Technically, Naru doesn't actually live here. Which is sometimes hard to tell by the odd hours that she seems to appear at the apartment, the staying over periodically, the fact that her school stuff is also on the table, closed and being ignored for the moment, although her sketchbook is open, the key she has and the fact that she's painting one living room's worth of walls. Slowly.
Currently Naru is making it hard to realize that she doens't actually live there by being in the kitchen. The coffee pot is on, with just one cup out of it that's sitting on the counter for her, and she's making pancakes. Enough for whoever might appear in the cooking of them, and plenty to just nosh on later, warmed up or not.
Making pancakes from scratch is way better than geography homework, and one of the tastier procrastination tactics. She looks less tired than she has been, not /rested/ per se, but she's slept enough and skipped enough workouts to have crawled back from the zombie edge at least.
Technically, Kyouko doesn't live here either, though considering her ties to the people who do and the fact that she has no parents to wonder about her absences, it's less surprising to find her here at odd hours. Plus, she lives in the same building, just lower down towards the street. Still, it's relatively early for her to be up and about.
Even with that being the case, she makes nor requires no explanation as she enters the kitchen. She's wearing casual clothing, jeans and a plain grey t-shirt which makes her shortened hair stand out all the more- she's apparently decided she likes some of that lighter orange color she dyed it for halloween and has left some streaks of it in, the color close enough to her natural deeper red to act like highlights, and combined with the artfully ruffled style she's taken to wearing it in looks pretty good (if she does say so herself).
"Naru-chan." She greets, with a smile. "I thought I sensed breakfast." Well, that would explain why she's up here so early on a weekend- apparently she has supernatural breakfast-sense. At least Momo generally sleeps until noon, if you let her, so Kyouko doesn't have to worry about her getting in trouble for a while yet.
"I was hungry." Naru answers as she looks over to Kyouko as she walks into the kitchen. The fact that there is well and above more than even Naru's current hunger levels can cope with speaks to the expectation that /someone/ in this building might have breakfast-sense.
Naru nudges an empty plate and the plate of already cooked panckaes towards Kyouko and then gestures with the spatula. "Syrup is still in the fridge. I am not Mako level of fancy fruit syrups, although I thought of it, I admit."
"Besides it was cooking, or going on a run, and morning runs and I havne't gotten along well this week, so you're getting fed. It's weird to want more active than painting, but I do." Naru comments absently as she watches the pancake in the pan bubble.
Kyouko fetches the syrup from the fridge. "Don't worry, you can be not-Mako-level and still be plenty amazing on a saturday morning." Kyouko says cheerily, as she then picks up a plate and shovels a couple of the finished pancakes onto it, before topping them with syrup, grabbing some silverware, and seating herself on the edge of the counter with a nimble hop to dig in while Naru continues to produce more.
"Sometimes it's good to have a deviation from the routine." She notes, between shovelling forkfulls of fluffy, syrupy goodness into her mouth. She even chews and swallows before speaking. "And you do look a little more chipper than you have in the past couple weeks." A critical eye is cast over the morning's chef, followed by an affirming nod. "Definitely an improvement, running or no."
"She's got a real talent for the art of it, and I just like making food." Naru smiles, content in her role. And making food comes with a flipped pancake, golden brown and perfect. Naru reaches for her coffee to have a sip while she lets that side crisp up.
"I crashed hard on the couch here, a couple nights back, and actually slept for a significant chunk all in a row and everything." Naru gestures. "The night you were being all relaxed and mellow and Daisuke was fixing my ankle and being silly, which is a good look on Dai and we don't see it enough." She smiles as she lifts the edge of the pancake to peek. "No matter how little I wish to have people /back/ in my dreams, sleeping regularly again would be kinda cool."
"Mako-chan has both a talent for artistic food-making and a talent for kicking ass." Kyouko says good-naturedly between bites of pancake. "It's almost enough to make a girl jealous- some of us are only blessed with one of those."
She eyes Naru for a moment, and then shrugs. "I guess I was in a good mood too. Feels like things are more or less in place in my life right now. Which inevitably means something awful is about to happen, but heck, I've learned ta enjoy the good moments while they're happenin', fleeting though they may be, cause otherwise you'll miss 'em."
She waves a forkful of pancake. "This is definitely a good moment."
"I have a comma between artistic, and food making." Naru notes as she pulls the pancake out of the pan and then turns the stove off for the moment as she gets to eating herself for a moment. She reaches for the syrup.
"You looked content." Naru nods with a smile. "Good look on you too, and yeah. Sometiems hard to remember to enjoy the moments in the midst of being tired and grumpy, but worth it." She laughs at the waving forkful of pancake. "You say that anytime people are feeding you."
"Go hungry enough times and you'll be happy anytime someone decides to give you free food, too." Kyouko says, with a hint of wry amusement in her tone. She's never exactly forthcoming about her past, but also doesn't seem afraid to talk about it when it's relevant. She doesn't deny the things that happened to her, or turn away from them. Life is life.
"Besides, works out for you. You get to do something simple that you're good at, and in return you earn my everlasting affection." The redhead says, with a wink, before taking another big bite of pancake. "These are really good by the way."
"It's a great deal for me. I get to cook, I dont have to eat all of it.. less a concern these days, but for ages I really didn't have much of an appetite, and I get to watch you enjoy it. And the boys, if they emerge." Naru slides another pancake onto each of their plates.
"I can honestly say, I have never gone hungry. I've always been so very lucky and spoiled and privledged, really." Naru muses on that a moment and then quirks a half smile. "Puts the complaining in perspective sometimes. Not always, just sometimes."
"They're timid creatures, those boys." Kyouko acknowledges, scraping together some of the remnants of pancake on her plate so she can shovel them into her mouth as well. "Except for Kunzite, of course, but that's just because he doesn't know how to be timid." There's playful affection in her voice as she speaks of her 'nii-chan'.
She shrugs slightly as Naru reflects on her relative good fortune. "Well, I don't recommend it. But I also don't hold any resentment. If nobody had to go through the sorta stuff I did, I'd be happy. Does make you grateful for the small things, though."
"They really are." Naru agrees and then laughs softly. "Even here, in their natural habitat, the male Shitennou are elusive beasts. The bait of fresh pancakes isn't enough to rouse them from their lairs." She sounds like a wildlife documentary, just for a moment.
"I wish you hadn't either." Naru points out. "But it made you, you. I'm selfish enough to be glad I can learn second hand, though."
"It's probably too early, still." Kyouko notes absently. "Well, nii-chan is probably out doing something vital, y'know how he is. But the rest of them like to sleep until.. well, as late as they can get away with. Neph-nii was probably up all night looking at the stars, and Mamoru was probably up all night studying. I swear, that boy is going to kill himself with schoolwork and then we'll all be out of a job."
"Yeah.." Kyouko muses, idly. "Sometimes I wonder how I woulda turned out if things had gone.. according to plan. More normally, I guess." She shrugs. "But I ain't the type to get overly worried about what mighta been. World is as it is. Not much we can do about the past, so better to worry about making the future as bright as we can."
"Probably too early." Naru agrees with a little laugh and then adds to the wildlife doumentary voice. "The local beasts are largely nocturnal. And yes, Mamo's studying is crazy. He makes me feel as if I should be studying more for exams in March. Totally different scale, but he keeps reminding me."
"Life is /really/ good at not going according to plan." Naru points out as she takes another bite of pancake. "I mean.. I know there's no changing the past, but sometimes it's interesting to do the thought experiement of What if. I mean, that's what basically an entire writing genre is about. And a bunch of my art when I'm in the mood for that. Playing what if."
"Take some advice from me, Naru-chan," Kyouko says, with a dry tilt to her voice, if one laden with fondness at the same time, "Trying to compare yourself to Mamoru is a recipe for feeling inadequate. Even when the comparison is in being humble. If he wasn't so damned lovable, I'd probably hate his guts." She grins.
"Well, maybe that's why I ain't an arist." She then says, continuing with the topic at hand with an absent shrug. "I like to take the world as it is. Could be it's just because dwelling too long on what migh've been is a bit too painful. I mean, don't get me wrong. Right now, I'm in a good place. I'm happy. But if I coulda skipped all the bad stuff, would I have? I dunno.. woulda taken me someplace different, that's for sure. Not sure it'd be worth it."
She sighs, hopping down to put her plate in the dishwasher. "Which is why I prefer not to play that game. I'll take what I have, and be grateful for every bit of it."
Naru laughs brightly, taking a bit of pancake to smear around the plate and chase the remaining drips of syrup such that they can't elude her. "Comparing myself to just about /anyone/ around here is a fast train to feeling inadequate. Still, there's a little poke of guilt that makes me open the books again. I can't skip out on high school in good conscience, no matter my thoughts on university."
"For me, at least, I can accept the world I live in, and who I am, and how that all fits together and I find the what if game.. almost comforting? I guess? Cathartic, perhaps." Naru considers that as she sets her plate down, uncertain if she's having more or not. Probably not. "The bad stuff ... people without any bad stuff are generally not half so interesting."
"Aw, don't say that, Naru-chan." Kyouko says, smiling. "You're the best artist I've ever known. And no, before you go gettin' a big head, I ain't known that many. But in that category at least, you rank first around here." She grins slightly. "And you're far from last place in some other areas." She getures to the remaining pancakes.
"Your journey is just startin', Naru-chan." She comments, with regards to the what-if game. "You still got time to find a path.. you haven't committed yet. And I think that's great. I was forced to start early, an' like I said, I wouldn't wish that on anyone. You're old enough, and smart enough, to make good decisions the first time, and if you don't, to learn quicker from your mistakes. I think you still got a long way to go, but I'm almost jealous of that. I know I'm only fifteen, but some days I feel like I'm goin' on fifty, and it's goddamn exhausting."
"Oh it's nto nearly as emo as it sounds." Naru assures with a little laugh. "Comparisons don't do me much good, but I'm pretty relaxed about the fact that I don't have a lot of competition on the stuff I /am/ good at. Even some of that.. the stuff I'm not bad at.. it's alright to be just pretty good, and not /the best/."
Naru leans against the counter, with her coffee cup and mmms softly. "It is. Which is sometimes a little odd when all your friends are quite a bit further down their paths, and you're just wading about in the kiddie pool, but.. well.. it is what it is. I try and make good decisions, which doesnt always pan out." She takes a drink of her coffee. "It's always hard to believe that you and I are the same age, chronologically at least."
"When you always look at what you don't have, and ignore what you do, it makes you miserable." Kyouko notes, with the air of someone who knows exactly what she's talking about.
Plate delievred to the dishwasher, she turns to regard Naru and crosses her arms over her chest. "Half the time I feel like you're older than me, Naru-chan." She says, with an amused laugh. "You just.. radiate maturity. Considering how easy you've had it (relatively speaking, and that's a big relatively), I'm almost scared to think of what you'd be like if you had been through as tough stuff as some of the rest of us."
There's a very certain person who most certainly does NOT live here. And doesn't really visit often enough to even keep up the appearance of such.
That's starting to change up recently, though. And so it is now, too, that an Alex finds himself standing behind the door to the apartment, pressing at the buzzer. BUzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
"For a while earlier this year..." Naru still hasn't decided on her plate yet, drinking coffee has won for the moment. "It totally felt like I was everyone's baby sister. Even Usagi, which is hysterical, because its not like I suddenly /stopped/ being six months older than her, except that I sort of did, in a weird metaphysical kinda reincaration weird way."
Naru sets her coffee down to go get the door before it wakes up everyone else in the apartment. "I think about that a fair bit, you know." She comments back to Kyouko. "When I'm thinking of the what-ifs. I'm really quite glad I /wasn't/, because I'm selfish that way, but what if."
Naru opens the door and there's a bright smile as its an Alex waiting there. "Good morning. There's pancakes." And a kiss too, but Naru doesn't seem to feel obligated to warn him before stealing that kiss.
"Gee, you don't kiss me when you offer me pancakes." Kyouko notes from the doorway to the kitchen in a mildly jealous, but clearly playful tone. "Hi, Alex." She greets the boy, before shrugging as she emerges further into the living room.
"I ain't part of the whole 'this is my second life' crew either, don't forget. I've had some conversations about that with nii-chan and Mamoru. Sometimes I feel a bit left out." She laughs. "They assure me that just 'cuz I don't remember having a previous life doesn't mean I didn't have one. I guess the same's true for you."
The promise of pancakes seems to nearly cause a reaction from Alex, but it's overwritten by the oncoming kiss -- although he's leaning back into it rather carefully to avoid brushing nose against her. Why? Well, there's a bandaid slapped on it AGAIN, so...
"I get priviliges," he calls from the door upon hearing Kyouko's voice, though, and after stepping through, he sets to work to removing his heavy boots. Though his attention is pretty perked even from there. "Did I walk into some heavy philosophical discussion again?"
"Do you /want/ me to kiss you when I offer you pancakes, Kyouko?" Naru offers with a laugh as she turns and blows the other girl a kiss. "MUAH! Happy now?" She lingers with Alex while he takes off his boots before heading back towards the kitchen.
"I'm awake, so the hazard of heavy philosophical discussion is high." Naru manages to look sheepish at Alex as she retrieves a plate for him. "Possibly the same for me. I think it would be weirder if I /was/ and didn't remember it, rather than my current assumption that I'm just me. Albeit me who somehow acquired henshin and powers. Hearing how Daisuke found his staff was cool, though I hadn't heard that story before."
Naru nudges plate and still warm cooked pancakes towards Alex for him to take as many as he might wish. "How're you? Up early, or still up?"
"Well, sometimes I feel like the only one around here who ain't getting kisses, if you know what I mean." Kyouko shoots back, playfully, but she lets it drop- mostly because she very recently put a stop on the one avenue she had towards potential kisses, very deliberatly. She just likes teasing her friends, that's all.
She waves a hand dismissively at Alex's wary question about philosophy. "Eh, don't you know I'm an idiot? If there's any philosophy going on here, it's entirely Naru's fault."
Then she adds, "Yeah, I think I'm pretty happy just being Kyouko Sakura.. and Apatite. But she's even younger than Kyouko Sakura, and that's okay. Somethin' don't gotta be old for it to be meaningful."
"That doesn't count," Alex notes to Naru after she's blown the kiss to Kyouko's direction. You know, for whatever reason. "And..." Down plopping onto a chair he goes. "Still up, more or less." Busy doing 'stuff', one can assume. Even more so with the fresh bandaid.
Either way, the boy seems to throw a vaguely suspicious look at Kyouko over her claim of idiocy, but rather than commenting on that, he instead repeats "Apatite?" curiously. "Is that like your secret superhero identity or something? I still don't know how these things work." This said while he savagely stabs a fork into a pile of pancakes in preparation for their impending annihilation.
Naru pffts at Kyouko calling herself an idiot. "I disbelieve. You just are more generally pragmatic than this emo artist type." She laughs, clearly terribly concerned about labelling herself as an emo artist.
"Totally counts, just isn't the same kinda kisses." Naru points out to Alex as she drinks coffee and evaluates if he's going to destroy the currently cooked pancakes entirely and if she should make more right away. Not quite yet. "Y'know, secret superhero identity is not so far off, most of the time." She considers and then drinks more of her coffee before changing her mind on the pancakes. "Choosing a name is really hard, y'know. I have /no clue/ what to call myself."
"I dropped out of middle school when I was eleven." Kyouko says wryly. "I think idiot is fair, even if only in a technical sense."
She shrugs, looking faintly unsure of how to explain exactly the difference between Kyouko Sakura and Apatite to Alex without spending far longer than she's comfortable with trying to establish context. "Let's just say that I've been super a lot longer than I've been a hero, and sometimes when things change, you need a new name."
"The stone names are ..." That Kazuo's voice might be heralded by this part of the conversation isn't entirely surprising. That's what he does, often enough; is drawn in on conversations by hearing something he can contribute to. As it is, he pauses in the hallway's mouth, studying the others in the room, and just trails off for a moment. As if he weren't sure quite how to explain them either.
He shakes his head after a moment, and says, instead, "Another facet of who we are." He takes another couple of paces in. "My other name is Kunzite. It sums up everything from how my powers work to the color of my hair. Apatite's touches on her powers, on how she fights, on other things." On her fangs, to start with. On illusions, on making things that kill, on making things that make the earth thrive. Tooth and bone. It's hard to find things obvious enough to state that don't verge on violating her privacy.
He glances Naru's way, and adds as she turns toward the stove, "At least you don't have to hold to a theme unless you care to." Not that have to was the word for them. But that's more complicated, too, in different ways.
"Nah," Alex insists stubbornly at Naru right before he pops... probably an unhealthy amount of pancake stuck within his fork into his mouth. Cue swollen cheeks and everything.
While he's chewing all that down, thuogh, he gives Kyouko a faintly suspicious look. Somehow, he can gather from that brief moment of silence and her body language alone that there's something more complex to it-- but also that she is perhaps not really wishing to get into it, either. So, once he swallows the inexplicable amount of pancake (somehow?!), all he says to that particular matter is, "I see," and lets it lie.
"DRoppin' outta school don't necessarily mean anything," he tells the redhead - well, the Puella redhead anyway - while his fork's sinking into a pile of pancake again, slower this time around. "Just different circumstances. The way I've seen you going about, I ain't really inclined to call you an 'idiot'." Whatever the hell THAT is supposed to mean.
The thought line is interrupted by Kazuo's sudden appearance, though (even Alex, usually so observant of his surroundings, seems to always be surprised by him). At least Kazuo comes along while the german has refilled his mouth with pancake (though he's briefly stuck with his fork in his mouth too while he processes the sudden change in presence), so he doesn't let out any vocal reaction. It gives him a chance to process what the white-haired one is saying, at least.
"So--" He lets out after swallowing. "It's like the sign of your person that isn't really seperate from you, but isn't necessarily immediately obvious?"
"I didn't even get to pick." Kyouko says, though the tone of her voice indicates that she views this as a blessing, rather than as a detriment. She moves over towards Kunzite as he enters the room, and gives him a brief, one-armed hug around the midsection.
"Remember what I told you about over-explaining?" She says as she pulls back, eyes glinting with a light that indicates she is teasing more than she is seriously rebuking him. "You just live to take all the mystery out of life, doncha nii-chan?" She laughs, but lingers by this side as she glances back across towards Alex and Naru.
"Um.. thanks." She tells the younger guy, at his statement of lack of intent to call her an idiot. But she's grinning slightly, anyway. At his final statement, she just shrugs. "Kyouko Sakura is the name I was given when I was born. It's the name I grew into. Apatite is the name that grew out of me."
Kazuo puts an arm around Kyouko's shoulders in turn, not so tight that she can't pull away when she decides to pretend to be miffed at him. "You say 'take all the mystery out of life,'" he says down to her, "I say 'crossing the street should not mean playing roulette.' Now we get to watch him realize that any jewelry anyone might be wearing might mean something deeply esoteric and potentially lethal. That's the fun part."
He pauses to glance across the room at Alex more directly. "You're right about the school part, though. And about the other, to an extent."
"Crossing the street most definitely is playing roulette," Alex claims, turning a fork within his hand to point it towards Kazuo. "A lot of things in life are. The trick is in trying to work the odds as much as in your favor as you can. ... But, sometimes..." Down the fork goes again through another series of poor, innocent pancakes. "You have to go all-in blindly and just hope for the best. That's life." RAther than lifting the pancakes up for another round of devouring right away, though, he keeps his eyes on Kazuo and Kyouko both, still. "And anything on anyone can mean or be something lethal, potentially. People can get... really damn creative when it comes to that kind of stuff." ... For someone his age he sounds way too much like he speaks from experience.
"Do any of us even wear jewelry?" Kyouko asks Kunzite, dubiously. She sure as hell doesn't. Before he can answer though, she says, "Well, Zo-nii definitely does." She pauses. "I'm not sure how I feel about being possibly the least-feminine Shitennou." She grins. "No offense, nii-chan."
She jerks a thumb towards Alex. "I like the way this guys thinks, sometimes. You say crossing the road shouldn't mean playing roulette. I say, where's the fun in life if you always know what's gonna happen?" She winks, then laughs. "I gotta get to work in a bit, now that I am pancaked-up. You guys have fun."
Another hug for Kunzite, a brief wave at Alex, and a teasingly-blown kiss at Naru, and she is waltzing off through the balcony door, clearly in a good mood.
There's no actual disagreement from Kazuo; the analogy doesn't entirely work. "At least, when you know how to read the traffic signals, your odds improve. These things used to be that common; hear the name of a stone, understand some of the connotations." Poor pancakes, indeed.
Kazuo's attention is drawn off Alexis by Kyouko's question, though; he tilts his head just enough for the sharply pointed earrings he wears to glitter. "Nephrite might wrestle you for that one," he says down to her all the same. "Shadows aside." ... Kyouko might still win by default, given that shadow.
But more important is returning that hug, both arms around her shoulders for an instant, and then clearing out of her way to the balcony door. And never mentioning Beryl's jewelry for a moment.
"Do you want pancakes, Kunzite?" Naru has a horrible habit of using Kazuo's gem name rather than any other and she smiles as Kyouko blows her a kiss. "I feel as if I should make a plug for the awesome of jewelry, based on my family's business, but I don't even wear much in the way of jewelry. I'm more likely to find pretty things that Usagi would like than myself." Naru notes thoughtfully.
"As if we always know what's going to happen in life. I mean /really/. Even getting all the stories and tidbits and explinations, there is generally new things /all the damn time/, that make things interesting." Naru laughs and adds more pancakes to the waiting stack that Alex has been yoinking from.
"Only sometimes...?" Alex wonders out loud, belatedly of Kyouko's... uh, compliment of him? Before he turns an utterly bemused look at Kunzite. "Um. Sure... Right." Somehow, he gets the feeling that he and Kazuo are not entirely on the same frequency, and might never really fully even be so.
That's a pretty accurate statement about Kazuo and ... pretty much everyone else on the planet, really. Some people get partial overlaps. On the whole, though? That's a pretty healthy sign for Alexis.
"Good morning, Naru. I'd appreciate that, yes." Odds that Kazuo actually ate anything before going out to wherever he undoubtedly went out to? Granted, he's one of the ones who's allowed to use the kitchen unsupervised when other people are going to be eating, but still. He glances to the waiting stack, then to Alex, and Naru has enough experience to interpret that as an inquiry on whether the pancakes in question are already under claim.
A plate is retrieved for Kunzite and Naru gestures to the stack. "More are incoming, but if you grab from those ones, I suspect you won't lose fingers. Alex has had a first pass, Kyouko had her fill and even I had more than coffee."
Clearly Naru is permitted to use the kitchen unsupervised, as she pours more batter into the pan to continue producing carb filled tasty, waiting to let the first side cook. "There's coffee too." Because of course there is.
Naru tops up her own mug as she mentions the coffee and gestures in offer to retrieve mugs for the other two. Even if it involves her having to climb on the counter to do it. "I forgot how much free time taking multiple rest days in a row provides. And how much weird art it produces."
"I'll do my best not to put my fork into your fingers," Alex promises while impaling more pancakes with the aforementioned fork.
He refrains from devouring those for the moment, too, in favor of putting his attention to the way of Naru, for the time being. "None of this 'weird art' is coming to life though, is it?"
Naru will not be needing to climb on the counter. Tall Person Number Two steps into the kitchen to take care of the mug problem while she's dealing with batter. "It'll be interesting to see what you can do when you're keeping a normal proportion of energy for yourself. Raskolph, if you can stab my fingers, I'll deserve the bleeding. Coffee?" ... still with the last name. Definitely not on the same frequency.
"Nothing unexpectedly, at least. And this week, I've been selfishly keeping most of my energy for myself rather than shoving it into art." Naru smiles to Alex and nods to Kunzite as he fetches mugs, saving her the climb.
As bubbles rise up on the pancakes, Naru flips them over and gestures with the spatula towards Kazuo. "Considering I'm not actually sure how long the Nightmares have been a problem, I have absolutely no clue what my actual energy levels are."
"Depending on what kind of things you put in the art - especially with the nightmares - that might be for the best," Alex points out wryly with his pancake-laden fork waved towards Naru with some vague accusing measure." And to KAzuo, he merely says, "I'll take your word for it." He probably doesn't actually have any intention to stab him.
No coffee for Alexis, then. Unless he's waiting on purpose to see Naru climb on the counter, which if so is between the two of them. Kazuo inclines his head in agreement with Alex's point about the art and the nightmares. What he says aloud is, "I don't know, either. Under certain circumstances, I can see what you're putting out into the art, but I can't see what your reserves look like anymore. Particularly not when they're at low levels."
"Considering the doodles of horrific shadow creatures in a garden rendred my geography homework to a state where I had to recopy it to hand it in, I'm really okay with only dealing with my nightmares once a day, not twice." Naru pauses. "Cool drawings though. Less cool in that I think I've seen some of Shiniko's shadows do that, but they're still cool looking. I liked how they turned out."
Naru considers Kazuo's words and nods. "I'd be shocked if I wasn't sitting low on reserves. I haven't done much since last week."
"Shini-who?" Alex pipes up in a sudden burst of curiousity, tipping his eyes over to Naru from Kazuo. "Or, wait." His lips purse right after. "... Is this one of those things I'm probably better off not even trying to understand, maybe?"'
"Shadow Witch Shiniko is the name being used by a girl we believe to have been either possessed or cursed into an obsession with justice," Kazuo provides. That Kazuo is talking may suggest that Alex's answer is in fact 'yes.' "To the point at which she attempts to punish people for crimes they might conceivably someday commit in her imagination. She uses shadows to try to drain her victims' life energy. Some of those close to her are trying to find ways to free her from the effect; our involvement has largely been trying to keep her from doing harm while they're working on it. Particularly to Naru."
"Her girlfriend and her family are hopeful that she's not completely lost to the curse, or possession or .. whatever it is." The way Naru just nods to Kazu's explination means that she doesn't have so much to add. "I've met her twice. Once she was directly targeting me, the next time was just her shadows when she was draining an art gallery. She's been getting stonger though, I see her shadows fairly regularly these days."
"Good grief..." This is where Alex ends up setting down his fork and forgetting about the pancakes for the time being, and his hand finds it's place rubbing against his temple, instead. "PArt of me suddenly regrets asking. To think there's things like this going on too without me even noticing... But, well..." His eyes flick downwards. "I guess that's just because of who I am."
"It's not your fault." Kazuo finally gets around to pouring coffee for himself. "Your parents most likely don't see them either. Your classmates. Most people you've ever met. We don't know when that started, or why, only that it is. That's one of the reasons we've been watching people like Naru and like yourself carefully; you're the only hints we have to why it might be happening, or how. Whether it's a fundamental change in the world that a few people can fight past, or a fundamental change in humanity that a few people can escape, or simply a turning away from being hurt too badly that might be overcome."
"There is also a certain degree of when you know what you're looking for, you see it so much more." Naru adds as she flicks another pancake onto the stack. "You struggle with noticing more than I did, but as you notice more, you seem to recognize more and in doing so, notice it more."
"I /am/ glad that my ability to have trouble find me is /me/ and not just from awareness." Naru comments. "Both of us being a magnet for stupid crap would just be insanity."
"You realize I kind of *am* a magnet for stupid crap," Alex points out with a wry smile. "Just... you know. Different kind of stupid crap. Not your kind."
His eyes drop down to the pancakes, and he frowns thoughtfully at the pile, as if though the dough within them might somehow hold the answers he's seeking. "I don't know," he murmurs. "I would notice everything at the barbeque that one time. But... I guess it was pretty blatant, at that point, wasn't it? That time at the gardens, too... But there's always these little hints, I guess. Like clues left scattered about that there's something *there*. I could never follow them anywhere, but... It's like that one time by the coffeeshop, you remember?" His eyes rise back up to look to Naru. "I could tell something was wrong, but I just couldn't put my finger on what it all meant."
"Ravens," Kazuo says, matter-of-fact. "Shadows a little darker than you like, lately."
"Dont' you at least vaguely go looking for it? I used to, at least, have things literally jump me while I was laying in the park." Naru points out with a laugh and then gets more serious again. "Although it's true, we've both magnets for stupid crap."
Naru nods at Kunzite's mention of ravens and darker shadows. "I notice shadows that move wrong, but I think art predisposes me to notice shadwos that aren't quite in line with what they should be. Shiniko is very good at subtle, so honestly I'm not surprised you haven't noticed much. Plant dude.. one attack, not ongoing, so unless you were there, you wouldnt know."
Naru takes another pancake for herself as she does up a few more, just in case. "The barbeque was blatent, yeah. It was /because/ you could say that the coffee shop was wrong, but not how.. that's why I figured telling you was better than just leaving you to puzzle. You were slowly working it out on your own."
"It's not that I haven't been looking," Alex insists with a faint pout sent at Naru. Pft. "It's just nothing's come of it. Maybe I just see these things when it's too late. Like... Something happened and I'm just looking at the leftovers. Something like that. Maybe I haven't made myself noticable enough to... these things,, for them to bother with me, I dunno."
"Entirely selfishly, I am really alright with you not knowing how Wraith attacks feel first hand, or landing yourself into mirrored coffins, or cursed.. but I understand. Although trying to get chewed on kinda sucks." Naru uses the side of her fork to cut it into pieces that doesn't make her look like a chipmunk to eat. "There's not actually /that/ much weird. I mean.. there is, but it's scattered. I get a lot of it, but right now.. it's mostly in my head. Or in my dreams more accurately. Which is hard to show you. I have no idea how to go to other people's dreams on purpose. I did it by accident once, but generally Ariel and Seishi come to me, cause that's what they /do/."
"I think maybe I'd rather know it over you experiencing it again..." Mutters Alex quietly while he reaches for his pancake-laden fork again. "...So some people can get into dreams, too, huh?" He wonders out loud then, thoughtfully pursing his lips. "Man. Gonna be a while before I end up being able to keep track of all of this, I Get the feeling."
"If I never experience Wraiths again, I am /totally/ okay with that. The second fight with them was.. awful. The third went well, all in all, so that's hopeful." Naru offers Alex a bright smile. "As much as it hurts the male pride and ego.. I've more defenses than you do, especially once I get myself together enough to reliably henshin.. transform.. as needed. I'm still the bard of the party though." She adds another pancake to the stack and turns off the stove, willing to let the current stack hold them for a while. "It's confusing as all hell, and between notes and having not quite a year head start, I still don't keep it all straight sometimes. I try, I don't always succeed."
"If it's a conceivable attack vector, someone or something has figured out how to exploit it," says Kazuo. Well. The voice is Kazuo's, anyway. While Alexis has been occupied with Naru and with pancakes, he's changed -- somehow, the characteristic jeans and white shirt are gone, replaced by a gray uniform, a white cape lined with a red-brown earth tone, a sheathed sword. The cup of coffee is still cradled in his hands, as if nothing whatsoever were out of the ordinary. "If it's any comfort, I've been working on tracking these things for six years, and I'm still surprised on a regular basis. There are always new things; we learn as we go."
"So what if you have more defenses against these kinds of things?" Asks Alex with a grunt. "Doesn't feel right for me to just stand back and watch." Yeah, he's pouting. He starts bringing up a stack of pancakes up towards his mouth--
And the hand doing the work stops in place, leaving the boy frozen in place for a few seconds with the pancakes just inches away from his wide-open mouth. Slooooowly, his eyes turn sidewards, until they can't move any further, and he has to turn his head alongside them to make up for it. And he looks at Kazuo.
"WAH?!" He lets out in surprise, and the pancakes get dropped back on the plate before he turns himself around along with the chair he's on to face the Henshin'd man. "Wha--?!"
"That would be an example of Kunzite, which is current, versus Kazuo, which was before." Naru comments as she ensures the last bit of her pancake has the last bit of syrup from her plate. Clearly, she too is of the 'explaining things' side of things. Mostly.
"I am pretty sure you are even less capable than I am about the 'standing back and watching', when there's a fight going on, so I'm not worried about /that/. We just need to find you new tactics to take your strengths and leverage them against stuff you don't usually fight." Naru has finally had enough, taking her plate and adding it to Kyouko's and running water to start doing dishes.
"I think we can discount the 'just see these things when it's too late' theory," Kunzite says, as deadpan as Kazuo always is, and takes a drink of his coffee. "You reacted the first time you looked at me, not the third or fourth. So you merely haven't been encountering too much since you started seeing more clearly. That's not a bad thing; it means you have more time than Naru did to adjust and try to work out what you can accomplish in a crisis."
%R"I... Guess that's reassuring...?" Alex mumbles uncertainly over Kunzite's estimation, with a few confused blinks still sent towards the man before turning his gaze at NAru. "Somehow I get the feeling it's not going to be that simple. ... But what do I know, I guess? I haven't really... faced anything liket hat properly."
"Good thing." Naru agrees with a nod on Alex noticing Kunzite straight off, giving a squirt of dishsoap into the water. "Tokyo's been mostly quiet. So there's not been much to see, rather than you not seeing it. Very different."
Naru waves a sudsy hand as she reaches for plates. "Nothing's simple, but the principle is the same. Working out tactics before you're reduced to screaming and beating Wraiths with a school bag is a good thing. Something I should be doing too, if my skills have settled and I get some energy back."
There is an argument to be made here for immediately warning Alex that most monsters will shrug off, or not even notice, attacks from most humans. Kunzite does not give that warning. "We could work on that problem," he says, "but not without Daisuke or Mamoru here. Another time. Not immediately after pancakes."
He considers something else Naru said for a moment, then adds toward Naru, "Speaking of getting energy back. I confirm that you're not at present leaking it the way we talked about before. Improvement."
"Mamoru loaned his gloves to me that one time," Alex notes with a thoughtful wrinkles of his nose, upon Kazuo mentioning him. "I could touch that shadow thing at the park with those. I dunno, maybe something like those could help. Somehow. I'll just have to rely on my brain otherwise." For once, he takes a much calmer bite of pancake, there.
His attention turns to Naru, suddenly with a considerably more concerned expression. "Leaking?"
"Improvement." Naru agrees with Kunzite although she wrinkles her nose. "Although I suspect I know where its going, and it's not much of an improvement. Depending on how much its taking."
Naru mmms to Alexis as she washes plates and rinses them and sets them to dry. "When I got back from Europe, effectively I was leaking magical energy everywhere. I couldn't sense it, generally, but others could. Including monsters looking for a snack. It's finally stopped, or at least has stopped presently. Which might be a few things. It's good to know, though. I can't sense it, myself. Not in my power set."
"Whereas, in some senses, I'm a walking battery," Kunzite says casually aside to Alexis. "A thing that becomes irritating when Mamoru pushes his Pokemon Go sessions too long and his phone runs out of charge; I have to remind him I only carry actual electricity when someone's tried to hit me with lightning recently."
"So that's why you were being attacked by everything and it's dog?" Alex wagers out loud, after another smaller bit of pancake. He's apparently decided to eat in a much more restrained manner now. KAzuo, on the other hand, gets a wry smile from him. "...I'll keep that in mind. For your benefit."
"Its one theory, yes." Naru nods to Alexis at his guess. "Currently the theory that's winning. The question on the table, and we won't know for a little while yet, is if I've actually got it under control on my own, or are my nightmares just draining more than I have been leaking out." Naru sounds calm, even curious about this speculation.
Another plate on the rack and Naru eyes the state of Alexis' plate and Kunzite's plate, if he ever got around to eating. "Currently I spend most fights desperately hoping I've enough energy to do anything, and if I do, that I can figure out how on /earth/ to be useful."
Kunzite relaxes the effort; there's a silent crackle of light across his body, and where it passes it's back to the jeans and white shirt again. Naru's eyeing results in Kazuo thus pacing across to actually retrieve pancakes. There is no fork involved; after he's taken his plate (finally) and dragged a couple onto it (also finally), he rolls one and picks it up as fingerfood. Barbarian, obviously. "It'll be interesting to find out," he says. "We should make sure to have a couple of people nearby you for future ventures, though. In case it is the nightmare, in which case you might have unwelcome visitors on waking."
He's good at reassuring people.
%R"You have a whole toolbox at your disposal from what I've understood," Alex points out to Naru. "I think the trick is just going to be in figuring out which tool is going to be the most useful to pull out at any given time." He follows her gaze down to his plate, and then back up at her, and... He sticks the fork through the entire stack of pancakes, and shoves them all WHOLESALE into his mouth, going all chipmunk. How on earth he manages to do this without choking is anyone's guess. At least his plate is now empty!
"I also can't do that smoothly yet." Naru gestures a wet hand at Kunzite returning to being Kazuo and she shakes her head. "Again, energy and conservation and it just not being a great week for experimentation."
Naru considers Kazuo's warm fuzzy sentiments and then nods. "I've yet to wake up with anything physically present, no matter how awful the dream was, or how awful I've felt afterwards. So it seems unlikely, but we've also gone and pissed it off. Although as the best sleep I've had in a while was falling asleep on Alex, on the couch here, I suspect on some level having people around is very reassuring, even if the stuff in my dreams generally seems to stay in my dreams."
"Actually that's the problem. I've so many options, that in a fight, I end up paralysed trying to choose something." Naru nods to Alex and then quirks her head as he empties his plate in one fell swoop. "It wasn't a challenge, I was just seeing if they were ready for washing yet." She laughs at his chipmunk cheeks. "You're a goof." It's declared with utter fondness.
Kazuo takes a moment to chew and swallow his bite of pancake roll, and take a sip of coffee afterward. One bite. One sip. He studies Alexis a moment longer while doing this, and then asks Naru, "He's German, isn't he? Are you certain he doesn't have Canadian relatives?" There's just a flicker of his eyes off in the direction of Nephrite's cave. Er. Room. Yes, room.
"Mmmphmmphmph" is all Alex manages to sound out in protest to both Naru and Kazuo while his mouth is still full of PANCAKE. It takes a while, but he does eventually manage to swallow it all down with a heavy, audible sound. "I imagine it'll come with experience," he offers to Naru once his mouth has been cleared. "You kind of start thinking and registering things faster when you're more often in fast-paced situations."
"And no, no canadians."
"To the best of my knowledge.." Naru starts and then Alexis manages to clear his mouth enough to answer and she nods. "See? No Canucks. Bears, that I might believe." She reaches for his plate, seeing as how it did accomplish the finishing of breakfast in one fell messy swoop.
"When the plant thing was there, I have to admit to just going back to an old faithful. Easier than coming up with anything else, and I was really surprised it worked." Naru goes back to washing plates and mixing bowl and cutlery.
"Bears would account for enough shared ancestry to explain it," Kazuo agrees. He manages not to ask about the old faithful. For the moment. Somehow. After all, Alex is pancake-free at present; he may as well do the talking. Kazuo pays attention to his own for a moment, instead.
"I'm *fairly* certain I don't have any bears in my family tree either," Alex protests with a huff. Beat. "...The scandal that would result from that and how my parents would take it would probably be pretty hilarious if that was the case, though." Peeking to NAru, he guesses, "Spraycan-flamethrower?"
"Well of course they'd never /admit/ it, all hush hush and family honour and the like." Naru comments with a grin on the topic of bear ancestry, a little giggle emerging.
"Half right." Naru laughs. "Flamethrower yes, but please.. I like a better flamethrower than a spraycan and a zippo. It was the most complicated thing I've drawn out and had work though, which is pretty cool." She adds after dropping a few more clean pieces of cutlery. "Works well on plants. Not great for the floor."
"Obviously we employed insufficient foresight when we waterproofed the new floor instead of fireproofing it," Kazuo says blandly. "Next time." Because easily-sanitized plastic-coated mosaic isn't good for enough contingencies.
"..." Alex stares at Kazuo. For a few seconds. And then he sloooooooooooowly, like clockwork, turns his head towards Naru, instead.
"...Did you burn the apartment?"
"I was impressed at how well the scorch marks came up off the store's flooring, actually. The attack was down in the store, not up in the apartment. Which is good, the store flooring is by law more flame redardant than household stuff is." Naru comments with a grin. "I think you guys are safe from me flamethrowing in the new aparment. That's Zoi's job, not mine."
Naru sets the last of the current dishes, clean, into the drying rack and dries off her hands before coming to lean on Alexis lightly. "I am tempted to make today utter indulgent and aim for a nap soon. See if the very aura of this apartment helps with getting more sleep."
"Well," Kazuo says. "In fairness, neither Naru nor Zoisite was responsible for the largest set of scorch marks."
Did we mention that he's good at reassuring?
"You remind me, Naru. One question before you nap. No trouble with the inventory?"
"Do you need me to be a nap-accessory?" Asks Alex wryly of Naru, with an equally-wry smile flashing out briefly. Ugh, lovey-dovey people. Though that doesn't stop him from sending another pair of suspicious glances at the both of them. "... You guys worry me sometimes, you know that?"
"I'm hardly going to protest you as a nap accessory, and I suppose you haven't slept yet /either/." Naru comments to Alex and smiles. "Then I wont feel bad for sleeping on you while you're bored."
Naru shakes her head to Kazuo at his question. "No problem with the inventory, nothing unexpected on the security cameras either. None of our stock was touched. Which does make it a quesiton on if it was actually random, of if she was targeted because of me. Which .. well.. no clue and no way of finding that out, unless there's some epic monologue later."
A kiss for Alex's cheek. "We worry me too, a lot of the time." Naru notes to him. Also not so much with the reassuring.
"Good to know I'm doing my job," Kazuo says, apparently unworried, and takes his own plate and cup to the sink. "And good to hear on the inventory. Neither random chance nor something looking for you is a particularly good or satisfying answer, but it's an improvement over 'working for a psychopathic mage-murderer with unknown goals.'" Because that won't worry Alex. No.
The cheek-kiss is met from Alex by way o his arm reaching over and around Naru to pull her into a squeeze against him, briefly. "Maybe one day I'll be able to keep up with you all," he murmurs, chuckling behind the words. "Even if I don't have magi--" Oh good. Kazuo breaks him from THAT thought with the most FITTING sentence, too. "... One day."
"He was pretty solid on his goals about taking over the earth and being royalty of the galaxy, and so on and so forth, yadda yadda. I told him to get in line." Naru reminds Kunzite. "Which argues for random alien meglomaniac rather than psychopathic mage-murderer."
Kazuo does not have a monopoly on the casually worrisome phrases.
"But in either case, nap time." Naru notes as she leans into the squeeze from Alex, brief as it is, and heads off towards the guest room that Naru, and often Alex too, ends up in most often.
Honest. Doesn't live here.