"Huh?"

Echo was mentally screaming.

Echo said while rubbing her eyes again, "No, no, I'm, uhm, I'm fine. I overreacted, but I'm, uh, fine."

Echo forced a smile onto her face, and then added on while trying to make her voice cheerful, "I'm not much interesting, anyway, so you'll get bored pretty quickly."

"Cliffhanger?"

Echo stared at Time for a moment.

"Something, uhm, something you want to know?"

"...I'm fine, don't worry about it," Echo said. "I just... I just overreacted...yea..."

Echo was now uncomfortable due to Time's slight questioning; the frightful memories still lingered in her mind like the bitter aftertaste of cough medicine. This discomfort and slight stress with the leftovers of bad, sad emotions was not the best mix in the world, although inwardly Echo was trying to shake off the feelings. She still felt embarrassed over this situation, which wasn't very helpful.

"Make what more interesting?"

Echo made a slight few steps back, starting to put her hands up but immediately shoving them into her hoodie's pockets.

"I'm not hiding anything."

"Really now?" Echo took another small step back, distancing herself. She looked very... uncertain? Sure. The Narrator brain is being slow so we'll go with that.

"Does everyone really actually have something to hide?"

Echo took this rather threatening, such small movements, and had taken a few more steps away. She looked very uncomfortable, and possibly a bit upset as the bad emotions resurfaced a bit.

"O-okay? So, uh, so what?" Echo questioned. She was trying to figure out a way to get away from this topic, but her mind was full of blanks.


(Oof lol, no SF!Time, ya can't unlock tragic backstory until you're a level four friend lol)

(Jwjrjowjrje Time is reminding me of Finnick from The Hunger Games with his interest in secrets lol only instead Time isn't trying to be flirty, but instead he is being intimidating)


"Uhm..." Echo, although not wanting to be rude, thought that Time was being a bit... nosy. "Uh...uhm..."

Echo didn't answer, eyes focused on the ground. She took an interest in a nearby pebble. Hello random pebble! At least you're not being interrogated at the moment. Such a lucky pebble. Echo wished she was the pebble instead. Such a joyous life the pebble had!

Echo continued to stare at the ground at the pebble, mumbling out her continuation, still unsure of how to change the topic, "...Not important. Not important at all... why do you ask..."

(Y e s)

"How do you know it's interesting? It could be completely boring," Echo mumbled, not making an attempt to look up. She kicked the small rock and watched it fly, but mentally apologized to it as if the pebble cared. Who knew if it did, really, although Echo knew that the pebble couldn't feel anything as it was not alive or conscious of itself. Echo stared to the direction of where the pebble went.

"Yeah... completely boring and stuff. Why do you ask? It's not really having an effect on your life, other than just to satisfy your need to know. Nothing would change if you knew anything about what you suppose I'm hiding or whatever. Nothing at all, if I was hiding something. I'm not, though."

Echo felt a pulse of anger, sudden anger. Maybe it was annoyance? Irritation? Echo wasn't sure, but she tried to drown the slight wave of emotion in a crash of ignoring and uncaring of it. If she pushed away the emotions, maybe she wouldn't have a moment of falling apart. Echo was annoyed, yes, but she didn't want to snap at Time. That would be rude of her, yeah, and Echo didn't want to be rude...

Echo took an interest with a nearby dandelion growing in a patch of grass. How quite pretty, Echo thought. She wanted to be a flower now. She didn't want to look at Time, so Echo just simply didn't.

"...Sorry."

Echo slightly looked up from the flower towards Time, but something caught her eye that made something to point out and change the subject.

"...Huh, look, a butterfly."

There indeed was a butterfly, very pretty with orange and black wings, fluttering over by some flowers. Echo's first thought that wasn't about this uncomfortable conversation was that the butterfly and flowers would make a great drawing.

Before Time could finish his sentence, Echo already had her sketchbook open on a fresh page, a mechanical pencil in hand as she messily sketched out the flowers and butterfly. She had crouched on the ground, trying to get a good view of the plants and insect.

Echo muttered out, "Such a pretty insect... these colours..."

In her other hand that she wasn't using, she held multiple coloured pencils between her fingers. Where did those come from? Who knows. She was switching out between her mechanical pencil and the coloured pencils rapidly, muttering in a foreign language.

Echo seemed to be easily distracted by such a small thing. A simple, small nothing that could be seen in one's life on multiple occasions seemed to be such an easy distraction to Echo.