[Evande]
She remained seated, right where she was after Nikolas and Ryu left her home. No words made it past her lips, as none formed within her mind. A fork remained in her hand, her eyes on her door. Following her asking them whether theyâd yet settled into their apartment, she had not said a word. Simply, she had observed her neighbors in silence. There just had been nothing she could think of to sayânothing at all. Her own food was growing cold by now; sheâd barely eaten any of what she had made for herself. Those twoâsomething about them, it just, just. . . . Honestly, she didnât know. Not at all. Ankle still hurting, the icepack she had around it beginning to warm to room temperature, Evande found herself coming back to reality thanks to the ache, and the sound of a tired âmeowâ coming from somewhere under the blanket wad balled up on her futon.
Evande shook her head with a light exhale, trying to string her thoughts back together. Nikolas and Ryu, they were strangeâbeyond it. In and out of her home so quickly, as if they knew that she really hadnât wanted them there. Though that mightâve been obvious from how she was acting, most people would normally linger in anotherâs home as long as they felt like, if they were invited in. And, those two had been invited in.
Something within her felt so off right now, that discontent sheâd felt before with them, the wanting to have them out of her home, and for her to be able to return to her normalcy right after. . . . Where had it gone so quickly? Before she had set herself down, it had vanished away without as much as a warning. She didnât understand how that could happen. It had been hard to so much as move herself while those two were around, and suddenly, that was bye-bye, left in its place was only what felt like a natural sort of shyness toward them, the uncertainty that one might feel if they were, well, more normal than her, if they were used to dealing with people already.
Her fork clanked against the plate, as Evande moved both her arms up onto the kotatsuâs surface, setting her head into her hands as she tried to make some sense of this. She couldnât though, she just couldnât no matter how hard she tried to, in truth, she almost felt like she wanted to cry she felt so confused by all of this. Years of her life, she had gone ahead and avoided people unless necessary, Kiku was even included in this, because she felt uncomfortable around them, she wanted so little to do with anyone since she was younger. People, they brought with them problems, complications, things that interrupted the comfortable normal of life. Thatâs why she wanted to keep them from her life, why it was she always felt so scared and anxious if her everyday normal was suddenly veered off its course, even if by a little.
Nikolas and Ryu had definitely veered things off course. . . . And sheâd felt what she shouldâve as a result before. Interaction with others, it just brought trouble! Drama, love, adventure and all of that stuff, the interesting and uncertain things in the world, she was happy leaving all of that to her manga, to her anime and videogames. They belonged there, not in her life. Never. Never at all. Amazing things did not have a place within her existence, she was someone who was meant to lead a boring and ordinary existence for the rest of her days, it was as simple as that. It had to be, because that was how things had been for her for years now . . . !
Squeezing her eyes shut, Evandeâs body shook a bit, tensing up as it felt like her heart was beginning to sink into her stomach, which had began to churn, herself feeling nauseous. Was everything she had worked so hard for being uprooted? Was she losing everything she had worked so hard for? Would her normality begin to crumble underneath her, and vanish away? Is that what was happening?
It felt like it. Sheâd wanted Nikolas and Ryu to keep out of her life before, wanted to contain all the ripples that were going to occur from the one instance of their disrupting her routine. Thatâd been her goal in cooking for them, to repay their kindness with her own, even if it were an act driven of a selfish desire to maintain her normalcy. Simply, that was it. But things werenât simple like that, they were not going to be. If they were, then she couldâve gotten through the meal with those two with no thoughts surfacing within her mind about them, about how they were acting, or anything like that.
Nikolas . . . heâd clutched onto his shoulder as if heâd been in pain all of a sudden at one point, but he tried to go on before he and Ryu left as if there was nothing wrong. She had noticed that instance, that gesture of discomfort and it had ingrained itself within her thoughts. And she couldnât help it, what she felt within her heartâfeeling concern. She shouldnât have felt that, she shouldnât have felt anything if things were going to be simple for her, if she were really going to just get those two in and out of her life so that she could make things go back to normal like before, then she wouldnât have felt anything at all when she saw that!
That one single acknowledgement, that one bit of worry about another person, that would be the beginning of the undoing of everything she had come to know as her normal. Evande knew within her heart that her life was to become entwined with her new neighbors at some point, no matter what it was she wanted or what she tried to do to prevent that. Sheâd felt concern for Nikolas, which was going to bring about curiosity, a want to make sure he was all right, to look in on him, and in time that would lead to her speaking to either him or Ryu more often, and after that . . . a connection would form, a possible friendship. That was how it worked, that was how it started with Kiku, and how it was the fujoshi wound up a part of her life, being accepted into it. Evande had noticed that she was upset when passing by her on the street when she was heading home and the brunette was heading out, she looked like she had been crying, her nose was red and her eyes teary.
So, unable to turn a blind eye to that, she had given into her concern and took after the girl to find out what had seemed to upset herâthe reason had been petty by anyoneâs standards, but it had led to Kiku and her bonding, and shortly after, becoming something akin to friends. And again, it seemed like it might be happening. A spark of worry for anotherâs wellbeing couldnât be ignored by her at all, that spark would eventually erupt into a powerful flame, and burn away at her until she could no longer take it and had to act in order to extinguish it. More people would be pulled into her life, and she would find herself connected to them whether or not she wanted to be, and with that happening, there would be within her existence more trouble, things would come to distress her when they otherwise wouldnât have. . . .
Evidently, both the blonde and violet-haired man were not normal people! For one, she felt like she knew Nikolas from somewhere already, the two acted like a total couple out of a mangaâeven if she wasnât one to think that way normally, Evande knew that was trueâand the way they had reacted to a couple of cans of soda. . . . Claiming to be from the countryside was lame, even she knew that. They had soda in rural areas too.
Body about as tense as it could be, Evande had her hands pressing into the sides of her head while it was sheâd been holding her breath; she took in a deeply strained inhale. That concern for Nikolas was beginning to grow. . . . She could feel it.
There was going to be no way to keep this from happening, she knew it. Those two and their weirdness, somehow and at some point they were going to become a part of her life. In some instances, like these, Evande wished herself like Kiku, she wished that she were unafraid of things; that she was bold and sure of herself, unafraid of whatever it might be that life had to offer to her. No matter how scary this felt to her, Evande knew what was coming, she knew that it was going to be inevitableâshe was going to give into her instinct, her concerns and cares for others, and sink to checking in on Nikolas eventually. It was going to happen. It was just a question of when she would.
Head remaining in her hands, Evande could only allow a long sigh, an exasperated sort, slip from her. A few tears had formed in her eyes, and had begun to roll down her cheeks. Soon she was going to be saying goodbye to her life as it was, and she knew it. At last though, the otaku stood to her feet, gathering up her plate and eating utensils, leaving her unopened soda on the kotatsu while she went ahead and dumped the contents of her plate into the trash before it was she just dropped the thing into the sink without washing it off. She just didnât feel like doing that right now, sheâd get to it in the morning. . . . Ankle throbbing all the while she was on it, Evande hobbled back toward her futon, untangling the blankets up she quietly laid herself down into the mattress, drawing her knees up into her chest while she felt something squirming up between her torso and legs, a muffled mewl. Lifting the blankets up, a feline head popped out, a set of mismatched eyes, one gold and one green, stared at her while a body of black slinked out from there and curled up into a ball near the pillow that Evande had her head above.
Kiseki, her cat, who had not gotten much attention from her tonight thanks to everything that had happened, how she was feeling. âIâm sorry, Kiseki, mommaâs been sort of preoccupied tonight, and sheâs too tired to keep herself up any longer. . . .â she apologized to the cat. To this, the feline meowed. âI promise, Iâll be more attentive toward you in the morning, when Iâve slept off all this strangeness Iâm feeling. . . .â Evande moved her hand up, and pulled the glasses off her face, setting them on the floor nearby. She rubbed at her eyes, sighing again before reaching up and clicking off the lights via a switch above her. All that remained on was her television now, showing nothing but cartoons and anime while it was the pink-haired otaku simply laid there, curled up, her crystal-eyes staring into the dimness that was her room.
It was only around seven PM, and already, she had herself in bed. The day had just been overwhelming, and she didnât want to deal with it any longer, knowing what wasnât too far off in the future for her, she just wanted to sleep. And that was what she did. Her eyes shut after sometime, and she drifted off into a light slumber, doing the same as Kiku had seemed to before. . . .