Nobody on the road, nobody on the beach

[mildwildchild]

Who: Flashstep and YOU
What: assorted shenanigans with the Flashbabes
Where: Pride HQ and all around Vista City
When: mid-late April-ish??
Warnings: probably some manpain


The world tour looms, all of Pride Records is feeling the strain, and Flashstep is certainly no exception. There are new song and dance routines to be memorized, public appearances to be made, and promotional stunts to be undertaken, in between which the boys have to wrangle with the burgeoning reality of their situation and maybe try to have some semblance of a social life.

Life is stressful for the band, but stable, maybe even predictable - at least, until Sora's unexpected firing.

[Individual prompts below!]

Comments

Text

[yellowcopycat]

Jamie. I can't contact sora. Is something wrong? is he okay?

[a little later]

Jamie? What happened?

Why is everyone disappearing??? Jamie I hate this!

text

[mildwildchild]

i dont know why


it sucks

[yellowcopycat]

Jamiecchi I'm really scared.

[mildwildchild]

[it takes him a while to respond, and then it's just a simple:]


me too

[yellowcopycat]

Do you want to meet somewhere?

[mildwildchild]

idk

[and then, a little later:]

if u want i guess

[yellowcopycat]

Pls? Nia and Tsunacchi are gone, and Ankh... isn't himself at the moment.

And I never see Momo anymore.

[mildwildchild]

ok

where at

[yellowcopycat]

Sweet Dreams on Essex? In an hour?

[mildwildchild]

ok ill see u then

----

He's a little late - it's hard to care about punctuality when he's feeling so bereft - and he shows up all but hiding beneath a jacket, hat and sunglasses, though the day is neither cold nor excessively sunny. He doesn't want anyone recognizing him and demanding attention right now, and he especially doesn't want to draw attention to his bloodshot eyes. He might notice Ryouta before the taller boy recognizes him, materializing suddenly next to him.

"Hey."

It's far from an enthusiastic greeting, but hopefully Ryouta won't hold it against him.

[yellowcopycat]

He won't because Ryouta himself isn't doing that great. He looks good, because Ryouta always looks good, even when he's crying.

He's not crying now though. He sipping on vanilla milk shake in half hearted sort of way. He's got some really bad looking doodles on the napkin in front of him, labeled the "Generation of Miracles" and all but one, the third shortest one, look varying degrees of apathetic and grumpy, at least to him. It is very bad.

He looks up, and gives Jamie a little smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "Hey."

[mildwildchild]

Jamie slouches into the seat opposite Ryouta and stares dully at the table for a long few moments. His eyes land on the napkin scribbles, taking in their upside-down details, but his mind is such a tumult of emotion he can't manage to outwardly express any interest in them right now.

After a lengthy silence, he says, "I'm sorry about your bandmates."

He knows Ryouta's upset about Sora, too, but that's not a subject Jamie wants to broach just yet.

[yellowcopycat]

"I... I don't want to talk about that," Ryouta said after a moment. "I... just want some company. And you're one of my best friends. And... neither of us are doing good."

His circle of closest friends had included Tsuna, Sora, Ankh, and Jamie, the people he gave -cchi to. And Kai who was... Ryouta didn't really know how to categorize Kai. Now... now it's just down to Jamie. (And Xanxus was... well, Xanxus didn't seem like he'd be good at this.)

He does kinda wanna talk about Ankh though. Ankh who is not Ankh. But he doesn't know how to explain it.

[mildwildchild]

Jamie looks up, a little surprised that Ryouta actually considers him a friend - one of his closest, apparently. It fills him with conflicting feelings that he's not quite sure how to resolve and that he's too wrecked to try and figure out right now.

He's also not sure how to respond to Ryouta's distress. "Yeah..." he manages after a moment or two. "Is...there anything you wanna do?"

[yellowcopycat]

"Just hang out and chill? Maybe do something mind numbing? Like see a movie or play arcade games?" Ryouta suggested. "I really don't know. Everything's going sideways and Ankh isn't Ankhcchi and I have no idea what to make of that."

[mildwildchild]

Jamie blinks slowly at Ryouta. "What...what do you mean he's not..." He's gathered by now that the suffix Ryouta tacks onto people's names is some sort of gesture of affection, so his first thought is that he and Ankh are suddenly on bad terms. "Did...you guys get into a fight or something?"

[yellowcopycat]

"No... he's not him. He's been replaced."

Ryouta leaned back. "I'm not sure how to explain it. For awhile now I've been able to take in so much more detail then before. And I can just tell it's not him. It's someone pretending to be him."

[mildwildchild]

That bit about being able to pick up more detail is intriguing, or would be, if Jamie weren't still numb with grief - another weird new power? Something to do with Ryouta's eyes changing color, maybe? But Ryouta's not making a whole lot of sense with the replacement thing.

"What do you mean, someone pretending to be him?" Jamie blinks slowly. "Like...a clone, or something?"

[yellowcopycat]

"Or something. He's extremely similar, but it's like... a different person's behind the wheel, and they're trying to be Ankh, but... some of the data was missing? I don't know."

He frowns. He's not good with metaphors. Or science. Learning foreign languages was his best subject in... homeschool? school? he's not sure any more.