"Okay, did you get all that?" Exusiai says, finally finishing her not so brief explanation of the arrangement of the deck of poker cards to him.
"Yeah, I think I got everything" He says back while quickly shuffling and going through some of the cards on the table and recalling which came after which to make sure he absolutely understood and remembered everything that she explained.
"Well, let's play now!" She exclaimed excitedly as her hands swiftly picked up all the cards on the table onto the palm of her hand in one sweeping motion. This impressed Ghost, as his eyes widened a little in admiration. Noticing this, she couldn't help but make a smug face and raised her eyebrows in a boasting manner, before smoothly shuffling the deck of cards without hardly even a stutter in her hands' movements.
"You're really good at this! That's cool."
"Heh, the amount of time I've went out partying has prepared me for this very moment," She said as she then flicked the cards one by one from her palm onto the table, quickly distributing the cards evenly amongst them with still a smug look on her face,
"Heheh, how was that? Cool, right?"
"Well, it's cool, I guess, but..." With a sly voice he said to her as he lifted a couple of the cards on the table in front of him and pointed out that the some of the cards' edges were a little rugged now,
"...Well, everyone makes mistakes, don't they? Y'know let's just get the game going." She quickly swept her small mistake under the rug and finally starts the game by picking up one card from her deck and putting it face down in the middle of the table,
"Come on, take one card and put it here. Remember, the card with the lowest value loses!" She said, staring straight into his face with another smug face. She was probably going for a look to put him off his game, but he was only visibly confused by her doing so. Nevertheless, he slowly took a card out from his deck and put it right in front of hers facing downwards,
In a swift motion, she immediately flipped both of the cards the very moment he lifted his fingers from his. She took a quick glance and a deviant smile quickly surfaced on her face, as she slowly looked up to his face.
"You lost~"
"...There's statistically only a 50/50 way to win or lose in this game. I don't think that's really something to be that proud of.."
"Come on, act a little more upset! You're kinda spoiling the mood here a little."For a moment, he looked at her, contemplating. Before suddenly slamming the table,
"DAMMMMNN YOU!" He shouted in accordance to his slamming hand, in a voice that sounded painfully forced. He then awkwardly looked at her.
"Is that how I should be reacting? I saw Blaze slamming the table the other day when she was playing cards with some other operators, I thought that'd be a good example to follow." She looked back at him with a clear baffled expression.
"...Yeah, I think she was playing something else entirely there, not this game. Anyways, now choose, Truth or Dare?"
"....Truth....?" He said without much thinking,
"Ohoh...truth, eh?" She then kneaded her chin, considering which out of the endless possibilities of questions she could ask him right now. She then seemed to have got an idea, as she suddenly perked up and looked at him,
"Hey, do you really think I look....Beautiful," She asked him, her face filled with anticipation,
"...What brought this up?"
"Hey, you remember when we first met?"
"Yeah, I do. We met when you were fighting thugs."
"You remember how suddenly you just blurted I looked...beautiful?"
He only nodded to her,
"...Did...you really mean it? I-I just want to make sure I wasn't getting ahead of myself, that's all." She said with a slight stutter, averting her own gaze away from him.
"Yeah."
Her face lightened up a little hearing him, but..
"I think everyone's beautiful." He added to himself. Her face immediately fell greater than the economy of the great depression. She felt like shoving all the cards in her hand straight down his good for nothing throat. But then she realized that this is just how this idiot was. Just a kid, really.
"Well, time for the second-"
"But everyone's special with their own beauty."
"...?" A curious sound came from her,
"Like, I really like your red hair"
"....Hmph, Surtr has red hair too. Doesn't exactly make me special" She responded with still a hint of disappointment to what he'd said before. She put her elbow on the table and supported her displeased head as she turned it away from him,
"But your smile, it's yours only. I really like to look at your cheerful smile."
Her face turned a faint red when she heard him say that. Her frown had slowly turned upside down. Now with a grin present on her face ,she looked at him and jokingly bantered,
"Oh, so you've been looking at me all this time, huh?"
"I have. And I've seen that you don't frown a lot, even when bad things happen to you. I admire that about you. I think that's what makes you beautiful in your own unique way."
She vacantly looked at him as his words were processed within her mind, which only made her already red face grow even redder,
"What's wrong?
"Ah! N-nothing's wrong! A-anyways, take another card, it's time for round 2!" She said in a bit of a klutz as she frantically took out one of her cards and swiftly laid it on the table, before covering part of her face using the cards in her hand as a small shield over her mouth and nose. Ghost looked visibly puzzled as to why she was all of a sudden acting like that. But seeing as she already said there was nothing wrong, he drew a card from his hand and laid it on the table with hers.
The cards were flipped, and once again Exusiai's cards outvalued his. In contrast to how she was acting just before, she suddenly jumped out from her small face cover and pointed at him with a triumphant look. Ghost only scoffed at her gesture.
"Hah, I win! Now choose, truth....or dare?"
"Since I've done truth, I guess I'll take dare this time."
"Hmm..."
As she took her sweet time thinking, Ghost looked at her. She's already behaving like normal, like what happened mere moments before never did even happen. So carefree. To him, somehow this was a good thing about her. Unlike himself, who he never thought of as someone good at letting things go.
"Hah! I know, take off your mask, right here and now!"
Caught in his trance, the sudden request ultimately surprised him to the point he even jumped thanks to it.
"W-what?! You can even ask for things like that!?"
"Of course! You gave me the dare option. I now hold the power to command you to do ANYTHING that I want!" Her taunting line was followed by nefarious laughter. Ghost, powerless, could only look in horror,
"Now! Open it!" She ushered him, inching closely every time she said it,
"...B-but, I don't like people looking at my face...." He said, trying to put up any resistance he could against this angel he thought to have turned demon at this point,
"Oh, don't worry about that, I've seen your face before."
"....W-when...?" A small gasp escaped his mouth, clearly surprised at her sudden nonchalant confession out of the blue,
"When you slept on my lap all that time ago. Think of it as payment for sleeping on me. And crying" With no more hope that he could turn this around, he contemplates her order before eventually letting out a hopelessly surrendered sigh.
He reluctantly moves his hand and undoes the tight knot of his mask that had always covered a portion of his face. As the skull decorated cloth lets go of his head, his face came into full view of her. She smiled at him, but he only averted his gaze from her, his expression of clear shy,
"Hey, don't look away from me! I told you to open your mask so I could look at it. How am I gonna look at it if you don't look at me?"
With reluctance, he had no choice but to comply. Slowly, he turned his head towards her.
"That's better. You don't look bad at all, you're actually pretty good looking!"
Hearing her compliment, Ghost smiled a glad small smile. This is the first time she's seen his actual mouth smile, and not just the wrinkles that formed on his mask.
It made her heart skip a beat
"You have a nice smile, too. I like it. You should keep your mask off, I want everyone to see it." She says with a cheerful smile of her own. Ghost only smiles off her good intentions,
"...no, I wouldn't like that..." He timidly mutters an objection to her, before taking the fallen cloth and putting it back on his face, or at least he tried to,
"Nope, stop! Okay, I won't force you to not wear it anymore, but just for tonight, I want you to try not wearing it."
He seemed conflicted at her selfish demand,
"Please...?"
"...Fine." Once again, he gives in. He didn't have the heart to reject her, he'd feel bad if he did. He neatly folds the mask and puts it aside on the desk.
"....wait....do you smoke...?"
"What? No, I don't smoke. It's bad for health."
"...I see....that was a weird question to ask, sorry. Just thought that I saw some sort of smoke coming from your mouth."
"..."
"Anyways, time for another round!" And so they drew cards again, and finally for the first time, the other person won.
"Dang, I finally lost....hmm...I'll choose dare." She said, feeling a little risky. She wanted to test just how far this Ghost would go when offered with the chance to do 'anything' to her, or tell her to do just about anything for him.
After some thinking, he finally says his request,
"...take off that band-aid on your forehead" But this only prompted a puzzled reaction from her,
"....Just that...?"
"...yeah...?" He replied a little wondering himself, thinking there was nothing wrong with what he asked, is there?
"Y'know, now is the time for you to ask others to do things they normally wouldn't do. That's, like, the purpose of this game. Are you sure you're just going to ask for this? And why do you even want me to do that?"
"...I-I'm just worried if there's a scar or anything. That'd be bad for your face. I'd heard girl's faces are rather delicate" He said as he looked away and awkwardly scratched his head, embarrassed by his own doing. A stifle of a smile surfaced on her face, humored.
"You idiot, even if I peeled it off now, the dried wound would still be there. I appreciate the thought, though" She said with a small laugh.
"You're right...then....." He suddenly took a sharp piercing glance at her. Exusiai noticed this and felt slightly put off by it,
"W-what is it?" She asked him, nervous as to what he was thinking
"I want you to hug me." He blurted with a straight face. With that sudden request, the tables were immediately turned on its head, and now she was the one starting to feel embarrassed,
"W-what brought this on?" She asked in a startled stutter. Even though she was kind of expecting for something like this to happen when she chose dare, she was still surprised about it.
"...Y-you said I could ask you to do anything!" He started to talk with his own stutter. Obviously it appears that she wasn't the only one embarrassed by this.
"I-I know I said that...but..uhh....You can change your decision! I change to truth!" She said in a frantic, trying to avoid his dare however way she could,
"You didn't tell me about that before! You're cheating!" They were beginning to argue with each other, like kids making up the rules of a game as they played it for their own convenience.
But after a heated exchange, Ghost finally stopped arguing, and sat back down. His face started to turn into a face of slight guilt,
".....I'm sorry for asking such a thing of you...I should've considered your feelings, even if this is just a game..."
Looking at him making such face didn't really make her feel better, in fact it made her feel kind of bad. She DID force him to open his mask without much consideration for his own feelings just mere moments before.
"...Oh, I know, I dare you-" Ghost tried to say something to bring back life to the awkward atmosphere, but his words stuck in his throat as all of a sudden, he felt something warm pressing on his back, like a warm blanket slowly enveloping him. A pair of slender arms slowly wrapped around his torso.
"L-like this?" A meek voice came from behind him. He only nodded in response. For a while, they remained interlocked in the position, both silent as they only felt each other's warmth. Until all of a sudden, his hand slowly moved and clutched hers tightly. She could weirdly feel the sensation of his hand shaking.
"....I'm afraid of hugs..." He let out a small whisper of a confession .
"...why..?"
"The warmth really makes a hug feel good.....but I'm afraid that this warmth....is slowly going to fade away....and all that's left is just the lonely cold." As he said that, his mind recalls the time when he hugged dearly his late comrade, only to slowly feel whatever warmth left of his dead body fading away from him with every passing second.
A gentle smile formed on her face,
"...I'm not scared about things like that. I know you're always there. You'll keep the warmth from fading away, won't you? And everyone else in Rhodes Island, I'm sure they'll all do that too. In fact, you've saved my warmth. The warmth you're feeling right now, it's thanks to you. So don't worry about things that haven't happened, and instead, savor every moment in the present. I live like that, and I'm happy. I think you'd be too."
With her words, she managed to bring about a small smile to his depressed face.
"...thanks for always talking to me when I'm like this. You just know what to say, don't you?"
"Heh, I may have blown up my school once, but I still learned a lot in it. I think literature was one of my strong points." His smile swiftly disappeared and was replaced by a shocked gaping mouth with wrinkled eyebrows,
"You blew up your school?!-"
"Okay! Hug time's over! Let's get on with the next round!"
She then immediately let go of him and returned to her seat, effectively dismissing what she said as well. He decides to let that small fact slip aside for now. The two then drew cards after cards, the victor often exchanging between the two,
Sometimes, it'd be Exusiai's win,
"...Truth."
"Okay, then....hmm...what things do you like the most?"
"What do I the like most? I'll have to say...pictures."
"...I...would've been surprised by it, if you haven't already taken hundreds of it today. Say, why do you like pictures?"
"Well, a picture contains a thousand words,don't they? And to me, they're also small papers that carries memories within them so you can look at them and relive the moments you've caught in them anywhere and anytime. It helps keep happy memories alive."
"Huh, I wasn't expecting such a deep answer, especially from you."
"That's rude."
"Hey, does this mean you like pictures more than guns now?"
"Well, those are two completely different things. But if it comes down to it, I'll have to say yes. Nowadays, I often find myself spending more and more time with Scene because she's nice enough to teach me how to take pictures properly and give me tips and all that."
"...I see, so you're spending more time with other girls than me, huh...."
"...???"
Sometimes, it'd be Ghost's win,
"Okay, then, I lost. I guess I'll choose truth, too"
"Hmm...I know."
"What is it?"
"Tell me your apple pie recipe"
"...why...would you want that?"
"I mentioned I wanted to beat you at your own game, didn't I?"
"Ohoh, so you want to beat me, the apple pie master? Well, go ahead then! I'm looking forward to it."
"Heh, you better be!"
But alas, everything must come to an end, and they reached this realization as they inevitably only had one remaining card in their respective hands.
"Guess this is the last round then." Exusiai says, looking at the last card in her hand.
"Yeah. It's also getting a bit late, so let's wrap this up." He says as his eyes catches the clock's long arm reaching 12, indicating that they've already reached midnight of a very long day. The two laid down their last cards, and flipped them.
"Heheh, I won." Exusiai gleefully says with a grin after yet another win for her. Ghost only nodded in acknowledgement and raised his hand in a celebratory gesture for her. He was already looking quite tired and just wanted the game to end already.
"...uuuuuuh I'll just choose truth for this last round."
"Truth...hm..." She was frankly running out of questions to ask. As her mind pondered for a few minutes, thinking of what else she wanted to find out about him. Besides, it was really her masterplan all along to play this game just because she wanted for them to get to know each other better, so she had to carefully choose what questions to ask him.
She then remembered something just from a couple of moments ago.
"Hey, about those scars earlier. Care...to talk about it?" She asked in a slow and careful tone, since she knew that he was uncomfortable with the question itself. But she was still curious, though. But his face changed the moment she asked that,
"...I...don't want to talk about it.....I-I'll change it, I'll do dare instead." He said, his head clearly trying to avoid even a mere glance at her. It didn't look like he was shy or scared to talk about it, it looked more like...he'd feel sad if he talked about it.
Hearing that, Exusiai couldn't help but pout a little. How is it that he can change it when he wants? Well, it was her that tried to do it first, but still she was quite pissed about it. She wanted to know more about him, and here he was blatantly denying her attempt to do so.
She put on her all too usual frowning face and crossed her hands,
"*sigh* Be like that, then. Since you insist on changing, I dare you to do anything that'll make me happy. Happy enough that I'll forget about that scar of yours that you're being oh so secretive about." She said to him in a condescending tone with eyes looking at him full of slack.
"How do I do that?"
"Hmph, don't ask me. It's your job to figure it out."
...His spent mind thought, what would make her happy? What would make a girl happy? He tried thinking, but there wasn't much to think of, really. He didn't really know how emotions worked, nor has he read anything about it. There were a lot of books about history and Arts on the landship's massive library, but there weren't much about the female psychology. Especially ones about these things.
But after a couple of moments of only silence filled thinking, he suddenly stopped and stood up, before making his way over to her. She only eyed him as he now stood before her, saying in a flat mocking tone,
"What, have no idea?"
He didn't question nor answer her with words, instead his actions did his talking as he suddenly leaned in and lifted her up from the ground. Bridal carry style, yo.
"W-Woi! What're you doing?" She asked in a panic as she fretted over how the situation was suddenly developing, her arms grasping around his neck as she tried to support herself from falling out of his hold.
He started to walk, but she wouldn't know where they were headed as she had her eyes fixated on him. She was starting to feel bad. He was supposed to rest and she wanted to care for him, yet here he was carrying her around. And the thing she felt bad about the most was that she kind of didn't want this to end.
After some time, he suddenly came to a halt.
"look at that." He said, nodding his head in the direction he wanted her to redirect her gaze to.
She turned her head away and looked. In front of her was the large open window of the room, and as she looked out of it, the view of the city in the dark midnight came into her sight. The dark night, contrasted by the many bright and colorful lights of the bustling city before them was something she'd always seen before. Her working shifts were always random as it was often adjusted to suit when the goods were ordered for delivery, and night shifts were only inevitable.
But somehow, just for tonight, she thought that this view was really pretty. Otherworldly, even. The two looked onto the night covered city, both only admiring the scene as no words were uttered amongst them. Only feelings were conveyed throughout the silence of the two.
"...So, who did you learn this from?" She abruptly said, interrupting the neat silence that enveloped them. She'd started to feel a little weird about her own mix of emotions in this situation. She just wanted a topic to talk to distract herself from this feeling.
"...what?"
"Y'know, you were always going 'I learned this from that someone,' 'I looked at that girl' whenever you did something that really seemed out of character for you. So who did you copy this move from?" She asked, sounding a little annoyed. To her, the fact that he's been copying other people a lot means that most of his actions tonight weren't even from his own original conscience. He was probably forcing himself, she thought.
"Well, it's kind of true I've been doing a lot of things that probably seemed...weird for me to do. But I'm not copying. I was the one who asked them to teach me, to help me with how to fit in more normally. You said it yourself, it's fine to ask to help from others, right? I'm just applying what I've learned to be a better person around you. A person that you'd enjoy the company of, just as how I enjoy your company around me."
"....huh..?" She was starstrucked. She didn't expect him to have had such a reason.
"Oh, and this is something I thought of myself, actually. I thought you'd be happy if you could enjoy a beautiful view and relax at the same time. I would pull the bed here, but that's too heavy, and I'm tired. So I just carried you instead."
"Why...? You're tired....and you're supposed to be the one I'm taking care of...."
"Well then, you've worked hard today taking care of me, so it's only fair you get to relax too. It wouldn't feel right if I was the only one being taken care of"
She couldn't help but smile at him, bashfully hiding her face from him. Maybe he wasn't so shallow after all.
"Fine, I'll take you up on this offer, then." She then redirected her own gaze, aligning with his. A gaze at the scenic view of the brightly lit city shrouded in the cover of the darkness, with the moonlight shining upon it. She whispers slowly,
"This is nice. Thank you..."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They've been stood there looking out of the window for some time now. He looks at the time. It's already past 1 o'clock in the morning. He then looked at the person in his arms, her sights still intently directed out the window, before shaking her body a little as to catch her attention,
"Hey, it's already this late. You should really go home already." He said in a sleepy, yet concerned voice. She didn't answer.
"..." He felt like something was off. He slowly peeked his head over her body. Her eyes was closed, her mouth was hanging ajar. A trail of drool could slowly be seen dripping from it. She looked unladylike, to say the least.
"...Don't tell me..." He had a suspicion, and that suspicion was confirmed by a loud snore that abruptly came from the seemingly lifeless body in his arm.
"...She's asleep. Of course." His face looked a little conflicted. He took a closer look at her. She looked very peaceful in her sleep. He didn't have the heart to wake her up now. After some hard thinking, he let out a small sigh followed by a small smirk forming on his face.
He went over to the single master bed in the room, and gently laid the angel down, neatly covering her with the thick soft blanket of the bed. After doing so, he vacantly looked up to the ceiling.
"...My arm's killing me..."