sepphy (flowersforhades) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2015-10-20 01:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2018 [09] september, danny kwon, persephone forrester |
Who: Sepphy and Danny
Where: Fox Grove High
What: conversation
When: backdated just after this
Persephone had gotten better about keeping him informed of her whereabouts, making sure Danny didn’t climb the walls or wear a groove into the floor during an unexplained absence—trying to scrounge up a pinball machine with a friend, she’d told him.
So, set on not climbing the walls, Danny was flopped on a bean bag in what had once been the teachers’ breakroom, successfully distracting himself with his DS and a game he’d borrowed from the Geeks’ library. He’d found Esther napping in his bed (the grumpiest of Goldilocks if ever there was one), and so drifted his way out into the school proper, nodding curtly to kids in the hallways before finding a rec room that was unattended. He wasn’t exactly waiting for Persephone’s return, he told himself—
But then again, he sort of was.
The Head of Security had enough work to keep him busy, but part of him simply didn’t feel quite right if he wasn’t by her side, if he didn’t know if she was alright or not. So disappearing into the video game was one of the few things that could absorb his attention enough that he could forget to mark the time. Which is why he managed to be caught off-guard when the door opened and a familiar blonde figure entered, and he looked up and seemed to immediately perk back to attention.
“Back already? So you didn’t bring it back with you?” he asked dryly. His own hard-won trophy, a Pac-Man arcade cabinet, still sat quiet and powerless in the corner of this very room. The footballers had dragged it back a year ago, and he wouldn’t have minded seeing another cabinet added to the school's collection. In fact, if they had two, maybe they could start calling it a collection.
--
“I mean, I know I'm Wonder Woman and all, but figured it would just be showing off to carry it back on my own,” Sepphy said, seeing that Danny had been waiting for her. And sure, he might have just happened to be hanging out where she would cross his path, but she had a suspicion.
Her voice was sharper than usual, and she could hear it in her own voice, and she winced. She also knew that her eyes were a little red rimmed, and her voice was a tiny bit raspy from crying. Great. It wasn't her best day.
“Sorry,” she apologized before he even had to say anything. “Not the best day. And also not your fault, so...” She shook her head. She walked over and glanced at his DS. “Beat the game again?” she asked. Sometimes, she wished she could just chill out and zone and not worry about anything at all. And forget about how humiliated she was feeling. That would be great. Why didn't they have copious amounts of alcohol here? She could use a good obliteration about now.
--
“Nah, it’s Scribblenauts. Freakin’ impossible to beat in the later levels.” Danny often looked completely strung taut, his whole body condensed to tense lines and that rigid twitch in his jaw—the footballers, Persephone, and his sister were the only people he ever seemed to properly relax around.
So today he was surprisingly languid on that bean bag chair—which was in complete contrast to that steely edge to her voice, however, so he let the DS droop to wait against his knee.
“You okay? Did it go bad?” A beat, as his mind immediately went to his first (and usual) assumption. “Were there walkers?”
--
“No, nothing like that,” Sepphy rushed to assure him. He didn't need to be worried about that, she knew he had been already. So she shut down that particular line of thinking before it could get going. “It wasn't zombies, didn't even see one there or on the way back,” she explained.
She sighed and leaned against the wall near him. “No, this was all just me being… me, I guess, and so nothing to worry about.” How did she even start to say that she was humiliated? That her problem was emotional, and her own stupidity rolled into one? She bet he'd never felt anything like this. He was popular, an idolized football player, hot, and he held a position of high power in the school. He could probably just point to girls in the hall and say 'you. me. Let’s hump.' and no one would even fault him for the use of the word 'hump'.
--
It felt odd to be looking up at her for once, reversing the balance of their usual stance (Persephone in front, Danny haunting her side like some silent watchdog). But he stayed where he was, in an effort to keep the mood of the conversation light, casual. Danny did shift his position, however, leaning forward to prop his elbows against his knees. His head tilted.
“You being you? C’mon, you know I’d worry anyway. And whatever it is, you can tell me.” A flash of memory back to her interview, and he added with a glint of amusement, “I am your best friend, after all.”
--
She wrinkled her nose. “I knew that'd come back to haunt me,” she said. She'd kinda gone out on a limb there, but she didn't take it back or anything. It just made her feel five, and like she was being embarrassed for having said something. It didn't normally hit her, a reminder that their social standings had been so different before, but apparently she was just in one big spirally downfall of self doubt. She knew he wasn't trying to tease her or anything.
“Let's just say I was wrong about something, and the recognition of that is really, really jarring,” she said, sighing. “And made me upset, but here I am. It's suck it up time, right?” she said, putting on a smile, which while big as usual, didn't quite have the right feel behind it.
--
“You say that a lot,” he noted. He hadn’t planned on pointing it out, but the thought was on Danny’s mind as he watched Persephone. “Suck it up and deal, put on your big girl panties, whatever. That whole mentality. Grin and bear it, ‘cause you’re the council president. “You know you don’t need to do that around me, right? I’m like the wallpaper.”
The words were bland, affable. It was how he meant to convey himself: fading into the background, rather than the up-front leaders and representatives who had to be present and obvious in the public’s eye.
--
She hadn't realized she said it a lot, but couldn't argue with him when he said it. She probably did. No, in fact, she knew she did. It was her main form of getting through things. Her go-to idea that had her moving forward, instead of stagnating.
“You're not wallpaper,” she said, giving him a look for it. “You're a human being, and I get that you try to be less in people's faces at any given time, but that doesn't mean I don't know you're there. Or that you hear things and have opinions and everything too. Which are valued,” she felt the need to assure him.
--
“Being the wallpaper isn’t really a bad thing,” Danny said, splaying his hands. It was hard to explain, but with her, he would give it a try: “It’s my job to watch stuff, to keep an eye on things, you know? The less disruptive I am, the more objective, the better I can do my job.
“And still. Point stands. If you wanna sit down and talk about it, I think I’m a pretty good listener. I mean, I grew up with Etty—pretty much all I did is weather her talking.”
It was like trying to grasp onto something slippery, catching a fluttering ribbon that kept being on the verge of winking out of view. Step the wrong way, and Persephone would sink back under that bright chirpy grin like armour, and the opportunity to hear what was on her mind—really on her mind—would be gone.
--
“I know, I get that. But that being part of how you do your job and everything doesn't make up who you are,” Sepphy insisted, and maybe it was a little close to home, because she felt like she'd lost the ability to be herself today.
“Who you are is different, and you should keep hold of that and remember it and not just… not just think this is it, and all you'll ever be and you're not wallpaper,” she insisted, realizing she was getting herself worked up, and she shut her eyes for a second, trying to grasp the control she needed to always have.
“I need to go lie down, I think,” she told him. “You… hope you get to a higher level than ever before,” she offered.
--
“Yeah. Okay. Hope you feel better, tita.” He watched her go, still seated on the beanbag chair, feeling restless and dissatisfied. That thread slipped between his hands, even as Persephone drifted off; two ships passing in the night, a slightly failed attempt to communicate.