i kiss your memorg

"Shulk."

"What is it, Alvis?"

"Do you ever...vibrate?"

They are on the beach, again. Again? Perhaps only still. Perhaps they haven't left. By some rights, the day should be entirely too short and singular, swallowed up by the sheer bell-tolling ear-ringing novelty of it all, but by others, it's a new, free, fresh world, and the expanse is all of enormity. And Alvis, who has never complained about anything, is certainly not going to complain about this.

Well. He's complaining about something, in a manner of speaking; raising a dialogue, bringing an issue to attention, flagging an error, and no matter how casually one brings something like that up, no matter how someone dresses it up to be cool and carefree, it will still glitter like the most eye-catching graphic. Exceptions are thrown to be caught. We're not just tilting at anti-air batteries.

Aren't we?

But Shulk doesn't seem alarmed. He gives a sanguine, approachable answer. Nothing out of the ordinary. Alvis watches the slight jut of his chin, the sweep of his bangs gracefully down and to the side, and revels in it. The calm he reads from Shulk is...astounding. Overwhelming. Even if it's not quite enough. Not quite enough to quell...

Anyway. The answer, all-important: "When I have coffee, sometimes, I guess. It's not something I would call a regular everday occurrence, for a Homs, but it happens."

Hm. Another exception. More data, then, is needed. "And what does that feel like?"

Shulk smiles, suddenly recognizant of the fact that he is explaining a human phenomenon to Alvis, the computer. Isn't that a lovely thing? And to have the time to do it in, too. Wonderful. "Oh, well my hands shake a little - I get jittery, you might say - and it's a bit harder to focus."

Now, jitter, to Alvis, is a desynchronization of signals, nanosecond by pixel point. It's something that, if not bounded, will throw the entire simulation off course. One might even posit that Shulk's entire journey began from jitter, periods not long enough between Zanza's exertion of influence to maintain control on the evolutionary cycle and the predestined convergence point of the passage of fate.

So, safe to say, Alvis is put well ill at ease. Not that he is not glad that Zanza is gone, of course not. Rather, the adjustment period brings with it some apprehension. Since the recreation, he has yet to reestablish his customary margins of error, his limits of observation. He has not laid out the choreography of their incipient era. He is no longer removed from it as a remote observer, after all. Indeed, above all, he has yet to see how new life will beget and begin, here, and that brings much, much, much weighty anticipation.

Alvis is anxious. But he doesn't know it. Instead, he is just vaguely aware of a buzzing, a humming, a thrumming, in his chest. Below the Core Crystal choker brooch, not beneath it, and centered, because Klaus had done away with that asymmetry of human anatomy. That which is most important, most crucial, should be in the center of all, should it not?

But if you naturally expect everything essential to lie in the center, you'll never look anywhere else. You'll never search for your own answers. You'll never know what greatness is yours, and what was simply ordained for you. Shulk's inquisitiveness...oh, yes. That is a personal favorite.

Oh. Indeed. What was last said? Shulk had indicated that the vibrating condition he experienced as a result of consuming caffeinated stimulants depressed, in fact, his ability to focus. And Shulk hasn't said anything more, but Alvis had still not been focused. Alvis had also not been on the receiving end of any such stimulants.

On cue, here is Shulk's adorable rejoinder: "Are you nervous, Alvis? Just being here with me, maybe?"

And that's not it, Alvis knows that's not it, because he's never been nervous before - ever, really, but certainly not about Shulk, not in any physical palm-sweating way - and he'd just noted to himself earlier how calming Shulk's presence is. But it's a convenient enough excuse, isn't it?

"Maybe," Alvis lies, entirely too coy. "Yes, that must be it." A decisive conclusion, a satisfying end to the brief disquietude.

But Shulk is just as wise, and so he is not fooled. "You're lying! I can tell, your nose is all wrinkled up. That's what happens when you're saying something you know isn't totally true. That's pretty cute, Alvis, but you know you can't put one over on me. Not by this point."

His words are boisterous, playful, but his countenance still holds seriosity, the solemnity of lives lost, the meditation of what will come next. A reflection of Alvis's moods, in some ways. He's right: the scrunch can show alternately derision or deception, if not delusion. Astute and cautious observation, indeed.

How...audacious of Shulk, to take on his own categorical, analytical stance. To be the reassurer, and not the reassured; to be the requisite opposing force in a system so delicately balanced upon knowledge, and honesty, and...and understanding. The bridge between that very knowledge and honesty, it is.

"You're right," relents Alvis simply, septum smooth once more. "It is not...romantic anxiety that I feel. It is more of a general uncertainty about the world which we now inhabit. There is much yet to be seen."

"Oh." The gravity sets further. "I get that. I think most everyone does. Well, I've been told that it doesn't happen to absolutely everyone, much as we'd usually assume it does, but it's not uncommon. Definitely a regular everyday occurence for a Homs," Shulk concludes, laughing.

"But I'm not a Homs," Alvis points out uselessly. It's quite possibly the most straightforward thing he's ever said, and he feels, candidly, stupid for it.

"I know that," says Shulk. He leans down, places a soft kiss on the Core Crystal, then another on the tanned cheek. His hand is there in Alvis's to be squeezed in surprise. "But I think you've probably picked up a thing or two from us, along the way. And there's always more to learn. It'll be alright. I'm here with you."

Yes, now Alvis's heart vibrates for a clear reason, a highly apparent external factor. Does he tell Shulk so? No, not in the least. And it's not as if the benefactor of this new world - not a god, never a god, of course, of course - would mind seeing such another informational prompt present itself before him, he has made that much abundantly clear, but nevertheless. Some secrets are still worth keeping.