[Adelie]

'Counting your love letters again?' Like a persistent insect whine, Wolf's voice cut into his reverie - although that choice of words seemed to ascribe too much romance, too much drama to the simple act of staring blankly at his hands while absent-mindedly flipping through his mail.

'Just looking for some bills,' he deflects, rather hurriedly. It's the first thing that comes to mind - but it's really not much of an excuse, not when the gaming team is covering most of his expenses. He can't remember when the last time he bought something for himself was, honestly; maybe a few months back, when he'd decided he needed something to wear that wasn't just free t-shirts and the same pair of shorts.

Thankfully, she doesn't seem inclined to call him out on this - not directly, at least. Instead, she flops herself down on the couch next to him, looks over his shoulder, and comments, almost a little wistfully, 'Man, you really do get the craziest fangirls.'

[Adelie]

He hasn't really looked at the letter he's holding in his hand; half-crumpled and half-unfolded, a little frayed at the edge where he'd accidentally torn the paper while half-heartedly extricating it from the envelope - or rather, even if he'd looked at it, he might not have fully processed exactly what he was looking at.

Now that she'd pointed it out, he takes a peek.

Pale pink paper, dark pink ink in a cursive he finds difficult to parse easily; the text adorned with little hearts and flowers dotting the i's and punctuating the sentences, and the paper - now that he's inspecting it carefully enough to notice - gave off a faint scent of flowers. Perhaps that had been what attracted Wolf's sharp nose here.

'See?' Wolf says. 'No one sends me love letters this nice.'

[Adelie]

'I can't read that, anyways,' he says. Not entirely untrue - pink on pink isn't exactly high-contrast to begin with, and the script the letter is in is so bubbly and adorned that he doesn't even want to compute the mental overhead of interpreting it into valid English.

That doesn't faze her, though. Pulling the letter out of his hands - he gives it up with only enough resistance to claim that he at least tried - she holds it up to her face and inspects it, a quizzical expression on her face. 'Well, fear not. As someone who was young and in love once, I will gladly translate for you.'

There's a lot he could retort to that, but he suspects anything he says now will be used against him in the very near future.

[Adelie]

'My dearest,' she begins, affecting an accent which he can only describe as someone who had never spoken to a posh schoolgirl's imitation of a posh schoolgirl, and immediately stops. 'Wow, she doesn't even use your name and goes straight to the affectionate salutation. Moving quickly, isn't she?'

'Maybe the letter isn't for me,' he offers, weakly.

'Then doesn't this make the situation even more laughable?' she retorts. 'You, a grown man, sitting on a sofa alone, reading other people's love letters from twelve-year-old girls. She pauses a moment, and he wonders what kind of foul thought has made it into her mind this time, before continuing, a little more pensive, Sounds like the beginning of some terrible romantic comedy, honestly. I'd probably watch it.'

[Adelie]

'Just get on with your roast of the letter, please,' he says. He's regretting, just a little, not holding on to the letter a bit harder - but it's not like that would've done much good. What Wolf wants, she usually gets in the end.

'Oh, we were roasting the letter?' she says. 'I thought we were roasting you.' But she says that without malice - just a little bit of teasing, just a little bit of trickster spirit as she always like to - and she moves on quickly. 'The next line, of course, is - ' and here she breaks into that posh affectation again ' - I'm your biggest fan!'

'Well, of course. It's hard not to be the biggest fan when there's only one.'

'Now you're catching on to the roast session.'

[Adelie]

'I like the way she puts it, too,' she adds, brandishing the letter in front of him like a war banner and pointing at the first line - indecipherable to him, of course, except for a long string of curlicues at the end. 'Look, there's four exclamation points at the end. Er, maybe five. Actually, I think the last one is a picture of a chicken or something, but it's kind of hard to read.'

'It's a chibi of my favorite champion,' he allows. If anything, that would be something he'd recognize.

'Ah, okay,' she says, taking a moment to process this new information. 'See, now you can't deny it. It's definitely a love letter for you.'

[Adelie]

'How do you know it's a love letter, anyways?' he grumbles. Not a serious question, of course - he may not be the best at interpreting context, but it's not like he's blind, either - but one he just feels is appropriate to ask in the situation.

'Well,' she says, as satisfied as a cat faced with a puddle of cream. 'The next sentence, right after that one, is 'I love you so much.''

'That doesn't mean anything!' he protests, taking advantage of the opportunity lent to him. 'In that context, love doesn't have to mean romantic love.'

[Adelie]

'Ah, well,' she says; if he had had any doubts previously that she could possibly have a more smug expression on his face, they would be shattered now. 'You see, the next line - oh wow, this is interesting.'

The way she phrases interesting - the way she holds it in her mouth like a hard candy and lets it roll off her tongue and linger there - does not encourage him. 'Give that back,' he says, attempting - rather futilely - to bat the letter out of her hand.

'Nope!' she says. 'You'll have to try harder if you want me to not reveal all your embarrassing little secrets, of course.'

[Adelie]

'Sheesh,' he breathes, but since it's a lost cause either way, he lets up with his attempt to remove the letter from her nefarious grasp.

'Now, let's see what we have here,' she continues. 'Wow, this next sentence is so ... lewd.'

This is where he feels a shiver down his spine.

'Oh, here she's describing all the things she wants to do with you and you alone,' she continues. 'Wow, this girl really has an active imagination.'

'Give me that,' he says, but she keeps the letter just out of his reach - and despite how bothered he might be by this new revelation, he still can't be bothered to get up just to snatch it back from her. Knowing her, after all, it's not as bad as it might seem.

[Adelie]

'Fine, fine,' she finally relents, holding the letter in front of him - although firmly enough that try as he might, he can't remove it from her hands. 'Look at this line.'

'I don't see anything wrong with that,' he says. 'She's just saying she wants to buy some cake for me; that's all.'

'That's what you think,' she says. 'But really, is it so simple? Would she really just want to do something as innocent as just buying you cake for your birthday? Of course not! This is clearly a euphemism.'

'This is clearly the ravings of a romance-deprived old granny,' he responds.

[Wild Pet Found]