‘That’s what I was saying!’ is what Aether wants to shout in vindication- but even before he says it, he already knows that dragging up old dirty laundry isn’t going to clean up the mess he already made. So he swallows it down and shakes his head.
“Hah. Maybe. But I’m the one who said it this time, so just let me do this, alright?” There. That was suitably non-confrontational. The Traveler shoves his hands in his pockets and nods his head towards a darker section of the docks. “Come on, there’s less people over there.”
It’s a short walk that feels much longer than it ought to, the tense silence stretching between them awkwardly. Aether keeps his eyes trained straight ahead, his ears piqued to the sound of Minori’s distinctive tread following behind him.
“…I did want to invite you out, you know. Nahida didn’t put me up to it or anything,” is the first thing he says once he feels like they’ve gotten far enough out of the way. He folds his arms over the railing, peering up at the lanterns filling the night sky. “I thought it’d be… I don’t know, fun. But I guess things don’t always turn out the way you plan.”
As much as he’d like to blame that all on Minori, it does technically take two. Maybe their personalities are just too incompatible. He forces out a strained sigh before finally just ripping off the band-aid.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry, alright? I shouldn’t have gone that far just because I was irritated- it was uncalled for.”
In the time it takes to find a quiet, secluded area, it becomes easier to see how stupid this all is.
The mounting tension seems to finally burst and dissipate once the traveler finishes speaking.
It’s hard to figure out where he stands when it feels like he’s lived every chapter of his life more than once. With Aether, at least, it’s easier to keep his head on straight. Remember the world as it was between the two of them before he irrevocably changed it.
This doesn’t mean anything between them, though. They’re just connected in a way that even fate can no longer explain.
Minori lets the words sit in the silence that stretches between them. Just because he can, really. Then he starts to laugh. Not necessarily a mean or nasty rude little laugh like Aether might be used to. “You’re so dramatic.” He says with a shake of his head, the ornaments of his hat accenting his laughter like windchimes that accompany a breeze.
Of course he knows he’s being hypocritical, but he likes that look on the blonde’s face- that frustrated embarrassment. It’s Minori’s favorite, really, but he won’t admit to that. Mainly because saying so would implicate that he’s ranked several of the traveler’s expressions enough to denominate them.
The puppet leans forward, propping his arms against the red-painted railing. “No one’s apologized to me in a long time.” He means to say it like a fact, but it comes out a little softer than originally intended. In this version of the world, he’s spent more times apologizing to others. And in the previous life, maybe not at all.
He should be angry, maybe. Really rub the salt into the wound. Make Aether grovel a bit more. But these days it feels like he has such little tolerance for holding onto stupid grudges that all that effort really seems like more of a waste than it would be to just... move on.
“I suppose I’ll have to accept your apology. Since you went through all that effort in the first place.” He says with an air of nonchalance, keeping his eyes cast out to the harbor where the ocean seems less like water and more like a sea of lanterns reflected on its surface like a thousand fireflies floating away into the darkness. “And since you apologized, I’ll... admit that I knew what I was getting into, pressing your sensitive little buttons like that.”
“For the record,” Minori’s ever-shifting eyes slide over to settle upon the other. “I was having fun. Before all this.” He holds Aether’s gaze there, expression demure and amused all at once- as if to prompt him with a, ‘Weren’t you having fun too?’
