@witchofwarmth​ continued from here
For Olruggio this is all so new... so Qifrey is trying to be gentle, to watch his Watchful Eye carefully.
As for himself, his fondness for Olruggio has had this ache to it, this pain, for years now. The small smile that appears on his face is practically as natural as breathing. Whether it’s genuine or not he could hardly tell you at this point.
“Almost like nothing ever happened,” he says.
It’s true in terms of the windowpane but so utterly untrue for everything--and everyone--else.
It’s still only been a few days back at the atelier for all of them. The girls are each unsettled in their own ways, ranging from the tetchy privateness of Agott and Riche to the desperate cheer of Tetia and Coco. They can sense it. They still don’t fully know how long they might have left in this little home before they might be abandoned again, and he hates that he’s created such a fear in them.
That they each are still choosing him as their teacher despite it all gives him the same melancholy feeling as Olruggio does: a fondness so fierce it is painful.
“... I make myself very hard to reach sometimes,” Qifrey adds. “That’s my own doing, not yours.”
This has always been true between the two of them, but now here they’ve come out the other side and, unlike the windowpane, everything is slightly different, edges still sharp. There is no neatness.
