"Oh, me too!" Angel wasn't even referring to the awkwardness that some small part of her couldn't help but enjoy despite Luna's nervousness. She sat up with a big grin on her face and spun around slightly. She was very obviously looking Luna in the face rather than what she could be doing if she so chose. "I've really wanted to do something fun with a friend, and I still don't have any in the real world and all I've done until now is meet new people, which isn't quite the same." Angel's hair flipped around in a way that was more naturally covering with her movements, though it wasn't really on purpose. And with the way she was sitting that meant Luna had less of an accidental view for the moment. "Actually I've always wanted to try a hot spring like this. Well, maybe with more of a bikini or something, but like, in general. Soooo it's kind of like a dream come true even tough it's not a very big dream. If the ones in the real world are half as nice then I definitely need to go somewhere where they have these. There's just something way more special about a natural hot spring over a normal hot tub, you know?"
God she wished Angel wouldn't sit so close or actively try to look her in the face. How was she supposed to calm down with another person directly in front of her whilst both were naked? Of course, now Angel would be able to see that Luna was keeping her eyes glued as tightly shut as she possibly could, her hands gripped into fists as she took slow, consciously deep breaths, well aware of how much she was actually struggling to relax, especially with how much her current position made her ache. The idea that Angel didn't have friends in real life was almost laughable. How could somebody so outgoing and kind not have at least a couple of friends. Even Luna herself had some people from school that would tolerate her enough to let her stick somewhat close to them. She counted that as being friends with them, since it was about as close as she felt like she would really ever get. She nodded along, eyes still as firmly shut as possible, listening to Angel ramble on about springs being a sort of dream of hers or something. It was actually rather hard to focus on her breathing and listen to the girl at the same time, meaning she did miss a few words which may or may not have been important. "I-I-I-I agree...?" She half answered, half asked. She hoped it made sense in context though, at least whilst she attempted to pull herself together a little more. She tried to shift, though it pulled on her back in a way that felt bad. Very bad. She let out a hiss, clenching her eyes shut even harder, shifting back into her previous position. It was official, this was starting to not be any fun. She couldn't even relax.
Angel tilted her head questioningly. She'd noticed Luna's eyes were shut though she hadn't gathered why for awhile. Obviously Luna wouldn't notice the gesture, and even Angel knew that. "Oh! Uhm," There was a swishing noise as she scooted a couple of steps worth away to give her a little bit of space. "Sorry, I'm not very good with personal space. That's probably less good right now huh," she scratched her nose and looked off to the side. Angel was a respectful girl, lack of respect for personal space aside. Socially, she was respectful, and she could understand Luna being really uncomfortable right now. Ava as Angel had admitted to her that she liked girls after all. Maybe she mistakenly thought she was some sort of pervert or something? Weird as it would be, Angel thought it might be kind of flattering if a girl thought she was cute enough to stare, but yeah that would definitely be uncomfortable. She assumed. She'd kidn of only recently realized she was 100% lesbian, and before that she'd not really registered why she appreciated pictures of girls and things. "Um, Miss Luna?" she finally opened her mouth, her tone a little more concerned sounding. "I'm having a lot of fun, honestly, but if you're uncomfortable we can get out or something. I swear I'm not trying to be weird or anything. I just want to hang out with you." She did have real life friends, but they were all where she'd used to live, and mostly they communicated through texts maybe once a day.
The sound of the sudden splashing noise made Luna tentatively crack a single eye open, ironically it was the eye that was usually covered, looking around to notice that Angel had moved away. The girl suddenly seemed far more subdued now. Had she upset her by being so rigid and uptight? Or maybe she'd taken her refusal to even have her eyes open as some sort of insult? Or even worse, did she think that Luna thought she was some sort of pervert or streaker? A cold chill ran down her spine at the thought, a feeling of horror settling in her stomach at the revelation that she might have genuinely insulted somebody that was only ever a nice person to her. She opened both eyes and stopped looking up at the sky, though she couldn't quite muster up the nerve to even glance in Angel's direction. God did she feel guilty that she'd ended up ruining Angel's fun with her inability to even relax. How pathetic of a person was she? And Angel was even calling her 'Miss Luna' now instead of just Luna. That was probably one of the more upsetting factors. She'd already damaged their friendship and she hadn't even done anything. She took a deep, very deep breath, trying her best to blow out every single bit of fear she was feeling. It didn't work, but it might've helped. "P-p-please don't call me Miss Luna. J-j-just call me Luna, u-u-unless you'd r-rather not?" God she hoped she hadn't damaged their friendship that badly. "A-a-and I don't want to get o-o-out or move a-a-away. A-a-and I don't t-t-think you're weird." She coughed, trying her best to look at Angel in the eyes. She managed a glance, not exactly at the girl's eyes, before she looked away again. "I-I-I'm just....a-a very n-n-nervous person socially...."
Angel noticeably perked up the moment Luna actually opened her eyes and spoke with 10% less stutter. "Oh, of course you're Luna to me. I was just trying to be extra nice in case I upset you is all," she explained quickly as she scooted back, still facing the girl. They were having a totally serious conversation right now so Luna had all of her attention. Though she admittedly might have anyway, if only for the girl's insatiable curiosity and the fact that she was still learning about her own tastes in girls. "No worries, Luna~" she reassured in a singsong voice that didn't really match the seriousness of her reassurance. "It's okay to be nervous and things. I pinky swear promise it's okay, I just want you to have fun too. I don't get to talk to my old friends very much. None of them really even like games so we just text a little sometimes. Oh, and uh, I don't mind if you look my direction if you're worried about me being too nervous or something. We're friends. Friends share secrets right? It's sorta like that if you think about it."
It was with part relief and part anxiety that she heard Angel speak and saw her move closer again, making sure that she kept her breathing under better control again, though she was still very uncomfortable, due to the position she had to be in to keep her privates covered with her hands and arms. She still tried to smile though and it might've even managed to show through the slight physical discomfort on her face. "I-I-I'm glad you w-w-weren't insulted by m-me looking a-a-away..." That was definitely one of the things she was most glad about. She didn't really ever want to insult anybody. "A-a-and it's not t-t-that I don't want to look o-or think you're ugly..." She explained, shifting slightly. She really wished she had a third arm to cover the blush on her face right about now. It was tempting to put the flower back on. "I...um, I j-j-just don't want to find you....y'know....too p-p-pretty..." She meeped, ducking her head after admitting her opinion, partially wishing something would log her off. At least she'd have an excuse if it did. But fate wasn't quite so kind and she was getting too uncomfortable, forcing her to shift her position. Her hands still covered her relatively well, but a lot more of her was actually visible now.
"Uhm," Ava's eyes widened again. She wasn't quite sure what 'too pretty' meant but she felt like maybe it was a flirt. Maybe. She didn't know for sure. She had never picked up if and when a guy flirted with her, and girls obviously very rarely did, if ever. Actually she was bad at picking up flirts either way. Still, it kind of stood out in her brain. She rubbed her own arm awkwardly. "I mean, that actually sounds really flattering since I know you like girls too," she admitted. Her eyes involuntarily moved down for about half a second before she caught herself and she was back to looking at Luna's face. She liked it without the flower. "Though, I'm kind of still in high school so I probably shouldn't take such a compliment as seriously as I might like." She frowned at her own words. "I mean like, uh," she paused and glanced away in thought. "Actually I'm not quite sure what I meant by that. A girl likes feeling pretty though, you know? What am I saying obviously you know, duh." She rolled her eyes at herself. Now she was rambling again.
Oh, right she had mentioned that she liked girls, hadn't she? Oh no, hopefully that didn't make things awkward between them! Just as she was starting to figure out how to relax just a little bit more. She hadn't MEANT it as a type of flirt, but maybe it had come across as one, or at the very least, she hoped it'd been taken as a compliment. It'd been intended to double as an explanation and the best sort of compliment that she felt like she was able to give in this sort of situation. It also made sense that Angel was still in high school IRL, she certainly didn't try to mask the way she spoke, unlike Luna. She smiled slightly, coughing to try and ease the slight awkward air that maybe only she was feeling. "A-ah, I-I know what you mean....I'm um, I-I'm only in high school too." It wasn't a big reveal, was it? And it wasn't like the information could come back to haunt her. Just a vague age range was nothing to go by, was it? "And y-y-yeah, f-f-feeling pretty i-is nice. I-I tend to feel that m-more in t-t-t-this game..." It was probably because she'd been able to pick her appearance in here, so she'd picked an appearance that she would've found attractive on another person.
"No way you're in high school too?" Ava perked up. "You seem way more mature than me." Some people didn't see someone who was so shy as being 'mature' but Angel was not some people. "That's awesome~ We really can be besties. It's so much harder with adults because they're, well, adults. Maybe that was why she'd felt more connected with Luna? Had she known all along? Pff, probably not. With that knowledge in her head though, it made Luna more... available than someone like Harveste ever would be, which caused Angel to blush even harder just realizing that. She quickly tried to push it away and continue on like normal as she played with her hair as she seemed to when she was nervous. "I mean, Luna is very pretty," she was referring to the avatar rather than the player in that instance. "I bet you'd be totally cute in the real world though. I'm kinda smaller. Probably more cute than hot or whatever people would say, but that's okay I like cute no matter what people think." How had she gotten on this subject. Ugh. Stupid curiosity. She only felt like she put her foot in her mouth when her sexuality came to light. "Uh, I'm rambling again, sorry. I'm not very used to the subject yet. And uh, anyway what I think I'm trying to say is that I'm glad you're young too. Everyone else is so oooold. Like in their twenties."
"Y-y-yes way..." She smiled, settling into a bit more of a relaxed state. If she tried to just focus on talking and didn't even think about either of them being naked, she might be able to have some actual fun here! Wow, this game really was doing absolute wonders for potentially helping her build up her confidence! Maybe she could actually be a little bit more outgoing in the real world, if she could go through this and not faint or end up running away out of embarrassment? Were they talking about their real world selves? Maybe a very vague description would suffice, if they were? "I-I'm um...e-extremely s-smaller IRL, i-in every regard." She was of course also referring to her chest, which had really taken some getting used to. Why she'd decided to make herself busty, she didn't know. Maybe it was because she'd always seen being busty as a sign of being a strong woman? It was probably a strange leap of logic to make, but to her it made sense. "A-a-and my hair isn't w-white and my eyes aren't, um, amethyst." She wasn't exactly sure what to do with the assumption that she was cute, but she filed it away for later whilst muttering a soft "thank you" in return. She wasn't quite comfortable enough to throw out her own assumption, but the fact that Angel had said anything at all was honestly really nice of her. She was a really nice girl! "D-d-don't worry a-about it, r-ramble ahead i-if you want. I-I-I'm not s-super talkative myself, clearly." A lot of the time she liked to just sit there and listen to other people speak their minds, instead of piping up with whatever she might have to say. She learned a lot that way, though that was more of a byproduct of her being too shy to speak up than anything else. "B-b-but personally when I, um, meet somebody I t-try not to think about the person b-behind the avatar. I-if they want to reveal things, um, they can. S-so I don't k-know how old t-the people I met are, or e-even if they're male or female i-in real life..."
"Well I'm definitely one hundred percent girl unless I'm super mixed up about biology. In the real world I mean," Angel puffed out her cheeks. "I'm actually just barely sixteen as of like, three weeks ago, and I have really cute brown hair." she plucked at her wet hair. "I suppose I must like ponytails and hair ties and things because both Angel and me have some form. Though my hair is a lot shorter so it's more like just a decoration or something." She'd never given it much thought; Ava liked her hair the way she liked it, and rarely changed it unless it was a special occasion. Despite that, one of her favorite things about being a girl with girl hair was that she -could- change it for special occasions. All her guy friends just had the same hair no matter what. Ohh that was probably another thing she liked about girls. "Uh, I live in New York now," she piped up. "I probably shouldn't say where until we've met in public even though I trust you, but who knows what someone else might overhear." They were totally alone so the logic didn't pan out quite like it did in her brain. There wasn't some mermaid under the water listening in after all. "Not that I'm trying to force a meeting in public! I don't even know where you live, just uh, wow I don't really know how to not make things more awkward today." Angel shuffled a bit. "Oh, uh, what else? I really like to hug people. Heck I'd probably give you a hug right now but that seems like a bad idea since I was already scaring you or whatever." She had a hard time wrapping her head around shy people, but she did try once she'd caught on. "Anyway, that's lots of stuff about me, since we're friends. If it were the real world you'd have probably known all that already anyway, but online is weird." Another short pause. "There, how was that? You can tell me stuff now if you want, or not. I'm bad at keeping things from people I like."
"M-me too..." She mumbled, looking down before chancing another glance at Angel, aiming for her eyes. She missed. Blushing she instead fixated her gaze on Angel's feet, figuring that being caught staring at them was harmless, right? "I-I mean, I-I'm a girl IRL too, I couldn't r-really fathom p-playing a character that's a d-different gender. E-especially in this situation..." She actually could, especially if people were doing it just to get some pleasure from peeping at people they found attractive. Nevermind the fact that there was a mixed gender spring. She listened to Angel's somewhat detailed description of herself, making a mental note to add it to the information she had about the girl later, before a single specific detail jumped out at her. The girl lived in New York, which was a huge, monumental coincidence. "D-d-did you s-s-say New York?" She asked, eyes still planted on the girl's feet to keep herself from staring at anything that was any higher on her body. "S-s-s-so do I..." It was admittedly rather risky to give away that sort of information, but at this point she felt like there was nothing to lose. It wasn't a text message, she could see Angel's face and hear her voice. It didn't seem like she was lying, or somebody else trying to lull her into a false sense of security before using her personal information to do whatever she wanted with. "D-d-d-don't worry, I um, I don't think you're t-t-trying to force anything..." Did players meet up IRL after they'd met in this game? Some must, right? Had Angel met any of the other players she'd met IRL? "As f-f-for a little about me, u-um. I-I have purple h-hair and a-amber eyes, b-but I dye m-my hair really regularly s-s-so I've kinda f-forgotten what its natural c-c-color is..." That was very embarrassing to admit. Who just forgets their own hair color? It wasn't exactly something she took conscious notice of, to be fair. "A-a-and my m-mom and d-dad are store owners..."
Angel's eyes opened even wider. "We're both in high school and in new york?" she let out what was probably the -most- teen girl squee'ing noise she could possibly muster. She looked very much like she had nearly hurt herself not just enveloping the girl in a hug like she very obviously wanted to based on her reaction and previous admissions. "Okay now we totally should meet ever. And it doesn't have to be hot springs. Not that the part of me that likes girls would complain at all buuuut it's totally not about that." Did she give out too much information of her thought process? Probably. At least she was honest, right? And it was very obvious she wasn't the type to try and just seduce someone in a situation like this like some people online would, or she'd have probably been way less harmless so far. "And your parents own a shop of some sort? Neat! My dad just has a night security job right now. He's actually an engineer but we just needed to get away from home after he lost his job and everything," Angel didn't feel like that was too private to tell a friend. It was her life too after all, not just her dad's. "Oh, and don't worry, maybe some day you'll remember what your hair color is. Like if you found an old picture or something," she shrugged, obviously trying to be helpful there. "I don't mind at all. I can be forgetful too, but I'm usually not if I really care about something. Which is why I don't do amazing in school."
The sound that Angel let out after learning that Luna lived nearby nearly threatened to damage Luna's hearing, though she managed to weather it with a smile and a shrug. She was ever so slightly concerned about how excited the girl seemed to be about the prospect of meeting up in person, which sounded both fun and absolutely terrifying to Luna, but it wasn't a bad kind of concerned. She was just worried that the girl might be more than a little upset if one or more of their parents didn't allow it. Unless they lied to their parents. "Y-y-your dad is an engineer?" Her eyes focused on the girl's toes for a moment, before she finally decided maybe it was time to just let what happened happen. She'd shown she could make herself stop staring if she really wanted to, hadn't she? Slowly her eyes drifted up, lingering for longer than they should at certain points, before she finally managed to reestablish eye contact with the girl. Progress was being made! Great, extremely valuable progress at that! "I-I-I'm sorry you had t-t-to move away b-because he lost his job.." She smiled apologetically, though she wasn't sure why people ended up apologizing for things they weren't even involved with. It never made the person feel any better about their situation, as far as she was aware. "I-I'm not sure many pictures of me exist, s-since I'm not a b-big fan of cameras..." She admitted, shuffling slightly in the water as she let one of her arms relax by her side, slowly followed by the other, sighing when her aching muscles were finally relaxed. "I-I k-kinda like school...I-I enjoy doing well." She was kind of a nerd at school, if she was totally honest. With no friends to goof off with, she'd never really had the chance to not pay attention in class. Even now that she played the game, she managed to keep her grades up. "A-a-a-and m-maybe we could....um, e-eventually meet up....one day...maybe?"
As they spoke Luna eventually looked up at Angel properly. Even Angel wasn't so unaware that she didn't catch the lingering stares, though she tried extra hard to make it look like she hadn't noticed. Maybe a little too hard, considering the entire purpose was to not make Luna self-conscious again. Was she blushing? She was probably blushing. Yeah Her cheeks were burning. Oop! Now she was staring too much at Luna's face because she was thinking so hard about not moving! She tried to look a little more natural but her eyes didn't shift the direction she meant and was reminded why she wasn't the only one currently feeling kind of awkward, which caused her to make a cute pretend coughing noise into a fist. Angel finally allowed herself to shuffle and even sat up straighter, more out of the water at the last thing Luna said. "Are you kidding? I'd give up this cute hotspring bathing scene in an instant if it meant I got to meet the real you!" she insisted. "My dad can't really say no. He's usually at work or asleep because he's still learning to be up at night properly. Sooo I kinda get to do what I want a lot. Which you'd think is good but it's kinda lonely." she shrugged. "But at least it'd be a nice place we could hang out if we got tired of wherever we met." Obviously Angel didn't even consider their current (and obvious) mutual physical attraction for their real life meeting. Heck she didn't really consider it now other than when she was specifically thinking about it. This was about plans to deepen their friendship! Every girl should want that, right? They made cartoons all about it!
