#hikari plays voltage | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

littlesilverplatinum · 5 years

Text

The Years it Takes to Perfect a Craft

---

The slow, methodical tick of his analog watch counted the third hour to be had. Three hours ago, a man he knew nothing about had come to his doorstep, disgruntled and hesitant in his manner of speech but with a clear goal in mind nevertheless.

Chronic back pain, he had explained. Nothing a little shock couldn’t heal, surely.

--Hour three was when Koh always, always, wondered if the people he ‘helped’ would wake up or not. In the heat of the moment, when the cords are connected and the metal pads sit dug into the bare skin of whoever needs his help – nothing but the adrenalin of it all fill his mind. A limp body was a man sleeping. A limp body after hour three, could be a corpse.

His breathing was the only thing that filled the crowded room of his apartment. Small, dark and cluttered – that’s what it was. Johanna would’ve never allowed it to be so, but she was not there to scold him for it.

Hugh was his name. Middle-aged like himself – balding, with a noticeable tilt to his walk. As Koh watched the man laid in a mess against the contraption he claimed to heal with, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had a family waiting for him.

No ring on his finger, but that hardly meant anything.

Koh didn’t wear his – even though he very well still could.

It was on aching knees that he stood up, a ghost of a touch to his right ring finger (a twist, a pull) causing the only pause. He treaded through the litter on his floor – the mess he never quite managed to get rid of. --Until he stood before Hugh. A heavy set man, tall enough for him to stand at an almost equal height only when the other is seated. The thought of how never crossed his mind – he had had to carry many different people out of his contraption. Hugh would just be the very next one.

With one arm slung over his shoulder, the other around his waist, Koh carried the robust man. Off his sentence, away to the extra bedroom laid bare save for a small, low bed. The lack of covers, of sheets, did not matter. The stain from previous patients even less so.

It had been an adventure for sure, when he had had to clean the mattress of piss one cold afternoon. It couldn’t really have been helped. A sleeping body could not care for itself when in need. … So, to let go of the buildup of waste really was the only option. Still, as he laid the man onto the stained mattress – Koh hesitated to leave.

Like he had done with so, so many others.

Narrow, charcoal eyes took in the sight before them.

… How long had it been? How long had it been, since he took on the title of an alternative doctor? Years, surely.

Koh would crouch by the makeshift bedding, squatting down with a deep breath and watched the rise and fall of the man’s bulbous chest. He breathed and that was the only sign that he wasn’t damaged.

---

Arthur had been the first client’s name. A friend since he arrived in Hoenn, working the late shifts at the space center. A man with a wife and kid – a son, long since out of his home on a journey to become the greatest. In what, he wasn’t sure. --Probably in the same way all the kids dream to make it big.

Nevertheless… Arthur had suffered a work injury that had left him deaf in one ear. The left, to be precise, and it was always the talk of the evening. How his wife continuously nagged in the wrong ear, which was good as far as he was concerned.

About how he couldn’t properly hear mumbled words, how he was annoyed when people spoke to him on the wrong side.

What he would give to get his hearing back, just to get rid of the disability label.

Koh had nothing to show for his work, at that point. He did what was asked of him on a daily basis. Checked the fuses, the lights – made sure no power was gone and that if there was an outage, the emergency breaks would start running. What he did in the privacy of his own home had never been of interest to anyone but himself.

His attempts at taming electricity at his will had started back in Sinnoh. Perhaps even since Johto – his home region. When he used to have his own Pokémon – they were charged. Wild, untamed. They had harmed him in ways that healed his stutter. --The high of it all still lingered with him. Never had he quite felt so alive, so sure, as he had when coming to after a high voltage shock. His mother had cried against him as she cradled him to her chest, praying in a way he never understood to something he never believed in.

She hadn’t allowed him usage of such types after that.

So when he came of age – was his line of work really that shocking? Sure, he had been no electrician. Yet. More of a janitor type of guy, doing the bidding of the companies running Hearthome City like it was their own personal playground. His ability to work with machines, fixing alarms and lights across the city was the closest he got to experimenting.

There had always been the risk of getting caught, so his playing sat limited.

Until he moved to Twinleaf with his new wife.

Something he never thought himself to do – settle down, be the husband of a household. The responsibility of caring for his young wife – his fling, if he was honest about his feelings back then – was a heavy one. The stress? He healed it with irresponsible actions.

--At the birth of his daughter, he had nothing to strive for. No want, no desire to be part of the life he had. Yet he kept going. For them, perhaps. For the smile of his child.

In this time, he tinkered. Tested, came up with theories. He built his own sound system to play songs for Hikari at age two, though she never had been fully interested in it in the end. His other experiment had been a simpler one… Ones that lacked finesse, sure, but that would yield a result eventually. A metal rod dug into the ground, upon the highest point he could realistically get his daughter to without much energy, time and harm.

- The rise and fall of Hugh’s chest told him he had time to remember, still. He wouldn’t wake for another hour or so, if even that.

He remembered his words to her like they happened yesterday.

“If I could take you to Mt. Coronet… I would. But this is all I can manage for the moment.”

And for all his fault as a father, as a husband… He had meant those words. The metal rod on the mediocre hill had been a failure for months – it had been stupid, in its own right. He never thought it would work that day, either. A thunderstorm was but a thunderstorm. They happened.

Lightning landing where you wanted it to? Rare. It never happened.

Yet that evening, it had.

It had been his first real success – a goal he had reached, however small. He had managed to make what he wanted happen.

“Hikari, did you see?” He had whispered to her. His hands holding her shoulders right, so small under his hold.

The breathless ‘yes’ of his daughter had been an afterthought in his own excitement. Mattered little, as the beating within his chest raced and the hair on his arms stood on end.

- He had told the story many times to his co-workers. Spoken in delight, with passion he had

with nothing else, of how he controlled the weather that day.

They never quite believed his story, he knew. Thought it as an old tale he passed on with time itself. And they had no reason to believe him, truly. --He never asked them to, either.

But one evening, as a few too many had been had – Arthur came to crash at his place. Something he never would’ve allowed, had he been any more sober. But stuff like that happened sometimes.

The morning had been awkward. With pounding headaches they had shared a coffee over the kitchen table – littered with notes, batteries of all kind and other such trinkets. Arthur had found it in himself to finger at the pages, flipping through them carefully without a look of interest falling upon his features. Koh had let him. Once the shoes sat on both his feet, Arthur had clasped his shoulder before making his exit.

“Tell me when you have it figured out,” he had commented. The first words between them that day.

… Afterwards, the younger male of the two hadn’t come in to work for a week. Called in sick with the flue, apparently. --Yet he was seen in hardware stores, in secondhand shops and through the blinds of his second-story apartment. Koh sheltered himself for a week, before arriving back at the pub with greasy hair and an unshaven, untamed beard.

The boys had greeted him like it was nothing – a casual hello after no contact whatsoever. But that was just their ways. His dark eyes had singled in on Arthur, who excused himself from the table without much protest.

The two men walked into the street in silence, an understanding coming between them. As the lights of the evening came on, those in the neighboring houses turned off. A shift in atmosphere, a shift in mood.

It was in the echoing stairwell that Arthur spoke.

“Would it really work?”

Koh paused two steps before the landing, knees bent and shoulders hunched. Through the dirtied fringe of his hair, he starred down at Arthur. His yes sat wide, crazed.

“We will just have to see… Wont we?”

That evening, in the silence of his own apartment – Koh thought he had killed a man for the first time in his life.

(And that he would come to describe it as such – as the first time, rather than the only time, was a test to his obsession. That, even if this one resulted in death; he wouldn’t be able to give up his craft even if he killed many more.

The thought of victory, of success, was as addicting as any drug could ever be. A high he dare not come down from, fearing to suffer the withdrawal to the point of his own demise.)

The high voltage directly connected to the elder male’s skull had knocked him clean out of his chair, landing face first onto the dirtied wood flooring of his home. --Arthur hadn’t breathed for an hour, before seemingly – everything started working again.

The wait had been agony. Each half hour he would check for a pulse, then each quarter. Then every minute. Until he couldn’t find it in him to actually… Care. If Arthur would die, then he already would’ve done it – surely. And if he would die anyways – then he sure had taken his sweet time to do so.

---

- The sharp, shuddering breath of Hugh startled him out of his thoughts. In his daze, he had

taken a fist full of the weathered mattress in his palm and held on tight enough for his knuckles to turn white. For his fingers to go numb. When no further movement came from the other male, he released a breath he hadn’t know he held. The tightness of his chest loosened, went away, as air filled his lungs.

Thirty minutes from then, Hugh woke up. The fastest any of his patients had ever recovered – a curious case, indeed. It usually took half a day, or more.

Koh stood form his crouch, leaning over the man to place both his palms on each of his shoulders. From past experience – waking could be a violent reaction like no other. --But the large male merely blinked to life, a yawn coming over him as though he had just taken a peaceful nap.

Koh was cautious nevertheless.

Hugh’s look, eventually, spoke more words than he ever thought them capable of. ‘Get off me.’

He needn’t.

Hugh was adamant about sitting up, even at youngest protest and insistence to stay on his back. But arguing led nowhere. As the hulking man seated himself, Koh went to fetch him a glass of water to wash down the dryness of his mouth – a small side effect, compared to what could be.

“Slept well, princess?” He asked, handing the clear glass to his guest. A grunt was his only response, one that seemed to quite surprise them both. … It sounded light, not deep or rough. Something that would’ve better matched his given voice.

When Arthur had come to, he had not shown any signs of hurt – that anything was amiss. It was only through continual contact and speaking that Koh came to learn that not only had his deafness been healed – but he had gained something from the experience. Heightened senses, as he had explained. Sometimes, he would catch glimpses of something he came to call rainbow shimmer and in those moments, the world around him would single down into that very special moment. He tasted colors, saw lights he couldn’t explain. --He never could truly describe it in a way that gave it all justice, he said many years later.

He also never experienced it again after that. Faded into nothingness a month after, as though it never had happened in the first place.

So it was with interest – morbid curiosity, perhaps, that Koh watched his new work drink his water. Watched his Adams apple move with each hungry chug. Watched as he tried to speak, but no sound came.

The silence was, quite literally, deafening.

Many emotions crossed the older man’s features, in that moment. That of distress, of worry and… fear. Then, anger, as his gaze was directed towards him.

Koh was forced to his back in an instant, the hulking weight of Hugh too much for him to truly have a fighting chance against. His head hit the adjacent wall, though it was a minor impact compared to his shoulders. Large, rough fists held onto the collar of his shirt as though it was a lifeline, shaking him while no sound came from his rapidly moving lips.

He almost wanted to laugh.

“Does your back still ache?” Koh bit out, between shakes that rattled his jaw. “… Or do you not care for that anymore?”

The shakes, the anger and the annoyance stayed clear and prominent for a few more minutes. A hit was landed to his cheek, though with a lack of real intent of hurting. A retaliation, surely. For all that it was worth. --Once Hugh was off him, Koh shouldered his attire properly once more before standing up. The buttons of his dress shirt was ruined, but he had enough of them to last him a lifetime anyways.

“I know you’re feeling… Distress, in this moment.” He would explain, hands running through his grease laid hair. At the corner of his eye, he caught the other male hold at his throat, trying to force sounds out. Any sound. “But don’t worry. All treatments have a… Side effect, if you will.”

The clear blue gaze of Hugh’s sat narrow and distrusting. A small squawk left his throat – much like the grunt from earlier.

Koh continued. “Your voice will come back in a few days, most likely… It’s temporary.”

Hopefully.

“So… don’t get your panties in a twist about it…”

He was left with no payment that day, but that hardly mattered. He didn’t truly do it for the money – didn’t do it to help people, really. The thrill, the stress – the excitement.

That was the only reason he kept this going.

--Sometimes, during late evenings when sleep eluded him – Koh wondered if he made the right choices in his life. If leaving his family behind was the right choice. If the lack of Johanna – of Hikari, was worth the pleasure he gained.

But, sometimes, as he starred at the old framed picture of the two sitting at his windowsill of the kitchen, he couldn’t remember what was so good about them in the first place.

#(Guest - Father)#The Years it Takes to Perfect a Craft - series #possibly #-drabble-#family #(i dont remember what it was called when i posted it on the old blog #but god i dont care #cries tho that i... lost the drabble referenced in this one ;;#where he remembers hikari #specifically #ye #c r i e s)

6 notes · View notes

g33ki5ch1cuniverse · 8 years

Text

SLBP Questions!

Tagged by @a-night-on-polaris this is gonna be long XD and very good questions! 1- Name one (just one) thing that you can’t resist from each lord. Nobunaga - his smile idk why but that way he smiles to show his kindness even behind harsh words really gets me Mitsuhide - understanding nature (I too am a mother hen XD) Saizo - his sarcasm/dry wit Yukimura - his purity Masamune - his love idk if that makes sense like he is so absolutely precious and devoted and caring like it's so beautiful and amazing Kojuro - passion, he loves his country and his lord and he is 110% A++ husband material like you can be my baby daddy and I will call you daddy Hideyoshi - he is always trying to make others happy Inuchiyo - when he blushes I die it's so cute omfg save me I love puppies Ieyasu - I don't know him that well :/ Mitsunari - intellect Shingen - when he purrs *is ded* Kenshin - his prose (slay me with beautiful words pretty boy)  2- Make your perfect ‘FrankenLord’ picking things from everywhere on slbp (if you like you can use npc things too) I am going to make some things up based on my personal hc's XD Nobunaga - abs (wrestlers abs ladies are a gift from above) Mitsuhide - laugh (based on his sprite it's definitely a dorky one) Saizo - skills *^* he wrote the book yall Yukimura - eyes Masamune - sweetness Kojuro - legs idk I just feel this way fite me irl Jk XD but seriously Hideyoshi - hands idk I just feel like he has hidden skills he's too smooth not too Inuchiyo - shoulders and arms he's got the biggest spear around and that takes some serious biceps and triceps to maneuver ;) I am a huge sucker for biceps irl like they are hug pillows and I just want to nom.....wut....DON'T JUDGE ME Ieyasu - his hair (from what I've read and heard it's magically fluffy) Mitsunari - Booty (he got dat manju butt) Shingen - his not-so-little lord (Yukimura even finds it something to aspire to and it's a big one) and his hips I will worship those abs and waist and I know he has a sexy voice his VA isn't exactly my type but he purrs yall I am shook in my head it's heaven Kenshin - grace just the way he carries himself and speaks makes me swoon Shigezane - smile lol this man's smile can clear any cloud formation Nagamasa - face omg cut me with those cheek bones gorgeous  3- Tell me which is your sweetest memory from slbp *SPOILER* When Shingen and MC make love after they're reunited in the divine ending Oh my sweet baby jesus I cried my eyes out for like 3 hours after I marathoned his last chapter and epilogue dear God the feels  4- Choose one (yes, just one) ‘fandom friend’ and match her to a lord who isn’t her favorite. Explain your decision I think this means like someone from tumblr? Sooooo I'm going to match Meowle with Kojuro! I know she loves Masa but they have that in common! XD I feel like he is debonair and mature and smart and full of sin just like Meowle is (have you read her fanfics yall...gold I tell you, gold) but as much as they can be naughty they are very smart and excellent writers ^^ I just like this pairing XD plus can you imagine Meowle putting Daddy Kojuro in some lace neglige and just perfection  5- Did you take anything from Slbp in your daily life? (tattoos, nailart, pictures in your room, the name of your childrens/pets, whatever) I have stuffed tiger named Harunobu, I'm working on making plushies of the lords, I have a closed species OC that's taiyaki themed I named Shiki (Shigezane and Ichthys love taiyaki) ;)  6- If the magistrate were the only man on earth but you could put on him ONE thing from your fav lord… Would you take him? (you cant say: ‘his whole body’ or ‘his entire personality’) This is just cruel :/ idk maybe Mitsuhide's practicality? Then at least he would be able to figure out wtf to do about the end of humanity? Kenshin's silver tongue? So he wouldn't sound so vile and I could blind myself to take care of the rest XD this would never really work for me bc of the prologue. One of my triggers is abuse and noncon like legit noncon (flirtation or confusion which then is mitigated does not apply) I'm talking the whole marry me or I'll send your brother to his death and burn down your family business and make you and your mother homeless thing I would not get over that....if that's all that's left of the human race we're doomed anyway....also (as a scientist) one male cannot repopulate a species....so I'd rather spend time with Oishi in a sexual way than that slime (low key high key gay for Oichi which is why I call her Oishi which means delicious in Japanese) *the more you knowww*  7- In reverse now. If you wake up one morning and discover that your Lord suddenly has the face of the magistrate but everything else is the same (his body, his hair, his attitude, his personality, everything the same, less his face). What would you do? I would (in modern times) take him to a plastic surgeon to help him. If that's cheating I would still love him anyway, it would just take time to adjust XD  8- Summarize your fav Lord in 5 words. Shingen - Passionate Loving Honorable Mature Strong  9- If you could give your Lord a son/daughter, how would you name your baby? Well...in an event story Shingen names a baby Makoto so there's that, I haven't finished his noble ending so don't tell me! XD but if I had a child with Shingen if it was a boy I would pick either Takashi or Masaru. For a girl either Tsubaki or Hikari. ^^ I like names with powerful meanings.  10- How do you imagine your MC for your Lord?   Soo I'm a self shipper XD Also, Shingen is my favorite BECAUSE of how well I feel I fit with him. Like in some cases I don't agree with any options for MC, but in Shingen's main story I was finding most of what I thought I would want to do was a choice, and that Shingen liked my choices too XD Also his story had just the right mix of emotions for my taste and just yes XD. So my MC for my lord Shingen is me! Salty, strong, understanding, independent, and self sacrificing 11- If you play another game (otome or not), which character would you include on Slbp? (ex. 'X’ from 'gameXX’ would be the lost brother of Shingen and blah blah blah) Ok so this is kinda weird but follow me...so there's a KBTBB substory in the Edo period, I would love to see the bidders from that substory in a crossover story with SLBP XD specifically Edo!Eisuke meeting the lords! Oh goodness he and Nobunaga would either be best friends or quite possibly best frenemies XD I have asked the 11 questions of others before so I have a different idea! One question with a lot of points XD My favorite hc to think about is what songs characters would strip to! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) So for all the lords and as many npc's you can think of: what song would they strip to? Bonus points for characters from other voltage apps XD You don't have to answer if you don't want to, and if you aren't tagged but want to answer please do!!! XD @bloody-geisha @viridian99 @guacameowle @lou-the-mudkip @thexgoddessxofxfate @singokumaiden @suzunesays @cottonballwithmustache @daeva-agas @chaedaye @danielleslauter @a-night-on-polaris

11 notes · View notes

pressurewave · 7 years

Text

Echigoya Music in Shibuya

Echigoya music in Shibuya is a small shop with a lot of good stuff going on. I went there specifically to find modules from Japan’s Hikari Instruments and beatnic.jp. I stopped in in the evening, and the place had two clerks, and one other customer in the shop. You’re greeted, on entry, by a full Roland System 100, and a stack of various Akai MPC samplers. You can find different types of headphones, more recent synths (I saw a Minilogue, Mother 32, System 1-M, Werkstatt, and some others when I visited), and a selection of rack-mounted effects units.

If you’re looking for their specific hardware stock, I recommend checking their site, which is pretty easy to navigate, even if you don’t read Japanese. Of particular note is the used section there, which contains drum machines, Eurorack modules, desktop synths, keyboards, stomp boxes, turntables, and all sorts of other gear.

The folks in the shop are super helpful, and their English is above par for shop workers in the area. I really enjoyed talking to the gentleman who helped me. He even talked with me about local upcoming synthesizer events in the area, which might be useful for people visiting and hoping to see local electronic music.

I’m deeply Eurorack-focused in may synth acquisition. I spent a little time playing with the modules they had set up, which included a Hikari Analog Sequencer, a Mutable Instruments Elements, a JoMoX Mod Brane, and a 4ms Pingable Envelope Generator. The sequencer was ultra-simple, but really functional and ergonomically designed. I dropped the clock down low and used it to send voltages into the Elements. The folks in the shop were patient with the knob-twiddling. It takes a special sort to spend all day in a shop like that, I’ll bet.

I completely fell in love with the Hikari Instruments modular mini case, which, unfortunately, they only had the demonstration version of. It’s a really gorgeous, simple design, though, with a genius little power supply. I immediately made a ModularGrid setup for it, and I’ll grab one as soon as they’re back in stock at ClockFace.

I do need to mention the oddity of prices. The reason I personally focused on Hikari Instruments and beatnic.jp gear is because they are hard to find in the US, and when you do find them, the prices are a little higher than they are in Japan. Similarly, prices on synths and Eurorack modules at Echigoya may be a little higher than you might find in the US. I have two examples that will help illustrate this difference.

Consider, first, the Make Noise Echophon. New, you might find this module in the US for $399. I recently saw one one Reverb for $300, a price you might also see in a trade forum for a person-to-person sale or exchange. Perfect Circuit had a floor model for sale for $340, when I checked. Echigoya was selling a used one for ¥37,900, so about $350. Like Perfect Circuit, Echigoya is a shop with overhead and a location in a popular part of town. Their price is still a discount off of the original price. Yes, it’s a little more, but considering how far the module traveled to get there, not unreasonable for locals looking for modules.

On the other hand, a Make Noise 0-Coast costs $499 new in the States. Echigoya has a new one listed at ¥59,800 on their site, which is about $552 by current exchange rates. So, this new unit is a bit more pricy.

My point is, if you live in the US, consider what modules/synths from here cost here, and understand that there will be a markup if you buy them in Japan, even used. On the other hand, the Hikari module I got, and the beatnic.jp device I got specifically at Echigoya were about $20 and $10 cheaper in Japan, respectively.

Overall, I really enjoyed Echigoya. I really recommend stopping in there if you are in Shibuya.