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“How do you think will we get to our next stop?” Nerissa asks as she tries to stretch, the cold night wind biting as it passes by. She checks on the other three in the back, helplessly smiling as she sees them all huddled together.
Shiori hums, leaning back as she sighs. “Who knows? We’ll worry about that when we get there.” She shrugs, and silence envelops them. Had the car been moving, there would’ve been something new to talk about, Nerissa laments as she looks around, trying to find something, anything.
“Something wrong, Rissa?” The archiver asks, an edge to her voice making Nerissa blink. She shakes her head, “No no, don’t worry. No danger for now.” The archiver doesn’t seem to take her eyes off her, studying her further, seeing if there was any hint of hesitance in her voice, her tone, her everything. There was none, of course, and Shiori leans back again.
The car seat was starting to hurt, making the demon shift in her seat. She wants to talk to her, she really does, but the lack of anything stops her.
She hears Shiori chuckle beside her, although soft so as to not wake the other three, “Are you bored, Rissa? Nothing to do in the middle of nowhere?” She teases as she looks up, a cloudy moonless night meeting her eyes. There were no stars that night.
“I am. Won’t you tell me a story, Shiori~n?” Nerissa feigns a yawn, almost turning into a real one as she exaggerates a stretch with her arms up high and an arch to her back.
“What would you like to know? I have a lot of stories, after all.” Nerissa begins fiddling with something in the car that she found: a small doll keychain. It looked more like a straw voodoo doll than the typical sorts, and the raven wonders if it came from Shiori herself.
The archiver notices, and she laughs, “Oh that. I kept dolls before, usually from thrift stores and stuff. I had porcelain dolls too.” Nerissa perks up at that.
“You had porcelain dolls too? I collected them before.” The archiver’s eyes widened.
“You did too??? I had so many that my room started to get a bit cramped. My parents even had to say something about it the moment they noticed I was running out of space.” They share a laugh, and Shiori continues to talk, though her voice cracks and raises in volume every now and then. Nerissa likes this side of her.
“There was this one time when I was trying to make games for a friend of mine, I asked him if he wanted a character in it that could be a potential love interest, and he said “Heck yeah!” Nerissa laughs along as Shiori tells stories one after another.
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“Then there was this one time with another friend of mine…”
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“Then— Oh! Speaking of, this friend was..”
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“And then she just had to do this, like, damn okay—”
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“Rissa?” The raven blinks, leaning back harshly as she realizes the distance between them. The car shakes slightly, earning them a groan and a grumble. Nerissa stills with wide eyes, not realizing the way she leaned in, when she even begun to do so.
“Sorry— I—” She didn’t really have an excuse, opting to just look away. She didn’t have an answer, really. The archiver merely grins at the sight.
“Aww, did you perhaps get lonely, Rissa? I kept talking about other people, after all.” A tease, the usual, and yet Nerissa finds it hard to deny it. She purses her lips, and glances at her guiltily.
“Yeah?” She whispers, and she watches as the grin on Shiori’s face shrink into a contemplating frown. She doesn’t say much after that.
“Then shall I tell you another story? One you should be familiar with.” Nerissa sees the archiver lean on the car door, refusing to meet her eyes. She raises a brow, and nods, before realizing her mistake.
“Sure.” A curt answer, she notices the way Shiori’s grip on her dress tightens ever so slightly.
“Well, there was this group of fugitives on the run.” Nerissa couldn’t help but grin at that. “They found a car, and after figuring out how it worked, they started to use it for travelling. There were some ups and downs, and well, currently, they were on the down part of the story.” The demon almost laughs at the retelling.
“The car breaks down a decent distance into a barren land as nightfall begun. Three of them worked hard to push the car out of the way and into somewhere safe and hidden. The same three were now asleep, tired from such hard labor.” Nerissa glances behind her, smiling as the three sleep soundly, somehow in a different position than before and yet still tightly huddled around each other. It was sweet, really.
“Now, the other two stayed awake. Why, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe they just wanted to stay up? Maybe they couldn’t fall asleep. Maybe they just… wanted to be alone with each other for a little while.” That got Nerissa’s attention. She stares as Shiori stays in her seat, still leaning on the car door, facing away from her. She sees her dress get crumpled within her tight grip, and she puts her hand over it, brushing over her knuckles with her thumb. The archiver relaxes with a sigh.
“One of them got to tell stories of all sorts, from this to that, about one friend to another. But she noticed her companion’s smile dim with every story, eyes stare far off as if she wasn’t present enough to hear any more. She notices the way she leaned in, seemingly unaware of how close she was getting.” Nerissa’s hand burns, wanting to pull away and yet she can’t as the archiver intertwines their fingers, holding onto her tightly. She hears her shuffle, and their eyes meet.
Shiori looked at her gently, making her gulp at how new such a stare from her felt.
“They pull away, not knowing what to do and not knowing what to say. And the story ends there.” She whispers as she shifts, leaning in closer, watching Nerissa’s every move to see if she was okay. The demon shudders.
“Say, Rissa. How do you think should the story end?” Shiori whispers, her breath hitting Nerissa in a visible puff in between them. Nerissa gulps, her stare shifting up and down, between her eyes and lips. She sees her grin. She has to say something, else she’ll pull away. Else she won’t have another chance like this. Else…
She probably won’t forgive herself if she didn’t seize the moment.
It was soft. That was the first thing Nerissa notices after getting over how cold her lips were against hers, the way it trembles slightly, from the cold or from the nerves, she’s not really sure. She doesn’t bother trying, not when her mind was filled with this moment, and this moment alone. They part after what felt like forever, and yet Nerissa only wants to lean in once more. She leans her forehead onto hers, and she sighs.
“Maybe like that?” She stares into amber eyes as they soften, a huge contrast to the wide grin she sported.
“Maybe like that.” The archiver whispers into the night, and Nerissa, of all she was, catches it all in one breath.