[PP-F6] Hanging Around

[Teion 0]

Fifteen minutes out from Krycim, Teion hung lazily from various jungle vines that hung between two sturdy trees. The woman had spent what most people--herself included--would consider far too much time fashioning the set-up to rest in, but at some point her stubbornness took over and she had decided she wasn't leaving until she got her vine hammock. With her right leg extended straight, ankle elevated and resting in a thick jungle rope, her opposite leg bent at the knee and her foot dangled at least thirty feet above the ground. Leaning back into the rest of the vines she had strung across the empty space for her to lay in, Teion scrolled through her menus with a deadpan expression. It had been a couple of weeks before she had started seeing Aereth--under more personal, less suicidal circumstances from their initial meeting. There was something that had been nagging at the back of her mind for quite some time, however.

Teion's head leaned backwards until her chin pointed towards the mostly-obscured sky, violet hair cascading over her shoulders. She had received multiple messages from Ryo since the last time she saw the fuchsia-haired man, and the last time he attempted to contact her was almost a full week ago. Her brows knit together while her troubled eyes closed. He had confessed to her. Ryo told her that he had feelings for her, and yet she hadn't sent him a single reply. Not only that, but she had started dating someone else. "Uggghhhhh..." Teion let out a long, low groan of frustration.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo had finished his quest with his inner demons. He woke from his trance, the force of the waterfall behind him forcing him into the water beneath him. He swam back up to the surface, gasping for air. "God, dammit!" He cursed, his long hair covering his eyes. He felt his way to the end of the lake, and walked up to shore, his boots sloshing with water as he walked. He grabbed his hair and twisted it wringing it of the water that weighed it down. Couldn't wait for it to dry and become the frizziest mess that Aincrad had ever laid eyes on. He felt up a tree and plopped down beside its trunk, unequipping his boots and re-equipping them to dry them off. "For feck's sake." He said, his hair still covering his eyes and unbeknownst to the violet-haired woman who perched above him. "Did that quest for what? A meager skill, and to get lectured?" Ryo complained as he threw his hair back so that he could finally see quickly again. "Then they had to go and talk about Teion." His hands gripped his temples and he motioned back and forth as if trying to erase the memory out of his brain. "Gah, why can't I stop thinking about her?" He shouted loudly. It was bad enough that he had abused his relationship with her to go on a date shortly after her previous lover had died, but he had sent several embarrassing messages to her some days prior. He stopped rubbing his head and looked down at the ground. He wanted to forget, he wanted to forgive himself for yet another terrible thing he had done. "I guess I just miss her, that's all." Ryo said to himself.

[Teion 0]

Purple-tinted brows twitched when a faint, anger-filled voice reached her ears. Immediately doing her best to drown the sound out, she intended to wait impatiently while whatever adventurers beneath her passed through the jungle and she could return to stewing in her silence. The task proved more difficult than she initially thought when the player's concerns and complaints grew even louder.

Though she tried to ignore the heated words that spilled from the supposed-stranger's mouth, one of them made that impossible. When her own username filled the air, Teion's eyes flew open and she pulled her head up along with the rest of her upper body. Managing a sitting position among the complicated set of vines, she leaned dangerously forward in order to peer down at the man that had sat himself down at the base of one of the trees she lounged between. The woman's eyes widened when she recognized Ryo, and her mind went blank before she was able to urge it along to figure out what in the world she should do in this situation.

She was just about to see if she had any teleport crystals on her. Pulling her arm forward as quickly as she did, however, provided just enough momentum for the vines that supported the majority of her weight to slip away. As pieces of her makeshift hammock gave out on her and promptly shattered, Teion let out a short, involuntary scream when the sensation of falling overtook her. Luckily--in the sense that it prevented her from taking the full force of the fall to the jungle floor--a few of the remaining vines had tangled themselves around the leg and ankle she had nestled them in. Catching the girl in midair, Teion's eyes had wrenched shut until the falling feeling stopped. It was quickly replaced with a heavy discomfort, vines that wrapped around her leg pulled tightly while she felt her hair hanging away from the nape of her neck. Her eyes cautiously opened to see the world around her, including the soaked man who had been voicing his frustrations, flipped on its head. Or rather, it was the girl who was suspended several feet from the forest floor.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo sighed, unable to shake the thought of Teion from his mind. The least he could do is dry himself off. He swiped open his menu, removing his jacket and shirt from his equip list. But just then he thought he had heard a noise from above him. Still paranoid from the quest earlier made him jumpier than he normally would've been and he looked up at the scream was let out. A screaming blur of purple came at him, and Ryo threw himself back up against the tree trunk to avoid it. Looking at it closer, and not moving at a high velocity, he realized it was a person. He had a bad feeling about it. He reached out, touched her and spun her around so that she could face him. Ryo stared at the woman he came to know only as Teion, and she stared back. He opened his mouth to say something but was only able to let out small bursts of air, as though he was trying to fully grasp the entire situation that had fallen before him. After a few second he finally managed to get himself to stutter out her name. "T-Teion? How did? How did?" He asked, first meaning to ask how she ended up here with him but decided to ask how she managed to get into this situation. "I'll cut you down." Ryo said, reaching up to Teion's ensnared ankle, his bare chest pressing up against her as he tried to free her.

[Teion 0]

Teion was just about to grumble in lingering discomfort as her jostled mind struggled to catch up with her. She flinched in reaction when she felt a force upon her arm, but as her body turned as a result Ryo's inverted avatar came into view. As if she hadn't recognized him from her perch in the trees a minute ago, her cobalt eyes went almost as wide as his. Her bottom lip stiffened in stunned silence as he stammered out fractions of a repeated question. She couldn't find any words to respond with.

Thankfully, his attention quickly turned to helping free the woman from the remaining vines that entangled her. While the man worked to break the remaining durability of the jungle ropes, the realization of their sudden closeness caused a burning heat to flush her cheeks. As if their proximity alone wasn't enough to fluster the awkward girl, she failed miserably in her attempt to ignore the fact that he wasn't clothed from the waist up.

When her entrapment finally broke into a mess of pixels, gravity waited for nothing before it pulled the woman to the ground. Teion's arms braced her as much as they could, but she still ended up sprawled uncomfortably on the jungle's floor. A low grumble of discomfort now finally left her, and she pulled up a hand to both push the violet locks that had fallen in front of her face away and rub gingerly at her head that was left practically spinning. She didn't have much time to recover before she realized Ryo was still very much beside her. "U-uhh..." She forced out a sound when words failed her. "Um... Hey. S-sorry." She mumbled, working to avert her gaze from staring at the man.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo knelt down in a failed attempt to catch to catch the woman, but his height made it impossible for him to reach up and soften the woman's fall. As she plopped onto the ground, Ryo began apologizing.Ryo still couldn't muster up the words to express his concern, instead, he just flustered about making sure that Teion was still alive and well. In the sense of falling from a height such as that, stopping suddenly, then falling again. He knelt down to get closer to the woman making sure that she didn't have any deep cuts or bruises, or anything of the like. But by the time he realized that this was only a virtual world and no such injuries could occur, he was already knelt down beside her. He gave out a soft chuckle in his embarrassment and in an effort to shatter the tension. "Sorry." he blurted out, saying at the same time as Teion. He caught himself and brought his eyes down, away from Teion's. He wanted to apologize for leaving the way he did, he wanted to say sorry for all the [censored] that he had done but the words didn't come out. "Hey." He said, plainly his face lighting up in a blushing red. "N-nothing to be sorry about. I mean, gravity works how it works. How nice of it for you to drop by as I was happening by, huh?" He said, internally making the joke. His face paled as he came to the realization of it, making his red cheeks all that redder.

[Teion 0]

With both players flushed and stammering, Teion could only think about how it wasn't nice at all that they happened to run into each other like this. She had just been stewing in a pot of guilt and uncertainty, and here was one of the main ingredients kneeling beside her after she'd spent so long avoiding him like the plague. "Right..." She mumbled regardless.

She wished that she could disappear and pretend like this encounter never happened. Running away from anything she didn't know how to deal with, as usual. But as that didn't seem to be a viable option, she forced her gaze back on him and pushed herself into a slightly less awkward position to sit on the forest floor. "You alright?" She asked after a thick moment of silence. The man looked as though he had just gone for a swim, but judging by the irritated ramblings she heard earlier, she assumed it hadn't been such a pleasant venture.

[Ryo 0]

Of all the people to show up. Of all of them in the world, it had to have been her. He rubbed the back of his neck in nervousness, unable to properly assess the situation. Ryo leaned against the tree, flipped open his menu, and re-equipped his shirt. It stuck slightly to his still damp skin, but at least it was now dry. He looked up at Teions question. Was he alright? No, good lord no. He'd been thinking of this woman nonstop, hated himself for it, though that she thought the same, and now all of a sudden she falls back into his life. "Yeah," Ryo said, lying. "I'm fine. Just did a quest, and fell into the nearby lake." He said. "Was trying to forget someon-some things." He said, correcting himself mid-sentence. His entire experience was surreal. Seeing his apparent other selves, one of them being alive and the others being Aramail and Lowenthal. He didn't know how to process that information, let alone accept it. "What about you? You took quite the fall, you alright? Why were you in the tree?" Ryo asked, his curiosity getting the best of him, as well as the need to turn this awkward situation into something else.

[Teion 0]

He turned the question back on her. She was lucky that Ryo directed her attention to the fall that she had taken, allowing her to give a small nod. "Yeah, I'm fine. Nothing that caused any damage." He then promptly questioned her reasoning for being in such a place at such a time, and Teion couldn't help her eyes from darting to the side again. "I was...just relaxing. I don't visit the sixth floor often." She admitted, trying to throw out whatever words that might serve to reduce the tension in the air. She felt as though the attempt fell flat on its face, and so she brought up a hand to the back of her neck.

What should she say? It's not like she could pretend she hadn't gotten the messages she had sent to him during the weeks prior. She felt as though it was obvious that she had been ignoring him, and so finding herself thrust into his presence was all the more unsettling. Teion once again shifted until her back was pressed against the tree standing opposite him. Her knees pulled close to her chest, and her arms crossed over the tops of them as she stared at her legs. "I'm sorry I haven't been in touch." She broke the silence with another apology.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo scoffed. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you were busy." Ryo said, laughing the situation off. "And, I'm sorry as well," Ryo said apologizing. "For leaving the way I did. I vented out my feelings and didn't even think about you, or what you may have thought about the entire situation. I saw something for what it was, and I let my judgment cloud me. So again, I'm sorry." He said, bowing his head to Teion. He somehow felt better about his apology. Like, a weight had been lifted off of his chest. He unbowed his head, lifting it back up to see the woman in front of him. Dammit, what was it about her that made him feel this way? His throat tightened, he sweated more, he couldn't find the right words to speak. Everyone else called her a catch or a cutie, and here he was just trying to find out what they all meant. Yes, Teion was cute, that was a given. But there was no need to explain that to him.

Ryo took in a deep breath before letting out a hefty sigh. He tugged at his light shirt, trying to get to not cling to his body. But the jungle's humidity, his own dampness, and the heat made the fabric cling to his skin.

[Teion 0]

Busy. That was one word for it. Teion continued to stare at the tops of her knees for the length of Ryo's apology. An awkward guilt continued to twist and squirm around inside of her as she thought about everything that had happened since the last time they saw each other. It felt for a second as though the words might spill out of her, but she swallowed them back down before her jumbled thoughts could reach the air.

The silence was nearly as insufferable as the thought of gushing all of the loose information inside of her head. Her bottom lip stiffened in a frown, and just as she opened her mouth in an attempt to speak a loud crack of thunder caused her to give a start. With tense shoulders that held a bit tighter onto her legs, Teion's eyes turned up to the dark gray sky that was partially visible through the tall trees overhead. It was only a few seconds later that the sound of heavy raindrops beating against the leaves above them reached her ears.

[Ryo 0]

The crack of thunder startled Ryo, causing him to flinch slightly. The rain fell lightly at first but soon came into a hard torrent. Ah, goddammit. "Here, let's get somewhere dryer, we can talk there." Ryo said, quickly swiping open his menu and retrieving his leather jacket. He draped it over Teion, motioning for her to start moving. "C'mon I know a place in town." Ryo said, still draping his jacket over her. He had to get close, and he had already gotten used to being soaked.

He lead Teion along the forest path and into town where he had opened the door for her and let her inside the tavern first. Ryo removed the jacket and added it back to his inventory. "There we go. Safe from the rain. And it looks like we're the only people here. Aside from the NPC's of course." Ryo said, his clothes still dripping water from the rain outside. He slicked his hair back, letting its weight sit on his spine. He motioned over towards the fireplace seats, someplace warm for himself to naturally dry off. 

Ryo stared into the fire, finding the courage to spark up another conversation. "So, I can't stop thinking about you," Ryo said, his eyes reflecting the light from the fire. "And I don't know why either. I've even tried doing quests, and hanging out with other people. You've been doing the same, haven't you?" Ryo asked, his knees sinking closer to his chest.

[Teion 0]

Teion felt a sudden tap as a few raindrops fell upon her head and shoulders. She heard Ryo's suggestion and just as the woman was about to stand to follow his lead, the dark fabric of his jacket rested against the top of her back as Ryo pulled its collar over the top of her head. She blinked, surprised by the gesture but too awkward and eager to get out of the oncoming storm to protest.

The pair soon found shelter once they had made their way back to the nearest safe zone. Ducking into a tavern where they took seats beside the fire, Teion found herself curling up once again, her heels pressed into the edge of the chair while her wrists crossed in front of her ankles. The silence settled over them, with only the crackling of the fire and the light, scripted conversations of NPCs on the other side of the tavern to fill the air.

"I... No." Teion replied with hesitation before her tone went flat, her eyes fixated on the flames just the same. "I mean, I haven't done quests. And I haven't been hanging around...many other people." One more time, she felt her stomach twist in apprehension. Should she just keep talking? Tell him everything that had happened in the past month, and how terrible she felt for pushing Ryo to the side all the while? Her fingers began to fidget among themselves as she wrestled with the thoughts.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo chuckled. "No, that's not what I meant." He said, removing his boots and setting them by the fire. "I meant, trying to forget me. The horrible thing I did, and how I treated the situation." Ryo shifted his weight to make himself a bit more physically comfortable. The tension still hung in the air and was thick enough to be cut with a knife. Ryo's thoughts weighed like a ton, crushing his mind even further and further. "Look, Teion. I-" Ryo began but was unable to find the words. He muttered, and rotated his head, trying to jumble them out. "I don't know how to explain it.And, I don't think I ever can but, there's something about you that I can't shake." Ryo said, his eyes catching the embers of the fire. "Teion, are you happy?" Ryo asked as he looked over at Teion who was adorably sitting in her chair. He didn't know where that question came from, or how it lead to what he was saying before. But he felt like it was something, someone would've said. Whom, he didn't know exactly.

[Teion 0]

Teion lowered her head a few centimeters when Ryo clarified his question. Whether she had honestly taken it the wrong way, or she had tried to twist the meaning into something less direct, even she wasn't positive. Her eyes flickered over to the man sitting across from her while he tried and admitted failure with explaining his reasoning. Her brows lowered after she turned her gaze back on the fire, keeping herself from glaring at him. He presented her with a question that she wouldn't have known how to answer, but even so she wasn't focused on finding one.

"What's so special about me?" She muttered under her breath, a hint of irritation present in her low voice. First Beatbox, then Max, and now Ryo. Or really, the latter two were the other way around. Clearly not expecting an answer should the man with magenta hair have happened to hear her, Teion's arms wrapped around the sides of her legs tightened their grip. "I'm a mess. Four months in, and I fell apart. Does everyone just want to try fixing me?" She scowled. What did any of these men know about her? Beatbox was always an enigma, but at this point she had chalked it up to a mixture of some weird sense of righteousness and selfish desires. Her bond with Max had been forged and strengthened by their mutual hardships, and she still struggled to push away the lingering feelings of guilt and apprehension at times.

"I can't answer that." She stated flatly, finally acknowledging his vague question as her cobalt eyes shot daggers into the dancing flames.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo was taken aback by her counter question. What was special about her? A question he had been asking himself ever since Lowenthal had saved him, and they had been trapped. "I don't know what makes you special. And I don't know if I could ever answer that question." Ryo started to say. "I don't want to 'fix' you. There's nothing wrong with you, as far as I can tell. I just, want to understand you, know you." He said, keeping his eyes on her. "I can't explain why I want to because I don't know." Ryo said. Footsteps approached the two, and Ryo turned his head only to react and nearly fall from his chair. "No!" He exclaimed. "Not, not you!"

"Ahhhh, hello my young couple friends!" A familiar french voice cried out. The same NPC from before, the one from the cafe had appeared and was now serving them. "It's raining pretty bad, non?" He asked, stating the obvious. "Would you delightfully couple like something warm to drink perhaps?" He asked.

Ruo kept his mouth shut, angry at the NPC for showing up. But was somehow thankful for the distraction. "No, I'm fine." Ryo said, picking himself back up.

"Hon hon, and you mademoiselle?" He asked Teion.

[Teion 0]

Teion's eyes remained sharp as they stared at the flickering fire, though now her scowl wasn't one of self-pity, but rather frustration at the lack of explanation that both of them were able to provide. Her mind was busy taking in the words that he did offer and attempting to make sense of them, as if she was trying to mash different pieces of a puzzle together in hopes that they might by chance fit. It wasn't until Ryo's panicked reaction reached her ears that Teion's narrowed gaze turned on him, then over her shoulder at the familiar elderly figure that approached.

The girl didn't try to stop herself from glaring back at the exuberant waiter that she easily recognized from the second floor, but her expression didn't seem to bother the NPC in the slightest as he grinned with the question of drinks directed towards her. "How did you even switch floors?" She asked, ignoring his prompt for the time being. She couldn't recall seeing service NPCs move locations without a specific reason, not to mention jumping four floors.

"Oh hon! I have many jobs!" The waiter replied with a dismissive wave of his hand before directing his pen back to a small notepad. Seeing as Teion wasn't going to get a meaningful explanation out of him either, she simply turned her gaze back on the fireplace and let out an annoyed sigh. "...Tea with honey." She replied in a mumble. Despite knowing that it would mean the waiter's return in a few minutes' time, the want for a warm drink outweighed the annoyance.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo gave the old french NPC a look as he kept talking. How did he, when did he, how could he. The sheer existence of the NPC boggled Ryos mind. Were they being followed? But, having an NPC change floors was unheard of. But, did NPC's recognize people? Could they? His butler did, so why couldn't this NPC do the same? Ryo scratched his head. The waiter ran off, presumably to talk to his NPC buddies and fetch Teions drink. As damp as Ryo was, a drink didn't sound right. "So, what were you doing in that time of trying to forget me?" He said, in an almost joking matter. He knew the woman didn't want anything to do with him. That was shown by he disinterest, and the fact that she hadn't tried to message him at all. "I mean you were probably super busy with, things." Ryo said, trying to think of what Teion would be doing.

[Teion 0]

The waiter went on his way, and they were left alone again. And once again, the topic of how she had occupied her time since their last meeting became the focus of the conversation. Her fingers continued to move nervously in front of her ankles, and her jaw tightened. This time she didn't manage to swallow the words down before they found their way into the silence. "A lot happened. I got stuck in a dungeon on floor twenty-one. I ran into someone that was trying to kill themselves. Stopped them, babysat them for a few days." The fingers of her right hand curled around her opposite thumb and squeezed, remembering the invitation she had received from the man sitting across from her. "After the Halloween party, we split up. And then...things were rough." Her eyes dropped from the fire, staring at the stone bricks of the surrounding hearth. "I didn't leave my shop. I didn't eat. After a week, I thought about ending it myself."

She closed her eyes with brows narrowed. A few moments of silence passed while she gathered her thoughts, and she drew in a breath through her nose to continue when hurried footsteps sounded behind her. "Mademoiselle, your drink." The very same waiter leaned over the shoulder of her chair, looping his arm around to hold a saucer with a white porcelain teacup sitting atop it in front of Teion. Her eyes flew open and she shifted in discomfort before taking the small dish in her hands. "Oui, a lovely evening by the fire for two who are young and in love!" Teion's icy glare didn't seem to dampen the NPCs mood in the slightest, but he finally left them be after a few more awkward seconds.

Teion sighed, closing her eyes once again. She didn't want to continue, but she felt at this point that she had to. She had to muster up a bit of courage before grazing over the next few memories. "He came back. Crashed at my shop for a couple of days. I met up with an old friend. Then he left again. I ran into some assholes in the desert, but he showed up again and...took care of them." The first and only time she'd seen a player shatter into pixels first-hand was a sight that burned into her memory. "After all that..." Her chest tightened while the words caught in her throat. "Well... We're...seeing each other now." She admitted, gaze turned back to continue glaring at the fire.

[Ryo 0]

Ryo listened to Teion's tale. About the mysterious man that she had stopped from killing himself. They gained a bond of some sorts, and now they were dating. Why did this make him angry? Who was this guy, and how did he sucker Teion into this relationship thing? He let his face remained expressionless, but his fist clenched. Teions thought of suicide, her mention of the Halloween party, then her depression. All of it was hard to sink in. The waiter returned, calling them both in love. He shot him a glare, as well as Teion, did. How dare he assume such things. Teion was spoken for, and that made him angry. Teion confirmed his thoughts, saying that they two were seeing each other. He slept in her shop, he saved her life as she saved him, he was everything that Ryo couldn't be. What was it that that made him better than him? The question kept bouncing in his head. Why?

The silence was broken yet again by the French npc yet again. "Bonjour Good ser, madam. I have here, this note. Dropped off by some man just now." He said, handing Ryo the note. He gave a polite bow and hurried back towards the kitchen. Ryo looked at Teion, then at the door seeing if it was opened recently. Not noticing anything out of the ordinary, Ryo opened the note.

'Dear Sir Ryo,
I regret to inform you that I have poisoned Miss Teions drink. If you want to find the antidote, I have a game for you all to play. I have hidden it among various vials and other concoctions in a potion shop on the second floor. Good luck hunting! '

The note ended there, and Ryo looked it over in a quick panic, trying to see if there was anything else on the note. it wasn't signed, but it was handwritten. "Teion, you're gonna want to read this," Ryo said, handing her the note. "It says you were poisoned, you feel any different? Notice any status changes?" Ryo questioned, still looking around for someone else to be in the tavern, but to no avail.