Familiar Faces [Arc and I, Private]

Watching the movie flash onto the screen, the opening played. The beginning was pretty par for a movie, a group of friends going on a camping trip together. It wasn't far in that they discovered the car would not start, and that they may be stranded. Unable to call for help due to lack of service, they decide to go to sleep and seek help in the morning. That was when the horror aspect of the movie kicked in. A shot of the various campers sleeping abruptly changed to a man muffling a woman's mouth and dragging her off into the woods. With a rusty axe the man did the deed as a muffled scream filled the woods.

Brandi seemed pretty unfazed, if not even a bit intrigued. Horror movies had always spoken to her, in a way. Maybe it was the violence or maybe she was just weird, but she liked them.

The violence was less an issue for Kyoko but the way it was presented. Suspenseful, mysterious, with a helpless victim that can't do anything about it. Knowing that something was coming was almost as bad as seeing it happen, and even before anything truly frightening appeared on screen Kyoko was already mostly hiding her face between her drawn-in knees and reaching out to the side almost automatically in search of Brandi's hand. As much as she was the one that made this whole thing happen, she was also there beside Kyoko and helping.

Brandi glanced over at Kyoko as she took the hand. Kyoko looked kind of small like this. Maybe a little helpless? It wasn't how she had seen the friend up until this point.

There was a silence as the friends looked for the woman in the darkness, awoken by her scream. While they walked an eerie silence fell over the woods. Suddenly a hand shot from a bush to grab the ankle of a young man, dragging him to the ground. He let out a frightened yelp, attempting to get away. As he ran, the murderer faded into the trees. Finally, he stopped to catch his breath, only to be jumped one final time before the deed was done.

The sudden scares were also rather bad, made no better even if Kyoko knew they would be present. The hand shooting out of the trees prompted Kyoko to jump and squeak, at the same time clutching most of Brandi's arm to her torso for the sake of hugging something. Though she was far from being so entirely, the man getting away made her relax just a little; this only made her get an even worse scare when he was finished off, which in turn made her ball up around Brandi's arm even more.

Brandi gave Kyoko a light pat on the head with her free hand, but continued with the movie. It was kinda nice having someone clinging to her. Come to think of it, she hadn't had a lot of attention lately, having been in a string of fights rather than out looking for dates.

The movie went on for awhile like this, jump-scare after jump-scare, death after death, until there were only two people left, a couple. They were frantically hot-wiring the car in an attempt to escape. They managed to get it to start, peeling off down the road. Crying and celebrating, neither noticed as the killer lunched from the back with a knife, taking out the person in the passenger seat.

Whether Kyoko was appreciative or even felt the patting through her hat, she didn't show it. She was rather more distracted by what was going on in front of her; much to her detriment. As the movie continued, it was a cycle of clinging, relaxing slightly and clinging again. It was rather a miracle that she didn't seem to learn each time it happened. The worst, though, was near the end, of course; the movie would make you think that everything was okay. Kyoko more or less yelped at the sudden and extra-unexpected kill and let go of Brandi's arm only to turn slightly in her seat towards her and grab more or less her whole self instead. Her face hidden in the convenient shape made by her arms wrapping around either side of Brandi's neck and the girl's shoulder and her knees spilling over somewhat into Brandi's lap.

Brandi was a bit surprised at the sudden grabbing of her whole body. Seemed like that last one really got to Kyoko. For someone who wanted to be a Death Scythe, she really seemed to have a rough time with scary stuff. It was whatever though, Brandi felt she was plenty strong enough to deal with whatever came their way. She hesitantly moved to poke at Kyoko with her free hand. "You uh... You good?"

Kyoko's reaction was more automatic than anything else so when she was finally coaxed to look up from where she had hidden herself, she was brought face to face with Brandi and the consequences of her actions both. Her face reddened considerably and suddenly as she almost recoiled away from Brandi, throwing her arms up as she made some distance between them again. "S-sorry!"

"It's whatever. You weren't hurtin' me or anything." Brandi noted the redness in Kyoko's face as she replied. "You feelin' alright? Look a little red." She questioned, scooting a bit closer to put her hand to Kyoko's forehead gently.

"M'fine..." Kyoko grumbled, going back to the same balled up posture she was in before. The heat of her face wouldn't subside quite so fast, but Kyoko didn't mind letting Brandi do as she would. Things were kind of upside down, now that Brandi decided to try her hand at worrying. At least it helped her to take her mind off of the movie for a moment, though she wasn't sure which outcome was worse.

Brandi raised an eyebrow. She never actually figured out what to do from here, she just knew people put their hands on eachother's foreheads when they looked sick. "If you say so..." Brandi resigned, sitting back away from Kyoko. "If you gotta lay down, my room's the furthest door down the hall, and the bathroom's on the left." She added, sitting back in her spot.

"I'm fine," Kyoko said again, trying to reassure Brandi that she was in fact okay. Just embarrassed that she was acting like a total idiot, but besides that, she was perfectly okay. Red, but okay.

Brandi shrugged and went to turn the lights back on as the end credits rolled. She flopped back onto the couch and kicked her feet up on the table again. She checked the time on her phone. The professor would be home soon. "Should we watch another, then?" She asked, slipping through the movies some more.

Kyoko, instantly assuming that 'another' was referring to another horror movie started shaking her head fast enough that her hat almost flew off; eyes wide open, she quickly stood up. "U-uhm, it's starting to get a little late, so I should probably be heading home about now. Yeah..."

Brandi gave a small snicker. ""If you say so. Lemme give you my number, though, so we can keep in touch." She responded, pulling out her phone. It was a bit disappointing that she was leaving already, but it couldn't be helped.

"Oh, I figured we'd be meeting tomorrow at school anyway, but better sooner rather than later," Kyoko said, flicking through her own phone and showing the page with her own number on it to Brandi. "That guy told us to come back tomorrow, after all."

Brandi shrugged. "Sure but like, if I skip you can just text me after." She responded, jotting down the number in her phone. "Suck if I couldn't get myself up tomorrow and we couldn't get in touch." With that stated, she glanced out the window before asking. "You gunna be good walkin' home?"

"Put on, like, five alarms," Kyoko said, holding up her open hand towards Brandi for effect. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Text me and I'll save your info," she then said, going over to put on her shoes. It'd take a bit.

Brandi rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll show. But I'm not takin' any notes." She responded, tossing her phone onto the couch. She watched Kyoko put on her exceptionally tall boots and couldn't help but wonder where she got them.

"Mmm. I hope you will," Kyoko said. In her head, she doubted they'd have any notes to take anyway, since Brandi's lessons would have to be changed to accommodate her new partner. She did have a few short notice ideas to put forward for the two of them, though... Once Kyoko was done with her boots, she let herself out, waving her had towards Brandi as she did so. "Later!"

Brandi gave a wave and closed the door behind Kyoko. She was a bit sad to see her go. Even though not much was said between them, it was nice to just have Kyoko back again. The girl had been her only friend as a kid besides her sister, and that meant a lot to Brandi. Hopefully Kyoko was here to stay.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning Brandi woke up to her alarm, something she rarely bothered setting. She rolled out of bed with much displeasure, put on her usual school clothes, wrapped her chain around her arm, and grabbed a sandwich on the way out the door. She showed up at the school looking groggy and halfheartedly nibbling at a sandwich. From there Brandi sat in the office from yesterday, waiting for something to happen.

In the morning Kyoko likewise made her way into the same office that they had last visited the previous day, seemingly having had breakfast before making her way over to the school. She was sucking in a lollipop, though, which wasn't so unusual. "Morning," she said as she sat herself down beside Brandi. "Glad you decided to show," she said, just before the door opened again.

The man who walked in, the same one from the previous day, seemed surprised to see them there that early; or at least one of them. Sighing, as you do when you have a day of work ahead, he sat himself down in the seat behind the desk that usually didn't belong to him. He placed a folder of papers on the desk and leafed through it quickly before sliding forward a pair of printed schedules. "You start on Monday," he said, pointing to Kyoko, "And you're lucky 'nuff not ta' need ta' be here 'till she does," he then said while pointing to Brandi.

Brandi seemed to perk up a bit when Kyoko entered, finishing off her sandwich. She leaned on Kyoko's shoulder and frowned shortly after. "You'd be mad at me if I didn't." She complained, watching the man walk in and sit at his desk. So they could do whatever until Monday? That was good, not that she didn't intend to do that anyways. "Cool, so I can go back to sleep then?"

"If that's what'cha want ta' do with yourself, knock yourself out," the man said, just about getting to sorting out that folder of documentation before he was interrupted.

"Uhm... Okay, so, I've had a chat with Brandi and I've come to realise a few things that I think might be pretty easy to change as to how she's going about this whole learning thing," Kyoko suddenly piped up, looking sideways at Brandi for a moment but otherwise not looking particularly interested in how she might take the suggestion. "Would it be possible to use some of this time we've got to, I dunno, get some extra lessons?"

The man in front of them looked at Kyoko like she grew an extra head. "Y'think your friend here's goin' to go for that?"

Brandi groaned at the suggestion, sitting up straight. "Her friend is NOT goin' to go for that." She protested, giving Kyoko a slight glare. What was Kyoko thinking? "Why would we waste free down time on school?"