2025-01-12 - There's No Crying in Baseball

Michigan in the middle of January should be absolutely frigid, especially this far north. But the Isles of Wonder are exactly that and one of those wonders is the fact that, instead of being 20-somethng and snowing like it should be, it's a (relatively) warm day. Sunny, even, with bright, clear skies making it seem warmer still. That bright light makes for a bit of a glare as it bounces and reflects back off of metal and glass alike, turning shop windows into something more like mirrors and setting off the shiny gloss of anything that's been freshly painted, like the row of electric scooters parked along the street.

It means that Viktor is squinting as he walks, eyes all crinkled up even as he checks the time on his phone. Two minutes late to meet her outside of Ruby's. That was a stupid idea. They should've just met up in the lobby of Silver Brook, but he had a stop to make first. One hand reaches up, sliding the edge of his beanie further down his forehead. It's black, as are his winter coat and his well-worn work boots, polished to the point that it's only the softness of the leather that gives away how much use they've seen rather than any large scuffs. Dark jeans are paired with a tan sweater a few shades lighter than his hair, the collar of it visible as it pokes up above the only partially closed zipper of his coat.

Spellbound is magical in more ways than one - an unexpected convenience for an elfin eared lounge singer, far too accustomed to the climates of Southern California. Whatever winter wardrobe she had when she was initially ejected from Chicago? It doesn't make it through the dozens of living situations to get to where Katrin is now. Sure, she has a winter jacket - the same one with the black canvas base fabric, and the faux fur lining around the hood that would likely leave her a popsicle on a cold Chicago night - and some hoodies aside from that. But it's nothing that would have contended with January in Michigan.

So, when Viktor reaches Ruby's and finds Katrin, she's bundled up on her oversized jacket and a pair of jeans so tight that the pockets are likely less than barely functional - just stitched on patches of denim with no real openings to speak of. There's a gap of pale calf between the hems of her jeans and the black socks leading up from a pair of black ankle boots. Her hair is done up in a way that likely took some time to comb, manage, and style this morning: one single, long dark braid worn in front of her shoulder. She used to tend toward knit caps as well, worn beneath her hood in her Chicago years, but it's difficult to say whether that habit died out in the years since then - or because it's not exactly compatible with the outward peaks of her pointed ears that she has to keep telling tourists, while off-duty, that it's easier to keep the 'prosthetics' on on her days off than to set and unset them throughout the week.

It's a flimsy excuse. But maybe the younger, nerdier folx among them just assume she's into cosplay (and that the swirling mists of her eyes are, in fact, expensive new contants) - and the others just think she's eccentric.

Viktor's tread is a heavy one, especially in those boots. His footsteps are audible when he's still a dozen steps behind her, giving her ample time to turn even before he offers up a greeting of, "Heya, KitKat."

One hand reaches into the pocket of his coat, not to pull out a replacement pack of Marlboros after she went and stole the last one, but to produce an all-too-familiar candy bar. Wafers wrapped in chocolate, encased in a thin orange wrapper bearing that old nickname across the top of it. Wordlessly, he extends the candy bar to her as an offering, the gesture accompanied by the upward arch of brows that normally tilt down, that normally pinch together, giving him that look like he has a question that he's yet to voice to anyone except himself. It's why he was late. He stopped somewhere, probably in the Tarjay Superstore. He stopped, just so he could get her a candy bar.

"I figure we start at Ruby's. You'll get better stuff for way, way less than the cost of ferrying anything in from the mainland, and what they don't have we can check out the Tarjay for," Viktor says. "And then if they still don't have it, yeah, you'll have to suck it up and pay for shipping, which is not cheap. You got a list of what you need?," he asks, his weight shifting onto one foot. There's a quiet scrapping sound from the rubber of his boots dragging over the concrete, because that shift turns into a pivot as he jerks his head up the street. "Got a golf cart parked around the corner for anything too big to carry, but we'll need to book one of the trailers if you're trying to buy a couch or something."

KitKat

The corners of Katrin's lips climb as her smile broadens. It's a genuine response to the words landing in the range of what just has to be some slightly better sense of hearing than before. It shows in how that smile brightens her eyes as she turns and brings out crinkles in the corners of her eyes, scrunching up her button nose in the process as she beams up at Viktor. "Lil-" she's about to retort, when she sees what Viktor has produced from his coat pocket. Her countenance softens a touch, but in a warm way, as she blinks at the candy bar in its shiny orange-red wrapper. She goes from frozen to functional again, with a short exhale and a quiet chuckle before she reaches out and plucks the wrapper at its edge. "Thank you," she offers, warmly. Followed by a more playful notion of, "Your bribe is appreciated and wholly accepted."

Bribe for what? Who knows. She's the one that stole his pack of Marlboros. Maybe it's for his lateness - but she doesn't comment on that otherwise. Maybe it's an expected sore subject. She left him waiting for over a decade, after all.

"Not packing much in the way of mainland gear at the moment - so, shopping recycled is def my preference. Plus, hey! Used just means it worked once, and it'll work again," she says, showcasing no issues at all with the concept or the store. Her jacket likely was sourced the very same way; some thrift store deal on what was likely a cheap, outlet store knock-off with fake fur to begin with. She points to her temple with the corner of the secured chocolate bar, for the question regarding a list, and then tilts her head toward the door, prompting the both of them on and out of the relatively mild cold. "Plus, I've got my very own engineer on hand to jury-rig something, if any of it turns out to be shit." There's an edge of tease to that as well.

"Don't think I'll need a couch for my bedroom, today. But solid thought. You really do come prepared." After a moment, after following the pivot of his head with her eyes to where the golf cart must be parked, around the corner, she smirks a little. But she saves whatever quip made it toward the priority placement, for now, as she sets the candy bar in a flat canvas purse hanging from her left shoulder, rather than risking melting it with her body heat presently.

Yeah, her stuffing the candy bar in her bag was not the response he was expecting. It was not the response he was expecting at all, but if there's any indication of that, it shows only in the faint narrowing of his eyes--this time not as a reflex to protect against the glare coming off of the store windows--and two quick blinks. No comment made, not even one sitting there on the tip of his tongue, held back only by the refusal to actually open his mouth.

Instead, he reaches for the door, pulling it open with one hand and holding it, though only moving far enough out of the way that it would be as easy to walk under his arm as it would to step around him. "I didn't know what you and your roommates might have already, since it's not like the apartments come furnished. And the place used to be a lot more bare bones when I first started, before the park was open. Back then it was pretty much construction, mechanical, security, and some of management on site, and that was about it."

"But don't worry," he says, "I'll warn you if it's garbage before you buy anything that plugs into the wall." After all, fixing equipment that has some sort of electrical component is quite literally his job. Fixing furniture? Ehh, not so much, but given the number of summers he spent working construction with his dad and his brother, he can probably figure out anything that doesn't involve upholstery. Or keeping third-hand IKEA furniture together. That last one takes a sort of magic even the islands don't have.

Once they're through the doors, he's unzipping his coat and peeling it off, only to toss it over the side of the nearest cart, which he steers towards her. The hat? The hat stays on. "What's on the list?"

When Viktor gets the door, Katrin has a bit more of a clip to her step, dipping in under his arm. "Thank you!" she chirps. She hurriedly slips by him and into the shop and thusly into the warmth within, rubbing at each of her opposite arms with her hands, through her coat. To note, her nail extensions are no longer in place. She's made the smart decision of detaching each, replacing them with a couple of glossy black layers of polish. They're still long on their own - but they're not nearly so weaponized (or obstructive to her handling or carrying anything). She puffs up her chilly cheeks and lets all that air out in one heavy, relieved sigh, clearly for effect - maybe to entertain or amuse Viktor, as she chuckles in his direction.

As she eases up on the arm-rubbing, she answers on her roommates. "Don't know them that well or what they have planned. Didn't even really consider that the living room would be up to me," she muses casually - an expression on how flimsy or passing her past living situations have been. "Shoulda maybe been the one bribing you," she adds, cheerfully, at Viktor's reassurance that he'll be able to warn her ahead of time if she starts poking at something that might start up a spark of an electrical fire. "What was it all like? Back when you started?" she adds, as a less casual inquiry, to be mixed into the list - stated with ease, but paired with a direct look and an uplifted brow.

When Viktor gets back to her, she removes her purse, setting it into the cart so that she can free up her shoulder - and thus, begin to deal with her jacket. She untoggles the buttons, popping them loose with a certain swift deftness before pulling on the less pliable zipper, having to unjam its passage once, before she hangs the item over the cart's edge. Beneath, she has on a cropped, long sleeved sweater (in black and white horizontal stripes). Gone is her costume jewelry, replaced by a loose bandanna tied around her wrist and a simple silver chain that dips beneath the collar of her shirt. Her pale midriff is exposed, accentuating the different between waist and hips with those tight-fitting jeans and the matching black belt adorning them.

It's with this shedding of a nominal winter layer out of the way, that she reproduces the candy bar from her purse and starts to tear it open. She hasn't forgotten the ritual - as much as her need for a reprieve from the weather guided her indoors so she could start to complete it. "Starting with a pot, pan, bowl, mug, knife, fork, and spoon," she lists. The priority items. "And a light that can be left on without overheating - but, not as bright as the ceiling light," she adds. There's more, surely, but she snaps the wafers into pairs, then singles, notching one between her lips at its end like a cigarette before offering over some options in turn with an expectant upward glance to Viktor's eyes.

Considering that it is officially Not That Cold by the standards of both any life-long Chicagoan and any short-term Michigander, the way she's rubbing at her arms gets her a bit of side-eye. "We're getting you a real coat while we're here," he declares. Not a question. Not an offer. It's a statement. Clothes are as readily available as furniture, up on the second floor, so it's not exactly like it's a hike. "And before you start complaining that it's fine, you're fine, you don't need a coat, don't think of it like me trying to be nice to you. It's me trying to be nice to me, so you don't keep swiping mine every time you forget to put clothes on."

Of course, she didn't ask for his coat on New Year's Eve. He offered it up readily, but that's not going to stop him from making a face at her about it now, one that mostly involves pulling up his upper lip, wrinkling his nose, and furrowing his brow at her all at once. It's the kind of vaguely irritated and vaguely annoying look that, twenty years ago, would've been accompanied by a sing-song repetition of whatever she just said.

It's not the kind of look that lasts, though. It's just a passing thing, easing off his face quickly. And while his expression might've only gone slack after that statement was made, it instead goes soft as she starts snapping apart the wafers of her KitKat bar, every line and every crinkle smoothed away one by one. A wafer gets plucked up from the three that remains, but he holds it in front of his mouth for a second, then another. "You don't need to bribe me to get me to help you, Kat," he mutters quietly. "Just ask. You only ever have to ask." And then he goes and crams it into his mouth, the whole thing at once, before he can blurt out anything else he might regret.

Katrin draw the wafer further into her mouth with an alternating catch of 'lips' and 'teeth' - securing the chocolate bar in the latter, only loosening pressure to use the former to propel the item back onto her tongue. She only reaches up to hold its end as she bites down, taking a good half of the wafer and crunching it. She sets the remaining two split wafers down, in the open wrapper, on the higher reaches of the cart closest to Viktor - one each, for later. And she holds the remnants of her present bar between fingernails, for a secure hold that doesn't risk melting the chocolate onto her fingers. She chews, then swallows before protesting on purchasing winter attire.

"Won't even need it, when it gets to springtime anyway." She has clear intent of staying at least that long, it seems. Her tone carries too casual a tone of dismissal, like she's picking up from the lost track of where they left off. But at least she doesn't go with the sing-song or whiny mockery of his words this time around, even if the last iteration of her doing it was broadcasted from mind to mind. "Plus, how do I know you're not going to layer me up to waddle around in some snow pants and a big puffy jacket, like I'm ski-hill Barbie in three layers of Chicago chic," she adds, with a cocking of her head back and to one side as she takes a step back from the prompt. "Not the kind of dress up most guys like playing, you know."

But she stops, mid-step, even if she hadn't been departing - just beckoning the cart on to join her - when he mutters that line quietly. She takes a breath, for his words. But the shield stays up. Whatever reaction she'd had behind the surface - whatever wince that even the cold hadn't earned that would have otherwise appeared - is overcome by a gradual tilt of her smile into a playful smirk. "I know," she reassures, casually (with a confidence she shows but doesn't have). "But where's the fun in not baiting the line?" She has never, ever gone fishing.

There's crunching, then a quick swallow so he doesn't have to talk around it. A brief press of his tongue to the corner of his mouth to get a crumb of chocolate before it melts, then smears.

"I didn't say I was going to try and pick it out. I'm not stupid enough to try to tell a girl what to wear." Except, y'know, for the fact that he kind of just did exactly that. "Only that it has to be a real coat. Otherwise it's going to be like fraternity row every fall, watching the freshman stumbling down Armory, drunk and still shivering because they didn't want to ruin their outfits." The line is delivered with a vague roll of his eyes, this casual reference to a point in his life that she doesn't know anything about. College, somewhere at some point after she was gone. The first one in his family to go. The only one in his family to go. Something that was surely celebrated as a point of pride by the Klymenkos when the letter came, then again when the diploma followed.

And then he's nudging the cart forward, ready to follow her as soon as she starts walking again. "You need any furniture? Chairs, a desk? Sheets and stuff?," he asks. Because he's made this shopping trip before, albeit in fits and starts instead of one go. And even if they were for the relatively short term, having never settled anywhere as long as he was in Chicago, yeah, by the sound of it, it was always somewhere he was planning to stay long enough to want more than just the basics. And then, "Don't buy a rug here unless it's small enough to cram into one of the extra large machines at Swirlies, or really nice and worth the pain in the ass to clean it."

"College must've been super fun," Katrin remarks, like she's only just realizing that Viktor must've gone in order to have the job title he has, now. It's another quick patch, riding high on the latest expression of her composure. The child music prodigy. The grade school drop out. There's no way she misses the traded trajectories of their lives. But she brightens rather than sours - chuckling at Viktor's assessment of shivering freshmen. "They must've been proud." It's an awkward way to phrase it, delivered with casual ease otherwise. They. His parents. His family. After a quirk of her head to the side during her backpedaling that her elfin ears only accentuate like she's representing some new Instagram-fashion marketing scheme for the Keebler elves, she determines. "I mean, I am. Lil' Vikky, big brain."

Her demeanor and attitude matches her earlier mask, to go with the teasing comment about baiting the line. So it might not be a directly intentional show when she turns away, and performs her first couple of steps onward, ahead of the cart with a hitching roll of her hips from left, to right, to left again, until she hits a much more reasonable chaste - and less dramatically sassy - posture in movement. "Kind of got used to mattresses on the floor," she admits, casually and half-joking like she's not at all ashamed for only just emerging from that place in her life, when Viktor starts prompting other additions for her apartment. "Will def skip the rug for now, though. Thanks for the tip." She takes smaller nibbles off of the waver now, chipping away at the remainder of her chocolate bar one minute increment at a time.

It takes a moment for her to say, "Speaker I can plug my phone into. Desk with drawers. Chair." She was quick to dismiss these items as presented, but is just as quick to come around to them; like she's only just considering proper furniture to be appropriate to purchase for the first time in years. "Oh!" she chimes, with a sudden realization on top of these. "Full length mirror, if we can score it. Way easier than holding one with my knees, for make-up and hair." She glances back with a apologetic smile, with a slightly amused tilt to one side. "Sorry. Probably should have prepped a little better."

"They were," he replies, sort of nodding along at the assessment. "Are." It's a quick correction, and one half of his mouth lifts in this faint, lopsided smile before he says, "I don't have the diploma hanging up at the apartment. I gave it to my dad to hang up at the shop." As in the shop his family runs the construction business out of. It used to be Klymenko Construction, but these days, it's likely Klymenko & Son, since his brother was in the middle of trade school when Kat got shipped off to California. "He likes to point it out to customers, tell them 'my son's an engineer' like there weren't four hundred something of us graduating that year."

The mention of his family makes him blink a half second later, though, with the sudden recollection of something he was supposed to tell her. "Mom wants to know if you're coming with me for Easter or not." It's late this year, almost at the end of April, but apparently he mentioned her to his parents. And once he did, the invitation was issued for the next holiday they expect him to come home even though it's not for another three months. A beat. "I didn't tell her you were in town before Christmas." It goes unspoken, but the implication is fairly clear. His mother would've been upset to know that she was there and didn't come to the house, didn't call. What's not clear is whether he's trying to spare his mother wounded feelings or Kat the potential guilt of having caused them.

Maybe both.

Probably both.

The cart gets a push, then stops. Squeaks. One of the wheels has turned sideways, sticking at making it swerve on a hard right. Viktor looks down and gives it a bit of kick with the toe of his hard boot to straighten it out and get it going again. Once it's fixed, he pushes it along, following her. "We can probably get them to tag and hold a desk for you if you find one you like. Come back with the trailer later. I should've thought of that." Like he should've been ready for the list she's in the middle of apologizing for not making.

Were. Katrin stops walking. Are. She resumes, like the pause were only a glitch in her code. That her eyes (and expression) were pointed forward when it happened goes a long way to ensuring whatever feelings might have been attached to than panicked distinction were plastered over, ready for fresh paint and a complete ignorance for what lies beneath. Instead, her smile slides back into place as she looks back to watch Viktor talk family, and idly toys with the end of her braid with her right hand as she bites down on the last of that first wafer. She chews, swallows, and showcases genuine pride for Viktor's achievement as anything that she might feel could tarnish her response fades away behind those layers of paint.

"Didn't even have to ask. Knew it would be up front - not back in his private office," Katrin observes. Her voice is a reflection of the warmth that her countenance provides. For all that gets shuffled away, what remains is, at least, genuine. That shows through - and it helps to obfuscate everything she doesn't say or show. Her very persona is shadows of half-truths. The slivers of truthfulness keep those shadows secret from the sun.

She doesn't seem like she heard him at all, regarding Easter, until Viktor stops the cart with a swerve and a squeak. She seems to take the stillness as a prompt to answer, turning to look back just in time for him to set into motion again. Then, she returns to backpedaling for a moment. Idly looking aside as she double checks some items already passed. She stops at some plug-in light fixtures. Desk lamps, stick-on sconces, and... a night light. A little blue-purple tinted flame cover for a low-wattage light. She plucks it, and she adds it to the cart without much fanfare. "Smart," she chirps, on getting them to hold a desk for them. She taps the tip of her button nose to this effect. "Means we won't have to rush around for a trailer if we find a good one, today."

Just when it seems like she might let it fall to the wayside, she attacks the inferred question from an unconventional angle. "You got me the Easter Klymenko invite? You must have really upsold me." After a pause, she keeps a casual tone and asks, "What'd you two talk about?" She could mean in general. She definitely means in reference to her.

It's a joke. He knows it's supposed to be a joke. Maybe, maybe, he even thinks her hyperbole is funny, what with the way that his lopsided half-smile stays plastered across his face as he talks about his family. But it doesn't quite reach his eyes, the warmth of which has faded faintly, that line returning right above the bridge of his nose as his eyebrows draw together.

"Not even a little bit. I told her I ran into you at the park and the invitation came popping right out of her mouth--even though I warned her that you're exactly as much of a pain in my ass as you've always been, despite having a decade to grow out of it."

"She asked me if you're still a singer, and I said yes," he continues, eyes dropping down to the night light. It gets a glance, but that's about it. After all, who wants to stub a toe on the way to the bathroom or to half blind themselves turning the overhead light on at 3am? No one, that's who. Not even Viktor, even if he is the 'stumble around in the dark' type. "And then she started talking about putting together a package for you and I had to remind her that nothing she wanted to make was going to keep in the mail and that I'm sure someone has fed you a decent meal sometime since she saw you last, even if the only place in California you can get decent pyrizhky is Little Odessa."

His speech is picking up speed, touching on the edge of rambling, like he's doing some sort of half-assed impersonation of his mother's excitement and the barrage of questions he was probably subjected to on Katrin's behalf. Most of which were met with the unsatisfying answer of 'I don't know', no matter how many different ways she phrased it. A shrug soon follows. "I'm not sure I talked her out of the honey cake, though, so you should probably check your mail to make sure it doesn't sit down there getting rock hard. Sooner or later, someone from the mailroom'll notice it and get annoyed."

Katrin pretends to be inspecting a wicker chair that is liable to fall apart with so little as her purse pressed against the one side of it, and enough time for gravity to do its work. She even stops next to it, still turned around to backpedal, and still looking casually aside from Viktor and the cart. She taps at the chair, gently, with the toe of her boot and keeps a subdued, playful smile on her lips - given that she's supposed to be ribbing Viktor about his mom, and the talk they had about her. Sure, it pays that she sold it as joking, and as an off-handed remark, but she internally hangs on those fragments of home embedded in Chicago like war-time monuments of the home she once had.

"Way I remember it, is that you used to be far more trouble than me," she quips. But that's not what he said. 'Pain in the ass' was his more direct quote. But she seems intent on bypassing that just to tease him, or for the sake of ease she gets from slipping into that playful mode. But it also lets something else slip. 'Used to be.' Like she sees herself far differently, these days, and in a far less flattering light. It's incidental - but it being incidental and so casual says a lot, all on its own.

She chuckles a little, a pleasantly pitched sound, however soft at the reference to a care package. But it's a sound that gets abruptly slapped out of place by that follow-up certainty. The subject of a decent meal and someone to provide it. She blinks. Her eyebrows lower, and she squints like a boxer who has suddenly come upon a lapse in their memory of how they even got into the ring. She fidgets a little, and pivots her chin to send her vision further afield. The subject of the honey cake might even be lost for now, or she might just be unable to address it with reasonably level emotions. Instead, the word that escapes her lips is a forced, "Oh!" A performative act of realization. "I think I saw a mirror."

It's a claim followed by her stepping away and not looking back, out from their row and down along several aisles to where, tucked amidst some taller wall decour is a mountable mirror without a stand that could very likely just be leaned against a wall. It's purposefully quaint, in the way that low quality wood given too few layers of white paint can make something look purposely 'chic' in that pastel imitation of soft, retro furniture. The frame is only so ornate as its structural integrity will allow, and it's shown to be a few inches taller than Katrin when she eases it out from storage and onto the floor to face her, with both hands. What might be caught for a moment in that reflection is something softer that the displays of her emotions previous, absent that smile. She's just taking a moment to collect herself before Viktor reaches her, unaware of the angle.

"The chair is crap. Don't buy it," he warns her, almost like it's a reflex. Don't waste money on something that won't last. Don't let her sit in something that might not bear her weight, however slight she is or how small the subsequent injury is likely to be. Sure, she seems to know that already as she taps her toe against it and then moves on, but the instinct is still there. It still comes out of his mouth. It's like the man can't help himself.

And there's more, too, resting right there on the tip of his tongue--how he wasn't trouble, just poor, which was clearly the same thing to her parents. But there's that expectation that people aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead, and her performative realization proves to be a small mercy. She turns away before he can put his foot in his mouth. Probably before she can even see the flash of bitterness that briefly comes over his face.

So he hands back for a minute, given her the time required to work the mirror loose from behind a stack of framed art of questionable quality and equally questionable taste. It gives him time, too, to swallow down all of it, at least for one more afternoon. At least for a little bit longer.

But when he rounds the corner, there's exactly enough time for him to catch that reflected look on her face at the awkward angle of over her shoulder, behind and to her left, before another squeak of the shopping cart gives away where he's standing. It's probably why he stopped, or at least it's a convenient excuse for him to stay standing there, a few feet away, watching her.

And then he sighs, this long, slow exhale that comes pouring out of him like he's been holding his breath for the last two weeks straight. "KitKat, will you put the mirror down for a sec?"

There was a hum of the affirmative at the structural integrity of the wicker chair, like she were only half listening to that remark while getting the dangerous item to wobble and shudder at the mere impact of the toe of her boot. At best, it could serve as a piece of functionless decor and a trap for drunken visitors to stumble onto and collapse. But it's an option that's left behind in the acquisition of more suitable items to hide her emotions behind and within. That's where the mirror comes in.

At first, her performance is surface level. She pivots her head gently, rotates it on her shoulders like she should be looking for smudges and imperfections in the glass. But there's no focus in her eyes as she goes about the task until she hears Viktor coming up behind her. It's then that she puts everything back into place. Her absent, subdued smile and her direct interest of her eyes in this piece of functional decor that does, in fact, fit snugly into the list of what she wants. She looks for him in the reflection, likely still thinking she's done an Oscar's worthy performance regarding smoothing over the rough edges no one gets to see - but that discerning brushes from those with a caring intent might feel out. Especially with the history to give those brushing efforts weight, and pressure.

"I'm not going to drop it," she reassures him, with just a hint of annoyance behind what she assumes to be his accusation. But it's not that kind of concern she reads on him, as she continues to process that long, slow exhale that preceded the request. That reads as different - that reads as something she might just be more anxious about. Like the sorts of eyes that, despite her best efforts, might be picking up those signs of structural integrity that strangers are much more willfull in overlooking.

She fulfills his request. She sets the mirror down, carefully, without sliding it back into place. Instead, she leans it back against the edges of those picture frames still set into their slots; and she doesn't let go until she's self-assured that the item won't just slide down to the floor with a loud, clattering thump once she lets go. To her credit, it doesn't, for now. Then, she turns around, head cocked back a little and to the side. Cautious, when she asks, "What's up?"

The annoyance gives him pause, leaving him standing there awkwardly for a few seconds. It wasn't what he meant, it wasn't at all what he meant, and being met with actual annoyance instead of the teasing sort they've been tossing back and forth these last few weeks is something that he isn't entirely sure how to deal with.

Screw it.

He doesn't say it, but with the way his face shifts, he may as well have. The thought is all too obvious, etched into his features in the few brief seconds it takes him to reach up and pull his beanie down a little lower on his forehead, securing it into place despite the fact that it's gone exactly nowhere.

And then, instead of that look of 'screw it' turning into him grabbing his coat from the cart and pivoting sharply to leave the store, he steps out from behind the shopping cart. With his long legs, it only takes him a couple of short strides to reach her, but it's not the mirror that he's looking at as if judging its quality, the likelihood it'll last. He's looking right at her, right down at her, and it's a lot farther of a drop than it used to be. So maybe that explains the awkwardness with which he places his hand on her right shoulder. It's warm, and heavy, and she can feel the weight of it there for a second, then two, before his arm bars around her upper back and he's pulling her into a hug.

It's the hug that should've happened the night before New Year's Eve, there in the Spookeasy. It's the hug that would've happened if she hadn't been on stage, if that need to keep up appearances for park customers hadn't become this weird pretense of everything being fine, everything being normal, of none of this being a big deal as they stumble back into each other's lives, trying to avoid making a mess of it as they go.

His other arm lifts, pulling her tighter. Tight enough that it might actually be kind of uncomfortable, and not from the emotional weight of it. More the whole 'actually needing to breathe' thing, when he's holding on that tight. When he realizes that he can't rest his chin over her shoulder like he used to, he drops it down onto the top of her head. Even that means bending his neck, and when he realizes that, he murmurs out what may well be the stupidest thing possible. "You used to be taller." No, she didn't. He shot up more than half a foot since the last time they did this.

It all might be a little more poignant, if not for them standing in the middle of a secondhand shop with someone's framed poster of Audrey Hepburn and a tin print of "Le Chat Noir" sitting eye-level with his ass.

Quiet assessment turns to a mask of slight amusement and confusion as Viktor goes about his initial approach. He pulls his beanie down, and she remains in her state of mid-performance; of acting like everything is cool, collected, and playfully casual. Even if the lattermost point reads a little differently, with them as adults; at least with regard to her approach and demeanor. How easily her quips, looks, and body language can read as flirtatious with regard to her oldest friend. But half truths can even trick their practioners, with so many reflections to be caught in.

Katrin only seems to truly be uncertain when she steps out from behind the shopping cart and around it. There's a less-languid, less-sultry flash of her gaze, flicker quick to his expression like reading his intent is suddenly much more important. Then his hand is on her shoulder, and her eyes are following the length of his arm from his wrist, to his elbow, and up along his bicep until she cuts a full route all the way up to his face. Her expression shows a softer kind of hopeful confusion, for something she hasn't braced for. Something warm, something inviting, and something that shows genuine care rather than the illusion of it - as so many past relationships may have started, simply for the purpose of charming her.

She always saw through it. She always went along with it anyway, breaking many more hearts than those heartbreakers who came anywhere close to touching hers.

She takes a breath after the arrival of that second hand, as Viktor starts to wrap his arms around her. Her jaw is tight. But there's a tension already melting out of her shoulders. And she's leaning into the gesture before it's even complete. When he grips her tight? It's like the chips in her foundation are starting to show through the paint, if only for a moment; and all at once. She throws her arms around him, turns her head, and buries the side of her face against his chest as she holds him tight. It's mutual pressure, even if he has a lot more power to deploy with ease. Her breathing is uneven. But when Viktor makes that observation, she scoffs and chuckles in a way that displays the soft rasp of her voice the way her music does - like her singing has been the most honest part of her self-expression in the last decade, despite usually singing other people's music.

"Shut up," she murmurs. Levied with emotion, these words are deployed with their initial intent still intact - a playful rebuttal, wholly amused despite herself. "You got taller. I just got-" She pauses, like she needs the right word for this one; for who she's talking to. "Unscrawnier." Sure. That works. An attempt at a friendlier version of all sorts of phrases made less flattering my frequent utterance in the greasiest of places, from the greasiest of people across an arrangement of many generations. Curvaceous. Bombshell. Voluptuous.

She smells much as she did at the hidden smoker's spot, without the layers of drink and nicotine. Blackcurrant, blackberry, amber, vanilla, and smoke lilac. Manuka honey to her hair - a clearly consistent use of hair mask or conditioner that leaves its sweet mark alongside the tarter edge of acai. She's not in a relevant position to see that tin print or the poster, but both look upon them with all the judgement that thrift shop chic can provide; as if to remind them that there's not to be any crying in the club. Nothing genuine among the kitsch.

"You mean you finally sprouted something other than that flat pancake ass you always had," he replies, and even if it isn't quite the deadpan delivery he usually has, well, maybe he can be forgiven for that this once, given the weight of the moment.

Fortunately, his voice gets steadier the longer he speaks, and by the end of it, he seems a little bit more like himself. Viktor from the old neighborhood, only older and with more (rightfully) adult remarks than he ever would've made at her when they were teenagers. "Nice try with the wiggle and sway bit back there. But you've already convinced me to carry all of your crap back to the building. You don't need to try and swindle me out of a bar tip, too." Any harshness to his dry tone is softened by the fact that he's laughing. Quietly, but he's laughing, evidenced by the shaking of his ribs underneath her tight grip and the tickle of his exhale against the top of her braided hair. He's taken note of the persona, the presentation that she makes on stage and off. Maybe doesn't realize how much of it is an act for the stage, and how much of it is an act for, well, everyone. Including her. But that it isn't all sincere? Yeah. Yeah, he knows.

He sways a little as he stands there, almost rocking them from side to side, unwilling to let go just yet. Maybe, possibly, unwilling to let go ever until he's got some assurance that she's not going to disappear with a bag slung over her shoulder or--entirely possible given the nature of Spellbound--in a puff of smoke.

"God, I missed you."

That, too, is delivered in a steady voice. No dry sarcasm, no biting remark. It's sincere. Almost overwhelmingly so, but it's equally unwavering, an entirely remorseless admission.

There's a scoff at that - false incredulity that plays along with the teasing nature of Viktor's reply. Katrin would very likely have elbowed him in the ribs over that one, if she weren't so eagerly clinging to the front of her target like so much desperate allowance of the level of care that his hug implies. "Better not be why you tried to convince me out of blowing a chunk of my back-to-school budget at Lululemon," she accuses, mostly jokingly. There is a half-formed question in there. But it gets lost in the frivolity of her 'before' life. Where 'back to school budget' entailed things like an allowance to fill out her wardrobe with brand name fashions for the Fall, before Winter and Spring breaks would certain give her further stipends to this end.

He could very likely feel her jaw slackening a little as his follow-up. It takes her a moment to place what he means, with how rote her body language has become, to some extent; with the adoption of certain personas and demeanors. But it's not lost, what she did, on reflection. Not is that he noticed. "You checked out my ass," she accuses, with a clearly teasing blend of grave accusation and clear amusement. It blurs the lines a little, with how easily these words could fit into what she might say, as a performance, or to get a rise out of him. But she's eased along by his laughter. A positive expression that makes flowing through the present moment so naturally similar, for both Katrin on surface and the core of herself. But it makes it a little more difficult, yet, to see where the act is. Not always intentional. Least of all, in the present moment.

She starts to lean back, as if an upward glance may be due alongside said tease; a scathing smirk, filled with full knowledge that he will never live this down (despite the fact that she's the one who performed said wiggle and sway). But she stops at his last, steady admission. She reels herself right back in, her face to his chest and a deep, steadying breath. "Me too," she says. And she means it, both ways it might be taken; missing Viktor, missing herself. But she hones it in with the addition of a softer, "Missed you so fucking much."

He has to lift his chin when she starts to tilt her head back, or he'll end up either knocking it against her forehead or with his face pressed too close to hers, even for an embrace like this one. But when she settles back in against his chest, he drops his head right back down, turned slightly to the side. It's his cheek that rests against the nest of her dark hair now, instead of the point of his chin. Less digging this way, his words not quite so muffled.

"You should've called, KitKat," he mumbles. Does he mean when she was in Chicago? Or ever?

"I wouldn't have cared how long it'd been." A beat. "I don't care how long it's been." Which isn't entirely true. Of course he cares how long it's been, but while his choice of words may not be entirely accurate, the underlying meaning is true: what matters is that she's here, not when he saw her last.

He's taller than he used to be. Much taller. But he's sturdier too, solid even under the softness of a thick sweater. It smells like his detergent--he uses the Tarjay store brand stuff, unsurprisingly--with some of the same hints beneath it that were there at the smoker's outpost. It's all old expensive wood, resiny labdanum, earthy spikenard, the warmth of cardamom, faintly sweetened by some sort of rich, dark fruit kept from becoming anything close to cloying by virtue of being burnt. That smoke note isn't his cigarettes, either, though there's a long-faded hint of that, too, like he had one that morning, now several hours past. All the rest of it--the motor oil and the WD40, the tape residue and the Fast Orange are gone from his hands, likely there only when he's fresh off of his shift, which he isn't now. It's his day off, or one of them.

Katrin holds on quietly with those mumbled words filtering back and forth through her mind for a time, swinging like a pendulum or a blade; either way, not something she can quite catch or hold onto with any level of certainty. But she accepts the press of his cheek down against her hair, and even backburners her teasing accusations for the moment. However softly stated, the sentences from Viktor shove their way to the front of the line for her, as well. When she takes a long draw of air in, flaring the nostrils of her button nose, she takes in his scent. As she inflates with that air without loosening her grip, first, she marks the sturdiness of his form in contrast to her softness; the barrier of his sweater only doing so much to absorb the difference before the rigidity of his frame is noted.

Viktor grew up. So did she. They just did so on near-opposite ends of the country. But he could have been there for her. He would have, apparently, if she let him.

She loosens her hold. Just enough so that her arms slide down until her clasped hands settle on the small of his back. She doesn't draw her face back from his chest though, or her hair away from the presence of his cheek down against the smooth, well-managed and conditioned cushion of her presently styled hair. On her first attempt to speak, there's something like a hiccup sound. A stifled, choked sob that gets swallowed back down before it can escape. She comes just that close to crying in the thrift store. Instead, she sniffs, clears her throat, and chuckles it all off like she's being such a girl right now. Like she finds it funny that this hurts.

"I wish I did," she says, so quietly. Call him. "Might've been better for you that I didn't." She phrases it that way purposefully. Making it clear that it's not for his sake that she abandoned him. She isn't playing the martyr. This is all just hindsight. "You went to college. You're an engineer. We both ended up here." She adds, like that last notion is just as important as the previous two.

Better.

Better.

The reaction to that word is a visceral thing, and she can probably feel it before the words even come out of his mouth. There's a tightening all along his frame, one that starts with the stiffening of his back, with the straightening of his stance. He might've actually pulled away to stare down at her, incredulous to that point beyond shock, to that place where the shock has come on so sharp and sudden that everything actually goes numb instead of there being any feeling at all. Except she makes that sound, and it means he only loosens his grip on her instead of pulling away.

"Kat, my mom called DCFS for weeks. They kept telling her they couldn't do anything because you were across state lines. So she called CPS in California for months and they kept telling her that they couldn't give her any information on a minor if she wasn't next of kin, or at least some kind of family."

There's a blink, and a blink, and another blink of bright blue eyes, even if the lot of them are only aimed down at the top of her head. "She didn't want me to know. She called when I was at school, mostly, and then I came home early one day and...," he cuts off at the last, shaking his head. No, no, that is a bit of detail that doesn't need to be shared right now, even if all the rest of it is coming out not in a rush, but at a steady clip, like keeping his voice measured and even somehow makes it easier to say.

"She finally talked her cousin in Los Angeles," no doubt the source of the information on Little Odessa being the only place to bother trying to find Ukrainian food in California, "into showing up at some social worker's office and refusing to leave until they coughed up the name of your case worker, and then until he promised to forward anything we sent on to your foster family." And that? That's not even the worst of it. Though his arms may have loosened, his fingers tighten, trying to curl and instead meeting the black and white surface of her cropped sweater. "So I wrote you a letter every month for three years because I didn't know where you were, and I couldn't figure out what happened. Why you were so mad that you wouldn't write me back, and I almost stopped when I went to Champaign but I didn't know who else to talk to about how much I wanted to talk to you besides... you. And then it was your birthday and I figured you must've aged out and that was it. That was it, and you were gone, and I was never going to see you again."

And there, there it is, finally. An undercurrent of anger, and a touch of bitterness, and of loss. But they don't have a sharp, cutting edge to them anymore. They're too old for that. The edges have dulled and rusted, making them nothing but a weight he's mostly grown so used to bearing that he doesn't really notice they're there anymore.

The kitsch? The kitsch is definitely judging them.

"And no, Kat, that was not better. Believe me, it was not better."

At one point, Katrin stops breathing. It's all she can do to keep from breaking. That last line of defense can only work for so long. And she'd been doing so well.

Charming.
Playful.
Stable.

But she had to go and say it. She had to go and give an inkling of a thread attached to something altogether buried for Viktor to tug and pull at. And pull, he does.

She's shaking. When did she start shaking?

Probably just before the tears started spilling - where necessity started her breathing back up. That's when she turned the full of her face in against his sweater to hide from the judging eyes in the kitsch, and what consequences that breaking here might cause. It's been awhile since she broke, and it had never been this way. She'd laughed in the face of a boyfriend for tell her he loved her. She'd torn up her tips to not have to share them. She'd leverage escape hatches into situationships with with new roommates to escape the consequences of falling behind on rent in previous apartments, 'borrowing' drugs or booze off friends, and even the stolen guitar in her apartment. Because people got to close to someone she wasn't, tried to take what she fought for, held her accountable for something she did whilst running away from her thoughts. She used people and added that weight to her guilt. She was use and felt she deserved it. Whether she thought no one back home cared, or whether they should. The tears are waters through the cracks. The choked sob when she tries to chuckle, this time, is the wall giving out.

"Stop," she chokes out against his sweater. Her grip around him tightens, her face pressed so firmly against his rigid chest through his sweater that it must hurt by now. "Stop. Stop," she repeats with insistent that trails off into a plea. "Please stop." Only, he can't, because he already has. She didn't start begging until after he said it all. The huff and puff of her breathing is erratic, uneven, the kind that people do into paper bags on airplanes in movies but without the conscious direction to put that energy anywhere or manage it.

"I was so scared-" she starts, with the vibrato of her trembling and of her panicked breathing. "So scared. So scared," she repeats it, not like a stutter, but like she never got that far in her sentence on the first and second try. "You blamed me. Hated me."

It's instinct now. It's all instinct.

When her arms tighten around him, some of that stiffness seeps away, replaced instead by the urge to draw her in closer, to wrap as much of her as he can up in his arms. His sweater makes an excellent place for her to hide her face, given that he makes a terrible, terrible window. No one is going to see any tears that are welling up in her eyes, that are spilling out onto her cheeks. That are probably leaving a wet spot right in the middle of his sweater. Viktor even turns, angling the pair of them so that her back is to the row of shelves. If anyone sees her having a breakdown in the store, all they've catch is her in profile, and any attempt to get a better look will be met with the wall of his back. It's pretty much her striped arms, her painted nails, that aren't in some way shielded from view.

"I didn't hate you, KitKat. I never hated you. Nobody hated you," he murmurs, but there's a thickness in his voice, a lump of something that he's swallowing down. "Nobody hated you."

It's that same sort of sway that follows, though now it isn't relief or with gratitude. It's soothing thing, or at least it's meant to be. "You're okay. You're okay." It's a chorus, set to the rhythm of that swaying. "I got you. I got you. Just breathe."

"How could you not?" Katrin blurts out, like an accusation that's as unintentional as the sob that pushes in behind it. Just an automatic spilling of words to arrive with her tears. It's not just the damp of them in his sweater, either. It's her mascara too. "They all did." There's no explanation of who, here. Just a vague target that might entail who she landed in the care of. "I - did." There's a hitch between the words for breath that might be hesitation. Like one singular measure of control still operating somewhere within her system as it shakes apart. It takes away only one single fraction of truth from her statement, by erasing the present tense and addressing only the past. She's not in a right state to notice the courtesy he does her, when he angles her thusly. No, she's clinging on like he expects him to toss her to the side and bolt for the glimpse under the surface. "I can't-"

Breathe?

She clearly is. Just halting, unevenly, from a paper bag that isn't there. These wheezing sucking sounds that keep stopping short, like there's nothing left to take or fill. "I'm gonna. Get fired again," she assumes. "They're going to. Send me away again." It's what happens when she breaks. Everything blows up. She moves on. She starts over. But it's been so long. Viktor's here. And then there's her gift... But she sways with him. And while she remains tight with a tension that implies rigor is settling into her jaw and her limbs, she breaths elongate a little with the motion.

She stops the pattern of sucking breaths and short-lived fragmentary sentences expressing her immediate fears. And she just cries for a time, like she might not stop. A huff and puff of a quieter explosion as her shoulders shake and her fingers curl in to bunch up his sweater in her hands, at his back.

"KitKat, I've loved you since second grade. I'm pretty sure you'd have to, like, commit war crimes or kick a bunch of puppies for me to hate you, alright?," he says, as the hands resting against her back go from pulling her in tight to rubbing circles over the thick fabric of her monochrome sweater.

"You've gotta keep breathing. Big exhale." Because see, that's the trick when people are hyperventilating. They breathe in, in, in, desperately sucking in oxygen, or at least trying to, until their lungs are full. They forget to breathe out, leaving no space any fresh air in their lungs. That swaying is an easy rhythm for him to keep, like a metronome. Left, then right, then left, then right.

Keeping his voice steady in the face of her panic is harder, but he manages it. Barely, but he manages it, his tone almost as calm and as even as his reassurances are. "You're not going to get fired for crying, okay? It's not like we're in the middle of the Bard's Balcony and you started sobbing on stage or something. And even if you did get fired, it's fine. It's fine. We'd go back to Chicago and you'd crash in the basement until you found something else and I'd work for my dad for a few months until I found something else and it'd be fine, okay? You're okay."

He keeps saying that word, whether it's a question or a statement. Okay, okay, okay. Like maybe if he says it enough times it'll actually be true. It'll be okay. She'll be okay. Okay, okay, okay.

"Do you want to get your coat? We can take the cart somewhere or we can go back to Silver Brook. Fred's on shift and you can rub snot all over my couch cushions and we can come back and deal with this later. Or tomorrow." Solutions. Practical solutions. He's good at those. Far better, admittedly, than trying to wade through years of pent up feelings about things he knows little to nothing about, and thus can't really do much to unpack, can't really say anything else to soothe and reassure her. But he can make a plan. And he can be a very solid wall for her to sob against. Those two things he has a good grip on.

There's that trembling again. This time with snotty sniffles, reverting the flow of at least some of the fluids that might otherwise add the the concoction she's been building up in Viktor's sweater. What he's saying is absolutely on brand for what she probably needs to hear. But those first lines take away what strength she has left in her legs even as they bolster her. But it's enough for her to cling to him and breathe, just like he tells her to. She lets out a long, slow exhale that hitches only a couple times for hiccupping chokes of emotion before she has her lungs emptied. Then, she focuses on filling them at much the same pace.

There's only one sharp bit of tension that goes off for one of the things Viktor says, and brings an immediate stop to her breathing. Leaving. Going away from the park and back to Chicago. It's not a dismissal of the notion that she's ready to articulate. She isn't really articulating much anymore, throughout all of Viktor's soothing efforts. But at least they seem to be taking effect. No longer does the hem of her cropped sweater shiver up and down with panicked breathing, drawing further attention to that hitching, uneven pace. And his question about her coat stirs some life back into her yet, when she runs mostly dry on this round of tears.

She lifts her face from him enough to wipe her eyes, then her nose, on her right sleeves; freshly unraveled from around him as she holds on with her left arm. She just nods a little. An answer for the whole of his offer as she takes every precaution not to meet his eyes. She didn't want him to see her this way - to take note of what she is rather than how she wants to seem to him. It's shame or embarrassment, or very likely a potent concoction of both amidst the turmoil of facing all these feelings in general. She doesn't even manage a chuckle at the prospect of snotting all over the couch cushions.

She just wants to leave. "Take me somewhere safe?" she asks, confirming the plan and forming it like a question all at once. Whether the store is for later or tomorrow, she doesn't really seem to care at the moment. It'll be something to consider at the other end of all this.

That's all she had to say.

One arm stays wrapped around her long enough to steer her the few short steps back to the cart, which has both of their coats in it. Hers gets snatched up first, shaken out so that he can be sure there's no inside-out sleeves or something to contend with, and held out to her not for her to carry or to work her own way into, but by the shoulders. He's holding it open for her to put on before he pulls on his own coat without bothering to zip it up. She said she wants to go, so that's the priority.

What's left of the candy bar gets rolled up in what's left of the wrapper and tucked into his coat pocket. As long as he keeps his hands free, it likely won't melt. Not like if he'd stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans, where it'd warm up and the chocolate would turn into a mess.

"Here."

It's the only thing he says before holding out her purse. Everything else in the cart, which currently consists of a nightlight, and the cart itself? He leaves it there. Just leaves it right there in the aisle, which is kind of a jerk move, but probably less disruptive to the staff than trying to quietly conceal what could become an even more awkward scene in the middle of the store. So forget it. Forget the cart. It's a minor inconvenience at worst.

Instead of steering it, he's focused on steering her, an arm working its way back around her shoulders, tucking her into his side as he weaves them both down the aisles and back out onto the street. It's still sunny, still warm, but much cooler than inside of Ruby's, and the cold probably feels good on flushed cheeks and damp, puffy eyes. The pace he keeps starts as a quick one, before realizing how much longer his stride is and he slows so that she can keep up. The golf cart. He's taking her to the golf cart he said he'd borrowed for the day. It'll make the trip back to Silver Brook that much faster and besides, he borrowed it from the building garage, anyway.