Author's Note: Hey followers, all….thirty of you. It's been a while. It's also been quite, um, I'm here to finish the story, or at least continue it for a decent amount of time. Don't know how many people here are actually waiting on an update, but here you go. This is a little bit to show that I'm still here and this story isn't dead.

A Quiet Place

It was a quiet day today in the Workshop club, the same as it's ever been. Yokai Academy is infamous for it's the majority of having the majority of its clubs hosted there filled rambunctious clubs full of loud, obnoxious members. The Workshop Club….definitely has those people, but the club conveniently adheres to its members privacy, so even if they were the odd group, you wouldn't really see them at the club unless they either were in the breakroom or passed by in the halls. No matter who they are, people don't seem to like being interrupted on things they are working on.

It was getting late and the last of the members were starting file out of the building. Dawn made her way up to the office where she saw Marius filing away some papers.

"That time already huh?" she asks.

"Uh uh," he yawns.

He then picks up ring of keys and hands it to her.

"Dawn you're closing tonight," he instructs.

"Alright."

As Marius left, Dawn snatched up the keys from the counter and continued on with her business. As her rounds came to a close and the hall was just about empty, she noticed a door to an office was cracked open and there was a faint light coming from it.

"I guess someone lost track of time," she muses to herself.

That's fine, students sometimes get caught up in their work, it's nothing unusual. As she walked over she could hear faint music emitting from the door, she instantly recognized it as Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley. She opens the doorway a little bit more and peers inside. Inside she could she their club's latest member hard at work. The room was kept incredibly need except for the desk which had a scattering of tools on it along with a half-filled whiskey glass and an ashtray with a still burning cigarette in it. She watches silently as the student assemblies something under his magnifying glass. She thought it was a watch as he winded it but was surprised when music started to play from his hand.

'A music box?' she thought to herself.

The clock was ticking and she decided now was the best time to make her presence known. She knocks lightly on the door.

"The door is open," the student responds.

Dawn opens it and clears her throat. The student looks at his watch and his eyes widen slightly when he saw the time.

"I'm sorry," the student responded softly, "Must have lost track of time."

"It happens," Dawn replies understandingly. "I'll give you a few minutes if you need it."

He nods and says "Thank you."

When she had left, Jayson downs the glass and dabs out his cigarette before taking the needle off of the record player and turning out the lamp.

Very rarely is there a quiet place for a person to work here at Yokai. Atleast, it's about as quiet as it can get with people using saws and welders from time to time. It's a peaceful place for people to work on whatever DIY projects they can come up with. The people who tend to come here are the more shut in people, they kinds who prefer to keep to themselves rather than bother others. It's a friendly, open minded community that Jayson soon found himself at home with, they didn't care what kind of monster you were, if you were a decent honest person, they were willing to look past those, just don't get in the way of their projects.

Jayson made his way to the club exit whee he saw the club's vice president standing there waiting to lock the door. Not wanting to be rude and keep her waiting, he quickened his pace.

"Thank you," he says politely.

"Got everything?" she asks.

"Yes ma'am," he nods, "Sorry for the wait."

She laughs and waves it off, "It's fine, you're just one of many, everyone in this club goes overtime at least once every other day. Also call me Dawn, ma'am makes me sound old." She glances down at her watch and sighs "Oh, looks like the school cafeteria closed about thirty minutes ago."

"That's alright," Jayson replies, "I usually just cook back at my place."

"At this hour?" she asks incredulously.

"I don't really have a lot of options," Jayson replies. "Most of the other places in the academy are a little too public for my tastes."

"That's fine," she smiles, "I know a place."

Jason's eyes widened slightly, was she inviting him?

"It's a small cafe not far from here, makes one hell of a cup of coffee," she smiles warmly.

Jayson would have usually declined, but after weighing his options, he ultimately decided that it couldn't hurt.

"Thank you Mei," Dawn says as the waitress as she passes out the beverages. She turns back to Jayson, smiles, and explains "The academy opened this place along with a few others some time ago as another option to cafeteria food. As you can expect it's rather crowded in the day but at night….it acts as a sort of sanctuary for those who prefer to be alone. We're one of the only clubs that stay up after hours and the only other people who come in here are teachers."

Jayson nods in understanding.

"So what do you think?" she asks.

Jayson glances around at the small, rather ordinary looking dinner, "It's quiet." He looks back to Dawn "Like you said it was."

"No, I meant, what do you think of the academy so far?" she corrects.

Jayson tried really hard to think back to the past few months, but really he couldn't come up with anything he found particularly noteworthy. Though there was a few things that did happen, mainly the school midterms happened a couple of weeks prior. Practically everything at this school was new yet felt so pointless to him. Yet there was nothing he could do accept play along

"It's….different," Jayson finally managed.

"Homeschooled?" she inquires cursorily.

"Something like that," Jayson answers.

Her eyes widened slightly, "Woah, then this must be a completely new world to you."

"It is," Jayson agreed, "But it's also not too big of a leap from what I was use to."

"Really?" she asks incredulously, "A bunch of hormonal, self entitled, judgmental teenagers?"

"Not quite," Jayson replies as he slowly raises the smoking mug up to his lips. "But either way I am apathetic to them either way."

Dawn lets out a snort and says "I envy you then."

He shrugs and says "There's nothing to envy, I'm not out to show anyone anything, but to my surprise when I attract attention from my mere presence."

Dawn silently nods and she smiles as Jayson closes his eyes and takes a long drink from the mug. When Jayson places the mug down and opens his eyes, he had a look of serenity on him that made Dawn laugh.

"Told you it was good coffee."

He nods and an awkward silence falls on the pair as Jayson struggles with what to say next.

"So…." Dawn drawls. "Anything else catch your eye?"

Jason decided rather than remaining silent, he would name something random off the top of his head in hopes of sparking a conversation.

"There were the midterms," he manages.

Dawn lets out a loud annoyed groan and face plants into the table. Jayson blinks, completely bewildered by what lay before him.

"I hate tests," she groans.

"Do you think performed poorly?" he asks.

"No," she sighs as she looks forward, "I do fine in tests, it's the judgment from the other students I can live without."

"Why do they matter?" he inquires curiously, "I mean they aren't you,"

"Doesn't change the fact that they don't shut up about it and use every opportunity to chastise you about it," she growls. She then smirks at Jayton saying "Not everyone is able to tune out the entire world around them and just focus on themselves."

"I guess I wouldn't understand," he shrugs "Public perception and general social cues are not my strong suit. Which is why I'm not expecting much from my literature class."

She's quirks an eyebrow, "You're critical thinking skills are that bad?"

"When it comes to things like expression, imagery, symbolism, and the like, yeah," he replies, "My mind is a little more straight forward, math, science, engineering, and composition for some reason."

"Composition?" she murmurs, "Writing essays?"

"I just write my honest opinion and provide the needed information to support it," he replies, "It seems people lack that ability."

"You don't know the half of it," she mutters thinking back to her lazy classmates.

"We should probably get going," she murmurs as he looks at his watch.

"Why what time is it?" groans Dawn as she looks at her own watch. "Oh darn!" she laughs as her clock read 10:30, "You're right we better go."

The pair then paid their checks and walked out the door.

"This was nice," she smiles, she turns to Jayson, "We should do this again sometime."

"We can if you'd like," he replies.

"Alright," she nods adjusting her bag, "I'll let you know."

With a polite and curt nod, the two parted ways. For Jayson, everything in this school was alien to him. The whole concept of having to go out of his way in order to interact with people was something he never had to deal with back in Rapture, but it is made a requirement here. Still, his current strange assortment of friends weren't the worst he'd ever seen. Definitely more pleasant to be around than many different beings he's had to be around in the past that was for sure. Jayson felt oddly at peace in this chaotic, alien world, but he couldn't help this feeling of dread that enveloped him. All he knew was it was coming from the school and there would inevitably come a moment when he would have to embrace his violent self that the school has ruled to hide away. While he has no qualms with killing, as his little sisters nor the citizens of Rapture ever took notice, but this wasn't Rapture, and his companions aren't people from Rapture either. All Jayson could tell for now was that his life was about to get a little more interesting than usual.

Author's Note: Just a little something while I scramble to get my writing schedule in order and to flesh out some of my characters, at least I hope. I do have plans for this story, and it is not abandoned, I just am not entirely sure where I wanna go. I won't go full blown "M" since that would require me to have an audience that would want to read that, which I don't have, but I will try to get as close as I can. Thank you for reading and I hope to write again.