Tangerine ~ Bullet Train

3 - Her heart skips a beat

'Thanks again,' Yuina said whilst looking straight ahead to look at Tangerine. They were now both sitting by the window, looking at each other for a moment. 'No problem,' he said, but in secret he wasn't so sure about that. He didn't know what that meant yet, but the thought of it becoming a problem crossed his mind. 'I won't bother you,' she added. 'If I do, please say so.' Tangerine only nodded in response before looking at the dark window again.

He wasn't sure he wasn't already bothered by her presence, why that was he didn't know. There was something about her that made him feel restless, but he couldn't tell what that was. It wasn't the case that he extremely disliked her or anything. In fact, he thought about the possibility he felt that way because she didn't annoy him by being there. In any case, he felt extremely thrown off by her presence. He should think about the mission Lemon and he will be working on soon, yet he couldn't bring himself to fully focus.

Yuina quietly asked herself why he would buy the whole four-seater, claiming that was because of work he needed to do, when all he did was keep staring out of the still dark window. She didn't ask questions though; she didn't want to bother him and frankly, what would she care? This was just a man she was going to sit with for a few hours at most, only to never see him again in the future. Why did that thought stirred something inside her?

She decided to take her mind off thinking about this weird encounter with this man she still didn't even know the name of. She grabbed her briefcase and quietly opened it. She took out the map with her drawings and decided to check whether they were still intact. She let out a sigh of relief when it appeared to be the case. Yuina was glad she didn't have to picture Riku's sad face if those drawings would get ruined. Still, she had a long way to go, so she decided to collect them neatly and put them back in the case. Not knowing whether her shuffling the pieces of paper drew Tangerine's attention or whether he was secretly looking at them all along, Yuina noticed he saw them. She tried to store the drawings quickly, but he wasn't going to let it go. Not when he recognized Thomas the Tank Engine.

'Fuck me,' he sighed, laughing. It seemed like there was a mixture of annoyance and chuckling in his voice. Yuina didn't understand his reaction at all and she didn't want to ask him about him. He didn't make it any more understandable by adding his next sentence. 'It seems like Lemon follows me everywhere I go.' He shook his head with the same mixture of emotions. Yuina didn't know whether to reply or not, because she didn't understand if he was being more annoyed or that he thought it was kind of funny. She folded the drawings over each other and just wanted to put them away when he asked: 'May I see those?'

Yuina once again didn't know how to react. Was he being sincere in wanting to see her drawings, or would he just laugh at her? She thought of her mother laughing at them and suddenly felt very self-conscience and ashamed. Tangerine seemed to notice. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'I wasn't laughing at you or your drawings. It's just that Lemon– ehm, my brother, is always talking about that show. It drives me fucking crazy – I mean it drives me nuts.' He didn't particularly do a good job explaining his reaction when he saw her drawings, and why that was he didn't know, but Tangerine seemed worried that she wouldn't believe him. 'Honestly,' he added, 'he is a grown man who still talks about Thomas the Tank Engine on a daily basis in all seriousness. He likes to fucking annoy me with it.'

His explaining came out a little rusty still, although he tried his best to deliver the message that he wasn't making fun of Yuina's drawings. The crazy thing for him was that he went to these lengths to assure her of that. For her, the crazy thing was not only that she believed him, but that she cared about it so much. Where she got it from she didn't quite know, but she decided that it would be fun to start a banter.

'So you think there's something wrong with people who talk about Thomas on a serious note?' she said with a serious face. 'You think it's childish or something? Are you calling me a toddler?' She really seemed insulted all of a sudden and Tangerine didn't know how to handle that. He also didn't know why he should care. 'N-no,' he replied quickly, 'I didn't mean it like that, I–' He clearly didn't know how to save himself out of this situation. Yuina looked at his face and it seemed like he was really bothered by the thought that he insulted her, but maybe he was just overwhelmed by her sudden outburst. She decided to take it a little further still. 'That's very Diesel of you,' she added with a straight face.