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It’d been quite a while since she’d heard the whistle of the train. It was dark outside in the endless expanse. The only noise was the soft, muffled clicking of wheels on track. It was quiet. Such a moment was nearly impossible on the Denliner. ‘Quiet’ was a word virtually anathema to the passengers, which made the moment all the more pressing. It was just her and the bear. Kintaros. Kin-chan. Maybe just Kin? The suffix might impinge on his masculinity. Imaginity? No, Kin-chan would probably be fine. Maybe. If he was okay with it. He sat there, awake, and cutting up little squares of paper with a pair of purple safety scissors borrowed from Ryuutaros. She sat across from him.
“Kintaros.” Hana began.
“Hana.” He replied. He continued cutting the paper. Were those napkins? Tissues, maybe. He cuts those himself? Strange. She didn’t reply at first, staring. “Am I needed?”
Yes, she thought to herself. Wait. No. Too much. That’s definitely too much. She instead decided to nod slightly. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
The big bear of an imagin put aside the scissors and began setting the yellow tissues into a pile, setting them off. He sat upright. “Go on.”
“Well, there’s just some things I wanted to talk about. A couple of things. One thing, really. One thing that’s important.” She smiled a bit. Just a little bit. Kintaros seemed to nod slightly. “You see, um. Well, I guess the first thing I’d like to ask about is exactly how. I guess how do imagin feel? I mean,” Hana cleared her throat. Great. That didn’t sound bad at all. “What I mean is, I know imagin have emotions. I mean, that’s obvious. I just wanted to know if- What I’m getting at is… the question I want to ask is if the emotions are full and varied? I mean, Momotaros seems to have a pretty one-track mind, but he’s an idiot. Same with Urataros, kind of. I mean, he’s not an idiot, but his mind is definitely unidirectional.” Maybe that right there was the answer to her question.
Kintaros said nothing.
“Sorry. Sorry. That probably sounded off. I just… I mean, I’m not exactly… I know I can be… abrasive sometimes.” She paused. “A lot of the time. I mean, I’m not unaware of it, it’s just how I am, I guess and it’s… well, I feel bad about it sometimes, because it’s maybe not always deserved. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t hurting your feelings and maybe um… maybe if certain feelings I have were feelings you were also experiencing. Maybe.”
Kintaros continued to say exactly nothing.
“Sorry.” She blurted out. “Sorry. This is coming out weird. Ahh, I can’t focus exactly on what I need to say is, but… what I need to say is…” She paused for a bit longer and looked up at the fuzzy imagin.
Kintaros began to snore loudly.
Hana, in a completely level-headed and well-thought-out decision, got up on the table and kicked him in the head.
“NNGHGHZZHG!?” The gold imagin fell right out of his seat and onto the floor. He stood up immediately. Hana hopped down from the table.
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FELL ASLEEP, YOU…” Hana’s rage liquefied and began to pour out of her eyes. She sniffled. “You…”
Kintaros tilted his head momentarily. He stepped forward and gently hugged Hana into his big, fuzzy chest. “It seems I’ve made you cry. I’m sorry.”
Hana leaned her head against his chest, rubbing her eyes in the fuzzy bit. “You better be.”
“I am. I’m so sorry, I might just cry myself.”
Hana smiled again through her tears. “Idiot.”
She hugged back and looked up at him. She shut her eyes and leaned up toward Kin’s big, dumb face. The train became darker as she came closer but after a short gap, she felt infinitely warmer.