sirens wail, c

THE TICKS AND TOCKS WITHIN HIS CRANIUM GRINDED while numbers counting down from ten offered signal to the timing of his next course of action. Nine, eight, seven, Julius folded his notebook and tore his gaze from it to widen the mouth of his shoulder-strapped bag; six, five, four, and then more frantically, began to sift through the contents as he adjusted the carrier upon his thigh; three, two, one, his hand combed back his bangs, realization sparking that, hey, his keys were gone.

Panic-stricken as any other ordinary fellow would have been, the blonde licked his lips and snapped his eyes left and right, breathing in and breathing out as hushed profanities fled under his lips, "Can't believe this," came a grumble to himself; he shoveled his document into his bag and twirled around. In spite of already knowing who had the misplaced items in possession, Julius sunk his eyes to the pavement as if to retrace his steps, finger tapping onto his chin in pensive redundancy until his vision finally honed onto the officer.

He slipped through the knots of people, and only upon breaching the space between he and the uniformed man did he notice a woman, too, approach his mark. But she was fast, already spilling words he could only catch snippets of, and so he clumsily intervened, extending his arm's reach to pinch onto the officer's shirt.

"'scuse me, sir! Can you help me? Somewhere, I... I think I might've dropped my keys somewhere around here, it's—" Breath heavy, distress evident on his face, his eyes scribbled the area for his aforementioned belonging before conveniently falling onto the object secured in the man's hand; a gasp, he beamed, "... that's it! Those are my keys! Even has a Totoro key chain hanging off of it!"

A sigh of relief and the drop of his chest indicated a lifted burden as he peeled the keys from the official figure, transferring it onto his own palm; he squeezed it close to his torso, "Whew, nearly had a heart attack! With the amount of foot traffic these streets get, I almost thought these bad boys would've been kicked across the island by now, h-heh," he passed a glance to the lady beside him, an indirect invitation to join the conversation, and sent a grateful nod to the other, "Thanks, officer-man! You're a life saver!"

Unfolding his hand, the twenty-two year old looked at his keys, mouth pursed, before fully facing the raven-haired madame; lips parted, then closed, invisibly rearranging the structure of a sentence to ask: "I might have misheard, but you said you were a neighbor?" He leaned forward, the space between his brows creasing, "Strange! Your face is pretty fresh to me! Thought I already gave my greetings to all the folks who lived nearby."

'eyyyy (continuation of this thread, in case we ever need reference).