[ToxicShadow]

The day had started out like normal for Pulsation, nothing out of the ordinary. He had woken up around ten in the morning, much later than most of his roommates that were almost all female and all known to be early risers. As always, the moment he awoke, his ears were filled with dance music, heavily leaning toward the trance and techno genre, as it played all day and all night long. He'd long since learned to not even notice it, or how it would probably make people even without sensitive hearing cringe. His plans for the day were simple ones: to not leave his bed, which was firmly planted in the corner of his room, as always, and to avoid everyone as much as possible. It would be just like every other day of his existence in this world.



Of course, when the door to his room burst wide open, the music shutting off entirely that instant, with a, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Go on a date with us!" shouted loud and clear, he'd realized that his simple plans for the day were utterly ruined. Mentally, he sighed. "What ever do you mean, Sweetheart?" He'd finally managed to get out, after his mind attempted to process what was happening and what "us," could have possibly meant.

His daughter, a young girl no older than ten and a very innocent sort, put her hands on the edge of her father's bed and leaned in so she was very close to his face. "Auntie Elle wants to take me on a date, and I want you to go with us!" Ekkoh declared, smiling brilliantly.

"A date?" he repeated, his voice not particularly revealing any feeling.

"I told her that I wanted to go on a date for Valentine's Day," his daughter further explained. "So she said we would go! But it would be much more fun if you went, too, Daddy!"

[ToxicShadow]

What Pulsation didn't know but his daughter did know was that Hypolight, the very same person that Ekkoh had grown up calling "Auntie Elle," was very much in love with him. Ekkoh didn't have a mother to begin with, save for knowing that she was carried inside some woman's womb and held half of her genetics, but Hypolight had immediately taken up the role of her mother figure. After all, she was Pulsation's closest friend and, though he wouldn't often admit it, really the only person that he could trust. It was only at her side that he was brave enough to leave behind his reclusive ways for just a little while. In raising Ekkoh, she had been invaluable, and loved the child like her own.

One day, when Hypolight had taken her out for lunch and an afternoon of shopping, she had asked, "Auntie Elle, do you love my daddy?" Though the woman had tried to pretend at first that she and Ekkoh's father were only really close friends, the girl didn't buy it, so she eventually told her the truth. Though the little girl also promised not to tell. It was a very important secret.

"Are you sure it wouldn't be more fun without me?" Pulsation asked, raising an eyebrow curiously at the girl. Though he already knew that there was absolutely no way that he could turn his daughter down, he still had to ask. After all, he was notoriously known to most as the party pooper, the one that was dull and uninteresting to be around.

Ekkoh was quiet for a moment longer than usual, having to lean back away from her father's face in order to know what he was saying. The girl was actually born entirely deaf, unable to hear her father's voice or even her own, though everything that was spoken appeared before her as letters that formed words floating in the air. No one else saw them, of course, it was only her strange special ability. It was something that she had actually inherited from her birth mother, whom had been blind but was able to see auras.

"Of course, Daddy! Haven't you realized that Auntie Elle loves being around you?" Intentionally, she didn't outright say that Hypolight loved him, because not only had she promised not to, but she obviously wanted her father to become less dense and realize it for himself.

[ToxicShadow]

Needless to say, Pulsation had lost the battle against his daughter's wishes, particularly when she was fueled with even more excitement when Hypolight appeared at the door, picnic basket in hand. "You'd better hurry up you two, before it gets too late," she had called out to them, clearly wanting to get out of the house before noon to spend the entire afternoon out. The scene had left him to marvel a little over the fact that people actually used picnic baskets at all. He'd never seen it before and didn't think that they were all that practical in this day and age, not that he would argue with either of them.

Regardless, as the woman left to continue her own preparations for their mysterious date, Ekkoh had been so very helpful as to pick out her father's clothes for him, down to the purple and black swimming trunks, rather than any other of the few that he had in his possession, that never really got any use. He was quite certain that all of his swim trunks were gifts or purchased by force, since he didn't particularly ever feel the need or urge to go swimming on his own accord. Sure, there was a huge lake just outside of his home, but he was quite content primarily living in the corner of his bedroom and never seeing the light of day. In fact, the last time he could really remember swimming actively was when he and Hypolight were teaching Ekkoh how to swim without her floaties or life vest on. He'd never thought swimming to be all that fun, but was aware that it was a valuable skill for one to have in the way of water related accidents.

Down in the kitchen, Hypolight was packing away the last of the lunches and snacks that she had spent all of the morning preparing. She'd decided to take a particular twist with the meals today, something to surprise her dates, taking an Eastern influence and making box lunches, as they were referred as. This included the popular snacks of pocky and even mochi, which she was hoping would delight Ekkoh with their oddities and that, perhaps, Pulse would at least enjoy them.

[ToxicShadow]

Arriving at the scene, it was an oddity to that rather than Pulsation and Hypolight each holding the hands of the child, Ekkoh, it was Ekkoh and Pulsation both holding onto Hypolight. To be exact, Hypolight had her arm wrapped around Pulsation's arm, as he carried the well stocked picnic basket in his other hand, while Ekkoh clung onto the woman's other hand, half skipping. This worked, because the woman was actually sort of hauling Pulsation along, as she usually had to do, if he ever left the house. In a way, she was his security blanket, and it had just always been that way. At least she didn't have to hold his hand and pull him along anymore.

"All right, this is good!" The young woman declared, removing her hand from Pulse's arm and letting Ekkoh's hand go, only after asking the child, "Would you like to help me set up, sweetheart?" The girl nodded enthusiastically as she skipped toward her daddy and he put the basket down for her to get into. She pulled out the picnic blanket from the basket, it not the classic check patterned blanket, but actually being black with huge splashes of neon color in a floral pattern. "This suits you well, Auntie Elle," she said as she and the woman unfolded it and laid it out on the grass. Hypolight chuckled softly, as Ekkoh excitedly smoothed out any lumps in the blanket. "Well, thank you~" The woman couldn't help but to smile, and the same went for the man, though he remained silent as he watched the two. Once again, he found himself thinking of how well Hypolight and his daughter got along, and how he was glad that they both had her in their lives. He was certain that neither of them would have been doing so well without her around to care.

[ToxicShadow]

Their blanket all set, Hypolight gestured for them both to take a seat, "Make yourselves comfortable." She, too, sat, legs folded beneath her as she settled the basket close to her and began emptying its contents. Pluse settled in, legs crossed as one might have done in their earliest school years, when a teacher would ask their students to sit on the carpet. Ekkoh, on the other hand, sort of flopped down on the blanket, sitting so that she was between the two adults, though she settled in by mimicking the woman.

Hypolight passed out decorative tea cups, made of hard plastic, to each as well as taking one for herself. As she poured out her homemade fruit tea from a canister into each cup, the others each spoke a, "thank you." Then, she began to distribute the various lunch boxes across the blanket, which had Pulse raising a curious eyebrow. "Did Nikki make all of this?" He wondered, which left Ekkoh shaking her head, and Hypolight frowning slightly.

"No, she didn't," the woman replied, and though it mildly hurt that he would immediately think someone else had prepared the food she worked so hard to make, she didn't sound upset with him. Of course, she couldn't blame him. It was typically their roommate, Nikikura, that they normally called Nikki, that did the cooking. Nikki was a chef, and she absolutely looked to cook, she most often found in the kitchen. However, today being a special day, Hypolight decided that making everything herself would be best, and she put forth a lot of effort to do so.

"Auntie Elle made this all herself," Ekkoh explained, on her behalf.

[ToxicShadow]

Although Pulse's initial reaction would have been nothing more than a simple, "Oh," he refrained, as it seemed like an insensitive gesture. Knowing that his daughter knew Hypolight, in some senses, better than he did, he was certain that what she said regarding the food because it was important to his friend. "It looks impressive," he said, decidedly, after scanning over the boxes scattered across the blanket once more. Though, he immediately began to wonder what she had made and how it all would taste. It wasn't that often that he got to taste any of Hypolight's cooking, since Nikki nearly never stopped cooking at home, leaving everyone in the house to eat her food and hers alone. No one was ever hungry that way, and her food was always good, but it left little variety in who made the food.

With his comment, the woman let it go, smiling, "Would you like chopsticks or silverware?"

Ekkoh jumped in right away with a, "Both please!" The girl had only ever used chop sticks a few times and wasn't all that good at it, but wanted to practice once more. After all, she had been told that practice makes perfect, and using chopsticks was a random skill that she wanted to try to perfect. Pulse seemed skeptical about using chopsticks, as he had likely only used them as much as his daughter, despite being so different in age. When he said, "Just silverware," however, Ekkoh protested. "But Daddy, you should practice with me!" And once more, there was no point in arguing.

Hypolight distributed their silverware and chopsticks, only taking out the latter for herself. "Well, dig in!" She declared, moving to open one of the boxes and was mimicked by both of her companions with the boxes closest to each of them.