He pulled his coat tighter the moment he'd stepped out of the office building, throwing a squinted gaze up to the overcast skies lording over New York as he climbed the rest of the short steps down. Considering the generally sunny day he'd spent with his father just yesterday (he was supposed to go on Saturday but as the weather wasn't looking nice then, his father pushed the date to Sunday and much to both their lucks, it pulled through) in Washington DC, he would have thought that last Saturday was the end of the gloomy days if the news hadn't warned everyone about a stormy week ahead.

Shiro dearly hoped it wouldn't suddenly rain on him. He also made a mental note to bring along an umbrella tomorrow.

Turning around to Jacobs who called for him to take care, he smiled, raised a hand to wave and nodded, telling him to do the same. Left hand in his coat pocket, right just by the bag strap slung over his shoulder, he started over to the sidewalk and to his usual taxi waiting spot.

It was just when he was about to put on his Ray Ban glasses when two beeps would honk just behind him and he would turn in time to see that familiar blue-green Second Generation Nissan Sentra pulling over to his part of the sidewalk. Shiro grinned as he watched and he turned back to approach the driver's side of the vehicle. Leaning low enough to meet the driver in her eye level by the time the window would be rolling down, he said, "Ms. Irene."

[ Open to: Irene ]

He was careful to make sure the silence of the kitchen wasn't broken as he set his white cup down on the table top, smoke wafting from the warm content of it as he sighed and leaned on his good hand whose good elbow was on the mahogany. In one word, Shiro sulked. Despite Jean's good efforts, his tummy still hurt if he wasn't too careful with the way he moved and worse, his left arm was in a sling because of a bloody bad thumb.

So much for thinking he could catch a bone like a baseball...

The nth sigh escaped from Shiro's lips as he was reminded of his latest match and he scratched his head then moved his fingers towards his notebook's trackpad; e-mails and YouTube were the in-thing today. The news, one he had been so fond to read whenever he started his day, was not. Fresh from the mission (if you could even call it one), he considered it a bad memory and wanted nothing more than to forget about it and just move on. Because of that, the idea of skipping work did not really settle nicely with him since it meant skipping a mundane life which did not have a Shiro who was also known as Kamuro who went into battle and lost to a bloody boy.

A bloody boy.

But Jean was keen to make sure he didn't go to work.

That had done nothing but make Shiro feel the general suck of losing gnawing on his skin. How was that possible? Last he knew, he was in check with his danger room sessions (and ate well and slept well...or close-to-well) but to lose to his half-cousin? Who was most possibly a decade younger than him? He despised the idea that he was getting on his years, thirty-three isn't a very old age.

...but who lost to a boy like that?

And what did he do wrong? He'd used his powers the way he knew how to use them best, hadn't he? How did that not work at all?

His head fell on the table with a low thud, right arm still stretched towards his notebook. If anything, skipping work for the day had only made him decide that in a few week's time and as soon as he's all better, he is going to treat the danger room like it was his lover.

[ Open to: Anyone within the X-Mansion ]

When her husband and her daughter were alive they would always ask Irene--why does she worry about the world's problems?

To see Mrs. Adler wake up in the morning, look for the newspaper and react very strongly in every headline across the nation and across the globe (poverty, violence on women, corruption, wars in the middle east, mutant rights...) were something that Trevor and Justine had been exasperated about hearing everyday.

But they understood mutant rights and they accepted why Irene would devote herself to it. They only wished she could trust other people to share her crusade and not fight like she's a one woman army. It wasn't like Charles wasn't there, or even Erik.

Now Trevor and Justine were gone, Irene finally learned how to shut up about the day's issues and keep them to herself...Provided she finds a way to distract herself or find an outlet for all those unspoken rage.

So to find herself in traffic or a stop light, all such 'unspoken rage' swarm around her head like a bee buzzing around her ears. For that instance, it was Melissa Beatbaker's words that had been causing her such Dismay and infuriation. Irene had been dribbling her fingers on the wheel, desperately wanting to pull out a cigarette, honking if the car before her was a little slow (for her taste), and just one Snap away from using her telekinesis to move vehicles out of her way.

But Irene wasn't alone that morning, she had one of her old students with her and the girl was about to be married. As the teacher, it was Irene's prime responsibility to lead her former pupil safely towards their destination: the bridal boutique.

Before she would start tapping her fingers again during another unfortunate stoplight, Irene figured a conversation will be key towards their...survival, "Have you decided on what color?"