Bracelets for the soul

Before even identifying the source of the claim, Iksel angrily halted in the middle of throwing out an ice cream wrapper. "I'm not the bottle guy!" He outstretched his arms in frustration, causing all of the bottles he had in his right arm to fall to the ground. The agitated surfer then set to picking up his collection, grumbling about how the park needed to install recycling cans under his breath. When he looked up to bark at who ever caused him to drop the bottles to help him, his eyes locked onto Piami's and his expression softed into a small smile before quickly becoming flushed in embarrassment and guilt. He quickly looked away, cursing both his previous actions at the waterpark as well as how he had just acted.

-

Cheri brought their hands to their cheeks, eyelashes bashfully fluttering as Galystris' arm made it's way around their waist. It was... just like one of their Japanese animes! So romantice!

The soldier then asked if Cheri wished to get closer to the fireworks, to which Cheri had to ponder before giving an answer. Having never encountered fireworks so close before, Cheri would have eagerly said said yes. But Galystris' initial reaction made them hesitant. Cheri recalled their soulmate's occupation, and quickly made the connection. "Will you be okay? They're not to loud for you?"

Nace growled a few curses under his breath at the parental tone Amil used to address him, batting the hand away as he pulled up his hood. He hunched over as they passed Alraada and Vale, not looking at them and hoping they wouldn't see him either. He noticed Amil waving and hissed a sharp, "Quit it," as they continued walking, although he spoke so low the man might not have heard over the roar of the fireworks. 

They exited the park and the two waited in silence for awhile, Nace leaning heavily against the gate as he smoked to pass the time and Amil staring vacantly and flipping moods again like he had an on/off switch up his ass. Nace tapped his foot nervously, the awkward quiet only broken by a crack every now and again over their heads. He had enough alcohol in his system to finally bring up the matter he'd been avoiding.

"There's no point in getting close to each other," he spoke flatly, trying to match the blank expression on Amil's face, "this life is short and will probably end for me sooner rather than later. If I'm not going to see you in the afterlife, then let's not go past where we are right now." His hand shook a bit as he pulled his cig up closer to his face to take another drag. "So yeah. I know we already agreed not to take this too seriously, but now I mean it." He tried to smirk but it came across more like a grimace. "Try not to fall in love with me, sweetheart."  

    "Mm-hmm~" he hummed peacefully to both questions, his eyes still glued to the fireworks. The radiant rainbow of lights bounced off his pale skin, painting him as well as the area around them with their brilliant rays as he stood there, fixated on both the light show and his thoughts as they ran through the last few hours of the day. Save for the brief lull in their merriment, this was by far the best "date" the couple had ever been on, and needless to say it was really fun. Even if a day spent in an amusement park aimed at children and children's movie fans didn't initially carry as much thrill to him as perhaps looting through freshly deserted villages or riding his hound though a sea of lost souls did, but much like the two's waltz flub-up back at the hotel, this date held its own special brand of excitement, a whole new chapter in his untouched book of crazy human emotions he didn't quite mind perusing for a bit. Even if he didn't understand them in the slightest. 
   

    Alti tore his attention away from the sparkling night sky and turned to his soulmate, sporting a similar grin on his face at the scientist's little story. "You did that as a kid?" he asked as he pointed back up at the sky with his free hand, not bothering to wait for an answer before continuing, "Well, that's.... cute!" he beamed suddenly. A light blush appeared on his cheeks, the man beginning to get a tad overwhelmed at the thought of elaborating on that giddy response. He chuckled the thought away at the scientist's mention of people exploding, but the pink on his face still lingered as he felt a small pressure being applied to his hand.


    "Yeah..." he hummed, cheekily turning his smile into a pout. "Wish it didn't have to end, though." After a while of just standing there with his soulmate, the pout eventually softened back into a smile, the man letting go of Cyrus' hand and pulling the other into a hug. "Don't you agree?" 

---

 
    Once Piami addressed Captain Planet over there and confirmed that he was the guy they were searching for, Aura let go of her friend's shoulders and took a few paces backward to stand next to her other friend. She leaned towards Arenia, her eyes still focused on the re-united couple. "Soo..... are they good now?" she whispered quietly so that only the similarly-dressed pop idol could hear. "Can we leave, or no?"

Galystris despised the sound of fireworks, as they always terrified her when she first hears them, but she could hold out.
"I'll be fine, don't worry." she spoke kindly.
Galystris pointed to a nearby rock on a hill. "Want to go there?" she inquired. "It's got a nice view."
She took their hand, making sure not to grab it too hard, and led them over there slowly.
Admittedly,she didn't enjoy the 'expirience' of hearing fireworks, but she'd have to get over her little "issue" soon enough.

Alraada turned her eyes back to Vale as soon as he spoke up again.
His kind words made her feel really happy. 
She couldn't help but give a warm smile.
"H-hey....I understand, I've wanted to do the same thing...." She spoke kindly.
She shook her head lightly, getting frustrated at herself once more.
"I-I mean, well....I just....was a bit worried that I was....."
The girl cleared her throat and regained composure.
"I'm just glad I'm not making this any worse, I guess....so, thanks..."
She laid her head on his shoulder, slightly flustered at her own romantic 'advance'

Nace couldn’t even manage to say something before the uber drove up, not that he’d have been able to anyways. Amil had just spoken everything he was still currently denying, and his immediate desire was to just kill him on the spot to be completely honest. It would be better not to have any loose ends before this was all over. But of course, the gods desired to punish him more by drawing out this ridiculous soul mate dispute with a partner that didn’t even have a soul. They were probably laughing in the heavens about this right now.

Nace sat in the back seat, fuming the whole ride back to the hotel. His emotions went straight from confusion to anger. The fighter had forgotten how difficult relationships could be when they went past a one-night stand. All the stupidity and fucking personal values really screwed people up. He started smoking in the backseat, not even rolling the windows down. He blew smoke directly at the back of the driver’s head and the man coughed, looking back at Nace with a furrowed brow. Nace shrugged and kept smoking. The driver seemed to understand it was better just to ignore him.

When they arrived back at the hotel, finally, Amil had paid and left Nace behind. Figured. Lingering in the back end of the car for far too long, the driver cleared his throat and pivoted in his seat to stare at Nace with a bored expression in place. To the man’s distress, Nace simply shrugged again.

“Get out.” The driver said in an even tone.

“Okay,” Nace said with another shrug, but not before kicking the man’s seat so hard he flew forward into the steering wheel, knocking his head against it. He let out a cry of pain as Nace exited the vehicle. “Might want to call yourself another uber; think you got a concussion.” Nace blew more smoke at his face as the man started shouted curses. He slammed the door shut and approached the gates of the hotel, standing and tapping his foot nervously. Amil had already made it up to the entrance. He didn’t want to follow yet.

Walking along the gate, he pulled out his cell phone and frowned down at it. There were five missed called and a blank text message from Russ. Probably meaning wonderful things. With a heavy sigh, he brought the phone to his ear after dialing the number.

Someone picked up on the second tone.


Nace tried to smile to make himself sound more cheerful, a bead of sweat rolling from his forehead to his chin. “Eyyyyyy Russ, how are ya?” The other end was silent. “Listen, buddy, I know what you’re gonna say. But just hear me out. Maaaaybe you could rethink this whole thing?”

There was a long pause.

“Clean up your goddamn mess.”

Nace flinched at the gruff voice filtering through, biting hit cigarette hard as he tried not to grind it to a pulp between his teeth. “Okay, okay, you sound upset---.”

“I am.”

“I just…. this is a pretty high profile case, you know? How long were you searching for him? Almost a decade. Pretty fucked up. Let’s call in a different guy---not that I’m saying I can’t handle it! I completely can--.”

“Your personal feelings are exactly why this was assigned to you. Kill the Lifter. Get it done. And bring back his fuckin’ head next time instead of a couple of severed limbs.” The line went dead. Nace bit the cigarette in half.

He coughed roughly as he spat out the nasty end in his mouth, almost swallowing it. He wiped at his mouth, clutching the phone in his hand as he hunched over. “Fucking hell…” He muttered, turning back towards the hotel. He ran his fingers through his hair nervously before finally walking up to the entrance.

---

Vale snuggled in closer to Alraada, rolling onto his side for a moment and getting incredibly close to her face. He gave her a butterfly kiss with his covered nose, whispering "Don't be so worried all the time. Cutie~," before stretching his arms around her and leaning up, placing her in his lap and draping his arms around her shoulders. The wrestler rested his head gently on top of hers as he stared up at the bursting sky, a smile touching his lips as somewhere in the distance an orchestra started to play. They continued to watch in silence as the fireworks started heading for the grand finale. 

"Yeah, I hope that rest of the dates will be like this one as well~." Maicy chimed cheerfully, while she blushed.

She watched more of the fireworks as a lot then are burst left, right, and center, a lot more so than before. A lot red, blue, and green fireworks. Heck, there are even the purple ones. Maicy watched with amazement is it continues.

((I'm just gonna let Em be the one to decide when it's a good time for the Fireworks show to be over.))

Cheri's face crumpled slightly at the thought that they could get their dress dirty. It costed them quite a bit, did other people really not think twice about getting their clothes dirty? "I'll stand," they said with a quick change of experession. Cheri smile and clutched their partner's hand as another firework went off, wanting to assure them but to avoid having Galystris think she was being coddled.

-

Iksel grumbled to himself and looked back at Piami. He held a rather guilty expression before quickly switching over to something more cool and respectable. "Let's just not talk about it."

He shoved his collection into his bag and stood up with his hands in his pockets, playing it off cool.