one eye on the lane and one eye on the lava

[EarthBound]

(Lopaka Akana continued from Getting Ready To Rumble)

Lopaka knew, deep down within him, that he shouldn't be here.

This park had always been somewhere that rumors discussed. The murder happened before Lopaka moved here, so he didn't actually know off of the top of his head what the problem was. All that he knew is that his mom had forbidden him from coming here, and he doesn't usually disobey the ideas of his mother.

In fact, this was his very first time at this particular time. Probably at the worst possible time he could have made it here, too. The sun was doing down, and the area around him was soon to be consumed by darkness. Considering the reputation of this place, his first idea should probably be to flee at this very moment before anything happens. Why did he come here if he knew the problems that came with it?

...Well, it was for one simple reason. It was...different.

He's been getting used to the idea that he may not be staying in Vegas once college starts up. That's not to say he wouldn't be delighted to return to Honolulu- that's where he feels home with, after all. In his six years in the town, however, he had practically made it everywhere except for this one place. The temporary peace that came with a deafening silence that Lopaka didn't know was a death whistle or a silent embrace...it felt nice. Watching the sunset was nice.

Once the sun is gone, is what he says in his mind. The moment that there is nothing left to look at will be his sprint away, and he'll feel relieved getting to embrace Lei in his arms. He thought he might be here for a while, however. The allure of something forbidden could get to anyone.

[Gundham]

((Zara Mohammad continued from Public Service Announcement))

Zara had always disliked Malone Circle Park, even before The Murder. It was one of those sketchy liminal spaces, somewhere that felt unsafe to linger in. When she was younger, her mother had insisted on holding her hand whenever they went out walking. When they went past Malone Circle Park, she'd grip Zara's hand extra tight, until the bones in her wrist grated together. Nobody who'd had to spend any amount of time there was surprised that someone was murdered there. If anything, they were surprised that it had taken that long, and that it had only happened once.

These days, if she was walking past Malone at all it meant the day was already a write-off. Zara didn't drive, but on most days, she could catch a ride home from school from one of her parents. They didn't like her walking around the city by herself. If they were busy, Zara could usually count on getting a ride from one of her friends. And failing that, she could always take the bus. But today she'd had to stay late for a student council meeting, which meant that her parents hadn't had time to pick her up beforec meeting her aunty and uncle for dinner. That also ruled out Ormul and her other cousins. None of her friends was still at school, and phoning any of them up to give her a lift would have been gross. Then the buses had turned out to be few and far between - she vaguely remembered having heard something about a strike or a parade or some other thing that was going to disrupt service, but hadn't connected the dots between that and today. She'd waited half an hour at her usual stop, only to find that the bus that arrived was already stuffed to the gills with harried passengers. She'd stepped back and allowed the rest of the gaggle she'd been waiting with board, and watched them sardining themselves into every available nook and cranny until the doors closed. Her travel app spat out a different bus that'd be departing from a stop five blocks away, which could take her about seventy percent of the way home and let her walk the rest. She'd had to do the last block at a full sprint to catch it.

So, now, here she was. Walking briskly through Malone Circle Park. It'd shave ten minutes off her trip, and that'd hopefully get her home before the sun went fully down. She looked around a bit. Zara didn't have a good mental picture of the place - she remembered it primarily as a collection of dull aches and quickened, hurried footsteps. She'd certainly never seen it this late in the day. Her mother would only ever walk past it in broad daylight, after about 3 o'clock she'd detour five blocks or more to avoid it. Seeing it now, Zara understood why. It looked forboding, alien. Full of lengthening shadows.

There only seemed to be one guy in the park; this was good in the sense that there was only one potential attacker to have to outrun, and terrifying in the sense that there was no one else around to hear her if she screamed. She decided to cut him a wide path and keep walking, pulling out her phone and hitting a few buttons to look like she was dialing. If she had to, she'd put it to her ear and loudly say something like, "Ah, Daddy! How was practicing at the firing range? Perfect shot? Oh, all your fellow officers must be so jealous! I'm only about a block away, so wait up for me, okay?"

The phone quivered in her hand. Just keep walking. Step after step, down the path, towards the exit. Then it'd be home, and a shower, and the homework that she was already unconsciensably far behind on...

[EarthBound]

Lopaka had started to zone out, due to the pure fact that he was doing nothing else while watching the sunset. Maybe this place wasn't as bad as he thought, was the first idea that came to his mind. He checked his phone, yeah, he had been here for around thirty minutes. Despite the admittedly mossy and ragged environment, everything seemed fine. Nobody had showed up, no gunshots had rang, he was still alive. Maybe it had just received some bad rep, but had cleared up ever since the murder occurred.

And, that's when Lopaka heard footsteps.

Lopaka sat up, head darting around as he tried to find the source of where the noise came from. Of course, as it was getting darker, and Lopaka was sitting a distance away from where the other person was, maybe that explained why there wasn't a bigger sense of panic when he was spotted. Regardless, the first thing that came to his mind was regret. Shit. He had stayed here for too long. Now, someone was probably going to run up on him and try to attack him. He knew how to fight, thank everything for that, but not against someone who was holding a weapon. It had to be as easy as it was in the movies, right? No, no, he couldn't fathom that idea in his head. And, as he finally squinted his eyes and peered over-

....It's just a girl.

Lopaka slumped down for a moment, watching her as she seemed to be speed-walking through the park. He couldn't blame her, it'd already been established that this wasn't the place you want to be at during this time of day. The behavior didn't surprise him, instead what surged in him was a sense of worry. Something was familiar, and he couldn't quite place it, but he felt like the mannerisms were similar to something he had seen. Not to mention, hey, it's a girl walking alone in one of the most dangerous parts of the city. That ain't safe. What if someone tries to jump her, and he's just sitting here?

...Screw the sunset. Lopaka is already on edge, and he outstayed his welcome. He can walk her home.

"Uh- uh- 'scuse me!" Lopaka stood up, peering over at the figure as she walked away from him. He was not aware that he could be a danger to her, as he took the first steps in the quickening darkness.

[Gundham]

Zara heard the guy call out. Her immediate instinct was to raise the phone to her ear, keep her head down and speed-walk right out of there. Once upon a time, that might have been the play, but in the age of Andrew Tate, all bets were off. If you ignored a creep, you were rejecting them, and that was just as likely to spark aggression as anything else. So she turned to face him.

"Yeah?" she asked, affecting an inquisitive "Oh, did I drop something?" expression.

Uh oh. He was up now, walking towards her. The sun was setting behind him, so he was mostly shadow with burning orange edges. Even so, she could see enough to know that he was taller than her by about a foot, and probably twice her weight. Bigger, stronger, almost definitely faster. She took a half step back, her weight shifting away from him. Crap. If he was a creep, he'd have clocked that for sure. Guys like that were always fluent in the body language of revulsion.

She took a quick glance at the phone screen. It was open to the keypad, and she quickly mapped out the relative distance between her thumb and the numbers nine and one, rehearsing the little twitches it'd take to press them correctly and hit the call button if it came to that. She might very well need to...

[EarthBound]

"Sorry if I'm bothering you!" Lopaka called out, continuing to walk toward her as if everything was normal about this situation. In his mind, yeah, he didn't think he was coming off as weird in any regard. Weirdos wouldn't just casually call out to someone....right? Admittedly, he hasn't encountered a weirdo like that to make a proper decision.

"Uhhh, would it be okay if I walked you home?" Lopaka made a response to a nonexistent question. "I know this place is, like, suuuper sketchy, and it's getting dark and I don't want anyone to, like....mug you or summin'."

Although Lopaka wasn't able to make out who exactly the figure was, but what he did notice was that she was taking a step back, almost getting into more of a defensive pose. That's when it all hits Lopaka at one time. The speed walking, having her phone at the ready, being prepared to run.....this girl wasn't scared of a potential creep, she was scared of HIM!

"OH! Shit!" Lopaka stopped as soon as the revelation hit him. "I'm so so so sorry if I'm freakin' you out! I don't, uh, have anything on me!" Lopaka reached into his pockets, pulling them inside out to prove a point. "I was only here 'cuz I ain't ever been here before, but this is my first time at this park." Lopaka was practically rushing through his words, taking a breath so that he could keep himself talking. "My mom has been tellin' me since we got to this town not to go here, but it's the only place I haven't been yet- and she's prolly pissed off at me 'cuz I'm comin' home so late without telling her! I needed to leave, anyways, and I might as well help you get home safe, too!"

Lopaka takes a deep breath, going to steady himself after rushing through that entire monologue.

[Gundham]

The coils of tension wrapped around her amygdala released their hold a bit as the guy babbled. His voice was high-pitched, with traces of an accent she couldn't immediately place; he sounded reedy, scatter-brained, a linebacker's body channelling a hare-brained scientist from an old cartoon. The effect was only enhanced as the guy actually went through and pulled out his pockets to show her just how much of a threat he wasn't.

Uh...

Her incredulous expression softened a bit as he let more details slip. He wasn't from here, was a bit of a Mama's boy. Seemed like he meant well, but clearly didn't understand the broader implications of him, a complete stranger, asking to walk with her all the way back to where she lived. Yeah. Well-meaning, but definitely clueless.

A faint smile tugged at her lips as he admitted that he wasn't even supposed to be here. They were in Sin City, where the sidewalks of The Strip were littered with cards for exotic dancers and underage drinking laws instilled less fear than library fines, and this guy's idea of rebellion was loitering on a sketchy park bench? And he thought that mugging was the number one thing a girl might be afraid of in a situation like this. Bless. You didn't really see naivete like that in Vegas, or at least not for very long. He must've moved here very recently. With instincts like that, she should've been the one offering to walk him home.

"That's a really nice offer," she said, sweetly, "but I'm actually going to meet up with some friends. But if you're going this way anyway, why don't we walk together for a bit?"

She was lying about meeting up with someone, obviously. Sure, he seemed naive, but naive didn't mean safe. Everybody knew about "nice" guys. Might as well let him escort her for a few blocks, then ditch out before he tried to leverage that minor chivalry into anything else.

[EarthBound]

The anxiety and panic that radiated from Lopaka seemed to dissipate in a moment when the girl said that he could walk with her. Good. If someone as big as himself could get nervous in a place like this, why would it ever be okay for someone like her to walk through all of this alone? It wouldn't be fair to her, and Lopaka wouldn't be able to get it off his conscious if she got hurt.

"Oh, dope! Uh, uh, I mean- cool! We can just go together, then!" A part of him, however, was a bit more comforted by the fact that he wouldn't be forced to find his own way home. That is where the panic would begin, that is when he would have to start running home, but now he can have some sort of alleviated confidence.

As such, the two began their walk back to their homes. Well, Lopaka knew he was going back home, but he didn't really pick up on the fact that Zara had just lied to him. As a result, this just seemed to be more friendly than anything! Good. He didn't want any of this to come off the wrong way, especially considering that he had a girlfriend. He wouldn't even THINK of going behind Remi's back.

"So, uh...." Lopaka whistled for a moment, trying to think of a good conversation starter. "You said you're meeting up with friends? You guys doin' something?" Lopaka has a second of internal dialogue to wonder if that was a weird question to ask, but came to the conclusion....hopefully not!

[Gundham]

Her would-be white knight was a bit of a babbler, which was good. Zara liked babblers. They were like wind-up toys: just give them a little turn-key twist of agreement every now and again, and they'd keep going on and on and on. All she had to do was stand there and listen until they eventually petered out.

She was also pleased to note the distance between them, which was both normal and appropriate. That was a comfort. Not just because it minimized the chance of him suddenly attacking her, but something a bit more fundamental. See, Zara got bumped into on sidewalks. She got bumped into a lot. And she got bumped into almost exclusively by males. It hadn't always been like that, but then one day a switch had flipped and she'd become beautiful enough for people to notice, and within seconds she'd become a magnet. At first it'd just been glances and stares, but soon enough it was touches. Men came drifting right into her orbit, inflicting a thousand little bumps and brushes and slide-bys. Always little fleeting touches, always plausibly unintentional. Half the time, they didn't even seem to be aware they'd done it. She fancied sometimes that it was an instinct, a subconscious desire for just that little sliver of contact, just enough to scrape off a little bit of her beauty and take away with them. Sidewalks were particularly common for that sort of thing, the busier, the touchier. But this guy, this chivalrous babbler, hadn't touched her even once. He was giving her her space, striking up conversation with a casual inquiry about her plans for the evening. That was nice.

"Doing something? Yeah, I guess. We're probably just going to stream something, maybe go out for a bite to eat. The usual," Zara said, not bothering to go into any more detail than that. "How about you? You..."

She looked aside at him, and paused a second. Now that they were out of the park and onto the sidewalk, he was more clearly lit. Now that she could get a better look at him, she could have sworn she'd seen him somewhere before, and his voice had sounded passingly familiar, too.

"Sorry, but if you live around here... does that mean you go to Red Rock?"

[EarthBound]

Lopaka had always been a respectful man, even before Remi came into his life. He never needed that to toot his own horn, he wasn’t going to go up to someone and be like “I’m the niceeee guy”- he just grew up around a strong female figure in his mother. There’s lines you’re not supposed to cross, and he even asks Remi if she’s comfortable with an arm around her shoulders.

Now, if he was closer to whoever this was? Maybe he could be willing to give her a hug or a pat on the shoulder a bit more willingly. He always had a lot of love to share around, after all.

“Oh, dope, dope!” Lopaka responded to Zara’s plans. That always was a bit of a go-to for him, just because hey, that is pretty nice that you have plans! But also it’s pretty normal to get some food. So it’s dope! Plans are dope. Lopaka thinks it’s the perfect word.

The question took him off guard, however. It took him a moment to process, considering that he wasn’t wearing anything Red Rock related. Sure, sometimes there was the wrestling jacket that he would wear around every now and then, but most of his jackets were something personal to him instead. As the lighting got better, however…..a spark of recognition hit the man as well.

“I do, actually!” Lopaka beamed, pointing back at Zara. “And….I think you go there too? I’ve totally seen you before, I know I have!”

[Gundham]

Zara stayed smiling, but she was annoyed that he only seemed to acknowledge a vague recognizance. Privately, she liked to think of herself as someone whose looks made a lasting impression on Red Rock's male population. That's it, she thought. I'm definitely putting my picture on the campaign posters.

"Yeah!" she laughed. "I'm a senior. I'm on the student council, so if you've been to any school events, you've probably seen me giving speeches or something. I'm, hah... actually running for president this year."

"And you're..." She made a show of looking at his physique. "...on one of the teams, right? I want to say... basketball?"

It definitely wasn't basketball. She'd flirted with several members of the team, and she'd never seen this guy before. But she'd often found that the easiest way to get guys to open up about things was to say something wrong and give them an opportunity to correct her.

[EarthBound]

To be completely fair, Zara probably wouldn’t be able to do anything different to get Lopaka to recognize her specifically. Lopaka has never been the sharpest tool in the shed, hell, he would have to take a moment to remember what he had for breakfast this morning. This conversation would probably be where Lopaka would start to recognize her from, because it’s personal and a key event.

“Ohhhh, that has to be where I know you from, then!” A few bells were rang. Student council….yeah, that sounded about right. Honestly, he didn’t keep up much with the council, but he’s seen them running a few events here and there. Nothing completely new.

Lopaka didn’t show any reaction to Zara looking at his physique, being rather oblivious. “Not basketball, actually! I mean, I like doing basketball every now and then! I have a friend actually, Mañana, he’s suuuper good at that stuff and we’re like best friends! I do wrestling, though!”

[Gundham]

Oh. Ew. Zara started to curl her lip in distaste, but caught it in time to keep it from showing. No wonder she hadn't really noticed this guy. She knew mister Mañana, oh yes. Mostly by reputation - needless to say, he had not been on the flirt list. Everybody knew what he'd done to Mona Marraquin. Zara wasn't a fortune teller, but you didn't have to be one to know when restraining orders and grungy trailer park shouting matches were gonna figure prominently into somebody's future.

She angled her steps just slightly, putting another inch or two between her and the wrestler as they continued down the street. He was still a potential voter, though, so she wouldn't freeze him out completely.

"Wrestling, huh? That sounds pretty interesting! Are you guys going to... regionals or nationals? I... heh... don't actually know what they call it in wrestling, come to think of it."

She accompanied the statement with a small, self-effacing laugh, like it was silly of her to not know something so obvious.

[EarthBound]

Lopaka didn't notice Zara slightly stepping away, more or so because he was focused on the lane rather completely on her. He didn't want to weird her out, especially not on a creepy night like this one. He had to keep running the reminders through his head, because she already had same cautions around him. He didn't want any of that to get around school, because....hey, that was anything but who he actually was! He liked....puppy dogs and the occasional rainbow, he didn't think creeps liked stuff like that.

"Uh, nationals! Our team is suuuper super good, you should come and see a match at some point! My buddies Koa and Wade are suuuper good, too. But, uh, I'm the best!" Dot dot dot. "Kidding, kidding, I'm never gonna be like that. I just appreciate my bros, y'know?"

Lopaka rested a hand against his hip, slightly daydreaming back to the last match that Red Rock had went to.

"Yeah...it's a wicked time! Oh, but I'm probably going waaaay off at this point." Lopaka finally turned back to Zara, giddy as can be. "How's student council? Must be a big thing!"

[Gundham]

"It kinda depends on the day," Zara said, with genuine enthusiasm. "Sometimes it's just printing things, or taking notes in meetings. We do a lot of things with various community partners, so there's a lot of scheduling and coordinating that goes into that. It's not everybody's cup of tea, especially in a school that's so geared towards the physical side of education, but I like to think that we're doing all the boring administrative stuff so that everybody else can do the things they enjoy. Like your wrestling! Nationals sound pretty good. Is there another step from that? Or it is like, once you've won nationals, that's it until the Olympics?"

While he answered whatever he was gonna answer, she mentally replayed a little section of what she'd said. We're doing all the boring admin, so everybody else can do the things they enjoy. The words were good, if a tad inorganic. She'd been mentally workshopping it, among other slogans that she might run on, but hadn't said it out loud enough times for it to seem truly off the cuff. It took a lot of practice to say practiced phrases without them sounding practiced. It was still a serviceable enough delivery for the earnest himbo beside her, but definitely needed to be tightened up a bit before she rolled it out for the entire student body. For starters, "everybody else" would have to go. It'd need to be "you." First rules of politics - always use a veneratory "you" when talking about who was going to benefitial effects. People didn't care about "everybody" or "people" or "voters" or "my constituents," not nearly as much as they cared about themselves. The "you" made it personal, made it seem like you, the politician, were only in it to serve. So, yeah. "We're doing all the boring administrative stuff so that you can do the things you enjoy." That had a good ring to it.

Her campaign was going to adopt a more sophisticated form of the strategem that'd won Canon the 2024 election. Not the racism, concepts of a plan, and nonconsensual microphone intimacy stuff, obviously. No, she was going to do a riff on his, "Aww shucks, politics is hard and dumb and complicated! Let me do all the thinking for you!" brand of governance. Heavily modified, of course. Canon's actual strategems wouldn't work on Red Rock the way they did in red states, because in Red Rock they didn't generally treat ignorance as a precious hierloom to passed down mostly-branchless family trees. Something more palatable could work, though. Something like, "Student government is complicated, and you're busy. You've got practice, and club meetings, and rehearsals. Let me handle the boring parts, so you're free to focus on what really matters to you." Yeah, that could work.

Who'd want to be cooped up in budget meetings when they could be running free on the playing field? Everybody wants to attend the party, but who wants to spend the two months leading up to it debating which balloon supplier to go with and color coordinating all those streamers? Zara Mohammad, that's who. Meetings and liaisons and spreadsheets, those are my thing. Your things? It's whatever you want it to be. Get back to doing what you enjoy, while I handle the boring bits. That was better, kind of? A little? Sounded kind of like one of those McDonalds adverts from the 1970s. She'd have to do a little wordsmithing and hammer out the verbiage a bit. Make it shorter, pithier. Tighter. More serious, but less formal. But the theme and the vibe? Those were a solid gold foundation, she could already tell.

Or at least, it probably would be. She'd gotten off on a rabbit trail there and hadn't paid terribly close attention to his reaction, and probably had missed whatever he was saying in response. Whoops.