A one x one roleplay c/o adnauseum x Velaris<br/><br/><div class="bbCodeSpoiler">
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<span>Spoiler: <span class="bbCodeSpoiler-button-title">Arthur's appearance</span></span>
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</div><br/>He’d been awake the<i>entire</i>flight. His partner, on the other hand, popped two over-the-counter anti-histamines, makeshift sleeping tablets, and was out (like a light) as soon as the cabin lights went down and the seatbelt light switched off. There was something about taking a sleeping pill on a plane that didn’t sit well with him, regardless of how long the uncomfortable flight would be. That said, the thirteen hour flight from Tokyo to Paris was long enough that he’d surely regret his decision by the time he’d stood up to go to the toilet… for the fifth time. With his girlfriend out for what was most likely the entire trip, he was left with nothing but his own mind and a selection of average movies in a language he could barely speak for company. It’s not a surprise that his own mind won out: and it led him to thinking, spiralling downward, about the strange circumstance that put him on an aisle seat on a flight to Paris.<br/><br/>College. Philosophy class. Something about determinism? Predeterminism? Fatalism? Who cares. He didn’t like those lectures— or maybe it was just the lecturer— but either way, he was a man who liked to at least believe that he had some sort of free will in the ever-expanding universe. That belief was sorely put to the test when his best friend Ryan had passed away unexpectedly, just last week: on a study trip in Paris. Ryan, on the other hand, had<b>loved</b>those lectures, and anything of that realm: so much so that he’d gone on to study the works of French writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir; the famous existential dream-couple. Signing himself up for a lifetime of suffering in the name of a doctorate, or something like it. It was the gravestone and the mythos of those very philosophers that had drawn Ryan to Paris, but unfortunately he’d never be able to afford the burial plot in the prestigious Montparnasse cemetery. He wasn’t sure where Ryan would end up buried: somewhere in the arrondissements far away from the Marais, the Louvre— those places and institutions where the budding academic loved to spend his time.<br/><br/>Ryan was the connection between Arthur and his now estranged, to be polite, ex-girlfriend. Camilla. The three of them were like the Three Musketeers in their prime, and now… well, one of them was dead, and the other two hadn’t spoken in years. He couldn’t place exactly what had happened; the exact point when everything started to fall apart, and she left… either way, they hadn’t spoken in long enough that it would only ever be a thirteen hour flight, alone, that would have Arthur thinking about it. He pulled at the seatbelt, starting to feel a little chafing sensation between his shirt and his skin—the air-conditioning on these flights was never good enough to keep one<i>comfortable</i>. Unbuckling the clasp from around his waist, he rose up and paced the illuminated aisle, lights guiding his footsteps up and down the carpet. It’s important to stretch one’s muscles, his father had always told him—lest you end up with a blood clot somewhere it shouldn’t be. He stood opposite one of the wing exits, and with a hand pressed to the wall, began to stretch his legs. Right arm for the right leg, it was a simple lift of the calf up to his posterior, stretching out the taut muscle of his thigh. Hold it. Ten. Twenty. Thirty seconds. A slow exhale and release; and then onto the other leg. Three times over, Arthur completed the ramshackle regiment and returned to his seat.<br/><br/><i>Ding. Cabin crew please prepare the cabin for landing</i>. The shade had been pulled closed over the window closest to him, his girlfriend, Mary, asleep with her head against the blind. Arthur turned his head across the aisle, looking out the window on the other side of the plane; greeted immediately by a flurry of lights, the city of Paris stretching out on either side of the river Seine beneath the view of the plane’s passengers. Even at 3 in the morning, the city looked electric. Alive. Yet here he was coming to celebrate someone’s<i>death</i>. How unexpected. Convergence theory. Maybe that was it? Perhaps his mind was trying to tell him something, resurfacing old memories of philosophy classes. He knew that Camilla was here, in Paris too. Ryan had told him as much. Apparently he’d seen her, wandering through the Marais with a spring in her step. Ryan had no idea how long she’d been there, mind you— although he supposes it was probably about the same length of time that he’d had been in Tokyo. There was nothing like a volatile break-up to send two people flying as far as possible from their shared scenery to heal the wounds. Now he was flying into Paris, in the middle of the night, to attend the funeral of the only remaining link between the Arthur of<i>now</i>and the Arthur of<i>then</i>. Camilla’s Arthur. He flicked his eyes back to Mary, who, despite his best manifestation attempts, did not stir in the slightest. Probably for the best, considering where his wandering mind had strayed. He figured she wouldn’t be rolling her eyes awake until the wheels of the plane struck the tarmac.<i>Ding</i>. The seatbelt light flicked back on, illuminating the scalps of those down the seemingly endless aisle before him. Wouldn’t be long now.