People and Parts: (For Deshi, with Katsura):

Katsura was in a good mood today.

He had managed to get the parts he needed, and at a discount too, to boot. How fortunate of him. As a matter of fact, he had quite a sum of money left over that he had allocated for this. Even though it would be more logical to, say, save it for something else, he just couldn't resist deciding to take a detour to the hobby shop nearby to get himself something.

"A quick detour wouldn't hurt, especially not on a day like this. Perhaps i'll get myself one of those model robots again. I think I remember having my eye on something that I saw there last time as I was heading out. Perhaps i'll see if I can find it again. With today's luck, I may very well do so." he thought. That thought cheered him quite a bit...

... that is, until he got to the storefront, which had a rather sizable crowd in front of it. Which wasn't unusual, in and of itself, but rather, unusual in that the crowd appeared to be towards one particular thing. It didn't take long for Katsura to find out what was going on either. Apparently, it was some sort of contest to see who could solve a Yottaminx puzzle that was on a table outside near the entrance, as some sort of promotional stunt for the store. The prize for doing so was, appropriately, a voucher for a rather sizable discount on the store's items. By the looks of it, the contest had been going on for a while now, as the crowd got more and more excited with each contestant that walked up to try their hand at it to solve, and with each one that walked off, having given up soon after.

He didn't really blame them either for giving up. The Yottaminx was the equivalent of a 15x15 Rubik's cube in a dodecahedron form, after all. He had solved the Megaminx, and it's larger variants before, amongst other things, but even he wasn't entirely sure he could solve the Yottaminx. A contestant was only given one chance at the prize, and Katsura honestly didn't want to risk it. He hated being in front of a crowd, it made him nervous.

He just wanted to get in the store, a task proving quite difficult with the crowd somewhat blocking the entrance.
After a few attempts at trying to get there, he sighed. It looked like he had no choice.

He would have to take a shot at it, in hopes of maybe solving it. Otherwise, the alternative was to wait, and he seriously doubted the crowd would be clearing up any time soon. Of course, he could just walk away entirely, but some part of him, the part of him that couldn't resist a challenge told him not to. He could practically hear it encouraging him to go up at it...

"Come on, if she were here, you'd be already up there, solving it. Besides, isn't today your lucky day? You can do it." It whispered in his mind.
Sighing in resignation, he walked up to the table, indicating that he wanted to test his hand at it.

"Hey there, sir, before you start trying to solve the Yottaminx, what's your name?" A person, presumably a staff member at the shop asked him.

"Katsura. Katsura Yukimura." He said in a slightly nervous tone before taking a deep breath to calm his nerves. He really wasn't good with crowds...

"Well then, Katsura, you're now free to start! Just remember, there's no shame in choosing to give up here, alright? I'm not even sure I can solve it... and i'm the one who's in charge of it!" The staff member said.

Katsura just ignored him at that point, already analyzing the puzzle before him. When figuring out what pattern he needed to use, he settled for the Terraminx, which was a 13x13 variant of the megaminx as a base reference. From there, he tried to figure out in his head how to solve that with two additional cubes in the making.

It had taken him two months to work out how to consistently solve the Terraminx.
Now he had to solve the Yottaminx, the largest one ever, in less than a day.
Not good odds, but he had to try, at the very least.

He gulped nervously as he began to fiddle with it, at first shaky and nervous, almost dropping it several times. He began to let his hands guide him, almost like they were dancing a waltz. As it went on though, his hands grew more and more fluid and steady in motion, working out what to do through trial and error.
By this point, the crowd was mesmerized by the sight of this frail-looking man who's hands were like magic actually solving this thing that had stumped so many previously. No one dared make a sound, lest it somehow ruin the show that proceeded to run before their eyes.

Soon, one face was solved. Then another. Then one more. Until finally...

"I have finished. This Yottaminx is now solved." Katsura said, sweating. He looked at the watch the staff member was wearing. A whole hour had passed since he started. Focusing for this long for him in the past had given him a nasty headache in the following hours. He'd have to head back soon to home, otherwise, he'd be in for a bad time in public.

Slowly, in a state of stunned disbelief, the staff member began to carefully examine it. The crowd grew tense. This was it. If this seemingly magic man had cheated, this was where he'd be unmasked.

"He... he's done it." The staff member said after a moment in shocked silence in a whisper before snapping out of it and repeated it in a much more jubilant tone: "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.... WE HAVE A WINNER!"" The staff member bellowed triumphantly, causing the whole crowd to erupt in cheers. Katsura simply bowed humbly, accepting the voucher gracefully.

"It was nothing." He said, barely hiding his sheer joy and relief. He honestly wasn't entirely sure that he'd be able to, and the fact he had cheered him greatly inside.

He then walked into the store, only to trip on, of all things, a megaminx box that had been knocked down by accident.

"Um... some assistance, please?" Katsura said weakly, having thankfully landed on a patch of carpeting set out. He was fine, thankfully, but it would still hurt like hell later.

Little Tokyo. It was a place that felt somewhat like home to the elegant male that walked its streets. He typically came here for the food and drinks, but every now and then he came to the place to shop. Being based on Japan sometimes things that weren’t usually found in other parts of the city could be found here. That odd food, that unique piece of clothing, that one particular item? All of it was typically found in this strip that reflected a little bit of his native country. He felt comfortable in the spot with his only gripe being the huge amount of folk that came out the later the day got.

So with a mission to avoid said crowds, the idol had left at a decent time from his home to make it into Little Tokyo with minimal foot traffic to worry about. He had come to shop and while he did pause to browse and even got a small snack (What? The food was delicious from that booth! How could he resist?), his end goal was a hobby store within the strip that sold various things such as toys and other nick-nacks. Now why was the idol going in here? Well that was simple. He was actually looking for a particular piece of hardware for a project he was working on back home. So drifting to the back of the store where various parts for DIY projects rested, his eyes would begin to scan the shelves for what he was looking for.

It would take a moment - and maybe even a bit too long thanks to getting distracted by other things around him - but eventually he did have in hand the cylinder piece that he was searching for. Holding the piece between his fingers he would mentally match it up to the size he had seen on the instructions for that music box. Mmm. Yes. This was the right one.

Nodding inward, he moved back to the front of the store to purchase the item around the same time, he heard tons of cheering from a large crowd gathered out front. Oh yeah...he had forgotten about that contest mentioned over the intercom while he was busy being distracted by some odd doodad he had found in one of the bins.

It must’ve been some contest for quite a bit of people had crowded the front….Not good. He’d have to hide out or find another exit if he wanted to get out of here. Not exactly part of the plan, but there was no way he was going through the masses collected out there.  Just no. Anyway…

He would focus on getting the item he needed and as soon as he purchased it and was stuffing his receipt into his pocket, the crowd outside would get louder as someone supposedly won the contest. Well that was a relief. Maybe people would actually get out of the way now.

Looking from the crowd outside back to the store clerk, he would give her a smile to which she nervously gave a nod and smile back. Unphased by this reaction, he shifted out of line and took a few steps towards the door only to pause as a gent came in and tripping over a box of some puzzle fell right onto the carpet as he tried to enter. A position that would have him sprawled right at the idol’s feet….and placed him in a rather bad position as the man requested help.

See now with him at his feet, he did not have the option to simply turn a blind eye and let someone else do the picking up. Instead he had to help or risk looking arrogant and uncaring. Not something he typically cared about on a normal basis, but with a damn crowd to potentially contend with he didn’t want rumors to float about to the point he would have to change his whole look to show his face in this place again. Sigh. What a drag.

All this went through his head in the time it took him to look down at the guy at his feet. His face would remain serious as he kept grey colored eyes on the other.

“You should be a bit more careful. You aren’t hurt are you?” he would say his tone were serious, yet soft and somewhat gentle as he shifted his bag from his left hand to his right before shifting slightly to offer his hand to the down man. Let’s hope being nice didn’t have unwanted backlash.

”Relevant Information”: