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Eating out was something people should do together, at least he thought that, but it was something he rarely did. More often than not he would eat on his own, tucked into a corner of a restaurant, he did his best to ignore looks from other customers. The staff at most of the restaurants in Chinatown knew his situation, at least the females did so he was sure they’d told other workers, it wasn’t his fault his mother was gone and that he didn’t know enough people who likes the same foods he did. There had been Kit at one point, it had been nice going out to eat with him, and while he could invite Nischal he couldn’t leave Jason behind but having them both limited the places. Nothing with spicy food, Jason didn’t do well with spice, and while that wasn’t too bad he just sometimes didn’t want to be so limited.

It meant that even while he had plenty of friends he still ate out alone often times….he still felt alone. Stepping out of the small restaurant he’d had a late night dinner at, he’d gone out for a walk after finishing up his reports for class that were do the day vacation started, he hadn’t planned on getting food but he had decided to while wandering about the city.

He could have invited people but he hadn’t, he was severely limited in who he could invite to a Hunan restaurant. He also didn’t want to up and call someone, anyone, and ask them to join him for food. He didn’t want to inconvenience anyone...it wouldn’t be fair of him to do. They had lives and they didn’t revolve around him and his sudden whims to get food.

The walk home would take some time, Chinatown wasn’t so close to Nischal’s place, but he wanted the time to himself. He didn’t mind letting his feels take hold of him, especially on a night like tonight. After eating alone, and the looks he’d gotten for it, he really wasn’t in the mood to be smiling and happy or cheerful. He sort of wanted to roll about in his feels for a while and just sink into them. He felt sort of...empty and lonely right now - so very lonely. But he clung to the feeling as he started on the walk home.

The streets were still filled with people so he took a turn down a mostly empty alleyway, in order to avoid most of the people and accompanying noise. He just...he wanted to be alone...to be with himself.



He had cooked dinner at home like he normally did as Kai very rarely went out to eat unless is was with someone seeing as he didn’t see a point for him to do so. Everything had turned out fantastic like normal and he had gone with healthy foods for the most part. Until desert. Where he over indulged a bit on the sweets/ Needless to say rather then feeling guilty about it, Kai just shrugged and decided to go for a walk to burn off the calories a bit.

At first he didn’t notice out his good mood was starting to slip as he walked the streets since he was just letting his mind wander and enjoy the cool night air, but after a while the quiet of the streets was starting to get to him. Hazel eyes darted around the stretch but it seemed rather deserted tonight, only a rare car showing up for a brief pass by. While it wasn’t normally loud around the area persay, it wasn’t late enough at night to be this dead. Still, the creeping sense of being alone didn’t halt his footsteps and he continued on his walk.

Coming out, from the back streets he’d been taking, onto a nearly empty and dead street he didn’t notice who the other lone person was - he had no reason to. His hands were stuffed into his coat pockets and his head ducked down. Xi-wang was blowing out a puff of cold air, watching the air fog up in front of him, with a soft of sad smile. This wasn’t the first holiday without his mother but it was the first where he didn’t know where she was. He shouldn’t mind it though...they weren’t close, hadn’t been in year, yet it bothered him.

He had family, in China, but they were so very far away. He couldn’t spend it with them properly and he didn’t know them well enough to buy gifts but he was going to try. He would have to send them and hope they liked them. If school wasn’t an issue he had considered visiting, somehow, but he didn’t have the money and asking Nischal was out of the question. He just...he had his friends who were his family and while he cared about them he still missed others. Why couldn’t he just be happy with what he had? With where he was in life?

While looking up he spotted how odd the building next to him looked. The ice covering it was odd...it shouldn’t be - right? But soon that seemed to vanish and playing out in front of his dark eyes was the last lunar new year he’d spent with his mother. Going to hang up decorations and her taking them down - scolding him. She left him in the living room, ignoring his questions, as he teared up she went to make dinner...a normal American dinner. She told him, from the kitchen, that they were American and should fit in and act it. He could see it clearly...a memory he hadn’t thought of in a long time, he didn’t want to.

Sniffing he stood there even as the memory finished playing out, minutes later. Magic….was that what had just happened? It had to be...right? But why?


As he walked, Kai lifted a hand to run through his bangs, feeling restless as if it hung in the air like a fog. As he did so though, a light reflected off a surface and caught his eyes. Turning to where it had come from, he didn’t notice someone else step out onto the street he was, let along who it was. The moment his attention was fully on the oddity, an ice encased building showed his reflection only briefly before it seemed like he was put right back in time and reliving a memory. He never had a hard time being left alone at home when he was old enough that his parents were willing to go out at the same time so he hadn’t expected anything different when he had first moved into the apartment he now lived in. Instead that first night hit him hard. He had ended up preparing a meal for three, kept turning towards the door when it was close to the time where his father would normally come home from work, and other such small things that he hadn’t been expecting to do.

The impact everything had done that night had left him feeling so alone that in the morning he had not only went to visit his mother but also made plans for both of his parents to come over that night for dinner under the guise of a celebration of his first home alone. Finally the memory ended and he was left standing there staring blankly at a wall that was no longer hidden behind ice, with a few tears sneaking their way down his face before he hastily wiped them away.

Kai wasn’t the only one tearing up, or having them trail down his face, down the street Xi-Wang stood in a similar manner. He didn’t move through and kept his dark eyes on the wall. He knew it had to be magic, there was no other option, but still he reached out as if he could see the memory again and touch it...maybe get inside of it and fix it - alter the past. He missed his mother...he missed who she had once been, not the woman she had become. He missed the illusion he’d had, due to being an innocent child, of a mother who cared and loved him. He knew she didn’t...he knew that now. But he wished he had...that his illusions had been real.

Reaching up he gently wiped at his tears, one hand pressed to the ice still there. It didn’t look so odd now, it looked normal, but it had just reminded him of when it had all come crashing down slowly. When it had all started...when his mother had changed, or at least it had seemed like a change to him then.