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 Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:43 pm
Seung relaxed and turned her head; it was getting hard to breathe with her nose buried in his chest. "Alright. I'll try." She sniffled and told herself sternly not to cry. There wouldn't be any point and it would probably make Mik worry instead.
Then it dawned on her, as she tried to twitch her ear so it wasn't jabbing him in the chest. She'd hugged him. And was still hugging him, without any idea what to do about it.
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:52 pm
Mik took purposely shallow breaths to minimize the pain in his ribs. The initial tightness of the hug had really hurt, and even this lighter one was uncomfortable. Still, it wasn't like he could just tell her to back off. He could deal with it. It was just Seung, and it was just a hug.
The mothfish really was small, especially compared to him. He'd noticed before, of course, but it was even more obvious when she was so close. "Good," he responded weakly, hoping fervently that the sniffle didn't turn into anything more. He already didn't know what to do - if she started crying, he'd really be in trouble.
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 8:58 pm
Thirty seconds later and she still didn't know what to do. She nodded awkwardly in response, aware that her pointy ear was probably rubbing against him uncomfortably. They couldn't just stand here hugging forever. Even if it did feel rather nice...
So she backed up, dropped her arms down and looked up at him. He was really very tall. Especially looking up at him from six inches away. "Um...are you okay? Does it hurt? We've got asprin and other stuff if you need it."
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:06 pm
It was definitely a strange feeling, and it took him a moment to even realize that it was Seung's ear. He'd long since gotten used to the way she looked, but it had never occurred to him that pointy ears didn't just look pointy. It was weird.
But then she backed away, and Mik breathed an inner sigh of relief. He didn't mind being hugged, necessarily, but it was Awkward. "It's okay," he answered, "I took some before I left home. It only does so much, anyway."
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:23 pm
"And too much would be bad," Seung replied, nodding mostly to herself. She decided not to talk about her unmourned fiance anymore, but she could feel one of those awkward moment's coming on. The mothfish had never really had a friend over and didn't know what to do.
"Um...do you want to do anything?" she asked, picking up her hairpins. She held one in her teeth while twisting her hair up again. "We could...go see the backyard? Since it's nice out," she suggested lamely.
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:37 pm
Mik nodded idly in agreement, well aware that another awkward moment was on its way. At least he wasn't the only one who wasn't sure what he was doing, although it might have been helpful if one of them did. It was nice to know that it wasn't a problem exclusive to him, even if the reasons were probably different.
He could retreat now if he wanted to, say something about needing to get home, but he didn't want to. Things might be awkward, but avoiding them wouldn't help. "Um, sure," he said, watching her fix her hair. How did a couple of sticks hold hair up, anyway?
...more importantly, why was he even wondering about that?
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 9:58 pm
"Okay. Just a minute." Seung continued to wind up her hair, finally getting half of it into a ball. She skewered it with one long pin, twisted it so the end caught the hair flat against her scalp, pushed it through and secured it with the other pin. She shook out her arms; they always felt sore after getting her hair up like that.
"Down this way." She led the way across the side of the house to a set of stairs down to the back patio. There was more wicker furniture and a barbecue set up. A few fruit trees dotted the lawn and an old willow by a large pond. Someone had set up a badmitton net on one side and left the rackets and birdies laying around.
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Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 10:11 pm
That looked like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to get your hair up. Not that it didn't look nice, he supposed, but a ponytail would have worked just as well and been a lot easier. All he did was tie his back and wear a bandana to make sure it stayed out of the way. Why complicate things?
As he followed her to the backyard, he looked around curiously but politely, wondering the whole time when someone else was going to appear. To fill the silence (and finally satisfy his curiosity), he asked, "How many people do you live with?"
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