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 Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 4:43 pm
Dering had been waiting until Reims got up from his seat, and it took an incredible amount of effort not to just trot over and intercept him as he was leaving the table. He gave him a moment to exit at his own pace and then hurled himself out of his seat to follow.
“Reims,” he called, not too loud but with enough volume to be heard. He wasn’t so far behind him, anyway. “You did really well!”
He’d been holding his breath during the whole match, anxious because Dering knew what it was like to be up against a little girl. Not that there was anything wrong with them! It just didn’t quite feel like a fair competition when he knew that as a Knight he was stronger than a senshi, and he had the benefit of age, and–well, Reims was obviously stronger than Dering, so for him to lose against her…
It was hard for him not to suspect he’d been faced with the same internal conflict that Dering had already had. Although, Reims made a different choice than Dering had.
He probably could have won.
Naturally, Dering wondered why he hadn’t put his all into it. That just wasn’t the loudest question in his mind.
“How’s your leg?”
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 6:08 pm
Reims wasn’t really sure how to feel. In the end, he lost his match against a child. But she hadn’t been the first child he’d faced. Maybe because he’d been so thrown off by the fact that he was put against a little girl in the first round that he didn’t really think about it.
Had he known the end result would have been with him facing off against another little girl, then he suspected the outcome would have been different.
He was frustrated, too. Why had there been children in the lineup? Why were there adults who signed up and then didn’t bother trying?
Lost in his thoughts, he almost didn’t hear Dering when he trotted over to him. Reims had been trying to put as much space between himself and the others before he could hear any mocking over him losing-- not that he heard any of that yet, but if things played out as they usually did, he wouldn’t be surprised if someone was already making fun of him.
“What?” he blinked in confusion when he heard Dering’s question. Dering had already said he did really well, which was nice, even if it wasn’t true. But he took a moment to process what he was asking. He glanced down at his leg where there was indeed a little imprint of a small sneaker. Luckily it was mostly just dust, which he reached down to brush at.
“Oh. It’s fine. She was stronger than she looks,” he quickly added, because the last thing he wanted was for Dering to think he was pathetic and weak… and for the burning of his ears to be too obvious.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 6:48 pm
Stronger than she looks, maybe. He knew not to underestimate people, but he’d already seen her ricochet off of Reims. She didn’t seem like a bad kid, she just had a lot of energy. And maybe got a little too excited about all of this.
“Oh, okay. I believe that.” Well, some of that. He believed that she was stronger than she looked, but he couldn’t reconcile that she was stronger than Reims. Even if it was just bias, or faith in his friend.
Reim’s face looked a bit pink, or was it just his ears? Instinctively, Dering reached up to rub at his own as if he only just now realized he might need to be concerned about sunburn. Everything felt normal on his end, so he just smiled again and lowered his hands.
“I was just worried. Sorry, I do that. You seem like the type of person who can take care of themselves but, um. I can’t help it. I saw her foot hit you and my knee started to hurt, so maybe I’m a little too sensitive.”
Reims was most certainly stronger than Dering, though. That didn’t really even need to be said.
“You did a great job, though. I want to practice some before I try something like this again. My arms are so sore and I hardly even did anything.”
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 7:11 pm
Reims watched as Dering lifted his hands to his own ears, and while his face probably wasn’t too pick before, the flush spread across his cheeks now.
“I don’t care if you worry!” he blurted out as he threw his own hands over his ears, trying to pat his shaggy hair over top of them so they were better hidden.
Wait--
He hadn’t meant to just… practically yell at Dering about worrying. Which only made his face flush more. That wasn’t what he wanted to do! He was just flustered and Dering was being so considerate and caring. Oh, and Dering had obviously seen how red his ears were, so of course he was going to panic about that.
“No. I mean. Thanks,” he sputtered, trying to grasp onto a decent conversation without sounding like the a*****e he was currently sounding like. “Sorry! You can worry if you want! It’s not-- I mean, I guess I do care if you worry because I don’t want you to worry but if you do it’s not something you should feel bad about,” he rambled in his panic, taking an uncertain step backwards in case Dering felt like he was being crowded by someone who was too weird.
“You too. A great job. Uh.”
This was stupid. He was being stupid.
“What’s wrong with your knee??” he asked a bit too aggressively in his desire to take the attention off of him but also because he was worried that Dering might be hurt and he was mad at himself for not noticing sooner.
“Sorry,” he forced himself to lower his voice to mumble. Yeah his face was definitely red now, despite holding his hands against his cheeks and ears to try and hide it. Probably made it more obvious though.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 7:36 pm
There was a brief second where Dering looked like he might recoil, like he might excuse himself or let spill a waterfall of apologies. He’d sucked in a breath and put his weight on his heel in a way that would have made it easy to spin and retreat.
But, he stayed.
“Um, my knee is okay. I just meant that seeing you get kicked made my knee hurt. I know it’s silly. But my knee is fine. My wrist is not good, though!” he blurted, and he didn’t know why. Reims looked like he was embarrassed, and when he tried to shift the attention away from himself the only thing Dering could think to do was redirect.
Except, he didn’t like talking about himself, either. In his panic, he’d just said the first thing that came to mind.
He spoke rapidly, maybe a little quieter than he meant. He must have known his volume had lowered, because some subconscious part of his brain made him take a step forward so Reims could hear better. He quickly explained, “Not from arm wrestling. And it doesn’t hurt right now. I hurt it a while ago, it makes it hard to play my instruments. Which is weird because now I have a lute and I don’t even know if I can play it.”
His face hadn’t been flushed before, but now it was rapidly darkening in color and he knew it was not sunburn. That might have been the better alternative, though. Especially because he didn’t want to upset Reims.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 7:55 pm
Oh no. Oh no, oh no. Dering looked like he wanted to run away, and Reims didn’t blame him when he was being weird and defensive and-- he knew it wasn’t fair to Dering! He was just being nice! It was just an instinctive response or. Something like that. He didn’t know! He didn’t know why he was so flustered by Dering checking on him.
Oh… maybe he did know why. Maybe he just wasn’t used to people actually taking the time to check on him.
But it was hard not to stare at the pink that colored Dering’s cheeks. Hard not to think how cute he looked like that--
Not because he liked him like that or anything! He liked girls!! That was definitely a normal thing and his brother would probably harass him or worse if he found out he thought a boy looked cute.
But Reims’s attention was pulled to Dering’s wrist, and he was able to lower his hands from his face even though it was still red.
“How did you hurt your wrist?” he couldn’t help but ask his voice more solemn now as he looked at how small Derings hands were--
Not because that meant anything! But because he was obviously smaller than Reims and he was talking about playing instruments so it was probably hard to do with such small hands!
“Sorry,” he mumbled again. “I didn’t mean to make you worry.” He just needed to breathe and not scare Dering away or… something.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:00 pm
“It’s okay!” Dering insisted quickly. “I worry about lots of things. Especially my friends. Even if they don’t need it. You didn’t make me worry, I did that myself. I promise, you didn’t do anything wrong. I hurt my wrist, um.”
He held it up as if to display his injury but the sleeve of his uniform completely covered his entire arm. He twisted it back and forth and though he tugged at the fabric slightly, it was too tight on his arm to adjust much. He gave up quickly and lowered his hand.
“On the stairs. I fell.” He spoke quickly when recounting the story, even more so than usual. “It cramps up a lot and holding my bow gets uncomfortable really quickly. I’ve been trying physical therapy but I haven’t actually been back to the doctor in a bit. They said maybe surgery but,” he shook his head. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ve been doing the physical therapy they taught me at home, though. I think it’s getting a little better.”
Or it was wishful thinking, or he was just learning to push through the pain, or he was just trying not to give Reims any reason to worry about him.
Though he was nervous being the subject of their conversation, he seemed like he’d relaxed a bit, even if he kept fiddling with his hair now.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:05 pm
Dering had hurt his wrist. Falling down the stairs. It seemed logical. Why would anyone question something so reasonable?
It was logical, and yet something about it echoed in his head, in his own voice. No one questioned something that made perfect sense, regardless of what voice said those words. Something about it offered no room for suspicion, because stairs were dangerous.
So why did a simple explanation evoke a sense of dread? His own memories? That moment of hesitation as Dering was working on showing his thin but perfectly normal looking wrist? Wondering if there was more to it than just slipping or tripping or not paying attention?
Reims watched as Dering struggled with his sleeve, rolling everything Dering said around in his head. Physical therapy. Possible surgery.
“How long have you been playing?” he asked as his eyes shifted from Dering’s wrist to the way he played with his hair. A pause as Reims pressed his lips together thoughtfully. “Violin? No offense, you seem a little small for a cello.”
Not that there weren’t other instruments that could be played with a bow, but those were the only ones coming to the front of his thoughts as he was distracted by wondering how soft Dering’s hair probably was.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:21 pm
“Oh, yeah,” Dering said, and flashed a quick smile. “No offense taken, you’re right. The violin is just my size though. I’ve been playing since elementary school. I was only okay, but I liked playing. I think I could have been better. But now I’m so rusty. I mean! I still play, it’s just never for very long. I try to practice, I don’t think it’s enough. I used to play in the park sometimes but it’s hard to do that with school and all of this.”
He gestured to his powered uniform but still smiled. He liked being a Knight! He wasn’t upset about it. He was doing something more meaningful now, anyway. Sometimes you had to make sacrifices, he understood that.
“Things got kind of complicated a little before I became a Page so I was kind of already moving away from it a little bit even beforehand. It’s okay,” he insisted, maybe because he needed to hear it more than Reims. “It’s a little complicated! But I hope everything works out, I really do like to play. I just need a little more time for things to settle. Um. I mean, you know how it is.”
He smiled again, less convincing and more hopeful that he’d gotten the point across.
He hadn’t meant to talk so much about himself, he wasn’t even sure how this had happened! It wasn’t ever easy, but at least it was a bit more so in this form, where he was Dering and not Julian and he could be whoever he wanted and no one would know the difference.
…Well, kind of. It wasn’t like he was drastically different either way. He was secretive, sure, but maybe he could talk a little more about himself like this, where there weren’t any consequences.
Although, Reims was really good at spinning the conversation to focus on Dering; he was still trying to figure out how to turn it back to Reims. Or, maybe this was okay As long as Reims was comfortable–and not getting annoyed with Dering talking so much.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:29 pm
He’d been tense before. His ears had been burning with embarrassment. His chest was tight with uncertainty and regret.
But now…? He could feel himself relaxing. The more Dering spoke, the easier it was for Reims to take one breath and then another. The heat in his cheeks receded. Mostly.
And he couldn’t help but wonder what was going through Dering’s head. He seemed cheerful enough, but there were little things that made him curious. Like pieces of a puzzle that was probably never meant to be put together entirely, lest it reveal some secret that was held too tightly to want anyone else to know.
Reims wondered if he was just being paranoid. Dering was certainly nothing like him. And yet, there were those little things…
“Could you play for me sometime?” he asked before he could think better of it. He made a face and shrugged and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants as though in doing so it would force the request to be something obviously casual and with no intended stress.
“If you wanted. I’ve always thought about what it would be like to learn the guitar or something but, uh, I don’t have one. And I know a violin isn’t a guitar. And a lute isn’t a guitar, but.”
He paused with another shrug, fighting to keep his ears from turning red again.
“What do you have to do for physical therapy?” He was curious! He couldn’t help it. But he made a face, realizing that he was probably asking too many personal questions. “Sorry,” he mumbled once more.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:33 pm
“Oh, you don’t have to be sorry,” Dering insisted quickly. There was a bit of color on his cheeks again but he couldn’t say it was sourced from any negative spot. He wasn’t used to talking about himself so much, but the questions were gentle and didn’t feel intrusive or overwhelming.
“Um, it’s kind of hard to explain, but some of it–like this,” he said, and he held his arm out and curled his hand into a fist. As if an afterthought, he held up his second hand. “This is my good one, but sometimes I do things like this, where you make a fist, and then you slowly move your hand up.” He demonstrated. “Um, you can tell which one is bad, this is as far as it goes.”
One was nearly trembling, a bit more than a ninety degree angle where his wrist met his arm. The other might have been closer to a seventy degree angle. “You can kind of see the difference?” He couldn’t hold his bad wrist like that for long and had to relax it, and then lowered his hands to his sides. “And then I do some finger exercises, where you curl and stretch them. Um, I use a stress ball, too. And hand flips, and this one that looks like you’re waving to the ground. Um, it’s mostly just things that I can do by myself, I don’t need anything fancy. Sometimes my wrist locks up when I try to play. Or it hurts, through my fingers. But I could try to play for you sometime.”
He shifted positions a little. “Well, I want to play. I get, um. A little shy. I hear a lot of mistakes when I play, but I’m still trying to get better. But! You should definitely try to learn the guitar. I think music is really neat, and it’s a really unique way of expressing yourself when you don’t have words. What school do you go to? Or–I mean, there was a program at my old school, that’s how I got my violin. Mine is second hand. If you want to learn how to play, I could probably help you find some classes and somewhere to borrow a guitar from. Well, I say ‘borrow’ but honestly if you take good care of it and go to your lessons or are taking it seriously, mostly they just let you keep it. The place I used to go to was really nice, sometimes I still visit them. I could probably even put in a good word for you. Um, if you wanted.” He seemed like he’d livened up a bit at the idea but he was quick to reel himself in so he didn’t come across as too pushy. Hopefully.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:41 pm
Reims had watched as Dering demonstrated his physical therapy practice, his eyes falling on the clearly injured wrist that didn’t look like it could properly bend, and was practically trembling from strain the more he used it. He was quiet but paid attention.
And then felt his ears burn once more when what school he went to was asked. He glanced away and was grateful that Dering didn’t seem to need to know what school he went to. But he understood the point he was making.
Trying to figure out if there were any programs might be difficult, if only because he was certain he wouldn’t be allowed to. Even if it wasn’t causing anyone problems. Even if it didn’t cost anything. He was allowed to play baseball and run track, but part of that was for his mother’s own desire for social scenes. He doubted she would enjoy an activity that required her to be quiet and listen.
“What about the violin?” he asked after a few moments, but he quickly shook his head as he tried to explain. “Not, like. Taking what you’re doing from you. I’ve just never thought about the violin before. It seemed like something for… I don’t know. I didn’t think borrowing instruments was a thing.”
He was struggling with his words. He didn’t want Dering to think he was trying to take something he enjoyed and make it his own but--
“Violinists need someone in second chair, don’t they? That’s what they’re called isn’t it? To do background while first does the solos and important things?” he asked, but was very aware that he had minimal understanding about concerts and violinists and things like that. Only what he’d seen on television or the internet.
“I just thought. Maybe practicing together could be uh. Fun. Or. I mean. I don’t know.” Reims shut his mouth before he could make himself sound more ridiculous than he probably already did.
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Posted: Sun Feb 25, 2024 8:45 pm
Dering blinked, trying to piece together something he didn’t quite understand. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that he should think someone interested in music–the same instrument he was–could be trying to take it from him.
“I could help more if you want to pick up the violin,” he encouraged. “I don’t know about playing the guitar but I do know about playing the violin, so we could practice together. And I definitely know who to talk to about getting one on loan. If you’re interested in that, you should try it. I don’t think it’s taking anything away from me, that’s something that I’d really like to share. It sounds fun.”
He smiled, hopefully encouraging. How could Reims think that sharing something he loved was going to feel like taking it from him? Briefly, he wondered who could have taught him to worry about those things, but it wasn’t a concern he had at all.
“I know a really nice place in the park where I go to play, I can show you sometime. I’m worried about bothering anyone else with my music so I tried to find somewhere that was nice and out of the way. And it’s pretty, too.”
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Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2024 6:21 am
Reims chewed on his lip, because there was something in the back of his mind telling him how he would be harassed for trying to learn to play the violin. Probably that it was too girly or something.
He hadn’t ever thought that. He liked how the different instruments sounded, and he would be lying if his interest hadn’t piqued at the idea of doing something he could share with a friend.
And Dering had said multiple times that he was his friend. It was still a foreign concept to him, even when he had people like Dawn in his life.
“Okay,” he agreed, although his voice was a bit softer, like he was uncertain with himself. But then he offered Dering an encouraging grin. “Thanks. I would still like to listen to you play. If you get nervous I can pretend to cover my ears and turn away. I don’t have to look at you to listen, right?”
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Posted: Mon Feb 26, 2024 7:57 am
Dering’s face lit up again, subtle but easy to spot if already familiar with his typically worried brows. For the first time in a while, his face seemed to really relax–although, it was somewhat fleeting because he laughed softly and shook his head. “Okay, but don’t expect much! You can probably find a lot of violinists who are much better than me. I get nervous when it’s just me. I like being in a group because you can’t really see me or pick out my music. And if I make a mistake, most of the other players can cover it up. It’s probably not supposed to be that stressful, it’s supposed to be fun! But, um, you know. I think it’s easy to get in my head about all of it.”
He hesitated for a moment and then pulled his lute into his arms contemplatively.
“Maybe I’ll try to learn this, too. I don’t really know the first thing about it and I haven’t tried to figure it out. It makes a pretty sound.” To demonstrate, he quickly plucked a few strings, but they weren’t in any recognizable tune. It made a pretty sound, but his hesitation was indication enough that he was too unfamiliar with the instrument to have any confidence in it.. “But it’s not what I’m used to. Oh, but that’s something for another time! I’m not even sure where to learn. I don’t know if I can learn with YouTube or anything, but.”
He smiled again; he wasn’t intimidated at the idea of trying to learn a new skill.
“I wish I could have played the violin for you when I was at my best. Sometimes I make mistakes now and I get a little frustrated because I know I could do better. I’ll have to work harder,” he said, and rolled his wrist gently.
“But I’m really excited for you to try!”
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