the27percent:
Once on the bench, Atieno took some time to just close her eyes and gather herself. As embarrassing as it was to have such an encounter, she had to recover from this one way or another. Slowly but surely, she felt herself coming to, feeling more ‘consistent’ in form. A few more deep breaths, she looks up at the young man standing before her.
“Uh. Sorry that you had to witness that. I’m usually a lot better at handling things something about you is..most unusual and took me by surprise.”
“I’ve seen weirder.” Liar. “No worries, my dude, I mean-- you’re okay now, right? That’s the important thing.” And a good thing too, the poor kid wouldn’t have known what to do even if the solution hit him square in the face. He rocked back and forth on his heels, looking over to the side with puckered lips. Well, she wouldn’t be wrong about that, but-- like-- do you just straight up... tell someone the weird bits about yourself or do you like... buy them dinner first? Cause this seemed like the type of thing you’d need to preface with something, and if he had to buy her dinner or do anything involving money, his six dollars and eighty one cents would not cover it.
But, like all things with Niko, caution was thrown to the wind, “haha, yeah, I mean, my gran’ma always tells me I light up the room,” he gave an absentminded shrug, “a little too much sometimes.” Real slick, buddy.
