As far as Amélie could tell, Hana's computer was the last thing she looked at before going to bed at night, and the first thing she looked at waking up in the morning—the device was practically an extension of the girl. She knew this, of course, because Hana spent more time at Amélie's apartment these days than at the room she was still technically renting from the hostel in town.
And as Amélie ambled out of her bedroom in her black camisole and gray stretch pants, she saw Hana powering through leftover pastries from the day before with her headset on, at the kitchen table with her laptop. Still dressed in her pajamas—bright pink shorts not halfway to her knee, and a baggy blue t-shirt, she was chattering away into her mic in Korean. She did chirp a greeting to Amélie as she passed by into the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee. Without her morning coffee, Amélie was barely a human being.
"What do you even do on that thing all day?" The words were exhaled in a sigh as Amélie dropped down into a chair at the table and grabbed one of the pain aux chocolates to dip in her coffee.
"Talk! And play games," Hana replied promptly. "I do get paid for that, you know."
"The talking or the playing games?"
"Both! Company likes me to have a relationship with the fans," she said. "They're more likely to be invested and stick around if they feel like they know me as a person." Amélie scoffed quietly.
"That would drive me insane."
"Didn't you ever talk to your ballet fans?" Hana asked, rapidly punching at the buttons on her mouse.
"Not the same. They had very limited contact with me and it was understood if I spoke to them, it was something I chose to allow, not an obligation. Are you playing a game right now?"
"Yeah, hang on." Often, when Hana was focused on something in a game, she'd bite her tongue, with the end sticking out of her mouth. It looked ridiculously stupid, but Amélie was already getting used to seeing it. Finishing a round or finding a place to pause was like coming out of hypnosis: her head popped up and she smiled at Amélie, cheeks not yet sporting her customary four pink triangles. "I like it," she said. "It's what I'm good at, and everyone knows it. Although…" She pursed her lips in a frown. "Sometimes the contract demands do get old. But I'm lucky to have this job." It certainly beat shooting Omnics in a real war that felt too much like a game from inside a MEKA.
Amélie nodded absently, and finished her breakfast. Hana was pulled back to attention by the sudden appearance of Amélie's face beside hers, leaning over her shoulder. She stifled a squeak.
"What are you doing now?" she asked, an early-morning rasp still present in her low voice. Hana tried not to shiver, and pointed to the screen.
"It's this vintage game called Dark Souls," she explained. "When it came out, everyone complained about how hard it was, so I've given myself the challenge of completing it with all the toughest parameters."
Amélie made some noise of acknowledgement in the back of her throat, and Hana un-paused the game to show her how it worked.
"See, you use this button to attack, and here's how to open your inventory, and…" Amélie posed a few questions about the game's lore, and Hana replied as she beat down bad guys.
"Interesting." Amélie drew back and gathered the rest of the pastries from the table, before Hana had the chance to demolish them.
"Are you going to get ready for work now?" Hana asked, sliding her headset down around her neck.
"Mhm." She was loading their breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.
"I'll get my stuff." Hana started to uncurl herself from the dining chair. Amélie waved a hand.
"You can stay," she said. Hana's quizzical look inspired her to elaborate. "Engage the security system when you leave." Hana's eyes widened and she bounced slightly on her seat.
"So uh, can I stay over tonight too?" It was a delicate dance with her and Amélie, because Hana—unused to being in a relationship—was a hesitant to push things forward, and Amélie wasn't what one would describe as forthcoming with emotion, and all hard edges. Hana guessed there was still softness in her—she'd seen it in the way Amélie stroked her hair when they watched movies, and that she silently picked up on foods Hana liked and didn't like, and arranged their meals accordingly. It's just that it was like trying to view a scene through a keyhole—one could only catch glimpses, and never see the whole image.
"Mhm, if you like."
"I can pick up groceries or something!" Hana offered, crossing her legs on the seat once more. Amélie waved a hand.
"I'll get it." Since she wasn't dancing anymore, she came home at a more reasonable hour. Doing administrative work for the theater meant regular hours, at least. She had mentioned to Hana once about how much ballet practice ate up her free time, and Hana found herself selfishly glad Amélie wasn't doing it anymore. A resignation from the job didn't get rid of her ballerina's legs though—no, she very much still had those. Very much.
Amélie disappeared into her bedroom, and Hana leaned on the edge of her chair, peering through the open door, but all she could see was the window and the corner of a dresser. When Amélie came back out several minutes later, wrangling her long hair, she said something and Hana had to slide her headphones off to hear it again.
"You should look at some of the museums," she said. "The weather is supposed to be good for walking today."
"Yeah, I probably should, huh?" Probably wouldn't, though. Hana had found that silent art museums and long hallways of historical objects just…weren't really her thing. But she was also sure Amélie had at least had the passing thought that she was wasting a trip to France if all she did was sit in Amélie's apartment, or her room, playing games. The next gaming event nearby wasn't for a month and…well, quite honestly, Hana had planned to be back home in Busan by now. Her trip had experienced an…unexpected extension. Not that she'd mentioned that to Amélie.
When Amélie emerged from the bathroom, she was the same kind of supernatural creature that Hana had first met in the bathroom of Gusteau's two months ago. Her hair was slicked back into a high ponytail, still reaching nearly midway down her back, and she wore a loose tan dress with a sort of turtleneck collar, and thigh-high boots that made Hana sure there was still good left in the world.
"I'll see you later?" She brushed a hand over Hana's shoulder, the slightest hint of a question in her voice. Cheeks dusted pink like the cupcakes at the bakery on the street level, Hana nodded.
"Y-yeah, I'll be here." Amélie's hand paused on Hana's shoulder, and then she leaned in to kiss Hana's cheek, temporarily cutting off Hana's ability to breathe.
"Have a nice day, then." Amélie spoke so softly Hana almost wondered if she was supposed to hear the words at all.
"H-hey! I'll call you if I have to go!" Hana said in a louder voice, turning to look over the back of the chair. Amélie's eyes, outlined in thick, dark eyeliner, shadowed with a shimmering purple on the eyelid, and capped with delicate mascara, met Hana's. It lent the look to her eyes that had contributed to Hana's first vampire? impression of her. She just nodded, and disappeared out the door.
Hana's hand went right for her phone, and she checked yet again that she still had a note of the code to Amélie's door, given to her three days prior. Every time she departed from or arrived at Amélie's apartment building, she checked to make sure she had the code.
With Amélie gone, Hana did a short stream of her progress on Dark Souls, helped herself to coffee from Amélie's coffee machine—which, for the record, had way too many buttons and levers and a spout that shot hot milk at unsuspecting people. She checked the TV, but most programs were in French and Hana wasn't in the mood to bother with subtitles. Still, she watched the first half of Beauty and the Beast before shutting it off. The jetlag had long since worn off, but she wasn't used to being on French time: many of her fans and friends—who lived in Asia—were asleep this time of day. So she did the only thing more interesting than getting back online—she snooped.
Even though Amélie had never once come home early, Hana still felt wary as she crept into Amélie's room. She'd been in it a number of times before, but this was different, and bore the weight of something not strictly forbidden, but not necessarily allowed either.
Amélie's closet and dresser had an extensive supply of black, gray, and purple clothing. Amélie's warm skin tone could have easily supported lighter colors, but given how few of them existed in her apartment, Hana supposed it just wasn't her aesthetic. Since she was snooping already, Hana decided she might as well go all-out, and peered into the drawers of Amélie's dresser. It was the usual affairs—socks, pajamas, some ballet gear in the bottom drawer. The top, though, contained a collection of underwear and lingerie-looking things with spindly straps and spider webby lace that made Hana flush a bright red. Of course Catwoman had this kind of stuff lying around. She held a flimsy brassiere up cautiously, resisting the urge to press it to her chest to imagine how it might look.
There were some things atop the dresser in the same vein as the stuff that Hana had studied before in the bathroom—some pricey perfumes with elegant French names containing many apostrophes, creams for indeterminate purposes, and a few loose pieces of jewelry. She sniffed a few jars and bottles, and spritzed some rose-scented perfume on her arm before going to examine the closet.
On the shelves above the clothes, there were some small boxes, so Hana grabbed a stepping stool to fetch them down. The first just had old Christmas decorations in it. The second had photos and other small mementos.
One of the photos was Amélie on her wedding day. She was resplendent in a layered white wedding dress, her hair in the sort of 'do that took hours to fix, and beaming as she held the arm of a mustachioed man who must have been Gérard. He looked like the few images of a man in uniform that had accompanied the many articles on his death and disappearance. Other photos in the box painted a tiny picture of their life together, and there were a number of Amélie either at ballet practice, or on the stage. Most of them were of Amélie.
There was a lone image—clearly older than the rest—of Amélie leaning back against a stretch of stone railing, younger than Hana. Perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Behind her was a beautiful lake, bordered by trees in the throes of autumn yellows, and off to the side was a sliver of an enormous building—a castle? The photo must have been from a vacation.
"She was cute!" Hana decided, although teenage Amélie looked painfully leggy. But her wry smile and emerging adolescent fashion sense made Hana smile too.
There were also pamphlets and newspaper clippings and other memorabilia from her dance career. Hana opened one to see Amélie listed as the star of Swan Lake—dancing the parts of Odile and Odette. It bore photos of her in each costume, and although Hana didn't know much about the ballet world, she knew enough to know Swan Lake, which—she figured—made it a big deal.
"Why didn't she tell me any of this?" Hana asked herself aloud, digging to the bottom of the box, even finding a few selfies. "What a stupid question." As if Amélie ever told her anything personal without prodding. It wasn't so much that she was closed off as…it was almost like it didn't occur to her that Hana might want to know personal things about her. They were…they were something, and Hana was curious. But curiosity didn't seem to come naturally to Amélie Lacroix.
When Amélie got home, Hana was on the couch, on her computer. She made some undefinable noise that acknowledged Amélie's return, but didn't look away from the screen until Amélie was in the kitchen.
"How was work?" she shouted.
"Fine," Amélie called back mildly. She came into the living room with a glass of wine, and seated herself in a cream-toned leather armchair near the couch. "How was your day?" There was a detached note to her voice, as if she had grown disused to having these sorts of banal, domestic conversations and was going on autopilot as she tried to remind herself how.
"Unproductive," Hana said with a frown. "I've been stuck on this one piece of Dark Souls for like, two hours. And I don't want to look at a walkthrough. It feels like cheating on my challenge."
"I had thought," Amélie said quietly, in a tone that made a frown dip the corners of Hana's mouth, gently swirling the wine in her glass, "that I would like to see some of what you do." Hana's look turned quizzical. "Your games. They're important to you, aren't they?"
"Well, yeah. I mean. They're my job. And also my hobby. Jobby? You get the idea." She flashed a smirk, tinged with nerves, with the sense she was babbling. Amélie's lips twitched in a way that suggested amusement, but Hana was having to pull out all her most obscure people-reading skills to understand her. "But um, if you wanted to, you can come see. They're pretty cool, you know. I went to this exhibit at the Museum of POP Culture in America once and it was all about the cultural influence of games, and vis-versa and the industries around games that have built up since the early 21st century. I mean, my job is proof of that!"
Hana was definitely rambling, but Amélie found herself drifting, listening to the enthusiasm in Hana's voice and the excitement in her face, rather than jargon about video games that meant little to her.
"Let me shower then, and I'll come see," she said, unwinding herself from her chair and taking her wine glass into the kitchen.
"H—yeah—see you." Record for Hana remaining calm and cool with any reminder that Amélie's naked body existed in the same universe as her: 2. Maybe. She'd been half-asleep for one of those. It wasn't that Hana was opposed to the idea—it's just that sex had never ranked extremely high on her list of interests, so she had never given it much consideration. And now that she had a—whatever she had with Amélie, which was thus far undefined—she was thinking about it, and she didn't know what to think, never mind what to say.
Burying her embarrassment under an intense online shooting match, Hana contemplated mentioning that she had found Amélie's photos today. But that required confessing to digging through Amélie's closet, and what would be the point of bringing it up anyway? "Ah I stumbled across some photos of you and your dead husband today elbow-deep in your closet while you were at work. It must really suck that he's dead, you guys looked happy."
She told herself not to be a boob, any more than she could help, and her internal monologue was promptly broken by Amélie taking a seat next to her on the couch. Hana could smell Amélie's soap like a mist on her, and Hana wondered if she ought to have gone through with her thought to take a shower herself back at her hostel. Too late to casually sniff an armpit and check the damage (one couldn't work up too much of a sweat sitting on a couch in an air-conditioned apartment, could they?).
"Let's see," Amélie said simply, crossing her legs on the couch.
"Okay!" Hana moved the laptop over to balance half on Amélie's knee, half on her own. "Let's stay with something simple, huh? This is a basic street fighter game. A classic. It's got a really good format for professional competition, and it's pretty popular in e-sports."
"I think I've seen a tournament or two advertised locally," Amelia remarked, observing the characters flashing across the screen as the game loaded.
Hana went to start up a game and then hesitated. "You know…actually, let's make you your own profile. It'll just take a minute."
"Why?"
"…because I don't want you wrecking my stats," Hana admitted. Amélie arched a thin eyebrow.
"What makes you so sure I'm not good at this?" she asked in the kind of tone that made anyone speaking to her question the justification for their very existence.
She wasn't good. She was terrible. Watching her blunder through the game like a starfish walking on land was a mind-altering experience.
"You're awful," Hana gasped in awe as Amélie was slaughtered by the computer for the third time. She gaped at the screen and then at Amélie's look of quiet focus, her enter world shifted with the concept that Amélie Lacroix was bad at something. There were no excuses, she just…wasn't good. She couldn't finesse or intimidate her way around it. She was crap.
"Aren't you supposed to encourage me?" Amélie asked, casting a somewhat peeved look sideways at Hana.
"Yeah, but…holy shit, you're so bad. You're a total noob!" She burst out laughing and grabbed Amélie's shoulder, giving it a playful shake. "This is hilarious!" Amélie's lips pursed, and Hana had to focus to realize she was pouting. "What's that look for?"
"There is no look," Amélie said primly, going back to the character selection screen.
"That was a look. You're sulking! You don't even know what it's like being bad at something!"
"Why do you think I'm not bad at other things?" Amélie asked, looking back at Hana, who just stared.
"I mean…I don't know. You're you. You just seem…like you've always got things under control. Like with Rich. You just jumped right in and took charge of the situation." Amélie's face relaxed, and she gave Hana a soft-eyed look.
"That was easy for me. This…" She looked at the screen. "This is easy for you."
"Lots of practice," Hana said. Amélie's words made her think, though. She had always felt lacking in social skills as a result of her anxiety, and wondered why she had such shortcomings. Sure, video gaming was a skill, one she had cultivated since childhood but…maybe it was her zone. And being an uncompromising, badass bitch was Amélie's. She found she liked that idea quite a bit—that there was give and take with them. "Here, what if we sign you in on your computer, and I'll fight you?" she suggested. "That'll help you learn more than with the computer."
They set their computers up on the coffee table, and were nearly two and a half hours into their "training session" before Amélie looked at the time and realized they hadn't even a vague plan for dinner. They ended up ordering in, and sat with their backs against the couch as Hana continued to explain the lore and logistics of the game.
There was a film break in there, where Hana anticipated there might be some more making-out, but Amélie seemed quite focused on the screen. She sat with her arm around Hana, and occasionally stroked her hair when Hana shifted around, but when it was over, she straightened right up off the couch, collected her computer, and said goodnight.
"Did I tire you out with all that gaming?" Hana asked, though the stint had been barely a warm-up for her. Amélie tended to stare questioningly rather than asking someone to repeat themselves, and Hana was finally starting to get used to it. "You just seem…absent."
"I'm just thinking, little bunny," Amélie said with a faint smile, reaching out to pat Hana's head. "Sorry if I've been…unresponsive." She leaned in and gave Hana a peck on the lips to accompany her goodnight. "I'll see you in the morning."
"See you in the morning!" Hana smiled, and spent another couple hours online before curling up beneath Amélie's thick throw blankets on the couch. There was another reason to spend more time at Amélie's than the hostel—everything she owned was of vastly better quality.
In the morning, Hana woke first, which wasn't wholly unusual. Sometimes Amélie spent whole weekends in a zombified state of sleeping. Hana had seen her take pills getting ready for work once, and wondered if it was a condition.
But when the clock hit eight and she had yet to even see Amélie yet, and knew she had work today, she had to investigate. Maybe she'd accidentally slept past her alarm? Hana knocked on the bedroom door tentatively.
"Amélie?" she called. "You in there?"
"Busy! Merde!" Hana frowned, dark brow furrowed, and wondered if that was cause for her to give Amélie space, or bust the door down.
"Do you—uh—need help?" There was rustling from inside, and then Amélie jerked the door away from Hana's attentive ear.
"No. Just…working." Hana peered under her arm, and saw the laptop set up on the bed.
"On what?"
"…things."
"Is that the game I showed you last night? Were you gaming?" Amélie's face flushed lightly. Hana's face split in a devilishly delighted grin. "Oh my God, you were! How long have you been doing it?" She studied the bloodshot state of Amélie's lovely hazel-gold eyes. "Hours? Amélie? Did you sleep?"
"I slept!" she replied defensively. "And," she added smugly, "I got the MVP award."
"You were online?"
"I thought about what you said about practice," she replied with a shrug, looking away nonchalantly.
"I've created a monster," Hana breathed, her mouth curling into an enchanted smile. "Awesome."