Wallowing Waters [Kansuke/Cecil]

Despite interest, Cecil didn't visit the hot springs for much the same reason he avoided the swim society and the Dance Retribution machines - self-consciousness. The swim society exposed a body he wasn't exactly happy with, and on the machines he was liable to have watching eyes waiting for their own opportunity to step up on the machine, judging him the whole time.
These came together in the Hot Springs, a place where he would be more exposed and felt far more liable to draw eyes as he came in. It wasn't like people had anything to distract them here.

And yet, here he was today...walking in, and slipping to the waters like some sort of sneak, trying to get in without anyone seeing.
He sunk into the waters...
Funny how these things go.

Kansuke felt the warm waters shift as a new customer dipped into the bath. He considered rising from the shallows to see who it was, but the contentment melting his mood like butter over warm bread allowed him to properly relax, to pay it no mind.

He rarely visited the springs. Only when his day proved too long and his wallet choked on a week of excessive frugality did he find motivation to blow some cash and sink into the waters. Kansuke took care of himself - took care of his meals, his muscles, his mind. The springs soothed dark thoughts and twisted sinew, helped him reconsider problems and chase down elusive muses. Today probed no exception, as he washed away knots in places he didn't know could knot.

Last night's battle still tired him. Plagued him, but this only served to stoke the fires of purpose swelling in him, rising to match the heat of the springs.

He closed his eyes, rising from the shallow depths to catch his breath. His body sculpted by years of sprinting and proper food, of clambering to reach spots not so easily painted over, Kansuke looked hungry, but healthy. He pushed the flat tangle of sodden hair back, finally turning to see the new patron of the springs. "Oh, it's you. What'shisface, uh..."

Wincing as his presence was noted, Cecil sank deeper into the waters, letting the hot springs better conceal his body. He looked over to see...what appeared to be the guy who he'd found putting up Playhouse tags. Couldn't be sure, they did kinda have a mask last time, but...it seemed like them?
He wasn't sure how to feel about that.
"I, ay, uh...never, uh, gave you my name. Kinda, ah...makes it hard to know what it is." He chuckles nervously. "I didn't get yours either..."
Cecil swallows as his eyes drift away. This wasn't exactly a situation he'd hoped to be stuck in. With this new thing to capture his focus, it was hard to properly detach and focus on the sensation that was the draw of this place in the first place.
The waters were warm and soothing, but the tension in his somewhat bulky body just wouldn't drain.

Kansuke shrugged, leaning back to sink to his neck, so that only his face would feel the slight chill of steaming air. He did his best to keep it warm by dipping his chin and occasionally splashing his face, half-heartedly cleaning his mop of trash-bag brown hair. "Doesn't matter," he grumbled, watching Cecil sink into the water. Intuiting that he served as at least part of the reason for his discomfort, Kansuke kept quiet for a few moments. A few blissful moments for contemplation, reflection...

A few blissful moments cut short by that same desire to mess that ended their first meeting. "The hell're you doing here, anyway?"

As Kansuke eased off, he continued to look for a couple seconds before shaking his head and trying to take in the sensation of the springs, letting the warmth seep through him. His body starts to loosen up a little, and his mind drifts off in wilful ignorance of the world around him.


This peaceful effect is promptly ruined by the jolting and splashing that Kansuke speaking up again induces.
"I-ah-uh-um-ah-aghk...ughh..." Cecil shakes his head, rolling his eyes and berating himself for good measure. "From what I knew, this was supposed to be relaxing...figured I, ay, uh, could um, de-stress, a bit. Finally relax for ay-ah, once..." He gives a dark chuckle. "Doing a great job of that..."

He masked his grin using a fresh splash of water. Sure, it might be mean, but Cecil made it far too easy to mess with him. "Oh, right. I see. You were hopin' you'd be alone for this little meditative sesh in the public bathhouse. Nice thought, I guess. Maybe you should buy out the whole thing next time?"

Kansuke chortled to himself, satisfied that he'd done enough for now. He sank back into the water fully, submersing himself and drowning out all noise but the rush of water, and all feeling but the rising heat. It cleansed the mind, eased his muses, gave him time to think and mull. A perfect breeding ground for inspiration.

"When did I say that?!"
He wasn't wrong. Kansuke was absolutely on the mark. Walking in to find the entire place empty would have been a perfect scenario.
It was also an absolutely ridiculous idea, and the epitome of wishful thinking.
So, he had his hopes on something else.
"Just hoped people wouldn't be paying me too much attention..." He muttered as he sank further in. His face was half submerged now, nose and eyes above the water as his hair splayed out across the surface, blond locks fanning out around him.

Fully submerged, Kansuke heard neither Cecil's protest nor his mumbling. He paid attention to the shifting water as he sank into the pool, and used that as the signal to rise again, surfacing like a clump of seaweed lifted by a fisherman's hook.

"Never seen you here before," he mused, fixing on Cecil. "Not that I'm here all the time, but you're new to this, right?"

Giving an uncertain look, Cecil rose up again, still refusing to let more than his chin rise up out of the waters and into visibility. "...yeah. I...haven't actually been here before." He falls silent, unsure of many things, but mostly just why this was even being brought up. From the disposition he remembered from him, it seemed almost a strange question. "Why are you asking...?"

Such was the nature of relaxation and isolation, to strip away the disguises men wore in clothes and conduct. Eased by the waters, free of his tattered jeans, and healed from the broken soles of year-old sneakers, Kansuke allowed himself to be freely, genuinely curious. "It's a nice place." He sighed, pushing the waters this way and that. "Why did you come here?"

Cecil's head tilts a little in confusion before he rises up coughing, a little of the water taking the chance in that little closing of the gap to fly up his nose and down his lungs. One arm covers his mouth and the other wraps around his chest as he coughs, until the fit ends with a groan and a shake of the head. "Sorry. Sorry." His voice comes out in a rasp, the boy swallowing and taking a deep breath in and out before looking back at Kansuke as he sinks back into the water. "Didn't you just ask that, anyway...?"

"I asked what you were doing here." Kansuke grumbled. He used his lean to look up, past the steam and into the open air. "Why you're here is different. What's got you on edge?"

Knowing that he was part of the reason, he qualified the question. "'Sides the obvious, anyway."

Cecil laughs awkwardly, and looks away. "Right..."
Well, what was he supposed to say here? That his days had become plagued by a magical ghost man that lived in his brain and told him he sucked? That it looked like someone was being just as stupid as he was, and he was torturing himself over not being able to get through to them - and that he was doubting that whole thing anyway just because it was his judgement of the situation? That he kept willingly subjecting himself to torturous madness just to avoid being left to himself?
"...more things than I can recount, and none of them will stop." A dark, bitter little chuckle escaped his lips. "Even alone, I never get a rest. Great, huh?"

Kansuke listened, almost. He ignored all but Cecil's voice, busying himself with relaxing and washing. "Uhuh... So you got a lot on your plate. We all do." He began to untangle the fronds of seaweed that his hair twisted into when wet and messed with, straightening each out and pushing them back. Behind the ragged exterior was a youth who could look sharp, could dress well - if only he cared to do so. "Sounds like the last thing you need, if you care so much about every drop of shit piling onto your shoulders."

"Not kidding..."
There was only so much his body could resist the warmth of the waters. Physically, he was loosening up, a number of the little stresses of his body unworking themselves and leaving his body more loose and free. But his head was still working away as it always had. And that was the thing he actually wanted to relieve. "No idea how everyone else does it. Just...blow things off like that."