Normal is a bit of a sliding scale.

A lack of school at the moment means that there's more time to be social. Any time to be social, really, for Naru's current schedule. While she's no Makoto, nor any form of Makoto substitute, she still enjoys puttering in the kitchen, and if one is going to bake more than one needs, one might as well do it in a household that contains at least five teen boys, and usually a healthy collection of teen girls who seriously aren't too far behind the boys on the eating scale.

Which is to say the ECFH currently smells like fresh baked cookies. More spice than sweet, oats and nuts and raisins and almost like a granola bar in cookie form. With chocolate. There's still a batch in the oven, and another pan to go in after that batch comes out, but the first pan has already ended up on a plate.

That plate is already on the table, where Naru has curled herself into a chair to read from her laptop, with her sketchbook open next to her, reading and making notes and eating a cookie. Her glass of milk isn't far away.

Clearly someone has made herself at home.

    On the subject of people making themselves at home, Rei Hino has let herself into the ECFH. Leaving her shoes at the door, she walks towards the smell of cookies half expecting to see a particularly tall senshi somewhere in the kitchen. She's wearing a loose red blouse, black skirt, and a black purse hangs around her shoulder.

    When she rounds the corner and sees Naru instead, and the distinct lack of anyone else minding the cookies, she lets out a small, "Huh. So you cook?"

    Rei, for the record, does not cook. She microwaves, at best, and that's being generous. There are many things she'd like to do but cooking is not one of them.

    Rei takes a seat in a nearby chair, crossing her legs and looking at her nails. She takes a file out of her purse and starts working on her nails. She seems pretty content to just hang out here, though after a moment she looks around and says, "So... is it just you here?"

"Hmm?" Naru glances up and then smiles and nods. "Yeah. I mean Mako's better, but my Mom works a lot, and it was basically a self defense strategy to not eat from packets all the time. If I bake here, then I dont eat the same batch of cookies for a month." She gestures to the plate in offer. "Help yourself if you want. There's nuts, I didn't think anyone was allergic, but I feel obligated to warn people."

Naru is pretty comfortable in quiet hanging out, relaxed as she goes back to reading her laptop screen and copying a chart to her notebook. She looks up at the question. "Just me who is out in public space. I .. er.. didn't go poke in anyone's rooms to see if they were hiding there. I mean.. usually there's /someone/ here asleep at all hours of day and night. It's pretty quiet though. They might be all out hunting pokemon."

    "Thank you~." Once invited, Rei reaches out to pluck a cookie from the plate, taking a bite while listening to Naru. After nibbling she says, "I'm not allergic, but thanks for the warning. I guess I never learned how to cook. There's always some other chore that needs my attention and well... I guess I just rely upon store bought stuff a lot. Plus Makoto is a really great cook. It might be bad to mooch off of her all the time but it's the path of least resistance sometimes."

    Rei leans back on her chair, nibbling her cookie and putting her nail file back in her purse. She tilts her head, and then nods. "Yeah I didn't check either, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were all playing with their cell phones."

    Speaking of, she takes out her own phone, thumb swipes at it a bit, hits a nearby pokestop before putting it back away. "I'm kinda surprised at how popular that game is, but maybe I shouldn't be."

"Mako really loves feeding people, so if you stop eating her food, she might get sad." Naru points out with a smile as she tucks her pencil into her book and reaches for her milk. The reach turns into a stretch, held a few moments before she actually retrieves her glass for a drink.

"I pretty much killed my battery on the way over here, so it's charging. I'm going to have to pick up a battery pack." Naru comments as she watches Rei snag the local pokestop. "It's crazy popular. It's cute, and gives people an excuse to go out for a walk, I guess. Is there a pokestop at the shrine too?"

    Rei lets out an 'eheh' at the mention of Makoto being sad if she stopped eating her food. "Well, I mean, it's not like I'd ever turn down a Mako meal." Especially if it's statistically likely to be healthier than anything else Rei would make on her own.

    "The shrine is a gym, currently led by my growlithe last I checked." Rei's sits up just a little bit straighter when she says that in a confident voice. She's a prideful girl with something to prove, so there's no way she wouldn't try her best to dominate a competition like that. "There's a stop at the nearby bus stop, though."

    Rei shrugs. "I'm sure what to do about the battery situation. I've been lucky to find a lot of pokemon and people using lures near where I live."

"Nice!" Naru sounds both impressed and delighted at the notion of Rei holding a gym. "Good for you." She shuts her laptop screen, grabbing another cookie for herself and settling with her snack. "I haven't entirely sorted out the gyms yet, but that's okay. I don't have one right where I live or anything. I'm not sure I've ever actually visited the shrine." Naru considers that a moment. "I should, sometime."

Naru nods at the mention of her battery and shrugs. "I'm out and about a lot, I guess. I like to be, even if I have to be more careful these days. So it goes through battery life like crazy."

    Rei gracefully accepts all praise and admiration just as a spring flower soaks up the sun and rain. "Why thank you~!"

    At the mention of Naru visiting the shrine, Rei thinks back. "I don't think I've seen you there, no. You're welcome to come by! I'm kinda used to having guests over by now, so it's no big deal. Just... um..." Rei shifts in her chair, getting a bit uncomfortable. "Well I mean. Watch out for grandpa. He thinks he's a flirt but... Well, you'll know when you see him."

    Rei leans her elbow against the arm of the chair, and props up her cheek with her hand. "Yeah, that makes sense. It is a good reason to get out. I guess I'm always concerned that I'll miss something important if I'm not paying attention. Otherwise I'd be taking it out with me when I go on night patrols."

"Is grandpa going to energy drain me, or mess around with my head or emotions? Cause my baseline on people to worry too much about has gotten really rather basic over the last while." Naru comments with a little smile. "I expect it'll be fine. Thanks for the warning though."

Naru nods in agreement. "I don't do patrols or anything like that. I tried grabbing pokestops while I was out on a run, but I found it annoying to stop when I was just getting into a groove, so I just turn on my playlist and don't worry about it. I suppose it would be a good way to hatch some eggs, even if you're not grabbing pokestops." She hunhs softly and then nods. "Might try that tomorrow. No.. Sunday. Tomorrow's a rest day."

Naru brushes cookie crumbs off her fingers and considers her words a moment, and then a moment or two longer. "I had meant to ask you about faith based magic, if that's even a thing, but now it feels awkard and weird. So I'm doing it anyhow, but at least admitting that it might be weird." Naru comments faintly sheepishly.

There's a point at which absent listening in on a conversation from another room, monitoring reflexively for anything that should draw attention, becomes active eavesdropping. Usually, that point is when something /else/ of interest comes up, in a context where the person being asked might conceivably change their answer if they knew they were being listened to.

Therefore Kazuo, who is ostensibly supposed to be attempting to behave politely these days, picks up the book he's reading and paces out into the currently-in-use living room with it. He nods silently to Rei in lieu of a hello, then to Naru, and paces into the kitchen (the Makoto-designated backup kitchen; the real one is in the area currently under construction) to make himself coffee. Because hot coffee is what everyone needs in the middle of July.

    Rei shakes her head. "Nah he won't drain your energy. If that was his problem I could've had Usagi-chan purify him a long time ago. Sadly I think his mind is too dirty to be cleaned even with purification magic." She chuckles as Naru says she isn't too worried. Well maybe compared to vampires and curses, grandpa's antics aren't that bad.

    "Yeah, hatching eggs is good for that. There's also that Pokemon Go Plus thing that I could get... once that actually comes out I mean. It kinda defeats the point of the game, but at least with that I can be sure I'm not getting ambushed because there's a pikachu nearby."

    Rei tilts her head at Naru, a bit surprised by the question and needing a moment to respond. "Faith based magic... Well..."

    Then Kazuo comes in, and his nod is met with a smile and a, "Hi, Kaz-kun." She doesn't say much else before going back to the question.

    "I know that faith does have a certain amount of power behind it, especially if it plays into feelings such as loyalty, support, and sometimes love. Faith in something spiritual is a bit more complicated, but I've seen actual kami grant magical powers before, so it's not impossible."

    She takes another cookie, having finished the first one. "I don't think it's that weird, though. Not when you already know that magic exists. A lot of the charms that my shrine sells have some amount of actual magic in them, but not a large amount. Did you have something more specific you wanted to ask about?"

The arrival of Kunzite into the conversation isn't met with surprise, just a little flicker of her fingers in a wave to him as she considers Rei's answer, nodding slowly as she does. "The main reason I asked was one fight in specific that had a lot of prayer slips being stuck.. well.. to me, to Maeko. And I've been offered charms, and a lot of conversations about curses, which all feel as if they fit into a more faith based scheme." She resettles in her chair, stretching out her legs as she does. "It was interesting, and not something I'd really thought of before, especially not that the charms for sale have any actual magic in them. That's really cool, actually."

The phrase 'actual kami' does not make Kazuo twitch; it does make him glance in Rei's direction, but there is, as probably expected, nothing said. He returns to the living room once the coffee is ready, leaning back against a wall with the book held idly in one hand and the other wrapped around the main body of his mug.

"At your shrine," he says to Rei, "I'd be more surprised if none of them did." There's a momentary tug at the far corner of his mouth. Whatever he thinks is amusing, it's ... probably not immediately obvious.

    Rei's eyes widen just slightly at the mention of prayer slips, and then a bit wider at the mention of Maeko. "I... see..."

    She muses on this while munching a Naru-made cookie. A few silent moments pass before she says more. "It exists. There is what you might call faith-based magic, or spiritual-based magic or whatever you'd want to call it. My ofudas, for example, are along those lines. I wouldn't say it was entirely different from emotion-based magic though, because of things like... I put feeling into it when I bless a charm."

    She runs a hand through her hair while she thinks it over. "... and really, spirits have feelings, too. In fact, a lot of time a spirit has only a feeling and not much else. Something like anger or attachment or something."

    Rei notices Kazuo's reaction, and she answers the question that he didn't ask. "It was Inari. A fox came to my shrine wanting to become a kitsune. I--"

    A lightbulb goes off.

    "Oh my god. That was Agera-san's familiar."

    Rei closes her eyes and starts rubbing her forehead.

"He has a familiar?" Naru asks as she pulls that particular bit of the conversation out first and muses on it a moment. "How do familiars differ from the little fairies, or chatty ferrets, or anything else?" She asks, a note of curiosity coming to her voice.

There's another glance to Kunzite and she asks. "Did you make a cup or a pot? I'm hoping only a cup." She notes before she gestures towards the cookies. "They have nuts in them, I don't think anyone's allergic."

"Had a familiar," Kazuo answers Naru, with brief shake of his head. "I suspect it remains something of a sore spot. A familiar is a servant -- a creation of power, rather than a bestower of it. In this case, the familiar was cleansed of darkness a time or two. Agera had a history of losing his temper with her over it. When it reached the point at which she started assuming he'd just unmake her, some of her allies opted to act. They managed to break the bond between the two, but," he glances to Rei, "apparently it didn't go as well as they'd hoped. You're the one who helped her, then?"

A moment's pause, and he eyes Naru after. "A cup. Endymion's out with that game again, I didn't expect we'd need more."

    "'Had', I think is the operative word here," says Rei, recalling the events of back then. "She was part fox and part human. She wasn't happy being Riventon's familiar, so her friends rescued her from him." The miko decides to slow down there. There's some backstory needed before this makes sense.

    Fortunately Kazuo fills in a lot of the details, including some that Rei doesn't know herself.

    The miko glances at Kazuo. "Did you notice? A part of his soul was in her. That copy of Jupiter had a similar thing. A part of Takashi's soul was put inside that, too."

    Rei glances down at the ground. "She came to my shrine with friends, and her friends were asking if they could speak to Inari. I helped them on their spiritual journey, which itself was quite a trip. Stil... I wonder what happened to the part of her that was Takashi's soul. All I know is that it was there when she attacked Infinity, and wasn't there when she came to my shrine."

    She waves her hand in the air. "Sorry. I know that's off topic."

"It's an interesting off topic." Naru points out as she listens closely, tucking her legs back under her on the chair and finding a comfortable way to perch there after a bit of trial and error.

"Hunh." Naru muses over all those fresh bits of details. "If he keeps putting bits of his soul in things, is that something you run out of, or does it replenish.. like giving blood?" She asks, as always, full of questions. "And missing a chunk of soul, yours or someone else's seems like a good thing to puzzle about, even off topic."

Naru answers Kunzite absently on the coffee point. "If you'd made a pot, I might have gotten some, but as I drank enough last week to make my hands shake, I'm big picture glad that you didn't."

"Interestingly, the one who prompted the initial question about ofuda and magic, is a kitsune. Unrelated to any of this, she goes by Nuwu." Naru comments thoughtfully.

Kazuo inclines his head to Rei again, when she speaks of souls. "It seems to be standard procedure for him, when he's working with the constructs. I can confirm another instance, and he's sustained visible damage from trying it too often. The familiar was much more independent than the constructs, though, and much less susceptible; presumably she had a larger portion." He falls silent for a moment, then says, "I didn't witness the breaking of the bond personally. But it might have been destroyed, or removed; or the breaking might have made it her own rather than his."

He crosses over to set the book down and take a seat of his own, in the corner of one of the couches. "Thank you for helping her," he says. "And it's less off-topic than you might think. The topic was faith and magic; she used both to put a crack in Beryl's control over me. Which, after you and Moon and Jupiter applied leverage, ultimately resulted in your being able to bring Naru home." Cycles and epicycles. Or possibly foxes on top of foxes.

    Rei is quietly grateful that people seem to have appreciated the tangent, though as Kazuo points out it wasn't that much of a tangent. "Eheh. Well I'm glad you found it interesting, and it's no problem. I don't mind helping people. It's my duty as a senshi, and in that particular instance my duty as a miko as well. I haven't heard of a Nuwu. That one is new to me."

    A corner of Rei's lip curls into a frown. "So he does that pretty often. That's pretty scary for him. I don't know if souls grow back or not, but it can't be good to just continually rip yours apart and put it in things." Cheek still propped up by her hand, she looks upwards and continues to think about it. "Wow, so all of that happened. I'm glad to hear that she used her powers to good ends after that, but I never realized that she helped us, too."

    Thinking back, she winces. "You know, back then we weren't even sure if we could save you. I'm glad we did, though."

"Hunh." Naru takes the notion of Taka's fondness for putting bits of his soul into others and seems to chew on it mentally for a while. There's thoughts, clearly, but perhaps not quite formed enough for presentation. "If he's done it enough to damage himself and its healed, presumably it too heals. I'm learning a lot of things heal, given enough time, that I never would have expected to."

"I'm glad you guys did too. I'm glad to have gotten rescued in it all too, although I have to admit, most of that time is pretty hazy. I remember it, but not very well." Naru comments, leaning forward to collect her sketchbook and pencil. Notes, rather than doodles in it today.

"We don't know whether it heals," Kazuo says to Naru. "There's damage. It was, briefly, visible, due to his doing something complicated. But we don't know whether the damage was previously worse, and is recovering, or whether that's the sum of what he's done to himself. I'm not, personally, eager to find out."

The possibility of permanently wrecking one's own soul is conveniently important enough to correct about immediately. But they don't know enough to make it a long detour, which means that ultimately he winds up back with the last thing Rei said. "I wasn't sure about it either," he admits. "I had a couple of contingency plans set up in case you couldn't. They made Jadeite come as close as he's ever gotten to mutiny, though." Not to mention Zoisite. In fact, Kunzite is indeed just not going to mention Zoisite. "Is there any generally accepted way to thank a deity for intervention, these days? It isn't something I've ever paid much attention to."

(Venus does not count.)

    Rei shrugs. "We haven't had a long enough look at his soul to find out. If it doesn't heal back, then it means he'll eventually run out. Of course, that's assuming that souls are a finite thing, and I'm not sure if that can be safely assumed either."

    She shakes her head. "A lot of stuff has happened in the past year. I can't imagine what it must have been like for you, to have moments of lucidity only to lose them when you get brainwashed. To think, before all of that I was nothing more than a miko with psychic powers." She hears how she sounds, frowns, and then says, "God I've never been normal have I?"

    To Kunzite, Rei shrugs. "Depends on the religion, though generally spoken thanks seems to be the best way. For Shinto, sacrifices of rice or small bits of food at a shrine are also accepted."

"Normal is a bit of a sliding scale around here." Naru comments with more authority than anyone currently in the room on the topic of 'normal'. "I'm not sure how many moments of lucidity I had before I finally started remembering. Based on how I understand things now, and conversations I've had with people while they've been draining me, or locking my emotions into an icy tomb, most don't really notice, even before they forget. It just never really seems to get purchase in their minds, it doesn't stick."

Normal is, after all, a bit of a sliding scale.

"I wouldn't have figured emotions as something that heals, but they do, which makes me lean towards souls being able to heal back." Naru considers that and drains her glass of milk, setting it back onto the table and then finding another comfortable position in how she's sitting.

Naru stays quiet at the discussion about how best to thank a god. Clearly food is always a good choice.

"I don't like the idea of souls being a finite thing," Kazuo agrees. More or less. "But I dislike even more, I think, the idea that Agera might be justified in viewing his as a renewable resource to be harvested. Let alone others'."

White-haired boy taking a topic straight to the most disturbing possibility: check. Quota filled for the day. Maybe he can be convinced not to go over.

"If it helps," he adds drily to Rei, "when I was on the other side, I spent more time worrying about the miko than about the senshi."

Rice or food, however, just get a calm nod. Apologies and gratitude by way of kitchen are definitely things that this household understands.

    Rei nods at Naru. "Most don't notice, which is why you have a youma attack that a lot of people should witness, but the news says it was a gas explosion or something. I almost wouldn't be surprised to learn that you had some kind of magical potential, but I have no idea what that would be."

    With a shrug, and then a wince at the topic that Kunzite brings up, she adds, "For all we know about souls, there might be a variety of different ways they respond to that kind of damage. Maybe some heal and others don't."

    Hearing that the miko gave them more cause for concern than the senshi does cause her to crack a smile. "Well I am quite a handful." And so humble, as Usagi pointed out the other day.

"No, I'm not exactly keen on that notion either." Naru admits with a nod to Kunzite at the disturbing topic, filling their quota. "Although being able to heal, and renewing at a rate that is functionally infinite, are very different. He's on a fairly fast train to the self destruction side, from everything I'm gathering about him, which isn't much, I will grant you. I suspect that the rates on each side of that equation make it less of a practical issue than it could be."

"All signs point to no." Naru shakes her head at Rei's speculation about the magical potential in Naru and she gives a shrug. "I tend to think that if I was going to be magical, I'd be already. I mean, especially now that I notice and remember and can bother everyone with my lists of questions."

Naru can't help but giggle softly at the mention of Kunzite being worried about the miko, and the humble reply given to that.

A handful? Kazuo rubs at his forehead briefly with his free hand, more or less in the spot Rei prefers to aim for with her ofudas. "I can't imagine." Definitely feeding her humility today.

Then he studies Naru, and says ... nothing about Agera, for once. Nothing about anyone sustaining damage on a regular basis. And yet recovering from it and sitting around in a living room chattering with a list of questions.

Would be already, huh.

    As much as Rei enjoys basking in her own humility, she doesn't dwell on it for very long. Especially as other topics come up.

    Huh. Would be already? That also makes a lot of sense, though it still places Naru as an oddity. "Maybe so. I know when I first was introduced to this stuff I had a transformation pen almost immediately. It didn't take a whole lot of time for me to start fighting, either."

    Rei scratches her chin. "I mean I'm pretty sure you're not a senshi like us. It seems like someone would have approached you or... something."

"Maybe," Kunzite says. "Kazuo spent a decade thinking he had a medical condition instead of magic. But that's not the usual." He pushes himself to his feet again, pacing himself and his untouched coffee and his unnecessary third-person soeech back into the kitchen for a few moments.

"I dont really so much fight as lose a lot." Naru considers that and then glances over to Kunzite as he speaks of himself in the third person, and nods to him in understanding. It makes sense.

Naru turns her attention back to Rei and there's a flicker of a smile. "Apparenlty I don't have a Chara Guardian, or at least not one who is willing to chat with any of the others. I dont transform, which cuts out a lot of potentials, and I certainly haven't made a contract with Kyubey. I'm just.. me. Ami's apparently known other mundanes who have noticed magic, so I'm not unique. Just a little odd, I suppose."

    "Well we've seen some mundanes be aware of magic, yeah," says Rei. "Though some of them have gained powers, too. Even if it took a while."

    She shrugs. "For all I know, your awareness could be nothing more than the fact that you're Usagi-chan's friend. I mean, just hanging around her long enough, you'd probably start to notice that some things just don't add up."

    Rei flips her hand in the air, kindof dismissively. "I still don't know how that kind of magic works. All I know is that my fire reading can't really tell me the things that I'm not 'supposed' to know."

"It's true." Naru nods in agreement on that notion. "It could entirely be from Usagi-proximity." She grins. "Meeting half of Tokyo, and learning to pack an extra large lunch, also things learned from Usagi-proximity. Also what happens when you mix .. er.. never mind. She hates that story." Naru giggles softly, shaking her head.

"You read fire?" Naru asks, freshly curious at that little tidbit of newly interesting conversation.

    Rei nods as Naru asks. "Yup! A lot of my visions and other... psychic insights come from fire reading. I didn't know it at the time, but I think it's mostly a mix of fire being my element and me being kind of psychic to begin with."

    Her hands drop into her lap and she leans forward in her chair. "I can sometimes see the future with them. I can also see the past. It's usually dreamlike and very symbolic, and I don't always know what I'm looking at, but it does provide helpful insights sometimes."

"Do you have to seek them out, or do you sometimes just get smacked upside the head with visions?" Naru asks, a little wide eyed with fascination. "That has to be so cool, and so frustrating all at the same time. To know it's important, or think it might be, but not be quite sure how, or in what context."

    "Well it depends." Rei starts to explain. "Sometimes I get smacked upside the head. I'll be studying with friends and then suddenly I blank out and get some kind of premonition. Other times I seek them out specifically, and sometimes I get a sudden vision and have to do a fire reading for more information."

    She shrugs, with a bit less 'humility' and a bit more sincerity. "It can be frustrating, yeah. I'm glad that I can add that kind of insight to the group, and sometimes if I share what I saw others can interpret things that I didn't notice myself. It's the kind of thing that I've gotten a lot of attention for before, but being famous for having psychic powers is kindof a mixed bag."

Naru flashes a quick smile. "I promise to never ask you for test answers, nor lottery numbers." She makes some guesses on one of the mixed blessings of being known as a psychic. "I can totally see how interpretation would work well as a group effort. People notice different things, people know different things. Or make connections that someone else doesn't catch right away." She nods a little thoughtful.

"I'm glad Usagi.. I'm glad all of you have each other as a team. The stuff you guys do is just.. mind boggling." Naru comments thoughtfully, sincerely.

    "Yeah, that's right. Also, sometimes people will just know things that I don't, and will be able to tie an image to something that has happened or might happen."

    Rei smirks. "Oddly enough, numbers seem to be pretty rare when it comes to visions or other forms of divination. You see them on tarot cards but they're rarely used as actual numbers. Numerology exists, but that's more about starting with numbers and coming to conclusions about them. Lottery numbers would be a bit much if you could actually get those, but I don't think I could use my powers to get a cute boy's number, either."

    She smiles, looking down into her lap. "Thank you. I'm glad, too. I'm glad that I have so many good friends that I can rely upon."

"You're safe from me asking for cute boy's numbers too." Naru laughs softly. "I'm pretty sure none of them are interested, or have partners already." She leans over to snag another cookie, uncurling to reach for her glass. "Want something to drink?" She asks as she pushes to her feet, prepared to go and find herself more to drink.

"Good friends are awesome. The community in general, with magic users, seems to be really strong. I mean, like looking out for each other and stuff. I suppose it sort of has to be." Naru comments as she starts towards the kitchen, with or without a drink request.

    Rei covers her mouth to chuckle. "I appreciate it. I wouldn't be able to help much anyways." She raises her eyebrow at the mention of them being already taken, then says, "Some of them. A lot of them, maybe. I wouldn't say all. Though, I'm the worst person to ask when it comes to boys and love advice."

    She smiles at the thought that the magical community is so strong. "We're pretty close knit, and aside from the occasional exception, I think we all want to help those around us. It's not always easy, but we have each other."

    As Naru heads towards the kitchen, Rei says, "Well, juice, if there is some. If you don't mind."

"If you're the worst to ask, I'm the second worst." Naru points out with a laugh and a shake of her head.

Naru thinks a moment and then nods. "There's juice. Grape, I think." She vanishes into the kitchen, but pouring a glass of water and a glass of juice doesn't really take all that long.

Naru doesn't even try and steal Kunzite's coffee.

"There's always exceptions, of course. And folks who aren't currently entirely playing well with others. I usually meet those ones." Naru comments as she emerges back out, two glasses in hand.

It especially doesn't take long when there's someone to reach the glass down for the short one. "Also what appears to be some kind of Spanish peach juice, if you prefer that over grape," Kazuo supplements as he accompanies Naru back out. "I don't know who bought that, but it doesn't have any death threats attached." Naru may also spend time hanging out with some of the ones who don't necessarily play well with others.

    "Spanish peach juice?" asks Rei. "Oh hey why not? I'll try that. First time for everything, right?" She can safely say that she has no idea what that's like.

    After a moment she decides to get up and move towards the kitchen, mostly because it seems like people have moved there, but since Naru is coming back she stays seated, reaching out to take the glass of juice with a "Thank you!"

    "... yeah not everyone plays nice. I think, even among those who don't, they have reasons for doing what they do. Truly bad people exist, but they are seemingly few and far between."

"Is that what that is? I glanced at the label and was not fearly nearly as adventurous in my beverage choices as Rei is, apparently." Naru comments with a quiet murmur of thanks for Kunzite being tall for her.

"I would have put Maeko in that truly bad category after the first time I met her, but then she got really protective the second time. Which shows at some some measure of potential empathy on any level." Naru mmms as she passes over the juice and reclaims her chair. "Of course, she also called me her toy, so I might be optimistic on the empathy thing. Generally if they don't even attempt to have some sort of conversation.. and I can only think of two in my list who are just flat out bad. Just /bad/. One.. might have been a rough day or something.. Okay no.. more than two." Naru considers as she sips her water.

It's true, a black carton with an unidentifiable fruit and the word 'melocoton' in small print is not necessarily something that screams 'peach juice' to a Japanese teenager.

The frequency and nature of actual evil is ... something the girls are kinder to the world about than Kazuo. He studies one of the walls instead for a moment. "It was certainly a rough day for you. They should share less often."

    Rei takes out her cell phone, looks at it, and says, "Oh geeze, looks like I have to go. It was nice talking to you two again. See you around!"

    She gulps down the spanish peach juice in a hurry, moving towards the kitchen to quickly clean out the glass. When she's done she places it back and then finds her shoes on her way out the door.

"Take care Rei!" Naru waves after the girl as she gets called awayto somethig more pressing than drinking juice and lazy debates about degrees of evil.

Naru looks over to Kunzite and there's a touch of a smile. "The night with Hannah, and Maeko and Lacrima was mostly just /weird/ and confusing, all in all. I'm still not sure quite what I think of it. Still, I need to update the counter on the fridge, if you don't count that night, I think I'm in double digits."

"I'm in favor of counting that night," Kazuo says, tone of voice almost absent. "You seem to average out consistently. Counting it might avoid another day of double incidents." He pauses, then, and repeats, "Hannah and Lacrima."

"And Maeko." Naru nods in confirmation and then laughs at the rationalization of why to count it. "It still gets to a week even if you do count it, by numbers, I'm due pretty much anytime at this point. It better not be wraiths again, that still hasn't fully healed, and it's been over a week." She sips from her water, stretching her legs out. "It was.. exciting to watch. Perhaps a little closer than I'd liked to have watched."

And Maeko. Naru is getting accustomed to being given that mildly tired look. "One hopes at least that the damage from the wraiths is continuing to improve. Or has that halted?" Speaking of things that were perhaps a little closer than she'd have liked.

"The vast majority is all back." Naru confirms, but there's a little wrinkle of her nose. "Like there's no more disconnect even a tiny bit where I can think of what emotion I should have, and what I actually feel. That's all back. Creativity? Still shot."

Naru takes a slow breath, leaning back in her chair, crossing her legs at the ankle. "I haven't picked up a paint brush since the wraiths, which is getting irritating." To say the very least.

"Mn." ... that's always a sound that bodes ... not necessarily not well. Bodes interesting. "What do you feel when you think about trying to paint, or draw? What are your reactions?" Kazuo asks this as if it were as ordinary and necessary a question as checking whether she has her homework done before letting Usagi drag her to a movie on a school night.

"Drawing is analytical for me, and that seems fine. I can take what I see, put it to the page." Naru explains thoughtfully. Clearly the Mn doesn't worry her. "The muscle memory for drawing is fine, and I don't have to dig into anything of myself to do it."

Naru is thoughtful, quiet as she considers the obvious next part of the question, about painting. There's a lingering silence as she considers it, and as she considers just what and how much she wants to explain, no matter that she's the one who brought it up. "Usually. Especially after something like last Thursday.. I paint, a lot. It's a normal reaction, kinda expressing it on canvas. Kinda.. sanity saving? I guess?" Naru is watching her bare toes, rather than Kunzite. "That's where the disconnect is still. I half wondered if it was just being overtired, but I'm pretty caught up on sleep now."

"It might be waiting for further recovery," Kazuo says slowly. "The way that a place where a wound has been can still hurt to prod at even when it's healed. Or it might be a consequence of your emotions not having been working properly at the time. No impact; nothing to process. I can't do more than guess, though. It's not a reaction I've ever had."

He falls quiet for a moment, then says, "You've been avoiding parks on your own. There was the beach, though. Gardens?"

"I have plenty of thoughts about Thursday, so I suspect there's plenty to process, even if I didn't actually come out of it injured." Naru comments thoughtfully and then nods. "I'm vaguely frustrated.. mostly frustrated for having a day to paint in.. days to paint in.. and the brain not playing nice. It's not a reaction I expected. I hold out hope that it's just slower than the rest."

Naru is quiet in that moment, comfortable enough with it, and with her thoughts on her thoughts. She looks up at him and considers. "The park was winning. Three strikes, really. Two in one day, a properly miserable one after that. It just.." She shakes her head a little. "That one feels like I'm just tempting fate at this point. If I give up everywhere I've been attacked, I basically get to hide in my apartment until someone tracks me there, and then I just whimper in my closet forever."

Silence for several moments, once Naru answers. Examining the structure behind the words. Evaluating. Finally: "Did you have plans for the rest of the evening?" Kazuo asks.

Less ominous than if Hannah did, anyway.

"Not yet, no." Naru shakes her head and then laughs softly. "Possibly chasing Pokemon, possibly curling up in a corner of your couch with a book. Possibly something I've not yet thought of. Why?"

It's generally always ominous.

"There's somewhere you might be interested in seeing, later," Kazuo answers. "You can bring the book, but GPS doesn't work there." Pokemon-free.

"Oh?" Naru looks curious. "I'm selfishly going to hope that we're not going for a run. At least not on sand, ideally. My calves might not ever forgive you if we are."

"I assure you, I'd warn you in advance." There's the barest hint of amusement, there. "It's only polite, considering someone else is managing your training. Coordination is necessary for the health of the student. Possibly also the sanity."