Someday never comes [Tomo/Cecil]

Nadia passed a look to Cecil. It was a small, mirthful smile at Tomomi's subtle difficulty with certain aspects of the english language. She really did find it endearing though. She stepped back from the sign, considering what the two boys had said about Sundaes and how they got their name. She would have to look it up later on the internet. For now, though, it was Ice cream time!

She stepped up to the counter and ordered the ice cream, before beckoning the boys over to a table to wait for them to bring it to them. Naturally, she paid for it in full without asking questions. Tomomi's answer to her question was fine, but she still felt like she needed to repay them for coming with her today. Once they had all sat down (with her obviously seated next to Cecil), she addressed it. "I was balancing my checkbook the other day and just realized I didn't know your state of things, is all. I doubt it's a very high paying job. I just had the thought that You and Cecil..." She pointed a playful finger at her boyfriend, "Would make good room mates. Of course, you'd have to get a job yourself, you bum." She set her papers down a little out of the way on the table and lightly pushed at Cecil. It was obviously a joke. It wasn't like it was normal for highschoolers to live on their own. Atleast it wasn't pre-divide. Nowadays it was more common, but if you had a loving family like Cecil's to take care of you, you didn't really have a need for a job or an apartment.

Where Nadia smiled, Cecil sighed at Tomomi's attempted dismissal of the question. It was the sort of deflection he'd attempted himself in the past. The sceptical look he gave his friend was brief, but the message was clear enough - he could answer the question he'd posed with minimal issue if he needed.

The pointed fingers coming his way soon put him on the back foot, though. "W-Wait, what? Are - that's not a good idea right now. That's a terrible idea right now. I am a bonafide resource drain right now, and that's not changing in short order. I am nowhere neeeear that point yet."

The audio cue that he didn't buy it stung. But, Tomomi kept a light expression on his face throughout most of what was said, until Nadia suggested that Tomomi and he would be good roommates. At this, Tomomi just grew very confused. Why was Nadia suggesting this? Why wouldn't she just suggest Cecil moves in with her? Was this her attempt at showing solidarity with the fact that Tomomi's crush was unrequited? Or, was this just a whimsical thought off the top of her head? His head spun, evidently very confused. Hearing Cecil explain that he was a resource drain however, Tomomi decided the best bet would be to try and figure out what the heck everyone was talking about.

"Um... Resource drain? And... Bone fide? Is that, like, confide?"

Nadia rolled her eyes at the exchange between the two, and shook her head, unable to keep the laugher from bubbling up. She gripped Cecil's wrist reassuringly as she giggled. When she sobered, she replied. "No, no, Bona fide means um... like authentic or licensed. Official. He means he's so good at using resources without replenishing them that he ought to have a license for it. Kind of." Nadia attempted to fix the misunderstanding.

The confused looks on their faces just reaffirmed to her how strange it was for her of all people to be asking these kinds of questions. "But, it was just a thought that I had. If everything is going okay, then that's great. I just um..." she hesitated for a minute. "If either of you ever need help with that sort of thing...I know a thing or two. I don't talk about it much, but now that you've seen where I come from, it doesn't seem like as big an issue, I guess." She said, shrugging, as the ice cream sundae-zilla was delivered to their table.

Nadia stared. That was a lot of icecream. "wow..."

The boy smiles a little as that beautiful sound of laughter reaches his ears, shrugging and giving a non-committal nod at Nadia's explanation.
His hand twists around to rest on hers as she continues on, and he does his best to seem reassuring. "Alright. I'll remember that. But-" He gestures to the icecream placed down bare moments ago. "We have something else to focus on right now, don't we?"
He chuckles under his breath as he takes in the full scale of the sundae, something that develops into full-blown laughter as he sees Nadia's reaction. "That looks like something Dad would serve up in one of his buffets. Or..." His eyes flick to Tomomi, and he smirks a little. "What do you think? Too small to fit in with the rest of the buffet?"

The sound of laughter hurt the boy, who interpreted the laughter as being at him and his struggling with some nuances of the English language. But, the sound of her laughing clearly made Cecil happy as he smiled again at Nadia's joy. Did that mean Cecil found it funny when Tomomi failed at English as well? The thought... He shook it away, looking over and watching as the ice cream arrived, eyes widening, before quickly looking over to Cecil at the call of attention regarding his dad's cooking.

Looking the behemoth of an ice cream up and down, Tomomi shook his head, muttering. "Uh... Nah, this is definitely less than what your father would make... So um... Who wants to, um, go first?"

Was it just Nadia...or did Tomomi seem down after what she'd said. She wondered if maybe it was because of Cecil and Nadia. She knew about his feelings towards Cecil, unrequited though it may be. It must be hard to watch them...

Nadia cleared her throat, looking only a little troubled. She snatched up the utencils they had been brought and passed them out. "It's a team effort. We're a team." She smiled warmly at Tomomi definitively. "The three of us. We couldn't do it with just two!" she said as she spooned out some ice cream and popped the spoon into her mouth, if for no other reason than to shut herself up before she made things any worse than she already seemed to. It was maddening that she couldn't even do things right with the people closest to her. Was this always how things were among friends? is this what social interaction was like? It was muddy and frustrating, but at the same time made her feel wanted in ways she hadn't before she'd met them. Any feeling of reticence was outweighed by the knowledge that she couldn't live without them now. Nor did she want to.

He wasn't expecting the demeanour he saw when he looked over at Tomomi. And for a moment, he saw the same reflected in Nadia.
And then, they were plastering over it in a very familiar manner.
It was just - "I don't know what just went over my head, but it doesn't matter, alright? We came here to eat ice cream instead of moping, and as you can see, there's still a great big pile of ice cream we haven't eaten yet. So, I'm saying it this time - ice cream first, uneaten feelings later!"
And with that, he dove into the sundae at a vicious rate before he could go back to fretting about the affairs of the people around him again.

That Nadia caught on to what he was feeling was bad enough. That Cecil then figured out that they both knew something that he didn't? That made it worse. Even more so given how Nadia emphasised that they were a team; it was almost as if she wanted Cecil to find out about his crush, something which wasn't even relevant. Thankfully, it seemed just this once, Cecil wasn't going to inquire; pressing them into the urgent matter known as ice cream.

Before him, the two most important people in his life were trying to relighten the mood he'd successfully brought down, stuffing their faces full of ice cream. So, Tomomi began to join in as well, albeit at a much slower, more dainty pace compared to either of them, covering his mouth often as one might expect a princess to, and deciding to take Cecil's advise of eating the pain away with ice cream.

Nadia couldn't bring more attention to Tomomi's mood, that would make everything worse and threaten the revealing of the secret she'd promised to keep. It seemed she'd slipped up just enough that Cecil had noticed, despite her attempt to dodge the feeling. She really wasn't very good at concealing her emotions. It wasn't like she had any precedent for such strong feelings before, really. Everything with Cecil and Tomomi was so new and amazing...both the good and the bad, that she couldn't contain her feelings most of the time. She had to get better at that.

Pulling the spoon from her mouth she nodded, looking at Tomomi for a moment with an apologetic look, before turning that same look to Cecil. It was meant for Tomomi, but giving it to both of them would help to alleviate Cecil's feelings that whatever happened was being kept from him. "I'm sorry, Cecil. I suppose I just feel like maybe bringing up financial stuff might have disheartened Tomomi. I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Tomo. I didn't mean to. I'm always saying strange things, aren't I...?" She gave an apologetic smile, but not an unpleasant one. It was more rueful. She had accepted that sometimes what she said or thought was outside of the current realm of conversation or social grace. She wasn't really sure how to fix it...it was just something that happened. But she could apologize for it, and perhaps the new point of stress- one that could be easily brushed away - would provide sufficient cover for the more clandestine problem to slip away unnoticed. "But Cecil's right. That's not why we're here. So, instead, let's what's the phrase? Eat our feelings?" She giggled a little, favoring Cecil with bright eyes. "Such a funny way to say it."

Cecil had to hold back a groan as things went back into feelings and apology the way he'd been hoping they wouldn't. He pulled back, swallowing down a bite of ice cream as he wiped off his mouth with the back of his hand, internally frustrated that he provoked this. Even so, he still couldn't help but smile at the look Nadia gave him as she laughed. "It's accurate. Eat a load of food to help you digest your feelings." He shakes his head, rolling his eyes. "Anything else we need to get out before we get back to this? I mean, I'd been trying to avoid the emotions for once, but after my past behaviour I'm not going to begrudge people if they've still got stuff bothering them they feel the need to act on."

Great. Cecil had caught on, and Nadia felt bad; Tomomi had come to associate her calling herself strange with her looking down on herself. He couldn't just let Cecil try to fix things though, that was way too much pressure. So, what should he do... What to do...

At Cecil's declaration that if they had anything to get out or act on, the small boy saw his opportunity. Grabbing his sundae spoon, Tomomi took a big scoop out of the ice cream, declaring proudly "Yoink!" before shoving it into his mouth and just letting the end of the spoon hang out for a moment, going cross eyed, and purposefully making himself look like a silly kid to try alleviate the tension and lighten the mood.

"No, I don't think so." Nadia was quick to respond to Cecil's question, spooning a fresh dollop of Ice cream into her mouth. She was just thinking of a way to dissuade the topic of conversation when Tomomi made a funny face that she wasn't expecting. She usually thought of the boy as somber and just generally uncomfortable in most situations, so such an embarrassing display caught her off guard, and she nearly choked on her laughter, glancing at Cecil to see if he was laughing to.

This part felt nice. The part where they were comfortable enough around each other to act like goofs and not feel any embarrassment. Not that Nadia really felt any embarrassment about anything really, but that was another issue entirely. For now, just this was what she wanted. The two most important people in her world sharing icecream and being the only people they could be. Everything else - all the worry and lies and trouble they faced at night, the District leaders and the playhouse, the Cadets and the other Psyche Terrorists, they could all disappear in these moments, and Nadia for one was grateful.

For a moment, Cecil just looked at Tomomi, mouth hanging open a little as his thought process caught up to the moment.
Then, he raised a hand to his mouth and started to snicker.
The tides of laughter crested and spilled forth, and he doubled over. The timing of everything was just about perfect, and it was all he could do not to void his lungs with howling laughter.
It felt good.

He was smiling wide as he tried to catch his breath, pushing himself back up. "Alright, al-halright, let's..." He seemed to sober a little as he felt the cold sensation of something running down the edge of his forehead. Tentatively, he daubed his fingers at the spot, and moaned loudly as it finally hit him what had happened.
"It's in my haiiiiir...!"
"Daaaammiiiiiit...."

Smiling at how his successful distraction worked, Tomomi joined the couple in giggling. This was nice. The start had been rough, and the period of miscommunication too, but, it was nice. Still, he couldn't just recover everything... Some day or another, he'd have to be honest. Get the air cleared for Cecil, and tell Nadia about his language... But not today. Today, ice cream.

And then, they failed to get the prize after all that anyways.

Ice cream: 1
Emotions: 0

[Exit]