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High-functioning Marshmallow
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 Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 7:59 pm
...Which was probably nothing because Yuri's giggles had finally registered and it didn't take long for him to guess that she was either insane or had been joking with him this entire time. He felt his cheeks warm as she looked over the classroom, his gaze lowering in momentary shame before he swapped to focusing on the woman in front of him. He watched her for a moment as she combed her fingers through her hair before he realized he was staring and that was even worse than the naivety of earlier. Turning around to face the opposite direction, he took to looking over the dark, quiet classroom as she spoke. It really was different with all the kids gone. He had stayed at the school after hours before to do work, true, but he never actually stayed in the classrooms long enough to notice the difference. He wouldn't call it 'exciting', though.
“It's quiet.” He commented – he liked that a lot, actually. It was always so stressful when everyone was here.. Then again, Yuri's presence did put a certain pressure on him, but he couldn't say that was entirely unpleasant. He looked at her for a moment at her next statement, “....Sometimes.” He eventually settled on saying, positioning himself away again to wander around the desks. He added in a soft mumble, “Tonight was one of them.” He wasn't sure if she would feel offended if he admitted that, so he kept it mostly to himself as he found a desk. Three away from the window, second row from the back – wasn't this..? “..Do you.. remember Mr. Koyama..?”
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Posted: Sun Dec 15, 2013 11:42 pm
It was quiet, Yuri noted as she glanced around the room. Except for the ticking of the clock and their own sounds as Junior wandered over to a desk, there really wasn't much sound at all. Even her house wasn't this quiet -- there was always something to pester her, the whir of the refrigerator, the clicking of the heater, sometimes the house shifting. She focused on the sound of her breathing and suddenly felt very intimate. Junior was sitting across the room, but they might as well have been side-by-side. It was a strange sensation.
"Mr. Koyama? Yeah, I remember him, that boring man," she laughed, letting go of the doorknob and beginning to drift away from the door -- she was beginning to feel a little silly clinging to the door like that while Junior was sitting down. "He used to lecture on and on and on even though people would just talk over him, I don't think he would have even noticed if no one showed up." With another small laugh, she began to walk down the rows of seats. "Do you remember which seat yours was? I didn't come that often, but I think it was... somewhere around here?" She stopped two rows ahead of Junior and an aisle to the left. "I would have preferred to sit in the back, but Koyama was a tyrant... Aha! This is my old desk, it's still here!" To verify, she had bent over to check the underside of the desk. Although it had been worn away over the years, she could still make out the shape of a p***s someone had carved into the wood. The word "June" had been written within the outline of the crudely drawn appendage. "I had gotten in a fight with June, and I got so angry, I had to do something to vent. I can't say it was all that cathartic in the long run, but it was kind of fun." Leaving it at that, she slid into the seat and draped her arms across the desk top. "He was such an a** back then, we were always getting into petty little arguments over the dumbest things... But I wasn't much better, always picking fights over things that didn't really matter..." It had been more than a decade ago, but sitting here like this, it was like it had just been last week. It made her a little sad to be brought back to such an innocent time in her life, but also oddly relaxing. She wondered if Junior was feeling the same.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Tue Dec 17, 2013 10:25 pm
“..Yeah..” Was all he managed to say before the girl had carried on, much to his comfort. He looked from his old desk to where Yuri was, noting maybe a little too quickly that she had located her own desk from their schooldays. He should probably consider how creepy it was that he still remembered details like that, but, oh, well, they had come from a pretty small classroom. He paused a moment to brush his hand over the surface of the desk before walking over to where the girl was, glancing down at the.. uh. He pursed his lips as he examined her old handiwork, part of him worried that he would need to replace this desk because, oh, jeez, what if some child came across this? But, another part of him was honestly too amused to allow the worry to take control, demonstrated by the laugh he muffled with one hand. He didn't remember that bit at all, but he never did approach Yuri back then, let alone examine her desk. June always felt to be in the way.
Not that that has changed. He straightened up as she sat down at her desk, moving back to his own spot because it felt really, really weird to be standing so close to her in this setting. Especially when she was talking about June, because all he needed was to be reminded about how she was.. well, he wasn't sure, but it wasn't something he liked to think or question much. These situations were best dealt with when he relied on his gut instinct and that was draw a quick boundary, like sitting in his old desk when he felt small and completely alone. “You two always seemed really.. close..” Was what he offered after she finished, “It looked like fun, even if you fought.”
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Posted: Wed Dec 18, 2013 2:49 am
At the sound of Junior's muffled laugh, Yuri had grinned, pleased that he had laughed instead of gotten flustered. Of course, she loved it when he got flustered, but sometimes it was nice to remember that they could laugh at the same things.
It was like they had been pulled back into time. Although Yuri didn't remember where Junior had sat all those years ago, he was back to sitting behind her, and she was facing forward so all she could see was the blackboard. June had sat up there, she remembered, because she would glance at him during classes. Usually they were resentful glances, angry or irritated, but sometimes they were longing glances, because all she really wanted back then was for him to turn around and call her by her name. She ran her finger along the edge of her desk and slowly drooped down onto the desktop until her ear was resting against her arm. What was Junior doing? She strained to listen for his movements, his breathing, but she couldn't bring herself to turn around.
What Junior said made her snort softly, though it was more from amusement than any sort of indignation. "Maybe it was a little fun at times, but sometimes I look back and think what a waste it was..." She began to trace figure-eights with her nail on the top of the desk, creating a very light vibration that she could barely feel but was still pleasant all the same. "I spent so many years chasing a guy who just couldn't care, sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I had focused that energy into making more friends outside of him." Closing her eyes, Yuri tried to picture what everything looked like back then, but couldn't do it. She could recall feelings but not images. "I'm surprised you remember me and him from back then, I didn't really become aware of you until after we all graduated." She laughed quietly, remembering what she could of that day in the antique shop, the strawberry jar. "What a shame, all those years we could have been friends, and we had no clue." Hell, if Junior himself hadn't been there to verify, she would have doubted that they were in the same class at all.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2013 4:42 pm
“....Yeah.. We could have..” He held his head up with one hand, the other fidgeting on his desk as he watched her. He never thought he would actually find himself feeling empathy for Yuri and it was honestly the weirdest thing he had encountered because the girl was so different from him. She had plenty of misfortunes, but none of which he felt he had ever actually shared or really understood. This one, though – the effort he had thought only he had to put into something he presumed was a natural thing for people like Yuri – was something he could share. Yuri hadn't just fallen into place next to June; she had forced her way there because, otherwise, it wouldn't have happened.
If he had the same energy, could he have done the same with Rune back then? ...Would it have fallen apart in the same way Yuri and June had? He stopped his fidgeting for a moment as another scenario had come to him without warning. What if they had been friends all those years? Maybe Yuri would have forgotten about June, maybe Junior wouldn't have confessed to Rune, maybe it would have been Yuri and maybe she would have.. He swallowed and spoke before he could stop, “D-Do you think it could have been us instead?” Stop, stop, stop, go back, don't do this, bad idea. He rushed on before he could pass out because, wow, that was a stupid thing to say, what if she understood what that meant? “I-I mean, do you think we could have been friends back then, like.. we are now.”
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Posted: Sat Dec 21, 2013 4:58 am
Yuri was a rather unselfconscious person by nature -- she suffered from her own insecurities, of course, but she didn't feel the slightest bit bashful when she talked about herself, or when the conversation turned low and soft and intimate like this. Maybe she didn't notice. Maybe she didn't want to notice. She was too busy exploring her own memories to analyze or scan Junior's replies for subtext. Her mind was fixed firmly on the gangly little girls with the mess of brown curls who stared at her velvet dress with timid resentment. "Maybe," she replied absentmindedly. After a moment, she processed his question and revised her answer. "I think so. If we had met early enough. I don't think we would have been the best of friends during my wild and rebellious teen years," she explained with a small laugh, trying to imagine her seventeen year old self hanging out with such a wallflower, "but before that. When we were children. If you had been the first kid my own age I met on the island, as opposed to June..." She was so lonely and desperate for company, she would have done anything, become anyone to ensure herself a friend. "You know, Junior, I see a lot of myself in you. When we were kids, we weren't that different. Sometimes, when I look at you, I see me, small and pure and undirtied. Like who I would be if I hadn't had to deal with all the stuff I did." It was hard to express herself; she had never had to put these thoughts into language before, and Yuri was not known for her eloquence. "That's why I think we could have been friends. And maybe we would have saved each other a lot of heartache."
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 12:14 am
As he listened to her, his eyes had drifted closed, but they were snapped open the moment she compared herself to him. It was one thing for him to think they were similar as children, but he really didn't think Yuri would be willing to admit that aloud. “..O-oh.” He cleared his throat and tried to find something to say in response to that. Well, that wasn't just a bundle of protest, because he didn't want to lie to her. “...I think so too. It would have been nice, being friends back then..” He let his words stray off for a moment before curiosity egged him to ask, “If.. we had been friends, what do you think we would have, um, done?”
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Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 2:28 am
Was Yuri happy when she was with Junior? Certainly, there were things about him that made her smile and laugh and feel relaxed, but was that enough to counteract the sometimes-crippling insecurities and depression that she dealt with more often than she'd like? Sometimes she felt like it did, but there were other times when she was convinced that she'd never feel happily content with herself and her life ever again. But if their friendship had begun long before, and he had been a positive influence in her life when she was a child, maybe that happiness wouldn't be a question, it would be a definitive statement.
She smiled at his agreement, but it vanished thoughtfully at his subsequent question. "I really don't know. Maybe just this. You know, sitting, talking. Maybe we would go see a movie or play in the arcade. I always did like playing in the arcade. Or maybe we would have just walked around the island. You know, just enjoying the company." She felt a little silly saying all of this out loud, and she shifted in her seat, the old frame creaking. As a child, she hadn't had that many interests. She hadn't really had the chance to explore things that she would like. A lot of what stuck with her through adulthood were things that her only friend at the time had introduced her to. Would she still like the things she liked if it had been Junior instead of June? That was a strange thought, the idea that she could be listening to different music or watching different kinds of movies right now. "Why? What do you think we would have done then?"
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Mon Dec 30, 2013 9:35 pm
He frowned more as he carefully squirmed his way out from it, “...We have, um. Bean bags.” He explained a little as he stepped away from the desk – it wasn't really made for adults and sitting there was getting uncomfortable. He paused a moment to look at her, wondering if he should ask – no, she would come if she wanted to. He crossed between the rows to where the carelessly stacked pile of worn out bean bags sat, speaking to try to cover up how loud his feet sounded in the empty room.
“..We.. We can still do those things, Yuri. If, well, if you want to with me.. I understand if you don't want, um, us to go in public together. It's okay.” It really would be! Even Junior wouldn't want to be caught with himself on something that might be considered a date. Not that it would be, of course, those were things that friends just did together, so it would be only a simple outing at a fairly popular place. He sunk into a pale orange bean bag chair and swallowed.
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Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:41 am
"Oh. Okay." Yuri tried not to feel disappointed when Junior admitted he had never really thought about the alternate universe where they had been childhood friends. Of course he didn't. Even though he sometimes had a skewed view of his personal universe and his relationship with the people in it, Junior was generally rooted in reality. He didn't go running off into the world of what-ifs like she did; he was more grounded than that. Still, she was left feeling a little silly openly indulging in the fantasy (never mind the fact that he was the one who had brought it up) and she played with a strand of hair sheepishly while he moved away to the bean bags. He might have been too big for his desk, but she had stopped growing when she was thirteen and fit just as easily as she had as a teenager -- maybe even more so, considering that she was a good ten pounds skinnier nowadays. She didn't seem to process the bean bag comment at all, much too absorbed in her own thoughts and feelings to pay him much attention at all. She remained sitting in her old desk, eyes forward and distant in her embarrassment.
That is, until Junior's next comment. Yuri's head snapped towards Junior, and for a split second she was confused by his sudden relocation to the bean bags. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Why wouldn't I go out into public with you?" she questioned before standing up. She didn't really feel any real desire to sit on those dirty old bean bag chairs, but it was stupid to have a conversation from across the room, and besides, she needed to be close enough to make sure that he didn't avert his eyes when she challenged him. "Do you think I'm ashamed of you or something? Junior." Shaking her head, she grabbed a blue bean bag chair and gave it an apprehensive frown before tossing it to the floor. She sat down gingerly, trying to touch the vinyl as little as possible while not thinking about the myriad of teenage asses that had surely come in contact with that very same surface. "I could never be ashamed of you. Lord knows I've done my share of hiding and running away, but never when it comes to you. Junior, you're my hero," she blurted out. A more modest person probably would have shied away then, embarrassed by the slip, but Yuri would let the embarrassment come later. "I mean, I wouldn't be where I am right now without you. I'd be a lot worse off, I know that. Maybe passed out on the side of the road," she smiled, though it was hard to read expressions in this dark room. "Remember that next time you doubt yourself, doubt us. Of course I would love to do those things with you, out where everyone can see. I'd be proud to." What was she saying? The words were rushing out before she could really think about it. She thought she was saying these things as a friend to a friend, but somehow it felt like she was saying more once they were said aloud. It felt like she was meaning more too. And it was strange.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 11:17 pm
Except she did and oh. He winced because she had called him her hero. No laugh to follow it or a stutter within it, she had simply said it. It was hard to explain exactly why it was so distressing to hear that, why it only got worse as she went on, but the feeling didn't falter even after he had covered his face with his hands and willed himself not to cry and ruin this. “You don't.. You can't..” He mumbled through his hands, stopping because he didn't know if he even wanted to protest this one. It was conflicting when he knew part of him really felt so very uncomfortable, but it wasn't an uncomfortableness he wanted to get out of which defied the implication of the word in the first place and he didn't know what to do. Even worse, he didn't know what he was doing.
Balancing one hand on her bean bag chair, his other had come around her shoulders as the rest of him sprawled from his chair to hers. He didn't know at what point exactly he had started to turn towards her, but that was probably for the best as he would have stopped himself the moment he registered what he was doing. He shouldn't be touching her at all when he knew she had said it with a big, blaring 'Friend' in mind, but it really, really felt nice to be holding her and he didn't want to pull back. “I - ..thank you.” He said after a moment, readjusting himself slightly so he could squeeze her just enough to confirm that she was indeed really there and he hadn't secretly gone insane.
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Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 4:33 am
All of a sudden, Yuri had become conscious of her heart beating away in her chest. It wasn't throbbing, no beats had been skipped, she was just aware of it. She was oddly calm and relaxed, though the sight of Junior covering his face was almost enough to make her feel like she was confessing something private and intimate -- her potentially humiliating thoughts hadn't been expressed to the darkness, they had been heard and had had an effect. Her first instinct would be to pull back, to resist being so vulnerable and open, but this wasn't about her. She was talking about herself, yes, but she wasn't saying this for her benefit. They were words and sentiments Junior needed to hear, that he had probably always needed to hear, and just knowing that calmed her. There would be no bolting tonight.
Her sense of tranquility was shaken by the light touch of his hand on her shoulder. Yuri and Junior had hugged before. When she was drunk, Yuri was a very handsy person, and she craved human contact when she was feeling sad and lonely, which was quite often. But usually she was the one to initiate it, either physically or verbally, and she couldn't quite remember a time that he had reached out without her letting him know that it was okay first. A thought flashed across Yuri's startled mind: this was perhaps one of the most selfish displays she had ever seen come from Junior.
It wasn't much of an embrace, just a half-hug, and Yuri knew that it was just him expressing his thanks, but she found her body moving beyond her control. She found herself returning the embrace, pressing herself back against him, her arms snaking around his torso to rest against his back. He would probably want to let go at any moment, she knew that, but she found herself trying to lengthen it. By now she had begun to drift a little off her bean bag chair in her attempts to get closer, and she could feel the cold floor through her jeans. "Hey, that's my line," she said finally, letting her forehead rest on his shoulder. "Junior," she added in a murmur. Thankful that her face was impossible to see like this, she frowned; she had acted without thinking, and she was feeling such a level of tenderness that she wasn't entirely sure what to make of it. Something was different, in her, in him, and she didn't know what to think.
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:54 pm
Why 'shouldn't'? Because of June..? That usually worked well enough, but.. June wasn't here for her. He didn't like giving himself the credit, it felt too uncomfortable, too close to an ego he didn't deserve to have, but it was hard to think that June was more deserving of someone when he wasn't here. When he had let her go off to become some depressed drunkard on her own and didn't seem to care at all, even as a friend. Junior had picked Yuri up more times than he could count when he knew June would have been her first choice. Something inside him protested, but he couldn't pay attention to that when he could feel Yuri against him instead. He turned his head, trying to angle towards her ear because he couldn't say this loud, he could hardly even say it at all, but, this was his only chance. He gripped her shirt and tried not to let his voice shake, “..Y-Yuri, I.. You're – to me, you're.. I – you're my friend,” Oh, god. He felt his heart start to plummet into his stomach.
No. No, no, no, he wasn't – not this time. He moved his hands to her shoulders and pulled back from her quickly, keeping a grip on her more to keep himself planted than anything. He wished he could say he wasn't shaking, but it was better than breaking down into the sobs he knew would follow because this. Wasn't going to work. But he desperately needed to say it. “I-I-I don't want that though, I- I'm sorry, I just..” He felt his eyes well up because he could already taste losing her but he wasn't going to stop and he was going to hate himself. “I really – I really like you and I'm sorry, I want.. I want to be with you, Yuri, I don't want to hang out like friends, I want to hold your hand and I want to hold you and I want to kiss you sometimes and I want,” He was going to hurt her if he kept holding her so tightly, so he forced himself to release her, “I want to make you happy.”
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 12:25 am
At some point, Yuri's eyes had drooped closed and she felt something akin to sleepiness wash over her. She was confused, she was conflicted, but she was also somehow relaxed and comfortable. They were both silent for a long moment, as Yuri just breathed in the faint scent of detergent clinging to Junior's clothes like one breathed in incense. She wasn't thinking, she wasn't aware of what she was doing, her brain had just become foggy and she knew she should be more in control, but was just so easy to let go...
When Junior began to speak, Yuri's eyes snapped open and she sobered. Had she ever heard him talk like this before? At first he was stammering and tripping over his words, but soon they gave way to full, fluid sentences. Her grip on the back of his shirt tightened as she braced herself for whatever it was he was trying to say, though she wasn't entirely sure. She was listening to his words as carefully as she could, but her first assumption was so silly and presumptuous that she didn't know what was going on.
But he said it. His words were clumsy and childish, but he said them and she could tell he meant them. Yuri's mind was a complete blank, so she allowed him to pull back and let go of her without any sort of resistance, and she found herself kneeling on the floor, staring at her hands as she willed her brain to process what had just happened.
"...Junior, I..." she began finally, trailing off not long after she began. What was she supposed to say? What was she supposed to do? She tried to think of the past times people had confessed their feelings to her. If they were attractive enough, as they usually were, she would feel flattered, maybe kiss them if she felt like that was where the person wanted it to go. None of those relationships, if you could even call them that, lasted that long, and honestly, she didn't feel flattered. She didn't feel anything but confusion and a little bit of guilt. Had he felt this way all this time? And she had teased and joked, and it hadn't been a joke on his part? What was she supposed to think? Was she happy? What she embarrassed or angry? She honestly didn't know. She only felt confusion.
"...I need to think..." she said finally, looking up at him so he knew she wasn't running, and tucking her hair behind her ears. "I'm not saying no! I just... I've never really thought about it, so... I don't know." Shaking her head, she rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. "I'll give you a proper answer soon, but... for now I need to think for a little bit. Okay?" Her expression changed from perplexed to pleading as she looked at Junior. She did know one thing: she was scared. She was scared of losing his friendship, and this confession of his marked a change and she was scared that he wouldn't be able to look at her anymore because of it.
After a moment of silence, Yuri glanced around the room. There wasn't anything special about it, was there? Just a bunch of old desks. Slowly, she pushed herself up onto her feet and stood up, clearing her throat as she patted her jeans. "It's getting late," she tried to say with as much normality as possible, but it still sounded tense. "If you stay out much longer, your dad's gonna have a fit when you get home. It could be an excited fit, but a fit's still a... fit..." It had meant to sound humorous and lighthearted, but her humor died in her throat and she swallowed hard as she realized she couldn't resist the awkwardness, not now. "Let's go home, okay? I'll see you out."
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High-functioning Marshmallow
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Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 2:18 am
That.. That wasn't a no. That wasn't a yes, but he couldn't have hoped for a better thing. It felt weird and unnatural to be filled with something that wasn't dread, but he, for once, refused to banish the idea that this could turn out well for him. It didn't show on his face and he couldn't find himself saying anything aloud as he responded to her with a simple nod, but he felt.. something. Scared, anxious, a little sick – all preventing him from responding normally to what he guessed was an attempt to ease the tension. He felt a pang of guilt for not helping to make this easier for her, but opening his mouth was what got them into this situation in the first place. He wasn't going to ruin it by trying to add to it. So, he only got up and followed her out, maintaining the silence and giving her space the rest of the way home.
~ End Scene ~
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