🌸for @aoneko-lee and @nuri148. I've only got the prologue vaguely fleshed out for this one, so there's no character interactions, but hopefully you'll be able to tell what the vibes will be lol
The paper cup in his left hand is empty.
The briefcase carried at his right side contains four stones glued to the corners.
The suit he wears is an elegant cut, but only just enough to fool the eye, just enough to draw attention away from the coarse, unevenly woven fabric that makes it. The shoes, the same as every other well-to-do man who walks the Marleyan streets each day, but bought from a seller who stacks the soles with cardboard and lines the uppers with tight, unyielding rubber.
A convincing illusion for the moment, though an uncomfortable one.
It’s a sunny day, moderately warm with a cool breeze. He takes a seat at a bench in the middle of a busy park. At midday, other men with suits and briefcases frequent the park, too, taking short moments of peace before returning to their offices to finish out their workdays. A fountain gives off enough fine mist to create a shimmering rainbow in the distance, though there’s no children around now to enjoy such a sight. A discarded newspaper sits shabbily folded next to him. He picks it up and thumbs through the pages.
A figure in a suit takes up position on the other side of the bench. They open their suitcase and remove a newspaper of their own.
He turns another page but doesn’t glance over.
They stay long enough for the crowds to thin, but not so long that they are the last remaining. At five minutes before one o’clock, the stranger refolds the newspaper and returns it to the suitcase.
“Captain,” they say, as they stand to leave.
He doesn’t say anything. The person joins a crowd heading back to the city centre.
Where they sat, a scrap of paper rolled into a ball teeters between the bench’s slats. Trash, to the unsuspecting eye. Accidentally left, as though the litterer is simply running late; a forgivable transgression when the idea of a job being on the line is considered.
He reaches across and grabs it before it gets carried away on the breeze.
As the final men make their leave, he moves, too. He refolds the newspaper and tosses it in a nearby wastebin.
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