fandomhigh | The Art of Napping; Monday, First Period [08/17].

"Well, my sleepy ducklings ♥," Shunsui started class, which was meeting that day in the Room of Infinite Pillows and Blankets with a nice little archway of cushions that lead to the Garden of Slumbering Serenity with its gazebo and willows, its cherry blossoms and ambient babbling streams, "it's hard to believe it, but we have reached the final lesson in our comprehensive study of the Art of Napping ♥. I do hope you've taken something useful from this course and are able to improvve upon your napping experience in the future ♥. If you have any follow-up questions or anything else you'd like to touch upon before we are finished, I'd be happy to hear it, but, otherwise, there is but one thing left for us to do for our last meeting..."

Here, he smiled beatifically, figuring that if none of them knew what was coming, then they clearly hadn't been paying attention, but, if that were the case, then that was also fine, because if they hadn't been paying attention, then they had probably already been napping through class, which was precisely the point.

"Go forth and put to practice what you've learned here this session, and have a wonderful nap ♥."

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"Finally ♥," Shunsui remarked with a laugh as he carefully poured out the sake into the cup, and then offering them both out to her for her to have the first pick of them balanced expertly in his hand. "Here I was worried you might never come around to it, Octavia-chan ♥."

"I didn't say I agreed," Octavia pointed out as she reached to pick up one of the cups. "I'm just getting the impression."

"An impression," said Shunsui, grinning a bit too much with it to come off as loftily as it might seem he was trying to be, "is just another step on the journey toward realization ♥. And you may not agree, Octavia-chan," his tone was far more complimentary than anything else, "but you don't exactly object, either ♥."

Octavia looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, but didn't. Either way, it looked good-natured enough.

"I'm about to start selling alcohol," she rasped, lifting the cup. (Fingers against fingers, a soft brush.) "I don't know if that's related."

And, after fingers against fingers, Shunsui lifted his as well. "It certainly is easier to sell something if you believe in it's consumption, I should think ♥," he mused, but his grin was for something else. "And I think we may have found something better to toast to than the end of this class...are we getting an attractive female bartender at the Nest again ♥?"

If his powers of deductive reasoning were not failing him, this was exceptionally good news.

We'll call it for...sentimental reasons.

"I don't know about that, but I start there on Wednesday."

Yes. The answer to his specific question was yes, and Octavia knew it. She just knew it in a hazy, faraway kind of way that didn't really matter to her.

It was a work in progress.

And it was adorable.

"Sounds like my Wednesday schedule just got a bit fuller ♥," Shunsui remarked, because it was so, so full as it was, too. "And what a novel turn of events it will be, that I'll be getting my alcohol from you instead of the other way around ♥."

Oh, he'd still be bringing his own sake, too, but that was just extra. In more ways than one.

"And we'll see," he couldn't help adding with the sort of faraway grin of someone dreging up some rather pleasant memories, "if you develop the same allergy to pants as my last favorite bartender there ♥."

Now that was something to drink to.

"Allergy to pants?" Octavia repeated, eyebrows ever so slightly raised. "I don't think so."

With her recent official change of address, she was now kind of a pirate? That was about as close to being like Isabela she was likely to get, unfortunately.

"I guess only time will tell ♥," said Shunsui, who was not holding out hope, but it was a nice thought all the same. "Either way, although I don't particular condone extra work, congratulations on the new position, Octavia-chan; I'm sure it will suit you far more than excessive roses ♥."

Something a little sharper and tighter passed over Octavia's expression, briefly. "Yeah, I'm not going back to that," she drawled.

Amazing what the trauma of burning down a hydrofarm as it tried to bloom could do to a person's willingness to work at a flower store.

She shrugger, milder again. "It's just a means to an end. Money, and more routine."

Eventually, maybe Shunsui could have gathered enough of those distinct little hardened moments to piece together some semblance of a story, but, for the time being, he just smiled a bit dotingly at her, a bit softer, as he sipped his sake.

"And who even knows," he speculated grandly, "you might even enjoy it a little, if you can imagine that ♥."

The Art of Napping; Monday, First Period [08/17].

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