1069/Learning things..

Learning things..
Date of Scene:	01 February 2024
Location:	Karaoke Crown
Synopsis:	Learning things like Kyouko enjoys singing, and Kyouka enjoys teaching (mostly) and both of them seem to need to learn things the hard way. At least there's snacks for this (entirely unsurprising) revelation.
Cast of Characters:	Kyouko Sakura, Kyouka Inai

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Kyouko Sakura has posed:
It is early enough in the evening that there's almost no one in the Karaoke bar. Later, it will be popular and busy and there'll be lots of chatter and the sound of dishes and glassware as backing track to the sound of people singing.. good singing and singing that is more enthusiasm than skill.

Right now, however, there's a red haired young woman in a hoodie and ripped jeans on stage. Her backpack is just at the corner of the cleaned area, waiting for her, as she sings some english pop tune.

It is clear to anyone who speaks english, that Kyouko only knows the sounds by rote and does not understand the lyrics. However, she's clearly been practicing. She's surprisingly not bad at the whole 'singing' thing, her singing voice a little lower than one might expect from her speaking voice, rich and confident and full.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka is not a stranger to the karaoke bar- although she's hardly what one would call an expert singer, she has an okay voice, and finds it a good way to blow off steam. She's not here often, but today she just happens to be, stepping in from outside in her usual non-school ensemble of black jeans, red shirt, and leather jacket. And sunglasses, of course.

    She walks over to the bar, intending to get herself a drink (non-alcoholic, it's not even dinner time yet, she's not that bad!) when she takes note of exactly who is on stage singing. She gives a little smirk, not condescending but rather just amused, as she orders and pays for her drink, listening with some mild appreciation while Kyouko finishes her song without interrupting or particularly striving to make herself noticed.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
As the song finishes, Kyouko holds the last note confidently. She isn't in a rush to put the microphone down, she knows there's no one rushing to get their turn, and this time of day? There's not likely to be any applause as the track ends.

It's an absent glance over the room as she heads over to pick up her backpack and it's easy to see when she spots Kyouka having arrived. Kyouko tenses, as if bracing for ... who knows what.. and then there's a blush hitting her cheeks. As if she's been caught doing something she isn't supposed to.

Kyouko reaches to tug her hood up as she picks up her backpack.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Hey kid," Kyouka calls, when Kyouko finishes her song and she sees the girl trying desperately to avoid being accosted. "You should at least let me buy you a drink after a solid performance like that. Maybe a snack?" She grins mischievously, because she knows Kyouko likely doesn't want the attention or the praise.. but food is always difficult to resist.

    She's found herself one of those little raised tables with tall chairs, and is absently sitting in one, a drink that looks like some kind of soft drink in front of her along with a plate of fries.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
Busted. So much for Kyouko's delusional hope that Kyouka wouldn't notice her with her hood up. It totally works in the movies!

"Uh." Kyouko starts as she is called out to. The attention.. and then /praise/..

Kyouko's eyes dart to the fries and the soft drink and its clear that Kyouka has her number. "Okay." She decides on. Food IS hard to resist.

There's a little frown as Kyouko slides herself onto one of the tall chairs. "You don't come here." She shoves her hood back, letting her bright red ponytail free again. It's not a question, no matter that reality is saying otherwise.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    To be fair in terms of things Kyouka is likely to dish out praise for, 'hey you're not bad at singing' is pretty low on the list. For someone like Kyouko though, it may still be unlooked-for.

    She can't help but give a little knowing grin as Kyouko accepts her offer to buy a snack. She has the girl's number in some ways, at the very least. "I do in fact come here." Kyouka replies good-naturedly, as she gestures for the girl to order herself something from the menu with no qualifications as to what it may be. "Not all the time, it's true. But I like karaoke as much as any other red-blooded Japanese person. Used to come here with my friends all the time when I was your age."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"I try and be gone by the time most of them are likely to turn up." Kyouko mutters softly as she hooks her feet on the rungs of the tall chair. At least she doesn't have to let her legs swing, that's something.

Kyouko takes the menu to actually /look/ at it, usually she just grabs a milkshake, but someone else is buying? She'll look.

"Do you sing?" Kyouko hasn't even looked up from considering the menu when she asks. Priorities.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    These chairs are designed to be tall, so even Kyouka's feet don't touch the ground. She's not particularly tall, after all. She's sitting sort of sideways, one heel resting on a rung and the other leg crossed over that knee, while she munches on her fries. "You shouldn't be so shy about it, you've got a fine voice." She says reasonably.

    At the question of whether or not she herself sings, Kyouka again gives a mild shrug of her shoulders. "Not particularly well, but yeah, I take my turn at the mic." She says, unconcerned with her own lack of real talent. "People don't run screaming when I'm up there, so I assume I'm at least passable at it. It's a good way to let out some tension, I find. At least, depending on the song you pick.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"Whatever." Kyouko dismisses the compliment with a little wave, and then closes the menu. "Fries and a shake AND a burger." She decides, announcing it, quite possibly to give Kyouka opportunity to back out of paying for her extras.

"I don't much like the growling ones. They're hard on the throat." Kyouko makes a little bit of a face. "Sometimes they're popular, but not usually early. Those ones are better when its gotten late."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka gives the girl a wry look. "Do you know what 'snack' means?" She asks, but she doesn't sound particularly annoyed. She gestures to the waitress, and places the order for the outsized snack her companion demands without further complain.

    "Well sure. You have to play to your strengths." Kyouka says, in regards to singing growly songs. "If you're not good at growling, you don't growl. Find what you're good at and lean into it. That's how you make a space for yourself." She's talking about singing. But she could be talking about anything else, really.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"That IS a snack!" Kyouko protests with the sharp toothed grin of someone that can keep up with Usagi on the eating front.

That sharptoothed grin is shared with the waitress too, who leaves their table perhaps just a smidge faster than she arrived.

"Sometimes it's kinda cool to give the audience what they want." Kyouko points out as she leans back in her seat a little. "Besides. I never said I wasn't good at it. I just don't like them much."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "When somebody else is paying, I'm sure it is." Kyouka says, but her tone is humorful, not accusatory. It is within her budget to buy the girl a small meal rather than a snack.

    "Playing to the audience is also a skill." Kyouka acknowledges, shrugging. "People who know how to do it well can be very successful. For btter or worse. I think you could be good at it, if you wanted to. But not liking people enough to try is a stumbling block."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
Kyouko was about to argue about not liking people, but she paused.

"It's not hard. You just sing what they like." Kyouko leaves off if she likes people or not. It's a bigger question than she's wholly thought about. "You kinda look out and see who's here. You can just kinda /tell/ if it's a Kpop night. Or english pop. Or growly stuff. They.. sound different." She gestures vaguely around the room.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka nods her head. "True. And reading people like that, and knowing how to give them what they're looking for.. that's valuable. Of course," She cocks a brief grin as the waitress brings the food over, dropping it onto the table in front of the ever-hungry Kyouko, "You have to make sure not to forget who you really are underneath it all. Somehow I don't think you'll have a problem with that, though."

    She idly chomps another fry. "Of course, sometimes it also pays to just do what you want to do."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"Pfft." Kyouko murmurs her thanks to the waitress with a little bow for her. Her outrage doesn't extend to the woman bringing her food.

She lifts a fry to chomp, inadvertantly in mirror to Kyouka's fry chomp. "I always do what I want."

She doesn't consider the fact that sometimes.. what she wants is to give other people what they want. She isn't thinking about that.

"Do YOU do what you want to do? Baby sit a bunch of magical kids?" Kyouko asks as she noshes on another fry before reaching for her milkshake.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka shrugs her shoulders, rolling her eyes a bit at the 'always do what I want' comment but not seeing fit to argue about it at this point in time.

    "I do," She says, with a bit of a smile, as she chews on her fries. "Because what I want to do and what my job is intersect.. most of the time." She shrugs. "I won't say there are times it chafes, but.."

    "If I didn't think it was a good, important thing to do, I wouldn't do it. No matter what I was told to do."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"I mean.. it doesn't seem like that great a job." Kyouko looks up as her milkshake is delivered before the hot food and she bows a little thanks before reaching for it and then continuing. "But you /do/ get to smack people around at work, so that would help. The listening to people whine and complain, that stuff would suck."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Well you know, the whole guidance counselor bit is a cover, right?" Kyouka says, with a bit of a smirk as she watches Kyouko digging into the food. "I mean, it's a real job in that I show up and do it and I get paid, but I'm not actually there because I'm a good guidance counselor. I'm there to teach magic kids how to fight and survive. But they can't exactly put that on the official class register. That's more the work I was talking about when I said it was something I'd want to do anyway. That's my real job."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"That doesn't seem to make them stop whining at you." Kyouko points out. "Cover or not.. you have more than enough people turn up in your office, and you don't usually do a lot of fight practice in there."

Not that she's been staking out Kyouka's office. Much. At least not getting caught. Much.

"So it might be a cover, but you still gotta /do/ it." Kyouko points out as she noshes more fries.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "No.." Kyouka gives a faint shrug of her shoulders, a twist of her mouth. "You're not wrong. But sometimes I can actually help them. At least the magic ones. I may not have a lot of schooling in psychology or anything like that but I do have experience in the game. I know what it is to be out there fighting, I've done plenty of it, and so I can at least understand what they're going through and offer a bit of advice based on what I'd do or not do. Helping kids not repeat my mistakes, y'know? That feels good too, even if its not fighting."

    She doesn't point out that all of this applies equally as much to Kyouko talking to her in a karaoke bar as it does to any kids talking to her in her office.

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"You can't have screwed up that much." Kyouko uses a fry to point at the woman. "You aren't dead."

This is a mahou with few illusions about the end game of this whole adventure.

The fry, however, has its life ended in a fangy chomp, before Kyouko picks up her burger to get going on it. It won't be long for this world either.

Advice in a karaoke bar is /completely/ different. Honest. Nothing at all alike.

"I mean.. I don't think you're dead. You're a really active dead person if you are."

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "Kid, don't even get me started on the amount of things I've screwed up in my life." Kyouka says, with self-deprecating humor. "Just because I'm still alive doesn't mean I didn't trip every step of the way to get from where I started to where I am now."

    "Plus, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of times I would actually have been dead, if not for my friends." She shoots a significant glance at the girl sitting across from her, who seems proud to not have any of those sorts of things.

    "Anyway, against all the odds, yes I am still alive. And it makes me feel somewhat useful to tell kids like you some of the things I learned the hard way so hopefully they don't have to."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
Kyouko snickers at the self depricating commentary, her burger almost gone already. It's been seconds! Of course it is! "Okay, okay.. that's legit. Screw ups don't always leave ya dead.. just more than for y'know.." She gestures at the meager crowd, that is growing as they eat and chat.

The pointed comment about friends? Kyouko chomps the rest of her burger. Just as pointedly. NOM!

"Some people only learn the hard way." Kyouko mumbles around a fry.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka's own plate is now empty, more or less, just a few crumbs left which are rapidly disappearing as she picks at it with her fingers.

    "You're not wrong." She says, with a bit of melancholy but also a bit of humor, at the assertion that some people only learn the hard way. "I was... maybe am, one of those people. But it's not a fun type of person to be."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
Rapidly, Kyouko's plate is coming to the same state. Fries are next to be attacked. Omnomnomnom.

"I mean.." Kyouko considers as she chews. "Generally you don't forget what you've learned that way?" She tries for a positive spin on it, a hopeful fangy grin to go with it.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    "No, but the lucky ones can learn those lessons without actually having to experience the horribleness first hand." Kyouka says, with a small grin. "Its called empathy.. I suspect you have some, as I do, though it might often try to hide and need to be convinced to show itself."
    "But you're right. The hardest lessons are the ones which stick with you the most."

Kyouko Sakura has posed:
"Pfft. I work alone /because/ I have empathy." Kyouko counters as she slurps the last of her milkshake.

"Thanks for the food." She gives Kyouko a little bow of gratitude as well. She bends to collect up her backpack, apparently having had quite enough self reflection for the moment. "Mebbe I'll see you sing sometime." She gestures at the stage as she hops down from her chair.

Kyouka Inai has posed:
    Kyouka rolls her eyes, but she doesn't contradict that statement. She's pretty sure she knows what Kyouko means, even if she's also pretty sure it's bullshit.

    As she's thanked for the food, she just says, "Anytime, kid. I mean that." With a wink as she gets up and starts preparing to take off herself. "About the food. Singing? Maybe if you're lucky."