Earlier in the night Hinote was sat boredly at a table at another charity function in a nice suit. There was an intrested girl. This is a thing that happens when you need to advertise who you are to people and come from a wealthy family. "Uh-huh. Yup. Uh-huh. Neat. Sure." These were single bored words that Hinote was using to reply to this inane jammering the girl was saying- probably trying to impress or something. He got fed up. Excused himself off the 'washroom', and then escaped out a window and walked up the road to where the others were currently staying. This means when Hinote walks in he looks like he was just at a fancy party. He takes off the ridicolous suit portion, leacing him in a white undershirt and tie- the tie also gets removed.
"Hello?" he calls out, wondering if anyone is here. Nothing seems out of place. Mistpaw is probably sleeping someplace high or low or in Gao's room.
Hinote walks over into the kitchen to peek in the refridgerator. Lets see what's in there. Hopefully if anyone was here, they'd had noticed him by now. If he's alone, maybe he can make some sort of ridicolous dagwood sandwhich...
There might not be any immediate response, but Hinote isn't the only person to use the apartment door tonight. Shortly after he makes his way to the kitchen, the door lock gets cycled again... and Rune steps in, looking tired.
That said, 'tired' is the worst of it; she shows no obvious signs of injury, no deeply sunken spirits... she's perhaps a little unhappy, but calm instead of actively despairing as she was in previous months.
Her fatigue is apparently not so great that she would fail to notice details, though. Light emitting from the refrigerator is easy to see in the dark. "Huh? Didn't think you'd still be up?" She begins heading toward the kitchen, expecting to find Gaofele there scoring a late-night snack.
Hinote Kagari is already on layer two of some sort of ridicolous sandwhich when Runealy peeks her head past the entrance into the kitchen, catching him like he had his hand in a cookie jar. Whoops! "Oh- hey! No one answered so I was making myself a snack." he says. He stops at the second layer. "You want one?" he asks. "I can make it." he asks.
He gives a little glance towards Runealy- "So... are you starting to feel better? Is the stuff being removed?" he asks conceredly. He sort of holds a hand over his face a bit as he takes a bite of the 2-ply sandwhich. "I had to be at this.... banquet tonight. I left. Dad will wonder why I skipped out again, but I get kinda tired of these things." he says with a loud sigh.
"Did you enjoy your camp out with Gao?" he asks with a smile. Remembering that was a thing.
"Wait, huh? ...Oh, hey," it takes Rune a moment to realize Hinote is here. While that's not uncommon at all, she just wasn't expecting it at this time. "That's fine, this is your place too. And... sure, I'll take one. Just nothing too big right now for me, okay?" She accepts the offer with a small smile, then moves to sit down at the island-table.
"Can't imagine skipping out on a banquet or ball or anything like that, but they're pretty normal to me. Oh well. As for me?"
She looks herself over, then makes a slow nod. "Working on it. It's taking a while... apparently Blue's treatments are hitting two problems. The big one is demon energy doesn't like to go that easily, so every time he takes some out, it kind of... 'bursts', hurting me a bit more. So he gets one part out, but it's replaced by a few smaller ones. Still an improvement on the whole, but... he can only go so far at a time because of it. He tells me it'd go faster if I came in with better thoughts, better feelings, and I'm working on it but it's pretty scary to think about."
She faces Hinote to continue this point: "I have to be done with this in just a few months so we can go back in time. But... yeah. We went out there, he showed me a lot of how Earth's designs improve on what we already do, and we just... spent time out there. It was pretty nice, I'm hoping we can all do it sometime. Not just him and me, but all of us."
Hinote Kagari ughs. "No, I'm used to...stuff like that. It just isn't. Intresting? I mean. Here. All it is, is me sitting at a table, or a ball and the only ones really intrested in dancing with you are concited as hell." he says through his teeth. He makes the sandwhich. It's some sort of ham and cheese. Just a single slice of each. Light. He offers it over.
He does frown. "I'm sorry...I----" he looks down. "I wish I could just take it away." he says with a sigh. "You didn't deserve that. No one deserves that..." he says as he walks back out into the living room. "Oh, right." he says. "I've been practicing writing with a quill!" he says with a smile. "Wanna see?" he asks.
Rune watches the food-prep with some interest, suddenly realizing she hasn't done anything quite like this for a while... just observing someone preparing a meal for her. A routine thing back home, but unheard of when they were living in an abandoned building. "Guess we've had different experiences with those kind of parties then," she comments. "Maybe you'll like the ones at home more. For now though, this," she takes the offered food and goes to it, "Is pretty nice."
A bite or two follows, then, "Thanks," she does seem to like it well enough. As for his apology, Rune is quick to refute it. "Maybe not, but it was my mistake and I'll have to deal with the consequences. Just glad those consequences are 'get treated' and 'do a little magical exercise at a time', is all. And..."
...When Hinote deflects the topic, she goes along with that. "Sure, let's do it. Here, or in the living room, or where?" A little more sandwich-munching follows.
Hinote Kagari doesn't want Runealy dwelling too long on these things, but also wants to express that he cares. He does his best. That's all he can give. He finishes his sandwhich first. That hit the spot. He feels much better. Maybe should had raided the gala's buffet before he left.
"Here." he says. He walks to a small stand on the other side of the room that has a vase full of flowers in it, and pulls out paper, a modern inkwell and a quill pen. He walks back and places it down on the coffee table.
He dips the pen, and begins to write.
His letters are a little large--- but more important, he's able to mostly cleanly write and also not leave big black spots. Sometimes the ink does bleed- but never enough to fully ruin the whole thing. He has been practicing. Oh. Right. All he did was write 'Hinote'. Just his name. Nothing fancy.
"I've also been phasing out some stuff at home. Like I use candles instead of my electric lights in my room." he smiles. "You guys seem to be enjoying the easier things here--- I need to get used to the idea of not having some particular things." he says with a smile. "Right?"
Rune is eating a bit more slowly, but regularly; she still has some left when Hinote is done and ends up bringing it along while following him and watching Hinote set up. She has to wait until he's done writing to see it, due to the dim light at this hour.
Nonetheless, once he's done she does lean in to check it out, and judges it thus: "That's a pretty good start, looks like you're getting there. Form seems okay, you keep at it and you'll probably find it just as ordinary as you do Earth pens."
Then he brings up the prospect of doing without modern conveniences. "Well... maybe. Maybe partially. Maybe in the long run, yes. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I'm not okay with the original plan that we'd just flee to the portal, try to seal it back up if we could, and hope they never found us and never saw us ever again. Who knows, maybe five or ten years down the line Earth's problems will be fixed and we can pack it up and go home forever, but..."
A few headshakes. "I don't know if we're just going to 'exile' ourselves from Earth even if we manage to save our world."
Hinote Kagari head tilts. Well. Runealy sounded correct on this point, right? Things HAVE changed. The mobs didn't come for them as expected... They're getting nothing but kindness and help from most people now....no one----oh!
"Oh... right. Did. Gao tell you about 'Justice'?" he asks. "I mean. Not my oath!..." he says with a short bit lip and a blush. "There's a group called 'Justice', and I met one of them..." he says with a bit of irratability in his voice.
"If he didn't I can fill you in." he says softly. "It's important." he says softly and looks down.
"I think I've heard the name and bits and pieces, but not enough to really understand," Rune admits as she sits down on a nearby couch. "So go ahead, let me know what's going on?" A little more sandwich-consumption follows.
Hinote Kagari sighs and nods. "Do you remember the second person I attacked?" he says. "When we were still draining energy? The one who stabbed me through the shoulder that I bled a lot after?" he asks. "I saw her...." he says softly. "...and I tried to apologize.. and offer reparation if I could... because I thought that'd be you'd want me to do." he says sheepishly. "She wasn't happy about seeing me- but said that she was a member of 'Justice'--- and wanted me to.... 'stand trial' in front of it's leaders." he says through his teeth.
"I refused, naturally. That sounds like a kangaroo court...!" he insists.
He pauses. A..Are there even Kangroos in Waldia!?
"I mean like. The trial would just be a farce. I'd go in there with thier minds already made up!" he insists as he pffbbbts.
"I'm not sure if I 'remember' her because I'm not sure I've ever met her," Rune comments, momentarily losing interest in food as Hinote recounts these events. The slang of a 'kangaroo' court is somewhat lost on her, but context gives her enough to figure it out.
"That doesn't sound good, but I'm not sure if it's a problem that will go away on its own. We'll keep an eye out for them, and we need to figure something out." That's a pretty vague answer, but she's at least acknowledging the issue.
Hinote Kagari nods. "I told you about her, at least." he says. "Regardless, yeah she's probably going to attack me if we're in the same area. Just...watch out." he says softly. He head tilts. "Is the portal stable enough to travel back and forth between Waldia and Earth?" he asks curiously. "It's really small..." he says, barely remembering a small hole in space.
"Does it get any bigger?" he asks wide eyed.
"It changes in size every so often... haven't really figured out a pattern to it," Rune comments as she finishes off the sandwich. "Thanks, by the way. That was nice. The portal is usually too small to go through, and up until several months ago it was sealed as far back as the First Queen's time... she did it to protect us. I was able to undo the seal, but..."
A pause, then she decides to just answer Hinote's question outright. "Sometimes it's bigger. Once it's the right size, you can just walk through. It's why we didn't tell people about it at first, because someone could have marched an army through single-file and... well." She lets the thought trail off.
Hinote Kagari nods. "Right." he says with a smile. "Well I am an excellent sandwhich chef." he insists. Really, it's hard to screw up 'bread, ham, cheese, bread' in any meaningful way. Surely Waldia has /sandwhiches/...
Right?
He stands up and walks into the kitchen a moment to come back with bottles of water. He hands one over to Runealy.
"Even if we come back... when you're ready to go back for good. I'm going with you. Waldia is my home. That doesn't change just because we're choosing to come back. Okay?" he asks with a wide smile. He pauses.
"I uh, might wanna hide... or destroy. The letter to my parents then." he says sheepishly.
Water. One of those things Rune straight-up forgot to grab while she was out in the kitchen, so now she realizes she does want it and accepts it with a "Thanks," getting to a sip of it. As for the letter...
"That's up to you. If this goes the way I hope it does, we'll save our world and come back to Earth to help them back. Even if they say 'no', we might just sneak around to do it anyway. So you're..." She hesitates a moment, then finishes, "Still going to see your family for a while, I think."
Hinote Kagari smiles. "Nothing wrong with that. It's a pleasent surprise at least." he says. There's no real problems he has with his parents. "Here I was thinking I'd never be back, afterall~" he says. He /is/ thinking a particularly dark thought in his head for a moment. He visibly gives his head a shake a moment. No need to share that particularly morbid thought.
"So..." he asks. "Are we going to come back and stay in this apartment after? I dunno if Virtue is gonna let us have this as 'keepsies'" he says with a short smile.
"Could always rent our own place, of course." he says.
He taps his chin a moment and crosses his arms in front of himself. "Hrm...."
"Well, 'never come back' was the original plan. It sounds like most of the people in Tokyo, the ones who know about us at least, don't want us to vanish forever though." Rune tilts her head down to ponder something too. "Which I never would have expected. Not when we started, and especially not when I saw how Miss White and Ao reacted to our first attacks. But we've got a lot of reasons to stick around here now, so..."
A few headshakes follow. "I don't know where we'll stay. We have to get through this, first. That's the big thing I'm worried about, making sure we get to the Barrier Shrine and..." This time she pauses for several seconds, "...do it right. It's going to be our last chance. If we make it through that, then we'll worry about where to live here on Earth."
Hinote Kagari bites his teeth a bit. "What exactly happened to make Miss White upset?" he asks. He knows this was a 'long while ago' in the whole scope of things. "I mean..besides the obvious beat you up and steal your energy thing we thought was the way to do it." he says with a soft worrying expression. "No one else we drained from got so upset like that." he says softly closing his eyes.
"Well. Except that red girl." he says closes his eyes. "Yusha Karin. That's what she called herself." he says.
"Oh. She also wanted to fight. Since that was avoidable I ran away. Not very... knightly of me, I guess. But I didn't wanna hurt her for--- well nothing."
"She said she owed me a favor. I 'cashed it in' by luring her to a forest a little ways south of here and attacked her... then began using her friend as one of the healers I called for our heroes," again Rune uses that terminology; 'heroes' instead of 'victims', odd as it is.
"So she thought I was going to get Ao hurt, doing that. Ended up being half right, from what I hear. Didn't get hurt over anything I did, even indirectly, but someone or something got to her and it kind of sounded like it was done on purpose."
Rune then repeats that other name. "Karin, huh... okay. I'll keep an eye out for her. Not sure how running away is 'not knightly' though, what made you think that?"
Hinote Kagari thinks Runealy calls victims heroes to make herself feel better about it. That she's gonna add them all to an archive and people would remember them. "Yeah, I made sure to get her name this time because I missed the last time." he admits with a sheepish smile. He head tilts the sheepish smile turning into crooked smile for a moment. "I /really/ need to have you read a few of Earth's Fairy Tales when we finish this all. I think you'll understand a little better about why I have some odd ideas about what a knight is and should act like~" he says in a sligtly playful tone.
"I've never assumed that to be a reality, of course." he says as he closes the cap on the water bottle. "Besides, I've really been 'unknightly' up to this point anyways." he says. "But. Well. I'd rather see Waldia be okay after all this." he smiles.
Then a realization flys over him. "Crap that means I might be here for the play!" he says. "Arrgghhh I stopped remembering lines!" he says.
"I outta read over it tonight before bed then. Sheesh." then his phone beeps once. Then again. and again.... again....
"Shit, I think my parents just realized I skipped out." he says reaching into his pocket and begings to text back a moment.
"Sure, I'll read them and you can catch up on learning your lines," Rune is fine with that. "But if what you're doing out there doesn't match up with Earth's stories, I'll say this much: Us 'being okay'," she uses Hinote's words for it, "is the number one thing. If it means accepting some disgrace, fine. A few people here have told me I have no honor, and they're right. I don't care about 'honor.'"
Her expression hardens, determined. "I care about people living. So if you run away from a fight so someone lives, good. If you do something sneaky so someone else can be happy, that's okay. Lives, protection, and happiness are way more important than some weird rule about how you should be acting. So you--"
She's interrupted by Hinote's cell phone - actually the cell phone, in contrast to her tendency to presume most Earth inventions are something-something 'cell phone' - going off. "...Huh, okay. If you need to go back to them, go for it. It was good of you to drop by here though, had fun seeing you and your writing and sandwiches and all of it." A little smile replaces her previously firm demeanor.
Hinote Kagari seems to be getting agitated for a moment over the texts. Nrg. Of course they're upset he left. Shit. The phone's ringing they're calling. "I heard that Princess, but I need to take this just a moment. Be quiet just a moment, okay?"
He answers the phone. "Hi Dad. Yeah I left." voice on other phone talks. "Because she was boring my brain out onto the table into my dinner plate." he says. Another long pause. "Yeah you say that and then it's just 'new dress!' 'new car!' 'personal yacht!" he says. Another pause. "Yeah, I'll come back then." he sighs and hangs up the phone and rubs his temples, before putting the phone back in his pocket.
"Well, yeah I do need to go back because Dad wants me there when they present this award to him soon for public works or something and the table gets spotlighted and I really just wanna crawl under a table and die." he insists.
"Whelp!" he grabs his tie and begins putting it back on- then slips the suit's jacket back on buttoning it up, and then smoothing it over. "Crap. Do I look fine? Nothing ajar?" he asks as he slides over to the mirror a moment.
Rune goes utterly silent for the call, speaking only after Hinote is clearly done. "An award, huh... ...that gives me an idea for later on. I'll tell you about it some time," She comments while stepping around to help check Hinote out. "Hard to tell in this light, but you should be okay?" She's kind of guessing.
Hinote Kagari hehs. "Just as long as all the things are buttoned and clean~" he insists. He steals a comb from his pocket and gives his hair a quick part as he puts it back into his pocket. "Alright there. I'll be back when this is over. No way I'm staying longer than this award thing." he insists.
"Don't push yourself too hard~ Relax!" he smiles.
And off he jets.