while we were..."

Out of commission? He still didn't know how to phrase it.

[icy_heavens]

Toushirou has no idea how to phrase it, either. Asleep? Comatose? Dead? Hell if he knows. Avoiding saying it in any way at all seems like a much better, easier way to go.

"We've already talked." Whatever that's supposed to mean, even Toushirou doesn't know. The beginning of that conversation had hurt, and while it had gotten better by the end . . . Well, it's complicated.