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Daylight Sonata [REG1]

Diner Among Friends [REG3]

Daniel woke up in his apartment, and found that he didn't even remember how he got back home to begin with. This was bothersome, to say the least.

The second thing Daniel noticed what that he felt like crap – slow, sluggish, like if he was coming down with some sort of flu. Damnit, he couldn't be coming down with something now ! He had finals to study for !

Good lord...

He sat in his bed, and noticed he'd fallen asleep in his day clothes which... really wasn't normal at all. He always changed into pjs before going to bed. Always. And he still couldn't recall how he'd gotten home at all – Daniel ran his hand though his curly hair with a groan. His braid wasn't even undone, too. Something was definitively wrong about this.

But he simply couldn’t remember, which was definitively worrying. But then, it wasn't like it was hard to worry Daniel at all. He pretty much fueled on worry and anxiety.

What the hell was he doing in a city full of monsters and terrorists that might or might not wield magical powers (youtube would forever remain divided on this – some of the videos looked pretty damn convincing, but Daniel remained a sceptic. Magic did not exist. Period. Which didn't mean he didn't love writing about it.)

Something rubbed against his leg, and Daniel looked down – then smiled. Liddell meowed at him, peering up with wide green eyes. “I bet you're hungry, uh...” He yawned, forcing himself to get up and try not to trip on his cat while going to fetch a can of cat food to open. He wasn't feeling any more awake, and neither did the holes in his memory seemed like they were even trying to fill up. He remembered coming out of the library late, going to the bus stop... He remembered something black... Certainly not a monster, or he wouldn't be here, wouldn't it ? Remembered the quick sight of a black-haired girl with crimson eyes and black clothing, but... then nothing.

Maybe he'd just seen her at the bus stop. Yeah, that must have been it... He'd gotten on the bus and come home, and fallen asleep. What else could it have been ?

Liddell meowed quite loudly and Daniel stiffled a yawn. “Wait up, lady.” He said, voice amused. His cat was so impatient when she was hungry. She'd been tiny as a kitten, but now that she was a year old she was lovely, her fur silky white and long. Sometimes he wondered who could have given such a lovely cat up, but he certainly wasn't going to complain. With Chris working at the shelter and him dropping by to wait for his friend to get off his Volunteering, it was inevitable that Daniel would come out with a fluffy something-or-other eventually, and Liddell had been love at first sight.

With the can open and the contents served to the expecting lady of the house, Daniel looked out the window. It was pretty early – 8 am – and he was sorely tempted to go back to bed... He had no classes today, and he could work on the assignment tonight... Right ? He didn't like the idea of wasting a whole day, but if he was truly coming down with something... He definitively did not need to have these weird blanking outs again...

He did stop to drink a glass of orange juice and clean it before he went back to his room, undid his braid, changed into pjs, and went back into bed. It didn't take long at all before he fell right back asleep.

It wasn't often that Daniel went shopping, per-se. Sure, moving out of dorms, and into his own apartment, he'd had to buy his own groceries, and such, but shopping strictly for fun for things that weren't books were a rare thing indeed.

He'd gone for clothes, which could sometime be a headache – being so tall and lanky, there was surprisingly little that actually fit him without having to be reworked a bit. Apparently when you were 6'3” you were also supposed to be built like a football player. Or something equally ridiculous.

All this made shopping for clothing a chore rather than fun – through he'd managed to find pants that were slightly too tall for him that didn't make him look like he was wearing a parachute or a tent – he couldn't sew worth crap, but he could very well pay someone who could.

In between a renowned singer of a mother and a lawyer of a father, Daniel was not lacking with any money. Whatever job he held at the side was mostly to pass the time and to have some sort of independence, even if his parents would be paying for his housing and school until the day he graduated. It had been part of the deal from the start, even if Daniel had tried to argue the point that he could take care of everything by himself just fine, all he would have to do would be ask for a paid job at the library and he would have more than likely gotten it.

But no dice. His mother was unrelenting. There was no way she was standing her baby in America without support, and trying to convince her otherwise was like smashing one's head against a brick wall.

Oh well. More money for fun things, he figured.

He exited the store with his bag in tow, heading to the bookstore now that the chore of finding new pants was done and that the fun could truly begin. That was when he passed by a flower shop, and found himself stopping for a moment, remembering his conversation with Chris a week or so ago.

Well... Maybe... He found himself turning and entering the store. Flowers. Simple things, right ? Simple. Not too expensive. A nice gesture, even if Ume didn't feel the way he felt for her. At least he hoped.

But what kind of flowers would she like ? He had, of course, not asked her for anything like that in the least, like the idiot he was. Hm. Roses. Rose were traditional, right ? Red for passion... No, red like the color of her eyes, through none of the flowers seemed vivid enough to truly come close. Nothing came close, perhaps, beyond blood itself.

The clerk asking if he needed any help broke him out of his reverie, and nearly had him jumping. It took a bit of effort, but he stammered through the order. A dozen roses. Was a dozen too much, too quick ? Too late, too late...

Then he was handed a card, and he froze. He couldn't... Through...

I am lost and bewitched
I am shaken and moved
My heart beats so hard
To not do it becomes so hard
And I think you see that I'm
Falling for you more and more

He wrote without thinking, without noticing he was, at first. It was a song, through a song he doubted Ume would know. It was something her mother had covered once. Sweddish, he believed ? Odd how the words came so easily, so... fittingly.

There was just enough space to sign it. A simple, easy thing... right ? But he froze again. If she didn't... Oh, if she didn't... And why would she ? This wasn't a story, where the lame, shy boy got the dark beauty. Reality... didn't work like this.

So he didn't sign. He looked up at the clerk, then. “Could you... deliver this ?” An address later, and he was gone, back to the books, through now it seemed his stomach was turning into knots.

Sometimes You Just Can't Win [REG7]

A Viola and Cello Short of a Quartet [REG9]

Well, that was it. Nineteen years old. Nineteen candles on the proverbial cake – through the small cupcake he'd gotten from the bakery on his way back from the library certainly lacked the space for nineteen candles.

But it was chocolate with cream cheese frosting, covered with chocolate sprinkles. He could never say no to that. It had become routine, really. He'd wake up, have his mother call him to wish him an happy birthday, only to still be talking to her 3 hours later. Get a call from his father later, closer to german nighttime, a much shorter affair – the basic questions, the well-wishes, how was school, all that, and then done. His father had never been much of a talker, but paired with his mother, it was sometime hard to notice it. One on one, it was much easier to notice.

But then, his father was... complicated, he found. He liked him – he was his father, after all, and he'd never lacked in anything... But he couldn't say he wanted to be anything like the man his father was.

Sandwiched in between his parent's call would be his aunt and uncle calling, and Nora. Nora usually called then he ended up visiting her in one way or another – initially it had involved going at her parent's place, but with time, age, and the fact that he now lived in his own apartment, Daniel's place had become the prefered meeting place.

Having spying parents was lame, after all.

Usually that was where it ended – he'd settle, work on some story or another, maybe some character drafts, wait until maybe 11:57pm to call Chris and taunt him about how old he felt and how he needed to go ahead and catch up.

It was ironic, really, for two best friends to have birthdays a day apart. It was also probably ironic that out of the two of them, Daniel was the oldest, the one who had been the early bird.

Looking at them, you'd expect it to be the other way around, really.

This year, however, was different. This year, well, for one, he had a girlfriend, as laughable as such a notion had once seemed. And they were going out for diner.

And he was fancying up. He certainly was no stranger to the concept, really, but doing so here, in Destiny City... was a little alien. As with the fact that it wasn't the kind of fancying up that he was used to – no, he was wearing the coat he'd brought with her, with a matching top and pants he'd found online.

Really, he looked quite nice and fancy... from the neck down. From the neck up it was the same old Daniel, incredibly curly hair, braid and all.

Hn.

Really, he had yet to find a substance on earth that was able to tame his curls, and the braid, well, it was kind of iconic through, at this point. Through, one look at the clock was enough to remind him to stop dwadling around and get over how he looked, or he'd be late !

He zipped out of his apartment, grapping his keys – and the last bite of chocolate cupcake – on the way out. The evening was bound to be memorable.

After The Storm [REG11]