The upside to Alex being suspended from school is that he no longer needs an excuse to be out and about. ANd thus he can drive his bike over to Seishou whenever Naru gets off, herself -- and give her a ride wherever she wishes to be going.
Today that destination happens to be the ECFH -- which, let's be honest, it has been quite often lately.
So, the familiar rumble of a Suzuki engine echoes along the street to preface the bike carring two people rolling to a stop by the building, and once the engine has been killed and the support leg kicked down, Alex doth raise his helmet up off of his head, to peer upwards along the length of hte building, murmuring out "You think anyone's home right now?".
"More often than not, ECFH, really. Still, Naru isn't about to balk at even a short ride, especially now that the snow is melting again.
"Probably someone is home." Naru replies as she takes her helmet off. "Someone is almost always home. If they emerge to be social, that's whole different matter." She reaches for his hand. "Although doesn't much matter, I've got a key. I'm also hoping that we don't need to go back out for groceries if we want to make food, cause I'm starving."
"WIth how big that fridge of theirs is, I'm pretty sure there's *something*," wagers Alex before he unspools himself from atop the bike, taking Naru's reaching hand into his own after that motion is over. "But I guess there's only one way to find that out, innit?" He tugs lightly at her hand, then, and starts leading her to the front door of the building, and assumably the elevator.
"Well, there's five of them that live there, and an awful lot of us who kinda half live there. The fridge is a busy place." Naru laughs softly as they head up to the apartement. No jumping, just a nice normal elevator ride and a friendly wave to the concierge as they pass.
The apartment, after Naru unlocks the door, is indeed quiet. If people are home, they're hiding well. Probably studying or sleeping, or generally just hiding. "What are you up to tonight?" Naru asks as she divests herself of shoes and coat and helmets and school bags.
"You ask that like I might have actually thought that far ahead," Alex points out wryly, pausing after going through the door only to rid himself of his boots and the helmet. The jacket remains on him, though, just like usual. Naru probably wouldn't expect any other way.
"Let's go see if we can't find anything from the fridge, huh?" The german suggests, then, as he steps aside Naru and reaches over to ruffle his hand over the top of her head. "And then maybe talk abotu some drawings?"
"I figured when it was mere hours, I had a hope." Naru teases as she ducks away from the tousling of her hair with a soft laugh and heads for the kitchen.
There /is/ food in the fridge, as there always is, and she pulls out rolls and meat and greenery and spreads for what clearly is going to become sandwiches. This kitchen has rapidly become just as familiar as her own, for all that Naru cooks almost as much in it as she does at home. "What kind of drawings?"
"THe kind of drawings," Alex says, once he's settled in the general counter area of the kitchen -- in case *someone* needs *someone else* to take advantage of their tallness. "That become reality. You're very well acquintanced. ... I was actually wondering. Can you draw... clothes?"
"So not exactly another mural commission." Naru quips as she starts putting together sandwiches for both of them. She considers and then reaches over to put the kettle on, while she's at it. Mugs will require tallness.
"I've never tried, but it seems solidly within the realm of what I can draw, yes." Naru nods and then mmms a moment. "They don't generally stay around forever, though. Minutes to hours, although I /think/ I can change that, but I haven't made it work except for once, and that was before I had any real control over what I was doing. So not a good option for a new wardrobe."
"Well, that's kind of a shame," says Alex with a rueful sigh -- otherwise watching over Naru while she moves around the kitchen. JUST IN CASE.
"Back with that thing with... whatever card that messed around in your apartment," he goes on, then. "The towel was able to resist the thing's ability -- at least in the sense that hse couldn't go through it, and she couldn't make it go through other things. So I thought-- maybe drawn clothes would help provide some kind of resistance to all the bull that is going on. And clothes would be easiest to have on hand at all times anyway..."
"But if they're very temporary, that idea kinda goes out the door, innit?"
"Well. Things so far have been." Naru hunhs softly. "If I can work on their longevity, then I might only have to draw them for you periodically. Even if they only last a day or two, it'd be useful." There's thoughtful consideration there and a slow nod.
The rueful little smile comes as Naru looks over to him. "I'm only learning my powers, so hey.. don't take anything I say as carved in stone. I might be able to do more than I think. Or less in places, or just different. I don't know what all I can do, or not."
"I /do/ like the idea of imbuing my magic into something for you, though." Naru laughs softly and offers him a sandwich. "Clearly we need to spend more time together. That's /totally/ it."
"If it helped at all with my survivability against magic things and people... well..." He steps closer to her, then, when she offers the sandwich, and upon taking it, he leans down closer still to press his lips lightly against her forehead. "...You wouldn't have to worry about me as much, either, right?"
After leaning back from that, he allows a small, genuinely warm smile to spread over his lips, offered just for her in that moment. "You know. Depending on how that power grows, or how you manage to refine it... You probably have something very incredible at your disposal. You know that, right?"
Naru leans up a little into that soft kiss and there's just a touch of a contented sigh. "I'm still going to worry about you, but no.. not quite as much." She acknowledges.
The warm smile is met with another in return as Naru starts making her own sandwich. "When I think of it as the fact that I can pull things out of nothing, it's .. pretty mindboggling." She wrinkles her nose a bit. "When I have a violent psycho bitch lobbing bombs at my friends and I'm only really useful at shepherding civillians away? It's hard to be quite as enamoured. Hands down, I've usee it to make weapons more than everything else combined. For myself or someone else who needed one."
"Clear head might drive you pretty far even in those things," says Alex, and he sets the sandwich aside for the time being, so that he can go stand behind Naru while she's stacking the sandwich, drawing his arms down around her waist there. "It can be just a matter of what is needed at any given time, and figuring out. Kyouko might have said that what matters is more how it made, but... I'm not so inclined to believe that. One thing I've learned during my years, through all the fights I've been? Everyone has a weakness, and there's always a tool better than others for any given job."
"The trick is in figuring out what those are, and getting to a point where they can be made use of."
Naru's hands pause in their sandwich making as Alex comes around behind her. She leans against him, petite enough to nestle up against him as he wraps his arms around her waist and not even bump his chin with her head as she does. It's a deliciously comforting sensation, to be wrapped up in the warmth of another.
"It feels as if I don't yet have go-to tricks with my powers, things that I know often work, so I am eternally flailing in a fight to think of 'what can I do here?', rather than having any instincts to go on yet." Naru explains with a little nod of her head, agreeing with him entirely. "You have the fight experience, I have the magic. Apparently we come as a set."
Alex's head dips down again, low enough that he can set a peck of a kiss to the side of her head, there -- and he keepsh is head lowered, too, to remain in nuzzling range, effectively.
"A set," he repeats after Naru, with a quiet, amused chuckle. "Special offer, buy one Naru, get one Alex free of charge?"
There is a significant quantity of cute going on in the kitchen. Not the first, and certainly won't be the last. Naru tips her head, welcoming the touches. There's a soft little giggle at the mention of the bogo offer. "I was more thiking like.. salt and pepper shakers. Better when you have both." She nuzzles lightly, with a smile.
"Yes, well," murmurs Alex with another quiet chuckle, nose rubbing along Naru's hair now, idly. Anyone who is gonna come along is probably going to have a severe case of diabetes after leaving. "I suppose," he murmurs. "Though, ideally... we can get you able to at least think level enough in the middle of things that you won't need me."
"I will never be an effective solo fighter type." Naru points out, food ignored in favour of snuggling and quiet conversation. "I didn't do well alone before, and that hasn't changed just because I can draw differently now. I.. I'm okay with that. Mostly. I'd love to be all 'rawr, I dont need other people', but it's fairly delusional when you dont bring any firepower to the table. I'm still working out how best to support those who /do/. Like Kyouko. Like Jupiter. Like you."
"You are forgetting something very important here, dear," Alex murmurs then, and draws his head up away from her, arms loosening around her too in favor of letting her turn enough to look up at him. "I don't really have any 'firepower' either, by the standards of this world."
Naru turns to be able to look up at him, wrapping her arms around his waist in turn. "Mmm. But by the same logic that makes clothes I draw protective for you, I /hope/ that any weapons I draw for you will also be magically imbued. Which I already have had a base test run of, because Sayaka wasn't transformed, so she wasn't accessing her own magic, but the sword I gave her was effective against the wraiths."
"But that's not my own," Alex points out, then. "I don't have the ability to bring weapons or armor from nothing. I can't jump over skyscrapers. I don't have super speed or strength. Nothing. All I got..." He draws one hand away from her, to slowly bring it up to his head and tap one finger against his temple. "Is just this."
"So in that regard you're already a step above me."
"I can't jump over skyscrapers. I'm not any faster than I was, I don't think, although its hard to tell." Naru points out as she gives him a squeeze. "I can give you armour and weapons, but I'm not much good at doing anything with them myself. You already have those skills." She comes up on tiptoe, to be able to kiss his temple after he taps it, a stretch to be certain. "You've got the instincts. I just make stuff."
"Fights - even just street brawls - usually come down to how you use the tools you have at your disposal," says Alex then, with a shake of his head -- though he does lean to press brief kiss ot her lips after she's leaned up. "You have more tools than I do, is the difference."
"Well, I prefer to make tools for other people." Naru points out, stealing another kiss. Because conversations about street brawling, magical or otherwise, is properly romantic. "I have options, its true, but I'm happier if someone who is better at using them is doing so."
"You know, if I'd had your abilities with me back in Berlin a year ago..." Murmurs Alex quietly, his voice turning to something more of a far-off thought -- looking back to some memory from before he came to Japan, again. "... I'd probably been saved several broken bones, actually. Funny how that works."
"What happened a year ago for you?" Naru asks, watching his expression fondly and then smiling. "This past year has felt like .. well.. both that it's gone on forever, and that it went in a blink. Both at once."
"It... doesn't really matter," murmurs Alex, quietly, and -- just for a second, he turns his eyes away from Naru. They end up on a wall, but... somehow, it feels like, perhaps he is trying to look off to somewhere further away. "...Well. Let's just say there's... a lot of different stories to go around."
"If it still sticks in your mind a year later, it probably does matter." Naru points out quietly, unlooping one of her arms to be able to reach up and brush his cheek lightly with her fingers. "You have lots of stories, and so rarely share them."
"Nah, it's just... fights from another time," Alex insists with anotehr shake of his head -- though this one's a lighter motion, light enough he can just lean his head into her touch this time, after. "Feels like a different lifetime now."
"It sort of is." Naru smiles as she plays with his hair for a change. "For me too, for that matter. No fights, more terribly normal existance without any grasp that my best friend was Sailor Moon. A lot has happened in the last year, New Year's will be so different this year." She leans up to steal another kiss.
The kiss is leaned back into, briefly, before Alex draws his arms away from her, finally, and... actually reaches for the sandwich made for him earlier. "I guess we kind of are at that age where a lot of changes happen, neh?" he points out, with a wry smile. "In a lot of ways."
"Well." Naru considers as food finally wins over snuggling and she turns back to making her own sandwich. "I mean, fifteen to seventeen is pretty dramatic at the best of times. Add in a couple apocolypses and a few weird villians, and I'm going to guess that sixteen is probably going to be just as eventful as fifteen was." She grins at him. "AND I can try for my motorcycle license."
"Oh, you getting boredo f just riding shotgun then, huh?" Alex's smile lights up wider with that still, though -- all flashing white teeth and the lot. Either way, he shuffles his way over to the table, and flops down onto a chair, with the sandwich -- patting a hand to the chair next to him, in wordless invitation.
"I'm not really." Naru has to admit with a sheepish little smile. "I am rather fond of having an excuse to snuggle up to you on the bike, truth be told." Her own sandwich made, Naru considers coffee and then changes her mind to retrieve juice from the fridge. "Want some?" She offers as she comes to the table with it. Yes, to sit next to him. "But I enjoy riding shotgun enough to want to learn."
And the moment she sits down, he reaches over with one hand to teasingly tousle over her hair. Dork that he is. "I'm fine without the juice," he assures her, for the offer. "So you're going to learn just os you can ride when I'm not available, huh?"
"Hey!" Naru protests, although she really doesn't overly mind. She tucks her legs up under her as she pours herself juice and then grins. "Pretty much. Although I don't envision having a bike of my own anytime soon, and I equally don't envision you letting me drive yours, but it sounds like fun to learn. Broader skill set, and all that. Or something. If I /did/ get my own bike, I could go further afield in places to paint."
"Maybe I could sneak some money off my parents and buy one for you as a birthday present," says Alex with a chuckle. He's probably only half-serious about that, though, mind you.
"It probably would not be a good idea to let you even practice with mine," he notes then. "Not because I'm, like... possessive or anything..." Which he kind of is. "But that hting is... really jumpy and quick for beginners, you know?"
"I think the technical term for sneaking money away from your parents, especially at that sort of quanity is 'stealing', my best beloved." Naru points out with a laugh and a shake of her head. "You are not enough older than me to be able to claim that you've been riding for /that/ many years, unless Germany lets you start at like twelve or something." She teases, fully aware that he's possessive. Duh. "So what bike did you start with, if not this one?"
"Well I've had a LOT of practice okay," insists Alex with a quiet scoff-like sound slipping out from his throat briefly -- and he actually reaches over to tousle over her hair again. "A smaller one. With slower acceleration. One that doesn't jump out from under you so easily if you don't got a good grip on the controls."
Naru laughs softly. "Careful. It's going to sound like a challenge soon." She grins brightly but gestures with the hand not holding her food. "As long as you aren't trying to imply that I need a teeny putt putt scooter just because I'm little and a girl. I bet I could manage it if I really had to."
"I ain't saying such thing." Wether or not he's thinking that, though, might be a completely different question for all anyone knows. "And honestly-- bikes like mine *are* actually really hard to manage. They can end up going really fast accidentally, especially with the turns."
"Un hunh." Naru looks sketpical but there's a twist of a smile anyhow. "See? The fast is kind of a feature, all things considered. It feels like flying, without having to be in the air."
"Sure, but see..." Alex makes a vague wiggling gesture in the air with his hand, there. Maybe even he doesn't actually know what that is supposed to mean, let's be honest here. "Actually controlling the speed? That can be... tricky."
"Un hunh." Naru grins brightly. "If it comes up, I'll figure it out." That confidence, that sounds vaguely like 'challenge accepted'.
"So have your parents or have you made any decisions about school? To bring up a topic that'll make you grumpy, but I'm curious anyhow." Naru asks.
"Hoo? Just don't get too headstrong about it, now," Alex warns Naru, with a wide flash of a grin, before he draws his arm over and around her, to tug her against his side, al of a sudden. "Less you end up on your face on the groouuund." Teasing. Most certainly teasing.
The mood immediately turns... well, just as grumpy as she might have expected, on his part, at the change of the subject. Alex's brows burrow down, and he looks off to the side. "... Not yet."
Naru uses the fact that she's suddenly curled up against him to lean up and kiss his jaw, a distraction from the distraction. "Okay." She sets her own food down to wrap an arm around him in return. "It will be alright. It will all sort out." Eternal optimism, right here.
"Me? Headstrong?" Naru blinks up at him, her eyes all wide and innocent in a revert back to motorcycle conversation. "Never!"
"Who knows," Alex mumbles quietly. "For all I know my folks could always end up sending me out of hte country entirely just to spite me."
"...That's the kind of people they are. Business first."
...And then her innocent look is met by... him bringing his finger over to boop at the tip of her nose. "Mmmmhmm. Of course not."
"If they send you out of the country," a familiar deep, calm voice says from the kitchen, "try for Paris."
Naru giggles softly as her nose gets booped and she grins brightly. Which probably isn't helping her 'innocent' case nearly as much as she might hope.
There's no startling on Naru's part as Kunzite's voice echos from not so far away from where there's cute going on. "Ooh! Yes." Naru nods firmly. "Aim for Paris if you end up out of country."
"... Paris smells like pee, though," says Alex to that, with a distinct wrinkle of his nose there, before he looks over to the way of a very certain Kazuo. "... Where were *you* hiding?"
"In which it resembles every other city in the history of man," Kazuo replies. He paces in from the kitchen, coffee in hand, and nods his head back toward the kitchen and the rarely-used hallway out of it. "Other side of the apartment," he says. "The important part is, if you can arrange Paris, we can arrange visitation."
"I.. didn't notice?" Naru hunhs softly as she thinks about that. "I suppose it did. I mean, okay.. depending on where you were, but that was /so/ not my first memory when I think back to Paris." She is still leaned in against Alexis, possibly just a thin veneer of cute going on. "Paris is much easier to get to, though. If not Japan, it's a good section choice."
"No, seriously, it smelled so *particularly* so in comparison to most places I've been," Alex insists to Kunzite with a rapid wave of his hand. "Maybe not in the most common tourist spots? But like... It's like french people just use the streets as bathrooms."
"...What makes it different from other places in that regard, though, anyway?" He asks then. "That it's so much easier to get to from here?"
"Zoisite has a garden there," Kazuo replies to Alexis. He finds his usual spot at one end of one couch, and settles. "With a little work, we can use it as a jumping-off point. Still not something to do every day, it's energy-intensive, but it cuts the transit time significantly. Need to be careful on the other end, though, since it also bypasses things like entering the country legally."
He pauses for a moment, and glances to Alexis. "Before you ask, no, this is not something that we can set up somewhere else. It's taking advantage of a relic, of sorts."
Naru nods as Kunzite explains taking that opportunity to eat more of her sandwich. "I did stay to the more touristy areas." She admits. "I was mostly alone.. well..except when I wasn't and I've very little idea where we were off to /then/."
"...That sounds very convenient," Alex murmurs with a slow blink of his eyes and a sideward tilt of his head while he eyes Kunzite over. "I'm probably better off not asking about the details, am I?"
His eyes tip down over to Naru then, and he can't help but chuckle wryly. "Be glad. Non-touristy Paris is... very different."
"That depends on exactly how much of the long and complicated backstory you want to remember," Kazuo says blandly. "Mamoru doesn't make it a secret. So it depends on when you think your eyes would glaze over."
Naru smile up at Alexis. "Go to school in Paris and I'll make you show me the interesting bits."
Naru returns to eating and notes on the topic of backstory, "I found it interesting."
"I, uh... I'll pass for now," Alex murmurs sheepishly. "I'll ask again if it ever seems like it'll be relevant. I have... maybe a little too much else on my mind right at the moment."
And then he just *stares* at Naru. "... Are you *trying* to make me end up in Paris instead of here?"
Better off not asking, someone said. Kazuo inclines his head to Alexis in wordless agreement, then lets his eyes slide -- deliberately slowly -- over to Naru. And just looks at her.
She's seen him give Mamoru that look, usually where 'for God's sake will you stop tempting fate' plus possibly a mild shaking would go from an normal person.
Naru laughs softly and gesture easily. "Reality doesnt bend to my whim quite that easily." She, at least seems amused more than concerned. "Besides I've already lodged my request with the Universe for Seishou."
"I would much prefer to stay here too," Alex notes in turn - with only the briefest bemused looks sent into Kunzite's direction over the look HE in turn is giving Naru - and reaches his hand over to ruffle over Naru's head. "Honestly-- I will probably end in Seishou, since it's the next closest place from where I live, as long as my folks don't decide to send me off-shore."
"If I ever braid my hair, I am so going to have to teach you how to rebraid it after you mess with it." Naru gives Alexis a gentle poke in the ribs. "It does make more sense to send you to school here. I mean, boarding school is an expensive pain in the arse, so even if they're just looking at business bottom line, Seishou makes sense."
Sandwich done, and juice rapidly becoming done, Naru eyes Kunzite's coffee a moment. She resisted making herself one once already this afternoon. "And you don't even have to do high school exams."
"Would you *really* trust braiding with a boy, though?" Alex points out with a wiiiiiide flash of a grin before he tips his head down to brush his lips over the top of the girl's head.
"Verone isn't actually that much closer than Seishou, come to think," he realizes then, at that point. "THey mostly put me there because... you know.. Rich, prestige, et cetera..."
Kazuo observes Naru's coveting without comment. "It's true," he says. "Come January, you and Kyouko will be the only sane ones in residence. Even I will need to retake the entrance exams to change schools - particularly after an unexplained several-year gap."
"I don't play damsel, you don't get to play stupid boy." Naru points out with a smile for Alexis. "Sorry to shatter your gender stereotypes. Now.. you might be bad at it, but that's totally different than assuming you can't deal with hair cause you're a boy."
"Wow.. I hadn't thought about the fact that ..yeah.. /all/ of us are going to hit exams at basically about the same time. I mean I /had/, but not quite with the realization of it being /everyone/. Except Alexis and Kyouko." She pauses a moment. "We might all starve."
"... Does that mean I am going to ahve to start herding all of you all to make sure you have enough sleep and food?" Asks Alex with a slooooow squint of his eyes sent to Naru, first, and then to Kunzite.
"I hope you guys are okay with takeout food."
"We may be forced to survive on bentos Kyouko brings home from work," Kazuo says deadpan. "Alternatively, we could find some way to bribe Alexis to bring over whatever bizarre food Nephrite declares the pinnacle of its culinary subspecialty that day. Herding is of course a prerequisite, since usually that's my job."
"Far /more/ likely, is that we'll be inundated with food when Makoto and I both decide that cooking and baking are excellent procrastination and stress relief tools." Naru grins brightly. "So we might be saved from a steady diet of conbennie bentos and take out."
Naru leans over to prod Alexis again. "Although you probably should ensure that I do sleep periodically. Or at least haven't been dragged through a wall or something."
"..." Alex narrows his eyes at Kunzite, now. Squint. "... What's that now, exactly?" He asks in a mutter, eys narrowing further for just a brief few seconds.
He gets distracted by the prod, though, and he smiles wryly at Naru. "Weeellll... You know how I am with my sleeping too..."
Kazuo shrugs back to Alex. "Nephrite has a tendency to get somewhat ... involved, in various topics. Food is one of them. We've been living here for better than half a year. Odds are good that by this time he knows every interesting back-alley place in walking distance, and exactly which offerings at which of them are the best in the area. He might even still own a couple; I haven't asked. But perhaps Naru and Makoto will decide to save us all, instead."
"Soemtimes, you just put the container back after a sniff, and instant ramen suddenly seems like a /really/ good idea." Naru explains a little further for Alexis on the topic of Nephrite being the food acquisition person. "Sometimes, he totally wins, however."