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[ Ann may have gone a little overboard with the whole furniture buying thing. It's just that they have an entire house to fill now, and everything at the store was so cheap?! It was mind-boggling. Even with the small sum that Akira gave her for shopping, she and Red managed to bring home quite a haul.

Sure, they're going to have to assemble most everything themselves, but... how hard can it be?

As it turns out... pretty hard, actually. They have all of the pieces to their dining table set laid out on the floor now—dozens and dozens of pieces, from tiny screws to blocks of wood—while Ann buries her nose in the instruction manual, trying to figure out what it all means. It's kind of like reading heiroglyphs, or so she assumes. ]

Um, okay. So we have to make this part first. [ She points to the pile of four long, thin pieces of wood that make up the base of the table. ] See?

[ It's hard to deny that a new place isn't exciting, anyway. Her chest aches at the thought of her apartment in Highrise, small but wonderful, and all that she's left behind — but she's here now, with 3 more people ( and an orb ) than she could have ever bargained for, and she's even gone furniture shopping.

So really, the actual townhouse could be better, but this is pretty much as good as it'll get for now.

Even if as good as it gets involves maybe a few too many boxes compared to the actual space they have ( and the space they'll quickly lose, if their old apartment was anything to go by ). Though that definitely sounds like a future Red problem. Definitely.

So, she settles down by their pile of ... opened stuff, which doesn't look that much more exciting than the unopened stuff, but maybe it'll look better once it's been assembled. Maybe. She leans over to actually take a look at the instructions ( she has no idea how to tell any of these screws apart aside from length, this is going to go well ), before ... nodding. Slowly. Once.

At least the wood panels look distinct. Red lays them out in the same orientation that the book has it in, then looks around for the weird diagonal piece. Which has to be somewhere. Probably ( she eventually just points to that and the screws, lips twisted into a frown ). ]

[ Ann doesn't mind the new digs—if anything, she prefers it. At their old place, she felt almost like an intruder, invading the space that their group had set up for themselves. Now—it's like a clean slate, a chance for her to help create a place that belonged to her just as much as the rest of them, especially in a world that still felt so new to her.

She feels like she's starting over—here, with this house, and here, with this life.

But that's enough reflection over fantasy IKEA furniture. After Red points out the screws, Ann digs into the little toolbox they bought to pick out the right type of bit for the screwdriver. It takes her a little trial and error, but she gets there eventually. ]

Okay, um... okay! [ She kneels down on the floor and sets the weird metal piece against the wood before glancing up at Red. ] Here, can you hold this?

[ Time to... screw. ]

[ She's literally never seen a screw before, this is going to go great.

But she's at least half decent at following instructions ( when she feels like it... ), eyes following Ann as she expertly ( "expertly" ) picks out the correct part for whatever she's trying to do. She steadies the plank in her hands, watching as the metal piece fits against the part and then... another metal piece.

Presumably, this is all going to make a table. The rest of the corners come next, which are all repetitive enough, and then—

She gestures for Ann to stand on the other side of the structure, miming lifting it up over to the actual table top. Surely after all of that, this should be the easy part. ]

[ Screw, screw, screw. That's easy enough, right? Kind of tedious, actually, and pretty tiring, since she has to do it all by hand and with the sorry excuse for a screwdriver that came in the kit with the table. Maybe they should've sprung for a real one...

She helps to move the frame they just built and place it onto the long sheet of wood that makes up the surface of the table, but—there appears to be a problem. ]

Um, is it crooked?

[ It's a little crooked. ]

[ ( Leave allen-keys alone!!! ) Well. Color her chastised, apparently building tables is a lot harder than she thought ( she hasn't done anything yet?? ). Red presses down on one side of the planks, and the other side raises. Kind of like a see-saw, except that's not what tables are supposed to do probably.

... ... ... Though in all honesty, it's not that bad. Ish. She looks around for the screws they're supposed to be using for the tabletop, then measures it up against their ongoing project. Sets everything down in exchange for her phone, so that she can type out a proper message. ]

It should be fine if we put it together. [ Probably. Surely no one will notice it. ]

Edited (this was an important edit) 2018-03-31 02:44 (UTC)

[ Ann watches their frame seesaw back and forth over the table's surface with a feeling of dread growing inside of her. Maybe this... isn't actually as easy as it looks. ]

Yeah, good idea. [ Sure. She nods, but her confidence is already a little shaken. ] Just, uh, hold that side.

[ Now she goes around the frame and puts in every screw, tightening them up as much as she can to make sure that it's as sturdy as possible. I mean, as sturdy as a table definitely not from Ikea can be. ]

There!

[ If she manages to catch Ann's glance, Red smiles. Quick, barely a flicker, but surely they can't something as small as a misaligned table get in their way. Surely it can't be that... bad...

And it's not — once the screws are in, they can barely notice that they're working with less than perfect furniture ( it will come back to bite them in the ass when they attach the legs ). She taps the wood one more time to see if it's sturdy, then turns to the rest of the materials.

One more message at Ann— ] We can split these in half. [ Before she starts assembling the wooden legs together. ]

[ This'll be fine!! It looks like their plan worked, anyway, and now the table is pretty flat. ]

Got it!

[ She puts together her two table legs, crouched down and bent at a weird angle so that she can screw it into the frame and tabletop they'd created. Once she's all done, she straightens and grabs one of their completed table so that they can flip it over and place it right side up.

Only, it... wobbles a little bit. Just a little. But by this point, Ann has given up. ]

Geez. I guess we can just put something underneath it.

[ Just a little. Honestly, for their first attempt, it's a pretty flawless thing. Or at least, just flawed enough that no one can really complain ( they didn't offer to help, clearly ). Red takes the instruction sheet, folds it up to a small enough square, and shoves it under the short leg.

Tries pushing down on a corner, and it wobbles... but not as much as before. It's barely noticeable, except the square of white paper that has now become a staple in their table.

She'll take it, in all honesty. ] Let's take a breather before we build the chairs.

[ And that's how Yusuke's favorite art installation came to be, the end. ]

( closed )

for red.

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nerd

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