turn out the lights; wake up in your dreams

[when the feed flickers on, the hand moves away from the screen to reveal something like a haphazard mess. the first thing you notice is a colouring book, child-like in quality. it's flipped to a page of the picture of an Ekans swallowing a Rattata whole -- the snake coloured purple painstakingly with a pencil crayon just a little off-screen.

it's not the only pencil crayon there. rather, if you count and compare all the colours, there are veritably enough pencil crayons scattered in the frame alone for two full boxes worth of them. there's the sound of paper crinkling off-screen, before a hand sets down a paper crane on-screen.]

Mm, eighty-one, I guess.

[a chuckle. Fuji picks up the feed. a flash of brown hair here, dizzying camera motions, and suddenly, the feed settles amongst a whole pile of paper cranes, crowding on-screen, haphazard in their placements. even as he does so, his fingers are already picking at the colouring book again.

he tears out the page with the Ekans and the Rattata, nimble fingers working away already at the first folds.]

I think it's fun, what you're liable to make out of paper. [hum] Wasn't origami originally designed for the sake of carrying love letters? Designed so that the receiver would know if someone had intercepted the message from the way the folds were refolded. -- would you like a love letter in a paper crane?

[a thoughtful pause, here.] Isn't it funny that people believe it's bad luck, to unfold a crane? If it's a love letter for you, you'd have to unfold it anyway.

Their luck for you, I suppose.

[and now, he looks down, rueful. a twist of his fingers, and he pulls out the crane's wings, balancing delicately. a smile, a smile, so secretive that if the state of being cryptic was a rope, Fuji would've hung himself on it long ago.]

I think I'll play the piano with my toes.

[it's then the end-tail of an electric-mouse plops on-screen, the chuuuu that follows as unamused as it ever was. Berlin the Raichu plops himself unceremoniously into Fuji's lap, shaking his head a little. the boy blinks once, twice, chuckles, and reaches over to the feed--

cut.]

[He's sitting at the counter, chin propped and smiling lightly in a way that implies he's bored out of his skull. Of course, the fact that he's broadcasting at all sort of hints at his boredom -- he only ever turns to the pokegear when he's feeling blasé.]

So, Johtotites. [A pause.] Or is it more of a 'Johtoians'? 'Johtoeses'? It's too bad that 'Johto' doesn't translate well into some sort of a national calling. 'Denizens of Johto' is a little too wordy, though. If anyone has a better suggestion, I wouldn't mind hearing it.

[A chuckle.] But anyway. Some of us have been here for a while now -- so I think it's safe to say that a lot of us have seen many different kinds of pokémon. So just a quick survey -- what pokémon that you've met so far would you, in your opinion, consider to be the strongest? Cutest? Or maybe even the rarest, the fastest, the smallest, the largest -- that sort of thing. [He hums, thoughtful.] I'm sure all of you can think up some nice examples for each category. Now, it's just a matter of sharing it.

[A glint in his eyes, and he leans into the screen, conspiratorial--] I'd like to share the one that I consider to be the 'most elusive'. I know, it's not exactly an -est word, but I think it fits in the spirit of things.

Some of you would agree, actually -- 'Kanra', not exactly a pokémon, but he or she is one of the more intangible things in Johto. I wonder if they're the sort of thing that would come if I call out their name to the wind -- but that's too much of an impossibility, isn't it?

[Rue.] Too bad. I think I have something for them.

At any rate, I'd like to hear some of your opinions. Wouldn't it be interesting, to see if we could reach some sort of consensus?

[A chuckle.] Something like that, at any rate.

[He smiles, delighted, and the feed ends.]

[action.]

[He's now standing by the entrance to the Goldenrod Radio Tower, handing out pamphlets with a cheerful smile. Bug him y/n/dango?]

[When the video flickers on, we have here an expression of utmost innocence -- the sort that you find on experienced salesmen and newborn baby birds. There's a metaphorical 'I'm hungry, feed me!' glint in his eyes, though for anyone who knows Fuji well enough, it's more of a 'I'm bored, entertain me!' than anything else.

The backdrop is of a plainly decorated room with a rather comfortable bed , occupied by a curl of a flaming porcupine. A misdreavus drifts lazily across the screen and settles herself in his hair. He smiles, all teeth.]

Everyone comes from different worlds, don't they? [Pause. He clarifies--] That being a generic 'everyone', of course, and a very broad and open-minded definition of 'different'. Still, though, we're not really here about semantics.

[He hums, idly, and the misdreavus yawns, before taking a few locks of his brown hair into her mouth, making mimicries of a chewing motion.] The point being, with each world comes a whole new set of possibilities. And on a snowy day where going outside generally means freezing something off in the process, possibilities are fun.

How many of us here have had special abilities back in our home world? Things like flight, telekinesis, powers of prediction, but maybe even things like extra appendages that didn't get carried over between world transfers. [He smiles, wryly.] And even if that's not the case, if you have any interesting stories about your home worlds that you wouldn't mind sharing, I'd like to hear them.

[He puts a finger to his lips, playfully.] If nothing else, it's a good way to pass the time.