Seiji is also in the mood for pizza! Technically, the Domino's is closer to his mom's house, but he likes the Pie better. He only has to take the one bus, anyway, and if he calls ahead right before he leaves then the food will be ready as he arrives.

While he walks down 1300 East, he idly thinks about conjuration. Twos can repair and bolster his existing clothing, and he's pretty sure that a three can make stuff that's magically good, but he hasn't thought of something that he strongly wants to spend one of his pair of threes on. He's aware that this is video game item hoarding logic, but threes are still kind of scary to make. He can't spend them as carelessly as the smaller coins.

He's still thinking about this by the time he walks in and gets his food. Oh, he should have made himself one of those insulatey pizza bags before leaving, like what delivery drivers have. Maybe he can do that after he's out of the shop…

He is sufficiently distracted that he doesn't realize that he's about to walk into the two guys approaching the shop until one of them trips into him.

"Whoa!"

Edmund has enough experience in retail-park taekwondo that he can break his own falls pretty well. Unfortunately this does not work as well when one becomes entangled with another human. He goes down hard, gets his palms studded with grit, and takes a knee to the groin in the process.

"aaaaaaa," he wheezes, drawing the pain across his mind reflexively as the tears fill his eyes. (Nice, some part of him notes, fresh threes. That part of him clearly does not have access to his pain receptors.)

aw shit—

Seiji also takes a tumble, but his magic pain sense tells him that the other guy is considerably worse off.

"Sorry!" he says, as he…

…fails to convert the stranger's pain into new coins????

"Uh, sorry," he repeats, much more confusedly. He still got a two and a one from himself, just incidentally. But what the fuck.

He's going to try and disentangle himself now haha thanks.

Pulling coins out of your pain doesn't actually make it hurt less. But it makes that icy sensation in his head calm down a bit.

And then it gives him that faintly jarring sensation of trying to pull from empty, even though he wasn't pulling, and - the stranger just did something, that pain's dull and flat just like his own...

"I'm sorry, good lord, I just bowled into you," he says automatically, performing his own disentangling procedures as his mind races. "Is your pizza alright? I'd hate to have further casualties of my clumsiness."

"Alright there, Ed? That looked nasty." Peter helps his brother to his feet, obviously.

"Yes! Yes, everything's fine, barely scratched –"

Peter grazes the scrapes along Edmund's palm and he hisses audibly.

"– well, apart from that one which is entirely surface-level and irrelevant."

The one he made ensures that his pizza is all right before he opens the box to "check"!

"Yup, it's fine."

He facepalms, laughing sheepishly.

"And, uh, I'm fine too."

He should really start wearing a backpack everywhere, from which he could plausibly retrieve a first aid kit or something so that he could cover up using his two to mostly-fix the road rash. Although maybe with this guy that particular trick wouldn't work and might be actively suspicious, considering.

Seiji can't really straight-up ask if "Ed" also has magic pain coin powers, though. Maybe he can… hint?

"I mean, I might have. One or two scratches myself, but really it's fine. I didn't land on anything, uh. Point…y?"

Oh god that was so awkward. Fuck.

"–yeah, good thing. You shouldn't keep anything too pointy in your pockets, they could hurt you or fall out and hurt somebody else. Any way I can make up the fall? I still feel bad, even if the pizza's alright. Maybe get you a Starbucks-y pastry of some kind."

Okay, apparently they can in fact do this, weird looks be damned.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure I got you worse," he says, "but I wouldn't say no! Uh, if you're free on Saturday we could meet up at the one on fourth and fourth at… some time? I'm not picky."

He waves his hand to demonstrate the non-pickiness. The one not propping his pizza laundry hamper-style against his hip, anyway.

"Yeah, good idea – how's 2:30, here, I'll give you my number..."

A suitable occasion is arranged.

Hooray for the exchange of numbers!

"Okay, well, uh. See you then?"

He needs to Be Somewhere Else now. Such as on his way home, where he can eat his pizza! That sounds pretty great.

"Edmund, have you developed game?"

Abrupt coughing fit. "What?!"

"You got that boy's number. After crucifying yourself on his kneecap."

"It's – I'm not trying to shag him! I don't even know him, we exchanged a single-digit number of words! I just."

His actual reason for wanting to know more about the boy cannot be shared and, searching for backup reasons, none exist.

"...I'm going to need friends, in this brave new world," he decides eventually. "And random acts of Providence are as good a method as any."

He doesn't actually wait for Saturday, obviously. He gets home, shuts himself in his bedroom and dials the number he received.

An actual call? Well, he supposes texts can be read by other people.

"Uh, hi?"

"Hi! This is Edmund, we spoke earlier, we both have magical powers?"

Oh, cool.

"And I'm Seiji! Yeah, what. What is up with that. I mean, I just found what I thought was a weird rock, literally on the ground. You?"

"My great-uncle left it to me, not in his will but, ah, more of a pressing-it-into-my-hand YA fantasy situation. I've had the powers for a few months, now. Um, and they're the same ones, right? Your coins run off pain too, not... ennui or Weltanschauung or something?" Weltanschauung doesn't actually fit in the category of "emotions" but if pressed he could probably figure out a way to make it work. Probably Seiji will not in fact demand that he defend his word choice like a rabid thesis advisor.

"Yeah, pain. I… don't know what that third one is…"

Forced laugh.

"Did he, like… have something he wanted you to do with the powers? An epic quest or whatever?"

"Weltanschauung's, like, groupthink, I know the word for the sole purpose of being obnoxious. And, ah, no, not that I can tell. The coin was wrapped in a note but the note doesn't actually say much – I can show you Saturday. It's kind of disguised as a poem, almost, or a bit of Scripture."