The forecast for the day had said that the sun would shine on the heavens for most part of the day with chances of partially clouding late in the afternoon. Wrong, the real deal would be cloudy with a good chance of rain in the late afternoon. Alexander knew very well how the weather forecast would be at least 99% of the time. He had again found himself out in the garden, where he spent most of his time whenever he wanted to go outside of the school. Though he would sometimes go out other places, those places would normally offer a roof over your head and offered to sell you clothes. Due to the nature of his powers, he had never really taken the time to practice using his powers, instead just focused on keeping it in control so that he wouldn't accidentally feel like changing the weather.

The sun that the forecast had predicted was on the sky, but Alexander knew that the shifting was already set in motion. It wasn't even mid afternoon, the meteorologists really had to work on predicting the weather, especially the fast changing ones. He like so many liked the feel of water, and the rain, but hates getting wet. It's not fun when you walk outside all cold an wet from a sudden downpour.

Alexander had walked out from the mansion and walked over to a bench not far away. There he got comfortable while sitting in a half lotus position. Looking up at the sky, a breeze appeared suddenly. it was intentional of course. He knew that his powers needed fine tuning, and at the moment this part of his powers had certain limitations. manipulating the weather to create winds yes, but he couldn't control the wind, but make it appear he could. Perhaps a little drizzle could be fun to conjure? Then again he didn't feel like having that in there just at the moment.

He took deep breaths. Eyeing the area he didn't see anyone at the moment being close enough to him to actually be too affected by the weather effects in his own little 'bubble' of sorts. It could perhaps be strange that there was wind in the hair of one person in the garden, while there was hardly any movement in the leaves of the trees. A little smile appeared on his face. The movement in his hair became more forceful, and nothing felt better than the wind blowing through your hair, except clean bed sheets of course.

Juka was planning on a nice quiet day of reading. He had given up with trying to read about and learn the game of chess as an abysmally failed experiment but had not given up on books. Nope not given up those at all, in fact he had only recently discovered that he quite enjoyed them. Even if his brief foray into the wide world of chess had been a failure in every sense of the word he had, at least, gotten one thing out of it and that was the library. The library filled with rows upon rows of hundreds and thousands of books on any topic that he could possibly hope to dream of.

Today's topic of the day was going to be the country of Finland. Juka current plan was to research everything there ever was to know about the country, learn to speak Finnish, and then go float over there for a visit. How feasible this plan was he didn't really stop to think though something at the back of his mind whispered that, floating bubble or no, it probably wasn't all that practical of a plan. Still, a little thing like what was practical and what wasn't had never stood in his way before and he most certainly was not going to let it stand in his way now.

A book in his hands and five more books floating in five bubbles around him, Juka floated from the library all the way back to the Mansion, looking for a nice place to sit and read for a few hours. His plan, of course, was to find a little patch of sun on top of the Mansion roof because that would, hopefully, stop his usual problem of allowing people to distract him due to the fact that most people didn't tend to spend much time on the roof. Unfortunately for him and grand book reading plans, people, or at the very least one person, distracted him anyway

"Alexander," he yelled out, spotting a familiar face below him. He floated over to the other man, books above his head and a grin upon his face. Last time they had met Juka hadn't exactly been his usual bubbly self. This time he was back to normal, at least when he managed to keep his brain from brooding.

The wind made whistling sounds in his ears. but he was starting to concentrate harder and therefore he couldn't get a chance to really make too much connection the sounds around him. Although he could feel the wind, he felt as though the awareness of his surroundings weakened as he had too little practice. Though he could see rather well, other senses such hearing seemed to be weakened while making the wind blow. Perhaps there was some strange limitation to his powers and body that he couldn't completely understand yet. It sort of seemed boring to make it blow, it always did, perhaps a little snow, or a little hail would be more fun. Then again he had so much difficulties with raising and lowering the temperature in the atmosphere that it would be better to just do something about it another time.


Through the wishing of the wind, he could hear his name being yelled out. It broke his concentration, leaving him a bit puzzled. He turned his head in multiple directions before he saw a person he sort of knew. Juka. The first, and also previous time that he had met Juka he had been wearing a strange outfit for a man. Though the outfit seemed better, it was still something he himself would never have been caught wearing. "Hi Juka" he said back, a bit louder than normal speaking sound. Standing up from the bench to wave, his left foot had fallen asleep making him a bit wobbly. "How are you? It seems you are a tad bit more cheerful this time around." He smiled as he shook his left foot a little. "Been to the library?" Alexander asked him, noticing the books floating around Juka.

Juka was happily oblivious to the changes in wind speed betweent he library and the Mansion. The state of oblivion was due mainly to the fact that inside his bubble, the outside weather conditions simply didn't affect him. Oh, he enjoyed a good storm for the wind fueled ride that it provided and he wasn't certain whether or not his bubble coule protect him from a tornado or a hurricane, but outside of that he was pretty much always comfortable and happy inside his bubble. The books floating in their mini bubbles were likewise protected, even from the most torrential of downpoors. Because he was unaware of the change in wind speed, he was also unaware of the source of said change.

"I'm doing much better now," Juka beamed, landing his bubble nearby. The last time he had met Alex had been shortly after Aura's attack on him and that had been a most unhappy experience. "My bubbles work properly again and I discovered the library," he agreed, nodding contentedly. "Say, have you ever been to Finland? And can you speak Finnish?" Now if he were to somehow stumble upon someone who could actually speak Finnish that would make his plans much more feasable to actually accomplish. "And how are you, by the way?"

It was a good thing that Juka was feeling better than the last time they spoke. If he hadn't, Alexander probably wouldn't have gotten a good second impression of him. Perhaps he would even think of him as being just a depressed guy with a lot of problems. Not that his own life was a lot better. "Glad to hear it" Alexander said to him as a response to Juka. The last time they had spoken it seemed as Juka had problems with his powers, being stuck in his bubble, if this wasn't the case anymore then it was surely something good. At least Juka had gotten in touch with his powers unlike himself. "I love reading books, more than watching TV, even though I think I sometimes have the habit of watching TV more than I read books." Smiling awkwardly he looked at the other bubbles containing the books, seeing titles having Finland and similar on it. It certainly explained a lot about what Juka said next.

Had he ever been to Finland? No. The only countries he had been to was Spain, France and The US. Though one could say he could count in South Korea, after all he was born there, though he couldn't remember anything from that time he was a baby. "Sorry, I've never been to Northern Europe, and the only thing I know of Finnish is, I think terv, or terve, I'm not sure on how you pronounce it." Again, awkward, just not the same awkward. "I read it online, where I just googled random phrases in different languages, oh and it means 'hi' by the way." He added. it was something he always did, adding explanations to things he had said. Thinking it would make it sound less random or strange, though it never really worked.


How was he? An honest answer would be frustrated and annoyed with a small hint of desperation. "Well, could have been better I guess, but for the time being I think I am pretty well off." A little lie for the better good, he didn't really know how interested Juka would find it hearing about other people's problems. "I was just sitting here practising the use of my powers until you came over actually." Though he didn't know why he said that, but at least it was better than to start talking about certain feelings about the whole thing. He took a deep breath and sighed a little before he finally smiled at Juka.

"Books are portals to whole other worlds," Juka agreed sagely. Even if his reading hobby had only began in the last month, that didn't mean he didn't believe what he was saying. Despite not being much of a reader growing up, he'd never been much for television either. It was simply so much better to go out and actually do things than it was to watch shows about other people doing them. Occasionally it was good for an idea or two, but aside from that he'd always considered it to be something of a waste of time.

"Well that's one more word than I know in Finnish," Juka stated with a grin. Today was actually to be the day that he began his Finland research and the country itself, if he were honest, was chosen more or less at random. Hunter had suggested he go and visit other places and, unlike the vampire's chess suggestion, he had actually taken to that. Finland just sort of sounded like a good place to start. "I am, however completely fluent in Japanese," Juka stated in Japanese. Probably not surprising given the fact that he obviously was Japanese but it was still relatively rare in America to speak more than one language.

"And what glorious powers would you have, my dear?" Juka asked, in obvious interest. He loved observing other mutant powers in all their wondrous glory and infanent variety. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Alexander agreed with Juka on how books could be thought of as a pathway to a new and more exciting world. You had to really use your own imagination to picture what you read. It was different from TV, where you just see what is in front of you. Sometimes reading a book was good for Alexander, running away into a different place, time and often magical, leaving all problems aside for at least a short time. During his childhood he often used this type of entertainment to occupy himself. At school he wasn't exactly well liked, leaving him with only a few friends that he had met through non school activities.

"It's difficult to learn languages the older you get, so if you have a need to learn a lot of languages, I guess it's just as well you do it now." Smiling he let his eyes drift around. First at a rather large bush some meters away, then at the bubbles, and back at Juka. "Can I ask you why you are so interested in learning Finnish?" Alexander asked him curiously. It surely had to be some sort of motivation behind it, or just a sudden burst of interest. When Juka began speaking in a foreign tongue, it suddenly came over Alexander that of course Juka wasn't really American, though he didn't understand what Juka said, he thought that it could have sounded Japanese. "Was that Japanese?" He asked Juka, being bilingual wasn't that special, even though it wasn't exactly something one could experience a lot in The US. At the school however there were several non-Americans that spoke more than one language. "My native tongue is Spanish, I guess it's not as uncommon as knowing Japanese but I'll live." Laughing awkwardly he scratched an itch on his cheek.

Glorious power? It wasn't exactly that glorious. Juka could at least block out the rain, fly around and carry things with his bubble. If he wanted to block out the rain he had to actually make the rain stop, and he couldn't exactly fly and he couldn't carry around books but rather blast them off with a strong wind, probably leaving the pages damaged. "Well, to keep it simple, I can basically change the weather. I can manipulate the atmosphere." It wasn't as simple as it could sound, there were a lot of limitations, and if he suddenly changed the weather over a larger area it wouldn't exactly go unnoticed. "I don't know what experience you have with this sort of powers, so I don't know how you could help."

"But its easier to learn other languages if you all ready know more than one, so I guess that means I'm half way there, right?" Maybe the logic wasn't quite the most sound, but it made sense in Juka's head if nowhere else. "I want to learn Finnish so that I can go visit Finland, of course." Didn't that fact seem perfectly obvious? Why else would he need to learn an obscure European language if not to go visiting an obscure European country?

"Why, of course it was Japanese," Juka agreed, beaming. It was a shame, though, that the man didn't appear to actually speak the language of his birth. So few did around there and he always enjoyed a chance to converse in his native tongue. "Spanish sounds like a lovely language to know. Maybe I'll learn it after I'm done learning Finnish and go visit some place in South America. I hear the rain forests are beautiful." One of the advantages in knowing you would live forever is that it was possible to make plans like that. If he had eternity then he may as well use it towards something fun like learning new languages.

"Don't be so modest," Juka scolded, though the scolding was done with a casual grin so as to not be taken completely seriously. "I happen to know plenty of people who would love to be able to control the weather." Even if they hadn't specifically told him as much, it sounded like an awesome power so he was sure it was true. "Does that mean you can make storms?" The hope was obvious in his voice. There was nothing quite so entertaining as a bubble ride in the middle of a wind storm.

"Well, if that's the case go ahead and learn Finnish, but just so you know, I am pretty sure most of Finland's population speak English, except old people and babies" It did seem rather strange to go through all the trouble of learning to speak Finnish. There was only one country in the world spoke it, and it being a rather small country, at least population wise. At least this was what he seemed to have remembered from geography lessons. "And perhaps it is easier to learn languages if you are bilingual, now that I think of it, I could sort of call myself trilingual, if I count Catalan as a language, then again I understand it better than I can speak it, does that count?" The international school he went to had a rather poor education when it came to Catalan, that and the fact that he moved away leaving behind most of what he had learned.

Though Alexander was glad he had guessed correctly that it was Japanese, he couldn't help but to feel a little saddened by it. How would his situation be if he had been adopted by Koreans? Or even Japanese or Chinese. It could have ended up with him never coming to America, he could have ended up with poor English skills, or no knowledge of English whatsoever. "Spanish is an okay language to know, I only really spoke it at home after I moved here." It wasn't like he didn't want to speak Spanish more often, but the lack of Spanish speakers around him made it difficult. "As I've never been to South America I wouldn't know, but I'm sure the rainforest is quite extraordinary." He smiled, growing up he had hardly gone anywhere on vacations, having a father that was quite busy with work left them quite limited with time as a family. Other than a week long vacation to Paris, they hadn't had any other vacations outside of Spain, other than the time they left Spain for the US.

Alexander sat down on the bench again, crossing his legs he looked up at Juka. "I'm not being modest, so hold your fire." It wasn't as if Juka could possibly understand the seriousness of how the weather worked, not even he completely understood. Ignorance was perhaps the reason to why he had so much difficulties in the first place, why he wasn't brave enough to explore the true limitations of his powers. "But I guess I should be more bold." He turned his head away from Juka, and concentrated on straightening out some wrinkling that had occurred on his shirt. "Storms? I don't know, I haven't tried before, it would have to be pretty small scale if it were to be the case." Alexander couldn't wonder but why why Juka had asked him just that. The tone of his voice had seemed to emit some sort of longing for a confirmation, and though Alexander had made a storm before, it should perhaps be possible. He could manipulate the weather after all.

As Alex began explaining his own lingual experience, Juka had a sudden epiphany. "I have a wonderful idea!" He grinned at Alex, his enthusiasm showing in both voice and expression. "Who needs Finnish when there's Spanish in the world? I'm sure there are plenty of fascinating Spanish countries. And you, my dear man, are in need of some Japanese lessons. Therefore, I propose a trade: Spanish lessons in exchange for Japanese lessons!" It seemed a brilliantly simple solution that would not only teach Juka a new and interesting language leading to visiting a new and interesting place, but would also allow both himself and Alex a chance to practice their native tongues.

Juka could see by his expression that Alex was a little confused by his excitement at the prospect of creating a storm. "When you have a floating bubble, storms are like the best roller coaster ever," he tried to explain. It was, perhaps, one of those things better experienced that spoken about, however and he wasn't certain just how well his explanation got across. He tried to clarify. "I just let the wind take control of my bubble and it pretty much creates the ride on its own." Maybe not much better of an explanation, but it was the best he had at that exact moment. Maybe he'd be able to show it off sometime later.

"Powers get better with practice," Juka offered the advice to Alex. Admittedly he knew pretty much nothing about the weather, probably even less than both since his bubble made it almost entirely irrelevant, but he did know a little something about mutant powers. It wasn't just his own powers either, which he knew from experience practice made better, but the powers of others too. He also knew, however, that no matter how much one practiced one couldn't simply 'learn' the powers of others. He would know. He'd tried. And failed. Completely. To this day he still couldn't turn into an amazing flying griffin.

Juka didn't exactly seem like the perfect example of someone who stuck behind their current obsessions. Why did Juka even think Alexander was even remotely interested in learning Japanese? It hadn't even crossed his mind to learn Japanese. If anything it should be Korean. "I don't know Juka, Japanese? I would be happy to help teach you Spanish, but I haven't really thought about learning Japanese before." He paused, could it be that Juka thought that Alexander was of Japanese origin? "Perhaps I could take you up on your offer, I guess knowing Japanese could come in handy, it seems a lot of people around here speak it, though I might have trouble finding someone to teach me Korean." Though Alexander was beginning to find Juka's enthusiasm to be a bit intimidating.

A floating bubble? Did he really intend on having Alexander create a storm just to give Juka his own roller-coaster ride? Seemed more like a joke. Though the thought was brilliant, he hadn't ever done anything like it, and what if it wouldn't be enough power? His main concern on the other hand; what would happen if the 'storm' went out of control. In the back of his head he couldn't stop picturing Juka in one of his bubble's spinning around in a tornado with a puddle of puke staining his dress. "Are you sure it would even work?" Alexander asked him reluctantly.

Of course he would say that, everyone said that. Practice makes perfect. Did he even know how difficult it was to practice when your powers involved manipulating the weather? It was a good thing he didn't get in fights like some of the other residents seemed to do, he would be virtually pretty bad. While many of them seemed to train themselves in all sorts of martial arts, or other brutal forms of battling. He only had his former gymnastic training, and specializing in the pommel horse had given him better upper strength yes, but he wasn't at all cut out for battles. When it came to weather powers, he could always soak them down with water or a small blizzard, but what could would that do when it could just as well affect a smaller area and if it went out of control, affect even him.

Pausing slightly, he concentrated. A sudden outburst of rain appear around them, but it didn't affect or people that was chatting on the other end by a bench close to the mansion wall. "You see, I can make it rain quite easily, but in doing so I interupt the natural flow of the atmosphere for a short while, doing so in a long period of time could have bad consequences for other areas. One don't always mess with mother nature, you make a deal." Maybe Juka would understand, or perhaps he wouldn't. "If you want a stom, perhaps it could be manageable. But we would have to move further away from the mansion, I wouldn't want to create a storm so close to the building in case something went wrong." What was life without a little safe risking? After all the complaining about how his life had turned into some boring predictable schedule, this was the least he could do.

"Japanese is a lovely language," Juka insisted. "But if you don't want to learn Japanese, I'm sure I could find you someone that would be willing to teach you Korean." One advantage to being a socialite is that one knew many different people from all sorts of walks of life and Juka was certainly no exception to that particular rule. He couldn't think of anyone he associated with, off the top of his head, that spoke Korean but he was certain if he didn't know anyone directly someone would know someone and they'd be easy enough to get in contact with. Either that, or perhaps someone would show up at one of his shows. These sorts of things just sort of had a habit of working out.

Juka caught Alex's rather dubious look at his suggestion and grinned. Some people really did have a lot to learn, now didn't they. "Darling, of course it would work. I've done this sort of thing before, in real storms. I could even bring you along for the ride if you wanted." Although he wasn't sure the other man was the crazy rollar coaster riding type, sometimes it was hard to tell with people. Most loved his bubble rides but some, especially those with a fear of heights, weren't much of a fan. Their loss, as always.

Juka didn't really understand the entirety of the weather control descritption and the potential conseuqneces, but what he did understand was that they should be in a place with fewer people to avoid potentially nasty consequences. Thankfully nasty consequences weren't something he had to worry much about with his own powers, with the exception of Andrea and her wiggly hair. He still wasn't entirely sure how that had even happened though.

"There's a lovely patch of forest a few miles out of the city," Juka suggested. Actually, it was probably more than a few miles since it had taken him a few hours to float there. That, and he had no idea if it was private or public property. He just sort of floated until he found a place that looked nice and landed there. "Maybe we can go there some time?" Oh, how much glorious fun that would be.

It wasn't really a question about Japanese or Korean. No one said he couldn't learn both. Was it even worth knowing Korean? Did he want to go to the country where he was born and where his biological parents didn't even want him? "Don't worry about it, I accept your lessons. Learning Japanese, I think will be more useful than Korean anyway, and Korean is difficult, I've tried. Pronunciation is an awful affair." Smiling slightly, he could hide the feeling of taking too much weight over his shoulders. Sure he was quite hard working, and could learn things easily, but what about Juka? Was he even up for it, or was it just something he said?

If there was one thing he knew, it was that he could never enjoy being inside a bubble riding a storm. Maybe if it was a storm he hadn't made. If he made it, being inside a bubble would make him lose his concentration, and thus there would be no storm. "I think I'll pass on that, roller coaster rides make me a bit sick." Alexander said as an excuse. "I can't exactly ride my own storm either, can't focus, and with no focus it's either no storm or utter chaos."

When Juka said patch of forest, Alexander couldn't exactly picture a forest and a storm colliding well together. Personally he had the idea of a large field in mind. But as long as it was outside of New York City. you didn't exactly get a whole lot of privacy as you ventured outside in the city. Even though the school was scarily close to some of the poorest areas in America. With its crime, and not much movement outside, still would have alarmed people of a storm. The parks too, often people were there, either relaxing, or getting mugged or worse. Probably due to this that a lot of mutant activity happened around parks. More room, and a meeting point at that. "Well, just name the time, it's not like I have a life." The words that escaped his mind. Three years earlier those words would never have been said. A time of enjoying friendship, when he actually had a whole bunch of friends that was.

"Yeah, totally, could be real fun" Alexander responded to Juka, who today seemed to be a bit too happy about everything. Using words like glorious, calling him darling. From the beginning he could tell Juka was a strange person, but what did he expect from someone that liked dressing up in dresses? "As long as you don't leave me stranded with cows, or pigs I'm up for anything." He lied. What if they got in trouble for doing something foolish? Or hurt by flying branches hitting him in the head. 'best to pack a first aid box' Alexander thought to himself.

Juka nodded at Alex's insistence on passing up the idea of a storm bubble ride. It wasn't a surprise, really, but the man clearly didn't know what he was missing. Some people just weren't up for a little adventure in their lives, which was too bad for them. The idea that creating a storm took concentration was similarly not much of a surprise. He knew that many mutants required large amounts of concentration for their powers to work and even many of his own powers required similar levels of concentration, mainly his time control abilities.

"My dear lad, sometimes you just need to take a little risk in life, have a little fun. You would be surprised where you end up." Juka winked, remembering some of his own youthful adventures. When he had first started dressing in elaborate dresses, that had been an adventure all on its own, complete with roller coaster-like ups and downs. His parents were a definite down but his friends and acquiescence were both definite ups. "You can't expect things to happen magically without going on a limb to get them, right?"

Juka giggled at the idea of leaving Alex, or anyone else for that matter, stranded with the cows. "Don't worry, I promise not to leave you alone with any cows, man eating or otherwise." Forests, Juka knew, often had to weather storms and even though there were sometimes flying branches or the occasional falling tree, if they were in areas used to storms then the trees were adapted to dealing with them. Having lived in Seattle for a good portion of his life, he was used to natural storms. Besides, when storm riding, it wasn't like he was sitting in the middle of all those trees. He was far above them, having the time of his life. Of course, if Alex was the one creating the storm and wasn't able to ride his bubble at the same time, maybe they should find a more open place with fewer potential falling branches...

Alexander could think of multiple places he could end up if he took a little risk. Prison was one of them, and getting tattoed or dropping the soap didn't exactly interest him. The real risk he should have taken would have been to go to college, or perhaps going to auditions for TV stuff. "Not all are such free spirits like you Juka." Alexander tried smiling a little, but decided halfway through that he wasn't finished speaking. "I'm not like you, I like being safe, organized and planned, in fact I haven't ever been good at.. you know winging it."

Everyone had the right to be sceptical to certain thing. Some liked to think one step ahead, others two, three steps ahead. Though Juka had valid points. What good did was doing nothing, when you were 40 looking back at memories of your youth? "I do sometimes I wish I was more like you, not afraid to embrace who I am." Alexander admitted. Alexander didn't exactly find it very funny to have Juka giggle by the thought of leaving him stranded. Would he have found it funny if he had actually left Alexander in a place with muddy fields and.. animals. "Thanks, I do hope you do hold your words true, and I'll try my best to give you nice blasts of wind to toss you round the place." Alexander chuckled,

"Juka, if you don't mind me asking." He started, and then pausing, giving out small mutters, while trying to think of the best way to continue. "Uhm, why do you wear dresses? You aren't a transvestite or something?" Alexander couldn't help asking. It was a question he had wondered since the first time they had met, but he hadn't had the guts to ask it back then.