sweet dreams are made of these, who had a mind to disagree?

[picklesplz]

Who: Kirin, Maya.
Where: Maya's place
When: Uh, the day after this conversation?
Summary: MY PRECIOUS BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABIES.
Rating: PG-13?
Other: No actual babies present in this log. Nataku, stop terrifying Kirin with the thought of parenthood.

Comments

[picklesplz]

"Well, if you're worried about someone breaking in, it's not very sturdy," Kirin scratched the underside of his chin as he looked around, reacquainting himself with the room, "I could probably kick it down without much trouble. And that's not very safe your you, is it?"

Kirin didn't think anyone had any real reason to break into the shop and put Maya in danger, but Maya seemed to think so. And he didn't like the idea of someone doing that. He didn't like the idea of cutting someone into ribbons, to be honest, but if anyone tried to lay a hand on his friends, Kirin would simply have to remove their hand. Unconsciously, the eye on his forehead opened to glare at hypothetical enemies out to hurt his friends.

He ran one of his own hands through his bangs, though he was careful to keep his eyes concealed, and willed the eye to close and melt into the mark on his forehead again. He'd kept it open and glaring for so long, during his time in Abyss, he'd cried blood more than once, and now it was hard to keep it closed all the time.

"I guess I just didn't have much time to care about it while I was... away," Kirin shrugged a bit guiltily, but then walked over to inspect the jars.

And then he hugged them, whispering sweet nothings to them.

[picklesplz]

"What!" Kirin stood up abruptly, and if Maya had been paying close attention, she might have seen the glint of something reddish underneath his hair as his eye snapped open on reflex.

Kirin watched her change the topic, and didn't press on it. But he filed the thought away. He didn't like that, not one bit, and he'd make sure, as much as he could, that something like that didn't happen again. It seemed a lot of things had happened while he'd been away. Unfortunately Maya chose a topic Kirin wasn't really... fond of.

"Family business," he didn't lie, preferring instead to mislead. "Just... something came up and I had to go. I didn't expect it to take so long or be so... messy."

Well, the last part was a lie. Messy was a given, when dealing with Kujaku. But Kirin hadn't actually had a chance to even see him, and that pissed him off quite a bit.

"Probably not nearly as exciting as pickle flavored snow and people breaking into your house."

[picklesplz]

She was scared.

He realized it when she started babbling all over the place, and he really didn't like it. It just... didn't fit her. Some people were well suited to be scared all the time, Maya wasn't one of them. So Kirin did something he very rarely did, because it really did seem she needed it, he hugged her. Not quite as abruptly as she'd hugged him, last time, though; he let his hands on her shoulders and then tugged her close, bowing his back slightly to lower his head a bit.

"It's okay," he told her, grinning faintly, "we'll just make sure they can't do it again."

[picklesplz]

Kirin grinned, forcing his third eye close so it was little more than a black mark on his forehead. He didn't want Maya looking up and seeing something she shouldn't, after all. Which was why he usually avoid having people so close to him. But well, there were worse things to go through than a hug with a pretty girl that also happened to be his friend.

"Mm, depends if my jars fit under the stairs," he joked back, letting one of his hands rub small circles on her back. "Lucky for you, I'm really good at making mousetraps."

She'd be alright. He just didn't like whatever had scared her that way. Nataku had said genocide, but Nataku was also prone in calling things as he saw them and Kirin had actually been hoping that had been an exaggeration or, as it often happened with his friend, a case of mistaken perception.

Well, it seemed it might not be the case.

[picklesplz]

Irony was that if he weren't concentrating on rubbing circles on her back, he would count her three seconds up and shove her away. Well, maybe not shove. Not too hard, anyway. Kirin tried to keep his mind off that particular track and ignore the fact he was, fully consciously, out of his own free will, touching someone.

It was shudder-worthy weird.

"My, my, such generosity," he grinned at the words, while trying to imagine living under the stairs. It... probably wouldn't be worse than sleeping in a closet. Probably even more comfortable. He buried memories of old Stea digs, and felt a very particular smile tug at his lips. For some reason, people tended to assume he was a mass murderer when he smiled that way. "Ah, Maya, but bears are just bigger rats. Same principle, different size. Well, the ones in Abyss were. Is there a difference in fauna from one level to another? Aside the number of fleas they carry?"

[picklesplz]

He was unruffled by her movements, for the most part. The eye was closed, and if she saw the scars on his empty left eyesocket, it wouldn't be nearly as... well, awkward as if she realized the marks on his forehead were actually an eyelid. It'd been... easier, with Nataku. Then again, Nataku was unique on his own, and Kirin had long stopped expecting his friend to be in any way normal or standard when it came to dealing with the world.

"Oh good," Kirin's grin softened into something not so nightmare-worthy, "does that mean you get to cook for me, too? Sweet, I like this deal more and more already." He made sure to stress the teasing in his voice; in his experience, women weren't really happy when told something like that, even as a joke. Amidaba had made sure he got that clear, from the get go. And he didn't really like people cooking for him, anyway. They never used enough pickles. "Well, I've never been to Elysium, so I wouldn't know... but I'm pretty sure I could catch a rat the size of a bear too. It's all in the wrist."

[picklesplz]

The change was very much appreciated, but he didn't make a fuss about it. The more of a fuss he made about things, the more people insisted on looking, and the least he wanted was Maya looking too close on that. Kirin was good at making people see what he wanted to see without having to flat-out lie, he was just that charming, he guessed.

He did blink, unseen, at the mention of rice as glue. In his experience, rice didn't really look like glue at all, so he could only imagine what sort of horror Maya had unleashed in the kitchen to make that. It would explain why he seemed to somehow always end up buying her dinner, though.

"...I guess it could be worse," he said, then remembering he was supposed to be nice and comforting, added somewhat honestly, "I've probably eaten worse." He had, and Nataku's heartfelt roasted puppy dinner wasn't even in the top ten when it came to that. "Growing up in Abyss and all that. I'm not really picky about food, unless it comes to sweets and sugar. I'm not big on fruit, either, especially strawberries." The whole allergic to the point of death bit sort of cemented the fact for him, sugar was evil. "I guess that if I had to choose, I'd take fish above all else."

He tilted his head to the side at her suggestion, though, looking at her curiously before smirking in that horribly, horribly sadistic way of his, preluding another 'game'.

"Why, Maya, I thought you didn't like playing with me."

np <3

[picklesplz]

Kirin wasn't a picky eater, by any means, but Maya's attitude was making him reconsider his whining about buying her food. Maybe it was a trick so that he'd keep buying her stuff, though he doubted it, considering he wasn't particularly stingy about things. He would, however, need to visit the house in Abyss at some point, get some trinkets to sell and buy and start something.

He toyed with the idea of becoming a bodyguard again, but hadn't he left Stea because it was turning more into a killer's job than looking at pretty rocks and putting pricetags on it?

Shaking his head to fix himself in the present again, he decided to spend some time with his friends, whom he'd dearly missed in the past months, and figure out everything else later.

"The problem," Kirin said slowly, inflicting on his voice that pompous, know-it-all tone that tended to make people twitchy, "is commitment." He poked her side, then, grinning, "what could I do with you, if you get scared after a little tousling up?" Unseen by her, he arched an eyebrow, "or are you saying you want to play a long-term game?"