Tokyo is a big city. Busy city at that. One would think it's not at all easy to find one very specific person from within, at least not when they're not answering peoples' calls.
But then, you know. Magic exists, so certainly that can help. Also, just the fact alone that when it comes to Alex? Sometimes his presence can be found out from several blocks away even without magic.
"What'd you just say???" The german-accented voice of Alex growls out within a certain alleyway, as it would happen, while he snaps his hand to grab onto the front of your common gang thug's shirt, pulling the guy closer by the hold and even hoisting him up enough to force him onto tiptoes. "Say it again, more clearly!" the german boy goes on, even turning his head facing sidelong to the thug in front of him with a hand held by his ear in the sort of 'listening closely' gesture. "Depending on your answer, I might have to kick your ass!"
Unfortunately for Alex, the guy has two friends. Which he is very quickly reminded of by way of a length of chain getting tossed over his head and pulled to strain against his throat.
This results in Alex not only getting choked and instinctively letting go of the boy in front of him in favor of trying to pull the chain away from him, but also him receiving several punches into the gut. Ow. Ow.
This, however, lasts for all of five seconds, before Alex kicks *jumps* up, and using the chain tightened around his neck as a way to pivot himself, his feet are brought to kick against the chest and face of the thug in front of him-- and thus spring his full weight back against the one choking him.
SLAM, he lands against the ground with the thug underneath his back, and the instant the chain loosens, he lifts his head up and drops it right back down to smash the back of his skull against the boy's nose.
Alex promptly rolls away and up to one knee, but not without grabbing the chain away from his would-be-choker, and swinging it towards the third thug like a whip and smacking him violently across the face with it, and the instant the chain coils around his fist, he slams it back down against the chain's original owner's head. Ow.
And then a boot flies over from the side into *Alex's* face with a faint *crack*. His nose had *just* finished healing earlier, too.
Somehow, a spectator will probably get the sense that this is a pretty common day for Alex, actually.
Earlier today. Naru had a talk with Lacrima. She learned that- Naru had broken up with Alexis and that Naru would like Lacrima to watch after Alexis. She agreed to find him- but also stated that she'd be hard pressed to relate to matters of love- being unable to feel the emotion herself.
Still. Lacrima knew where Alexis would be. It was a strong hunch.
She arrives from the dead end of the alley, which is weird enough-- there's no way in or out that wasn't past the group. Where did she come from? And she arrives just as a boot slams into Alexis's face.
"Ah..." she says. "That's my friend. Could you please stop that?" she asks in her usual deadpan.
Two of the guys look at her. Utters of 'go home little girl' and things like that are said. There is a refusal from her. The two guys begin toward her. She head tilts a little.
At some point, a switchblade gets brandished. There is a fight. A scuffle----
Alexis gets to see one of the guys lucky hit with the switchblade. Righhhht into. Her head. By all accounts- she is dead. Perhaps the guy didn't except that because he's released the blade.
But more important Lacrima doesn't fall. She rather looks crosseyed at the blade and then frowns heavily at the two guys as weird, black ichor seeps from the wound around the blade.
The Alleyway suddenly gets engulfed in black, taking Alexis with it. This is a horrid, inky black. The kind you see when your eyes are closed- but your eyes are open. There is yelling. Horrid horrid yelling.
When the Inky black pulls back one of the guys have been drained and sits unconcious on the ground and the other two are scrambling over each other AND Alexis to get away from something they pretty sure was a waking nightmare.
Lacrima still has a switchblade stuck in her head that she frowns at.
"Ah." she says. Deadpan. "I wonder why it's always the face or the head." she says matter of factly.
"Are you okay?" she asks, looking over to Alexis?
"Oi..." Alex calls over, when Lacrima first appears. The distraction provided by her initially is enough that he doesn't need to put a particular hurry to him pushing himself up to his feet-- but the hurry grows with two of the thugs making way for her. "Get outta there..."
And then they're making way for Lacrima full force, and he's making to charge past the remaining third thug...
And then everything just goes black.
"Gh--!" Instinctively, Alex brings up one arm over his face to shield himself-- as pointless as that might be. And then finally, when the dark fades away... well. He lowers his arm, and with a turn of his hand, the chain coiled around his arm is brought to loosening up and finally falling down to clatter to the ground. He doesn't even bother to look to the escaping thugs. He just stares at Lacrima.
"I'm fine," he claims with a grunt, bringing up a hand to brush his thumb over his skin just below his nose where the nostril is dripping with blood. "I was going to be fine. You didn't need to..."
The german steps along towards her, coming to a stop just short a step, close enough that he has to look down to maintain eye contact. "I suppose you don't feel pain, huh?"
Lacrima head tilts. The knife tilts too. "Ah... No. Mundane things. Don't cause me pain. It is uncomfortable." she says. She gently grabs the handle of the blade and pulls it out. More black ichor. She frowns because it's mostly running down her face. She holds a hand to the wound and summons up some dark energy to repair the wound. There. She head tilts.
"You did not look like you were going to be fine." she says softly.
She sighs and looks down at the hand she used to remove the knife. "I need.. a towel. Or something." she mutters.
"But. It's like the ol' addage... you can't kill what doesn't live." she says.
"How many?" she asks.
Then clarifies. "How many people have you fought today? I had to track you." she says softly. Oh, so she was specfically looking for him.
"I was going to break their faces," Alex insists over her words of disbelief... and promptly spits a small wad of blood down onto the curb. Well then.
"Tch," he sounds out in annoyance over her question, then, and turns his eyes away from her, too. "Does it matter?" He asks in counter, with the same annoyed tone carrying over-- but then his eyes return back to her, with a more of a hint of confusion. "...Why were you tracking me?"
Lacrima reaches down and rips a part of her skirt off. On the side of the thigh and uses this to wipe off her face. There. Less ichor and awfulness there. She speaks. "People were worried about you." she says. "They asked me to find you. And to speak to you." she says softly.
'People'. Maybe 'Person'.
"I had a strong hunch on- what you might be doing. Given what I was told." she says softly. "Because I would most likely being doing something similar, given the problem. Maybe not quite." she says.
"Some sort of draining spree..." she says.
"Ah- nevermind. About that." she says.
"You know." she says. "Neither of those ideas would fix anything of course." she offers.
"Well, congrats, I guess," Alex mutters while he wipes his thumb just below his nose again, brushing the tip of the digit against the nose briefly too, with the faintest hint of a wince. "You found me. So..." He turns to walk down the alley-- towards the street, not the dead end, mind you. "Speak, then, huh?"
And to the last, he just mumbles, "I know."
Lacrima frowns and begins to walk out of the alleyway following Alexis. She leaves the drained thug on the ground. She doesn't feel particularly chairatable in calling an ambulance at the moment. She talks while she walks.
"Naru-chan spoke to me. If. That wasn't entirely clear." she says softly. "I..."
"I am definitly not the one to talk to you." she says. "I can't even feel. Love. Like that." she says. "and I am confused given more recent developments." she says quietly.
"But. They know I am your friend and so they asked me to check on you." she says.
"Can I ask... how you actually feel?" she asks. "You can say no. I understand. I'd say no too." she says. "I don't often like talking about how I feel, as how I feel are mostly negative thoughts. Well. Always. Negative thoughts." she says.
He stops.
Though Alex was perhaps well ahead of her, it might be evident that the sudden halt isn't for the purpose of letting Lacrima catch up to him alone.
He frowns. In all fairness, the frown was present there even before he started walking along, but somehow, even the little vampire might get the sense that at least some of it is extending to her question, now. Twitching corners of the mouth and all.
"What's there to talk about with that?" He asks in counter, eventually, and then picks himself into a slow pace of walking forward again. His voice is perhaps disturbingly calm, all things considered. Especially since his following statement of "I'm fine," might not be very believable at the moment.
Lacrima gently stops as she purses her lips and frowns a bit. The girl gently head tilts He then speaks and continues to walk forward more slowly. She follows along, still and gently keeps her hands in front of her, folded. Her shirt still looks like a mess.
"I do not belive that." she says. She does peek upwards to try to get a look at Alexis's face- just to see how bad he got punched and any damage he might have from 'a chain being around one's neck'.
"What did those thugs do anyway to deserve you beating them up?" she asks softly. "I mean. I knew why I beat them up. They were hurting you." she says frankly.
Alex's nose is, predictably, dripping blood down from it's nostrils. The thing's probably broken AGAIN. His neck might get a bit of bruising later too, but for the time being the skin around it - the bit of it visible from around his scarf anyway - is just reddened somewhat.
"You don't need to believe it," he tells the little vampire then, while his hands go sticking down into the pockets of his jacket. "That's still what I'm saying."
He draws his head sidelong to send a peek over his shoulder back down the alley, then. He scowls even deeper, and then turns his gaze back forward.
"Does it matter, now?"
...Usually, he at least has some reason for it.
Lacrima head tilts. "Alexis. Hurting people isn't a hobby." she says flatly. "Even if you think it's for a good reason." she says. "I don't... understand. How.. people can. Like hurting others. I /need/ to hurt others to survive as I am now and I wish I didn't need to. You don't even have that excuse." she says softly.
"Does it actually make you feel better?" she asks.
"I fill my need to feel comfortable with myself with food. It works. Usually." she says.
"Maybe you should try that?" she asks.
"It's not as if I *like* it," Alex insists with a grunt, and his scowl deepens for just a brief instance there. "It's not *good* to do it. But sometimes..." He sniffles once there, from the irritation of blood flowing slowly from his nostril. "Sometimes some *bleep*s just need to get their faces rearranged."
"But no. It's not like it makes me feel any better, either."
It takes a few seconds from there, but he slows down his steps, some, and turns his head to peeeer down at Lacrima. Another few seconds, and a vaguely amused tinge plays over his expression.
"You know," he says. "Most of us can only eat so much before we start feeling sick. So... You know."
Lacrima huffs. "I don't have a stomach yes. Eating serves no biological purpose for me, but it makes me feel better because it otherwise works exactly like I was alive-- things still taste as they did when I was normal." she says. "It's about the only thing that has remained the same. So. I take comfort in that fact often." she says.
She frowns. "Well. Maybe you should take a break from it until your nose heals again." she says.
"Rather than overdo it." she says.
"Maybe you should invest some time into your motorcycle in the meantime." a pause.
"Boys like... what is the term.. tricking out? Thier bikes. Right?" she asks.
"I'm *fine*," Alex continues to insist. Being able to still say that with a straight face must take a considerable amount of skill.
He can't quite help but turn another amused look at the little vampire over her suggestion-- even letting out a brief sound of laughter that rumbles along his throat. "Yes, that's... One word for it, I suppose," he allows. "... I'm not really sure what else I could do with the bike at this point, though."
Lacrima head tilts. "Maybe you should get into street racing." she says. "I wonder if it's as romantically charged as the Inital D animes make it seem..." she says tapping her bottom lip. "- and probably more productive than beating every thug up in a huge raidus but probably also more illegal."
"But you can actually make money street racing. Right?" she asks.
"Maybe the winter isn't the best time to start though." she says.
A pause. "You seem to be calming down a little now." she says quietly. "So maybe I can ask you a question." she says quietly.
R
"How can.. someone love somebody. That knows they can't love them back?" she says quietly. "It seems to be creeping up a lot. That question. In my life." she mutters.
"Anime makes pretty much everything romanticized and more passionate," Alex points out with a chuckle.
Beat.
"...So I heard, anyway." Because obviously he doesn't watch any. OBVIOUSLY.
He stops in his steps again, then. He doesn't look at Lacrima, but the question does seem to bring him into deep thought, for a moment, where his gaze just drifts off to peering into some distance, somewhere.
"It isn't really about wether or not they can or will return it," he says, eventually, with a slow shake of his head. "It's... just in our nature, you know? You probably remember it from before, too. It's... not something we can help, most of the time. If we grow to love and cherish something, we will do so regardless of wether the feeling is returned or not. It's not something you make a contract on or anything."
"Well, most of the time anyway."
Lacrima shakes her head. "I never felt... in love..." she says. "I mean. In. That way. So unlike. other feelings. I don't have a memory.. or a baseline for it. How I should or might feel." she says. "And that's all I have for much of my positive emotions." she says. "Just. 'How they used to feel'." she says.
She sighs and shakes her head.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay, when Naru called me." she says. "Just..."
"I need to get back to the manor soon to make sure a guest is okay." she says.
"...Are you going to be fine...?" she asks of Alexis.
"I'm fine," Alex repeats, for... god knows how manyith time now. "Why wouldn't I be?"
It's probably not any more believable now, let's be honest.
"...You just take care of yourself too, huh?"
Lacrima frowns. She doesn't answer that. "Call me. If you need to talk." she says quietly.
She picks up the pace and dissapears into a dead end alley. That she actually dissapears from!