#heriward

        LEBLANC IS MORE OR LESS EMPTY THAT DAY, their only company sakura - san, but he’d left the store for a moment to check on something at home. ren wasn’t in, either, so kasumi took it as an honor that he’d left the store in their hands, however brief. their conversation, now free of absent - minded supervision, had taken a turn when she’d posed the question:

        senpai, this may be a bit much to ask, but how do you do it ? how do you so easily become who you need to be in the moment ? without the anxiety and mental blocks ... ?

        she knew it to be intrusive. she knew ... they weren’t terribly close. and yet lack of direction made people do strange things. kasumi thought that maybe he could provide her with that, in the very least, and maybe she’d learn more about the detective she’d once admired as well. no matter how the boy he was now shook her to her core.

        this reversal hadn’t quite been what she’d anticipated. but it was okay; kasumi was happy to play support for someone that was, in some small way, a friend.

        “ well, now, senpai, ” she begins, all dimples and cheer; the sun chases away her dark, cloudy despair. “ you don’t need to be anymore. like all of us, you’re now a master of your own fate. ” she places a reassuring hand atop his, though the touch is brief and fleeting; kasumi pulls away before it becomes too much for him. she was still growing accustomed to this side of him when prior to then she’d have thought akechi to be of a similar mind as her. a socialite, a media darling, now she knew otherwise to be true. no one was ever exactly how they appeared.

        “ that isn’t a dismissal, of course. ” i am maruki takuto, she tells herself. i am a trained professional. i can provide comfort, a shoulder to lean on. i can listen. “ nor is it a simple reassurance. i’m here to listen if you have more to say. or --- just talk. or --- or ... ” kasumi forces her mouth shut sheepishly, fingers interlacing themselves around warm porcelain. lips curl upward around the rim as she takes a sip, expectant eyes watching him all the while.