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“Argh……” Felys sighed. “919, ei hyvä tulos. Minusta tuntuu, että olen pelannut vain huonommin yön edetessä, (919, not a good score. I feel that I’ve only played worse as the night’s progressed,)” she said in Finnish, a language she only used when live streaming music games. Her tone, even to both her viewers who couldn’t understand, and Chelsea who also couldn’t, was a clear one of self-disappointment.
“I think……” She switched to English. “I think I’m gonna end the stream soon, this hasn’t been a brilliant night performances-wise and I’m starting to feel a little frustration forming.” Any music gamer knew that frustration only served to blind, to lower one’s ability to play at their best. Felys was more than aware of that, and had been getting better about stopping before frustration became sadness and caused a breakdown.
Chat agreed that she was better off not fighting through her own mindblock. One person wrote, “plus, it looks like you’re building bad muscle memory on some of those patterns, better to leave it for a few days and move on. no shame in taking a break (:”
Felys read that aloud, and smiled. “Whoever said that…… you’re so right. I couldn’t have possibly said that better myself.” She then muted her mic, and typed an announcement into the livestream chat:
GL_felyx0526: stream schedule i posted last week is not going to change, however the length of the streams + how difficult i’ll be willing to play probably will! keep that in mind (:
Unmuting herself, she then added onto her text-based announcement, by saying, “Basically, I’m still taking song requests, but don’t request anything too difficult, as I’ll be doing a bit of mental rehab, from these past 2 days of attacking IE. Hope that’s clear enough…… with that said, I think I’m going to end stream here, yall! Thanks for hanging out with me, stay safe, be kind to eachother, and enjoy the rest of your day, rest of your night, whichever applies to you! Nähdään kaikki huomenna~ (See you all tomorrow~)”
She put up her usual end screen, muted herself again, and fell backwards in her chair, staring at the ceiling. “Mikä johti minut tähän pisteeseen…… ja mitä voin tehdä toipukaseni tästä hetkestä? (What led me to this point…… and what can I do to recover mentally from this moment?)” she thought aloud to herself.
For the next few minutes, Felys kept asking herself difficult questions, never once able to come up with any answers to her own questions. In the midst of her self-queries, though, she heard a noise ever-so-familiar to her: the opening of a door. When Felys looked to her right, the door was fully opened, revealing a familiar, cute figure, on the other side of it, and one Felys never tired of seeing.
“Hey.” Chelsea called out, in a soft voice. “I knew you were streaming tonight, so I didn’t want to bother you until you were done, but I think you forgot to remove the sign after ending stream……” She unhooked Felys’ “ 現在直播 Now Live” sign from the door, and put it on the girl’s desk, next to her tablet.
Oh, whoops, Felys thought. She was usually pretty good about removing the sign after she was done, and letting Chelsea know she wouldn’t be disrupting anything if she came in. “Guess I just got too wrapped up in a bit of negative self-questioning…… sorry.”
“Don’t be, Felys. I should be the one to apologize, for not noticing you were done earlier than I did. I was even watching the stream and didn’t realize it had ended for who knows how long…… I guess having it as, really, no offense, background noise at times wasn’t my best idea,” Chelsea rambled slightly.
“No offense taken, don’t worry, hun,” Felys responded. “Oh, crap, I forgot to actually stop the stream properly, too!” She rushed over to her phone, mounted above her tablet, and hit the button to end stream, after realizing her end screen had been up for a good five minutes. Atleast it gave chat some time to have conversations amongst themselves, she thought.
Chelsea giggled. “I’m sure chat didn’t explode too much while your endscreen was up, even if the end of your stream was a bit sudden. It’s not like chat’s usually at its most active when streams end in general, anyway, so……”
Felys nodded, knowing her girlfriend was right. She then put that out of her mind, and remembered what she’d wanted to tell Chelsea in the first place. “So, you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been attacking that chart a lot these past couple of days. I’m so close to achieving an All Perfect, even gotten as far as both fully solving it and getting two Full Combos, however not submitting either as they weren’t scores I was happy with……” she trailed off. It was difficult to say what she wanted to in a way Chelsea, someone who didn’t play rhythm games but admired those who did, would fully understand.
Exiting out of the game, the black-haired girl navigated to her gallery, and showed off the scores she’d gotten during the stream to Chelsea, who looked at each one carefully before telling Felys to move onto the next, rinse and repeat two more times. “Hmmmm……” the brunette mumbled. “Well, just looking at scores doesn’t give much insight, but it seems like your concentration isn’t at it’s highest, as if you aren’t fully able to focus or something. I know the feeling, trust me. It’s all too easy to lose focus after driving for over an hour, and make either a small mistake that could cost you valuable time, or a big one that could put you out of the race.”
“I can only imagine what that’s like, but yeah, it just felt like I wasn’t in a good mental space for the second half of tonight’s session. The mindblock must really be getting to me……” Felys’ shoulders started to droop, her head slightly falling as well. “Other than give up the grind, atleast temporarily but still for a while, I don’t know what to do……”
Chelsea gave the tablet to Felys, who put it on the (mostly) unused chair in the two’s shared room, before the Hongkonger proceeded to wrap her arms around the Finnish girl’s back, the brunette shifting so she could put her legs around her girlfriend’s waist. “C’mere~ We both know you need this~” she whispered lovingly.
Felys melted into Chelsea’s embrace, letting out a sigh that conveyed both stress and contentment at the same time, something only Felys could manage to do. “You’re right, I did need this,” she responded, putting her own arms around Chelsea and aligning so that both of them were nuzzling into eachother’s necks.
As the brunette let her hands roam around Felys’ upper back, she noticed something once she found her way to the other girl’s shoulders. Sighing, she decided to voice her observation. “Oof…… your shoulders are really stiff, sweetie. You really need to take better care of yourself, both mentally and physically.” She could have sworn she could almost hear Felys blushing, the girl was that embarrassed.
“Sorry…… it slips my mind too often, and even when I remind myself to, I forget,” Felys lamented. It really was true; she didn’t often remember to take care of both her mind and her body, unless Chelsea reminded her to. And this, was becoming more of a problem, especially recently. “Do you……” she started.
The question didn’t need to be finished, as Chelsea quickly let go of her girlfriend, only to swivel Felys around so that her back was turned towards her, for easier access to the girl’s shoulders. “Would you……” she began, only to start blushing as the question she was about to ask was rather embarrassing, “mind taking off your shirt? I want to be able to massage your shoulders directly, doing it with a shirt in the way wouldn’t feel right……”
Of course, Felys more than knew why the Hongkonger had paused, and why she had asking that in the first place. For one, it was an extremely embarrassing question to ask, and for two, much like herself, Chelsea valued consent and making sure her girlfriend was comfortable with what she wanted to do, above all else. That, and she was well aware by now that ulterior motives weren’t really Chelsea’s thing.
Giving a slight “mhm,” as well as a nod of her head, Felys removed her shirt, giving her brunette girlfriend a full, unobscured view of her back. While she couldn’t see, she knew Chelsea was giving her a warm smile, filled with nothing but pure affection. After giving Felys’ back an appreciative once-over, Chelsea planted her hands on the Finnish girl’s shoulders, beginning to knead with utmost care.
“Ahhhn~……” the black-haired girl sighed. “Goddess, that feels so good……” She could feel all the tension and stress built up within her simply fall away, with the only thing remaining for her brain to focus on, was the familiar, caring, gentle touch of her girlfriend, who always knew how best to calm her down. “You really do give the best shoulder massages…… you’re such a sweetheart, you know that?”
“Fufu, thanks~,” Chelsea replied, blushing a little as she giggled. “I do what I can for you, because I really do care about you, a lot. I know you know both that, and what I’m about to say, but I just want to say it: I love you, Felys. I love you so much, words can’t describe it.” After realizing she’d been ranting, the brunette promptly decided to shut up and let Felys comprehend what she’d just said, getting back to tending to her girlfriend’s shoulders.
As it turned out, the Hongkonger’s rant of affection had managed to leave Felys at a complete loss for words, and since she was currently having her shoulders massaged, there wasn’t much she could do to respond, other than relax and let Chelsea work her magic. So she did just that, closing her eyes and leaning back just a little bit, knowing that Chelsea would be easily able to prevent her from leaning too far back.
After about a minute or so, however, Chelsea stopped, and asked, “Mind if I put on some music? I don’t work well in near-complete silence.” Felys gives her the go-ahead, and Chelsea picks out a song she knows they both like: ginkiha’s EOS. As much as Felys loved Oriens and Occidens, the more usual ginkiha style of songs still appealed to her, the “daybreak hardcore” genre quickly growing on her, and Chelsea had to admit, she found it fun to listen to as well.
She couldn’t help but sing along to the vocal samples, as little sense as the words meant when put together, because she knew two things: 1, that singing was a way for her to express her own feelings, especially when she sang happy, wholesome, or affectionate lyrics, and 2: that Felys found the brunette’s singing voice utterly blissful to listen to.
Sometimes, Chelsea just sang into the void, where she put her all into it, but other times, like now, she sang with intent, a scenario usually reserved for when she wanted to make people feel happy, comfortable, or both. Clearly, it was working, as she could feel Felys relaxing, her shoulders feeling so much looser than they had not just 15 minutes before. It had gotten to the point where Chelsea was simply caressing her girlfriend’s shoulders out of pure, wholesome love for the Finnish girl.
Felys wasn’t exactly going to stop her, either. Sure, this was possibly not the most conventional way of displaying affection for one’s partner, but then again, her and Chelsea weren’t exactly known for being a conventional couple. They had wildly different primary interests, even if some of their other interests converged, like their tastes in music, anime, and manga. They were also born halfway across the world from each other, had wildly different backgrounds, and though both girls spoke fluent English, their primary languages could not be more different (Finnish and Chinese).
But, the two had hit it off, and there was no signs of their relationship coming to an end anytime soon, if at all.
Thinking about such things put a calm smile on Felys’ face, the girl in a practically unbreakable state of contentment. So deep into it she was, that it was making her rather sleepy, a fact made clear when she let out a yawn, with Chelsea giggling after the fact.
“Tired?” she asked, and only now realizing just how long this had been going on for. Whoops! Oh well, she probably doesn’t mind a little extra skinship, knowing how cuddly she is with me, as well as the other way around, she thought.
“Mhm,” Felys replied softly. “Would love nothing more than to just drift off, and let sleep guide me through the next several hours……” another yawn, “and with you by my side, I know I’ll be safe, no matter where in dreamland I end up~”
A blush started to form on Chelsea’s face. “Indeed, love, and the same is true vice versa~ We keep each other safe, whenever we’re cuddled together asleep, and I wouldn’t have it any other way~”
Felys let out a light giggle. “Nor would I. Let’s get ready for bed.”
Nodding, Chelsea and Felys took off whatever they thought would get in the way or be otherwise uncomfortable to keep wearing during the night, before Chelsea turned off the lamp and joined her girlfriend under the covers, giving her a soft, unhurried, passionate kiss. “ 晚安， Felys ～ (Goodnight, Felys~)” she whispered, even knowing that the black-haired girl both hadn’t heard her and hadn’t needed to, judging by the sleepy smile on her face, as well as her relaxed, steady breathing.
The brunette let out a tranquil sigh, before wrapping her arms around Felys, closing her eyes, and letting sleep take over.