BOOKSMARTS.📚

BLUE EYES PEER UP FROM THE NEWSPAPER,     —–  they catch green eyes,  they follow those green eye’s GAZE towards the wedding dress shop.   an eyebrow RAISES. you can barely get claire redfield to think of anything other than WORK,  let alone weddings.  she doesn’t know whether it’s awful or not that she doesn’t see ANYONE she’s close with getting married.  it’s probably AWFUL.   heroes don’t actually get happy endings.   she understands though.  she’s heard bits  &  pieces from chris when she can actually get ahold of him.  while she WAS engrossed in the paper and it’s events,  she IS here for a very SPECIFIC reason and that reason isn’t ACTUALLY work.   it’s SIMPLY to be a SHOULDER for rebecca.   she understands so much that if her mind even wanders to the events of shushestvovanie island,  she QUICKLY changes pace.   the incident affected her so much that it made her ANGRY,  that being infected makes her BITTER. 

SHE’S BETTER THAN ANGRY,   —————————————      better than BITTER. one of claire’s hands reaches out,  fingers just pressing a comforting touch against rebecca’s wrist.  a SMALL SMILE curling claire’s lips.

‘  i think you’d look better in a TUX. ’

Work aside, Rebecca can’t say she’s never thought about it. Marriage. She’s watched her parent’s lovely marriage and, sometimes, yearn for such companionship herself. Sometimes. Majority of the time she’s with her nose in a book, too lost in her research to think about anything else but finding cures to the viruses that currently threaten them. But, then, when she allows herself to think, in those spare few minutes of down time she wonders: can she even have a normal relationship? There’s that dormant virus, the a-virus, now in her veins. Intimacy and kids frighten her now. It seems like a doomed story end for someone in the prime of her life.

But she tries not to think about it. Hope is a powerful thing, and it’s her motto in life. Have a little hope.

   Nothing more was really said about that matter. Save for a now humorous flash of teeth back to the other’s own bright beam. He had been there before, too many times really. The FEARS, DOUBTS and GUILT that have consumed him, whether what he was doing was ever enough. After all these years, after all that they have LOST (Sometimes barely remembering what had been GAINED as well, however). The one time he had actually given in to have a little fun (After much urging from the others), it hadn’t ended well… Lord knows how sorry he was, and how much he had appreciated the fact that she hadn’t been as mad as she should have with how things had turned out that night.

   She was giving him way too much credit. Him, being seen as the strong black coffee kinda guy, dark and as bitter as DEATH itself. He had tried keeping up that appearance, maybe once or twice, back in the days. In his attempts to impress Jill back during those days– But in the end, there was never anything wrong in using a few packets of sugar or artificial sweetener… instead of puking it all up when no one was looking, later on, “Heh, much appreciated.” Not that he ever had anything against it, as expressed with a small quirk of his right brow and corner of his lips, “… So, nice place you got here… You just moved in last month, didn’t you?”

      Slight sheepishness comes across her soft features.    “  Sorry.. I just assumed, but you probably want some sugar right? I can add a spoon.   ”    Already, she’s to her feet, trying to find a sugar packet on her counter. She finds two luckily before handing it over to Chris along with a stirring straw, and returning back to her own cup. The whip cream in it is already beginning to melt from the hotness. Eyelashes flutter shut as she takes a long, nice sip. Heaven in a cup.

   IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LITTLE… INEPT, not that that would have turned the child completely off then as she sat herself down beside the sis on that plush bench. She couldn’t possibly begin to understand which notes were which– and so, she really didn’t mind hearing about it all from her as she attempted to remember what she could from the old hobby. It sounded DECENT enough, what she was managing to play then. Enough that Itsuki would swing her legs just a little beneath them, almost ready to hum or even sing, if the chance arose.

   “Thar even low ones, sis…? If all dem music notes are named aftah da alphy-berts an’ all– an’ boi dat’s-a lotta notes. if so– ah can see why ye’d ‘ave a lil trouble, sis…. ye musicians are amazin’, rea-leh~”

        “  Well, not the whole alphabet, thankfully. I can’t imagine having to remember that many notes. ”      oh, she can barely remember the ones there are as it is. A smile graces her lips at Itsuki’s kindness. What an endearing little girl. So sweet, so innocent.     “   Yes, there’s high notes and low notes. You hear a variety of them depending on the genre of the music.   ”   fingers press a high note and a low note for effect so Itsuki can hear the difference in keys. She thinks she sees the musician store keeper looking over at them quizzically. Is Rebecca going to buy a piano? Probably not. She doesn’t have the space for it at the moment in her condo. She likes to drop by the store to eye the piano though, and the store keeper knows her by now to allow it.

   NOT WHAT HE’D EXPECTED, even from her. But there was a small sense of comfort, nonetheless. Still bright, hopeful, after all they have been through– She is still that spark, as it is seen even in those eyes of hers then. The smallest smile would curl in the corner of his lips before he knew it. Almost alien, for once it wasn’t an awkward looking grimace (Which was never his intention, whenever he tried breaking past that normally perpetually perturbed demeanor).

   “Heh, can’t say I hadn’t heard that one before, though I’m pretty sure the one that’s still working their hardest here is you, Rebecca.” A sigh followed, “I guess it wouldn’t hurt.” They don’t get to do this often, anyway.

      “    Oh, don’t flatter me. You work twice as hard.   ”   fingers come up to adjust her glasses as she beams up at Chris. They both work hard, in different ways. Both of their jobs are demanding as it is. There’s little time for anything else. Rebecca can’t remember the last time she went out to just have fun.