#caadia

Her feet aren’t grounded this time as she makes her way through the halls of the facility. Her feet are in fact, very slippery due to the rain cloud hovering over her head still as she went to the destination Leroy had stated over the speakers at three in the morning. She had barely gotten any rest the night before-- hell night wasn’t even over yet before she was woken up by the sound of Leroy’s voice. She didn’t bother to get dressed, simply going out with her silk night gown and her rain proof blanket wrapped around her body. She didn’t bother to even grab any shoes, so she was walking barefoot through the halls as the rain was at a small drizzle stage.

Leroy hadn’t lied to them ever, well, only sometimes, but never on the topic of corpses. He seemed rather eager at times, to announce one of the residents at the facility dead-- or he didn’t seem to care. This was his job after all, to take care of a bunch of rotten kids, or monsters, or kids turning into monsters. Xue didn’t know anymore, she was getting very tired of how Leroy handled his job. She liked Ellen much more, despite her strict nature and she didn’t also seem to care about their situation. 

She stepped into the area, pouring rain where she went as she saw the others around Loic’s corpse.

Xue paused for a second, a smile stretching across her lips. The smile looked nervous, at most. “..<He’s dead?>” Xue had to admit, she mostly made fun of Loic, but she.. she didn’t know how to feel anymore. Bad? She mostly felt most of the victims in cases are idiots-- they should have learned, all of them. Loic, on the other hand, always looked like he knew what he was doing.

What did any of them learn from this? 

Xue backed away from the scene, her smile fading as she turned. She bumped right into someone and was knocked back a step. “<Fuck! Goddammit, watch your-->” Upon seeing who it was, she stopped cursing in a foreign language and looked up and down at the person. 

There was one thing Xue knew about herself: she had somewhat of a grasp to do several things with the free time spent in her mansion of her house, trapped inside for seventeen years of her lonely goddamned life. But, she wasn’t that lonely. She had her parents, maids, butlers, friends she never got to know before coming here. But never, never someone she got really close to.

The star girl had somehow found her way into one of the new areas of the place, the band room. She taught herself how to play basic piano songs, but she wasn’t a big expert. Xue also knew how to play very traditional instruments, and by seeing the array of things in the room, she could do anything.

How about a trumpet, then? She could learn how to do that. Going through the trumpet section, she dug through until she found a case and pulled it out. Grabbing one of the row of chairs, she took a sheet of music and settled herself in. Of course, without her vast amount of books she usually had, teaching yourself how to play the trumpet was rather difficult.

She knew nothing about this, other than what she’s seen in books and she believed one of the people she had met by sneaking out was a trumpet player. They always brought their case, but never played it in front of her. She placed her lips on the mouth piece and just spread spit all over, coughing afterwards.

“Why will it not..” She grumbled and tried again, her mind wandering as she tried to figure out how to play the damned thing on her own. Now that she was thinking about the trial the day before, why didn’t she comfort Caadia?

She was crying, after Marta literally exploded with her feelings of the case. She’d usually defend her, or yell at the person who made her cry, but she felt so.. confused at the time. Hell, she’s confused now. About everyone. About Caadia too. What were all of those advances, she wondered?

The winks, her flirting in Mandarin, her asking for her hand in marriage, saying she’d make a good housewife.. what did it all mean? Her mind wandered a little too much that she didn’t notice Caadia at the door, and choked, pulling the trumpet away and wheezing. 

Was it stupid to try and find one person you had just formally met once-- in an incredibly bad situation for them? Well, even if it was, Toubei found himself looking nevertheless for the barista with long hair. Whilst there was a part of him that advised him to not approach her much for a dark, lingering fear in the back of his mind, there was another part that told him he should just absorb all of his confidence and go for it with no regrets.

His resolve was strong at first, but the longer searched, the more doubts he was beginning to have settle in his mind. After all, there were a lot of things to worry about. What if she thought of him negatively due to connecting him to the time she had a panic attack in public? What if he had not handled the situation as well as he would have wanted? What if he had disappointed her by saying he was not someone she had thought he might be? What if he messed up and made everything worse?

God, this was exhausting, and he hadn't even yet come face to face with her again, let alone talk to her once more after that whole thing.

A lot had happened since then yet at the same time everything had felt unmoving. He hadn't done anything noteworthy (except felt desperation over the fact that the kitchen only distributed you a meal three times a day and get anxious over his own phsyical appearances), so it was not like he would have a good ice breaker with her.

It would not make sense in a casual setting to just say he was thinking about her either. That would give off the wrong idea, wouldn't it? She would find him creepy or suspicious.

So when he had spotted her in the halls of the area designated for rooms, the actor had both perked up yet feel a bit of his inhibitions taking over and holding him back.

Nevertheless, he pushed forth, finding his feet moving their way towards the barista. He raised an arm, waving his hand in the most lazy and effortless gesture as he called out her name.

"Caadia!"

Well, now he's done it. He had to say something else besides that, didn't he? Taking in a deep breath, he started first with something that could have easily just been small talk.