On deaths and magic

Things have been pretty up and down for the past few days. For one, there have been a number of casualties in the aquarium department despite my best intentions - Debu-chan and Gin-chan have both died, and the Tomson 5 have been decimated to the Tomson 3. That being said, they seem to be much happier chilling on their own in the tank, and I have hopes that they might be able to pull through. I was genuinely saddened by the death of Debu-chan, seeing the amount of work I put into keeping him alive, but I guess with everything from the new tank that hasn't cycled properly yet, the stress of being a festival fish, the ich and all that just escalated to the point where there wasn't really anything to do anymore. It sucks, but what can you do? At least now they have some greenery and a big-ass wooden stump to hide behind, and I'm hoping they'll pull through.

On Friday I decided to go out to drinks with the friendly magician client I had that one time. I thought it might be weird, but given how weird I was feeling after everything with the Philosopher I was looking for anything to take my mind off it at that point. Despite my fears, I was pleasantly surprised - there was no inappropriateness at all. It was all handshakes and decency. We ended up at a bar drinking beer and having some tapas, talking about his family and work and life in general, before hitting a jazz bar, drinking whisky and him showing me magic tricks again. He'd even brought along the plans to his current and future house, since he knew that I studied architecture and am freakishly into that kind of thing. It was nice to have someone care, in that personal and still completely closed off way that Japanese people seem so good at. It's kindness that means nothing, and I guess that was the kind of kindness I needed at that point. We made a pact that I would help him with his English and he would correct my Japanese as well as teach me magic, and he shook my hand and went on his merry way.

I guess people aren't all terrible after all, all things considered. It's nice to know that people aren't always out to bang you, too. I don't know if it makes me self-absorbed to worry about that, but at least here that feels like a constant possibility.