The next day was calm. Count Bleck knocked on Dimentio's door, but the jester refused to answer. He wasn't trying to be rude or anything, but this was his vacation, so he technically didn't have to answer to the count. Besides, he was too busy getting invested in his new book. 

Dimentio never was really into the whole story behind Christmas. To him, it was simply the time of year when people became super obsessed with good cheer and such, however, the book highlighted a whole bunch of aspects that he had never even thought existed. 

Remembering his teleportation skills made the vacation all the more relaxing. He was able to get himself a cup of hot chocolate without even standing up. It was incredibly convenient. How did he even survive without using the ability? He probably should have used his powers for the snowball fight. If he had, Bleck, Mr. L, and himself would have most definitely won. 

He made sure to pace himself when reading, not wanting to finish the book too quickly. After what was probably an hour or so, he decided to take a break and go out in the snow just to get some fresh air. No one else from his team was still there when he checked, so it was safe to assume that Count Bleck took them all on a mini-adventure. Perhaps that was why he was knocking earlier. 

Dimentio didn't let himself feel too left out. After all, it was his choice not to respond to the knocking. Besides, he spent enough time with them already, and he had plenty more time left. 

There was more snow than the day before, but the sky was clear. Dimentio couldn't recall a snowstorm happening the night before, but something must have gone down when he fell asleep because there was a fresh foot of snow. If he squinted, he could still see his friends' footprints. 

He probably could have followed them. However, he didn't want to go after them only to lose their trail and get himself lost. The area was fairly easy to navigate, but it was still an unfamiliar setting nonetheless.

Instead, he decided to go back to his cabin and spend the rest of the day reveling in the laziness. He went to bed early that night, unknowing of whether or not his teammates came back.

The next morning, he awoke to frantic knocking.

He still felt rather exhausted, so he tried to ignore it and stay in bed. However, these knocks were louder and more persistent than the count's.

 "Dimentio!" Mr. L's voice called. "Come on, get up!"

Dimentio shifted slightly, then groaned and sat up, stretching his arms. Outside his windows were still incredibly dark. It must have been super early. 

"What time is it?" Dimentio muttered, half certain that Mr. L wouldn't have been able to hear him.

"Late" Mr. L replied whilst continuing to knock. "Now get out here!"

"Late as in late at night?" Dimentio asked. 

He stilled for a second, then allowed himself to fall back into his bed, the mattress sinking beneath him.

"Dimentio!"

"No."

"Come on, please?" 

"Please what?" Dimentio groaned. "What is important enough that you feel the need to wake me up like this? I thought it was tomorrow already. Go to sleep, L."

"The sky, Dimentio!" Mr. L exclaimed. The jester could practically hear the childlike wonder in his voice. It was almost funny. "Tonight is supposed to be the clearest night of the month. You gotta see it. You missed it earlier, so you have to see it now!"

Dimentio took his pillow and placed it over his head, hoping it would drown out the sound of Mr. L's knocking. It didn't.

"Dimentio, please!" Mr. L begged in a whiney voice. He must have been taking lessons from Mimi. 

The jester eventually concluded that the only way to solve the problem was to face it head-on. So, he pulled himself out of bed and dragged his feet over to the door, gathering all his energy before reaching for the handle and pushing it open. 

"Oh, good, it's you," Mr. L smiled, his fist still hanging in the air from all the knocking. There were dark circles under his slightly puffy eyes, but aside from that he didn't look tired in the slightest.

"Go away," Dimentio said, trying to sound harsh, but the yawn that escaped his lips made him probably seem more tired than annoyed.

"Nope. You opened the door, which means you accept!" the man in green grinned. "Follow me!"

Dimentio silently watched as Mr. L turned and flicked on the headlamp he was wearing instead of his hat. He then started walking into the woods, which were practically pitch black. 

Clearly, Mr. L didn't know how to take no for an answer. It was laughable, really. Did he seriously think Dimentio would just follow him blindly?

Although, the jester didn't want him to get lost. Walking in the forest alone at night was like something out of a horror movie. It would probably ruin his entire winter vacation if Mr. L got mauled by wolves or something. Not to mention how mad Count Bleck would be if he found out Dimentio had the chance to supervise the clearly idiotic man in green and prevent him from doing stupid things, yet chose not to. 

"Wait," the jester finally called out as he quickly grabbed his cloak and slipped it on over his sleepwear. He jumped into the nearest pair of boots and started tying them as fast as he could until he figured he didn't have enough time and opted to give up. Then, he took off running after the man in green.

He was almost too late. Mr. L had practically faded from view by the time Dimentio got outside. The fact that he had a fast pace didn't make matters any better. Luckily, the jester was able to catch up. 

Mr. L didn't say anything upon his arrival, he simply looked back and offered a quick smile. Then, they were off. 

Birds chirped into the night, singing sweet melodies into the darkness. It was calming. The jester found himself closing his eyes and humming along with them. 

After a few minutes, however, he felt his shoulders drop slightly and his eyes flutter open. There was a dark feeling that briefly swelled within his chest.  

"L, why do the birds sing?" the jester asked. 

"It's how they communicate," Mr. L shrugged casually. "They've always sang."

Dimentio shook his head, squinting his eyes slightly.

"Yeah, but it's winter."

And it was nighttime, right? Did birds sing at night? Some must have, why would he be hearing them otherwise?

The man in green stopped for a moment, which practically made Dimentio run into him. 

Then, Mr. L slowly turned back and looked at the jester with a thoughtful expression. One that felt familiar, yet unlike him. Like his eyes no longer belonged to him. 

Were they always that blue?

"You're right..." the man in green trailed off. "That's... really weird."

After that, the birds stopped singing. 

Dimentio forgot about the conversation and the two continued onward until Mr. L finally stopped at a small clearing in the forest. It wasn't large by any means, but there was just enough space to see the sky without any tree branches in the way. 

"Ta-da!" Mr. L chimed, holding his arms out and shaking his hands slightly. "It's even brighter than earlier! The count found this place on the way back. Sun had just set, so not many stars were out. I knew it would be prettier later at night!"

Mr. L flicked off his headlamp and looked up at the sky.

Dimentio nodded to himself, suddenly remembering that Mr. L was always obsessed with everything related to outer space. How could he forget?

He followed Mr. L's gaze and looked up. It looked like a sparkling blanket covered in rhinestones had been spread across the endless expanse of darkness, line by line. Each twinkled at the same time, sparkling just as brightly as their neighbors. 

They were beautiful.

But something felt wrong. They were too organized. Like he was looking at a grid instead of the real thing. 

"Does this feel wrong to you-"

"Look! There's Rigel!" Mr. L interrupted, pointing toward the sky. 

Dimentio looked over at Mr. L, who didn't seem to notice the strange, uncanny feel the sky had given him.

Perhaps he was just overthinking. After all, he didn't stargaze often, so perhaps his preconception of what the night sky should have looked like was all wrong. If something really wasn't right, Mr. L would have most definitely noticed. He was the one obsessed with the sky.

"That's the name of the star," Mr. L explained. "It's one of the brightest."

Dimentio nodded, though he couldn't pinpoint which star Mr. L was talking about. All the stars seemed equally as bright as the other. Same color, same size, same everything.

"That's great," Dimentio nodded, pretending to care. He wanted to care with all his heart, but his mind was elsewhere.

"You're not into this," Mr. L noticed, turning his gaze from the sky to the jester. A crease formed between his brows. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing," Dimentio said. "I just... I don't know."

"You don't have to know," Mr. L shrugged with his usual goofy smile. Was it his, though? It didn't look like his, but it did at the same time. "That's the thing about life. People think they have to know everything, but they really don't. In fact, most people don't know anything. If we put all our minds together and combined our knowledge, we'd still know so little."

"Thanks," Dimentio sarcastically muttered, trying to hide the fact that he felt like he might have been losing it. "How inspiring."

"I didn't mean it like that," Mr. L said quickly. "I just meant that it's okay to not know what's wrong. Just don't let the unknown bad things ruin the good things. I can help if you let me."

Dimentio rolled his eyes, trying to fight a forming smile. His confusion was slowly starting to fade away, no longer feeling quite so relevant.

"That's another thing. Why do you do that?"

"Do what?" Mr. L asked.

"Help so much," Dimentio explained. "You're on vacation. Why are you volunteering at the tree lot? Why are you spending your time on others? Did they ask you to?"

"No, I chose to work there. I just think it's rewarding," Mr. L shrugged.

"That can't be it."

"Why not?"

Dimentio crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow, which in turn made the man in green put his hands up as if he were being interrogated. 

"Alright, alright, you caught me," Mr. L admitted. He then placed his hands over his stomach and looked back at the sky, tapping his foot slightly as he struggled to come up with an answer.

Dimentio waited silently as well, trying not to let his patience wear thin. Usually, if answers took this long to formulate, they were lies, so he was starting to get a little annoyed. 

It was hard to stay annoyed for too long, though. After all, being annoyed was an uncomfortable feeling, so he didn't like wasting too much time with it. 

"People need help," Mr. L finally answered. "Everyone does. And more often than not, people will see them and choose to do nothing. Most are too afraid to step forward and do the right thing. So in a way, I guess I'm just trying to be brave."

"Sounds like the kind of thing a hero would say," Dimentio chuckled.

"What's wrong with that?" Mr. L shrugged with a playful smile. "Don't tell me you have something against heroes."

"Heroes aren't realistic," Dimentio pointed out with a shrug. "The whole hero-villain thing is so cliche, don't you think? There is no such thing are pure good or evil. Only people. Some are better than others, but we're still all people."

Mr. L hummed to himself, then shrugged and sat down in the snow, leaning back on his elbows slightly so he could continue to gaze at the sky without craning his neck.

"And what kind of person do you suppose I am, Dimentio?" he asked.

"I don't know," the jester admitted. "I don't really focus on you."

"Ouch." 

"Sorry," Dimentio shrugged. "I can't lie, L."

"I know," Mr. L nodded, though his voice was softer. 

There was a silence that had settled between them. Dimentio wasn't sure whether or not it felt awkward. It wasn't the same kind of quiet there was between him and Count Bleck before. This one felt louder, if that even made sense. It felt a little more tense. Dimentio didn't like that. 

So, he allowed the thoughts in his head to fill that silence. He welcomed each passing idea, allowing it to take its place and wander about his mind. He thought of how strange the sky looked to him, then he thought about how it was even stranger that he couldn't remember what he thought the sky was supposed to look like. 

At first, it was just little things around him that felt weird, but as time continued to pass, more and more started to feel wrong. 

The fact that he felt wrong felt wrong.

He wanted to feel right. He wanted this world to feel right to him. 

He just wanted to relax and enjoy his winter vacation. He wanted his mind to stop tricking him into not accepting the peace. 

Maybe that was the problem. He was so used to chaos that his body physically didn't know how to accept such a perfect, happy world. His mind was trying to convince him that it wasn't right because he wasn't used to it. He was his own worst enemy in a world that didn't have enemies.

He was sure that with more time, he'd grow accustomed to the feeling of happiness. It would just take some getting used to, that's all.

"I think you're the kind of person who tries to figure out things on your own," Mr. L said, interrupting the peace that Dimentio was just starting to allow himself to be comfortable with. "When something's wrong, you try and fix it yourself."

"Does that make me a hero or a villain?" Dimentio asked with a quiet chuckle.

"Oh, I have no idea," Mr. L admitted. "I think that's up to you."

Dimentio wanted to laugh more. Since when was anything really up to him?

"Who we are is always up to us deep down," Mr. L explained as if he was reading Dimentio's thoughts, which he might have been. Did the man in green have powers? Dimentio couldn't remember. "I think when given the choice, I'd like to be a hero."

"You just say that because heroes are more popular."

"As, ever the observant one," Mr. L smiled. "Fans are definitely a plus. But seriously, when choosing between good and bad, kindness is much more fulfilling."

Dimentio shook his head.

Something about that felt weird too.

It felt like the kind of thing Mr. L would say. 

But at the same time, it felt like the kind of thing Mr. L would never say.