#yukioujo

"Ayaka!"   lithe   arms   didn't   hesitate   to   pull   the   lovely   girl   into   a   firm   and   warm   embrace.

"You're   even   cuter   than   the   last   time   I   saw   you!   How   have   you   been?   We   simply   must   catch   up!   Perhaps   we   can   have   our   brothers   mingle   as   well...   hehe!"

@yukioujo​ said:

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing you.”

He attempts not to and yet his thoughts still go astray, he wonders how the traveler has introduced him to her. If he had known it was Ayaka who was accompanying the traveler in their most recent expedition of Sumeru then Tetsuya would have told Buer that he would take up any other task she wanted him to take for the day and not go with helping out the traveler with theirs, but of course this is just his luck. It isn’t that Ayaka is some sort of plague or that he’s scared of her, it is simply that he wasn’t counting on her to be here. He is unprepared, but there is little point in complaining about it since facing her is something he has in his list of things to face, things he would have tackled eventually once he found the wit to do so.

He is quite unsure of what he feels when it comes to her approach. She’s greeting him like he’s some sort of stranger and, technically, he is, he unintentionally made it so he was. Her greeting is a genuine one, one filled with manners and delightful courtesy, perhaps... even some excitement. An excitement he knows all too well that she harbors when it comes to new faces since people she can call her friends are so rare, the prospect of that being a possibility is something worth getting excited for her. He knows her a little too well and that’s a problem because as it stands now she does not know him at all. Would she really be greeting him like this if she remembered him? If she recalled? Would it be genuine? Would it be drowned in a sarcastic snark? A dismissive gaze? A mere nod of acknowledgement that he simply exists in her space due to their mutual connection with the traveler? He is personally familiar with the gentleness of her Spring, but he is also so very familiar with the frigidness of her Winter. That cryo vision she wields... is not just in mere ability and for show.

Would you really be looking forward to seeing me if you remembered me? Is the question he finds himself stuck on. 

He dwells.

He dwells.

And... he dwells.

(Why do I dwell?)

Irminsul... got him good, that’s for sure, and perhaps in the back of his mind he deserved it. Irminsul looked at him, took his most raw and heartfelt wish, and spat on it. How is that not so pathetically laughable...

He smiles at her and bows his head respectfully before straightening himself up once more.

“So have I.” And that is the truth. How long has it been? “I have heard many wonderful things about you, Kamisato Ayaka.” He’s not lying about that, many a wonderful things about her and her clan to which he almost indirectly ruined and her father who he indirectly took to his own deathbed. “My name is Tetsuya,” he introduces himself even if he wishes that the traveler wasn’t introducing him as some good friend, but at this point so many things haven’t gone his way and will probably continue not to, there is little point in him to bitch about them now. “It is a great pleasure to finally meet you.”

Would you really be looking forward to seeing me if you remembered me?  Is the question.

(... Probably not.) Is his honest answer.

     OF COURSE, SHE expected her questions to be more about cultural differences or languages ( she was very curious about the similarities between liyean & inazuman, after all ) but, that wasn’t the question that left her.

      ❝ what... is this? ❞

     IT TOOK AMBER a long moment before she realized just how her question sounded, & her hands rose into the air, shaking as she tried to explain.

     ❝ i am so sorry! i don’t think it looks gross or anything–––– i didn’t mean it that way! i’ve just never seen anything like it before! ❞

“I’m on recon duty.” She says it so seriously and solemnly, it’s almost believable. Almost.

Unfortunately, she is also snuggled up in the perfect little hollow space between two big branches of the tree, near impossible to spot had it not been for her tail dangling on the side and lazily drifting in the wind, hiding where the breeze hits juuuuust right and the leaves hide just enough of the sun to be warm but not uncomfortable and... she could doze off again right away.

@yukioujo​