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

[presto_turn]

"Oh."

A slight, guilty twitch struck the frown that Shindou'd been trying to hold back. He'd known that they'd all woken up at different points, of course, and nothing about the situation was fair. But at least he'd come back to himself mid-way through the summer. He'd had almost a full month back with his parents before having to confront school life again. Which had been trying in its own way, yes, but...he'd been given a little time to cope.

'Shirou, by the sound of it, was still fresh from being thrown straight back into things.

"Would you mind? I ended up bringing more than I'd planned on - " A frightening prospect, given how much sheer stuff he'd tried to cram into his half of their old dorm. "My room's right on the first floor, though, so I don't have to get them up the stairs."

[icy_heavens]

He still catches himself thinking things are the same, sometimes. Sometimes smaller things, like thinking his room is a little further down the hall, which makes him frown a little but it's not a big deal. But sometimes it's bigger things, like thinking he needs to get his team together for extra sessions, which throws him off-balance completely when reality hits him again.

"If I minded, I wouldn't have offered." That was really the long and the short of it. He didn't offer to do things he wouldn't follow through on. "Your parents overloaded you again, huh?"

[presto_turn]

"...They'd gone so long without knowing whether I'd come back or not. I couldn't tell them they were overdoing it."

Had they been back in their shared dorm room, Shindou would have laughed and brushed off his parents' tendency towards excess. But, as it stood, he couldn't even comment without it coming out more morose than he'd meant to allow himself to be around Toushirou. It had been crushing to watch his mother and father watching him over the summer, realizing that, so far as they could understand, he'd been dead the past five years. Or comatose, at the very least.

And then having to tell them that he couldn't leave the place that had done that to him...? If it made that easier, he'd have let them ship him off with enough new clothes and food and gadgets to stock the entire Mansion.

"I already have it all out by the car," he added with an uncomfortable shrug, waving 'Shirou to follow him back around to the courtyard's front. Maybe toting around luggage would help them ignore the threat of brooding until it passed?

Over by the driveway, the chauffeur - old enough to be Shindou's father and standing out in the summer heat in a three-piece suit - had already propped all the bags together on the sidewalk. A whole host of rolling suitcases, plus a handful of heavily taped-up, cardboard packages, were stacked beside the car. Shindou hefted up two of the latter before nodding to their attendant...who was already eying Toushirou (and his vividly white hair) with what couldn't be mistaken for anything but wariness.

"Thanks for waiting, Eizo-san. We can take care of it from here."

[icy_heavens]

Well, damn it. He hadn't meant for that to turn into commentary on their situation. It was just supposed to be old and familiar, something to talk about like they used to. But no, this was what it became. He wasn't going to say anything else on the matter. Clearly this had backfired.

One eyebrow went up at the guy in the three-piece suit. Really, on a day like today? Unless somebody had a mutation that made them immune to heat, that was just stupid. And when they got closer, Toushirou frowned at him instead. What the hell was with that look? He wouldn't say anything about it, but his displeasure at the wariness was pretty obvious.

Tch. Again, stupid. He lifted a pair of the smaller boxes, as his muscles were still recovering from the long stasis, and didn't even bother looking at the man again as he turned to head back.

[presto_turn]

"Sorry. He's not used to being around so many mutants."

Which...was suspiciously like apologizing for an older, bigoted relative. Almost exactly like that, actually. Shindou didn't bother to elaborate, however. He meant to apologize as much for the discomfort he'd dragged into their conversation as for his family's hired hand's behavior, and lingering on the subject wouldn't make that any better. They just needed to get inside and focus on something normal for a change.

Well, whatever passed for normal at this school.

"Do you have your schedule for classes together already? It's hard to imagine them starting back up tomorrow."

There, that was his weak attempt at normalcy. Homework, lectures, and academics, standard schoolkid stuff. (Shindou honestly couldn't wait.)

[icy_heavens]

"Hm." Yep, that was his response to the apology. He still sounded a little tetchy, but he wasn't going to harp on the matter. Looks like that weren't exactly new, but he wasn't used to getting them here. Here, he looked downright normal. When it came to physical mutations, white hair was a really mild one.

Weak attempt or not, Toushirou was more than willing to go along with it.

"Would be kind of stupid to not have my class schedule together already, don't you think?" Clearly, this was much better than just saying 'yes'. But there was no bite in it.

[presto_turn]

"...I still have to get most of my instructors to add me onto their rolls. I'm only signed up for the required classes right now."

Shindou shifted his portion of the luggage they'd grabbed around into one arm, so he could pull open the door into the main building. Leaning back against it, he let Toushirou head in first, before following with a small, almost amused sigh. That whole situation was "kind of stupid" on his end, he supposed. Albeit unavoidable, with how close his family had come to refusing him permission for to re-enroll.

But, more than that, it was weirdly reassuring, how outright grumpy 'Shirou could make the most casual conversation.

"Are you still going to be taking a combat course, this year?"

[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.