The Mayfield-Mika that Hajime had known had once promised to have him over for dinner. The other Mika, just as kind and warm and open, had made the same promise. And this time, she had followed through on it. He didn't need to eat, but he could eat if so inclined, and the purple and pink elk weren't bad. Neither was the after-dinner coffee that she had brewed. The conversation... that, maybe, was a little harder to digest. She was bright and open, and he was stiff and awkward. The air was thick with feelings, and he was terrible at those.

But he muddled through, as the chat went from subject to subject, and finally came to land on Mayfield. "...it wasn't all bad." He hadn't believed the words at first, when they tumbled out of his mouth. But there they were, now squatting uncomfortably in the middle of the conversation.

"It wasn't? Pshhh, you're pulling my leg, right? Most of these places, they're pretty bad." Mika wasn't sure that she was buying it, either.

Hajime stared into his coffee cup, frowned, and tried to think of how to put it. There were those feelings, again. Feelings that he had to try to put into words. But pictures, pictures were worth a thousand of those damned illusive things, weren't they? "Wait. Let me go get something."

Mika waited. Hajime ran home and ran back in no time at all. When he returned, a photo album was tucked under one arm. What made Mayfield bearable wasn't the town itself, but the residents. He had always taken pictures of things in an effort to understand them, the album was full to bursting with the results of those efforts. And what he had most wanted to understand were those other real and vital residents of the town.

The two settled in on Mika's couch, side by side, as he flipped through the pages and explained who was who and what was what. "Woah, is that a..."

"A pony?"

"Seriously! She looks just like... I mean..."

"Her name was Apple Bloom. She was the pet at our house. The town was full of them, though." And he turned the page to pictures of a unicorn with sharply-styled hair and diamonds on her flank, of another pony with hair like fluffy cotton candy tossing confetti this way and that.

"Looks like that's from some kind of party. Things got quiet enough to do that sort of thing...?" Mika asked the question cautiously, carefully. And Hajime nodded in confirmation.

"There was a pool party while I was there. And prom. These ones are from prom." He indicated the next page, and several more after that, a bit of pride in his tone. "They needed a photographer, so I volunteered." There were pictures and pictures of excited girls and nervous young men, of every shape and sort and species. And in the background of one picture, slightly out of focus but still quite clear, a glimpse of a fancily-dressed Mika, leaning a little forwards towards a refreshment table.

"Hey... hey, that's me, isn't it?" She lifted a hand, hesitated a moment, then pointed quickly and anxiously at it while looking up to Hajime. And then she cracked a smile and forced some pep into her voice. "What, no big pictures of me in your album?"

"Well... uh..." Hajime froze, tripping over his words. "You didn't ask me to take one. So I didn't. Not everyone likes having their picture taken...."

"Oh... oh yeah. I can see that...." Even all dolled up in a fancy dress with fancy hair, the Mika Whitepaws in that picture was not the happy and healthy and un-haunted Mika Whitepaws that once was. The her in that picture was a her that would have probably avoided the camera lens as much as possible. And now it meant no fun other-world prom pictures to look at. She sank back into the couch with sigh, ears drooping.

Now Hajime was even more convinced that he had done something wrong. And if he had done wrong, he had to make it right. He had to find the words to fix it. He had to figure out how to make Mika feel better. "Well... we did dance. A little." As he said it, he too began to settle back into the couch. That would fix it, yes?

No. Not really. It didn't seem to be the right thing to say at all, for Mika shrank back in a sort of shock. "S-seriously? We danced?!" She had danced with such a handsome young man? With a superhero?

His expression was wide-eyed and not the least bit sure, but Hajime nodded. "You... you seemed to want to. So I asked you. And it was... nice." The memory of it came to him easily. Maybe it was awkward, more shuffling slowly than practiced dance steps, but it had been fun. She had felt warm, and it had felt good to put his arms around her. And it had made her so happy, too. It had been very, very much the right thing, at the time. Maybe it was still the right thing. "...do you still like music?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I do. But..."

"We can dance again, then. If you want."

"But I..."

"I'm strong, I'll hold you up. You just have to pick the music."

"But, but..."

"You don't want to?"

And then words failed them both at the same time. Mika from how much Hajime seemed to know, Hajime from how much Mika seemed to fear it. She seemed ready to rise from the couch, but before she could do that, Hajime reached for her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. He had just wanted to calm her, for touch could be calming, couldn't it? But then it was a chain reaction, a chemical cascade, as Mika let out a hiccuping breath and grabbed for Hajime, hugging him tightly. A much bigger result than he had expected, and for a moment he had no idea what to do with himself. The conscious thought had to come to him, 'put your arms around her', and then he did so, carefully and no small amount awkwardly.

No, now wasn't the time for dancing. But this was fine, too. And it was something that he welcomed more practice at.