16050/Time Capsule

Time Capsule
Date of Scene:	09 October 2023
Location:	Nevermore Point (Manor House)
Synopsis:	Noriko drops in on Jubilee as she's performing her services as a notary. The two hash some things out and it seems like they might be on the road to reconciliation.
Cast of Characters:	Jubilation Lee, Noriko Ashida

---

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Normally, if you need to do business, you're limited to the usual daytime hours, but Jubilee has managed to carve out a little niche for herself. Business would be booming, too, if she had an office. For now, she works right on the porch of the manor house at Nevermore Point. The inside is under renovation.

    A heavy antique desk, chestnut with gold filigree around the edges, has been moved to the porch. A number of important office supplies have been arranged on the desk, just so: a couple of pages of scratch-and-sniff stickers, a magic eight ball, a Sonic the Hedgehog Trapper Keeper, four mini troll dolls arranged in a line, a telephone shaped like a cheeseburger, and a very official-looking leather-bound ledger book. A golden nameplate is at the front of the desk, identifying just who this nonsense belongs to: Jubilation Lee, Notary Public.

    As ridiculous as that desk might be, Jubilation sits behind it looking not-at-all ridiculous herself. In fact, she has dressed for work in a way that most people just have never seen. Her makeup is soft and subtle. Her hair is professional, pulled back in a tight, librarian bun and held together with two chopsticks. She wears a black blazer, unbuttoned, revealing a white blouse. Her matching skirt goes to her mid thigh, but her legs are covered by dark tights. She's a professional!

    And meeting with a client.

    "Okay, so just sign /there/ and you can go about your business," Jubilation instructs, leaning across the desk to tap-tap on the line where her middle-aged client needs to sign. He stares at the paper, squinting a little, as though some last minute mistake might pop out at him.

    "Here," Jubilation says. "You can use my pen." She holds out a bright pink Lisa Frank pen capped with one of those miniature troll dolls. Don't worry, the ink is black.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Jubilation's words have been burning a hole in Noriko's mind. Noriko can come up with a million reasons why Jubilation won't marry her, and given a second more, she'd have a million more.  But which of those are Jubilation's reasons?  To keep herself (or try to) from racing over immediately, the speedster has been running.  And running some more.  She visited a few new states and promptly noted that they were just as boring as the land before them; then came back to Westchester.

And found herself back at Nevermore, again.  Pulled in as if by some electromagnetic force by the questions that consume her.  On her approach, Nori notices the odd setup out on the porch, the middle-aged man.  The other woman in that outfit.  Is that SHIELA?!  Noriko does a doubletake, realizing it is Jubilation.  This causes her to suddenly appear across the street, blinking dumbly.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    The man reluctantly takes Jubilation's pen and stares at it. Jubilee is waiting with a big, bright smile when the client looks up. The smile fades, though, as she catches sight of that electric blue hair off in the distance. Jubes looks down at her outfit and lowers her brow. Jubilation Lee: working girl.

    "Okay, right there," Jubilation reminds, tapping the empty line on the paper where the guy is supposed to sign. "Just, you know, cross the T's and dot the lower case J's..." She nervously looks over at the electric blue hair. Sign the damn paper, dude! Jubilee taps her finger nail against the paper again.

    The client hesitates again. Jubilation scoffs and leans across the desk so she can grab the man's hand with her own. She forces the end of the pen to touch the paper. "It's right....there," she reminds, letting go of his hand so he can sign his name. After another beat, the client sighs and reluctantly signs his name before dropping the pen on the desk. Jubilation frowns a little at that but immediately perks up.

    It almost happens in an instant. Where the paper once contained just the man's signature now has the official seal of Jubilation Lee, Notary. She twirls the stamp around her index finger a couple of times and grins. "I came. I saw. I stamped," Jubilee announces before setting the stamp down on the desk next to its ink pad. She stands and walks around the desk, shooing the client down the porch steps. "Okay, awesome! You're divorced!" Jubes exclaims while rapidly shaking the clients hand. "Congrats! Okay, okay, see you next time for wife number two, right?" She grins. The client...doesn't.

    As a final parting gift, Jubilee drags her fingers against the top of the man's hand, capturing his attention. "Forget about the fangs," she commands sweetly before sending him on his way. The man walks slowly -- shambles, almost -- down the path, walking right past Noriko.

    "Okay, like, I see you, Nori!" Jubilee calls out. She sits down on the corner of the desk and crosses her legs.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko blinks, confused when Jubilation calls her out.  How much time has passed?  She blushes profusely and then it disappears after she gets a hold of herself in a different velocity than Jubilation.

"Yeah well I didn't know you'd be working!"  Noriko calls back absurdly, even lifting her hand to do so.  The departing hand notices a bolt of electricity buzzing at Noriko's elbow like a strange thorn and suddenly his shambling gets a little more urgent, causing him to almost stumble directly away from Noriko.

The speedster takes a deep breath, not because her organs need the oxygen, but because...well, Jubilation still steals her breath away.

Suddenly though, Noriko is sitting where the man was, her feet kicked up on the edge of Jubilation's desk, right next to her, crossed at the ankles, her hands resting over her stomach as she leans back in near full repose.  She glances up at Jubilation. "Do you have anymore clients?"

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation has little time to react to Noriko helping herself to the seat. "Nori," she says. "Have a seat." Her delivery is flat, dead, riffing on the fact that the speedster already has. Jubilation leans over and swipes at Noriko's feet with her hand, as though trying to silently tell her to keep her shoes off the desk.

    "Nope," Jubilation answers. "He's the last one. Why? You need a notary?" Her eyebrows rise as Jubilee readies her surprise just in case Nori says that she does.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko drops her feet to Jubilation's swiping, but doesn't drop her slouch.  No residue is left behind, so either her shoes are that clean (probably through sheer usage and air friction) or she cleaned up after herself faster than Jubilation can see.  Either way, it's clean.


"Why would I need a notary?  I just wanted to know if you were done with this whole song and dance.  I didn't want to interrupt or drive away business."  Noriko can't help that her eyes have dropped once or twice.  Seeing Jubilation in these outfits is like watching her in some kind of play.  There is a surreality to it for her.  Plus, Jubilation has never failed to catch Noriko's eye.

"I came to talk.  We never finished our conversation.  You called me a dope and I want to know why."  Why Jubilation called her a dope or why Jubilation won't marry her?  There's a weight to Noriko's words as if they carry a context all their own, unspoken.  The girl has never been one for subtleties.  Perhaps she cannot separate her questions.  Her concerns.  Her heartaches.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I called you a dope..." Jubilee begins. She looks upwards, as though trying to summon a memory. "...Hmm... Can you be more specific...?" She only keeps this up for a moment, though, before grinning a little. Nope, she knows exactly what Nori's talking about. "Yeah, like, you asked me why I didn't want to marry you or if that's why I didn't want to marry you, or, like, something like that. So, yeah, you're a dope."

    In one showy move, Jubilee uncrosses her legs and hops off the edge of the desk. "Hold on a second," she says before leaving Noriko all alone on the porch. Jubilee goes inside the house to retrieve something.

    It's only a few minutes before the door opens and Jubilee returns. She's still wearing her business attire, but those who are particularly observant might notice that she has reapplied her makeup -- dark winglets on her eyes, pink lip gloss -- and opened up the top few buttons on her blouse. Her shoes have been replaced with oversized, yellow slippers that look like Minnie Mouse's shoes. She's carrying a shoe box that has been decorated with silver wrapping paper. She holds it out for Noriko to take.

    "Here," Jubilee says. The box isn't wrapped like a present. It's just been decorated. She's not giving it as a gift. She's not letting Nori keep it. It's just an offer to look inside.

    Inside the box are a couple dozen photos of Noriko and Jubilation at varying stages of their friendship and relationship. There's also the coupon book that Noriko made for Jubilee to redeem for free piggy-back rides. The 'for the orphans' swear jar they left in the Xavier's recreation room. A pair of shoelaces that had come apart after a tour of duty on Nori's sneakers. A leaf that has been marked with a silver paint pen with the date that Nori and Jubilee shared their first kiss in the woods. There's a black bow-tie from the waiter uniforms they wore to sneak into Emma's fancy event. Every ticket stub from every movie that Jubilee and Noriko ever saw together. A snap bracelet that Noriko had given her. Finally, along with countless other mementos of their time together, there's the wooden ring that Noriko used to propose.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
For Noriko, these few minutes without Jubilation are an eternity.  She tries to will herself into some kind of slower than slow state, to make it go by faster, but truth be told, that's never been a power she can summon.  She figures, bitterly, that it would take so much concentration that her head would explode in the process anyways, and that the direct activity required to make it happen is probably counterproductive to the whole process.

It's not like Noriko hasn't seen this box before, but she's never gone into it.  It's Jubilation's.  She takes it, but doesn't look inside.  Not immediately.  She stares at Jubilation for what seems like forever, as if her silence could ask all the questions for her that are ripping  her to pieces inside.  She finally opens the box and immediately begins to weep.  "You can't give these things back to me," she grits through her tears defiantly, a defiance turned inwards at her own emotion as she's swept up in the grief of her own memories.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Noriko's response was not predicted. As soon as she realizes Noriko thinks she might be giving her the box, Jubilation reaches out with both hands to take the box away. The lid goes on and the box gets clutched against her chest. "What are you, crazy?" Jubilee accuses. "I"m not giving this to you!"

    Jubilee might have missed the point entirely, but there's no harm in making sure there's no ambiguity. "If you don't have one of your own, already, then that's just tough," she says. "This is mine." Her tone says it all. This box and the things inside it are precious to her. Giving it to anyone else, even Noriko, would be unthinkable.

    "Nori, I just wanted you to look inside," Jubilation explains quietly. "I think you'd need to be a world-class idiot -- the biggest of all time -- if you can look inside this box and think I don't want to marry you."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko starts to laugh through her tears, her hands now empty.  It feels like a weight stolen away, one she'd been carrying far longer than the box had been in her hands.  The strange relief carries with it its own hilarity at Jubilation's sudden territorialness over her box.

The blue haired speedster smiles, sniffs, and reaches up to swipe her tears away.  "Yeah, I guess I would be."  But now she's crying more for a different reason.  "But then you also left me without a word, so I don't feel so dumb.  You can't blame me for thinking it's off when you keep the engagement ring in a box," she points out.  "Unless you want to marry me but you aren't going to."  Those dark eyes don't leave Jubilation's.

"...People change Jubes."  Noriko's father changed.  She knows now her mother never did.  She would still make Noriko bento boxes as if she were going off to school each day, probably convinced she could bring a tiny bit of normalcy to her daughter's life.  And Jubilation has changed too, since she died.  Noriko isn't the same either.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee avoids Noriko's stare as best she can, particularly after the speedster finally realizes the truth. Her eyes lower as she listens to Noriko talk through her thought process. When it's her turn to speak, Jubilation nods her head sadly. "...Yeah, Nori," she replies softly, not finding much energy to pack into the words. "I want to but I'm not going to."

    The wooden engagement ring is removed from the box and held out for Noriko to take back.

    "It wouldn't be right," she adds, as though it might help explain. Jubilation keeps her eyes locked on those bright yellow slippers on her feet.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I already told you.  You can't give that back to me."  Noriko doesn't budge.  She doesn't take the ring back.  "What do you mean it wouldn't be right?  This is such cryptic bullshit.  Tell me the truth."  She's sniffing quickly once or twice, slow enough to be noticeable between her words, at the natural pauses.  She's actually not trying to hide it.  Contrary to the way it appears, she's trying to stay slow and keep her concentration together even as her feelings rip it all apart at the seams.

"I deserve that-" Noriko suddenly wonders how long it has been since Jubilation fed.  It's an old habit that still gets her, a part of that caretaking side she probably inherits from her mother.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation cracks the lid of the box just enough to slip the ring inside. She hops back up onto the desk and claims a seat on the corner again. "I've told you, Nori," Jubilee replies, frowning ever so slightly. "But you don't listen." She places the box on the desk and smooths the front of her skirt with her hands.

    "I'm doing something to you. Being around me all the time is doing something to you, I mean," Jubilee explains. Re-explains. Whatever. "You don't notice it, but I do. You dote on me like you're my /servant/. And I don't even ask you to do any of that stuff! And, like, when I tried pointing it out, you flipped."

    Jubilation idly plays with the edge of her skirt. It's an awkward conversation, one that she was not looking to have tonight. "...It's not, like, your fault, Nori," Jubilee adds. A thought occurs to her. Maybe it's the subconscious eye movements. Maybe it's that subtle telepathy some vampires -- but not Jubilee -- have. Maybe it's just a guess.

    "...But, like, right now... I bet you're thinking about whether I want something from you," Jubes adds. She reaches up and taps her neck with her index finger a couple times to explain what she means.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I flipped because my mother is like that."  And Noriko hates her mother.  But that is also the only way her mother could show her love in her situation.  This isn't an apparent truth to the young speedster though.  "I dote on you because I'm head over my heels in love with you."  Yeah she doesn't realize she screwed up the phrasing of the colloquialism even if it doesn't quite sound right to her.  "Because we're engaged.  Because I am in love with you...."  She falls silent at Jubilation's conjecture about her thoughts.

"No.  I was thinking you looked kind of peaked.  There's a big difference.  I can't help responding to what's right in front of me and that doesn't count."

Noriko grows quiet and simply stares back at Jubilation with her jaw set.  Finally, "You are ruining our lives because of a lot of assumptions.  And not once have you listened to me...In a year, you will know that you are wrong, but it will be too late."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation shakes her head. "I love you, too, Nori. That's not going to change, but you weren't like this /before/," she replies, oh-so-sure of it. Before she died and came back like this, that is. After a moment, Jubilation shrugs her shoulders and hops off the edge of the desk.

    "It's not a bunch of assumptions. This is what happens. You're just not able to see it because it's happening to /you/!" Jubilation cries out. "You've spent the last couple years thinking about me and what I need. How about you stop for a second and think of yourself?"

    "I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree," she says, never before understanding what that phrase meant. Now she does. It means that neither of them is going to look at this situation from the perspective of the other. "Because it's getting late...early... whatever.... and I gotta go in," Jubilation warns, tilting her head toward the door. "If I don't, there won't even be a next year for me to regret."

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah.  Well, you /died/ Jubes.  I saw you dead."  And not reanimated.  Noriko closes her eyes briefly at this half shared horror.  "That changed me."

"I /am/ thinking about myself.  Why do you think I'm here?  Barging in on you like a total asshole?"  Noriko scoffs in disbelief at the notion that she's only thinking of Jubilation.

Without missing a beat, when Jubilation mentions needing to go in, Noriko looks one look over her shoulder at a distant horizon and zips into action.  She'll let Jubilation take care of herself, but the speedster makes it easier on the vampire by moving all of her furniture in so it won't get baked by the unforgiving sun and even wipes the dew down off of the wood.

After that, she blurs about, making sure all of the window coverings are secure to her liking.  "You never listen to me," she says somberly as she finishes up in slow time.  "It doesn't matter what I say," she realizes aloud in defeat.  There's a hint of desperation she can't keep out of her voice.  It creaks through, straining against all sense of decorum.  Splintered bolts lick off the tips of her fingers and she suddenly holds fists to her stomach like someone who would hug a grenade.

"That is a dumb phrase."  Maybe she should have used the word 'stupid.'  Would it have packed more punch?  Dumb just downs...dumb.  Noriko sighs sharply.  Jubilation has somehow whittled down some of the speedster's barbs...and that's annoying.  Everything is annoying.  Anything to not cry all over again.

Noriko pouts.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation nods her head slowly. "Yeah, I died, dead, done-zo. I know, believe me, I know," she agrees. "But, like, so what? I'm a big girl, same as you." She's about to say more but then the air gets a little blurry. Jubilation turns in place several times as she watches the desk and chairs get moved back into the house by a well-meaning speedster. "Nori!" she tries, moving both hands down to her hips.

    "Nori!"

    "NORI!"

    Jubilee doesn't follow the furniture inside. "Nori, this is what I'm talking about!" she cries out. She extends her arm towards the open door and points at the desk's new inside location. She even waggles her hand a bit to draw more attention to the desk.

    "/I/ never listen to you... That's... Nori, look at what you're doing!" She snaps her fingers a few times, each with a tiny explosion of color, to try to interrupt Noriko's process and get her attention.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko must have been going pretty fast, because the small but obvious signals aren't seen, or maybe they are ignored.  Probably ignored.  "I'm not going to change who I am and how I care about you just to prove a point."  As if Noriko really possessed that level of integrity.  It's probably more just stubbornness.  "I shouldn't have to not want to do things for you to believe me.  You may think that was out of the ordinary but that was /easy/ for me.  What's weird and hard for you.  What seems like a chore?  Those things are easy for me."  Boring, sure, but not as boring when she's motivated, but Noriko doesn't mention that.  It seems like something that would only be used against her argument.

"I have never denied that I've served you.  I just deny your reasons for why I do it.  But I don't serve you because I am less than you.  I don't serve you because you have some kind of hold on me!"  Noriko's emotions still race along fast as she tries to regulate everything.  She's clearly getting more emotional.  Her heart is pumping thunderously like someone fueled by anger.  And perhaps she is.  There is a lot of that bottled up inside the young woman.

"You just don't understand me anymore."  Noriko keeps her fist to her stomach as she curls down to the floor.  "...I'll leave.  I just-"  She needs a second, perhaps a minute even.  She still hasn't had Hank replace her gauntlets, which seems implausible.  "I won't burn your house down.  I promise."  She might be talking to the ghosts at this point.

Noriko wants nothing more but to tear out of there, but there's also more than half of her she knows that would be torn away, left behind with Jubilation...and realistically, beyond metaphor, she'd likely blow it up or something around Nevermore if she did without getting control.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I don't want you to serve me! Wake up and smell the stickers, Nori. You're saying, basically, this is what you're gonna do because you want to and I have no say in it, right?" Jubilee accuses.

    "Nori. Listen!" she cries out again, snapping up a little cloud of colorful plasmoids again to really drive it home. "...If you were hypnotized, spellbound, glamoured, whatever we're calling it, how would you even /know/?" she fires back. It's a good point, Jubilee thinks, and one that is hard to refute. But, she has more.

    Jubilation walks inside and begins pacing back and forth in front of the desk. "...Okay, so, lets just /pretend/ that what happens to basically every live-in mortal /ever/..../isn't/ happening to you even though the behaviors are all the same and the signs are all there...." she continues. "Then, you're saying that this is just who you are now and this is what you're going to do to me even though I don't like it?"

    Jubes lets that hang in the air for a few moments, just until she feels that it has properly run its course. Her moment is cut short by Noriko's new position on the ground near her feet. Jubilation puts her hands on her hips again and looks down at the speedster.

    "Nori," she whines. "What is this?" The new position on the floor.

    Jubilation taps her foot a few times. It doesn't make any noise on account of the oversized Minnie Mouse slipper.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
The plasmoids aren't useless.  They do catch Nori's eye like a squirrel catches the eye of a spaniel.  She can't not look at them when they happen, if only for an instant.

"I'm not like other mortals and you know it.  So it's not outside the realm of possibility that this kind of thing doesn't affect me either."  As for Jubilation's first point, how would she know?  Nori doesn't even acknowledge it because it's just too good.  "I mean the other night I drank so much Jubes.  Soo much."  She just stares at Jubilation pointedly from her weird position.  "And it did /nothing/ to me...so annoying."

"What I'm saying is-"  Noriko makes a frustrated noise.  "We're not talking about whether or not I would do it if you didn't like it.  What I'm saying is that these things aren't coming from some weird entrancement...And I would think /you'd/ definitively know if I was bound to you in that way...not have to point toward scraps of evidence."  Does Noriko have any evidence or knowledge or basis for this theory?  No.  "I know I have nothing to back that up," she admits.  "I just think if I was bound to you that way, I wouldn't be fighting you so hard."  She keeps talking about the topic at hand, as if that might derail them from Jubilation's confrontation of her weirdness.

Noriko finally explains, "I'm too charged up," in more ways than she mentions.  "I just don't want to cause an accident."  Her lips are pressed together firmly and she shuts her eyes closed tight so she doesn't have to see the expression that matches Jubilation's tone plus everything she's imagining.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Yeah, I'd know it if I made you this way on /purpose/, probably, but I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm not exactly the best at being a vampire," Jubilee replies with no shortage of sarcasm in her tone. "There's no, like, Hogwarts for us, you know. I was supposed to have a ---"

    Jubilee can't transform into a bat. She wears sunglasses to avoid accidentally hypnotizing people with her eyes. She can't even hide her fangs reliably. Vampires are expected to be brought up to speed by the one who made them. Jubilee never had that luxury. An orphan in death, as she was in life.

    "Nevermind," Jubilee says, slumping her shoulders a little bit. "Look, I've got people who know this stuff, who told me what's going on. It's just a little bit at a time over a couple years, Nori. It's so slow you just think this is normal..." She shakes her head and frowns a little. "Besides. /You know/ I stink at controlling it. So, I wear the sunglasses..." She doesn't sound happy about having to say this out loud, as though Noriko is responsible for making her admit what they both already know.

    "And it's not the same as not getting drunk!"

    And...

    "But, like, it doesn't matter, 'cuz I already told you I didn't like it. But even then you said it didn't matter 'cuz this is how you're gonna show me you care," Jubilation points out. This problem goes back a while, but the most recent moment was at Marie-Ange's housewarming party.

    Jubilation frowns a little, staring down at Noriko's position on the floor. It's totally unnecessary since she's wearing dark tights, but Jubilee pokes the front of her skirt between her legs and then presses her knees together, as though she's trying to make sure that Nori doesn't see anything if she were to look up from the floor. It's a petty sort of act, but tensions are running high and cruelty is a hallmark of arguments between two people who care so much for each other.

    "Okay," she says, still staring down at the speedster on her floor. "Well, you don't need to worry about electrocuting me..." Jubilation, already dead as a doorknob, walks away from Noriko and sits down on the nearby loveseat that had been rescued from the basement a few nights earlier.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko inwardly grimaces as she hears Jubilation talk about her shortcomings as a vampire.  She doesn't have to see the vampire to know what she's feeling.  "I know.  And I know it's not the same but I'm just saying I'm different."

"Jubes.  I flipped out because I don't want to be like my mother, but I can't just change overnight.  I'm telling you it's going to happen because I care about you, not because I want to do something you don't want me to do.  And that I can't change that immediately."  She's tried.  Noriko knows there's something ingrained in her, even if she doesn't understand it.

"I didn't-I didn't know this was a part of me..."  Noriko just rolls her eyes when Jubilation tucks her skirt, disrupting all somberness of her previous words.  She pointedly does not look up in Jubes' direction. "I'm not worried about electrocuting you.  I'm worried about starting a fire."  Which could cause unpredictable results.  "Or hurting someone else when I leave."  She just stays in the same position as if that would somehow help, like someone on the precipice of throwing up who won't uncurl.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Nori, you didn't do this stuff when it was, like, just us," Jubilee points out. Just us. It's an odd way to describe it, but she means the before times. When they were just two students at Xavier's. When they were two mutants and not a mutant and a vampire. She draws in a pointless lung of air and lets it out in a demonstrative sigh before stepping over Noriko so she can walk to the love seat that overlooks the house's antechamber.

    And now, Nori's got a last minute, surprise excuse for this behavior, plus a sudden insecurity about turning out like her mother? This kind of revelation always draws out the same response in people. And vampires.

    "Why didn't you say all this /before/? You had plenty of chances," Jubilee points out as she closes the distance to the love seat. Nori's slow decline into the Renfield lifestyle had been a point of contention for a bit before Jubilee packed her bags, after all.

    Jubilation flops herself into a seated position, knees together and ankles spread like a child would. She rests her elbows on her knees and her chin on her hands, also very much like a child. She doesn't say anything at first. Do you know why you have two ears and one mouth, Jubilation? She ponders that little koan, just as she did when her mother would say it to her. Because you should always listen twice as much as you speak, her mother told her. Oh, how disappointed she would be in her daughter...

    Jubilee pulls her emergency stick of gum from the inside breast pocket of her blazer and curls it into her mouth. It rarely worked when she was a kid, but there's always the chance that having something to chew might shut her up for a little while. It's worth a try. Chew chew chew. Frown. Chew. Frown. Buuuuuuuuuuuubble. Pop. Slurp. Chew.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"I guess I just wanted to act like it wasn't happening," Noriko admits finally.  "I mean.  It's not like I was just not trying-that's not what I mean.  I-I-"  Noriko, for all the billions of thoughts she can throw at the problem, she can also get stuck, especially when she's juggling staying in a typical velocity.  "I didn't want it to be.  I didn't want to think about it, her.  Why?  Why couldn't I just shake it."  There's a disgust that tinges the corners of her desperation when her mother enters her words.  She closes her eyes, obviously more than meets the eye has stirred in her from these words and thoughts of her mother.

"Because I am ashamed..."  Noriko curls up on herself a little more.  "I am broken."  And she certainly doesn't want Jubilation to figure that out (even if the speedster's brokenness been obvious in one way or another since the day they met).

"I believed my reasons," but now Noriko realizes that her mother probably had her reasons too, a realization that threatens to eat her alive.  Noriko sparks and tenses a little as her emotional instability just gives her a harder time.  Inwardly, Noriko loathes how pitiful she is right now, curled down on the floor.  At least she isn't losing control over her speed, she thinks and curses the thought as if it might jinx her.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation continues to chew her gum. Chew it. Smack it. Inflate it. Her jaw moves up and down so rapidly that she could use it to prime a new bottle of Lysol if she needed to. Chew chew chew chew. Each cycle is a race against her brain and mouth, but the gum won't be able to keep Jubilee from responding for much longer. There are limits, even for Bubbilicious.

    "Oh, it was happening..." Jubilee points out, unable to keep herself from commenting any longer. Chew chew chew. Buuuuuuuuuuubble. Pop.

    She falls quiet again, allowing the rhythm of her own chewing to keep her impulses from getting the better of her. The chewing would also hide whatever expression would find its way to the vampiress' mouth. If it's anything like her eyebrows, it would likely be the bottom half of a frown. Chew chew chew. Chin on hands, elbows on knees, chew chew chew.

    Jubilee's next interruption would be a little more helpful. "You're not broken, Nori," she protests in between chews. "You're just..." She searches for the right phrase, fails to find it, and settles on the next best thing. "....certified pre-owned..." Her eyebrows lift hopefully, watching for any sign that her nonsense had a positive effect on the forlorn speedster.

    "Nori, stand up for a second," Jubilation commands. Commands. She's flexing that supernatural influence that vampires seem to have, but her tone is sweetly neutral. As strange as it sounds, Jubilation says it almost effortlessly as she stops fighting what she is, if only for that instant.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah," sniff, Noriko grits her teeth and then they ease.  "With mysterious stains and all."  The tap into her humor is a good sign, even if it's self deprecating.

The speedster doesn't have the luxury of gum to keep her occupied, but with all the inner anguish, she doesn't need it.  In those gaps between them, she's silent, her eyes not cast on Jubilation.  When the command comes, it feels like she's been laying there for so long, though she knows she probably just slipped back into a faster existence.

"But I might explode," Noriko almost whines uncertainly as she gets up to her feet anyways.  She's still hunched over, like that might contain her energy, but it's more like the kind of hunch one has when the wind is knocked out of them.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I could get some real money for this," Jubilation says, suddenly shifting into an insensitive, stereotypical impression of a Japanese accent. She holds her hands out like she's holding something imaginary, admiring the invisible something. She nods a couple of times at it.

    Jubilation stands up and jerks her head to one of her shoulders, switching to an equally stereotypical impression of a valley girl. "...You wouldn't sell my ukulele!" she announces in that cheery, annoying accent. Jubilation seems to be putting on a one woman show as she slowly traverses the space between the love seat and the slumped speedster.

    Jubes squints and brings an invisible joint to her mouth, pinching the nothing between her thumb and index finger. She pretends to take a hit, but it's not as good without a lung filled with air to really sell the exhale. "...Can we not be back there at midnight? But, I get it if you want to, Jubes..." she continues, once again in that offensive Japanese accent. She's squinting pretty hard right now, too, but that might be due to her pretending to be stoned.

    "Nori," Jubilation says softly, carefully making her way across the room, avoiding all of the problem areas that still need to be addressed by whoever's hired to come fix things up. "I don't want to be back at the campfire at midnight." It's a strange thing to say and it's barely above a whisper. Her expression is blank. She's emoting nothing. It's all so weird and unclear what she means by the campfire at midnight. Jubilation smooths the front of her skirt with her fingers, a nervous habit she just picked up. Finally, she's standing there, right in front of Noriko, both hands hanging at her sides.

    Jubilee stares at Noriko, stares at what she's become, stares at what she might have turned her into if some vampires are to be believed. Jubilee turns her head to the right and *throooop* /spits/ out her gum /inside/ the house. She steps forward, all up in Noriko's business and delivers the last part of this memory, the part that lives rent free in her heart.

    "I want to kiss you," she whispers in that unflattering impression of a Japanese accent.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
For how quick Noriko's feet are, sometimes her mind is not so much.  Luckily she gets extra cycles in.  At first she was confused, then she was annoyed, and then came the relentless amusement.  Luckily all of this happens in the span of a breath or two, though she's aware Jubilation can see every stage.

As Jubilation performs her way closer, unraveling that night, Noriko begins to straighten out as if drawn out of that toiled shape.  When Jubilation finally steps up to her, the speedster seems to be lightly buzzing across her skin with electricity.  She laughs softly and crackles as the bolts escape into the air, or seem to as she subtly reaches out to brush some energy into the frame of the house.  Risky, but necessary before she leans in to kiss the vampire, once a human in this scene.  Once alive.

Noriko immediately wraps her arms around Jubilee.  Without her usual restraint, the speedster simply cannot be moved.  Her embrace is warm and buzzing with life.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation leans her head back in protest, breaking away from the kiss, the absolute most she can move while staying tangled with Noriko. "No, no, no, you were supposed to say 'so do it'!" Jubilation complains, dropping the impressions entirely. It's her own voice, her own disappointment. Oh well. So much for the re-enactment of the first kiss they shared. The kiss they both stole from each other in the woods that night.

    Oh well.

    Jubilee leans in and kisses Noriko as best she can while the electricity surges through her body. It doesn't kill her, of course, but it's there and it can't be ignored. But, such is un-life when it's shared with a speedster.

    "Jeez, I really threw myself at you that night, didn't I?" Jubilation pauses long enough to point out the obvious before grinning a bit and leaning in to resume their kiss. The path toward making up is a pleasant one.