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Hel felt a disturbance in the force...that wasn't Mac NO-ing her. Yet. It was another disturbance. She caught Junko looking at her from inside the auditorium.

"I'm thinking of cutting it again," he teased, grinning down at her, sharp teeth catching the light and flashing. Of course he didn't mean it, probably. He was getting used to it longer, it tied back easier and kept out of his face, and, bonus, his ghoulfriend loved it. He would need a really good reason to go back to short hair, and thus far one did not exist.

The mention of a wedding dress had the ghost looking up, brows creased, and fairly startled. For a moment he gaped at the reaper, hands tight on Junkos. Then he was straightening up, head turning away from the wedding dress to look out into the room until he spotted a side door.

"Hey." Voice soft, and maybe a tiny bit off, he nodded his head towards the door and gave her hand a gentle tug. "Come with me a minute? I got something for you." The smile he turned down to her was warm, adoring, and he took a step in the direction of the exit, waiting for her to fall into step beside him.

Junko caught Hel's look and she just laughed, grinning at the valkyrie. It was a nice dress! She approved. But she couldn't possibly miss Seiji's reaction to her pointing out Hel's dress. She blinked and looked down at their hands and then up at Seiji's face. He wasn't looking Hel's way, in fact it seemed he was making a point to look away from Hel.

..Was he okay?

"Uh, sure." Junko did indeed fall easily into step beside him, still holding his hand and giving it a squeeze. "Everything all right?"

Zar nodded. "Yes. It was." There was a twisting tangle of complicated guilty emotions and something that was almost regret but not quite, that seemed to widen out into the very opposite of regret.

The contact, every bit of it was like sparks of electricity across his skin, dancing in his highly sensitive nerves and almost overwhelming his train of thought. It was comfort, a guilty contraband sensation for a demon, something one could never admit to but which was a necessity nonetheless.

"Sometimes they do not. Sometimes they fester and grow unabated." He knew too well how it felt, trying to ignore his own solitude and instincts until he almost shattered like glass under too much strain. "That time, that prom." he said. "I remember my mood took quite the turn when I saw you there. You did not even see me, I reckon."

It had taken him way too long to figure out what to wear, but Xavier had finally dug something out of the very depths of his closet; an outfit that he'd brought along from home and had tucked away, intending never to use. And for a while, he'd forgotten about it entirely, seeing as how he'd had no use for it.

Except now he did, and now he was nervously standing in it, smoothing down the front of the coat and making sure that his hair - which was in a thick, feathery braid most of the way down his back - was carefully in place. There was a red flower tucked into the lapel, and another held in one clawed hand, which was tucked behind his back as he took a deep, steadying breath.

Xavier had told Helmut to meet him just outside of the dance, down another hallway, just away from prying eyes, so that he could present her with both himself and the little gift he had for her - except now he was so anxious he was bouncing up and down on the heels of his feet.

"You and your date had a bit of an...altercation. I remember."

Barth seemed slightly curious at the when I saw you.

The curiosity sharpened, and his expression sliced into a small smile. "It wasn't something I did, was it?"

True to her word, Helmut had tried to dress up a little. Well, at least a little. She had started out with a black sweater-dress she had stuffed away for special occasions (the sort of occasions where you weren't allowed to play no matter what), but as the day progressed and the meeting time loomed over closer, she added tights, leg warmers, scarves, a poncho...and in the end, her outfit was a far cry from where it started, but for her, it was fancy. There wasn't a single patch on it, or a drop of spilled anything anywhere. Then of course was her hair, which she agonized over with all the whining she once treated her mother to; but in the end, she managed to tame most of it, and pull the sides back into a small ponytail.

And, with a lot of extra worrying and whining to herself, she finally pulled herself out of her room and to the meeting place, which she recalled as a hallway near (but not too near) the entrance to the dance itself. By the time she rounded the corner, her nerves were so shot she was staring at the ground, literally chewing on the claws of one tiny hand. She almost walked into him actually, if it weren't for the lucky sight of his feet, which froze her in her tracks and forced her to look up at him. Luckily, the panic in her eyes faded when she recognized him, even with the new outfit and the hair braid.

"Um!" She gasped, and gaped, and closed her mouth around her claws again before she remembered that it was rude. "H-hi."