[ r7 ] honeymoon suite

[marriagebroker]

Welcome to the Honeymoon Suite! After being matched at the Truth Booth and evening arrives, a car will come to pick up the lucky match and bring them to another side of the estate. It's a bit far from the main estate though if you really want to walk, you can.

It's a beautiful more modern house on the edge of a lake. There are eight bedrooms with lush, modern beds and bedding. A kitchen and private chef waiting for their orders. So many books and video games and all sorts of things to entertain themselves with! They can go swimming in the lake, or lounge on the patio, or anything they want. This is the life of luxury!

They can also just take the car back to the main estate if they want too. Because yeah, your friends are still all over at the other house.

Comments

[enscene]

[She's definitely a morning cowlick kind of girl, so the smoothing of her curls is both necessary and feels really nice. Furina tilts into it like a docile kitten.]

It's strange, that's all. I suppose time really doesn't wait for anyone. Barely any has passed at all, and yet I now have these feelings that are so unbearably strong.

[Furina's always felt things deep inside herself, a forever-moving current, and they have always been strong and turned quickly. These are somehow different, like something that surged and now refuses to recede.]

Do you remember our conversation during dancing lessons? [It seems like a very long time ago now, even though it was less than two weeks.]

[hexensabbat]

[Truly just like a kitten... Furina is constantly so cute. It's not fair.

Ringo smiles to herself a little, and keeps petting Furina's hair even though some of the bedhead has been tamed.]

I remember. About walking forward side-by-side, right?

Moving forward into the future like that.

[enscene]

Mmm. [It's a hum both of confirmation and enjoyment. She's so happy to lazily enjoy the carding of fingers through her hair like this.

If she stays, however, she might linger for too long, and she might lose track of the conversation, so she props herself up on one elbow. It isn't enough to remove her from the pets entirely, but it does look much more focused.]

That's what I mean. How are you feeling now?

[Feelings in general are what she wants to talk about the most.]

[hexensabbat]

[Ah, she does sit up a bit, and Ringo blinks before she smiles. It's not so bad having conversations like this; she's used to the casualness, if not the intimacy.]

Even more confident than before.

[The answer comes easily, but no less certain for it.]

If I've got an option to make a choice where I can stay with you, then that's what I'm going to do.

[A beat, and she admits more quietly, almost shy:]

... I don't wanna let this go.

[enscene]

[Furina swallows against the very tight and rock-hard lump that starts making itself very well known in her throat.]

Neither do I. I don't want our story to be just a footnote. [Just a limited engagement...something that lasts the span of this show and then collapses when reality settles in. She expected partings...partings have a way of eliciting fondness, of course, but there had been hope in Furina's heart that Ringo wouldn't find the need to move on so soon, in search of answers or experiences that were outside of this one.]

But I also want to know--[She's struggling a bit, and there's a part of her that wonders if Ringo also has a sense for what's trying to struggle out of her, too.] If you feel--

[hexensabbat]

[Right. "Just a footnote", yet another evocative way for Furina to put it. It was one of the first things that drew Ringo to her.

The fact that she wants to write her own story... something Ringo wants to do as well, now that she has the words for it.

...]

... If I feel...? [A tilt of her head, and Ringo smiles, calm and certain. Nothing Furina asks could bother her, she's sure of that.] If I feel what?

[enscene]

[Ugh, Ringo had been a little vulnerable just then, but now she's going to make Furina spell it out all the way, isn't she? Maybe it's better, so there can be no confusion involved in any of this at the very end.

It's her turn to be shy now, her words and actions tender and careful. The back of her slightly blanch-scarred knuckles touch Ringo's cheek as they ghost across it.]

I don't only want to continue our connection because I want to experience new things in life with you

[hexensabbat]

[Ringo's eyelashes flutter a little at Furina's touch, basking in it, before the words sink in.

Not just to experience new things in life.

Then...

... Then...?

Ringo props herself up on an elbow as well to look at Furina properly, brows furrowed--not in anger or upset, but bemusement as she thinks those words through.]

... I'm not very good at this sort of thing. [Said slowly and carefully, as Ringo thinks.] So maybe I'm not understanding right.

But...

Does that mean it's okay if I fall in love with you?

[enscene]

[She worries at first, when Ringo leads with "I'm not very good at this sort of thing." Furina knows that she's said she doesn't understand romance or feelings sometimes, and that her curiosity is often driven by objective interest. But their entire time together... the music, their dance, their walk down to the Truth Booth... To Furina, it really hasn't seemed that way at all. So maybe she'd let herself get used to the bitter draught of hope.

Then comes Ringo's question, and Furina finds herself submerged. All the feelings that she's been thinking about converge and crash down at once.

There's no verbal answer yet--that's because Furina almost immediately bursts into tears.]

[hexensabbat]

[--?!

Oh god. Oh god, Furina's... Furina's crying?!

Ringo sits bolt upright immediately, panic on her face. It's pretty obvious that she is Not Used to Tears.]

F-Furina? Was that--was that bad?! Too much?!

[enscene]

[Poor Ringo has now had the privilege of watching Furina cry unexpectedly (and out of happiness and overwhelming emotion, at least) twice now, first in the Truth Booth and now here.]

No! [She sniffles.] It wasn't bad. [She wipes her face off quickly.] It's exactly the thing...I was hoping you'd say. I just couldn't be sure it was what you wanted, too.

[hexensabbat]

Oh... oh! Oh!

[The relief is plain on Ringo's face at that, especially as two things sink in: first, that she isn't a horrible person who made Furina cry in a bad way, and second, that Furina... also feels the same way.

So Ringo laughs, beaming, and leans in until their foreheads are pressed together, capturing Furina's hands in her own despite how Furina is trying to wipe away her tears.]

I'm--so relieved. [God.] Wow. Relief's a wild emotion. Ha! I've only felt it a couple of times.

[Focus, Ringo.]

But, ah... no. I'm so falling in love with you. I phrased it like a question but it's kind of already happening.

[enscene]

[Oh... hearing it actually come out of her mouth is even more emotional, though this time Furina manages to avoid spilling any more tears.

But her hands are definitely a little shaky as Ringo covers them with hers, as she leans her early-morning bedhead into the face pressed against her.]

I didn't know if you... ["Could" is not the right word, since it would make Ringo sound so much less human than she's already proven herself to be. "Wanted to," maybe, would be more appropriate...it's just been difficult to tell if she's interested in romance for more than scientific reasons.]

It's been such a short while...everything's so surprising and confusing, but you always seem to see me...and I like everything about you. I don't know if I could stop it from happening if I tried. [It's a little scary, realizing you're falling in love with someone and helpless to stop it.]