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Act 1.5: Delusions
Crawl into my heart, rend my ventricles apart
["Red Right Ankle" The Decemberists]
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"-and she had the absolute gall to leave a lump of coal in the safe. She's just like Sinbahd! Arrogant, bigheaded, thieving- Marron are you listening?!" Miyako broke off her tirade.
…Just like
Sinbahd?
"She is not like Sinbahd!" Marron pounded the table for emphasis.
The outside café momentarily silenced itself at the outburst. Miyako, however, paid no mind.
"Right, she doesn't have the whole dark mysterious stranger thing going for her…"
Marron upraised her friend, seemingly daydreaming over a newspaper.
Except Miyako never daydreamed.
"Oi Miyako, I don't think he's your type."
"What's all this stupidity tumbling out of your mouth?" Miyako blushed slightly regardless.
Marron laughed, shaking her head, "Nothing, nothing. Something just got knocked loose up there."
"Yare yare," Miyako continued to grumble.
Miyako relinquished part of her paper before returning to the front page.
Business? Trust Miyako to keep the best sections for herself. No matter, she and Finn had already read what the papers had said about Jeanne. Marron idly scanned through articles, stopping short on Domyouji's name.
"…His stock has dropped. A lot. Domyouji's that is… Miyako…?"
"What?"
"His stock has dropped." She repeated.
Miyako glanced up briefly, "So it has."
Marron looked stricken, "Jeanne did this." Marron chewed her lip, was it a loss of faith in the company or the so called 'belief' that she still wasn't completely sure she had stolen?
Miyako laughed, a reassuring sound, "Well as much as I'd like to blame her for Eve, I think her sins fall short of that," Miyako paused considering, "I don't suppose you'll rethink coming out with me next time?"
"No. I can't help you with Jeanne."
Miyako nodded, unsurprised. "She's just a thief, Marron. It's just a string of bad luck."
Marron winced, running a hand through her hair, "Miyako, do you think the end justifies the means?"
A male voice easily answered, "Sometimes it does, if the end is really important."
He leaned simply against the small fence separating the street from the café. Both girls looked up at him, one with mouth slightly agape, the other with sharp annoyance.
"I wasn't asking you."
"Your friend doesn't seem in the state to respond." He nodded in her direction.
Miyako flushed.
Marron rolled her eyes. A criminal and she's ruthless, a handsome guy and she's reduced to a blushing schoolgirl. Wait… I didn't just think he was handsome, did I?
She shook her head imperceptibly, "Chiaki, you're loitering."
His eyes shined in suppressed amusement. "Then I suppose I'll have to extend my patronage." He smoothly swung himself over the fence and joined them at the table. "And you never introduced me to your lovely friend here." His gaze swept over Miyako.
Marron's hand balled into a fist, "Her name's-"
"Toudaiji Miyako!" Miyako dove into the conversation.
He raised an eyebrow, pure speculation, "The detective's daughter?" She nodded as he leaned in closer, extending a hand, "Nagoya Chiaki."
Miyako's eyes lit up, partly in recognition, "From Nagoya Hospital, right?"
"My father's," Chiaki shrugged, all modesty.
Marron snorted. "What are you doing here anyway?"
"Just getting concert tickets for Sukima Switch." He replied amicably.
"Really? We're going too." Miyako seemed to have gotten herself back together. Mostly.
Minus the addition of the genki fangirl™.
"Great! Maybe I'll see you there." He smiled.
"Great." Marron muttered.
If he heard, he ignored it. Chiaki got up, throwing some money on the table to pay for their lunch. He winked at Marron's disbelief. "On me this time."
He left with a wave over his shoulder.
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"I can't do it!"
"Of course you can. Now, try it again." His black hair billowed serenely in the breeze.
She let out an irritated sound. Her amethyst eyes flashing in annoyance.
"Stop pushing her. We'll never get anywhere if you keep frustrating her," He called down from a tree branch. His voice held a touch of apathy to it.
They had been at this a very long time.
"Like you've helped much. You can't just expect things to happen. This takes work."
"Which, I do believe, we have had an abundance of."
"Good!" The first voice broke in abruptly, "I'm glad someone agrees with me. I'm going home then. I'll see you both tomorrow."
She left without a backward glance.
"You look like you've just been kicked in the stomach." He pointed out, dropping from the branch, purple hair still neatly in place.
The former shrugged it off, "She'll never be ready for the king at this rate."
"…Don't get attached to her, Noin. You know she may not survive."
His gaze fixed on her departing figure.
"I know."
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"Marron it's all right." Finn, in her larger form, rocked the girl gently. The rosary on the nightstand, glinting in the night.
"Mama?" Marron sobbed quietly, still half in the thrall of sleep.
"… Shh… sleep kaitou…" Finn pushed Marron's hair away from her eyes. The girl quieted, her breathing evening out.
Finn tucked her back into bed. Watched her.
She leaned toward Marron's ear, her whisper sounding into the silence.
But what she said could not be discerned.
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"I told you I wouldn't support that course of action!"
Her mother's angry voice nudged her out of sleep. Marron rolled over in her bed, only partially listening to the conversation.
"She hasn't had a reoccurrence, there's no need to push the project in that direction. … What funding? There's nothing to cut to begin with!"
Marron groaned, more grant talk. She pulled the covers over her head.
"Don't Arashi me! She's my baby Claude. This isn't just research. … Enough. I'm still project head, you will follow my directives." There was sudden ice in her voice.
There was a pause before the phone slammed.
Marron glanced at the clock.
She was late.
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Daylight glinted off the sea, calm the way Finn wasn't.
Once, she had promised herself that she would never see him again, that she would die before she would.
But this wasn't about her, not this meeting, the weight of the rock in her hand a solace cementing those thoughts.
He was here.
This wasn't about her, she reminded herself as she skipped the rock off the water below.
But a miracle would be nice…
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[Dreaming Omega]
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[author note]: With all the attention Miyako lavished on Chiaki, despite the whole charmer thing he had going for him, is it hard to believe that she could equally overlook the whole thief thing with Sinbahd? What can I say, the girl's a sucker for a pretty face^^ There's a line in here that I took from inu yasha (the stupidity one) and sukima switch is a real band.