Recognition dawns as she clarifies the topic that had dampened his responses temporarily, and his expression drops flat as anxiety itches awake. His gaze breaks away, looking down and away from Sadie, “Mm. No, it wasn’t anything to do with an Echo. I will speak to her about it so she doesn’t worry and can keep talking to me. The way it made her feel won’t go away any time soon.”
Before he talks too much, he takes another bite of the melonpan.
That's avoidance if she's ever seen it. But there's something a little different to this expression of Ben's ability to avoid certain topics. It's more fragile. To push or not to push? Which would help Ben the most?
"Alright, that'll be a big relief for Emiko I'm sure..." Sadie trails off, "It's a horrible situation to have experienced. Did...did you experience something similar...?" Sadie asks softly.
Despite his increased appetite lately, his hunger is beginning to wane. He sets the melonpan down to reach for his drink, mulling over how to answer Sadie in those few seconds a drink allows him to think. Glass set down, he gingerly brings his arm around her in a little closer to snug the hold.
Voice more somber, he answers her with implication, “It’s a very common experience in Japan. Last year, students 19 and under accounted for 599 suicides. Some of those were elementary age.”
"It's alright... That number is lower than it used to be, and younger children weren't involved last year. Japan has 126 million people, and the trends for everyone are changing for the better," he offers in a way of dampening the raw number of lost children that exceeds people living per square kilometer. "It just isn't the same there as it is here."
“...not really,” he answers with a sour note only to rest his chin on her hair for a moment. A ginger squeeze is given with his arm, then he straightens back up and picks up the melonpan he set aside.
“Thank you for talking to Emiko about it. She likes to keep up a front of confidence for most people,” his tone is lighter now, trying to move the conversation off himself.
The squeeze prompts Sadie to lean further back against Ben, physically comfort him in the way words clearly can't. She tilts her head back to look at his face, "Any time, Ben. Emiko is very important to me and I'm glad to help her. Even if it's just talking." She gently kisses the underside of his jaw, "And its the same for you too."
A tired smile shows as he looks back at Sadie, and he nods his head gratefully as she assures him that talking with Emiko so personally is valued. The kiss at his jaw and the point to emphasize her willingness to talk with him is a mild surprise, or enough to make him pause in thought. He shakes his head once and smiles as he replies, “You have enough on your plate right now. Besides, you haven’t even touched your pastel de nata.” It wouldn’t be good if she was left hungry while trying to take a nap together.
Oh, she knows more evasion when she hears it, and a poorly veiled attempt at it too. Glancing down at the pastry in her hands, impulse worms its way up from the back of her brain and, with nary a thought and staring at Ben, she shoves the entire custard tart into her mouth, her cheeks bulging like a hamster even as she stares Ben down.
"There, my plate is empty." Her words are ridiculously contorted by the pastry, "Now we can talk more."
The ridiculousness of her action catches him by surprise, and he cannot help but let out a short laugh at the way her cheeks are stuffed by the crammed pastry. The smile brought by the laugh lingers as he starts to respond, “Sadie, that’s not what I meant and you know it. Please don’t choke.” Benjiro reaches with his free hand to get her drink and offer it to her. Being stared down however, he falters and his smile disappears. It is so hard to deny her, especially when their relationship has been built on a foundation of honesty and trust.
Finding his resolve to not dump his personal conflict on her weakening, Benjiro reaches his hand up to rub at his face with fingers disturbing his hair to let the longer strands cast over his forehead and one eye. As his fingers trail off a cheek, he looks unusually weary under the faint shadow from his dark hair. His voice comes out much quieter when he finally broaches the matter reluctantly as he looks back towards Sadie without meeting her gaze, “...I don’t know how to tell you what happened without making you worry more. Especially now that I have had a chance to understand it better myself.”
It's pretty tricky to pout when imitating a food-hoarding hamster but Sadie nearly manages it before she swallow with a wince, perhaps that was a bit too much, and washes it down with the drink Ben offers her.
"It will definitely make me worry more," At least it will if the effort that Ben has gone to to dance around the subject is anything to go by, "But it's worth it so that I can understand a bit more of you, I want to be able to support you as best I can." Her wide eyes and attentive gaze emphasise the kind and patient tone.
As they have been talking, Bunsen had finished his apple slices and curled up between Benjiro’s feet with one side pressed to an ankle. Snuggled with two, he listens as Sadie patiently explains her intention. His gaze lifts the final tick upward to meet her eyes, and with a slower breath in and out, he decides to talk about the unhealed wounds, “...okay.” He sets her drink aside when she finishes, and wraps both his arms around her to ground himself.
“The reason I faltered talking to Emiko has to do with my mother...” he begins as a warning to Sadie. Leaning his head back against the wall behind them, he continues, “You know I was never really close with her, and she kept things to herself. It was after we moved to Japan that my grandmother took me with her to visit a grave. It belonged to my uncle. I hadn’t even been aware my mother had a brother. ...I was informed that he took his life after he behaved in a way that was not condoned by the family. ...family honor and all that.”
He pauses as he has to swallow, the act taking more effort than usual. “The last time I spoke with my parents, my mother told me not to return home. But...she also told me to remember my uncle.”
“That day, I was at the cliff... I won’t lie and tell you I did not consider her directive. But the life I have here in Mossgate, the life I have with you, gave me all the reason I needed to defy it.”
Sadie's arms wrap around Ben almost automatically as her pulls her into a close embrace and she tucks herself in even closer to Ben as she hears the way his heart hammers against his chest. At the first mention of his mother Sadie's ears jolt up in alarm and she gives him a squeeze in where her arms are wrapped around him as she wrestles down the urge to scoff.
It's a good job she doesn't, instead all she can do is stare up at Ben as he becomes visibly more upset. Her grip on him tightens in sympathy, her pupils blowing wide until its almost impossible to see the iris as she gets more and more upset for her boyfriend. And then Ben final tells her what his mother's last words to him were and she very quickly has to drop her hands from around him as her claws slide out, her pupils shrink to near pinpricks and her ears flatter completely against her head. She can feel herself shake as her entire body tenses and she bites down on her lip to hault the growl that is starting to rumble in her chest.
Fury. Fury enough to rend her speechless.
Sadie drops her head onto Ben's chest with a thunk and takes some deep breaths and trys to think calming thoughts before she speaks.
His eyes blink at the traces of tears in his eyes as he lifts his head from the wall when her hands move away. Her reaction is more intense than he had anticipated, catching a glimpse of her claws as she starts to shake with pure tension. Concern for her flares, but her head drops against his chest as she starts to exercise restraint with conscious acts of breathing.
“...Sadie,” his voice full of worry and a little hurt to see that his pain is causing her such distress. He adjusts his arms around her to lay one hand behind her head with fingers split to avoid covering her flattened ears to hold that arm vertical on her back with the other crossing diagonally to wrap his hand at her shoulder. He squeezes her in the hug, the strength of it encroaching on uncomfortable before it wanes to a supportive firmness. Bowing his head to touch his chin at her hair he whispers, “She left my life... Don’t let her twist you up.” Legally, he belongs with Agatha and Rosemary now. The only way his mother could hurt him further would be through his sister, and the woman cares for Emiko far more.
Ben's embrace may boarder on uncomfortable but the pressure does make Sadie go boneless against Ben's chest. His touch near Sadie's sensitive ears unstick then from their plastered position against her skull and coaxes Sadie's budding growl into a purr.
"I know that," Sadie mumbles into his chest, "But for her to even say that to you, to insinuate what she did, that you had to experience that. No normal person would ever say something like that! You deserve so much better than that!"
That pressure remains steady until her ears have relaxed away from her skull, and he slowly eases off to a softer degree. He doesn’t want to let go, but he does want to allow her the ability to move in his embrace. His fingers start to stroke in the back of her hair as he hears the purring begin.
“When you came to get me with Walter and Sam, I realized that I have so much more than I ever thought I should,” he responds with his voice kept to a whisper for her comfort. That dawning realization was why he had apologized so fervently at the cliff.
“I won’t defend her, but I do think I understand. My grandmother had also told me how much my mother idolized her brother... My mother had already lost something precious to the tolerance for suicide. It would be hard not to double down.” Especially with a son she could never really love.
His fingers continue to move with that reinforcement, parting the strands only to fall back together with every pass.
“Me too...” he says in the shared sentiment, grateful to still be here. “I’m not going anywhere, Sadie. I love you.” Benjiro returns the squeeze more gently than the last, and he plants a kiss to the top of her head.
“Thank you for caring so much.” The sentiment needed to be voiced. Sadie had followed up with him over something that could have been mistaken as more trivial.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warped_replica) wrote2018-07-27 06:58 pm
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Before he talks too much, he takes another bite of the melonpan.
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"Alright, that'll be a big relief for Emiko I'm sure..." Sadie trails off, "It's a horrible situation to have experienced. Did...did you experience something similar...?" Sadie asks softly.
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Voice more somber, he answers her with implication, “It’s a very common experience in Japan. Last year, students 19 and under accounted for 599 suicides. Some of those were elementary age.”
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“Thank you for talking to Emiko about it. She likes to keep up a front of confidence for most people,” his tone is lighter now, trying to move the conversation off himself.
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"There, my plate is empty." Her words are ridiculously contorted by the pastry, "Now we can talk more."
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Finding his resolve to not dump his personal conflict on her weakening, Benjiro reaches his hand up to rub at his face with fingers disturbing his hair to let the longer strands cast over his forehead and one eye. As his fingers trail off a cheek, he looks unusually weary under the faint shadow from his dark hair. His voice comes out much quieter when he finally broaches the matter reluctantly as he looks back towards Sadie without meeting her gaze, “...I don’t know how to tell you what happened without making you worry more. Especially now that I have had a chance to understand it better myself.”
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"It will definitely make me worry more," At least it will if the effort that Ben has gone to to dance around the subject is anything to go by, "But it's worth it so that I can understand a bit more of you, I want to be able to support you as best I can." Her wide eyes and attentive gaze emphasise the kind and patient tone.
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“The reason I faltered talking to Emiko has to do with my mother...” he begins as a warning to Sadie. Leaning his head back against the wall behind them, he continues, “You know I was never really close with her, and she kept things to herself. It was after we moved to Japan that my grandmother took me with her to visit a grave. It belonged to my uncle. I hadn’t even been aware my mother had a brother. ...I was informed that he took his life after he behaved in a way that was not condoned by the family. ...family honor and all that.”
He pauses as he has to swallow, the act taking more effort than usual. “The last time I spoke with my parents, my mother told me not to return home. But...she also told me to remember my uncle.”
“That day, I was at the cliff... I won’t lie and tell you I did not consider her directive. But the life I have here in Mossgate, the life I have with you, gave me all the reason I needed to defy it.”
Fell asleep in the middle of tags again
It's a good job she doesn't, instead all she can do is stare up at Ben as he becomes visibly more upset. Her grip on him tightens in sympathy, her pupils blowing wide until its almost impossible to see the iris as she gets more and more upset for her boyfriend. And then Ben final tells her what his mother's last words to him were and she very quickly has to drop her hands from around him as her claws slide out, her pupils shrink to near pinpricks and her ears flatter completely against her head. She can feel herself shake as her entire body tenses and she bites down on her lip to hault the growl that is starting to rumble in her chest.
Fury. Fury enough to rend her speechless.
Sadie drops her head onto Ben's chest with a thunk and takes some deep breaths and trys to think calming thoughts before she speaks.
I do that waaaay too often
“...Sadie,” his voice full of worry and a little hurt to see that his pain is causing her such distress. He adjusts his arms around her to lay one hand behind her head with fingers split to avoid covering her flattened ears to hold that arm vertical on her back with the other crossing diagonally to wrap his hand at her shoulder. He squeezes her in the hug, the strength of it encroaching on uncomfortable before it wanes to a supportive firmness. Bowing his head to touch his chin at her hair he whispers, “She left my life... Don’t let her twist you up.” Legally, he belongs with Agatha and Rosemary now. The only way his mother could hurt him further would be through his sister, and the woman cares for Emiko far more.
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"I know that," Sadie mumbles into his chest, "But for her to even say that to you, to insinuate what she did, that you had to experience that. No normal person would ever say something like that! You deserve so much better than that!"
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“When you came to get me with Walter and Sam, I realized that I have so much more than I ever thought I should,” he responds with his voice kept to a whisper for her comfort. That dawning realization was why he had apologized so fervently at the cliff.
“I won’t defend her, but I do think I understand. My grandmother had also told me how much my mother idolized her brother... My mother had already lost something precious to the tolerance for suicide. It would be hard not to double down.” Especially with a son she could never really love.
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"I'm glad your here. I can't imagine not having you in my life." Her claws fully sheath and so she gives him another tight squeeze.
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“Me too...” he says in the shared sentiment, grateful to still be here. “I’m not going anywhere, Sadie. I love you.” Benjiro returns the squeeze more gently than the last, and he plants a kiss to the top of her head.
“Thank you for caring so much.” The sentiment needed to be voiced. Sadie had followed up with him over something that could have been mistaken as more trivial.