[It's strange how that, of all things, makes him laugh — not a particularly upbeat sound, but not an edged one either. It's almost like the bark of it is the byproduct of some compressed emotion in him finally reaching critical mass and rattling its way up his throat to escape, the first burst of it fracturing the rest of his best efforts to suppress it as another and another begin to wrest free.
Hell, she makes a valid point, doesn't she? Maybe I can't count that high. But someone is going to have to. And there's something about the magnitude of finally grasping the rewards of the ambition he's harbored for years that he still hasn't fully processed yet — the difference between the old man's death as a goal to be accomplished and the old man's death as a thing that happened, has happened, with all the ramifications and ripple effects that can only naturally extend from it.
He'd barely even had the chance to rest on his laurels, much less turn his thoughts to any sort of meaningful consideration of now what, before he'd been evidently kidnapped again, thrown into some mysterious suite with no memory of how or why Aerith has been shoved into bed with him, and what is he doing about it? Sitting on the floor in a rumpled tuxedo and drinking.
He doesn't even know why it's funny. It's all just so absurd. Barely even a breath to assess all the billions of things to consider under the new regime of Shinra, and he's dragged off to have another uncontemplated dozen heaped on him in addition.]
You should have married an accountant. The ones businessmen hire to do it for them.
[Having her next to him feels equal parts magnetic and ill-advised. He thinks he should probably mind it, the familiarity if not the proximity, but even the accidental bits of contact when she settles in feel strangely electric, like his skin has gone hypersensitive without him really noticing. It's dangerous that he has to turn his head to look at her instead of just lifting his chin to glare across the way; there's something inherently conspiratorial about being next to someone instead of across from them, and she's close enough now that when her hair moves it casts a faint scent into the air that at length he identifies as floral.
Her question leaves him thoughtful, though, and when he looks at her it's sidelong, not so much turning his head as tilting it and letting his eyes drift to the side, which inadvertently keeps his face in profile with a few errant strands of hair cascading artfully against his cheek.]
...Winning. Wealth can facilitate it, but it can't buy it.
[Sage advice. His mouth is still a little wet from the residual scotch.]
Maybe you deserve to win something. Choose something no one wanted you to have, and take it anyway.
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Hell, she makes a valid point, doesn't she? Maybe I can't count that high. But someone is going to have to. And there's something about the magnitude of finally grasping the rewards of the ambition he's harbored for years that he still hasn't fully processed yet — the difference between the old man's death as a goal to be accomplished and the old man's death as a thing that happened, has happened, with all the ramifications and ripple effects that can only naturally extend from it.
He'd barely even had the chance to rest on his laurels, much less turn his thoughts to any sort of meaningful consideration of now what, before he'd been evidently kidnapped again, thrown into some mysterious suite with no memory of how or why Aerith has been shoved into bed with him, and what is he doing about it? Sitting on the floor in a rumpled tuxedo and drinking.
He doesn't even know why it's funny. It's all just so absurd. Barely even a breath to assess all the billions of things to consider under the new regime of Shinra, and he's dragged off to have another uncontemplated dozen heaped on him in addition.]
You should have married an accountant. The ones businessmen hire to do it for them.
[Having her next to him feels equal parts magnetic and ill-advised. He thinks he should probably mind it, the familiarity if not the proximity, but even the accidental bits of contact when she settles in feel strangely electric, like his skin has gone hypersensitive without him really noticing. It's dangerous that he has to turn his head to look at her instead of just lifting his chin to glare across the way; there's something inherently conspiratorial about being next to someone instead of across from them, and she's close enough now that when her hair moves it casts a faint scent into the air that at length he identifies as floral.
Her question leaves him thoughtful, though, and when he looks at her it's sidelong, not so much turning his head as tilting it and letting his eyes drift to the side, which inadvertently keeps his face in profile with a few errant strands of hair cascading artfully against his cheek.]
...Winning. Wealth can facilitate it, but it can't buy it.
[Sage advice. His mouth is still a little wet from the residual scotch.]
Maybe you deserve to win something. Choose something no one wanted you to have, and take it anyway.