[h1][center][color=yellow]Yasuhide Seo[/color][/center][/h1]

To his credit, Seo's face remained perfectly in his calculated expression of happiness and interest, even as he cursed it with everything he had. He could sense the distance growing between them, could feel the discomfort in Namie's words as she let awkward pauses punctuate the conversation, he own fake smiles cracking underneath the weight of. . . concern? Disappointment? The mute boy couldn't tell, and it ate him up inside as he wiped his board, clean, the empty smile on his face staying in place despite his best efforts to let it fall. He had an old friend from way back just asking for him to chat like the old days, but he couldn't open up to her. couldn't even begin to drop the mask, despite how glad he was to see her, how glad he was that she didn't seem to pity him, how glad just. . . standing by her made him. He couldn't convey any of that, the kanji he started to write down seeming to be as empty as his smile.

Luckily, the attention was torn away from him for a moment as Namie called out to Osamu. Unfortunately, that meant he'd have to interact with the stick in the mud as well. Turning around, Seo would produce his intro card with a sleight of hand flourish, holding out behind his fingers for Osamu to take and read. As he did so, he once more wiped his board free of what had been written won't prior and penned a new message.

[color=fff200]~So. . . how did you guys take to the presentation? Kinda boring towards the end, am I right?~[/color] He playfully gave Namie a punch in the arm as he showed off the message, perhaps a tad harder than he meant to. But it's fine, he'd done it like that before, right? This is what she wanted him to act like, the old joker that took nothing seriously. 

[color=fff200][i]What do you mean 'act'? That's what you're like. It's who you are, stop overthinking it. Don't let that dumb hallucination shake you u, Seo. You're fine. You don't need to worry about it, you don't need those fuckin' pills to feel normal. You [i]are[/i] norms. You're just an normal, average kid trying to make friends and get by. . . [/i][/color]

[@Etranger][@Pirouette]