It's the end of November and soon the start of December. It's getting cold enough for heavier jackets finally. In fact. It dares to dust snow today. Not a full on snow storm-- the forecast didn't call for that- but it's that light dust that coats everything in a thin film before it melts. Proper snow is only a couple weeks in the making most likely.
Lacrima doesn't wear a heavy jacket. Or winter wear. She looks entirly out of place in her skirt and usual floral blouse and doesn't even look a little uncomfortable.
She realizes this makes her look out of place fast as she curses to herself. Stupid weather. She can't even /feel/ the change in external temperature. It's just always 'cold' like it's always been 'cold' to her.
Thusly she is on her way back from downtown with a bag in tow from some sort of clothing outlet downtown- probably Fairy Drop Fashionables.
She's taken to a break on a bench and has a seat a moment.
She wishes Umbrellas look in place in the snow. She misses umbrellas. She wants umbrellas back. So so very much.
She can /hide/ under them from people.
In the meantime, Alex doesn't really, on the surface, look that much more dressed differently for the colder weather outside of the dark-red scarf coiled around his neck. He's still wearing the same, ever-present brown leather jacket, but once one gets closer, the thicker shirt underneath it likely becomes more apparent. Layers are a thing, yo.
The foreigner wanders along the park, now, for... whatever reason he has for wandering places in general, actually. He might be lost. The somewhat dull and glazed expression over his face certainly might suggest he doesn't really care all that much about *where* he is actually walking.
It's to a point where he doesn't even immediately notice the presence of a certain Hugpire in much less clothing than would be nominally required for the weather. Not even when he is actually about to walk past her on the same path her chosen bench has been set to.
Lacrima is sort of staring forward into the distance. She's not concentrating on anyone in particular. That's typically a bad thing for her to do. At least right now it is. Shapes and colors of people come and go past her and she's more than happy to ignore everyone.
It's when someone she actually knows passes by her vision that she sort of breaks out of her semi-reverie and her head turns to follow Alexis. She immediatly sets to her feet and follows him a bit before she makes an effort to actually catch up and try to get besides him.
"Hello Alexis-kun." she says flatly in her typical deadpan manner. "How are you today?" she asks. "The weather is cold." she says- like this was a new fact she's telling Alexis.
"Soon the ponds will be thick enough to ice skate on." she says.
"Do you ice skate, Alexis?" she asks.
Alex most certainly doesn't notice her following after him. And he's usually so surprisingly observant about his surroundings, too. Did something change?
It's when he is directly spoken to, however, that he comes to a stop, blinks in surprise, and directs his head to the side, and then down, to peer at Lacrima. Albeit his gaze is still sort of... dulled, for some reason.
"...What?" Maybe his mind is too, considering that response. "I... Yeah I guess so, but... no... Um..." His eyes travel down from her face, to take hte rest of her in, and his brows burrow downwards slightly. "... Aren't you cold?"
So he noticed too. "No. I don't get cold." she says flatly. He already knows the deal with her- in the 'magical' sense- so she doesn't explain. "- or rather, I am always cold so I don't feel much colder than I did when it was the spring and summer." she says softly.
"I realize this makes me look out of place today and went to buy some more season-like clothes." she says.
"...since I left most of my wardrobe at home..." she says. "I mean. Real home. Not where I'm living right now." she says quietly.
She head tilts. "I didn't know how to figure skate until early last year. We were supposed to do a small figure skate recital at Seiyou." she says.
"But then. Well."
"The stuff happened." she says.
"...Right. Of course..." Alex turns his eyes forward again, and he slowly sets himself into forward motion again -- though slower so, perhaps for the benefit of Lacrima's shorter legs. "Sorry. I should have... Yeah."
"Stuff happened," he repeats after her, then. "Even with how alien the things with all of you seem to me, at least that sounds so familiar. Sounds like it means the same thing."
She seems to consider this. "I guess it's not much different." she says. "Then catching some sort of disease. or obtaining a disability. So things stop." she says flatly.
"Though I suppose diseases and disability don't make you act irrationally and throw ice skates at people in frustration because you think starving yourself of...."
"'Food'".
"Is a good idea." she says flatly.
"Mainly that's what got me kicked out of the Dance Club." she frowns. "That day." she says.
"I mean. I don't blame them... if that hit home..."
"Well Ice Skates have blades of course." she says flatly.
"But not like I was thinking about that at the time." she says.
"But you know about getting into fights a lot, I'm sure." she says.
"...Yeah," Alex lets out in a sigh. "They don't. The scale kind of goes up with things of that nature, don't they?" He closes his eyes, briefly, and though she can't necessarily tell as much with his gloved hands stuck in his pockets, he squeezes them into tight fists briefly. "...For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry."
Her last words draw him to drop his gaze down to the ground before him, and frown faintly. "I guess I do," he admits. "That's the 'stuff' with me when 'stuff happens', I guess. I'm not... Not really sure why, anymore. It just... kind of happens. Maybe at some point it just became natural, regardless of the reasons for it." ... He sure is getting awfully introspective here, with her around.
Lacrima head tilts. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do this to me. Did you?" she asks. "No. You did not." she says as she head tilts a little bit in her usual stilted manner as she does as she purses her lips.
"Yes. It's a shock at first. But it quickly.... becomes second nature too. 'The stuff'." she says.
"The first month is the roughest. I was pretty sure I was either going crazy or it was a nightmare." she says.
"When I didn't wake up in a month I just assumed it was real at that point." she says in a manner that suggests it's a lighthearted joke- or was meant to be, but her flat tone makes it difficult to convey.
She head tilts. "Have you had many problems with the stuff recently?" she asks.
"I didn't, no," Alex agrees, and now he stops walking along, and slowly turns to face her properly. "But I can still... feel sorry, you know? For you. Because I understand how bad it is, and... well..." His lips purse briefly. "Because I wish things were better for you."
he sighs quietly, either way, and slowly turns forward again, to walk in that same slower pace, after her question. "A little," he says. "But... just my own stuff. Nothing like yours, or... everyone else's."
Lacrima head tilts. "What stuff?" she asks. "Tell me. Do you feel things? Fell different? Having strange dreams?" she asks curiously. "You don't feel any different than last time we met." she says.
"A friend of mine went to a miko to sort his issue out. He ended up being told to avoid 'dark influences' and had a charm of sorts stamped on his head. The kind mikos use. I don't know what they're called." she says.
"Aparently the miko thought some sort of dark fate would befall him." she says.
"Of course. He still talks with me and seeks me out on occasion so I don't think he's following the advice." she says in that manner that suggests more of a joke than seriousness again. But so hard to tell.
She head tilts. "So what is it you're having issues with?" she asks.
"It's... hard to explain," Alex claims first, but he comes to a stop again, slowly, with his head hanging downwards. "I don't know. Maybe I just don't know why I do the things I do anymore. It's not that I feel different. I don't think I do, anyway. Not in like... you know, that sort of way."
"I've just bene thinkign a lot, is all." Teenage angst then, perhaps? Huh.
"...And, well." He shifts his weight slowly from one foot to another, akwardly. "I might have... gotten suspended from my school after I smashed this one rapey jerk's head through a sink. ... That kind of stuff."
Lacrima head tilts. "I know all about jerks like that. Utau-chan taught me how to get thier attention in clubs. They decide to follow you into the alley. That's when you turn and--- well. Drain them." she says.
"That was only fun when Utau-chan had time though." she says. "I don't... do that well. Alone." she says.
"I seem out of place enough alone as it is at times." she says.
She head tilts. "What's right to you isn't right to others. I still need to attack people and drain people. Do I like it? No. But it isn't wrong for me to eat. I need to. Or else worse things will happen." she says.
"If you feel it's right to fight and punch people for reasons like that. Then. Maybe it is. And maybe other people are wrong." she says.
"Just because a lot of people belive something doesn't make it right." she insists.
"I think the difference is helped by how much of them you drain too, right?" Alex suggests, turning to look over to the girl again. "I could probably stop a lot earlier, too. I could probably deal with them without... hurting them as much as I did him earlier. He had to be taken to the hospital, you know. I... well..." His eyes close there. "I could have stopped."
Lacrima head tilts. "But you didn't." she says. "You were probably angry." she says.
"Which is probably no different then when I'm feral. I just. Drain. and Drain. Indiscrimantly. Until I feel better/come back to rationality." she says.
"-and then I wonder what I just did because I don't quite remember things when I get that bad." she says.
"Which is why it's important I do feed. I don't kill people. I drain until they fall unconcious. Primarily because they barely remember what happened when they woke up." she says.
"It's better that way." she says.
"That's how I met Naru, you know." she says. "She fell for a trap of mine. And I drained her. But she started..."
"Talking?... Talking. To me. And it was strange. Because no one ever really talks to me during the act- they tend to just yell and scream bloody murder." she says.
"I left her on her feet. Because she asked nicely. It was strange." she says.
He considers her, in complete silence, for a moment. Not just while he listens ot her speak, but for a few seconds after.
And then... he smiles. "I think that says a lot about you, you know," he murmurs. "And it's a good thing, too."
He finally draws one gloved hand from his pocket, and reaches it over, setting it down upon her shoulder to give it a small squeeze -- one that speaks of assurance, and maybe just a little bit of affection, too.
"Just because you don't have a choice about the way you are," he says. "Doesn't mean you don't have a choice about a lot of other things. Doesn't mean you're not a good person."
Lacrima isn't able to feel assured very well, but she gets the gist of 'placing hand on shoulder while saying comforting thing', because it was familiar to her before the whole vampire thing.
It's easier when she has a baseline.
She purses her lips. "I appreciate that." she says.
"Lots of people are upset at me because I don't 'target' certain kinds of people to feed from." she says.
"It isn't easy to find 'crimes in action'." she says. "and it isn't like I can put off feeding until I find someone like that." she says.
"Recently. Someone was... helping me. By. Feeding me. but. She started to suffer for it." she says. "...like making herself tired and suspectible to getting sick." she says.
"I tried to... ask her to stop. But she kept more or being insistent. It's not like I'm in a position to say no."
"Eventually she listend to her actual friends and agreed to cut back, albiet, not stop all together." she says.
"It was nice, for a bit, not to have to go out and attack people." she says.
"I think she thinks she can 'fix me'." she says. "Even though I told her repeatedly that isn't possible."
"Can you blame her for hoping she could, though?" Asks Alex in turn, after he's drawn his hand away from her shoulder. "I mean. That's how people tend to be, when it comes to those they consider their friends. Want to do good thigns for them. Want for things to be good for them, when they're having a bad time."
"Even if it might be impossible... Even when she comes to realize that... Well..." He rolls one shoulder around.
"She still gets to wish and dream."
"That's what we do. Dream. And that's fine too, you know?"
Lacrima frowns and head tilts again. "Yes. But she's too invested in it." she says. "When you get invested in things that are doomed to failure, you're just set for dissapointment." she frowns.
"I don't understand why someone would /choose/ that." she says. "I don't have a choice in what I feel a lot of. Why /choose/ to feel that?" she asks with confusion.
She sighs and just shakes her head a bit as she stops a bit and looks up toward's the grey sky.
"I might try skating again this year." she says. "Natsumi-chan probably would want to go as it is." she says. "and she'd want me to be along." she says.
She head tilts. "So when will you be going back to school?" she asks.
"Well... The thing about that is..." Alex goes on then, and reaches his hand up to tap it against the left side of his chest. "We don't actually *get* to choose, you know? We just... sort of do."
"Because that's just how our feelings work. We... Feel things because we just do, and that ends up driving what we think, and the things we want to do."
"WELL..." Her last question leaves him a little akward, and apparently he decides now is a good tiem to start walking again. "... I don't know. I don't even know if I will go to the *same* school, when I do."
Lacrima head tilts. "Oh?" she asks. "Which school do you think you'll end up going to? A bootcamp maybe?" she asks. "Are your parents that upset with you yet to send you to a strict finishing school?" she asks.
"My parents almost sent me to one of those last year. A fancy place." she says. "Not..because I was probably or anything. Just. You know. Parents." she mutters.
"I wanted to stay at Seiyou. Given what happened. I figure that was a good choice." she says.
She frowns. "We don't all get to choose what we feel but some can choose while others cannot." she says.
She sighs a bit and head tilts. "Do you like the snow, Alexis?" she asks, motioning to the weather. "I like the snow. and winter. Even before things were different." she says.
"There's just something quiet. About winter. Did you ever notice?" she asks.
"I honestly do not know," Alex murmurs, and lets out a quiet sigh. He... Actually seems rather troubled about it. "I... Guess there is a certain school I'd like to go to, but I don't know if that would happen. Mf."
He considers her words of the snow, and then casts his eyes over the ground surrounding them. It might just be dust, but it is still somewhat white, the ground. "Yeah," he eventually breathes out, in agreement. "We had a lot of snow in north Germany, actually. Not as much as they did further north in Denmark, but still... Plenty snow. It's... Nice. It somehow makes everything feels bright, too."
Lacrima purses her lips in thought. "Bright I guess is true." she says. "But there's also lots of people that see it as a nusicane. And admittedly, it is. It has to be shoved out of the way and put to the side, despite looking pretty." she says.
"And as much as I like the snow, I would like to get to downtown without having to climb endless snowbanks." she says.
She head tilts. "What school is that?" she asks softly. "Is it here in Tokyo? or another country?" she asks.
"There's plenty of places in Tokoyo to go to school." she insists.
"It isn't really much use being grumpy about the snow, I feel like," Alex says then, with a roll of his shoulders. "It happens every year anyway, if you live in a place that gets it in the first place. It's just... something you have to accept, and prepare for, you know?"
He turns his expression just a BIT sheepish when she asks him about the school, however. "Well... Um. Seishou, actually... It's the next closest school from where I live anyway..."
Lacrima purses her lips. "I guess that's a way to look at it." she says softly, about the snow as she head tilts when she hears Alexis's school of choice and she immediatly replies with.
"Ah, Naru-chan's school." she says pointedly. Like that was the reason Alexis wanted to go there. She's probably right, she bets, too. But she doesn't make a big show of it.
"Seiyou was closer to where I lived." she says quietly. "So that's why I went there." she says.
"Getting kicked out of a private school is a big deal, though." she says. "Though that probably won't stop you from getting into a public school." she says.
"It just means you come with an expected reputation of either being dumb or a problem or both." she says.
"Not that you are any of those things." she says.
"But I've heard teachers talk before."
He just sort of laughs akwardly when she makes her guess about his reasonings. Perhaps that's a good sign of how right she was, too.
"I don't... really particularly care what people around me think," he says then, with a grunt punctuating the sentence. "I'm probably plenty of a problem, but whatever. ... The worst thing I can imagine happening, anyway, is that my parents send me out of the country."
"I never really felt like I belonged anywhere with how much I was constantly dragged along the world my parents, you know, but..." He purses his lips. "...Somehow, here has felt... at least a little better."
Lacrima nods. "Tokyo is odd. Isn't it?" she asks. "Given it's... 'magic' problem. I've asked about other places over the world and Tokyo is /really/ active compared to other places that--- have thier problems but nowhere as widespread or as common." she says. "That's according to the people I work with at least." she says.
She head tilts. "At least. There should be less 'creeps' at Seishou." she says.
"That you'd need to fight regularly." she says a little more coyly.
"I really wouldn't know about that," Alex points out, sheepishly. "Mostly because I didn't even find out about... you know, magic and things, until relatively recently."
He considers the prospects of fighting at Seishou, however, and.. scowls. "I dunno. Public schools... well." He sighs. "Kinda tend to be less hard on the prospects of... thugs and the like, you know?"
Lacrima nods. "Yes." she says. "Money corrupts. It's how it is." she says. "People think they can do anything, get away with anything because of it." she says. "But Money is false power. It does a good job. But it won't protect you- or defend you or get your point across to... well. Creatures. And things that want to devour the world. And some of my associates." she says.
"Public school is where people with not a lot of money go. So therefore, there are less problems." she says.
"Not that, I am rich, or was rich. But we were better off than some others." she says.
"I've had chances for places like that and passed them up." she says. "And nowadays my... erm..."
"Job of sorts." she says.
"Pays me enough to have nice things. I don't particularly want more than that because nice things don't nessacrily make me feel better. Except. Certain things do." she says.
"Like dressing up..." she purses her lips. "Makes me feel comfortable. Depending."
"I think the problem is that greed for money can very easily persist in people who aren't well off." Alex winces at the thought. "I've seen it in people before. ... A lot of people, actually. I... Kind of feel guilty for being born to parents who are as rich as they are, honestly..."
He eyes her curiously upon the mention of dressup, however. He might even seem surprise. "Really," he lets out, quietly. "What else do you like to do?"
Lacrima head tilts a little. "You shouldn't feel guilty for being fortunate. It's when you take it for granted when you should feel guilty." she says quietly.
She head tilts. "Huh...?" she asks.
She furrows her brow a bit in thought. "I dunno. I like.. dancing." she says. "I don't mean. Like. At a school dance. Performance dancing. That's why I was in dance club." she says softly.
"Not that dancing with a partner isn't enjoyable." she says with a soft little nod. "But there is a difference between how the two are done. One is for the enjoyment of two people, the other is for the enjoyment of a crowd." she says.
"...and eating." she says.
"It's the one major.. well... 'human thing' I can still do without much change. Things still taste like they used to." she says quietly.
"You did seem to like those donuts a lot, yes." Alex twits his lips into a wider, wiiiide grin.
"To be fair, though, they really were damn tasty. So there's that."
He considers everything else she has said, however, for a few seconds of silence, and then, perhaps surprisingly, asks, "Do you still dance?"
Lacrima head tilts. "No." she says. "I kind of..."
"...when I was..."
"Going though the inital...trouble I had. With what I am now... I didn't want to feed. And I was. irrational. A lot." she says.
"I ended up... doing. And saying. A lot of things I didn't mean." she says. "I'm barely in control when I'm near starving like that. It's easy for me to be a hair trigger then." she says quietly.
"So I.. kind of. Ruined my chances with a lot of dance studios. And.. I don't Go to school. In the meantime and-- even if I did. I'm also barred from the Dance Club anyways." she says quietly.
Alex's expression twists to something slightly sadder again, from hearing that much. It's perhaps best described as sympathy, for Lacrima's sake.
"Well..." He breathes out, and steps closer to her to set a hand onto her shoulder again. "Maybe we can figure out something else?" He murmurs, with a smile edging back to his face that speaks more of warmth, again. "If there really is no place where you can continue dancing, then maybe we can find something else for you that you will enjoy. Yeah? I mean..."
"Everyone deserves to be allowed to pursue happiness."
Lacrima frowns. "You know I can't feel happy, right?" she asks. "I know when I should be happy. Because I remember it." she says. "But the closest I get is 'comfortable'. Or... um..." she says.
"Amused?... but not.. all the way. Like. Lightly. Amused." she says quietly.
"I'm sorry. It's hard for me to explain. These things." she says quietly.
"I understand what you mean." she says quietly. "Eilam-kun has been trying to help me too. But. Anything I can try. I'd just mess up." she says.
"I understand that," Alex allows, squeezing her shoulder lightly in that same sort of way he did before. "But... You still want nice things for yourself, in spite of that, yes?" The hands drawn awya from her, then. "And don't say that, okay? Thinking that... Regardless of how true it might have been before? It just ends up making it be that way in the future, too. You know what I mean?"
Lacrima head tilts. "But that won't change in the future either. I'm not.. trying to. Disuade you. Or.. persuade myself. it's just how it is." she says quietly. "But I'll stop insisting it, if it will make you more comfortable." she laments a little.
She purses her lips. "I should. Get back to the manor. And get my clothes sorted out." she says softly as she sighs a bit.
"It was pleasent talking to you, Alexis-kun." she says.
She begins to speed up a little to get ahead to make her way to the bus stop, unless Alexis makes a concentrated effort to stop her.
"It's... not really about making me comfortable," insists Alex. He frowns, in a bit of a deeper measure than even before. Perhaps he is wondering if he said something particularly wrong, this time around.
And then she's speeding on off away. "Ah--" He manages in a surprised reaction, and lifts one hand upwards, halfway so, before lowering it down again. "... Take care of yourself," he murmurs in just as much of a half-way measure. She might not even hear him.
Goddamnit, Alex.