destinystrings | There's a lot more to this place than we thought...

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There's a lot more to this place than we thought...

Who: Hinata and Otonashi
Where: Capricorn
Summary: A reuniting of best friends! And Otonashi has some very unsettling information about Hinoto-Ri to share...
Warnings: Possible talk of death??

Hinata, wearing one of his new outfits, would be quick about getting to the park, stumbling off the tramway in his hurry and jogging to the place where Otonashi said he would be.

"Otonashi-kun!" He called out, seeing his friend on a park bench some distance into the park, rushing over to greet him. He hadn't actually expected the redhead to call him so soon, and the excitement shone in the blunette's face.

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[Hinata tries to chase off the lingering feeling of nausea that plagues him, knowing that this meeting wasn't about him. He came here for Otonashi, he had no right to make it about himself.]

[At least they seemed to be making progress.]

Y-yeah... yeah. I'll walk with you. [He forces a small grin, moving to stand. Maybe moving around in the fresh air will help his state of mind some.]

For the most part, the walk is quiet and uneventful. Otonashi stuffs his hands in his pockets and heads toward the fountain, his feet visibly dragging at first. The act is more purposeful and less melodramatic and mopey than he makes it look, truly. And eventually, his toes bump into one of the very things he was searching for.

Someone had come by with a basket of these, there was bound to be some left behind.

Wordlessly, he bends down to pick the object up. There must be more around, he thinks, but the tattered baseball, even with half of its skin hanging off and its stitching in poor shape, will certainly suffice.

"You... a-ah, I have a challenge for you." He looks over the mangled ball and holds it up, putting its charming ugliness on display. "Can you play and talk at the same time?"

He follows behind Otonashi, watching the other boy's feet thoughtfully. He's not so much staring at his feet as just... staring at nothing at all, lost in thought. Of course, because he's not actually paying attention, he continues to walk even after the other boy has stopped, bumping into him.

"Ah, sorry..." He's still trying to shake the feeling of empathy that's weighing him down, glancing at the tattered baseball in Otonashi's hand.

That definitely helped.

"Yeah..! I don't see why I couldn't..." He backs off some, taking his hands out of the pouch of the hoodie. "You don't have any gloves, do you?" Without the cushion of a baseball glove, they'd just have to be more gentle with throwing than he would be ordinarily.

He wraps the skin taut around the ball, shaking his head.

"No, I didn't think to get one..." This whole thing is kind of an afterthought. "What if I threw it like this?"

At first, he follows the motions of an underhand toss without releasing the ball, giving Hinata time to see the intended trajectory. After a few feigned throws, Otonashi gently tosses it over.

As therapeutic as it was to whip a baseball back and forth and exhaust one's arms, just tossing it gently underhand at least offered a small comfort.

"Yeah, that's fine." Out of habit, Hinata crouched very slightly, as if bracing for the impact of the ball. It was totally unnecessary, of course, but old habits die hard.

He caught the ball without difficulty, rolling it around in his hands to get a good look at it. Someone must have hit it with a lawnmower or something. He briefly considered taking it home to repair it, shaking the thought from his head as he tossed it gingerly back to Otonashi.

"So what did you want to talk about..?"

"I... wanted to talk to you about the events," he answered as evenly as possible as the he captured the gnarled ball in his hand. "I don't know what else to call them. It's not limited to Zodiac sickness, but I guess I should start there."

Speaking of, he should probably toss it back. This time, he throws it overhanded and with a bit more energy, seeming to understand the desire for a frustration workout.

"You remember that government announcement that went up... The one about the Taurus-born showing 'symptoms?'" He hesitates. If Hinata were to throw the ball back right then, Otonashi might just miss it.

Hinata's muscles visibly tense as the ball is thrown back with more vigor, one of his hands darting out to catch it.

"Yeah... I remember." Thankfully, he didn't throw it back just yet, picking a few stray threads off the ball to get them out of the way. "Didn't they predict wrong which people would be affected?"

He'd toss it back now, deciding to stick with underhand if he was throwing to Otonashi. At least for now.

"Yeah. They were basing all of their information off a previous Zodiac sickness, six months prior to the Taurus breakout. They didn't know anything at all," Otonashi cuts off to snag the ball, nearly caught off guard by it despite Hinata's gracious pause.

"The last time a Zodiac outbreak happened, it was a group of Visitors like us who cracked the "pattern," not the government. That means that these outbreaks are probably new and came in along with the Visitors. The government may only know as much as we do about them—even though they have to try to calm the masses. That's another thing, this city—"

His grip on that poor, battle-worn ball tightens before he throws it back. It's a little more intense than he intends for it to be, but not so strong that it should be damaging.

"Ah! S-sorry, Hinata..."

"Only six months..? Is it... always going to happen that frequently?" It was a valid question, he figured. Should he expect to have his friends trying to kill him regularly or just sometimes?

"How could the Visitors cause something like that? It doesn't make sense." He reached to catch the ball as it was thrown, wincing as he caught it with bare hands. "H-haha... It's alright..."

He gives himself a minute to let the sting wear off, gently tossing the ball back to the redhead. "...You were saying?"

"Are you sure? I can take a look at it," he offers, recapturing the ball but stepping closer to the other boy to check for marks. "That was stupid, I didn't mean to do that..."

An innocent mistake, he knows, but a mistake nonetheless. The last thing he wants to do is hurt someone he cares about again.

"Ah? Right, uh... This―this city is missing a lot of its history. I've been trying to study it, but there's nothing to find. None of the natives know anything if you ask, only that "something happened" and now there are Visitors coming in. And the breakouts are, uh... we don't know how often yet, but we should... be ready if the pattern is every six months."

In he very gently arcs the ball over to Hinata, watching it fall short and hit the ground. He's trying, he really is, but it's clear that his focus is distant.

"A lot of this isn't right."

He shakes his head quickly, waving his hands to signify that everything is indeed alright. The last thing he wants is to guilt-trip Otonashi so soon after finding him.

"Ah..." None of the inhabitants remembered any of the city's history? That sounded an awful lot like a mecha anime he used to watch, Big D.

He couldn't say he was looking forward to the possibility of his closest friends trying to murder him... again. Having Otonashi try to strangle him to death was already scarring enough, he didn't need it to happen more than once. He's similarly distracted as the ball lands on the ground, rolling and bumping one of his shoes. He comes out of his daze, glancing down and seeing the ball on the ground. His brow knit together some at the sight of it, but he doesn't react beyond that.

"So what do we do? Just... wait for it to happen? Maybe there's some guy with a robot who knows what's going on..."

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There's a lot more to this place than we thought...

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