voicemail; [IC contact]

[truename]

This is Ritsuka Aoyagi. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you.

Comments

voice

[heavendivided.livejournal.com]

Ritsuka. We should talk.

voice

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

Hey Jack. What's up?

voice

[heavendivided.livejournal.com]

I wanted to ask --

Do you trust me?

[littlest_lord]

Ritsuka? I would like to extend an invitation to you for a Christmas celebration I will be hosting at my estate come the twenty fourth, midday till evening. There will be food and drinks, naturally, along with plenty of desserts.

If you are not too busy for such a thing, I'd be pleased to see you there. Of course, I completely understand if you cannot attend. To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't be throwing such a thing if it wasn't expected of me. I'll take medicine too, if you'd like to come.

That's all.

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

Hey Ciel.

Is it okay if I invite Triela along too?

[littlest_lord]

Of course. I don't mind it.

action.

[retraced]

[When Ritsuka gets to work on the 31st, Gilbert won't be there, but he'll have left a letter in his workspace outlining a promotion to assistant manager, along with a pay raise to be decided by Ciel later.

And a new nametag that very clearly states: ASSISTANT MANAGER.]

[ ring ring ]

[meaculpable.livejournal.com]

[ ring ring ]

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

[It picks up right before it goes to voicemail] --Hello? This is Aoyagi.

[meaculpable.livejournal.com]

Aoyagi. [ He's curt, but it's more because of how formal he usually is. ]

Do you have any immediate plans for this weekend?

voicemail; July 6th

[topslug.livejournal.com]

Hello, Aoyagi-kun? This is Yako.

I don't know if you have any free time this week, since you're working at Funtom, but I heard you like taking photographs. Do you mind taking some for the NPP Calendar?

Let me know if you're interested, and I'll tell you the details.

text; let's backdate this a bit to around a week after Ritsuka's request?

[payback.livejournal.com]

Here's the letter.

[The following document is attached.]

To the mothers of MAN and other Port residents,

I write today to address the backlash taking shape against newcomer children who choose to take advantage of the school system in the Port, and who receive a wary and unfriendly reception within. I write as a newcomer myself. I am seventeen years old and as of writing this letter I have been in the Port nearly a year, which will become a year completely in August.

I have arrived having spent most of my life in the year westerners reckon as 1782, and naturally I have found most of the innovations that come with the modern world of the Port to be daunting. I turned to the school in the hopes of acclimating successfully to the Port, adapting myself to a new modern life and taking up my time in a productive way. I did not wish to do harm to anyone, nor did I wish to impose on the local children; obvious prejudice makes it difficult to feel any warmth towards a person and many of them exhibited prejudice and bullying behaviors towards newcomers. I wished to learn quietly and improve my chances of successfully adapting to the Port.

Honestly, I wonder sometimes what MAN truly hopes to accomplish with its cruel policies and the prejudice it imparts. For one, how would they like their own children to be welcomed, if these children were whisked away to another world wholesale? Obviously, this exists as a possibility. I wonder if they would want those local residents to treat them kindly and fairly, or to drive them out of towns and schools without a kind thought? I also wonder what good will truly come out of driving children away from schools. Young newcomers arrive at their most impressionable stage in life, and some of them mostly wish to adapt, learn and live quietly. Some newcomers may be criminals, but so are some Port residents; similarly, not all newcomer children wish to cause trouble. Through the schools, and in the younger years, is the ideal time to integrate newcomers as young citizens in the Port. Driving them away from the schools seems to me more likely to create more of what most Port residents despise: criminals and outsiders.

So many newcomers arrive hostile, it seems counterproductive to create more where none previously existed.

Personally, despite hard and unfriendly reception in the Port schools, I have not given up on acclimating. I will leave the public school system and turn to another school - a school with a curriculum taught and maintained by a newcomer, which I am certain will prove friendlier to my circumstances.

The Port has provided the apartments and a means of entering the workforce for newcomers, but so far I have seen the children done few favors. Schools are ideal places to integrate young newcomers and teach children already in difficulty what kinds of citizens the Port would like them to be. Turning them out of the school with prejudice and cruelty does not integrate newcomer children into their new world. It alienates them and embitters them, without producing adults that might be otherwise grateful to kind strangers, for the future.

Sincerely,
Asano Rin

and then you get called late at night

[hairdecs.livejournal.com]

RITSHUKA.

RITSHUKA.

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

Finny... what do you want? [Someone's only half-awake.]

[hairdecs.livejournal.com]

....

....

Hi!

[hairdecs.livejournal.com]

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

[Answering before the third ring!] Hello?

[hairdecs.livejournal.com]

Ritsuka! Hiiiii!

[Voice]

[littlest_lord]

Ritsuka? It's Ciel. We're hosting a Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow at the manor and I wanted to invite you to join, if you wished to. If you've other plans or cannot attend, I want to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving regardless.

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

Ciel, it's good to hear from you, hi.

I don't know if Riku and his friends have plans. Can I bring Riku along if he doesn't?

[littlest_lord]

Sure, you're more than welcome to if you wish.

action; forward dated to tomorrow morning

[retraced]

[It's barely been a day since Oz went missing. And in that almost-day, Gilbert has gone through the motions that everyone must when a person in the port goes missing. Checked the hospitals, the morgue, the newsfeed. Called the NV so many times that his fingers continue the remembered patters of numbers while his hands lay limp at his sides.

But his master is gone. The one thing that he lives for, the one person that he cherishes more than his own existence. There's nearly no reason to wake in the morning, no reason to open his eyes and view the world without the light of his young master to fill his vision with.

Despite that, he still goes to work. It pains him to think things like 'this is my duty now' or 'it's okay to go on without him in a place where his time will be standing still', but he does it. His gaze is completely listless as he kneels and fills a tray of double-chocolate chip cookies, hands trembling.]

[little-bandages.livejournal.com]

[Ritsuka's been in a powerfully bad mood since the 'ghosts' a few days ago. Seeing Soubi and Triela and his other friends hurt. Still, life goes on, and here he is at work on Saturday morning, his tail tucked stiffly into his pants, his ears hidden under a purple bandanna so their appearance won't disturb his boss.

Gilbert's been acting strangely today. More strangely than usual, which was saying something.]

Hey. You're messing it up.

[Ritsuka crouches nimbly to steady the tray.]

What's wrong with you today? You look pale. Go take your break.

[retraced]

[He immediately freezes as he hears that voice, his brain refusing to distinguish between what he knows to be fact and what could possibly be make-believe. It would be just like Oz to pop up out of nowhere, offer him a hand and pretend like nothing had gone wrong. That same smile plastered across his face that always turns Gilbert's stomach if only because he knows the darkness that it covers up.]

Oz!

[His hand snaps out to grab for Ritsuka's wrist, grasping it as gently as he would his young master's, even in the middle of a crisis. But when his eyes finally focus, he only sees that of his assistant manager, not the familiar green eyes that have never once looked upon him with disappointment.

His eyes fill with horror, fear, something distant and nervous as he searches the boy's face for any sign of his master. But he'd just heard him...]

[Invitation]

[littlest_lord]

Hello, Ritsuka? I wanted to invite you to the Christmas Party being hosted at the manor. If you are able to attend, we'd be delighted to see you and you also may bring a guest along with you as well. If not, we wish you the best of the holiday season.

Cheers,

-Ciel Phantomhive.

_{[ooc: If you would like to participate a link is here!]}