--> @caunosfell
maki’s not much of a conversationalist. she’s never been one, ever since she was a kid. words never came easily to her; it was far more important for her to handle the younger kids than for her to express herself. and “expressing herself” was never a choice, after she was chosen.
after she volunteered herself, more like. after she chose.
but for whatever reason, shinguuji manages to yank the words out of her sorry corpse. it’s this thing they do, whenever they’re around. she knows they won’t pity her. perhaps that’s part of it. or perhaps it’s because they have the same awkward air around them that she does, and it feels... safer, to be among her own kind.
“...you misunderstand,” maki grumbles under her breath. she didn’t mean to sound like she was venting. she never vents; she simply states facts. facts such as “most of the children in the orphanage, including me, were dumped because we were no longer wanted” and “i’m only a caretaker because i had no choice in the matter, the adults do very little to help”.
the fact that this has been mistaken for some effort to relieve herself of the burden of her “tragic past” is... embarrassing.
(that’s not why she was doing it, right? she would never.)
tugging lightly on one of her twintails, maki doesn’t meet shinguuji’s eyes.
“i’m not ‘getting anything off my chest.’ this is just the way things are. that’s what i meant.” there is never an end. not for people like her and shinguuji. somehow she knows this intuitively.