Behind the Mask

Consequences to actions (Part 6)

As Ririka heard Mary say that she immediately smiled cheerfully. "Why does she need to smile like that?" thought Mary annoyed as a frustratingly warm and pleasant feeling was spreading through her whole body. Since she would listen to Ririka anyway, the blonde girl chose to relax her body a little. Mary slowly pulled Ririka's soft hands towards her, which were already grasping Mary's thighs to begin with, and gently led them towards her waist. Very taken by surprise owing to that action, Ririka had no chance of withstanding her face getting overtaken by ruby fire, however the whitehaired girl without hesitation and with zero protest, gently put her hands around Mary's waist. Ririka's irrational fear of Mary just leaving with no warning evaporated all of a sudden, and the fascinated girl didn't feel the need to hold Mary anxiously down, in case the blonde girl would try to suddenly leave. Instead Ririka was exceptionally delighted about the placement of her hands which felt much more comfortable and natural.

"Am I really allowed to hold her like this? This feels too nice..." just thinking about it was letting Ririka's heart race. Even though Ririka's hand remained there, Mary removed her hands and glanced prompting at Ririka, signaling her to start talking already. It took Ririka an embarrassingly long time to notice the glance, since she had gotten distracted by where she was holding Mary, however once she noticed it she abruptly came back to senses and was completely focused on the blonde girl instead only on her enticing waist. Ririka took a calm breath as she looked tenderly at the blonde girl.

"First of all...", Ririka subtly cleared her throat in a way that somehow integrated the interruption in a non disruptive way, since the bashfulness which seemed to come out of nowhere was giving the whitehaired girl's words a hard time to come out her mouth, "...I-I am aware that I did some mistakes ...of which many shouldn't have happened to begin with and I truly regret them." Ririka seemed like she was getting a little more serious since the whitehaired girl broke direct eye contact, not because the bashfulness had gotten stronger since the opposite was actually the case. Unlike a specific blonde girl, Ririka currently had no difficulties reading her own emotions and therefore could get completely convoluted in them where she would be able to exactly convert her thoughts with no delay as if she was talking to her inner self which she had done quite a lot because of the only until recently ended solitude life she had lived. The words were emerging by themselves and although the nervousness was trying to hinder Ririka from conversing, she nevertheless just kept talking unremitting as if the whitehaired girl was uncaring that her sentiments of bashfulness were displayed.

"...N-Not only that, but I am willing to apologize for anything that might have made you feel angry or annoyed..." there was a negligible break almost as if, unlike the many other times Ririka had apologized for something, she that time actually took the time to think where she was going with all of this. After seemingly having gotten a glimpse of the destination, her words were meant to bring her to, even if it still was far away, the resolve grew immensely, yet it unexpectedly got accompanied by a sentiment of indignation. "I don't even care if it was my fault or not, anything that I did that might have bothered whether by my choices or not I genuinely feel bad for...but..." Ririka hesitated, yet since she had already established her goal, her determination of wanting to reach that goal was getting rid of the doubts and fears which would have made her hold back.

It wasn't necessarily unforeseen, due to there being a certain build up caused by the audible frustration, yet Ririka's voice then very swiftly started sounding shaky and veritably hurt. Mary immediately noticed how Ririka's aquamarine eyes were getting watery, even noticing the whitehaired girl squinting her eyes unnoticeably, putting pressure on her eye glands and hindering with a lot of effort for tears to come out, which only worked partially since the eyes already were reflecting light. Since Mary was literally straddling Ririka she was very susceptible to changes in Ririka's breathing and therefore could literally feel how her breathing had gotten slightly uncontrolled, with Ririka inhaling unevenly around three times one after the other instead of taking one big breath. Ririka was clearly getting worked up and emotional and since she was so focused on her thoughts, the whitehaired girl couldn't even do something against it. "...b-but I also feel like you are being a little unfair."