[log - Gin & Ururu - complete!]
Title: Dust Angels
Characters: Gin, Ururu
Locale: the women's shower Music Room
Timeframe: mid-afternoon
What: Ururu gets some unexpected help.
Rating/Warning: G/none
Gin entered the music room, softly shutting the polished mahogany door behind him. The room was smaller than the library, but held its own unique allure. Cases of music books lined one wall, adjacent to a blackboard with various notes scribbled in messy, chipping chalk. In the center of the room, instruments of brass glinted in the light, positioned tastefully next to stringed counterparts. He left those for now, instead perusing the volumes lined immaculately on the bookshelves. The masters were all there: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach. Accompanying them were more contemporary pieces, as well as songbooks from musicals. Every tome had a thin layer of dust coating it, dulling the gold lettering. It seemed a pity to let them tire away on the shelf, lonely and forgotten. Their bindings may seem drab, but their contents were anything but. He was no avid connoisseur of music, but he enjoyed it in his alone time. A bit ironic that the instruments behind him spent such time in solitude, bringing happiness to no one.
Ururu turned the doorknob with both hands, shoving open the heavy door with her shoulder. It had never occured to her to wish she was bigger or stronger, or that buildings were made for someone her size. She was well-accustomed to pushing and pulling and straining to adapt to things most people would take in stride. Slipping into the room, she leaned back against the big door to close it, taking the time to let her eyes adjust to the light from the window. The music room wasn’t on her usual list of duties, but someone had wisely decided that Keigo’s energetic approach to cleaning was not suited to a place full of easily-damaged instruments. Nearly two weeks had gone by before someone thought to ask Ururu to take over, and the girl was expecting to spend much of her afternoon on the much-neglected room. Not noticing that the room was already occupied, she undid the thong tying her duster to her apron, and hurried over to the piano.
A creak sounded in the silent room, and Gin turned to observe a tiny girl entering the chamber. He dimly recalled her, having seen her in passing from time to time. She often scuttled through the halls, though he sometimes noticed her in other rooms. From what he remembered, she did small, menial jobs, but mostly cleaning.
She seemed oblivious to his presence as she walked directly past him, towards the piano. He grinned as her duster skimmed over the keys, knocking up the tiny particles and sending them whizzing into the air. The coincidence wasn't lost on him. Though it seemed like an awfully big room for one so tiny, especially since she was tidying all by herself.
The thought arose quicker than he'd anticipated. It simply wasn't polite to just stand there and watch her. He ought to introduce himself. But how? He didn't want to startle her, but he wasn't particularly invested in the situation. Children were easy to manipulate, so much so that it was hardly entertaining. So, in light of that fact, he decided not to dwell on it and stuck with the one universal greeting that could never go wrong.
"Hello," he said, voice half-curious and half-teasing. "What's your name?"
The sound of someone speaking made her gasp; she had not expected anyone to be in here. She clutched her duster to her chest with both hands, sneezing at the feathers that tickled her nose, as she turned to stare, wide-eyed at the man who had addressed her. He wasn’t standing close enough for Ururu to see his face clearly, but the light reflecting off his hair combined with the swirling dust created a strange sort of halo around his head. Ururu approved.
She bobbed a greeting to him. She had no idea what he’d just said to her, but it had sounded pleasant at least. It wasn’t often the patients bothered themselves to be nice to her, and she hoped this one was more...forgiving than some.
“Hello?”
Gin kept his hands in his pockets and walked towards her, being neither slow nor hasty. He merely took his time at a leisurely pace, watching her reaction to his presence. He'd surprised her a bit at first, that much was obvious. The way she clung to her duster was innocent, almost kid. It reminded him of most of the girls in the orphanage, back in his younger days. He'd startled them too.
He chuckled and repeated his greeting. "Hello. What's your name?" He was much closer now, casting a shadow over her but still at a comfortable distance. She was really quite small. "My name is Gin Ichimaru."
He took his gaze off her for a moment, casting a glance at the piano. Half of it shone now, the other half still blanketed in grey dust. He swiped a finger over it and chuckled, even if only for effect. "Would you like any help?"
The shadow he cast made it much easier for her eyes to focus, and Ururu straightened up slightly to get a better look. His smile seemed impossibly wide, though not as toothy as that of the dark-haired man she’d recently met. Not nearly so exotic. But definitely appealing, as far as she was concerned. “Gin. Ichi. Maru. Hmm. My name is Ururu.”
She watched with interest as he ran his finger through the dust. Help her? How...irregular. This was a big room, and it would take quite a while to clean, but she was used to such tasks. On the other hand, she couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t, if he wanted to. There was nothing in the rules against the patients cleaning, was there? Besides, the idea of someone helping her was quite a novelty. She found herself nodding to him. “If.. you like? Yes? Um...please?"
Gin hadn't been around children in a very long time, and Ururu's presence was refreshing. Children were needy, yes, but they didn't complicate things the way adults did. They didn't read too much into his movements or words, and they didn't microdissect every snippet of conversation. They just absorbed. They took what they were given, and gave back what they could. Children like this Ururu, the naive ones, were the type he was fondest of. Quiet, reserved, and unaccustomed to attention. They had no - or at least very little - selfishness in them, which made them a pleasure to be around. Especially after his unfortunate encounter in the library a few days ago.
She hadn't moved. She still stood there, fingers wrapped protectively about the handle of her duster. "Do you have another of those?" he inquired, motioning to the feathers brushing her nose. "'Can't clean with my hands."
Ururu's eyes slid down to look at her duster. While the idea of help had sounded very nice, such particulars hadn't crossed her mind. She thought briefly about what she had with her, then flipped the duster around to offer the handle to Gin. Then she rummaged around in one of her apron pockets, jangling her keys about, until she pulled out a bit of soft rag.
Holding her rag up to prove the problem solved, she nodded very seriously at Gin. "Okay?"
Smiling a little wider, he nodded. He didn't waste time, striding over to the music stands. He hadn't handled a duster before, not even during one of his many jobs as a teenager. It was tedious, but also kind of fun. It didn't make much sense to him, the duster. It wasn't helping very much, in the end. It only moved the dust else where, to be swept up by peoples' feet and land right back where it had begun. But all cleaning was repetitive to some extent, so it didn't bother him.
He looked around at Ururu avidly wiping down the piano, which now possessed a very fine black sheen. "So, how long ya been here, Ururu-chan?" he wondered, raising his voice and continuing on with the music stands.
She finished up the piano and, with some difficulty, moved a sturdy wooden chair so she could start on the bookshelves. She tried to think back as she climbed onto the chair. The passage of time was always so fluid. She certainly couldn't remember the number of days she'd spent in the asylum, and years were too long to keep track of. How old had she been?
Ururu and Kisuke had sat down once, when her actual birth records had surfaced, and figured out where she'd been and when. Seven years in the closet, two in the orphanage, then another two before she was brought here, so... "Um...since I was...um." She took a moment to puzzle out the correct word for the number she was picturing. "Te- um...eleven?" Counting backwards from her current age took a little more time. "Hmm. So. Five? Years?"
Sweeping the duster over a bass leaning comfortably against the wall, Gin's eyebrows perked. Five years? Eleven? That would make her sixteen. While Gin was no stranger to girls who were short for their age, this was nearly ridiculous. Not to mention her reclusive demeanor and wide eyes gave the clear impression of the innocence children exuded. And while she was still much, much younger than he was, her answer meant she was much, much older than he'd anticipated.
"You're sixteen?" She didn't have the body of a sixteen year old, and she didn't look like she had the mind either. At sixteen, most girls were brazen, or at least more self-assured. Ururu seemed to be the exact opposite: she was meek where she should have been confident.
Not turning from the books she was dusting, Ururu nodded and hummed in confirmation to his question. According to Kisuke's math (which she trusted much more than her own) the year she was born meant that right now, she was sixteen, whatever the women at the orphanage seemed to think. She'd never fully understood the importance of the number, nor people's disbelief when they heard it.
When she dusted as much as she could reach from her current spot, she hopped down and, with a grunt, pulled the chair over a few feet. Climbing up again, she glanced over to make sure Gin wasn't breaking things. She blinked in surprise when she saw that he actually had been...cleaning. Rather well. She wished she could show this to Jinta, if only to prove that it could be done.
He noticed her curious expression as she turned to look, and chuckled. "Not used to help?" he asked, brushing the duster over an array of flutes and oboes.
It seemed a shame for one girl to do so much on her own. From what Gin could gather, the housekeeping faculty was gravely understaffed. Nonetheless, the institute seemed every bit the essence of perfect upkeep and attention to the most minute detail. He had to absentmindedly wonder how well Ururu-chan and the others were paid, considering the sheer size of the building. Especially if she were to clean entire rooms by herself when she could barely reach the fifth shelf of books.
She repeated the words over a few times in her head, little hands absently moving the cloth over the dusty leather books. Supposedly, she received quite a lot of ‘help;’ effective help was another matter entirely.
With a quick bob of her head, she replied, “Not. Hmm... Real help. Not often.” She noticed with a frown that a few books were out of place. She whistled at the shelf disapprovingly and started moving them around. “You? Clean often? Before?”
Gin shook his head, not that she could see. "Not really. Always had someone to clean for me, I guess."
He would have felt bad, but his apartment had been a birdhouse compared to this building. Besides, Gin never felt guilty about anything. Not about playing with people, abandoning friends, murdering lovers. He didn't live in ignorance, not by any stretch of the imagination, he merely chose the things he cared about. Dust was not among them, neither were emotions or lifeless bodies. What's done was done. He left things in the past where they belonged, keeping nothing but memories dear to him.
Finishing up with the bookshelf, Ururu replaced the chair she’d been using, then scurried to climb onto the one by the window. Squeezing her eyes shut against the afternoon light, she hefted it open with a squeak (both from her, and from the window,) and shook out the dusty rag.
“Still, um. Do,” she reasoned. Which made it even stranger that he’d start now. She ducked down to crouch on the seat of the chair, out of the sunlight, so she could stare at him some more. Something about watching him clean was making her feel almost ridiculously out of place. Maybe they both were.
Perhaps she felt awkward, which he didn't mind. In fact, he reveled in the discomfort created by their short colloquy. Other people - patients, therapists, what have you - were too proud to admit intimidation. Ururu-chan seemed the opposite: unabashedly upfront about her feelings. It was a welcome change to the ridiculous masquerade other inhabitants seemed to be conducting. She may not have been a child, but she shared their traits - innocence, fear, and candor being among them.
"Who usually helps you?" he wondered, reflecting on the few times he'd seen her in the halls. She was often accompanied by a redheaded boy, though he seemed more like an enemy than a friend.
“Chad,” she replied, still staring. “Keigo. Sometimes.” She unfolded herself from her crouch and dropped off the chair. “And Jinta.” She turned her attention to the rest of the furniture in the room, busily wiping down chairs and tables and instrument cases. “Jinta... Jinta...” She had to pause in her work to come up with the appropriate word. “Pretends.”
Moving around the room, she found herself working next to Gin. She watched his face out of the corner of her eye. How odd that he didn’t seem to have any of the lines of stress or worry that she saw on the faces of the other patients - and most of the staff, come to think of it. “You like? Here? Not unhappy?
Not unhappy? That lit a spark of humor in him, for they were the exact words he would have chosen. "Not unhappy," he confirmed, swiping the duster over the chimes. Their soft metallic tune echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls and bookcases in a merry melody. "A little bored," he continued once the quiet timber evaporated. "And you? Is Ururu-chan happy working with Jinta and the others? Are they your friends?"
In all honesty, he couldn't have cared less what her answer was. There wasn't much a girl like Ururu could be manipulated into doing. She was meek and impressionable enough, but not very capable. However, he did enjoy her company, and took marginal pleasure in their frivolous banter.
Is Ururu-chan happy? What an odd question. Ururu took a cursory glance around the music room; there wasn’t much left to do. “Happy...happy...” she sang to herself, trying to think of an answer. She was...busy. Fed and clothed. But happy? Was she supposed to be? “Um. Not unhappy,” she finally said, deciding Gin’s answer probably applied to her as well.
She returned to the window, scaling the chair again, and used her full weight to pull it shut. “Done,” she announced. “This room.” She turned her face to Gin to see if he had any objections.
Gin looked around and nodded. Interesting child, this Ururu-chan. "Then we're two of a kind, you an' I," he told her, smiling.
She reminded him of a pigeon. The way her head bobbed around, and her sentences came out as fragments. Her obedient nature, the way neediness and uncertainty hid behind her eyes.
He brushed the thought away. Now was not the time to give her such an odd nickname. Instead, he bent down and returned the duster to her, stopping a moment to pat her on the head. "Don't be a stranger, hmm? It gets awful lonely in this place." He paused a moment before punctuating the thought with a teasing, "Dusty, too."
Ururu hunched her shoulders, looking away, as he touched her head. The shadows on the floor had barely moved; her task had taken very little time with the extra pair of hands. She wondered how clean this place would be if all the residents took a moment to clean. Silly thought, she decided. It would get dirty again just as fast.
She accepted the duster from him, bouncing her thanks, as well as her agreement. There would always be dust in a place like this.
Characters: Gin, Ururu
Locale: the women's shower Music Room
Timeframe: mid-afternoon
What: Ururu gets some unexpected help.
Rating/Warning: G/none
Gin entered the music room, softly shutting the polished mahogany door behind him. The room was smaller than the library, but held its own unique allure. Cases of music books lined one wall, adjacent to a blackboard with various notes scribbled in messy, chipping chalk. In the center of the room, instruments of brass glinted in the light, positioned tastefully next to stringed counterparts. He left those for now, instead perusing the volumes lined immaculately on the bookshelves. The masters were all there: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach. Accompanying them were more contemporary pieces, as well as songbooks from musicals. Every tome had a thin layer of dust coating it, dulling the gold lettering. It seemed a pity to let them tire away on the shelf, lonely and forgotten. Their bindings may seem drab, but their contents were anything but. He was no avid connoisseur of music, but he enjoyed it in his alone time. A bit ironic that the instruments behind him spent such time in solitude, bringing happiness to no one.
Ururu turned the doorknob with both hands, shoving open the heavy door with her shoulder. It had never occured to her to wish she was bigger or stronger, or that buildings were made for someone her size. She was well-accustomed to pushing and pulling and straining to adapt to things most people would take in stride. Slipping into the room, she leaned back against the big door to close it, taking the time to let her eyes adjust to the light from the window. The music room wasn’t on her usual list of duties, but someone had wisely decided that Keigo’s energetic approach to cleaning was not suited to a place full of easily-damaged instruments. Nearly two weeks had gone by before someone thought to ask Ururu to take over, and the girl was expecting to spend much of her afternoon on the much-neglected room. Not noticing that the room was already occupied, she undid the thong tying her duster to her apron, and hurried over to the piano.
A creak sounded in the silent room, and Gin turned to observe a tiny girl entering the chamber. He dimly recalled her, having seen her in passing from time to time. She often scuttled through the halls, though he sometimes noticed her in other rooms. From what he remembered, she did small, menial jobs, but mostly cleaning.
She seemed oblivious to his presence as she walked directly past him, towards the piano. He grinned as her duster skimmed over the keys, knocking up the tiny particles and sending them whizzing into the air. The coincidence wasn't lost on him. Though it seemed like an awfully big room for one so tiny, especially since she was tidying all by herself.
The thought arose quicker than he'd anticipated. It simply wasn't polite to just stand there and watch her. He ought to introduce himself. But how? He didn't want to startle her, but he wasn't particularly invested in the situation. Children were easy to manipulate, so much so that it was hardly entertaining. So, in light of that fact, he decided not to dwell on it and stuck with the one universal greeting that could never go wrong.
"Hello," he said, voice half-curious and half-teasing. "What's your name?"
The sound of someone speaking made her gasp; she had not expected anyone to be in here. She clutched her duster to her chest with both hands, sneezing at the feathers that tickled her nose, as she turned to stare, wide-eyed at the man who had addressed her. He wasn’t standing close enough for Ururu to see his face clearly, but the light reflecting off his hair combined with the swirling dust created a strange sort of halo around his head. Ururu approved.
She bobbed a greeting to him. She had no idea what he’d just said to her, but it had sounded pleasant at least. It wasn’t often the patients bothered themselves to be nice to her, and she hoped this one was more...forgiving than some.
“Hello?”
Gin kept his hands in his pockets and walked towards her, being neither slow nor hasty. He merely took his time at a leisurely pace, watching her reaction to his presence. He'd surprised her a bit at first, that much was obvious. The way she clung to her duster was innocent, almost kid. It reminded him of most of the girls in the orphanage, back in his younger days. He'd startled them too.
He chuckled and repeated his greeting. "Hello. What's your name?" He was much closer now, casting a shadow over her but still at a comfortable distance. She was really quite small. "My name is Gin Ichimaru."
He took his gaze off her for a moment, casting a glance at the piano. Half of it shone now, the other half still blanketed in grey dust. He swiped a finger over it and chuckled, even if only for effect. "Would you like any help?"
The shadow he cast made it much easier for her eyes to focus, and Ururu straightened up slightly to get a better look. His smile seemed impossibly wide, though not as toothy as that of the dark-haired man she’d recently met. Not nearly so exotic. But definitely appealing, as far as she was concerned. “Gin. Ichi. Maru. Hmm. My name is Ururu.”
She watched with interest as he ran his finger through the dust. Help her? How...irregular. This was a big room, and it would take quite a while to clean, but she was used to such tasks. On the other hand, she couldn’t think of a reason why he shouldn’t, if he wanted to. There was nothing in the rules against the patients cleaning, was there? Besides, the idea of someone helping her was quite a novelty. She found herself nodding to him. “If.. you like? Yes? Um...please?"
Gin hadn't been around children in a very long time, and Ururu's presence was refreshing. Children were needy, yes, but they didn't complicate things the way adults did. They didn't read too much into his movements or words, and they didn't microdissect every snippet of conversation. They just absorbed. They took what they were given, and gave back what they could. Children like this Ururu, the naive ones, were the type he was fondest of. Quiet, reserved, and unaccustomed to attention. They had no - or at least very little - selfishness in them, which made them a pleasure to be around. Especially after his unfortunate encounter in the library a few days ago.
She hadn't moved. She still stood there, fingers wrapped protectively about the handle of her duster. "Do you have another of those?" he inquired, motioning to the feathers brushing her nose. "'Can't clean with my hands."
Ururu's eyes slid down to look at her duster. While the idea of help had sounded very nice, such particulars hadn't crossed her mind. She thought briefly about what she had with her, then flipped the duster around to offer the handle to Gin. Then she rummaged around in one of her apron pockets, jangling her keys about, until she pulled out a bit of soft rag.
Holding her rag up to prove the problem solved, she nodded very seriously at Gin. "Okay?"
Smiling a little wider, he nodded. He didn't waste time, striding over to the music stands. He hadn't handled a duster before, not even during one of his many jobs as a teenager. It was tedious, but also kind of fun. It didn't make much sense to him, the duster. It wasn't helping very much, in the end. It only moved the dust else where, to be swept up by peoples' feet and land right back where it had begun. But all cleaning was repetitive to some extent, so it didn't bother him.
He looked around at Ururu avidly wiping down the piano, which now possessed a very fine black sheen. "So, how long ya been here, Ururu-chan?" he wondered, raising his voice and continuing on with the music stands.
She finished up the piano and, with some difficulty, moved a sturdy wooden chair so she could start on the bookshelves. She tried to think back as she climbed onto the chair. The passage of time was always so fluid. She certainly couldn't remember the number of days she'd spent in the asylum, and years were too long to keep track of. How old had she been?
Ururu and Kisuke had sat down once, when her actual birth records had surfaced, and figured out where she'd been and when. Seven years in the closet, two in the orphanage, then another two before she was brought here, so... "Um...since I was...um." She took a moment to puzzle out the correct word for the number she was picturing. "Te- um...eleven?" Counting backwards from her current age took a little more time. "Hmm. So. Five? Years?"
Sweeping the duster over a bass leaning comfortably against the wall, Gin's eyebrows perked. Five years? Eleven? That would make her sixteen. While Gin was no stranger to girls who were short for their age, this was nearly ridiculous. Not to mention her reclusive demeanor and wide eyes gave the clear impression of the innocence children exuded. And while she was still much, much younger than he was, her answer meant she was much, much older than he'd anticipated.
"You're sixteen?" She didn't have the body of a sixteen year old, and she didn't look like she had the mind either. At sixteen, most girls were brazen, or at least more self-assured. Ururu seemed to be the exact opposite: she was meek where she should have been confident.
Not turning from the books she was dusting, Ururu nodded and hummed in confirmation to his question. According to Kisuke's math (which she trusted much more than her own) the year she was born meant that right now, she was sixteen, whatever the women at the orphanage seemed to think. She'd never fully understood the importance of the number, nor people's disbelief when they heard it.
When she dusted as much as she could reach from her current spot, she hopped down and, with a grunt, pulled the chair over a few feet. Climbing up again, she glanced over to make sure Gin wasn't breaking things. She blinked in surprise when she saw that he actually had been...cleaning. Rather well. She wished she could show this to Jinta, if only to prove that it could be done.
He noticed her curious expression as she turned to look, and chuckled. "Not used to help?" he asked, brushing the duster over an array of flutes and oboes.
It seemed a shame for one girl to do so much on her own. From what Gin could gather, the housekeeping faculty was gravely understaffed. Nonetheless, the institute seemed every bit the essence of perfect upkeep and attention to the most minute detail. He had to absentmindedly wonder how well Ururu-chan and the others were paid, considering the sheer size of the building. Especially if she were to clean entire rooms by herself when she could barely reach the fifth shelf of books.
She repeated the words over a few times in her head, little hands absently moving the cloth over the dusty leather books. Supposedly, she received quite a lot of ‘help;’ effective help was another matter entirely.
With a quick bob of her head, she replied, “Not. Hmm... Real help. Not often.” She noticed with a frown that a few books were out of place. She whistled at the shelf disapprovingly and started moving them around. “You? Clean often? Before?”
Gin shook his head, not that she could see. "Not really. Always had someone to clean for me, I guess."
He would have felt bad, but his apartment had been a birdhouse compared to this building. Besides, Gin never felt guilty about anything. Not about playing with people, abandoning friends, murdering lovers. He didn't live in ignorance, not by any stretch of the imagination, he merely chose the things he cared about. Dust was not among them, neither were emotions or lifeless bodies. What's done was done. He left things in the past where they belonged, keeping nothing but memories dear to him.
Finishing up with the bookshelf, Ururu replaced the chair she’d been using, then scurried to climb onto the one by the window. Squeezing her eyes shut against the afternoon light, she hefted it open with a squeak (both from her, and from the window,) and shook out the dusty rag.
“Still, um. Do,” she reasoned. Which made it even stranger that he’d start now. She ducked down to crouch on the seat of the chair, out of the sunlight, so she could stare at him some more. Something about watching him clean was making her feel almost ridiculously out of place. Maybe they both were.
Perhaps she felt awkward, which he didn't mind. In fact, he reveled in the discomfort created by their short colloquy. Other people - patients, therapists, what have you - were too proud to admit intimidation. Ururu-chan seemed the opposite: unabashedly upfront about her feelings. It was a welcome change to the ridiculous masquerade other inhabitants seemed to be conducting. She may not have been a child, but she shared their traits - innocence, fear, and candor being among them.
"Who usually helps you?" he wondered, reflecting on the few times he'd seen her in the halls. She was often accompanied by a redheaded boy, though he seemed more like an enemy than a friend.
“Chad,” she replied, still staring. “Keigo. Sometimes.” She unfolded herself from her crouch and dropped off the chair. “And Jinta.” She turned her attention to the rest of the furniture in the room, busily wiping down chairs and tables and instrument cases. “Jinta... Jinta...” She had to pause in her work to come up with the appropriate word. “Pretends.”
Moving around the room, she found herself working next to Gin. She watched his face out of the corner of her eye. How odd that he didn’t seem to have any of the lines of stress or worry that she saw on the faces of the other patients - and most of the staff, come to think of it. “You like? Here? Not unhappy?
Not unhappy? That lit a spark of humor in him, for they were the exact words he would have chosen. "Not unhappy," he confirmed, swiping the duster over the chimes. Their soft metallic tune echoed through the room, bouncing off the walls and bookcases in a merry melody. "A little bored," he continued once the quiet timber evaporated. "And you? Is Ururu-chan happy working with Jinta and the others? Are they your friends?"
In all honesty, he couldn't have cared less what her answer was. There wasn't much a girl like Ururu could be manipulated into doing. She was meek and impressionable enough, but not very capable. However, he did enjoy her company, and took marginal pleasure in their frivolous banter.
Is Ururu-chan happy? What an odd question. Ururu took a cursory glance around the music room; there wasn’t much left to do. “Happy...happy...” she sang to herself, trying to think of an answer. She was...busy. Fed and clothed. But happy? Was she supposed to be? “Um. Not unhappy,” she finally said, deciding Gin’s answer probably applied to her as well.
She returned to the window, scaling the chair again, and used her full weight to pull it shut. “Done,” she announced. “This room.” She turned her face to Gin to see if he had any objections.
Gin looked around and nodded. Interesting child, this Ururu-chan. "Then we're two of a kind, you an' I," he told her, smiling.
She reminded him of a pigeon. The way her head bobbed around, and her sentences came out as fragments. Her obedient nature, the way neediness and uncertainty hid behind her eyes.
He brushed the thought away. Now was not the time to give her such an odd nickname. Instead, he bent down and returned the duster to her, stopping a moment to pat her on the head. "Don't be a stranger, hmm? It gets awful lonely in this place." He paused a moment before punctuating the thought with a teasing, "Dusty, too."
Ururu hunched her shoulders, looking away, as he touched her head. The shadows on the floor had barely moved; her task had taken very little time with the extra pair of hands. She wondered how clean this place would be if all the residents took a moment to clean. Silly thought, she decided. It would get dirty again just as fast.
She accepted the duster from him, bouncing her thanks, as well as her agreement. There would always be dust in a place like this.