Marionette

Oceans, Chapter Six - Shitsumon [質問]

Despite the interruptions of what could have been a ground-breaking epiphany, Amaya still managed to retain some form of understanding that wasn't forced out of her head by the evil elevator. Even better, she took the stairs instead, just to spite the stupid cable-drawn cage, and her thoughts began to work again.

First was the fact that he'd heard her words she spoke in front of his apartment door, though she didn't know how much.

Second was the fact that while there was still something off, or even wrong with him, he was going to remember to "Play" with her from now on.

And third was the fact that while he didn't say the words "I'm Sorry", he still gave her a very vague, between the lines kind of apology, which was a hell of a lot, considering that it came from Karma, of all people.

The only time Karma would ever apologise was when he was doing it in order to taunt the living hell out of you.

Everything was still out of whack and of course Amaya was still inwardly bobbing around in the ocean that was her emotions, her emotional state still somewhat stable despite a greatly flooded world. She was still managing to keep her head above the surface, the events in Karma's apartment building having had a calming effect on the turbulence that had been there before.

While she still had no idea what was going on with everything around her, at least she had seen some signs of improvement.

Something that wasn't her had given in, and her overstrung mind began to slowly regain tolerance.

Amaya let out a very familiar breath as she stepped out of her building's elevator on the ground floor, her headphones in place over her ears as she listened to some Galileo Galilei and walked to the train station. Her MP3 player had committed suicide in the bathroom sink when she slipped over that morning, leaving Amaya with the small range of music on her phone, instead.

She probably wouldn't be able to buy a new one for a few months.

It had just gone 6.30am, and after Monday's events, Amaya didn't feel any particular desire to give an opportunity for anything else to happen. The idiots she usually took care of with her fists never truly appeared in numbers so early in the morning. One or two here or there half asleep, at most three like at the Kunugigaoka station.

Despite her stubborn streak and her refusal to admit anything about it to anyone, Amaya left her hair loose to hang down her back for the last two days, unlike her usual high ponytail. Even though she was certain Karma had only meant that he liked her hair loose just because he could royally mess it up and piss her off at the same time, Amaya couldn't help it. When she stared at herself in the mirror this morning, a shade of pink had touched her face and she couldn't bring herself to put it in her ever-normal ponytail. It was rare that he would actually say that he liked something about her, and it meant a lot to her, even if he wasn't being serious.

Of course, if Karma saw her, he was just going to mock her mercilessly for it.

But in a weird way, she was fine with that. She'd just smack him for it if he pissed her off too much.

She never really knew what to do when it came to Karma and what he'd say to her, even when he wasn't acting so god damn weird. She'd never had a friend other than Karma before, so in a nutshell, she didn't really know how friends were supposed to act, or even if it was normal for an offhand remark like that to please her so much. It didn't help that her siblings just continued to tease her about her friendship with Karma, even worse that because she didn't know how friends were supposed to feel about each other, there was a possibility that she was misinterpreting platonic feelings for infactuation. She believes she has feelings for him, but in another way she didn't really know for sure. She still did her best to suppress anything that didn't register as entirely chummy or platonic in any way, which meant that there was a lot that she was hiding from herself.