what is the sesame street number of the day??

[halfmoon]

Who: Makoto Yuuki & others [closed]
*** This is for pre-plotted threads, but anyone is welcome to contact me if they would like a thread with Makoto! lazdo
When: August 15 (Full Moon)
Where: Around the city
What: Makoto's first full moon brings with it some uncomfortable changes.
Warnings: suggestive sexual themes in threads with Fuuka and Iramaat, NSFW in thread with Eren

Prompts in comments!

Comments

closed to akira

[halfmoon]

Well, this full moon thing is here, and it sucks.

As Makoto wanders the city around sunset, he unexpectedly finds himself wishing that he were among pools of blood and upright coffins. At least that's a degree of bizarre that he's used to and knows how to deal with, but this? It's like he's back in January, pretending not to know his friends while also pretending not to be slowly dying. With a dose of intense cravings to eat something as the cherry on top, although he's fairly sure he knows exactly what the craving is for.

He shuffles down the street with a newly purchased cloak pulled tightly around him. Between his overgrown bangs and the hood, his face is barely visible, but with a close enough look his red eyes and corpse-like pallor give away what his problem is.

A few people traveling in the opposite direction walk around him, and Makoto finds himself oddly annoyed and offended. What did they think he was going to do, attack them randomly in the street? And yet, as he thinks that, he bitterly remembers all the rude and unpleasant things he'd done so far today, while in this rotten moon-induced mood. Maybe they're not wrong.

Finally, he reaches the flower store, intending to use the last of his money to buy a few "I'm sorry" gifts for his friends. He knows better than they do that the best apology gift is changed behavior, but it sounds like that's not always going to be possible.

The sight of dozens and dozens of bouquets sends a shiver down his spine. He'll do this quickly and go home so he can sit in his room and ride this out.

"Excuse me," he asks the nearest employee of the shop. "I need your cheapest bouquets. However many this will buy." He holds out a small sum of money.

[scaling]

Working until close really isn't how Akira envisioned spending his full moon, but here he is, a shift dropped into his lap when a coworker failed to show up. The older lady running the shop has been far too sweet to him in his time working there for him to even consider saying no, even as the moon pulls more and more of that monthly agitation to simmer right below the surface.

He's had a lot of practice masking anger and irritation, though, so it's easy to pull out a casual half-smile for the few customers that come through at this time—like your friendly neighborhood cloaked figure. Maybe back in Tokyo, that would've been a strange sight. After a few months in Aefenglom, he barely bats an eye, only a brief, curious glance sent in the customer's direction before he returns to his task.

When he approaches, it demands Akira's more immediate attention, a long and thorough enough look that he can note the red eyes and ashy features peeking out from beneath the hood. Looks like he's not the only one here having a bad night.

"Sure. One moment." He takes the money and goes through it, counting up the amount softly under his breath. Hm. That should by him a handful. Akira gets to gathering up the cheap, premade bouquets, opting for a variety of color schemes and flower types since he offered no specifications. "What's the occasion?"

[halfmoon]

Makoto can hear the attendant's quiet words as he counts his money. There's a sneaking urge to follow along with the numbers - aloud - but he manages to stuff it away. So many freaking urges. That's easily the most aggravating part of this entire day so far, and it's not made any easier or more tolerable by the fact that Makoto would normally have monk-like self-control of such things.

"Oh, you know," he grumbles. "If you don't have a way to say sorry, the least you can do is waste some money on something they don't want in the hope that'll help soften what happened. Right?"

Despite his tone, he's not trying to take his bad mood out on the stranger. He sighs and brings a hand to his face to rub his eyes, brushing his hair away as he does.

"...Sorry. I just got here a few weeks ago."

[scaling]

That earns a glance, cast over Akira's shoulder as he settles another bouquet into his arms with a noncommittal noise. It's not really his place to judge, but that's not how he would choose to go over smoothing out a misunderstanding or argument. Besides... Akira looks down at the multiple bouquets he's currently holding.

How many people did this guy piss off?

It makes more sense when the follow-up comes. A few arrival, a first full moon. No wonder. Picking out one more, he turns back to the counter and brushes off the snappishness with an easy shrug of a shoulder. "Don't worry about it. I get the feeling."

Akira's getting to be far along enough in his transformation that he can almost pass for one of the regular Monster citizens, ears not yet all the way to the top of his head but still long and soft with fur, with fingertips edged in the beginning of claws and bright golden eyes. They occasionally tap against the counter as he begins to set the clusters of flowers down one by one.

"They'll understand."

closed to shinjiro

[halfmoon]

At first, when Makoto wakes up that morning, he doesn't feel particularly different. He feels tired, sure, but he'd been feeling exhausted since he got here. He wants rare meat for breakfast, but again, that'd been the norm for a couple of weeks now. And he feels sort of grumpy, but... well, he'd always been a night owl, not a morning person.

But when he picks up his pocketwatch, checking it as one would check their phone in the morning, he's mildly surprised to see just how late it is. The others are likely out of the house by now. If anyone made breakfast, he probably missed it. Not that he finds anything but rare meat particularly satisfying lately, but he still wants to spend time with his friends. They still haven't had that Big Talk they need to have; he'd been hoping for the right moment to arise to initiate it.

So much for that today. He shuffles out of his room in his boxers, looking and feeling especially unwell. His skin is pallow and his eyes are slightly sunken in. He raises one hand to his face - it feels slightly flabby.

Ugh. This must be full moon bullshit.

Other than a half-hearted good morning, he hardly pays any attention to his senpai as he wanders into the kitchen and searches for a glass of water.

[hoboagogo]

Unfortunately enough, Makoto isn't the only one in something of a mood.

After getting over his indignation of having to be alive again, Shinjiro had found it easy to take everything here in relative stride-- if only because the entire world is consistently surreal, and it's hard to feel like anything matters when you have pretty vivid memories of getting gunned down. And so his apathetic facade and kicked into place and stayed there- until now it seems, having woken from some nightmare or another (which isn't uncommon) to a crushing headache and a feeling under his skin like he's been electrified.

It's unpleasant enough, and he's been glad for the silence in the house they'd all been consolidated into. The last thing he needs is Yamagishi getting worried or Akihiko thumping him on the back or Makoto doing... whatever that guy does.

He's been trying to distract himself from the throbbing ache on either side of his head- and of course, that means having holed up in the kitchen, a pot of rice slowly simmering on the stove as he chops vegetables. It doesn't dissipate that agitated feeling of needing to do something, but it at least keeps his hands busy.

Makoto stumbling in, though, gets his attention quick. His eyes snap up to look at the other teen, exhaling in something that's almost like a dismissive snort.

"You look like shit." Not that Shinjiro looks much better, having made no attempt to try and tame his hair... or even look at himself in the mirror at all. Maybe then he'd notice the elongated rectangles of pupils, the bumps of horn peeking through hair, or might have bothered to shave.

He gestures at Makoto with the knife in his hand- not threatening, but just as emphasis. "Get outta here and back to your room before you get the rest've us sick too."

[halfmoon]

Makoto doesn't answer. He's pouring a glass of water. After turning off the tap, he raises it to his lips to drink. When he turns towards Shinjiro, he's staring at him with one red eye from beyond the rim of the glass.

A long moment later, he lowers the glass and swallows.

"I'm not sick. It's the full moon thing," he states matter-of-factly. After sizing Shinjiro up a few times, but still a bit too absorbed in his own bad mood to notice the small changes in him yet, he gestures with the hand holding his glass. "Or did you not even look at yourself before coming down here today? Akihiko's gonna think you died again."

Ugh, why is he so... thirsty? He fills his glass to the brim with more water. "What are you making?"

[hoboagogo]

The red eyes is definitely new- and maybe an indication of the whole 'vampire' thing Makoto had been expecting. He seemed to have a leg up on them in that department, but honestly, Shinjiro is fine with that. He'd rather not be the first one to have to undergo weird changes.

The ballsy comment he gets back, though, has his lip curl in something like a snarl, brows lifting at surprise of it.

"Keep you fucking voice down," he hisses out, teeth grit. "He doesn't know and the last thing we need's you breaking the news." Even the idea of it makes his stomach drop with a sort of dread. He just wants his friend to stay ignorant as long as possible- there was no sense in worrying him over what had already happened for the rest of them.

Already bristling, it takes him a few moments to register the next question- and finally he just shakes his head. "Just a stir fry. I don't got any meat for it, so you might gotta mooch off someplace else."

[proficience]

The full moon has not been kind to Dazai; this place hasn't been kind to Dazai, to be clearer, since he still believes that his best friend could vanish again at any given moment. He doesn't trust this world, or this city -- but there's no need for him to dwell on that overall issue of his.

He needs to figure out what's going on with him right now. He's tired, incredibly tired, and it's admittedly difficult for him to even make his way around the city without short breaks every now and then. Thankfully, he's able to make it to a cafe, where he hopes a coffee could perk him up. As he heads inside, he happens to walk by a decorative mirror right next to the entrance, and he catches a glimpse of his reflection. He's pale. Pale, and his eyes are a deep crimson.

He'll decide to stop in front of that mirror and check his mouth, noting two pointed fangs near the front, as well as his long, pointed ears.

This is like the first dream he'd had, where he'd reunited with Oda and drank some of his blood. Blood.

Dazai closes his eyes and groans. He's going to have to feed again, isn't he? Turning around, he heads back outside, passing on the coffee and mulling over where to go to find someone to feed from. He does, however, spot a somewhat familiar face approach, and he makes his way over to him with a wave.

"Makoto-kun, is it?"

[halfmoon]

After the day he's had today, Makoto has resorted to walking through the streets of the city. This accomplishes a few things. First, if he's separated from his friends, he won't say or do anything more to upset them. Second, if he's among crowds of people, he's less likely to act on impulse, as he knows he'd be stopped quickly. And third...

He stops when he recognizes the voice and the face that goes with it. "Osamu-kun?" Makoto offers no friendly wave in return, but he does turn towards him after he's done walking over. Unlike the day they met, he's wearing a long black cloak with a large hood pulled around his head - blending in much better with the locals now. His pale skin and red eyes are still obvious, but at least it's not his clothes that's getting people staring.

"Good evening... hopefully, yours has been going alright so far."

[proficience]

He smiles a little wider when his memory serves him right, and he tries to get a better look at the other man. Who is also quite pale --

"It's been acceptable," He pauses, "Have you seen a minotaur? Or a man starting to look like one? I'm trying to find him."

His smile fades as he adds, "You and I are following the same path, it seems." He'll gesture to his own eyes, which are clearly red. "Same changes, same timing -- can't just be a coincidence, surely. But I can't gather what the point of it is. Have you found out anything? Run into anyone else with the same changes?"

[halfmoon]

He's right. Makoto can tell just by looking at him that he's a vampire, too. Or... turning into one. They probably don't qualify as full vampires yet.

"We aren't the only vampires here," he says cooly, waving off Dazai's suggestion that something deeper could be going on between them to explain it. He reaches up and pulls his hood back from his head. His eyes are slightly sunken in along with everything else, but overall, he looks a bit more lively than Dazai does right now.

"Sorry. I haven't seen anything like a minotaur," he continues. "All I've been doing today is... deal with myself. For better or for worse."

[firewalled]

Rich is definitely not enjoying this "full moon" business. It's stupid and cliche. A typical horror movie trope that he and Jake would giggle about before a jumpscare made them both screech like children. It's too lame for him to even consider that due to the moon's phases, his monstrous form will start to reveal itself.

But of course, that's exactly what's happened.

He's made a quick exit from Connor's birthday, after some embarrassed apologies. Justine's healing has mainly mended the gash his talons tore into his cheek, but there's still dried blood on his shirt, and he can feel the bandage affixed to it start to soak up more blood as he moves around, and especially as his jaw aches with the weight of his growing canines. He should be trying to keep his mouth shut so he doesn't reopen the wound and just hurry home to rest, but he spots a familiar splash of blue in the evening, and he finds himself wandering over, worry winning out.

If Makoto was already sick before coming here, how much worse are his changes going?

"Makoto? It's late, man. Shouldn't you be inside?"

[halfmoon]

It is late, but going home means putting himself in the vicinity of his friends, and he isn't willing to risk harming them, even in the incredibly minor ways that come with his first full moon. Instead, he's sitting on the stoop of a recently closed coffee shop, sipping a cup of steamed milk and anxiously pondering how much the taste isn't appealing to him.

He's about to get up and keep wandering the city when Rich appears. Immediately, he notices the blood on his shirt, although not entirely out of concern for him. His gaze lingers on the stain as he stands up.

"Rich, are you alright?" He shakes his head. "I'm fine. I've always been a night owl."

[firewalled]

Rich notes Makoto's staring, but he takes it as concern for his well being. Not that that's much better to him. He rolls his eyes and gives a smirk, waving a hand and then pointing at his face, plus the bandage over his cheek.

"Hey. My eyes are up here," he jokes. "I'm good too. Just a wild party, you know how it is. You look like the moon's hit you too, though."

He notes the eyes, and he thinks he can catch a glimpse of fangs when Makoto talks.

[halfmoon]

"Hah. Funny," Makoto huffs, although the relief that comes from Rich's reassurance makes him smile. Relaxing, he slouches slightly and stuffs his hands into the large pockets of his cloak.

"Pretty brave for you to go to a party on the first full moon you're here, don't you think?" he asks cooly, intending to probe for information without asking directly. He doesn't see any differences to Rich on the outside at the moment, but...

closed to iramaat

[halfmoon]

If he hadn't guzzled a liter of blood earlier today, Makoto might have hesitated to meet a strange, flirtatious, probably older than him but it's really not clear because how does age work with knight fairies anyway woman at a cabaret bar. A cabaret bar that is, in her words, "at the edge of the red light district."

But he had, and he could still feel it in his gut, warming and energizing him as he pushed through the door of the New Moon. The hood of his cloak is pulled down over his face, helping him slip inside without anyone questioning his age - assuming anyone would have bothered.

Iramaat's antlers make her easy to find. He looks gloomy and maybe even a little disappointed in himself as he slips into the seat beside her.

"Hi."

[wylderrant]

Oh, there he is. She was half wondering if he'd show up. He does seem a touch young, even for a human, but she's never been one to really think about that. Instead, she leans on the table and then over toward him slightly, letting their shoulders bump together as she laughs.

"You don't need to sound quite so excited," she says, lips quirked in a little grin, "Even if I did go through the trouble of getting us a table."

There's a glass of wine in front of her and the table - well, it's more of a cozy booth - is toward the back of the room. The whole room seems to be dimly lit with soft light, and colored in muted, darker intimate colors. There's music filtering over the crowd and the hum of hushed conversation seems to permeate, along with a hint of smoke. It's an intimate little setting.

"Do you want anything?"

[halfmoon]

Makoto glances at his shoulder when she bumps him. He knows she's kidding, and he isn't exactly annoyed by it. Instead... well, how to describe the emotion that arose in that moment she touched him? It was the same as what he felt when Shinjiro butted heads with him earlier.

"An attache case filled with one hundred million yen in unmarked bills." Makoto glances back at her now. Between the low intimate light and their close quarters, she'll be able to see his face much better than anyone else here: despite his red eyes, pale skin and overall gloomy disposition, he looks pretty good for a vampire on his first full moon. His eyes aren't sunken in and his cheeks look full and supple.

"... do they have tea here?" He looks at her expectantly. She's paying, right?

full moon shenanigans, let me know if I need to change anything

[eyesees]

And here she thought that the full moon wouldn't be terrible for once. Oh, how wrong she was.

Tensions were already high in the SEES household, but the days leading up to this evening only did more to compound the stress upon their poor navigator. Shinjiro and Akihiko seemed to take the opportunity to make up for lost time by arguing with each other (even if Akihiko had no way of knowing about that short of someone telling him); and even Makoto was uncharacteristically abrupt, bordering on almost cruel. As for Fuuka...

Fuuka was dealing with her own issues, privately. So much so that, when she woke up that morning to find the beginnings of scales flecking her arms and neck, bringing a terrible, almost painful itch. She threw her uniform on in a panic to cover herself, despite the feeling of cloth against scales only making things worse. But her discomfort didn't matter. One of them had to be stable through this; and with all of them experiencing the effects of the sister moons together, Fuuka had to stay strong. She had to keep the peace, and make sure that everyone was able to weather this together.

Was that why she came knocking on Makoto's door that late afternoon, or was it the overwhelming need to be near someone that brought her here. Rapping three times on his door, her quiet voice called out. "Makoto-kun? Are you there?" She paused, bringing a hand to her forearm, she began to scratch at it before forcing herself to stop, gripping it with that hand instead. Don't. That will only make it feel worse.

"Can I come in?"

[halfmoon]

With no way to charge his headphones, the 50% battery that remained is all the music he'll have for the foreseeable future. His first impulse was to save it for special occasions - like having a particularly bad day on his first full moon - but really, the battery would slowly dissipate even if he never listened to it again. So he had twice the reason as always to sit in his room by himself and silence his noisy head with music. The sharp hip-hop beats clattering in his ears are strangely comforting as he stares at the ceiling of his room, adorned with intricate Victorian-era wallpaper.

Luckily for them both, he manages to hear the knock over his music. He pauses the music and looks towards the door in time to catch Fuuka's voice. Makoto knows he should let her in. She's only here to check on him, and he'd been avoiding her for the past few days - to keep her away from his shifting moods and worrying cravings.

"Come in," he finally says, hoping this isn't a bad decision. But... they probably need to talk. Fuuka needs to talk. He can shove everything else aside for her for a few minutes. Right?

[eyesees]

Fuuka almost leaves in the time it takes him to respond. He probably wants to be left alone, she thinks to herself. The full moon does strange things, and she wouldn't be surprised if he cloistered himself in his room until this passed. She should probably do the same... but something makes her want to see him. It's a feeling she can't explain.

The corners of her lips briefly tugging upwards, she opens the door, stepping inside and closing it behind her. Her eyes briefly scan the room before focusing on him. Something about him looks off, but she chalks it up to full moon things. She's worried—but that isn't something she's going to say to Makoto. Losing them like they did, it's hard for her to not be at least a bit protective over him.

"How are you feeling?" She asks quietly, making her way towards the bed. He looks terrible. "I... I thought you might like some company."

If he told her to leave, she wouldn't blame him. He was always the type to face his problems on his own, far away from any of them.

Smiling quietly at him, she forces that thought from her mind. "Have you eaten anything yet today? You must be hungry."

Oh Fuuka, you have no idea.

closed to eren

[halfmoon]

The sun blazes from high above, casting a small shadow around Makoto's hunched form. He sits on the curb of the sidewalk outside the front of a large library in the middle-class area northeast of the Coven, a newly-purchased black cloak pulled tightly around his shoulders, its hood keeping his head in the shade.

Today had been weird. He woke up feeling even more awful than he'd felt in the two weeks before. He'd argued with Shinjiro, eventually being forced to withdraw and leave their fight unresolved. He'd laid on his bed in his room and listened to music, wondering what the point of him being here was and why he'd been given this second chance at being alive. It all came to a head when Fuuka had visited his room and made him realize he's craving something - something that made him particularly sensitive to the smell of Fuuka's hair and sweat, the heat eminating off her skin, the soft beat of her heart that he could hear from across the room if he listened closely enough. That was all it took. He'd quickly slipped from the house, messaged Eren, and is now sitting in front of the library, waiting for the large dragon-man to find him.

There's no denying it, he thinks to himself. There's no avoiding it. I know what's happening... if I'm lucky, Eren will lend me a hand.

[usurpers]

During the day when the sisters are awaited to rise in full, Eren grows as anxious and off as any monster would find. He awakens restless, hunts after the precious sharpness of anything with a point, and very well stays that way with little sleep in between the three day mark. Too alert, even hyper-focused at times to the sounds the crack under the steps of a wandering man, or the sight of another coming much too close to his hoard’s boundaries.

His venture was none of those now, though. His hoard was sound, hidden. Food isn’t the problem here and neither is territory. A bond, or bonds, were important for a reason, and while instincts call him, he’s far more sane of mind than his first month (of attacking friends). His thoughts are clear, with only mild interferences that seem like simple white noise, enough that he has no trouble making decisions for himself.

The part dragon finds Makoto through taste and scent alone before he could register his image, hidden away under a black hood. Growing pains plague Eren’s legs, his feet, shaping them oddly as the days pass and making his winged arms seem slightly longer— enough that he’s given up on shoes, his shawl is gone for the time being. He only dawns shorts that have been ripped apart to keep his legs free, and his body, nearly head to toe in scales that would only come as patches on their normal days.

(The spikes poke out of his spine at night. Those were more painful.)

His walk is more of an awkward attempt at wanting to crawl and being unsuccessful with it, hunched forward and only dipping closer to the ground when he can lower himself to the other’s height, extra hand and arm spines curling back to bring membrane with it. The vampire did not need to wish for luck, when Eren was sure of what he came here for.

“Isn’t it bright for you?” He asks on a slight whim. Eren was much better suited for the night now, though he doesn’t complain much of the day. Only if it’s too bright, then the sun doesn’t give his pupils rest.

[halfmoon]

Makoto heard him coming before he was anywhere near him. How couldn't he? The murmurs of a few witches made him lift his head, and the hulking silhouette of a winged monster was visible even with a dozen people preventing him from getting a perfect view.

As he drew closer, Makoto couldn't help but feel a pang of fear. Eren is just so enormous, and despite the messages he'd written to him suggesting that he already knew what was going to be asked of him, Makoto still didn't feel completely safe asking it.

He swallows and looks up to meet Eren's eyes once he's close enough. He looks different. Less human, more monstrous. It's fine. Eren came here to help you.

"Not really," Makoto answered softly, trying not to tremble. "I guess that's coming later on."

Standing up, he smooths the front of his cloak with his hand and sighs. "...thanks for coming. There wasn't anyone else..."