tramitem_log | ♫Please just come back home♫

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♫Please just come back home♫

Who: Clarence with Elliott, Yotsuyu, and then maybe YOU??

What: Attempting to avoid home

When: Early April (the 3rd) and onward

Where: Visiting with the Naeuris, and out at various parks

Rating/Warnings: Teenage angst, possible mentions of previous memory murder

April 3rd-5th, Closed: Elliott and Yotsuyu

Although Yotsuyu had offered to let Clarence come over whenever he wished he hadn't planned on taking her up on it so quickly. Or under such strained circumstances. Though it probably wouldn't have happened at all if Clarence hadn't been on the verge of tears when he first ran into Elliott that Friday at school.

He hadn't asked if he could bring Cheddar with him but he wasn't going to leave his cat at a house he wasn't staying in, even if it was only for one night or two. So now Elliott had to contend with a cat as well as an extra sleeping bag on the floor of his room. Yotsuyu had to find a way to feed another person for the whole weekend. And Clarence... Clarence didn't want to say anything. Just painful things were going to come out of his mouth anyway.

April 6th-10th, Open: Various Parks

There's a thin, scowling teenage boy wandering around parks after school and well into evening for several days over the second week of April. Most notably would be the cat he had harnessed with a lead to take it with him on walks through the park. While the cat seems content enough to flop around in the dirt and grass while stalking the occasional bug, the teenager seems less than thrilled.

Mostly he sticks to sitting on benches or under trees, his backpack next to him while he attempts to do his homework. Occasionally he gives up on this and takes out a sketch book instead, taking time to flex his artistic muscles instead. He seems a lot happier when he's sketching but after a good half hour an alarm on his phone will go off and, scowling again, he goes back to hitting the books.

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Lisa smiles, though there's a bit of an edge to it. "Sure, you can stick around. I'm cursing out my bandmates through space and time between runs anyway, so it's not super serious." Taking her hands off her guitar, she reaches out to Cheddar, her smile turning a little less worn. "Hi to you too. Or nice to meet you, I guess. Over the network probably didn't count." Glancing back up at Clarence, she giggles. "I think he's cuter in person. You can't really tell how fluffy something is over a video call. Just out for a walk, then?"

"Ah. Still thinking about that memory, huh?" But it made sense. Clarence wasn't able to get thoughts of that one cat out of his mind until he had a cat of his own to take care of. But sometimes, even Cheddar couldn't distract him that much. But only sometimes!

Cheddar tentatively stretched closer and sniffed at her fingertips before leaning closer for light pets. Clarence smiled slightly, but shook his head. "He's much fluffier in person. The best snuggle buddy."

His smile turned strained, knowing what came out of his mouth next wasn't what he wanted to say, but he was going to say it anyway. "Nah. I'm avoiding home. I don't want to speak with one of my guardians right now."

Lisa sighs theatrically. "Kinda, but now it's just realizing that they're really good and I'm trying very hard to keep up with them." That's perhaps not entirely true, but she's not thinking about it at this particular moment, so it counts, right? Right. Totally.

She's about to compliment Cheddar again on being a proper ball of fluff, stroking his fur, when she starts at Clarence's admission. "Oh. Everything all- well, no, it probably isn't. Sorry. Wanna talk about it? You've listened to all my insecurities for a while, I can definitely give you an ear if you want one." She looks back up at him with concern in her eyes, and some curiosity.

"Your music is different, though, isn't it? Country, you said, but they're more rock?" He shrugs. "I don't know if you can judge yourself against them if you're in a completely different genre. Unless, like, she's just better at guitar than you."

That wasn't something he could judge. He wasn't a musician.

He groans, placing an elbow on his knee and letting his chin fall into his hand, slouching over to show just how Not into the whole situation he was. "Do I want to talk about it? Honestly, I feel like I talked enough as it is to Elliott and his mom over the weekend, but I can't seem to stop and I hate it."

He frowned. "But I do appreciate you wanting to help. That's... not why I sat down. But I also kind of knew it might come up."

Lisa smirks crookedly. "Sayo is absolutely better at guitar than me. And stage presence. I'm better at attracting attention, though, I bet."

She quickly gets a sense for the situation, though, and turns her full attention to Clarence. "Hey, don't feel like you have to tell me anything. Same deal I made with Elliott - tell me to shut up at any time. I know how I get. So... if you wanna talk, I'll listen. If not, I can go back to trying to hammer LOUDER out and we can argue how much worse it sounds on an acoustic guitar and how my voice needs to be a little deeper and gah, I'm starting already, sorry," she grumbles as she cuts herself off, shaking her head hard, throwing her hair around her in a cloud. "So yeah. Up to you. Please, don't push yourself on my account." She looks a little worried, but mostly just... patiently waiting.

Sometimes it was nice to focus on someone's else's problems when you had ones of your own. Her issues weren't likely going to dampen how he felt about his home situation, though. Still, he was going to try to stay encouraging. "I'm sure you are."

He huffs out a soft chuckle. "Elliott would never tell anyone to shut up."

He shrugs after a while, not sure what he's feeling right now. "We can talk about whatever. I probably will start babbling stuff I would try to hide, anyway. That's been happening all weekend. Kinda why I'm in this situation."

"Well, I got your attention. That's something, right?" It's a small thing, but she'll take it. The joke at Elliott's expense briefly brings back a memory of the week before, dampening her mood for a second before she squashes it and forces herself back to the present, laughing weakly. "Nah, definitely not. Didn't stop me from offering."

The crux, though... no, he doesn't seem to want to talk about it, which is fine. She'd been there too, can't fault him. "I had that too... actually, I kinda had the opposite. Everything I tried to say got twisted to hell. Which doesn't sound so bad until I tried to tell someone I didn't actually care about my memories or my music. That wasn't a fun day, so. I think I get where you're coming from with that part, at least."

"Heh. Fair enough." They both seem to be struggling somewhat today. Clarence doesn't know what has her faltering but he'll not ask, if she's also suffering the same truth-telling curse he is. No need to make them both even more awkward.

Though it turns out that's actually the opposite case.

"Really?" Wow, that's gotta be weird. Of course, Clarence told little lies all the time, so he wondered how much it would have affected him if that had been his trouble rather than being truthful to a fault. "The whole situation is weird to me, and frustrating as heck. I didn't mean to start a fight with Kris but it just happened and there wasn't anything I could say to make it better because the truth wasn't what she wanted to hear."

He closes his mouth, expression souring. "... Kris is one of my guardians. She's really nice most of the time but she can sometimes be bullheaded about stuff she feels strong about, which I get but... dangit, I didn't mean to say all that!"

Lisa had already, to an extent, understood the "curse" on them; she'd learned the hard way about the other side, in the library. So it's not so surprising to hear Clarence having a hard time, and she's counting her lucky stars she's apparently back to normal. "Which isn't even your fault. That sucks. Sorry, Clarence," Lisa adds, well aware she can't fix whatever the hell this was - she could have avoided her very messy meltdown the other day. "You're right, there's not a whole lot I can do there. I was pretty out of shape the other day, though, so I kinda get it. I broke down again. I'm kind of getting tired of it, honestly."

She stops to think a second, humming softly. "Maybe see if you can talk to her about it, once you're feeling right again? Apologize, say you're not sure why that all came out - which might even be true - and see if you can work it out? I know I'm kind of on the ouside, so I don't really know the situation, but it seems sensible to me."

"Dang. You can't catch a break, can you?" He doesn't mean to bring up the worst of her time, but the sentiment is fully truthful at least.

He tilted his head down, reaching over to give Cheddar more scritches. "So... talk it out like rational people? Yeah, I... probably could do that."

He shrugged one shoulder. "I'm already trying to do my homework a bit more. I'm hoping that'll help, too."

"Apparently not," Lisa agrees, sighing. "But hey, eventually I'll run out of existential crises and things should turn around, right?" It's a dark sentiment, but hey, it's about right.

She smiles as Clarence seems to accept her idea, nodding. "That's probably the best start, yeah. And I'm not exactly a 4.0 student over here, but lemme know if I can help with the homework? It'll make me feel like I'm helping someone and not exploding everything."

"Eh, if karma is real it's been hitting us all pretty hard lately. You would think it would turn itself around for us. Throw us a bone soon, or something?"

He could use more than a bone but at this point, he would take whatever anyone was offering. Including tutoring help.

"Oh, really?" He couldn't keep the relief from spilling through his words. "I mostly have trouble staying on-task with things. Got any tips for not letting my brain wander too much?"

He was way too tempted to just get out a sketchbook and draw. Or just drawing straight on his lined paper instead of making notes.

"You'd think," Lisa replies, snorting. "I won't believe it until it happens, though. And it better be a pretty big bone. At this rate I'm gonna go gray in my twenties." And not even cool gray like her vocalist had, just boring old gray!

At the request for advice, she giggles nervously. "Well... I can't say I'm super good at that either, actually. I tend to do some work, then stop and do something else for a bit, then go back to work, you get the idea. Think of a break to do something fun as a reward. I can only ever focus for a long time when it's my guitar, and even then not forever." She frowns. "Sorry, I'm probably not gonna be much help with that specific problem."

He wanted to say that perhaps that was the reason the Bureau wanted them to to crazy; it was actually an undercover capitalist agenda sponsored by some hair dye company! But ever time he tried to say it the words kept getting caught in his throat.

Guess he couldn't even tell a joke like that, considering some part of him knew it wasn't true.

"See, I've been trying to do that," he says, rather than saying it wasn't any help. "Maybe I've just been using the wrong activities to take breaks with. Like, I start sketching and then I end up getting too engrossed in my drawing to get back into the homework groove."

Lisa nods quickly. "Yeah, yeah, that could be it. You can't really just... pick that up and then put it down right away. Maybe you could just sketch little pieces of things, and then when you get free time you've already got your ideas down? Like flash sketches or something." It makes sense to her, but then she's a singer, not an artist.

He tilts his head, considering. "That's... not a bad idea. Maybe I should invest in a packet of line-less sticky notes."

That way he could limit how much he would draw and maybe make a game of it. Then when he was done, he could either toss the notes or use them to mark important places in his textbooks. Yeah, that could definitely work!

"Thanks, Lisa. I think that actually could work."

Progress! Lisa's answering grin is sunny, and she relaxes a bit more where she's sitting. "Sure, sure! Always happy to help out. It's what I've been having to do, though, so I get it - breaking up songs into smaller phrases so I can actually get work done and not feel like the whole thing's looming over me whenever I pick my guitar up."

She sighs after a second. "Not that it isn't looming over me anyway, but that's kinda something else."

"At least it's almost summer vacation," Clarence said with a shake of his head. "I think all of us students could use the extra break."

"Elliott is also helping me study a bit, but I can't bug him every day about this stuff. He's got his own things to deal with, so I gotta figure out what I can do on my own."

"Mm, I'll be looking forward to that too. Finals are gonna suck though," Lisa adds with a groan. She perks up a bit when he mentions he's getting help, though. "Well, good luck, then. He's good, but I'm sure you'll be fine. If not, I can still try and help a little."

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♫Please just come back home♫

sure, sure /points at eyes anyway, points at you

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