In the kitchen, calmly pacing back and forth while waiting for the water to boil, Mark thinks to himself. "What does it mean? Nothing happened when she put her hand on me, both times. It's like it never even happened but it did because I can still feel her hand on my face. The thought of a random person trying that-- but nothing with her. It's like Mom, Dad, Scott or Anthony. Was it like that with Alicia? Probably, not that it matters now. What the hell am I going to get her as a gift?" Finishing his thought he picks up the boiling water and pours it into a cup with Valentina's gift inside.
"Makeup? Perfume? I don't really know her that well now that I think about it properly, we mainly just joke around or talk about whatever she's watching or reading. A book? But what if she's read whatever I pick up or she reads a few pages and doesn't like it? I gave Scott a gift card his last birthday.. but she has money. She's expecting something thoughtful, right?" Taking the bags from the cup, Mark drinks the boiling hot tea right then and there.
Sitting down in the empty living room, Mark chooses the floor for his meditation and slips into the Sukhasana pose.
Complete silence for hardly a minute he cracks, not able to take the stillness of his silent mind any longer, needing something to help distract him from the thoughts and memories while he attempts to focus. Pulling the TV remote towards his hand with telekinesis and flicking it on, blaring music fills the room. Finally distracting himself enough, Mark closes his eyes again.
"I feel what it's trying to do. It's trying to help me gain an understanding of my stands by forcing them together and untangling them, ultimately leading to improved strand control. This maybe could've been helpful when I first came back but now its just a strange artificial feeling. People my age benefit from this? Anthony would've if they actually do.. Wait does Valentina think I'm not even at that level? Well.. if that's the level of normal awakeners it's understandable. That's enough of that."
Returning the room to its previous silence, Mark casually stands and abandons the living room in favour of his bedroom where he stares down his bookshelf. "I want to find a way to increase my strand capacity but these are hardly useful for abilities never mind anything even approaching systems. They hardly even had stations back then hoping for something to enlighten me through these is stupid, if anyone is going to figure it out on their though its me. Not to toot my own horn. If anything its because I'm a freak."
Awkwardly window shopping, Mark dips into a fancy looking shop with a bright pink exterior, his idea of where to find a gift for a girl.
"If only I could order whatever this is going to be online but risking anyone else opening it is a pain." Isle to isle, Mark only takes quick glances before moving to the next until finally committing to one.
"Mother or girlfriend?" An older woman asks, sneaking up on him, her accent unlike anything he had ever heard before but familiar in a indiscernible way.
"A friend. She gave me something so I want to do the same." Mark responds, returning the overpriced bag of face and hand creams to the shelf. "Are you attempting to impress this friend?" The woman asks teasingly, finding enjoyment in the question.
"I want her to like it so I suppose." A devious grin takes shape on her face, Marks answer obviously the one she was hoping to hear. "What's your plan?" She asks to Marks confusion, "Plan?"
"What're you planning to gift this girl? How are you planning to give her this gift?" Just by Marks reaction she knows what he's thinking, "It matters much more than you think, how you give gifts. It's showing the person you care, the gift it just an extension of that feeling."
"I'm stuck on the what." Mark says, the two beginning to casually walk the isles of the store, the woman continuing to pile items into her bag, not bothering to check the prices as she does.
"If you're not one hundred percent sure on what she'd like get this girl something that reminds you of her. That is your only option. If you give her this kind of gift at the right time, explain to her what it means to you, that will mean more than cheap hand cream." The woman, coming to a stop at the stores exit.
"Cheap?! A few hundred is cheap for makeup?" Mark thinks to himself but only finds a genuine thanks leaving his mouth.
"No I should be thanking you, I've always wanted this but instead I got a daughter who would rather find fault with whatever I do and say or ignores me days on end. I really should've given her a sibling, a real one. Never mind all that, take this." Reaching out and taking his wrist, the older woman planting a jar of cream in his hand, "Just in case this girl of yours is more materialistic than you led on."
"I don't think this is in my price range?" Mark manages to say as he inspects the jar so clearly out of his range, "Everything I pick up is instantly charged to the card I leave on file here. Get going, but I want to hear all about how it went If we see one another again, ok?"
"Thank you again." Mark says, simultaneously nodding on his way out of the store.
Monday.
"He's not inside." Anya stresses, repeating herself for what felt like the tenth time but Miss Walsh insists on entering anyway, "I refuse to be ignored, I'll wait for him at his desk." Anya blocks Walsh's way and even takes a step forward, extending her arm until it rests only an inch away from her.
"Nobody is being ignored." Cage says casually, approaching the two and unlocking his office door, "If you wouldn't mind waiting inside for a moment, Miss Walsh." Cage continues, holding the door open and swiftly closing it behind her.
"What are you doing picking a fight? We're in civilian life and you're squaring up with a Strength user. Sit down and don't say a word until she's gone." Cage stresses before pushing the doors to his office open, his casual façade reappearing.
"I took you at your word so I let it rest but nothings even in the process of changing. The duel between those girls went too far and I'm done sitting on my hands waiting for you to gain anything resembling common sense. This school has done nothing but go downhill since your appointment."
"Anything else?" Cage asks his subordinate mockingly, "What are our options here, Gwendolyn? You whine to me but I don't have final say on any major decisions. I run the day to day."
"Don't patronize me, nobody else has seen it yet because I'm the only one left from before you but you don't have this schools best interest at heart. The state of duels decaying, hardly resembling competition anymore only senseless brawls. Opening up the school to humans--" Abruptly interrupting, his voice cutting in like a sickle through a field, Cage gains a renewed air of seriousness on a whole new level to what he was previously operating on.
"Are you now against the decision to open up the school to human students?"
"That's different. If I didn't know any better I'd mistake that for malice. Do I know better?" Miss Walsh quickly thinks to herself, making note of the way Cage unknowingly shifts his weight as if he were readying himself for something.
"No, not inherently but in practice you've divided up and destroyed the unity of this school." Despite the insult, Cage noticeably eases up, "You've separated the awakeners from the humans, provided ridiculous and contrarian benefits to the students whose parents didn't pull their funding and cultivated a putrid environment where violence is inch by inch being normalized."
"You've expressed all of this before, Gwendolyn." Cage grumbles, planting himself down behind his desk. "Yet here I am again! After all I've done. You asked me to use up all the good will I had with the Louis family to keep their youngest enrolled, their money flowing in, I made it happen. What good will do I get in return? Nothing. Sighs, empty words and not even a say on the rules I enforce as the Practical Use teacher."
"They're not empty and I appreciate, we appreciate, what you did with Henry. I'll clamp down on the violence outside of official duels and make sure the benefits for the top students aren't so exorbitant or widespread. I can't touch official duels but I'll bring it up to the board again, ok?" Cage not sure himself whether what he was saying was true or not.
"You've promised all of that before. Empty." Unlike their other quarrels, Miss Walsh leaves with purpose, even more motivated than when they began.
"I expected... so much more." Anthony, trailing behind Mark on his sorely lacking tour of the awakeners side of Hammon Rock, "The way people talk I was half expecting pure gold door frames or something."
"The strand infused materials probably cost more." Mark mutters bluntly, dragging himself along the uncharacteristically desolate corridors.
"What's up with you? Why aren't you pumped, man?" Anthony asks, his frustration and boredom painfully apparent.
"I am, I swear. I just didn't get much sleep last night." The truth being no sleep over the entire weekend, "Slip in a nap at lunch or something because I don't think I can take this for the rest of the day."
"I wanted to visit the connector at lunch.. I still could. But I don't wont them to meet. I don't want them to be friends."
A few classrooms, the library, the gym and finally the cafeteria right in time for lunch.
"Y'know there's no passing the connector for us now. What're we going to do for lunch?" Anthony asks, slyly opting to only bring this up as they join the early forming of a line for food. "Quickly eat here and leave before it gets hectic I suppose."
Setting the remains of what was once his lunch aside, Mark hurries along Anthony who makes a show of eating as slow as possible, finishing just in time to welcome the lunch rush consisting of the two usually separated portions of the school.
"Believe it or not I'm good with people. Just relax and follow my lead." Anthony stresses to Marks frustration, places to sit quickly being taken up until those with free spaces are approached with a request to sit down.
With Anthony's blessing, the empty seats are swiftly filled and despite the buzz surrounding them, three of the four get on like a house on fire.
"Why do this to me? I don't want this, he knows and did it anyway." Mark stresses while hardly giving their high energy, playful chatter half of his attention. "Do you remember?" Anthony questions Mark in an attempt to include him.
Completely detached, Mark only responds with a vacant, expressionless glance before pushing himself up to his feet, "I'll see you later."