a lesson in deprivation [o]

[SHOKICHI RIHITO]

[atrb=cellpadding,0,bTable][atrb=cellspacing,0,bTable][atrb=border,0,bTable][atrb=align,center,bTable][atrb=width,450,bTable]

[atrb=width,450][atrb=style,padding-left: 10px;][atrb=valign,bottom] ♚ one motive: cater to the hollow tagged: open, pew pew pew

[atrb=cellpadding,0,bTable][atrb=cellspacing,0,bTable][atrb=border,0,bTable][atrb=align,center,bTable][atrb=width,450,bTable][atrb=style,margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px,bTable][atrb=width,40][atrb=style,border-right: 3px solid #5D6FA6;]

[atrb=width,10px]

[atrb=width,400][atrb=style,border-left: 1px dashed #5D6FA6; padding: 0px 5px 10px 10px;] Shokichi took a bite of the cake he had ordered and stared at the screen of his laptop, letting the fork dangle from his mouth as he waited for the word-processing program to load. Ordinarily, pride would have dictated that he never visit a cake shop, let alone one renowned for catering to a predominantly female demographic, but needs must when the devil drives. He had been desperate. Sugar deprivation, courtesy of a lack of Pocky, had compelled him to take action to remedy his failure to consume sweets in the past week. His mother had not yet recanted the household Pocky ban, let alone returned his stolen stash of said snack, because his grades had yet to improve. Which was unfair, really, considering that they had been improving due to proper class participation, attendance, and studying—it was just that the change had not yet shown up because a number of his teachers were notorious for being slow to return tests. Cake was nowhere near as good as Pocky, but he had to admit that this particular shop served excellent cakes, and the point that they had a number of tables arranged outside for customers to use was a plus. After he had ordered his cake some ten minutes ago, he had promptly taken it to one of the corner tables outside, near the outer perimeter of the seating area, and haphazardly dumped his bag, notes, and laptop on the table's glass surface. He had notes to compile and a research paper to write, after all. Pursing his lips around the fork in his mouth, Sho fished his phone out of his bag and hooked it up to his laptop via a wire. This particular shop did not offer free wifi, so he had to make do with the relatively slow internet his phone had, but slow internet access was better than none at all, at the very least. He loaded up a web browser and typed in the url to a search engine, fingers flying swiftly across black keys, and then sat back and waited for it to load. Judging by the slow inch of the loading bar, it was going to take at least a minute to finish loading. Heaving a sigh, Shokichi moved to rummage through his bag and fish out his mp3 player, and then two small, extravagantly decorated boxes fell out, tumbling haphazardly onto the table. Ah. Those. Without really thinking, he glanced at the ring he now wore on his finger—the Maguro famiglia's lightning ring—and then tilted his head in thought, eyes falling half-lidded. Life had been...strange, admittedly, ever since he had agreed to join Takumi's vigilante group. The ring around his finger testified to that point. He didn't really understand what the ring meant, but he had inklings of its power. Shokichi recalled the incident at school, where the janitor had frozen the floor with a mysterious blue flame and a similarly mysterious ring. And then there was Rai Inazuma, who had generated green sparks to break the ice on the floor... Still puzzling over the mystery that had been presented to him, Sho drummed his fingers against the table. When Takumi's mother had given him the ring during the meeting where he and the other main members of Takumi's so-called "famiglia" had gathered, there hadn't been that many explanations. All he knew was that he needed resolve to power his ring, but heh, resolve—the irony, considering it was one of many things he lacked. He lacked ambition, lacked drive, lacked everything that could possibly embody resolve. He had never managed to even light the ring even once, the way the janitor had. It was pitiful. Shokichi glanced back at his boxes and promptly stuffed them back into his bag, recalling how he had acquired them: he had received them from his estranged uncle. The majority of his blood family practically shunned the man for his quirks, and there were rumors amongst his relatives that the man was involved in underhanded business, but Sho had always liked visiting him without his parents' permission. The other day, he had stopped by the man's antique shop, located in an isolated corner of the shopping district. After a brief encounter, the man taken a long stare at the ring on Sho's finger and refused to let him leave without taking the boxes. It was all too much to process. Shaking his head, Sho dismissed the thoughts and gave up on digging his mp3 player out of his bag, instead easing his fork out of his mouth and using it to slice himself another piece of his cake. By now, the webpage had finished loading, but as he reached to type, the screen went black and the hum of his laptop promptly stuttered into silence. He stopped, stared, and took a furious bite of both cake and fork, his teeth snapping irritably around metal and sugar alike. "Fuuuuck," he hissed, glaring at his laptop and continuing to chew agitatedly on his fork, "you just had to run out of battery on me, didn't you? This place probably doesn't have any outlets I can use... Man, this sucks..." He paused, snapping the lid of his laptop shut, his annoyed muttering degenerating into what could only be described as an unintelligible growl of "jafklszdjflksz." It wasn't like him to get so annoyed, but his laptop battery had just died. Charging it at home was out of the question—his mother was not going to take kindly to the point he was pigging out on cake when she had taken great pains to take away his Pocky stash. So many first-world problems, so little time... THIS TEMPLATE HAS BEEN CODED BY CRUX STRICTLY FOR PERSONAL USE ♚