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Melly is never late; that’s something he’s come to realize well over the time he’s known her. She’s nearly always punctual, frighteningly so, and that’s led him to start making some overcompensations. Naib would rather be the one to wait for her than vice versa, but sitting for nearly 15 minutes in a lively diner doesn’t bode well for him. Halfway through the basket of fries he ordered after caving, he sits up a little straighter in his seat when she finally slips through the doors (right on time, as always), holding her overcoat tight around her and nearly gliding over the checkered floor.
“Hey,” he says, a little sheepishly, waiting until she’s crossed the distance from the entrance with a few strides so that he doesn’t have to raise his voice. “Hey, my bad. I…” He leans his elbow on the table next to the basket of food and holds out the menu as some sort of consolation.
“Hi.” Melly raises a brow at him, not quite smiling- she rarely does- but mouth twitching like she’s doing her best, tentatively authentic as always, and that’s more endearing than anything else she could’ve done. “Don’t worry about it.” She slides into the booth across from him, removing her dark sunglasses, and those keen eyes, usually reserved for specific topics of her interest, are directly on him, dark brown from under the natural wispy lashes. It’s a familiar sensation by now and one that he looks forward to, even if it makes him avert his own eyes when it becomes a little too intense; it’s good to feel seen sometimes, in a way he never would have expected before meeting Melly.
She accepts the menu that he’s still holding out to her, fingers brushing his for a brief moment, and flips through it for a few seconds. The setting sun filters through the large glass windows, casting an orange glow over her face and the slicked ridges of her braid. He finds himself staring as inconspicuously as he can. Then she peeks at him over the laminated top and he immediately, instinctively pretends he’s been looking at the back of the menu. “What did you want, by the way?”
For a startling second, Naib doesn’t know what she’s talking about, blinking a few times. Once he remembers, he pulls on the brim of his cap, casting a longer shadow over his face. “Already ordered.”
She snorts a little at that, laying the menu down. “How long’ve you been waiting? I thought we were on for 8…”
“Yeah, we were.” Naib deliberately dodges the actual question. “Just didn’t wanna make you wait for too long.”
“So you came way too early instead?” Melly rests her chin on her knuckles, seemingly fascinated. “Well, I won’t complain.”
She reaches over with her free hand, going slowly- as if expecting him to stop her, though he doesn’t make any such move- and picks out one of his fries, holding it almost carefully between her index finger and thumb. Then she pops it in her mouth. Naib watches her all the while, gaze moving from her eyes down to the port wine stain on her lower cheek, dark maroonish visible even against her brown skin, and then to her lips, pressed together as she chews. He knows that she’s watching him watching her, but like this, in their bubble of comfortable quiet, tucked away from the rest of the bustle, he can’t even bring himself to care. Neither of them is a fan of small talk, and without the slightly awkward necessity for how-are-you s, they’re both perfectly happy to sit in each other’s company.
But it seems Melly has something particular on her mind. She catches his eye and tilts her head a little; it reminds him of a cat. “How’s your skating going?”
It’s not a question he expects. “Going good,” he tells her, “been skating street more, stuff like that.”
Stuff like that, is he an idiot or does being around her charm him so much that he loses coherency? Melly doesn’t seem put off at all, though. She opens her mouth, closes it briefly, and then says, quickly, like she’s unsure of herself, “Would you mind if I watched?”
“You wanna?” Naib blinks, fingers curling around the edge of the fries basket. “I didn’t think you’d be into that kinda thing.”
“I’m not usually.” She shrugs, enigmatic as ever. “But I wanna see it when you’re the one doing it.”
The words fluster him- far more than they should, really, but he’s never really had anyone say shit like that to him, nobody except Melly Plinius. He’s always been a loner at heart, even when surrounded by companions who’d never have become actual friends, so to hear those words out loud, and from her nonetheless…
He coughs, realizing he hasn’t said anything, and puts fries in his mouth just so he has an excuse for it. “Yeah, okay,” he mumbles. “You wanna come with me to the skatepark after this?”
“I’d like that.” Melly actually smiles, tense features relaxing, before pulling a face. “But don’t talk with your mouth full.” She passes him a napkin, and this time when their fingers brush, she holds the contact for a second longer before asking another question. “Can I show you something?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
In hindsight, he should have known exactly what was up.
She reaches into her coat pocket, shielding something with her hand, and presents to him an insect in a small jar, very much alive and crawling down the glass wall. It’s brown, oddly shaped, and looks like every other bug, but Melly seems particularly enamored with it.
“It’s a brown marmorated stinkbug,” she informs him. “They’re native to Asia; they shouldn’t be here.”
“Oh,” is all he can say, far more taken with the way her face lights up as she speaks than the actual bug itself. “How’d it get here, then?”
Right at that moment, the waitress passes by with his order from earlier, reaching over to set down the sandwich. She gets a good glimpse of the bug and her face wrinkles, though she clearly tries to hide her reaction as she hurried away without even waiting for a thank you. Naib glances at Melly, almost expecting her to be offended, but instead her eyes are wrinkled at the corners, holding back a chuckle. When he sees that, he really can’t help himself either; he snorts, loudly, and that cracks her up too until they’re both laughing quietly, with the bug sitting quietly in the jar between them. Once they’ve calmed down, Melly steals another of his fries with less hesitation than before as she starts to tell him all about the brown marmorated stinkbug, and Naib’s more than happy to do the listening and the eating, letting the rollercoaster of her voice- usually quite straight-toned, now full of ardor- wind through his ears.