InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Just...go slow, okay?"

Toru Ishinomori [石乃森都丸] (2dbeauty) wrote in disappear_rpg,
@ 2010-06-15 19:30:00

Entry tags:

kozue, toru

WHO: Toru and Kozue
WHAT: Necessary confrontation
WHEN: The next day after Kirikothread and Yoshimithread
WHERE: Class 1-B
WHY: Toru seriously has some 'splainin' to do.

Perhaps it was fate. Or just plain old bad luck. Either way, Toru found himself assigned to group work with Kozue in class, not two days after she called him out on his personal philosophy in Paradise. They hadn't spoken (or made eye contact) since, which made the already unbearably awkward atmosphere even heavier with tension. He tried to focus on translating the sentences given, but continued to allow his eyes to wander and his mind to slack off. A combination of his worst subject and an extremely awkward situation was potent like that.

He wondered, looking at Kozue where she sat, if he could get assigned to a different partner. Knowing my luck, though, it'd probably be Kiriko or Reizo... Either way, he said nothing.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 03:17 am UTC (link)

"Okay," Kozue said, turning her face to the side a little. It had to be the blue eyes, he didn't want to look at the blue eyes. They were unnerving. She bit back a snappy retort, the thought of those stupid contacts suddenly looming immense in her mind. Maybe they were in the U-Bend somewhere. She should have stuck with the brown...

"Oh. God."

She sounded very small, perhaps as if someone had just kicked over her sand castle or stepped on her favorite doll. Her eyes found the bright pink bobbing thing at the front of the classroom that was Aoi Misaki. Aoi Misaki with her blue contacts, those blue contacts covering brown eyes that had caused Kozue so much envy and sick, ugly hatred for months now.

"I'm sorry it hurt you like that," she followed, after a moment, feeling entirely sick of herself. She'd chewed him out for doing more or less what she would have liked to do, given the opportunity. "And really, I'm sorry I yelled at you." It was, after all, a sudden shock of hypocrisy—and yet Kozue had the sense that she was more correct now than she had been in that shoe store over the summer.

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2dbeauty
2010-06-16 04:33 pm UTC (link)

Toru was really getting into the whole "staring-at-my-desk-in-abject-guilt" thing, and thus barely noticed what Kozue was actually doing. Looking at somebody at the front of the class? Saying something? He was occupied with feeling confused and stupid and hypocritical. The girl was probably ignoring him out of the same sort of disdain that Kiriko had in spades, right?

This lasted until she spoke to him. "...sorry? Y-you are?" Toru's eyes went wide with surprise and confusion.

"I-it's... no, you don't need to feel bad because I'm a teammate or anything! Y-you had every right to be angry at me, Kondo-san. I was a jerk, to Yukizaki, no less, and..." He found himself opening and closing his mouth like some apologetic fish, perplexed out of his mind by Kozue's sudden apology.

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 08:40 pm UTC (link)

Kozue tried to interject somewhere in Toru's garbled, guilty response, but she could not think of something to say; on the one hand, she felt distinctly that yes, he'd been awful to Seiko of all people, and that was wrong and bordering on simply ridiculous. On the other hand, she was still running over her interactions with Aoi over the last few months, trying to figure out if she'd ever been outwardly bitchy enough to warrant an apology. Or if she could quietly go about her life and resolve to treat the other girl a little better and call that a success.

She wasn't sure. She needed to ask someone, but Toru, given his recent track record, probably wasn't the person. Meanwhile, he'd finished speaking, and Kozue shook her head slightly; she looked back at him, and forced herself to look slightly less appalled.

"So what are you going to do about it?" She asked, watching him; the mouth opening and closing was actually kind of amusing, and, again, well-deserved. She moved her wrist some, inside her desk, and went back to texting her older brother.

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2dbeauty
2010-06-16 08:47 pm UTC (link)

He slumped back in his seat, now gazing up at the ceiling. "I... don't really know." Earning forgiveness wasn't going to be easy, if it was at all possible... and he was still upset with Seiko, to a degree.

"I guess I should apologize, right? I owe way more than I'm owed...." Toru then sighed a little. "But we're still both upset at each other. I don't even know if this is the right time for it."

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anthesphoria
2010-06-16 09:39 pm UTC (link)

"Buy her stuff," Kozue suggested, finishing her message and putting her phone down; she turned to watch Toru once again, thoughtful and only mildly fidgety. "That always makes me feel better, getting stuff."

That sounded bad, she reflected, after just a moment; bad and entirely like her Shadow. She swallowed; "Or. Uh. Maybe she's not shallow like me, who knows. Flowers always go a long way in an I'm Sorry." She nudged her phone, waiting for a return in a far-too-short turnaround period. "... Maybe it's not the right time, but there's a time limit on this kind of thing. When you wait too long, it becomes permanent. It's not as long as the getting a number to calling limit, but it's maybe... a bit shorter than the non-hookup rebound period."

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