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

[gamboler]

[ A coy, little sidelong glance, before he chuckles, an irrepressible smile on his lips. ]

I think so long as whatever you decide to call it works for you, then that's all that matters. [ A beat, before he adds: ] It wasn't too different for me, you know. Finding the words to express to Nico how I felt wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done.

[ And he thinks that Edamura might be able to appreciate that, too. They're both the type of people who know their way around words, and the effect that how they're said can have on someone. And yet when it comes to speaking from the heart, it's a lot more difficult to pull off. ]

[ordimame]

[there is a slight pause as Edamura watches his sparkler slowly flicker and then die, leaving nothing but a few trails of smoke in its wake. Aventurine is right; he does get it. he gets it in such a way that he can't help but ask, slow and curious]

. . . how did you manage?

[because there may be a few more things he'd like to say to Rom before the final match ceremony. but he's still. . . trying to figure out how]

[gamboler]

...I'll spare you the more salacious details, but suffice it to say I've found I'm better at expressing those sentiments in a more...physical way.

[ And that in turn had lent itself to his heart finding the right words to say. Leaning into what felt right, the rest came more easily afterwards. ]

Then it was just a matter of...saying what came from the heart. Not the kind of words I practice and rehearse to leave just the right impression on someone, and so they often felt messy on my tongue. But truthfully, if feelings like this didn't feel rather messy from time to time, I'd think I was doing it wrong.

[ People like himself and Edamura tend to do things tidily, don't they? But that's when it's fixed, when it's manufactured, and feelings that are so authentic and intense are anything but. ]

[ordimame]

[. . . . . . . . . . . .]

[a small laugh. it's a bit wry, and tinged with a smile that matches its tone]

. . . I can't really remember the last time I spoke from the heart.

[gamboler]

...I couldn't either, before I came here.

[ The time that the Harmony forced him to confront himself hardly seems to count, and even then, it was more the manifestation of his future self telling him the contents of his heart. That may have given him guidance in the right direction, but even still vulnerability doesn't come easy to him. ]

People like us...we have to learn to shed our vulnerability to survive. But it's still there, isn't it? We wouldn't be here talking about this, if it weren't.