2022-08-23: Girl Talk

• Log: 2022-08-23 Girl Talk
• Cast: Akane Shinjo, Sheryl Nome
• Where: Tsutsujidai/Macross Frontier Fleet
• OOC - IC Date: 0096-08-23
• Summary: Sheryl Nome gets a call from... not a fan, exactly, about a fan.

---

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane... doesn't feel great, in a way that she really can't quite put her finger on. It's four days from the Tsutsujidai part of the Deculture Festival opening, and she ought to be excited about deploying a kaiju. Admittedly, she's not totally displeased with that; her work is stellar and her updated kaiju design is perfect for dealing with pesky heroes.

Still...

Akane has a phone, and more than a few comm numbers in it. She chews on that for a bit.

... It might be nice if she could get the holder of one of those numbers to make this easier...

She flops back into the garbage. May as well.

Tabbing over to a certain songstress's contact information, she taps the 'send call' button. (... this is a really cute phone, she reflects. She would have been delighted to have this, once.)

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Sheryl Nome doesn't lounge. Sheryl Nome is always hard at work. But if, after her scheduled calisthenics and aerobics exercises to keep herself trim and beautiful, she takes a bath and does her daily skin care routine, then goes down for a rest on her bed while reading up on the latest fashion trends, and it looks like lounging, who can blame her?
        
        Next to her bed, her taiyaki-shaped phone buzzes. Without looking, Sheryl reaches over and squishes it, connecting it to whoever's calling in. This is her personal line, after all, so either it's Grace patching someone in--in which case she'll get Grace on the line first to introduce them--or it's a personal friend, and she doesn't need to stand on ceremony. Or pay attention to caller ID.
        
        "Sheryl here~," she lilts, withdrawing her hand to turn a page. "What's up?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"Hi there," Akane says, and instantly she's 'on,' too -- it's the calm, slightly playful delivery she always manages when she's talking to someone else. "It's Akane. Remember me, Ga~lac~tic Fai~ry?" She wears a small smirk, eyes half-lidded. "I thought I'd try catching up with you without your cyborg friend. Now's a good time, right?"

She stretches out a bit, then lets the tension out of her muscles with a contented sigh. "I was wondering -- you've met Rikka Takarada, yeah? I know she managed to get backstage at a concert of yours or something, a while back." Right into it, it seems.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        It takes a couple of seconds for Sheryl to realize she actually does recognize the voice on the other line. At first, she's simply confused, because it's not one of the voices she expected. Then she snaps her magazine down and glowers at her phone. It's projecting a hologram of Akane, below which reads the text, 'caller unknown.'
        
        Not that she needs her phone to tell her who this is. Akane's kind enough to tell her herself.
        
        "How'd you get this number?" she demands, peeling off her face mask as she whirls her legs over the edge of her bed. "I never gave it to you!"
        
        Now's absolutely not a good time, though if there's any good time for an unwanted guest, Sheryl sure doesn't know it. Akane will have a chance to see her in a silk bathrobe, too, with an appropriately plunging V neck. Her room is done up in whites and pinks and yellows--bright, exuberant colors--but that's only right now; the walls are LCD screens and capable of changing to whatever suits her mood. Her decor is at least standard white and pink, from her four-post bed to her mirror vanity to the wall-to-wall windows.
        
        Before she can reach out and simply hang up on the so-called God of Tsutsujidai, though, she brings up something strange. She brings up Rikka Takarada. Sheryl's frown purses as her hand curls back. She isn't super familiar with Rikka, but she knows her well enough to remember her name and face. "What about her?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Hm. That's... an impressive candid shot of Sheryl, honestly, so Akane decides to fiddle with her phone a moment and turn on the video functions. Fair's fair, after all. Akane's lying in the garbage as always, of course; today's outfit is her current usual, but in her house she keeps her coat off, which means she's really just wearing a scandalously low corset dress with a fabric flower right between the breasts.

She's also lying in garbage bags, but then, that's usually the case.

"I'm good at getting what I want, and a lot of people are interested in what I can give them," Akane answers, slightly enigmatically. "But we're not talking about me~" She taps her chin thoughtfully, plopping her cute little lizard-phone on a shelf with some of her Taraba Kaiju, staring up at it.

"She's a big fan," Akane starts. "She's cute, too. I know idols usually aren't allowed to date, but I also know you're a bit of a rulebreaker anyway... I bet you could show her a nice time out there. Give her somewhere to go other than Tsutsujidai." Akane brings a hand to her mouth, and giggles. "I bet she's even cuter when she's starstruck! What do you think?"

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Of course, the drawback of being connected by video means that you're seen even as you see. Sheryl notes Akane's corset, of course--but she also notices her backdrop. She lifts her chin and one eyebrow: a perfect portrait of contempt. "Are you lying in garbage?" she wonders icily. "What kind of 'god' are you supposed to be?"
        
        ...Not that she doesn't know what it's like to lie in garbage. But if she were a god, she'd never demean herself like that ever again.
        
        "We are talking about you. We're talking about how you got my private number," Sheryl continues, folding her arms and legs as she tosses her hair haughtily.
        
        But then Akane segues into what she's actually after. For a moment, Sheryl has to stare. That audacity of Akane's is certainly godlike. Once she realizes she actually did hear that, Sheryl...
        
        ...breaks out laughing.
        
        "Did you seriously steal my phone number and come harass me... to try to set me up on a date?" she utters. "You really are a teenage girl!" Sheryl tilts her head, studying Akane anew. Then she unfolds and refolds her legs in consideration. "Rikka Takarada... Wasn't she one of your classmates?" Now that she's thinking about it again... "Wasn't she that classmate who's such a fan of mine you arranged for a tour spot for me in Tsutsujidai, so she could see me local?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I don't think that's any of your concern," Akane says, a little sharply, at the comment on her living space. ... she didn't think that one the whole way through, and now she's feeling a little weird about it -- she accidentally let someone into her space in a very real way, and now they're judging her. She doesn't flinch physically -- but she's thinking it.

Sheryl starts asking some pointed questions rather than just hanging up, no doubt because the bait she's laid out is interesting. ... And she's not very well going to lie. "Yep! That's her," Akane answers, truthfully and brightly. "She's like... six centimeters taller than me? Long dark hair, great thighs -- you know." There's a beat, before she considers the other half of the question.

"I don't know if she's like, a superfan or anything, but I know she's really into music and you're the first concert she caught outside. The rest... yeah, that's more or less correct!" It wouldn't do to make Rikka sound like a creep; Rikka's a nice girl. She isn't sure how she feels about how this is going, though...

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        "You made it my concern when you called me on video. Deal with it," Sheryl snips, tossing her hair with one hand. She definitely caught that sharpness in Akane's voice, and she's not at all sorry about putting her on the spot. After all, as far as she's concerned, Akane's already invaded her personal space.
        
        Yet, even though that's the case, she still hasn't hung up. Instead, she listens as Akane describes Rikka as having 'great thighs.' Her eyebrows rise markedly. "Hmmmm..." She tilts her head the other way. "So why are you trying to hook me up with your crush, Miss God?"
        
        Since Akane's getting right to it, Sheryl may as well return the favor.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Well, that gets Akane out of her usual loop a little bit. She's not used to being perceived -- and she actually sits bolt upright, which means one of her shoulders knocks that poor little lizard-phone off of the shelf it was half-hanging off. It plummets into the garbage; Akane retrieves it in short order.

"Well! Since I'm trying to shut this place back up where it belongs," Akane starts, "and I get the feeling she's not exactly gonna be along for the ride... I thought it might be fun for you to show her what the rest of the world has to offer. Bet it sucks to know you won't have a home to go back to in a little while, that's all. Don't try to make this about me."

Akane's heart pounds in her chest; she hadn't expected Sheryl to be this sharp-eyed, even though their last interaction was... very much about that.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        You have to have a sharp eye socially if you're going to be the galaxy's top idol. Sheryl isn't exactly worldly when it comes to what normal girls experience--Grace made sure of that--but she is used to people wanting things from her and needing to figure out what, and how to shut them down if they're trying to overstep her boundaries.
        
        So when Akane gives her reasons/excuses, Sheryl continues to listen with a sharp eye. The first thing she sees is the way Akane sits bolt upright; the second thing she sees is how she doesn't deny that Rikka's her crush; the third is...
        
        "Hmmmm..."
        
        She smirks anew. "Does that mean you're doing this kind of thing for everyone in that town you made, then?" she says, her tone knowing--borderline mocking.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Oh NO. She has follow-up questions!

Akane is an absolutely terrible liar; more than that, the follow-up question has an obvious answer.

"This place is the size of a couple of special wards of Tokyo," comes Akane's rejoinder, after a few moments. "I can't do it for everyone -- and besides, a lot of them are coming back with me. It's not like I'm leaving all the people here when this place shuts back up again."

Akane realizes exactly how much of the plan she's giving away here and promptly shuts up before she gives away even more. Her cheeks puff out a tiny bit, in 'cute' irritation mode, for just a moment -- and then she quickly pivots to actually irritated, slamming a fist into one of the bags of garbage she's lying on.

She is so, so cornered.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Sheryl isn't especially book smart, and she does tend to leave figuring out the nitty gritty of her career to Grace. However, she's absolutely a perfectionist who insists on being involved if not in full control of all of her creative endeavors. That takes someone who's willing to ask questions and demand answers. Akane absolutely misread her.
        
        "Uh huh," she says as Akane explains. She explains quite a bit, and although Sheryl isn't looped in on the greater plan to Do Something About Akane, it does tell her a lot all on its own.
        
        To whit:
        
        "So what you're saying is that Rikka Takarada's special to you," Sheryl concludes with the smug certainty of someone who already knew they were right. And as someone who's been studying Japanese for a few different reasons, she can't resist adding, "I guess that's why she's 'Takara, da'!" Takara da--meaning a treasure.
        
        At least that smugness fades as she frowns and settles into a serious demeanor. After all, Akane's making it clear that she's actually quite mad about how this is going. "I'm going to ask you one more time, Akane. Why are you trying to hook me up with the girl you like? You're the 'God' here. If you want her, why don't you just have her?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

... Why doesn't she just have her?

Akane takes a moment to stand up and walk to her desk; she moves one of the bags of garbage under it to get access to the micro-fridge, and pulls out a box of tomato juice. Now that she has it, she returns to her previous garbage-perch, trying to find an answer for Sheryl's several questions.

"Nngh... shut up," she says, as she tries to work her way through an answer. (Not 'the' answer, which is apparently dead obvious -- just 'an' answer.) "I don't think she's going to want anything to do with me if this works out either way," she eventually settles on. "I have to kill a Vessel of Light to put Tsutsujidai back in the right place. She's fighting alongside one. It's..." She trails off.

"Either way, it doesn't work that way," is what she finally settles on. ... How doesn't it, though? If everyone here has no choice but to love her -- why did Rikka get off that bus? And why does Sheryl's question make her so uneasy?

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Sheryl bounces a foot impatiently as Akane sees fit to go take a drink break, moving a bag of garbage to access the drink in the first place, instead of answer. By the time Akane returns, she's annoyed, so when she's told to shut up, Sheryl barks out a disbelieving laugh. "You're the one that started this, and now you can't take the heat?" she jeers.
        
        But then Akane explains. Rikka's the friend of her enemy, which makes them enemies too, apparently, and anyway, it doesn't work like that. "You're a pretty nice God to not make your subjects automatically love you, then," Sheryl notes, and although her tone is harsh, she does actually mostly mean it. In fact, the more she thinks about it, the more it impresses on her how much Rikka really does matter to Akane. She'd observed that already, not just here but back in Tsutsujidai, but... to Sheryl's ears, she's basically saying Rikka's happiness matters more to her than her own.
        
        "And that's why you're trying to set her up with the Galactic Fairy. Only the best for your crush, hmm? I'm a little jealous, actually," she adds, and her tone softens enough at the end to make it clear that, despite the ego, she's not giving her a hard time. "Rikka's a lucky girl to have someone who cares about her so much."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I did set them up to automatically love me!" Akane snaps back, like a child throwing a tantrum. That's very much it, too -- her voice frays, it's shrill. This really is a whole-ass teenager throwing a distinctly teenage tantrum. "But -- it's not fa--" WAY too revealing, "rgghhg!! You are impossible!! With your stupid questions!!" She grips her box of tomato juice tight; some of it splatters on her face, which would be embarrassing if...

... well, okay, it is embarrassing, but she's only going to think of that after the tantrum when she's finding whole new reasons to tear into herself.

"If you 'rrr gonna shay no, thith converthayshun could'b been a lothh shorter," she mumbles, taking another sip of her tomato juice, lips around the straw.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Sheryl furrows her eyebrows, this time in genuine confusion. She's distinctly unimpressed with Akane's teenager tantrum (not that Sheryl would eeeever throw a fit over anything herself), but what she's saying doesn't jive with the facts as Sheryl understands them to be. Fortunately for Akane, she chooses to ignore her splattering tomato juice all over her face; unfortunately--
        
        "Wait. But if they do automatically love you, how's Rikka any different? How's it 'not work that way' with her?" she points out, lifting a finger out of her folded arms to point at Akane. "Like, if that's true, how can she can fight against you in the first place? Shouldn't she be automatically on your side no matter what, no questions asked?"
        
        Akane grumps at her around her straw, and Sheryl laughs lightly as she flips her hair. "How do you know? Maybe I'm asking all these questions because I want to know if I should say yes~."
        
        (She doesn't plan on saying yes. But Akane started out this conversation as a competition, and Sheryl hates to lose.)

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane can tell when she's being led along by the nose, but even so -- she also hates to lose, and she's bad at cutting her losses. "Hmmm, why indeed? Maybe Gridman broke her," she says, getting back into her usual smug stance. ... But she knows better. Things got difficult with Rikka before Gridman was ever in the picture. As a result, there's nothing about her that sounds particularly enthused -- or particularly convinced.

What she eventually settles for is a slightly strained, "... Regardless, I don't think things between us will ever get any better. The way things are, I'm not sure what we could really be to each other except a bad guy and her favorite victim. I mean -- surely you've seen that whole mess play out, right? It's a TV classic!"

... there she goes. It's -- a lot easier, if she retreats into fiction. Plays the role set out before her.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Sheryl simply doesn't know enough about Tsutsujidai or Gridman or any of the drama wrapped up in them both to be able to counter Akane on that mark. However, she can tell that Akane's just saying things to say things. She's not into it. She doesn't sound like she believes herself.
        
        Or maybe what she doesn't believe is that Rikka might actually love her if she's not being forced... even if, based on what she was saying earlier, she loves her enough that she won't force her. "I have," she confirms neutrally; she's seen plenty of fiction. In some senses, she plays a fiction on stage, too--though not like Alto did.
        
        But--
        
        "I don't really think that's what you two are to each other, though," she continues, and her tone and the softening of her frown are now damningly close to pitying. "I don't know how Rikka feels, but it's obvious she's anything but a victim to you."
        
        Even so, she doesn't tell Akane to be honest. Sheryl understands that sometimes you just can't be honest. Sometimes, a relationship is just... unequal. An intragalactic mega-star and a pilot in a platoon of pilots; the Galactic Fairy and a rookie songstress yet to make her big break. And that's not--
        
        "Fair," she murmurs, eyes flickering and widening with understanding. "I see... So that's why..."
        
        For a moment, she goes quiet. Then she looks off into the distance, something bittersweet in her gaze as she stares out the window to the glittering lights of the Frontier, and softly begins to sing:
        
        "I wonder why, when I'm with you
        "I end up feeling a little sad?
        "Oooh, because I live, I live for you..."
        
        "I want you to pay closer attention to me
        "When I clung to you, I grew downy wings
        "Oooh, just floating in a dream, don't fade away..."
        
        "I became an angel
        "But you never knew it, so you'll never know it..."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

'Fair'.

Akane's caught, and she knows she is; there's that moment, where Sheryl realizes what Akane's doing and says as much yet again -- where she has her totally in hand. And her response... is to reach out, a little bit.

Despite the stances they'd taken to each other at the start of the call... Sheryl has what she has for the world, for Akane: a song. This time, it's the hand that isn't wrapped around her tomato juice that clenches; she ends up tearing a small hole in her stockings, over the thigh, in irritation.

She does listen, though -- and when she hears a lull in the singing, she cuts in, irritated. "Don't -- don't act like you know me that well!" she stammers out. "You know what? Whatever. This was a stupid idea." She crosses her arms and huffs a bit.

Then she realizes this actually does nothing to turn off her phone, which still isn't even in hand -- so she goes to do that.

After she hangs up, though, she can't help but hum her way out to,

        "I'll probably start to hate in the midst of joy,
        "I've given up now, I've given up on the righteous things..."

... then she turns over onto her side in the garbage. "Stupid. What a bad idea," she mumbles.

<Pose Tracker> Sheryl Nome has posed.

        Akane might hang up on her...
        
        But she didn't hang up on her song. Even though she could have.
        
        Sheryl frowns at her taiyaki phone's holo-screen, stating that the call's been disconnected before it fades out. The look in her eyes is of concern now, though.
        
        It's not like she especially likes Akane. She was a horrible bully to Brera, and she keeps trying to stance herself as the big bad guy. But...
        
        Sheryl hurls herself backwards and splays her body out on her bed. "Stupid," she murmurs to herself. "Yeah. It really is stupid, what you're doing to yourself... Akane."
        
        She'll lie like that for a while, lost in thought. In what she heard--and in what Akane listened to in turn.