A Plan without Forethought [Open]

Jordan had spent a portion of last night thinking over just how little he'd accomplished since arriving here. Over how life had handed him an opportunity to finally meet people, and he had sat by the past few months and watched those people walk by.
Not today!

...Maybe today. Jordan was actually feeling kind of nervous. In his unreasonable state of emotion last night he had devised a plan, if it could be called that, to confront someone and... do something. He had a very vague idea of what something was. Clearly this plan wasn't very much of one, but it was certainly more than Jordan had done up to this point. He looked down to the short message he had already written on his notepad as he waited for the last couple minutes of class to pass by.

And so they did! School was out, and out as well were the students of the class in short order. Jordan awaited the initial rush of eager students as he usually did before heading out. He picked out someone at random walking in the hallway. Whether or not he had talked to them before was irrelevant, how they looked was irrelevant, he just picked someone. He hadn't seen many people here who didn't look interesting, so Jordan figured he couldn't go wrong.

He stood before the chosen one and presented his notepad, the writing on it, and a pen, both offering his message and requesting a response:

"Are you busy?"

Jordan didn't think much about how straightforward and abrupt this was; he was just excited to finally take initiative on this issue. Said excitement didn't show on his face, though; just his usual, interested-but-not-exceedingly-excited-looking expression was present.

Jimmy was feeling incredibly lonely, providing a stark contrast to his first few weeks at Tachibana Academy. He'd thought that he'd set the foundations for what he was expecting to be some good friendships with some good people that he could finally relate to, but that hadn't seemed to come to fruition. Everyone had withdrawn from him, and unless everyone at the Academy was an incredible introvert, he felt like he had to be at least some part of the equation. Part of him knew this was an irrational conclusion to jump to, but he did so anyway. Jimmy's self-pity distracted him all throughout class, and continued to do so when he was freed by the bell. That was, until he was met by a boy holding a notepad and pen directly at him. Jimmy took the objects, but he needed a moment to adjust to the sudden greeting before reading the notepad.

"Are you busy?"

Jimmy looked up and smiled at the presumably friendly stranger, quickly scrawling a response underneath the original question.

"Not at all."

He handed the notepad and pen back to the student and waited.

Jordan took back his notepad and looked at it with an expression that reflected deep thought.

I'm not entirely sure what I wanted to do at this point.

...

"I wanted to meet talk to someone"

Jordan returned the pen to within the notepad's spiral before returning said notepad this time.

Jimmy reads the stranger's next message quickly, and begins to write a response.

"Well, you have my attention. Think we should continue this someplace more convenient than standing in the middle of a hallway?"

While the whole notepad exchanging wasn't too frustrating, but doing it in an already crowded hallway didn't seem to be ideal to Jimmy. Jimmy supposed that the boy probably needed to use that notepad for these kinds of exchanges a lot, so it was fairly easy to theorise that he must have been deaf.

The initial rush of people had already passed, but there were still a few people around, and a hallway wouldn't be the most convenient place even if it was completely empty.

"That would probably be good
Suggestions?"

Jimmy ruminated on an answer for a while before he found something that seemed appropriate.

"There's a Common Room around here, I think. Not sure where it is, but it sounds like a good spot. Can't be too hard to find."

Joran nodded once after reading the stranger's response, in affirmation of that the commons seemed as good a place as any. Jordan presented a message, though this time he didn't offer the pad and pen.

"Sounds good; I know the way"

A few seconds after the short time Jordan estimated it would take the stranger to read the message, Jordan began walking in the direction of the commons, expecting the boy to follow. He flipped to the next page in his notepad and started writing a message as he walked, keeping the notepad in front of him rather than down lower, so he could look simultaneously at the pad and the space in front of him. Without stopping his walk, he passed the notepad, pen in its spiral, to the stranger.

"I haven't really talked to anyone much or made any friends since getting here and since I've only really had one friend beforehand I wanted to try talking to someone
woops I didn't ask your name earlier
put name here -->
I am Jordan"

Jimmy wasn't quite so good at multitasking as Jordan seemed to be, so he waited to be led into the common room before sitting down at a table opposite his new acquaintance and quickly launched into writing a response.

"Hi Jordan, I'm Jimmy. I managed to talk to a few people around here, but things didn't seem to work out quite as I'd hoped, I haven't seen a single one of them since the first time I met them. Sucks pretty bad, to be honest."

Jordan thought he had designated the spot for Jimmy's name pretty clearly, but disregarded that Jimmy had chosen not to write said name there. It didn't really matter.
Jordan wondered briefly why the people Jimmy had talked to hadn't shown up again, but decided it was probably just a case of not happening across them, and not a case of them mysteriously going missing or dying or anything.

"The people I've talked to I didn't see much afterward either, except for in the hallways sometimes
Or if I worked with them in class because then you know they're still in the class

but maybe you won't do that (but you could if you wanted to)"

Jimmy looked at Jordan's message for a while. There was a lot to unpack for him. He felt as though he might have needed to give some context to his condition at this point.

"That's the problem for me. I have this visual memory issue where I can't remember what something looks like once it's out of my sight. I can't recognise people because of that. It sucks, but those people I met have to seek me out every single time. Maybe if they do it enough, I'll find a place in my head to start remembering them visually, but I have to assume that won't happen. That's why I haven't seen anyone again. I might have walked straight past them, but I wouldn't know unless they told me, which they haven't."

When Jordan received his notepad again he realized that he hadn't specified what "that" was in his own message. He assumed that Jimmy knew it to mean "not show up or talk to me again," and also that it wouldn't need clarification.
Moving on from his own message, Jordan tilted his head a bit after reading the first portion of Jimmy's. That was certainly a strange disability - and not one he'd ever heard of before.

"I didn't even know that kind of thing could happen
Maybe we could come up with a way for you to know that I am me without it being visual? Or maybe something that is visual that would be remembered like "hey Jordan wears a red eyepatch" and not trying to remember exactly how my face or that eyepatch looks
like a statement instead of a picture"

(Jordan does not wear a red eyepatch; just an example he was giving)

Once Jimmy finished reading Jordan's writing, he looked up at him and nodded, then put his head back down to the paper of the notepad.

"Yeah, it's not exactly common, but it was the result of an aneurysm. There are a few similar cases, but they're rare. Context like that definitely helps a lot. It's not a flawless method unless the context I can apply is guaranteed to be unique to you specifically, but then again, nothing else is either. I suppose the fact alone that you have this notepad is pretty distinguishable, but I wouldn't know if you were the only one here who does that. We can figure something out."

Still thinking of Jimmy's rather unique disability, Jordan wondered what kinds of things could result from asking Jimmy to draw something that he didn't completely remember the look of.
The response would probably just be "I can't" and not some sort of surreal and fascinating twist on the image, Jordan decided. Probably not worth trying.
Jimmy returned the notepad, though, and Jordan began on his response.

"People handle it differently. Some keep an interpreter with them, some...
I thought I had more examples but I don't
But I don't think I'm the only one that uses a notepad
maybe if I wanted to indicate to you that I am Jordan I would specifically wave my notepad at you - actually sometimes it's in my pocket and that would be inconvenient
but it would probably work until we figure other things out~//~"

There was a bit of a scribble after "out" as Jordan realized something. He sort of wanted to scribble out what he said, as if it was a mistake, but decided against it partway through the action, resulting in the awkward and pointless scribble after the message instead.
He wrote out his concern not far under the rest of his message. His face briefly - for a couple seconds or so - reflected Jordan's worry before his expression returned to its usual blank form.

"Would we talk again after this even if we did find a way for you to recognize me?"

Is it even worth figuring out?

Jimmy stared at the strange, pointless scribble for a while, trying to ascertain whether it was supposed to be anything before giving up and focusing on the rest of Jordan's message.

"I think that could work so long as it's not too much trouble for you. We'll play it by ear, see how it goes. Or if that's too inconvenient, if you were to approach me in any way, wave at me or whatever, and then show me the notepad, I'd probably be able to figure it out from that. I haven't discussed anything with anyone else here via notepad and I can't imagine it becoming a regular occurrence."

Jimmy appreciated the bluntness with which Jordan had raised his concern, and wrote a response to it in kind.

"You think I wouldn't? Man, I wouldn't have even told you about my condition if I didn't have the intention of talking to you again."

Jordan smiled briefly upon reading Jimmy's response. He supposed this meant he had made a friend. If not, then he had at least come far closer to it in this encounter than he had at any other point since arriving at the academy.
Jordan struggled a bit to think of a response. Perhaps the conversation had been exhausted.

"Good
I'm glad I finally confronted someone about this. And that it went really well the first time instead of not going well a few times first
Deliberately talking to someone, I mean"

(Unless you have any ideas as to how to continue (more conversation, doing something other than sitting down and writing, etc.), we could probably wrap up the thread around now.)

(Jimmy? Hello?)

[OOC: Hey man, sorry for keeping you waiting. Had a few issues in my personal life to deal with once again.]

Jimmy nodded.

"You know, I think it's about not being afraid to say what you really think. Too many people bottle their thoughts up instead of just coming straight out with it like you did. I like that blunt honesty."

The bell rings signalling the beginning of the next class and Jimmy quickly writes a parting message.

"Well, that's our cue, I guess. Come and approach me any time you want to talk, we can figure this whole situation out."

(No worries. Things happen.)

After quickly reading the message, Jordan gave Jimmy a nod as they parted to attend their classes.
Jordan hadn't really thought about being blunt or honest when he was writing the message. It had seemed natural to ask what was on his mind.
He smiled a little to himself at the thought the he had done something in a better way than most would have, or at least that Jimmy thought so.