[Day: Wednsday, February 26th. Time: 4:30 p.m.] [Kaede was about to look stuff up online when he was told to go home because Nanami wanted him there. A few hours later, he finished whatever chore she wanted him to do, and has free time again!] [Mini Start] * Kaede goes over to his desk, moving aside some boxes, and shaking his head. "Honestly, she could have taken care of the ordering herself. I guess I can't blame her though..." * Kaede sighs and slips out his laptop, setting it on the desk and plugging in a few cords from the back, letting it boot up as he eyes the phone. * Kaede sits on the boxes that make the chair to his desk with a whump and shakes his head. "Why's it always up to me...?" He picks up the phone and dials up Remi. [After three rings, Remi answers! "Hello?"] * Kaede lets out a deep loud relieved breath, just in the mouthpiece. "This is Remi, isn't it?" "It should be. It's my cell phone." * Kaede blushes slightly at that and shakes his head, muttering to himself but forgetting he's on the phone. "That's the last time I let them let me worry like that..." "Who is this?" * Kaede opens up his browser and calls up a newspaper archival search page. Ah...um..Kaede. Kaede Takeuchi. I visited you a couple times in the hospital...if you remember... "I remember. What's up?" Well..um.. * Kaede sighs and lowers his voice. "A lot of things..but to be honest, I wanted to make sure you were still there..." Another friend of ours vanished...from Judgement...and since we hadn't talked to her in a while, I didn't, well..don't want that to happen to anyone else... "Yeah. That guy hasn't come after me again. I think he's still in jail." Did you hear what happened at Sakuragoaka recently though..? * Kaede types into the search engine for local incidence of drug deals in the last 3 months. "You mean about the festival? I'm going to try to get down there, so maybe I'll see you around." ( Gimme a computer check :P ) * Kaede blinks slightly, almost slumping off his box/chair. "R-really? That's...I don't know what to say..." "Huh? All I said was I was going to try to come. What's strange about that?" Well...um... 2d6-7 * Dicesuke throws the bones for Kaede (2d6-7) and gets -1. * Kaede scratches his head. "It's just...weird is all." [Kaede finds plenty of information on the drug deals. Many dealers have been caught, but none of the articles mention the suppliers.] I'm not used to all these people...well...noticing me. "Weird?" * Kaede blushes again and hangs his head, almost dropping the phone. "Actually, I don't know how to handle it most of the time..." * Kaede stares at the computer screen, seeing if it mentions anything important about who caught them. "Handle what?" Well...people actually. * Kaede mutters low. "Girls most of all.." [Nothing in particular comes to sight. Of the articles mentioned, police were usually the ones to catch the dealers. They are police from different precincts, too. Kaede notices some of the articles involved rather brutal incidents.] * Kaede winces slightly and reads on, trying to find anything particular about the locations of the incidents. * Kaede clears his throat a bit. "But actually I meant about the attack..." "Are you saying... attack?" * Kaede blinks. "Am I saying what?" "What attack?" You didn't hear? We had a small gang of bikers drive on campus the other day...they took a pipe and chains to a couple students..would have busted right through the doors... "Oh." Remi is silent for a minute. "I had no idea." ....yeah. * Kaede is silent for a while too. But...here's the thing. They all died from drug overdose. [The incidents don't seem to follow any real pattern. Some shops were robbed, some people got hurt at a restaurant... Sakuragaoka's the only school to have been attacked, but dealers were found in Serizawa, Shunyo, and even Seiryuu.] * Kaede hmms into the phone as he's reading, quite by accident. "Drugs? You mean like... that stuff?" * Kaede nods, then realizes she can't see that over the phone. "Yeah. I think it's the same type of stuff...I thought..you'd want to know. There were some dealers in Seiryuu? "Just one. She was arrested back in January." * Kaede blinks. "You know about it?" "... They died from that?" And yeah...they did. "Yeah. I mean, you'd expect that sort of thing from Serizawa High, but from my school?" * Kaede sighs into the phone and frowns, you can hear it in his voice. "Drugs...are awful." What's wrong with Serizawa? "I could have been dead right now..." * Kaede frowns. "..Now don't start thinking like that..." "Have you seen the kids that go to that school? They're all... dangerous." I...think I have. I don't pay much attention to things that don't seem..important. Was there anything unusual about the incident at Seiryuu that you remember? Anything at all? "What incident? You mean when the girl got arrested?" Yeah. There's got to be some pattern but nothing's coming up..except that there's dealers in most of the major schools..and I think that's more the age- factor than anything. "Well..." * Kaede chuckles wearily. "I'm too young and busy to play detective...seems strange.." Remi hesitates. * Kaede waits, rescanning the articles for anything he missed, and trying to find when the first incident showed. [The papers don't identify when this drug first started causing problems, because at first it was written off as "just another drug". But it began to distinguish itself sometime in early January.] "That girl who got arrested? I... Well, I went to see her." You...wait, you what? * Kaede lowers his voice. "You mean you were going to..." "I... I couldn't help it. It was at the end of January, when Miki... when she died. I was just so depressed..." [Remi becomes silent.] * Kaede lets out a slow breath and closes his eyes. "It's...okay, Remi. We all have times when we feel we can't handle the pressure..." I know I've felt that..more than enough...more than I should really. "I d-didn't know what to do." * Kaede sighs. "Remi..." I'm...I'm not going to judge you. But...why are you telling me this...? "What do you mean? If it wasn't for you guys, I would have lost Eiko, too." * Kaede starts slightly at that and lets out another slow breath. "I...suppose you're right." How is Eiko anyways? "She's... Well... I haven't talked to her much for a while." * Kaede raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, typing Iwato's name into the search to see if there's any articles about him beyond what he already knows. "Why not?" "I don't know. We just... well, we haven't." "She's started to spend more time around Ayako Kunoichi, though." [Nothing noticable comes up about Iwato.] Ayako? The modeling contestant? [You can sense bitterness in Remi's voice. "Yeah. Her."] * Kaede taps his computer slightly with his finger. "Being drop dead gorgeous isn't everything. Frankly, those who are overly attractive I find the most annoying. They can't come up with two interesting words to put together." Remi chuckles. "Yeah. They're really pathetic." She pauses, then sighs. "Except Ayako's one of the smartest students in the school." You don't sound that unintelligent yourself to me. In fact, you're rather likeable. When you're not trying to throw ice at my feet and getting irritated at my presence and all.. "But I know I'm not that smart an- hey! I apologized for that already!" "Besides, you're not THAT irritating." * Kaede chuckles for a bit, then coughs at that. "What? I thought everyone thought I was..." * Kaede blushes a little and lowers his voice sadly. "Well, incorrigible really.." She snickers. "'Incorrigible'. Maybe a little." Only a little huh? "You're nicer than that brute that goes to your school." * Kaede blinks slightly. "Brute..?" His voice deadpans suddenly. "...oh. You mean Kyon?" "Kyon? Nope." * Kaede blinks. Twice. "Then who...?" "I don't remember her name. She's this real mean girl who came to my school and... well, beat me up." * Kaede 's eye widen a bit. "Black curly hair by chance?" "Curly? No, it was straight. And she wore a lot of black leather, too." * Kaede facefaults. "..Saki." "Is that her name?" Yeah...she doesn't seem to like much of anyone. I think I avoided getting beaten myself earlier today... * Kaede 's voice sounds as if he's deep in thought while he's talking. "...why would Saki come specifically to beat you up?" "I got an address from Yurika -- she's the one who was arrested -- for the drugs. I was going to go that day and get a few, but she showed up and demanded I give the address to her. When I wouldn't she beat me up." * Kaede tries to find his voice after a while, coughing to clear his throat. "...forward." She doesn't much care for drugs..or anyone to do with them. "I'll say. She hurt my friends too when they tried to stop her." * Kaede chuckles weakly. "I don't know how good of a comparison it is if I'm being compared to Saki for niceties." Are they all okay? "Yeah. It wasn't anything serious." * Kaede lets out a deep breath. "Well that's good." You're...not still depressed, are you? "Um... Well, I'm trying not to be." ...but you still are, aren't you? She hesitates a moment. "It's not... I don't think I'll ever be able to get over it." It's not easy..when someone close to you passes away... "Yeah..." * Kaede 's voice gets a melancholy tone as his head droops a bit, the phone feeling heavy in his hands. "It's...been about 3 years for me. And I still feel it weighing on me..." * Kaede gets silent for a bit. Then finds his voice again. "...just don't turn to drugs, okay Remi? I...don't want to see anyone else disappear..." "I won't. Not now... I won't." Good. * Kaede blinks. "Oh yeah. Who's Nanako?" "Nanako? You mean my sister?" * Kaede blinks again. "Your sister? Yes I suppose...she seems a bit...odd though." It's hard to tell you're related..well at least over the phone. * Kaede chuckles. "Of course, some people say the same about Nanami and me." "Well, she's only ten. You can't expect her to be like me." Well...no not really. * Kaede blushes a bit. "Forget I asked." She chuckles. What? "It's just funny, trying to tell the difference between my sister and me over the phone." Well, I didn't expect to get her! I WAS trying to call YOU, you know. "That must have been the day I forgot my phone." Probably. * Kaede looks at his computer screen a bit, then fiddles a bit with his phone. "Well, I don't want to pressure you about the drug incident. But if you think of anything important, you'll let me know, right?" "Yeah, sure." Alright... * Kaede smiles. "It was good to talk to you, Remi." "You too." * Kaede hangs up the phone in the cradle, and stares at the laptop screen for a while, then looks at the time. [Mini End!]