New York, New York. Again.

[a_peaceful_aura]

2011 has not been Taiki's year. Too much stress, too many directions. He's thinner and more reclusive than ever. Mexico was supposed to relax him but it only served to reinforced his resurrected mentality: "Developing relationships is kind of annoying. You always learn about incomprehensible and annoying traits."

Comments

[wasplisbeth]

With everything that had been going on recently it was nice to do something normal like picking up her friend from the airport. There was no time to rent a car so she took the subway with plans of taking a taxi cab back to the house, the drive really isn't that far but why make it twice? Plus it seems that the chances of getting possessed by a demon or evil spirit are twice as likely on the New York subway then in a New York cab. Arriving early she makes her way down to the luggage claim to take a seat and wait for Taiki's plane to arrive.

It's beginning to look a lot like spring in New York, the temperature is mild and while the sky is overcast it isn't raining. Yet. As long as it doesn't start raining everything will be fine. At least that's one of the things that should not happen in order for everything to be fine. Ordering a cup of coffee at the Starbucks kiosk she watches luggage rolling in and then scans the crowd for Taiki, thankfully he's tall and she's short.

However she doesn't remember him being that skinny. He

[a_peaceful_aura]

Taiki mulls that one over, appearing thoughtful. This is the point where he runs out of witty possibly-joking-possibly-not banter. The humor train is short these days.

Taiki reaches into his bag when the waitress moves away. Out come two identical leather writing journals, the pages sporadically lined with fluorescent sticky tabs. They're offered to Lisbeth -- inside is all the information on the phoenix and fenghuang that he promised her. A photograph if the Chinese phoenix bookmarks a handwritten article in one of them.

[wasplisbeth]

Taking the books from him she carefully opens them to scan the pages, she likes the handwriting, the information contained with him and especially the photograph. It's like the time he made the paper dragon come to life for her. Something amazing and beautiful all at once. She studies the photograph for a long time.

"When I was little my mama loved a very evil man. He would come and he would terrorize her, he would beat her and do awful things to her while we listened in the next room. After you left for school and I was a bit older I decided to do something about him and the next time he showed up I threw gasoline on him and set him on fire." Long, long, ago in a land far, far away. There is no emotion in her voice and a sort of detached feeling in her like she is telling him about a movie she just saw.

"I need to tell you the whole story."

[a_peaceful_aura]

A-ah. He'd given her the journals in hopes of avoiding this conversation.

He was too young to realize what was going in the Salander family when they were kids. It's terrible but not surprising, in retrospect.

Taiki sits without interrupting, listening respectfully while she talks. He's not sure why he 'needs' to hear the story, but it's very personal to Lisbeth so he treats it accordingly.

[wasplisbeth]

"I was Institutionalized for what I did, even though he deserved it. There were people, secret police protecting my papa and they had me quietly locked up because they said I was crazy. Those things you read in the newspaper, I didn't -" and she goes quiet before shaking her head slightly. Too damn tired.

The waitress comes back and puts down their meals and of course the coffee and the coke. Lisbeth stares at her food and then takes a bite, she's not sure where to go with this. Please don't hate me because I had to go out and kill my psychotic father? Knowing Taiki he would just nod politely to whatever she said.

"I had to go and finish what I had started. When I sent you that email I didn't mean to upset you."

[a_peaceful_aura]

Taiki is silent. Black eyes watch her -picking apart her aura- and he doesn't move.

He doesn't say anything, even after she finishes. But he also doesn't seem judgmental or upset -- just that normal blank mask.

[wasplisbeth]

Ah Taiki and his impenetrable wall of solitude! She just stares back at him not sure of where to go from this point forward. Say what you want about all those yelling overly emotional people, sooner or later she’ll figure out what the fuck they want with Taiki it’s like trying to solve an invisible problem on a blank sheet of paper. Without a pencil.

“I don’t know what else to say,” she finally says.

[a_peaceful_aura]

Forget about the problem and make a paper airplane.

Taiki nods after she speaks up. "That's fine." Under the table he shifts a little, folding and unfolding his hands a moment until he resettles. Otherwise he seems to still be focused on Lisbeth, waiting patiently for whatever might be next.

[wasplisbeth]

Staring at him for a moment longer she finally nods in response and goes back to eating her breakfast. It's not very fancy but it is good and it hits the spot after having a long morning. The diner is relatively empty, there are more people coming in and getting coffee for their commute then going and sitting down to have a meal. The ladies at the table keep glancing over waiting for more bits of interesting information.

Taiki should go back to talking about gay lions.

[a_peaceful_aura]

When Lisbeth starts eating, Taiki looks down at this plate. The eggs are likely cold -- not that it would matter to him. Slowly he unfolds one arm and reaches out for the black pepper, working off Lisbeth's cue.

He's silent because he doesn't know how -or even if- he should respond. A good deal of his energy is spent avoiding other people's personal information -- though when it comes to those he cares about he always makes an exception. He's happy to listen to anything and will store it away, keeping it a secret along with everything else. However this situation does not come up often, especially between the two of them. He's never told her about the horrible things that happened at Ohsaka, his relationships, upsetting jobs... She tells him a little but usually only after something goes wrong

[wasplisbeth]

What do normal people do in these types of situations? It’s pretty normal to sit in silence (awkward or not) and just wait for the whole thing to pass over. The issue that comes about when there something that needs to be said and just doesn’t get said, mainly because one person is waiting for the other to speak up. She thinks that he’ll say something if it’s necessary and he thinks the same of her. It can get complicated. She figures that if he really wants to hit her in the face or cuss her out, eventually he will.

“I haven’t found an artist to do the tattoo yet,” she finally says eyeing the books on the table and then the picture tucked in the corner. She doesn’t touch it but says, “did you take the photograph?”

[a_peaceful_aura]

It's likely that he'll bring it up in small doses with the intention of sorting things out slowly so he can wrap his mind around them. If it's apparent that relations between them will not continue on as they were before without its resolution, that is. They both have the amazing ability to shove things aside and stubbornly deny their existence.

Taiki's shoulders drop a little when Lisbeth changes the subject. Black eyes flick to the journals mid-bite and he nods. "I did. Almost six years ago." An egg is arranged on a piece of toast before he adds: "It was a very stupid bird." A pause and he glances up at her, clarifying. "This one, not all fenghuang."

[wasplisbeth]

Nice how that works, being able to push things deep, deep and ignore them until they do something awful like blow up in your face or give you an ulcer. For now it will be set aside for something a bit more neutral (perhaps anyway). Though his statement that the bird was stupid gets her a little worried and her brows knit together in something resembling concern. “I don’t want a stupid bird on me,” well that just goes without saying. However she wonders how many people would actually believe that Taiki actually has first hand knowledge that the bird was stupid.

“In what way was the bird stupid?”

[a_peaceful_aura]

An ulcer is very likely in Taiki's near future. Especially given his diet, present health/mental problems, and occasional drug use. It's like a bleeding stomach jackpot.

"It ran head-first into the tree in the picture." He nods towards the notebooks again. "Six times." A small bite of food and he sits back. "But the others were nice. Quiet and interesting to look at."

[wasplisbeth]

He’s going to need a really long stay in some tropical island, preferably with a decent hospital. Poor Taiki.

“Why the fuck did he do that?” After wiping her hands off she takes a look at the photo again, go figure, one fenghuang to ruin it all. Though he does look pretty awesome to look at. Maybe a part of the whole burning into ash and then coming back to life involves smashing your head into a tree a couple of times. “Maybe he was drunk,” it does strange things to people.

[a_peaceful_aura]

He'd never come back.

"I could not understand it." Taiki replies, opting for coffee instead of the rest of his food. One egg lies massacred on the plate, yolk oozing out over a triangle of wheat toast. He nods when she mentions that it may have been drunk. "I did not have much experience so I am not sure." It seems that he is taking her suggestion seriously.