capeandcowllogs | (no subject)

Entry tags:

† !—dropped characters—! †

(no subject)

WHO:

princenopants
WHERE: In the City.
WHEN: Afternoon of Jan. 30
SUMMARY: Mytho leeches away Kuwabara's enthusiasm 'cause it's mighty-mighty.
FORMAT: Paragraphs are my baby's momma.

Kuwabara was so determined to make today a good day. It was Sunday, and he always made sure to have all of his school work done on Sundays. So that was out of the way. He wouldn't have to go into work barring an emergency or a longer-than-usual string of minor occurrences, and Yukina would be back from her trip tomorrow. Added bonuses. Further, he was mostly adjusted to the City's recent environmental change and there was no horrifically ominous feeling hanging over his head.

So he didn't even have to do a lot of work to make sure it was going to be a fine, perfectly normal day. Great!

He took the opportunity to run a few errands, taking his time and taking more scenic routes when they were even remotely available. He still had plenty of time to waste as he stepped out of a grocery store, two bags of groceries in one hand and a bag of cat-food steadied on his shoulder with the other.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mytho had also been along on errands: Fakir's errands to be exact. But as often happened when the plot demanded it, he had slipped away from his keeper, forgetting Fakir's instructions to not wander off and had done exactly that.

There was a bird perched up on the crossing signal that had captured his attention. From how intently he was watching, it would be easy to assume he was in silent communication with it.

Which he wasn't.

He was just watching.

That alone would have been enough to make him stick out, but the hair also caught the eye, clearly the mark of an Import (and oddly similar to another Import that Kuwabara knew in passing.)

Thankfully he was still wearing the coat Fakir had put on him else his lack of reaction to the cold would have been another thing that marked him as just odd. As it was, he seemed detached from the bustle on the sidewalk, just a step out of sync with everyone.

Man, what was it with kids who just liked staring at things? How many imPorts had this staring problem? And what percentage of that was kids with weirdly light hair?

Still, at this this guy wasn't staring at people, and... He seemed kind of outside. Out of place. It made him feel sympathy, maybe, or at least reminded him that helping people was something he considered to be a welcome responsibility.

He adjusted the things he was carrying and approached Mytho without hesitation, smiling in a friendly way. "Oi. You okay?"

The boy turned, expression still empty. "Probably."

It was an honest answer. As far as he could tell, he wasn't hurt, but that was always tricky when you couldn't feel pain.

"Probably." Kuwabara snorted. If the expression wasn't so blank, he'd be sure Mytho was joking. He moved around, giving the kid a once-over to check for, say, major bleeding. Just in case.

Seemed healthy enough. Kuwabara stood up straight again, fixing Mytho with a scrutinizing look as he tried to figure out the source of his... Off-ness. "'Probably' isn't a real kinda answer, you know!"

"Sorry." The apology was soft and automatic, with nothing behind it. There was a slight pause as he took un the look. It reminded him a bit of Fakir. "I don't think I'm hurt..."

"Well, sure. You look alright. That's not all there is to it, though." He adjusted his groceries to a point where he could bring his hand up to tap a finger to one temple. "There's up here." And then he tapped his chest, over his heart. "And here, you know?

"I mean... You feel alright? You look kinda spacey."

"I don't know. I don't have enough of my heart to tell.... But I think I feel a little loneliness because I don't know where the rest of my heart is and there's someone I want to see who isn't here..."

Mytho had been doing a lot of thinking since arriving in the City, about his heart and the few emotions that had been returned. He could better understand them now.

He almost took the statement literally, at least part-way, assuming a heart problem. It was only a second, though, a quick flicker of surprise, and then he was just very confused. He didn't get how somebody could be missing part of his heart.

Unless, like he said, it was just a matter of missing somebody. That must've been what he meant.

"Well... There's not much that can be done about that, huh?" But that was kind of a downer, wouldn't help the situation at all. Kuwabara smiled then, instead. Might as well let this go with a few words of encouragement, right? Maybe that's all it would take to cheer Mytho up a bit. "Don't worry, thought! I'm sure that person's got you in mind, too!"

More than just a part, almost the entire thing. Mytho was still lacking a heart beat, indicating a lack of more than just his metaphysical heart.

The prince blinked once. There was that smile again... like Duck's smile. There was something behind it, an emotion he lacked. An emotion he wanted to understand.

Without thought, he reached out as if somehow by touch, that emotion would become clearer....

What was he doing? Uh... Right. Handshake? Is that what it was?

Either way, Kuwabara was going to make it a handshake. Either it was a friendly gesture or he could brush it off as a joke. He shifted his items again and reached forward to take Mytho's hand, shaking and having to keep himself from doing so too heartily.

"Anyway! I'm Kazuma Kuwabara! If you need any help, just let me know. I can relate to missing somebody, you know?"

The moment their hands touched, there was a soft red glow that seemed almost overlaid on top of Kuwabara a moment like an echo before it stepped forward, looking like a copy of the teen drawn in red, but see through like a spirit.

Like Mytho's hard shards looked before Tutu turned them into shards again.

The form was only there for a moment before it condensed into a small crystaline lump of dark red and flew towards the white haired boy, sinking into his chest.

Mytho's hands moved to cover where the shard had flown, the sudden flood of this new feeling overwhelming him. Without Tutu to identify it, he had no idea what it was, but...

Okay. What... The hell?

Kuwabara didn't have time to react before his hand was released, and he was left staring dumbly at the kid in front of him. He wasn't exactly startled, though he knew something weird had just happened... The drive to react didn't seem so important.

He simply asked, "What was that supposed to be?"

Mytho blinked a few times as the initial rush of the emotion died down and he became aware of the outside world once again.

"My heart... part of my heart returned!"

There was suddenly much more inflection in his voice, as if suddenly for the first time since he could remember, he was awake. He wanted to dance, he wanted to run, he wanted to find Fakir and Rue and Tutu and show them...!

"Your heart, huh?"

He felt tired. Not physically, mind, but... He was suddenly less sure that today was the kind of day he wanted to walk around in. It was kinda suspicious, too, right? Man.

"Did you..? It's not like I took anything from you, kid. You're mistaken."

"If it returned, it would have to be, would it not?," Mytho smiled, still marveling at the feeling. The thought that it had come from someone else and hadn't looked like him when it emerged hadn't occurred to him yet.

"I don't know." Honest answer, said without his usually degree of sheer emotion included. "You just don't know what you can do. Is that it?"

He felt angry, and his brow furrowed, but that was the extent of it. "That's really irresponsible."

"...what I can do...?"

The new emotion was ebbing, replaced by...

...

He wasn't sure. Maybe it was nothing. But there was a small hint of something like frustration.

"People get power coming in, you know. Maybe you just didn't realize..." Kuwabara was trying to be understanding. He was. It was difficult, though, when he couldn't get his mind around what was happening. Further, he just... Didn't have the usual drive to deal with it.

Was the kid an energy leach? Was that it?

"I was only trying to help."

Mytho blinked, looking suddenly hesitant.

The smile was gone.

That feeling he had wanted to underst--

Oh.

"I'm sorry...."

"Whatever."

If he was sorry, he probably wouldn't go around doing things like that. Or he wouldn't have looked so momentarily thrilled at having taken from somebody else.

He didn't really know what to do about it, though. He wasn't compassionless, he just... Didn't have the willpower to deal right now. He sighed and held out his hand again. "Come on."

There was no way for Mytho to be truly sorry. He simply didn't have the feelings that would enable him to. But he had learned when he should be sorry and knew what to say, even if there would be nothing behind the apology.

Mytho blinked a moment before reaching out to take Kuwabara's hand again. Thankfully this time, there was no reaction.

Figured.

Kuwabara frowned and released Mytho's hand again. Thankfully, habit from his world always had him thinking in terms of energy. He didn't assume Mytho had taken an emotion, but a good chunk of the spiritual energy that all people (knowingly or un-) possessed. That was fixable. Having experienced many a time in which he'd expended his energy, he knew it was something heal-able, something that could be slept off.

He'd go do that. Sure. But first... "Behave yourself, alright? That's not a good trick to pull on people."

"..Trick?" Mytho blinked. He'd been told to behave himself enough times that the request was all but meaningless, but this was the first time he'd been accused of pulling tricks.

"Yeah."

He couldn't say that Mytho had acted troubled to lure in help, but it wasn't an unreasonable thought. Even if he was innocent of that, there was still the fact that he'd pulled something dirty. One didn't have an ability like that that wasn't triggered by intent. That's what Kuwabara figured, anyway.

Sadly, the intent was to understand, but the avenue for understanding had some unfortunate side effects.

But that answer was not at all helpful to Mytho figuring out what Kuwabara meant. It would take him some time to fully determine what had happened and why what had looked like a shard of his own heart had been a shard of someone else's heart. He would have to ask Tutu when he found her.

His resulting silence was probably not reassuring in any case.

Riiight.

Kuwabara just sighed, grumbled under his breath, and re-adjusted his shopping yet again. "I'm going home."

Their might have been something Mytho was supposed to do. Another apology? He wasn't sure. So instead he just nodded and turned to find Fakir.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only