week four | mingle

[marriagebroker]

Final week at the estate! Final week with your friends. Final week with your beaus. Time to make the most of it, everyone!

In fact, to celebrate this fact, today there is a cake. It's nothing special, just a nice little cake to enjoy with your morning coffee or throughout the day. Yay, cake!

And when Wei Wuxian arrives that morning, he is going to call out once again for everyone to join him, near the cake.

"Everyone, I have another announcement!"

Hell yeah, announcements.

Boom Boom Room | Dates | Property Damage
Truth Booth Voting | Match Ceremony Voting

Comments

[embellwish]

[ That makes her smile, exasperated from where she's sitting. ]

I am.

[ Her own card... she's already shared this among a few of them. ]

Watching over others is what I do best. [ She'd shepherded all the souls from the catastrophe, too, and before then, even, everyone in her homeland entrusted their wishes to her. It's always been in her nature to be like this. ] You already knew about the star, after all. So did a few others.

[irreversal]

[ She supposes that makes this a little easier - the fact that her secret isn't so secret at least for a few others. Shoko should count herself fortunate to be among the few...

Shoko remains where she stands for now, having thrown courtesy to the wind by smoking indoors. She at least remains courteous enough to make sure she's not smoking right into Yingying's face. ]

That's why it's so easy to adore you, you know. You're always taking care of others...

[ ...Which is an odd thing for a doctor to say, perhaps. ]

Even after everything you've been through.

[embellwish]

[ It's those words that finally get her to avert her eyes, looking down at a random spot on the floor. Easy to adore, huh? Her chest feels tight, but the only sign she's feeling any worse is a neutralizing of her expression. ]

That's because growing up, everyone I knew always wished for my happiness. My moms, and the rest of my family...

[ Yingying was Bloomfete's beloved little princess, raised by the village with adoration even though she'd been abandoned at the foot of the wisteria as an infant. It's hard to put to words what an impact being on the receiving end of all of that love has had on her, how it informs her relationships with others. ]

And I was always entrusted with everyone's wish. [ For as long as she could remember, on the New Year, people came bearing gifts to ask her earnestly for their most precious desire. ] Maybe not anymore... but the feeling still remains. Wanting to grant happiness.

[ That's what a fairy should do. ]

[irreversal]

[ Shoko watches as Yingying's gaze falls away, as her demeanor shifts. It hadn't been her intention, expressly, to take the smile off of her face, but she always worries about everyone else. What of them, who worry about Yingying?

Wishes really are their own burden, aren't they? To hold the hopes of her loved ones, and to have done so for so long, so long after those loved ones lived... Maybe it's not quite the same as bearing the burden of their world's safety and balance - the kind of burden that she once watched Gojo shoulder by himself - but it's a lonely life, all the same. ]

Isn't it time live for yourself, too, Yingying? Your family, your village... they live on through you. Your wish would be their wish, too.

[embellwish]

[ Her eyelids lower, then slowly flutter shut. What would they all wish for, now? She spent so long maintaining their last wishes before they died, it's been hard to imagine anything past that. ]

Mm... everyone's been encouraging me a lot.

[ She doesn't feel so apathetic as she did when she entered the competition. Now, when she thinks about withering away... ]

...I do want to keep living. I want to keep feeling happiness like this again, like I did before. [ She leans a little towards Shoko's way, smoke be damned. ] Being here, talking with all of you, helped me realize that....

[ ...She misses her moms. She always will, and deciding to keep going doesn't mean the void of that loss has closed. But Shoko's right. Her family would want her to feel happy again, to be loved and cherished again. Quietly, she confesses to Shoko, who she knows has similarly been left behind: ]

Because if I don't — I'm scared of being alone again.

[irreversal]

[ Shoko sees how Yingying leans towards her, and perhaps despite her own affinity for keeping to herself at a time like this, she... goes. Perches easily atop the armrest of Yingying's favorite couch, and just as she has many times before today - she reaches for the ends of Yingying's hair, wrapping it around her fingers with her free hand.

After all, it doesn't seem right, to leave her sitting alone on this couch, when she's speaking from her heart of an earnest wish to no longer be alone.

...To no longer be left behind. ]

You've been alone for long enough, I think. There's so much for you to experience and see, still, Yingying. So - don't turn away from the people who care about you, okay?

[ She offers it with a smile - small, but no less fond, no less warm for how cold and distant she usually keeps her features.

Shoko's been on the receiving end of it many times over her life. Sorcerers only ever have themselves. It's exhausting. But if it could be different here, for the people she's met here... then that would be better than any wish Shoko could come up with for herself, she thinks. ]

[embellwish]

[ Now that Shoko's come close — she snakes her arms around her waist to keep her from escaping again, pressing her face to the side of her body. This time... she won't turn away at the last second. She can want for a happy end for herself, too, thanks to everyone's encouragement. ]

...I won't, [ She sing songs, trying to bring levity back into the conversation. ] You'll take me to see the sights, won't you?

[ Like with Poppy, Odile, and so many of the others... she wants Shoko to know she plans to be in her life, however she can, after this is over. Their connection isn't a temporary one, not to her. ]

[irreversal]

[ Oh. Yingying truly is the sweetest. Thoroughly within her grasp like this, Shoko has no reason or will to escape. Instead, that free hand of hers now comes to smooth over the top of Yingying's head, stroking her hair gently. ]

Sure. You're welcome to visit any time, as long as you don't mind that things are a bit messy. You should come for a Tanabata Festival, actually. I think you'd really like it.

[ A beat. ]

Bring Yi Sang with you, too.

[embellwish]

Hm...?!

[ Her eyes light up with interest at the mention of a festival, like a dog with a treat. As ever, that sort of thing is more precious to Yingying, maybe doubly so if it's coming from the culture of someone she cares about. ]

I have to ask him what he plans to do after all this... [ it is not yet clear to her how serious he is about being together or even ending up in remotely the same place. but she's not worrying about it right about now, her thoughts more preoccupied with her recovery. ] ...but we should be able to get him to come along, somehow. Between you and me.

[irreversal]

[ Precious Yingying. Shoko stopped going to festivals after she became a doctor - there simply hasn't been time - but for a visit from Yingying? She'd gladly leave her post for a night.

The wish-making tradition around Tanabata is one of the reasons Shoko's invited her to it, knowing how much that means to Yingying, but there's another reason, too, and she gives it while casting her gaze down at the other woman, her look a bit sly but playful, conspiratorial. ]

I think we'll manage. And in the first place, it's a festival about the star-crossed lovers Orihime-sama and Hikoboshi-sama finally getting to meet after a year apart. So even if he decides to wander around after this, he has to meet with you at Tanabata, yeah?