( it's true that she doesn't really know what she does to anyone. it's true that she doesn't really notice those things, doesn't really see anything beyond the way that people are and the way that she thinks, somehow, perhaps they want to be, or that she's the kind of person with the patience of a saint who will sit for hours on a beach coaxing a crab out of its shell. it's just the way that things have always been: the way that she has always been, the kind of person that doesn't really change for anyone else except in the small ways that might encourage them to allow themselves to breathe. and maybe that's what it comes down to: that she sees people like this, people like midousuji or cloud or even tifa, at times, knotted up inside, stiff behind their walls, and she tries to find the small gaps and holes in the brick to try to help them out. it's not even that she wants to drag someone's secrets out in the open, or that she's obnoxiously desperate for information, curious as she is; it's that she wants to help, wants to create a haven of safety, protection, something that perhaps, subconsciously, she's always wanted herself.

she doesn't interrupt him, but with her back to him, there's less effort to control her face; it contorts, scrunches up, lips pursed together, and she gets it, she does. the weight of his words, the effort he's taking to communicate it to her. the fact that he--inadvertently, maybe, but all the same, admits that he wants something with her. that he wants a connection. and ridiculous as it is, stupid as it is, her heart pounds in a way that feels strange, makes her steps stall for a moment, balance shifted between feet that feel unsteady even though she knows nothing could ever happen here.

she can't die in this place if she's meant to die somewhere else, right? )

So...

( her hands come together, fingers laced in against the front of her dress, and her chin turns up, lets her eyes fall on the sky and the stars and the thousands of possibilities beyond. )

You mean that you like me.

( as a friend, as a companion, as someone else in this strange city to come and talk to. those things. right? )

You want a connection...with me?

( there's not that warmth of teasing, the kind of plying, annoying thing she might do just to get him to growl gross at her or push her away. it's an unearthed kind of voice: like she's recognizing it for the first time herself, that she can have whatever effect it is that he claims she's had on her. like she doesn't know where that leaves her, or him, or even them.

but he's admitted something important, and so she does, too-- )

I miss it, you know. Maybe you hated our Bond, but...I miss it sometimes.