Her Mysterious Smile

[Nayt]

"Yeah," Akizets agreed--and fairly joyfully, at that. "They're fun."

She found no problem in it, really. The Vaerbonds seemed like all around good people. They were boisterous and loud, but that was actually a welcomed change of pace. It was so quiet in her house . . . Akizetsumei spent a lot of time debating going out and spending time over at a friend's because of it. Her parents were rarely home, her older brother was either out or studying, and her little brother served to be the only noise in the house, and he could really get on Akizetsumei's nerves sometimes.

If Akizets got to be good friends with Sarah or Emily, too, maybe she'd come visit the ranch house more often.

But then her thoughts derailed. She remembered what she was carrying and she remembered the look on Eld's face when he saw her in it. She recalled what he said about her, too. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her mind, she felt like she was supposed to feel ashamed for wanting to see and hear that reaction again-- to any effect, really. That sort of meant that they needed to go swimming together--and that was fine by her. Akizetsumei was planning on asking Eld to go to the lake with her sometime, anyways!

"U-umm . . . Eldridge," Akizets started. She didn't feel nearly as nervous asking now as she would've a week ago, though. "Do you wanna go swimming sometime?"

[Zach Kaiser]

Well, it certainly didn't take long for the subject to switch back to exactly what he'd been trying to avoid thinking about. Not that he blamed Akizetsumei, it just seemed to be his luck as of late.

"Y-Yeah...I'd like that." Then, fearing that he sounded perhaps a bit too eager, he added, "It's been awhile since I've been swimming." He really only went with the rest of his friends usually; he didn't adventure out to the lake himself, and his family was far too busy to go.

[Nayt]

"Okay!" she cheered, "It's a date~."

And she went on for awhile after saying that with a content smile, temporarily unaware of what she just said to Eld. It was like something of a slip. Some doctor in some fictional book was supposed to have invented this slip. Akizets didn't pay attention that day in literature class.

But then the gravity of what she just said struck her and she was almost paralyzed at every joint in her body. Her legs suddenly refused to move. Her arms were still like a statue's. Her heart didn't even feel like it was pounding anymore. Did she really just . . .

A-- a date?!

It felt like she'd fallen in on herself, but Akizets kept standing. Just where the heck did that come from?! She hadn't been thinking about that at all-- okay, well, maybe she had. All those thoughts from before-- she couldn't help but wonder what it'd look like if she and Eld were a couple, and if it currently did, because so many people were confusing them as such. But that didn't mean he wanted to take her out on a date! That didn't mean he was thinking about the same thing, either! She was probably the last person on the planet Eld wanted to go on a date with!

It took Akizets what felt like hours (to her) to find her voice again.

"A-ah-- um-- ummmmmmmm," Akizets stuttered and stumbled over her words with the utmost nervousness. She suddenly hadn't the slightest clue what to say. The most she could do was pretend she hadn't just said that. "W-will you, ummmm, will you n-need, umm, a new swimsuit, too . . .?"

[Zach Kaiser]

A date? Eld couldn't help but stare at Akizetsumei, wondering if she had just asked him out. It didn't take him long to deduce that she hadn't meant it as such, and that...disappointed him a little? Was that right? It made things simpler if it wasn't a date, he'd have thought, but...

Maybe he was just happy that a girl was showing interest in him, rather than giving him a hard time about something. Sarah and Emily could be pretty merciless to him, and Maya was still...kind of distant. Akizetsumei was the first girl in awhile who wanted to spend time with him and didn't see him primarily as fodder for jokes. Plus, she looked good in a bathing suit.

Agh, stop that!

"U-Ummm...n-no, mine still fit me," he replied to her question, not having noticed how flustered she'd gotten due to his own sudden embarrassment.

[Nayt]

"O-okay," Akizets whispered.

She was just trying to steer the conversation to a different direction before she got too flustered-- but that wasn't going to work here. And maybe it was for the best. If Eld said he might need one, she'd have suggested that he get one-- she'd have said she'd like to see him try it on, too. But alas, Akizetsumei was suddenly left with her last possible option:

Retreat.

"I-- I, ummm, I-- I gotta run home, ummm," Akizetsumei whispered nervously.

It wasn't that she wanted to get away from Eld. It wasn't that at all. She loved being around Eld. The truth was, Akizetsumei couldn't think straight right now. She needed a moment alone to recollect her thoughts. As of now, all she could think of was the notion of a date with Eld. The two of them alone. Swimming. Splashing. Cuddling. Doing all the things two people did on a date at the lake. She was so nervous yet . . . the girl was practically beaming. She turned to Eld, and though she was blushing profusely, she was smiling brightly.

Akizetsumei took a few steps to reach Eld and leaned in; she took him by the arm with both of hers; she squeezed onto his arm as if to hug it, and she lingered there for a second. For some reason, it felt like full-out hugging him right now would have been too much, regardless of how much she enjoyed the embrace last week. But she wanted to do something. She had to do something. She had to make some physical contact with Eld after all that.

The girl stepped away and looked up to him, still smiling brightly. "I'll-- um, I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

They hadn't set a time to go out swimming, but Akizetsumei figured they could do that tomorrow. She'd talk to him once she had the time to recollect herself and think about all this stuff some more. Then they'd set a day aside for this!

[Zach Kaiser]

"O-Okay, see you tomorrow," he replied, kind of in a daze. It wasn't until she was gone that he realized that she hadn't said whether the plan was to go swimming tomorrow or later. Probably tomorrow, as she didn't seem like she planned much for long term.

It was odd, though, how he could think clearly just fine now, but when she was around his thoughts seemed to get muddled. She had a strange effect on him; she confused him and made him apprehensive when he had no real reason to be.

He returned to his room as he mulled it over, before noticing that it wasn't all that late (at least by his standards). He decided to get some studying done before he went to bed.

Or try, more accurately. But his mind kept drifting off to thinking about tomorrow, as well as the occasional thought of her in the bathing suit again...

[Nayt]

It seemed Urikuse was home by that evening, but both of the doctors were occupied elsewhere in the clinic. Behind a closed door, specifically.

It wasn't more than a couple of hours after Eld began (or tried to begin) studying that there arose a knock on his door. It was a simple knock, very slight and slow and modest, but that was all temporary. The second time, the knocking was louder and more aggressive, but clearly devoid of any measure of urgency. If for some reason Eld hadn't figured out the source just yet, he would once the person spoke up . . .

"Hey Eld, you better not be doin' anythin' funny!" the voice on the other side of the door remarked. "'Cause I'm comin' in."

No doubt about it: this person was Sarah. She wasted absolutely no time in swinging the door open and stepping inside Eld's room as if she owned the place. She must've changed out of her work clothes from earlier, as she wore a nicer red blouse (that was somewhat low cut) and a pair of shorts.

[Zach Kaiser]

In the time Sarah first started knocking to when she barged into his room, Eld hardly had time to get up from his desk and turn towards the door. He debated on telling Sarah that it sort of defeated the purpose of knocking if you didn't give the person inside time to answer, but he supposed knocking at all was a large improvement for her. And he didn't want to get into a drawn out argument that he'd end up losing anyway.

"Hi, Sarah," he greeted, ignoring her line about him doing something funny. Jeez, one time and she never lets me forget it. "What's up?"

[Nayt]

Once she was in the room, Sarah slowed down. She was much more casual after that. It didn't seem like she had any urgent business or anything.

"Eh," Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "Kinda pissed at my mom."

But that was a common occurrence. Helen Vaerbond could ensnare a person into a battle with relative ease. She was a master at all her daughters excelled at-- Sarah's aggression and Emily's manipulation. She could goad a person into an argument and win almost every time. She had a bit of a habit of having it out with Sarah, and scarcely for any reason at all. She clearly didn't take it too seriously. She just innocently messed around, as she knew how high strung her daughter could be sometimes. Sarah took it all too seriously sometimes, though.

"What about you?" she replied, "Ain't seen much of you for awhile, y'know? I'm startin' to feel like I'm runnin' behind on the adventurous life of Eldridge Tsukimono."

Whether she was sarcastic or not was up for Eld to decide.

[Zach Kaiser]

So what else is new. Sarah was usually mad at her mom about something, and usually over something pretty silly. She never seemed to realize that her mom only antagonized her because she reacted so aggressively; he rarely saw Helen bother Emily, who wasn't so easily baited.

"Huh?" His first response was confusion, but when he thought of it he'd indeed not seen too much of Sarah lately. Or any of his usual friends, for that matter. "Ah, nothing too adventur-well, nothing that didn't end well," he corrected himself with a small wince, recalling the night in the woods with Akizetsumei.

"Actually...now that I think about it I've been spending a lot of time with Akizetsumei. She's come over a lot lately wanting me to hang out with her." He rubbed the back of his head bashfully; he wasn't usually the one who initiated anything as far as group activities went, he mostly just spent time when people asked him along. If Akizetsumei got to his house before everyone else, he supposed he was simply gone if they came looking for him.

[Nayt]

"Akizetsumei, huh?" Sarah asked.

Damnit that name's too long. Sarah decided at that point that Akizetsumei's name needed to be shortened, if only for the sake of her sanity. If the girl was going to be hanging around more and more frequently, then Sarah needed a not so insane name to call her.

She decided on a whim that "Akizets" was best.

"No wonder you've been so elusive," she remarked as she took a seat on Eld's bed. "I went lookin' for you a few times the last week or two. But no dice, man."

So she figured paying Eld a visit at night-- especially after she'd already seen him for a short while earlier in the day --would be much more successful than attempting at morning. It seemed Akizets was beating Sarah to the punch at disrupting Eld's sleep schedule.

Sarah kicked her sandals off and set her legs upon Eld's bed. She made herself at home, laying back on the middle of his bed and setting her skull comfortably against the middle of his pillow. She propped herself up by folding her hands behind her head.

"What's with you two, anyways?" she asked in idle curiosity.

[Zach Kaiser]

Much as Eld felt comfortable enough at the Vaerbond place to come and go without being expressly invited, so too was Sarah familiar enough around his house to visit whenever she wanted; he doubted she'd bothered his parents first before coming inside. (Though, her familiarity didn't extend to the clinic; there were a few rooms even he needed permission to enter.)

"Well, seems like she wants to be friends--I don't think she has too many. I know she's really looking forward to getting those riding lessons from you," Eld replied, entirely missing the point of Sarah's question.

[Nayt]

Naturally, Sarah just came and went through the Vaerbond household as she pleased. She'd been friends with Eld for long enough that it just didn't matter.

Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "She ain't come to me about it yet."

Sure, Sarah was more than willing to give Akizetsumei riding lessons. She remembered offering them to the girl, in fact. She'd outright told her that once the girl was all healed up from her injury, Sarah would give her serious riding lessons for free-- which was actually a pretty generous offer. Sarah usually charged people for riding lessons, and she gave them somewhat frequently. Nonetheless, Akizetsumei just needed to approach Sarah about it. Actions spoke louder than words, right? Just chatting about wanting riding lessons and actually pursuing them were two totally different things.

"Makes me wonder, though," Sarah mused, "Why she'd wanna be friends with a bum like you. I mean, even if she don't got many friends to begin with, ain't there a hell of a lot better out there?"

[Zach Kaiser]

"Hey, that's kind of harsh, don't you think?" It often seemed like he didn't do much all day, and while there were days like the ones he'd been spending with Akizetsumei where he had a lot of free time, there were a fair many where he spent most of the day helping his parents. And of course if there was any kind of medical crisis, like a virus going around or a large scale accident, he was too busy helping his parents to do much else. Plus, he did most of his studying after everyone else went to bed.

Though I have been slacking off lately, I suppose, he conceded, if only to himself.

"I mean, you're friends with me, aren't you? Clearly I can't be all that bad if the great Sarah would deign to visit me," he retorted cheekily.

[Nayt]

"Yeah, yeah," Sarah waved it off.

Truth be told, Sarah was over-exaggerating a bit. Eld wasn't a bum. In fact, he was a pretty nice guy. Sarah knew this just as well as the rest of their friends did. He had his faults, definitely. It was rare, but he was actually capable of being a total jerk, too. But all around, he was an upstanding guy. Well . . . she really didn't tell him that too much. Normally she felt it was for the best. She didn't want his ego to get all inflated or something. Sarah knew how boys could get when their heads got too big for their shoulders. It was annoying as hell.

"You're a good guy," Sarah stated as if it almost hurt her to say.

She also just liked to give him hell a lot of the time. Eld was one of her favorite people to pick on. She just took it too far sometimes was all.

"Toootal perv, though," Sarah rolled her shoulders, "I mean, gettin' Akizets in a bikini like that? Gotta hand it to you, that was sly. Girl probably didn't suspect a thing. Would've never worked on me, though . . . but-- eh, you know I like it when you're blunt and to the point."