It was warm today. This was something that vexed Chu-e tremendously, since Hoenn's definition of 'warm' and his definition certainly didn't agree; to natives it would be pleasant but not exactly hot. To him it was enough to make him break into a light sweat. Usually he wore fitted compression shirts, long sleeved, under his clothing but he found it too hot for that. Too uncomfortable. Maybe it was nerves causing it. Something had been eating at him lately, something he couldn't pinpoint. The prep for Lulu Flint's visit had been a welcome distraction.

Lulu would find a camera affixed in a corner above the door, very obvious, but someone with her sharp eye would be able to spot a fake. One of those cheaper ones you bought to make people think it was a real camera to trick skittish thieves. She may still have the more unsettling feeling of being watched, though, as if something still wasn't right or maybe just out of sight.

Regardless, when Lulu knocked, it only took a moment after a quick 'Coming!' from his side before the door opened.

He hoped Lulu didn't mind being exposed to a few of his nastier scars. While his shirt hid many of them, if she cared to look she would still be able to see the ones that were just barely not covered by the collar of his shirt, puckered and ugly. But he would smile, the scent of fresh coffee and cinnamon pluming from the doorway. "Miss Flint! Thank you for the visit. Here- come in, come in." Stepping back, he ushered her inside, the door closing after she would step inside.

Chu-e's home was homey and quaint. The entry led directly into an open plan living room to the left, a plush leather couch and two matching chairs sitting circled around a wall with a large tv mounted on it; the tv was muted but playing, looking to be one of those daytime game-shows, a woman excited as she jumped around from winning some prize. On the wall behind that was rows and rows of bookshelves, filled to the brim with books of all shapes and sizes. A room on the far wall seemed to open into a kitchen. To the right was a hallway with various closed doorways and staircase that led upwards into the unknown. A few shadowed entry ways spoke of other rooms deeper in the house. The kind of place meant for a small but well-off family, inhabited by one man. A little dated but still kept up.

It was messy, though. The kind of messy that told it wasn't normally dirty. There wasn't a speck of dirt on the floor, no dust, no collected trash, but there were books everywhere. An explosion of them, sitting on the tables or on each other or on the floor in some cases. Papers were scattered, all with Chu-e's chicken scratch writing if she dared try to read anything.

"Please excuse the mess. Here, this way." He made his way for the kitchen, stopping once he was in the room to bring a plate of fresh muffins to his breakfast nook, where coffee and tea and whatever else Lulu could hope to want was laid out. "I hope this is alright. I didn't know what you liked." While visibly a little frazzled, he still gave her a kind smile as he sat down and prepared himself a cup of tea.

"I've found people are usually more receptive to my nonsense when they have a full belly." Another grin slid into face at his own little joke, a small puff of laughter leaving him. He lifted his tea to his lips and drank deep as he listened, as if he hadn't paused to remember something as basic as drinking till now. "A little bit of both. I also wanted to congratulate you and I had some files I thought you might find interesting."

Standing briefly, he vanished into the living room. There was the sound of a drawer opening and closing, then he stepped back with a red jump-drive in hand as well as a few papers. He slid them close to Lulu as he passed her again, sitting down and taking one of the muffins with a small sigh.

"When the whole incident with Genesect happened, I had found Cadis' old lab. I confiscated most of the papers inside after the fact." That he didn't grab during, that is. "I don't understand what any of it means; I thought someone more versed with these things should have a copy."

That was not the only information in the files but that could come later. He didn't want to overwhelm her with too much at once. She looked just as tired as he felt, typically. Chu-e wondered how much was Darkrai's influence and how much of it was her own habits to push herself; Chu-e made it his job to know things and he had access to the security footage for the Labs.

Lulu Flint

"Of course." There wasn't a hint of hesitation in his reply. Picking up his own muffin, he took a small nibble before continuing, brushing crumbs from his fingers and over his plate. "With the Shadow Lab out of order, we need everything at our disposal to even the playing field with the League. This isn't like Kanto. We don't have the element of surprise or the manpower. Your work matters more now than it ever has before."

Even then, as he said it, there was a small faraway look. He was looking at Lulu Flint- but more through her than at her. Absently, his hand raised up to trace the column of his throat. Mind locked wherever it had been before the scientist's visit.

When focus came back, his eyes were sharp. They lifted to gaze into Lulu's. Soft but closed off.

"Is it okay if I ask you a personal question or two? You're not obligated to reply. This is for myself, not for anything official." A cup of tea was picked up, swirled as he stared into it, then he tipped it back for a long drought. Stalling. "What did it feel like when Darkrai chose you? And does it know if... if Cresselia... is it also real?" The cup was placed down, his hands folded and placed in his lap.

If Lulu Flint was looking for some type of disapproval or even pity she wouldn't find it. One person couldn't be an island. Admitting there was even a chance Lulu had thought she might have needed help, even indirectly, was the far braver action in Chu-e's opinion. It was easy to bottle up your emotions and pretend you didn't feel them, pretend they didn't happen; but it was often what ended up driving many a person crazy in the end. Their lot, the seedy and underbelly of things, often expected a tough exterior to be built up. It wasn't uncommon for those to view things like 'help' as a weakness. If only they could see how strong they could be if they came together instead.

But Lulu would see his eyebrows furrowed in thought. Finger tips moving to drum on the table. A twitch of a knee as if to prevent it from bouncing. Small signs. Something was eating away at the Underboss, at least mentally.

When she pressed on about Cresselia, the moment passed. It was like the tension had been let out of him like a balloon, face relaxing as he listened with almost rapt attention even if she provided him no answers. He picked at his muffin again.

"Well...." Chu-e glanced away, embarrassed now, the softest of pink rising high on his pale cheeks. But he figured this was tit for tat. Lulu had opened up to him, even if he didn't realize it was unintentional. He could do the same for her.

"The... The Shadow's Prince and the Moonlight's Princess are... well. They're the only gods I ever still really pray to anymore." A small breath for pause and he glances back up. "A lot of legends say they battle, but my family always treated them like they worked together.... So we placed begonia petals under our pillows for Darkrai and fennel springs in the windows for Cresselia."

A small laugh left Chu-e, hand lifted to cover his mouth from the flustered grin.

"Sorry if that was odd. I'm not... a blind zealot whose going to suddenly... I don't know...." He made a face. "try and steal your toenails, I guess?" It was the best example of what Chu-e expected someone like that might do. Lulu Flint was looked upon by a god, by a prince in the teaching's Chu-e had been taught, but it would be insulting to her character to suddenly treat her like a faith-healer or something.

"A lot of stories always told made it seem evil. It always... rubbed me the wrong way. In the stories I was told, Darkrai caused nightmares to those who deserved them to teach them a moral lesson. Or, ah..." Another small laugh. "In one story, a little girl had been cursed by an evil witch to stay asleep in endless nightmares... Darkrai, in the story, traveled into the girl's dreams and protected her from the inside until they could find Cresselia to break the curse."

There was another small pause, one where Chu-e would pick up his tea, stare deeply into it as if considering.

"I know this all probably seems very.... strange to bring up. I didn't really ask you all the way out here just to gush about religion and stories I was told when I was a kid. I've been... very scattered the last few days." But then again, almost getting your head sliced off tends to do things to the mind.

It seems their humor would keep missing the mark for the other. Where Lulu Flint had asked in jest, Chu-e took seriously, his cup being sat down with a sharp clink on the table.

"I think somethings wrong with me." A pause. "... more-so than the usual."

Sighing, Chu-e glanced around at the various papers and scattered debris in his home from his own notes and bits of research. He wasn't like Lulu or Cillian Quinn. Chu-e wasn't as intelligent as either of them. That didn't mean he didn't have the capacity to learn and reach his own conclusions about things. Ever since Genesect, something had felt wrong. At this point he wasn't sure if it was his own paranoia or something concrete was the only problem.

"If something.... happens to me. Something unprecedented. I need people I can trust to put me down." His fingers would circle his throat again, squeezing lightly, as if testing his own skin. "It might be nothing, Miss Flint. This could all be in my head but... it's better to be safe than sorry."

This would be a thing with them wouldn't it? A back and forth, each missing the other's intentions and not even realizing it. Different in so many ways except where it mattered, reading signals wrong. It was a shame. Chu-e didn't even know he had effectively closed Lulu Flint off from him once again. He didn't know what trap in his own speech he had tripped for the sudden cold reception but it... irritated him. He wanted to know her better, to be closer with her, count her as a friend and not just a coworker yet every time it seemed like he would reach out, he would find thorns in his hands in return. He didn't know what to do.

"Lulu, I'm dying." It comes out quick and maybe a little sharper than intended. A soft sigh, he takes a mental step back and reels in all the sharp and pointy things that want to break into his speech, that want to barb and hurt and cause damage. Chu-e has made those mistakes before. Knows from experience that no matter how much he hurts someone else it won't make his own hurt any less. He softens his tone lightly. Tries to meet her eyes with a steadfast look to show he's telling the truth. To show he trusts her with this information.

"You saw what they did to me." In those videos of his torture.

He glances around at the books, at the mess, at the physical proof of his current mental downfall.

"And I'm sure you've read the reports on the Slateport Blackout. That massive pokemon that killed so many.... I....." He swallows. Lulu will only be the second person to know what he's about to say. "There was an... incident." He refused to say 'accident' since it was a lie. "I consumed some material from the pokemon in the reports. I fear... whatever that thing was... and with the crystals from Genesect...." He takes a shaky breath. Something in his resolve snaps.

"These dreams... these... I've been having these nightmares.... and...."

If Darkrai cared to search, cared to look, the corpses of dozens of Begonia were stuffed under his pillows, surrounded his bed like a casket at a funeral, trailing dying and drying petals on the floor.