abyssopelagic

ᵒⁿᵉ

⊹ ࣪ ﹏𓊝﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖

"Ack— quit messing with the phonograph before Pom-Pom locks you out of the kitchen!" You end up freezing in place from where you had been lazily swiping through cylindrical discs, the music pitching and groaning in stilted bursts as you skipped through them. Sweat-dropping you withdrew your hand and placed it on your knee while crouched.

Stelle full on snickered at you, but the sound quietly dies down when Pom-Pom waddles up right between the both of you in order to pin your friend with the most nonthreatening glare known in existence.

"I'll lock you out too trailblazer!" Immediately she droops at the idea, displeasure woven in her expression. With a thin smile you closed your eyes while using one hand to pat at the soft red cloth of their coat on their shoulder.

"Pom-Pom isn't that a bit extreme I was just showing her how the phonograph works," You try to soothe their frankly unjust accusations. You weren't messing with the phonograph you were simply showcasing it's abilities. Their eyes narrow into even thinner icy slits, smaller arms coming to rest across itself as it metaphorically had it's hackles raised.

"Don't give the conductor too much of a hard time, their just looking out to ensure there won't be a Melos II repeat..." Feeling an embarrassed warmth build on the skin of your cheeks you hunched in on yourself lightly, gearing up for an indignant reply. Only for Stelle to interrupt.

"Melos II?" There is this foreboding lilt to her tone that already has you internally groaning and avoiding any goad of eye-contact she is trying to get from you.

"Mr. Yang," You begin words warning as you whipped around to look at him. "You were sworn to secrecy!" Welt Yang raises both his arms up palms facing you like a spooked animal, which in any other situation you probably would've snorted at; however, there was absolutely no time for humor when your ego was on the line.

Betrayal settling over the lines of your expression, Mr. Yang furrows his eyebrows, black rimmed glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose as he looked away with a rather melodramatic sigh.

"Now now, you're dragging it out of proportion after all it was just an honest mistake," Ensuring that you had the nastiest stink eye, Mr. Yang takes the hint and resolutely backs off with an amused shake of his head. Stelle glances between the two of you before shrugging nonchalantly. Honestly you wouldn't be surprised if in the future she somehow weaseled the truth out of some poor soul.

But you'd take small mercies as they come and the longest she went without knowing guaranteed one day more of her not dangling the embarrassing memory over your head in (goodnatured...) jests. You almost huff in relief, eyes falling shut, but then Pom-Pom has the audacity to sigh like grizzled old man which in of itself feels wrong. Then they even grumble.

"Honest mistake my tail," Outright glaring at the critter you suddenly came to the startling realization that you definitely were not above tussling with a rabbit looking alien that probably wasn't even half your size. Eyes narrowed you let your optics flicker away in order to side eye him, mouth tipped in burgeoning annoyance.

Before you could really get into the mental gymnastics of what fistfight with the conductor would even entail (cute looks be damned you would totally body Pom-Pom) their whipping around and making a shooing motion at your crouched form. Appalled you raise a brow in question only for them to sniff haughtily, and you feel your back molars grind down against each other.

"If anyone should be showing the new passenger how to utilize the phonograph then it should be me as the conductor of the Astral Express," As much as you were loathe to admit they had a point so you sigh derisively in acquiesce.