Bookkeeping

The time has come for the bell to ring out and signal the end of another schoolday. Not all teenagers and children are moving out of the school, though-- some of them weren't there to begin with.

One of those happens to be Alex. But that's hardly news for anyone who knows him-- and his current situation. What is a bit more new, really, is that he's perched himself atop one of the buildings by the street that eventually leads off to the wooded path for Verone Academy-- watching over the students moving along down below from underneath the shade of his hood.

Is he... looking for someone specific? The answer: Yes. But he gets tired of waiting pretty quickly, and draws out a cellphone - one of the burners he has - from his pocket, and types out a message to send off.

A few seconds later, a cellphone somewhere else buzzes to signal the arrival of a text message, reading simply: "r u at school?"

Miku is an over-achiever. She's one of the students who frequently stays late for studying, or to play the piano. This is doubly so now that she's found this new songbook.

Seated at the piano in the lecture hall of her last class, Miku is busy toying out notes when her phone rings. She hasn't actually written any of them in the book; there are some theories that are best carefully examined rather than frivolously explored.

Her phone begins chiming out "Moonlight Sonata" over the sound of her own playing, and Miku stops to pick it up. A quick skim and she arches her brow. Texting out a quick reply, Miku sends: "yes."

It barely even takes a few seconds before the phone buzzes again, and another message comes over to be displayed.

"Can we talk? am outside schoolgrounds"

... Only to be followed immediately after by, "can sneak inside too if u want" before she's had the time to type out even a single-word response. Quick typer that one, apparently. Though for all anyone knows, he could be cheating.

Miku finds herself startled by the speed of his texts. "Cheater," she mumbles into the phone, then sighs and glances up at the clock. She glances back down at her watch, then at the room around her, then considers for several moments.

Eventually, she decides to push him, just a little, and replies back: "working on a piece. no one here 2-nite but me. if a teacher comes ill cover. rm 302. roof stairs x the hall r open."

Then she puts her phone back down and resumes work on her piece, humming to herself as she plays through the tune by memory from where she left off.

And again, nearly instantly; "be right there"

Seriously, how is he doing that?

Either way, it takes a few minutes, which is probably less surprising. Superpowered half-vampire he might be, but this is still a fairly busy school building of great prestige we're talking about, here. Either way, if the door to the hall has been left unlocked, the sound of it opening and closing echoes throughout after those few minutes. --ANd even if it was locked, really, only thing that changes is that a black-purple tendril slithers through a gap between the door and frame to work the lock open, first.

And ultimately, there's the familiar foreigner of a boy in a hoodie, one hand on the door to make sure it's secured shut, and the other tugging the hood away to bare out his face, head shaking briefly afterwards before it turns to settle his bright green eyes upon the girl by the piano.

By the time Alexis arrives, Miku is deep within the piano piece she's composing. No slouch at the trade, it is a moving piece, but she misses a bar almost immediately when he enters, then grimaces and slams her fingers down on the keys. "Damn," she whispers to herself, then sighs and leans forward. "I really ought to write it down," she mumbles.

And then she catches movement out of the corner of her eye. Looking up sharply, the girl spots Alexis, and settles after only a brief moment of concern. "Oh, it's you," she says, then pushes the bench back.

She's still in her Verone uniform, except unlike the typical amaranth blazer and skirt, hers is two shades of charcoal grey in a tartan, with the amaranth only used to accent the grey. She does, however, still have the logo prominently emblazoned on her chest. Miku's hair is pulled up into a half ponytail by a big white ribbon, which flops loosly behind her head.

"Nice to see you brave enough to come on campus," Miku admits, turning on the bench so she's facing him. She leans back onto her hands, legs straddling the bench. "So what's up?"

"It's a lot easier to do at this hour," points out Alex -- and his tone is, as might have been expected, still the same disturbingly-deadpan mutter as before. Seemingly satisfied with the state of the door, he turns fully away from it, and with one hand lazily stuck into a pocket of the hoodie, he pads his way slowly towards Miku, all while his gaze takes her current state of dress in.

"Nice threads," he comments, of all things. "Do you music types wear different uniforms? I never really talked to the people from this side of the school much."

Her question doesn't go entirely ignored, mind you. He just delays himself in saying anything to it. He comes to a stop in his steps just shortly before where she's sitting, and his brows slightly furrow downwards while he studies her a bit further.

"... I was worried," he admits, after a few seconds of silence. "After all those texts."

Miku glances down at her outfit, then shrugs and leans forward again, concerned for her modesty though it wasn't in jeopardy. "The Lydian Music school wears the grey, yeah," she says with a faint nod. "Although we've got the other one for major school functions, too."

Turing back to the piano, Miku starts playing a far simpler piece than the one she's been working on. "By all those texts, you mean the hangover your friend gave me?" she asks curiously over her playing. "I'm doing fine, now, but I really didn't appreciate the feeling. It probably wouldn't have been so bad if another magical girl hadn't tried to stop her. She was just trying to take enough to avoid a frenzy."

For whatever it's worth, Alex doesn't really seem to be of any mind to eye Miku *like that* anyway. Though that does mean he is probably very unconscious of any concerns she may have of it. Probably another side-effect of his vampirism, really. Either way, all he says about the uniform matter is "I see," and then lets that slide.

He's still standing, and when she starts playing again, his eyes drift over to her hands momentarily, following their path along the piano's keys, with some vague curiousity. "That too," he admits, while his eyes are still on her hands, but they start moving back towards her face, now. "But the possible curse you mentioned, too. For some reason that ended up staying on my mind."

Miku's fingers miss a key, jamming down just slightly on a wrong note. It's jarring and awkward, and she takes her hands away from the keyboard almost immediately. "Curse," she mumbles softly. Then she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "I'm not sure it is a curse, or if it's just my imagination. I don't want to raise any alarms until I'm sure. It might not even be a curse at all, even if it's not my imagination."

"Would you tell me about it, anyway?" Alex requests of her after that assurance, his expression and stance still not having changed -- save for the brief, subtle jump when the off-key press came along. "If for nothing else... At least to calm me. I promise I won't tell anyone about it unless we're both sure it needs to be addressed." He peers down at the space besides her on the bench, and asks, "Can I sit?"

For a moment, Miku seems uncertain. She stares down at her fingers on the keyboard, then sighs and shifts further left on the bench, making room for him. A quick pat of the seat beside her, and then she reaches up for the leather-bound journal sitting, closed, on the piano music stand.

"On your word that you won't tell anyone unless I agree," Miku says to him uncertainly. "Because I know a lot of people who would jump to conclusions quickly and decide that something like this should be destroyed or taken into their protection or ... I don't know."

The german's head tips downwards slightly, and he turns himself along to allow himself to be lowered to sitting next to her on the bench with a quietly murmured "thank you". Apparently still also unconscious of the potential akwardness involved. ... That one might not be entirely the fault of his vampirism, though.

"I promise," he offers to her, in further assurance, head nodding once before his eyes turn down to fully settle on her. "I might... Jump to a conclusion, myself, but I will at least promise not to act on it."

"Honestly, I don't think I'd mind your gut reaction," Miku says quietly as she considers the issue, then looks back to the book. She unclasps the leather binding, then starts to turn through it, leafing page by page. It's clearly a binder for writing music in: musical staffs, with plenty of room for scribblings notes and lyrics. There are several pages filled with music, already. Miku shifts through them, then stops somewhere a few pages in.

Thereon, a song is written titled 'Rain Song for the Missing.'

"This song, I wrote the day we went out for Valentine's day," Miku explains. "And then ... the rain storm happened shortly after I wrote it. Then," Miku says, "the day your friend drained me ... I wrote a song about the Demon in the Music. And then we were attacked by a demonic creature coming out of a piano."

And Alex's initial gut reaction... well. It's pretty much the same as usual, let's be real here. His face remains one of deadpan, with just the slightest hint of a frown of concern, and his eyes blink once, twice, three times. He even lets out a quiet, "Huh," in response to all of that.

He peers at the book, then, only after she's done explaining all of that-- and he asks, at htat point, "Have you... experimented with it at all? Tried to write... something specific? And see if something related to that takes place?"

"That's what I'm doing right now," Miku admits with a faint shrug of her shoulders. "I've been trying to compose something that's positive; see if I can get it to give me a positive reaction. But ... I'm kindof afraid to put it on the paper." She grimaces a little, then says, "Like ... if I'm right and this is really happening, that's amazing. And if I'm wrong, it's going to be super depressing."

Alex considers this in silence for a while, and his eyes visibly drift off away from both the songbook and Miku while he processes his thoughts. Considers options.

"Then," he finally says, in time with his green gaze returning to the girl, too. "Would you like me to be with you when you try i?" He offers, thus. "At least... attempt to make some form of controlled environment. If something... bad, comes out, I can at least help you get through it."

With a faint shrug of her shoulders, Miku admits, "I'm still not even sure I'm causing it. If I am, it's only resulted in anything truly negative once. I've written four songs in here now, and only seen two effects as a result. So ... it may well just be nothing."

"I see," says Alex, and he lowers his head slightly-- but his eyes never really leave the girl, intent enough in studying her for the time being. "Still," he goes on. "That doesn't really answer my question."

"I don't know," Miku reiterates the message she failed to convey. "Having someone around who can destroy monsters is never bad, but I'm not sure I want to put anyone at risk. Part of me thinks I shouldn't even try this experiment. It's possible things are just getting worse, and it's not a reflection of my writing at all."

Alex's neutral expression breaks to make way for some exparation, something that carries over to the sigh that flows out from between his lips.

"Here's what I think," he starts telling her, lifting a hand up. "If there's even the slightest chance of it... in our world, knowing what we do, it is likely just as unsafe to leave it be. Ringing a few alarm bells for nothing will, in the end, be considerably better outcome than not ringing them at all for something that they should have been rung for. If you wish to test your theory further, then... at the very least, I'd like to be there, for you, though truthfully I think having even more people around, especially those who are more experienced with things such as this, would be much better."

"That, however..." HE shakes his head. "I will leave up to your decision. As promised."

"You and I both know," Miku says quietly, "that if I bring more people in--more so-called 'experienced' people--that they won't let me test my theory at all." She sighs and rolls her eyes, just a little. "You're already making me wish I hadn't even told you. But I did, and we're here, now. If I try it when you're around, and it does summon a monster, are you going to take the book from me?"

That question gives Alex some pause, for a moment, and he's left wrinkling his nose during it. "...No," he decides, eventually. "It's not as if I... wouldn't consider it. But... Mh. I shouldn't make that choice for you, either. I would urge you to use it carefully, at least-- get some help to learn how to use it. I know there are some who would be... inclined to help that way, too."

"You have to understand something, first," he goes on then, with a breath let out. "I am not... judging you. I am only trying to help."

Miku frowns a little at that, then nods her head. "I know you are," she says quietly, "but sometimes people with magic who are just trying to help wind up stifling those of us who don't have our own magic. It's ..." she trails off thoughtfully, then blows out a sigh of frustration. "Nevermind. I know you think you're doing what's best for me. What's helpful to me. I get it. I'm just tired of being coddled like I'm an invalid just because I don't have a magic wand that turns me into a short-skirted hussy."

"..." Alex lowers his head down even further, now, and this time it brings his eyes to moving down enough to leave Miku entirely, and settle on the floor between his feet, instead. He's left quiet, for several seconds that feel like an eternity.

"I understand," he sighs out more than he says, after those seconds, and even then he doesn't really look back to her again, at least not yet. "...Then, let me ask you. How would you prefer it is handled, ideally? For the sake of the question, let's assume that the book is capable of... doing that."

It's a fair question, and Miku gives it the consideration it deserves. She frowns a little, then tilts her head back and forth. "If it truly just reflects whatever I write," she says, "then I'd like to keep it, if I can. It could be useful. But I don't think it's going to be that easy. I suspect it's altering what I'm writing, some; twisting it. And if that's the case, then we should find the right person to bind it away. I just don't want to be told that's the correct course of action; I want to be able to choose it."

"That is a right you should have, yes," Alex allows for that, and now his head lifts up again, so that he can turn his gaze to studying Miku's features, while they talk. "However-- should you not, also, feel obliged to gather as much information as you can, before you make that decision? For the sake of being *able* to make that decision consciously. Without any regrets or uncertainties."

"Yes," Miku replies with a nod. "That's why I'm sitting here trying to write a song. I'm just afraid to do it, because if I can't control whatever happens, I put a lot at risk. Not just me ..." she trails off. Then she sighs and shakes her head. "Anyways, I guess that's the argument for you to be there when I do it. I'd rather Hibiki, but that's not going to happen. I'm starting to come to terms with the idea that I won't see her again ... for a while, at least."

"Power can be just as scary of a thing as it is a great thing," Alex murmurs, and he turns one of his hands palm-side up, and settles it upon his thigh on the side that Miku is sitting on. "Truth be told? I... wanted something like that, too. To be able to stand besides all of these other supernatural people. But what I have now? It... scares me, in a way. Not because it might kill me, but because of what it might end up causing for the people around me. ... I do not want you to end up like me, I hope you understand. If you are... certain, that you would rather not involve others, then I will not try to persuade you otherwise, regardless of what I might wish you would do. But... I will be there for you. Help you through those steps."

"I could try to write the vampire out of you," Miku suggests, half-joking. She shakes her head a little, then sighs. "Anyways, I've still got a little writer's block. But I won't write whatever song I come up with until you're around, okay?"

"...Maybe it's just the cynic in me." Apparently, Alex didn't really catch on to the joke-half of that statement-- his expression certainly turns rueful with it, and his eyes flick away from her for a moment. "...But somehow I doubt that will be that easy."

He clears his throat, and then nods his head to her final words. "Yeah. You have my number. So..."

Miku nods her head in agreement, then sighs and leans forward. Once more she puts her fingers to the keyboard, closes her eyes, and starts to play. "I'll call you," she promises after a few bars of fumbling through the notes.

A nod, with that, and though Alex remains sitting there in silence for a moment, to just... listen to Miku play, eventually he starts pushing himself up onto his feet. "Take care of yourself, Miku," he offers to her, then-- perhaps those words would have carried something warmer in them, had his positive emotions not been drained away by the dark energy within.