#journal: vesper & sylus

[n109hunter]

text message (expanded) - forest maze

A follow-up scene for the text message 'Forest Maze', Vesper gets a little upset with Sylus, but she herself isn't entirely sure 'why' exactly. Introspective, muddling through hurt feelings, and some comfort and connection to top it off.

Named MC*, Sylus x MC, 1,301 words.

(*I often leave it vague, but this time around her particular trouble with dealing with her own emotions seemed more like my specific MC, so I committed to it. 😂)

Admittedly, she was a little frustrated with him, and in her frustration she did indeed clamber up the side of a tree. Which had honestly been a half-sarcastic response, but at the very least she might get a better view of the maze. 

But once she got to a good branch she didn’t find the view to be particularly helpful; it was pretty, but that only made her grumpier. Such an unpleasant, nasty feeling she didn’t like at all…

Funny to think she’d been upset with him plenty of times for any number of reasons, but now that they were… ‘a thing’, it felt a million times worse. They were supposed to be on a fun date, so she really wanted to get rid of this feeling before she saw him again. 

So, okay, quick self-analysis time. Was she just being petty because he got out first and she was stumped? Maybe a little, but that didn’t feel like the heart of the issue. 

“You didn’t get yourself stuck up there, did you kitten?” 

Tch. How did he find her so fast? She wasn’t ready for him.

“I did not.” Oh, she tried to sound neutral enough, but there was no helping how clipped her tone was. She took a breath and tried to even it out, looking out over the treetops under the purple-orange skies of the sunset.  “The view up here is really nice, I’m just taking it in.” 

“Is that so?” 

And that was all he said. Which was strange because she definitely expected more. Some teasing remark, something to bait her into some sort of response, but after a few moments she finally had to peek down to see if he was even still there or just left her behind again. 

Instead she was surprised to see his face just a few feet from her own, as he climbed up onto a branch nearby. For a split second she was taken by how handsome he was, how effortless he made it look, and yet how cute it was he’d go to the effort of actually climbing when his evol could have made it effortless.

“You’re right, it is a nice view.” 

With a scowl she turned her attention away from him. Augh. She didn’t like this. She didn’t want to be mad, least of all when she couldn’t quite pinpoint why. And if she wasn’t fast, he was going to-

“What’s the matter, sweetie?” 

Auuuughhhh. 

His hand brushed at her hair, sweeping the strands that veiled her face from him behind her ear. Painfully aware of the sour look on her face, she turned it away - almost comically so at this point. Why did he have to sound so sweet and gentle? It was impossible to mistake for anything else coming from the leader of Onychinus. 

“I don’t know.” Her answer sounded so petulant and whiny, even if technically it was pretty much the closest thing she had to the truth. 

A hint of amusement colored his tone: “Are you hungry?”

“No.” 

“Are you upset because you’re lost?” 

“I’m not lost.” She snapped back, and wanted to tell him to stop with the guessing, but apparently he sensed that it wasn’t helping and did so without her having to say so. Which she appreciated, because it was getting harder to keep the lid on her very irrational frustration. 

With a quiet grunt he lifted himself up onto the branch next to her, and she became all the more aware of how tense she was. 

Yes, she could be competitive, but that wasn’t it. If he ‘won’ by getting out first, she could have just been excited for him, couldn’t she? Yeah, she was pretty sure if she framed it like that, she’d have cheered him on for how cool and efficient he was. But that just wasn’t the issue.

“You have a habit of trying to figure out everything on your own… But you know you don’t have to do that with me, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve already got it all figured out, don’t you?” Ugh, she pissed her own self off. Honestly she wasn’t used to these sorts of feelings at all, but that wasn’t any excuse for lashing out at him when he was just trying to help. 

“Hmm, I’m not sure.”

She rolled her eyes and looked at him - his gaze was focused entirely on her, deep and thoughtful as if he was truly trying to dissect each minute detail in her facial expressions. For a moment she felt helpless, like she truly couldn’t have hoped to hide anything from him if she wanted to. 

“It’s just my bad mood, it has nothing to do with you, so I’ll sort it out on my own.”

“That’s your other bad habit.” He gave a small shake of his head. “You don’t want to cause trouble with the people close to you, so you circle around yourself and find ways to pin the blame at your own feet.”

She blinked, just staring at him as she tried to make sense of his words. Just as it was starting to click though, he set his gaze on her once again, a painfully soft and sincere look around his eyes, with a wry sort of sadness to them.

“I’m sorry I left you behind, Vesper.”

Oh. 

“It’s… my fault for charging off on my own…” She turned her eyes away from him again, feeling an irritating mistiness in them.

“I should have just followed your lead.” 

She pursed her lips. “...Yeah, you should have.” With a small huff she reached her hand over to his. “I wanted to do this with you.” 

“Yeah, I know that now. I won’t make the same mistake again.”

No, he wouldn’t, would he? 

The gross, icky feelings had begun to dissolve, but not without leaving an aftereffect of wibbly weepy feelings. But there was also just… a tender warmth, that they could sit and talk these things out like this. 

“I’m sorry for being so snappy.” 

“Aheh. I’ll admit… I’m used to you being feisty, but it was more unpleasant this time around.” 

“I didn’t like it either. I felt like I was going to be sick…” She still did, a little bit. But the tension in her shoulders was gone now, and with a small sigh she leaned over to rest her head against his shoulder as he twined their fingers together. 

“I’ll make it up to you.” 

She shook her head, caressing his knuckles with her fingertips. “It’s all right, I’m just… happy you came back. Happy you didn’t leave me behind because I was being unreasonable.” 

She heard him sigh, and noted the hint of fond exasperation. “You weren’t being unreasonable, sweetie. And I’ll always come back for you.”