(expecting, but this is a common room)

Yul was in bed, but he wasn't asleep. He should have been, but he wasn't. His communicator kept chiming. Softly, fortunately, enough that concealed under the blanket his roommates wouldn't hear. And maybe now it was...

His communicator chimed again. Yul glanced at it and smiled.

Carefully, he slipped out of bed. He was already partially dressed; it took him only a moment to slip on a little something to make his outfit complete. Then, he padded carefully down the hall to the common room.

Mumei's sitting in the pale glow of the midnight advertisements endlessly running on the ancient holovid, a chipped mug in hand decorated with a smiling cartoon Otori. Knees drawn up to her chest, in her faded pants and newly thrifted t-shirt, she's poking away at her communicator, balanced on a knee.

Hearing footsteps, she looks up. It takes a second for her eyes to focus, blinking. "Oh! You didn't have to come down." But she closes the communicator and stuffs it in a pocket, looking a bit to the side. "Glad you did," she says, voice rough around the edges.

Yul grinned. "Hey, what can I say? You just made me too curious about that teeth commercial. I had to come see it for myself." The playful glint in his eyes gave him the lie, there.

His smile softened noticeably at the hint of roughness in her voice. He walked the bit of distance over to the sofa, his new clothes flowing gracefully behind him as he moved. "But seriously, I pretty much just had to see you." Yul said, his eyes meeting hers.

Still gracefully, Yul sat next to her... and winced. "Wow, you weren't kidding huh? Where did they find these sofas?" He sat casually, close but not quite to the level of impropriety, his arm stretched along the back of the terrible sofa.

"They're awwwwful." She waves toward the holovid, "and so's that. Syrup to make your teeth white? That's gotta be a mess."

Uncurling, eyes on his but...odd somehow, she reaches to take the edge of his delightfully flowy new top, letting the fabric slip through her fingers. "I really wanted to see you too..." She blinks slowly and sips from the mug whose earthy scent may have been mistaken for some of the general funk of the ancient room. "I'm sorry if I woke you. Dreams were...rough. Think I'm reminding me that you're fine."

Yul made a face. "Right? And yet it keeps playing. Who watches this for ten minutes and then says 'okay, I'm convinced, I need to put goo on my teeth'."

He gave Mumei a slightly curious look, but the clues as to her altered state hadn't quite penetrated yet. "Yeah. Sure." He said gently, smiling. "I'm fine. See?" He waved his hand at her. Perhaps more significantly, he shifted, just a little. The shift brought his knee in contact with hers, warm and solid even through his leggings.

Shifting back, Yul tilted his head. "Bad dreams? Seems like you get those a lot, huh?" He gave her another of his gentle smiles. "You wanna tell me about it?"

Her knee presses back against his--acknowledgment that it was intentional, reciprocated. There's a lot to be said for simple human warmth in the dark hours of the night.

"Not a lot, no." She shakes her head slowly, as if, like a kappa, there's a bowl on her head that might spill or slosh if she moves too fast. "They're just all giant teeth and...a different memorial now." She doesn't sound particularly distressed recounting it. "It's just...fresh. I'm sure. Had nightmares for a week after just being on the floor above an airlock incident a while back."

Her hand on the flowy edge of his...jacket? robe? turns the fabric this way and that as her eyes drop to it...as if examining patterns on the solid black cloth. "But you're right, you're fine" A slow grin lifts her lips, touches the unfocused brown of her eyes, pupils wide in the holovid light. Leaning closer than was proper for the public space, she purrs. "really. fine. actually."

"Oh." Yul shuddered. He was planetborn, but spacer enough to have had the occasional nightmare about depressurization himself. "Yeah. I heard about Kuni Koryn. And that you performed the ceremony." Yul sighed, smiling wanly. "The pilots here are getting together tomorrow evening. We're gonna save an empty seat."

The unfocused eyes finally clued Yul in. "What's in that cup, anyway?" But it wasn't what had most of his attention. He found himself leaning in as well, just a little, his heart beating faster. "Mumei... we shouldn't..." His gaze dropped to her lips, his own curling up. "Not more than once, anyway."

He shifted, turning to face her more fully, one leg folded on the terrible couch. His body shielded his hand from view, and then her hand as he reached out to gently grasp it. "Tomorrow though," Yul spoke softly, his voice growing rough. "You and me, let's find another quiet corner of this planet. And whoever gets the lead first can keep it." His eyes were alight, almost the same look as he got while flying, really flying.

"Shouldn't, no...still not sure about won't." But she does shift back, smile undiminished and eyes half-lidded looking him up and down. The fact that this was as much to examine the most likely nonexistent shifting patterns of his new outfit as anything salacious was probably not apparent. "And the tea's mushrooms. Second steep, so not as strong as they were the other night." Her eyes widen a bit and she inhales slowly as he takes her hand. "Ok, that's new," she mutters, mostly to herself.

"hmmm," her thumb strokes gently along the back of his hand as she speaks. "That sounds like a race. Ready for an Otori rematch then? Or on foot?" Her hand tightens noticeably, as she starts to lean toward him again, and stops, lifting her mug for a long, distracting sip. Distracting for her at least.

"Huh. How about that." Yul grinned. Gently, slowly, he began to move his hand against hers, still hidden. Sometimes he mirrored her, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb, sometimes he entwined their fingers together, almost like a miniature dance. "And hey, I said more than once. We're gonna get that one if I have anything to say about it."

Yul's lips quirked. "Actually, I had my mind on something else." There was no division of purpose as he looked her up and down, taking a deep breath. "But hey, I like the idea of an Otori race. Maverick likes to run." He chuckled softly, shaking his head; only loosely bound, his hair swept over his shoulders. "Where'd you learn to ride, anyway? Seems like you have a way with animals."

"hmm...I'm curious what you have to say about it...vaaaast expansive topic and all." As their entwined hands dance, she gets an odd, distracted look, gaze dipping to focus inward over a pleased smile. Suddenly, her eyes leap open as she turns to sneeze into her shoulder, fingers tightening with the convulsive movement. Laughing, she holds tight. "See...your skin? No. Touch. Feels, like oranges smell." she twines her fingers in his, palm to palm. "That's strong, right there." She lifts the mug carefully. "Second steep seems to amp the synesthesia, though the visual illusions are still there too."

"Now I wonder what you meant by whoever gets the lead first." She draws their joined hands to rest on her knee, bent up agains the hard back of the cracked attempt at a sofa, shivering a bit at a high, cold chiming that rings out in time with the movement of the fascinating patterns lighting up the black of Yul's new clothing. "And I honestly mostly learned the other day catching Hiroki in the first place. Though I got one single lesson on a friendly pony back during that bit of shore leave on Shinjo's Grace. But...I've always liked animals. They're a different kind of little alien mind to connect with on some level."

Yul snorted, laughing with Mumei at the sudden sneeze. "I guess it must be." He murmured, smiling. "You're making me kinda curious... but maybe for another time." What did it mean to something feel like oranges smelled? Yul frowned curiously.

Listening, Yul grinned. "Friendly pony was how I got my start, too. And even a medium pony once I got better. But yeah, I get what you mean. I saw enough cattle to last a lifetime," Yul grimaced, "-my family had a lot. But yeah, I like to think I can sorta get why my ancestors were so connected with their horses. Maybe someday I'll see one of the great herds..."

As he casually sat, sprawled on the couch, he let his thumb trail down, making slow circles on Mumei's knee.

As he casually sat, sprawled on the couch, he let his thumb trail down, making slow circles on Mumei's knee.[/quote]

"Didn't see cattle, while I was there. Not enough time for everything, obviously," she slowly, relaxing back against the low arm of the couch, eyes closing as she does. Touch and sound and a rush of light behind her eyelids make her smile, stretching a bit in place, catlike. "What's the thing you most want to see, going back," she asks as clouded eyes open again, finding familiar shapes and colors have shifted to leave a landscape that requires careful interpretation to move through. But she's not moving just now, her own fingers, relaxed where they twine with his.

Yul leaned sideways against the back of the couch. It is only his fingers that move, continuing their slow dance with Mumei's, thumb brushing her knee.

"Hard to say." Yul's voice was soft, almost dreamy. "I feel like the first thing I'd do is see what all is different. It's been years... I feel like everything'll be smaller, even if I haven't grown much." He chewed his lip a moment, considering. "Before I could fly, I'd go up on this hill by the lake. It took a while to get there. But you'd look out at it, and it would be like there were two skies."

He smiled gently at her. "Did you have a favorite place?"

She traces gentle kanji on his palm with one finger, too complex to read clearly by touch, and smiles softly, while composing the entirely transient prayer of protection in trails of light only she can see. "I'd like to see that lake." She pauses. "Assuming nothing in that lake wants to eat either of us."

"We weren't there long, but flew out to the Skyreach mountains." Her eyes' focus shifts to the faraway, still vague and heavy-lidded as she sips her tea. "foothills of them, really. Autumn leaves in abundance made me realize what some of those old poems really meant. I really understood the way a bright leaf falling could feel so beautiful and temporary and remind you that time is always moving."

Yul briefly turned his palm up, grinning as Mumei traced on it. His fingers twitched a little as she brushed a sensitive part of his palm. "I'd like to show it to you. And don't worry, the most dangerous think in that area is a Spine-Back Bear, and they're not so bad. But there's a lot I'd like to show you."

He tilted his head, smiling as he watched her. "I know the area you're talking about." His own eyes went distant now. "And thinking back, I get it. I didn't at the time, though, not even after living there for fifteen years. I guess I didn't think my time there would end, until it suddenly did."

There's a long, slow breath, two, before she speaks, her palm flattening to rest on his. Words take time to unravel into thoughts and translate back again. Like meditation watching words float into view instead of thought and emotion. "I think, it was a hard concept on ship. Not the same kind of continuity and change to savor. But seasons are a whole different thing."

"You can keep going back," she says quietly, leaning forward, hand sliding softly up his arm. "and it's never the same. But that means..it never was, you just didn't notice while immersed."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Yul murmured. He responded unconsciously to her forward lean, moving to match him, a little thrill going through his back-brain. Before he knew it, he was studying the lovely flecks of green in her unfocused eyes. Just like so often when piloting, he found himself in over his head. And, just like when piloting, he'd just have to count on boldness to see him through.

Yul completed the lean, bringing their lips together for a kiss. His hand slid up to her shoulder, fingers clenching just a little, as the kiss deepened, slow, almost leisurely, but no less passionate for that.

Mumei smiles as Yul closes that small distance, then lets her eyes drift closed to focus on the heightened, altered sensations. There's the softness of his lips, that is also, impossibly, the scent of leather in some synesthetic association, the clear thrum of desire that she can see through closed eyes as a river of light flowing through her spine, and her hand coming up to tentatively cup the back of his neck, unsure of where her skin ends. Her own lips taste of the earthy tea, and touch of distant sweetness, while the scent of temple incense clings to her hair.

After several long breaths, she pulls back, lips still parted. "Once...ok." She swallows, and lets her thumb run along his collarbone as she sits back, bringing both hands to cup carefully around the mug with a slow exhale. "Hmmm, that should sweeten some dreams, yeah."

As they parted, Yul's lips gently tugged at one of Mumei's, a gentle tease. Or perhaps a promise. He lacked her enhanced sensations, but as moments passed with their breath mingling, her cool touch on the back of his neck, it was more than enough for him to feel the bond that they shared.

He smiled, his eyes alight. "Yeah. Pleasant dreams indeed." Even parted now, the incense scent of her hair still seemed to linger in his senses, just as he suspected the clean earthy scent of him might linger in her senses.

Casually, he rose to his feet, offering her a hand. "C'mon. We should get to bed." Separately, alas. "I'll walk you to your room?"

Taking his hand to rise was definitely out of desire rather than need, as she's steady enough on her feet, if slow out of caution for maneuvering in a world where perception may not be entirely trustworthy. Cool hands and warm, every small contact is sought out and tucked away to savor. "Yeah. I think I could sleep now. And ride tomorrow."

The mug is left absently on the low, chipped table before drifting back to he hallway and the rooms beyond, leaving the holovid to keep flashing advertisements of bright smiles and strange kitchen gadgets into the wee hours.

/exit