photonbutterfly:

Droite didn’t know much about Kotori. What she did know, however, is that she was quite a pretty girl and she had a lovely fashion sense. Looking at her made her think of herself when she was younger, and her hanging around with Yuma didn’t help this image one bit.

Droite liked to think she had good fashion sense, as well. So when she did actually go shopping for clothes - not due to a lack of funds, but more of a lack of time - it was only normal that she would find Kotori in her favourite clothes store.

Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the leaf-haired girl struggle between two dress options. Though maybe, in hindsight, it was inappropriate, she approached the young girl. “This one would suit you more,” she said, holding the skirt part of one of the two dresses. In that moment, she realised Kotori might not have recognised her. And that was when Droite felt like a complete idiot.

For years, Kotori had been the stylish girl. Her mother, rich in both funds and fashion knowledge, had dressed her in the cutest clothes, and Kotori had picked up on this, carrying on the tradition of the girls in her family; to be the best-looking they could be.

But now, now she was facing the most difficult decision of her life. Both dresses would have done fine, and she would have bought them both, but… Her fingers traced over the coins in her purse, eyes fixated on the dresses. There just wasn’t enough.

The unexpected visitor made Kotori yelp and step backwards, staring at the person with wide eyes. Where had she come from?? But she did look familiar — oh!

“Droite?” Kotori gave a smile, warmly remembering what she had seen the other woman go through. She admired her, definitely, as every young teenaged girl romanticized love. She glanced at the dress that Droite had pointed out. Now that she mentioned it, it did look a lot better  than the other one.

“Thank you,” Kotori beamed, taking the dress from the rack. “So how have you been?”

puppet-master-iv:

Kotori. So that was her name…. he remembered it now. Though in the back of his mind he reasoned that he was never fond of cheerleaders, so that must be why he never really remembered her. 

Even giving her his name, she wouldn’t back down. He wanted the topic dropped entirely but she seemed to be the stubborn one of this rag-tag group of friends. Well the more he thought about it, all of them were. 

An exhausted shy left him, as he listened to her attempted scolding and he could only close his eyes in annoyance as she prattled on. 

“Thomas Arclight.” He cut in, meeting her full introduction with his own. His eyes moved to the side as his lips pursed out in a minor pout, looking away from her. “So I wouldn’t mind it if you stopped called me IV.” 

He tried to walk away from her, he was trying so hard not to simply scream at the girl that she was poking her noise in matters that she didn’t understand - but at the same time he found himself feeling her equal when it come to the past situation concerning his younger sibling, Micheal.  He was out for blood when he got hurt, so he supposed it was almost the same thing, that she was only looking for a simple apology. 

The pause between them carried on as his arms crossed over his chest and he jerked his head away from her - avoiding all forms of eye contact.  ”I didn’t say that.” He retorted as she continued to bring up the past. His attention snapped back to her quickly, his tempter obviously hitting it’s boiling point as he glared the girl down for putting words in his mouth. 

A breath was drawn in, as his eyes were closed. There was a long moment in which he attempted to regain his composer. He was trying. He was trying so she had to at least give him that much.

“Look. I did terrible things in the name of my family, but a simple ‘sorry’ isn’t about to fix any of that, now is it?!” He retorted with a growl. 

IV — Thomas — appeared to be having a hard time with the concept of apologizing. It was easy to see by his facial expression that he was getting annoyed, but Kotori wasn’t sure how annoyed he was, or where his limit was, and if she’d even be able to push him that far.

Although she could see his point, Kotori refused to believe it. No, saying sorry wouldn’t repay the hospital bills or repair the duelists’ self-esteem, but it would show something in Thomas, instead. If he had really changed, a sincere apology wouldn’t be hard to muster.

“It would eat least make some people feel better,” she mumbled, half-regretting making that her main point of the argument. Most duelists were guys, and most guys she knew would probably get mad if someone apologized to them months after the offending incident.

She crossed her arms and huffed, realizing that she wasn’t going to win this argument. Rather than forcing herself to be submitted to defeat, she would yield when it looked like she still had a chance.

“But, fine.” She pivoted, facing slightly away from the other, “you don’t have to say sorry, do what you want.”

puppet-master-iv:

A sigh escaped him at the tweet of the little bird before him. She wanted him to what? She had to be joking. She was there when he dueled and lost to Ryoga. He apologized for what he did to his sister, wasn’t that enough? 

A hand placed on his hip as he looked her over, and gave her an exasperated look. 

“My name is Thomas.” He corrected her, seeing a confused look cross her expression - and honestly he expected as much. 

‘IV’, he would prefer to be called as such but at the same time didn’t want to keep that fear in the hearts of people that no longer needed to hold it. 

“And the past is done and over with, so let’s just let Bygones be Bygones…okay….?” He continued as his voice trailed out on her name.

Thomas? So that was his name - it was relieving to know he actually had one, that he had been Thomas at some point of his life, a normal kid who didn’t set buildings on fire or inflict pain on lesser duelists. But this ‘fanservice’ was why Kotori was there in the first place.

“Kotori,” she answered sternly, “Kotori Mizuki.” As much as she enjoyed spending time with Yuma and the rest of the Numbers Club, Kotori was more than prepared to make a name for herself.

Ultimately, she wouldn’t let the topic slip easily. But for now, he seemed to brush off the topic as if it were nothing. As infuriating as that was, the fear from before still lingered - she couldn’t do anything more than use her words right now.

“Fine,” she near-enough spat, “I suppose the duelists you hurt never really mattered, anyway.”

He was tall, and intimidatingly beautiful. Kotori had seen beauty before, in her mother, and her mother’s friends, but never in a man. It was slightly uncomfortable, knowing he could pull off looking so graceful yet powerful at the same time.

Still, it was something to be admired.

As if he was suddenly her life mentor, Kotori gripped her skirt, tightly, with her forefinger and thumb, taking a sudden short curtsy  She had learnt it from her mother, but never needed to use it. It felt almost natural here, though.

“Hello,” was just about all she could manage, her tongue stuck in her throat despite not having eaten peanut butter since she was seven. She laced her fingers nervously, trying to recall his name; Chris, wasn’t it? But even Kaito changed his tone after he said it — V, maybe that was more preferable. “V, right? My name is Kotori.”

puppet-master-iv:

He eyed her for a moment as he saw the girl approach. Wasn’t she that Yuma kid’s ever faithful cheerleader? What was her name again? 

He paused for a moment looking up as if he was in deep thought, honestly trying to remember her name. 

Nothing came to mind, and he decided he probably would actually have remembered her name, if she was important enough to deem such a thing. He couldn’t remember her doing much more than shouting on the sidelines anyways. 

Could she even duel? 

Letting out a sigh as he mused over the thought to himself, he concluded that such a thing was also irreverent as her name was. 

As she approached him, he placed his hand on his hip looking her over unimpressed. 

“What do you want?” 

It took her some courage to approach the male. Not only was she unarmed and unskilled in dueling, but he was possibly the best she would ever meet. Asia Duel Champion, IV, an Arclight — no matter what way she looked at it, if she did something wrong, there was a possibility of getting hurt.

But what did she want? She had started to follow the man at a slight opportune moment, perhaps at first with arguments of a retaliation on behalf of her friends on her mind, but now, it was too terrifying to strike an argument.

She swallowed; how stupid of her, to go after a dangerous man like this. Even so, she tried to keep a determined look.

What was she meant to say, when ‘I don’t know’ didn’t suffice? “I recognize you, IV,” was what she stuttered instead, questioning herself on her own motive. “I need for you… to apologize for what you did to my friends.”

i still have things to do, but i’ll start anyway!