Kalos was on a mission. Her mission, because she did choose to accept it, was to interview people about love because there was a Love Holiday about to happen and she'd told her language tutor that love was dumb. The polyglot had looked 1 part amused, 1 part horrified, and also a little bit smug? Kalos had questions and after she'd said what she did, the teacher would not answer. She was given a notebook and a pencil and sent out the door to get her answers elsewhere.

She didn't want to approach just anyone. Yes, she'd been assured that the Mansion was safe, but she'd always distrusted the human-looking mutants. They probably had hidden meanness, just like they hid their best selves. Maybe she'd find someone small... but, would someone small know about love? Becca and Mirror obviously knew about love, she would probably have to ask them since they had a baby, even though they sometimes turned red when she asked.

Okay then. Kalos decided she would give literally anyone a chance. Scary or not. She marched to the most busy part of the Mansion (the kitchen), closed her eyes (no peeking), gave herself a spin (removing her bias), and put her hand out to see if she could walk into someone.

And once she did...

"Hi. I'm learning about love for the Valentine Day. When do you think people should kiss?" She had her pencil all ready to go...

The sandwich was halfway to his face. The sandwich was halfway to his face and inching towards his mouth. It was an Italian sub, on a hoagie, with all the best fixings. He had brought it from his favorite sandwich shop for the specific purpose of eating it after his training session. He was about to do so, when— a tiny pinkish young woman asked him about kissing.

Ashton stopped. He lowered the sandwich.

He shrugged. ”The sooner the better, I always say. Especially if she’s a 10.”

He turned away from the small child and bit messily into his Italian sub.

Ah. Yes. She got a human looking man so he must be a big liar. Kalos took a moment to absorb what he'd said because it made very little sense. Ten... what? Fingers? Almost everybody had that? His standards were seriously lacking. In fact, the more she tried to figure it out, the crazier her ideas were getting so once she'd worked herself into proper confusion she had to ask.

"I meant, how in love do you have to be? Like, ready to marry? Or when you're ready to have a baby maybe? Also, what's a ten? Can a boy be ten or only 'she's? Do I get a number?" She had about 50 more questions lined up in the chamber if he didn't stop her.

”Wow. So many questions.” He said, smiling around a mouthful of deliciousness. He chewed it over. Asked. ”How old are you?”

Ashton waited for a reply, then shrugged ”Guess that’s your number, then.”

Because he could be helpful. Oh so very helpful. But maybe he should actually give a real answer instead of being a smart ass?

”As far as kissing goes, kiddo. You don’t have to be in love. I can probably count the amount of times I’ve been in love on one hand. While holding a sandwich. Guess it helps, but it’s no requirement. People do wild things all the time.”

He got ready to take another bite, but stopped himself. ”Anything else?”

"I just turned fourteen." Spoken with the hesitancy of one who didn't exactly know her own birthday. But that was her answer... an answer that only served to prompt more questions. If the number was an age indication did that mean that this man was running around kissing ten year olds? Was he... allowed in here? With kids? She looked around, but they didn't usually get the real little ones. She also took a small step back. Juuuust in case.

He did, however, give a fantastic answer to the kissing conundrum.

"Thanks... I think." She definitely had more questions, but Kalos had to take a moment to write down some notes, otherwise she was going to lose some of them.

Rather than do that here, near a potential child predator, Kalos wandered toward a wall in the hallway.

While reading was still difficult, writing was near impossible. Especially when she heard footsteps coming toward her. Her first instinct was to bolt, but... she was still on a mission.

"Excuse me. Have you ever been in love? And how do you spell pedophile? "

Misson of the day: Get into the kitchen, get food, and get out without talking to anyone. There was a can or two of Ravioli in the cupboards screaming her name and her stomach was starting to get angry at her.

Juniper succeeded in the first and second parts of her mission went off without a hitch. She slunk in like a short shadow, reached through the cupboards, and grabbed for the cans she knew were there (that Xavier had explicitly forbade her from eating) had snagged a clean spoon from the dishwasher, and made a swift exit before anyone could catch her.


Mission accomplished! Now she just needed to get back to her room. She was currently in the process of peeling the metal lid off, when someone spoke up and caught her attention. She turned, already looking guilty like X would pop out at any second and catch her in the act of eating one of the forbidden fruits of the school, but it was just some girl. A very colorful girl. Holy @#$% Her eyes were pretty.

"...Huh?" She responded intelligently, dropping her spoon into her open can and shoving the sharp, goopy lid into the pocket of her hoodie. What had the girl asked? Something about being in love and-

...

She blinked a few times, temporarily stupified. Pedo...philes? She... actually didn't know how to spell that.

"Oh, uh. Yeah, sure. It's spelled D-E-A-D. Like they all should be." She smiled, perhaps a bit too pinched, and popped a sauce-covered spoon in her mouth.

....What had the kids other question been? Oh. Right... Something about love.

"I... have, actually. Yes." She dropped the spoon back in the can and blinked. "Why you askin?" The phaser leaned in a little to try and peek at what the girl was scribbling down.

D - E - A -

Kalos wrote her letters carefully until she realized that she was being pranked or made fun of somehow. "I'm pretty sure it starts with a P." She deadpanned. "And besides there's one just over there. He had a-" What was it called? Kalos tried to pantomime a sub sandwich and quickly gave up. "He had a crazy idea about how women can be ten or something and I told him I'm fourteen, but-"

Where had she been going with all this? Kalos wrinkled her nose in sheer frustration.

Ah right. LOVE.

> "I... have, actually. Yes."

"I have a school thing to learn about Valentines and love and stuff." Was she... Was she trying to look at Kalos' notes? Rude! Kalos scooted the paper down the hall wall so that she could better hide them with her body. There wasn't a lot there just yet, even if there was her handwriting was atrocious. "Do you have to be a certain age before it hits you? It hurts, right? I've heard love hurts."

She was nodding along, poking at her food, up until the kid pointed one out. A CAPITAL P in the school?! Her head whipped around at breakneck speed. Was she gonna have to put some pervert through a wall and then have one of the teachers flay him alive?

After a moment, she let her hackles back down. Maybe she'd run it past Saph or Becca or something later, just in case. "A ten? Oh. You met a chad. They try to place like, a value on women with a number, like... based on looks. Still sounds like a creep though."

She chewed on a mouthful of delicious cold ravioli as the girl explained. Valentine's day? Oh @#$% was that coming up again already? Did that mean she'd have to make cards and stuff? She didn't wanna.

Her expression slipped into a little bit of a frown with the next question, and Mason's face jumped to the forefront of her mind.

"Yeah... it can hurt." She forced a little bit of a smile around it. "A lot of people will tell you a lot of things... but it's different for everyone I think. I was about your age when I fell in love...I... I think, anyway."

"For me, it hurt a lot. I lost mine though. Probably doesn't hurt like that for everyone."

She shifted uncomfortably, "...Was that.. uh.. helpful?"

C - H - A - D. Kalos kept writing as best she could because this girl was also a goldmine of information. Oh. If the number was based on looks and the number was based on age.... then... he liked old people? He was an... old-a-phile? It sounded like Chads liked old people, then. She drew a line and wrote OLD LOVE, crossed out the start of writing "dead" and filled in a check next to "Love Hurts". Or should that have been a tally mark?

"WHAT!?" Kalos jumped, not having meant to blurt her words half as loudly as she did. She spoke the next words perhaps a bit too quiet just to make up for it. "You started loving someone when you were 14?" Geez. Did that... did that mean Kalos was actually quite far behind? She quickly wrote 14 and circled it. She REFUSED to put a heart around it.

"Do you-? You sound like you stopped loving? After you... lost? How'd you do that?" Yeah. That actually sounded quite important, actually. If she could shut down any love someone tried to send her way, then she didn't have to love anyone!

"Like, you have to want to be in love to be in love, right?" RIGHT!? Because they told her that she didn't have to do things that she didn't want to do any more.

Her smile crawled back a little. "I did." Juniper had no clue who this kid was, but she was adorable that was for sure. "That's not how it happens for everyone, but for me it did. Most people think it's pretty young." Herself included.

She shifted on her feet again, stuffing one hand in a pocket of her coat and encountering the gooey lid again. Whelp. That hand wasn't coming back out until she was away from people. "I haven't. I feel like- uh, for me at least, it's hard to stop loving? Like... It's still there, but the person I love died, so... it just hurts... Because I still want him here. You know?"

She forced a wide grin to keep the feelings at bay, the ones that were etched on the inside of her ribs, close by her heart. "Yup! It's gotta be something that you feel. It's not something that anyone else can make you feel." She paused, reflecting on her current feelings and the general sense of Bleh that came with them.

"Yeah, you can stop loving. That's normal. People fall out of love all the time, too. It's not like a... uh... lifetime thing, all the time. Not like in fairytales."

"...Annnnd, even if you do fall in love sometimes, you don't have to like... act on it? Sometimes people like to love someone without being in a relationship or whatever. Sometimes people fall in love and they don't wanna be. You don't gotta do anything you don't wanna, and anyone who tells you different sucks and shouldn't be listened to."

She heard someone call out her name behind her and full-body flinched.

"Gottagohopeithelped!"

And then she took off in a sprint, very obviously trying to evade the one who had spotted her.

Xavier had been checking the mail when he'd gotten a text on his phone. Now, mind you, checking the mail at the mansion wasn't as simple as checking it at your house. For one, there was much more of it. For two, student's didn't typically do it. He'd run out of helpful things to do for the day, though, so an exasperated teacher had just given him the keys and said 'knock yourself out!'

He flew the whole way, of course. He'd managed to cover much of the mansion's main outside paths when it came to touch tagging the land. Sporting the bag over his shoulder like a postal santa, he smiled as he saw who the chime had come from. Megan!

What did Megan have to say? His eyes widened.

It was the ravioli alert. Someone, Somewhere, was eating ravioli directly out of the can without cooking it. He was needed in the kitchen. Going into super hero flying mode, he shot through the mansion's front door, pausing only to open it for a student coming inside and to hand off the mail and key to the confused teacher, and then floated over head toward the kitchen.

"Juniiii!" He called out as he pushed through the door to the fairly busy kitchen, and landed in a heroic pose, hands on his hips. "You really aren't supposed to eat it out of the can!"

He only saw the very edge of his neighbor as she disappeared through the wall... "Gosh... She knows I would cook for her..." Maybe if he got started on something, she would show up? There were plenty of people who looked hungry in here, after all!

Love hurt, and yet she was smiling.

The woman harbored a soft smile that changed the sadness in her eyes to... to what? Kalos added to her notes about sad love. That was a thing, and yet another reason to A-V-O-I-D love. How did she still love a dead guy? It just... didn't quite add up. ESPECIALLY once she said that you could stop loving people.

”Whu-? Bu-!” She was torn between asking more and taking more notes. If Kalos could write faster, this really wouldn’t be an issue but…. But… UGH. Kalos chose to write notes when the woman turned, slurred out a kind-of apology, and ran like Kerberus himself was coming to reclaim her escaped soul. She could have caught her if she wanted, but the next guy was already helpfully showing up. And… offering to cook something?

”I like food.” She helpfully supplied as she grabbed her notepad off the wall. She had loots of questions now. ”Hey, how do you know if you’re in love? And, why do people say it’s “falling”? Like, you can’t just accidentally happen to love a dude, right?”

Juniper was gone, but Megan had said she would rat her out when ever she was sneaking about, because it was hilarious. He wasn't sure why it was, but he'd happily accept the help! The possibilites of his future help with his old friend, who was dealing with some things, put a wide smile on his face.

He blinked a few times as a little voice chimed in. He looked down a bit, and tilted his head. "Oh! cool! I was just about to make some!" He eyed the much shorter student and tapped his temple a couple of times. "Kalos! Kalos, right? I've seen you, but haven't had a chance to say hi! I'm Xavier!"

His bright smile faltered a little when she started immediately talking about love. "Uh- uhm- uh- wha-hahum?" Questions. Child was asking questions. Answer questions Helpful. Hard questions. Must be helpful. "Yeah! Yes. I um... Well.. I don't know? I guess... You just sort of know when you know!" He thought about Elke, her determined frown, her tendency to hide a need to care under a million layers of salt. She asked a hard follow up question.

"Oh, well... Falling sorta makes sense, because you don't have a lot of control over it? You don't pick who you love, so... yeah! I guess you just... do accidently happen to... I mean, my girlfriend stabbed me in the kidney with a pocket knife the first time I met her. By all accounts I shouldn't want to be near her, and I lo- I mean... I, uh, umh, I like her a lot!" Was he sweating? It was hot in here.

He tugged at his collar a little. "It's not as bad as it sounds, the stabbing thing. She had bigger knives she could have- Hey, you said you wanted food, right?" You know... On paper, maybe just a little, his relationship with Elke had some red flags...

She'd been so focused on her notes and her mission that she hadn't stopped to worry about how very tall and... big he was. Xavier. She swallowed hard. He looked really innocuous and those were often the worst kinds of mutants. They were always hiding something. Like how he tapped his temple before he said her name. Was he... was he reading her mind!? Or making fun of her!? He only made non-sense sounds after she'd asked him about love.

Or... or had that been Chinese? She wasn't good at recognizing most non-Greek rooted languages just yet.

"Do you have somebody...?" He gave a kind of non-answer, but he did get a far away look on his face like his mind was elsewhere. Of course, if he was actually psychic his mind really could be somewhere else.

Eventually he got his thoughts in order enough to answer.

Kalos opened her mouth. Kalos closed her mouth.

"Who hurt you?" It was possible she heard wrong. He seemed to be sweating... or shining. If he started sparkling Kalos was going to run just like Juni had. "You love someone who tried to kill you?"

She held Xavier's gaze for a long while before answering the question about food with an uncertain little nod.

Was he... nervous?

"The girl before? You said she was Juni," she wrote that down, "she said you don't have to love people if you don't want to. AND you can quit loving people if you want." He sounded like, maybe he needed to hear that part?

Did he have somebody. He smiled. Yes. Yes he did. Decidedly. He nodded firmly, crouching down a little to be closer to eye level with the Coral girl. "She hurt me, but it was a misunderstanding. Sometimes there are misunderstandings. Granted, stabbing isn't normal, but she was also a lot younger at the time, and apparently in a bit of a stabbing phase." He wasn't sure she'd fully grown out of it yet.

Taking a bit of a breath and centering himself, He took a quick look around the room. You never know if Elke was nearby. She couldn't hear what he was about to say. "I love someone who is full of energy and conviction, who never backs down, and stands by her morals without fail. I love someone I admire! And yes, she tried to maim me once."

She nodded at food. "Great! What do you want?" He turned to start digging through pots, pans and the like, looking back as she spoke before turning back to rummage as he replied. "Juni's my best friend! I guess she goes about it her own way. I don't know if it's really that easy from what I've seen... Not every love lasts forever, but once you do fall in love with someone, it's not exactly like there is an off switch to it you can just flick." He thought about his parents... Their many arguments over the years. How his mom's sickness brought them all back together for that short time... He stopped digging for a second, and frowned to himself.

By the time he turned back to Kalos, he had a warm smile on his face. "I think love is hard work sometimes, but if you can make it work, it is absolutely the best thing ever! Word's can't really explain it."