Drenched Fireworks & Lost Sparks pv : B.Collins closed

@Hanako Tone

Being duelling team captain involved a little more than organizing practices and advising strategy, which Bridget knew well by now. Managing a team of twelve was not always easy, especially when they were a competitive, sometimes abrasive group that didn't always get along. She liked it, though. Giving pointers, keeping people together, placing an emphasis on improvement and enjoyment instead of just winning. Duelling was important to people for many different reasons. For her that had once been survival, gaining the skills to be competent and cool under pressure at a time when the entire school had felt dangerous, but now she mostly did it for her teammates.

That did mean she got worried about them sometimes. After duelling with many of them for so long, it was pretty easy to notice when someone was having an off day. Usually she just gave them space, the duelling team was far from the only thing in their lives. But Hanako was having an off month. It was definitely affecting duelling, he'd been skipping practices, and when he was there he was uncharacteristically quiet. She would take the minor headache of his constant joking around over this without question; his chaotic nature had grown on her, and now she missed it.

What was wrong could be a lot of things. Something back home, maybe, she knew that was always hard to deal with while away at school. An issue with friends. Or maybe something had happened with his teammates, though she'd gotten no indication of that from Ruby. It had to be something, though, and she'd made it her mission to get to the bottom of it.

Or rather than mission, she supposed it was more of a side quest. Bridget wasn't actively tracking Hanako down, the concern was just living in the back of her head, waiting for an appropriate moment. Those were difficult to find when his presence in the one place they normally interacted was turning spotty and sporadic. But luck would have it that this Monday, heading to the duelling room to get some extra practice in during her spare time, the large, dusty hall was occupied by just the face she was looking for: Hanako.

She paused just inside the doorway, leaning her shoulder into the wall while she gathered information. She had him away from the rest of the team, that made this a more ideal moment, but he was currently occupied. And a bit of a mess. Hanako usually looked more put together than this, yet another thing that was off, wrong. He was practicing his spellwork, but not the way she typically advised--with intentionality, attempting speed without sacrificing precision. It was more comparable to going at a punching bag to let off steam, really, than practicing.

It culminated with a thrown wand. Something was definitely wrong.

"Am I interrupting something?" she asked, raising her voice enough to be heard across the room and hopefully not startling him. She moved off the wall, walking in the direction where she'd seen his wand go. It wasn't jumping out at her, maybe it had rolled under something, so she turned back to her teammate. "We've missed you during practice." She said it lightly. This was supposed to be more an intervention rather than a confrontation, because yes, she cared that he wasn't performing to the levels she knew he could, but she cared more that he clearly had something going on.

𝟷𝟶𝚝𝚑 𝙹𝚞𝚗𝚎 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟺
Parseltongue , English

At the all-too-familiar voice, he froze. “ Captain-” he straightened his spine. He brought his hands down to his sides. Not that it did anything to the state of his hair. Tensing as his eyes adjusted to the sight of Bridget Collins, watching her walk nearer to his wand. He made no sudden movement. He was too busy controlling his breath, hoping it looked less laboured than it actually was. “ I was..just about to leave”, he decided to mummer. Trying to look anywhere but at her. It was so painfully obvious this wasn’t their usual interaction. The greeting was enough of a dead giveaway. Long gone was the vigour and enthusiasm in his tone when the word ‘captain’ left his lips. A subtle sign of evident appreciation for being the only one in the team he admittedly liked. Not anymore. Now it's more like reluctantly greeting a distant relative. All forced with simmering annoyance under the surface of each syllable.

Part of him felt a sense of guilt. She was not the direct cause of his disastrous dueling performance. In fact, for years he could admit she actually helped him stay in dueling for all these years. Yet something else churned it all to nothing but shame. A deep, gutted ache in him grew stronger each day she talked to him. Today was not so different. He had yet to identify where this frustration was coming from. One thing is for sure, she was the worst person to see right now.

A shift in his features showed itself as she mentioned practice. It was anything but pleasant, and he was terrible at hiding it. “Is that why you’re following me?” The bitter accusation left him on instinct, followed by a clench of his fists, his eyes narrowed in scepticism at her. It was frankly not a good look on him. But he was not in a peaceful state of mind at the moment. He’d do anything to fix the confusion pooling in his stomach. Frustration was the easier tool to use. The one thing he didn’t need to be reminded of right now was friggin practice. “ I was practising just now, wasn’t I?” he scoffed, gesturing to the dummy across him.

@Bridget Collins

@Hanako Tone

Admittedly she wasn't prepared for his reaction. Most of her concern stemmed from his absence, which meant this was her first full taste of what he was like to be around right now. It was tense, it was awkward. The best she could do was mask first her disappointment that he wanted to leave, then her itch to match his defensiveness. Following him? As if meeting fellow duellists in the duelling room was at all unusual.

But she was Captain right now, which meant she was keeping her expression neutral--maybe a little too blank--and taking a little breath. Something was wrong, it was resulting in whatever version of Hanako she was talking to right now, and she was here to get to the bottom of it.

"I'm not following you. I came here to practice," she pointed out, slightly blunt. "But I have been meaning to talk to you." She didn't see any reason to hide why she'd come over here instead of just minding her own business and finding an open dummy. Besides, weren't the Viridian Vipers her business?

He'd bristled at the mention of practice, which she supposed had to do with the fact she was the authority figure of those practices. Bridget could remove him from the team for not participating in essential team activities, but she was feeling more lenient because they were in the post-season and this was so out of character for him. "You know I meant practicing with the team." She frowned, trying to weigh how to approach this. "It-- feels a lot emptier without you there." That wasn't an exaggeration or lie, Hanako was one of the most vibrant people on the team. He helped keep the energy lighter in an environment prone to over-competitiveness.

She wasn't sure how direct to be, how he'd take it. But it was also really important that he didn't think this was meant to be a criticism. Hesitantly, she asked, "Are you doing okay?"