2023-09-14: The Simplest Thing, the Hardest Thing
- Log: The Simplest Thing, the Hardest Thing
- Cast: Asuka Shikinami Langley, Mari Makinami Illustrious
- Where: Geofront, Tokyo-3
- OOC - IC Date: September 14, U.C. 0097
- Summary: The day before her transfer to Orbit Base, Mari visits Asuka.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The iron scented LCL was fresh enough off on her from the test that it's cleared she hadn't even toweled off. The rhythm an uneven cadence as it spattered off of her hair and plugsuit. Asuka leaned over the rail of one of the catwalks of the cage overlooking Unit-02.
Listening and not listening to the chatter from the technical division as they went about their day by day.
"... cancelled. We're to await instructions on Unit-00..."
"... Synch rate was down by almost eight percent this test..."
"... Word has it from NERV Britannia that..."
"... so what's your theory on the Zeroth child's..."
LCL puddled at her feet, and gathered, before making the descent through the cracks in the catwalk, and Asuka leaned against the high guardrail, chin half-hidden by a single arm. Her other holding a cell phone with spider-webbed safety glass and peeled rubber off the box at eye level, just over the rail.
Blue eyes stared at the message, a single message.
>had a really good time at our date
>when can i see you again
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
The rhythm was slowing, as the LCL bled off of her. The conversations and sounds of maintenance bleeding off around her to. And still she stared.
Just a simple message. A very normal message. The kind you'd expect anyone to send after a successful date.
So why hadn't she yet answered?
"It feels unfair to him."
She says after a moment words half muffled by her arm, her matted hair continuing the process of drip drying.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Against the backdrop of technical chatter and gossip, Asuka Langley Shikinami ruminates over reciprocity. The sounds of the outside world grow dimmer; it's not just a matter of her winnowing attention.
The passage of time is inevitable; nothing exists in a vacuum. The world continues on as Asuka absorbs herself into her own world of uncertainty and deliberation, gossiping technicians thinning out further and further until the last one leaves, giving only a passing glance at the girl at the rail.
"You should clean up," he advises, with perfunctory commitment to concern, before he leaves without even so much as seeing if she heard him.
Time passes on. People leave. It's inevitable.
Drip.
Drip.
dr
"Oho, what do we have here~."
But entrances are as inevitable as exits, aren't they?
The sound of a familiar voice accompanies the rattle of the rails that Asuka leans against as they jostle in mild protest at new weight perching on them. She's there, of course, just as simply as she wasn't, intruding into Asuka's world as naturally as Asuka closes it off: dressed in her pink plugsuit, seated on the rail and facing the opposite direction of Asuka, the undesignated pilot of Evangelion Unit-04's sudden presence is as natural as the lack of her presence was just seconds earlier.
Beyond that simple greeting, she says nothing. Actions speak louder, after all. So, she leans backward on the rail, then leans -in- closer to Asuka, and
snffffffffff
Takes a casual scent of the LCL currently dripping off the Second Child. It's not even an attempt to mask the way her sharp stare is peering at the contents of Asuka's phone to see what's got her attention!
That's just what we call a 'happy accident.'
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
The passage of time is inevitable, but as Asuka's world runs parallel to theirs, she's never once considered herself a part of theirs.
She's used to the well meaning advice of adults. They existed at the Third Branch. Even the scientists that pretended to care about their lives to make their hands less soiled.
Perhaps it's a quirk of time passing - of meeting certain individuals like Doctor Cuervo Cero, but part of her remembers the dripping off their hands most of all.
When before she'd never noticed anything of the sort.
As she stared at them while they grew more and more unsettled.
So when that comment passes, Asuka doesn't hear it. Not really. It comes from a place of ignorance. That of course a normal behavior would be to dry off in a locker room.
She doesn't even distinguish the sounds of his footsteps subtly resonating through the rail to her.
Until-
'Oho, what do we have here~.'
Asuka's face changes only gradually, from vague recognition of something intruding into her world, to a singular blue eye shifting sideways to look at her.
An eyebrow raising as she sees her seated on the rail.
And then-!
snfffffffff
"Usually people announce themselves by saying 'Hello.'"
Asuka says dully, barely being able to muster an edge of irritation, as she clicks her phone into sleep mode, that arm swinging to her side, but not before Mari easily catches the message.
"Or something like that."
That might be the first time Asuka's ever said a word that simple in her entire life. And without even the context of an actual greeting.
Drawing her weight up straight, she keeps eyeing Mari, facing the opposite direction still, but looking at her out of the corner of her eyes. "Not gonna give your evaluation, you stink fanatic?"
So many ways that title could be turned around on her, and yet, she still uses it.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Glimpse - get!
"Hohhh."
The berth of her smile, so wide it squints her eyes, tells the tale words alone cannot.
You tried to hide it, Asuka. But the future refused to change...
Usually people announce themselves by saying 'Hello'.
"Why settle for usual? I'd rather aspire for the exceptional!"
declares the Evangelion pilot voted Most Likely to Slack On Training and the Tokyo-3 Municipal's Most Truant President.
Maybe her priorities just lie elsewhere?
Of course, Asuka would probably no better than most just how much that lazy attitude of Mari's hides a wealth of sharpness. Today, though, she seems content to stick to slacking, remaining comfortably perched on the rail in lieu of making her way to the simulators; arms stretching over her head with an impeccable sense of leisurely balance, Mari leans back once more once she's had her introductory sniff, releasing a satisfied little sigh once she's done contemplating the scent that is Asuka Langley Shikinami, amplified through LCL. She pauses, mid-stretch,, as Asuka offers up that loaded question. One eye cracks open; its eyebrow lifts fractionally.
"Oh my! Do you want to know the intensity of your stink, your highness~?" she croons, just so. "Are you waiting with baited breath for my assessment? On tenterhooks to hear me invoke words like 'pungent' and 'musk'~? Frantic to know how funky your funk is~~?"
She could go on and on and on for -days- like this. Don't doubt it. She even goes so far as to wiggle her fingers and go "oooOOOOooo" afterwards.
"How scandalous!"
Eventually, though, Mari's hands flop back onto the railing; her posture remains casually cheerful, her legs kicking up rhythmically as she gradually speaks again.
"Your stink remains ever-royal, your highness~. It's my favorite. These days, though, the LCL's revealing something a little bit different in it. There was a harsh, bitter quality before; I liked it, but it's gradually been softening, like milk introduced to dark chocolate." Mari's assessment of smell has always been an odd thing, of course. But she says it no less sincerely; like that smell, amplified by LCL, could reveal the world to her.
"And some notes of... uncertainty?"
She looks sidelong Asuka's way, her expression thoughtful.
"It's a special musk that's especially pungent when someone's on the precipice of something that might be a little frightening to them."
She did it. She invoked the words. But more importantly, it's the content that they're carried by--
"So why is the princess leaving her puppy on read?"
That she barely gives much time to contemplate before she smoothly segues into the inevitable.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
"Yeah? What was exceptional about it?"
Asuka ever the contrarian begs to differ, even if she was caught, CAUGHT! But Mari's priorities ever remain an enigma even if Asuka at least, has her own theory on them.
It would be easy to ask, simplicity itself. Yet she never has. To ask would to admit a certain type of defeat, but aggressively uncovering the mystery isn't in the cards either.
No, Asuka has accepted the mystery of Mari in her life.
Surprisingly she doesn't even grouse about her attendance record at student council meetings today as PROOF she's unexceptional.
"Tck." She clucks her tongue at her behavior, as mid-stretch she shifts to asking if she wants to know the intensity of her stink.
But not JUST, that, as she keeps on utilizing word after word.
"You hit on 'pheromones' next and I'm shoving you off the rail." She says with a twitch of her eyelid, "Scandalous." She repeats, word dripping with annoyance at being called on her behavior, "Of course I'm not looking forward to it! It's just..."
Pause. Longerrrrrr pause... as she thinks about it, and then looks away.
"... your way."
And YET, despite her interjections and protests and expression of annoyance, she looks back, just out of the corner of her eye as she describes her stink being ever-royal, and her favorite, and how it's gradually softening.
She could interject again, but no. She waits. She listens to the full evaluation. Rejecting it out of hand seems Asuka's way but, there's this soft exhalation of breath.
And a lowering of her eyes off the catwalk to Evangelion Unit-02. "How should I know? It's- he's..." Suddenly unconfident in her words, there's a struggle, before...
"... fine." She settles on for Shinji, "Just... sometimes, I wonder if... it's for me."
The hand is still holding the phone out to the side, she doesn't look at it, like thoughts of responding have just left her mind. She doesn't clarify what 'it' is perhaps, but perhaps it's not too hard to guess.
"And whether it's... fair to him."
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
What -was- exceptional about it?
Why, the answer to that is so simple!
"Hum? Me, of course!"
Does it make sense? Mari could explain the logic. It exists! But most importantly:
She says it without hesitation, and with confidence, and in making an argument, that's really more than half the battle right there.
That confidence is just one of the many mysteries of Mari -- Asuka, of course, isn't wrong. It'd be easy to just ask. But she wouldn't be Asuka if she just allowed herself to concede like that, would she?
It's very like her, to refuse defeat in one way while conceding in another.
It's just one of the many things about Asuka Shikinami Langley that Mari Makinami Illustrious likes so much.
So, enigma, thy name remains Mari: perched on her rail, swinging legs lackadaisically, scooting a hip's nudge closer to Asuka at the -exact moment- the Second Child threatens to hurl her from her perch. Her expression is pleased, in a hapless sort of way, in the wake of Asuka's denials, as if to say 'what can you do?'
It's a look that softens just a little as Asuka looks away to mumble that last remark, belabored by a pensive pause. Her eyes lid. Her smile gentles.
"Hee."
But she says nothing after her assessment is delivered; she just awaits the answer to her question with the patience of someone who expects - wants - some real thought put into the answer. Asuka's tone lacks confidence, certainty. She lapses into internal conflict.
And Mari doesn't prod or pressure. She encourages, with a spacious room of uninterrupted quiet,
Just... sometimes I wonder if... it's for me.
for Asuka to come to a genuine answer.
And whether it's... fair to him.
"Hummm."
The kick of Mari's legs gradually comes to a stop. Gloved hands gripping the rails, she slowly leans herself backward, until eventually...
Mari is half-hanging off the rail in a precarious position, a mere slip of fingers away from toppling off the edge; but that feline flexibility gives her the opportunity to look at Asuka directly as she speaks. (Why not just turn around? That's silly; how's that a new perspective?)
"There's not a lot in the world that's fair, princess," she muses. Slowly, blue eyes drift to peer at Unit-02 upside-down; her expression becomes impassive for a few, quiet seconds.
"I guess the question you need to ask yourself is this:
"'Is it not for me because I don't want it,
or is it not for me because I feel I don't deserve it?'"
She can guess what Asuka means. But ultimately...
It's a question of what's fair for her, as much as it is what's fair for Shinji.
Isn't it?
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
The sheer confidence and bravado that Mari says it actually hits Asuka square in a certain place where one might expect her to answer back with just as much confidence, and maybe not QUITE as earned in competition, but instead...
"What-"
Pause.
"-the hell kinda answer is that! Being so casual when you're bragging."
Yet, in that answer is the simple fact that Mari scored a point there, because she knows it's Mari's answer.
It's just the way she is.
And perhaps yet another example of conceding while refusing defeat simultaneously. Her little 'Hee' gets a dark look, but it's only momentary, and as Mari goes through her active listening, Asuka eventually quiets down again, looking outward while the rhythm of Mari's kicking ceases.
And yet, despite that precarious position, Mari looks at her. "I know that!" She tells her immediately to not a lot being fair. "Just... it's even less fair to him, than most."
Her blue eyes close for a moment, troubled, "And I don't want to be a reason why things are even less fair for him."
But she asks a more pointed question, of the question to ask herself, and Asuka stills for a time. Then she raises the phone back up, and unlocks it with a quick tap of a code.
Staring at the messages again...
"I do want this." Is what she ultimately decides upon, "Or at least, I think I do. It's... I thought if I pushed hard enough it'd be like everything else - that I'd get there."
There's this moment of struggle upon her face, before she lets out a breath, "That I'd just, train it up. And then suddenly-"
A shake of her head, as if suddenly she's second guessing that, what the end result would be, "Right now it feels like... I'm just playing house at... being something I'm not."
Which certainly sounds like she thinks she doesn't deserve it, things that do more than allow her to pass at being human - but it goes deeper than that.
"When he thinks he's... making me happy. Is it really right to... just, let him keep thinking that?"
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
... I don't want to be a reason why things are even less fair for him.
A soft "ah" of understanding escapes Mari's lips. Watching the stationary Unit-02, a pensive expression etches itself across her features. In the wake of Asuka's whole explanation, Mari is silent, for a long time. And then...
"You're very kind, your highness."
It might not be something that Asuka wants to hear. It might be something that could be easily misconstrued as teasing, to most who know Asuka Shikinami Langley. And yet she says it all the same, and says it with simple sincerity that is as much praise as it is delivered like simple fact. She pushes on that rail and gradually draws herself back up to a sitting position, twintails bobbing swaying forward with her forward lurch. Her head tilts, just enough to catch Asuka's stare.
"'Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live; it is asking others to live as one wishes to live,'" the unnumbered Child of NERV recites. Her head cants, a little smile catching at the corners of her lips. "You can't force someone to be something they're not, your highness. You can't even force yourself, no matter how much you might want. You'd just be living a selfish, unfulfilled existence... and you wouldn't be doing Puppy Boy any favors, either."
She pauses. But, as if anticipating some sort of negative conclusion, it's not long after that she adds: "But does that mean you don't deserve happiness? I don't think it does. You and Puppy Boy both do! But happiness is an ongoing process. You need to see the world. Experience it. See the shape of it that you want."
It's like she told Shinji himself, when he was lost in his worries.
"How can you make someone happy if you don't know what makes you happy?"
She doesn't look away. She doesn't blink. But that smile never leaves, either. Gentle, and understanding.
"He wants to know more about you, you know. Being unfair would be holding that back from him. So tell him. Maybe this just isn't the happiness for either of you..."
Blue eyes cast down toward that phone.
"... but you'll never know unless you reach out."
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
"What'd you say!?"
Asuka rears up in that moment like a cat who got her back up, at being called kind. Perhaps because her mind had always equated kindness to weakness.
And so reflexively, she looks, angry, as her hand clinches down on her cell phone but then... she thinks about it. How else does one describe it? And is kindness really a weakness?
She's seen it time and time again that it's not, incorporated it into her own behavior, even if it's hidden by so many layers of pride. But at Mari saying it-
She glares at her as if irritated for bringing upon this introspection, then turns forward again and- "Kind. I don't feel particularly kind."
Yet, perhaps that's yet another moment of pride, even in admitting defeat, refusing to concede.
She listens to her speak of selfishness, "I know that." She murmurs quietly, after Mari finishes, as if she'd been thinking through that same thing for days - and yet infuriatingly, Mari articulates her thoughts so easily, consolidates it down to that simple idea.
"I don't - even know if happiness is for me!" She lets out in frustration, "Deserve I mean - I wouldn't mind some just-!" A hand scratches rapidly against one side of her drying matted hair in frustration, "You make it sound so simple!"
See the world. Experience it. Figure out what she wants.
She doesn't know. Happiness...
... she turns the idea over in her head academically, again and again, as Mari stares at her, unblinking, smiling.
And...
She peeks at her, out of the corner of her eye. "Just... tell him? Just like that? It's- I'm not-"
Allowed.
Frustration is written again on her features, as she doesn't give that excuse, "-he wouldn't get it! He'd - after all the people we've crossed paths with that weren't supposed to live like - like weapons! He'd just see me as-"
As what? A doll? Something inhuman? A monster? All words she might think of herself as on any given day.
"-a victim."
As she correctly parses at least how others would see her, even if she would never ever admit there's anything to that perception of her that way.
"Who wants to be looked at like that!?" Another shake of her head as she offers, with a certain vehemence, "I'd rather he see me as a doll!"
Which is perhaps, evidence of how much she despises the idea of him seeing her as a victim.
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Anger seizes Asuka. Mari remains that warm constant of calm, the intensity of her unblinking stare remaining on the Second Child, unchanging, even as Asuka rears up in reflexive disbelief.
Is kindness really weakness?
It's no different than what Mari has told Asuka before: weakness is fundamentally human.
But that weakness can also be a strength, and that is no less true of kindness.
She knows the source of that deep-seated need in Asuka to deny that she could ever possess a quality like kindness, though. And so, when the red-clad Evangelion pilot just quietly insists she doesn't feel particularly kind, the bespectacled girl just smiles in response.
"That's okay," she says.
Because she sees it, anyway.
Frustration takes hold of Asuka again shortly thereafter, though. And as it does - as she wrestles with those competing impulses inside of her - Mari watches with quiet contemplation from her precarious vantage point. Her vivid gaze squeezes shut.
"..."
And without a word, Mari takes a firmer grip of the railing and uses it to gradually pull herself back upright in a feline roll of motion, until she is once more facing opposite Asuka again. Seated on the top of the rail as she is, it gives her an even more distinct height advantage.
He'd just see me as- a victim.
Advantage enough that she has enough clearance to lean to her side, and rest her cheek on top of Asuka's still-damp mane of hair, if not stopped.
"It is simple," she says, slowly -- says first, before anything else. "But simple isn't easy, your highness. Finding happiness is one of the hardest things in the world. You're not alone there."
Shinji. Rei. Even Kaworu, or Misato...
... Gendo.
"It's frightening. Because you don't know if you'll ever get it. You don't know if things will just be worse. Because you can never know another person, or how they'll react."
All of them, searching for that ephemeral thing.
"But princess..."
That connection. That happiness.
She lingers like that, her right hand gliding across the railing until her pinky nudges into Asuka's.
"... if you keep telling yourself all the ways things could go wrong, you'll never know all the ways they can go right."
That pinky stretches gently, to tap over the top of Asuka's, and rest there.
"You're not a victim. You are a proud princess. And you deserve every happiness in this world."
She falls silent here, for a few seconds. Her eyes flutter shut. And then, she says, slowly,
"... I'm going to space, your highness. I've been reassigned. But I'll be back. I promise. But while I'm gone... can you do something for me?"
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Is kindness really weakness? It one could get an honest answer out of Asuka, she'd certainly say she used to think it was. Everything she learned from her life before reinforced the idea that kindness was weakness.
After all, they were looking for the best, and the rest? Weren't worth mentioning ever again.
That's just the way the world worked to her. And her time in the AEU only reinforced it further. It's strange the way it worked out, but perhaps not so strange...
...all it took was people demonstrating kindness to her time and time again. Even when she didn't deserve it, both high achievers and low...
...Kaiju and Lilim...
It's perhaps easy enough to see why she thinks she doesn't feel particularly kind. When kindness is so externalized by the people in her life. And for her...
'How is it okay?'
Asuka almost asks, but with Mari, validation in these moments goes almost hand in hand, even when Asuka snaps at her.
Taking a breath, she closes her eyes, and by the time they're open again, Mari's facing opposite to her, towering above, like some cat on a tower.
As she rests a cheek on her hair, she nearly jerks away, but...
... doesn't. Her head does subtly turn at the neck, enough that the hair shifts against Mari's cheek, just enough to see the side of her head out of the corner of a blue eye.
A blast of air flares from her nostrils as she's told she's not alone, that it's one of the hardest things. It's so strange being categorized as not alone when...
... she feels apart. When she told herself for so long she was alone...
"Gods you're annoying." Asuka murmurs, almost petulantly, but also softly, "'You get strong by embracing weakness. That's what humans do best.'"
As she echoes something Mari said, so long ago, or perhaps not so long ago, in a defining moment of her life.
"'A proud Princess'. I'm not even human. I barely even thought about playing pretend until you came flouncing around - just casually saying things like that like it were the easiest thing in the world for you."
Asuka breathes out a sigh again with closed eyes, "But it's not... easy. Putting up with me. Would have been way easier just- letting me..."
'Fail' 'Die' 'Flail'?
The word never falls, there's any number of options there, and instead, she rests there cheek to cheek with her eyes closed. And Asuka certainly? It's like she's just - disappointed, "Space huh? With the whole 3G thing? It'll be quieter around here without you, I guess. Weird... always thought I'd prefer that."
A beat.
"Yeah... real weird." She echoes, but then, "Guess I'll hear you out at least, what are you asking me to do?"
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
Nearly jerks away. But doesn't.
Asuka can feel how Mari's blooming smile makes her cheek muscles flex against the top of her head.
For a brief moment, she can feel with with no uncertainty how pleased that makes the Undesignated Child.
It's a contentment that lingers, even as a gush of frustrated hot air sends one dangling, reddish-brown twintail of hair whipping briefly in its wake. Mari knows: Asuka's instinct is to try to deny the impulse that she's not alone.
Mari's opinion is simple: there's no greater proof of Asuka's humanity than that unfortunate feeling of isolation. After all, that feeling, and that yearning for something more than it to fill the gaps?
That's the human condition.
So instead, she just coos a saccharine coo of delight as Asuka softly laments those maddening memories of Mari: "Awwww," enthuses the bespectacled pilot. "You remembered what I told you so keenly! Her highness pays more attention than she lets on~."
It means the world to Mari that she remembers. That she took it to heart. That all her flouncing has had an effect. After all...
Would have been way easier just- letting me...
Fail? Die? Flail?
"It wouldn't have been."
The words blow air over the top of Asuka's head, every little syllable coming with its accompanying brush of warmth.
"It would've been simpler," she says, and if that sounds blunt in its honesty, well... Mari never shies away from the truth. But...
"But it wouldn't have been easier.
"It'd be impossible, princess."
As if she couldn't conceive of a world in which she could simply leave Asuka Shikinami Langley be.
For now, she leaves Asuka's insistence about her inhumanity be. She knows it's not something that can be changed so easily as with a few words. So instead, she gives Asuka the news of her departure; cheek to cheek, eyes closed, she can hear Asuka's disappointment much more clearly than she could ever see it.
"Mmhmm. I'm off to save our defiled and debased humanity from the righteous laws of universal nature~."
It's a bittersweet feeling, but...
Weird. ... Real weird.
"Hee."
... Mari would be lying if she said it didn't make her happy to know Asuka would miss her.
Asuka acquiesces, in her way. Mari had asked Kaworu and Rei to read a book from her collection while she was gone. She requested Shinji, much earlier, try to find a date that speaks to how well he knows Asuka.
And now...
"I'd like you to spend the rest of the day with me," she begins, ever-so-casually.
"I'll be leaving tomorrow. When I'm gone... I want you to show Puppy Boy how you feel. Give him even a glimpse of Asuka Shikinami Langley. Whatever way you can. And trust he'll see you, the way you want to be seen.
"I want you to take that first step, princess."
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
Even the flex of the cheek muscle, that subtle tensing that implies a lack of tension. Mari smiles so easily, so often. Asuka has tried faking it to Misato, and others but - tried.
It's never genuine.
As Mari coos her delight, the sound Asuka makes, this low key groan of frustration that's really embarrassment of course, "Don't make a big deal over it! It's just you're always belting out those vintage songs in a fight so often that it's just - strange when you're not! It stands out!"
Despite the moment of vulnerability Asuka's pride tries to clamp back just as fiercely when she's embarrassed.
Yet, 'It wouldn't have been.' Asuka's eye just shoots over to the side of Mari's face when she says that, as if to say 'What?'
Simpler but not easier?
Asuka can't say she gets it entirely, Mari's way of thinking is just something that although she's been exposed to, she can't say she entirely understands it.
"There you go again..." Asuka says softly, "... just saying something like that." And for a moment, it's like Asuka just relaxes, in this cheek to cheek position.
Yet, she dropped the word casually. Does she even realizes she did that?
"You're impossible."
And while the word feels like a way to express frustration, as if to say she's incorrigible, or the like - it's like it means something else too.
That it's impossible that someone like Mari Makinami Illustrious exists and came into her life.
"... You really have to put it in the weirdest way possible, don't you?"
Asuka's voice flecks with annoyance again at the idea of a 'defiled and debased' humanity against the 'righteous' laws of universal nature.
And there's a subtle heat that Mari will feel at the 'Hee' which, she won't see, but perhaps she's flushed slightly. Her request though?
"... Yeah sure. I'm ah..."
Perhaps as evidence that she's going to miss her, she can't smoothly cover with her pride, "... It's not that it's not inconvenient to clear my schedule but I'll, manage."
And yet, what she says next...
... it takes Asuka a moment, as her eyebrows shoot up, "... The hell...! You can't just-!?" She begins, but then there's a light sigh, and her tone becomes so much softer in an instant, "...You're always so demanding. That's too much to ask of anyone."
It feels almost like the pot calling the kettle back, due to Asuka herself being so demanding with her impossible - exacting standards.
"Especially me." But, a few moments pass and she lifts her chin almost haughtily...
"... Well. You're going away to the furthest edge of human civilization - so... whatever! I guess if that's what you want, I can't exactly turn you down."
Another thing that's perhaps simple, but not easy, even if Asuka is framing it as a something impossible for her.
"But if I do it..." A piercing look out of those blue eyes, "...I'm holding you to that promise, you better be back once you've finished defiling universal law or - whatever it is you plan to do!"
Does she even realize what she said there? Give her a second...
<Pose Tracker> Mari Makinami Illustrious has posed.
You're impossible.
A pair of words with so many meanings, wrapped up in a bundle of frustrations.
The corners of Mari's lips twitch in the vaguest suggestion of a smile.
"You know it~."
It's as much a tease as it is a preen.
Which is, in the end, also a tease, because even when expressing earnest appreciation,
Mari is Mari, an impossibility in the flesh.
Which also means that, yes, she -has- to put it in the weirdest way possible. Which of course means that when Asuka points that -out-, she'll just have to picture the painfully stricken look on Mari's face as she gasps! and announces! "I can't believe you would ask me that, princess!"
Because that one should just -go without saying-.
She can't see the ways Asuka flusters. The ways she reacts to Mari's words and actions. But she likes this. She likes closing her eyes, and just imagining the way asuka must look when she feels that heat radiate across her cheek. The way she hears the notes of annoyance mixed with a futile attempt at dismissive pride when Asuka accepts the first part of her request.
The way she feels facial muscles shift with that disbelief and outrage, only to relax fractionally within a single exhale that blows past her cheek.
It paints a picture more vivid to her than if she actually saw it all herself.
She could point out the sky high standards of Asuka here, of course. It'd be a perfect moment to dredge up the fact that Asuka is always asking outrageous things of her, like 'not slacking off during training sessions' or 'showing up to student council meetings on time' or to 'stop drowning the minutes in so much glitter.'
But instead? All she says is,
"It's because I think so highly of her royal highness that I hold her to even higher standards."
That comes so painfully sincerely, just as much as its follow up:
"Because I'm confident she can triumph over any challenge."
Even this.
It's belief, and confidence, unfettered by ulterior motive. Something that's simply allowed to be what it is, in those brief moments before Asuka finally finds it within herself to accept the final part of that request. In response, Mari claps her hands together in a gesture of delight. She's so happy she doesn't even -touch- the juicy implications Asuka very likely did not realize she has just made.
Instead, she just straightens up, cheek departing from cheek...
... If only so she can half-turn Asuka's way, offering out one plugsuit-clad pinky out to her.
"I solemnly swear to return to your side, no matter what, princess."
She'll just let the realization come to Asuka on her own.
"No matter what shamelessly shameful things I plan to do!"
With a little nudge.
<Pose Tracker> Asuka Shikinami Langley has posed.
"It's because your shamelessness surprises even me sometimes!"
Asuka just blurts right back out, because yes it goes without saying but also that doesn't mean it's not ~surprising~ still!
Indeed, it would be easy to call Asuka on her high standards, she's always so demanding of Mari's untroubled lifestyle. Then again, is untroubled truly the word?
Is it?
Perhaps even Asuka knows that's not so, after all. Mari wouldn't put in so much effort to be a part of her life if that were so. To be a part of Asuka's life is to expect trouble.
Mari's answer though on just having that much confidence in her ability to triumph gets this startled widening of her eyes, before they narrow in on her, "Sure you're not just saying that to get me to do what you want?"
Yet, she knows that's not so. Genuinely touched, Asuka mutters, "Geez, saying something like that... you know I can't turn down a challenge."
She's not actually thinking of it as a challenge though, not anymore. She's just touched by her regard for her.
Indeed, Asuka reddens when it sinks in what she says, "I mean-!" But, Mari instead solemnly swears to return to her.
And Asuka stares at the outstretched pinky, before slowly reaching out to curl her pinky around hers.
"... I know you will."
Asuka says in a hushed voice, all pride not GONE in the moment - but in this moment of vulnerability, redirected, "There's nothing out there that could kill you anyway. Universal law? No amount of its righteousness could overcome your shamelessness."
To pride in her.
"Anyway - come on. I'm not gonna spend the rest of our day together looking like this. You'd just use it to notch another fashion win or something."
Asuka turns away and starts to walk towards the locker room, but as she does, Mari might swear she catches just, a momentary glimpse of something that perhaps Asuka herself doesn't understand is on her face...
... a genuine smile. It's a small, subdued thing. There is no great expression of joy in the moment, but to someone who seems incapable of happiness on any given day.
It is evidence at least, that it is not a lost cause for her to seek it, and for others to be a part of it.