personal cheerleader

Droite didn’t know much about Kotori. What she did know, however, is that she was quite a pretty girl and she had a lovely fashion sense. Looking at her made her think of herself when she was younger, and her hanging around with Yuma didn’t help this image one bit.

Droite liked to think she had good fashion sense, as well. So when she did actually go shopping for clothes - not due to a lack of funds, but more of a lack of time - it was only normal that she would find Kotori in her favourite clothes store.

But now, now she was facing the most difficult decision of her life. Both dresses would have done fine, and she would have bought them both, but... Her fingers traced over the coins in her purse, eyes fixated on the dresses. There just wasn't enough.

The unexpected visitor made Kotori yelp and step backwards, staring at the person with wide eyes. Where had she come from?? But she did look familiar -- oh!

"Droite?" Kotori gave a smile, warmly remembering what she had seen the other woman go through. She admired her, definitely, as every young teenaged girl romanticized love. She glanced at the dress that Droite had pointed out. Now that she mentioned it, it did look a lot better  than the other one.

Even giving her his name, she wouldn’t back down. He wanted the topic dropped entirely but she seemed to be the stubborn one of this rag-tag group of friends. Well the more he thought about it, all of them were. 

An exhausted shy left him, as he listened to her attempted scolding and he could only close his eyes in annoyance as she prattled on. 

“Thomas Arclight.” He cut in, meeting her full introduction with his own. His eyes moved to the side as his lips pursed out in a minor pout, looking away from her. “So I wouldn’t mind it if you stopped called me IV.” 

He tried to walk away from her, he was trying so hard not to simply scream at the girl that she was poking her noise in matters that she didn’t understand - but at the same time he found himself feeling her equal when it come to the past situation concerning his younger sibling, Micheal.  He was out for blood when he got hurt, so he supposed it was almost the same thing, that she was only looking for a simple apology. 

The pause between them carried on as his arms crossed over his chest and he jerked his head away from her - avoiding all forms of eye contact.  ”I didn’t say that.” He retorted as she continued to bring up the past. His attention snapped back to her quickly, his tempter obviously hitting it’s boiling point as he glared the girl down for putting words in his mouth. 

A breath was drawn in, as his eyes were closed. There was a long moment in which he attempted to regain his composer. He was trying. He was trying so she had to at least give him that much.

Although she could see his point, Kotori refused to believe it. No, saying sorry wouldn't repay the hospital bills or repair the duelists' self-esteem, but it would show something in Thomas, instead. If he had really changed, a sincere apology wouldn't be hard to muster.

"It would eat least make some people feel better," she mumbled, half-regretting making that her main point of the argument. Most duelists were guys, and most guys she knew would probably get mad if someone apologized to them months after the offending incident.

She crossed her arms and huffed, realizing that she wasn't going to win this argument. Rather than forcing herself to be submitted to defeat, she would yield when it looked like she still had a chance.

A hand placed on his hip as he looked her over, and gave her an exasperated look. 

“My name is Thomas.” He corrected her, seeing a confused look cross her expression - and honestly he expected as much. 

‘IV’, he would prefer to be called as such but at the same time didn’t want to keep that fear in the hearts of people that no longer needed to hold it. 

“Kotori,” she answered sternly, “Kotori Mizuki.” As much as she enjoyed spending time with Yuma and the rest of the Numbers Club, Kotori was more than prepared to make a name for herself.

Ultimately, she wouldn’t let the topic slip easily. But for now, he seemed to brush off the topic as if it were nothing. As infuriating as that was, the fear from before still lingered - she couldn’t do anything more than use her words right now.

He eyed her for a moment as he saw the girl approach. Wasn’t she that Yuma kid’s ever faithful cheerleader? What was her name again? 

He paused for a moment looking up as if he was in deep thought, honestly trying to remember her name. 

Nothing came to mind, and he decided he probably would actually have remembered her name, if she was important enough to deem such a thing. He couldn’t remember her doing much more than shouting on the sidelines anyways. 

Could she even duel? 

Letting out a sigh as he mused over the thought to himself, he concluded that such a thing was also irreverent as her name was. 

As she approached him, he placed his hand on his hip looking her over unimpressed. 

But what did she want? She had started to follow the man at a slight opportune moment, perhaps at first with arguments of a retaliation on behalf of her friends on her mind, but now, it was too terrifying to strike an argument.

She swallowed; how stupid of her, to go after a dangerous man like this. Even so, she tried to keep a determined look.