Lawnmowers were everywhere.

Well, they would be naturally. It was Tuesday afternoon, and Timber Oak Park's grass was getting way too long for Timber Oak's surburban mom population to feel comfortable with. The maintenance crew figured that most of the park's usual visitors were away during the afternoon, but they still waved at the handful of people who did come out to feed the ducks and enjoy the sunshine.

One sight that stood out and made a couple workers get mad was a certain couple that were jogging - no, tearing through the grass that they had literally just cut. The workers squinted at the environmentally unruly scene, and at the culprits in particular. There was a goofy looking brunette with a bushy beard waving a picnic basket, and - was that a pink-haired girl?

Well, this wasn't an everyday sight, and almost to prove that point, a worker or two took the moment to snap a picture of the girl. The head man chuckled for no apparent reason, and so some of the laborers waved at the couple speeding towards an uncut hill.

The pair eventually reached the top of the grassy incline and fell over each other in fits of laughter. The guy pulled himself up and took out a tablecloth out of his bag, draping it partially over his companion. She lay motionless for a few moments, but curiousity overcame her resolve to be still.

"Come on, what are you doing now?"

He laughed as he set a couple of plates and wrapped food items on top of the covered girl. "Shade, remember when you said lunch was all on you? Now, it is."

She pulled back the cloth over her face and grinned. "Fine, but I'm so getting you back for this, Stri."

He did the thing with both his eyebrows. "How do you know I won't do a magic trick with this sheet here?"

Her slightly muffled voice still resounded through the cover. "Stri please."

Strieter, or Stri when it came to lazy people who couldn't spare a syllable more, smiled in return and switftly moved the items off her, and continued arranging lunch while his partner got up and stretched. It was only a matter of minutes before he finished making two grand sandwiches and handed one over to Shade. He watched her carefully inspect his handiwork, and mentally sighed in relief when she heartily took a bite.

They ate lunch quietly, taking in the moment, but Strieter couldn't stop himself from taking in the sight of his date. Her beautiful pink hair flowed over her shoulders like an unending cascade, and her emerald eyes were simply enchanting. On top of that she was cute and charming, and other things he wanted to say but didn't as he kept his gaze fixed. It wasn't before long that Shade had caught on to his staring.

"What's the matter?"

Stri closed his eyes, her afterimage showing up as a negative in the blackness created by his closed eyelids, and smiled.

"You look just amazing. Like wow."

Shade blushed, and subsequently stuck her tongue out. "Thanks. You look really handsome too, with that tom-selling facial hair of yours."

He turned a tomato red and stuffed his face his BLT to make up for his reaction. He savored his sandwich for a couple speechless moments before Shade spoke again.

"Hey, don't look now, but hasn't that guy been staring at us for the past couple of minutes?"

Strieter wiped his mouth clean and turned ever so slightly to see the man being talked about. Black pants, navy blue blazer, black muffler covering most of his face, baseball cap to round it off - this was clearly a man who had no sense of fashion. Apart from the odd getup, he seemed normal, as when Stri and Shade both looked at him, he gave a thumbs up.

Nothing about the man stood out, and Stri returned to his sandwich.

The tension in the air disappeared, and he smiled at the receding figure. With his mouth full, Stri pointed at the pink hair with his thumb and attempted to communicate.

"Hey, if I went back in time, I'd spend a few minutes looking at you too."

A smile broke out on Shade's face. "That's because you're sooooo in love with me."

He laughed for a moment, and then got close.

"That's enough for one day, Captain Obvious."

They both laughed again, and stopped when Shade suddenly clapped her hands.

"Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you about the lights."

Stri went back to munching his sandwich. "What's new?"

Shade twiddled her fingers. "It's still really weird and annoying. Like, whenever I get really happy or mad, the lights do the thing where it gets really bright and it fuses. Basically, I found out that if I gesticu-...gesticulate...-"

He smiled. "It's pronounced gesticulate."

Shade gave a short laugh.

"Strieter, please. If we wrote our pronounciations on a piece of paper and gave it to someone to read, they wouldn't even know who was saying it right and who wasn't."

Stri's magnificent shining face changed into a blank expression.

"But-"

"No need to get worried - I was just saying, if that happened. "

He sighed. "You were saying, gesticulate?"

Shade clapped her hands again. "You know what? I'll use gesture instead. When I gesture directly above me, I can kinda' get the lights to however bright I want. I haven't tried too many times, though. I mean, I really don't want to think of how high the electric bills would go."

Strieter chuckled. "I see a very bright future waiting for you."

She laughed. "You better not make light of it, Stri."

Both of them laughed and collectively sighed. Shade moved over and leaned on Stri as she finished her sandwich. Stri consequently didn't move as he tried not to show his nervousness. He decided that the best course of action was to continue the conversation to thaw himself out, and in his state, stared absent-mindedly towards the rolling plain below.

"When you first told me about your light problem, I called my old schoolmates who had similar problems, to see how they handled things. There was Brandon and Mango...I guess I could throw Daisy in there too since she was with us all the time. You should definitely meet them though, maybe you'll learn a bunch from them."

Shade let her finger aimlessly trace the lines running all over Stri's plaid shirt. "It'd be nice to meet them too. But seriously, who the heck names their kid Mango? I get Daisy, but that's just really...odd."

Stri scratched his beard. "He's foreign, and instead of people misspelling and mispronouncing his name 24/7, he chose a nickname and stuck with it. It definitely made life a lot easier for him."

The pink-haired girl shrugged to that, and glanced at Stri.

"Do you ever think we'll get to see these friends of yours?"

Stri leaned backwards and threw his arms back to support himself. "In case I didn't tell you already, they said they'll be in town today. Come to think, we could even run into one of them on the way."

Shade's finger ceased to move. "That'll be pretty cool if we do. But still, I want to see my uncle again. And this time, I'll get to see him on stage."

Stri simply nodded, and tried to recall what Shade said about her family. She had an uncle Cooper that went missing a couple of years ago, sent a number of sporadic messages about how he was a magician, his successful tour, his remaining shows, and his constant fear of being followed. As far as Strieter knew, that sounded like some shady shit people write about in stories, but he wasn't one to judge. Well, not at least until they went to his show later that afternoon.

From what he had heard, Cooper the Great had actually visited town twice, the first show being shrouded in obscurity and the second being the most popular attraction in the region. He himself had heard of the magician, but it wasn't until Shade mentioned missing the second show that he started to think more importantly of him.

The brunette left the last of his sandwich hanging from his mouth, and consequently started to clean things up. Shade yawned and lazily rolled off the tablecover and onto the green. She started pushing crumbs from where she lay, and after being prodded with a smile from Stri, joined his cleaning efforts. Soon, they had taken care of the mess and they got up, stretching those dead legs and watching the park slowly come to life.

On the other side of the green, the stranger with the trashy sense of fashion observed the couple through binoculars that were fitted with an audio recepter addon. As the brown-haired guy and his date pointed in a certain direction and consequently clambered down the hill, the stranger hid the binoculars in a pocket and under the muffler, grinned at their departure.

Those blue eyes twinkled with excitement as he rose from his crouching position and started to back away into the woods. When Stri and Shade were no longer visible from his viewpoint, the man tossed the cap high in the air, exposing his own radically bright blue hair. He stood still, letting his hair and muffler bear the brunt of the wind, and as the wind subsided, unfurled a poster for Cooper the Great's magic show.

There were those classic big bright red letters on a yellow background, advertising the attraction, but those blue eyes only focused on the magician's image. With a quick jab, he poked a hole through Cooper's head, and let go, observing the poster lopsidedly spiral to the ground. Another trip into his pocket, and out flew a cigarette lighter, which neatly landed on top of the poster.

He snap-turned in the other direction, and walked off, making sure to step on the poster. The stranger looked at it one last time, and with a particularly tense expression, vanished in the daylight. The lighter was the only thing that marked his presence, and the single word inscribed on it was even more puzzling.

All it said -

-was 'Looker'