RP [Illi] Doki-Doki Channel!

The grooves were deep and long, and on their edges they fell away into nothingness. How far did it go, the hole in the alley that only existed to the tips of her fingers? Yuina opened her eyes when she heard Karen moving, the gentle click of her armor as her eyes opened to the perfect tidy little passageway. Yuina’s lips split as she tried to warn Karen about the hole, the imaginary hole on the tips of her fingertips but Karen took a step forward and vanished. Yuina gasped, her hand reached out to where her friend should have been but her fingers only found air. Her hand fell to her lap and… why was she sitting here? The grooves in the concrete were uncomfortable against she stockings over her knees, and it seemed an odd place to sit down.

So, why was she here? She was… passing through? No, no, if she was going to get something to eat she would have gone a different way from the store. Her apartment? No, that would have been the other way back as well. Then… was it a game?

Right! A game, as part of the game she had come down this alleyway. Alone? No, she wouldn’t have played a game alone when she had Karen, which meant that Karen must be… down the hole that existed only to the tips of her fingers. Yuina’s heart lurched.

“Karen!” She swung her body forward, flinching only as her head passed through the concrete that should have been solid. A spider at the bottom of the hole, picking it way up carefully through the long strands. Unthinking Yuina bent down into the hole, her fingers reaching for the filaments that trapped one of Karen’s arms. “Here! Let me try to break them.”

She hooked a finger around a bundle of webs and pulled.
 
The webbing was stronger than Yuina would have expected - stronger than Karen would have expected, too, when she'd tumbled into it. It didn't want to break - instead, it was somehow flexible, small shards of bone wrapping around each other, connected by the sticky fluid that encased them. Unlike the Grimm that they had encountered before, the bone-webbing was detached enough that it didn't immediately turn to smoke under Yuina's touch. It was a trap for her - if she ended up wrapped in sticky shards, she wasn't going to be able to reach out and touch the Grimm itself. It could go do whatever it liked - and all it would have to do about Yuina was leave her here, in an underground hole that no one knew about, and let her die alone.

Karen could almost see it happening, the way that story would play out. And where would she be in all of that? Would the Grimm kill her first, or would it just leave her there with Yuina, watching each other weaken and eventually take their final breaths?

It would be like that, she thought - because this wasn't just hunger. The hunger was there too, but lurking underneath it there was cruelty - it wasn't an unfeeling hunger, but one that was cold and wanted to hurt. It reveled in the struggles of the things that struggled closer, watching their struggles grow stronger as they panicked, then fade away once more into finality. The hunger sought satisfaction, but the cruelty was willing to delay it, all for the sake of watching something else in more pain than the hunger.

Karen shivered, though it wasn't really cold at all. If something happened to them here, no one would ever know. They'd just have disappeared, gone missing - and then how many others in this place would stumble down into the hole by accident, never to be seen again? In a busy town, the Grimm didn't need to do anything but wait. They had to defeat it - not just for themselves, but for everyone else out there. None of them were here, though. No one was watching. No one was listening. It was only them.

Only us.

"Let it... come."

Words were so hard, but it was only Yuina, only her very dearest friend. If they waited - if it thought Yuina was trapped, if it came closer... And it would come closer, because it was cruel and it wanted to hurt them, hurt her. A little bit at a time, maybe. It wouldn't be quick - but if Yuina could keep herself free, or mostly free, and stay behind Karen no matter what was happening... maybe there would be an opening.

Maybe it would be enough.
 
“Oh.” For the first time Yuina didn’t feel her hand carve clean through something emotional, the strand held. She could feel it roiling at her fingertips, like the slick of water that lingered on the outside of an ice cube resting in the palm of one’s hand. The emotion too was cool and different from how Grimm always were when she touched them. It wasn’t hunger even if it was hungry. Malice was… not something she was used to. There was a cold cruelty to it, a sort of viciousness tempered only by hatred that wanted to see someone bleed.

And her friend was caught in its web.

Yuina tried to pull her hand away, but the strand clung to her finger like a particularly tacky sort of gum. She gave a more assertive tug and her finger came free, trailing smoke and sending a quiver through the webbing. If she couldn’t get Karen cut free then…

Only Karen wasn’t struggling to escape was she? She was focused on the Grimm spider. It was picking its way upwards at a leisurely pace towards Karen, eyes golden eyes glittering.

“Right.” Yuina said softly. She leaned her body forward, placing one hand on a piece of crooked concrete for support. As long as she didn’t let herself get stuck she could touch the spider. “I’m going to put a hand on your back.” Yuina said, as she carefully reached down towards Karen carefully avoiding the waiting strands. If she could reach Karen she could help keep her safe.
 
"Yes."

A soft word. Karen would rather have signed, but she didn't want to make too many movements, and she wasn't willing to let her eyes leave the Grimm. Yuina was coming closer and closer - Karen wondered if the Grimm could feel her movements, through the vibrations in the web - but it didn't seem to matter if it could. After all, why would it be concerned when its prey was walking right into its trap?

She felt Yuina come up behind her, a hand resting gently on her back, and all her own anger and hunger faded away. She didn't need to hate the Grimm or hurt it. She just needed to stay here, between it and Yuina. Karen smiled softly - everything was all right. All she had to do was wait right here, and Yuina would be able to defeat it. Yuina would be safe.

Of course, Yuina would probably be sad if Karen just stood there and let the Grimm have her. Karen wasn't used to that, to having friends who cared about her. She would have been sad if anything happened to Yuina, though, and she couldn't put her friend through that same pain. The calm, though... it was so nice, so quiet. With Yuina's hand on her back, there wasn't any hunger or rage or hatred. She could just... be.

But if she wanted to keep being, she was going to have to let that go. Karen sighed softly, barely audible, barely anything. Just enough to let it go inside, and speak, once more, very softly. "Let go right before it gets here."

Because she was going to have to be hungry and cold and angry and hateful, because she was going to have to detest this thing that was coming closer to take them and trap them and hurt them. Because it was important to be understanding, but it was also important to live, and Karen's armor wasn't made of flowers or ribbons or love or all the right things - Karen's armor was made of cold and hatred and hunger and killing and rage. It wasn't right - none of it was right - but it didn't need to be, as long as it did the right thing.

The Grimm approached, eyes glittering.
 
She could feel the strands pulling at the fabric of her dress, tacky but never quite sticking. She placed a hand on Karen’s back to steady herself or just to stop herself from tumbling, the tips of her fingers pressing against the hard armor that covered her friend’s shoulders. That hunger was familiar, and while it wasn’t a comforting feeling, it was still Karen. It prickled and gnawed at her fingertips, but she could trust it. She could see the spider a little past Karen as it picked its way upwards, whether that meant the Grimm sensed the trap or if it was simply savoring its trapped prey, Yuina didn’t know.

“Right.” Yuina said, softly. It was an awkward position for both of them. She focused her gaze on the Grimm, Karen would need a few moments for the negativity to return to her so she needed to let go at just the right moment. Closer. She could see the two of them in the reflection in the spider’s eyes. Would the eyes be soft? The abdomen? Was the spider as durable as its webs?

Yuina drew in a breath and blew it out slowly.

Her arm would be her spear, and she would cut through the Grimm, because if she failed to do so Karen would be in danger. Closer and closer. String by string. There was a space behind the eyes, wasn’t there?

“Okay.” Yuina said. Her hand slid from Karen’s back, and for a moment all she could feel was the malice as the strings clung to her legs, then she was falling. All that mattered was that space, just behind the eyes.
 
Yuina's hand slipped away, and in an instant all of Karen's calm had vanished, leaving behind only a blinding, killing evil. She wanted this thing to come closer, come to her, because she was the trap, and once it got here she'd hurt it, again and again, until she was sure that the memory of the horror was etched in whatever bones remained of its corpse. Her own bones splintered, shattering into fragments that twisted their way around her, broken jagged helixes, woven cloth of spines.

It came, and she reached for it, meeting its bone-shrouded limb with the palm of her hand, the spur at the end driving through her own flesh and bone. Blood sprayed back upon her, but Karen paid it no attention other than to shake her head and toss away some of the droplets, her other arm already in motion, coming down on the joint of the creature, grabbing it in talons of her own and tearing, twisting ripping, until ichor mixed with her own blood and the limb tore away from the Grimm's body. Karen pulled it out of her impaled hand and tossed it away, down into the dark, something to stick in the web and remind this creature of what it had suffered.

And that was the first. Her eyes glittered, violet and violent and glimmering gold, stepping towards it again. She'd tear it apart one piece at a time, and if it tore her apart as well, it didn't matter at all, as long as it suffered.
 
Emotion filled in the air, thick as a summer fog which clung sticky and hot to the ground. Hatred and malice, tinged with misery, feelings that cling to her skin like a film that almost made her as queasy as the sounds. The wet crack of bone snapping, the warmth of blood droplets spraying against her cheek, Yuina tried to push it away to some little corner of her mind. There was a weightlessness in her stomach as she dropped, falling between two strands of the spider’s web. She caught one with her leg as she fell, wincing as her momentum was suddenly cut, but she kept her gaze on the spider.

Black ichor leaked from the stump of a leg, rows of golden eyes glittered like jewels set along its head. The Grimm wanted to hurt Karen, so she needed to kill it. Like an acrobatic show she had seen, Yuina rocked her body back and forth to pick up speed. Would the spider care? Would it turn its gaze her way? With what speed she could muster before the de-legged spider could make a retreat back into its nest, Yuina swung her body in its direction. She reached out, driving her right arm forward like a spear as she aimed for a space between the bony plates of knotted armor along the spider's back just beneath a row of eyes.
 
Closer. For a moment, they merely watched each other, Karen and the Grimm. It was no more than a few heartbeats, really, but there was a meeting of golden eyes and a meeting of minds, an understanding of one another and a great question of which one of them could be the more brutal. It wasn't a human thing at all, it was a wild thing - all instinctive, a question of dominance.

Neither of them had it in them to retreat, though - and perhaps the Grimm had nowhere to go. This was its own trap, after all. The only way out for either one of them was to kill the other, and so there would have to be another clash. They both knew it, and the Grimm moved forward once again, an adulterated gait, jerky and mismatched. Karen waited for it, understanding patience, because patience was one of the great keys to true suffering. There was no sense in ending it all too quickly, after all. It closed in and she shivered, twisting spines pushing out from her ribcage, an inverted trap of her own if it dared come close enough to grab her. She waited, bone-and-blood, focused on nothing besides the beast before her and the beast within her.

They reached for one another, in a moment - and in that same moment, something reached beyond her, a little insignificant thing. She had forgotten, for a moment, that it existed.

Perhaps the Grimm had as well, and this time it was not bone nor claws that met its body, but the soft delicate fingers of a girl who had been waiting there all along. Bone turned to ash and blood to shadow, and with its death the glamour vanished as well, no trace of what should have been left behind - only the stark and terrifying truth, the spindly webs crumbling away to dust.

For a moment, Karen didn't know what to do about it. The enemy was gone, and she... she was...

No.

No, she was just... just a girl. Her transformation faded away once more, leaving her skin flawless and unwounded once more, blood on her hands and silent tears on her cheeks.
 
Her fingers sliced through the side of the spider, flesh parting to her touch. Grimm didn’t feel regret, no matter how close they were to what they were after monsters were what they were, but the malice that broiled against her skin was so bitter. Like the final acidic spit of a wasted life crumbling like dust, then the feeling was gone. It felt like… it wasn’t like morning, morning came slowly as the edge of light bled the night of its grip — like a wave receding after it crashed upon the shore leaving behind only the stain of its presence on those who were caught by its swell.

Yuina wrapped her arm around Karen’s shoulders, the tips of her fingers finding Karen’s back far more solid as she ran them in gentle circles. Yuina tilted her head up, silently watching as the spider’s web dissolved into flakes of ash that burned to nothing as they drifted down as almost-snow. The air was lighter here, as the two girls sat at the bottom of a crooked hole carved into the weathered concrete of what was once a perfectly normal sidewalk. Yuina’s dress evaporated away, smoke and ash mingling in the air leaving behind the both of them.

“It’s gone, we’re both okay.” Yuina said softly. She kisses the top of Karen’s head. “You did very good, so we can just rest for a moment, until you feel better.”
 
For a little bit, Karen didn't say anything, which wasn't unusual for her. She just leaned back into Yuina's hands, and let her thoughts evaporate like smoke, and wondered if there would ever be a time when it all went... too far. If Yuina's hands would ever need to be there to stop her instead of just to support her. It was scary, that thought. Karen... wasn't so different from that creature in the underground lair, after all. She was now, but a moment ago... a moment ago she hadn't been.

It was hard to understand, that feeling of malice. Hunger was easier, somehow. The Grimm killed because they were hungry. They needed to be stopped, but she could understand why they were the way they were. This one, though... oh, there had been something like hunger there, but it was twisted and wrong and different. The other Grimm killed, ate what was in front of them because they were hungry. This one... oh, something with spices and waiting until just the right time. It was hard to put it into words that made sense, because none of it made sense.

Except it did, and that was the worst part. Karen sighed.

"It's okay," she echoed softly, with the air of someone trying to convince herself. Her hand reached out, forward, towards the empty place in an empty hole that, not so long ago, she hadn't thought was there at all.

"I'm sorry." She'd said those words before, hadn't she? To Yuina, though, always to Yuina. Never to...

...Never to the no-longer-whispering shadows that had faded into nothingness. I'm sorry. I'm sorry you felt that way. No one should have to feel that way. A frown punctuated the words, and then Karen shook her head a little, shaking it off with the remnants of the shadows. "We should... go."

Her eyes drifted back, to the nothingness. "...I don't want to be here any more."
 
“It’s…” Yuina was quiet for a moment. It’s fine, was it? That emptiness she carried was hurting her, wasn’t it? Gnawing at her in the moments when she was weak and that different part of her had to be strong. Both were her, but one felt so sharp. Grimm were like that too, when she felt them, but they didn’t feel other things too. They were what they were. “If you need me, y’know, I’m here.”

She stepped back, grit scraping under heel, and looked up at the broken edge of the street. “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

~~-~~-~~

The computer monitor illuminated the empty room in a sickly blue glow, the gentle whirr of the fans filling in the silence left by the creaks and groans of old wood. The computer offered little to the snooping eye, a paused video showing the blurry image of two girls vanishing into an alleyway, and an open chat with only a single message.

She’s rather easy to anger, y’know.

-~~-~~-

“A spider? It wasn’t a recorded televised fight, but I don’t remember seeing it mentioned in your records.” The lawyer thumbed through a packet of papers as she spoke, her lips pulled into a narrow frown. Miss Akamine placed the packet down, her troubled expression lingering as she looked back at the duo.

“It might have just gotten left out by mistake?” Yuina offered.

“Mm, you did make a report about the Grimm?” Akamine asked, the light of the interrogation room seemed to glitter in her silver gaze.

“I did, to our manager.” Yuina nodded.

“Doesn’t that make you wonder what else has been accidently left out?[/i]” Akamine asked. She tapped the end of her pen against the table before writing in the margins of the packet. Yuina’s brow furrowed and she looked to Karen. “After the spider, was there anything else odd that you remember?”

“We had an assigned patrol through the old city center, which wasn’t a place where they usually sent new magical girls, but that wasn’t until after the formal meet and greet with the senior girls. To get ready for that Mr Sawai had asked us to stay late after school and work on a routine.”

“And was that out of the ordinary?” Akamine asked.

“It wasn't the norm, we didn’t really do many live performances for the DDC.”

“Alright, so what happened after you two finished up?”

~~-~~-~~

The gloom of night tumbled through the long windows of the practice room, the school’s gate in the distance lit up by a pair of street lights fighting back the night. Fireflies danced in the grounds, forming momentary constellations like those that pinpricked the cloudless skies. Yuina could see the distant forms of other students through the trees, recently freed from their own club activities, making their way back to the dorms.

“It’s getting pretty dark, we must've lost track of time.” Yuina said, dabbing away pearls of sweat with the back of her wrist as she offered Karen a smile. “We can drop by my room, if you’d like, we still have that exam coming up we need to study for.” Yuina added, walking over to the table she had left her school bag on.

“I have some snacks too—“ Outside the room, the hallway lights flicked off, causing Yuina to pause. She frowned as she slid her book bag over her shoulder. “It’s not that late, is it?” She muttered.
 
Karen didn't like how uncomfortable she felt that Miss Akamine didn't know about the underground Grimm. She exchanged a glance with Yuina - they'd done everything they were supposed to, right? They'd done what they could and they'd reported it so that their manager could do whatever it was that needed to be done - whether that was figure out a press release or talk to other managers about what other girls might encounter. She and Yuina had both known that there hadn't been a press release - that had seemed fine, at the time, since there wasn't much to do other than talk about a thing that no one had seen.

But... Miss Akamine was supposed to have reports and files and information, wasn't she? Why didn't she know about this?

Karen shifted a little in her seat, saying nothing as usual. The more uncomfortable she got, the harder it was - and she was veryuncomfortable right now. Yuina picked up the conversation, thinking about odd things. The live performance request... yes, that had been very strange, hadn't it? Especially given Karen's... well, Karen. Live performances were not at all her thing. They'd told her that it would be fine - that there would be a routine, that all she had to do was memorize her steps. She'd thought maybe she could do it, if she had steps to focus on, if she could just think about that and not... not the audience.

But the idea of an audience was scary. What if something happened?

And then there had been that one night where they'd stayed late to practice. They'd both been exhausted by the time it was done, but it was a strange sort of exhaustion where Karen knew that even as tired as she was, she was still going to be unable to sleep. Too much thinking, maybe. It seemed like Yuina felt the same way, and Karen nodded acceptance of the invitation to go study together. They might as well do something productive with their time - and DDC or not, there was still school. They could study for a little while and then maybe sleep.

But then the lights outside flickered, and Karen frowned. She was tired because it was... late? Or was she just tired because they had been practicing. Was it late? It was... she shook her head slowly, in response to Yuina's question. Something wasn't quite right here.

"Be prepared?" A quiet question, just for the two of them, but Yuina would know what she meant. She was still thinking about that spider, about how that had been strange and unusual. She had the same feeling, now, in the pit of her stomach. They'd talked about it a little bit, after that, about how maybe it would be better to be ready ahead of time. And how... maybe it was good practice, for Karen, if she wasn't quite so... focused, when she transformed.

Or maybe that would just make things worse. It was so hard to know, wasn't it?
 
“Be prepared?”

Karen’s small voice carried in the quiet room, and Yuina looked back over her shoulder to the other girl. She nodded, a little bob of the head as her expression took on a serious edge. It was better to be careful when things took an odd turn, and things were feeling stranger by the passing day. Today it felt like — like one of those moments when you closed your eyes and by the time you opened them again several hours had passed by.

She moved to the door, her steps slow and quiet as black smoke trailed behind her like a sigh in winter. Yuina placed her hand on the doorknob as she peered through the little window in the middle of the door. She couldn’t see much of the hallway beyond, but what she could see didn’t offer her more than what she already knew. An empty hallway. Her heart fluttered high in her throat as she pressed her ear against the door. There was a hum and the faint sound of air rushing, but nothing that caught her ear as strange. Though, the spider had made the world sound normal too, hadn’t it?

Yuina looked back to Karen, and nodded again before she turned the doorknob and pushed the door open with her shoulder.

The hallway was still, but something caught her eye. Out of an eastward facing window, bands of red and purple hue stretched across the horizon, above the distant highrises of New Kyoto.

“What–” Yuina turned back into the practice room, where fireflies danced outside the window in the early evening air. Overhead, the hallway lights again flickered.
 
Yuina's nod was enough confirmation - Karen knew what she needed to do. What they needed her to do. That didn't make it easy, though. It was easier to convince herself to reach for the hunger when there was a threat, something imminent, something terrifying, something bad enough to overcome the fear of herself. Now there was nothing but an odd feeling, a strangeness in the sky.

But Yuina was here with her, and the sky was strange. Karen reached down into the abyss and pulled it towards her, the bones clacking together as they sheathed her arm and surrounded her eye - golden, like the sunrise. A whisper of smoke trailed ahead of her, and Karen followed it forward, stepping up behind her friend and peering with her out into the empty hallway.

Nothing was there but the two of them, staring forward and the sunrise out the window, with the sunset at their backs.

This could not be happening. Karen frowned, and shook her head. Something wasn't right, here... but she didn't know what it could be. Her hand moved - her real one, smooth soft flesh and not jagged bone and claw, a gentle touch on Yuina's shoulder, nudging her ever so slightly aside. If there was danger out here in the hallway, it was better for her to be the first to encounter it. Karen stepped out of the doorway, looking around and trying to figure out which way they should go.

There had to be something to go on... even if it was just a feeling. Was there a feeling? There was the hunger, always, always the hunger... but beyond that, if she stared into the abyss, was there anything else? Could she feel it? Could she know where it was?

Could she understand it?
 
For a spell, Yuina was still, her gaze locked on the window. It was impossible, but both of them could see the view outside the windows. It was like the sort of magic trick she always thought that the high ranking girls on the channel could do, the ones with so many fans who cheered on their names that reality seemed to quake and ripple in weird little ways when they played their tricks on any grimm that might have have been unfortunate enough be on the receiving end of their ire. But that thought left her more questions than it answered; like why would one of those girls come to the academy? Why would they cast a spell like this? Could a witch actually do something like this? The skies outside the windows offered up no answers, but a gentle touch of her shoulder reminded her of what they needed to be at that moment, prepared.

With a silent nod, Yuina moved to allow Karen to take the lead. She had a far better attunement for the sort of gnawing hunger that wafted from the grimm like something gone sour, and she was far better at fighting them. Once behind her friend, Yuina looked further up the hallway where a gloomy staircase sat, lit only by the lights of the city at dawn leaking through a large window. “Should we…?” Yuina’s question stilled on the tip of her tongue as her fingertips brushed against the wall of the hallway. It was… tacky, like the strands of a long abandoned webbing lingered just over the wall, or a thin film of something not-quite sticky. And, fizzling on her fingertips was the longing, so possessive that Yuina felt the small hairs on the back of her neck prickling and she instinctively pulled her hand away.

“That’s… do you feel anything nearby, because the wall feels like there’s something stuck to it.” She wasn’t certain if that quite made sense, but it felt like a grease stain of thoughts. “Let’s try to go downstairs and find a teacher.” Yuina said, trying to find a course of action. She looked back over her shoulder as she spoke, the door at the end of the hallway was marked as a storage space, and behind its frosted windows Yuina could have sworn she was a shadow shift, and gold glitter, but that might have just been the reflection of the morning light on the glass.
 
I want...

The hallway was empty - it was jus the two of them. Karen didn't know if that helped or not. Had she expected a Grimm out here, just sitting in the hallway like a dog waiting for its owner? Would it have made it any better, if there had been one? They'd have had to fight it, maybe get hurt, but still, she'd wanted...

Karen shook her head a little in confusion, looking back and forth between the windows as if somehow that would make it all make sense. Yuina was right behind her, fingertips grazing the wall for a moment, then retracting. Karen reached out her hand as well, hesitating. I want...

No.

No. Something wasn't right there. She closed her hand into a fist and lowered it to her side, reluctant. "They're... here..." A whisper. Where were they, though? Why weren't they here, waiting for her? If only...

No, no, this wasn't right. Yuina suggested finding a teacher, which seemed like all too reasonable of a suggestion. It was probably the right one, but Karen found herself not wanting to leave. Maybe if she just waited-

She unclenched her fist, then reached back, taking Yuina's hand in her own.

No. They shouldn't wait. They should find a teacher and find out what was going on. Karen gave a nod, and started towards the stairway.
 
Karen hesitated, for just a moment, before taking Yuina’s hand in her own. Was this the right thing to do? A teacher would know what they should do more though, older witches knew what to do about weirdness. Yuina squeezed Karen’s hand, and that helped to settle her buzzing nerves. As long as they were together then they would be fine, even if things were weird.

But still, she could feel the longing lingering on the tips of her fingers like the sticky grease from toffee. Thoughtlessly she brushed her fingertips against the frill of her skirt, if only to brush the feeling away with the texture of silk. She looked to the wall again, nervously, as if she expected it to reach out for her. ”The walls are just so… clingy?” Yuina said as the two hurried down the hall. She didn’t know if Karen could understand that, but she shivered and looked away.

Nothing jumped out of them as they reached the staircase, though the air felt thick against her skin, like how sea air was sometimes. Still, Yuina pressed forward, one hand still held by Karen and with her other she reached out and took a hold of the railing.

I want. I want. I want. I want. Give her. Give. Her.

Yuina pulled her hand away fast, and for just a moment she thought she saw a man. Tall and slim and crooked, with joints placed and bent at angles just close enough to correct that they looked wrong. The longing clung to her skin like tar, lingering longer than the momentary vision. Her breath felt short and she shook her head.

“I don’t think we should go that way.” She said. Yuina swallowed but her mouth felt dry. “Sorry, it just… doesn’t feel right.” She offered a weak, apologetic smile.

“Was there something you wanted to try?”
 
Clingy. Karen didn't know if that was the word she would have used, but she wasn't always very good with words. She struggled, trying to find what fit, trying to figure out how to explain something that was felt but not known.

"Maybe they're... lonely."

It was sad, wasn't it? Clingy was such a bad thing, but sometimes, if you didn't know how to do anything else, and there was only one thing you could hold on to...

Karen looked at Yuina for a moment, a little frown marring her features. Am I... clingy?

But if she weren't with Yuina, she would be alone, and that... Karen didn't know what to do about that. Her fingertips grazed the wall, ever-so-gently: an apology, more than anything else. She drew them back, and shook her head. She couldn't stay with the walls. She had to stay with Yuina. Karen looked back towards the classroom they had left, thinking of the colored horizon they'd seen out the window.

"Try... out the window?" Perhaps if they could get outside, things would change.
 
“Lonely? Do Grimm get…” Yuina reached for the wall again, but pulled her hand back before it connected. Was the emotion that was lingering there even a Grimm? She had assumed it was because things were so strange but maybe she was wrong. The loneliness too, Karen was so much better at understanding emotions like this in a way Yuina couldn’t quite grasp, so she could very well be wrong about that too. Yuina held her hand close to her chest as she looked back at Karen, her friend’s lips bowed into a tiny frown. Yuina smiled, a little attempt to offer some support and comfort.

“It’d be worth a shot, if it’s a Grimm it might not expect us to try that.” Yuina said, returning to the room. She kept her pace careful, letting Karen lead, but the hallway remained still. The room was the same as how they left it, with only the fireflies beyond the glass flittering in the twilight. Yuina made her way over to one of the large windows and flicked the latch. “If we lift together we should be able to open it.” Yuina said, looking down at the campus below.

“But, it might be dangerous going down.”
 
Karen shrugged. She didn't know if Grimm got lonely. She didn't know if anyone had ever asked. She knew what lonely was, though, and she couldn't help but wonder if that desperate longing came from a place like that.

Sympathy or not, it didn't make it any safer to be around.

"It's dangerous in there," she pointed out to Yuina, with a nod to the hallway. She moved to the other side of the window, giving Yuina a nod and helping her to lift the window together, pulling it open. It was a way down, but not too far. Still... she didn't want Yuina getting hurt. Karen had to keep her safe. She tilted her head to one side, thoughtful.

"If I transform..." The bone-armor could take a fair amount of damage, after all. "I think... if you hold onto my back and I jump, we'll be okay. If... if that's okay?" Would Yuina want to get that close? Would she be willing to hold on, like that?

Clingy...
 
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