Emotionally Attuned

Cassander turned to the girl, giving her a slightly obvious once over. Tall. Asian. Brown eyes. A few scars. Distinctive. He thought he'd seen her around before - here, about town, somewhere.

He smiled at her, generally his first resort in a conversation. "A guilty pleasure. Shoot." He kept his right hand on his phone but his left moved to his pocket where his mechanical pencil. He had picked up the habit of always carrying one with him, usually to fiddle with.

Gabriel shrugged. "Wow. Your life must be rather boring," he remarked. "You mentioned having ADD? That's cool. I have autism. From one actual retard to another," Gabriel stuck his hand out, "it's a pleasure to meet you!"

He glanced at Gracie out of the corner of his eye. He took in her figure, her face, her eyes......

I have really poor taste in women.... He chuckled to himself after that last thought. "Hey, Gracie. I'm Gabriel. Nice to meet you too."

"Lola Breen!" She introduced herself proudly. "I was thinking that there were fairies here because of a fairie ring I found in my backyard..."

edited 5th Oct '16 5:20:31 AM by BlizzardeyeWonder

Lola... No matter how much he thinks about that name, no possible puns come to mind. Guess he'll just have to befriend her the normal way. But fairies, that's something he can work with! "Wait, fairies? You mean, like, Tinker Bell and stuff like that? Never really thought about the possibility of them existing, but I guess anything's possible! Why are you hunting them though?"

Gabriel perked at the mention of fairies. He had a twinkle in his eyes. "I'll have you all know, I'm Irish, and consider meself an expert on the wee folk." He had an Irish accent now, or at least, an attempt at one. "So, take my advice, lassie. Leave the fairies be. If you leave them alone, they leave you alone."

"Thanks." Finally settling on a photo, Masumi turned to actually face the boy she was talking to. His smile seemed genuine, and his demeanor friendly, yet at the same time she noticed the phone cradled in his hand. Questions reared up like an untamed fire in her mind - Are you waiting for someone? Are you waiting for a text? Am I bothering you but you're too polite to turn me away? Who are you, anyway? - but she quickly herded them back down. One at a time.

"You look like you've been here a few grades. Tell me, does anything about the crowd strike you as, how to say... different, this year?"

Normally she'd just come out and ask if he had noticed the same sense of lethargy that she was picking up on. Not one to beat around the bush, her teachers would say. She had to remind herself that she was looking for an outside perspective, and that leading him with her question wouldn't get the result she wanted.

"Well it's nice meeting you guys Lola and Lucky. Also Faires there pretty cool you know I also hear there pretty fair. Am I right?"

Jack grit his teeth as an unpleasant memory was recalled and he idly clenched one hand into a fist. "It's alright. He didn't mean it that way, don't let it get to you." He reasoned to himself mentally. " Deep breaths Jack...Deep breaths..."

After a few slow breaths, Jack unclenched his fist and shook Gabriel's hand. "Yeah...a pleasure." He slowly replied, default expression back on, though slightly strained. "Just...please. Don't use the word "retard" to refer to yourself or to me. Or to anyone else who...are like us. It's degrading."

Deciding to switch to safer topics, Jack turned his attention towards Lola, who was talking about fairies. Several things popped up in his mind, most of them from a wiki binge he did on mythology, and even more tidbits appeared after Gabriel mentioned Ireland. "Have you tried cold iron?" he muttered absentmindedly.

edited 5th Oct '16 6:08:11 AM by svenorzokarkoff

Cassander tilted his head slightly, thinking. He turned to the crowd, partially to look for anything different, partially for Anton. No Anton still.

Turning back to the girl, with a cursory curious glance at her camera, he said, "Sort of. It's calm, more than usual. I like it. Calmer. Usually its all action, all the time. Not my style, you know?" He smiled again, one foot tapping to a beat in his head. He leaned slightly to the left. He had favored that leg since he twisted his knee when he was young. His phone was still quiet in his hand, unfortunately.

Gabriel was a bit slow in realising that he had offended Jack. "Oh. Uh, okay, yeah, sorry. My bad. I just.....well, I won't try doing that in the future." Around you anyway... He added mentally. He perked at the mention of cold iron. "Guys, hold up. If you actually try what I think you want to try, don't. Just leave the fairies alone. Otherwise, you could have some very bad dreams." He meant that last part truthfully. "I could come as well, actually. Act as a go to expert on the matter."

"Hi Gabriel, uh nice to meet you." The crowd gathering around the tree was starting to make her scars itch. (So much for relaxing)

"Anyways I'm going to get going" she hastily picKs her bag up and starts moving towards the school.

"See yah guys it was nice meeting both of you."

Masumi nodded, though her expression remained fixed. "I see..." It was one step to confirming her theory- somewhat. She had thought of the change as unnerving, but she might've just been over-thinking it. "Perhaps it isn't as pronounced as I first thought... but there would be an obvious difference in perception. I'll need to ask more people and-"

She mumbled for a few seconds more before snapping back, suddenly remembering that she wasn't by herself. "Sorry." She made to show him the picture on her camera, so she could at least explain why she'd approached him out of the blue, but stopped upon observing a few more of his impatient movements.

Instead she pointed back to the crowd. Her look still didn't change, but she put a note of apology in her voice. "I can leave now if you're waiting for someone."

Crash looks at the others "So who's ready to crash this school year. I know I am because I am Crash."

Cassander shook his head, not necessarily to decline but out of habit. He was always moving, a very twitchy person. "I'm waiting for someone, but they'll find me if they want me." Even though, now he thought about it, Anton never really looked for him. He would just wait for Cassander to see him and gesture for him to come over. "Hey, Silly," he would say, or something like that. Of course, he could be late, not here, phone dead, or with a different friend, even if the thought didn't exactly tickle his fancy.

He nodded vaguely at the girl's camera. "You on, like, yearbook committee or something? It's a nice camera." In fact, he still had last year's yearbook. He liked yearbooks. They had memories and faces, some of his favorite things. Sometimes he flipped through just to remember people, even if there were a few pictures he paid attention to more than others.

"If your on the year book please get my good side." He smirks posing to left "I mean both sides are my good sides." Then he poses to the right.

Blinking at his compliment, Masumi looked down at her prized possession with a slight hint of embarrassment. "Ah, thank you. But no, it's- I suppose you could say it's a hobby." Or fixation, obsession. Those worked too. Since he hadn't shooed her away, Masumi handed the camera over so he could see its content.

The camera had been set to show off five pictures as a slideshow. Each one portrayed the school from about the same angle at about the same time, with a hoard of kids rushing in for the new school year. As the pictures progressed (and the photo quality improved) there was a subtle decline of hugs, high-fives, tussling, and other sort of animated behaviour amongst the students.

While he had her camera Masumi was busy appraising the abrupt arrival to their conversation. Vaguely familiar, not from her year, didn't look older than her, so probably in 10th grade. Also lacking in social tact, if this was his form of an interjection.

Unless... She turned back to the first boy with eyebrow raised, directing a silent Is this who you're waiting for? question at him.

Gabriel blinked at Crash at a few times. He held up his hand, palm facing at the boy. "Dude....stop. Just stop it, man. You're puns are horrible."

"Oh come on man, I am Crash Pundston pun is in my name, but look if your not a fan of puns I find another way to make you smile." He tells Gaberial "What's your opinion on cats?" He asks.

"My opinion on cats?" Gabriel said, raising an eyebrow. He smirked at that, and cleared his throat. Then, he took out his phone, got a Wi-Fi signal, logged in, and got on You Tube. Typing quickly, he taped on the first result for Cat Noir's puns, from Miraculous Ladybug, the greatest cartoon ever, and of which he was an avid fan. He held the video up for Crash to see. "I think they're purrfect!" He laughed. This dud has got nothing on Cat Noir!

edited 5th Oct '16 8:26:43 AM by Vampireandthen

"Purrfect? Man,you have cat to be kitten me right now." He says with a smile on his face. "That's a pretty cool show it looks really cool what's it called?"

"Miraculous Ladybug. It's a French animated show, and I am telling you, it is better than Adventure Time. It might not have much of a story, but this first season was testing the waters, and the waters were very warm." Gabriel could go on, but then a thought occurred to him. "Should we get to class?"

"Oh cool I will check it out it sound Miraculous. Also yeah I guess we should get going."

Gabriel smiled. "Okay. But the episode order is confusing. I'll show you a good list for the episode order, okay?" He started walking to class.

Cassander shook his head, mouthing 'never seen him' to the girl. In any case, he didn't exactly seem his type. He looked like an energetic guy, hard to keep up with. He seemed like the type of guy Cassander would grt a sufficient work out just talking to him. He looked distractedly back at the crowd one more time, then back to the camera, pocketing his phone to hold it better.

The pictures were of people walking in. He saw the usual stuff - smiles, hugs, just being good friends in general. As they went on, though, it changed - more grim faces, bored, more attempts to keep to themselves.

"So... what's this about? Kids aren't a friendly this year? Wrong side of bed, no coffee in the morning type of thing?" He asked, still looking at the camera. He personally usually wasn't the hugging type - in most circumstances, at least - but he did think that other people usually were. Of course, it could always be a coincidence. Maybe the grumpy of few was catching onto the many.

Gracia finally made it into the building and began to head to her classroom even more terrified than earlier. Usually she would sit out underneath the tree for awhile before coming into class to settle down a bit but the underclassmen were being all sorts of chaotic today.
(Come to think of it, nearly everyone was acting strongly today, just... differently than the underclassmen.)
Looking around she began to notice the more muted conversations, the timid attitudes. (I got caught up in the chaos earlier but everyone else just seems... hollow compared to their normal selves.)
She instinctively receded at the thought. (Just put it out of your mind it's not worth thinking about, they just know something that you don't.)

edited 5th Oct '16 8:59:32 AM by MockingOne