recolle | (open) sometimes your birthday falls on an event day and you just have to make the most of it

WHO: Tuuri and you!
WHERE: Club Sunshine plus bonus BEACH PARTY
WHEN: July 3 in the afternoon into the evening!
WHAT: It's Tuuri's 21st birthday and you're invited!
WARNINGS: stupid amounts of alcohol, probably

[Goro "Best Boss Ever" Majima opened up the club during the day to host a party for Tuuri's 21st birthday, and basically anyone that Tuuri's exchanged names with in Recolle is invited. (Even the minors, if Tuuri has her say, just don't get Majima into trouble.) There's tons of decorations, some sort of Europop playing because it seemed like a safe choice, a cake, the works! Stop in, mingle around, don't mind the antisocial guy in the corner who's got to be a cousin or something, and help Tuuri celebrate her return to a legal drinking age in her country of residence!

As an added bonus, her birthday is so close to Independence Day that there are a ton of fireworks and other celebrations in (what she can pretend is) her honor. Once Club Sunshine needs to kick them out for the night in order to open on time, Tuuri proposes moving to the beach to hang out and maybe set off a few sparklers of their own. Too young to go to a host club and get hammered? Never met Tuuri before in your life? It's all good, come hang out at the beach instead! There might even be some bingo going on. So drop on by and (try to) say hyvää syntymäpäivää!

(But seriously, you don't get cake until you say hyvää syntymäpäivää.)]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[As if on cue, the fireflies migrate away from Tuuri and towards Mohammed, who is holding his hands out as a perch. He doesn't really know why, but his birds and Iggy (and others' pets) have snuggled up against him more often, like he was a warm blanket to sleep against. To his surprise, this also works on insects.

Beside him are a pair of roller blades he rented from the stand, which he had rented before the blackout but...well, the stand attendant didn't have to know that he was using them in the dark.]

[Well that's a pleasant surprise! Tuuri watches, slightly wide-eyed, as the fireflies drift over to rest on Mohammed's hand instead.]

Woah. Mohammed, are you a bug whisperer?

[The pinprick of a terrible idea is forming in her head here.]

[He glances at his hands, which are now illuminated by five fireflies.]

This never happened to me before. I could hold my hands out and my birds would sit, but they're my pets. This...is unusual.

[Is it a Retrospec power? Does he just smell good? Actually, the latter is just true; he takes care in his appearance whether it's appealing to bugs or not.]

It's kind of pretty! [she says cheerfully, watching as the fireflies float over to Mohammed's hands.] Especially when the whole city is dark like this! Do you have juice on your hands or something?

No, I made sure to clean them after the party.

[Hygiene is important to him. Why head to a new location to party with filthy hands that are sticky after all that soda and chips and cake?]

I'm not complaining, but I'm hoping I can use my hands sometime tonight.

Well, they're not like... stuck to you, right? Can't you just--

[she gently waves her hands back and forth, like she'd shoo away any fly]

Get them to scatter?

[He eyes his hands. Some are flying off, but a lot of them find his fingers comfy. He shakes them off, but most return.]

At this point, I'm certain they like me.

Well...

[If they're going to stay on him anyway...]

You still have the roller skates, right? And we still wanted to race, right, except for how I'm so tiny that anyone on the boardwalk wouldn't see me coming in the dark and I'd probably end up crashing into someone?

[That's probably not how their conversation went, but okay.]

[He holds a hand out towards Tuuri.]

If we don't have flashlights, we can use these.

[Nature's glowsticks.]

Exactly!!

[She's so glad they're on the same wavelength here.]

Give me two minutes to get my skates on!

[Two fireflies crawl onto Tuuri's shirt, but they leave shortly. It's soft, but now cozy like Mohammed's fingers. Bye.

Mohammed shakes the ones still on his hands off before sitting on one of the wood steps on the boardwalk to tie on his rollerskates. The bugs will return eventually, just not when there's a risk of him squashing them.]

I'm ready. [He says, getting on two shaky legs.]

[Tuuri, more foolishly, puts her skates on while she's sitting down on the boardwalk itself, so she has to push herself entirely off the ground to get on her feet, and it takes a lot more coordination than she has the night of her 21st birthday.]

I'm... give me a second. [She's inching her way over to the railing, rolling herself over with her hands on the ground-- she'll use that to help herself stand up.]

[He lets go of the side railing and rolls in Tuuri's direction. In his haste to relearn skating, he forgot to check how far back to tilt his foot to break, and he ends up bumping into her.]

--Ow. [Tuuri pulls her fingers away just in the nick of time, before they get crushed, but almost immediately follows with] Are you okay?

[Please don't trip over her, enormous friend.]

I'm getting used to these. [There's the angle. He should be able to stop without falling on his face.]

Are you ready?

Let me just-- [she slowly pushes herself into a standing position, then holds herself steady with the railing.] Yeah. Okay! Let's do this! But you're going to have to lead, cause I still can't see.

But it's not a race if the goal is for you to follow me, isn't it?

[Let him feel rightfully victorious.]

Oh, shoot, you're right.

[More important than Mohammed's dumb pride, though, is Mohammed's bingo square. And if Mohammed was leading, it might not count as a race, and thus it wouldn't count at all.]

Just kidding! I'm going in blind, and I'm going to beat you, bug glowsticks or no!

[Did that work??]

["Dumb" pride? Excuse you, his pride is not to be mocked. He is a respectable man with honor.]

It's an added challenge while our eyes adjust to the dark. I say that's more fun.

[He grips the railing and pushes himself away from the edge, stopping on the opposite side where Tuuri is sitting.]

Ready?

[Actually, when he phrases it like that... yeah, this is definitely more fun. Tuuri pushes herself to her feet, then closes her eyes and holds her hands over them for a few seconds to try to adjust to the dark.]

Okay, ready!

Set...go!

[He's not speeding off into the dark, but he's going at a pace faster than if he were running. The few fireflies remaining on his shirt dim as he goes further away, though the wheels rolling over the gaps between boards are a loud indication of where he is.]

[Tuuri pulls her hands off of her eyes, and while it's not... night vision, she can at least make out some shapes in the dark. Like the edge of the boardwalk, which she can avoid!

She sets off when Mohammed does, though he's just a shadow moving among other shadows in the dark. She knows she's on the right track more by the sound of the wheels than anything else. Turns out rollerblading in a straight line in the dark isn't the dumbest thing she's ever done!

They sure are making a racket, though. No wonder those fireflies went away.]

[Tuuri's rollerblades are like an echo of his own, which pushes him to skate faster. Its impossible to how far behind she is based on sound alone.

There is a wooden bar at the end of the boardwalk to indicate when it turns into stairs headed left and up to the city. Mohammed glares at the space in front of him. He hopes the end is visible in the dark and he won't hit it and go flying over the railing and onto the sand.]

(open) sometimes your birthday falls on an event day and you just have to make the most of it

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