ArchivedLogs:Communication and Understanding

Communication and Understanding
Dramatis Personae Kai, Rasa	2013-06-18 '
Location <XS> Library
Xavier's librarian might hope the library is a quiet place to sit and study, but with a school full of teenagers that is not always the case. Nevertheless, it is certainly a treasure trove of knowledge, well-stocked with a wealth of books on its high shelves. Its reference section is vast, though its fiction is as well (much to the delight of many of its students.) The wide octagonal tables and smaller armchairs are often crowded with students, though the whispered conversations that often take place leave some doubt as to how much work is getting done at any given hour. There's still a couple of days or so before the start of summer classes, and many of the students at Xavier's have either gone home for the summer, or live nearby in the city. The latter are mostly gone, many of them electing to stay in the city near their loved ones as tensions there grow worse. Around the school itself, those students staying behind are making the most of the free time they have left, and are taking advantage of Madame Web's carnival. There are a few, though, who stick close to the school grounds, for whatever reason. These students can usually be found in the Rec Room, or doing any one of the dozens of diversions the school offers even in its downtime. A few are not really drawn to such boisterous activities, and seek out the quieter spots. Such a one is Kai. Seated sideways in one of the armchairs, his legs dangling bare feet over the side, the Korean boy looks very comfortable in his cargo shorts and green t-shirt with the Green Lantern logo on the chest. In his hands, a book rests (a Hardy Boys mystery -- WHILE THE CLOCK TICKED), although his attention is not on /that/. Instead, he is focused on a spot somewhere near the ceiling, regarding it impassively (although his eyes are a bit sullen-looking). Rasa pads in with a quiet swish of hir tail. Hir skin is a pleasant pale, apparently uninspired to color. The days are long and boring, so it's not all that unexpected. Ze is wearing a faded pair of jeans that have a new hole and button attached to them to allow for hir tail, with a white tee shirt that has an orange and pink tanktop over the top. Ze has a book on beginner Russian. Ze pauses when ze sees the Kai, looking him over from bare foot to head, lips pursing in consideration. Eventually, ze follows his gaze and looks up as well. "So. How many of those shirts do you have?" Rasa's entrance is quiet enough, but Kai seems to sense it, blinking slowly once in his unrelenting STARE at the ceiling. When ze speaks, he blinks again, tilting his head to look at hir before looking at his own shirt. "I only have one with this green H thing," he says, almost apologetically. "I have many green shirts, though. I have been told it is a good color on me." He wrinkles his nose. "I do not know if I was being teased, but I happen to agree with the idea." Then he's offering a small smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. "I wish I could wear pretty colors like you do," he says sincerely, eyes dropping to the book in Rasa's hand. "But many of them make my skin look strange. What is the book you are reading?" "I just wear whatever color I feel like wearing, to be honest. I guess they match. I'm sure there are days when they do not actually go well with my skin, but I don't actually care much what people here think of my appearance. Appearances are... um, well, not static." Rasa draws in a deep breath and looks at Kai's face, finally studying his expression. "If you can wear that color green, you can probably wear other bright shades. They call them 'winters' or 'summers' when you're talking about clothes. What is your favorite color?" The book? Forgotten for the time being. "Maybe they are prettier /because/ you do not care what others think," Kai offers, tipping his head thoughtfully. "Maybe self-assurance is a factor in how good one looks." Rasa's input on his shirt brings his attention back to it, and he studies it a moment. "Some," he admits. "Red does not look too bad. And blue, if it is not /too/ blue." He taps the spine of his own book, which is cerulean in color. "This one is a good one." The question gets a shy smile that's a bit warmer, and he colors a bit. "My favorite color really is green," he confesses. "When it is bright like grass or emerald. Not dark or dull like jade. Or Foom." Another tip of his head, in the other direction. "Which one is your favorite color?" "Oh, I don't know. I don't really settle on one." Rasa gives a little bit of a shrug. "I guess it kind of ties into how I don't really... ever stay one thing, you know? Just can't make up whatever it is inside me that knows that stuff. I like... blue and green sometimes, but green bothers me now." Ze moves over to sit down in a near by chair, keeping hir voice quiet, despite the lack of students. "Not your green, so don't worry about that. It's just, sometimes, it's hard to be green. Anyway. How are you doing?" Kai actually squeaks a giggle at Rasa's observation on being green, and he slaps his hand over his mouth with a horrified sort of look. "I am sorry," he says, when he lowers his hand. "I was not laughing at you. I was laughing because it is true. Sometimes it is /very/ hard to be green." The solemn nod that follows that is marred by another giggle, and his hand lands back over his mouth. "I am very sorry," he says from behind his hand, looking worriedly at Rasa. "I am not trying to be rude." He inhales deeply, and closes his eyes in a semblance of mental counting. Then there's a slow exhale. "I am all right, I guess," he answers the question. "I am missing Ivan and Peter, though." His giggles seem to be well and truly gone as he shifts his weight around, dropping his feet to the floor and looking hesitantly at Rasa. "I am sure you are missing him, too, yes?" No need to specify which him, clearly. "Kai... You're a little sensitive." Rasa notes quietly. "I did not think your giggling was bad. Yeah, maybe you didn't understand what I meant, or some other thought popped into your head that was completely unrelated, but it's okay, really. I try not to react immediately and let people think and feel what they want, and try not to let it affect me." Ze wrinkles hir nose, skin taking on a bronze shade. "Giggling is good. Please don't stop enjoying yourself on my account." Ze pulls the book onto hir lap. "Peter will be back on Friday. That's good." Kai scrunches his nose, working through Rasa's reassurance for a moment. "I do not know that I was giggling because I was enjoying myself," he says honestly. "It is /very/ hard to be green; this is a thing which I know to be very true. Green is all right for clothes, and painting, but /turning/ green can be a very, very bad thing." He raises a hand and flexes fingers like claws, watching the movement of his digits carefully. Then he shrugs. "I do not know if this is what you meant, but it is what I thought of. And the frog puppet who sings the song about it." He scrunches his nose and catches his lower lip in his teeth, exhaling something that might be akin to a suppressed laugh. He lifts a shoulder at the information on Peter. "Yes. He called me yesterday on my phone. The Professor gave me a phone," he says suddenly, as if it needed clarifying. "So I may talk to Peter and Ivan and others when they are not here." He leans back in his chair, frowning deeply. "I will probably be using it a lot." "Well, yeah, I guess. People don't really have a tendency to stick around the school when they get older. They seem to want to go everywhere - or maybe that is just my friends." Rasa gives hir book a glance and then turns it over to read the back cover. "I have not spoken to Ivan yet. I think he is probably jet-lagged. He had a lot of distance to cover and his family is probably taking up a lot of his time. It hasn't been a week yet." Ze looks back to Kai, considering. "Do you miss your family?" "I wish I could go everywhere," Kai says in a disconsolate mumble. "I have lived in three countries, before America, and have not seen anything." A sore spot, maybe? He shifts his weight, and lifts his hand. "At least nothing that is not on television." He falls silent for a long moment, and nods at Rasa. "I sent him a message when I got my phone," he says. "So he would know that I have one, now. But he has not written back. I am sure he is having fun with his family." He narrows his eyes. "I am not sure what Jet-lagged means, but I hope it will not last long, if he has it. It is not fun to be sick." The question about his own family gets a slow blink. "No," he says honestly, and his voice is oddly detached. Yellow fire flickers around the rim of his irises, and he tilts his head. "I do not miss them. They have been dead for a long time, and they were not very nice before that." Another slow and thoughtful blink, almost reptilian in the slow downward slide of his upper lids. "Do you miss yours?" "Jet-lagged is when you are accustomed to a time zone, where your insides tell you what time is normally daylight and when you should be awake, but then you take a fast mode of transportation, like a jet, and end up in a place where it is dark when your internal clock tells you that it is time to be awake, and light, when you'd rather be sleeping. There is an 8 hour time change between where we are now and where Ivan is. He is relearning how to be awake when we are getting ready to go to sleep." Rasa draws in a deep breath and runs a finger across the dot that represents Moscow on the small and likely inaccurate map on the back of hir book. "So, really, this week has probably been full of him being really tired and disoriented. He'll be better later." "Sometimes. I miss the idea of them, when I was little and things were simpler. Now, they live in New York City and I choose not to spend time with them." Ze gathers up hir hair in one hand and smooths it over hir shoulder. "They are just people who pay my bills as long as I don't bother them." “It must be very hard,” Kai notes. “Going such a long distance. I can see where it would make a person tired. When I came here, I was asleep, and did not see the sun at all for a very long time, so I did not feel any different.” He seems almost chatty, although he keeps his eyes focused on his knee, tracing an old scar with one fingertip. “Sometimes, I am envious of people who go to visit their families,” he confesses, glancing up at Rasa to gauge hir reaction to this information. “I wonder if my family had been different, how things might have been.” He exhales, sinking back into his chair and furrowing his brow in Rasa’s direction. “Your family is not nice to you, either?” he says, shaking his head sympathetically. “Do they beat you, if you come home?” "No, they would not beat me. They used to just leave me in my room and give me food. I went to school, I stayed quiet, but it wasn't good. They would also fight about what to do with me. It was bad. I think they might have moved out and run away from each other and left me if I hadn't left on my own. I am not sure they love each other anymore. It was a very empty home." Rasa considers quietly and frowns. "If I came back, they probably wouldn"t open the door." Ze shakes hir head and exhales moodily, hir skin altering more, growing darker. "Do you mind if we talk about something else? I am not good with sad things right now." “I am sorry,” Kai says, frowning with a small, worried furrow of his eyebrows as he stares at Rasa carefully. “I did not mean to make you unhappy.” He shifts his weight, and presses his lips together as he thinks, perhaps of a more appropriate subject. Then his eyebrows lift, he offers a small, bright smile. “Have you met Ducky? She can talk to birds.” "Yes, I have met Ducky. I was a part of her orientation, a welcome to the school and a tour of the grounds." Rasa opens hir book at the beginning, eyes starting to scan the introduction. "Have you two become friends?" Kai nods. “Yes. She is very nice, although she worries as I do that she will say something that is not appropriate, and make someone upset.” He offers a small sympathetic look, and then bobs his head. “She introduced me to many of her bird friends. There were little birds that hum, and pigeons, and there were a couple of very blue birds who were very loud at scolding people.” He’s amused by this, and he swings his legs a bit. “Now I know someone who talks to bugs, and someone who talks to birds. That is an interesting thing.” The book in Rasa’s hand gets another long look. “That is a book about Russia?” "Well, there is something to be said about behaving politely to fit in with society, but at the same time, being afraid to say things is not the best place to be." Rasa doesn't look up from hir book. "Sometimes, I want to tell everyone to fuck off and die horribly because they are jerks and cocks who can't treat other people well, but I don't because it would limit my ability to interact with them socially in the future. However, I will inform them when they are being jerks, politely." Or some sembalence of politeness. "I don't think you should worry, though, unless you feel you are speaking out of anger. Anger and pain are things that should be avoided. If that is all you feel, though, you should talk to Professor Xavier or Grey. They can help." A deep breath is summoned and let go, finally looking up from hir book. "It is a book about Russian, which does have some facts about Russia, but because of the Soviet Union, Russian is spoken by many other countries, not just Russia." Kai blushes deeply at Rasa’ comments, particularly when she swears, and he shakes his head. “Oh, I could never say something like that,” he says. “Even if I was very mad. It seems very mean.” Which is as close to a confirmation of a shared philosophy as he comes. “The Professor is helping me to work on my anger and pain,” he offers slowly. “For they are what feed Foom. He thinks that if I can learn to manage them, I might be a Kai dragon one day and not Foom.” Clearly, Kai doubts this eventuality, but is deferring to the more educated man on the matter. The explanation of the book gets a tilt of his head, and his brow furrows. “I do not know what the Soviet Union is,” he admits. “But if more people speak Russian, that is more people that Ivan can talk to with comfort, yes?” There’s teeth flashed in this smile, but only for a second. “Is Russian a hard language to learn?” "The Soviet Union was a communist government in the Russian region, primarily based in Russia, that conquered most of the region and forced people to be Russian despite their own national heritage. It was dissolved in the 1980s around the time that that the wall fell that divided Germany." Rasa rattles of short history facts like the excellent student that ze is. "Conquering countries and Imperialism is one of the biggest ways in which a language gets spread throughout the world. In a way, it is also why you speak English. I suppose there is some good in the fact that more people can speak the same language, but over all, it's kind of a shitty way to go about it." Ze frowns at the text. "I don't know how to tell if a language is hard." Kai seems mildly confused by the explanation, although he listens intently, clearly absorbing the information. One could almost picture him later, looking up much of this by himself, the way he leans forward slightly, eyes widening. “That was Ivan’s country?” he asks, in a softly awed sort of voice. “That seems very...different, from Ivan. I cannot imagine him conquering anyone.” His mouth presses tight. “Though, the Russian scientists were very cruel,” he amends, as if that counteracts the country full of Ivans and Dorofeis he was picturing. The explanation of how language spreads gets another small brow furrow. “It is why I speak English?” Kai echoes, falling back in his chair. “The CDs and things that Doctor McCoy and others gave me were conquering things?” His brow knits further, and yellow dances around the edges of his eyes as he considers this. “I do not know what makes a language hard either,” he offers finally. “When I learned English, Foom helped, so it seemed easier. But I do not think he knows Russian, so that will probably be difficult to learn.” He smiles, then, yellow fading back into inky black. “I will ask Ivan to help me, when he returns. And I will teach him Korean!” Clearly this plan is the BEST PLAN, judging by the way Kai’s face is split by his wide grin. “I will teach you too, if you wish.” "Well, I was more referring to why you are in an English speaking country to begin with, but that's neither here nor there." Rasa does not notice the tiny changes in his eye color. He is too far away. "I appreciate the offer, but I am focusing on German right now, and maybe considering Russian. I have not completely made up my mind to do it yet. I still have to consult with Ivan." “If it is a thing that you wish to do, I do not understand why you would need to consult Ivan,” Kai says honestly, quirking his eyebrows. “And I think it would make him happy that you wished to learn his native language. You are very important to him.” "You can't just assume things like that, Kai. For instance, I don't think that anyone learning or knowing my native tongue would win them any points. Yes, it could be a means for conversing that other people would not easily be able to overhear and understand, but that is not always a good thing. Peter is learning it. Perhaps Ivan wishes to have a special understanding with Peter that does not extend to me." Rasa closes hir book and begins to stretch, neck and shoulders first, then hir back. "Communicating with people that you care about does not simply mean speaking their language. Perhaps he does not want his home life, where he speaks Russian with his family, to start to surface here. Perhaps he doesn't like his home life and wishes it to remain separate." Ze settles back into hir chair, slumping a little. "No, real communication is more about understanding the person, so I will ask. He will tell me his thoughts and feelings on the subject and because I care about him, I will respect that. Asking and knowing is always better than guessing and maybe getting it right and sometimes getting it wrong." “Oh.” It’s a small sound, and soft as Kai rolls all of that around in his head for consideration. “It is complicated, talking to people you care about and who you hope care about you, too.” He states this as if it were immutable fact. “I am learning more about it all the time.” There’s silence for a moment as he thinks further, rubbing a finger over the scar on his chin. “So, it would be better to ask Ivan if he would like it if I learned more about his home?” he verifies, his brow knitting again. “Or maybe I should ask about his home, and let him tell me what he wishes me to know.” Another nose wrinkle; clearly something about that is uncertain. Maybe all of it. "People are complicated, Kai. The older you get, the more you realize it. You can't just sit around hoping that they'll be simple for you, or you'll miss all the glorious quirks and layers they have. Hell, I'm sure you're complicated, even though all you show is that you're a lost little kid who doesn't understand and wants everyone to lead you around by the hand." Rasa rubs one hand against the side of hir face, focusing hir fingers on the temple. "What do you do, Kai? What do you want to be when you grow up? Why do you sit around campus all the time moping about how you're dangerous? Do you have dreams?" Kai’s face falls as Rasa speaks, and his lips press tight as yellow zigs speedily around the edges of his eyes. “I think,” he says slowly, standing up, “That I would like to be a person who does not say mean things to other people who are not familiar with the ways of the Western world and all its.../complications/,” he says, his expression darkening. “And I do not /mope/ about how dangerous I am,” he hisses suddenly. “I /am/ dangerous. And no one around here lets me forget it, all of them dancing around, afraid of Foom.” He sniffs, a hard little sound that is clearly angry. “They /should/ be afraid of Foom. Of /me/.” “I have dreams,” he says as he moves towards the door. “They do not involve me growing up, though. That is a thing that I only recently started to consider a thing that might happen to me.” He pauses at the door of the library, turning a hard look on Rasa. “My dreams involve blood and screaming, and watching as Foom kills the people I care about. You are not in them.” Then he’s just GONE. He even manages to stomp as he moves away in a run, the noise of his book hitting the floor behind him the only farewell offered. "What a baby." Rasa shakes hir head and remains where ze is, exhaling moodily. Ze goes back to hir book and reads.