Immediately, it must be obvious to anyone even passingly familiar with Natori that the shrinking facsimile before them is not the real one. Certainly not without his meek moments, most would never describe him as an aggressive cat, but this particular cringing, cowering timidity is uncharacteristic of him as well.
Still he manages a weak smile, one that is at least a vague approximation of his usual earnestness. The real Natori would offer one such smile and an amiable, if nervous, laugh, perhaps go so far as to leave his unfamiliar conversation partner with a noncommittal “Don’t we all?” in reply before hastily changing the subject. But this is not the real Natori.
Instead, his trembling smile crumples completely, and he drops his head in order to hide his face against his too-long sleeves.
“...have I wasted my devotion..?” It’s muffled but intelligible enough, and overwhelmingly frail, small. “All this time, have I bound myself to someone who doesn’t appreciate it? Who could never appreciate it? ...who doesn’t deserve it..?” Is whispered fitfully at the end, like an interrupted sob.
It was a rather warm day, the sun was shining brightly, with a gentle breeze carrying the faint scent of flowers was blowing through the park, and Milo sighed contentedly as he looked upwards at the clouds.
Since there was no school today, he had decided to go to the park to sit down on the untrimmed grass to pass his time. The park was rather large, but didn’t have a playground for children, so it merely contained many trees and small flower gardens near the middle, with sidewalks placed all around the park in spirals. It really was a fancy park, and Milo had to admit that it was nice.
His favorite part about the park was the fact that it has a small pond with koi near the middle of the park, and that it was just generally soothing to look at the spotted fishes swim around calmly. He would go to the pond to watch the fishes, but he just wanted to stay in place and bask in the sun.
Cody wasn’t able to follow him to the park, he was too sick. More specifically, he’d gotten chickenpox, and Milo definitely couldn’t get close to him or else he’d get sick too. Well, he’d willingly go to Cody’s room to play games with him, but Cody’s dad wouldn’t let him anywhere near the room, so he was just alone. Though, he didn’t mind being alone for once, he did miss Cody, but he liked the quiet setting of the park. The chirping of the birds, and the faint sound of conversations were enough to distract him.
When he had closed his eyes for a few minutes in an attempt to take a quick nap, he heard a familiar, quiet voice with a slight accent.
“I’ve never seen you come here before.”
Milo opened his eyes and turned his head around and looked upwards at a familiar face. He didn’t exactly ask for the kid’s name, so he had no idea what their name was, but the kid’s appearance was rather peculiar, so Milo was easily able to recognize them.
They wore a baggy, orange turtleneck sweater, and long boots. They had also stuck a large petunia onto their hair, and just had a very warm color scheme in general, so they really stuck out from the green park setting.
“Oh, it’s you,” Milo replied tiredly, “Ummm.. Charlie, was it?”
“No, that’s not my name.”
“Right, sorry. I forgot to ask for your name anyway,” Milo only knew this kid because they had gotten themselves in detention by snapping at a teacher, whereas Milo had attempted to bite one of his classmates, so he was in the same room for detention. He had asked the kid if they wanted to help Milo find a way to distract the teacher so they could both escape from detention, and though they meekly denied the offer, Milo kept asking them if they wanted to do it, and the kid eventually caved in and helped him. And so, the two had successfully distracted the teacher by breaking a window with a book, and running out of the room while the teacher rushed up to the window to see if she could find the culprits who had broken her window. As Cody was out of town (on a road trip to another town), he didn’t have anyone else to interact with, so he decided that this kid would be a good acquaintance to have, since the kid seemed nice enough to approach. They spent a few days walking around the school quietly, and had literally never asked for each others names.
“Sooo, then, what’s your name?” Milo continued.
“Robin. What about yours? You never told me yours.”
“The name’s Milo!”
“Niiiice,” He sat down next to Milo, looking at the nearby flowers quietly, “Where’s your friend?”
“Cody’s sick,” He sighed. This was the first full conversation he had ever had with this kid, and the kid seemed a bit too awkward to continue a conversation, “He should be feeling much better in a few days though.”
Robin spent a minute or two thinking about how to reply, or he was either somehow too distracted to speak much, “.. I’m sorry to hear that he’s sick, does he just have the flu?”
“No, chickenpox.”
“Ah,” Robin reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flower, offering it to Milo.
“Hm?” He looked at the flower, hesitantly taking it and looking at the dull pink coloration with a reddened tint at the edge off the petals, “For me?”
“Yeah, it’s a coneflower. They’re reeeeeeally pretty, I love ‘em,” He smiled happily, “Flowers are really nice..”
“I guess, though I prefer sharks an’ fishes,” Milo smiled back, “The ocean has a bunch o’ cool things in it, like anglerfish and triggerfish and thresher sharks, there’s so many cool species there, and I bet there’s even more species of sharks that haven’t been discovered yet.”
“Sharks are cool, but I prefer lionfish.”
“Why? Sharks are much cooler!”
“Because lionfish are cute! I like their lil’ spines, they look cool,” Robin pulled out a daisy from his pocket and started picking at its petals, “.. I don’t know much about sharks, so I don’t really know about why they’re cool, other than how cool they look.”
“Oh, then allow me to tell you about mako sharks! The shortfin mako’s the fastest shark, and they sometimes jump into boats!”
“That’s cool, do they attack people?”
“Sharks don’t attack anyone as long as they aren’t bothered,” Milo dismissed, “Makos usually live far away from any coasts, so there’s not much of a chance of them attacking people at all.”
“Heh, you sure do know a about sharks.”
“I suuuure do,” He chuckled, “Sharks are a huge interest of mine, I love ‘em.”
“Well, I guess I just like nature in general, so I love sharks too.”
They spent the next hour or so speaking about sharks, with Milo educating a clueless Robin on different shark species, such as goblin sharks and hammerheads. Robin wasn’t very educated on species found in the ocean, but was fully willing to listen to Milo go on a long speech about many, many sea animals, and Robin made a small flower crown for both himself and Milo.
It ended out to be a very calm day, full of calm conversations, and Milo liked that.
kyra !! your ability to capture the motivations of your characters is incredible, & i adore how much care you put into them. your interpretation of victor would make mary shelley proud & i hope that you wake up every morning knowing it !!!!!
