2022-02-19: Obligation

• Log: 2022-02-19: Obligation
• Cast: Akane Shinjo (ft. Alexis Kerib)
• Where: Akane's Room, Tsutsujidai
• Date: February 19, 2022
• Summary: It's the 19th when Akane realizes the 14th doesn't matter to people in her new world in the way it matters to people in the old one.

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She'd actually skipped class, on the 14th. It's getting a little more frequent -- frequent enough to worry her teacher, which is a thing that is itself driving Akane Shinjo crazy. He has the nerve to bump into her without apologizing, only to change his tune and start giving a shit *after* she gets mad?

She doesn't deserve that kind of check-in.

Of course, it's the 19th now. She's been back for several days, and --

Wait. It's the 19th. That's five days after the 14th. In the other world, forgetting would be understandable; the nature of the 14th has changed fairly drastically over the last year-and-change. She came to Tsutsujidai not to think about that.

Rather pointedly to avoid that, and thinking about that, ever again, in fact.

And yet: here it is. Over and over, at that; not only is ZAFT showing up in her perfect little home, but they're showing up from Junius Seven. Why? Why now, after nearly a year of silence -- and why from such a wound, at that? Why is the wreckage of Junius Seven drawing people into her space? The reminder had stuck the thought in her head in full, by the time the 14th came around.

She looks at the stack of giri-choco she's assembled on her desk. (She'd had it ready to go by the 8th, before the ruminating started.) Unlike most of what Akane has created in Tsutsujidai, it's hand-made; she'd gone downstairs in her house and spent the time. Every one has a card. A few of them are a little bit extra-special, too; Hibiki's is a chocolate special dog (with white chocolate bun!) Despite the usual heavily-gendered nature of Valentine's Day in Japan, she's even made some for the girls. (One of them is a pink chocolate flamingo with a heart for a wing and musical notes for legs.)

When it hit, thinking about Valentine's Day had just been too damn much to handle. Was there some hole in reality that ZAFT types keep falling into because the Federation used some new, stupid weapon and not *really* a nuke? Was there ever any point to coming here to be alone, if there were all these damn holes straight from all the worst parts of the world to her one safe place?

Besides. Now it's five days later. It just looks pathetic and sad if she comes in with a big ol' stack of belated giri-choco and isn't even playing by the holiday's rules, right? No one's going to get why she's so broken up about it. They'll probably just think she was too thoughtless to make or even buy any chocolate and is going omega tryhard as an excuse.

Akane Shinjo stares at the pile of handmade giri-choco on her desk, her head down in front of her keyboard. "Nnh. Mrmrhg."

"Maybe next year," she says, with a sigh, shoving the stack off her desk and into the mounds of undifferentiated garbage. It's in her liedown spot. She'll have to deal with that later, too, but for now just having it off her desk is an improvement.

It's at that point that Akane's monitor winks on, a familiar face appearing. "Hoooh? Is everything all right, Akane-kun? It looks like you missed Valen --" A foot interrupts him, the monitor shattering and his query ending with a startled 'ope.'

The monitor, too, joins the garbage a moment later.