2024-06-15: She Looked At Her With No 'Recognition'
- Log: She Looked At Her With No 'Recognition'
- Cast: Yuliana Kafim, Lucine Azul, Elisa Kafim
- Where: The Photon Power Labs
- Date: 2024-06-15
- Summary: Lucine doesn't expect to find Yuliana at the PPL, so of course she gives her a piece of her mind -- but Yuliana doesn't even know her name. When her wife comes into the picture, Yuliana quickly falls apart, and Lucine tries to give her the advice which has worked for her... because Yuliana can't communicate just how many problems her relationship has. Finally she spirals into chasing Lucine away, only to ring her wife to beg forgiveness. Elisa assures her she loves her, reminds her that she said her work here was important... and insists she come home in a few days, as they agreed. (CW: Domestic abuse)
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
With dark hands clasped over her ears, darker than her own brown skin, the self-portrait Yuliana paints is harrowing and stark. Her own hands cover her mouth, and her eyes, wide, green pin-pricks, stare out from the exaggerated whites of her eyes. Much detail is paid to her jewellery, her fine wedding ring, the bracelets on her wrists. The brushstrokes are all sharp and agitated, as if putting the image down were a battle against the canvas. A shadow looms large behind her; perhaps it's who those other hands belong to, though the details are indistinct.
It doesn't take long for Alectros to figure out the meaning behind this one -- the way Elisa is isolating Yuliana, the way Yuliana is helping her along. They talk about it, for a while, but eventually...
"I just want to stay here a while," Yuliana says, at the end.
"Are you going to send this to your wife?" Alectros asks, gently.
"... yeah," she says, looking down at the painter's smock over her band shirt and jeans. "I haven't been reaching out to her enough lately... I think. I can't keep everything I do from her... it's unfaithful."
"It's your choice," they say, "but you don't have to do anything, Yuli."
"Yeah..."
When they leave, though, Yuliana still angles her phone up and snaps a photograph, taking care that the flash doesn't ruin it all.
> I was in art therapy agian
> I made this
> Can I tell you abiut it later?
> I just dont feel good right now
A moment later, a reply chimes through:
> Yes. I love you, darling. Take what time you require.
And Yuliana wastes not a second as she replies, breath shuddering with relief:
> I love you too
She takes a deep, trembling breath, as she gazes at the messages on her phone... and finally slips in back into her pocket, so that she can bury her face in her hands again, her tentacles coiling around her knees. Her shoulders shake; she makes muffled sounds, every so often. They're audible, because Alectros left the door open.
She's crying in there, sitting in front of that frightening portrait.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
With the Photon Power Labs having handled the first significant redesign of the Dianthus since it left Mars, most of the repairs and tuning had been in Uribatake's talented hands. However, as Lucine develops and furthers its design, it felt appropriate to make a run to the Labs again to have it checked over before anything was finalized.
However, the crew isn't just there on call for everything, and with it being on short notice, Lucine doesn't mind waiting for a while. There's no rush on her end. Liam's not at the apartment, after all, and the Nadesico isn't on any major missions. The greenhouse had been checked, and all was lush and plentiful.
Walking down the hallway towards the cafeteria and living spaces, Lucine's pace slows as she hears sobbing. Yellow eyes glance up and towards the sound, towards another hallway where she can see the light radiate out from an open door.
It should be none of her business. She does not belong here as staff.
.... All the same, it wouldn't be beneath her to get... intentionally lost.
Diverting her path, towards that hallway, she walks down it, but doesn't feel the exact reasons and weight in the whispering fabric that surrounds minds.
And walking by, she knows *exactly why* at a glance, spotting the crying Yuliana silhouetted against the painting.
Why is Yuliana here.
_Why is Yuliana here._
".... Why are you..." Lucine says, before she has a chance to realize she's saying these things out loud. ".... Er... ah."
In another second, Lucine's liable to decide between fleeing from that doorway, or going in, against her best judgment. She's already freaked out Liam once already!!
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
There -- a voice Yuliana has only ever heard through a mech's radio, aside from that one gathering, years ago.
She shouldn't be here. Yuliana knows everyone here, by now -- and so the strange voice makes her jerk upwards, standing and turning in such a flurry that the frightening portrait scatters to the ground, whipped down by tentacles which now raise to either side of her like hissing snakes, crests on full display. "Who are you?!" Yuliana demands, paranoia spiking through the tears lodged in her throat, and she blinks them away as she finally manages to place Lucine's voice. So comes her next question: "Why are you here?!"
Her hands clench to fists, as she demands, her voice raising: "How did you find me?!" And, again, louder: "How did you get in here?! What did you DO to them?!" As if she's killed her way in here..?
It's hard to tell just why Yuliana is so upset, when she's an utter abyss where that information ought to be. But her fists are shaking, where she's clenched them in front of her -- and more interestingly, her foot shifts back, as if she's mentally preparing to defend herself against what's surely coming.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Lucine stumbles backwards as Yuliana sees her, and, after her boneheaded 'greeting', how could Yuliana *not* be just a tiny bit peeved?
But maybe not as peeved as Lucine might be, considering her next step is to:
"I should be asking that to you, since you and your wife _stole_ the Dianthus from me two years ago!! And when my friends got it back, it took forever to get the candle wax out!"
.... yell at Yuliana for something Lucine isn't sure she even remembers, or had any hand in.
'How did you find me?!' "How did your wife find me?!"
'How did you get in here?!' "Probably the same way you did, if you're able to paint here!"
'What did you DO to them?' ".... I..." Lucine pauses, regaining some her composure with a intake of breath through her nostrils. "... I was going to have them take a look at the Dianthus.... so... it's ultimately up to them. It'd be nice to talk to Dr. Koji Kabuto again, but... there's a lot more things in the world that could use his attention."
So just what is Yuliana here again, and why was she crying?
Lucine can't depend on her Newtype senses. She'll have to... _pay attention to context cues_.
"... And, if anything," Lucine begins, quietly, "it was your wife, who found me not too long ago. It seems she's trying to understand how love works... but it's... difficult, for her to understand some concepts. Such as... people being separate."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"The what?" Yuliana asks, and actually looks confused as she glares at Lucine. She... really doesn't even seem to recognise the name, offhand. "I stole nothing of the sort!"
Did Elisa not tell her?
And, lobbied back just as quickly: "Why were you talking to my wife?!"
Yuliana's tentacle swipes through the air, as she goes on to insist, hotly: "You don't know anything!" About how Yuliana got in here?
She takes a sharp breath in, anger flashing over her pupilless eyes. "'Have a look at the' -- you expect me to believe that sorry story?! No -- I know why you're here! Elisa SENT you--!!"
It might seem like she's in trouble -- until that anger breaks to grief, and Yuliana sinks back down. "Elisa sen--hhgh!" That's the sound of Yuliana clattering to the floor, because she sent her stool flying when she leapt up so violently, earlier.
All fallen into a pile, Yuliana hugs her knees to her chest, tentacles coiling around them just the same.
"... I should have known," she says, bitterly, quietly, "it wasn't safe here."
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
"The Dianthus. My unit!"
Even if Lucine can't read Yuliana for clues of lying, from her body posture and reaction, it seems Yuliana isn't lying.
".... It figures..." Lucine grimaces. "Likely Elisa did it because of... whatever I did, that made her angry, years ago."
'Why were to talking to my wife?!' "She was in *my* mirror!!"
'You don't know anything!' "That's why I'm asking you!" Lucine flinches back, wary of that tentacle.
'Elisa SENT you----!!' "Sent me to do what?!"
This is far out of her league.
Lucine takes in a breath, massaging the side of one temple. Liam's going to hate it when he hears *this* mess.
"Look," Lucine begins again, more calmly. "She didn't send me. ... Besides, if she did... why would she send a Newtype? On foot, you're more likely to dispatch me, than the other way around."
Lucine pauses, when Yuliana speaks in that bitter, quiet tone. "... If that's why you're here... you couldn't have chosen a better place. No place is truly safe... but the people here have dealt with their share of strange phenomena. .... I would, just on principle, avoid mirrors, though, if you are afraid Elisa will try something. .... However, I think she's more apt to ask people questions about love and relationships, right now. That's why she sought me out."
Lucine clears her throat. ".... Liam panicked when he came back to all the mirrors being covered. I even wrapped the counters, just in case."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"I'm sure you deserved it," Yuliana scowls, when Lucine clarifies the what and the why. If Lucine made her angry, then --
But it's not Lucine who's stressing her out, is it? Going and appearing in other women's mirrors...
Sullenly, Yuliana hugs her knees to her chest; she surely could be a threat to the Newtype, but she's too wrapped up in herself, right now. "Oh," she says, the bottom dropping out of her tone. "Oh, I can't believe I'd... how could I accuse her of something like that?"
Oh no, she's tearing up again.
"It's not about you," she says, dismally. "It's... I've been mistreating her terribly. She must not even understand... why, I..."
She swallows, scrubbing at her eyes. "What -- what did she say?" She asks, and looks starkly fragile, looking up at Lucine from her ignoble position on the floor. "What -- exactly -- did she say?"
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
"I don't even know what I *did*."
Yuliana keeps going back and forth between positions. Fear of Elisa (at least, what seems to be fear), jealousy, anger, self deprecation.
"..... She's a grown woman. She's not perfect. And if she means to--"
'She must not even understand... why, I...'
Looking down at Yuliana feels *wrong*, especially since Lucine had practically *barged in*, demanding why Yuliana was here. Lucine wasn't even on staff; she has no say.
It was just old anger.
'What -- exactly -- did she say?'
"... I can't be relied on to have the best memory, but I'll see what I can recount." And the words Lucine says could be dangerous, as well. Looking back and forth down the hallway, Lucine tentatively steps in, and, if allowed, she kneels down into a sitting position, as far back as she can without being directly outside. "Elisa is going to go against the Empress, but in order to do that... she had to use the power of this world. And that means, or, at least... the meaning she took from from what you've said to her, she has to understand this world. Since she knows me and Liam are a couple... she came to ask... well, either it was me, or Liam, or just... whoever she could get at the apartment. Things... like why I let someone I love so much... out of my sight at all."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Don't insult my wife!" Yuliana interjects, snappishly, when Lucine says that Elisa isn't perfect.
Is that... an insult?
She seems to think so.
Whatever's going on with Yuliana, she's evidently far more fragile than she was in that Chinese conference, years ago. (Or, at least, it's far more evidenced.) She doesn't get up to stop Lucine from coming in; she just stays there, on the floor, beside a painting tilted to the side where it's fallen beside its easel. A painting of...
"All she wants is to protect me..." Yuliana murmurs, after Lucine recounts what happened. "She must be so lonely. I didn't think... it was just another week. Just one more week," she says, again, burying her face in her knees. "But even these treatments... it must be so hard for her. And then -- and then I demanded even more -- of course that's why she's occupying herself so with the children. She has feelings, too... why can I never see that?"
Her shoulders shake, as tears rock through her again. "I'm so selfish," she castigates herself, with no thought as to the people Elisa was venting her loneliness onto.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
".... If she wishes to break away from the Empress," Lucine softly says, "imperfection is something you both will have to deal with. .... Just like the rest of us."
Perhaps she's being far too blunt, but Lucine's past experiences with the two have worn any softness she may have had. If gentle approaches worked, none of them would be in the positions they are now.
"She may be, but... so am I. So is anyone who's ever felt love for a person. That doesn't equal her right to enmesh herself within your life... or you with hers." Lucine is unaware of the the reasons Yuliana is here, and she's not about to ask. "... Part of relationships is putting up boundaries. Getting into a position of doing things or agreeing to things just to make someone else happy... Giving up things, or closing yourself off from anything that isn't that person... Elisa has to choose whether or not she loves you, Yuliana, or if she's in love with being in love with you, regardless of what sort of person that turns you into to support that. The latter... is selfish."
"Treatments?" Didn't Liam say Yuliana was going into therapy? "... Do you mean therapy?" Children? There's children...? ".... She has feelings... but so do you. Swallowing your feelings just to satisfy hers is liable to kill yours for good, one day."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"We're not like you," Yuliana grumbles, positioning herself with her wife and against the world.
She has to be perfect.
Or you with hers, Lucine says, and Yuliana sinks into herself and her blame. Her shoulders sink; her arms clutch tighter.
They say to never go into couple's counselling to solve abuse, because it's all about sharing. One person is never at fault, in the marriage counsellor's office. But how could Lucine know that? Yuliana barely even listened to it herself.
She hisses, accusatory: "You don't think I deserve love," though she still doesn't manage to look at Lucine as she says it. "And you don't -- you don't understand. It's me who runs over her feelings. I act thoughtlessly, I, I only think about myself, and she -- of course she acts out sometimes, when I treat her so poorly. I should be happy she'll express herself at all!"
Snif. "My brain is broken," she mutters, finally, "they made machines to fix it. But it's no good. They're scared of her, so she can't come with me... she's been so lonely, all this time. I always came back between rounds, but now I said -- I said, another week, and she can tell it's because I'm unfaithful, but I haven't told her, I -- I've just been listening to the most awful things -- and she still just supports me. She's so w-wonderful," Yuliana's voice trembles, as another sob interrupts her, "she's the perfect wife, and I -- I'm just so troublesome."
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
Lucine bristles at the distinction. ".... You wouldn't have been the first to say that to my face." Or Liam's, she remembers. "All the better to put a briar around you so that you don't have to listen to people contradict you... or the world Elisa builds to trap you."
Couple's counseling, thankfully, hasn't entered Lucine's mind, nor has the idea to actively suggest any type of therapy. As far as she knows, Yuliana was trying to get some; perhaps something intervened in that.
"I don't think either of us are able to read each other's minds," Lucine flatly responds. "So don't try to suppose what I think."
The back and forth of Yuliana's thought process irritates Lucine in a way that, if it was someone else, perhaps she would have handled differently. "... You are trying to appease the feelings of someone who can't understand what it means for a person to just *be*. She is trying to understand what it means to be human. If you go back, she'll possibly double back on any progress she's made. You're shifting back and forth all over the place; this is no time to be going back."
Yuliana's brain is broken. ".... The person who feels like she doesn't deserve love... seems to be you, Yuliana. Until you're able to face the fact that *you* deserve love... you'll fall back into that pattern, with Elisa nonethewiser. Machines may be able to correct some things, but other things... we have to take on ourselves. You survived brutal testing, and even helped Liam with some of his issues. There's parts of you that you're ignoring here... and I think there's an injustice in that."
This is going to be a long phone call to Liam, Lucine knows that now. "Elisa's love can't be used as a substitute for the love you have for yourself."
It's possibly a bad call, but one Lucine is going to make. She's not going to tiptoe.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"She's not trapping me," Yuliana insists, as fear wraps tightly about her heart. "She's not trapping me. It's you people who are doing that!"
Projection would certainly explain why she's ascribing so much to Lucine, even though she can't read her mind. She makes a disgusted noise in the back of her throat when she brings up mind-reading, but, mercifully, she doesn't get into it.
"So you think I'm hurting her?" Yuliana accuses Lucine, sharply, forehead pressed to her knees. "You think she can't even -- progress as a person if she has to deal with me being so unstable?! Then I'm the one trapping her!"
But she says it as a gotcha; the reason Elisa can't be hurting her is because she's hurting Elisa. It's the easiest way for her to deny what she's hearing, right now.
"She saved me," she insists, all curled up into a little ball. (As if she can block the whole world out, just like it was in the tanks.) "She saved me. They were going to harvest me, and -- she saved me! You all looked at me, but -- but none of you saw me... did you even think about what happened to me after that party, or did you just go home self-assured in thinking you'd seen the Devil and survived? I'll tell you -- I went home -- and they tortured me. They tortured me, because they hated I had someone, and -- and she saved me then, too. Subverted the whole Institute to her will, so they wouldn't hurt me like that any more. Dr. Devi broke the agreement, when the Major broke out of her control, but... but how can you say my wife's love isn't that powerful? She's always been... saving me."
Yuliana draws in another heaving sob, as she mutters, "... and now you're saying I have to abandon her to save her? You're so cruel... I guess there's really no way my Elisa would have sent someone like you to sort me out. She never would have let someone say these awful things to me... she wouldn't hurt me like that. I can't believe I even thought she would... God, I'm so easy to manipulate."
And in one sense, that's true.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
"It's not wrong to love someone. However, it can be used as a trap, even unintentionally. I don't think she does things to hurt you; her trying to talk to people at least shows a willingness to understand. And *you* are the element that made her seek that out, Yuliana. Remember that, each time you put yourself down. She didn't get my words, and I don't know if she'll ever understand. But a willingness to acknowledge conversations, especially from people who disagree with her? That's... a very big step."
Is it really great to praise Elisa in any way, even indirectly, when she doesn't even know why Yuliana is here? Probably not.
But Lucine.... is not a therapist.
Still, the projection is not lost on Lucine, either, nor is the irony of her pointing out neither of them can read minds. While Lucine's powers deal mainly with emotions, they don't equal thoughts. And Yuliana... Well, that's a whole other story. In fact, Lucine brings it up again. "I may be a Newtype, but I can't read minds. Even if I did, your latent abilities cancel that. You're safe from me, even if I tried anything. It's just that... you're learning how to be safe from your own prickles. Focus on the prickles, and you might fail to see the flowers on you. A cactus is worthy of love, and so are you. And so is Elisa."
"I remember that part. Elisa tried to hire me so I could become one of her little 'projects', but she recanted as soon as I even implied the two of you were connected. It could have been because she was jealous, was trying to keep it all a secret while she planned to spring you out... or saw some word as me deserving to be punished." Lucine frowns. "I don't doubt she loves you, and you love her. But if she's used to *controlling* people to get them to do what she wants, she's probably done the same to you, and likely, without even realizing it. Whether it's because of what she's formed from, or whatever, she might need to relearn what it's like... to have an equal. And you... have to deal with your wounds."
... and now you're saying I have to abandon her to save her?
"No. You don't have to take my advice. I'm not the expert I may make myself out to be here... but I do know that Liam and I talking about you and Elisa made us realize we also needed to resolve some issues in our relationship. There's no easy fix, either... we both have memories of what we've had, and how we both lost them. If we don't... we're liable to smother each other. .... We're cactuses too, Liam and I. We have our spines. We're just learning how to love, without making the other wear our spines for us... or impaling ourselves on our own." She reaches out a tentative finger, though it's not to touch Yuliana, but to point. "You, too, have flowers. You too, are worthy of love, and can love in return."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Of course she doesn't do things to hurt me," Yuliana snaps, curling tighter into herself. "At least you understand that much."
She's the thing... which made Elisa engage.
She's Elisa's connection to the world.
So, without Yuliana...
"I'm..." She starts, shifting in the ball she's made of herself. "It is my -- prickles," she adopts the language, awkwardly. "I'm all made of knives... is all. But my Elisa's always seen the beauty in me... that's why she always gives me such beautiful gifts."
The Yuliana-ball shifts, so that her hands leave her knees, to pull in against her chest instead. All the better to grasp her jewellery; her tentacles can still coil around her legs and keep her secure in here, after all.
"Can't you figure it out?" She mutters, from behind her knees, when Lucine expresses her uncertainty over why Elisa first targeted her. "I just told you -- when they realised I'd opened up to someone else -- they tortured me to get me to tell them who it was. Because I was a state secret, girl. They couldn't have someone else knowing about me. I wasn't even allowed to see outside doctors. And if you knew about us -- of course you'd betray us. Of course it wasn't safe." Yuliana is, of course, guessing; Elisa never bothered to mention her vendetta, to her.
(This is, as it happens, quite normal; they both have vindictive streaks against people where they don't involve each other. It's healthy to have personal projects, like how Yuliana has such a contentious relationship with the Ra Mari II.)
Conveniently, correcting her on that makes it easier to ignore the idea that Elisa might just be used to operating manipulatively.
"We don't have any issues in our relationship!" Yuliana snaps, clasping her hands tight to her chest as she stays quite curled up. "And my Elisa isn't smothering me! I just... I'm just damaged. I'm just damaged, so I keep hurting her! And me! And everyone! Because I'm just a bad, broken person, and I'm RUINED, and I hurt my wife, and THIS IS STUPID! It's so stupid stupid STUPID! Don't look at me, don't even look at me! I hurt her! I hurt my wife! I'm stupid and I listened and I hurt my wife! I hurt my wife! Get out, get out, GET OUT--!!"
She's coiled so tightly into herself, she might well break her own bones.
<Pose Tracker> Lucine Azul has posed.
"It's not wrong to be that way. You did what you had to, to survive. But you need to see, and remember, the beauty in yourself, or those prickles will stab inward."
'Can't you figure it out?' The same pricklesknives are pointed towards Lucine now, and there's no reason why they *shouldn't* be, at this point. "And she kept targetting me, even after she had rescued you. And even before that, she was going to do the same sorts of mind-warping she's done to others... if Liam hadn't gone with me that day..." It may have been the first time Lucine realized she was grateful for Liam's size, even if he abhorred it. The gene manipulation, the treatment, the way the control of his body want seemingly ripped away from him as he went from boy to teenager. ".... But that... was in the past. And has nothing to do with you." Lucine doesn't know what happened to Yuliana, but remembering the things Liam went through fuels the anger in her voice. "They were wrong to do what they did to you. It was inexcusable."
But thinking of Liam may have been a mistake. As Yuliana calls herself ruined, damaged, broken, bad, stupid-- she thinks of everyone else who had been in the same sorts of positions as her.
She barely is able to redirect the summoned anger into something positive. "You're not ruined! You're _Yuliana_--"
'GET OUT--'
Lucine falls silent, then, gets up quietly, without any fuss. "I'll close the door." Better to not have more outsiders like her to pop their head in, just after what happened. The door's closing is quiet with a subtle click the only sign that Lucine held try to her promise.
She'll flag whoever's around to tell about what happened here, or what specifically, what she, Lucine, did. She is, after all, someone who came in unbidden. Yuliana didn't ask for any of it; a wound doesn't heal simply because someone tried to force the skin to close.
Minds don't work that way.
"... Elisa's definitely going to get creative in how she wrings my neck for that." Lucine sighs, as she brings up Liam's phone number on her phone.
She has a phone call to make.
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"There's nothing wrong with being a little spiteful," Yuliana mutters, when Lucine insists Elisa kept going. "She didn't do anything wrong."
Elisa never does anything wrong.
It's the rest of the world... which wrongs Yuliana.
"At least you recognise that much," she says, to Lucine's angry followup. It's the sort of grudging relief which speaks to her nerves -- but Lucine has never even spoken to her before.
How could she know she was arming a bomb?
"Get out!" She snaps, when Lucine insists she'll close the door. When she goes to find someone, they'll be quite concerned -- Yuliana is being sheltered here, they'll explain, and emphasise the fact that it's a secret arrangement. They don't go into why she needs shelter, but...
Yuliana, still sobbing, throat hitching on her breath, uncoils just enough to pull her phone from her pocket. It tumbles from her shaking hands, but luckily, Elisa bought her a case sturdy enough to endure her beatings -- so when she picks it up, it still works just fine.
She calls Elisa, and her camera is on, but at first all it shows is blurry darkness, held to her ear. "Eh--elyyaahhhh!" She wails, curling around her phone, instead. "T-the girl y-you came to in a mirror came anh, and she said, she told me -- I'm sorry, Elya! I'm a terrible wife!" She's sobbing, openly, and it's a wonder she can get any words out through her hyperventilation. "Y-you were s-s-so LONELY and I was s-so SELFISH and, and I hurt you, I hurt you, I'm sorry, I'll come home ruh-right now! Right now!"
<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.
Elisa picks up the phone, of course. She is as impassive as ever in her black robes, until she hears Yuliana's wail. "That girl..."
"She is irrelevant," Elisa says. "Oh, my darling..."
"It is all right. I promised I would always see you. Such things will not break my word so easily."
"...But you said that what you were doing was important, my darling. I love you. I wish you to have all that you need."
"...Wouldn't it be better?" Elisa asks. "If you finished your treatment. I will be here, waiting for you."
"Always."
Elisa reflects that she should visit Lucine Azul's man soon, too.
"I love you, Yuliana."
<Pose Tracker> Yuliana Kafim has posed.
"Oh," Yuliana whines, miserably, as finally she remembers about the camera, and with trembling hands draws the phone away so her wife can see her face.
(She's been crying quite heavily.)
"B-but -- but, I -- I-I hurt you," Yuliana says, lips parted to pant, tears tracking around the scar down her cheek. "You -- you were lonely all this time and, and I was so selfish, and -- can't I come home? Can't I fix it? Please, Elya. I can fix it..."
How does she go from asking for time away from home to begging to come home? She realises the contrast, but it doesn't make any sense in her mind, so she pushes it away. She feels so awful, even though her wife is so understanding. Her wife said...
She sobs, again, and her head rocks forward to rest against the top of her phone, as if she could press her face to her wife's. "Nn... sorry... you're right," she sniffs, voice, hitching. "T--Tuesday, like we said... Tuesday's n-not so far. I'm sorry," she says, again, as if she's gotten too comfortable with the phrase. "Y-you're always so supportive... I'm s-so lucky I'm your wife. Your wife," she repeats, lifting her head so the camera can focus on her again.
"I l-love you so much... I'm sorry I'm such a troublesome woman. You p-put up with so much for me..."