[h2]Luke Schwarz -- Armory Scraproom[/h2]
[h3][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6pUX9Szzz0][i]Solilukequy[/i][/url][/h3][hr]

[i]I'm in a room.

I'm in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm alone in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm alone in this room, with both Gratia, [i]and[/i] Cian.[/i]

Was fate doing this purposefully? Two girls, both of which he hadn't known for more than a few days in the grand scheme of things, but nonetheless were likely the closest he had to friends yet on sheer time spent interacting alone. Two girls, who had in less than half as many hours, thrown his psyche for a loop in ways it, arguably, shouldn't have been, but nonetheless was. Two girls that had punched straight through his affable, yet considerate nature, and brought out the panicked, awkward young man lurking beneath the surface through sheer force of their own personalities. Through mere conversation.

Sure, there were arguably some extenuating circumstances attached to each incident, such as their very different general demeanors, but the core of it remained the same.

These two both caught me off guard with little more than words.

It was High School all over again. A world where he had sequestered three quarters of his time away from interaction, and tossed himself into the fourth as if jumping straight into the deep end of a pool in winter. Despite being a perfectly reasonable and eloquent person, he didn't know what to expect, nor how to react. He found circles getting talked around him.

In any case.

Was there some poetry behind putting the three of them in the same room? Likely not. But in his own mind, he couldn't help but notice the coincidence. Whether he would act on it or not, that was a different story for a much less craven, and much more tactless man. Somebody who wasn't him, who wasn't Luke Schwarz.

Somebody who didn't make a big deal out of nothing, and nothing out of a big deal.

Taking off his Metaphorical Rose-Colored glasses for a moment, he observed the situation a little more objectively, even as he fished what looked like a decent earpiece from the pile his hands had sifted through on an almost subconscious level.

He shouldn't get ahead of himself. The Mistralese transplant, Gratia Mindaro, had merely scientific interests in his hair, and she was neither the first nor would she be the last to. Being surprised by her forwardness regarding it, however, wasn't quite as special as that particular conversation could have been. Anyone would be put off-guard by being ordered to meet somebody in their room after classes for their hair being subjected to the scientific method. There wasn't much need to romanticize that quite like he had.

As for Cian, that too would be unfair to be pinned upon her, despite that, yes, her words were almost classically [i]tsundere[/i] in nature. He'd escalated it in his head by merit of his own reaction: That is to say, he was the one who freaked out over it, not her. She had presented him with her opinion and offered help in a backhanded manner, it was due to his own overreactionary psychology that it seemed as important and mind-blowing as it did. He hadn't done anything wrong, per se, but wasn't his reaction a tad overboard?

Maybe. That was the answer that he'd been coming to a lot lately. A solid maybe, one rooted between the two extremes of [i]"These girls are driving me crazy"[/i] and [i]"I'm selfishly using them as excuses for my own nature."[/i]

A lot of thinking for just standing in a room with two classmates. Perhaps he could chalk this up to willfully excommunicating himself from the Church of Society for so long, but nonetheless he had to admit that soul-searching like this over simply standing in the same room as two friends was...

Strange. Strange was the word. How very strange of Luke Schwarz to hold such long-winded, sober, and disjointed thoughts, simply because he got excited about a couple of girls.

[i]I'm in a room with Gratia and Cian.

I'm in this room, with Gratia and Cian, two helpful friends of mine.

I'm not in a room where I should worry.[/i]

[b]"If either of you find a good blank screen for an eyepiece, could you please let me know? I think that's the last thing I'll need out of here, for now."[/b]