2023-03-29: Softly, the Future is a Phoenix's Aria
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, May Morseland
- Where: Tsutsujidai High School
- Date: U.C. 0097 03 29
- Summary: What is a former god to a young woman?
A new friend, just as valuable as any other.
(CW: Mention/discussion of parental issues/neglect)
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
After a... difficult, conversation, Akane Shinjo has found her way to Tsutsujidai High School. She needs to pick up her transcripts, and a few other things besides; she left a lot more at school than she thought, and now that they're in the period approaching graduation... well, she actually needs all that stuff.
So for the moment, she's waiting outside the faculty office. Her paperwork situation is a whole mess; the faculty are Having A Talk About It, and she expects to be waiting for half an hour, at this rate.
She's pulled a desk out of one of the classrooms and plopped it next to the faculty office door. May as well settle in.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
May, ever the busy bee that she is, has already sorted out her academic affairs. Despite everything, the A+ streak was unbroken. She would definitely have to report the good news to the other of two girls she'd joked about that with, now that she potentially could again.
Which admittedly made it a tad strange she was still here right now. Most students rarely wanted to be in the place where classes and homework assignments happened any more than strictly necessary. May Morseland was not most students, on a good number of levels. Plus, she was also not going to be here again; even someone like her indulged in reminiscence from time to time.
And so, she ambles through the halls, both surveying the surroundings with a warm expression (the weight of past and memory felt just that little bit less metaphorical to her recently), and whistling something to herself in progressive fragments while writing something down on a handbook of musical notesheet.
Whatever it is falls silent in the air as she comes across the familiar face sitting beside the door. One that always felt a little more familiar than she would've usually thought, both from the scant occasions she had caught a glance not to mention the recent prom, and from the resonance in her heart that she was still getting to grips with but didn't quite feel like this usually.
(May could not possibly consider a familiarity of the very walls she'd known and streets she had walked for her whole existence.)
"Oh! Hey, Akane!" The five and a half foot girl with long brown hair and light green eyes filled with sparks from her smile waves enthusiastically, the notebook folded into her penhand for the gesture which recedes as she appears to realize the situation a bit more.
"...You've uh, never met me directly, which I didn't get to fix at Prom," She chuckles, shrugging to herself. At least she got to make that familiarity real now. "I'm one of Rikka's friends, through Namiko, and Hass," A comma in her words, a near imperceptible pause the only hesitation in her speech and tone as she leans on the nearby wall. "May. May Morseland."
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
It takes a moment for Akane to place May; she's been trying to relate to her city in a less... compulsive, way, and part of that means letting herself not think about every single person in it. She drums her fingers on the desk absently as she tries to get a name out of her brain -- then starts tapping her foot --
And May, conveniently, solves the problem for her. "Oh, right," she says, fingers moving up toward her own dark hair. "Good to see you, May." She breathes a content sigh of relief, as she realizes she does not, in fact, have to get every fact out of her head.
When she mentions she's Rikka's friend through Namiko and Hass, Akane brightens a little. "You must be pretty relieved to have Hass back around, right? Things were pretty dicey there for a while..." She doesn't take credit for it -- it'd be rude. It doesn't matter that she did it -- just that it got done.
... her head wraps around the combination of 'May's a local' and 'May's a foreign exchange student,' and instantly she looks a little guilty. "So, like -- why are you here? I'd figure you'd be killing time while you wait to graduate. You're... a third year, right?"
Wow. Getting dumped right into the deep end... that's gonna be rough.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
"Aha, feeling's mutual!" May beams with effortless brightness as she takes the notebook back into her other hand and occasionally scribbles a bit more in it, quick glances and occasional humming the only flicker from her attention straight on Akane.
"Oh jeez, for real," May gives a relieved sigh, one months overdue. "Especially after...that broadcast and, y'know," The sounds of agony and a pain in May's heart she only recently had words for. "All that. But she's here again, and that's what matters." Her gratitude to everyone potentially involved was unstated but luminous.
She notices the expression dart across Akane's face instantly, a minuscule twitch in the direction of an eyebrow raise but no other reaction in the absence of why. "I mean, I am!" She lifts the notebook for emphasis, the pen twirling between her fingers in a near-effortless gesture. "Didn't have anything else in particular and I like to be places while I think of stuff, so I figured why not savour this place while I'm still here?"
At the latter question, she nods, and seems to scribble something quickly in reaction to 'third'. "Yupyup! Transferred here to get a head start on my kinda sorta OE, Overseas Experience or gap year in non-Zealander, and among other things I got to meet girls like you so I'd say it paid off!" She chuckles with a grin, friendly but...with a somewhat mysterious note as she seems to start writing something else.
"But really, its been an awesome year all round, for all the Everything recently. Been so busy and eventful, it's enough for a lifetime already to be perfectly honest!"
She giggles, her gaze darting around to check their surroundings for some reason before turning the contents of her notesheet to face Akane. Among various musical minutiae and commentary notes, between staves was written something in large letters.
'I Know.'
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Haha, yeah... apparently there was something going on with her even before she disappeared, though," Akane answers, and she can't quite meet that sunny gaze about it. She'd been so fixated on getting her city back into the 'right place' that she let go of the reason she'd wanted to put it back like that in the first place, and Hass paid the price... or at least, that's how she sees it.
The guilt only gets worse as she listens to May recount her transfer experiences, and say how great the year has been. "Great," Akane agrees, though her tone is pretty flat about it. She joins in that darting gaze -- and then turns her attention to the notesheet.
'I Know.'
The world feels so small again. Akane's head hangs down; under the pressure, something in her cracks. She seems smaller. Her hair shifts from that dark black-brown back to lilac in a near instant.
Her mouth opens, and she can't quite find the words. 'I'm sorry' doesn't feel like enough. "... What are you going to do next?" she asks, quietly. "GGG or the Yumi Foundation can probably fix the statelessness thing," she starts. "Might take longer for someone who isn't Japanese."
Her fingers wind in her skirt. "How can you be so nice about it?" she asks, weakly.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
"That...makes sense yeah..." May purses her lips in an inscrutable smile. This was partially why she had been thinking of raising the things she'd thought of about Akane. She didn't like the idea of not being able to be there for someone.
May was about to ask in concern about the obvious dismay Akane was showing for some reason. It was palpable.
But next to the way what followed hit inside, even before the sudden shift in the physical world, it was a whisper. Just what had Akane gone through that this was a sore subject for her? May takes a breath even subtly more heavy than usual, and suppresses a slight tremor in the hand pulling the notebook back to her side for now. Her usual instinct is very much to say something about a phenomena that obvious, but especially recently, she can also read the room.
"Not sure, if I'm honest with ya!" She chirps, undaunted externally, if slightly more quiet, shrugging. "Was feeling like traveling a bit...especially with how much I haven't quite seen." At the suggestion, she glances upward in thought, nodding to herself as she taps the underside of a chin with her pointer finger. "Sounds good! Was already gonna hit the latter up, but I definitely like the sound of options, and those other guys seem cool!" A slight chuckle of a positive riser at the end of her sentence, the delight of potentially knowing others more a shimmer across her smile.
But then the elephant in the room. May's eyebrows knit in plain concern for the girl. "Don't see why not. I'm a nice girl, or at least I try to be! I don't want that to be something I just let the world change..."
Hold on. 'Nice'. The way that word sits in the sentence, both the one Akane said and the kind she seems to be expecting for some reason. It was a quality applicable to the situation but...it usually implied a relevant direction.
The implications race in her mind.
"...Hold on, Akane." May follows up in a small yet assured (and assuring) voice, the smile still somehow never leaving the edges of her lips even as she regards Akane thoughtfully. "The way you said that just now...I was figuring out how to broach some things to you but. I think you might be doing the thing where I accidentally bluffed you into revealing more than I actually got."
May glances around a bit then kneels down slightly, respectfully closer to Akane at her desk. "I...learned about being uh. Created, from Rikka...last month, reconnecting. I...sorta accidentally put her in a weird position because I spilled that I was feeling a kinda way about," She pulls her phone out of her pocket briefly for demonstration. "My folks not being available anymore. And she figured out what you seem to have, about...well,"
May shrugs, the most subtly-ennui 'what can you do' gesture around to go with a quiet snort. "So she was nice enough to trust me with that, when I was in a weird spot. I kinda figured something like that might've been the case, bc 'kaiju' didn't quite add up, but still. I needed to hear it, I guess."
She looks up and meets Akane in the eyes as much as she can. "Even before that, I asked about you, because...you kinda dipping and all after all this really hit the fan, and I have some junior friends who told me it wasn't...the first time that lined up with stuff going bad. So..." She bites her lip a bit. "Rikka was tactful enough not to say anything about why but...I can't help but put things together, especially when I've decided I care about someone. Sorry."
"I was gonna say sorry for whatever put you at the center of all that, because whatever did it probably never would."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
It gnaws at Akane -- how easygoing May can be, how she chirps her way through the growing issues with her situation. She can see that there's legitimate pensiveness there, but at the same time -- how can she be so free-spirited? This is her one life, and it's so upended.
Akane's foot starts tapping -- first at the floor, then at one of the legs of the desk she'd dragged out. It's not a loud tap, but there's an anxious energy she can't vent any other way as May speaks, as May assesses her, as May assures her. (That, too, starts to rattle against the edges of her brain. She's not the one who needs assurance. Even if the situation is complex... she's the bad guy here.)
When she admits that she may have accidentally bluffed her into revealing more than she knew already, though -- that's something that finally gets her out of the brain loop. She looks up, if not quite to May's eyes. "I guess... I owe you the other half of that story." And this time she can't rely on Rikka and Alouette to tell it; she has to tell it herself, here, since Rikka's already done the telling.
When May tries to meet her eyes, she looks away. "I was the one who made the kaiju that kept up this city. That made it. I didn't really have a lot of control over what happened, or what the people in the city were like... I just wanted a world that was easy to live in," she explains. "My ex-guardian gave me that, and if I wanted to change it... I had to use more kaiju. I kept trying to... no, it's not that I kept trying to stop. I wanted to stop but I felt like I had to keep going... and he always kept me on track."
Swallowing, Akane continues recounting how everything happened. "I couldn't handle a world bigger than this. I think I might still not be able to." Then again, she reflects, it's not really her responsibility to handle it by herself now. Didn't she just forward May to people who could help with her situation?
... honestly, though, that might be enough to say for now. She decides to ask, instead:
"What kinda way are you feeling? About your folks, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
May is hardly blind to the storm brewing within Akane's heart, especially given how obvious she's making it, especially to a musician's ears. But she presses on regardless. Even in a situation like this, she trusts the feelings and strength of another to assert what's best for them. And Akane needed to hear these things. At least, May hoped she did.
At Akane's offer, May's eyebrows raise in a surprise, the possibilities percolating furiously in her thoughts. "You don't owe me anything you don't want to, Akane. I'm just some girl who got nosy! But...if you're sure, then I appreciate it, after how awkward this got all of a sudden."
But then it becomes starkly clear why Akane thinks she does owe someone like her something. May's face is visibly dumbstruck for a moment, clearly having not truly entertained where the implications led, and doubtfully prepared even if she had. It's the first time even she can't keep up a smile, albeit also she closes her eyes briefly from the sheer thinking through of everything.
"Akane...that's..." Images flash through her mind. The destruction of the city. The gloom across the school, the way people cried when everyone started remembering loss and let the tears stain their hearts for months after.
A girl, features still indistinct, still nameless, still lost in the dark of history.
But then those eyes open again, and take in the other girl, sitting before her, heart pried open, wounded in ways May could barely yet fathom. And apparently with someone specific to blame. For an instant, she clenches around her pen and book hard enough to slightly shake before exhaling.
"I see..." May regards Akane with an soft expression. "Not often a gal can say she met her creator, I guess." Her words are light, but her tone and expression are still subdued as she pre-emptively raises a finger. "Well, it's your business to decide how that works I suppose, especially technically by proxy, but personally. Whoever that other guy is, don't really feel like he was the part I care about." There is a silent firmness behind her delicate speech. "And those kaiju would never have decided to ensure I'm here...or to be the cute, most popular girl in school." Again, her words suggest a jest, but it really doesn't feel like it right now.
"So I'm glad to be a part of your world, Akane. It's been a good one, to me at least. Thank you."
The question about her parents once more causes her brows to knit together, her expression uncertain, for once a slight hint of vulnerability mutually shared. Well, it was only fair after everything Akane had been brave enough to volunteer.
"Oh yeah...well, mostly about Mum, I suppose." She shrugs. "Dad was nice, and chill...when he was allowed to be there." She tilts her head slightly and gives Akane a wry smile, a silent acknowledgement of the irony of the way she speaks of them.
"Mum...well. I'd mostly say she's why I can sorta relate to a guardian being more of a handler but...she didn't even bother to do that herself for even the letter of it." There is a tightness in her lips and a sharpness in her tone neither Akane or anyone else has ever seen from her. "I...thought I was here to get away from her a bit. And I suppose I at least managed that." May chuckles flatly.
"Never encouraged me to hurt people at least. She didn't really care or think much of people except when strictly necessary period. So I know...she would've gotten over me, at least."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Is she May's creator? What even is the relationship between Akane Shinjo and the authorship of her world, at this point? Are their lives still in her hands -- any moreso than any other person of the six billion in the Earth Sphere...?
She doesn't know, and the unknown has always been scary to her.
May offers her a kindness, though -- the idea that, whatever else may be true, she's here and she's grateful to be here, to be part of her world. Her mouth opens and closes multiple times, like a fish's; she wants to meet that with words, but even though the immediate, miserable pressure of needing to is diminishing, she still can't quite find them.
Her head cants a little to one side, and she keeps listening, as May starts to tell her about her parents as she remembers them. Even if they're just setting data, they seem as real as the person before her; they, too, are people, and their worlds inform May's, even if they perhaps never even existed. "... huh," she eventually starts. That's all she gives for a while. No words, just 'huh.' (Did she pay down her own issues to May, she wonders, as she thinks about her own mother. ... again, it's not worth wondering about, but Akane can't quite stop picking at herself.)
"It sounds like maybe this is gonna be good for you," she eventually muses. It's a hard thing to think. But if May's parents were 'passable' and 'kind of horrible,' and she wanted to be away from her mother... well, she sure has that, now.
"So what's your next move? With graduation coming up, it sounds like you've got to make some big decisions about what comes next, I guess." Leaning forward a bit and getting herself to at least look at May's face if not meet her eyes, she muses, "I wonder if our entrance exams are gonna be valid."
The school, in its near-graduation lull, remains silent. In the far distance, the shoes of a faculty member can be heard plod-plod-plodding along. A rack of clothing seems to be getting moved from its prom position back to a club room, at last.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
Akane's dumbfounded reaction...no, May stills her well-meaning giggle. She can let this moment sit for just a little while. This was clearly very big for Akane.
"Yeah, I know right?" Some life gasps into May's spirit again after she finishes her tale, smiling a bit at the laconic reply. "Kinda embarrassing how lame it is sometimes. At least all that stuff is literally in the past now. Lotta good memories too, don't get me wrong, plus," She lifts and wiggles her notebook. "Made me pretty good at music which is the coolest thing ever, so positive end of mixed all told."
At Akane's musing, she smiles a bit. Then giggles. Then outright guffaws a bit, echoing very slightly in the stillness of the air before she catches herself quickly. "'Maybe'? 'Gonna'? Akane, babe, it already is. For one, I get to exist and Live, which is always a gift, and one I didn't exactly get to be picky with. Two," She indeed raises fingers consecutively to emphasize.
"I know how right Rikka was when she gave me another hint, all this wasn't for a bad reason. Hell, just existing for a reason that can be good at all is a bit of an existential powermove, tee-bee-ach," She grins, chuckling. "And if it helped you then...I can't think of a better reason to be alive. Before, I thought it was just because two people loved each other very much, which isn't bad I guess, but I still think this is better." The third finger.
"Three...I get to greet a world even weirder and wider than most people get to experience, with less baggage, and more things to discover for the first time!" She beams brightly.
"So hell yeah this'll be good. Sure, definitely some...asterisks, I guess," She gives Akane a bit of a Look. "I'm sure you've already had a hard conversation or two about the whole like, instrumentalizing people's existence for your own ends, not to mention whatever that...'guardian' was and is up to, I guess. And, you know, the kaiju." She shrugs. "Or at least, I hope other people have, because I'm not great at holding grudges about stuff, personally."
She gives Akane her gentlest smile.
"After all, if I was the type to be too mad about all this after what's done is already done...then I'd be angry forever at whatever world made you hurt enough to need a new one to hide in even when the kaiju followed you."
At the question of her future...May takes a glance around at the quiet halls, and then out the window, the atmosphere still as staid as usual, before meeting the world of a wonderful soul she got to meet. "Don't entirely know yet. Like you said, sorting out the whole interstitial existence thing is definitely gonna be a priority I gotta get to at some point. So I'm definitely gonna work on that while I just sorta...vibe a bit maybe. I like to think I've earned it. Straight A+'s baby."
She allows herself a smirk, before Akane raises the very good point of how much weight that carries. Ah well, it was never about that part for her. "Damn, good point!" May shrugs, giggling. "I'm not even sure I really wanna Uni so I hadn't really thought of that stuff. Like I said ages ago, at least I'll have the potential gap year to think about it, since I definitely wanna see the world I kinda missed."
She raises her eyebrow towards Akane. "You're transferring out to somewhere else, aren't you? Maybe we'll physically cross paths again out of the blue like some cute narrative moment." She smiles, half-joking.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
'In the past,' huh. Is that all it is... in that way, it's not that different from the deal a lot of other people get in the Universal Century, Akane would have to guess. People in Junius Six probably have about the same amount missing in their lives after the destruction of Seven.
(That's a little heavy, but... if anything, maybe it's easier. At least her apocalypse just highlighted lives that were never really there, rather than ending them. ... that doesn't change what's denied, though.)
"I guess no one gets to be picky how they get to live!" Akane says, and while the enthusiasm isn't as there as she's forcing it to be, faking it works sometimes! Faking it totally works sometimes. "I have no idea how you're this easygoing about it, but, like... if it works for you, it works." She breathes out slowly. Someone who knew it and nevertheless didn't hate her for it -- that's at least a start on forgiving herself.
"Ahahaha... yeah, trust me. I was having conversations about that for a while." Some of them were in her own head, too. "As for my guardian... you're probably better off not knowing that stuff. He's still messing around, though."
Anger at the world that hurt her that badly, huh... that's heavy, too. Akane wonders, for a moment, who else might feel that way; she's certainly past the point where she can avoid making that world their problem. "It sounds like... I was the only one in my city who wasn't ready to face this kinda thing after all!" she concedes, with some warmth.
Practicals are easier. "Yeah. I'm going to some international school in the AEU? I know French enough that it's not a huge deal. If you remember when Alouette went here, I talk to her in French a lot so mine's actually getting pretty good?" She waves it off. "But yeah. Maybe we'll run across each other again..."
... no, that's not good enough. "But if you wanna make sure of it I can give you my VERTEX," she adds. "I'm online kinda a lot."
The PA system drones, 'Kunii-sensei to the faculty office. Kunii-sensei to the faculty office.' Whatever Akane was thinking up to that point, she loses her train of thought, a bit.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
"Yeah. That's why it's a Gift." May smiles, then giggles to herself a bit at the cookie koan moment. "Ah, well, I like to think I'm good at accentuating the positives. Plus, as I like to say, never miss a beat! Which is a goofy music pun, sure," She snorts. "But also it's true. Life's one mother of a conductor, and it always sucks to play from behind. So you gotta keep forward and not worry too much behind you...I guess I was just lucky what's ahead was always better." She bashfully shrugs. "And even when it isn't...that's okay too. Shit happens. Even pain is proof you're alive, gripping onto the cliff edge. Because if it didn't hurt, you'd just be falling one last time."
May gives a sympathetic nod. "That's good. That kinda thing's rough, and probably feels like a kick when you're already down, but it means they take you and your shit seriously. That's also caring. It means you're someone they know can do better. Otherwise you're someone like...yeah, him." May gives a small, knowing smile. "Yeah, I definitely believe you."
She gives Akane a warm smile. "Akane...everyone needs help, sometimes. You also can't be picky about that part. That's what friends and connections and...people are for, which is why I always do my best for everyone...so I know they'll be there for me too. And I'm sure people will definitely be there for you...well," She gets a sly expression "You definitely have /one/ lucky girl in your corner, congrats, damnnnn." She fingersnaps into a fingergun. "I knew you were important to her but seeing you together at Prom? I gotta admit, was a lil 50/50 for me, because romance...I don't really go there, but it definitely makes sense in light of everything. Just wasn't sure if she was the knight in shining armor type for a girl."
May nods quickly with clear fascination. "Woah, already quite abroad huh? And...yeah I think I do! She seems real nice." And really cute, which May was kicking herself for only being able to actually appreciate in hindsight.
May tilts her head up a bit in affirmation. "Yepyep, that's what I meant with 'physical' and all! And um. Yeah I kinda woulda guessed." She gives a bemused expression. "Even based on being Rikka's partner and all, you seem neat, defo wanna 'hang out' more! Plus, suppose if that fucker of a not-guardian is bothering people I'll-"
She pauses briefly, remembering a dream.
"...need to know he has or knows anyone with interest in Newtypes." May gulps. She knew full well what she was going to say wasn't to be lightly, but after everything Akane was willing to confide in her, she'd rather be unafraid than 'safe'. "Then...that's actually my problem, as of this year, aha..." May does a very shy little gesture with her hands, clearly unused to the handling of a personal detail of this potential magnitude.
The atmosphere after which is pierced through by the PA.
"Oh, dang...well, I suppose you have your stuff to get to I guess!" She twirls her pen. "Toss me that VERTEX and we can talk more later!" She stretches out a bit. "Ideally stuff more fun that all that, sorry!"
<Pose Tracker> Alma Stirner has posed.
The music metaphor actually does land for Akane; she plays piano, after all. "Yeah -- thanks," she starts, though she's having a hard time matching the clarity May brings to it; even if she can appreciate it, the kindness isn't something she can feel bone-deep at the moment. She knows it's there for her to take; she can't quite grasp her fingers around it and pull. Some parts of it are a familiar refrain -- those she can manage -- but others elude her, just a bit.
Everything gets easier when Akane talks about Rikka. Even if her girlfriend isn't the only thing tying her to the world, she's certainly the best thing tying her to the world. ... it's actually at that point that -- without her even noticing -- her hair shades back to that familiar deep brown. "I think Rikka's stronger than anyone," she says. "If anything I'm the lucky one for having someone like her... Gridman, too. It doesn't make sense to say everyone's stronger than everyone. But it also totally does, right?"
The topic turns a bit. "Yeah, pretty far abroad, actually," she confirms. "That's the place I wanted to go, though. I didn't really wanna head back to my old apartment or anything, so... that's the next step! For however long it takes, anyway. Definitely requires some long train trips to do some of the things I wanna do, but, you know? Not super bad."
... then it turns to the bad one. "Kinda looks like that one's a yes. If I get more you can actually do about it, I'll, uh, let you know, but for now you might wanna keep that on a need-to-know basis." She reaches into her bag, shoving things aside until she finds a pen and a piece of paper; she writes down her VERTEX information... but also a 3G public number, just in case.
"Guess all that's left to do is wait for Kunii-sensei to get here," she says. "Still... uh, good talk." She rubs at the back of her head, not sure how to tie everything together.
<Pose Tracker> May Morseland has posed.
May nods attentively. Like she said, romance is...something she thought she understood, but clearly didn't. Her special insight definitely helps though; once again, the change in Akane is just as palpable spiritually as it was physically. She wouldn't lie; Akane looked good in lilac, but the brown was Important, she could tell that much. "I...think I get that maybe, yeah." She grins. "And she's probably glad you're there to help her stay that way." 'Gridman' raised some questions that could be explored later.
"Well, best of luck on that! I'm sure the world ain't so bad once you get used to it! And...I'll probably still be here a bit, so if you need another body for that, I'm game. You definitely know the enthusiasm, plus I was in dance club and all, so I'm in decent shape!" She giggles, flexing a bicep that...is still pretty slim to be honest, but does have some tone on it.
She tsks to herself at the unfortunate news. "So it goes. And don't worry, I very much know, but I figured it'd be weird if I decided I couldn't trust you after all that." She shrugs, reaching over and taking the piece of paper, sorting it in the back of her notebook...which also contained an extensive mindmap of all the information she'd deduced about Akane before this conversation, with many written emoticons and punctuation emphasis.
"Good talk!" She nods. "Full disclosure I'd uh. Pull you into a big hug but as an empath," She very heroically doesn't crack up from the sheer dweeb of that. "I'm gonna guess you're the type to need a few event flags," She was trying really hard to be hip with the kind of nerd she wasn't. "To just be down with that at the drop of a hat. Sentiment is there though."
She chuckles, pen a-twirl before she starts wandering off, waving behind her with a grin obvious even in her step. She had inspiration.
And also another really good day.