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                    “A fair point, even if it is completely BOTCHED work it will show more effort if it was at least done by hand.” And better yet if it looked TERRIBLE at the very least it wasn’t HIS handiwork if people were to point it out. His handwriting would be completely legible and he would be sure to make NOTE this was where his effort in the project was put in, “Of course…” He did not know what to say past that but admittedly the project talk was becoming tiresome. Harper KNEW he was terrible at small talk but perhaps he could say SOMETHING to spark a conversation. His partner did not appear to be a COMPLETELY NUMBSKULL after all so there was a chance they might have something of note to say, “Mm, you were a transfer student correct? Where did you say you were from again?” A place to connect on, he had been living here in America since his early teens but once upon a time he too was the lost transfer student, once again adjusting to the new culture he was placed in and what security he would have to forget all together; like visiting a new world.

“Yes. I moved here with my father.” He replied, staring intently down at the posterboard as if he could make a perfect image appear through sheer willpower alone. It remained heartlessly blank and he let out a small breath, remembering the story they’d agreed on.

“It depends on what it is,” Darris replied, turning back to the board they were working on after he’d gotten the marker. He used to draw all the time when he was little, but...not so much anymore. Father didn’t like it when he showed interest in frivolous pursuits. But the teacher wasn’t Father. “I think the teacher cares more about us ‘being creative.’” Whatever that meant. “I don’t think he’ll like it if we just print things out.”

     Basti stared at him blankly, all color draining from his face as he spoke of things he could hardly even understand. A different planet… solar systems… He… wasn’t on earth anymore? Bastiano stumbled back against the wall and slid to the ground. No… this… was just a dream. A bad dream, soon he’d wake up next to Renata and she’d tell him to shut the fuck up and go back to sleep. This wasn’t real. 

     With a heavy sigh, Bastiano laid his head back against the wall and smiled softly. “A dream… that makes more sense. All just a dream.” He lifted his head and looked at the strangely vibrant man and smiled drearily, “It’s okay, no need to worry about it now…” With a sigh, he relaxed back against the wall, the last notes of he box tinking along before it stopped and, once again, Bastiano disappeared.

Again...? Darris frowned at the music box, regarding it. The program inside of it was clearly defective to some sort of degree. He would have to show it to someone one and have it worked out (a large part of him wanted to just chuck the thing, but... well, he couldn’t do that to a gift from his father. No, he was quite stuck with this thing).

     “That makes no sense,” he muttered, shaking his head and glancing at the music box again. The small, precious box that he’d had custom made… “No, she… You’re lying, she’s here. She did this to me, didn’t she…?” She must have cursed him. Which… would mean that he…

Bright eyes widened as he seemed to come to the realization that he was, as he had thought initially… dead. He looked at Darris in fear before he looked at the ground. It… made sense now. “… Darris, what… what year is it?” How long had he been gone? Where was Renata? Had she been okay after what had happened?

“What are you talking about? Who’s this 'she’ you keep mentioning?” It sounded like she might be the previous owner of the box. ...Or it was entirely possible that the program inside of the box could just be undergoing a severe malfunction. It was starting to get rather hard to tell.

Either way, it was clearly...distraught.

     “Disappeared?” Bastiano frowned, tone incredulous. There was no way. That wasn’t possible. People don’t just… disappear, for fuck’s sake. Beads of sweat began to appear under his fringe as anxiety set in. He didn’t know what was happening… was… could it be that he… No. No, no. He was here, he was solid, that’s… that was real. 

     “Wh-what,” he asked, looking at him now, brows furrowed tightly together. He’d been out of it for a moment, and was snapped back to from the man’s questioning. “I… I’m Bastiano de Monacha. My… my purpose is to compose. It’s all I’ve done, all my life. Who are you…?” What was going on, why was this happening? The last thing he remembered before all this was… was her. The knife. The pain… “Where is she,” he asked to himself, looking around now, as if expecting someone to jump out and stab him again.

“Yes, you vanished upon the completion of the song. You reappeared when I started it again.” Darris elaborated. The behavior of this thing was getting increasingly disturbing. However, if he truly was a hard light projection, there would be no way to get rid of him without throwing the music box out as well. “My name is Darris Ilmamin and I’m the owner of that device you’re holding. It was given to me by my father after one of his trips to a foreign world.”

     It was as if no time had passed. First, he’d been listening to the ending of song, and then… he blinked. When his eyes opened again, the man from before was closer, and holding his music box again. “Wha-” He frowned and took the box from his hands, “What in the hell are you doing?” Bastiano stepped back, shaking his head and looking at the box again, the same melody playing again.

     “… Hadn’t this… just finished,” he asked to no one in particular. His focus was back to the other man, looking at him incredulously. “… What is happening…?” 

“You disappeared,” Darris replied, crossing his arms when the box was taken from him again. He didn’t bother trying to hold onto it. Why did the construct look so confused? It should know what it was, shouldn’t it? Maybe this was just part of the joke?

     “Block?” Was this man daft? Absolutely stupid in the head? “Did you just call it a block? It’s obviously not just that, you… you–” He stopped when the man stepped back, placing the box in question on the desk. His bright blue eyes widened. That was far easier than he’d expected. Bastiano looked from the music box to the man, then back to the box. Good… good, Renata wouldn’t have to worry anymore that it was missing (though he’d had no idea that it was in the first place, and honestly Nata wouldn’t care whether she had it or not). 

     He stepped forward to the desk and took it in his hands, looking it over. “Oh,” he breathed, feeling a sort of… warmth filling his chest as the metallic tinkling of the music box sang away. The softest sigh left his lips as he smiled, happy to at least have this in lieu of this absolutely maddening day. “Grazie,” Basti said, seemingly entranced now by the small device. He closed his eyes and began to hum along to the last bars of the melody…

     Eyes opened to look at the man in gratitude as the last note played… and then he vanished without a trace, the music box clattering to the floor.

Darris had also reached forward to grab his communication device. Before he could whisper anything into it, however... The stranger vanished before his eyes and the box fell to the floor with an anticlimactic clunk. Darris stood there, frozen for a few more seconds, then looked around as if to see if there was some explanation somewhere. 

“What...in the world?” He murmured to himself. After a few seconds of standing there dumbly, he walked around his desk and picked up the box. He turned it over in his hands, searching for some sort of device built into it. That man... he must have been a hard light construct. A physical hologram...

     Bastiano glanced around again, his chest heaving as he tried to regain his breath. What… on earth was going on here? He wasn’t here just a moment ago, so then why…? “Y-your home,” he repeated, looking back at the brightly colored man. “… Why am I here? Why…” His attention focused on the music box in his hand, so fragile and delicate, intricate in design. Why did he have it…? 

     Suddenly he was upset, and he stood, no longer having to worry about the pain of the knife that had magically disappeared. “Where did you get that music box? Give it back! I made–” He took a step closer and held out his hand, “I made that for my wife! She’ll want it back!”

Darris stiffened when the girl stood up, eyes darting over her in search of possible weapons. He didn’t have anything to defend himself at the moment... “...You want my block?” He asked, following her eyes to it.

Deciding that this was likely the safest course of action, he slowly moved forward to place the wooden thing--was there music coming from it now?--onto the desk. He gently slid it forward without taking his eyes off of her.

    Oh, god, it hurt… How… how had he gotten here, knife in his chest, hysterical woman standing over top him, crying about how she was cleansing the world of the stain, the filth that was himself. The blood on her hands, the spatter on her dress, it seemed to shine in the moonlight that flooded their room. His body burned and felt cold at the same time, what could he do? Help… Help…!

     “Help me!!” He cried, sitting upright and panting hard, his hand flying to his chest to find the knife and pull it out. “H-help m- Wh–” He looked down. There was no knife. No blood, no… no nothing. He looked around, almost expecting to see his wife in bed next to him, but no. He wasn’t even in a bed. He wasn’t even at home! 

     Bastiano looked around frantically still, and laid eyes on a man he didn’t see before in his moment of panic. A man with the brightest eyes and hair he’d ever seen in his life. And as he focused on him, he saw the music box, the box he’d made that played his greatest symphony… well, he thought it was at least. He stared up at the equally perplexed man, “… Wh-who are you?”

The second Darris had finished turning the key, a scream rang through the room. He jumped backward, all but tripping over his own chair! His back hit the wall behind him, starting to sweat. There was a strange girl sitting there, sprawled on the ground. Who was she? Was she here to kill him? To rob him?

If he could move forward, he could get back over to his pager and summon help. He had to be very careful here...and then she asked him the most stupid question he’d ever heard.

It’d been a while since he’d been gifted with The Block.

It...was something of a novelty, he supposed. It wasn’t every day that you could find something made from genuine wood. He’d thought it was a joke for a while and had treated it as a paperweight accordingly.  But today, that changed.

{/In all honesty, she wasn’t sure she wanted to wash her hands. Part of her still wanted to hold on to his hand just for safety. And if he was going to just make her wash her hands afterwards again, then what would have been the point in washing them the first time? Still, he might not have been comfortable holding hands. So she’d just have to forego her own comforts for right now. He was already helping her out a lot. There wasn’t much she could ask else of him.

When they got to the bathrooms, she looked around a little bit confused. She couldn’t read that. Nicole didn’t know which one was for the girls, and which one was for the boys. And honestly, the last time she went in the wrong bathroom, she had gotten in so much trouble. It wasn’t something she wanted to repeat.}

“This is the bathroom for you to use.”

“–Oh…thank ya.” {/She takes her sweet time going in. Partially afraid that this would be where they part. Nicole wasn’t sure that the man was going to be heartless enough to leave her, but she also didn’t know him well enough to know he wouldn’t either. Still, she ends up entering the bathroom anyway. And unlike her entrance, she makes quick work of washing her hands and exiting the bathroom. To see he was still there filled her with a little bit of hope. So he wasn’t going to abandon her outright. She gave a faint smile, but it faded as quickly as it came.}

“So…where do we go now?”

Isa let out a small sigh and leaned against the wall. This was such a mess. He knew he was going to be taken in by the police for questioning. He had no idea how old the girl was... (he’d never asked for her name. He’d have to remedy that.) This was...trafficking was such a major crime, but Isa had never paid enough attention to know how big this would get.

Would she have to go on trail? Would he?

What would his father say? No--he tried to push that out of his head. There was no use thinking about that. He raised his communicator again, informed the police as to their current location, and then put it away again. 

When the girl came out, he gave her another kind smile. “We’ll be waiting here for the police to arrive.”

   “Huh? Oh, yeah! It’s no problem! I actually end up having a lot of fun showing him things.” It was always nice to be the one who wasn’t lost, much like she was when it came to the world hopping affairs. Kairi actually enjoyed Darris’ company as well; he was an interesting person once you got to know him.

   “I’ve tried to help him meet more people whenever we hang out but he just doesn’t seem to care for making friends….” Surely it got exhausting to hang out with a kid all the time, and Kairi wouldn’t entirely blame him though it didn’t seem to be the case. “So I try to make it fun whenever we do something. Otherwise he’d probably drown in all his work.”

A loud laugh left Anna’s lips. “Yeah, sounds a lot like him. I kinda need my boy alive, y’know?”

   “Tours?” Nevermind the strange name of her world; Destiny Islands wasn’t some sort of attraction, for a long time there wasn’t anyone who wasn’t native to the Island unless they were new traders from one of the other islets ( herself excluded ). Stifling another laugh Kairi gave her hand a gentle squeeze before letting go. “Well, I’m not a tour guide or anything but I suppose if you’re gonna ask so nicely I can show you around!”

“You sure?” Anna couldn’t keep herself from a bit of teasing. “Darris said you were the best person to show me around. Though...”

She glanced around a bit before leaning a bit closer to Kairi conspiratively. “I think it’s because he never bothered talking to anyone else. From what he said it sounds like you’ve been taking care of him more than anything.”

   A short laugh manages to pass her lips before she stifles it with her hand– how long has this girl been looking for her exactly? “Oh! You know Darris?” Well if he’s friends with her then Kairi could definitely trust her too! “I babysit for him sometimes! And other times I show him the islands and it’s wildlife, when I can anyways. I mostly know him from my father.” She held a hand out to the girl ( making sure there wasn’t a mountain of sand stuck to it first ). “It’s nice to meet a friend of his.”

“Nice t’meetcha, Kairi,” Anna replied and shook her hand firmly. A bit of dirt and grit didn’t bother her, she knew better than anyone that sometimes things really couldn’t be helped. “Sure is nice of you to help him out like this. God knows that he needs it.”

   That definitely perked her up quite a bit, Kairi straightening up immediately at the mention of her own name. “Well you’ve found her then!” With a short laugh she pushed herself up and onto her feet. “I’m Kairi, who might you be?”

“Oh, thank god I’ve finally found you,” Anna couldn’t help but whine, drooping a little. Who knew it would be so hard to find the mayor’s daughter in such a small town? Then again, Anna was from a small town, so she shouldn’t be surprised.

   It’s almost commonplace to see strangers wandering across, otherworldly clothes and the quizzical looks as they took in their new surroundings. Honestly that was probably the same way Kairi looked whenever she found a new world to explore. Her chin dropped into her palm, a smile on her face as she watched her. “Are you looking for someone?” Kairi called from where she sat; may as well introduce herself.