fandomhighdorms | Puffin Campfire, Late Tuesday Night.

"Sakurazaki?" Alphonse was a little surprised to see her when he walked by, but decided to join her anyway. "You're out late."

"Hm?" Sakurazaki is slow to turn her head towards the voice, and she smiles softly when she sees Alphonse. "Oh. Don't you know by now? I'm always out late."

"So you're the night owl type, huh?" Alphonse grinned at her, taking a seat nearby next to the fire. "I can't really sleep much myself. Lucky for us this area is fairly safe at night."

Nodding slightly, Sakurazaki returns to her fire-poking. It is a very important task, after all, especially when emo-ing. "That's true," she says idly. "How was your day?"

He shrugged uncommittedly. "Not too exciting, unfortunately. None of my workshops start until tomorrow." Alphonse watched her prod at the fire for a minute, then glanced back up at her, slightly concerned. "Are you all right?"

Another small smirk. "Yeah, I'm fine. It's just my yang finding my yin. I had a really good day today, so, of course, now my mood has to balance it out with a nice swing of moodiness..."

Either Alphonse wasn't entirely convinced, or maybe he's just uncomfortable with the idea of people around him being upset; whichever it was, he didn't want to intrude into any personal territories, but... "If something is bothering you, I don't mind listening."

Drawing in a deep breath, she reconciles with herself. After all, he was offering.

"Well, I could kind of use advice on two things. Care to give it a try?"

"I don't see why not," he answered.

Now there was the challenge of trying to figure out which dilemma to solve first. Each had their urgency and each were plaguing her equally, so she decided to just go with the most recent discovering.

"Let's say that you have a friend who, unfortunately, is expected to be in an arranged marriage. Already, this leave you heartbroken for several reasons, first and foremost that she deserves better than just being offered to the highest bidder or most influential canidate. And let's just say that you happened across some information that tells you that one of these possible suitors is another good friend of yours, and you are given the task of judging if he is suitable or not for the first friend. Now, your first impression is to judge the suitor-friend well: after all, he is your friend, and you'd much rather root for your first friend to be with someone you already know and care for than a complete stranger and total creep. However, there's still something holding you back. You're not quite sure what it is, but there's an equally strong pull to completely dismiss the suitor-friend as completely inelligable, although there seems to be no real reason why."

"So..." she takes a deep breath. "If you followed any of that, what would you do?"

Alphonse was, again, a little surprised, except this time about an arranged marrige in general. His first thought was, isn't that a bit old-fashioned? But, he had to remember, Sakurazaki came from an entirely different place than his-- of course things were going to work out differently.

"Well," Alphonse started, trying to string his train of thought together. "If you just found out about this, I suppose it makes sense to feel that way. It doesn't seem like a decision that could easily be made. But if you feel that way, I'd imagine the best thing to do would be to sit on it for a while, and try to figure out what's making you say no to the entire thing. If it's between two people you're close to, there has to be a good reason why you'd want to give him the thumbs down, right? Even if you're not sure what it is yet."

She nodded quietly; it was a good sound answer, partially what she expected. But she didn't like having to sit on things like this. The whole situation had her feeling impatient, despite that there was plenty of time. She mulled on that advice for a while, rolling it over in her head thoughtfully before she moved on.

"Okay, problem number two now. It seems almost trivial after all that, really. It's sort of odd that it did, but, just tonight, something hit me really hard. I knew about it, of course, but I didn't really realize it until just tonight. In two days, I've got a...date." She blushes at the word, speaks it as though it's some strange, unknown thing. "I've never been on a date. I don't know what to do at a date. I barely even know what a date is. I'm not a date person, but, here I am. I don't want to make a big deal about it, but I feel like I should, and when I start to think about it, I get all nervous because there are probably fifty million things I need to know that I don't. I just don't know...Part of me really wants to just call it off...I hate feeling so ignorant."

"Ah, a date?" Alphonse said, more to just roll the thought around in his head, rather than asking it. This was something that was probably out of his league, as well, seeing as he'd never been on one, or in a relationship, or thought much about it overall. Date, date... what did people do on a date, anyway? The most he knew was out of novels, but he wasn't stupid enough to think that could be compared to reality. Even though he didn't know much, himself, didn't hurt to try to help. "I guess my best advice there is just to be yourself. Just kind of... be there with whoever you're with, and enjoy their company? I don't think dates have to be anything fancy or glorious in particular. I think. Let them know you care and all that?"

Alphonse wasn't really sure if that made anything better; he wouldn't be surprised if it didn't.

Again, she nods. Alphonse has really just been repeating some of the things she's been thinking about, but it does do good to hear another voice say it. But she puts a hand to her head, as though she's been thinking so much that it hurts now.

"Ugh, things were so much easier when all I had to worry about was training."

Alphonse slipped a quiet chuckle. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, it was..." He wrapped his arms around his legs, pulling them up against his chest. "I kind of miss doing just that, sometimes."

Sakurazaki glances over to him, the wistful tone in his voice causing her to smile a bit. No flustered attempts to cheer her up, no lame jokes to be misinterpreted. Just a gentle, understanding agreement. It felt good; it felt like Alphonse actually did know what she was talking about.

"Thanks for letting me vent a little, Alphonse," she says after a while. "Sometimes, I think I just need to externalize my thoughts, even if it is just letting them out. I keep way too much in my head."

"It's better than keeping it bottled up inside," he said. "It feels better once you let it out. And besides, I don't like seeing friends upset, or lost. It's, well... worrysome, silly as it sounds."

Sakurazaki gently shakes her head. "It doesn't sound silly at all," she assures him. "I think my head might be drained enough now that I might be able to get some sleep." Grinning slightly, she offers him the poking stick, expression asking if he wants to take over the duties.

Alphonse nodded, taking hold of the stick. "Go get some rest, then," he replied. "I'll put the fire out and head inside when I'm ready for sleep."

"Thanks, Alphonse," she says again, hoping he realizes that it's both for taking care of the fire and for just sitting and talking with her again as she gives a slight wave of her fingers and heads into the cabin for sleep.

"Not a problem," he replied after her. "And goodnight."

Puffin Campfire, Late Tuesday Night.

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