Quiet Me [/whooptie doo how about the angst woo-- I mean what ]
Shintaro was acting weird.
He’d been grumpy all day- well, okay, he was like that all the time, but it was worse today- and had been taking longer to respond to her pestering than normal. He usually came up with comebacks and insults in a flash, but now the pauses were frequent and long, and it was starting to annoy her. He wasn’t even listening to her now, was he?
"What’s your problem, friend?” Ene sighed, leaning back onto her chair with a roll of her eyes. “Spit it out- ah?”
There was a shaky breath on the other side of the call, and Ene couldn’t control the way her stomach twisted at the sound. He didn’t respond to her at all, but she could hear quiet sobbing. Ah, shit. If there was a surefire way to make someone feel bad, he definitely found it. He probably didn’t even realize that he’d never exited out, did he? He probably would have meant to, because there was no way in hell he’d let her listen to him.
"…Master?" The word tasted bitter in her mouth, two syllables tripping over themselves. It didn’t feel right. It felt foreign, ugly coming from her right now.
"O-oi, Shintaro, are you…” she paused, staring down at her hands. What were the chances that he’d feel worse if she said something, against needing her to talk to him? 70/30? She didn’t know what he was upset about, but this was Shintaro Kisaragi. The kid just… didn’t cry, and it felt like there was an upset in the universe if he did. Was today important? The 22nd?
But she couldn’t just… leave him like this, could she? She had to take her chances with the thirty percent. “Hey, Shintaro,” she said, her voice quiet. She wanted to back out, she wanted to pretend that this had never happened, but she forced out a voice that didn’t splinter. “Shintaro, listen to me.”
There was an abrupt silence on the other side, but looking at her screen, he hadn’t logged out. She waited for a lashing out that never came. That was encouraging, but…
"What’s going on? Here, let’s switch to video chat, hold on-"
“No." His voice sounded strained. Was he embarrassed? Okay, yeah, she could see that. She would be, too.
"It’s okay,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Do you seriously think I’m going to ditch you or something? You’ve sent me the weirdest files on accident, and you think I’m gonna judge you now?” She preferred to ignore the fact that that would have been perfectly valid to think. The kid was obnoxious and she loved to torment him, sure, but right now she felt an awkward desire to hug him more than anything. God damn computer screens.
She sighed, but smiled all the same.