#ayanesatsuki.exe

[episentre]

"Do you ever think about how our teeth are the only bones that like, grow on the outside? Like, the rest of our bones are covered by skin."

     Interesting. She won’t say it, but she has spent mornings pulling at her lips to reveal her gums and imagine what the rest of her skull would look like. The idea of continuing to peel back skin--

     “Do you think about how humans are one of the only living things who walk around with no natural protective covering?”-- well, there were elephants too who had just skin, but they had thick skin, humans didn’t have thick skin like that, “no fur, no scales, nothing, and when we do decide to wear something, it’s all about looking pretty and less about actual protection--” what was the point of her rambling? Not much, except that she may have been designing a modern suit of armor. “--Imagine if we wore the bones of our enemies over our skin!”

@insxparablxduo //

[episentre]

❝I feel like I could eat the world raw.❞ She says this to Ayane as she sinks in her seat with a deflated look on her face. Poor girl is yearning for lunch break to arrive soon.

                                              the song of Achilles

     The right thing to do would have been to empathize with Chen, but her train of thought has already been redirected towards food. “I kinda want to eat french fries. Fresh ones, not the gross soggy stuff in the cafeteria”, maybe if they planned out their break well enough, they could slip out and have lunch somewhere interesting? There was a nice cafe down the road too. It would turn out to be a little pricey, but the danger would definitely make it all worth it in the end. The look on Ayane’s face makes it clear that she has already committed to this unspoken and dastardly deed. “Just one more hour till break time...”

[episentre]

"What am I about to put in my mouth?" (For any of the three)

     “If I tell you, you wouldn’t try it!” Ayane answers, rather mischievously. She’s gotten pretty good at cooking for herself and other people, now that she’s got no one to do it for her anymore. She tries not to think about that too much, it was a mental wormhole she could never crawl out of. If she hadn’t felt orphaned before, she definitely felt it now. Today, she’s poured in some frozen left-overs from the weekend’s lasagna into noodles and spiced it up with more sauce and vegetables. All it was missing now was a healthy dunk of ice cream on top, but she spares Setsuka of that fate. “There’s no fish though, promise--”, as though her aversion to fish wasn’t already a well-known fact between the two of them. “Should I blow on it a bit so it’s cooled down enough?”     /     @resplendentice  

[episentre]

@resplendentice​ // here

     It’s a strange feeling, like she was leaving without actually leaving. A surreal sort of good bye and Ayane is not ready to let go at all. So she clamps on to Setsuka’s hand as hard as possible, which wasn’t a lot of strength from a child, but it was full effort from her end. “Where do you go when you sleep?” she asks, a little bit of panic and urgency creeping in. “Why can’t you stay and sleep here. I can watch over you--” even if she’s sick herself, days off from school piling up. “-- you wouldn’t have to leave and you could rest and get better. Isn’t it my fault you’re getting sick too?”. She doesn’t completely understand what was going on, but she could tell something was off. 

[episentre]

who grants wishes? // @resplendentice​ 

     “How do they know what we wish for?” she asks. All she knows is that she has to tell someone about her wish in order for it to happen. Then she went to school and found out you weren’t supposed to tell anyone your wish, not even your dad, and now she hasn’t been getting what she’s been wanting. “Do they listen to what we’re thinking-- all the time?”

     Most of what Setsuka is saying doesn’t register all that well. It’s a bit confusing, but she’s trying to keep up. She likes that Setsuka is taking her very seriously, it causes her to sit up a little straighter and stop swinging her legs back and forth, she wanted to be grown up and serious, even though they’re in the middle of an amusement park with kids running and music playing and people yelling. “My dad said that too. That we have to work hard and grant our own wishes. He said he’ll work hard to grant mine. But that’s not what we’re supposed to do, is it?”

[episentre]

@sunebi​ // starter 

     Nobody knows it, but her bag contains a secret. The kind of secret that wouldn’t make those weird security doors beep when she walked into the school facility. Today was the day of the yearly school trip and while she would have sat the trip out in favor of staying home, having Akako changed the game completely. They had spent days plotting it out-- even gathering a stash of treats, from crackers and peanut butter to chocolate and hard candy-- how the kitsune would end up appearing so they could escape the class and their oppressively boring rules, just like all the other kids who brought in their parents and older siblings, things she didn’t exactly have. She did, however, have a kitsune.

     Her bag carries said kitsune, curled up on top, with the zip slightly ajar so her snout could poke out whenever she liked, and that’s where she would stay until the time was just right. For now, Ayane protectively keeps her bag with her during homeroom and roll call and all the way till the class filed outside to board the bus to the theme park. Sometime now would be a good time for Akako to slip out so she could sit with Ayane on the bus!

[episentre]

@nekofantasia​ / soundpoweredbattlerobots:

If she’s being honest, she really hated science fairs.

Don’t get her wrong, it’s not like she disliked working on a project that could put her nogging working but having to choose a partner for that? That’s the tiring part. She’d rather work alone but the teacher was stubborn that she had to work with someone this year. Just as everyone was sitting down with their partners, Chen kept her head low and doodled on her notebook idly.

Then, a classmate’s voice was heard. She looked around to verify her classmate wasn’t referring to anybody else. Then she noticed that she was getting a bit too close to her liking. Chen looked away for a brief moment but went along with it.

“Um,” She stammered, she was about to protest the idea of working together but upon hearing Ayane’s idea, she couldn’t help but be curious. “Wait, robots fighting to the death? That’s...that’s actually pretty cool. You think the teach will be OK with it? Oh, I wanna solder all the stuff!”

Well, count her in. She’s down for the project!

     She is overjoyed-- most people didn’t want to pair up with her but Chen always seemed like the type of person who didn’t let the whispers get to them. Not to mention that she’s also been watching them and she likes their no-nonsense attitude.

     “Who cares about the teacher--” what was the worst he was going to do? Shut their brilliant project down? She’d like to see that happen! Ayane quickly locates her initial notes from the pile where she’s designed the basic look of the robot. It’s a fairly simple and crude looking robot: three wheels, like a tricycle, and a wedge shaped body with her planned transducer mystery on top-- a party hat for now. “I planned out really easy shapes so I could--” make them myself in case this plan failed-- “but you can make the robot designs! How many do you think we should make?”

     Another two designs are pulled out. “I made this one based on my bike, see the chains? And it hits down with the pedals, like two rotational arms, you know? And this one I made based on my dad’s car, so it’s got rims but I haven’t figured out how it would attack, maybe windshield wipers?”

     She’s running her mouth again so she quickly floors to a stop when she notices. “Oh! But you’re in charge of this, since you’ll be soldering so you should get to decide what you’re going to solder and how it’s gonna look!”

[episentre]

     “So what’s this supposed to be?” Ayane asks, still refusing to take the milkshake that Grayson had purchased for her as they sat in the corner of the cafe. It had been a while since she’s seen the detective ( years, really, time really flew when things fell apart ) and frankly, she would have turned down any and all attempts from him to reconnect. It was only based on Jaesung’s gentle advice that she’d decided to call Grayson back. 

     After all, it was a little too late for condolences of any kind. Grayson and her father might’ve been colleagues, maybe even friends, but it still didn’t change the fact that they’d both disappeared and she had found others to help lift her back up. Even if Grayson didn’t owe anything to her-- and she really doesn’t want to blame him for anything-- it was still rather unfair for her to have to deal with him like this after so long. All she can think of on seeing him are the days when she sat on their chairs and ate their donuts and giggled at jokes and talked her head off. A stark contrast to what she was now.

     “I’m really not in the mood to throw a pity party, so I’d appreciate it if we moved past that--” she continues. Perhaps the change between the little daddy’s girl she used to be to the jaded harsh adult she was now was like whiplash to the detective, so she sighs and reluctantly accepts the milkshake in an attempt to be somewhat civil. “You still in the force or what?”

     @brucene​ liked for a thing