tapestodiane | 021

Does anyone else play Tetris?

_{[Guess who finally discovered the game apps on his 'gear! And guess who's been playing the games ever since! Spoiler: this guy. Cooper sounds pretty excited, actually, in that almost kid-like way that the ones who know him will probably recognise. He speaks fast and chipper.]}

Damn good game. Very engaging, very challenging. I've yet to get past the 100 lines mark, but I'd very much like to believe I'm getting there.

_{[Beat. You know, sometimes he really doesn't want to be here, but this games-in-the-gears-thing certainly picked him up.]}

Falling puzzle pieces _[:D] ... that Minesweeper game isn't half bad, either. And if I've got my facts right there are more games available for purchase at the PokéMarts. So, Network: any recommendations?

_{[You should be able to HEAR the grin in his voice, seriously.]} Nothing like a good game to keep you occupied.

_[Action_{for anyone in Ecruteak! You're likely to find him somewhere in the middle of town on a park bench or something, cross-legged with an Eevee asleep in his lap, playing Tetris on his 'gear like a boss.]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

_{[It really isn't. In that aspect and many more, the world is an unfair place. But he nods - it's not a bad plan. Hell, he only applied to college himself when the circus rejected him. (Said he was overqualified. Pff.)]}

Sometimes that's the best you can do, isn't it?

_{[See where things go, that is.]}

_{[Wow, it must be a bit of a blow to the ego to be rejected by the circus.]}

Yeah... I mean, it's not like my grades were the BEST, anyway...

_{[She'd scraped together a relatively decent grade-point average in that last year, considering the fact that after everything she'd been through she had every right to be a completely dysfunctional traumatized WRECK, but it still probably wasn't gonna get her any scholarships.]

[And what would happen if she DID go to college only to realize she couldn't handle it and drop out? Not only would she feel like a loser, but she'd also be in DEBT.]

[Yeah she's thought about this a lot.]}

I mean, to be fair, I was kind of just... being a useless bum when I got brought HERE.

_{[He doesn't have a good answer to that, so he stays quiet. He can't argue - he doesn't know who she was before she was brought here, so he's not going to try. It would be empty words. And that's nothing Coop's ever been a fan of.]

[It's not a closed off silence, though, but the listening kind she probably knows pretty well by now.]}

_{[She recognizes it now. Unfortunately, though, she's not ready to do any gut-spilling again so soon, so she just sort of shrugs and swings her legs off the bench a bit.]}

It was pretty boring.

I like it here better.

Don't have to worry about school and shit.

_{[He wasn't really expecting her to, though, so he's okay with that answer and smiles a little at the sort of ... distinct teenage crudeness of it.]}

The biggest worry around these parts appears to be how you go about filling your day.

_{[Or maybe that's just him. There are days he feels like he's going a little crazy because the change of pace is so ... jarring, in a sense. He's used to having his hands full at all times. Here, not so much.]}

_{[Heather will always be ... well, Heather.]}

Heh, right?

It's sorta nice, though.

I mean, not much is happening, but there's still plenty happening. You know?

_{[It was so different from languishing in her own fail back at the apartment. Here she had a posse of animals pulling her out of bed every morning. She had friends to talk to, new places to explore, and nothing binding her down to a place she would forever associate with loss and loneliness. It was free time, sure... but you know what, she LIKES free time as long as she's got stuff to fill it with.]}

_{[He nods - he knows. But while there certainly are a lot of things to do in Johto, the thing is, for Cooper, that there's not really any challenges - and that's something he's been struggling with for a while, long before he came to Twin Peaks (that town provided plenty of challenges and he embraced them and tackled them) ... when his mind gets restless it becomes a little dangerous.]

[But there are days when things like caring for his pokémon is more than enough to occupy him, and those days, he's actually pretty happy.]}

People keep saying life stands still in towns like these. It should say a lot about Johto that life never quite comes to a halt no matter where you are in this world.

_{[Basically yeah, he agrees, despite his conflicted feelings about the place.]}

_{[Aw, Coop... you're a little workaholic, aren't you?]}

Yeah... I know what it's like in towns where life stands still.

This is ... different.

_{[He very much is.]}

Yeah, it is. Even without taking the supernatural animals into account.

_{[That's with a certain fondness. Them lovely supernatural animals. c:]}

Heh, yeah, can't forget about THEM, huh?

_{[They've... grown on her. A lot.]}

_{[Same for Cooper, who is not only utterly smitten with some of the more exotic ones, but very much loves his own little bunch at this point.]}

I don't think that's possible. You've got a pretty big team, haven't you?

_{[Heather never THREW herself into Pokemon as thoroughly as some others did, but she has to admit... it just wouldn't be the same if any one of her weird superpowered animals were missing.]}

Pretty big, yeah...

More than I ever thought I'd have, anyway...

I think it's like, around...

_{[She pauses, doing a mental tally.]}

... Counting Sunny and Slightly, it's around thirteen now.

_{[That earns her a low whistle - it seems like a pretty big number, even if he himself isn't very far from it and he knows a lot of people have many more than that.]}

Would you consider that an unlucky number?

_{[..make of that what you will!]}

Unlucky?

_{[She pauses, frowning slightly. Of course the ghost would be the thirteenth...]}

... I guess so.

_{[Heather's not the most superstitious of people... but when you've seen the things she's seen, you start paying a little more attention to things like that than before.]}

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