Chapter Text
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Cleaner's HQ, Riyo's room
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It was an odd feeling, one she couldn't quite name.
Riyo was often cool-headed, the cool next door type of girl, and she knew it. Though, sometimes it often felt like that facade was slipping a bit. Never did she think it'd be like this.
They just recently got back to HQ after everything with the info broker at the south branch. Despite Semiu seemly being on the edge of death, Riyo was allowed a bit of time to recoup a bit before she was needed for mission, which left her with some free time. After talking and Amo making amends with her, Riyo thought she'd make use of her time off while Amo was getting her uniform made. And yet, she found herself sitting on her couch facing a blank TV while doing her hair in a different hair do-- A great "use of her time off".
She did mean actually do something, but got too bored trying to put away her clothes and just throwing on something simple instead of her uniform. Rudo was off on a mission, Amo was getting her uniform made, and Zanka and Enjin were off who knows where, leaving her no one to really talk to or distract herself from her own thoughts. Leaving her sitting here in her room now with nothing but her thoughts and the radio playing.
Some random station turn on she could've care less about, she often listened to Too Lily, but yet, it seemed like whenever she was left like this, the only thing that played was always something akin to Zanka's own playlist (If he wasn't banned from Mitski, ofc).
She had already put most of her hair up, a similar style to how Zanka had shown her once, and instead of fulling going through with it, she had decided to just do some braids with the rest of her hair. While doing the top part she had to make sure to stay really focused on how she was putting her hair from it being much more complicated than her usual bow up-do. She often wondered just how Tamsy was able to do his own hair everyday, it looked like a spider and was quite messy but he somehow perfected nearly every strand of his hair, a precision Riyo envied quite a bit.
But now having moved from her desk, she sat down on the small couch by her bed that Enjin randomly gifted her a while ago. Sitting down calmly brushing her hair, her mind was able to clear a bit from all the clutter that seemed to be running all around her head. Yet within it all, one singular thought seemed to stay, thinking back to when they were in the car to the No Man's Land.
'That Raider girl... Wonder what happened with her...'
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Raider's Base, Momoa's room
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'Gonna take a while, isn't it?' Cthoni spoke aloud, mostly to herself. Though, there wasn't really anyone else there to really talk to, was there?
After the whole fight with the Cleaners and the race to try and get to the info broker first, everyone seemed to return back to their usual own thing, Zodyl going back to staring at that dumb tv and Jabber and Bundus doing who knows what, all except for Cthoni. With the great unfortune of Momoa being put into a coma-like state for an estimated month to recover, Cthoni was put on care taking duty. While it wasn't the most fun job, it did mean she got to take some time off for the time being, even though it was the same for the rest of the Raider's from Zodyl having to take some time and think of their next course of action.
In of itself it was almost a compliment since Cthoni was the only one Zodyl trusted with taking care of Momoa. At the same time, not really, considering it was either her or Jabber practically. She did have to admit, it was nice to have some peace and quiet, strict orders being placed by Zodyl on who could be around Momoa's room, a make-shift infirmary for the time being, because of her condition.
While Cthoni never really minded Momoa, actually growing to appreciate her calm presence within all the chaos that went down at the Raider's base, it certainly felt odd and kinda lonely being stuck in her room with nothing much to do besides watch her. Though their base wasn't the best, and certainly not Cleaner level from them having to stay on the low, it still worked well enough for living there. Cthoni personally never seemed to care about decorations, especially in a run-down place such as this, Momoa's room was growing to be an exception.
Though it wasn't much, she did have, like all the other bedrooms, a bed as well as a desk with an office chair, night stand, and a dresser that made do to hold her very few varying clothes. Some posters of some random bands she hadn't quite heard of, polaroids and sketched drawings she could only guess were Momoa's hung up here and there, mostly to fill in space, one though she had recognized as a Too Lily poster, though not much of a surprise from the seventeen year old who was always listing to music one way or another.
On the subject of music, only thinking back to it now, Cthoni had turned on the radio on her desk a bit ago, it automatically being set to a station Jabber would've referred to as emo and joke on the side about Momoa being so edgy all the time. With nothing much to do really, after a while of just sitting at her desk and watching Momoa, she decided she might as well put herself to use, focusing on Momoa's desk.
As Cthoni had expected from her being couped up in her room most of the time when not needed for a mission, her desk was quite a mess, a small area around the bottom middle had been cleared out for actually using the desk as intended, and loose paper and notebooks thrown about the rest of the desk companied by a desk lamp and a small worn vase used for holding pencils and pens.
Focusing on clearing out all the papers, Cthoni worked on picking up the paper and pilled them up in a stack, however, her pausing for a moment from the slight peek of color from a paper placed under a few other sketches, a bright red. Cthoni wasn't the type of person to poke and prob at someone or snoop into someone else's business, she wouldn't mind, right?
Pushing away a few pieces of paper and picking up the one her focus was set on, Cthoni was left a bit confused, yet also surprised at the sight of a familiar face. She herself had no real interest in the Cleaners, just thinking of them as the Raider's enemies, a means to an end, though, it seemed like that may be a different case for couple few.
'...Huh.'