ArchivedLogs:Who You Are

Who You Are
Dramatis Personae Kai, Kris
In Absentia	2013-05-03 Kai finds out a not-so-secret about Kris.
Location <XS> Back Porch
The back patio is a restful place to sit and relax, in most weather. Ample seating comes in the form of umbrella'd deck chairs and a cushioned porch swing, and the neighboring gardens attract butterflies and hummingbirds to make the viewing pleasant. The hot tub is usually open for use, though in snowy weather the transition in and out is a shivery one! The evening is encroaching on night, and the air is beginning to cool rapidly. Which means most of the school's students staying over the weekend are inside. From the depths of the mansion, in fact, you can hear the delighted squeals of a movie being aired in the Rec Room -- THE TOMB OF DRACULA, to be precise. Out here on the porch, there is just Kai. Kai and a bag of cookies. The young Korean boy sits tailor-fashion on one of the benches, a big pad in his lap. He's dressed in jeans and a white t-shirt under a blue zip-up hoodie, and his feet are bare. He's staring at the page in front of him, a pencil bobbing idly between his fingers as he regards the beginnings of the picture he is working on. It appears to be a very rough interpretation of the gardens visible just over the lawn, shrouded though they are in darkness. Kris is uses to extremes of temperatures. That said, she IS wearing some warm, comfy pajamas. The loose sort with magical ponies and pastel colors that leaves EVERYTHING to the imagination for a change. In other words: Not sexy pajamas. Her pink painted toenails are as immaculately polished and cared for as ever, and in the breast pocket of her pajama top, her iPod sits, one earbud in. Her voice, meanwhile is jumping through a range of tones and pitches as she repeats something in the earbud. It's in tagalog, so she sounds like an ewok, but there it is. Seeing Kai sitting out there, she almost changes directions. Her 'practice', after all, is a little embarassing to her, a sort of private thing. But... it's Kai. Rarely has she known someone quite so like her and yet quite so gentle and careful of her feelings. So she decides to pull up a chair and sit by the boy,"Kai, my friend... you did not enjoy the movie either?" A pause, and she goes on,"There is too much blood for my taste." Kai looks up as the other teen appears, and he offers a small smile as he tilts his head curiously. "I like your pa...pig..." he screws his face up. "Your sleeping clothes," he finishes, finding words that he can remember. He shakes his head at the question, looking back at his pad. "The blood does not bother me," he says. "It is all that screaming. It is unnecessary, if you are not in need of assistance." He narrows his eyes. "There was a story in a book I am reading about doing that. With a boy and a wolf, and some sheep." He lowers the pencil to the paper, sketching lightly and almost aimlessly. "What is that language?" he asks, nodding at the iPod. "It is very different from any I have heard here." Kris actually blushes. Luckily, it is the sort of blush that comes from a smile! Sincerity makes compliments less embarassing. "Thank you Kai. They are 'pajamas', though sleeping clothes... that is also an accurate term. Not wrong. Just not common." She nods, as if that closes the book on the matter, then folds her legs up beneath her,"Sometimes when I would fight, especially when they dosed me with the powders, I would scream, and scream, and scream until my voice gave out." She shrugs a little bit,"I did not always need assistance then. But maybe it is a different type of scream? This story about a boy and a wolf... it seems destined to end badly. A boy does not have a good chance with a wolf." When asked about her iPod, she taps it and answers,"Tagalog. I am practicing my voice, to get it to sound the way it should." "Pajamas," Kai repeats, one eyebrow lowering as he echoes the word softly again. "Pa/ja/mas." Satisfied that he knows it, he gives a small nod, and drifts his pencil across the paper again. "I think I know the kind of screaming you are talking about," he says. "I have made those screams. But I think you and I had very different reasons than they do." This comes with a wave in the general direction of the rec room. Which is to say, up. He looks up when it appears Kris is unfamiliar with the fable. "It is a good story. This boy is watching sheep, and he grows bored, so he shouts that there is a wolf, and all the people of the village come and are fooled." He lifts his hand as if weighing something. "This is a thing he does several times. The villagers are very unhappy about this, and they are mad at the boy. Then, a wolf actually comes to eat the sheep, and the boy yells and yells, but the villagers do not come, because they think it is merely another trick. And all the sheep and the boy are eaten." He beams when he finishes the story, pleased that he's gotten it right. "It is a /very/ good story." The explanation of the language gets a deep furrow of his brow, his smile sliding into something more confused-looking. "I do not understand. Your voice is very nice, to me." It seems Kai's current mission in life is to make her blush unceasingly. A thing he is currently succeeding at doing. "Pajamas. Yes. You learn quickly, thoughtful Kai." Her own weird longer nickname for the boy. "We have a similar story where I am from. But it is with a mindoro..." She frowns and holds her hands out far apart to indicate something very large,"... a kind of lizard. Very large, with powerful jaws. This is frustrating... I usually know the english words for things." She snorts, but otherwise doesn't visibly attach much aggravation to the concept. "Well, it is a powerful fable, anyway." She hits stop on her ipod and begins to scroll through the music in a manner that suggests she is not paying much attention to what she's doing,"You are very kind, you know. I feel that it is too deep and raspy. It still sounds like a boy-voice to me. I hate that." "You are speaking of a dragon." Kai's voice sounds almost tired as he makes the connection. Or maybe it's just resigned. "This is a creature I am familiar with." He looks down at his pad, his lips pressing together tightly. "Many here are." There's a furious sketching, now. He might just be scribbling, honestly. At least that's what it looks like. "It is a very good story. It teaches one not to abuse the trust of others." The explanation gets a slow rise of Kai's head, and a slower blink of his eyes. There's a small flicker of light around the edges of his pupil, and then he shakes his head. "I still do not understand," he says apologetically. Kris shakes her head, actually laughing,"No, no... Not a dragon, a..." She frowns, picks up her iPod, and opens its browser. Finally she finds a picture, and holds it out to him,"... a crocodile. The Mindoro, sometimes they cry, to lure soft-hearted people into their jaws. We say only the stupid or vain fall for it. Fall into the water staring at their reflections." She goes back to sorting music and settles on 'Phillip Phillips's song 'Gone Gone Gone'. One earbud in, she offers the other to Kai. However, when the boy indicates his lack of understanding, something dawns in her mind,"I... do not remember if we ever discussed this. I assumed it was... obvious. That it is not is a great compliment. Kai, you do realize I was born as male as you are, physically, though I am female inside my mind? That I take medicines to appear more feminine? That is why I practice my voice. To sound prettier instead of manly." "Crocodile," Kai says, examining the picture. "I have seen these before, on the television. Yes." He smiles at his own misunderstanding, and scrunches his nose. "I think the wolf is a better story." He leans forward to claim the earbud, slipping it into his ear in much the way Kris does hers. He smiles at the music, and his head tilts, slightly. "This is a good song," he says with a nod. When Kris explains, he sits a moment in reflective silence as he regards the girl. There's a brow twitch, and he reaches up and actually scratches at his head as he considers that. It might be a little much for him, because he drops that hand limply, and turns his brow furrow fully on Kris. His mouth opens to speak, but he closes it again with a deeper V of his brows. A slow scratch of his chin. Finally: "I think I understand this," he says slowly. "It is not a thing I am familiar with, but you are my friend. If this is a thing which will make you feel happy, then it is a very good thing." Then, a soft smile. "You will always be a girl, to me, for that is how I met you." "Agreed. The wolf story, it calls noone stupid. They are only suffering for their own actions. And it is the way of the world. It is something one could imagine happening. Also, wolves seem cunning and crocodiles seem lazy." Kris actually crinkles up a little on herself though when Kai takes a lengthy moment to consider the information she has imparted. It's a rather vulnerable expression. Then again, it's probably because she values the boy's opinion a bit more than is average, even considering the short time of acquaintance. Vulnerable or not, his reaction entitles Kai to a hug which the girl decides to bestow upon him immediately. "Thank you. I am not sure I could explain to you why, but that was possibly the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me." A good few moments later she will release the boy and thump back into her chair, tapping her feet lazily on the porch. Like that, her mood is ratched up several degrees. "You are good friend. Do not change who you are, Kai. It is good."