2019-07-07 - The Pink-Blue Blues
| The Pink-Blue Blues | |
|---|---|
| Summary: Kozue and Utena meet up for the first time in the new world. | |
| Who: | |
| Where: A stylish diner, but not too stylish. | |
| OOC - IC Date: 7/10/2019 - 06-14-2015 | |
<Pose Tracker> Utena Tenjou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
> Kozue
> Kozue it's me
> Kozue I know ur alive
> and i'm really happy ur alive
> and...
> yeah
> can we meet up somewhere?
> food or whatever. i'm buying.
It's not quite summer vacation yet, and once it is we can address the question of whether or not Utena even owns clothes that aren't her uniform. But for the time being she looks the same as ever. At least she can't be freezing, as people sometimes expect in cooler weather. Her long bare legs are a little mudspeckled from a trip across town beneath a heavy rain, but not goosebumped in the least. The air is almost luxuriously cloying, like a fancy comforter. Warm. Pregnant with even more rain, though it's finally stopped for the moment.
She's managed to score a booth in the back corner of the diner, which is a cool little place in a kitchy way, if you like Western food but want to do better than WcDonald's. The servers wear roller skates, though it's too cramped for anyone to get up to much speed.
The walls are covered in knockoff Japanamericana, which is to say, that could be a real album cover framed behind her, but the way it says FUN SAND DREAM is a little too broken to be quite... right. The floors are black and white tile, though, both of course and at least. The tables are red linolium.
The menus aren't here yet.
Crossing her legs at the ankle, drumming her fingers on the table -- SOME part of her has to always be in motion -- she waits. If her breath is a little bated, well. Kozue deserves it. And blue is her signature color.
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
>who told?
>besides every magazine this month with a fashion spread
>well since i cant ambush you out of the blue
>sure
It isn't vacation yet but that's hardly relevant to the Kaoru family's wayward daughter. After all, she was expelled from Ohtori. She has no homework, and a budding career as a model. The bells of the cafe jangle as she pushes open the door, a hand lifting up to her face to remove a pair of sunglasses.
She's wearing a halter top in violet that bares the mid-riff with a denim jacket over it, and a 'Midi' skirt that feels right at home in this place and a pair of sandal heels. Sans poodle - but otherwise it has that vintage feel. Spying Utena, she doesn't quite wave, she just puts her sunglasses away in her chanel purse and start walking that way upon the floor, her lips seem perpetually in a smirk as her eyes skirt the albums on the wall.
"Well you caught me." She notes, as she slides her purse off her shoulder and into the booth first, before she follows on the opposite side. "Going to the bridge that day, it just didn't feel right for me."
Adjusting her skirt, she puts her forearms up on the edge of the table, fingertips lacing together with their violet nails, and something smooths out into her lips to make it less a smirk and more a smile.
"This though? I think this suits me just fine."
<Pose Tracker> Utena Tenjou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Utena looks stricken when Kozue comes in, and a torrent of emotions cross her face in an instant. It's a terribly vulnerable expression she's left with, big blue eyes and trembling lower lip. By the time her lost friend is sitting across from her, she has visibly pulled herself together -- the possible additional, indoor rain relegated just to a sheen across her gaze. And her smile, though trembling, is strong, a sunray of relief.
"Thank God," she says, simply.
She probably meant thank God you're alive, but she covers it, less out of any embarrassment of her own and more because she doesn't want to be an embarrassing person for Kozue to hang out with. Kozue, after all, is cool. And Utena is supposed to be cool. She should at least try to live up to their shared invocation of coolness.
"--you showed up," she completes the sentence. "I thought maybe I wouldn't rate anymore, now that you're a full-time supermodel."
Her smile deepens into a grin as she finds herself on steadier ground.
"I like this too, though," she agrees, looking around at the diner. "I read the Yelp reviews, apparently the fries are to die for--"
Beat.
"God, I'm really bad at this," she sighs, deflating like a reddening pink balloon.
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
Kozue enjoys perhaps the gamut of emotions that Utena is running through. Part of it is just the knowledge that some people still care about her enough for her to rate. Yet she doesn't do anything but make this light sniff like she finds it a little funny.
And that's when Utena makes her little faux pas. There's this sound in her throat like she's smothering a laugh. Unlacing her fingers she holds up a palm as she turns her head to take a moment to recompose herself. The girl's cheeks look just a little puffed out in that moment, like she's holding her breath for a second or three.
And then she looks back. "Same Utena I remember." As if that were something to assess - to make certain she wasn't transported to some parallel universe or something, "Don't worry about it. Death isn't some taboo subject or something. I'm not about to get all weepy or offended if you mention it. It wasn't..." Her hand makes this little looping motion, like she's trying to find the word before deciding, "... traumatic for me."
Kozue Kaoru has suffered a great deal of trauma in her time - but dying in that moment wasn't a source of it for her.
"It was my decision. I've made a lot of dumb decisions in my time-" There's this light sigh, and there's something perhaps a little abstracted in her eyes as she continues, "...but that one wasn't one of them."
That look was there, but then it's gone, "And just to prove it - I'll have the fries."
Now though she's resting her forearms on the table, "How've you been holding up? Anything..." There's this sense of worry as she asks, "...changed around Ohtori?"
<Pose Tracker> Utena Tenjou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Utena shakes her head, jarring that cascade of rose into motion, but the hair flows much further, for much longer, than her chin. She stops herself, as Kozue changes the subject.
"You're gonna have to share," she says instead of whatever morose or depressing thing she might have had on her mind, glancing up at a passing waitress: "Large fry basket please! And... every different dipping sauce you have."
Then she looks back at Kozue, who seems to be taking her ease. Mostly. She mirrors her, then goes a step further; elbows on the table, chin propped into her palms, fingers cupping her cheeks.
"Totally the same," she says, and her contentment isn't feigned. "Wakaba's doing good, and so are Himemiya and Chu-Chu. The Student Council is still crazy. And I'm still..."
She swallows it with an almost audible gulp.
"How about you?" she asks, instead of finishing a sentence that would have taken them right back to where they started. "How's everything?"
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
Where Utena shows contentment. Kozue looks mildly disappointed if anything about everything at Ohtori being the same. Oh certainly she's happy that Utena is doing well and that things haven't blown up again.
Yet part of her kind of wishes now that some things would blow up, excepting a few girls she knows and her Brother.
"You want the honest answer or prefer it sugar coated?" She doesn't even wait though for a response, perhaps it's because she knows Utena. And because she knows herself. "Everyone's back. Except her. And really I don't know how to feel about that. I don't think I'm... grieving?"
There's this light shake of her head, and this smile that seems to contrast with the somber conversation.
"I mean I think I was at first. Now though - I don't know. It doesn't feel like she's dead to me... even though she is."
Her eyes trail up to the wall of the restaurant, and it's not that her attention is elsewhere, it's that she's struggling to articulate how she feels.
"When I was dying I felt... something. A connection I guess? So even though she's dead - she doesn't feel gone."
Lowering her eyes, a hand moves up onto her face, and she waves off any comment with her other hand.
"Nnn - listen to me getting all sentimental." As she looks embarrassed over discussing the 'mooshy' stuff. Finally dropping that hand covering her face, she just shakes her head, "If you're worried about me - well - I'm not alone. I'm staying at Mami's place. She's got a guest room."
<Pose Tracker> Utena Tenjou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
"I miss her too," Utena blurts out.
She hangs her head.
"She's what I meant, about the fries. And what I'm still feeling at school. I miss her. And you. Nothing's changed. It's totally the same," she repeats, and clarifies.
She runs her fingers through her hair, backwards, from brow to the back of her head. She struggles much more to grasp her words than her locks.
"I don't know that I know what you're feeling... about her being... not dead... not gone. It's... she was very dead, and very gone. And so were you. But... I guess it's good... that she feels like that... to you?"
She blinks, having successfully confused herself.
"Is that... okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
Kozue falls silent as Utena blurts that out. And lets her talk. Lets her tie herself up in knots. It's hard to read Kozue's expression in these moments, her eyes finding the table an interesting place to be.
"Yeah..." It's a single word. One she starts with, in response. "Yeah that's okay."
She'd have trouble articulating more than she already did about the subject.
"I think I need her not to be." Kozue finally says, for lack of clarification. Simply stating instead what she needs emotionally.
"When I hear that you're missing her though - it made me a little happy though. A lot of people at that school I'd rather forget her. So many people that never really knew her." Then she says more quietly, "They just thought they did." It sounds a little bitter.
Then all of a sudden there's a shifting of gears - perhaps because of one of those people she's considering, "I haven't called my brother yet. I guess I should get that over with sometime soon."
Lacing her fingers back together. "I don't think he's going to be as happy as you are about all this. You see... he probably thought I'd never choose anyone else over him."
A beat.
"Not when it counts at least."
<Pose Tracker> Utena Tenjou [Ohtori Academy (10)] has posed.
Needing her not to be...
That, Utena can understand.
She stills her fidgeting.
And she nods -- slowly, but with more confidence -- in herself, in her feelings, in Kozue's -- than before.
She sits back, and listens more.
And smiles.
"You might be surprised," she points out, easy in her innocence, but also earnest in her kindness -- and her own experience. "If he's anything like me, he'll just be glad that you're back with us."
She reaches across the table, perhaps to hold Kozue's hand --
-- and the fries arrive.
They smell amazing; they've definitely got more savory seasoning on them than just salt.
"...omigosh," breathes Utena.
<Pose Tracker> Kozue Kaoru [None] has posed.
"Maybe I'll just have to hope you've rubbed off on him..."
Kozue's fingers unlace, and for a moment it's like she's going to let Utena take her hand.
Utena offers hope after all. Hope that it might turn out better than she expects.
And then the fries arrive. The aroma is heavenly. And the yelp review as Utena said was that they were to die for.
Kozue leans forward, grabs one between two fingers. And without dipping it, simply brings it up to her mouth.
How can something be so chewy and crunchy and delectable all at once?
"Mmm." Kozue says, not saying delicious.
"Better than sex."
Instead saying something that feels very her.
Then her eyes look up at Utena in amusement.
"You'll have to take my word for it on that one."
