What's your favorite thing about Machi?
Yuki could practically feel her dissatisfied glower burning into him at the very question. She was unorthodox, completely her own. Any other female of their age group and occupation would swoon at the concept of him divulging any sort of compliment upon them. The treasurer, of course, was different. She had always been different.
The flick of her mousy hair, and the trail of stray ends that trimmed across her shoulders. Eyes that connected and faltered, traced stories of all their own in a space claimed by countless others. Machi, somehow, had always seemed to exist on another plain of reality which hadn’t really come to their humanity yet. Yet.
Then, she was fire. She was wild, she was destructive, she hated, consumed, manipulated, and for what? For the pain that pierced her sheltered heart so. Would he see? Would he ever sneak more than the seldom glance? He feared not. He feared for so much, and so did she.
A fist curled against his lips as to hide his smile, a light cough faked to subdue his blush. One thing? Just one thing? “I couldn’t name a single thing — Anything that sentimental would come across as boring to her.” Fondness ignited the corners of his mouth, “Ms. Kuragi is unconventional. She looks at everything her own way, even myself… It’s so tiresome to be perceived as something more special than I am. She doesn’t do that. She accepts me for who I am, and is herself in return.”
More thought was needed as to not allow his voice to stray. Though he hadn’t done it before, the rat could speak for hours on his associate, it just seemed — wrong. Everything about him was wrong. Why force such pressure onto her?
A slender finger tapped his chin, “If it’s one thing you’re after, I’d have to go with… Just how genuine she is. The people I surround myself with, they have redeeming qualities of their own, but no one is so honest, and so real as she is.” Damn it all, vermillion had begun to heat is cheeks. “That is probably what I like most of all.”
