Promise or there will be ass-kicking [Tatsuki and Ravi]
Who: Tatsuki and Ravi.
What: Tatsuki talks to Ravi about what Cross said to her about distractions.
When: ... Just over a week ago, I think? >> After this.
Where: On the first floor.
Rating: PG?
Today had started in a pretty interesting way. Ravi had woken up with a splitting headache, to the sound of horses nearby. The stables, right. (Not a great place to sleep.) What had happened before that? One minute, he was outside Allen's room, keeping watch to make sure Rinali was going to be moved to Bak's room safely. The next, Cross showed up to teach him a 'lesson'...
Cross had probably dumped him out here, after whacking him over the head with a hammer. Pretty hard. In fact, it still hurt. Now he was starting to see why Allen seemed to go through traumatic flashbacks every so often when his master came up in conversation.
Well, at least neighing horses hadn't been the only sound he'd heard after waking up - the singing coming from somewhere was a lot better, even if it had made him wonder if he was just hearing things for a while there.
And now it was about time to head back inside. Not only because he could use a bath after his adventure in the stables (maybe Kanda was right and he was actually going to end up with fleas this time), but also because he'd promised to meet up with Tatsuki. It sounded like something was up and he didn't think it was just his imagination.
Ravi stepped past the entranceway back into the castle, glancing around to see if Tatsuki was already downstairs.
Tatsuki, for once in her life, left her journal behind when she went down to meet Ravi. Keeping up a veneer of okay-ness was easy enough most of the time, but being near Ravi right now? Well... better to leave the journal behind. She'd already betrayed enough of her feelings to Axel, though she was pretty sure he didn't know what was up.
Cross... Tatsuki frowned deeply as she continued to make her way down the fifteen stories to the first floor. Why had he done that to Ravi, anyway? It seemed... well. Tatsuki knew that more than likely, it had nothing to do with anything she'd said to him. But in a way, she still felt bad. Hell, she felt awful in general. Your distractions may be the death of those friends. Tatsuki rubbed the side of her face as she walked. Was he right? Was it true? What if she...
Then again, that was the point of going to see Ravi now. Against her better judgment - and against what she'd said to Cross earlier.
Reaching the first floor a few minutes later, Tatsuki walked down the hallway, glancing around. It'd just occurred to her that Ravi had just gotten back from the stables. She felt a little bad for bugging him so soon, but... then she spotted him anyway, still near the entrance to the castle. And she blinked. Then she burst out laughing, clapping a hand to her face in a very futile attempt to stifle herself. "Ravi," she said shakily as she walked towards him, "did you know you... kind of..." She snorted. "Have the word 'ass' scribbled across your face...?"
There she was. Ravi lifted one of his hands in a wave and offered Tatsuki a smile when he spotted her, watching her walk over to where he was standing. But his expression grew surprised when she burst into laughter - well, that wasn't a bad thing, not really, especially considering that she'd seemed kind of subdued before - and he stared at her. What? Did he have something on his face?
... Yup. Her words confirmed that.
"Ass?!" Ravi echoed, dismayed. He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, hoping that would take care of it. Not that he could say it was that surprising Cross had added that as part of teaching him a lesson, too. The stables were where the 'asses' slept, right? Ravi made a face. It could be paranoia - no wonder Allen was so jumpy when it came to the General - but for a moment Ravi wondered if Cross had known that he had a habit of scribbling on people's faces in their sleep, too.
He lowered his arm and looked at Tatsuki, grinning somewhat sheepishly. "Well, I didn't get stampeded or anything," he remarked, remembering Allen's question.
She only laughed harder at his reaction, wrapping her arms around her middle as she just cracked up.
"Yeah, good thing," she choked out, "or you'd have hoof marks to go along with that, uh, label. You missed, by the way," she added, bunching up her own sleeve to reach up and scrub at the word, managing to get most of it off before she realized. Ravi was a lot taller than her. She had to stand close and on her toes to do this. It hit her very suddenly what she was doing - how close they were - and instantly she backed away, her expression closing off as she looked anywhere but him. She balled her hand into a fist, now unable to even meet his eyes.
"Sorry," she muttered, though she wasn't completely sure exactly what it was she was apologizing for.
"Not sure which one's worse," Ravi remarked. He chuckled before a comically exasperated expression appeared on his face at Tatsuki's observation. "Damn, it's still there?" Either he'd just rubbed at his face in the wrong place or Cross had used some kind of permanent ink. Ravi leaned down a bit when Tatsuki reached up to take care of the 'decoration' for him, but, noticing that she quickly moved away only moments later, he straightened back up and gave her a puzzled look. "What's that for, Tatsuki?" he asked, surprised by her apology - it had come out of the blue, for no apparent reason.
Moving closer, Ravi laid his hand on top of Tatsuki's head and gave her a grin. "Hey, it's a good thing you got it or I would've been walking round with that on my face for the rest of the day, yeah?"
Tatsuki was struggling with words, here. She was the one who had asked to talk, but now that they were both here, she suddenly couldn't think of a way to voice everything she was thinking.
But she had to look up at him when he put his hand on her head, and she blinked. Then her face flushed, to the point that it was noticeable - but it was hard to say why. She gave him a barely-there smile in response, but looked away. She knew she was making him wonder, but still the words to explain weren't coming. They just kept getting stuck in her throat, and it was making her angry.
Finally she clenched her jaw, and took a breath. "Cross," she said, and her tone made it clear she meant the General.
Cross? Ravi raised his eyebrows. That didn't exactly tell him much. He pulled his hand away to rub the back of his neck, watching Tatsuki. "What about him?" he asked. If it was about what Cross had done, she could see that it wasn't that big a deal, right? He'd come out in one piece - his head didn't even hurt that much - even if he'd had 'ass' scribbled across his face and probably smelled like horse stable right now.
"Allen probably went through this kinda thing loads of times," Ravi added. "He's the one who asked me about getting stampeded."
But, remembering something else, he decided to try a guess. "You got into another argument with the guy?" Lucky for Tatsuki, she wasn't part of the Order, so Cross would probably leave her alone - at least, Ravi was pretty sure that he wouldn't do anything like this to her.
Tatsuki just shook her head a little. "Not that," she said. "Though that's still one hell of a weird punishment."
She was quiet again until he mentioned the argument. She'd brought it up, she'd been the one to SAY something, and she still flinched. "No," she said quietly. "Just that one. It was just... something he said," she finished with difficulty. She folded her arms across her chest and bit back a sigh, idly rubbing one hand up and down her arm. She was silent for a moment, looking off to one side, just remembering that conversation and how swiftly it had turned bad.
"'Those things you hold dear may one day kill them. Your distractions will be the death of those friends,'" she murmured, looking everywhere but him. "That's... what he said. And..." She swallowed hard. Saying all of this was incredibly hard for her. The last thing she wanted to do was make Ravi worry; that was kind of the whole point. "... I was... is it true?" she finished in a rush. Now that she was here, well... she might as well say it.
Well, he couldn't argue with that one. He was in complete agreement there. And it sounded like Cross was pretty fond of weird punishments.
Ravi's expression quickly grew surprised as Tatsuki continued. That was what they'd argued about? He was silent for a while. Well, that was probably the sort of thing most of the Order thought. You couldn't afford distractions if you were in the middle of a war, especially the kind they were involved in. Right? Distractions, attachments - pretty dangerous stuff if you combined it with being an exorcist and they already seemed dangerous enough for ordinary people.
But it wasn't like they were machines.
Ravi shrugged and smiled at Tatsuki. "Well, he's got a point, but we're still around, so all we gotta do is work on keeping it that way. Who says we can't just figure out how to multitask?" he replied jokingly.
She actually smiled a little at that. "That was kinda my feeling, yeah," she said. "I mean, Kanda seems to have enough problems with it - there's nothing WRONG with caring! But..." even so, she trailed off, her expression slipping back into something like thoughtfulness. Her jaw worked as she tried to find a way to phrase this.
Because while she'd described Allen and Miranda as friends, too... she didn't really talk with them that often. And Ravi... had done a lot for her. And if she was completely honest with herself, she was scared that somehow she might... be that distraction, that would get him into trouble he'd have a damn hard time getting back out of.
But it was nearly impossible for her to say this to him. She just didn't know how. Tatsuki was very used to being self-sufficient and strong on her own. She didn't like to worry and usually trusted in her own abilities to get by. At times like this, though... the worry got to her, and she didn't know what to do about it. But... this was Ravi. She could try.
"... you," she said, after a difficult silence. "I don't want... what he said about being a distraction..." Then she trailed off again. That was really the best she could manage.
Yeah, Kanda was probably one of those people who agreed with that kind of thinking, right? Always put the mission first - other things could endanger that. And maybe it was true. And from a different angle, one that wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the Order anyway, it already was. You couldn't be an onlooker on the sidelines if you ended up in the midst of everything going on.
Probably too late for that, though, so why not just say 'screw it' and work around all that? Allen and Rinali were proof enough that there was nothing wrong with caring. And if he couldn't keep himself from being biased... well, he'd figure that one out when it turned out it was actually a real problem.
Ravi placed his hands on Tatsuki's shoulders and offered her a grin. "I'm still standing here, breathing and everything, right? And seeing as I kinda like staying that way, you got nothing to worry about there, promise. Same goes for any of us, I bet."
She blinked when he put his hands on her shoulders. Her expression underwent a subtle sort of transformation - from sadness to confusion to worry, to picking up a little smile that kind of looked... grateful. "Yep," she agreed. "You are."
She finally grinned at him a little, and meant it. "All I gotta say, man, is that better CONTINUE to be true, alright? The standing and the breathing and the being okay and all that. You better keep that promise!" And without any warning whatsoever, she threw her arms around him in a brief but tight hug. It was a really weird gesture for Tatsuki - weird strange not normal, not a gesture she was really comfortable with most of the time, and the only person she ever really hugged was Orihime, and Orihime was special-
It was only a moment, but then she backed away, smiling a little crookedly. "I'm gonna remind you of that promise," she said.
Ravi watched the changing expression on Tatsuki's face. His grin widened when she finally smiled back, even if it was just a small smile, and he opened his mouth to say something else, but he ended up closing it again a second later, finding himself with Tatsuki's arms wrapped around him in a quick hug. The last hugs he'd gotten had been from Rinali and Miwako hugging his arm, a while back. (Well, unless you counted Kanda's hug attacks that one weird pancake-filled week.) For a moment, Ravi wondered if it meant he actually had pretty bad luck with girls, if he'd only ever gotten hugs that felt like a friendly gesture and nothing more - but hey, those weren't a bad thing, either.
Plus, it was almost like Tatsuki was another Allen, in a way. To come to think of it, even though their mannerisms were obviously different, there seemed to be some similarities between them, at least when it came to going out of their way to do things and worry about other people.
Lowering his hands when Tatsuki stepped back, Ravi put them behind his head and smiled at her. "I'm not gonna forget it, but if I do, you get to kick my ass for it, 'kay?"
Tatsuki, of course, would never have admitted to that. Going out of her way for other people. Of course she did it - more than she realized. But she was a person of very fierce devotion, and once it was won, she'd act on it without fail. Ravi was just one of those people. There were a couple others here, but besides Chizuru, he was the only one to earn her loyalty like that. By Tatsuki standards, that said something.
"Hey, I don't need your permission to kick your ass," she reminded him helpfully. "You forget and I'm doing it whether you like it or not!" She was unmistakably in better spirits. She hadn't quite shaken the worry Cross had put on her shoulders with what he'd said, and probably wouldn't anytime soon - but this was Ravi, and she could never stay downbeat around him for long. Besides, well... that was the whole point. She did trust him - especially to take care of himself should any sort of situation came up. She was counting on that.
"C'mon," she said, grabbing his sleeve and giving it a careless tug. "Let's grab something from the kitchens. You probably haven't had anything to eat since Cross knocked you out, huh?" she asked, giving him a grin.
Tatsuki wasn't acting like she'd been doing earlier on, when it had felt a lot like she'd been trying to avoid him - and it probably had been exactly that, after what she'd ended up telling him a couple of minutes ago. But it looked like things were back to normal now.
Ravi snickered at Tatsuki's remark. "Guess I gotta make sure I keep that promise, huh?" he said. Before he could offer her a reply to her question - even if telling her that her guess was right was stating the obvious - and agree that grabbing something to eat sounded like a pretty good idea right now, his stomach decided to take care of that for him, loudly voicing its own agreement to Tatsuki's suggestion.
Ravi scratched the side of his face and cleared his throat. "Yeah, sounds great," he added with a laugh and let himself be tugged into the direction of the kitchens.
She grinned up at him to make some sort of quip, then just blinked at the grumbling his stomach made. It took only a moment for a quivering smile to spread across her face before she just burst out laughing. "Guess that answers that," she said between snickers, and she gave him a light, joking pat on the arm. "Man. And Allen had to deal with that guy for YEARS? I'm surprised he's still sane. Remind me not to tick off Cross again," she added, half serious.
Tatsuki had made up her mind, really. True, she probably COULD present a distraction to Ravi. But that was the choice he'd made, right? To be her friend. He knew what his job was and knew the risks, and he was her friend anyway. She decided he knew what it meant, and was okay with it all anyway - which, of course, she didn't mind in the least.
What: Tatsuki talks to Ravi about what Cross said to her about distractions.
When: ... Just over a week ago, I think? >> After this.
Where: On the first floor.
Rating: PG?
Today had started in a pretty interesting way. Ravi had woken up with a splitting headache, to the sound of horses nearby. The stables, right. (Not a great place to sleep.) What had happened before that? One minute, he was outside Allen's room, keeping watch to make sure Rinali was going to be moved to Bak's room safely. The next, Cross showed up to teach him a 'lesson'...
Cross had probably dumped him out here, after whacking him over the head with a hammer. Pretty hard. In fact, it still hurt. Now he was starting to see why Allen seemed to go through traumatic flashbacks every so often when his master came up in conversation.
Well, at least neighing horses hadn't been the only sound he'd heard after waking up - the singing coming from somewhere was a lot better, even if it had made him wonder if he was just hearing things for a while there.
And now it was about time to head back inside. Not only because he could use a bath after his adventure in the stables (maybe Kanda was right and he was actually going to end up with fleas this time), but also because he'd promised to meet up with Tatsuki. It sounded like something was up and he didn't think it was just his imagination.
Ravi stepped past the entranceway back into the castle, glancing around to see if Tatsuki was already downstairs.
Tatsuki, for once in her life, left her journal behind when she went down to meet Ravi. Keeping up a veneer of okay-ness was easy enough most of the time, but being near Ravi right now? Well... better to leave the journal behind. She'd already betrayed enough of her feelings to Axel, though she was pretty sure he didn't know what was up.
Cross... Tatsuki frowned deeply as she continued to make her way down the fifteen stories to the first floor. Why had he done that to Ravi, anyway? It seemed... well. Tatsuki knew that more than likely, it had nothing to do with anything she'd said to him. But in a way, she still felt bad. Hell, she felt awful in general. Your distractions may be the death of those friends. Tatsuki rubbed the side of her face as she walked. Was he right? Was it true? What if she...
Then again, that was the point of going to see Ravi now. Against her better judgment - and against what she'd said to Cross earlier.
Reaching the first floor a few minutes later, Tatsuki walked down the hallway, glancing around. It'd just occurred to her that Ravi had just gotten back from the stables. She felt a little bad for bugging him so soon, but... then she spotted him anyway, still near the entrance to the castle. And she blinked. Then she burst out laughing, clapping a hand to her face in a very futile attempt to stifle herself. "Ravi," she said shakily as she walked towards him, "did you know you... kind of..." She snorted. "Have the word 'ass' scribbled across your face...?"
There she was. Ravi lifted one of his hands in a wave and offered Tatsuki a smile when he spotted her, watching her walk over to where he was standing. But his expression grew surprised when she burst into laughter - well, that wasn't a bad thing, not really, especially considering that she'd seemed kind of subdued before - and he stared at her. What? Did he have something on his face?
... Yup. Her words confirmed that.
"Ass?!" Ravi echoed, dismayed. He scrubbed at his face with his sleeve, hoping that would take care of it. Not that he could say it was that surprising Cross had added that as part of teaching him a lesson, too. The stables were where the 'asses' slept, right? Ravi made a face. It could be paranoia - no wonder Allen was so jumpy when it came to the General - but for a moment Ravi wondered if Cross had known that he had a habit of scribbling on people's faces in their sleep, too.
He lowered his arm and looked at Tatsuki, grinning somewhat sheepishly. "Well, I didn't get stampeded or anything," he remarked, remembering Allen's question.
She only laughed harder at his reaction, wrapping her arms around her middle as she just cracked up.
"Yeah, good thing," she choked out, "or you'd have hoof marks to go along with that, uh, label. You missed, by the way," she added, bunching up her own sleeve to reach up and scrub at the word, managing to get most of it off before she realized. Ravi was a lot taller than her. She had to stand close and on her toes to do this. It hit her very suddenly what she was doing - how close they were - and instantly she backed away, her expression closing off as she looked anywhere but him. She balled her hand into a fist, now unable to even meet his eyes.
"Sorry," she muttered, though she wasn't completely sure exactly what it was she was apologizing for.
"Not sure which one's worse," Ravi remarked. He chuckled before a comically exasperated expression appeared on his face at Tatsuki's observation. "Damn, it's still there?" Either he'd just rubbed at his face in the wrong place or Cross had used some kind of permanent ink. Ravi leaned down a bit when Tatsuki reached up to take care of the 'decoration' for him, but, noticing that she quickly moved away only moments later, he straightened back up and gave her a puzzled look. "What's that for, Tatsuki?" he asked, surprised by her apology - it had come out of the blue, for no apparent reason.
Moving closer, Ravi laid his hand on top of Tatsuki's head and gave her a grin. "Hey, it's a good thing you got it or I would've been walking round with that on my face for the rest of the day, yeah?"
Tatsuki was struggling with words, here. She was the one who had asked to talk, but now that they were both here, she suddenly couldn't think of a way to voice everything she was thinking.
But she had to look up at him when he put his hand on her head, and she blinked. Then her face flushed, to the point that it was noticeable - but it was hard to say why. She gave him a barely-there smile in response, but looked away. She knew she was making him wonder, but still the words to explain weren't coming. They just kept getting stuck in her throat, and it was making her angry.
Finally she clenched her jaw, and took a breath. "Cross," she said, and her tone made it clear she meant the General.
Cross? Ravi raised his eyebrows. That didn't exactly tell him much. He pulled his hand away to rub the back of his neck, watching Tatsuki. "What about him?" he asked. If it was about what Cross had done, she could see that it wasn't that big a deal, right? He'd come out in one piece - his head didn't even hurt that much - even if he'd had 'ass' scribbled across his face and probably smelled like horse stable right now.
"Allen probably went through this kinda thing loads of times," Ravi added. "He's the one who asked me about getting stampeded."
But, remembering something else, he decided to try a guess. "You got into another argument with the guy?" Lucky for Tatsuki, she wasn't part of the Order, so Cross would probably leave her alone - at least, Ravi was pretty sure that he wouldn't do anything like this to her.
Tatsuki just shook her head a little. "Not that," she said. "Though that's still one hell of a weird punishment."
She was quiet again until he mentioned the argument. She'd brought it up, she'd been the one to SAY something, and she still flinched. "No," she said quietly. "Just that one. It was just... something he said," she finished with difficulty. She folded her arms across her chest and bit back a sigh, idly rubbing one hand up and down her arm. She was silent for a moment, looking off to one side, just remembering that conversation and how swiftly it had turned bad.
"'Those things you hold dear may one day kill them. Your distractions will be the death of those friends,'" she murmured, looking everywhere but him. "That's... what he said. And..." She swallowed hard. Saying all of this was incredibly hard for her. The last thing she wanted to do was make Ravi worry; that was kind of the whole point. "... I was... is it true?" she finished in a rush. Now that she was here, well... she might as well say it.
Well, he couldn't argue with that one. He was in complete agreement there. And it sounded like Cross was pretty fond of weird punishments.
Ravi's expression quickly grew surprised as Tatsuki continued. That was what they'd argued about? He was silent for a while. Well, that was probably the sort of thing most of the Order thought. You couldn't afford distractions if you were in the middle of a war, especially the kind they were involved in. Right? Distractions, attachments - pretty dangerous stuff if you combined it with being an exorcist and they already seemed dangerous enough for ordinary people.
But it wasn't like they were machines.
Ravi shrugged and smiled at Tatsuki. "Well, he's got a point, but we're still around, so all we gotta do is work on keeping it that way. Who says we can't just figure out how to multitask?" he replied jokingly.
She actually smiled a little at that. "That was kinda my feeling, yeah," she said. "I mean, Kanda seems to have enough problems with it - there's nothing WRONG with caring! But..." even so, she trailed off, her expression slipping back into something like thoughtfulness. Her jaw worked as she tried to find a way to phrase this.
Because while she'd described Allen and Miranda as friends, too... she didn't really talk with them that often. And Ravi... had done a lot for her. And if she was completely honest with herself, she was scared that somehow she might... be that distraction, that would get him into trouble he'd have a damn hard time getting back out of.
But it was nearly impossible for her to say this to him. She just didn't know how. Tatsuki was very used to being self-sufficient and strong on her own. She didn't like to worry and usually trusted in her own abilities to get by. At times like this, though... the worry got to her, and she didn't know what to do about it. But... this was Ravi. She could try.
"... you," she said, after a difficult silence. "I don't want... what he said about being a distraction..." Then she trailed off again. That was really the best she could manage.
Yeah, Kanda was probably one of those people who agreed with that kind of thinking, right? Always put the mission first - other things could endanger that. And maybe it was true. And from a different angle, one that wasn't supposed to have anything to do with the Order anyway, it already was. You couldn't be an onlooker on the sidelines if you ended up in the midst of everything going on.
Probably too late for that, though, so why not just say 'screw it' and work around all that? Allen and Rinali were proof enough that there was nothing wrong with caring. And if he couldn't keep himself from being biased... well, he'd figure that one out when it turned out it was actually a real problem.
Ravi placed his hands on Tatsuki's shoulders and offered her a grin. "I'm still standing here, breathing and everything, right? And seeing as I kinda like staying that way, you got nothing to worry about there, promise. Same goes for any of us, I bet."
She blinked when he put his hands on her shoulders. Her expression underwent a subtle sort of transformation - from sadness to confusion to worry, to picking up a little smile that kind of looked... grateful. "Yep," she agreed. "You are."
She finally grinned at him a little, and meant it. "All I gotta say, man, is that better CONTINUE to be true, alright? The standing and the breathing and the being okay and all that. You better keep that promise!" And without any warning whatsoever, she threw her arms around him in a brief but tight hug. It was a really weird gesture for Tatsuki - weird strange not normal, not a gesture she was really comfortable with most of the time, and the only person she ever really hugged was Orihime, and Orihime was special-
It was only a moment, but then she backed away, smiling a little crookedly. "I'm gonna remind you of that promise," she said.
Ravi watched the changing expression on Tatsuki's face. His grin widened when she finally smiled back, even if it was just a small smile, and he opened his mouth to say something else, but he ended up closing it again a second later, finding himself with Tatsuki's arms wrapped around him in a quick hug. The last hugs he'd gotten had been from Rinali and Miwako hugging his arm, a while back. (Well, unless you counted Kanda's hug attacks that one weird pancake-filled week.) For a moment, Ravi wondered if it meant he actually had pretty bad luck with girls, if he'd only ever gotten hugs that felt like a friendly gesture and nothing more - but hey, those weren't a bad thing, either.
Plus, it was almost like Tatsuki was another Allen, in a way. To come to think of it, even though their mannerisms were obviously different, there seemed to be some similarities between them, at least when it came to going out of their way to do things and worry about other people.
Lowering his hands when Tatsuki stepped back, Ravi put them behind his head and smiled at her. "I'm not gonna forget it, but if I do, you get to kick my ass for it, 'kay?"
Tatsuki, of course, would never have admitted to that. Going out of her way for other people. Of course she did it - more than she realized. But she was a person of very fierce devotion, and once it was won, she'd act on it without fail. Ravi was just one of those people. There were a couple others here, but besides Chizuru, he was the only one to earn her loyalty like that. By Tatsuki standards, that said something.
"Hey, I don't need your permission to kick your ass," she reminded him helpfully. "You forget and I'm doing it whether you like it or not!" She was unmistakably in better spirits. She hadn't quite shaken the worry Cross had put on her shoulders with what he'd said, and probably wouldn't anytime soon - but this was Ravi, and she could never stay downbeat around him for long. Besides, well... that was the whole point. She did trust him - especially to take care of himself should any sort of situation came up. She was counting on that.
"C'mon," she said, grabbing his sleeve and giving it a careless tug. "Let's grab something from the kitchens. You probably haven't had anything to eat since Cross knocked you out, huh?" she asked, giving him a grin.
Tatsuki wasn't acting like she'd been doing earlier on, when it had felt a lot like she'd been trying to avoid him - and it probably had been exactly that, after what she'd ended up telling him a couple of minutes ago. But it looked like things were back to normal now.
Ravi snickered at Tatsuki's remark. "Guess I gotta make sure I keep that promise, huh?" he said. Before he could offer her a reply to her question - even if telling her that her guess was right was stating the obvious - and agree that grabbing something to eat sounded like a pretty good idea right now, his stomach decided to take care of that for him, loudly voicing its own agreement to Tatsuki's suggestion.
Ravi scratched the side of his face and cleared his throat. "Yeah, sounds great," he added with a laugh and let himself be tugged into the direction of the kitchens.
She grinned up at him to make some sort of quip, then just blinked at the grumbling his stomach made. It took only a moment for a quivering smile to spread across her face before she just burst out laughing. "Guess that answers that," she said between snickers, and she gave him a light, joking pat on the arm. "Man. And Allen had to deal with that guy for YEARS? I'm surprised he's still sane. Remind me not to tick off Cross again," she added, half serious.
Tatsuki had made up her mind, really. True, she probably COULD present a distraction to Ravi. But that was the choice he'd made, right? To be her friend. He knew what his job was and knew the risks, and he was her friend anyway. She decided he knew what it meant, and was okay with it all anyway - which, of course, she didn't mind in the least.