Description: What should have been an innocent evening of training at the harbor turns very strange when Frei discovers some very unusual contraband. The result? Well, you'll just have to see for yourself. Featuring Mr. Pinchy in his MotM debut.
Ah, the setting Japanese sun. Deep orange and red, colors that imply good maritime fortune if the rhyme is to be believed; predictors of mild weather despite the oncoming autumn chill. Southtown Harbor exists in a brief period of daily transition. The freight loaders of the day shift have packed their boats and headed home, while the night shift rises from their slumber and plans their evening's worth of work. Southtown is a city that never sleeps, after all, and neither does its harbor... especially since it's a harbor where rather more black trades than simple shipping take place.
Zoom in on the lower left-hand corner of the shot. A more perfect hemispherical sunset one could not ask for. A single figure is a silhouette against it, black on molten gold. Two long tails -- a flashy headband -- trail out behind the figure as he moves with grace through various Tai Chi poses, balanced delicately on top of a narrow pier pylon, a small circle of stone the only thing between him and a 10 foot drop into the sea. Yet he retains an easy grace, as if he were standing on the very air itself.
...then the jazzercise begins. The slow caw of seagulls is broken by a determined and melodious but overzealous voice mangling "Eye of the Tiger" as he does dance moves from Michael Jackson's thriller, and the entire effect is all but ruined.
A mercifully short time later he stops, bows his head, and then nimbly leaps over to the pier, sitting down and pulling something from atop a nearby shipping container, waving at a dock worker as the heavyset man moves past on a forklift. The fighter-cum-dancer is none other than Frei, who now sits with his oversize Chinese shirt unbuttoned to reveal the white tank top beneath as he opens a brown paper bag, unrolls some foil, and bites into a hot dog, enjoying his post-training dinner. Life is good.
In the darkness, something stirs.
He had grown used to the sounds of the ship and sea, the crashing waves and churning engine, the barely audible muffled conversations of the bored mariners. He chose to remain in silence. Although the journey would perhaps have been a more comfortable one had he revealed himself to the crew, the explanations would have been too complex to be worth the telling, and the bad publicity would have never died. Not that it's out of shame, per se, that he has stayed hidden. Not that he'd be too embarrassed to have this story published. He's already come to terms with this occurance, this consequence of his actions. But drawing attention to the reasons why he's here might draw attention to the people who put him here -- and they might react dangerously, and, he reasoned, maybe not just towards him.
To his own mild surprise, he discovered that the darkness held no fear for him. Even the rationale that kept him hidden was not motivated by any real terror at his opponent's potential response. It was a peaceful place, a purgatory in which to contemplate his failings and successes, his mistakes and his blessings. You might think that such an experience would be hard to derive good from -- but with his unique and sometimes even obstinate faith, it was only natural for him.
Accompanied by quiet clackings, he meditated for days. His only movements, the constant reflexive flickings of his finger at the squirming masses around him, idly preventing them from getting too close to home.
The groans of the forklift as it sets his crate down match the grumblings of his stomach. He had refused to eat his companions. They were the mass of life around him, reminding him of his integral connection to all other living things even in the darkness of his contemplations. Also, that would be stealing.
He feels the crate touch ground. He waits, listening to the forklift drive away. He hears the waves, and the muffled sound of a voice -- but then that ceases too. Mind blank, body aching, he concludes he is safely alone... and for the first time in days, he moves.
With a loud creak and a resounding pop the nails tear free from the body of the crate. Like Venus rising from the seafoam he emerges, slowly and with methodical care unfurling his tall, broad body. Every few moments he pauses, patiently working with gentle hands to remove his many companions' tenacious grips from his bronzed flesh. Yet even with the pauses his rise is inexorable. Slow, smooth, and unrelenting, he cannot be contained any longer.
Blonde hair stiff with caked salt, form damp and speckled with bright red pinch marks, Alma Towazu blinks the blinding sun from his eyes, the essence of calm composure.
In his hands, modestly placed below his waist, a lone lobster wriggles indignantly.
The place is usually blissfully quiet at this time of day. The harbor employees know Frei, usually from his appearances on SNF, and his reputation as a competent if somewhat eccentric fighter is enough to keep them on friendly terms despite his somewhat childish appearance and ridiculous manners. In fact, his reputation for eccentricity is even BETTER a deterrent. With a SouthSynd enforcer, they know where they stand: they don't leave him alone, he'll shiv them. With Frei it's a like a game of Russian Roulette: he might laugh and joke along, he might stare blankly, or he might blast your damn fool head off in a burst of fiery light. On the whole, the rough and tumble teamsters of Southtown have learned to err on the side of caution.
This is primarily the only reason why the monk is allowed to sit on other people's shipping containers and eat his dinners in peace. And the truth is he doesn't hurt anything, and sometimes he has funny stories to tell. It would be wrong to call him a mascot, but a good Pratchett reference may be that Frei is a short, young, male Nanny Ogg, so friendly and fun and dangerously unpredictable that he is able to insinuate himself into any situation with ease. It's part of his unflappable nature.
The sound of a crate being opened when there's clearly nobody around, however, does pique his interest. Setting down a can of Diet Coke (just for the taste of it, you understand) he picks up his second hot dog and springs to his feet, the long tails of his headband and the open Chinese shirt flapping behind him like bat wings as he hops up and glances around the area until he finds the box in question. The hand is the first thing he sees, and it piques his curiosity. He walks forward a bit, slowly... he's curious, not stupid. But as the infinitely recognizable hair clears the lip of the box, he stops, raising an eyebrow, hot dog halfway to his lips.
Then Alma emerges and he is left speechless.
...for about a fraction of a second.
"And here's me," he says carefully, around a mouthful of hot dog, "with a shellfish allergy."
Alma, tilting his head down so that his eyes are shielded by his red-tinged bangs, seems almost to not recognize Frei, such is his lack of a reaction. The only thing that prevents his blank gaze from looking entirely vapid is the unshakable composure evident in every aspect of his firm expression and his ever-straight posture. Inside, he's totally disoriented; outside, he's not making much of a show of it. Economy of movement, perhaps. Economy of mental effort.
It takes about three full seconds of silence before the young fighter-model's eyes refocus on the monk before him. Though his gaze had already been directed at Frei's face, it's only now that he really seems to meet his eyes. He blinks again, and this time, it's not because of the sun.
His lips part, but no words present themselves; they soon shut.
The silence is interrupted by some angry-sounding clacking from a lower direction. Gaze unmoving, with steely calm and almost aristocratic poise, Alma carefully shifts his hands forward slightly, moving them a bit more away from his body while continuing to obstruct view.
Again, there is silence, not awkward so much as unreal. This time, he seems to genuinely contemplate for a moment, and then, mind finally clear and intentions set, his lips part again.
"Would you happen to have," he says slowly, carefully, "a hot dog to spare?"
"I could ask you the same thing," Frei says airily, taking the last bite of the one he was holding and evaluating the situation. His conversation with Safiullah in recent days springs to mind, annoying feelings of his loneliness at that table in the cafe mixed with surprise at a naked Alma, mixed with curiosity as to why he just arrived in a box of lobsters, and a tiny amount of unprintable curiosity for the sake of the rating.
Deciding to take the high road, he slips off the oversized black Chinese cotton shirt that was hanging loosely around his torso and holds it out, at arm's length, to Alma, turning to the side and allowing the fighting model some modesty. What a man does in a crate with a lobster on his own time is not the monk's business. He doesn't judge.
"Put that thing down and wrap this around your waist," he offers, clearing his throat. "I mean, it's got to be better than a lobster." Considering Frei is almost a good foot shorter than Alma, this might be a stretch, but the shirt is too big for the monk and thus it might be enough to keep Alma from having to pull a Raiden all the way through Arsenal Gear.
With a refined and grateful politeness almost verging on the demure, Alma lowers his eyes and reaches out with one hand -- the other occupied -- to carefully pluck the garment from Frei's outstretched grasp. "Thank you," the tall youth murmurs, before drawing his hand back... and pausing. Although his expression doesn't shift, he hesitates for a moment. Seemingly uncertain about his next move.
Until, with a laborious and methodical shifting of his feet through the lobster-filled crate, Alma turns around completely, only then willing to carefully drop the lobster back into the crate so that he can use both hands to quickly tie the oversized jacket around his waist. Though he's tall, it's more than enough to serve as a kilt.
Only then does he gingerly step out of the crate, for some reason having held off until then, as though not prepared to return to civilization until at least partially covered. He turns around again to face Frei, still calm.
"I'll pay for the dry cleaning."
He smells like seawater.
It's not clear exactly why this happens only now, but for the first time, Alma Towazu displays a bit of self-consciousness. Raising his now freed hand, he coughs awkwardly, gaze lowering again before rising up to Frei's own, a hint of modesty or sheepishness now tinging his elegant composure. Perhaps now that the moment of true desperation is over, expressing bashfulness that would have previously been unhelpful now seems like the only graceful thing to do. Still, it's no less genuine for the fact that he may have been previously subverting it, and though Alma's hazel eyes are still and clear, they remain, as always, honest.
"...it's... nice to see you again, Frei."
It's only when Frei hears Alma respond in something other than a fight-or-flight kind of way that the monk turns around, noting with some degree of... relief?... on his part that the model managed to turn his shirt into something servicable. "Nice to see you too. And dry cleaning nothing," he says carefully, measuring his tone. He's no stranger to the absurd, but this is pushing even his limits, mainly because Frei is a man with an unbridled imagination and, in absence of explanation, is heading into triple sudden death overtime trying to concoct a REASON for this event. "You can burn it when you get home."
Glancing around, Frei tries to note if there are any new presences in the shipyard. While he and the harbor workers have an understanding, a near-naked man who arrived packed in with lobsters is probably going to arouse suspicion he is not prepared to allay, mainly because it would take either a better liar than he or an outlay of more money than Frei has on him to make that happen. Finding nobody visible thanks to the rapidly fading sunlight, he clears his throat. "Well, I bet you're hungry. There's probably something left to eat over on that crate I was sitting on... it's stacked around a square of them, you can stand in there."
He waves a hand for Alma to brush pass, then taps a finger to his chin and walks over, gingerly taking the lobster that Alma had previously been using as a sort of arthropod fig leaf by the back of the shell and carrying him along, walking behind the model and talking to it in a sing song. "Oh, you're going to be a very famous lobster, yes you are! We will call you 'Mr. Pinchy' and you are going to make me a bundle on eBay from some lunatic fangirl."
This time Alma only inclines his head in response, although whether in thankful acquiesence or awkward self-consciousness it's hard to say. Silently padding across the docks, he seats himself and hunkers down behind the crates, taking temporary refuge admist the potential housing. Taking up Frei's paper bag, he reaches inside and removes what remains, the accompanying nondescript bag of potato chips, and straightens up a bit as he sets them on his lap, although not so much that he'll be too visible over the crates. He opens the foil packet silently -- as though to be loud about it would be somehow ungrateful -- and carefully plucks one from the bag, slipping it into his mouth with an oddly contemplative air by the time Frei makes it back with lobster in hand.
Alma looks up, tilts his head forward silently, and smiles. Sheepish without being goofy, strangely shy without lacking in confidence, more friendly than indebted, somehow his smile brings everything into focus, as though the first proof that all this is really real. He lifts the packet and offers it to Frei, as though that one potato chip had been enough to sate his hunger for now.
"So," he murmurs in his usual low tone, "you'll never guess what happened to me."
One red-tinged eyebrow goes up as Alma offers Frei part of his own lunch, but the monk declines, deciding that -- model or not -- what Alma probably needs right now is food. Well, alright, what Alma ACTUALLY needs right now is a tracksuit, perhaps, or some coveralls, but since neither a GAP, a Finish Line, or a Blaine's Farm & Fleet is likely to appear over the horizon any time soon, the monk bumps "clothing" down one notch on the priority list and instead hops up on one of the crates, still on the lookout for people wandering by.
Mr. Pinchy, meanwhile, is currently spending his tiny little animal attention span on fighting the mnesis of a collective shellfish memory versus the evidence of his eyes. Rumors abound, of course, in lobster civilization of friends and family never seen again, and the rare, very rare, survivors who reappear, talking of big nets, and vertigo, and an acute fear of butter. As of yet, however, all Frei has done is set the lobster in his lap and given it a reassuring pat on the chitin. Thus Mr. Pinchy is unnervingly docile. Perhaps Frei's facility with children extends to sealife. Perhaps he's Aquaman. We'll never know.
Patting the lobster on the shell again, the monk puts a finger to his lips as he watches Alma eat (or not eat), trying to piece this together. "Well, the part where you get stuffed in a lobster crate and shipped to Southtown I have figured out," he says warily, trying not to swim too far into the deeps. "But the only reasons WHY that might happen escape me, except perhaps that you were about to be sold into white slavery, maybe, and cast yourself overboard assuming a watery grave was a better option than a life of glittering, hedonistic debauchery in Kowloon, only for you to be saved by a lobster trawler off the port of Matsushima who took pity on you, and hid you from the port authority in a crate of lobsters because, let's face it, what kind of demented mind would hide a man in a crate full of dumb shellfish."
There is a slight skittering of legs, and Frei pats the lobster in his lap on the shell again. "Oh, I didn't mean you, Pinchy. You're *special*."
What kind of demented mind, indeed.
"Unfortunately," Alma murmurs as he places the second chip in his mouth, studiously chewing and swallowing before continuing with almost deadpan seriousness, "the real story lacks any prospects of glittering, hedonistic debauchery." Almost deadpan? Who am I kidding. Even Alma couldn't keep a straight face if he was being completely serious about this.
The third chip dispels his casual humor. "Although then again," he muses, "there might have been some debauchery involved while I was unconscious. There's no way for me to know." He actually sounds genuinely serious this time. Oh, Alma. He continues, maintaining eye contact with Frei except for the short moments when he glances down to see which chip he next wants to target. "I wouldn't put it past my opponents. They're hard ones to read."
A short pause now, as he considers where exactly to start.
"I was looking for a woman." Fourth chip. "Foxy Arreaza. I competed against her in a tournament match, and we drew, although officially she won on point total. We were judged on fighting grace, and her technique was impeccable. She fought with a sword. Her defenses were artful, her movements difficult to predict. I was awed... and she too seemed to see something in me. I suppose that could have been my imagination, but..." He pauses, fifth chip halfway to his mouth. Unusually, his eyes grow distant; not in contemplation, but as though gazing straight at a memory. "...her attitude was so... mature. I've... I've only known a few women like that." With uncharacteristic verbal hesitancy, Alma forges on, eyes refocused but for once unsure of his own intentions. "All of them I had the opportunity to get to know, to share something with. But she was gone before we could even speak."
Fifth chip.
"I went looking for her."
Sixth chip.
"Turns out she's some kind of scientist. It was difficult to find out much about her, or many specifics about the organization she works for. Government work, I think, with genetics. More secret work than I anticipated, because finding her workplace was extremely difficult." Seventh chip. "I managed somehow. Found their headquarters hidden in the Appalachian Mountains. In America."
Again, his eyes grow distant, just for a moment.
"That's where I was ambushed."
His chip hand, quietly busy this entire time, stills as he looks up.
"Frei. Have you ever met an Aislinn Doyle?"
The monk listens to the story with aplomb, though the expression on his face suggests that his tale about white slavery was not only better, but that he should covertly suggest it to some of the Alma Towazu slash fiction mailing lists just to see where they run with it. A generally nice guy, after all, but Frei's morals extend insofar as he finds them applicable to any given situation. Besides, who'd buy that story, anyway?
His jade-green gaze tracks across the fighting model's face as he relates the story; the monk reluctantly lets Mr. Pinchy onto the ground after admitting to himself that there was no way he was going to be able to convincingly sell 'the lobster that touched Alma's thigh and smiled' on eBay considering that 1.) it was a live animal and 2.) lobsters don't smile. However, the description of Foxy -- while not ringing any bells on recognizance -- does fascinate him a little bit. There really is something about Alma's way of describing people that takes Frei completely by surprise, as if he sees every living being through rose-colored prisms. Frei, as a pragmatist, finds it more useful to think of people more realistically... but his inner poet certainly respect's Alma's more elaborate approach.
Then the plot of an "Alias" episode comes up, and the normally placid or bemused face breaks into a brief frown. Maybe he's just more suspicious than Alma, but to Frei -- who lived in partial seclusion in a mountain range himself for almost a decade -- the concept of a "hidden headquarters" suggests that Foxy Arreaza did not want to be found. He files that comment away for later, however, when Aislinn comes up.
"Sort of," he says carefully. He and Aislinn do have a history, though he doesn't know her last name off the top of his head. "I don't know if it's the right one, but 'Aislinn' hardly seems like a common name. Shortish girl, very..." He struggles for a word that doesn't carry a mean connotation and settles on "...stoic. I've fought her a few times, in the league, in SNF..." There's a pause, and his brow creases, a sudden slight breeze flickering the tails of his headband out behind him for a moment. "Come to think of it, she visited me at home once. Her version of knocking on my door was to chuck something at me and then try to punch me in the lobster." He blinks, as if he didn't realize what he just said, and then coughs. "Ahem. Sorry."
Alma grins slightly, eyes warming.
"No," he murmurs agreeably, "getting 'punched in the lobster' would be a decent summation of what happened to me there." Heh, this is new. It's not exactly a casual setting, yet he seems able to be his mellow self with Frei in a way that he... well, probably never has been around him giving how they have usually met in the past. Perhaps, given the unreal nature of this event, it's all the more incentive for him to take refuge in a more easygoing demeanor. Also of note: although he doesn't make a show of it, his eyes look pleased when Frei lets poor Mr. Pinchy go free. He was eventually going to say something about that, but given how tolerant of this situation the monk has been, there hadn't really been a good time for it-- and that would probably be an argument better left unargued in any case.
"Yes," he continues after another chip, "the stoic girl with the lavender hair. She was disguised, but I... I felt that it was her." He actually looks a bit awkward again for a moment. Picking a fight over the fate of Mr. Pinchy would be more obviously rude, but something about bringing up the nature of his powers around Frei even indirectly makes him feel slightly uncomfortable. It conjures up images of their last official duel at the Hermitage in Russia-- and the only time anyone has ever really called him out on the overwhelming, even dominating nature of his attacks. "She was accompanied by another woman with an... equally unusual aura. I'd felt it before. The same woman that Jiro sometimes tells me about. Crimson Shadow. He... may have mentioned her to you as well..."
He trails off.
~ Jiro... ~
Ah yes, his second mission. Hopefully to be less of a flop than his first.
"I learned nothing about Foxy, but I'm certain I was in the right place. I don't think she was there, but I do think that's where she works." Slowly, the blond model shakes his head. "It's none of my business what they do there. I didn't mean to trespass. But I couldn't turn back, not after following the trail... following my passion... all the way there. It would have been... a denial of my self..." He doesn't seem unsure in his words, his usual unique and perhaps overly poetic terminology, but he does speak slowly, caught up in thoughts of something else. "I couldn't just leave, because... Foxy, she..."
He's thinking hard, really hard -- yet his followup is halfhearted.
"...I just had to see her," he says lamely, again averting his gaze.
Huh.
Leaning back, Frei laces his arms behind his head and lets his back rest against the cold-ish metal of the shipping container he's sitting on making him start a little as he rests against it before he settles in and it ceases to bother him. His expression might not show it, but Alma is saying some worrying things. Frei appears dense on the outside but it's mostly to throw people off-guard; he knows his visit from Aislinn was strange, and now Alma is connecting her not only with some strange woman who works in a secret laboratory somewhere in the eastern US, but with the girl named Crimson Shadow, who flickers on the edge of his consciousness...
He suddenly sits up, the memory flooding back to him.... mostly because it's tied to Alma, who's sitting right in front of him. He can hear the mocking voice now, reverberating around in his head like a ghost: 'Ya damn blushing idiot!'. "Crimson Shadow... I've met her, too. Just the once, in a park. She was... kind of a punk, but nothing special, or at least nothing obviously troubling. But..." With a shrug, he falls silent for a moment.
More problematic, as Frei sees it, is Alma's just-shy-of obsession with Foxy. For someone who's so in the moment, it is unusual to see the fighting model so... focused, even possessive. Even stranger to Frei is that the feeling is, for him, totally alien. He can't relate; and in the back of his mind he realizes, on a subconscious level, that the problem with being focused on balance is that you're denied the ends of the spectrum. "I guess I can understand that," he not-quite-lies.
Dropping off the crate, he takes a step toward Alma and puts his hands on his lower back, leaning forward. Frei trying to look stern is an experience, but he can pull it off... somewhat. It's like being let off from a speeding ticket by a gregarious and forgiving state trooper. "All that aside, man, when someone hides something in the mountains it's because they *don't want it found*. Take it from me. And more to the point..." He jabs a finger into Alma's chest accusingly. "What stupid notion made you think to go alone without telling anyone?"
Alma lets the finger thump against his bare chest without protest, but his face tilts back toward Frei's-- and though his face is free of melancholy, his eyes are soft.
Vulnerable, even.
Maybe.
Almost.
"I'm sorry."
It's calm, quiet, just like everything else. Only his eyes contrast.
"It was a personal journey," he says, inclining his head forward slightly, looking up at Frei through sand-colored lashes. "I couldn't be sure why I was doing it until I had done it. And if I had invited anyone, I would have wanted them to know exactly what I might be putting them up against. I couldn't be dishonest with them. I'd have to tell them why I was doing it... I'd have to. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair..." It's only as he's saying this that Alma's eyes change. He's been /sounding/ hesitant a lot in the past minute, but rarely have his /eyes/ flickered; rarely has there been any real inner uncertainty, instead just effort in unraveling the truth. It's only as he's saying this that he realize it really doesn't make as much sense as he thought it did, thinking in the privacy of his hard-earned home, so used to being alone...
"I didn't know then-- or I couldn't believe it. Now I do."
A pause, humble in its self-consciousness.
"There have only been a couple women in my life like that. None of them have... been able to stay with me, but... I've counted myself blessed for having met them. There was an older woman, a boxer..." He actually grins slightly, lopsidedly. "At first I thought I just had a crush on her for some reason, but-- really, I just wanted her respect. And, eventually, I got it." His grin gently fades away. "It meant a lot to me."
"There was another woman, a travelling fortune teller. She showed me some important things about myself. Reminded me of some important things. Without having to say much, she encouraged me immensely. I don't imagine I'll ever see her again, but-- I was honored to have met her." A pause. He's ceased eating. "I've only met a few women with attitudes like these. I've never said why I always seek them out. I haven't been sure until now. But I guess..."
~ Do I crave her respect... even now? ~
Quietly, strangely like a child admitting wrongdoing, he speaks.
"...I guess she reminds me of my mother."
For just the briefest flicker of a moment, Frei's face darkens. It's the word 'mother' that does it. The thing is gone in an instant, like the flash of a summer storm across the plains, pushing sunlight ahead of it and trailing sunlight behind... but in that single space, infinitely dark and foreboding. He steps back, leaning against a shipping container casually. The sun is almost entirely gone, now, the molten fire of sunset replaced with velvet purple of dusk. "Well, you had your reasons," the monk says airily. If he were the arrogant type, there would almost be a note of magnanimity in his voice, as if he were dismissing Alma's need to explain himself... or, perhaps, like a priest, he hears and absolves, letting God work it out.
The descriptions of the women Alma mentions float through the monk's mind for a moment and he is left to consider them, his emotional sense having a sharp, discordant undercurrent to it, a bass note riding up and down the scale under the calm treble of his placid personality. He hunches his head forward a little, pushing his left foot up against the box, knees bent. His bright green eyes lose their luster for a moment; it may just be the gold-red bangs falling over them for a moment despite the headband, before he looks up. "I was going to say..." He pauses, taking a breath, and then stands up straight.
"I was going to say you can never get back the things you've lost," he adds, glancing at Alma carefully, as much to convince himself of it as of anything else. "Because, you see, if you could get them back they wouldn't be lost anymore. But I guess you don't need to hear a lecture from me on how to feel when you just crossed the Pacific with a bunch of overgrown krill."
The issue is clearly not resolved, but either to the model's consternation or his relief Frei doesn't seem inclined to pursue the matter further. Instead, he thinks to ask a more relevant and pragmatic question. "So you got ambushed by Aislinn and the Crimson Shadow. Did you at least find out where this Foxy lady is?" Despite his sudden melancholy, there is a faint, FAINT twitch at the corner of Frei's mouth as he tries to say 'Foxy lady' without cracking a smile.
"Yes."
Alma smiles.
Somehow, Frei's airy reply reassures him. Perhaps some people wouldn't understand; maybe most would be insulted, interpreting the monk's dismissive response as minimizing the importance of their reasoning. But if one has insight into the handsome youth's priorities, it makes sense, for his self-consciousness comes mainly from the ingrained dislike of burdening others. Sharing with others, being shared with, cooperating with others, competing against others; all these he thrives on. But admitting something personal to someone who might not be interested in hearing it-- it's not so much the fear of rejection as the fear of making his most valued memories less sacred through the heedless sharing of them.
The smile gently fades as Alma's head tilts up, listening to what Frei has to say. It's not much, as the monk seems hesitant to lecture him all-out, but the youth's eyes grow distant again. When he speaks, it's in that contemplative tone, and he doesn't seem altogether to be talking to Frei. "I would never try to replace her," he says softly, thinking aloud by the look of him. "That can't have been the point. I think it's that every time I meet a woman who reminds me of her, I want her to know me... I want her opinion of me. Not because everything depends on that. No... if she rejected me, I would never be crushed. Yet still... it's to see... if I've made... any progress..."
Again he just trails off, once again fading into the aether of his memories. But Frei's pragmatism brings him back easily, and Alma doesn't seem to mind. "I'm afraid they wouldn't tell me anything," he says, and after a bit of a pause, he can't help but grin again, just a bit, and very sheepishly. "Honestly, the mission was a complete failure. Remind me to never take up being a scout."
He doesn't seem to be hiding any secrets; he's not nursing any painful memories, repressing them with a grin. He genuinely seems to have let those thoughts go in speaking them, and unless Frei tries to ask him about his past or something, he likely won't bring it up again. It's happened, the words were said, as they had to be. He moves on, releasing but not abandoning them.
Alma and Frei are very different in many respects, but in this approach to life, they may share something significant.
"If you ever see her... would you let me know?"
"Hmm." The monk crosses his arms behind his head again and looks away, presumably to spare Alma's dignity again or simply to move around a bit so he doesn't go stiff after exercising all that time. In actuality none of that is true; he's doing his best to keep the expression on his face from Alma. Eyes half lidded, his gaze wandering aimlessly across the ground, lips slightly parted... regret is an unfamiliar feeling to Frei, and he doesn't begrudge it, but when it happens, he wishes fervently for it to be over. His entire life is dedicated to the single, unmeasurable moment of the present. The past has a place, but it's in the past... not the now.
Not that the model would believe Frei if he told Alma that the only thing worse than having a mother who's gone is having one he could visit any time he wanted and knowing that he can't. Perhaps he might... but the truth for Frei is that he had to make a clean break with his family, for good. Going back would undo his entire life in an instant. It's his one prohibition in his entire somewhat hedonistic life. He's free to follow whatever whim he chooses... except the one. He can never see them again. This much is fact.
It's gone in an instant. When Frei turns back around he's all smiles, as if nothing had ever happened. Like mercury, his mood sloshes about, shifting across the map. "Yadda yadda you're lucky to be alive blah blah blah," he adds, waving a finger. His watch beeps as he does so and he glances at it. Getting late. And he can't keep avoiding Alma's request forever. "Your mystery is my mystery now too, you know," he says carefully, suddenly becoming more serious. "It's not just you they took an interest in. So yeah... if I find her, I'll mention it. Take what I said to heart, though," he adds, not unkindly. "Sometimes things are hidden for a reason. And you're free to chase butterflies... it's just not smart to chase them off a cliff."
Alma glances up at the horizon as Frei glances down at his watch. The sun has been steadily sinking, and he has little light left for his journey home; but then, we already know that he doesn't fear the dark.
A shower would be nice, though.
"Thank you," he says first, actually sounding genuinely grateful. What, does he think Frei the Aimless Wanderer is actually going to report back to him at first notice? Well, perhaps not, but if fate saw fit to bring them together here again, there's not a bad chance that the monk's amblings will bring him back to the model's path -- and Alma does a bit of ambling himself. Though... not usually so much as recently.
"You're right," he murmurs, even as he slowly rises to his feet himself. It just goes to show: just because you believe in ultimate truth doesn't mean you believe you have it yourself. "I never thought I'd face such danger. I haven't done very much travelling. I... never felt that I'd really find it meaningful before. It seems more important now." Most of his travelling has been within his own head up till now. Perhaps he just needed to clean house, as it were, before venturing out.
In that case, despite his defeat... this is a good sign.
"I was fortunate to meet you today," he says, words now warmed by mild-mannered cheerfulness. "I'd've been in a predicament without your help." He's not too proud to take the bag of potato chips with him; he may still be growing, you know. He's gone way too long without food for such a big guy. He turns, bare back gleaming in the fading sun as he faces away from the ocean, but only to glance over his shoulder at the monk, smiling slightly.
"But the next time I feel I ought to journey out again..."
The creaking of docks. The crash of waves. The clacking of claws. The silence of an ebbing sun.
"...may I ask you for help?"
Rurouni Freishin. Coming to TV Asahi this fall.
Hands on hips, Frei gives Alma a stern yet amused look. "Yes, on the condition that we don't have to do anything creepy like mingle blood or whatever," he quips, pushing his arms out and up. Whatever negative emotions were swirling in his head, they're gone now. That moment has passed. Now there's just this moment, and then the next, and then the next. Frei makes it seem like an easy way to live, but in fact it's quite difficult, making it work. A lesser man would be too proud of himself to make it last.
"Besides, you're not walking back to Southtown in that, especially not from the docks." He collects his lunch bag and trash and tucks them under one arm, and then steps out from the crates. "Maybe we can find a tarp or something you can wear like a cloak, I dunno... besides, who's going to defend your virtue if a teamster takes a liking?"
He's laughing as he hops over the containers, looking for a tarp or drop cloth, a flag... something. But after a second he turns back to Alma and, for once, there's no flippancy in his voice. "Yes, I'll help you," he adds. "Because..." A beat. That's what friends do? I don't want to see you get hurt? Because this affects me too? Because I need to see what's going to happen when you meet this surrogate mother?
The moment passes. "Because Jiro would beat the hell out of me if I didn't."
He turns to go. When Jiro's invoked, the last word is more or less said.
Log created by Frei, and last modified on 20:41:00 10/24/2006.