The true problem here is that Gale is tensely playing chess, and Nanako is leisurely playing hopscotch, and her metaphorical rock just skittered right down Memory Lane.
Her kindness doesn't shatter like a mask tossed aside once it served its purpose, mostly because it... wasn't a mask. Nanako is disquietingly sincere at all times, as a side-effect of her hatred of lies. It's part of why she's usually kept away from covert missions. But the kindness does shift—in the opposite manner he might have expected. It melted, deepening from something restrained by cordiality to a type of adoring compassion that was almost... obscene, maybe.
But she couldn't help it. That slightly hostile tone, those mistrusting eyes, the suspicion hanging heavy in the air—
"Just like Secchan..." Her hands came up, cupping her own cheeks gently as she stared at him with dreamy, terribly kind eyes. "I thought you might be, but you're really, really so much like that child was back then, my dears!"
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Her kindness doesn't shatter like a mask tossed aside once it served its purpose, mostly because it... wasn't a mask. Nanako is disquietingly sincere at all times, as a side-effect of her hatred of lies. It's part of why she's usually kept away from covert missions. But the kindness does shift—in the opposite manner he might have expected. It melted, deepening from something restrained by cordiality to a type of adoring compassion that was almost... obscene, maybe.
But she couldn't help it. That slightly hostile tone, those mistrusting eyes, the suspicion hanging heavy in the air—
"Just like Secchan..." Her hands came up, cupping her own cheeks gently as she stared at him with dreamy, terribly kind eyes. "I thought you might be, but you're really, really so much like that child was back then, my dears!"