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This morning, Joachim will have woken up to find a few things missing. Namely, his roommate's weapons and, well, his roommate.

There's no sign of a struggle, no damage to anything, no 'I quit' note, no phone wreckage. In fact, his phone is sitting quietly on the kitchen table. There is one sent message on it.

[Text, to Ran]

Ran. I'm sorry. I only wish I'd known earlier.

((OOC: Not dropping him. He's just doing what appears to happen to every resident of Sirocco at one point or another and going missing.))

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*Eh? Eh??? Known what?

Ran hadn't been present for the big blowup, so the message just seems needlessly cryptic. She decides to head over to his apartment, knocking on the door.*

Hello? Hello, Shen? I say, are you in there?

[Joachim opens the door, yawning.]

You're looking for Shen?

Why yes, as a matter of fact! He left a rather cryptic message, and I cannot for the life of me understand what it means.

He did?

What did it say?

[Joachim has not actually realized his roomie's flown the coop, as it were. He's just being nosy.]

Ah, something about an apology. About how he wishes he'd "only known sooner." But known WHAT? That is what I would like to know.

[Well, it's obvious what he was talking about. The question is, should he tell her or not? It's a complex moral dilemma! He hates those! He can't really fault Shen for being all evasive; if he'd remembered something that awful, he wouldn't want to talk about it either. Is that what Shen's trying to do? Lead Ran to him with questions so he'll have to be the one to tell her? Truly, that bird is a diabolical mastermind...

For the record, he's standing awkwardly in the doorway throughout this entire internal monologue.]

Is something the matter? You stopped talking all of a sudden.

Oh? Sorry about that.

He probably meant, er... would you like to come in?

That might be nice, thank you.

*She walks in.*

Have you seen him at all?

Not since the other day, I'm afraid!

...Say, what are your feelings on pandas?

Pandas? Well, I should think I have no opinion one way or the other on them! Why on Earth would you ask such a strange question?

Well...

Shen had... problems. With pandas, that is.

Oh dear, I'm sorry! But I hardly see why that would trigger such an odd message!

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stinglikeabat - 2012-06-08 06:23 (UTC) - Expand

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faithful_kitsune - 2012-06-08 06:37 (UTC) - Expand

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faithful_kitsune - 2012-06-08 06:57 (UTC) - Expand

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stinglikeabat - 2012-06-08 07:00 (UTC) - Expand

[Gordon had known the peacock was down in the dumps. It just so happened that he attempts to cheer him up... in the way that only good friends who are prone to giving each other shit can do.]

[Any other day, the picture sent to Shen's phone of a baffled-looking chocobo hen from the farm with the caption "Picture of Miss Sirocco 2008 to cheer you up" would have invoked indignant keyspam from the likes of which the world had ever known... but this time nothing came.]

[Disappointed and a little worried, Gordon drops by after work, wrapping on his and Joachim's door.]

Hey, Shen? You in there?

[Joachim answers fairly quickly. He's been keeping an anxious eye on that door.]

I haven't seen him all day, I'm afraid!

All day? That's weird. I mean, he's not exactly a homebody but doesn't he even have his phone with him? I sent him a... a message, n' never got a reply.

He left it on the table.

I've been hoping he just forgot it this once.

It's possible...

[He cranes his neck to spy the phone on the table behind him.]

But all the same, I think we'd better take a minute to look for him. He was hit pretty hard with that news, you remember, and after what Booster did, well... it'd have precedent for him to take off.

You think that's what he did?

...He's not exactly built for living in the forests. He should come back when he gets hungry, shouldn't he?

Yeah, I don't think he's the kind of guy to abandon everything and become a hermit. Guy likes his trips to the preening-salon too much.

[Of course, with Shen's training he may be more capable than they give him credit for. He saunters past Joachim and scoops up the phone on the table, prodding it for clues as to where he'd go if he were trying to run away from everything...]

That's not really the point, though.

The phone doesn't yield much other than the text message to Ran and three inbox messages: The thing Gordon sent, an ad from the local sushi joint, and a confirmation message regarding the online purchase of an e-book titled 101 Places For Birds To Watch People. These are all dated to-day. Apparently Shen is very conscientious about deleting his inboxes. The internet history reveals maps of Sirocco and outlying areas, most of the wilds to the northwest.

[Joachim's leaning over Gordon's shoulder.]

Miss Sirocco 2008? I didn't even know that was a competition!

[He knee-jerk closes the message when the big guy observes on it.]

Uh... Let's stay focused here, Joachim.

[There's no way he'd be able to explain the joke.]

Most of these maps have a center in the northwest part of town and the woods. I wonder what this e-book has to say about that area... [He prods the phone, looking to find the people-watching field guide and open it.]

After a bit of prodding and finding such terribly useful things as music apps and some game or other involving fireworks (is anyone really surprised?) he finds the e-book reader and, amidst rather a lot of books regarding anything from the history of weaponry up to the present to basic and intermediate chemistry manuals to a copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey (who knew?) he finally locates the people-watching guide.

Opening it reveals that, thankfully, the book's contents are local to Sirocco and the outlying areas. As there really isn't a way to highlight passages in an e-book--or, at least, none that Shen knows of--the only clue available is that it opens right up to page 137, whereupon one finds a description of a very quiet area in something of a hollow.