Aoba hadn’t expected that bombshell, but there it was. And it shouldn’t have been a bombshell either, but it was, hearing the man use a word as direct as ‘loved’. It pretty obviously wasn’t in the way he meant when he talked about family, either, about how Aoba had to get back to the people he loved. It was a word with degrees to it, just as ‘like’ did, and hearing him say he just wanted to be loved…really only had one interpretation.
His other side practically loomed behind him, a rumbling thundercloud of frustration that he wasn’t taking the openings he kept being given, that this was apparently the one exception he had in his willingness to speak his mind as honestly as he could.
He sat with his hands in his lap now, rubbing his hands slowly and quietly against each other, while Ren mutely gazed up at him and Aoba in turn looked out at the swirling purple nebula. He thought of that movie they had watched, the one character demanding what do you want?, but as pretty as the words were, sometimes it really couldn’t be that simple.
But Declan moved the subject on, and Aoba’s thoughts remained his own for a while longer. He looked askance at the Guardian, smiling, and nodded a bit.
“I think that sounds like a good idea. A good place to start. You know, watching people interact with you, I think people like you more than you realize that they do. I think you’ll integrate just fine.”
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Aoba hadn’t expected that bombshell, but there it was. And it shouldn’t have been a bombshell either, but it was, hearing the man use a word as direct as ‘loved’. It pretty obviously wasn’t in the way he meant when he talked about family, either, about how Aoba had to get back to the people he loved. It was a word with degrees to it, just as ‘like’ did, and hearing him say he just wanted to be loved…really only had one interpretation.
His other side practically loomed behind him, a rumbling thundercloud of frustration that he wasn’t taking the openings he kept being given, that this was apparently the one exception he had in his willingness to speak his mind as honestly as he could.
He sat with his hands in his lap now, rubbing his hands slowly and quietly against each other, while Ren mutely gazed up at him and Aoba in turn looked out at the swirling purple nebula. He thought of that movie they had watched, the one character demanding what do you want?, but as pretty as the words were, sometimes it really couldn’t be that simple.
But Declan moved the subject on, and Aoba’s thoughts remained his own for a while longer. He looked askance at the Guardian, smiling, and nodded a bit.
“I think that sounds like a good idea. A good place to start. You know, watching people interact with you, I think people like you more than you realize that they do. I think you’ll integrate just fine.”