tampered | Log: Ongoing

"Apartment thirty-seven...?" Kamui mumbled to himself as he wandered building five, simply happy that he'd found the building at all. He really almost never went out, after all, and that usually led to him getting lost regardless of the destination. Tonight, though, just seemed to be his night; at least as far as directional skills went.

"Ah, here," he paused in front of her door, moving to knock but pausing before he could. Maybe... maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all? She'd probably just think that he was weird, especially since he'd insisted on picking her up. He couldn't help it if he had this strange, natural protective urge when it came to smaller or younger females; it was probably something that stemmed from all his time with Kotori growing up. Yeah, and that was the last thing he needed to be thinking of right now: the way he'd failed to protect her when it was most important.

Shaking his head a little to clear it, he fidgeted, pulling nervously at his clothes. They... weren't exactly what he prefered to wear, but all his T-shirts and jeans were mysteriously missing (oh, he was positive Hokuto had burned them or something), so he had to settle on this. At least, he tried to assure himself, he currently looked modern and chic (not that he honestly cared). And the long, black coat was kind of cool.

"U-Um..." he knocked on the door finally, taking a deep breath. "L-Lyra? It's me, Kamui..." Ugh, why did he suck at this kind of stuff?

Lyra peeked her head out of the door, and waved at the older boy.

"Kamui!" Lyra grinned, and stepped out, Pantalaimon following behind her. She was smiling brightly, and closed the door behind her.

"Pan's coming with us," she explained, gesturing to her dæmon as she grabbed Kamui's hand and began heading down the hallway towards the exit, her dæmon at her heels.

"Pan?" he managed to get out, soon being near-dragged down the hall as he blinked in a surprised, confused manner. Why did he often find himself in these situations? Being dragged off by a cheerful person, totally lost because they said or did something he wasn't expecting? He really hadn't expected Lyra to just get up and go like this, and he certainly didn't expect for someone else to be coming, and...

Wait. He finally looked down at the creature trailing after the younger girl, tilting his head a little. So that must be the Pan she was talking about? But what was it? "A shiki...?" he wondered aloud.

"My dæmon-he's a part of me," Lyra explained as they headed towards the door to the outside. It wouldn't have been quite fair to say Lyra was oblivious to Kamui's confusion, but she didn't quite realize the source. She thought it was Pantalaimon, as it had happened before in the city.

"Everyone's like us in my world- it was strange at first, seeing people like you," she added cheerfully.

"A-ah," he nodded, deciding to leave things at that. It wasn't too odd, really; at least not to him. He was more than used to people having other-worldly animals around him, only those tended to be ones that people without power couldn't see. Lyra was very lucky in that, he mused: no one could call her crazy or give her strange looks for talking to an animal that normal people thought wasn't there.

As soon as they stepped outside, they were hit with a bit of a cold blast, Kamui shivering a little. He didn't do particularly well in cold. At all. "Are you warm enough, Lyra?" he asked shyly, more than willing to give up his coat for the younger girl. After all, his mother had taught him well on how to be nice and proper to females.

Lyra blinked. She'd gone far North, into the Artic. The winter weather here was positively mild compared to the cold at Svalbard. While the coat she was wearing wasn't as warm as the furs she'd worn then, she wasn't too bothered by the temperature.

"No- it's fine, I've been in colder places before," she informed him, scooping up Pantalaimon and letting him rest in her arms. Both girl and dæmon looked at him carefully.

"If you're cold, we'd better keep moving. You'll just get colder standing here," Lyra said, as she began to head in the direction of Pandora's.

"O-okay..." Kamui followed her obediently, not knowing what else to do. Being examined as he had been just a moment ago had been... uncomfortable: he didn't like being looked at quite like that. It was awkward, for sure.

He had to admit, though, that the girl was an interesting one: she seemed very sure of herself, strong, and in-change. Not at all like Kamui, who only sometimes pretended to be that way in order to put-off people. Not that he was very intimidating, either way.

"W-what kind of food do they have there?" his voice was quiet, shy; his face downturned and his posture a bit huddled. This was still so weird to him.

"All kinds... It's mostly fancy stuff," she told him. Hopefully it wouldn't remind her too much of the weeks spent with Mrs. Coulter... Lyra shrugged that thought off. And even if this was something she'd never really done before, she was going to put on a confident face.

Kamui seemed... Well, he reminded her of Roger, a little bit, she thought to herself as she moved along. He reminded Pan of him to.

"Ah, I think that's it over there," Lyra pointed to a building that became visible as they turned a corner.

"It seems like it." A nod, Kamui examining it more as they approached. A neat, modern-ish place with a cafe set-up jutting out the side; it looked rather... swanky, all in all. Not exactly someplace Kamui would normally frequent. "Definitely not a McDonalds..." And somehow, knowing how nice it was just made him feel even more uncomfortable. He hoped no one would stare at him for being out of place.

A deep breath later, and he opened the door for Lyra and Pan as his mother had taught him, but he wasn't... paying much attention to them. At the moment, he was too busy scanning the surroundings, looking rather worried. "Nnn..."

Lyra may have been cheerful, but she wasn't oblivious. She reached over with her free hand and gave Kamui's hand a quick squeeze to reassure him.

"It's alright. Pan and I, we en't been to a place like this often, either," she told him as they were shown to a table. Lyra pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, positioning Pantalaimon in her lap, and eagerly picked up the menu and began to scan the choices.

"Kamui, what was your world like?" It was a question she'd asked various people before. It was one that, generally, people tended to answer. Not fully, or course, but the responses were always interesting.

Kamui had blushed the instant his hand was given a reassuring squeeze, not expecting that at all. It was stupid, really: as much as strangers seemed to like to touch him, he should be used to such simple gestures. It wasn't as if he was with a dirty old man who was trying to feel him up.

Still, the little blush had remained; Kamui trying to hide it behind the menu after he too had taken his seat. Not that he had to worry about it for too long, though: that question quite throughly smacked it off his face and replaced it with a look of sorrow. And guilt. "My world..." Not exactly the best thing to talk about, considering how severely he'd screwed things up there. "Dying," was the simple, honest answer. "At least it was when I left. I'm sure by now... it's gone entirely..." That definitely had been what Fuuma'd been hinting at the last he visited the city.

Lyra stared blankly. Hadn't that been stopped, after all the holes cut by the knife, and the vast chasms created by Lord Asriel and that explosion, had been closed? That Dust wasn't draining away into the abyss anymore, that conscious beings wouldn't fade away? She couldn't mention that to Kamui though. He wouldn't understand, he'd think she was mad. She opened her mouth to protest.

"I- maybe it en't. I mean..." Lyra trailed off, an expression of confusion and sorrow on her face. Pantalaimon sat limply in her lap.

"But you haven't been back there, have you? Maybe... things have changed," she tried to reassure him.

"No. It's because I'm not there that I'm sure it's destroyed. Only I could have prevented it. It's my fault." A moment of silence, Kamui trying not to think of his friends who surely must be dead back home. Keiichi, Sorata, Yuzuriha...

Suddenly, he shook his head, setting his menu down and trying to smile for the younger girl. Trying, of course, being the key word there; he rarely smiled anymore. There was no need for it, and when he tried, it only came out as a small, sad curve of his lips. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't... have said this much..." He waved his hand dismissively, looking away. "Ignore me."

"Ah... Yeah." No wonder he seemed so sad. But maybe... Lyra had never used the alethiometer to ask about what was going on in other worlds, not since she'd regained the ability to read it after entering the city.

"But time... Doesn't work the same way here. I was here for about a month, but when I went back to my own world for about a week, it hadn't been any time at all since I left..." Lyra stared glumly down at her menu, and Pantalaimon shifted in her lap.

"Ah, I think I'll have steak," she said quietly.

"My world... It doesn't have as much technology as some of the others- we en't that far behind though," Lyra explained. "The Church... They used to have a lot of power, but they've lost a lot of it recently." Maybe it would be better to talk about her own world, although Kamui's comment about being the only one who could have stopped it did make her curious.

"The church? Like the Christian church?" Religion, obviously, was not his forte, despite his situation with the end of the world. Why did he need to read about such things in a book, when he was experiencing it first hand?

Either way, he was grateful that the focus was off him and his world now; taking this reprieve for all it was worth. "And... do you guys still have stuff like computers? Cell phones?" He had to admit he was curious about other worlds, too.

The waiter came by at just that moment, almost startling Kamui, who just pointed to what he wanted. Some of the food had such strange names, and he'd rather just point than risk botching up the titles horribly. Why couldn't it have been as simple as 'seared tuna'? That's all it was, damn it.

"Yeah... They have that in your world to?" Considering what they'd been up to in her world, Lyra wouldn't have been surprised if what had happened to Kamui's world was the Church's fault, somehow.

"I didn't see a computer until I went into other worlds... What's a cell phone?" Lyra asked.

"We don't have television either, but we've got radios, and atomcraft, and actually, some of the stuff the Scholars study is about on level with the stuff they're learning about in other worlds," Lyra explained, "Like with researching elementary particles, and stuff."

Kamui nodded when she enquired about religion, but decided not to expand too much. He really wouldn't be able to answer many more questions about it. "Yeah, but Christianity isn't as popular in my country. It's mostly a Western culture thing."

Technology, however, he had a handle on. "Cell phone? Oh," he reached into his pocket, pulling out the one he'd bought not long ago, "this is what mine looks like. Just a normal phone, only without any need for a land-based phone line." And Kamui totally didn't use it for communication, either: he just liked his jingly cellphone strap, and the games on the phone too. "This one also has a camera and games on it and stuff." He set it down so she could examine it, if she wished.

"Your world..." he tilted his head a little, thinking. "Sounds kinda like my world in the 40s. Or 50s. Or... something." He failed at decades; besides, it wasn't his fault that he didn't know Western history. Wasn't exactly his focus.

Lyra picked it up, holding it delicately. Pantalaimon peeked his head over the table to look at it.

"It- It's so small," Lyra said as she examined it, "We don't have that many telephones in my world either."

"Ah, your world sounds like Will's world," Lyra explained. She paused, then continued.

"Before I came to the city I- I spent some time in different worlds," she explained, still examining the cell phone.

Kamui actually truly smiled a little bit this time, amused by Lyra's curiousity over the phone. Funny how something so common could be an object of interest for another.

"What... kind of worlds did you go to?" He tilted his head a little, glad to still be focusing on her and not himself. "Was it fun?"

Lyra drew her attention away from the cell phone, and she and her dæmon gave him a shocked look.

"Fun?" It hadn't been fun. Not that it had been awful, and she'd been really happy during some of it, but she couldn't call it fun. So many parts of it were frightening, or painful. "Some parts of it were fun, now that you mention it."

"There was Cittagazze- at first, it seemed like a good place, but it was actually really bad. There was Will's world- it was a lot like yours, except it wasn't dying- and the world of the dead, and some other worlds we just passed through, and the mulefa's world," Lyra explained. She'd mentioned her travels in passing before, but she'd never really discussed them at length. One reason had been because it would have involved talking about the alethiometer- but that wasn't a secret anymore, because of that stupid curse.

The look he'd gotten was enough to make him cower a little; recoiling like a child whose hand had just been smacked for touching something he shouldn't have. Maybe he'd asked too much or assumed too much? Maybe she didn't want to talk about her past anymore than he did? He simply didn't know: he wasn't good at all when it came to reading people.

"A-ah," he replied simply, set to leave things at that and starting to sip on his water distractedly.

Lyra turned her head, and her expression softened. "Still, even if I could go back- make things so that I never left Oxford, I wouldn't," she told him. She hadn't meant to make him cringe like that.

"This world- it's really different from any of the ones I went to before," she didn't mention that the world it reminded her of most was Cittagazze. It was time to turn the conversation in a more positive direction.

"What do you like to do here?" she asked, smiling distractedly as a waiter approached with their meals.

The food arrived, and Lyra surveyed her meal hungrily before beginning to eat.

"Um..." he poked at his own food with his fork curiously, not used to such Western styling. Wasn't set up as pretty as Japanese food, that was for sure, even though it was close to being sashimi. Only difference was it being cooked around the edges, and it was a big chunk instead of bite-sized pieces. "I... I don't do much, really."

Finally, he took a bite, deciding that it wasn't so bad, even though the sauce on it wasn't entirely to his taste. A bit too strong. "I mean, all I do is sleep, watch TV, and take care of my... friend's... puppies." He scraped the sauce off his food. "What about you?"

"Ah, mostly Pan and I walk around the city- I watch people, talk to them sometimes, explore the city. Spend time with my friends, read what people have posted on the network," she smiled as she continued in between mouthfuls.

"One of my friends is teaching Pan and I how to do stuff by thinking together- and, and a lot of us are all getting organized to put on a play!" Lyra told him cheerfully.

"You should get out more- this is a really interesting place!"

"Mn... I don't think..." Getting out more was a suggestion that he'd heard quite a bit, but it wasn't something he was particularly willing to do. He tended to, after all, attract the attention of the most unsavoury of people while he was out and alone. Not something he wanted to deal with.

Of course, he didn't want to have to explain that to someone so young, so he instead focused on her own interests. "What kind of play are you organizing?" He poked at his food some more, having barely eaten a quarter of it, but already having lost the urge to eat anymore.

"If you're shy or something... You could come with me, while I walk around the city. We could take the puppies for a walk," Lyra suggested. She had already finished half her food.

"Ah, it's The Tempest. It's funny, but it turns out there was a bloke named Shakespeare, who wrote the same plays in a lot of different worlds," she informed him, stuffing some more food into her mouth.

"The puppies..." he started, pausing to push his food away slight, indicating he was done. He really didn't eat much; not nearly as much as a boy his age should. "I think they would like that. I normally walk them seperately because Ama-chan is getting to be too hard to handle." Which was normally what happened when a puppy almost doubled in size in only a month and a half. "I probably should start training her..."

He mused for a moment, but was knocked out of it by the mention of Shakespeare. Weird how he seemed to cross dimensional boundries. "Yeah, I'm familar with his works too. We had to cover a few of his things in school when Western lit came up."

"I'll help you with that then- I've never walked dogs before, but I've seen people do it, and it doesn't look so hard," Lyra said, stroking Pantalaimon softly.

Lyra had a tendency to eat quickly, and she'd managed to eat most of the food on her plate by now. She set down her fork, and leaned back, and fixed him with a probing look that would have reminded most people of her father- if they had known the man, which no one in the city did.

"Kamui, why don't you go outside more often? I mean, TV en't that interesting. I know there's some dangerous stuff in the city, but it en't that frightening, really."

She just had to ask, didn't she? "Um, well..." he wracked his brain for a good way to say this; 'oh, well, I tend to get cornered and groped by certain men' obviously not being the way to do it. "I don't have much reason to go out, and going out alone... tends to be dangerous for me."

He fidgetting nervously, hoping she wouldn't ask for elaboration. "Bad people are drawn to me." And that was probably the best she would get out of him.

Lyra didn't think that was a good enough answer. It was too vague, though it did hint at something complicated and interesting.

"But if they're drawn to you, won't they just go to your flat anyway?" she asked, her glare intensifying.

"What kind of bad people anyway? Did enemies from your world come here? What do they want to do to you?" she leaned forward, and Pantalaimon rested his forepaws on the table, scrutinizing the older boy carefully.

"Ah..." he sunk down in his chair, trying to inch away from the intense stares of his two dinner companions. "That is..." Briefly, he wondered if he could make a run for it successfully, but decided that it was best to just try to... pacify interests. At least a little. "Well, for one, my other version here likes to stalk me, and I think he wants to kill me." And that alone should be screwed up enough. He was disliked by another version of himself. "A-and another bad guy is from my world, but a different time. He just... he likes to toy with me."

Glancing away nervously, Kamui resolved that there was no way he was going into Seishirou and the man's penchant for surprise sakura branch bondage. No way in hell.

Lyra blinked. This was interesting. She'd known about how time in the city had an inconstant relationship with time outside of it, but two versions of the same person?

"If he's another version of you... Wouldn't him killing you be like suicide? Since he'd be killing himself- sort of, I guess. Why would he want to kill you anyway?" Lyra wasn't really being serious, but she thought the idea of wanting to kill another version of yourself was absurd, especially if he was as harmless as Kamui seemed.

"Well, he en't actually attacking you, right? Maybe you should just go outside with other people, and he'll leave you alone," she suggested. That ought to work, unless he was something like Mrs. Coulter.

Kamui looked up for a moment, in thought. Suicide? Well, yeah, it could be considered that. Kinda. Wouldn't it be weird to kill another version of yourself, anyway? Of course, it didn't seem as though the other him cared much about such things; he seemed so... cold and distant.

"T-the other me hasn't attacked me, at least not physically. Just threatened. That other man, though..." It wasn't odd for Kamui to get completely and utterly owned by him, even when Kamui put up a good fight. Seishirou just knew how to use and manipulate his surroundings to his advantage. At least he didn't hurt him enough to leave scars or long-term marks, though; that seemed to be something only Fuuma was allowed to do.

And at that thought, Kamui quickly hid his hands under the table, wondering if Lyra had seen the long scars running though his palms to the back of his hands. Matching scars; one from a large shard of glass, the other from a sword. He wasn't exactly willing to explain them, either; maybe, if he was lucky, his shirt sleeve had covered them enough.

Lyra actually had noticed the scars, but hadn't commented on them. Still, what he said...

"If he's hurting you... En't there anyone who can help you stop him, whoever he is?" the idea of being hounded by some enemy, with no way to stop him, well... Lyra didn't like the sound of that at all.

The waiter came by with the bill, and Lyra began to rummage in her purse, before pulling out a gold sovereign.

"Listen, just... I'll stop by and visit you sometime, alright? Even if you don't want to go outside, you shouldn't be alone all the time. I'll tell you about all the stuff I did before I came here!"

"The one who could stop him... left..." he looked down sadly, trying to not be too upset. That person, his time's Subaru, had left the City to be happy, so Kamui was trying to convince himself that he was happy for him too. Still, he felt a sense of loss, knowing that he would never see his good friend again. He already missed him.

The idea of being visited perked him up a bit, though. Maybe he wouldn't have to be so lonely anymore. "Okay," he nodded, "It should be fun, and I know the puppies would like some new company." Hopefully, she wouldn't mind being practically tackled and licked to death by them.

Though, there was one thing that bothered him, and he found himself staring at the bill and Lyra's money. "You know, I'll pay for this." He pushed her money back to her, replacing it with what he had in his pocket. "I'm the one who asked you out to eat, so..." It didn't seem fair to make Lyra pay for anything when it was his idea. Or, rather, that talking dog's idea, but whatever.

"People leave the city all the time... I mean, I know we should be glad they've gone home, but- I remember, someone from my world showed up, but then she went back a few days later..." Lyra shook her head, "Only one person could stop him? Is he that strong, or was that just the only person from your world who could?"

"Yeah, but Barnabas was the one who told you to do it- and I know him a little bit better than you do," it was a stupid argument, but Lyra didn't like feeling like she was in the wrong. Still, was more interested in talking about other things, so she put the coin back in her purse.

"I'll come over in a few days- where's your flat? And I'll bring something to eat, alright?"

"The guy is strong, but it's more that my friend... well, it's complicated." More complicated than he could ever explain, barely understanding some aspects of it himself. Sure, he could understand the parts that his experiences with Fuuma mirrored, but other aspects were just confusing. He couldn't have put it into words even if he wanted to.

"Oh, and..." He paused for a moment to resist the bratty urge to point out his triumph in being allowed to pay, instead chewing on his lower lip without realizing it. It was the first time he'd won a 'who's paying' sort of argument, actually. "I live in building four, number nine." A quick nod to himself.

He was awkwardly silent when the waiter asked if there was anything else, watching the man take the bill and money, before quietly telling him there was no change. It was weird to be tipping, really, and he had no idea if he'd given him enough to be considered proper. In Japan, it was actually considered odd to tip at most places; it was only something unknowing Westerners did.

Lyra didn't press for more of an explanation. If she really needed to know, she could always ask Kamui later.

"So you're just one building away then? That en't too far to walk. Um, it'd probably be best if Pan stayed behind then, if there are going to be a lot of dogs about," As she said this, Pantalaimon lowered his head, so that it was no longer visible to Kamui.

"And listen, if you ever need an alethiometrist, well, just tell me." Not that he'd know what that was, but it sounded like he might get into trouble soon, and Lyra felt obligated to offer to help him with what she was best at.

"Yeah..." Kamui watched Pan duck, tilting his head slightly, curiously. Was the thing up to something, or was it worried about the prospect of being eaten by two puppies? "Miya-chan would probably be okay with him since she's mellow and small, but Ama-chan..." a sigh, Ama obviously being the problem 'child', "she'd want to chase him everywhere and chew on him. She's the hyper one. You should see what she does when she encounters water..."

At that he stood, simply nodding with a small smile when Lyra offered her services. Not that he had any idea what an alethiometrist was, but he figured he could always ask later. They had all the time in the world to talk about things, didn't they? An odd thought, really.

"Um... do you want me to walk you back?" he asked as he led the way out, figuring now that it wasn't necessary. She, after all, seemed more than capable of taking care of herself; much more so than he apparently was.

Log: Ongoing

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