Unmei Tama had been doing better. Mostly. She was definitely coping a lot better. She hadn't tried for any windows or had any massive panic attacks. In fact, she was doing a ton better. Feeling confident. Taking a LOT of time in the bathroom and, with Kun's help, getting a lot better at cleaning up her messes. She was also spending more time watching a ton of anime, splurging on them really.
One thing Kun might notice is she wasn't eating much. Like, at all. She just never seemed to be hungry. The whole...gluttony incident seemed to have turned her off food.
Still, she was more confident and feeling better about herself. Which was why she was, in the middle of the afternoon, knocking on Kun's door. "Err, Kun? Sir? Would you be up for a game of go?" She was getting a TON better. Able to figure out almost all the challenges he set before her, now, and possibly able to play him... with a considerable handicap. But still, better.
The intermingled apartments are Different.
There is the one that they refer to as Jadeite's, where Unmei's initial room was, and the living room of which hosted the lion's share of the New Year's Eve party. Its social area is casually anonymous, oriented around couches and video games. It's one of the two with full kitchens.
There is the one that is Mamoru's, or the main apartment, depending on the way the person talking about it is looking at it at the time. That's the one with the mural Naru painted, and with the other full kitchen.
There is the one that is Nephrite's, and Unmei has been pointed firmly away from those doors, just on general principle.
And then there is the one that is Kunzite's and Zoisite's.
Unmei's likely become more familiar with it in the last few days. The place is subtly more elegant: the furniture is well-chosen and matching, the carpeting and upholstery more expensive. There is art on the walls, framed. There is a Go set permanently out in the main room, though not the one that Kunzite's used with Unmei -- often enough there is a slow-motion game in progress there, and once Unmei's seen Kunzite place a stone in passing. There is a piano; that is Zoisite's domain, and Kunzite does not touch it.
There is Kunzite's room, which Unmei has seen through the door now and again when it is open. It is, for the most part, more barren than the guest rooms. Though there's art there, too. A framed rendering of a European castle. A framed piece of calligraphy, reading 'First, do no harm.'
Very little else.
That's the door that Kunzite -- Kazuo, out of uniform -- opens now to regard Unmei steadily. "That depends," he says. "Did you remember to eat yet today?"
The faint sound of the elevator, the bing of arrival and the oh so faint sound of someone emerging up on the floor that is entirely theirs. There is the sound of someone choosing which apartment to enter, Mamoru's by the sound of it.. first at least. That door opens, and closes again, although whowever roamed into it wasn't there for long. That door opens, closes again and then, a polite knock at the main door of the apartment that houses Kunzite and Zoisite. Possibly, just maybe, someone heard voices enough inside to warrent knocking.
Unmei Tama shifted uncomfortably, then shook her head. "N-no. I wasn't... really hungry." She poked her fingers together. "I... I had a slice of bread?" she offered, chewing on her lower lip and then shuffling her feet. 'I'll... I'll go boil an egg, okay?" she said softly, walking off with her head down cast and tail between her legs. She then pause.
"Ummm, Kun? Someone's here, I think? Should... should I hide or--" She paused. Then sighed. "N-no! I'm not going to hide. You... you can answer the door. I'm ready. As long as it's not Kyouko. She still kind of scares me and I'm not sure i want her to know and is it obvious can she tell?"
"You need to eat to stay healthy," Kazuo says. "Not as much as you did, no, but still to eat. And you need more than grains and protein. We have some oranges, I think. Or strawberries, if you'd prefer those."
He comes out, closing the door behind him, and paces across to investigate who in the world is risking that door and whether it involves anything life-threatening. It's opened, and a moment after, there is a perfectly calm, "Good afternoon, Naru. We were just going to look into a snack, and possibly a game of Go afterward; would you care to join us for one or the other?" 'We' is left casually undefined.
Naru smiles as Kunzite opens the door and she offers up a tupperware container to him. Clearly its worth knocking at the door. "Apparently snack was on the mind. I made spice cookies, with marmalade in the middle." She notes as to what is hiding in the tupperware. "I have a paper due." She quirks a half a smile, baking is a classic procrastination from homework. "I wouldnt say no to a drink to go with the cookies, however." The assumped 'we' apparently isn't entirely enough to send her off.
"I did leave some in Endy's kitchen, I figured he'd share with Neph and Jadeite. Hopefully."
Unmei Tama nodded and follows just behind, waiting around the corner, until she sees who it is. She waits a few more moments, just to see if Kyouko comes. Once she's certain that its a safe person(just naru), she relaxes and steps out from hiding. "H-hi Naru," she mumbles softly.
Something was a little... off about her. Her shape seemed a little different. Less... curvy? And her voice was a little deeper? Not much, though. Considering the stuff she'd been through recently, it wasn't too surprising she looked a little off. She looked a little pale though at the mention of cookies. She covered her mouth and turned away. "I... I think an orange sounds good..."
"Hopefully Neph. I think Jadeite made off with most of the ones Sayaka brought." The tupperware is taken all the same, Unmei's response or no, and Kunzite inclines his head gravely to Naru and lets her in. Hands freed for dealing with her shoes, no less.
"We should have oranges." Kunzite paces for the limited kitchen in this apartment, mostly equipped for storage and what-happens-if-Zoi-wants-a-midnight-snack. And coffee. Always coffee, in this place. And meticulously-selected tea. "What would you like to drink, Naru? Other than not the most recent soda overflow. And what is your paper on?"
"If there's coffee on, I'll totally take coffee." Naru answers as she slips off her shoes. Flats are made of /win/ when it comes to kicking off one's shoes. "Hey Unmei." The greeting is casual, friendly, without any comment about looking or sounding different. "If there's not coffee, tea would work. I think I want something warm, and the cookies aren't sweet, so they get overpowered by sweet drinks. At least in /my/ opinion."
"Economic forces on the market." Naru explains on her paper with a little wrinkle of her nose. "Which would be far cooler if I could get more indepth in the interesting bits rather than have to follow the really constrained outline."
Unmei Tama nodded, glancing to the side. "H-hi. So, ummm... Kyouko isn't with you, is she?" she asked softly, before following Kun to the other room to get the food. "I'll have water, please." She wasn't really into the drinks anymore. She used to like the sweet ones. But now she could just imagine Gluttony. PRactically chugging the sugary substances. It made her want to throw up.
She sat at the nearest table and just waited, her eyes lowered. "I'm... really not that hungry, though. So please, nothing too big," she mumbled. Then glanced to Naru. "Econo... Are you going in for a business major? That sounds pretty tough. You must be really smart, Naru."
"If you understand supply and demand curves reasonably, you can say nearly anything and put it in those terms and your teacher will be happy. Sadly, 'and then some evil force inserted mind-control effects in these plush toys' will probably not make your teacher happy." Kazuo may be making incorrect assumptions about what the interesting bits might be. He starts the coffee first, in the little kitchen, and finds Unmei a glass of water, a plate, a napkin, a knife, and a navel orange. What she does with these things is up to her.
"No, I dont think I'll look at economics beyond what's in the social science sections. We don't really have to focus on majors until university, and if I go to that, it's not for years yet." Naru points out as she settles to lean on the counter, answering the second part of Unmei's question first. "Kyouko's not with me currently, no." She pauses a moment, thoughtful and then notes. "You are going to have to see her again, you know. She isn't going to stab you."
"Alas, I can't discuss mindcontrol as a valid consideration in supply and demand." Naru flickers a smile for Kunzite. "I know it's only in grade nine, but when even I find it unreasonably simplistic, I fear for the better students in my class."
Unmei Tama nods. "I know she probably won't scare me. She's still a... very intimidating person. I mean, she's so strong and powerful and... well... I don't really have any magic now. For the time being. At least unless we can get the Clotho Gem back. If we can." Then blinked. ".... Wait, I never told you about that, did I?"
She paused. 'Wait, mind control? Like, are there stores doing that? I knew those boots I saw had magic powers..." They didn't. She just wanted them. She started peeking the orange, using the knife to make a slit and... "Come on... razzin.... frazzin... peel, gosh darn you..." she grumbled, getting her butt kicked by an orange.
"I don't know if there's anyone doing that right now," Kazuo says back to Unmei, "but it's certainly been something that's happened in the past. One of my youma sold roses that fed off their owners, for instance; their scent did something similar."
This is said as matter-of-factly as anything else, as he's getting down cups for Naru and himself. Half an eye is kept on Unmei's efforts, to make sure she's not about to gouge her hand.
Kyouko's stabbing probabilities, and the Clotho Gem, he doesn't speak on.
"There's plenty of indimidating people." Naru comments absently. "Other than Kyouko, and magic has nothing to do with it, one way or another. I barely knew magic existed when I met her, I was still quizzing Endy with stupid questions at the grocery store." She shakes her head a little. "What's the Clotho Gem?"
"I haven't noticed any mind control currently, I certainly haven't had anything unwelcome in my head in.. wow.. months really." Naru hunhs softly, as if that comes as a surprise to her.
Unmei Tama shifted a bit in her seat. "Err, my magic... gem. I ummm, don't have any magic. Anymore. Now. For the time being. I ummm... just..." She coughed and shifted a bit. "I'm kind of... helpless. In terms of... magical stuff now. It's... been an experience. An interesting one."
Finally, she peals it open enough. "Yes, victory!" And tossed a piece in her mouth and... chokes. "Gack, seed, ick, ow!"
Kunzite's eyebrows lift. "If there's a seed in there," he says, "I want to see it. Mutations are always interesting, and the prospect of introducing some genetic variety into the stock might be commercially valuable."
Sympathy level: as ever, immense.
"Magic isn't required to be useful." Naru points out to Unmei and then turns to Kunzite as he provides copious sympathy for the seed level of navel oranges. "Basically, the irony level of me stating that is enough that this enitre building will never be aenemic again."
Naru turns her attention back to Unmei again. "Are you aiming to replace or recover the Gem?" It sounds like either option is reasonable to her.
Unmei Tama coughed and hacked and then... blushed. "N-not a seed never mind." Oh, Kun, such a caring soul. She still gave him a small, weak little smile.
She then blinked. "Aenemic? The building is going to throw up? What? And no. I'm not really... sure. Honestly. On the one hand, I never imagined myself as being a side character in one of those lives. But... Mamo is working to help me deal with the issue the gem was helping me with. So... I guess I don't really need it. And there's not reeally a lot of mascots lining up to give me magical powers. And Kun and Mamo have warned me about cute lil big eared cat things."
Kunzite regards Naru silently for a moment. Then steps back into the kitchen for a moment, and returns with her coffee cup in one hand, which he offers her. Also with a refrigerator magnet (flower-shaped, with gently curving and meticulously painted petals), which he touches experimentally to the back of her hand when she takes the cup. Predictably, it does not stick; he shrugs without a word and folds himself down to pick it up from the floor.
Naru follows the path of the magnet with her attention, even as she absently accepts the coffee. She watches it fall.
And then she starts laughing, a bright and delighted sound, shaking her head. "Duly noted."
There's a sip of coffee first before Naru's still grinning attetnion returns over to Unmei. "The cycle of warnings continue, excellent. If there was a requirement for mascots to pass over magical powers, then I'd still be waiting. However, I do rather distinctly remember conversations about options, but there no rush on that." She gestures with her distinctly not-magnetic hand. "Everyone is the main character of their own story. That's how it works."
Unmei Tama blinked a few times and then snorted. She finished off the last bite of her orange and then looked thoughtful. "You know, though. This really isn't so bad. I mean... well... I may not have magical powers now, but I guess that doesn't mean I have to be just a side character. Obviously... I'm the love interest," she said with a nod.
"Yuzu's love interest, to be exact. And she's definitely the cool and awesome type. And I can just be the cute, new girl she falls in love with and sweeps off her feet as we fall madly, and deeply, in love." She paused. "Though the love interest often gets captured and sometimes killed. I... I'm not sure I want that. That sounds scary."
"I'm reasonably certain," Kunzite says, as he emerges again with his own coffee and opens the tupperware to score a spice cookie for himself, "that Kyouko would object vehemently to being captured or killed on the grounds of being a love interest. Let's instead concentrate on the fact that we live in this century, and people are beginning to notice that there are more interesting ways to give their characters motivation. Also, that love interests can also be characters instead of cutouts."
Two cookies, really, very kindly stuck together with marmalade between them. A good strong spicey cookie, with sharp marmalade as contrast. Naru get in on the cookie getting while the container is open, to go with her coffee.
"Captured wasn't so bad." Naru answers with a shrug. "I never did get killed." She doesn't even sound as if that's an ironic statement either. "I also wasn't the love interest. I prefer to be my own person, immaterial of if I have a partner or not. Or magic or not, for that matter. Life is far more interesting that way. Gives you something to talk about."
Unmei Tama blinked a few times and then glaced off to the side. "I... I think being a love interest would be pretty cool... I've never been able to be that before," she pouted a little. She then glanced to Kun. "So... ummmm..."
"I wanna... call Yuzu by. When... well, whenever either you, Zoi or Mamo are here. Just to, err, talk about... things. If you know. What I mean. If that's okay?"
"Yuzu has an invitation," Kazuo says. "So that is of course okay. And Naru has an excellent point. Being a love interest is one thing. Limiting yourself to being a love interest, or any other single role; or presuming that life will follow the same trajectories as fiction -- those are the things that might cause problem."
Says the man whose actual life was dismissed by a certain rampant friendficcer as a crackship.
"Life is infinitely stranger than fiction." Naru points out with a flash of a smile. "Keeps things interesting that way." She lifts her mug in salute to Kunzite. "I'll bring the mug back up tomorrow, if that's alright? My own love interest is downstairs. Good night, you two. Good luck with the game of Go."
Naru takes her cookie, and her coffee, and pads off to head home.
Unmei Tama nods and then gets to her feet. "Thanks. I ummm... Kun, I'll go set the game up, okay?" she said softly before getting to her feet. "I... i ummm... I'll go get it all ready for us," she repeated before running off.
It was probably pretty obvious she was excited to play with him again, judging by the way she kind of skipped when she ran. She did seem to really enjoy the games. Even if she wasn't very good at them, yet. Maybe she just liked the time spent with him.