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Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The word kept rattling around in Nene's brain. Her first attempt at performing in years had ended in disaster, all because she'd made a stupid mistake. Tsukasa had been right, she decided as she paused Skyward Sword to investigate the annoying sound of pebbles being tossed at her window. She could've been more cautious, been braver, had the fucking courage to face an audience. And yet she'd chosen to hide behind technology, and though she trusted Rui's inventions more than her own mental state, she couldn't help but question if that was the right choice. If she'd just stood on that little stage... would she still be working with them all? Sure, Emu was (by her observations), a very loud and enthusiastic and sometimes crazy person, but she had the heart and passion, and Tsukasa, despite all his grandstanding, was a decent human being when he wasn't shouting.
She'd gotten attached to them, hadn't she? (Stupid, stupid, stupid...)
"Hello, Nene," Rui said as she opened the window. "I was beginning to wonder if you were asleep."
"You were lucky I was playing Zelda," she muttered. "You could just text like a normal person if you wanted to talk to me."
"We both know you can lie pretty well over a call," he answered. Nene didn't have much of a response to that. She unscrewed the mesh screen of her window and let Rui pull himself into her room. This was something that happened quite a bit and she was very used to it by now. "I assume you're not in a conversational mood, hmm?"
Nene plopped her headphones over her ears and went back to playing Skyward Sword. Rui let her just be for half an hour before sitting down on the floor next to her bean bag and putting an arm around her. "It's okay," he said. "You don't have to hide."
On screen, Zelda turned herself into a crystal. Nene let Rui hug her (how long had it been since they'd last hugged?) as she tried to focus on the plot. Honestly, this was one of her favourite games in the series now that the darned motion controls had been fixed; her parents' old Wii certainly had made playing the game absurdly annoying at times.
She was crying. Not because of the Zelda thing.
And Rui wasn't going to push her to talk about it. In some ways that was good because she wasn't sure if she wanted to right now. After all, she had a Triforce to find and a boss to destroy, even if he was going to curse the protagonist's bloodline no matter what she did.
"Can I turn your headphones off?" he asked. "The music in this game is quite nice."
"Only if you promise not to talk my ear off about how much of a jerk someone was being," she mumbled.
"I promise not to voice my opinion." Rui gently removed the headphones from her ears, and then the soundtrack began to float through the room. "Really, the music is excellent, don't you think?"
"Mhm."
He then began to mutter things about some robotics project he was working on and she let him ramble. After all, he liked to use other people as sounding boards even if they knew nothing about mechanical engineering or robotics or psychology. Sometimes Nene thought he only did that because he thought that being overheard talking to himself would be worse than to be caught sneaking into his next-door neighbour's bedroom at ten-thirty.
Priorities, priorities.
Nene wasn't looking forward to this next boss fight, so she found a good save point and turned off the Switch. Then, because she was tired, she asked, "Are you... planning on going home tonight? Or are you trying to bring back the sleepovers?" When they were little, they used to have a lot of those. Rui said he liked sleeping in her room better than his own. Maybe he just didn't like being alone. Nene understood that.
"Do you want me to leave?"
A year ago, just out of self-preservation and fear, she would've said no. Now, though... she found herself missing the stage and the director who came with it. So it wasn't so bad if he stayed the night. "Not really."
"Where's the air mat-"
"Same closet as last time." When Rui left the room to go search for the air mattress and associated electric pump, Nene flopped onto her bed. She'd been wearing her pajamas for about an hour; she'd gone and brushed her teeth, too. She was tired, and it had been a long day. Heck, her homework wasn't even done, and it definitely couldn't wait too much longer. But... she didn't have the energy to do it now.
Before Rui even returned with the (now-functional) mattress and linens to match, Nene was asleep.
"Rest well," he whispered. And, because Nene had agreed to let him stay at her house, he did not leave, instead manoeuvring the mattress so it would not present a tripping hazard would she need to get up in the middle of the night for something.
Hopefully, at some point in the near future, she would allow herself to be truly honest, and then they would all see what sort of power she possessed. Rui had caught a glimpse of her abilities when the two of them were much younger; it had been too long since he'd seen her sing. If she'd kept up with it – and surely she had – how impressive must her talent be now?
The question did not plague him for long, as he was soon fast asleep, too.