She sees him walking through the halls at the beginning of her lunch period every day. Latula Pyrope has watched Mituna Captor navigate the halls at the same exact time every 6th period. He always comes through immediately after the bell. She has him for lots of other classes, too. That's why she's taken such an interest in the radical dude.
Well, not just because of this. Latula had known Mituna since back in Elementary School. She never really "knew" him, though. He'd always just been a constant; the only way he stuck out was by not sticking out at all.
He was incredibly awkward, socially, never really going out of his way to talk to anyone or do anything to make himself known. She was only aware of one friend of his; Kurloz Makara, one of the creepiest guys in school. Not that she cared. Creepy was rad. He was constantly wearing skeleton themed clothing and usually decorated his face in loads of face paint to make himself look like a clown. She'd talked to him a few times before, though it wasn't much of a conversation seeing as he hated to speak.
He had been dating her friend, Meulin, for a while now; they'd been friends for a long time, and Meulin was deaf. They were the perfect couple. She was no Meulin, but she quietly shipped them in the background as they made silent signs to one another.
Focusing her eyes again, though, Latula watched as Mituna dropped a few papers, cussing rather loudly and bending down to pick them up. She wondered why he didn't use his locker like everyone else; instead choosing to carry every little thing everywhere he went. He was so strange, and she was so interested.
The Captor always wore a mustard-yellow helmet, with a visor blocking his eyes, completely red on his right, and blue on the left. The strange design reminded her of 3D glasses.
Latula remembered when he used to not wear the helmet. Back in middle school, though, he was out of school for a while, and when he came back, he'd seemed weirder than ever. The helmet was a new addition upon his return. There had been a lot of rumors about what had happened to him, but they were all outrageously outlandish, and she decided that only he and Kurloz knew where he really was. She put no thought into rumors.
Mituna finally finished picking up all his papers, and proceeded on his way. Turning back to her friends, she stared at her food with a glazed look. That kid was always piquing her curiosity. The more she watched him, the more of a bond she felt with him, even though they'd never actually had a conversation before.
The first time Latula had discovered her interest for the black haired boy, she was sitting in history class a few months back when Mituna was returning to his seat after sharpening his pencil. Another person stood up, quite suddenly, without paying attention, and seemed to scare Mituna. He, being the weirdo he is, literally jumped out of the isle and onto Latula's desk, muttering "SORRY", over and over again, until the teacher finally came over and soothed him down. After that, he sat in the back, even when seats were changed.
After that little incident, she began to notice the helmeted boy in a lot of her other classes; she shared 6/9 periods with him every day. She kept a closer eye on him, watching as the rest of the class lined up before the bell had even rung to escape the confines of the classroom, as he sat, even through the bell, continuing to do work or stare off into space.
After staying late one math class to finish work, Latula saw him simply staring out the window until the second bell. Only then did he get up to leave for his next class. He always arrived late, too, except the teachers never said anything about it. Sometimes, her classmates got angry at all that Mituna seemed to get away with.
This was what she saw him doing now, and it puzzled her to no end. Why would he wait until the second bell? Didn't he know that you had to be in class before the second bell, not just beginning to leave his original class? Agh, she had so many questions and no answers.
"…Earth to Latula," a red haired dork in a red sweater was waving his hand in her red-tinted vision, attempting to grab her attention. It was Kankri Vantas; an annoying blabbermouth that seemed to constantly be glubbing away about something stupid and useless, or trying to woo her. He was an okay guy when he wasn't doing either of those things, which was almost none of the time.
"Sorry Kankri. Got a lot on my mind," Latula finally answered, digging into her untouched meal. The rest of her friends were used to her strange space-outs at the beginning of this period. She suspected some of them knew, some didn't care, and some were too oblivious to see. She didn't give a shit either way.
Meenah and Cronus were arguing about something, using an excessive amount of fish puns. Aranea was getting back into a long story with Kankri, and her other friends were talking amongst themselves. There was Porrim, Rufioh, Horuss, and Meulin was nowhere to be seen, probably sitting outside with Kurloz. The juggalo didn't seem to like large groups of people most of the time, though he held nothing against her boisterous group of friends. Hell, Latula herself was one of the loudest of them all.
They all proceeded to finish with lunch, and Latula went on with her day, eager to be out of the area to check out an abandoned water park she'd come across recently. She was excited to try out her skateboarding skills there. She hated going to the new, big, busy skate park, because you had to wear a helmet and there were always a bunch of annoying guys there, antagonizing her for her gender.
The final bell rang, and she ran for her locker, ripping out the board and sprinting out the doors. She said goodbye to a few of the friends she zipped past, Meulin waving as she jumped up and down.
Finally, she was out on the sidewalk, able to jump on her board and race away. Dark brown hair whipped behind her as she cheered. Freedom like this was a rarity, and she reveled in every moment of it.
Latula pulled her skateboard up just as she came across the chained entrance. You wouldn't have been able to tell it had ever even been a water park if you hadn't done a little snooping inside. And how rad was she if she couldn't even hop a fence?
Proceeding to scramble over said fence, she dropped onto her feet and quickly looked around for any signs of life. None so far. Now she just needed to make her way over to the big bowl of a ride that had been some kind of pool at one point in time.
She walked over, rather than skating, in case there were any kind of authorities poking their fat noses around. She was just about to kick off and into the giant dip in the earth when she realized she was, in fact, not alone.
It wasn't the angry yelling of an adult though, rather than the welcome sound of a fellow boarder. She turned her gaze to the opposite end of the bowl, and saw none other than her object of interest, Mituna Captor. She stood with her mouth open, not believing that this was where he spent his time after school.
Street cred +20, yo!
This was so awesome. Now she could actually have a conversation with the dude without coming off as weird. They had a common interest!
Latula walked towards him, but slowed down when she realized how intently he was focused on one trick he seemed to be messing up. So she simply sat on the edge and watched. I'll go talk in a little while, she told herself. Why was she always watching? Never doing anything, just waiting, thinking, most unlike her usual impulsive personality.
After almost 10 minutes of trying out the same trick, he seemed to get fed up, grabbing his board and throwing it hard against the ground. A loud round of "FUCK FUCK FUCK!" was heard, Latula jumping at the sudden outburst. She wanted to run up and grab him by the shoulders, yelling at him for almost breaking a perfectly good board.
Ok, she admitted, his board was a little old, but it looked like it had gotten some good use to it. She very nearly did rise, though, when he simply slumped to the ground and sighed heavily. He began eyeing over his board, checking the wheels and everything else to make sure they weren't broken.
With an anxiety level through the roof, and only a half-hearted resolution, Mituna grabbed his board and tried the trick again. He flipped his board into the air, attempting an ollie, but his body spasmed midair and he simply fell to the ground, twitching.
"Shit!" Latula yelped, running down with her board under her arm. She flung it to the side as quickly but lightly as possible. Leaning down over Mituna, she flipped him over to his back, the twitching seeming to decrease.
Shaking his shoulders, she asked if he was awake. "Damn, boy, that was quite the wipeout. You ok? You awake?" she wondered, continuing to lightly shake his shoulders. She didn't know anything about seizures or the like, and she didn't really want to have to call the ambulance in this kind of place if she didn't have to, but hell if she was going to let him lay here unattended.
She could faintly see his eyes snap open behind his visor, as it blocked off 90% of visibility towards his face. He stared at Latula for only a moment before yelping and jerking to the side. He rolled onto his knees and stared at her, shock and confusion evident on the seeable portion of his face.
"Who - Who are you? What are y-y-you doing here?" he lisped with an evident stutter. Latula had never really heard him speak before, aside from the occasional cuss and/or screech. His voice was… awesome.
"Oh, um, I was just checking out this place. Ya see, I skateboard myself, but I wanted someplace sort of quiet to do it," she explained shyly, gesturing over to her runaway board, still rolling in the direction it had been thrown. What the hell was she being shy about? She was never shy. Chalking it up to the stress of the moment, she continued. "I didn't mean to watch you, but you were doing really good and I just didn't want to mess you up. Well, that is, until you sort of, um, fell."
Mituna stared at her for a moment before standing. "Ok," he replied simply.
"Ok?" Latula asked, confused. Usually there'd be some whole big thing about something so useless. This was… nice for a change. "I'm Latula, by the way. Latula Pyrope. Raddest gamer girl you'll ever meet! Consider yourself honored."
He stared for a second, before breathing in deeply. "I'm M-Mitunaaaaaa… CAPTO- TOR!" he exclaimed, ending the introduction with something akin to a scream. Turning to the side, slightly, he slipped his hand underneath his helmet's visor, as if to facepalm. "SORRY," came his trademark apology. It seemed as if he was sincere about it, though, rather than simply using it as filler when he spoke.
"Hi Mituna!" Latula greeted, as if he wasn't making a giant goof out of himself for unknown reasons. She thought especially meeting new people embarrassed him. That was ok; she had a lot of friends with social anxiety as well. It was a rather large contrast to her own radical personality though. She tried to make friends wherever she went.
Realizing she was still on the ground, Mituna held out a shaky hand, head tilting to the side once more. She grabbed onto his sleeved arm, being pulled up with quite a jerk. The pull was a little too much, it seemed, because she rocketed towards his 3D helmet. Her face smashed into his visor, numbing her nose. She took two uneasy steps backward, testing her balance, before bringing a hand up to test the condition of her nose.
Mituna grabbed her shoulders, lightly this time to steady her, repeating a worried "SORRY", but this time in nothing more than a whisper. She pulled her hand away, focusing her eyes on her finger to check for an all too familiar crimson color.
A single tear unconsciously, involuntarily escaped her eye, trailing down the left side of her face. And there it was, a splash of red pouring out from her nose and covering her palm like an abstract painting.
Mituna was panicking now. "NO, NO, NO, DON'T CRY, NO, I'M SORRY, NO, NO, NO, NO, SORRY, SORRY, NO, NOOOOO NO, SORRY…" he went on and on, until Latula grabbed him by his own shoulders, looking him straight into where she was 85% sure his eyes were. He twitched a bit at the contact.
And that was when she burst out laughing. She used the Captor as a support beam, doubling over and laughing until her sides ached, all the while blood dripped from her bruised appendage, and onto the ground. Mituna's mutterings ceased, and he soon began to laugh a loud, true laugh with her. They laughed until they were on the faded blue floor, the sun setting and the temperature dropping. Eventually, when they stopped laughing, they sat in silence for a long time and stared at the setting sun and the moon, becoming a stark beacon in the orange sky.
"Ah, sorry, Mituna. Hell if I know what got over me. You don't have to worry, though. My nose is pretty much useless anyways," Latula assured him, attempting to plug her nose, forcing her voice out as a nasally song.
He unleashed a high-pitched giggle at the sound of her voice, an arm quickly coming up to slap a hand over his mouth. They only looked at each other for a few moments before bursting into laughter again. They didn't need to speak to communicate. They didn't need words.
Eventually, though, Mituna took a few deep breaths and began to talk as best as he could.
"I'm s-s-SORRY L-Latu-tulop! I-I have a BAD SPEECH impedim-pedim-pediment and it t-ta-takes-s me a w-while to form m-my w-worrrds a-AND sentence-ce-ce-ces," he forced out, rolling to the side in shame. She laughed at the way he'd said her name.
"Ha! Don't worry about it, bro. We've all got somethin' wrong with us. I'll let you in on a little secret," Latula began, making him look over at her as she glanced from side to side, as if to check for eavesdroppers. "I can't smell for shit," she whispered, bursting into a fit of giggles. She happened to see Mituna's wide eyes blink at her from behind his red and blue cocoon.
"Is that w-wHA-what you m-meant wheeeen you said your no-no-nose was yoo- yoo – YOOS…" he sat up, pouting, unable to get the word out. She understood him perfectly fine, nonetheless.
"Haha, yeah. I got into an accident with a friend as a kid and now my sense of smell is effed up? Woop-de-do. Sort of a strange disability, huh?" she wondered, staring back towards the sky.
They giggled and talked like this for a long while, before they decided to get back home before dark. Mituna offered to walk her home after a series of embarrassed mutterings, but they both apparently lived right around the corner in opposite directions, and there was still pink light on the horizon.
When Mituna got home, his father peered at him strangely as he was unable to stop giggling. It was endless, all through dinner and when it stopped, it only started up again soon enough. Whenever asked, he merely replied in a singsong voice, saying "Tula-Tula-Tulip!" There was a smear of blood on his left shoulder where Latula had gripped him, and his father asked about it. He simply replied that he'd better not wash this damn shirt.