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[waitingforplayer2]

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHIAKI NANAMI.

FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX

*** galagamer has joined XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX
<galagamer> This is Chiaki Nanami.
<galagamer> I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

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action, before memsoup

[riproduzione]

[ After the sun sets, Abbacchio can be found in various spots around Lake Dala — usually close to the palazzo, though not always — easy enough for anyone lurking in the depths of the lake to spot. This evening sees him straying a little further, he even sits on the shoreline, feet barely dipping in the water. He's been there for a solid thirty minutes, expression distant as he gazes off into nothing and makes his way through entirely too many cigarettes. He'd at least brought a glass ashtray out with him. Abruptly, he stands and stretches, leaves his jacket on the floor where he'd been sitting and takes paces. Behind him, his tail sways, flicks back and forth.

This isn't the first time he's done this, he did the same the previous evening too, and the night before. This routine is new, the pacing, the contemplative frowning at the water as he idly attempts, and fails, to skip rocks against the surface. Something is clearly eating at him. Muttering under his breath, he drops back down onto the ground with a heavy thud, takes out another cigarette and holds it between his lips as he flicks his lighter, grumbling when the flint spins, and spins, produces nothing, and is then promptly and thoughtlessly thrown into the water. ]

… shit.

[waitingforplayer2]

[ Nanami notices him, from down below. The lake is not huge - well, it feels smaller than it used to, with how much larger she's expanded, in this mer form. She's taken to coast travels, on days when she has the time, to get better exercise with her tail. But on days like today, when she really doesn't want to spend too much time away from land, she does some slow laps of the lake itself, checking her coin hiding spots from where she left them the previous May.

On her third lap, he's still there. And there's a bit of debris in the lake now - not that the lake is the cleanest body of water. But she pushes up towards the surface, to check it out.

From above, the whale shark mer's dorsal fins breach the water first, followed by Nanami's curious face, peering up at him. Her fin-hand catches the debris - ah. One of his cigarettes. She balls it up in her fist, and looks up at him. ]

Abbacchio-kun. What's wrong?

[riproduzione]

[ Nanami pops up out of the water, calls out to him and startles him enough that his back goes straight. A quiet curse slips breathlessly from his lips. Being caught out here has heat rising to his cheeks, and he averts his gaze off to the side. He's sure Nanami knows him well enough by now that she can read into these odd moods he gets, when he's quiet and overthinking. Of course, she's able to pinpoint that something about him is off. ]

Nothing is wrong.

[ Which, is technically true, there isn't anything particularly wrong. He also knows that that isn't what Nanami is asking. He sighs, heavily, shoulders slowly relaxing. Times like this, he wishes he could sink into the water instead, that had helped last summer, to turn off his brain and just float around in the lake. He supposes he could fly, but it still requires some thought, and then he'd likely end up thinking about the last thing that happened when he decided to fly. ]

I'm just thinking… I think I might have the wrong idea about something.

[waitingforplayer2]

Something's wrong.

[ She corrects him easily - because it's easy to tell that something's bothering him. Whether or not anyone else could, Nanami can, and she has a discarded cigarette butt in her fin-hand to prove it. ]

The wrong idea-- about what?

[riproduzione]

[ He almost rolls his eyes at how easy she corrects him, because she's right, of course, in a way. Instead, he just huffs a little, a plume of smoke coming from his mouth, which is odd seeing as how he's not actually smoking. He holds his hand out towards her, curls his fingers in, gestures for her to hand him the cigarette butt. ]

It's stupid. [ Because it makes him feel like he's thirteen again. It's embarrassing. It's nothing more than some miscommunication somewhere. He doesn't want to talk about it, not with anyone. But, if he were to talk about it with someone, he supposes there are worse options than Nanami. Trish would probably poke fun at him, he doubts Fugo would want to hear about it at all, and he doesn't think he could stand the thought of talking to Giorno about it. ] Have you ever… been confused. By how someone makes you feel.

[waitingforplayer2]

[ If he was any other creature but a gargoyle, it might be odd. But with a gargoyle roommate and gargoyle friends, Nanami's become used to this sort of display.

The question makes Nanami pause, and she has to think it over. ]

I suppose so... [ Emotions are hard for her to pick out and understand, sometimes. She kind of just does her best and muddles through them. Nanami looks up at him curiously. ]

What confuses you about it?

[riproduzione]

[ He rolls his shoulders, not a shrug, but something different. As though if he rolls them hard enough, this strange weight he's been carrying around will slip right off of them. ]

I don't know. [ a scoff, and for once he truly looks his age. ] They say things, sometimes, and they make me think that maybe something else is there… something more. But then I remember that they're like that with everyone, I'm not special or different, but the attention still makes me act as though I'm a teenager with some kind of crush.

[ The word is said with such disdain, that it's almost surprising a plume of smoke doesn't accompany that, too. He's a grown man, why on earth would he have a crush. He's never had time for that sort of thing, never been interested. The pause gives him a chance to glance up at the sky, before he turns back to Nanami and adds; ] Which, I don't, by the way. That's why I'm confused.