[FIN] Let's Be Honest

[Akira Midoriyama]

Noticing her reaction to the mention of Dove, Akira was genuinely surprised, but he couldn't help a small grin. "I see she got to you too," he muttered. "Yeeeahh...she's definitely...something. What'd she do to make you mad? You couldn't have known her for that long, could you have?"

Settling in for a story, he ordered a Melon Mojito as opposed to the Melon Nohitos he'd been ordering up until then.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"She's a little b***h, that's what she is," muttered the opinionated brunette into the rim of her glass before she took another sip. Then, when the glass was lowered again, "A little b***h and an airhead." But it still wasn't exactly something she really cared to talk about or focus on, even though he'd asked. Still, he did ask, so she dutifully aimed a thoughtful frown at the counter as she tried to remember just exactly what Dove had done to anger her so much. "Well, she lied to Rosie, for one thing," she started, still thinking. "And she really upset Luke that one time, for another. That right there's grounds to hate her. I can't remember what else," the girl finished with a shrug as she raised her glass once more, though she glanced at Akira as she paused with the glass to her lips, speaking into and fogging up the rim slightly as she asked, "What'd she do to you?" That said, she finally tilted her glass up the last half inch to take another sip. It was only fair she got to ask; he'd asked her, after all, which left him wide open to receiving the same question he'd asked.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"Whoa," he said, physically drawing back at the harsh words as if he'd been struck. "Ouch. I had no idea it was that bad." He allowed himself a small smirk. "Then again, considering the respects in which you two are alike, I guess it's only natural you would clash..."

"...Did she?" Akira asked, startled that Rosie had been brought into the conversation. He hadn't realized Dove had interacted with her all that much, either. She certainly seemed to have been busy. The subsequent mention of Luke only supported this notion. But it only made sense that Sera would be protective of her two best friends no matter how small a crime Dove had committed against them, even unwittingly. He felt he knew Sera enough by now to guess she was slow to forgive once she had condemned someone to her hate list. She certainly seemed the type of girl to hold a grudge.

"Huh?" His thoughts interrupted by the question proposed to him, he stared blankly back at those pale green eyes for an instant. "Oh. Well...nothing quite as specific as that," he admitted, staring at his glass as he swirled the liquid around in his hand. "It was more like...what she didn't do." Akira shrugged. "Inconsiderate, careless, reckless, arrogant, selfish, manipulative, ignorant, dishonest, vain...she was just everything I couldn't stand in a person."

His brows knitted in concertation. "And the worst of it, I think, was that she never really understood why I couldn't." Maybe because that was how almost everyone else they knew and grew up around had acted as well; how they had been expected to act. It was hard to imagine that there any other way to be. Perhaps it wouldn't even have occurred to Akira that there was if he hadn't come to know a certain commoner in his younger days. His expression growing solemn at the memory, he gulped down another mouthful of Mojito.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

His reaction garnered him a raised brow in response. It wasn't the first time she'd described someone in such a way, surely; maybe it was the first he'd heard her describe someone like that, but it definitely wasn't anything new for her. She merely shrugged though and took another sip of her drink, though her temper flared as she lowered it after. "What do you mean we're alike?"

A nod affirmed that she had, in fact, done the things Seraphine had spoken of. Akira's description of what she didn't do as well as all of the words he listed to describe her elicited a brief, amused snort in response. Well, she needn't have asked; it was easy for Sera to remember before when she was also at least half of those descriptive words. "Sounds about accurate, yeah," she replied with a breath of a laugh, then raised her glass once more for another swig of her drink.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

At her sharp question, Akira was grinning again. "Where to begin...? I'm pretty sure you'd both have the same reaction to me telling you I think you're alike. You both have tempers that flare up pretty easily. You two like to flirt, tease, and show off. Another is that you two are totally careless with your lifestyles. Yet another is that your physical appearances matter a lot to you both. Want me to keep going?" He sneered. "I could probably go on all day."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

A very displeased frown crossed her features as that same temper flared, and she opened her mouth to speak, to counter his words; had it been even a year earlier, she would've vehemently denied everything. Had it been a year earlier, she would've cursed him out for even insinuating she was anything like someone she didn't like. Had it been a year earlier, she would've thrown her drink in his face and stormed out. Had it been a year earlier, she would have done all those things and never even considered speaking to him again.

As it wasn't a year ago, though, she merely shut her mouth instead, her temper fading away completely just as quickly as it had flared up in the first place, and wilted a little. She took another sip of her drink, then lowered the glass and sat there, staring at the ice for a few moments before trying again. To be perfectly honest, she didn't know all that much about Dove, but that all described herself pretty well. "I suppose," she murmured quietly, though to which part of his words it was directed remained unclear.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"You've both changed, too," he murmured, watching Sera's temper flare up and die down. "Let the real world eat you up and spit you out. Beat you down. I don't know what caused you to have the attitude you did before - maybe wealth or comfort or looks - but when you feel you're deprived of that, your whole perspective on life and subsequently your attitude changes." He waved a hand. "At least that's what I've observed. What annoys me most, though, is that I'm pretty sure neither of you are honest with yourselves, let alone others."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Life's been doing that to me for over a year now," she said with a vaguely frustrated sigh, relinquishing her grip on her glass so she could raise her hand to rub at her face tiredly. This wasn't something she ever wanted to think about even on her own, let alone talk about it to someone. "I'm sick of it at this point."

His words made sense though, she noted silently as she reached for her drink again. She had been deprived of practically everything she'd ever had, and she had changed quite a lot. The change wasn't necessarily a bad thing - some of it was good, at least - but she wished it would've happened differently. "Or maybe," she surmised in a murmur, "being honest with others only upsets them and causes them to deny that honesty for a lie."  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"I'm not talking about what life does to you," he answered. "I'm talking about how you handle life. Whether you choose to blame everything on fate or accept things and move on."

Her following statement regarding honesty caused his brows to knit in consideration. "Well maybe then those people have some growing up to do, because going into denial due to being upset makes me think that they know the truth deep down." Tilting his head, he asked, "Why, was there someone or some situation you had in mind...?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Blaming external sources for anything or everything bad that had ever happened had at one point been a viable and appealing option - one she knew now to be stupid and pointless, and also knew now how stupid and naive she used to be to have ever thought such an option would be a good one. Thus, his clarification received only a small shrug in reply. She didn't come here to think about or dwell on how awful she used to be, nor all of the various awful things that had happened to her, but he was making it very difficult to avoid thinking of such things.

"I have a lot of things in mind," she said, punctuating her words with a sigh as she raised her glass for another sip. Man, he was such a buzzkill tonight, and she had no idea why. "Not anything in mind that I want to talk about though, or think about." A pause, during which she lowered her glass and aimed a frown at him. "Why are we talking about this?"  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"Because you won't tell me what you thought of my song," Akira answered, resting an elbow on the counter as he drank some more, his eyes trained on her.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, frowned, then shook her head. "I can't answer a question you never asked." And, as far as she could recall, he hadn't ever asked her what she thought of his song. "But, if you ever did ask what I thought of it," she trailed off to take another, final sip of her second drink before putting the glass back down, "then I definitely think it would've been much nicer if I were drunk. The lyrics, anyway; not your singing, your singing was fine," she amended, in case he took offense to her response.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"It wasn't a question. I was just answering yours," he replied casually. "Okay, so supposing I did ask that, why would you think it'd be much nicer if you were drunk?" Akira seemed amused she took the time and trouble to clarify that it was the lyrics and not his singing she had been referring to.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Hmm; tricky. So he knew full well he hadn't asked, or even hinted at it, and was only trying to get answers out of her. "Honestly? Because it's much easier to deal with things while drunk." Painful things, anyway.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"What 'things'? Could you elaborate?" Akira pressed, leaning in with interest.