Kevin and Noriko | BACKDATED 13 Oct.

[x-wither.livejournal.com]

After his released from FBI custody Kevin's attempting to avoid everyone. He fails miserably while he and Noriko try to figure out communication.

In the wake of being arrested, dealing with the FBI, having his head examined, and being convicted, which effectively put him back into the loving hands of Muir, only their rep here at Xavier's and not back in Scotland, Kevin was hardly feeling particularly social. Before his arrest he'd been avoiding Jay because of their initial run-in. Now he was avoiding everyone. He didn't know what people did or did not know. He was sure at a place like Xavier's that one person would manage to find out and then everyone would know. He didn't much feel like talking about his brush with the law, especially since everyone would know exactly what it was he was arrested for. Killing your own dad, now there was a thing that made a person go, "Hey, I want to befriend that guy!"

Kevin was sitting under a tree, five layers of clothing protecting the world from him. He had his knees drawn up to his chest and a book laid down on the cold ground in front of him, Fahrenheit 451. It was just cold enough that nearly no one would really come outside today. That meant no one would give him that look that clearly said he was scum because he'd killed his own father. At least, that's how Kevin felt.

Noriko needed out of the house. Her energy projection lessons - the only class she never, ever skipped and the only time she really felt all right about trying to burn out some of the energy coursing through her - wasn't until later today and she was twitching from a weekend of storing up energy. Her fingers beat out random rhythms on the sides of her thighs as she walked through the woods, the weight of her bracers comfortably reassuring around her wrists. She wasn't really looking where she was going, just moving because she couldn't stand still.

Kevin's peripheral vision picked up most of the people who walked around outside. His gaze would flip up to catch someone wandering around outside near the mansion or sneak around the building as if they were being spies. They always disappeared out of his vision quickly, posing no threat to his isolation. The figure he caught out of the corner of his eye this time wasn't sticking near the mansion at all. This one was fleeing and she was coming more or less in his direction. That was, interesting. She looked a bit shaky, like if she didn't get to wherever she was going she'd explode or go inside maybe. The tension between his shoulders set in, though he didn't move from his place. He kept a close eye on the possible intruder, though he hoped whatever her destination was happened to be more important than him sitting there with his book which his focus was seemingly still trained on.

The problem with that was that Nori didn't really have a destination, other than 'away'. And as for not noticing or chosing to ignore him, well, that was problematic because right now she had the attention span of your average puppy, and some of the curiosity to go with it. When she did spot him, all covered up in heavy, black clothes, her path altered to make a bee line straight towards him. "Hello!" she called, her accent easily apparent in her voice.

If Kevin had taken to wearing less clothing the tension that shot through his body at the approach would have been easily spotted. As it was, little reaction to her presence showed save for the slightly curious look on his face. Why was she talking to him? As much as he just wanted to be left alone, Kevin couldn't seem to manage to push basic manners aside for no reason. "'Ello," he replied with a nod. Anyone interacting with him who wasn't prying him for information or telling him how cooperating with them might mean he gets to spend his life somewhere other than a metal and concrete cell left him a little uneasy. He was out, he knew he was out. He was even a convict, but Kevin had been waiting for the other shoe to drop since they'd released him.

"I Noriko," she said, pointing to her nose for some reason and looking expectant at the boy in black, completely missing the tension in his frame. Body language, it turned out, did have cultural basis and signs that might otherwise be obvious tended to sail over her head at times.

Kevin resisted the impulse to quirk an eyebrow at her curiously. She was Noriko or was noriko a word in some Asian language for nose or congestion or something along those lines? He couldn't place her accent or features very well to a specific country, not that the knowledge would have helped him much. "Uh, Ah'm Kevin."

"Un," she said, nodding her head sharply. "Yoroshiku. Kevin is photo same. Konpuutaa de mita." The English word for computer was stretched and slightly mangled in the conversion to Japanese, but it was largely recognizable. As, clearly, Kevin was from the post he'd made to the journals.

Kevin's look of curiosity had turned to full-blown confusion. She was really cute, and apparently not from here at all. Also, there was something slightly scary about her in general. After a bit of thinking, and a fair bit of confused and blank blinking at her, he finally managed to put together that she'd seen his post and nodded. "Yeah, tha's me. Can you even read that?" He cringed, realizing how that sounded. "Ah mean, not tha' you can't read, but English ain't really your forté, righ'?" Hell, he didn't even know how well she could understand the English he was saying to her.

Nori was generally getting better at picking out words from sentences, but accents were still a bit of a problem, and slang even more of one. She managed, after a bit of puzzling and going over his words in her head, to find 'read' and 'English' and the leaping about in her brain helped her jump towards at least a guess of what he was asking. "No. Nori is not read English. Konpuutaa is to Nori Japanese." Her fingers were back to fidgeting, tugging at the hem of her plaid mini-skirt and twisting in little knots.

"Ah see," he said, nodding a little. Kevin wasn't really sure what to do with a girl who couldn't speak much English when he definitely didn't know Japanese. Unconsciously, he toned down his accent when he spoke in an attempt to be easier to understand, not that he was sure it would help at all. As a result, his speech ended up closer to his original soft, Georgia accent than the thicker accent he tended to speak with now. "You been in America long? Your computer must help a lot."

Noriko's English was shit, but at least she'd moved into actually wanting to try. If only because she'd gotten frustrated with never knowing what was going on. So now she puzzled through his words, smiling as she recognized that he was at least trying to be more understandable. "Computer is very much help, un." Again, the sharp little head nod. "Nori is America... anou... three moon."

Kevin managed to give her a small smile. She was trying, after all, and it had to suck trying to learn English. He remembered someone once telling him that English was one of the hardest languages to learn as a second language, too many variable. Seemed pretty plausible to him. "Tha's not long. You like it here or no?" He figured if he talked to her sort of in the same language you talk to a little kid maybe she'd get the simplified stuff more. The key was not to use the same tone you did with a little kid.

Particularly not given Nori's erratic temper. But she didn't seem to take offense, simply tilted her head in a considering sort of fashion and said "Maaaa... School is very not like, but... house is maybe like. Kevin wa? Is Kevin like?" His name came out closer to 'Kebin', but Noriko didn't seem to notice the difference.

Not liking school was the requirement of every teenager everywhere so he couldn't really blame her there. "No, Ah don't like. Ah also can't leave. Not allowed." Maybe he could like it, and maybe it wasn't really so bad, but given the circumstances of his rearrival and the stipulations that he continue his habitation there Kevin didn't see how the place could at all be enjoyable for him.

It was odd how having to struggle through the English, more often than not, kept her mind on topic. Normally she'd have bounced from thought to thought, but the effort of translating meant that she actually stopped and considered things for a while before moving on. "Why is can't go?" she asked after a moment.

"Court says so," Kevin shrugged. "FBI, ya know who they are? Like cops, only for the whole country. They deal with really, really bad people. They arrested me an' everyone decided Ah gotta stay at Xavier's. Ah gotta do training and genetic counseling, but Ah'm not sure what that is. An' Ah can't leave unless they say Ah'm not a danger anymore. But Ah'll always be a danger so," he shrugged again. So he was never leaving, that was the incredibly depressing bottom line. Kevin had no choice and would never have any sort of life.

And that was quite a rush of words. She tried valiantly for a few moments to keep up and then that moment passed. "I'm sorry," Nori said, grinning brightly, giving up on the topic and the low atmosphere. "I don't know. Mou... Why is Kevin koko de... here?" And she pointed at the tree, trying to indicate here outside rather than here Xavier's.

He glanced at the tree behind his back and then at the ground. Why was he here? Because he was hiding from everyone, but he wasn't going to say that. "Because lots of people inside and no one here but me. An' you now." He tilted his head to the side and looked at her for a moment. "Why you here and not in there?"

Noriko began to bounce slightly on the balls of her feet. "In is anou... crazy." Her hand raised to point to her temple, spinning about in circles. "Head is very urusai... noisy. Here is not."

He regarded her curiously, an eyebrow quirking up. "Why not here?" Seemed odd to Kevin. Sure, inside it was noisy and outside it wasn't, but why would her head be the same? Maybe she was a telepath and couldn't shut it off maybe?

"Nori mutant is anou... ee-re-ku-tu-ri-ku powaa...," she laboriously sounded out the words she'd learned. "Is always powaa." Raising her hand she pointed at the clunky metal bracelets that hugged her wrists. "It is stop powaa, but powaa is head crazy." Which explanation didn't make a lot of sense, Nori knew, but it was the best she could do.

What the hell was she saying? It was only fair after he'd confused the hell out of her with his English that she do the same, if that was her attempt at English anyway. He kept trying to figure out what the word was but finally he had to admit defeat. What he did figure was she had some sort of energy, kinetic maybe? "So powe' makes yer head crazy if ye're near it in there? But out here there's no powe' so head not so crazy?" He thought that was what she was getting at. Did that make any sense to him? Not really, but he could just accept it at face value, right?

"Un!" Noriko said, nodding her head sharply, her grin brightening that she had managed to explain. "Powaa is body in, always more more more. Crazy always more more more. Very not like."

Kevin nodded, lately he sort of got that feeling too. Not the same as what she got, he was sure, but it was always there. Always mocking him and hating him just as much as he hated it. But it was beautiful sometimes and that made it not so horrible. "If ya use it do ya get less crazy?"

The bouncing suddenly stopped cold, the sudden absence of her constant motion fairly startling. "Un," she said slowly, nodding slightly and dropping her gaze to the ground. "But... is not... powaa is danger."

Kevin nodded. "Mine too. That's why Ah can' leave." He made a face, something resembling a cross between sympathy and deliberation. "They know that? The people in charge here, Ah mean. They know if you use you go less crazy?" As far as he was concerned, with all their big brains they could find a way for her to get that energy out of her system, right? They could help her so she didn't have to have her head buzzing with whatever power it was she constantly collected and stored.

"Un." Again the tight, restrained nod. "Toki doki, Deinjyaa Ruumu to iiu no bashyou de... Nori is toki doki at Danger Room pzt." That last wasn't even a word, just a sound vaguely reminiscent of a laser or some such. "Then is not very crazy. But crazy is to come back always." Although certainly the bracers Forge had made for her limited that - they didn't cut her out from all power, but it dropped the in rush to a more manageable level. Which benefit was rather counteracted by her hesitation to actually discharge her powers, leading to more build up than was really necessary.

None of that made sense to Kevin at first. His inability to comprehend was easily recognized on his face until she started speaking in her broken English again and at least he could understand that. He nodded, thinking it must suck to be driven insane by your powers. His only turned him into an "emo-muppet" apparently. "Sorry, must suck." That was really all there was to say about it. What else could someone say to that? "You make any friends yet?"

And suddenly Noriko was smiling again, her mood shifting with mercurial swiftness. "Un. Jennie is live with. Is friend."

Watching the moods shift was sort of interesting. It was also scary when he thought about the idea of her going from that smiling expression to really, really pissed off though. Noriko was not pissed off so that was a bit reassuring and Kevin made a mental note to try not to do that at all. "Ah know Jennie. She's good people." He gave her a smile and nodded just in case for some reason words didn't quite get the point across.

"Kevin is school here?" The topic change was at least somewhat comprehensible, if a bit sudden as her mind switched gears with little warning. "Nori is school not like. Kevin?"

Somewhat comprehensible but Kevin wasn't entirely sure what the questions were at first. After a second the light bulb went off over his head when he realized she was asking if he went to school there and if he liked it because she didn't. "No, Ah don't go to school. Ah graduated when Ah was in Scotland. Ah never liked school much, though. Not bad, but not fun."

She nodded again, and on the up bob her eyes seemed to focus away from him, her head tilting with that curious look to it as she stared into the distance. Her attention was clearly wandering, and it seemed likely her feet would, too. Suddenly she looked back at Kevin and smiled brightly. "Jyaa, Kevin... Bai-bai!"

Kevin's eyes got a little wide at the sudden shift again and her apparent departure about to commence. "Bye, Noriko," he gave her a nod and a smile. "Nice meetin' ya." His accent had automatically thickened again now that she was leaving.


Someone would definitely have been lying if they ever suggested the girl had social graces. With another grin she waved and went bouncing off deeper into the woods, following a random path that seemed to mirror the chaotic whirl of thoughts in her brain.