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Alex waved the thank you away with a soft smile. It's not like it had really cost him much, or anything really since it was his parents money that he used. He was still in a bit of a turmoil of thoughts over this Scarentines Day thing. Would it be weird to go with his best friend? Would everyone assume something? No, it had to be alright. It couldn't just be about couples and love and all that gushy disgusting stuff anyways. Alex pondered over Yin's next question, not really sure how to answer it, either. It would seem less like an actual...thing, if they didn't arrive together, wouldn't it? So perhaps just meeting up at the event itself would be for the best...

....Ya, he was really putting way too much thought into this. How easy it would probably be if he didn't actually have feelings for Yin beyond just simple friendship. These thoughts would not have even come into play, and the decision would be simple. He tried to put himself back in the mindset of the Alex before realizing he had a thing for Yin, like back when they were at the maul and he had not hesitated to hold Yin's hand, had not even been all that bothered by the obvious assumptions being made by the workers at the restaurant. That Alex really wouldn't give a s**t what anybody thought, so why should he care so much more now?

"We can just meet there. Knowing me I'll probably be late, anyways, and I wouldn't want to keep you waiting when you could be out enjoying yourself." He shrugged, proud of himself for finally coming up with an answer, and one that even made sense. "And I don't think sign ups were required. Just bring yourself, drop in for as long as you like..I think it's supposed to be somewhat formal though so I might have to look into getting some nicer clothes for the occasion."

It was really too bad he hadn't thought about all of this back at the house. He was sure his mom had a suit of his hanging up somewhere, and now he was probably going to have to get it delivered.

As the train began to slow, indicating that they were coming to their first stop, Alex took another glance outside. The loneliness that he had been feeling earlier was actually not so bad now, and that was a bit of a relief.

Alex smiled, baring his teeth this time, his eyes full of amusement. "Yes, perhaps." He murmured his agreement, giving a small nod, though he was fairly certain that even if he tried to be early he would still arrive late. Something always managed to distract him away from leaving at any set time that he gave himself. It was a wonder he even made it to his classes, half of the time.

The train had come to a full stop with a hiss of steam, and as some passengers boarded, while very few moved to get off, Alex considered Yin's next question only for a moment before answering. "If I have, it's not likely going to effect me very much. I can make up for it later no problem." Was that..a hint of cockiness in his tone? Probably not, since Alex didn't really do 'cocky', but it might have still sounded like he was bragging just the tiniest bit.

"If you need any help with your classes, though, don't hesitate to ask me. I don't mind, really." He was pretty sure he had told Yin all of this before at least once, maybe even twice.

The new passengers had all boarded now, having taken their seats where they could find room and the train was rolling back into motion. "So you're...probably pretty excited to get to see Princess Eva again." For some reason this thought made Alex feel oddly jealous, though if it was because he didn't really have anything to be excited about seeing once he got back to school or if he wished Yin would be that happy about him he wasn't entirely sure.

Yin's reaction to the question about Princess Eva was pretty much what Alex had come to expect, though perhaps the mantodae really was going a little overboard considering she was just a pet, for evil's sake. Still, he would humor the other boil, since his little rabo was so dearly important to him, enough so that Alex was struggling not only to impress Yin half the time, but his precious princess as well.

"She seemed absolutely fine, and happy, and it probably helped that she got to see you over the computer when you did your video chat." He agreed, the the very notion seemed utterly ridiculous. The entire ordeal had been made to cheer Yin up, not the other way around. He doubted Princess Eva even really understood what had been going on.

And now that Yin was going on about what he was going to do when he got back to the school, it sort of hit the zomboil that this was really the end of their weekend together, though he had no doubt he would run into Yin at some point during the week before Scarentines Day. It was actually enough to make him feel that aching and lonely sadness again, and he may have frowned slightly, shifting uncomfortably in his seat while he brought up a hand to run through his hair, which was increasingly becoming a bit too shaggy for his liking. He probably should have asked his mom to cut it for him at some point during the weekend, but he had completely forgotten with everything else going on.

"I don't really have any plans for when I get back to the school. Probably stop by my classes and see if there's any required reading, or homework, and I definitely need to get my new pet set up in my room, make sure he gets along with the other pets okay." He'd probably order in some food as well, then sit around either browsing the web or reading.

Such an exciting night life this boil led.

The conversation was proving to pass the time quickly. Alex was actually surprised when the train came to another stop, mentally ticking off in his head how much further they had to go before arriving in Amity. This train was an express, so wouldn't stop as many times as the one they had taken to get to his family home. Also it seemed that while the train was getting fairly crowded, people were constantly moving away from the pair of boils whenever they got a chance to do so. This caused Alex to frown, suddenly feeling incredibly unimpressed. He also didn't even think about the scentum death being the cause of this, and just automatically assumed it was because so many of the inhabitants of the train had a personal problem with him and his questionable hygiene.

It's not like he could really help it though. He was a zombie. Zombies smelt bad. Everyone should just deal with it.

"Uh, no..I haven't really. I haven't even had a chance to go online and see exactly what it is, and I have no idea if it's a boil or a ghoul, which would make a difference in the naming." Again, he was basically just humoring Yin, since he really had no intention on naming this pet, just as he had not bothered to name any of his others. The train was rolling along yet again, and Alex gave the weremantis a knowing grin.

"Next stop should be ours." He informed him, in case Yin didn't know that the trip back to the school was slightly faster then the trip to Alex's house had been.

Was Yin hinting slightly at something? Hrm..maybe...but did Alexander really want to put any thought into it right at this moment? Nope. I mean, they were talking about names of all things. Whatever it was could not be all that important. And besides, if Yin had wanted Alex to use his full name all of the time, surely the other boil would have said so. This was not to say that Alex didn't notice that Yin seemed to appreciate it more when he did take the time and have the courtesy to use his proper name, rather then the nickname that just about everyone had seemed to give him. He did notice, but until Yin told Alex specifically that it was the only name he wanted to be called by, the zomboil was going to remain oblivious that it even bothered the weremantis as much as it did to do otherwise.

And in the future, if he was to say, scream Yin's name, it would probably be during a moment when all clear and rational thought had fled his mind. And..gnomes were stupid, so even if the pronunciation had been correct, they'd have just messed it up anyways.

"Ya sure Yin, I'll let you know." Hint rejected.

"Probably, since you seemed to be feeling a lot more sick on the way to my parents place then you are now on the ride home. And there are less stops going towards Amity on this train, so there isn't as much waiting for passengers to load and unload." He explained, taking another glance out of the window to see that, indeed, the landscape was gradually changing to reflect that of what surrounded the town they were currently headed towards. It really wouldn't be much longer, which was probably good since Alexander had really run out of things to talk about at the moment, unless Yin had any questions for him.

And he was very adamantly staying off of the subject of his trip to the toy shop that Yin had seemed to want to know so much about.

What was funny, or really, possibly a little bit sad, was that if Alex had known any of what Yin was thinking, he probably would have more then happily done anything to change whatever it was about himself that the weremantis didn't like.

Including getting rid of his sisters, but well, Alex would happily just do that for himself at this point.

As the train made it's steady trek towards their final destination, Alex felt himself spending more time just gazing silently out the window, watching the countryside slip past as they came nearer and nearer to civilization. Soon the train would stop, and he would find himself thrown into a world that was nearly as foreign to him as it was to Yin, though for many different reasons, and much less culturally shocking ones. When the weremantis began to speak, he tore his gaze away from the window. The first few words didn't sound very promising, because generally when people started a sentence with 'you don't need to answer this if you don't want to but..' it meant they were going to ask an uncomfortable or slightly awkward question.

Though really, anything would be better then the toy shop story.

Still, he waited patiently for Yin to finish his question. It was a good one, and one that Alex wasn't sure he could really answer very well, especially considering how homesick he already felt. Still, he could give it a try, so he mulled it over a little bit before opening his mouth to speak. "There's really only so much one can learn from reading a book." He felt as though he needed to point that fact out first, before he could try to explain anything else.

"I don't know exactly when I decided I didn't want to just be like everyone else in my family. I mean, you saw how many of us there are. Not a single one of them has done anything outside of just...being. Be a part of the horde, contribute, work in the family business, blend in, comply, become mindless and insignificant. I just...I don't want to be insignificant. I want to be able to make something of myself. I love my family, and they make me happy, most of the time, but I just couldn't sit there anymore and let everyone else decide what my life was going to be like. I like to read, and I like to learn new things, and I'd pretty much exhausted all resources I could access at home. School just seemed like the most obvious next step for me."

He stopped there, giving Yin a chance to have all of that sink in before he started again.

"Of course, nobody wanted me to go at first. It was on my sixteenth birthday that I asked my family if I could go, and they all...well, most of them just laughed at me. Not just my parents and siblings, my entire family, all of the ones that you met. They thought that I was joking, I guess...but it still hurt a bit, at the time." He'd never told anybody any of this before, but if anybody outside of Alex's family should know the full story...well, Yin deserved it, since he had told Alex so much about himself.

"Eventually my parents came around, though most of the family still thought that they were crazy for letting me go. And I know my mom will look for any excuse to drag me home again, if she can find one."

Again he stopped, and frowned a little, though he smiled at the same time, his expression almost bemused at whatever it was he was thinking about now. "You know I...it's incredibly silly but I was almost afraid that when I left, they weren't going to ever want me to come back again. I mean, that's ridiculous, I know they'll always be happy to have be back but still...." He let that thought just trail off, as the train began to slow. Were they really back already?

Alex just nodded, offering a large smile to show that it really wasn't that serious of a matter, and certainly not something to dwell on. He was here, at Amity, and he didn't plan on leaving any time soon. His family could wait for him while he tried to experience what little bit of the world that he could first.

"Ya, I'm sure that she would, too. Who wouldn't want me?" He joked, knowing full well what a pain in the a** of a child he could be at times. Still, that was just how things had always been, and it was almost like a game between he and his mother now. It was understandable that Yin wouldn't quite understand that.

He had just opened up his mouth to reply to the last thing that Yin said, when the train came screeching to a halt much harder and more quickly then he had imagined it would. It left him falling forwards, so that he was practically sprawled in Yin's lap, faces mere inches apart. "I--I--" He managed to stutter out, the back of his neck definitely beginning to feel some warmth as he hurriedly shoved himself back away from Yin and back into his own seat.

"Sorry..I'm clumsy." He muttered quietly, looking anywhere at the moment then at Yin, before finally letting his gaze roam back over towards the boil to make sure he wasn't upset. Of course, after spending a weekend with Alex, and after training him and witnessing his many displays of awkwardness combined with a sheer lack of balance, Yin probably was already well aware of just how clumsy the zomboil could be.

"Well, at least we're back now!" He grinned, trying to just forget the awkward situation.