Chapter Text
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Clearner's HQ, Riyo's room
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..Whatever! It was stupid anyways. Stupid and reckless.
Riyo knows not to fall into these types of thoughts. She's been knowing. And yet, times like these, she can't stop herself from slipping, like leaning over, knowing her head's gonna hurt like hell.
Like, right now.
Of all the things at fault, she mostly blamed herself and her shrimp posture, while she had managed to finish braiding her hair and was mostly just staring down at them, inspecting her ends. She'd recently cut them, quite literally the moment she got back into her room, thinking it'd help clear her mind, even just a little, but all she could think to was that stupid, stupid girl! She didn't get a good look, but just from how nearly perfectly her hair flowed through the wind like that, ends that curled nd flipped so gently, it looked like she hadn't had a single split end in her whole life! Singular stands that seemed to flow apart from the rest of her hair and yet looked like they were programed to move so perfectly even while they were going at what felt like 90 mph.
She slightly, only slightly, wondered what it'd be like to even just be sitting behind her, she could only imagine that it'd feel like little angel whisps, a soft and cool yet not quite chilly breeze on a hot summer day she reduced the imaginary feeling down to. She could only imagine what'd it'd feel like to run her fingers through her hair, how soft would it be? Would it be more silky or frizzy? How often does she even brush it? WHAT PRODUCTS IS SHE EVEN USING?!?--
Everything being cut of by two knocks on her door and a familiar voice calling out her name from behind it.
Lifting her head so quickly she almost gave herself whiplash, that of course, as usual being made up by the grueling, awful, pain of her being light headed from lowering her head for so long.
A stubborn groaning sound being let out as she held her head while she looked over towards the door. "Take that as a yes then", that voice from behind the door then said, turning the knob and looking in slightly before taking a few steps into the room. "You good?"
"Yeah, for the most part," Riyo responded back "Head hurts again."
"Ah, I see" Responded back in the same unwavering voice as before. While they didn't put it out too much, Riyo and Zanka were actually quite close. Though they often had back and forth fits of teasing and bickering like typical brother and sister, they both understood the other quite well, knowing boundries and respecting them.
They had been working together on the same team for quite a while, Riyo slowly but surely opening up more about her past to Zanka as she learned to trust him, and Zanka, well (pun not intended), you guess how that came about consitering the first impression he had on Riyo was him at his (literal) lowest (emotionaly and physicaly since he was in a legit well).
"You'd wanna, talk about it?" He asked, reaching out a hand to help with her emotions. Only to then be shot right down by Riyo putting on her typical smile with a thumbs up "Nah, all good now!" that headache feeling fadding away just as quickly as it started.
"Hm." Zanka let out, giving her a deadpan look knowing that something was on her mind, and was bugging her enough for her to let her guard down while she was in her room. While she was now apart of the Cleaners, bits and pieces of her past way of living showing through at lot of the time, including her guard being up all the time. Over the time he's been with the Cleaners and worked side-by-side with Riyo, he started to notice that she tended to pay extra close attention to the others around her and the other Cleaners. After a bit, he had realized she had grown to memorize the sound of each of the Cleaners footsteps, often calling out to them or saying a simple 'hey' before they were even able to make it into the room. Seemly that natural instinct of hers not being very active right now.
Though he was curious, he still decided it not try and ply away at it, leave it be till they could talk further. "Well, uh, just came over to check in with ya. Just got back from a mission and was gonna go chill but heard about your whole mission from Enjin. Glad to see you doing well, well done with hair too, looks nice."
"Heh, well, thanks! It was nothin.." Riyo responded letting out a short laugh as she bashfully rubbed the back of her neck, her other hand resting at her hip, acting like it didn't take her whole being to not call it quits on the hair-do.
"Well, I'ma get changed real quick, alright? Apparently there's something Augusts gotta show us in the dinner hall." Zanka said back, turning back towards the door again as he started to walk out of the room, pausing for a bit. "Also, I'm sure you know it already, but.. If ever need to talk about something, you come to me, alright?" He said looking back over at Riyo standing by her bed.
"Yeah, thanks.." She responded back, a bit somberly, pondering about something for a bit before her tone turning back to normal. "See ya!"
"See ya too." He said, closing shut the door behind him as he went back over to his room, leaving Riyo standing in her's for a moment, then picking up her scissors, sliding them into a small pocket in her shorts and heading out herself closing the door behind her.
Walking a little bit of the resting rooms hallway, she headed downstairs, initially going to head over to the dinner hall to get a snack, a faint sound down the hall attracted her attention instead...
The infirmary.