Glass Heart Casket [Kaede, Sora]

Kaede's eyes seemed to sparkle as she watched the game start up, distracted for a minute as Sora continued from where he'd left off. It looked so...so cool! But, her awe was quickly soured by Sora telling her to go shower, and that she could give it a try after. Puffing her cheeks out in a pout and crossing her arms over her chest, she sat there for a minute.

"...Fine."

Getting up and walking to the bathroom, she closed the door. But, just as she was reaching for the latch, she hesitated. Her hand trembled as she drew it back to her chest, cupping it with the other. Taking a breath and shaking her head, she quickly turned the latch, undressing and getting everything sorted before she stepped in and turned the water on.

She didn't take too long, intentionally so, and when she stepped out of the shower, she found herself looking at her reflection, obscured a little bit by the steam. It was the first time in a while that she really took a good look at herself, and...she didn't like it. She looked down at the sink, before quietly bringing her towel up to finish drying her hair, slide the borrowed shirt on, and opened the door to walk back out into the common area to sit back down next to Sora.

"...I wanna try."

When Kaede emerged, the game was paused and Sora was in his bedroom, the sound of a vacuum cleaner coming from the cracked door. He had changed the sheets to his bed and pillows, cleaned up any clothes he had on the floor, and cleaned off the night stand. He brought out a laundry basket with some of his clothes in it and set it down in the living room. “Kaede… Dirty clothes in here,” he said about the basket and then gestured to the paused game. “You can play.”

“Be back in twenty,” Sora said, grabbing his keys and then taking the laundry basket down stairs after locking the door. He didn’t have an in-unit laundry, so he had to take it down to the shared laundry room. While away, Sora also waited for the pizza guy to deliver their food. Once it was all taken care of, the laundry would take an hour, so he took the pizza, wings, and soda back up stairs.

“Food’s here,” Sora said after using his keys to unlock the door. He stepped in and set everything out, setting up her food for her and letting her choose what of the three sodas he orders she wanted: grape, strawberry, orange. “Enjoy. I’m gonna shower,” he said and then grabbed some clean clothes and disappeared into the bathroom. Sora also took no chances and locked the bathroom door.

As Sora poked out of his room with a laundry basket, Kaede's face turned red for a second, before quickly grabbing her remaining clothes and tossing them in the basket. As he mentioned that he'd be back soon, then said she could play, the girl's eyes lit up as she immediately went to grab the controller. However, after a short while, Kaede stopped and paused the game.

She idly swung her legs as she looked around, contemplating snooping around the house to see what all there was. Eventually, she gave in the idea and started to snoop around the quiet apartment. Despite her knowing she was the only current occupant at the moment, she still slowly peeked around corners, looked through all the drawers and cabinets to see what was there, before eventually being satisfied and going back to playing the game, happily humming to herself.

Kaede's head immediately turned as she heard footsteps coming to the door, and she instinctively hid herself behind the couch, pausing the game as she peeked around to see who it was, only to breathe a sigh of relief as Sora came back through the door. She gradually went back to standing up, trying to contain her excitement for the food and drinks.

She grabbed a paper plate and paper towels, her wings, a bottle of water, and a cup of soda, nodding in confirmation as Sora went to take a shower, before going back over to the couch and happily starting to partake in them while she waited for Sora to come out. She was notably patient with eating, taking her time to savor every bite and drink.

After about ten minutes, Sora exited the shower. During it, he contemplated how long Kaede was going to stay, and whether or not he should just pull out the air mattress. It had been a while since he used it, so it might have a whole, or the air pump stopped working. Eh, he might have to buy a new one. Now that he was out, he dried off, got dressed, and grabbed his food and then went over to sit on the opposite end of the couch. Taking a big first bite, Sora chewed up and then took a swig of beer to wash it all down, then gestured to the TV. “You done playing?”

He picked up the controller, no matter her answer and began playing again, noticing she hadn’t gotten far. Well, at least his save wasn’t fucked up. “You can take the bed,” Sora said, focusing mostly on the game. “I got the couch tonight.”

Kaede was in her happy place right now. She swayed side to side idly as she stabbed into another one of her wings with a plastic fork and tried to fit the whole thing in her mouth. But, unfortunately, she had to settle for taking a rather sizeable bite out of it instead. As Sora sat down at the other end, she turned to look at him, nodding in response, before going back to her food.

Just as she finished off one, she suddenly froze at him saying that she could take his bed. It took a few seconds to process, and, when it did, Kaede's head suddenly turned to look at him, confused, and surprised. After a few seconds though, she finally found the wit to shake her head.

"Uh-uh. Your place, your bed. Not takin' it."

“Unless you’re wanting to share, take it,” Sora said, his hands moving with the controller as he rapidly pressed buttons after entering a boss fight. He did the stereotypical gamer move and leaned forward toward the TV as he focused in hard on the fight. His character suddenly died from a some sort of critical hit and he released a soft, but annoyed, “Fuck” before starting the match all over again, glancing to her for a moment before continuing to play. “You deserve a damn bed.”

He was really stubborn...not entirely unlike herself. But, still! She grumbled as she took another bite of her food and a drink of her soda, watching him play the game and enter a boss arena. But, as he leaned forward, Kaede couldn't help but snicker, dropping her fork to cover her mouth. She'd seen so many people do that when she was able to get into a net cafe, but, when it was being done by a guy this tall, with that serious of a face, she couldn't help but giggle at it. It looked silly, but, it was endearing, in its own way.

That last comment, though, made her stop in an instant. The happiness she had vanished, and she looked down at her plate, an arm instinctively reaching to rub the other, eventually turning to nails scratching and digging into her forearm.

"...It's your place. You pay the bills, you deserve it. It's okay, I've couch-surfed before. Heck, I could even be a connoisseur of how comfy your couch is."

It was an attempt at humor, but with that expression and voice, it likely wasn't going to land very well. Oh well. She tried.

If she was going to be this stubborn, he was just going to pick her up and take her to the bed when she was close to falling asleep. He was not a man to argue his point, and she was clearly being stubborn. Her attempt at humor was met with a snort-chuckle and a small roll of his eyes before he continued the game. Frustration suddenly hit when the damn stick on his controller kept getting stuck and dragging his character’s aim. “Damn thing…” he said and paused the game again. He thought he had a spare one in the back, but couldn’t remember whether this one was actually the spare or not… Sora stood up and made his way to his bedroom closet.

Despite the gloomy disposition she had, a small smile began to bloom as he snorted/chuckled at her joke, but, it was quick to meld into curiosity as Sora got up, and she took a look at the controller. She toyed around with the analog stick, figuring out the issue pretty quick. In-game drift, as well as some drifting and sticking from the joystick itself.

Getting up to quickly grab another paper plate, she was quick to disassemble the controller, putting the parts on the plate and examining the controller. There didn't seem to be anything broken in the bearing for the stick itself, so, that was good, that usually meant you had to buy a whole new controller to fix it. Reaching for her backpack, she pulled out a notably thin lockpick.

Usually she'd use a brush or tweezers to try and dislodge any blockage, but, she didn't have that right now. So, carefully and gently, Kaede cleaned the bearings for the joysticks, taking a tiny bit of water to rub down one side to get rid of any stickiness on the central spring. Just as quickly and surgically as she disassembled it, Kaede put the controller back together in little time, taking a moment to test the controls and make sure that everything was in the right place.

So, she set it back down, smiling to herself as she went back to her wings and drinks. That'd help him save money.

Sora couldn’t find the controller, so he came back out with a sigh. He sat back down, thinking his controller looked a bit cleaner, but didn’t really focus on it too much until he started up the game and noticed it just felt… easier to use. He paused again, checked it out and raised an eyebrow. He could tell it had been messed with… and cleaned up. Sora glanced over to Kaede, “What’d you do?”