Taking a long drink of her coffee, Misaya turned her nose away from Kairi on the opposite end of the table. He still reeked, and with his feet propped up, boots near her head, it was made all the more obvious that he hadn't showered in the past few days or so, either. He'd been waiting for her when she arrived, and the usual pleasant, quiet atmosphere of her favorite café was disturbed by his overbearingly fiendish presence. The other patrons, waiters, waitresses, and even the policeman they'd called to deal with the disruption—the "unruly man in the dark shades and biker outfit"—were too afraid to go near them like they were a pair of corpse-eaters feeding on the remains of their victims rather than two old frie—oh who was she kidding? They probably thought he was a member of the yakuza and, as she tried her best to reassure them with a smile, the reality was much, much worse.
He seemed to be deep in his own thoughts. She groaned, giving him the look she'd give one of her misbehaving students, usually accompanied by a light smack on the head with a rolled up piece of paper. Though, all she had on hand was her cup of coffee, and she'd rather not waste that. "What do you want now?"
"I wanted to know if you'll go through with it," he replied after several moments, playing with something in his hands. It looked like a bottle of some sort, but, she wasn't quite sure.
"With what?"
"I know I said don't do anything stupid, but, don't play stupid either. You know what I'm talking about."
She scowled. "No, I'm not."
"That right?" Reaching into his back jacket pocket, Kairi took out two old, folded photographs. He laid it and what'd been in his hands—not a bottle, actually two small vials—on the table in front of her. "Well, if you decide to change your mind." Then, he simply stood up and left before his coffee came. Not that it would've, considering...
She didn't bother to watch him go, and took a peek at the photographs. One was a picture of them, she and her father, and the other was Kairi and that kid his family adopted, back when she wasn't tied down by her choices in life, he wasn't sporting that awful mullet, and both her father and that girl was obviously still living. She'd forgotten the kid's name, but, knew what he was trying to tell her, and wouldn't have any of it.
"Nice try," she mumbled, taking the photographs and vials before walking to the nearest trashcan. Throwing away her coffee, she put the photographs and the vials in her pocket instead. While the photos were worthless, the vials would fetch for a decent price on the blackmarket. As for her coffee.. it'd gone cold.
On her way out after paying, she went into the restroom and parted her hair in the mirror. Stretching, she'd overslept without realizing it and would've been horrified at what she saw if she were regular person, except, no, it was normal for a magus—well, former magus, anyway—to look how she did. To anyone who wasn't a magus, her eyes were extremely bloodshot. Her eye-drops back at the apartment were empty, and she couldn't get another refill because she still owed Red money, and couldn't go to anyone else as they were too expensive on a teacher's salary alone. Raking her fingers through her hair, she was a mess. Black strands sticking to her fingers, dead ends, she rinsed her hands and face and arms. They stung. She smoothed over the various scars; constant reminders that her past was always there, right below the surface. If she'd continued her practice, it would've rendered them completely numb someday. Not that her father would've said anything about it, even if he'd known. Once the proud head of a magus family stretching back several generations, the last time she'd seen him he was little more than a shadow of his former self. Forced to go by his old journals, backtracking and re-engineering years' worth of his research much too complex for her, to teach herself all the things he'd been incapable to ironically rid herself of ever being able to use any of it, it was painfully obvious where that'd gotten her.
She could still see him on his knees in front of her, wild, filthy, untamed. Just bowing his head, groveling like a whimpering dog.
Fixing her hair in the mirror, she made herself somewhat more presentable and, as she was about to head out, everyone was still keeping their distance save for one brave waitress head who told her to wait and handed her Kairi's late coffee. Thanking her, Misaya asked for another to go. She was going to need it.
--
Later, she sat at her desk grading more papers. Pulling from the top of the stack, she read the name and didn't even bother with the rest of it and marked them down for a perfect score. After all, what else was there to expect from the class representative? Speaking of her prestigious class representative, a real saint, now that she thought about it, Tohsaka hadn't even been in class. Misaya wondered if her absence had something to do with her family… Not that she was cared enough to investigate further—and from the fact she'd gotten a few hours extra worth of much needed sleep from it—but, still, it was well past the hour Tohsaka swung by to review her latest paper and she thought it strange for a girl like her to simply skip out on what up until today been the norm. Putting down her pen with a yawn, she tried in vain to cover her face with a hand at the sun peeking through the shades of her classroom. Peering over at the clock, the semester was ending very soon, and if she wanted to keep her job here she needed to finish them all within the next few days, as she quit wondering and moved on to the next one.
By the time she finished this latest round it was half past six o'clock. Dusk had settled, violet shafts of waning sun creeping in. Their somber shadows danced in front of her. Sprinkles of dust floated like red little lightning bugs. Shrouded in the dark, hearing that familiar sound of cicadas, she was once again unpleasantly reminded of the past. A cough tickled her throat and she grabbed her cup of coffee and took a large gulp. Swallowing those memories back down, she was dead tired. Looking at her stack of papers, she still had yet a long way to go and doubted she'd get it all done tonight, anyway, and as her head drooped further and further toward her desk, what could it hurt...?
Originally Posted by Historia
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