Nakitakunaruno, Dakishimetainoni

Chapter 7

"Just the man I wanted to see. Hold this for me." Skadi halted her busy hands and held the rich, red entanglement out to a passing Heimdall. The morning glow flooded through the living room, golden and crisp in the late autumn, illuminating both of them with a youthful incandescence. Despite the soft lighting, Heimdall's eye stubbornly kept its trademark sharpness as it stared, disinterested, at the yarn.

"I'm busy."

"Busy? With what?" Skadi asked incredulously, as if nothing on earth could be more important than holding her skein.

"Getting ready to leave." He attempted to gracefully duck out of the conversation, but Skadi was having none of it.

"Leave? Where? Going to stalk our nemesis? Plan our nefarious plans?" she asked with a smirk, eliciting precisely the intended response, as Heimdall frowned slightly and fixed her with an irritated gaze.

"No. And don't put it like that. It sounds… villainous."

"Sorry. I forgot that we're warriors of justice."

Heimdall mentally threw his hands up in exasperation. If it wasn't one extreme, it was another with this girl; there was no winning against her nonsensical mischief.

"So where are you really going, then?" she asked, beginning again to occupy her hands with the golden knitting needles.

"Piano class."

"Oh." She paused and continued her work. Heimdall almost made it out of the room, until she moved her train of thought back onto the track.

"Wait. What? Why?" she asked, puzzled. "Why are you going to classes? You're a god. Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"

"I'm leaving in ten minutes," he informed her, ignoring her irritating question.

"Well, well—" Skadi's voice grew anxious as she revealed the true reason that she was pestering him, "What am I supposed to do while you're gone? Freyr's out too, still looking for that sister of his, I mean, I don't have anyone here with me to talk to."

"That isn't my problem, is it? Just watch TV or something."

"…TV?"

Heimdall looked at her incredulously. The way she'd said those two letters, rolling them clumsily off her tongue with a foreign bulkiness… did she really…?

"You don't even know what a television is, do you?"

"…Of course I do."

"Liar."

Skadi stubbornly scowled at him. "Well, fine, if you're so smart, why don't you tell me what it is?"

"Haven't you been wondering what that huge black screen in the middle of the wall is?"

"…Ohhhh!" she gasped, elongating her expression for dramatic effect. "I wondered what those were! Fascinating!" She quickly crept across the room to the television, poking around the fragile device tentatively. "How does it work? It makes pictures come alive, right?"

"Sort of. Don't think you can interact with them."

"Oh…" Skadi looked relatively disappointed at this news.

"You just watch the screen. It's like having a little theater in a box."

"…Oh." Skadi stared with consternation at the many multi-colored buttons on the bewildering apparatus Heimdall was handing to her without rhyme, reason, or explanation. Luckily, they were labeled, so maybe Skadi could decode the hieroglyphics on her own. "But Heimdall…" She frowned at him. "I like the theater plays that are interactive."

Heimdall sighed in irritation, turning away, as his explanation was done and it was high time he left for class. "I know."

"Do you?"

The conversation had taken a sharp and unexpected turn, and Heimdall found himself under the steady, confident gaze of an impish Skadi. He turned away quickly before she could see the light flush of his face. He must still be tired, feeling faint after moving so much.

"You know what I mean!" he insisted irritably, walking out of the room.

"Do I?" she persisted, beginning to chase after him.

"Well, there you have it," Skadi spoke to the thin air beside her, Heimdall having left for his oh-so-precious class. "Televismus or what have you. Humans are so peculiar. Why would they need to invent a device for this? Don't they have books, and theatre plays?" Her dark eyes glanced around, quickly locating Kogata, who was snoozing with the utmost comfort in the bright light of the window sill.

"Ah… You don't care, do you?" she asked flatly, turning back to the puzzling black screen.

"Well… Let's see what kind of depraved nonsense they put on display in this immoral realm."

"Hey." Heimdall set his bag down in order to fully appreciate the apparent coma Skadi was in, slouching lazily on the couch with an open box of candy beside her. She hadn't acknowledged his presence in the slightest when he came in; or given any other signs of life, for that matter.

"Huuhh," she mumbled, zombie-like eyes slowly revolving in their sockets to focus upon him. Tensing subconsciously, he suddenly felt as if he had been thrown into the survival horror genre. He began taking inventory of the surrounding objects to see what could be used as a weapon—in case of possible attack.

"Heimdall, thank god you're back!" she suddenly exclaimed, flopping off the couch and onto the floor in order to crawl towards him. He instinctively flinched away, but relaxed when he became fully cognizant that it was just the idiot Skadi on the floor, not a bloodthirsty zombie (as anyone might have been able to argue not two minutes ago).

She crept across the dark carpet, slowly drawing nearer to him in her apparent state of delusion. There was something about this Skadi, though, that was different from her normal self. It lacked something…

"Did you bring food? Tell me you brought food! For fu—"

"What? What the hell's wrong with you? And get off of me!" Heimdall shoved her away as she'd begun to climb him, where she crumpled into a pitiful heap on the floor, devoid of any kind of energy to fight back. Composure. That's what she was lacking. "And since when did you start talking like that?"

"Heimdall, you don't know what I've been through. You could never understand. That thing—it—it enslaved me. I was helpless against its dancing lights and catchy showtunes!"

Heimdall eyed her suspiciously. At least she was acting a bit more like herself, now that she had cut out that "foul language", as she would have called it were she in her right mind. This outlandish episode of histrionics must have been influenced by the television. She was so easily swayed by plays, he seemed to recall only now; he should have known that allowing her to watch TV was a bad idea.

"You're ridiculous. Isn't there any food ready by now?" he asked, annoyed that he had to put up with this nuisance on an empty stomach.

"Oh, what, so just because I'm a woman, you think I should have a piping hot dinner ready for you, just because you're a man?"

"No- I don't think anything like that! You're acting like an idiot! Dammit—This is the last time I leave you alone with the TV!"

As he moved forward, Skadi only just began to see what he was doing, and shot upright.

"What? No! Heimdall, you can't—"

But it was too late. The device that opened the portal to worlds was held in the iron grip of an angry watchman, and there was nothing for the pathetic little goddess to do except mope as he quickly clicked the flashing screen off. Tears began to well up in her eyes as she looked up at him pitifully, addressing him with the utmost humility.

"Oh, Heimdall, forgive me. I'm just—I've just been a little famished, that's all, and you know, kind of tired too, now that the hypnotic effects of those colorful sugar discs have worn off." She made a sad attempt at a personable chuckle, which managed to come off as a rather creepy addition to her apparent addiction to the TV. "I'm sorry—Please give back the control? Please? I'm weak—I'm just a woman, remember—"

"No way. You're acting too bizarre. I'm not letting you anywhere near this until I know you won't let it affect you so much."

"Heimdall! How could you? A proper gentleman would acquiesce to a lady's whims, however foolish—"

"That's close, but no dice. I'll be keeping this." Heimdall turned to go to his room, where he'd properly hide the remote so he wouldn't have to suffer through this twice.

"Aah… Heimdall is so mean…" Skadi sank facedown onto the floor again, beginning to suffer television withdrawals already. "I just wanted to watch one more movie…"

Contemplating the dark whorls in the carpet, she heard the dull thud of Heimdall's footsteps stop, then start again, then become irregular and stop.

"Just one more movie?"

Skadi turned her head up and looked at him curiously with her large, round eyes. He'd turned around, arms crossed and frowning down at Skadi disagreeably; she could see the remote against his chest, dangling just out of reach.

"Yes," she murmured, watching him intently and trying to confirm what she suspected was true.

"…One."

"Yes!" she exclaimed, jumping up and clasping his free hand passionately as her eyes glimmered and shone, standing on her tiptoes as if she were balancing on his every word. He sighed and turned his head away.

"Fine, whatever."

"OH, THANK Y—"

"But."

Skadi blinked, then frowned slightly, unaware that this kindness had strings attached; but, of course it did. This was Heimdall she was negotiating with.

"But what?"

"I don't intend to hand this remote over to you. What are you going to do about that?"

"A puzzling dilemma indeed… But, Heimdall," she suggested cheerily, "you could always watch with me!"

"Oh, yeah… I forgot about that…" Heimdall muttered, looking away as if he greatly regretted acceding to her begging.

"I'll make the popcorn!"