all_that_glimmers | Pssst didja hear? [Sound test]

Who: Yuuko+Mineto
Where: After game start
What: Gossip swap~

When most people talk to their plants they don't expect the plants to talk back, let alone lean into water like a cat looking for attention. It had been a hot day and humans and youkai weren't the only ones feeling too hot. One of these days Yuuko would remember to install air conditioning in the shop but her water magic was keeping her cool for now. Other people in the shop would be less fortunate.

"Have you heard the news?" Yuuko asked lighty as she fussed over the plant.

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The man standing by the counter looked unperturbed by the heat. He did not seem too worried either.

"Would that be the good news or the bad news?"

"So you have heard," Yuuko smiled but shook her head, more like a teacher reprimanding a short-sighted student. "I haven't decided yet whether its mostly good or bad or a happy in-between of news for me yet. However, new business is always welcome and it sounds as though the number of prospective customers will be going up and the shop will continue to go on as it always has.

"You youkai on the other hand will most likely have your hands full? Good or bad."

"I suppose."

Mineto found her tone summed up the human lack of age perfectly. In the experience of his life, he had learned considerably from observing. Now he was smiling at some thought.

"Anybody would have their hands full with children, though."

Edited Date: 2013-05-16 12:10 pm (UTC)

Yuuko laughed. "Yes, but we're all children compared to you, Oza-jisan. If we were to judge by your standards than humans barely live long enough to get close to 'teenhood' or 'young adulthood' before our bodies give out."

She gave the leafs a light pat before she drank the remaining water from the bottle.

"But they're not the ones that're really going to shake things up, are they? Granted, they might later - there's always one person or two such as myself - but that's only if the city's still the same, let alone standing, once the dust settles."

Edited Date: 2013-05-17 04:06 am (UTC)

"No," he said. "That's a rare thing - even strange, I suppose - given how many there are in just one town..."

Mineto looked a little jaded. He had tired eyes and a disappointed face.

"There's only a handful of people each generation made of sterner stuff - and they have all set me up for disappointment."

"Perhaps you should lower the bar a little? Or a lot?" Yuuko asked blithely. "Or give up on human souls entirely, since we seem to be nothing but fail and disappointment for you. If you were human I would tell you life is too short for unrewarding work but in your case, life's too long. Why put yourself through the disappointment over and over again for another few centuries or another millennium?

Mineto, despite the frustration he'd heard, sighed and folded his arms. It occurred to him that he often had to explain something simple to people who didn't get it. A freezing look was turned on Yuuko.

And he said, "Because I would love to see you stronger. But people are not perfect. And sometimes I get tired of work that comes to nothing."

"There is an expression for that," Yuuko continued, tone still blithe. "Repeating something over and over again expecting a different result is supposedly a sign of insanity.

"But it is your work and we all need our hobbies." She shrugged with an air of 'what can you do?'. "Perhaps a grading rubric next time? Something more specific than 'not weak willed and weak'?"

"Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to your insane world."

He even began struggling trying to understand how they made any sense. "You do realize that even demons marvel at how evil humans can be, don't you? Yet in our society, insanity is the rule according to you people."

He was finding it quite clear to understand.

"Maybe it's just old age. But to answer; in the absence of willpower, the idea of grading is worthless. It is present or it is not."

"Evil is not a human invention," Yuuko said simply. "A trip to Four Lions or the subway will find you relative evil but maybe its just definitions and societies. In our society youkai society would seem rather evil and depraved in many ways. And then there's bureaucracy, lawyers, and loan sharks in every society! That guarantees evil will thrive forever.

"And grading when willpower exists? For example," Yuuko leaned in with a cat's smile, "where does someone like I rate on your ideal scale?"

Edited Date: 2013-05-17 08:45 am (UTC)

Mineto seemed a little puzzled. "If I have to tell you where you are, you aren't on it at all," he said simply, as he took a downwards look.

Edited Date: 2013-05-17 08:53 am (UTC)

"Too bad." Yuuko pulled away with a slight shrug and melodramatic sigh. "I don't make the cut at all for the great Mineto Ozaki. Ah well. I have several years to prove you wrong but the person you're looking for will probably have to be someone extra-ordinary. Or a Gary Stu/Mary Sue.

"Or maybe you'll be lucky and the influx of new mages will bring you someone? Or the love god will help do the work for you and prune out the weak ones."

Edited Date: 2013-05-17 09:01 am (UTC)

Nothing registered on Mineto's face at the literary terms. In the end he decided they weren't worth the effort and sat himself in the chair that was tucked in the corner of the room, swinging around to face her and lounging like he owned the place.

"I do things myself, but you cannot hope he'll do your work simply by wishing it."

"Nope, that'd be impossible now," Yuuko said, nonplussed. "He doesn't have any places to offer those wishes anymore for one. He's also the wrong god to grant any wishes I might have and even if he were, gods aren't reliable or completely altruistic."

She picked up a vial from the side and it glowed a dark blue at her touch. "But as they say, if you want to do something right do it yourself. The love god might just end up being good news for me in the end or he may make things more difficult but the playing field will be changing."

"No, there's still the odd place," Mineto said, more to himself. But what he said was in earshot. "Just a few. But..."

He thought of the parks in the city and the bear statues, and the increasingly prevalence of them made him feel a little unpleasant.

"I do not concern myself with gods and spirits either good or evil. Nor should you."

"As long as none appear as customers," Yuuko replied. "If the love god came in here and demanded service as the owner I couldn't turn him away. Literally, given the raw power he'd have. I wonder how many vials he would fill..."

She shrugged again. "A question for someone else. I have no intention of joining in on power struggles - I'm a simply a shopkeep, though excellent, and have more pressing priorities."

"Speaking of which," Mineto said, "I did come here for a reason."

He leaned forward as he spoke.

"Do you have the list?"

"It's never just a social call." Yuuko sighed and shook her head. She walked over to the counter, though, and touched a panel. It took a moment to ask the wood to move but it gave, slowly sliding enough for her to pick up a brightly colored piece of sticky pad paper.

"It may make you less depressed than usual to know there's a few more names on the list than usual."

In a curious, amused sort of way his eyes followed the paper from the desk to the air as he remained seated - one hand drumming a pattern on the arm. The other pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Oh," he said. "Before you were born I was making social calls. If I wasn't, I'd take it and go. So stop it with the melodrama," an irritable sigh came out his mouth. "Kids."

"But it's a healthy expression of my personality!" Yuuko pouted, but it gave way to a smile. "And you wouldn't even need to take it and go, Oza-jisan. There's a wonderful invention most bosses use these days called email - instant information and saves trees."

She walked around an passed the list to him. Her writing was neat with each name with additional notes and recommendations.

"Sometimes I assume you believe I haven't changed with the times." A nod. "Yes, I enjoy a call. But the day technology surpassed social interaction was the day our people became idiots."

His tone was scathing, joking, but also questionable - all these mechanical inventions yet none had lightened his burden.

Edited Date: 2013-05-17 08:50 pm (UTC)

"That's what's in the news these days," Yuuko replied. "Kids being stuck on their videogames, people who text people in the same room rather than talking to the person, employees being fired over video instead of in person... I could make a machine for my work but there's something clinical and impersonal about it that turns customers off. And it makes it harder to get just the right mixes.

"But technology also makes it easier to find and reach out to people, as you already know."

But it made no difference to Mineto's problem. He knew technology wouldn't help him. He did not blame it. He knew how useful it could be as well as faster, and as much as Yuuko did. Perhaps he was hoping it would change something. But he thought there was something missing - important indeed, because computers did not create the right quality in a person.

"Of course. It's also making everything more precise and brutal. I suppose I can appreciate that."

"It's been like that for the past few hundred years or so according to the history books," Yuuko said. "I know you must have been around during the Industrial Revolution or so, or was that too far from battle fields? But brutal and precise is your nature and you literally."

"The Meiji Restoration?" said Mineto. "I had just three things to teach; law, philosophy and the military. Education is the most powerful weapon. Its roots are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. War is a poor tool in comparison."

He rested his head on his fist.

"Some of the natives, unable to think, were less educated and less intelligent. They needed more literal schooling."

In short; he was a teacher.