3.3 | flick | no one's waiting for anyone | re: a sprinkle of everyone; timeline, injury, notes
Flick, still looking towards their POM, fixates on what’s on their screen when Ruri speaks. They glance up to stare at a neutral spot on the table, eyes sharp, and then they shake their head.
“...No, I think the notebook was her handwriting.”
A look up, still dipping at the waist, so they can suck a deep breath in and then out while looking at Ruri. It would be a normal enough reassuring action from them, save for the hitching on the inhale, the sss of air escaping through clenched teeth on the exhale.
Further forward so they can look at Fox again, their braid slipping from their shoulder at the angle. A pause as Lily talks, and then they follow.
“...Ok, plus, like, people kinda knew the secret Ven got? Like, generally. It didn’t have anything to do with what was in the notebook, so like… yeah.”
They may have stayed like that, pupils wide and locked on Fox, had it not been for Tali. A flicker of something across their face -- it makes them blink quick and their mouth part and, maybe most importantly, lean back -- before they fix their stare on the grass, something difficult to read about their expression.
It eventually goes to where there’s movement. Rory stands. They’re quiet for some time, their eyes blink fully up, considering. They don’t look back down, looking for the starts of stars, looking away from bodies.
“...With the pick… I mean, I don’t know. Ru did a clean cut that like… did the same thing… blood wise… right? I didn’t really look too hard then. I guess she would know the most out of all of us what it takes to do that.”
Maybe noticeably, not a pointed leaning look towards Ruri here, something tepid about her tone. She’s guided back to the chair without much of a complaint after this line of thought, her knee coming up on the seat so she can hug her arm around it. While she stays quiet, the puff of her breath becomes audible even with her mouth shut as Jake and Fox speak, head snapping to her side. Her gaze burrows into her new neighbors, a rhythmic clicking of her teeth starting up.
It comes out in something like a sigh and a gasp when Byron interjects, their head going to him. They manage a quieter couple of words --
-- and then nod along, their bangs going with the movement. When Byron finishes, they look back over at Jake.
“If you don’t think it’s him, don’t worry so much? Don’t make this any harder.”
And then, a look back to Byron.
“You’re so right, though, like? And then like, Ro, you too, about stuff like that not sounding like her… I don’t know, she was kind of different recently anyway, right? Like Tals said, she finally got a haircut to be safer. She was talking about that for like, a little bit now, but pulled the trigger. She was carrying around a protection charm. Like… instigating or not, she literally found Lucky dead at a shit hour, just like how this was all happening at a shit hour. Ronnie's right, there’s no way she wasn’t thinking about that so down to the wire. Like, all love, but if any of you told me it slipped your mind..."
A grimace that looks more like they're just showing their teeth, their nose uncrinkled and their cheeks more relaxed.
Then, a belated look to Jules, one that they lean forward into and hold until they’re sure he’s had a chance to see they’re addressing him.
“Ok, so, you’re saying the two options are similar to what Tals is saying, right? And you want it to be that like, the killer tried to use Ven’s notes to make it look like she was trying to go after Fox? So like, ok, timing wise, that sounds kind of crazy to me? They had to go through Ven’s stuff to find her notebook at some point, see the stuff in it, and then find out they could make it look like Ven was gonna target Fox. Already, it’s kind of a lot. Like, they would’ve had to steal the notebook before, or… I don’t know, find it in her bag during this whole thing? They would’ve had to take her POM, probably from her bag too, and then go up to her room. Put the ripped up notebook in it. Go back down with her POM. Waste time putting it in a locker right next to where she’s lying. Put the key in a different spot, like, kind of banking on it being found?”
Their eyes dart for a second to Jake again, and then back to Jules.
“Like… oh brother, right? Why spend so much time doing something that just, I don’t know, putting the notebook in her bag would solve? Or bother hiding the POM at all if you really wanted her notebook to be in her room? Unless there’s a reason you can think of for like, literally all of that, like… I think it’s probably that it’s either exactly what it looks like, or that Ven ripped out the pages herself.”
