#leadacetate

★» misao leans back in response, as if to preserve the sanctity of personal space on a hangnail, palms cradling elbows. sardony slips in and she bites back the smile forming on her lips, eyebrows raised.

“--The theremin? Really?” 

     Credit where credit is due, the process usually works. Nana reaches up with her free hand to feel around for his cheek once his chin comes down onto her shoulder, delivering a series of light, vaguely-consolitory pats once she finds it.

Send 🗣 for my muse to say how they really feel about yours // accepting

     “Hara-kun and me? We’re friends, but it’s complicated, because sometimes his personality is kinda bad and he gets carried away if you don’t call him on stuff.☆”

     Her words are as straightforward as ever–lacking in malice but also lacking in tact. It’s important to be honest, though, she thinks–even when people don’t like it (which is about half of the time, at least).

     “When we hang out, it’s a lot of fun, ‘cause we’re both people who can make plans on the fly based on what sounds like the most fun without worrying about all that annoying small stuff, but if it’s too much at somebody else’s expense, then it’s no good, and I gotta tell him so. Usually it’s pretty chill, though–more than you’d expect, maybe. Hara-kun’s kinda nice when he’s not going out of his way to be mean, I think–but whenever I tell him so, he always seems to go the other way just to spite me. That’s way too cheeky, right? One of these days, I’m gonna put him in a headlock over it.☆”

     “When it comes to basketball, though…” Her playful demeanor sobers at this, eyes roaming aimlessly over her surroundings. “…Ahh, it’s no good. I don’t like the way Hara-kun plays it at all. I only went to one game, and I won’t go to another unless he plays a clean one. That’s what I decided. I told him as much, but I don’t really know what he thought when I said it–or if he thought about it, period.” She deflates a little, scuffing the heel of her shoe into the floor. “Maybe it didn’t really matter to him at all.”

    “…I’m frustrated,” Nana adds after a beat, a little quieter now. Her brows furrow, shoulders bunching up, fingers drumming restlessly against her sides. “…I don’t get how a game like that can be fun, how winning could possibly feel good when you do it that way. I… really love basketball with all my heart, so I can’t understand it at all. Is Hara-kun really happy playing like that? It makes me angry.”

    “It’s no good if I give up completely, though, right?” She huffs through her noise–false bravado. She gestures sweepingly with her hands and her next words come out a little uneven–jittery, like she’s rushing to get them all out. “’Cause… maybe Hara-kun doesn’t have any other friends who’ll say stuff like this, and that’s no good–if you spend all your time with people who all do the same things as you, then you never have to think about why you’re doing them, or if it even really makes you happy.”

     Nana puts her hands out in front of her, watching them curl and uncurl from fists like the words she wants to say will appear on her palms if given enough time to do so.Slowly, her bunched-up posture uncurls and she tips her head upwards again. When she raises her head, her expression is clearer–still lacking its usual toothy grin, but… brighter, more resolute now.  Finally, she brings her intense gaze fully upwards, and despite the somber subject she’s fallen into, she speaks clearly now–almost painfully earnest.

   Soft Affection (Send in an icon for my muse to:) // accepting

   → 👉 Gently poke or prod yours

     The inner machinations of Hara’s mind are an enigma, really.

     Nana is aware (at least partially) that sometimes Hara just wants to play the role of “mad scientist whose primary field of study is experimenting with little ways to annoy her a bit”. Maybe it’s because his standard approach doesn’t really work with her–either due to her own deafness to tone and passive aggression or else her water-off-a-duck’s-back outlook on being jabbed at verbally, so if he wants to (harmlessly) tick her off a little, he has to think outside the box.

     (He could use basketball, but that doesn’t really lend itself well to banter and benign annoyance so much as it lends itself to clipped, frustration and–in some cases–Nana leaving him on read for two consecutive days before caving once he fires off a stunningly-cursed-looking candid of his neighborhood’s fattest stray cat and she can no longer resist the siren song of responding with things like  “ABSOLUTE UNIT” or “BIG CHUNKY” between strings of incomprehensible keysmashes).

     …Or maybe he’s just distracted today. Either way, she’s not getting the same level of engagement she usually gets from him, and it’s making her restless in a way that wandering through the city isn’t helping (though it’s better than just sitting somewhere–ugh, sitting). He’s been all noncommittal noises since they left the burger place, long stride unadjusted to compensate for her shorter one (not that that’s necessarily part of this, but still). 

     Finally, Nana decides enough is enough, huffs through her nose, and makes a leaping stride forwards, tipping her face down like a charging bull before butting her head semi-playfully (but pointedly) against the middle of his back. After a brief moment, she circles around to his side, brows furrowed, and shoots him a look that’s split between impatience and uncertainty.

     She's been out here pacing since the end of the third quarter, anger stewing beneath sharp breaths and jittery hands. She waits and waits and waits and hopes the waiting will cool her temper, because sooner or later he’s going to come out. He’d turned her way briefly at the end of the second quarter, when there was no more willfully denying what kind of game was being played--his brief, inscrutable expression to her strained one, like he was taking stock, waiting for something to finally give way. The only thing she’d been able to hear at that point over the blood rushing in her ears had been the snap of his gum as he turned back to the game, echoing with surround-sound clarity.

     (He’d popped his gum and then flashed a smile with too much teeth last week after lunch when she’d mentioned coming to the game. If he’d actually said anything in response, she can’t remember it now.)

     Silence stretches after the initial burst of angry words she greets him with. Then he responds, and she feels something hot and heavy and resentful plummet into the pit of her stomach. The back of her throat goes sandpaper-dry and her eyes burn a hole into the space on the ground between his sneakers, fists clenched tightly at her sides (still jittery). 

     “You must think I’m some kind of idiot,” she hisses bitingly, breath hitching over the last word. Nana’s closed mouth twists like it’s not sure where to settle on her face. Her fingernails dig crescent marks into the palms of her hands. She breathes deliberately-slow through her nose (like her senpai taught her, before she even taught her how to dribble). “But I know basketball. Don’t insult me.”

     She doesn’t address his offhandedness about the injuries of the opposite team. It feels like he’ll talk (taunt) circles around her if she gives him that opening. There’s something else she wants to ask.