Dreams of the Tempest

[Zach Kaiser]

"Sounds like you look up to her a lot," Eld commented. "I'm a little jealous." He'd never had anybody to truly look up to. He respected his parents and grandfather, but it wasn't the same as having a role model closer to his age, someone he could count on to tell him what they really thought and not just what they felt he needed to hear. The only one he really knew in that age category was Noah, and...well, needless to say there hadn't traditionally been much respect or admiration there.

"So, uh...she's not going to want to kill me or anything for dating you, is she?" he asked. He sort of wanted to meet her, with how much influence she'd had on Akizetsumei, but most of her immediate family was or would not be fond of their relationship. Kyo was obviously wary of him, Gestahl would probably kill him or at least beat him to a pulp if he found out, and even Oboreru would probably see him as just a rival for her attention. He could only hope her mother would be on his side, at least. (If their family dynamic was anything like his, that would be enough.)

[Nayt]

"Hmn?" Akizets tilted her head to the side.

Eld might not have been able to see it, but she gave him the most confounded look just then. Honestly, what would make him think that?

"No way. Laina would be really happy," Akizets replied as she squeezed Eld tightly, pressed the side of her face against his back and everything, and all around hugged onto him affectionately.

Who wouldn't approve of Eld? He was the sweetest guy Akizetsumei had ever met! He he was kind and caring and compassionate; he had great life goals and he knew exactly what he was doing. He'd never actually hurt her, not intentionally, and he'd be supportive if she was ever sad.

"You wanna know what the last thing she said to me 'fore she left was?" Akizets asked, waited a second, and said it anyways: "'Above all things, be happy. We're not born to be sad.' And you know what?" Akizets released the tension in her squeeze so she could lean her head back-- enough so that she could kiss the middle of Eld's back. "I'm really really happy."

[Zach Kaiser]

"I'm glad to hear it." Hearing her now, it was hard to believe that it was just last night that she'd been near despair, not knowing what was real and what was a dream. That she was back to her normal, cheerful self made him gladder than anything, and gave him hope that someday soon Kyo would also be free from his curse.

It was also good to know that it was apparently only the males of her house that hated or were going to hate him. Or so he hoped.

And for awhile he fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the ride and feeling of Akizetsumei pressed up against his back.

******

The rest of the day passed pleasantly; after they were done riding around Eld bought her dinner, and by the time they were done eating the sun was beginning to set. He figured he should get her back home, which was kind of funny because they'd stayed out much later than this before now.

"Here we are," Eld said as they walked up to her house. "I hope you had a good time?" She probably did--Akizetsumei tended to wear her heart on her sleeve--but he wanted to know for sure that their first date had gone well.

[Nayt]

Their first date went amazingly-- at least, that's how Akizets concluded it to be. There were no other words for it other than amazing. She'd never been on an actual date before, not to her knowledge at least, and she'd never had a real boyfriend before, either. Honestly, to summarize:

"I had a great time," Akizetsumei corrected.

She tried to be pointed and mock proper about it, but Akizetsumei was far too cheerful to do that. It was true, she wore her feelings on her sleeve, and Akizets was still on cloud nine. Toushikyo could go and be the biggest jerk in the world later, and she would still be happy.

Akizetsumei leaned up, wrapped her arms around Eld's shoulders, and leaned in to hug him closely. She was half tempted to try kissing him, actually, and her face burned at the mere thought. But they were close to her house. Right outside, in fact! What if someone saw? So okay, she wasn't going to kiss him. Not yet! For some reason, Akizets felt like that needed to wait. She felt the need to put that off just a little bit, as if by kissing him of her own volition, she'd just be throwing herself into this ultra fast, and then she would've been uncomfortable. Of course, the actual detailed plotting of all that never once went through Akizetsumei's head. But that was no huge change. In depth personal psychology never touched her brain, anyways.

"I-- I-- I'm--" she stuttered to talk; she wanted to say something else . . . "I'm really really really glad, um, thatyourmyfirstboyfriend. 'C-- 'cause you really are the best guy ever."

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld laughed to cover his embarrassment, but he couldn't cover his blush. "W-Well, I don't know about that, but I'm glad you enjoyed yourself," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I had fun too."

He glanced at the door; he was tempted to kiss her goodnight, but he supposed that would have to wait until her family knew about them. Did they know? Kyo knew, but he wasn't sure if her father did. He suspected not, since he'd yet to see the man, and he had a feeling he would be seeing him rather shortly after he found out if he didn't tell him himself.

Besides, there was no need to rush things. Last night had been rather special for a number of reasons; she might not have been ready to kiss regularly. He could still remember when a light kiss still felt novel himself, after all. "Well, have a good night," he said.

[Nayt]

Eld could argue it as much as he wanted, but Akizets was pretty much convinced that Eld was the best guy ever. Who else would do all this stuff with her without being a jerk? Even the slightest kind of jerk, even! This whole day, and the whole time she knew Eld even, he hadn't been a jerk to her once.

"You, too, Eldridge," she said in her natural delighted falsetto.

With that, she took a few steps back, smiled brightly at him, and turned away. Akizets returned home after a wonderful first date. Of course, she soon discovered that her father was home, and was going to spend most of the night in her room in order to avoid any questions yet still maintain her great mood, but that wasn't a big deal to her. The last couple of weeks had taught her how easy it was to spend time in her room, actually!

[Zach Kaiser]

With Akizetsumei inside her house, it was time for Eld to head home. With the construction on the new room finished there was finally a little peace to be had there. At least as far as noise went.

Reminded of the way Etsu reacted to seeing him with Akizetsumei, he decided to see if she was home yet. After taking a peek to make sure she wasn't in his room getting her stuff, he knocked on the door to the new room.

Incidentally, he hadn't even seen inside there yet; for the most part he'd made sure to be gone when the builders were working on it.

[Nayt]

Etsu was, indeed, home. She'd just recently gotten a bath (without Sarah, of course; that was an awkward experience she preferred to avoid . . . for the rest of her life, hopefully) and was relaxing in her new room. If there was such a thing as a new room smell, this one would have reeked of it. It was completely blank. The walls were a dull eggshell, the floor was hardwood, and there was little more within the room than a bed on a standard frame, big enough to fit one person, and an end table next to it. That was all, though. There were no chairs, there was no desk. This room was scarcely furnished. That was something they were supposed to fix eventually, though.

There were no windows, so Etsu had already lit a lantern she'd stolen from Eld's room. By the time Eld decided to knock on her door, she was chin deep in a story about a man's amnesia, and all the mystery behind it. Why had he lost those memories? They were such fond memories, it seemed . . .

When it was clear that someone wanted to come in and talk to her (though she didn't know who), Etsu took herself out of the book. She sighed, marked her page, and shut the book. With it set at the edge of the bed, but even as she decided to address this individual, she still had a slew of literary questions on her mind.

"Come in," she called out loud enough for Eld to hear, which was itself a bit difficult to do, and put a little strain on her voice.

[Zach Kaiser]

Having received permission to enter, Eld opened the door. The room itself was far from exciting; plain white walls and bare floor were almost oppressively dull, and only the barest necessity of furniture (a bed, a nightstand, and a dresser) adorned the room. He'd sort of wondered why his parents wanted Etsu to pick out decorations for the room, given that it was ultimately to be used as a general guest room, and now it was clear: any decoration was going to be better than none at all. (He had a feeling Etsu would not pick anything too outlandish anyway.)

"Hi." It occurred to him that while he knew he needed to talk to Etsu, that didn't mean he knew what, exactly, to say. Should he apologize? Explain? He wasn't sure. "How do you like the room?" he asked, in an (admittedly lame) attempt to at least start conversation.

[Nayt]

Oh. It was Eld. Etsu was kind of expecting Urikuse or even Rebbecca. The latter to try talking again, or the former to scold her for assailing Urikuse. It was slight, though, but Etsu checked to see if Eld was alone. Akizetsumei wasn't with him, so that probably meant he was here to talk about something very particular.

Etsu had a gut feeling she knew what he wanted to talk about.

". . . konbanwa, Tsukimono-kun," she said on the precipice of a sigh.

But hey, she was at least being polite. Eld had seen the way she yelled at Urikuse. He'd seen how wrathful Etsu could be. He'd even experienced it first hand. If she was upset or unnerved by something, then her expressed politeness was a veritable godsend, and definitely a sign of respect. Respect enough to not verbally rip someone's head off, at least.

"The room is . . ." she looked around and shrugged her shoulders. There wasn't much to say about the room, honestly. But-- "The bed is nice."

[Zach Kaiser]

He nodded. "That's good; wouldn't want your bed to be uncomfortable, and have you trying to get into my bed again." He paused, reflected on that statement, then turned slightly red. "T-That didn't come out right."

It didn't help that he could tell she wasn't happy. He wasn't certain she was outright mad at him or anything, but he wasn't happy. For several moments he tried to think of way to introduce the subject, but nothing came to mind that wasn't awkward.

So he just decided to be out with it. "Are you okay with this, Etsu?" he asked quietly. Previously she'd insisted that above all else she didn't want to get between he and Akizetsumei, but...he wondered if her feelings weren't more complex than that.

[Nayt]

Yes, it would be unfortunate if she had to come back to Eld's bed. Then, awkward things would happen. Etsu admitted this to herself rather plainly, and didn't much feel embarrassed about it. Ashamed, yes, because the potential existed for her to get between Eld and something that she figured before was meant to be-- and also because of the fact that she wasn't over this yet. This wasn't supposed to be a problem for her. Regardless, it-- at first --did not seem like Eld had come here to talk about that.

"Hai," she said simply in regards to the bed.

A moment pass and Eld said more . . . and that was it. That's exactly what she thought he was going to talk about. Again, Etsu had to hold back the urge to sigh. This time, she almost lost to the urge.

". . . I wir-rr be fine," she said under her breath.

If she could have her way, that would be all to say on the matter. That she was going to be fine. Fine with the situation, fine with herself, and fine with Eld. But Eld wasn't the type to let things go like that . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

"Are you sure?" Eld asked, and then immediately felt a little bad about it. "Sorry, it's just...you seem a little upset about things." Which he could understand, to be sure, but he didn't want her keeping to herself if it meant she was going to go back to being distant with him.

"I feel like I owe you an apology; Akizetsumei recovered a lot more suddenly than I'd thought." When he and Etsu had been camping, it seemed like they had a long way to go before they made any progress; similarly, it seemed rather unlikely that the younger girl would want anything to do with him until she was feeling better at least, and possibly not even that.

Even for him, that was rather sudden; he hadn't exactly sorted out all his feelings for Etsu, either. "Oh, uh, Akizetsumei's all better, by the way!" he said in a forced attempt to inject some cheeriness into the conversation. "Kyo came by this morning and confirmed it...so I'm hoping it won't be much longer before he's better, too."

[Nayt]

And of course, Eld was insistent . . .

"I wir-rr be, yes," she repeated, trying to maintain calmness.

It was becoming a bit difficult to, though. Eld had no idea what all went through Etsu's head when she saw Eld and Akizets holding hands. No one knew what went through her head. And no one was going to, either. It was shameful and it was horrible. She was personally offended by herself that she'd ever think such a thing. The last thing she wanted was for Eld to see how horrible of a person she could be. So Etsu held back, refrained from even broaching the subject anymore. She'd get over it and that was it. It might take a little while and she might be disgusted with herself for years to come (for many reasons, of course), but she'd ultimately get over it. No wound here was too harsh for her to carry for the rest of her life, regardless of how much they hurt.

So instead of stewing over it and risking blurting out some horrible and hurtful things to Eld, Etsu rolled with the change of conversation.

"There is no-thing to apor-rogize for. I am happy she is okay again," Etsu said with a bow of her head, "And I hope Toushikyo-san wir-rr be okay, too."

Which was certainly true. She was sincerely happy that Akizetsumei was all right and that Toushikyo, too, had hope for being cured.

"If you think there is way I can her-rp Toushikyo-san, pr-rease r-ret me know," she added for nicety's sake.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld resisted the urge to bite his lip. He really wanted to talk to Etsu about...well, their whole situation, but she clearly didn't want to. Was it better to just let it lay and try to forget about it? Maybe it was; the fact was, he was with Akizetsumei and Etsu wasn't about to want to be with him even if he'd wanted to--she'd made that clear. Whatever they said, nothing was probably going to change those facts.

"I-I don't think there's much either of us can do for him, really," he stated with a nervous chuckle. No, with the way Akizetsumei was cured (and he could only assume that at least had something to do with it, because it would have been a hell of a coincidence otherwise) Eld and Etsu helping weren't an option. At least not at this point; maybe if she'd come a little earlier Etsu would have been able to help, but...well, as much as he didn't have a right to feel that way he was rather glad that wasn't an option.

"Heh, sorry...I got you involved in all of this but the research didn't end up meaning much in the end." Which was kind of a sad fact to face; he felt rather silly now with how he'd dived right into the "mystery." He'd have to remember to check that tendency of his in the future. "Though...I still appreciate that you were willing to help."