– Ara (A)
“Uhh, wow. That must have been pretty tough.” Ara told her, accepting the glass of ginger ale when it was placed in front of him. He was still feeling a little dubious about all the events, but he remembered what sort of place he had been accepted into. ‘I already have the undeniable proof that impossible-sounding events can sometimes happen: my very existence.’ He thought, nodding to himself and taking a sip of his drink. “But all that in just 2 days. It’s a wonder they can hold classes at all in that place.” Smiling a little, he followed along with a small raise of his own glass as Carmen raised hers to an invisible toast.
Then listening to Carmen start naming what people were left and right, he had to focus pretty hard to keep up and try to remember who was who. But efforts aside, he was probably going to forget it all by the time he left the bar. He could only be expected to remember so much in one sitting. Hearing another couple of questions from her, Ara shrugged and answered, “If I minded, you’d know.” He grinned a little, knowing he rarely ever held back his temper. “In general a Doppelganger is this being that acts like another ‘you’, but not quite. They look like you, act like you, and basically seem really similar to you but they’re actually completely different. Worst of all, as soon as your Doppelganger meets you, all these weird ‘accidents’ start happening around you until you die.”
Almost forgetting that he was talking to someone else, Ara growled in annoyance at the memory and gripped his glass so hard his knuckles were turning white. “So I met mine, and almost died because of it. I fought back though, and managed to survive.” His expression softening up a little again, he relaxed his grip a little and downed almost half his drink in one go. “But then I ended up fusing with the Doppelganger and became who I am now. You’ll probably meet her later on.” He purposely left out the more complicated bits about their existence. He was still bent on leaving the troublesome stuff to B. “Wow that was a mouthful. So if you’re not creeped out by how loose I am with my personal info, I want to continue our conversation and ask you to tell me more about yourself now.”
((Got permission from NarayanK to presume: “Nikola nonchalantly made Ara the drink he wanted.”))
– Kathy
The blush on her face lightened a bit when she noticed Crash’s reaction to her quiet comment about how he was cute when he was not being evil. He seemed happy to hear it, and she was glad she had said something right.
“They have a bar here? How would you know if I was a minor?” Kathy began, “Yeah, it was listed in the pamphlet they gave us. And I know you’re a minor because I am and-!” She stopped there. After all this time, she had realized that she had arbitrarily assumed Crash was younger than her without ever checking his real age. ‘Uh oh. What if I’m wrong? Would that offend him?’ Finished pausing, she asked “Umm… And, I figured you were near the same age as me. So… Just how old are you exactly?” Then watching his sly grin, she was very much convinced that he was enjoying all this teasing business. ‘I need to devise some counter-measures for this…’ She thought, wondering if it was even possible to prepare for his ‘evil antics’.
“?” She was still gazing at the pool when she felt Crash’s fingers on her chin gently guide her face back to his direction. Confused, Kathy ended up staring back at him and caught his eyes. Clear and red eyes were gazing into hers, making it impossible for her to move. ‘H-How do I breathe again?!’ She thought, her mind beginning to fall into complete disarray as the blood happily rushed back to her cheeks again. She barely even heard his words of thanks for admitting the truth, not even being able to nod back in her current state. "Besides there are lots of other activities to do around here that don't involve deep water" Placing her free hand on her cheek, she managed to make a slight nod of her head to show that she had heard him. She wasn’t sure her heart could take much more of all this. Kathy had always found it ridiculous and laughed at Victorian women when they fainted from hearing a couple of surprising words in movies, but now she could almost sympathize with them. Too much blood going up to her head in such short intervals were certainly making her feel light-headed.
Seeing an unidentified flying object hit Crash in the head, Kathy wondered if this was also a fairly common occurrence or if this sort of accident was unusual for him as well. “You alright?” Judging from what he said, it seemed to be the latter. Picking the mirror up from the floor, she dusted it off and took a look at it. As expected, it failed to remain unscathed and had a large crack down the middle. Holding it up she asked, “Say, whose is this? It’s a bit damaged, but I think you may want this back?” She became distracted for a moment as she watched the small exchange between Crash and… Mercy, she believed? She had seen the lady with Crash during a few brief exchanges she had a few weeks ago. She became a little uneasy, wondering if Crash wanted to join with the group in front of them. Misinterpreting his glance, she told him, “Um… You can go along with her if you’d like.” At the last moment she managed to keep herself from adding ‘you don’t need to feel obligated to stay with me’. ‘Whew, I’m glad I caught myself in him. I feel like that’s a bad thing to say in any situation,’ She thought, ‘And there’s really no way to win. If he stayed after that I would’ve felt like I guilt-tripped him into staying and if he leaves I’m sure I would’ve sulked at the end anyway. That was a close call.’ Sighing in relief, she waited for a response from both Crash and the owner of the mirror she still held up in her hand.
