Rin stood there quietly, listening to everything Rider had to say. She had a bit of a frown on her face at the end of it, but she responded with a nod.
"I don't know if I agree with you on everything, and I still don't trust Satoshi in the slightest, but... I understand." She sighed. "Trusting that man won't come easily for me though, no matter who's son he is. He spent the last ten minutes or so belittling me, insulting Archer and going on about how he would never hurt anyone while claiming he doesn't think highly of himself, so it won't come easily. But I won't fight him for now, not unless I have to."
She looked down. "I just wish I knew what was in that trunk..."
Rin looked up as Forest spoke. She finally noticed that the vampire seemed to be holding hands with the man who had so rudely invaded her mind... and did a double take.
W-wait a minute. Forest is dating someone? I don't remember seeing this guy before. But I thought she wasn't dating. Where'd this man come from? The man presently seemed preoccupied with Forest, so Rin took the opportunity to glare daggers into his back.
I don't care how gorgeous he is or that he is dating Forest, he could at least let people have mental privacy if nothing else. In the meantime...
She then looked at Tom and said, "Could you stay in here while I go ask? I'll be fine, I promise and if I need help you'll know it. I have a very loud yell." Regrettably she let his hand go but gave him a quick hug.
Tom returned the embrace, holding Forest tightly. His body was oddly tense, but she had the scent of lavender about her, and he relaxed a bit. But only a bit.
"I understand. If you are unable to yell though, you can always contact me via telepathy. I will be by your side in a heartbeat."
He reluctantly released her and watched as she walked away.
Rin watched all this as Archer guided her to the chair, the glare she'd directed at Forest's new beau but a moment ago replaced by a look of utter bemusement. So much so that she didn't even notice the unusual name of the tea that Forest recommended.
"'Liver Disaster,' hm? An unusual name, but if Forest recommends it, then I suspect it must be good tea."
Rin snapped back into reality for a moment at the sound of Tom's quite musing. The bespectacled psychic turned to the remaining occupants of the room, the sharp violet eyes regarding each of them warily.
Rin turned to Archer. "I-I'll take that then. I suppose it's worth a try, if nothing else." She watched him go reluctantly, now stuck between the Rider she'd just had a bit of a fight with and the psychic with no sense of privacy as she was.
There was a rather awkward silence. Then the doorbell rang and Rin nearly jumped out of her chair. To her amusement, Tom seemed more than a bit startled himself.
"It must be the pizzas," Rin said. She looked down to notice that she still had the money held tightly in her hand.
Funny, Ryoko was holding it like this not to long ago. ... I think it's crinkling the bills a bit.Rin gasped as her hand seemed to open on it's own and the money floated out of it. It levitated over to Tom's open hand, the other one seeming to make small beckoning gestures. He gripped the money out of the air and turned to look at Rin. "You are still rather pale, and there's no guarantee that the people at the door are the ones delivering the pizza for certain. I will pay it for you."
Rin sighed. "You could have just asked you know."
She watched him walk off towards the door.
It's so weird... The way he acts around Forest, it's almost like he's an entirely different person. But to everyone else he's... well, kind of an asshole. Rin tapped her finger to her lip a couple of times.
Huh, it feels like I've seen something like this before but I can't quite put my finger on where...Meanwhile, Tom opened the front door to find himself confronted by a rather scraggly looking youth, loud rock music bursting its way out of his earbuds. His car sat idling not far in the distance, a fairly new vehicle that still managed to be rather beat up and mangled, the top of the pizza delivery sign having a rather noticeable bite out of the top. The psychic noted that there seemed to be a shotgun mixed in with the various pizza boxes.
The unfortunate pizza delivery boy swallowed as he looked up at Tom. "Hey, dude, like, is this *insert address here*?"
Tom tilted his head, trying to remember if he even knew the address of this place. He had found it via instinct, after all, not by a map or anything similar. A glance into the greasy haired young man's mind confirmed that he had their order though, based on a few scattered images that he'd seen earlier. Thus the psychic gave the employee a solemn nod.
Obviously wanting to get out of there as soon as possible, the young man rattled off a price and Tom shoved the money at him. The delivery boy counted out the money and grinned after he finished counting.
"So like, do you want me to help you carry it all in and stuff?"
Tom shook his head. "It's fine, I should be able to handle this on my own."
The car door opened, and their entire order began to float towards Tom, the pizza boxes stacking neatly next to Tom's feet, floating a bit off the ground, the liter of pop floating just a bit above them.
The delivery boy just watched the whole thing slack-jawed. When the food had finished it's journey, the youth looked up at Tom with wide eyes.
"That was like... some major Harry Potter shit, man."
Tom raised an eyebrow. "What you saw was hardly impressive. Surely you've seen someone perform telekinesis before."
The delivery guy... "Billy," according to the pin on his shirt, just continued to stare at him in reverent awe.
Tom responded to this with an irritated glare. "Don't you have something else you need to be doing?"
Billy remembered that the way the dude was staring at him was so not cool and nodded, retreating rather quickly to the beat up pizza delivery car.
"Thanks for the righteous tip, dude!" he shouted. He slammed the door shut and drove off much too quickly.
The psychic made his way back inside, the pizzas and pop bottle floating after him. Rin watched the display and shook her head.
"Do you make even the slightest attempt to hide your powers?"
The boxes and pop floated on to the kitchen counter as the psychic regarded the magus with a slight tilt of his head.
"Is there any reason I should? Where I come from, while psychics aren't hugely common, there's still enough of them present that seeing people perform telekinesis is hardly unusual. I don't think they could levitate as many of these boxes at once as I could, certainly, but it's still relatively mundane. I see no reason to hide my abilities. After all, there must be more than a fair few in this Nexus that possess ESP related powers."
Rin sighed. "If you say so. I would still be careful who you use your powers around."
The food now delivered, Tom walked a bit closer to Rin, but still maintained a fair amount of distance. "Your magus society is fairly secretive, is it not? I suppose to you, my openness with my powers even among those who have none is rather strange, even taboo."
Rin frowned as she regarded him. "Did you get that out of my mind? Or did someone tell you?"
"I had someone familiar with magus culture tell me a few things. She too was rather secretive about a number of things. But I can understand the need to hide such things from the world, even if I am willing to be open about my psychic powers. After all, I too have certain abilities that I wish to remain hidden."
On that cryptic note, there was another silence. Tom used telekinesis to open one of the boxes and float a slice of cheese pizza over to himself. Rin regarded the whole thing rather guardedly, still fairly certain that this was a waste of energy on his part, even if it was nothing compared to what she initially thought happened with Lin's use of the Second.
She decided to instead ask the newcomer about something that'd been bothering her.
"So then... how long have you and Forest been a couple?" She looked up at him. "By the way, I don't think I caught your name."
"Thomas Hale. And..." To Rin's surprise (and secret delight), Tom blushed. "Well, we just started today, really."
Rin stared at him for what seemed to be the longest time. "You... wait, you two just started dating
now?"
Tom nodded.
"B-but, the way you were acting together... it's like you'd been together for
months."
His flush deepened. "I-I hardly see what that has to do with anything."
Rin pondered over everything for a moment before it finally hit her. She looked up at Tom for a moment. ....Before giving him a rather devilish smile indeed. "Oooooohhhh... I see what this is~" There was a rather mischievous twinkle in Rin's eyes. "You're in love with Forest, aren't you?"
It was Tom's turn to grow pale. He choked out a few sounds resembling syllables in an attempt to speak, but was unsuccessful. Suddenly, the blush returned to his face with all the rage of a humongous forest fire, and he glared at her with every ounce of feline indignity he could muster. "T-that's not- y-you don't- I-I..."
Tom covered his mouth with his hand.
A-am. A-am I really?Rin watched Tom's response with much amusement indeed.
I can kinda see why things moved forward so fast between this guy and Forest now. He's so cute when he's flustered~ Tom did manage a glare in response to that before putting his hand down and rather grumpily taking a bite out of his pizza slice.
