Atraumatic

[Fenris]

That went well!

Which was important to note, cause sometimes it didn't.

Zen hadn't yet talked to anyone who had heard "oh sorry I use they pronouns" and immediately gone to call them bad names or Say Slurs or anything horrible like that, but they were more or less aware of the sort of people who would say stuff like that and stayed far clear (the GSA was an educational place!). But "not going well" wasn't always that obvious. Sometimes it was still pretty obvious, the people whose faces would do a :| or a >:/ or a ಠ_ಠ and then change the subject, or the people who would immediately call them She or Her again ten seconds later. A lot of times those two were the same person. And there were the less obvious ones too, the ones who smiled and said okay but it was the kinda smile where their lips would be all tight and uncomfortable and the conversation would wrap up quickly and a lot of times they wouldn't come talk to them again. They'd say hi or wave in the halls and get a polite "hello" back but nothing else.

That always made them sad. Sometimes they'd be having a great conversation with someone and they brought up the pronoun thing and that was just it, forever, and they'd never understand why. But Gyu-ri's smile didn't change in the least.

"I think that's the important thing." They were playing with the fabric, which was like adjacent to sewing, maybe? Actually sewing today was probably a loss, but that continued to be totally fine. "Like, trying. You know? I guess that's the kinda thing people say a lot and don't really mean but I guess what I mean is not everyone's great at everything but if you're trying your best then you're doing... your best!"

That was them saying the same thing twice! That happened sometimes!

"And your best is worth something even if it isn't the best. Cause you're you. And the stuff you do is yours! Y'know?"

[Cicada]

Gyu-ri watched them and meanwhile her fingers unconsciously, unerringly finished the last stitch with a swift loop and then another backwards, perfectly sealing away the fray in the mitten with the honor due entombed Egyptian royalty. She'd afford herself no mistakes. Ever.

They.

"Redundant, but I get your point." Oh now that was a gross giggle. Too soft, too dainty. Was Gyu-ri's jaw about to dislocate? She felt careening off, inflexible joint stretched to a degree it normally never was when each bite was composed and measured to calculated and baroque standards. This damn smile was a blight onto the stability of her boring and mundane countenance, twisting the predictable into asymmetry disgustingly disgusting.

And honestly she didn't fucking care- she'd fallen for the siren's song and she enjoyed wanting to enjoy herself. Just this moment, for once since Ma had passed, she almost felt like she, Gyu-ri, belonged in the picture without being a weird off-shade photoshopped crudely into the background.

Well, damn this ambiguous and amorphous ball of conversationally dubious cuteness all the same. Gyu-ri was far too self-conscious to just up and accept her smitten fate.

"Everything is worth something, Zen. Deny nobody the crop of their hard work, no matter how barren."

An eye roll, and an internal ouch.

"That was bad, sorry. But I'm going to assume you liked it." Zen was incomprehensibly bubbly and Gyu-ri couldn't begin to guess the why, but she kind of wanted to hear the praise all the same. It sounded sweet- sickeningly, but Gyu-ri was used to feeling sick all the time anyways.

[Fenris]

Her laugh was just as pretty as her smile! Zen wanted to swim in it. They weren't sure how that would work, but if there was a way they'd find it.

They weren't really sure when they set the wool down and leaned in closer instead, hands under their chin and cupping their face, watching intently as Gyu-ri finished the last stitches of her own hard work and then refocusing on her face, instead. She was very pretty. Would that be weird to say something about? Probably! Almost definitely! Zen was pretty free about compliments most of the time but usually if you just met someone and if you weren't at a party and you weren't pretty transparently looking for them to kiss you you probably shouldn't tell them they're pretty out of nowhere. That kinda made people uncomfortable a lot of time even if you were just saying it cause it was true and not cause you wanted to kiss them. Not that Zen didn't want to kiss Gyu-ri! Among other things! Wow they were really getting ahead of themselves here!

Zen sure hoped none of that had showed up on their face. Advantages to not turning red when they blushed! Because they kind of blushed a little bit. But it was fine! Just talk about literally anything else! They tried real hard to listen better.

"I did like it! It wasn't bad at all!" They meant that, it sounded like a quote from a book or something. Zen didn't read a lot so maybe it was a quote from a book or something but from the way she'd said it Zen was pretty sure she'd come up with it herself which was super cool! They weren't great of thinking up clever things to say on the fly, or in general, on account of how fast their words were always tripping over themselves to get out of their mouth. That was fine too in its own way, they thought. But Gyu-ri was careful and thought about things and her words felt heavier because of that, like they were more important, somehow.

That felt like the kind of compliment you could give someone without sounding like a weirdo, maybe.

"You're like, good at... words? No, that's not it, um, like, you seem like you really think about things? Before you say them and maybe before you do them, also, and I'm really not good at any of that, but you sound really cool!" Oh whoops that kinda turned into gushing but that was okay too, maybe. They looked down at the glove Gyu-ri had finished again.

"And you did a really really good job on the mitten I think!"

[Cicada]

Zen was watching her intently, and Gyu-ri was now in the rare mood to be so blatantly appraised. Gyu-ri couldn't fathom that she had enough of that vestigial organ called self-esteem to consciously pursue coquettish play- nor, for that matter, was she all too comfortable with the general idea of courting Zen. The outstanding issues innumerable: Gyu-ri's mere being in a relationship would be mutually assured destruction of all she held dear; Gyu-ri's blood ran cold and possibly literally so, her ambient heat turned arctic by the thought of her becoming responsible for another's happiness when she couldn't even assure her own (it never even made sense for Gyu-ri to be responsible for people in general, why that had ever been allowed to happen was inconceivable); and Gyu-ri was still fairly attached to the idea of being straight- sure, Zen wasn't a girl, but they also didn't call themselves a man, and to try and elaborate that particular issue of orientation further would have challenged Gyu-ri's conflicts of interest dearly: she wanted to respect people's fey nuances, yet wanted everything in this world to make a linear and obvious form of sense.

Long story short, Gyu-ri could have played with her fingers in any number of ways, she had lips, she had idle strands of hair, but she picked the more brusque stabbing at her eyes to remove the sleepies. Of which there were none, because Gyu-ri checked for those religiously upon wakening and several times after to be particularly sure.

Longer story short, Gyu-ri sat in silence for a moment as she internally berated herself for something petty, then moved on with her life and the perpetual disquiet given edge by her immediate and unconscionable infatuation.

"I'd love to hear what you're hearing then, if it makes me actually sound good."

She was playing it cool, she was sure. Neutral tone, smiling but not too much.

Wait, had she ever been this affected before? She'd had crushes- she was human in spite of her worst fears and paranoias to the contrary- but she'd never felt this self conscious about them. Was she just getting worse as she got older?

"I'll admit I do have difficulty following your train of thought sometimes," and Gyu-ri looked Zen in the eyes, immediate blunder, even the most mundane of details were infinitely fascinating and Gyu-ri really did want to stare longer than she already was and kept on doing. "But your carefree speech is also charming. Maybe not always efficient, but effective." She was still looking, she had to stop.

"Thank you. Maybe I should watch you for a bit?"

Gyu-ri blinked, and finally broke eye contact. Had a mitten to fuss over. Apparently, much as she herself knew she was full of it.