Sketches [Charles]

Charles watched as Mae left her phone number and exited the apartment...

Several minutes later, somebody knocked on his front door. "Charlie, I'm coming in." The door opened and an elderly man walked inside, carrying a bunch of keys on a chain in his hand. Charles recognized him as the owner of the building, a kindly man who could always tell something was awry. He was somewhat shorter than Charles and rather skinny. He paid no heed to the possum skittering around or the messy state of the apartment.

Charles frowned, somewhat confused and approached him. "It's Charles." He mumbled at the man. "Is it time to pay the rent already?" He asked, taking out several bills from his pocket, but the owner stopped him, waving his hands.

"Nono, dontcha worry about that." He said with a grin on his face, scratching the back of his head. "But if you're ready to pa- Oh, what am I saying? I came here because I saw that girl run out the building just about now!"

"You did..."

"Yes, yes, I did... And I knew she had to have come here to visit you. Haha, that's 'cause you're the only one her age who lives here and the rest of the tennants never have people visiting." He added with a smile, noticing a confused glimmer in Charles's eye. "Anyhow, she reminded me of that girl who lived here with you before, so I wanted to see for myself what was going on. She just seemed so distressed... Hmm..."

Charles raised his head at the mention of the girl. "The girl who lived with me?"

"Yes yes. Don't mess with me, Charlie! She was your sister wasn't she? I mean, you both share the same last name, Everton! See, I told you I would remember it some day! Anyways, what was her name...? I know it started with an 'E'... Ella? Evelin... Emma? Hmm..."

"Emily..." Charles himself wasn't aware of what he had just said, the word merely left his lip, as naturaly as a breath. The old man raise his eyebrows when he heard it, though, and a bright smile shined on his face.

"Yes, Emily Everton! That was her name! She always had a smile on her face and had all those star shaped thingies in her hair, haha!" He fell silent mid-laugh... "Too bad, she had to leave us so early..."

"What... happened?"

The owner frowned. "That's a cruel joke, Charlie. Don't tell me you forgot how your own sister passed away? Oh, god bless her soul..."

"She..."


"Who the hell is she!?"

On a whim, Charles busted through the front door, leaving the old man and Gao stunned. The owner shouted something towards him, but he didn't listen. Charles ran through the front door of the building, slamming them shut behind himself, without a clue as to where he was even going. There was something that just...

"Mae!" Charles ran across the road, despite the red light glaring at him, and stopped straight infront of the red haired girl. He didn't realized it yet, but, in his right hand, he tightly clenched the picture along with the notebook page Mae had written her phone number on.

A bunch of thoughts swirled around in Mae's head, as she opened the front door. What was going on with Charles? He had been acting strangely during her short visit there, and She did not understand why. On her way down the staircase, she crossed paths with an elderly, friendly looking man, who she assumed to be the owner of the place. Perhaps he had seen Mae's troubled look on her face, or something, for he immediatley set off upstairs just as Mae had exited the building. She was a bit saddened by the way Charles had treated her, but Mae assumed he had his reasons for reacting like he did.

A couple of minutes later, when Mae had just crossed the road, she heard someone call her name. She spun around, for the voice she had heard was belonging to someone she had just left. Charles ran out in the middle of traffic, causing the man sitting inside the car to slam his feet on the breaks. "C-Charles?!" Mae was pleasantly suprised. She couldn't help but smile.

"I... she! She is dead and I... I can't! It's my fault! And you... you are like her! And I..." Charles grabbed his head as he stumbled into the traffic light pole with his back. The two paper he held in his hand have been released and they fell to the cold concrete floor beneath. People were staring at his blabbering act as they passed by and Mae's smile just hurt him further... but the worst part was that he had no idea what he was talking about! Who was Emily? How did she die? Why was it his fault? The questions just piled up in his head, pushing him further across the line he never wanted to pass. He wanted to cry and he would have, but his eyes held no tears... "Why couldn't it have been me?"

"W-What's wrong?!" Mae rushed up to Charles and put both of her hands on his shoulders. "Snap out of it, okay?! It's not your fault! Come here, lets just sit down and talk about it, okay?" She helped him over to a nearby bench and the two sat down. Mae didn't care about the weird looks people were giving them. Right now, she needed to focus her attention on Charles. "What are you saying, Charles?" Mae looked at him with a worried expression on her face. "Who is... Nevermind, I won't ask. It might make matters worse..." She looked down on her lap, before returning her gaze back to Charles, puzzled by what the other had just said. "I-I'm like who...?"

Mae wasn't really sure what to do at this point, so she put her left arm around Charles back, comforting him. "Oh, don't say that, Charles... I'm sure she's mad at you for saying that, so stop it! Beating yourself up won't make things better. If you wanna talk about it, I'm here for you. We're friends after all." She gave Charles a reassuring smile before she stood up, and walked over to the two papers on the ground, and picked them up. After taking a quick look at them, she quickly skipped back over to Charles, and returned the papers to him. "You dropped these, by the way. Here.". Mae sat down next to her friend again, still very worried about his well-being. What was causing him this much grief? "Everything is going to be okay, Charles..." Mae gave him a gentle, friendly embrace. "Just take a deep breath, and collect your thoughts, okay? You think you can do that for me, Charles?" She whispered to him.

"She wasn't my sister! We had the same surname just because... because she found me!" Charles flinched as he felt Mae's hands embrace his body.

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"And that's how you show kindness to toher people! Come on, try it out! Hmm? Hey, are you even listening, Cha-chan! Cha-chan!"

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As he glanced down, he noticed two pieces of paper laying down in his lap. He took the drawing, amptly breaking free of Mae's embrace and standing up as he did so, and tore it in two pieces, letting the half drawn in a childish manner be swept away by a sudden gust of wind, while he tightly clenched the other half in his hand.

Afterwards, Charles turned back to Mae and grabbed her hand. "Come." He said as he pulled the girl up and began running with her towards who knows where.

"She found you?" Mae asked with a raised eyebrow. What was that supposed to mean? She 'Found' him? Charles was a mystery. The poor guy seemed just as confused as Mae herself about his past...

The next couple of things happened in such a rapid succession Mae had a hard time grasping what Charles just did. Following the shock of Charles weird behaviour, Mae could feel Charles hand grabbing her own, causing her cheeks to heat up slightly. "Hey, what are you-? Huh? W-waait! Slow down! I can't...!" And before she knew it, Mae was running alongside Charles. As to where they were going, she had no idea, but she decided that letting Charles lead the way was the best course of action...

Charles's long strides would give anyone a hard time following him and he did not stop or slow down until they finally reached what seemed like a regular, albeit a bit run down shop, sealed shut with iron bars. The insides reminded of a workshop of some kind, with a single table in the middle, surrounded by several thinner tables across the white walls and blue colored cupboards full of various tools lined up beneath and above the tables. On the inner side of the front door was a piece of carton, hanging losely from a nail driven into the wooden piece of the door. The carton read: "We'll be back tomorrow! See ya then!" with stars drawn around and over the letters in shiny gold color. There was a back door at the far side of the room, entranced in an eerie shade of deep blue invisible to Mae's unawakened eyes.

Charles turned to Mae as he picked through his jacket's pocket in search for something. The sketch from before remained tightly clasped by his right hand. He frowned as he failed to pull anything out of both pockets. "The key... is missing."

Mae struggled to keep up with Charles and due to the high pace, she had a hard time saying anything.
After the long, mad dash, Charles finally stopped. Mae leaned against a nearby wall, trying to catch her breath, not paying much attention to their location. "*Huff* You sure have amazing stamina there, Charles *Huff*" Mae stuttered out while panting heavily. After a couple of minutes, she had rested enough, and started taking in the surroundings... They were standing outside of an old run-down workshop. The place had a very creepy air around it, like most abandoned houses had. Mae inched closer to Charles. "W-What is this place? Why here?" She asked quietly.

After regaining some confidence, Mae decided to investigate the area, starting with the door. She pulled the handle.


As she expected, the door didn't budge at all. "Figures... It's locked..." Mae said with a tinge of dissapointment in her voice. "You had a key to this place? Where did you last see it?" She turned around, looking at Charles.

"I should be able to enter..." Charles kneeled next to Mae and attemped to raise the metal cage which blocked their path. The he couldn't enter disturbed him far more than he was willing to admit, but that raw need to enter could be noticed as he tried pulling with all his might... With no results. The cage wouldn't budge, just like the door behind it. "The key... I should have the key..." He began browsing his pockets once again, but managed to pull nothing out. "Where...?"

In his search, however, he completely disregarded Mae's existance. He forgot she had been standing right next to him when he turned around to approach the door... Charles flinched, bumping straight into her.

"Mae? You are... here?"

"Of course I'm here! You brought me here, remember?" Mae tilted her head, raising a confused eyebrow at Charles. "What is this place even?" Mae looked at the door. "And why are we here?" Mae asked Charles. She was a bit confused about all this. And Charles actions didn't make much sense either.

"You could've dropped it? Or maybe it's back in your apartment?" Mae suggested. She really didn't have the slightest clue why he was so hung up on this key. "Charles-kun? Are you okay?"

Charles turned his head around to look at the workshop again. "I... don't know."

Charles seems deep in thought as he stares at the front door of the vacant shop.

He finally regained some of his stature and was beggining to realize the situation and how he was dragged over here by some unseen force which pushed him forward. Curiosity, perhaps? No, it was deeper than that. But what... Oh wait, Mae was there!

All of a sudden, Charles turned back to Mae with a frown on his face. "My apologies for this... I don't know what got over me." He whispered.

"We should just... forget this." His frown stiffens. He felt as if he had to repay Mae for dragging her along. It was human custom, after all, was it not? But what do humans do in these situations... "I'll... buy you dinner. In order to repay myself for forcing you to come with me." Yep, that was a good idea. Now, where...

"Oh, don't worry about it, Charles-kun!" Mae smiled at him. "So, you know anything about this place? At all?" She nodded towards the old building. "It... looks like some kind of workshop... Did you work here at some point? Maybe?" She looked back at Charles. He seemed lost in thought. Not that he was the only one of the two curious about this place. She felt that this place was somehow connected to Charles past. Seeing as the two of them were friends, Mae made a mental note of the shop's location. The two of them were bound to return here at some point.

"D-dinner?! Wait, hold on a second... A-are you asking me out?" This was nothing Mae had expected Charles to say. "There's no need for you to repay me, Charles! Ahaha, I had fun. Sure, this place is a bit creepy, I'll give you that though." Even if he wasn't asking her out, Mae couldn't say no to free dinner. That would just be rude. "Sure, I'll come along. What did you have in mind?" She chuckled lightly. The day so far had been a rollercoaster for sure, but Mae was glad things were going much better now, considering they didn't start off smoothly.

"Huh, did it sound like that...?" Charles asked in confusion. "I just performed the action which seemed as most logical in such a social situation..."

Despite speaking so formally, Charles's voice resonated with an added note which gave it some of the 'human' feeling it lacked.

"I am not familiar enough with restaurants in this area... I'll allow you to lead the way."

"If you say so." Mae smiled at him. "I don't think you owe me anything, Charles-kun. But I'm not one to say no to free food." She chuckled at Charles confusion on the matter. "Yeah, it kinda did sound like that. Hehe." Was it just Mae, or did Charles sound a bit different...? "You don't mind chinese food right?" The pinkette raised an eyebrow. She could really go for some fried rice right now. "Then it's this way." This time, it was Mae who grabbed hold of Charles hand, and dragged him along to the resturant.

"It's kinda funny. This was the first resturant I ate at when I arrived in Azores." Mae looked at the big sign. "Geez. I can't believe my first week here has almost passed...". The girl seemed lost in thought. "Anyway, let's go. I'm actually kinda hungry." She gave Charles a bright smile, before entering the resturant...

"I don't mind it." Charles let himself be dragged to the restaurant...

"You've been here only for a week?" Charles asked curiously as they entered the restaurant. "I thought you were an local." He would let her guide him to a table of her choosing.

((Short post cuz I don't have much else to write and I don't want to mess up the flow by writing future events just to fill up the blankness. I intend to first let Mae reply to Charles before moving on. ^3^))