Roped In [Open]

[Hiromi Sakata]

How did I get myself roped into this she thought bitterly as she examined her progress. The trash bag was about a quarter full, and judging by the state of the park it looked like she was soon done. The park was generally kept in good shape. It was only a few odds and ends that needed to be seen to. Random empty cans, a few candy wrappers, a bag from the local corner shop; those kinds of things. It looked like (thankfully she thought) she wasn't going to need to stay much longer. Good. It's too cold to be doing something like this anyways. She went on in her angry monologue, bringing her hands up to her face and blowing her warm hot breath on her chilled hands. This is not the kind of thing you make people do in winter!

She thought back a few hours previously before she got suckered into doing this 'community building' project.

[Homeroom at School earlier that day]

"Anyone?" asked the homeroom teacher again. You could hear the almost pleading in his voice.

Hiromi glanced around. She was not surprised that not a single hand was raised to volunteer their services. It had been a year since 'the' earthquake. Since then Kanehira High's student representative body thought it would be nice to do small service 'clean up' jobs for the community. Volunteers were in abundance when the earthquake had hit days ago. But as the days turned into months, it was harder and harder to find volunteers anymore. People just didn't care anymore. And since Kanehira High didn't want to report that the students 'simply didn't care anymore', every now and then a teacher would come and beg for volunteers from their homeroom. And today it seemed to be of class 1-C.

"Ideally we want a boy and a girl." continued the teacher. His smile didn't match his desperate tone. "Come on! Aren't their any volunteers?! Could be a good time to get to know some of your fellow classmates..."

Hiromi was sure he was trying to hint at something more than simple fraternization. He really does sound desperate she thought, pitying her teacher. But who would fall for that....

"I'll do it teacher," said a female voice in the second row. She had her hand in the air, but soon stood up so everyone could get a good look at her. Hiromi recognized her. She was the girl several of the male students found attractive and-

Almost at once 3 more hands soared into the air. This time, all boys. The first one to actually say anything however was the eager looking boy from the back of the room.

"I've got some time teacher!" he said hurriedly, trying to beat the others to the punch.

The teacher gave a huge sigh of relief. "Good. Then it'll be..."

"Wait, you can't go. Remember. You've got that thing..." said a girl next to the female volunteer. The female volunteer's eyes widened, as if she forgot something crucial and important.

"Oh. I'm sorry Senpai," she said hurriedly, sitting down. "I forgot. I cant..."

The boy in the backroom looked crushed. He sunk into his chair, looking defeated. He only looked a little better than the teacher, who looked like someone just snatched away his winning trophy.

"Well....do we have anyone else?" he asked, looking around the room. "How about..."

[Now]

"...how about you Sakata-san?" she said, mimicking her teacher's words as she picked up another piece of trash with her trash picker, depositing the empty can in the nearby bag. She paused, angry at herself for speaking out like that. It sounded rather childish. She resumed her work now angry at her situation and how she had openly responded to it. She doubted anyone had heard her but still...she was better than that.

And to top it off, that boy that had volunteered didn't show up. That left all the work up to her. She no doubt expected him to give some kind of lame excuse as to why he didn't show up. But she would know the real reason.

Damn it!

She used the trash picker, this time rather violently, and thrust it into a can instead of picking it up with the tongs. It stabbed through and she maneuvered the trash picker so the can was at eye level. She sighed.

[Gin Seimei]

Gin was tasked with helping the community again, every time when these community meetings started the shrine would send three or four people out to help since nowadays people just didn't bother helping the local environment. Sure this was eating away at precious training time but gin can't ignore something as basic as helping the community out after what happened back around years ago, so for now Gin was stuck helping the locals cleaning up with three other trainees he can command.

"You three should split up in each direction to cover most ground, I will be doing the north so you three can pick either west, east or south! I don't mind buying something at the convenient store later on for helping me properly, okay?" The sound of free food enticed the trainees alot so they got to work fast enough. After walking by some places and noticing the area was strangely cleaner the usual, Gin met a kouhai. Wow, didn't expect someone else to be here.

With him noticing the angry look on her face, Gin decided to say hi smoothly and nicely rather then being abrupt, "seems you were ditched then, want me to help?" a smile Gin gave with him waving the trash picker slowly as to not damage it. He still went to town on the trash neatly and faster then others, this was the fruits of doing this biweekly.

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Notes: Heyyo~ Toshi~
Tags: Hiromi Sakata

[Hiromi Sakata]

Hiromi was still staring daggers at the can when she heard a voice behind her. She turned to see a very tall teenager approach her, smiling. He seemed friendly, at odds with her current foul mood. She glanced back at the skewered can. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and answered calmly (and a little dismissively), "I'm fine. I'm almost done after all."

With little effort, she deposited the stabbed can in the bag. Then without delay, she moved on to the next bit of trash she saw: a piece of half eaten chocolate, part of it still wrapped. It had several marks on it that looked like indentations of a shoe. Yum she thought sarcastically as she picked it up, walking it over to her bag. After tossing the half eaten candy bar she looked over at the older teenager. From the way he spoke about how common place ditching was, it seemed like he volunteered his time here a lot. She moved to the next piece of trash: a coffee can that was leaning against (funnily enough) a trashcan.

"People ditch a lot?" Hiromi asked outloud. She wasn't facing the older teenager, but her question was obviously for him.

[Gin Seimei]

"Not really, some people are annoying so I like to be by myself while doing this", Gin spoke honestly as his extra arm darted from one piece of rubbish to the next and filling the quarter full trash-bag with pace, Gin saw the girl once or twice around school so his mind was trying to recollect who she was. She sure as hell wasn't a 3rd year as Gin knew all of them already, so Gin drew the conclusion that this lady was one of the 2nd years instead.

"Seems that your date dumped you for someone else then eh?" Gin made small talk with some added kick, he was obviously pulling her leg but Gin was a little worried if she had any taste for the pun. If not, he could always try to save himself but the little miss seemed strong willed so it would be hard to worm out without an apology.

Filling the trash-bag until his phone's bell rang, it signified a little break time for him as he stretched his back due to bending down a lot while using the trash picker. Grabbing a water bottle from his inside coat, Gin just sat on top a bench with a little satisfied look, "Wanna sit too?", Gin wasn't the one to be a slacker but breaks are important, she must of been earlier then Gin when doing this round of trash cleaning.

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Notes: N/a
Tags: Hiromi Sakata

[Hiromi Sakata]

Hiromi approached the discarded coffee can she spotted earlier. She made a grab for it with her trash collector, when he stopped dead in her tracks. What the taller boy had said sounded so ridiculous to her that she was forced to forget about her job (that was almost done) and turn to face him.

"Don't be ridiculous." she said simply, sounding somewhat indignant. She didn't appreciate the joke. She wouldn't have accepted it from a classmate, and she certainly wasn't going to simply accept it because it came from some stranger. She turned around again and went to pick up the coffee can. Instead of picking it up, her device stabbed through it because of the excessive force she used to pick it up.

Calm down Hiromi she thought, cautioning herself. She didn't want to get worked up over something so trivial. First year dates? Ridiculous! She took a deep breath and resumed her work. 

"I'd rather not," she said dismissively to the older boy's offer about a break. She was almost done, and she didn't intend to stay any longer for the boy to come up with anything else to tease her with.

[Gin Seimei]

"Aren't you uptight? Look, your knees are a little shaking, you sure you can continue?" Gin looked at the first year, he would say she was pretty in terms of everything since Gin liked natural beauty and more often or not, complete honesty like he's been shown now. He would never date a first year and he highly doubts that she'll even feel a lick of likeness any-time soon after her sudden outrage of his whimsical joke.

Gin can see that she although she wasn't struggling, doing the trash picking for so long without any breaks can tire anyone out and possibly she just didn't notice it. With a sigh and a little wry smile, he reluctantly got up and started to take the rubbish around her into his own trash bag without saying a word, it was faster for two to do the tango if you catch my drift?

Gin just looked a little solemn while keeping his eyes on the first year in case she was feeling a little 'out there', even if it looked like she wasn't tired or not, Gin still kept her within sprinting/arms reach at the very least. Be safe then sorry.

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Notes: Sorry for doing this, I don't think I read that Hiromi did any sports so she doing all of this by herself for so long sounded a little suspicious, you can use this if you want to save on the typing. Use what you would like~
Tags: Hiromi Sakata

[Hiromi Sakata]

Hiromi picked up the last bit of trash around her. The cleaning was practically done. She could go home and be proud of her work. Well, perhaps not proud, but know that no one could deny that Kanehira High had helped in the clean up. She wasn't going to be called into the Faculty Office by her homeroom teacher. Though she wished great misfortune on the student that hadn't shown up. Though she could handle the work alone, that didn't mean she enjoyed other people pushing more work onto her.

She then turned to face the tall stranger. He had gotten up to help pick up the remaining pieces of trash. While she knew he was trying to either be simply friendly, helpful, and/or concerned, she instead found his constant need to interfere annoying. She was almost fifteen after all. She had spent many years taking care of herself. She didn't need some kind of wannabe guardian. Of course her legs were shaking. It was (SO!) cold out after all. And she definitely knew her own physical limits. Trash picking on a flat ground didn't compare to the horrors of P.E. class.

Hiromi stood still and pushed some loose strands of hair behind her ear. "I was perfectly capable of handling this alone you know." she said simply, not quite thanking the stranger for his help as well as sounding even offended by it.

[Gin Seimei]

Gin snickered in response to the first year, "heh, sorry, sorry!" with a half-hearted apology as well as him cupping his hands in respect, Gin got to work carrying the black trash bags he had over his shoulder. Knowing the meet up point with the other member of the shrine was around in the north, Gin thought this first year was possibly going the same way as it is the closest, she wouldn't just take another trash post just because of Gin's attempt to be friendly, right?

Gin wavered the thought and deducted it is possible that this first year was quite rude and prideful but still friendly to an extent, he shouldn't try to embarrass himself too much, it also would hurt Gin's pride if he did as such. He decided to spit ball some questions, thinking that both were going the same way, he might as well as make it interesting no?

"So, what made you come over to Kanehira high?" It was a dumb question, great. Trying to follow up, Gin instantly added, "Because of this disappearing thing still is effecting Kanehira even after several years, many of the inhabitants left the place, is it alright to know your reasoning behind staying in Kanehira?" People around the school knew of Gin's family fairly easily, he's basically shackled within this town either he likes it or not so getting to know another person's reasoning might help pass the boring times.

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Notes: Hope this is a good conversation continue~
Tags: Hiromi Sakata

[Hiromi Sakata]

Hiromi gathered her things. She had just finish bagging everything and putting it away. It was time for her to go. She kept the one item of hers, the trash picker (since it was on loan from Kanehira High), and tried to leave. She was however stopped by the older boys next barrage of questions. Will he ever let up she thought to herself. She turned to face him.

"I would think that obvious," she said cooly. The answer to his question seemed fairly straightforward. What kind of answer was he expecting? "I'm fourteen. My family lives in Kanehira City. So I live here."

She looked away from him and pushed back a few strands of hair back behind her ear. She could see the large buildings in the distance. Kanehira City. The nothing city. Just another small industrial town who's only cling to fame were the unfortunate events that seemed to continue to plague it. Unfortunate events she thought to herself. No. It was more than just unfortunate events. Earthquakes. Disappearances. And her own family...

"But I..." she continued, her voice low, as she continued to look away from the older boy. "...I really cant wait to leave this place behind..."