Squad Management (Kendra/Cecil)

They'd been walking for a while now. The nearest store was annoyingly far for the purpose of simply getting some shopping done quickly, and if this kept up, Tomomi was going to be locked in alone for a good while. He felt a little bad about that.
At the same time, though, it provided ample opportunity to have the talk he'd intended to with Kendra. That, at least, worked out in his favour.

Cecil took a long breath out as he plucked out the single earphone that had been streaming his choice of tracks into his ear, and turned his attention to the short girl walking beside him.
He didn't quite know how to handle this.
"...why was your first solution to getting inside Nadia's place a break-in?"
...that probably wasn't the best way to start, either.

Kendra had not noticed how long the walk was, thankfully. She was more focused on making a list of what Nadia needed. It was harder than she thought it would be, considering the fact Kendra was used to making much more complicated meals. Nadia would probably want something more basic and less experimental than she would.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Cecil asking the question. She shrugged. "I thought if something was really wrong, Nadia might not be able to move and it would be easier just to go in. It made sense at the time. I sort of just got ahead of myself." Maybe it had been a bad idea, but to Kendra, breaking in just made a lot of sense. "Plus, we had broken into a house together before.

Whatever response he might have expected, 'It's alright because I did it before with your girlfriend' wasn't it. "Do I even want to know why you two broke into a place?" Cecil gazes flatly at Kendra, looking altogether more unimpressed with the answer, even if his body language gave away that he was still more tense than upset over it at the moment. He shakes his head, and sighs. "I'm just...going to let that pass for now."
"That said..." He pauses. It was...surprisingly hard to come out and say it. It felt easier when it was more recent and he wasn't being direct about it, but now? He had no support, it had been a good while, and he was going to have to be blunt about it for her to get it in all odds.
Assuming she wasn't just straight up ignoring things...in which case he'd definitely have to be blunt about it.
Ugh...this felt so much harder now.

The blond swallows and clears his throat, fingers starting to run through his hair. "...Kendra, you really need to think more about what's going on around you." His hand clenches around his hair. "No, no, that's not quite right...think about...more than what's immediately on your mind? What'll happen when you do something?" He groans. "Fuck it, that'll do."
His hand clenches and unclenches, teeth grit as his fingers rake across his scalp.

Kendra nodded her head, desperate to try to at least make Cecil think she wasn't totally irresponsible. "It was my house! We were getting my things so I could run away! It's fine!" What a great way to reduce worry, right? She seemed to be sure this would work.

She hadn't been sure what to expect when Cecil had paused. As he seemed to get more nervous, Kendra only grew more curious. Maybe he wanted romantic advice, or he wanted to get cooking lessons from her! She grew more excited by the ideas she was getting and-

"...Kendra, you really need to think more about what's going on around you." ...What? That had not been what Kendra had expected to hear, and she was visibly shocked, freezing a little. Even after Cecil tried to clarify what he meant, it didn't do a lot to improve the sudden shock of what she had heard.

"What do you mean? I totally think! I don't only think about what's immediately on my mind! I mean, besides recently, name a time I've done that! I bet you can't!" It seemed Kendra was completely oblivious to her own tendencies, her shock having changed to outrage. What Cecil was telling her was, in fact, absolutely true, but to Kendra it seemed like Cecil was telling her Narnia existed.

And there we go. Kendra was now in full swing. "We've met a grand total of four times, Kendra, including today. Even so, if you want another example while ruling out an entire quarter of what days I have to work with I can still point out the fact that you were acting like a stalker the first time we met. I seriously don't know what made you think it alright to interrogate me for every detail on my life and where I live."
He stood firm in the face of her shock and backlash, unflinching. He wasn't backing down.

Did you think Kendra was in full swing? You were wrong. I was just trying to help! I wasn't doing anything bad or wrong! You're just... too sensitive!" Cecil, of course, was absolutely right. Kendra often never thought things through, the occasions she did too rare for anybody to list accurately. "At least it's better than never taking initiative like you!!! That wasn't correct entirely, but she wasn't thinking again. Who was Cecil to judge her after everything?!

At that one, Kendra had managed to provoke a twitch. It stung. The look she was receiving now wasn't just cold, but hostile. He speaks up again in a dark, hushed tone that says that this was now incredibly personal. "Ok, Kendra. Imagine this for me. You break in. Alarms go off, police are called, we get at least detained if not arrested outright. If we're lucky, we don't get discovered with anything illegal or 'rehabilitated', and Nadia at least gets out of that mess. But suddenly, we're out of the picture. Maybe you get sent back to whatever lot made you hate them enough that you ran away in the first place, and now you're stuck there. Tomomi has to deal with this shit on his own because his parents are god knows where in the world. And nobody's there for Nadia today. And likely, for several days following. And then she's left alone, stewing, wallowing in that same shit that drove her to the brink of her own demise."

"She would be fucking dead, by her own hands, and we wouldn't have had the chance to prevent it."

"Because you didn't bother to think anything fucking through."

Cecil's eyes were wet as he bore down on Kendra. "Nobody gives two shits how well you meant when somebody's fucking dead for it. I fucked up, but you would have fucking sealed the coffin if nobody stopped you then. And I'm not going to let you fucking pretend your actions don't have consequences when that was on the line."

Kendra wasn't about to back down, even if Cecil did have a very strong point. She was already angry, and Cecil hitting a point she was sensitive about was not going to help a hot-headed teenager see reason. She was tearing up a little, but her eyes were full of an angry fire. "So let's do it your way then, if you're so fucking smart! Let's go and imagine your plan. Let's see, where do we start? Oh yeah! I don't do a thing when I'm worried about Nadia because I'm a coward! I just choose to wait for things to work out with Nadia instead of, I dunno, checking she's not dead in a fucking ditch after she doesn't show up! I don't talk to you at all! None of us really bother to go check on her! You wanna know what would happen, you wanna fucking know?"

She paused, hands balling into fists as she glared at Cecil, a few angry tears rolling down her cheeks."She's fucking dead, assuming we all don't care at all! She dies because you refused to take intiative and you let her think you hated her! If I hadn't done a thing in the first place and helped you fix your giant fucking mistake she would've fucking died! I was the one who saved her in the first place, not you!"

Everyone was upset. Nobody was in their right mind. It was too soon, and nobody was there to mediate between the two.
All were crying, all were glaring, harsh stares out in the street.
"Do you really think you're not just as much a fuckup as I am? That you're completely blameless in it all, and now you swooped in and saved the day, just like the superheroes we all aren't? Call me what you want, Kendra. It's all right. Every single word of it. But at least I admit it. You, though? Can you tell me anything I just said then was wrong? That there was nothing you would have laid at your own feet if the worst had happened? I'm pretty sure you're supposed to be her best friend, Kendra. Are you going to ignore it if it's at all possible you could put her in danger again the way I did?"

Things were going off the rails so quickly, despite what had just happened. Maybe the only reason these two were even really civil in the first place was because the two of them knew Nadia. Or maybe all the stress they had been under had built up.
Either way, Kendra wasn't backing down.
"Shut up! I don't know what Nadia sees in you! I thought you were as cool as Nadia for a little bit! You're terrible! I AM her best friend! I tried to look after her! I checked in with her, unlike her boyfriend! You're dating her, yet I'm the one who did a better job when it came to her!! I'd never put her in danger, and I'm not going to just sit around and let anything happen! I could actually notice when something was wrong when you couldn't! You don't have any right to speak to me that way!"

If anybody was around, chances are they were staring or trying to hurry away. Really, it seemed Kendra was trying to avoid addressing what Cecil said. If she couldn't win that way, to her, just yelling seemed like a good idea.

He was getting increasingly sick of this. Of her not listening. "When did you notice something was wrong? Before she stopped showing up at school, because we all knew by then. And when you found out...what did you do?"

He wouldn't respond to further accusations after that. Until she answered, she was left to stew with everything he had told her.
Nothing more to feed on.

I... At least I contacted her! I sent her advice for if she was sick!" Still, a part of her fire had gone out as she tried to remember. It seemed she was staring to think about it.

"I sent her advice on taking care of herself if she was sick. Then I asked you about everything and you didn't know what was wrong so I got you and Tomomi so we could go take care of Nadia." She was muttering now, trying to remember exact details. She fell quiet after saying that, looking away. She still felt angry, but it seemed more like the anger she felt at herself from earlier. Not all of it was directed at Cecil at this point in time.

If she said any of that, however, she'd be admitting defeat. So Kendra, being stubborn, chose to stay quiet until Cecil spoke next.

This...this was good. Less yelling. Less...anger. He still felt frustrated, but it wasn't getting worse.
Had to try and keep this up. For Nadia.
He sighed. "I still feel stupid for running around the school trying to find her when she wasn't even there. I didn't think she'd just disappear entirely." And all that time, he could have called her and avoided all of this. Hindsight did nothing to help how bad that looked.
Nevermind that...just keep it going. Simple questions. "How was she, when you saw her in the days that led up to this?"

"You should've known! I knew faster than you did!" She didn't actually know if that was true, but she couldn't stop herself from saying it. She didn't seem to be exploding though, which was a good sign. Less chance of cops showing up, or worse.

"She seemed fine. She was fine. Besides the sick thing." The words that came out of her mouth made her tense a little. "You though she was fine too though! You messed up just as much!" It was hard to tell whether she was trying to justify not noticing it, or letting her anger at Cecil run.

It was a little relieving to hear he messed up 'just as much'. It was a change from trying shunt it all away.
They were making progress.
"Yeah. We messed up just as much as each other." He managed a small smile. "I know that. I said that before. And I want to be able to do better. To make sure things are better for her, and everyone else around me."
He had hope, for the moment. Maybe this would work out. "I mean...why do you think I tried to talk to you in the first place?"