in my head there's a greyhound station

[forsteri]

Who: Yoshio Koutarou (Jirou Sakuma) and Michi Yamashita (Yuuto Kidou)
When: Monday, May 22
Where: Green Valley library
What: Studying was the idea.

There's a small figure with silvery hair slumped halfway down in his chair, textbook propped up on the table in front of him so he doesn't have to sit back up. It's a free period before school ends -- when the bell rings he's got swim practice, but until now he's just trying to get some homework out of the way.

Except it's really difficult, because Yoshio keeps finding himself fighting nodding off. Sleepiness is winning right now -- it's with much effort that he forces himself back into a proper posture. He rubs hard at his visible eye, squeezing both shut, then lays his book back down normally. He hasn't been sleeping well at all, no thanks to Applenet. Even when it isn't doing something weird, giving him headaches, waking him up, it's on his mind enough that he lays awake for hours. It's cutting into his daytime productivity.

He picks his pencil back up again, clicks the button on the side to extend the graphite cartridge another quarter centimetre, and stares down at his notebook. His face and the page are equally blank.

Comments

[forsteri]

"What? Why?"

That's really weird and he's never heard that. Which... he's fourteen years old, and he feels like it's all right if he doesn't know quite everything. Michi seems like he has all sorts of weird knowledge, but this is the boy who joined the swim club for about three weeks and left again. He wouldn't be surprised if he were as well-rounded with facts as he is with clubs he's been in.

"Hm..." Yoshio pauses to consider, folding his arms thoughtfully. "What about... do you know there are birds who live on cliffsides whose eggs are really pointy so they won't fall off the cliff?"

[kouteipenguin]

Meanwhile, Michi's determined to know everything anyway. He lives for finding out things, or learning things; this is a contest that seems specifically tailored to him. He grins at the 'why', offering up a brief explanation-

"My uncle told me about it. If you line them up on enough of the track, it greases the wheels all the way down the train so they won't get traction, and it'll stop."

As for why, he honestly has no idea why someone would do that. Probably because they could. He for certain never would want to try it.

"I know there's birds on cliffs, but..." but not that factoid, no. "What birds?"

And when he gets his answer, he's instantly got a followup. "By the way.. did you know they're working on building another pyramid?"

[forsteri]

"That's so weird..." He'd never have figured that. It makes sense, but that doesn't mean he understands how someone even came up with trying that. And to actually pull it off...

As for the birds, he hums. "Some kind of gull, I think." It's a murre, actually, not a gull at all. Now he has to find out, though. While he types 'seabirds with pointy eggs' in, Michi drops another fact on him and he looks up at him, eyebrow raised. "Really? Why?" Now that he thinks about it though, what are the pyramids even for?

[kouteipenguin]

He's winning. It got Yoshio to ask a question instead of reply in kind, so he's now up one fact on him. Michi grins, and elaborates what he knows.

"It's some worldwide project. They're making a time capsule, I think."

The things mentioned offhand in history class, sometimes, are more interesting than the things he's supposed to be focused on. Michi's got a long list of little things he's written down in his notes that don't have to deal with the subject directly; knowledge is there to be learned.

The timer's running out on him; he needs another fact to lock out Yoshio from winning this. But he won't say anything right away, just to give him a chance.

[forsteri]

"Huh.... oh, it's a murre, by the way. So not a gull. A seabird, anyway." He turns the phone so Michi can see the picture of the bird, then looks thoughtful, leaning back in his chair a little. Another fact...

"Did you know penguins sit on their heels with their toes off the ground to keep from losing heat?" As soon as he says it he makes a face. Why are all his facts biology-based? He'll find something besides that, with any luck.

[kouteipenguin]

At that, Michi smirks. Aha. He's got him now. Yoshio couldn't have known that bringing up penguins would be his doom, could he? It's too late now... his fate is sealed. After all, Michi of course would know things about his favorite animal.

"I even know they can adjust blood flow in their feet so they stay warm longer. Did you?" Know that, he means.

[forsteri]

"I did," he says simply, and his smile is confident. Penguin battle, huh? "And that they use their tail feathers to keep from falling over while they're sitting like that. Did you know that it took six men to catch one emperor penguin once?"

[kouteipenguin]

Does Yoshio like penguins just as much as he does? If so, Michi's choice in someone to pester is validated ten times over by now. "They've got really strong wings. It makes sense, too. They spend all this time exercising..."

That's not really going to count as an interesting fact. He has to come up with another fact. Michi is not going to lose his title of penguin fact king, never mind that he just assigned himself this title just now. That doesn't matter. What matters is defending it. "Did you know penguins don't have hollow bones like other birds do?"

[forsteri]

"Of course," he says, eyebrow raising below the band of his eyepatch. What kind of an interesting fact is that? "Wouldn't they have a hard time staying submerged without solid bones?" He pauses to look thoughtful, searching his brain for something to one-up that. "Did you know that rarely a penguin can be born brown rather than black?"