silly goose but BETTER - "oh- you made this for me?" [NagIba First Meeting]

cw // stalking, creepy behavior

Masking for an extended period of time was draining. Particularly when it came to performances. Meet and greets, performances, interviews, public announcements, posts, it all blurred together into one big mess of masking. Constantly changing her expression for those watching, constantly appeasing and appealing to fans and Hiyori. It was tiring. ~~It got even more tiring when she couldn't tell what was masking anymore. At first it was everything, and now it was just.. parts of herself. It was confusing.~~ Luckily for her. (Her? She couldn't tell anymore). This day of masking was nearly over. A performance followed by a meet and greet. Energy followed by energy. It was getting close to the end of the day, finally, and she was slowly running out of steam. All of the faces she'd seen today were blurring together. A brief break to take a breath of air, a sip of water, and she was right back to it. Dressed simply in her 'normal' casual outfit, green shirt half slipping off her shoulders as she leaned back against the table. A little awkward looking, but that was the usual. She was always a little out of her element when she wasn't 100% invested in a performance or a conversation, or her work. ...God, how she longed to go back to her work. Right.. Next person!

3:29 AM

@The Eichi Ever

Ah- was it time already? Nagisa had spent months and months perfecting every little detail, sculpting, casting, painting, stitching, dressing, puppeting. Every little detail of this doll needed to be perfect for today. He'd been to every meet and greet within traveling distance, every show, every promo, owned at least one of every merch item the group put out. He was, of course, a self proclaimed super fan. That was all in private though. Today, he was dressed in a simple shirt, displaying the groups logo, along with a dark green, unbuttoned but tucked shirt and pale jeans. His hair was tied over his shoulder with a deep, rose pink ribbon, as opposed to his regular robin's egg blue. Dark orangey-red eyes peered above dark eyebags, round glasses glimmering slightly to hide the devious shine. It seems like some of his own fans had come to bother him, asking about the rather large doll that he cradled in his arms. When he realized he was up next, he bid a quick goodbye to the people surrounding him and walked up to the table, polite smile melting into a more anxious one. "It's wonderful to meet you properly... Ibara-chan..."

Ibara had taken that brief moment of respite to breathe, having to throw back on her regular expression for the next individual. She turned from the table, opening her mouth to spout off her normal greeting before she was... hit with whiplash? Ibara hesitated before speaking for a moment, having to rearrange her thoughts just to pull herself together -- Of all the people she'd seen at her meet and greets, Nagisa Ran was not one of the individuals she'd expected to see. A doll maker of relatively decent fame, Ibara had seen his things for quite some time (Hiyori, for instance, was obsessed with how he designed his lolita clothes for dolls), and when he'd originally followed the Eve's Garden account, Hiyori had lost his mind. "How unexpected-" She offered a polite smile, bowing her head in a quick polite greeting. "A pleasure to meet you, Ran-kun..?" She hesitated on the name just a tad, making sure she was getting it right. "I'm certain His Highness, Hiyori, would be screaming if he weren't a room over-" A bit of a teasing tone underlied her words, just adding to her persona. God- no one really.. knew her. Huh. "What brings you here, today..?"

4:35 AM

@The Eichi Ever

Nagisa couldn't help but shudder nervously when she began to spit out a greeting to him. Breathe, Nagisa. It's all going to plan. "Ah, you know me, then?" He paused, glancing over the woman in front of him. He had seen her perform and at meet and greets millions of times, but yet he was still stunned by her beauty every time he came face to face with her. Ibara had become his muse, after all. "The pleasure is all mine, Ibara-chan... if I had time to wait in Tomoe's egregious line, I would be glad to pay him a visit, but it seems I only have time for you today." He propped the doll up on his arm more, allowing it to sit and show all the fine detail, as opposed to shrouding it while it was cradled in his arms. The doll was scarily precise, down to every small detail. The pin straight nose with the slightest upturn at the end, the flecks of green and gold at the center of otherwise stunning blue eyes, the intricately handpainted scars that littered the dolls body. Even the way the lips crinkled into a smile, slightly skewed to the left as opposed to just perfectly centered. He had been meticulous about every detail. This wasn't by mistake of course, he'd gone through all the effort of making the newest promotional outfit for the doll, that image that Ibara had tweeted less than 3 days before had become his obsession, and obsess he had until everything was perfect and it moved exactly as it should. Perfectly accurate to the real idol in every way except one. A small gold necklace with a diamond shaped pendant on it. "I made sure to set aside time to visit you specifically... so that I could show you the doll I had made personally, as opposed to tagging Eve's Garden in a video, and give a gift to you as well."

So the name did work -- he didn't seem incredibly offended by the title, so she'd continue to work with it. It was times like these (meet and greets) that she wished she'd gotten some semblance of a normal upbringing. Going directly from military boarding school to idol life wasn't the easiest switch, and with nothing to balance it out... "Of course. You're of fame in your own circles." She laughed, stilted a bit as she raised a hand to cover her mouth, more out of habit than any true insecurity about her laugh (even if Hiyori repeatedly liked to comment on how ""boyish"" it was). "How thoughtful of you..." If she were completely honest. Yes, it was a work of art, and it was gorgeous, but she couldn't help but be a little freaked out by the whole thing. That doll was accurate to a scary extent. Even the way one of her scars peeked just under her collar. The slight angle of one of the scars under her ear. Her eyes. It was a form of art, of course. But seeing something so realistic of herself did give her pause. "Oh-" Her hand dropped from her mouth, and almost cautiously she reached out, hand dropping just before it reached anywhere near the doll. She didn't want to actually touch it, not with how delicate that thing looked. She didn't want to break it, not knowing just how delicate the pieces were. "It's.. gorgeous... How long did this take you?" It was so intricate. She wouldn't have been surprised if it took a year. How was one even meant to respond to this? Intricate, yes. Thoughtful, yes. Creepy as fuck...? Maybe a bit.

1:22 PM

@The Eichi Ever

Ah. He was known, then. This is fine. Oh, her laugh was as lovely as ever. It was even better in person as opposed to the recorded one. Rough around the edges but still just as perfect as she was. It's to be expected of a former military kid. Ah. Perhaps his attention to detail had been off-putting. Oh well, at least it makes for a perfect model. "This one only took me around four months. I have had others that have taken far longer." In his hand, he held a life-size version of the necklace that this painstakingly detailed doll was wearing. Cautiously, the man offered it to her, eyes scanning her for any tiny reaction. He needed to see it all. "I made a.. more proper version of the doll necklace, and wanted to gift it to you. It may be a tad rough around the edges, as this is my first time properly metalworking for human-size jewlery." A pause. "I'm much more used to smaller goldwork....."

Four months? With that much detail... Ibara could only imagine the amount of time taken out of each day to painstakingly carve out every single curve with that much intricacy. She might have been more flattered had it not been ah... a doll? No, that wasn't it. While that certainly made for a creepier aspect, it wasn't the whole thing. It might be better to say, she might have been more flattered if it wasn't so scarily accurate. Some of the details were things even she hadn't noticed until recently -- when she was picked apart under a microscope for her career. Oh- Right. Conversation. She must have taken too long to answer, turning the interaction over in her mind for any sort of extra information she may have missed. "Oh-!" That, was actually unexpected. The necklace itself was gorgeous, and she gently reached out to take it, laying the metal flat in her palm and looking over it. "Rough...? This is incredibly well made. Thank you, Ran-kun." She looked up, offering a polite smile. Her management had always told her to just accept gifts, and dispose of them later. But this was.. nice. One gift wouldn't hurt, right? Not to mention, he was kind and well-known. If it were dangerous, well.. It was easily traceable. Which made her feel just a bit better about it. When was this meet and greet ending again? The call of her bed (and laptop... ~~and spreadsheets~~) called to her far more than any of this did. Just.. a little longer. Oh- two more minutes with Nagisa. ~~For once, the management system made her feel just a little safer. She was beginning to get a little creeped out by the doll.~~ She curled her fingers around the pendant, pulling it closer to her. She probably wouldn't put it on yet, unless that was insisted upon, but that was mostly a matter of not wanting to answer questions... "Other dolls too? Who do you usually sculpt? I'm not as up-to-date as his highness."

@The Eichi Ever