Somber Morning Jaunt [James/Invite]

Day 5
Morning

Buses. They ran but they also cost money, today Esra wished she had more of it. Last night she was up into the wee hours not sleeping and not doing much of anything other than digging herself into a hole. She'd somehow convinced herself that the weird things she kept seeing fitted together and meant something, tired as she was it seemed that every corner was hiding something waiting to jump out at her. Normally she would be walking to school so purposefully that anyone would have to run to keep up and get her attention. Today everything felt heavy, weighted down with tiredness Esra plodded on.

She was dressed in her school uniform rather than a tracksuit, her skirt longer than required swayed at her shins as its pleats rippled with each step. Hair straightened and the bags under her eyes minimal Esra looked the part of an overly serious student over anything else. Satchel at her side and gymbag at the other, even when she did not intend anything she seemed incapable of going to school without it. The baseball bat sticking out of it helped her feel a little safer, that might be why.

One, two, one, two, stopping at the crossing with a blank frown as she watched the road.

It was a nice morning, the threat of rain indicated only by distant clouds that raced along high in the sky. The murmur of birds somewhere along the buildings and the sounds of a city moving into rush hour. It was lost on her as she waited, not listening to music or anything else, just washing over a tired brain. Somehow she had to figure all this out, without disappearing herself. It wasn't like anyone would really notice, certainly not for a while. Maybe one or two at school would question where she was, maybe not. She never walked to school with anyone, no other students from the academy lived in her building and she normally didn't even walk.

Of course, it was a wonderful coincidence that, on a whim, James had spent his bus money on... Something. He couldn't even remember! But he was walking and saw a girl from his school, so he walked up, and joined her, before noticing it was the girl from last night... Uh... Esra! Yeah! Esra! "Oh! It's you! Esra right?"

Esra was bemused, it still came across as grumpy but she didn't really mean it. It almost made sense that he was here on the way to school, almost. Given how early it was, how tired she was and the fact that she was Esra Dean her response was, "Oh, yeah. Uh, James?" She had almost forgotten about him existing entirely already. It felt like weeks ago they spoke, not twelve hours.

"Yep. I'm James. It's good to see you!" He said, smiling at her as he continued his walk. "I'm glad you got home safe." He said, hoping she didn't run into one of those.... Things.... Like he did that one time a few days ago....

"So... What year of school are you in? And do you like your classes?"

"Of all the lines you wanted to open with, you felt that was the best?" Esra cocked a look at him before looking up at the traffic signal, "Not a remark about my uniform, or my legs. Not the ever precious, fancy meeting you here?" Inwardly sighing she evaluated him somewhat, what a nerd. "My classes are fine, I do well and I'm a second year."

"Do you always walk this way?" That seemed more topical, given that she didn't remember seeing him go this way before.

"Sometimes. Really depends on how I'm feeling." James said, looking around, humming a jazzy little tune quietly as he waited for the traffic signal to change so they could continue onwards. "You sound disappointed."

Esra looked at him as the light changed, dropping into step at the crossing, "I am." Looking back ahead she let her brow relax and picked up the pace a little, not too much though. She had hoped he was more verbose or interesting, able to carry a conversation. If he was going to rely on her then it wasn't going to go very well. Esra could guide people to an objective, talk about school or things from lessons for sure. About TV, herself or what normal people talked about, she had next to nothing. "So why did you want to talk to me?" If it wasn't to try to pick her up then was he really interested in her hostile personality?

"Well, sorry about that then..." James said, nodding and looking around. "And the reason is rather simple, you seemed interesting, and nice, so I thought I'd walk with you to school today, see how it goes and all that... Yep.... My little bro's been an issue recently. Causing all kinds of havoc for almost everyone involved! He ran out into the woods late one night, and I went yo go find him and some weird stuff happened. Was kinda creepy too."

Esra saw herself as neither interesting or nice, it made her furrow her brow again though she didn't look at him to check. He certainly seemed serious about it, weirdo. Still it wasn't like she would trip him over and run away, there wasn't a reason not to allow him to follow her. Puzzling that out she was rather surprised by what he followed up with, some kids were dumb, she was. "Creepy?" The woods were the woods, nothing to be scared of there except bears.

"Yeah, it was more... Strange, really than anything else. But I digress, how are you doing today?"
He asked, looking at her with a smile as he continued walking to school, as one does on a daily basis.
"But yeah... Everything's been good for me... How about for you?"

"Weird, different ways," Esra answered casually, trying to work out why he was changing the topic. It was certainly something, a kid running off enough that people were looking for him. She stayed out late all the time but she didn't have a family. Esra knew her childhood wasn't just atypical but unhealthy. Interest and mild concern she looped him back to the topic, "So what happened, how did you find him?" If he had really run away it should have been somewhat hard to find him, if he was taken or something, weren't the police involved?

James.... Didn't want to expand too much but... He supposed he could at least tell her how he found his little brother.
"Well, I looked for him through the woods for a while, and still couldn't find him. So, I decided to head home and try to call his phone, my phone was dead when I had went looking for him, and I had it charging whilst I did. And what did I find when I came home but my little brother, sitting there. Right in the house. Apparently he'd gotten bored, and decided to run off into the woods without telling me, and soon got bored of THAT, so he came home."

"What about your parents, shouldn't they have been looking?" Esra let out a sigh, that was a, boring story. It wasn't about a boy running away or disappearing, just a kid going out and coming back while everyone else panicked. Kids, Esra didn't know about kids that much. She always felt like a grown up, she had to care for herself, no one else was going to. She'd been around them often enough, she had a soft spot for them. Going back to the orphanage to teach baseball and sports and be a not entirely terrible big sister. That was a different mask that she wore with different people. Kids didn't ask the sort of questions she wanted to avoid, they didn't care so much as long as it was fun.

"They would've... If they hadn't been asleep." James said, sighing. He hoped he wouldn't have to talk about what he himself really did that night. "Eventually, after looking around for him for about an hour, I got a call from my mom asking where I was and... Well everything went like you would expect."

"Uh, huh," He was digging a hole, if you were worried enough to go looking for someone that your parents didn't notice was missing, you didn't wake them up? Then they were awake an hour later to know that you were missing, yet that wasn't how he told it the first time, she was right to be sceptical. "So, what was Strange about it?" He had said creepy then backtracked to strange, yet he had left what entirely out of what he said. It didn't involve his brother, it didn't involve his parents and it happened in the woods last night. Why be so evasive about the details if nothing happened?