It's later in the evening, after the Halloween dance, and despite her excuses about needing to go check on Momo, Kyouko is upstairs in the ECFH rather than downstairs in her own apartment. To be fair, she had plenty of time to check on Momo and then come up here, which is likely what happened- excuses are the best when they're true, after all.
It's unclear why exactly Kyouko is upstairs, other than perhaps feeling a need to seek out company, perhaps being too restless to actually go to bed herself, though if that's the case for the moment circumstance seems to have conspired to defeat her designs, because she's the only one evident in the apartment.
She's standing on the balcony, either immune to or uncaring about the chilly wind ruffling her short, orange-dyed hair. She's still in the same black-and-orange getup from the party, though some of her eyemakeup is smudged- she probably rubbed at it without thinking, being unused to wearing any makeup, let alone the overdone costume sort.
She has a bottle of beer dangling between her fingers as she leans on the railing, peering out over nighttime Tokyo and apparently lost in thought.
The apartment has the smell of chocolate brownies to it, in the oven waiting their turn. It's a good bet that /someone/ is about, although there's no clue beyond the smell of chocolate and the oven being on. Not even a timer going on it.
Naru left the dance even earlier than Kyouko, and ended up here. Making brownies, and while waiting on brownies to bake, standing in an empty apartment staring at an unfinished mural by the light of Tokyo by night. The timer on her phone goes off to remind her to go and check on the baking brownies, and its that movement that Kyouko inevitably hears. The opening of the door, the soft swish of dino costume, the heading for the kitchen, only very barely realizing that there's someone on the balcony, other than Fiore.
Kyouko liked the smell of cooking brownies. Well, who doesn't? But she knew better than to try and steal them right out of the oven. Besides, for all she knew it might have been Mako-chan cooking them, and she doesn't want to get punched.
But when she hears movement inside, she turns her head and spies the tell-tale passage of a dinosaur costume. Oh, it's Naru. She's a bit surprised, because when Naru left the dance Kyouko had assumed she had gone home, but that doesn't mean she's unhappy to note the identity of her coincidental companion.
After a moment she leaves the railing, bottle still in hand, and walks back into the apartment, closing the door behind her. "Hi, Naru-chan." She greets, in a voice that is somewhat subdued, if not particularly unhappy-sounding. Her mood, from her expression and tone of voice, seems more contemplative than anything else.
Unlikely to be punching involved in stealing these brownies, just a sad Naru. (and anyone else who doesnt manage to get any)
By the lack of going home (possibly just a lack of going home and staying home), it seems likely that Kyouko isn't the only one who feels a need for company combined with being too restless to sleep. Sleep is possible not much of a refuge from the world, just right at the moment.
"Hey Kyouko." Naru looks up from the open oven door, shutting it again with brownies still inside. Not /quite/ ready yet. "Still winding down?"
"Eh, y'know." Kyouko leans on the doorframe of the kitchen, raising the half-empty beer bottle to take a sip. She doesn't seem even mildly buzzed, so it's probably her first (not that she ever really drinks to excess). "I always been more of a night person." Safer to sleep during the day. Habits she's done her best to adjust to a more 'normal' schedule since getting a job, with mixed success.
"You alright?" She asks after a moment, quirking a brow. "You looked real tired at the dance, so I figured you'd have head home and gone to bed. Didn't expect to find you here." At least her own home is just downstairs. Naru is a bit more out of her way.
"Getting up for my run tomorrow is going to /suck/." Naru comments with a quirk of a not really there smile as she leans on the counter. Dino claw mittens have vanishedsomewhere, as have her clawed feet, but the dino onesie just looks comfy at this point, and probably is. "Sleep and I aren't really on speaking terms at the moment. I am tired, but I'm not in a rush to go to bed."
"Did you and Sayaka ever sort out if you were going to have a dance or not?" Naru asks as she leans on the counter, keeping an eye on the oven.
"Yeah, I get that." Kyouko says, though likely not for the same reasons that Naru does. "I went years without getting a good night's sleep. Eventually, you just lean how to function on less." She pauses, then adds, "Not that I'm recommending that, or anything. Just saying I know the feeling."
Naru brings up Sayaka, and Kyouko sighs slightly, glancing away. "No. She seemed to take my response a little too personally and I just ran away." A lift of her shoulders. "I dunno, I mean.. a year ago, she was basically all I could think about. But now it's just.. there's so much else going on. I have to admit I hadn't really been thinking about her at all. Not cuz I don't care just cause.. I dunno. Other stuff took over. I was kinda surprised to see her there."
"I think we've worked out that 'functioning on less' is something I've gotten pretty good at. It was just a bit of a surprise to realize how /much/ less it's actually been." Naru hunhs softly and then moves to get herself some juice. No beer for her.
"I didn't realize you two had a history." Naru comments quietly, thoughtfully. There's a slow nod. "Momo and the Shitennou, just to start, and both of those are basically life encompassing things in and of themselves."
"Yeah. It was her.. along with Mamoru who really helped me.. make something decent of myself." Kyouko says, with slightly quirked lips. "I know you didn't know me back then but.. well, I wasn't such a sweet person as I am today." She winks, then sighs. "Mamoru and Saya-chan were the two people who did the most to help me change."
"When Queen Beryl kidnapped me, it was Sayaka's safety she held over my head as a hostage to my good behavior. And it was again, Saya-chan and Mamoru who helped bring me back from that. I owe her a lot. I wrote her a letter before Walpurgisnacht, because I wasn't sure I was going to survive, and I told her.. I had feelings for her. In the letter. She wasn't supposed to read it unless I died, but she found it even though I lived."
"Even so, it's not like we ever.. had a real relationship. It was a more visceral thing.. I felt drawn to her, and I guess it was mutual. But it was never anything.. formal. And then she sort of withdrew and we stopped talking as much, and then I got pulled into this whole Shitennou thing, and Momo came back, and before I knew it I was hardly thinking about Saya-chan anymore. It's not like I don't care about her anymore or anything. I do, and I'm still infinitely grateful for what she did to me, it's just.."
"I dunno. I'm not sure I can give her what she wants, right now, and I don't feel right faking it."
Naru listens quietly as Kyouko explains some of that history. She pours her juice, she gets brownies out of the oven so they don't burn. The little frown that comes as she listens is a good indicator that she really /is/ listening, and as she leans back against the counter again, with juice to hand she considers Kyouko.
"Nothing formal doesn't change the feelings, but time and growing apart can totally change things." Naru mmms softly. "You've done a lot of changing, when she wasn't right there for it. It sounds like, feelings or not, you probably need to meet each other all over again."
"I just.. I'm not sure it's something I want to deal with right now." Kyouko says, huffing out a sigh and sipping from her beer again, still leaning on the door frame.
"Maybe that makes me selfish and a bad person, but I've got enough to worry about right now, and adding trying to figure out a relationship that was always complicated to begin with on top of everything else just doesn't sound very appealing."
"I'm afraid she won't understand though. And why should she?" Kyouko flashes a brief, wry smile. "We never had much in common to begin with. She's the only daughter of wealthy parents, who had a totally normal childhood, goes to school, kinda fell into this whole magical girl thing. She always had trouble understanding my way of thinking."
"But I don't wanna.. seem cruel to her, either. That's the hard, part, I guess. I dunno how to explain it to her in a way she won't take personal."
"I don't think it makes you selfish, or a bad person. A self aware person is more accurate." Naru corrects thoughtfully as she sips her juice. "Although it doesn't make it easier to hear when you're on the other end of it."
Naru quirks her head. "You guys have been magical girls for what? Five years or so? The whole 'I have a lot of life and things on my mind and plate' should be fairly universal at this point, happy childhood or not."
"Cruel, to my mind, is pretending nothing has changed." Naru points out. "Although if she had trouble with a conversation about a dance, this is probably going to suck no matter how you slice it."
"One of the things I've learned to do in the past year is stop lying to myself." Kyouko says, with another wry smile, as she drains the last beer from the bottle and artfully, if off-handedly, tosses it into the recycling bin.
"I've been a magical girl for five years. Saya-chan only got into the game last autumn. About a year for her, I guess." A brief shrug of her shoulders. "Puella don't usually last as long as I do. I mighta mentioned this before, but only myself, Mami, and Homura can claim five years, at least that I'm aware of. I'm sure there's others but they ain't very common, is all. Most Puella don't make it to a year, even, so Saya-chan is beating the odds already, but.."
A shrug. "Yeah. I dunno. I guess we'll see. But you can understand why I'm up here pacing and not downstairs sleeping."
"Even a year still, to my mind, puts more in common with life since than life before." Naru notes as she moves to get a knife to be able to start slicing brownies. "Then again, I'm not exactly typical, I suppose."
"Not lying to yourself is worth it." Naru nods as she pries out a still hot brownie, the extra chocolate chips all gooey and delicious. "Do you still have feelings for her?" Naru asks as she puts the brownie on a plate and slides it over to Kyouko. Alcohol is done, have chocolate.
Kyouko eyes the brownies as they emerge, her nose twitching slightly. She doesn't reach, but one is offered to her soon enough, and she accepts it gladly. Her eyes dart to the side when Naru asks her if she still has feelings for Sayaka, and she picks up the brownie and takes a bite to give herself time to compose a response, grunting and her eyes starting to water as she realizes how hot it still is.
She manages to gulp it down after a moment, breathing through her mouth to try and soothe her scorched tonuge, before she replies, "I do. I'm just not sure what they are right now."
Naru offers her juice over to help Kyouko cool her tongue as she cuts a brownie for herself. Which still leaves plenty for the boys. In theory. Ideally. She might need to make more.
"Which is fair." Naru nods, and learns from Kyouko's burnt mouth and waits for her piece to cool some. "In an ideal world, the conversation would result in being able to be friends and see. In reality, it might not work out that well. I hope it will, for your sake."
"Thanks." Kyouko says, with a little bit of a smile. "And thanks for bein' chill, Naru-chan. It's always easy to talk to you, and I appreciate that. I went for a real long time not havin' anybody to talk to about stuff like this, y'know.."
"And even now.. it's not like I can take something like this to nii-chan." She grins, fondly, and then adds, "Can you imagine? Mamoru is good to talk to, but he's totally wrapped up in studying right now and I don't wanna be a nuisance. Like, I know he would say I wasn't, but school is important to him. I respect that. So I'm glad you're here."
"And you make a heck of a brownie." She adds, taking another bite.
"I'm glad, and you're welcome." Naru takes a nibble of her brownie and then she laughs softly. "Kunzite gets a /lot/ of my questions, about a surprising variety of really uncomfortable topics, but I admit that I do not turn to him first with interpersonal relationship puzzles, no. Not precisely his strong suit."
"Mamoru and I.. basically never actually /talk/." Naru comments thoughtfully. "We should be halfway to strangers, except that we've been in each other's heads when neither of us were in any mental shape for filters, and when we do talk, it just seems to work. I'm glad when he emerges, school is important, but not important enough to kill yourself over."
Naru laughs softly as she lifts her brownie square in toast. "I was feeling pathetic, so I wanted rich and self indulgant. I think I got that."
Kyouko grins a little bit at Naru. "I'd trust Kunzite with my life. I have, in fact, done that several times. But no, I do not ask him for love advice. I'm sure whatever he'd tell me would be absolutely reasonable and worthwhile. But the look he'd give me. I'm not sure either of us could deal with it." She's still grinning, though.
She smirks slightly at Naru's description of Mamoru. "He's like that with everybody. And I don't mean to diminish what's between you and him, but it's true. Mamoru is great at people. It's like what he does. I guess if you're supposed to be a Prince, that's gotta be one of your talents. It's one of the things I admire most about him, truth be told, cause I definitely trend more towards the Kunzite side of things."
She quirks a brow at Naru's final words. "You're not pathetic, Naru." No qualifiers or explanations added. Just a statement of fact.
"Oh I dont think I'm unique, far from it." Naru shakes her head on the topic of herself and Mamo. "An illustration of exactly that. Just how damn good he is at people. I'm grateful, sometimes eventually, when it's aimed in my direction, but I'm alright with the fairly sparing attention. Generally if I've gotten Mamoru's attention, my life has spiraled into 'horribly horribly wrong' territory more than usual." She pauses there, a little hunh as if she's only really made that connection right now.
"I know." Naru quirks her own little smirk at the assurance. "I do know it. I can still feel that way, sometimes, and it's been a long and fairly crappy weekend. I suppose pathetic isn't quite the right word. I feel weary, on top of tired. It'll sort out, but the trip to get there isn't the most fun I've ever had."
"Consider exactly how close Mamoru and I have become usin' that metric and you might just start to get a sense of the massive cluster-eff I've made of my life." Kyouko says, with a good-natured if rueful chuckle.
Then she walks right over and slings an arm around Naru's shoulders, giving the girl a squeeze in what passes for a hug from Kyouko. "I hear what happened with your mom. You did good, Naru-chan, and remember.. we're here if you need us." There's something solemn in her tone as she makes that pronouncement. She knows what it feels like to not have anybody to turn to.
"There's no Queen Beryl to kidnap me, so I /should/ manage to keep vaguely on the general rarity that involves bringing out the big guns." Naru replies to that rueful cuckle.
The half hug is met with a little squeeze of her own. To be fair, Naru isn't much of a touchy feely type /either/. "Well I mixed that particular opening to me weekend with a dream that tried to kill Kunzite and broke Ariel. Which I am just so used to, that I don't think of it as a nightmare unless I wake up screaming. Apparently that's not normal."
"Thank your lucky stars. I somehow seem to have come out of that farther ahead than I went into it, but to this day how exactly that happened still baffles me." Kyouko says, with a slight shake of her head, withdrawing her arm after a moment and just leaning back against the counter next to Naru instead.
She huffs a short sound at the mention of killer dreams. "Depends on who you ask. Never try to sleep over in me an' Momo's apartment." Neither of the Sakura sisters are strangers to night-terrors that wake you up screaming. "Still.. I swear to god, if I hear one more time that nii-chan almost died and neglected to tell me about it, I'm getting him one of those damn pingers."
"To be fair, it wad rather outnumbered and it was in a dream." Nsru points out with a touch of a smirk at the grump. "Which meant that odds of death or even much more serious than minor irritant in the morning was fairly low." Naru hrms softly. "I dont't usually scream. I don't like to worry my mother. Or people here when I stsy over."
Naru hunhss softly. "I have my own henshin and stuff noe. I wonder if I should give back the ping thingie. I'll ask Mercury."
"You have a henshin? Like, a real-deal one?" Kyouko asks, leaning away from Naru slightly so she can give her a bit of an indignant look. "How come I haven't seen it yet? I'm interested!"
Then she shakes her head, and baps Naru lightly on the shoulder. "Keep it. For now. It ain't that I don't think you can take care of yourself, it's just that if I could give 'em to all of my friends, I would."
"Exactly once so far." Naru notes to Kyouko and then chuckles softly. "And it was only Thursday, with the whole mess with my mother and the store. I .. do not have the hang of it yet. I don't even have a name, or if I'm going to have a different name. Or /what/. It's been a bit of a blur since then."
"Well I /can't/, as often as not." Naru points out on the topic of taking care of herself. "The key is that eventually I'll work out that it's okay to be the bard in the party."
"Knowing when to call for backup is a very important part of takin' care of yourself." Kyouko points out, her lips tilted up at the corner. "Don't try to belittle yourself just cuz you can't shoot laserbeams or whatever."
On the topic of names, she adds, "Never saw much use for the whole superhero name myself, but then again I ain't ever had anyone to protect by hidin' my identity. I guess you could count 'Apatite', but that's.. a different sorta thing. Besides, I wouldn't want to hide that Apatite is Kyouko Sakura. I'm pretty proud of it."
"I can draw a flamethrower. That didn't suck." Naru points out as she licks chocolate goop off her fingers.
"I.. do. Have people to protect by hiding my identity. I mean, its few enough, but important. My mother, just to start." Naru considers and then gives a little shrug. "Naming yourself is harder than anyone gives credit for."
"You're the only girl I know with a flamethrower, Naru-chan, so you got that goin' for ya, at least." Kyouko says, all evidence of chocolate long-since having fled her general vicinity.
A little smile. "I know you do. And you'll make the decision that's right for you. If I come up with any good ideas I'll be sure to let ya know, but don't hold your breath. I ain't very good with words." She chuckles, then pushes off of the counter. "Alright, I gotta get back downstairs before Momo sneaks out of bed and starts watching more scary movies."
"Thanks again, Naru-chan. Havin' somebody to talk to helps." She smiles, and then heads for the door.