Travis nodded to Kristian and started to lead him towards the shops, he noticed he was holding onto his hand. He waited till they were a good distance away from the Birdcage before speaking
“You can let go now, we’re far enough away now… I. I gotta ask something though. What the heck did Alice say to you?” Travis again sounded concerned. Alice frightened him, but perhaps he could manage to work his way through the shituation he’d gotten himself into.
----
Kristian looked at Travis. He didn’t know if Travis bought his whole scene in the Birdcage, but he felt it was logical to keep up the facade. He didn’t trust this little weasel, after the way he looked absolutely like he was going to shit his pants when Alice thought she could frightened him.
He let go of Travis’ hand. He stared at him with his sweet innocent charm, the only he often wore.
“Honestly she was a little mean,” he said to him, “She told me that she thinks I am hiding something. And
that I am dark inside.” he dug his toes into the cement, “I’m neither of those things. You don’t have to worry. Thank you I mean it for protecting me back there.”
He’d see how much he could pull along this sap. He might need it later with Alice. All he needed to do was prove to Travis he was no threat. Then he’d at least keep supporting him any time something like that would come up.
----
Travis hissed quietly not liking the sound of that.
”Jeez… Just uhhh, avoid pissing her off, for my sake. Cus for all I know you could get away, but me hooo no. I am far to slow for anything like that…” Travis nodded his head to signal to Kristian for them to turn down a corner. He sighed
“The stores are just down this way. Let’s just go get ourselves some clothes.” As much as Travis wanted to take Kristian to a nice suit place he honestly didn’t think the kid would be that into it. And Travis himself would also need more clothes that weren’t suits, or else him helping out and fighting a lot might get very expensive. And being a manager at a fast McDonalds doesn't make you rich.
----
Kristian looked at Travis. So Alice was suppose to be the big bad of this city he was figuring out. She didn’t seem all that powerful to him. He’d just have to keep out his eye on her, that was all. She didn’t know anything about him, therefore he really had nothing to worry about. She was at this point making guesses. She had no concrete proof and he wouldn’t give the bitch any.
Clothes right so he could get out of this dress. He followed Travis with a little hop and simply tried to keep up his significant childish charm.
“What kind of clothes do you like?” Kristian asked curiously, probably the most genuine question he had all day.
Kristian never really thought about clothes. He just took what he could find and put it on. Except he never had put on a dress and he wasn’t so sure he liked it. He put his hands through his hair and paused, “I’d like my hair cut as well.”
----
Travis looked back at Kristian
“What kind of clothes do I like? Mate I am wearing it, suits. Suits are easily the best kind of clothes. But alas they are expensive and I don’t think I can afford them getting broken so much. So I’ll be getting some more clothes as well.” He tilted his head at Kristian asking for a haircut the kid had fine hair, why’d he want to cut it? Guess it didn’t really matter. He just nodded to Kristan and then looked forward to see the place he was looking for, he pushed the door open gently and walked inside the store.
“Alright in here, this place has a pretty good selection. Just grab a few shirts and pants. Keep it simple, just because it ain’t our money doesn’t mean we need to spend it all. I’ll meet you back at the counter. Then we’ll talk about your haircut.” With that Travis walked off and started sifting through simple green and grey short sleeves, he also got some jeans. Not fancy kinds or anything like that just plain looking jeans.
Could always trust “Cheap shrit” for cheap shirts.----
This had been the first time he had walked into one of these stores. He had always passed them by, recently coming to Tokyo meant he really had no concept or understanding of these stores Travis talked about. He looked up and squinted at the fluorescent lights. The department store was huge inside and there were a lot of people. And different sounds.
The machines that beeped reminded him of heart monitors though and he didn’t like that. There were sounds of the racks clacking as hangers were slid side to side. Making a noise as they slid as well. There were kids screaming. There was the sudden sensation of being overwhelmed, that he never experienced before.
There were a lot of things here. Clothes. People. Machines. Lights. He had no idea what he was looking for. He also had no sense of monetary value when he said keep it low budget. Kristian looked around for a second. He didn’t know what he liked.
He didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know how to define himself by a style.
“Oh little girl,” a woman, who was rather overweight and had big purple lips, with bulbous purple pearl earrings looked at him. She had a bunch of bracelets that jangled and she was wearing a seafoam dress, with socks bunched at her ankles and a pair of sneakers. Her hair was quite curly and short, she smelled weird too like that perfume humans wore mixed with her meat scent, “You’re in the wrong section.” she said, “The girls section is on the other side. Want me to take you there? Where are your parents?”
Kristian felt a sudden rush of embarrassment. He was still in a dress. And he looked around the store, to point to Travis off in a corner.
“That’s...my big...brother,” Kristian told her, “I am being watched. I am okay. I’ll stay here. He’ll take me.” He tried to smile at the woman and give her one of his innocent charming smiles, but she looked upset. He didn’t understand why.
“Your big brother should treat a young lady with more respect, cannot believe he’d make you wait here for him,” she huffed and walked off.
He didn’t know what that was all about. But he also felt a little lost in this moment. Who was Kristian?
----
Travis was collecting his sets of clothes when he parts of the conversation between the woman and Kristian,
oh joy… her frowned and finished stacking up the clothes then headed over to Kristian. He avoided looking at the woman who’d talked to Kristian and just directed him towards some short sleeve shirts.
“Alright we’ll just start with something short sleeve shirts, sit still for a second.” Travis stepped behind Kristian and looked for a size tag on the dress, he go a few sizes up from that.
He found the tag eventually after some rather unintrusive searching and then backed off again.
“ Alright so what colour do you want? Red, Blue maybe orange?” Travis was flipping through a few shirts in front of Kristian to show as many of them off as he could. God he hated shopping. With other people at least, nobody seemed to actually know what they wanted fast enough. There was always so much useless dawdling around with no actual results, Travis had know what he wanted before he even walked into the store so he couldn’t understand why it took people so long. He had developed this pet peeve form dealing with many customers who would line up only to not know what they wanted when they got to the desk.
Travis did notice Kristian looked a little out of it, he hoped he’d not just rattled off to many questions for him. He did want to get out of their quick but perhaps he’d just need to slow down a little bit for Kristian.
----
Travis was asking him a lot of question. Kristian had managed to keep up his guise for this long, but he was staring at the shirts and Travis rushy behavior wasn’t helping. It was probably the first time Kristian broke down for real, which wasn’t supposed to happen. It wasn’t the same as the cafe as it was now and he hated that. They weren’t supposed to know or see him cry. He promised himself he wouldn’t cry in these circumstance.
“Stop it,” Kristian told Travis, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Just stop.”
----
As Travis had expected, he was going a little to fast.
“No problem, sorry. I’ll stop. I am going a little fast. I’m just a little on edge…” He took a then stood back yo let Kristian think. He felt a different vibe coming off of Kristian, before he seemed fine but now. Something was up but Travis wasn’t going to ask what. He’d save the next question for the cashier. He took a breath and looked over his own choices in an attempt to tide himself over for a bit so Kristian had some time to process everything.
----
For fuck sake quit your crying.I just….it’s…
It’s what. You’re such a baby. Crying in public. Like a small child.I am not a small child!Fuck. You look it to me.Kristian scowled and wiped away his face grabbing a shirt from Travis hand. More like yanked it. He stared at Travis.
“I’m fine,” Kristian told him trying to wipe away his face as best as he could with short sleeves, “I am going to grab some shirts.”
---
Travis let the shirt go as to avoid it getting ripped something was up Kristians ass for sure, and Travis wasn’t going to go and find out. So he waited for Kristian’s choices standing there patiently as he watched the teen look around for some adiqiet clothes. He didn’t want to say anything because he was afraid he’d probably say the wrong thing and set Kristian off. And that would not be good, far too much attention.
Jeez this kid has some issues. Maybe I’ll be able to help him out some day. Travis shrugged to himself and went back to watching Kristian.
----
Kristian sighed. Maybe he should have never left. Maybe he should have never went here.
You got that fucking right. You were sitting pretty back then. You had everything promise to you. And you had to fuck it up because you’re a child. A child who barely recognizes what it is.Was the consequence of wearing this disguise for too long?
Oh come the fuck on. You were never wearing a disguise. This is who you want to be. Oh look at me, I have friends. I have control over my own life. But you really don’t because your blinded by the fact you know nothing about this place. What would you have done? Stayed there. Trapped. Imprisoned. With no sense of why you exist.
You know why you fucking exist! To kill! To kill people like Travis. And now you gone and fucked that up because you want to be friends with him.
I don’t want to be friends with him! Oh don’t try to play me. I Am you remember. I know what you want. What you yearn for as you run away from what you are.Kristian stared at the clothes.
You think you can lead a normal life. You’ve forgotten what you are, by separating yourself from what you are. God it’s so pathetic and I am stuck here having to watch you whine and complain about how you want this and that, but you do not know what you want at all. Let me kill. Let me kill Travis.
No. I am here because I wanted something different. To make my own choices. This is my own choice. To kill. Is it? I don’t know. Just.He turned to Travis who was already walking a little away. Kristian walked after him grabbing his sleeve.
“I am sorry,” Kristian told him, “You….have helped me...when you shouldn’t have to. And I should recognize that.” he pauses, “There’s...a lot of things I cannot tell you. Or…..don’t know if I should. But please….I am sorry.”
----
Travis was surprised when Kristian ended up attaching himself to his sleeve. Kristian then spoke about not knowing about if he could or couldn’t tell him things. Travis’ face formed a slightly sympathetic smile
“Don’t worry about it. You Don’t need to tell me anything, not if you aren’t 100% sure you want to. And don’t apologise, you’ve not done anything wrong... Lets just get you into some proper clothes then worry about other stuff after that.” Travis’ smile that went from sympathetic to just a generally warm smile.
----
Kristian looked at Travis. He still wouldn’t understand if he told him and what if he turned him over. Still, he let some of his guard down, “No one’s been this nice to me before.” Kristian said with a genuine thought that it scared him to think he would open up to Travis like that. But it was true. Travis had been nice to him. Nice to him in a way that no one had been nice to him before.
That scared him more than what Alice did today. Or what has ever happened in the past. He scowled though. He shouldn’t be this way. With people like Travis. But he was a Ghoul too. Was he? That’s not what they use to call him.
Kristian bit his lip, “Um….so...I have these shirts and these pants. I just copied what you got. And where, do I sleep tonight?”
----
Travis had honestly not thought about where Kristian could sleep, Alice probably had a room, but she was kind of freaky around Kristian so maybe he’d see if he could sleep on his couch. He nodded to Kristian
“It is easy to just go simple sometimes. As for where you can sleep. I think you should sleep at my place, I’m not sure it’d be good for you to stay with Alice.” Travis then gently took the clothes off Kristian and piled them onto the counter.
“Yeah just all this please. Thanks.” Travis handed the money over to the cashier then looked back at Kristian. He then hands him a set of clothes for him to change into.
”We can finally get you out of that dress now.” he said with a cheeky grin.
----
Without haste he grabbed the clothes and didn’t think about what to say next as he slipped out with a “Oh fucking thank god.”
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