The streets and park, Tuesday

[dude_its_jude]

Completely unaware of what had transpired down the hall last night, Jude woke up achy and still a bit sore from yesterday. Setsuna's wings had provided more than enough drag and it had been an effort to maintain even a normal speed

Comments

Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

All morning, all afternoon, Sakurazaki had been very nervously moving between her door and Jude's, knocking at it almost every twenty minutes (she'd tried to give it hour, half hour spans, but couldn't), and never once catching him. His new roommate probably thought her insane, but she didn't care. That didn't matter. She had to find him, she had to talk to him, as soon as possible.

Finally, Sakurazaki gave up on trying to catch him in his room and went exploring. Great, he was probably training. She sucked in a deep breath, bit down tears. Jude finally gets something he's so incredibly stoked about , that he's been working so hard and determined at, and she has to come along and...and do this to him. God, why did she have to push Ranma like that? Why did, if something like this was going to happen, it would happen now? She was convinced at that moment that she was possibly one of the worst people in the world; maybe this was her bad karma slapping her in the face, finally waking up to the idea that she didn't deserve someone like Jude. Or that Jude deserved better than someone like her, and the only way to make it clear was through something so explosive.

After the training yesterday afternoon and the assault yesterday evening, Sakurazaki's progress to the park was slow, and just about as physically painful as it was emotionally. Well, there he was. Sakurazaki stood, timidly watching him, leaning against a tree, debating just turning around before he could notice her, avoiding the confrontation, her confession, but she stood strong. She couldn't do that; this was too important to just run away from.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude was trying something. In fact, he had been trying the same something for almost twenty minutes now, but just hadn't quite managed the right height. His board would clatter to one side, wheels spinning uselessly, and he'd dance to the other side to avoid tripping and falling, and then he would try it again, a deep look of concentration on his face. So deep that he didn't even notice Setsuna lurking about for him. One more failure and he collected himself, considered it for a moment, and tried again.

He landed the trick and pumped his arms in the air in celebration, his entire face lighting up. "Sweet!" He did a victory twirl, saw Setsuna, and his face lit up even more as he hurried over. "'Suna-bra!"

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

Oh, God...

Sakurazaki winced a little, closing her eyes and drawing in a breath. It took a lot to summon up even the most awkwardly obvious attempt at a smile. Oh, God, she couldn't do this. He was so happy...

...she wouldn't have to. Not technically. She could continue to just try to smile sweetly and compliment him and let him babble about his upcoming trip, and everything could be find and she wouldn't have disappointed him so much, and...and...

Sakurazaki firmly set herself back in check. That would only make things even worse! No, she had to do this. Had to. Straight forward, cut and dry. She'd already insulted his honour enough.

"Jude," Sakurazaki nodded, attempting to muster up the stone-faced, serious-business Setsuna that she was on her missions. It wasn't easy to do that with Jude, and it was even harder to do so through a building film of tears. But she forced herself to do it. But it wavered, a lot, her distress straining her voice. The urge to cry was doing a very poor job of hiding itself. "I need to talk to you about something."

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude's euphoria evaporated instantly and he abandoned his board to settle his hands on her arms, looking at her with concern. "'Suna? What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Geez, maybe she had got hurt yesterday . . . or maybe there was another mission . . . she didn't want him to go! Was that it? He didn't know what it was, but he had never really seen her like this.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

Severe emotional damage, a mission to have to show him how terrible a person she was, the desire to cling onto him and never let go...Yup. Each one of Jude's guesses could be appropriately applied.

Sakurazaki turned her head, unable to look at him; his being so close, touching her, made her doubt if she could really do this. "Something...happened last night," she started slowly, then, swept in a sudden wave of distress, she turned to him with wide eyes, clutching on his arms as she started a deserpate babble. "I didn't mean for it to! It just happened. I had to do it, there was no other way to stop him if I didn't! It was the only thing I could do; I had to!"

With a wince, she realized that she probably wasn't making any sense to him at all. She stopped herself, cowering back a little, lowering her head.

Stop making excuses for yourself. You did what you did. Suck it up and just tell him already.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude looked confused. Seriously confused. He blinked at her slowly. "Setsuna?" he asked softly, afraid for her. "What did you do? Did someone get hurt? Are you okay?"

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

Another flinch. This would be a lot easier if he didn't ask so many questions, if he wasn't just so damn concerned. But she had to do this. No excuses, no desperate attempts to find forgiveness that she didn't deserve. Okay. Here goes. She dropped her arms away, still couldn't lift her gaze.

"I...I kissed Ranma."

Well, there it was. A nice swift smiting from the heavens would be really nice about right now.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude wasn't entirely sure that he had heard right. For a second he hoped that she had just transposed a few letters, meant to say something else. But the way that she wasn't looking at him . . .

Jude let go of her arms as if he had been burned and took a stumbling step back. His mouth worked for a minute before he just said, "Oh."

And it was the softest, most harshed, unmellow "Oh" you could imagine.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

And this was the point where all her attempts to not make excuses for herself, to not cry went entirely to the wind. She found herself reaching out for him, but letting the hand fall back.

"I had to do it, Jude," she whimpered, desperately, the explaination babbling out of her in a frantic rush. "I know it sounds absolutely absurd, but I had to. I was trying, perhaps foolishly, stupidly, to try to get him over his fear of cats, but I...I pushed too much and he snapped, he just snapped Jude, like you wouldn't believe. I'd never seen him like that before." The distress in her eyes is replaced with something akin to horror as she recalled it in her head; her hands were shaking a little. "I couldn't move, he wouldn't listen. The only thing I could do was to...to...it was the only thing I could do that I know would bring him back around to himself...."

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

"Yeah," Jude said a bit shakily, nodding jerkily. "Yeah, I get it. You kissed him because you were helping him out. 'Cause you're friends."

Jude apparently grew the sarcasm gene when he was hurt, even if the hurt showed more at the moment. And he was hurt right now. He took another step back, flipping his board upright with his toe. "Yeah, yeah. Fine."

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

Sakurazaki shook her head feircely, jarring a few tears out of her eyes. "No, Jude! No, that's not it at all! He snapped, Jude, and attacked me!" Wincing, conflict rose up inside of her; she hated victimizing herself like this, making Ranma out to seem like the bad guy...he only attacked her because she pushed one too many buttons, despite his warnings, but how else was she going to get Jude to understand? "I tried, but I couldn't fight him off; I was desperate; I had to do something, anything to get him out of it. I wasn't helping him out at that point, I was trying to save myself!"

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

"By kissing him?" Jude looked hurt and lost as he searched for something to say. Didn't she get it? Finally he looked away from her, shaking his head as his shoulders slumped. "Whatever," he said, resigned. He stepped on his board and made to push off. "I'll catch ya later." No 'bra', no 'dude', just a 'see ya'.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

"Wait, Jude, no! Don't leave!" She made a desperate grab for his arm. "I understand if you hate me and never want to talk to again after this, but, please, hear me out first. It meant nothing, I promise. Nothing except a tactic to get myself out of a dangerous situation! Please, you have to understand that!"

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude looked dispassionately down at the hand on his arm, but he didn't move away. Yet. "Maybe it meant nothin' to you," he muttered, not looking at her. "Let me go. Please. I gotta . . . go."

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[bound2blade]

Sakurazaki was reluctant to draw her hand away, but she did. "Jude," she said quietly, blinking, pushing a tear out of her eye. It wouldn't do much good to try to tell him that she had to do it; he clearly couldn't understand...Maybe she should have just let crazed Ranma continue to attack her. It would have hurt much, much less than this. "I...I'm sorry. I..."

God, what had she done? She'd ruined everything! Before she could even think to try to stop herself, she just burst out into sobs, threw her arms around him, and just clung. She told herself that she'd let him go if he wanted to, that she'd understand and that he would be perfectly right to do so, but, in the moment, she just couldn't.

Re: Sometime that Afternoon.

[dude_its_jude]

Jude stumbled backwards, already off-balance from most of his weight being on the skateboard. He was still for a moment, hesitating before his arms came up and enfolded her in return. It wasn't one of his enthusiastic if lanky bear-hugs and he didn't squeeze her tightly, but he held her for a moment before his hands moved up her arms and gently removed them. He stepped away, the ghost of a smile around his mouth even if his eyes were still hurt. He nodded, once.

"I'll catch ya later." It wasn't a dismissal. It was a promise. He just needed to think without her standing right there and he hoped that she, in turn, understood that.