[text/video] un: @skull

[ryuji]

[A few days after gravity is restored to the station, Ryuji returns to the mess hall from Haru's garden to find a small robot flipped upside down, panicking through a series of morse beeps and boops, which- okay, that's kind of cool, and quickly figures out that the paneling and suction entrances of the little guy means it's probably meant for filtration and cleaning.

Looks pretty study, looks... waterproof, maybe? He lends a hand to get him right side up and it starts slowly moving forward. Ryuji takes out his communicator and immediately films this as it happens, because, why not?

He posts two videos on the network- the roomba moving down the hall and one, a few hours later in the fitness center as it crawls from the edge, and dives right in.]

Oh shit! Are you supposed to do that?

Whoa, whoa- I don't know how to fix you if you--- WHOA, COOL.




Hey, sup?

Just lettin you guys know the pool looks crystal clear now. All thanks to this little dude.

I figure I should give 'em a name but uh

Everything that comes to mind is kinda lame

Anyway, I think it's good? Anyone wanna give it the first try?

[Complete with file0033.png - a picture of crystal clear water.]

Comments

[ryuji]

Yeah but like

You wear your underwear all the time? How's that gonna be sanitary?

Unless you use your spare.

But then you'll only have one pair that you have to wear until the other pair dries out.

This is just a goddamn mess, now.

[Stop overthinking it, idiot.]

Wait... how is poolmba better than Simba? It's even harder to actually say out loud than Simba, dude.

[dvmn]

like I said, because I shower and wash them??
how gross do you think I am all the time

[don't answer that.]

but yeah I mean I could use my other pair if youre that concerned, theyre definitely clean
and there's this wild invention called a drier, they work pretty well in this place

[we're here to live our most fun lives, Ryuji, not our smartest lives]

because how the hell is anyone supposed to know what it does if you just name it simba
at least if you name it poolmba you know where it's supposed to be and what it's supposed to be doing

[ryuji]

[This all? Seems questionable.]

Look, I ain't in charge of the pool or nothin'

So screw it, get into your clean undies and let's do this shit

Also, it's stayin' Simba! There's no way it's changing.

[dvmn]

[HONESTLY RYUJI THIS IS JUST RUDE, he takes pretty good care of himself!!]

wait who made you in charge of the pool

uh anyways sure
call it whatever you want its your robot
I'll be there in a few

[And, lo and behold, a short while later he's strolling into the rec room with a towel slung over his shoulder. For now he's wearing his coveralls as well (he's not going to walk around the whole space station in his underwear, okay, he's got just a shred more decency than that).

He approaches the pool, giving a low whistle.] Damn! Honest, I can't believe this is the same pool.

[What they'd discovered their first day here had been more of a lagoon than anything else.]

[ryuji]

[This is 100% not the same pool that they had discovered on the first few days of awakening on the station. Ryuji just smiles at Akira's presence in the room- something about him always seems to rile him up a little bit. Mostly in a good way. Also, in a way that could probably lead to the station blowing up? But that's okay. They'll be okay.

He's also slightly nostalgic, which is dumb, considering it's only been about 6 weeks since they first met here and Ryuji was threatening to withhold the location of the mess hall from him.]

So much has changed since, then, huh?

[That's... probably enough of a statement as it needs to be, and he catches himself smiling wholly at the other.]

Simba Poolmba the First worked some serious magic down there. [He waves to the little dude down in the depths of the water.]

Anyway, less talkin' more splashin'. [Zip goes the jumpsuit. Hell yeah, time to get down to his jimmies in front of another dude. It's not gay at all,





except when it is, except when Ryuji's probably going to end up staring at his abs and making a statement of how sadly jealous he is over his 12 pack.]

[dvmn]

[Hey, if they all sat around and had polite conversations and semi-lively arguments about what was going on and then nothing else, shit around this place would get really boring, really fast. There had to be idiots just like Akira and Ryuji to keep the place fun and vibrant, swimming in pools when they were still fetid and crawling with God-knows-what, getting into fights ("fights") in unused rooms to settle debts of honor... You know, all of that good stuff.

In comparison swimming in the newly-rejuvenated pool seemed a little more tame, but Akira's excited. This place was finally starting to resemble a place that could actually sustain them for a while, what with the rec room getting cleaner and Haru working on the garden.]

Yeah. [His gaze sweeps the place, appreciating.] It's good. It means we can get shit done around here.

[He's still only thinking about the pool. But in the grand scheme of things, yeah, Ryuji was right.

Akira's attention snaps back excitedly to his friend when he unravels the robot's full name, a broad smile spreading, sharp-toothed, across his features.] Yeah! [A little too excited, happy to hear that his contribution has been worked into the little guy's title.] Yeah. He sure did.

[But right, they're doing way too much talking next to the pool and not nearly enough swimming in it.

Akira steps away to shed his own jumpsuit, and yeah, there's absolutely nothing in the energy that's gay at all. Anyways I refuse to go into detail about it but the space underwear they are given is also very tight but fortunately I'm not going to write anything else about it because Akira wastes no time doing a cannonball into the pool, hollering as he does so.

His head breaks the surface of the water as he reemerges with a small gaps, shaking his hair to get it out of his eyes. He looks up to Ryuji, grinning as he treads water.] C'mon! [He splashes at him.]

[ryuji]

[He wasn't really about to just throw Akira's suggestion down in the deepest pit of the garbage that is space void, but Simba Poolmba had a certain ridiculous enough name that it would just... have to be. There was nothing more out of the ordinary than taking a highly scientific thing with multiple moving parts, the ability to convert garbage into energy and clean- just to give it a fittingly mind numbing name. Ryuji flashes a thumbs up to Akira to let him know that he agreed.

And while you won't go into specific details, allow me.

Ryuji stands, at a brisk 5'9", arms bent and raised just to his hipline as he sees the scene in front of him break loose. But more important to note is how his silhouette reflects in the water below him, the moment before the ripples start to distort everything. Looking back at him, the surface of the pool gives an image of pure and utter masculine refinement. A biological evolution of man that has reached pique physical fitness. His form, secured to its half naked glory, is only allowed by the crappy jumpsuit now laying folded on the ground and discarded without a care in the world.

The statuesque figure of the blond is striking. His underwear is tight, form fitting. It elaborates on the soft musculature of his runner's thighs, clamps neatly against his waist in just the perfect stretch so as not to allow an inch of room for Jesus in any of it, the band of which refuses to roll down from being pulled too thin. Its height is just right- under a small amount of body fuzz that trails below his belly button, signifying that Ryuji hasn't passed completely into adulthood yet, and the material, although leaving much to be desired, has become comfortably worn in over the last two months. The backside, that hunk of burning hamburger bun, exhibits two perfectly rounded and shaped buttocks, arching slightly upward and away from his back when his posture is actually corrected. Then, just a short trip around the hips is his pride and joy; his meat stick, his beef thermometer, the Herman von Longschlongstein. The pantsu leave nothing to the imagination, of course, which is a vile sort of unhappy thing to see for anyone involved (probably). Which is, to say, relatively average. Modest. Nothing extraordinary, but he's pretty chill with that.

So to avoid talking about Ryuji's dick for another two paragraphs, I'll stop here- as his expression turns to one of aggravation when he's splashed at so willy nilly. ( ;) )

In he fuckin goes, though- and it's with a raucous shout of CANONBALLLLLLLLL that he tries to make the largest splash possible. He's had years of public pool swimming to know that this sort of shit is completely not allowed, so of course, he's great at it. Surfacing, he floats upward on his back, and everything that was described up there is now equally outlined twice as much when it's damp.]

MAN... IT FEELS SO GOOD.

[dvmn]

[Jay, I hate you so fucking much.

But okay, let's do this.

Truly they are two stunning examples of young men, perched so precariously on the edge of adulthood yet still tempered by the soft edges of bright-eyed youth. Time on the track had diverted in the two of them: in Ryuji more in lingering echoes, as his tragic accident had cut his time with the sport short, and in Akira accentuated to multiple degrees by the influence of the demonic body amplifying all that it could grasp. This gave them different degrees of sleek musculature, not overwrought in a way that might be overbearing but instead giving them figures well-proportioned and alluring.

Truly it is a crying shame that they are alone here on the pool deck, as no one else can appreciate the splendor of their chiseled forms and their dwindling amount of dress.

Anyways, enough of that. A bright grin spreads across Akira's face as he paddles away from the region of impact of Ryuji's cannonball; it persists even when a sizable wave slaps him in the face, slicking his hair back against his head and causing him to splutter for a moment.]

Yeah, [he replies after ridding his airways of chlorinated water,] fuck, we needed somethin' like this around here, you know? Sometimes I feel like this place is drivin' me crazy.

[With the way Ryuji is floating... Akira devises a devious plot.

He dips under the water so that only his head from nose up is visible above the surface, noiselessly floating over to where his friend was enjoying himself. And then, swift and sudden, he reaches out to get his hands under his back and flip him onto his stomach, like a pancake.

Splash.]

[ryuji]

[Thank you for indulging my wild fantasies about Akiryu.

Wait.






A-anyway, Ryuji, with his eyes lidded and his form happily facing ceilingward, just smiles to himself. Yeah, this shit? It's driving him crazy too, but at least he knows that if he feels he's going crazy, he's probably actually not... you know, three steps away from being sent to a locked room and cuffed so that he doesn't hurt himself. Or something like that. If anything, it just makes him feel more camaraderie to Akira, because really, fuck this station.]

Nah. You're not crazy. Crazy would be accepting everything as it comes and not thinkin' about it. Crazy would be not feeling like you're goin' crazy.

[And as he lectures, he doesn't hear the oh-so-apparent JAWS THEME playing in the background as Akira starts to surreptitiously nose his way through the top surface of the water. He's droning on about his aesthetic philosophy, which honestly doesn't mean much of anything to anyone else, as he stops, since he hadn't heard a verbal confirmation.

Huh? What the eff is going on?]

Akir---AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[HOLY SHIT THE GHOSTS HAVE HIM.

SOMEONE CALL SPACE 911.

He goes down, straight into the water as he flails a little bit until he actually feels Akira around, and it almost makes sense what the hell just happened. This sly son of a bitch.

Ryuji motions for air upward as his head peaks out of the water, doggy paddeling as you do when you're treading water for your life, and a few deep, lung filled breaths of air route their way deep into his alveoli.]

SUNNUVA. CRAH---BAH...UGNH. [cough, cough.] I'M GONNA KILL YOU, AKIRA.

[Time to die, he guesses, as he tries his hardest to swim the hell away from him and plan a counterattack.]

[dvmn]

[ (: You are welcome.



Anyways. There's something to be said about cabin fever — or whatever the equivalent here may be, trapped in a series of tin cans floating in the middle of space. There are ways that it could be worse. This place certainly seemed constructed to support a number of people living there, as was their situation now, but it didn't necessarily mean it did so flawlessly. Especially since not all of them were entirely human and had all sorts of powers and skills and needs. It made it a bit more complicated, but also a bit more interesting, at the very least.

Still. It didn't solve the dullness of routine that sank into them from time to time. It also didn't solve the feeling of being trapped, that there was nothing surrounding them but the hostile vacuum of space. And that planet, but Akira isn't even sure they'd be able to breathe down there, even if they could make it to the surface.

So they had to make their own fun.]

Huh. [He intones as Ryuji speaks, eyes a little blank.] That's kinda deep, dude. [Ryuji's full of moments like that, though — small little speedbumps of profundity that always threw him for a bit of a loop.

So, in retaliation, Akira very literally throws Ryuji for a loop.

And it's perfect. It's absolutely everything he wanted it to be. The artful flip in mid-air, the sound his body made when impacting the surface of the water. Truly ideal. Akira's howling with laughter when Ryuji reemerges from his sudden reintroduction to the deeper part of the water, only mostly hearing what the other guy's saying in-between his gasping struggles for breath.]

Yeah? [He calls after Ryuji as he swims away from him, his smile wide and challenging.] I'd like to see you try.

[A common side-effect of becoming a devilman was becoming pretty cocky.]

[ryuji]

[It's honestly just not fair. Akira has him beat in every department, from swimming, to running, and probably even to go as far as to say the mental area, too. Which is so sad. Alexa play the Devilman OST.

Ryuji's fighting for his life, here, having just become an inspirational old worldly philosopher, parting some of the deep knowledge just straight on Akira's head, and here he was, completely defloofed of any composure or semblance of ascetic self control. But he's a dumb blond at best, and soon after, he's paddling his way through the water at Akira.

This is so, so much better than anything else that's been going on in the past few weeks, so he can't be really, truly perturbed by anything other than his now wavy hair encroaching into his eyeballs. Stupid hair. He needs to cut away the blond, but he's so sentimentally attached to it that he doesn't want to go back to being dull. Which is... kind of missing the point. No matter what Ryuji looks like, it's very unlikely that he'll ever fade in the background.

Either way, he's got a plan of counterattack laid out. It's underwater, so the presence of a mask on his face probably won't cause too much a stir, right? He dives below, going down as deep as possible, allowing the skull to be summoned on his face and a small blurbing sound of GOD'S HAND! bubbles upward, the water becomes cloudy as shit due to Seiten-Taisei's oddly aetheric presence, and.

Man, his persona is probably fed up as shit with Ryuji at this point. Or, well, he is the demon monkey trickster god, maybe he kind of likes this stuff? He's never actually had a conversation with him, he's just there when he needs him, and aside from the existential crisis bullshit that comes along with having a persona to begin with, he's not sure how therapy sessions with Sun Wukong would actually go--






Which is neither here nor there, as he propels downward, hits the floor, and shoves off upward. Because it's time to kancho with all the force of a great typhoon. His most divine offensive ability and here he is. Trying to gun his way up a dude's ass.]

[dvmn]

[That is so sad. Alexa, play "Crybaby."

But, hey, Ryuji, some of this might be true, but there are plenty of aspects to living as a human heart in a demon body that aren't exactly swell. Akira's just gotten decently okay at controlling or at the very least handling them, so they aren't particularly evident from the outside. Though some of the impulsiveness that he has, such as what he had displayed just a few moments ago, was definitely when it bled out of whatever containment he imposed upon it.

Akira grins wildly at him as he slowly paddles towards him. He looks remarkably unafraid, unthreatened. Such is another devious side-effect of being a devilman. Go too long without getting your ass sufficiently kicked and you start to under-estimate everyone...

He stays where he is, treading water, when Ryuji dives, still not particularly convinced he'll be able to move him even if he uses all of his strength. But then... there's an odd change in the water, first a sort of reverberation and then a cloudiness of color, one that almost makes Akira think they've been cursed once again and the nastiness of the pool is coming back in full force. He's about to call out for Ryuji to get the hell out of there, which only means he's thoroughly distracted.

Enough so that, when Ryuji rockets upwards with the force of God's Hand out of an aetherial miasma that Akira can't really see through, he has no time to react.

Oh, dear.

He might not have been able to avoid it entirely, but he does twist away from Ryuji with remarkable speed a split second after he impacts (I hate this, Jay), spinning and spluttering and swallowing a whole mouthful of chlorinated water as he does so. A keen eye might notice an odd shift in the tone of his skin, clouding over gray, darker stripes raking over his shoulders and down from his eyes - but, then again, it could just be a trick of the light or his general flailing, because by the time he's treading water once again, he looks normal. Just pressing back down how the demon part of himself had raged against the walls of his more human-looking body after perceiving having been Attacked.]

WHAT THE HELL RYUJI

[He manages it only after he coughs up some more water, his face still locked in a grimace. He looks up to his friend, eyes a little sharper and more devious.] You really wanna escalate like that? You think that's a good idea?

[He will prank you into the ground, dude.

Also, how the fuck were you moving that fast, goddamn, ow.]