i'm miles ahead of you!
Noah couldn't recall the exact wording that had begun this odd conversation. Every conversation with Minoth, the self-professed historical relic from another world, was odd, and at least a little bit bemusing, but this one really had to take the clock. They'd only just learned about the "official" concept of committed relationships, and Minoth was asking him to...prove it?
He obviously didn't know how, on a "normal" scale! And most of the terms he'd heard were either too surface-level, for him, or too literal. Too self-contained, rather. But Noah wasn't about to break out the strange analogies to soldier life, now. Nor was he all too eager to say anything that would even half resemble one of N's devoted, but slightly possessive, statements.
He'd just...say what he felt. Normally. It was very important to be normal, even if this was none of Minoth's business.
"I really...I really care for her, so much. More than I can say!"
Too true, that.
"Pretty careful words, there. Not that I mean to make you uncomfortable."
(Minoth did, in fact, mean to make Noah at least a little bit uncomfortable.)
"Well..." Noah frowned, forehead wrinkling and brow furrowing. He could spring a little bit imaginative, couldn't he? Just a little bit. "Well, let me put it like this. I would swear off of spicy food for Mio."
"HA!"
"What?" Noah's frown deepened as his misgivings about this conversation continued to build. "What's so funny about that?"
Minoth shook his head. "Nothing, really. I love Mio as much as the next guy - which, if I'm to understand you right, removes you from the line of guys. Which you might like."
It wasn't really relevant, and Noah didn't have time nor the energy to contemplate it. His next guy, after all, was...
"But." The old cowboy's finger went up. "I love spicy food more."
"So?" Noah thought of Sena, and how she'd likely react to such a conversation, were she here. Bold, unintentionally, but with the right intentions regardless. "You're not special! You're just too self-centered to truly appreciate Mio."
It was rare that Noah spoke so directly about his deep feelings, but, well, Minoth had asked for them, hadn't he? So this was what he was going to get. Even if Sena was a hot-sauce-smuggling liar.
"Huffy, huffy, aren't we?"
"I don't know what gives you the right," insisted Noah stubbornly, turning his head to one side and nose slightly up. The haughty effect was diminished by messy bangs falling into his eyes, and he could just imagine Mio brushing them out of the way again...
Oh, Mio was so good. So good! He just wanted to be good enough for Mio. Obviously, that included giving up anything and everything he did that prevented him from being with her in perfect accord. Obviously.
"Look, Noah."
Noah looked. Minoth had a sort of extrapensive look on his face, unlike his lighthearted usual.
"I think it's cute. It is cute, just objectively. But my partner had even less spice tolerance than Mio, and I kept on with the chilis just because it was funny, to me. Because he was never more than momentarily steamed, when I kissed him. Sort of inverse-sweet. That's why I laughed."
"Oh." Noah sobered up almost instantly. "I...I suppose I understand."
"No, you don't." Minoth reached over to give Noah a friendly pat on the knee. "You're more like two perfect halves of a whole than we were. My jagged edges just so happened to match up with most of his - and his other smooth parts."
"Smooth parts? You mean like..."
"Do me a favor and don't gesture, kid. Forget I said anything."
"I think I will."
"But I better not see you with anything hotter than a peppercorn."
"Spark."