now all you've got to offer me is a drink of gin

[12second_orz]

Who: Tonegawa (12second_orz ) and YOU
When: Friday afternoon- early evening.
Where: A high-class bar in Sector 3, moving to Lion's Gate towards the evening
What: Tonegawa uses his afternoon off to schmooze and make contacts in a classy joint. Feel free to run into him leaving or arriving, too!
Warnings: None

[Sitting at the bar and watching the gentle murmur of activity around him as he nurses his drink, Tonegawa can’t help but feel rather pleased with himself. He works by day, he meets and greets by night. If there’s one thing he can approve of, it’s a routine, and he’s certainly managed one of those here.

Not that making nice to big shots is all he wants to spend the rest of his time here doing- his ideal state of affairs involves far more room to stretch his legs in every sense, for what is power but the ability to do anything and be forgiven for it nonetheless? But even beyond that there’s something about the charade now that sticks in his throat, bitter and resentful, that he’s become more aware of now; his hands tense beneath their leather gloves with each forced laugh, each smile.

Still, he’s damn good at it and he knows it. He’s never wanted for patience in his life, either- swallowing now could earn him the right to spit later, if he’s good enough at it. There’s nouveau riche trash here, yes, but also a few people it’s well worth being sweet to.

Of course, what mood he ends up in by the end of the night depends entirely on which of them he manages to find, and while he might look laid back as he glances around the room he’s busy sizing up faces and suits.]

Comments

[fidele]

[ Sensing the broiling battle for control from within Tonegawa himself, even at this distance, takes its toll on her belatedly. With that lash out against her own paced, smooth voice, she parts her lips as though to speak in her defence. It catches the bartender's attention, but a tense wave of her hand throws him off again, a gesture towards her still-full glass.

She's misjudged her abilities. Retaining her external as well as internal composure is unbelievably, incredibly difficult, like conducting three orchestras at once; her body, her thoughts, and Tonegawa's. To think that she believed she could mimic anything approaching the magnitude of Leeza's powers with this Core-given imitation of something her father had created. She, a human, made of Huey's blood, not his craftsmanship.

The pause between answers this time is longer. A fingernail taps at the side of her glass, her eyes narrow slightly, gaze unmoving.

I hear nothing but what you tell me. There is more danger of telling you my own secrets than learning of yours.

She may as well be whispering in a storm. The incident in the office springs to mind, the sheer thickness of willpower and delusion she had to cut through in order to reach him, but it's inadvertently transmitted; unable to backtrack she nearly gasps, tenses in her seat. She had acted as though she had erased the event from memory. ]

[12second_orz]

[She twitches, and for a second Tonegawa wonders just how much effort this is taking on her part. Is the tap a displacement activity? It's hard to say. Laforet's mask of stoicism, her sheer calm, was enough to throw him before, but that's so natural for her that even the smallest ripple is enough to suggest a wild current beneath the surface.

His first instinct, however, is that she's lying.

It's a natural state for him, to assume a lie. She's not lied to him yet as far as he knows, yes, but given this violation-- would she have the energy to lie with her new-found power? To conceal a lie in her thoughts when it takes so much energy to speak at all? Obviously, it's a talent he'll need to work on now, but who knows how much practise she's had? For all he knows she's been trying this every day for a month.

If it's possible for thoughts to sound wary, his certainly do, bathed in a sea of mistrust and unease. Why should I believe you now?]