can it be, i like myself
"Well, but you know." In a few, Mimi'd call it off, but for now... "Who do you like like?"
Seren smiled broadly, halo aglow. "I like everyone! Except for um. Mr. Eastman. As we say." They coughed for dramatic effect, and the halo dimmed in turn.
Okay, fair. Mimi herself might not have known that cajoling expression up until recently if she hadn't been listening around. How about...
"You always have Doug with you, and you like when Yelv can join your team too, right?" Her private disappointment at Seren being attached to either someone so plain as Doug or someone so...hers as Yelv, she laid aside. They were all free to do as they wished, and her point here, after all, was to get to know what Seren wished, for real. "Is that for any special reason?"
"Well, yeah. They're my DPS."
Oh, right. Because some people actually thought about their combat composition and team building (cough, Melia, cough), instead of just winging along with their very own pard, blissfully unawares of anything that existed outside of the Starfall Overdrive haze.
It was so practical. Was Seren always this practical?
"I remember when I first met you." Mimi nodded, contemplative. "Yelv had shown me pictures from his missions with you, and they were always weirdly grainy. I figured, maybe he's just bad at taking pictures? Or too many spores, or whatever. Maybe his comm lens got dirty in his pocket."
"But then..." here she blushed, "the pictures he had taken of me when I wasn't looking were always beautiful, astronomically so. Almost...tender. I couldn't believe it."
When she looked up from her hands laid ever-affected over chest, she saw Seren making a gesture that Mimi assumed was something to the effect of "well, and you are!" Couldn't be...
(Certainly, that wasn't what she'd meant to imply with her relentless teasing!)
"Anyway, so when I saw you in person, I figured, maybe they're always just moving too fast? And it's not that that's not true."
"Hey, I've got places to be!" proclaimed Seren, thumb jabbed into chest. Of course. If that's being practical...
But Mimi, who had only one place to be, right now (and generally, one person's side to be at, forever), just shook her head, reaching for Seren's hands once they'd (the person and the hands) gotten done gesticulating. "You're a lovely person, Seren, physically and emotionally. You glow, all the time. I want to know, who do you love?"
Seren stared at the ground, pointedly past the joined grasp, for a few seconds, clearly gathering their thoughts. Good, good...everyone taking their time, comfortable...
Then they looked up. "You."
Their expression was deadly serious, mouth and all moles set into a firm line of gravity. Every flake of vitiligo and stardust sparkled with sincerity. But that wasn't right at all!
"You...me?"
"Ha! Gotcha!"
Mimi scowled, jerking back her hands and forming them into fists. Her own tricks, used against her! Well, better that than the tangle of unpleasant nervyness that'd come from both Yelv and Mi having to awkwardly strafe between teams, should they both want to maintain a friendship (relationship?) with Seren. Still, not fair play!
Some of the sincerity remained, however. "No, Mimi, I promise, it's no one." Seren signaled emphasis with their own fists. "There isn't anyone. I'm just me, and I like just you, or you with Yelv, or Yelv with Frye, or Frye with Doug, or Yelv and Doug and L with me--"
The yet-scornful palms were dropped unceremoniously at this tantalizing revelation. "Aha! You like L!"
"Yeah, I like L! L's my partner in crime, come on! But you're asking if I wanna kiss cim?"
Mimi nodded, lips pursed and eyes lidded, triumphant. Here was the motherlode, the pièce de résistance! (Such expressions she hauled out just to annoy Yelv. But if the Defense Secretary could take out the trash, then Mirabilis could try her wits at a little French.)
Back in the real world, Seren rolled their own crystalline, wide-open eyes. "Mi-" she bristled at the unpermitted diminutive "-I'm too darn short, for that."
"Oh, come on - height differences are cute!"
"Hey, no argument from me."
"But, but he's a xenoform, and you're a...astraform. Right? Isn't that just adorable?"
Smirking, Seren gave their best Saltat bow. "Well, and I am! But it doesn't have to be like that. I don't catch feelings, and cameras can't catch me. You know, like UFOs."
"UF...what?"
"Oh, never mind... Look, L and I are in sync, just like you and Yelv, except...not just like that. For one thing, we don't share weapons, so we can't be. I would literally throw up, and not for the reason you're thinking. When I go into Overdrive, I stand still, and I focus. I don't know what L's doing futzing around behind me, and I don't always wanna know. But when ci goes left, I go right, and that's how we make a full circle together."
"So opposites attract!" Mimi exclaimed, gleeful. Oh, she wasn't going to let this thing go. It was golden! Two different peas in the same pod, or two mating birds each trying to give the other a more ridiculous feather, oblivious. Just think of the glorious Saltat choreography at the ceremony!
She clapped a couple times, then moved one index finger to the base of her cheek and kept tapping, making a show of thinking, thinking, thinking. "A shame they don't make the Supercivilization Attire set in your size...maybe we could get L to tailor one for you! Ci would love that. Now, have I got any Telethia materials on me..."
And yeah, L probably would, madcap creative that ci was, but Seren wasn't having it. Mimi turned back from her inventory search to look at them and saw their affect flattening, spark shriveling away. "Oh, I didn't mean..."
"No, no, it's okay," Seren waved off the concern. "I'm the curious type too, right? But it makes me feel like I'm making trouble for you, that you're trying to do something for me because there's some currency you have that I don't. And...that's just not my thing."
They gave a weak smile as a show of goodwill, but the damage was already done, Mimi could tell. So much for her lucky stubborn streak.
So maybe this was a custom that not everybody participated in. The idea of not having a pard...well, certainly, for herself, she couldn't fathom it, didn't want to! And she did feel bad, just a little bit (maybe much more than a little bit), that there was nothing she could do to share that wonderful, unconditional support with Seren. But, well, that was what Seren wanted - to be left alone, honestly. To be loved as just a friend, and an amazing one.
Yeah, Mimi could do that. That's where it had all begun. Imagine staying in that whimsical first phase of knowing someone special, forever...
No, bad Mimi! Focus! She tried a sweet, slight apologetic bow of her own - something of a curtsey, in her C&C Light mini. Better make it low enough that her ears swung around! But she was listening. Yes, she was committed. "Milkshakes to make up for it? Even though you're the one with more currency than me, there."
Seren grinned, eyes crinkling, and gave a corresponding stomp of their Valor Boots. "It's a date!"