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Surprised by the sudden tug at his arm, Vis stared at the girl with a blank expression on his face. Unlike Ruri, who still had her ability at stalking going for her, the young man had no apparent skill in any field to make up for his slow-moving brain. "You.. You still want to go the solarium?" he questioned carefully. Of course, it would be a shame that Nexi wouldn't be joining them, but with Val gone this could still be a good trip. Not giving her a chance to answer, he said: "Well, okay then" and locked arms with Ruri, describing the route to the solarium animatedly as he dragged her along the narrow hallway. Standing up a little straighter after this turn of events, he found himself with a grin on his face and a spring in his step.

Vis recovered so easily. Val did not. Slumped against the wall of the room he had entered seconds ago, he let out a sigh and slammed a hand against the cold bricks. Sinking to the floor, half of his head disappeared into the formless white so that he could hear what was being said on the other side. He expected to hear nothing but silence, he was that sure that Nexi had given up and gone, decided he hated Val.

The shock of hearing him ask if Val was in the room nearly caused him to jerk his head in a way that would have broken his neck. "I'm going to find you!" is what he heard next, announced loudly by the boy. The red-head was now on his hands and knees, watching Nexi stomp off in a completely wrong direction. Without even a second of reconsidering, Val got to his feet and ran in after him. "Nexi.. Nexi, wait!" he yelled.

Val felt something crack inside as he saw Nexi turn away from him, and disappear into the wall. He wanted to shout more, but instead of words coming out his throat he produced a dry rasp. That was great. You scared him off, a**. The imaginary youth had never felt affection for anybody. He had gone through his short existence believing that there were none like him, that he didn't have it him to care about Vis and the other "solids" as he had begun to call them. This boy, though.. As soon as Nexi popped back into view, wearing the cutest smile Valycinte had ever seen, he could feel his insides squirming. Nothing had ever made the ice in him react like that.

"I'll be your friend anyway." He simply could not believe what he was hearing. Here was the most precious being he had ever laid his golden eyes on, offering his friendship to him. "Nexi.." he softly said, with a slight tremble. "I'm the one that should be saying sorry." The red-head moved closer to the green haired one as he spoke, until he was close enough to pull Nexi into an unexpected hug.

"I'm sorry" Val said as he rested his head on the boy's.

Oblivious to this, Vis was trotting off to a completely different part of the Home. Making sure he reached his target before anything had the chance to happen, he finally turned into the hallway which led to the solarium. He could see the doors, which at one point would have been a bright white, in all their dull-grey glory. He moved the two of them closer, stirring up dust as they went along. Slightly coughing, he laid a palm against the glass covered in what seemed like age-old dirt and pushed the door open.

Feeling Nexi's arms wrapped around him tightly, Val glanced down on the green head and smiled. This being his first real hug, he wanted to savour every moment of it.. But he doubted the boy could go long without his friend. After a few seconds of playing with loose strands of Nexium's hair behind the youth's back, he cleared his throat and crouched down to look in his blue eyes. "Hey.. Do you want to find Ruri now?"

Bouncing along with Ruri's bubbly excitement, Vis led her into the solarium. It really hadn't changed in the time he had spent away from this room. Sunlight cascaded through the windows, each enormous in height and width. Unlike the doors', the wood that lined them was still white, which along with the light created brightness that would cause anyone to blink. The rest of the room, spacious and relatively clean could have been the perfect place for anyone to find their mental health.

Had it not been for the creepy seats that were lined parallel to the windows, that is. Reminiscent of electric chair, with dark wood and black leather straps to keep their victims in place, they stood there. As if waiting for some innocent being to take a seat, so that the binds could snap in place and they could have their wicked way with the helpless person. Wooden monsters.

"Well.. er.. this is it!" Vis exclaimed, fretfully hoping Ruri wouldn't notice the chairs.

"We should, we should!" Vis replied, nodding eagerly. Strolling to the centre of the room, he patted one of the chairs and cast Ruri a grin. "You know.. If we move these aside, we'll have a big space to lay our blanket down! Wait, wait.." Caught in mid-sentence by a thought, Vis frowned and looked into the light. "Did we bring a blanket? There's no picnic without a blanket." Once again, Vis' brain had shown itself as being affected by months of confinement in the mental institution.

Enjoying Nexi's childish curiousity Val made sure to lead him slowly to the solarium, occasionally stopping in the rooms they passed through to point out interesting things or to pick up toys to offer him. Grasping his hand tightly as the two went through grimy, shadowy rooms and hallways, Val wondered if someone had managed to fit curtains to the windows in the solarium yet. He worried that the light might make his companion invisible, which could be quite a shock for him.

"Here we go, Nexi.." he murmured as they passed through a set of undusted doors. His eyes closed automatically, the light on the other side of the doors was as bright as he remembered it.

"Oh.. Did I forget to mention that?" Vis said, with an undertone sly enough to match his grin. "The light makes it impossible for things" - the sudden change in his attitude clearly audible as he uttered the last word with disgust "like them to appear. To put it another way.. It's like they're not even there." He finished, smiling broadly at Ruri. He knew she would love this surprise.

Narrowing his eyes with obvious dislike, Val took a few decisive steps in the direction of Viscount and for a moment felt the strong tendency to hurl every swear word known to man at him, before making sure he would never have use of his legs again. However, concern for Nexi's dealing with his non-existance won over the rage (which so easily surfaced these days) and Val settled for grimacing at the grinning youth for a few minutes before turning to his near-invisible companion.

Val, although now slightly shimmering and not quite at normal opacity, was far more visible than Vis had anticipated. He was looking at him with those ugly yellow eyes again which, as the red-head turned to walk to Nexi, left Vis instilled with agitation. Feeling the joy quickly draining from his system, he turned to the windows to see if there was a way of making the room even brighter.

"Oi, Nexi. Are you okay?" Yeah, I've definitely gone soft.. ********>

Vis let out a deep and clearly audible sigh. In this intensely bright room, these three people (if you could call two of them that) had managed to cast a shadow on his day that he was sure of wouldn't be leaving for a while. Of course the grey-eyed patient usually believed his depressions would last infinitely, he wasn't one of those "the glass is half-full" types. (Fortunately) he always managed to prove himself wrong, bounding up and down his room happily minutes if not seconds after claiming the rest of his life was to be an abyss of darkness. His moodswings weren't bad enough to be called bipolar, but he certainly made a good case for those who believed in man-PMS. The nurses had actually tried a hormone treatment one day in desperation, but besides Vis gaining an unnatural cupsize it did nothing for his temper.

His bony hand scratched the back of his head, as if he was giving himself the Visonian equivalent of a comforting pat, before he managed to utter a small: "Well.. If you like seeing Nexi, I suppose we could go somewhere else.. We don't have a blanket anyways.. A picnic is probably out of the question." Various locks of his scarlet hair now faced the floor along with the rest of his head, as he'd dropped down to a crouch and was poking the ground.

"Oh Lord, what a drama queen alright." Val contemptuously remarked, whipping his head around to catch the last of what he considered a pathetic display. Before Vis' little show, he had been contently stroking Nexi's head as thoughts of what they could have done if they were both invisible had their filthy way with his otherwise "clean" mind. The red-head didn't have many morals or a conscience to speak of, but he was vehemently against taking advantage of young boys. These thoughts were dirty, even for him, and he had shrugged them off as quickly as they came. Still, he was grateful Vis provided a distraction. "You know where you can shove your picnic, you lunatic?" He snapped, answering his own question in a low sneer (with plenty of offensive adjectives) merely a second after asking.

Listening to the satisfying gasp Vis let out in response, Val removed his hands from Nexi's head, where he had thoughtfully placed them to cover the younger boy's ears. He scooped Nexi up into his arms and trudged over to Ruri, winking at her to assure her that he was completely harmless. "Where are we not allowed to go? I don't know about you.." he smiled, before dropping his voice to whisper in her ear "..but I've always enjoyed breaking the rules."