ArchivedLogs:Memories of Home

Memories of Home
Dramatis Personae Kai, Kelly
In Absentia	2013-11-04 Kai and Kelly talk about where they came from.
Location <XS> Anole and Kai's Dorm - FL2
A quiet Sunday evening is a good time to do homework, or get caught up on reading, or (in the case of Kai) working on your art project. The small Korean boy is currently seated on one of the two neatly-made beds in his dorm room, the wall above him decorated with many pieces of art and pictures from magazines, centered around what appears to be a map of Moscow. Dressed in a pair of green pajama shorts and a white t-shirt, Kai has a big sketch pad balanced on his knees, and he sketches a pencil lightly over the surface. He's working hard on it -- you can tell, because the tip of his tongue pokes from one corner as he works. It appears to be a still-life of his bookshelf, down to the Russian nesting doll and terrarium with a giant millipede moving about sluggishly. (Sluggishly is good, for still-life artists, you know.) Next to him, his laptop is open, and music plays softly. It appears to be a collection of 'Schoolhouse Rock' songs, the current one being about the three branches of the government. Much to the betterment of the atmosphere in the boy's dorms, Kelly has politely asked and been provided with a small change of wardrobe, most of which he still has tucked under one of his arms as paces the outside of the halls. Twice he's come to the edge of Kai's door, and twice he's padded away. This third time, he manages a soft set of knocks on the wood, and a very soft "Hello, Kai?" comes from his mouth on the other side. Kelly was a difficult one to fit, that much was true, and right now he was wearing a set of grey sweat pants with the school's logo on them, but in order to be wide enough, they are a good five inches too long, and punch up at the bottom. His shirt has the opposite problem, and while the white T-shirt fits over his head... when he moves you can sometimes see his round belly poke out a bit. The collar was even slit open to allow a few of his bark plates peek out, revealing that the flowers on his hair weren't just limited there, but rand down his neck and shoulders as well. He was barefoot, and a pair of bark patches are on the tops of his feet as well, and without long sleeves on, the vines on his arms are easily visible, seeming to go up under his skin like over grown blood veins, covered in thorns and squirming. "Can I come in a minute?" If Kai has been aware when Kelly's drifted by the open door, he's given no indication that the older boy might see. Instead, he spares his glances for that moment as Kelly moves /past/ the door, watching the empty space for a long moment before returning to his work. At the final pass, the one that ends with Kelly knocking on the frame, he looks up to regard Kelly studiously before he answers. "You may come in," he says, smiling as he sets his pad down and rests his pencil on it. Kelly's outfit get another curious look, and Kai wrinkles his nose. "You have new clothes," he says, in case Kelly wasn't aware of that fact. "Do you like them?" Kelly gives Kai a nod of thanks as he steps in the room and hovers there, not sure if he should sit down or not, a few teeth on his lips and a slight relaxation forced on himself. "I, they're nice." he says, as if that were not quite the truth. "They're comfortable, but... I'm not used to people seeing so much of me." he answers honestly at least and nods to the pad that Kai had been working on. "I hope I'm not keeping you from homework or anything? You, uhm... well, you seemed to be really into it, whatever it was." "They look nice," Kai says, nodding as Kelly comes into the room. He seems confused by Kelly's hovering, his brow knitting a bit as he works it out in his head. "Would you like to sit down?" he offers, shifting to dangle his feet over the side of his bed. There's a small smile at the older boy's mention of discomfort, and he lifts a thin shoulder sympathetically. "It is a difficult thing, starting at this school," he says. "But everyone here is nice, and I do not think people will care much about how you look, if that is a thing which concerns you." He shakes his head at the demurral, reaching to rest his fingers on the pad. "It is a thing which I am working on for my art class," he says. "But it is not /homework/. Just a thing I am doing." He tips his head. "Do you make art?" he asks, eyebrows lifting. "Professor Aloke and Mister Jackson are very good art teachers." Kelly nods and moves over to take a seat next to Kai, with a decent amount of safety distance between them. Still, he would make the bed sink down a bit more than it was meant to in his corner. "No, I wish I could, but never really learned how." He considered the pad in the other boy's reach and asked politely next: "May I see it?" adding "I haven't Met Mr. Jackson, yet, but Mr. Aloke seems nice. I think I may have scared him a little the other day though." Kai nods, sliding the pad closer to the other boy, watching his face and body language rather than the pad itself. "Perhaps you can learn while you are here," he says. "If it is a thing you wish, and would make you happy, I am certain they would be glad to teach it to you." He tips his head at the revelation that Kelly scared a teacher, and there's a small flicker of yellow around the rims of his irises that fades almost immediately. "How did you scare Professor Aloke?" he asks, lifting his eyebrows before they drop into a suspicious narrowing. "You are not one of those boys who likes jumping out at people, are you? It is dangerous to do that to people, around here." Kelly shakes his head as he looks at the drawing carefully, trying to study the lines on it, see what it was about, and more importantly trying to see the strokes that made the picture. He seems impressed at first, biting his own lip again as he considered it. But the question put back to him stalls his study and he sets it back down and back to Kai. "I didn't mean to, I just... well, got scared. I'm used to people trying to hurt me, you know? I But I don't really like pranks like that." he tried to explain with an apologetic tone, guessing he might be one of the more popular teachers here. Kai watches Kelly study the drawing, kicking his feet idly and leaning back to rest his weight on his hands. The picture isn't /great/, but everything is pretty recognizable as what it's supposed to be. Kai seems aware of this when he speaks. "I am not a very good drawer," he says, jutting out his bottom lip. "I am much better at painting." Kelly's explanation gets a wrinkle of his nose, and a small chuff that could be a laugh. "Yes, I know what that is like," he says, nodding slowly. "You will find there are many students here who will know that feeling." He smiles a bit encouragingly. "It will go away," he says. "This place is a /very/ safe place, for people like us." He pauses, considering that. "Well, as safe as it can be, I suppose." He slides a bit closer, tipping his head again. "What is it like, to have plants as part of you?" Kelly shrugs as he looks down at his arms. "I don't know, its just like they're fingers and stuff. I feel 'em just like the rest of me." he says, letting his vines stretch out a few inches and poke on the bed, feeling it. "Sunlight feels a lot better, it feels... wonderful." he adds with a smile, stretching. "If I don't get enough of it, I start to turn brown and get sick. And I get really really thistly all the time. They're making me carry a water bottle with me all day." "What... well, how did you come here? You didn't know about Halloween, so I'm guessing you're not from anywhere close, right?" He wonders as he looks over Kai, measuring the younger boy up. Kai nods as Kelly talks about his mutation, looking down to watch the vines extend. "That is a very interesting ability," he says earnestly. "I like the ones that have to deal with natural things. My very good friend Ivan talks to bugs, and Ducky can speak to birds. They are both very good people to know." He smiles fondly as he recalls the two, and nods solemnly. "There are many places where there is sunlight," he says. "There is always light in the Conservatory. And many plants." He lifts his eyebrows as he nods. "You will like it there. It is a good place, especially in winter." The question gets a small frown from Kai. "I came here from a place with bad doctors," he says. "There are several of us here who came from the laboratory. Mister Jackson and his friends brought us here to keep us safe." He frowns. "Before that, I came from a place that you would know as North Korea. We do not have Halloween there, so it was a new thing to discover." He tips his head. "Where are you from?" he asks. "Is it in America?" The tips for where to find some good sunlight and the friends to meet is med with several nods and careful following. "I met Ducky earlier, actually, she was really cool." he agrees. But the discussion shift to the bad doctors puts him in a right foul mood. He opens his mouth a few times to try and comment on something like that, but it never really forms into anything that he could spit out. Instead he hopes that a sad face is enough to let Kai knows he's sorry to hear that. "Well, yeah, I'm from North Carolina. Fort Bragg, its an army base in the south." he says, his southern accent becoming more pronounced as Kelly thinks back on the place. "Ducky is very nice," Kai says, bobbing his head. "She is a very good friend to have." He doesn't seem to notice Kelly's inner conflict, although his face pulls into a neutral expression at the sympathetic look. He remains silent, though, listening to the older boy intently. "An army base?" he echoes, shifting away from the other boy slowly. "That is a place with soldiers, yes?" His brow furrows, and he pulls his feet up onto the bed, tucking them up against his buttocks so he can fold his arms around his knees and rest his chin. "Did the soldiers make you go there, because of your mutation?" Kelly shook his head very quickly at that. "No, they didn't know. They didn't want me to be a soldier." He looked down to his own feet, and frowned as a leaf has decided that the top of his foot seems like a great place to sprout up while he sat here. He reached down and yanked it off before thinking, letting out a painful grunt as the spot bleed a little. Deep green, but the texture was the same. "Well, my dad wanted me to be a soldier, but not cause I was a mutant or nuthin. I was an Army Brat." Kelly said looking over to Kai with a smile. "Uhm, it means that my dad was in the army, and I lived with him. We lived on all kinds bases, but Bragg was his home base. Mostly 'cause he trained the other soldier's there. But I don't wanna be a soldier, never did... I just don't like the idea of hurting people, ya know?" "Oh." Kai seems flummoxed by the idea of people living willingly on military bases, and he considers that, grinding his chin into his forearm. He watches the removal of that leaf, frowning just a bit. "There are tissues on my desk," he offers, watching the blood well up slowly. He joggles his head in what is probably a nod as Kelly expresses his pacifism. "The idea is troubling," he agrees, lifting his eyebrows. "Doing it is a very different thing, and much worse. If you have avoided it, you are very lucky." He chews his lip, looking at the removed leaf. "What do you do with the leaves and petals that you shed?" "They usually wont come off on their own... Well, sometimes the petals do if I move fast, but I usually have to rip the leaves off." He says frowning, as if it were unwanted nose hairs. He reached for the tissues with a thankful nod, pressing one against the spot and letting it wick up. The spot seems to actually bleed quite a bit, truth be told. "I just throw them away." But with a deep breath he turns a sympathetic face towards Kai, and braves what he couldn't earlier: "I'm sorry that you had to meet the bad doctors..." Kelly said sadly. "That's one of the things I was most afraid of. I hate to know that they actually did it. Do you think you'll get to go back to your parents again?" "May I have that one?" Kai asks, perhaps unaware of the awkwardness of the request. "I will put it in a book, and keep it so that I will remember you." His grin is a bit awkward and shy, and he wrinkles his nose. "Does it hurt very much to take them off? It looks like it might, with that much blood. Perhaps it is a thing you should not do." He considers that. "Or perhaps you could prune them, like that movie with the little boy who was a plant. Timothy Green." The question gets a confused sort of expression, and then Kai apparently remembers Kelly's overall newness. "My family is dead," he says simply. "So there is no one to go back to. But maybe one day I will return to my country as a visitor, and see what I remember." Kai takes the leaf solemnly, tucking it carefully between pages of his sketchbook. "Thank you. I like to collect interesting things." He smiles, although his expression is a bit confused at that deep blush from the older boy. It seems a thing to consider, since he nods distractedly at the well-wishes. "I have what I require, and friends, so there is not much more that I want." He smiles. "Well, there is one thing, but that is why I am here." He dismisses this, sliding to his feet and stretching. "You can go back to your room, if that is a thing you wish to do," he says, picking up his pad and setting it on the desk. "Or, you can come with me, and we will get a snack in the kitchen. There might be some pie that is left from dinner." "Pie?" Kelly says with a small splash of brightness in he face. "I... like pie." And of course he does, because before he was a mutant, he was a hungry chubby teenager, and that never changed.