daybreakacademy | (no subject)

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WHO: Orihime & Tatsumaki
WHAT: First meeting
WHEN: About 3 and a half years ago. Summer.
WHERE: Streets of France
NOTES: Flashback log!

Summer vacation was a time most students looked forward to. For a twelve year old girl, Tatsumaki was strangely indifferent to it. All it meant for her was that she didn’t have to bother with written assignments. She couldn’t afford to let up on her training. Not even for a day. The only other perk for her was not living in the dorms. Her foster parents within the Watchers had a large house and no other children they had taken in, so she could have peace and quiet.

Now and then, they tried to indulge her and encourage her to enjoy the things that “normal” children did. Today was one of those days, so they’d taken Tatsumaki into town and encouraged her to pick out some things she wanted. Aside from some new clothes, she’d picked up a large Lego set, and new books. When they ran into some friendly acquaintances, Tatsumaki was handed a few Euros to get herself some ice cream while her foster parents talked. She didn’t need to be a Seer to know this was going to take a while, nor did she need a telepath to know that they were speaking in code about the supernatural while seemingly making small talk.

With a cone of mint chocolate ice cream in hand, she walked along the street looking bored. Suddenly, she abruptly stopped, reflexively sticking her arm out to block anyone behind her from passing. A half-second later, a car came screeching around the corner, going so fast that it went up on the curb and part of the sidewalk. Police sirens wailed. Inexplicably to everyone but Tatsumaki, the car that had been speeding so recklessly to escape the police came to a rough halt, deploying the airbags in the process.

Finally, she lowered her arm to address the girl she’d nearly clotheslined. “You weren’t hurt, right?”

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The girl didn't answer. She was still staring at the street, and craned her neck to try and get one last glimpse of the speeding car that had come so close to running her over. Her chest moved up and down with accelerated breath, and her brown eyes were impossibly wide.

Too late, she realized the other girl had spoken to her. She stared at her too, and her brow furrowed for a moment. "...g...genki-desu...anou...oui?"

Her French wasn't very good at all, but she was trying.

Fortunately for Orihime, Tatsumaki knew some Japanese. She wasn't quite fluent, and she struggled with keeping all the hirugana, katakana and kanji straight, but she could manage conversational Japanese and emails in romanji.

It was enough that she could recognize the language when she heard it, and she was calm enough about the whole ordeal to realize that someone just learning French was going to have trouble speaking it when they'd just had an encounter like this. She switched over to Japanese.

"Walk with me. That driver is probably going to do something stupid if we stick around and watch."

Two quick blinks, and the surprise intensified once she heard her native language being spoken. Mutely she nodded once, and moved to follow without hesitation. She followed closely on Tatsumaki's heels like a lost duckling that got attached to a noble swan.

"How did you know?" she finally asked. "Even before there was any noise, you guessed it would happen! It's amazing!"

A very tiny swan with a perennial scowl, perhaps. She certainly had the aggression and pride of one. She led the way with full confidence that the other girl would follow. Other people seemed to be keeping their distance from the situation, which was just as well.

She couldn't give an honest answer. Not to an outsider. Fortunately, she'd been careful. She hadn't done anything obvious. "I could see around the corner. That driver was going way too fast to stop or even turn properly."

She offered a shrug. "You know how some people are just really good at seeing the angles for shooting pool or where to kick a football? I'm like that."

"Like a superhero?" the girl ventured, her light voice hopeful. "It sure seemed that way. If you hadn't seen the car, I'd be a pancake! A greasy puddle on the ground, where nothing will ever grow again!"

She drummed her fingers over her mouth as she hurried to keep pace.

"Do you live close by? Are you from Japan too?"

"Superhero?" Orihime's guess was a lot closer than Tatsumaki could ever admit to. She blushed, and couldn't even hide how flustered she was. She was so taken aback that her mint chocolate chip ice cream began to dribble down her hand.

She quickly stopped to lick it off, certain this had destroyed any image of coolness she'd just projected moments ago. "That's just pretend! This was...math and stuff."

Fortunately, the other questions were much easier to deal with. "I live around here with my foster parents. My father was half-Japanese, though."

At the best of times, Tatsumaki's people skills were less than stellar. Still, she knew it was probably time to introduce herself. She had time to kill before her foster parents would be ready to go home.

"I'm Tatsumaki Dubois. Dad had a weird sense of humour." Not to mention, the late meteorologist had been a total nerd who thought naming his daughter 'Tornado' was cool.

"Whoa, really?! What a cool name...! I'm a little envious!"

She didn't seem at all dismayed or put off by a little ice cream mess. In fact, she seemed to be growing more and more animated the longer they talked. It was a sharp contrast to how bleary and distant she'd been before bumping into Tatsumaki's outstretched arm.

"Mine's Orihime. I don't really know my parents, but I don't think they had a good sense of humor." She was starting to walk next to Tatsumaki instead of trailing in her wake. "And 'Dubois' means...anou...is it raspberry?"

No. No it wasn't.

"No, it just means 'wood' or 'of the woods'. I must have had ancestors who either lived in the woods or who were woodcutters. Something like that. A lot of common last names in Europe are just the jobs people had or where they were from."

Her late grandfather had some interest in the origins of names. He'd also been a researcher, largely to help her late grandmother understand as many details as possible about her visions. His influence on Tatsumaki showed up now and then. Like now.

"Did you just move here?"

Orihime tilted her head thoughtfully. "A tornado in the woods... It still sounds really cool to me." Much better than raspberry tornado, but she probably would have found a way to put a spin on that too.

"Oh...well...I guess so," she admitted, looking sheepish. "It's summer now, so...I came here last fall?"

It seemed like the sort of thing a normal girl would be more cognizant of, but she just seemed kind of lost, blinking at the sun like she was surprised to see it there and feel its heat.

The response being off was something Tatsumaki picked up on, although she was somewhat confused. If Orihime didn't really know her parents, they must have died when she was rather young. Maybe she was being intrusive, but it was better that she was asking verbally instead of trying to pull the information from the other girl's mind.

"Do you have relatives who live in France? Or were you adopted like me?"

She was spacing out again, nearly bumping into a mailbox before Tatsumaki's question brought her back around.

"Heh? Oh. Yes. I have an aunt." She didn't seem like she was going to offer anything more than that.

"...Anou...if I'm not being insensitive to ask...how long ago did you lose your parents?"

If Orihime hadn't mentioned not knowing her own parents, Tatsumaki might have gotten more defensive and told her to mind her own business. Instead, she was very matter of fact about the deaths and the order of them.

"Four years ago. They died in a car accident when I was eight. I was living with my grandparents...but then my grandmother got sick, and my grandfather died in a freak natural disaster last year. So now I have foster parents."

She was so quiet. And she couldn't tear her eyes away from Tatsuki, her raw emotions playing openly over her face...particularly in the upward tilt of her brows.

"You're...really strong," she finally breathed. "I couldn't...I mean, even if I tried, I'm still..."

Tears welled up in her eyes.

"I wish I could be like you, Tatsumaki-chan."

She didn't know how to comfort people. Despite her telepathy giving her insight into what went through people's minds, Tatsumaki still felt immensely awkward trying to connect with people. She normally kept people away. So why did she feel a pull on her heartstrings right now? Why wasn't she just crossing her arms and walking away like usual?

Probably because she understood loss intimately.

"Who did you lose last fall?"

She'd done the mental math. If Orihime didn't really remember her parents, then someone had been taking care of her in between their deaths and when she moved in to live with her aunt in the past fall.

Edited (mun did the mental math a moment after her character. /facepalm) 2019-02-04 03:12 (UTC)

Orihime didn't seem like she was trying to be comforted. She stayed out of arm's reach, even as her shoulders hitched with little sobs that grew steadily stronger.

"...o...onii-chan..." She rubbed her arm childishly across her eyes, but the tears still rolled down her cheeks. "A-and I miss him...I miss him so much, it's all I do...how am I supposed to live without him? I don't want to...he's not here and I really can't stand it...! I'm r-really...really very pathetic..."

"What's so pathetic about missing your family?!"

Tatsumaki asked, voice a little sharper and more defensive than she'd intended it to come out. Especially toward a crying person who'd been nothing but nice to her. She tsked, more to herself than anything.

"If anyone's a jerk to you about that, beat them up! Throw rocks at them!"

"R-rocks?!" she gasped, stunned. It was a reaction she'd never had before. Most people just regarded her with awkward silence, or asked if she wanted to go outside for some fresh air. Some patted her head and hugged her and said it would get better in time.

But it never got better. He still wasn't there, and she was so lonely without him.

"...D...did you...ever throw rocks at anybody? Or beat someone up...?

"I've done both."

While someone coped with grief with sadness, Tatsumaki expressed grief through anger. In that way, her training at the Academy was a boon. She'd had a few years of combat training, and she was good at using her telekinesis so far, although she hadn't mastered it just yet.

"It's a good way to shut people up. You should try it sometime."

"HEH?!" Orihime's eyes doubled in size as she balked at the shorter green-haired girl. "Oh no, I couldn't! I'd get sued for sure! And I don't want to cause any trouble for my aunt. A-anyway I don't think people tease me much here," she admitted, fidgeting as she stared down at her feet. Maybe they did and she'd been too gloomy to notice, she had no idea. People generally just left her alone.

"But...I'm sorry they did that to you. That was mean." She stopped fidgeting, looking at Tatsumaki with open concern. "You really didn't have anyone else looking out for you?"

"I don't need to be protected! Anyone who messes with me learns to regret it."

She fidgeted a bit when she saw the concerned look. She could tell it was genuine, despite them only just meeting. After a moment, she added, "I guess there's some people I know who are all right. And my foster parents are fine."

She wasn't necessarily labelling them as friends, but there were plenty of people she was on at least civil terms with. One of the good things about the Academy was that weird was the norm. Everyone had some sort of supernatural ability and odd experiences to go along with it.

Orihime's steps paused as she stared at Tatsumaki's vehement declaration. It looked like she was torn between being very impressed and very uncertain if she was one of those people who was inadvertently messing with her and would soon know the promised regret.

She took a tentative move forward, eyebrows arched questioningly to see if that was acceptable. Orihime cast one more glance back over her shoulder, then resumed trailing along behind the other girl.

"I wish I could be as mature as you," she admitted sheepishly. "It feels like...I need too much. But no one really needs me. I don't even know how to cook."

"Well, that's something you can learn, isn't it? If you don't want to beat people up, why don't you try learning a new recipe to distract you every time you feel sad?"

Tatsumaki hated crying. Whenever she did it herself, she decided her eyes were defective and had sprouted a leak. But telepathy made her understand that everyone handled things differently, and maybe a person could cry and still be strong. It just wasn't for her.

"Then if you're feeling sad all the time, you'll become an amazing cook in no time and then other people will need you more."

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