App From Hell

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

Kentaro was lost again. This time however, he had installed one of those GPS application on his phone, he was certain he could have found the shop. He made the whole trip on his bike, the phone firmly attached to the handle. It was not the safest to look down at it every now and then, but it was definitely safer than to hold it in his hands the whole time.

He was quite puzzled about this. He made sure to follow the path. But he got it wrong somewhere. He even checked the name he put in, in case he got it wrong. No, it was there. Either the place disappeared, or there was something wrong with the GPS system. Maybe it got relocated somewhere? Kentaro circled the area, in case the entrance was in the back of the building or something. Still no luck. “That’s it, I’m removing this one and finding another as soon as I get back,” he let out.

Tired of this, Kentaro figured his best chance was still to just find someone to answer him. The first person he stopped however didn’t have the time. Same for the second. He could barely say ‘do you know where-‘ that they already apologized and moved away from him. He sighed but was still determined. “Excuse me, d’you know where Clark Books is?” he asked as fast as he could once he managed to stand in the person’s way.

[Arcadio Buendia]

REPLY Kentaro Itonokogiri Notes: N/A

Arcadio fell back a step, blinking in surprise. He had been totally absorbed in his phone, thinking about the errands he had to run before going home. He also had a stack of marking to do, Spanish writing assignments, oh joy, amongst other things. It took him a second to focus on what was happening, and who exactly had cut him off. He recognized the man's face, he worked at the Academy, but Arcadio couldn't remember the name exactly. He was sure they had met at a staff meeting, or something. A needle of guilt pricked the back of his mind. The name started with a K? "Uh, hey," Arcadio managed to get out. "Clark Books is just up the way." He pointed further up the street. "You're almost there."

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[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

The man he stopped had something vaguely familiar but Kentaro shook it off. He probably just saw his face before in the few occasions he took to go out. He didn’t always get lost, sometimes he managed to find the place he wanted to go to. Kentaro had only been briefly introduced to the teachers and since his interest lied with the trainers, he paid little attention to them unless they chose to pay attention to him. At the very least this man allowed him to find the bookstore at last.

“Really?” he let out as he turned his gaze towards the other side of the street where the man was pointing to. He couldn’t see the store’s sign from here but the man sounded so certain of himself that Kentaro didn’t question it one second. Instead, he looked down at the phone still attached to his bike with a frown. Why did it send him here when it was further up the street? Perhaps he should be glad it was not in an entirely different part of town, but it was still upsetting to know he had been looking for a shop that was only a few meters away from him.

“Stupid thing,” he said in Japanese before flicking the screen of his phone in retaliation. The phone didn’t feel a thing, but Kentaro still believed it deserved it. Once that was done, he turned his attention back to the man. “Did it move recently? The GPS sent me here,” he said, nodding his head towards the building behind him. Maybe he just got some very outdated map. Or, somehow, the address was entered wrongly and sent him here. It was not like he knew those systems well.

[Arcadio Buendia]

Tag Words/Outfit Notes

Arcadio observed the man's frustration with a little half smile. He had been lost countless times, but was learning his way around town as well. He was terrible for not learning his way around wherever he was living. He had a habit of picking his favourite places, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, stores, and learning how to get there from home and back. That was it. But, since he had been living in Kalispell for awhile, and would be for the foreseeable future, he was making an effort to learn directions. That being said, he had visited Clark Books a few times. Usually to pick up Spanish language books he had ordered to add to the mini-library he was constructing in his classroom for his students. So he did know where it was. "It moved to a larger building," Arcadio told the man. "I think last month? Maybe?" He shrugged his shoulders. Arcadio tipped the brim of his cowboy hat back with his thumb. "Do you want me to take you there? It's not out of my way."

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[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

It seems like you cannot even trust applications meant to help you out. And, in Kentaro’s case, having an application to find his way around was a necessity. He never had a good sense of direction, not even at home, but this was also a new place for him, making it all the more difficult to get around.

He was aware the school offered a lot. A lot, but not everything. And if someone should enjoy all it had to offer, it was more the students than the staff members really. Besides, it was nice to go out and away from hormonal kids now and then. You could argue he was one of those, and not all that long ago. And that he probably still had a mentality fitting theirs. Still, being around adults and not having to watch himself as much was good.

He didn’t care too much what the other man thought of him. It was not as important to set their roles with clear boundaries. “Larger? Good to know. Bookstores tend to shrink more than expand,” Kentaro pointed out. Like everything, it seemed. Or, at least, anything that was not some sort of supercentre. If they moved last month, he had the feeling the app should have known. “I better check for map updates then’” he mumbled as he looked down at his phone again. If that was the only reason why it didn’t bring him at the right place, he could excuse it. “At least going back to school afterwards will be easy. Doubt they moved that building around,” he added with a chuckle. As annoyed as he could have been earlier about this app problem, Kentaro was quick to brush it off and showcase a smile to the other man.

He was offered to be taken to the store. “Sure, why not? With my talent, who knows where else I could end up at.” He laughed again, ready to follow the man.

[Arcadio Buendia]

"You never know," Arcadio said with a twist of humour, "They could have moved it. Specifically to mess with you."

He jerked his head forward to indicate his direction and started walking down the street. The man followed him, and Arcadio gave him a quick once-over out of the corner of his eye. Yeah, he definitely worked at the Academy. He wasn't a prof. A recruiter? He was pretty young. He was pretty cute, too. Arcadio flicked his eyes back to the direction of the bookstore. "Name's Arcadio," he said. "I teach Spanish at the Academy." He figured it was time to introduce himself, especially if they worked at the same place. To be fair, the Academy was pretty big, so it wasn't unheard of to not actually meet one's colleagues unless they specifically did so. Arcadio had just begun to do that himself. He wasn't reclusive, but it had taken him a lot of time to settle down enough to want to meet more people.

"I actually live on campus," he offered lamely, trying to make conversation.

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

Kentaro laughed at what he could only take as a joke. “That would explain why I always get lost. It’s not me, it’s everything around that keeps moving without telling me.” Kentaro knew he never had a good sense of direction. It was almost a running gag. Unless he knew the place well, he’d get lost. And he clearly didn’t go outside of Bellefonte enough to know Kalispell and how to go around the town.

At least he got himself a Good Samaritan to help him find his way for now. Walking beside his bike, he followed the man. He did notice a glance or two in his direction but didn’t think much of this. It was supposed that seemed to happen even more now that he moved to America. It must be the bike. He couldn’t see what else it was.

The man introduced himself and explained he was working at Bellefonte too. Kentaro was slightly surprised. A teacher was not someone he would have to pay too much attention too, especially one teaching Spanish, so if they had ever been introduced to each other before, he could not remember. “Kentaro. I’m a recruiter and a trainer. Arrived from Japan this year,” he explained. No doubt Arcadio had been teaching for a while, it was at least what Kentaro believed, so he must have known he was new, but he still pointed out, in case the man wondered how come he could not remember him as a student of the Academy.

He chuckled slightly as he mentioned living on campus. It was not against him, or if it was, it was against the sheepish tone he seemed to take while admitting it. “Me too. It’s better that way in my case. I couldn’t find a store that was at the end of the street so imagine if I was living in town.” He laughed again after he said that. “You’ve been teaching for long?”

[Arcadio Buendia]

Arcadio shrugged, and gave a friendly smile. "Long enough, I guess. Seven years, I think." That was a close enough guess, he thought. A lot of his past had blurred together, what with the heavy drug and alcohol use. But he had gotten back on the wagon over the last five years. Well, as much as he could. He was still drinking a lot, but he hadn't used any drugs in the five years that he had decided that he needed to get his life back together. (Back together was still subjective at this point. There was nothing on the planet that he could imagine that would convince him to give up booze.)

He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked back at Kentaro. Japan sounded interesting. Arcadio had not travelled much beyond surrounding areas of his hometown in Colombia and parts of the United States. "What brought you from Japan all the way out here?" He knew that his own Colombian accent would probably make Kentaro ask the same thing. What could two immigrants possibly want in the Midwestern United States? Arcadio often asked himself that. And then he would get his paycheque and remember what made him settle at Bellefonte. Stability. Plain and simple.

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

“Seven!” Kentaro exclaimed, surprise and a hint of respect showing in his tone. He was not sure he could ever stay this long in one place. There were just so many things to see, to experiment, that he couldn’t get it all in one place only. It was a good thing he was a recruiter. He may not have the time to be a tourist on the job but he could at least see different places, towns and sometimes even countries. Arcadio was not a recruiter however, so Kentaro hoped he at least left the Academy behind during summer. He never took the time to consider how he would do it himself, how he’d organize vacations and all. Being a new head within the staff, he still was highly curious of the school and had yet felt the need to go away.

The question was legitimate and Kentaro smiled at the chance to talk about it. “I’ve grown an interest in the ways the different schools use to train their students. It’s more than just a cultural thing, every school, and even trainer, has a different point of view on what powers mean and so, despite using similar techniques, each session is different. It’s fascinating.” Maybe the other man would not find it just as fascinating, but it was not his job to train people’s power, he had a lesson of another kind to give. “I requested the opportunity to study the techniques used in other schools and Bellefonte answered,” he explained to justify his presence here. He looked at Arcadio. His accent was probably as difficult to understand for Kentaro as was his to Arcadio no doubt. It wasn’t that bad, but neither of them could claim being Americans born and bred. “Did you attend Bellefonte as a student?”

[Arcadio Buendia]

"That's pretty interesting," Arcadio said, nodding his head. Every school was different, mutant or non-mutant. He had actually spent some time teaching in Los Angeles at a non-mutant high school for awhile before coming to Bellefonte. As much as he liked teaching there, Los Angeles ended up being a very unhealthy place for him. He had a 'party hard' lifestyle back then that probably would have killed him if he had stuck around much longer. The needle marks that ran up and down his legs would attest to that. Injecting in his legs had kept his arms looking clean, which helped him keep his partying a secret from his day job as mild high school teacher. Now, though, six years clean from heroin, his only vice was liquor, and he still managed to keep that under wraps. Bellefonte kept him stable, housed, and on a schedule. It was hard to fall back into old habits while he lived on campus.

"I didn't go to Bellefonte," Arcadio followed up, answering Kentaro's question. "I went to La Delgadillo in Chile." La Delgadillo had been a pretty decent experience. The school had a reputation for accepting some of the roughest students. Arcadio hadn't been too rough as a teenager, mostly some minor delinquency and experimenting with alcohol and drugs. His cousin who had attended the same school, Oscar, on the other hand, had lived up to La Delgadillo's reputation. Bellefonte, by comparison, was a laid-back. Sure, the school had high academic standards, but Arcadio hadn't gotten into a single physical fight with a student. Not even once. It was a nice change of pace. 

"Where did you go?" Arcadio asked.

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

Kentaro couldn’t say he had much time to teach at Sainō. He did some recruiting, that he could say as much. This part wasn’t so different here compared to his old school. After all, it was all about calming down freaking parents and children and explaining why the mutant school was the best and safest place for now. You had to use different methods depending on the person, but the goal remained the same. Training was different. Bellefonte had a similar view on powers and their implication in society than its Japanese counterpart but there were multiple factors that made it different. Plus each trainer had their own way of viewing their role and helping the children get a grasp on their power. It really interested Kentaro. Putting all that knowledge to practice too, even if he sometimes sounded more interested in studying it. He never thought he could sound like that, a scholar. That was so unlike the man he had been at Sainō.

He explained he didn’t attend Bellefonte either, which brought the question of his presence here, but also another, one that interested him more. “What was it like? Was it very different from here?” Aside from language, of course. The school’s reputation was not likely to be something Kentaro knew about. Even if someone told him about it, he didn’t care enough at the time to remember it. Human beings were like that and Kentaro was just that, a human being. One that could carry things in his stomach but a human nonetheless. “Me? Oh, I attend Sainō, in Japan.”

[Arcadio Buendia]

Arcadio came to a stop outside of the store that Kentaro was looking for. He shrugged his shoulders and thought of the best way to answer Kentaro's question about his schooling. "La Delgadillo has a reputation of taking on tough students," Arcadio said diplomatically, mind jumping to his cousin Oscar, who he had attended the academy with and had indeed been a tough student, "Dangerous mutations, and such. I have emotional absorption, so I didn't fit the bill in that regard, but it's the only Spanish school, so I ended up there."

La Delgadillo was a good school. They dealt with their potentially dangerous students with tact and care. The training that the students received to learn how to manage their mutations and powers was excellent. Although his power wasn't violent or dangerous, Arcadio's training on how to control himself had helped him tremendously.

"How was Sainō?"

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

They were now right in front of the store Kentaro had been looking for all along, yet he was in no hurry to walk in there. First of all, he was in a conversation with someone and he didn’t to cut short just because they arrived. The shop was not going to disappear, he could finish the conversation. There was also the matter of finding a proper spot to put his bike, hoping no one would try to steal it. Considering the temperature, one could wonder who would want to use a bike, but that thought alone may not stop someone from taking it anyway.

Arcadio said tough students and Kentaro wondered if he meant tough as it strong or dangerous or delicate cases. Either way, it interested him. They specialised in something very interesting for him, as he was a trainer. Arcadio explained in more detail and a spark showed in Kentaro’s eyes. “That’s amazing. I’m curious to know what kind of training they used for those particular cases.” If they specified on tough students, they must have a firmer way of training them. Kentaro was not sure being a tyrant was much his way of doing things but that didn’t stop him from wanting to learn more. “Bellefonte was the first to offer me a place, and one in the fastest of time. But I believe the offer had been sent to every school affiliated together. Or not. I don’t really know, I let the school’s administration deal with that,” he confessed with a smile. Kentaro told them what he wished to do, they said they would see what could be done and he was sent here. He didn’t bother with any detail beyond that.

Now he had to talk about his school. He passed and started to think of a proper way to explain. “It’s... kind of like Bellefonte, but also different.” He laughed at how vague that sounded. “The training is roughly the same but the mentality is different. We are a lot about community. For example, you have to support the whole class, work together. I mean, some failed and all, but they always encouraged us to help each other to achieve our goals.” He nodded as he was satisfied of his answer. He believed that summed it up nicely. Of course, Kentaro wasn’t sure he helped a lot. Probably distracted more, as he didn’t need as much training and never studied a lot either. But he didn’t think anyone could claim they failed because of him particularly.

[Arcadio Buendia]

Arcadio listened to Kentaro talk about his experiences at the different academies. It was always interesting to meet people from other places. It reminded him of what a small world it actually was. He had not travelled too much before settling at Bellefonte, outside of moving to a new country for school, and then to America for work. He had fantasized about travelling Asia when he was younger, but life caught up with him and he never got the chance to. Maybe in the future. 

"It's kind of neat how we all ended up at Bellefonte," Arcadio remarked. He had noticed that there was quite the international population at Bellefonte-- himself, Kentaro, the foreign studies teacher Devinder Singh... he was sure that there were more foreigners than that. However, he saw that as the mark of a good school. If people were willing to uproot their lives and come all the way to a new country for a school, that was usually a good sign.

"I gotta get going here," Arcadio mentioned, somewhat reluctantly. "But we should grab a beer sometime, considering that we're coworkers." Arcadio was woefully lacking in the friends department, even though he had been here for so long. He didn't socialize much, but that was something he was trying to change.

[Kentaro Itonokogiri]

Kentaro didn’t believe he was the only one who studied at a different school but it was quite a coincidence to meet with someone else in this condition in such a way. After all, what were the odds? But Kentaro was not one to dwell to long on such philosophical questions and simply enjoyed the result. Not only was he able to discussed with a fellow staff member but he had been kind enough to show him to the bookstore. The rest was just icing on the cake.

This fact had not escaped Arcadio. “Isn’t it? I don’t know what made you pick Bellefonte over any other school. As for me, it could have been any, really. The first to answer my request and the time it took to organize the trip, that was all it took for me. It makes this even more incredible that we got to meet.” This too was not something Kentaro would dwell long about. As soon as he expressed it, he already chased it away from his thoughts.

Of course, their encounter had to end at some point, otherwise they couldn’t say they would meet again. Besides, they were in front of the shop. He smiled at the suggestion. “Sure, any time,” Kentaro responded. “Although... it would be best you show the way then,” he added with a laugh. Maybe he would have gone better by then. He certainly couldn’t get worse.