Inked [1x1]

Otto hesitated, face a little bit confused. "Consultations usually last twenty or thirty minutes, depending on how picky you are," he said. His eyes drifted to her ink, but not because it wasn't quite centred. "But you already knew that, right?" He asked slowly, laying out his own arms on the table. "You should have got consultations for all your marks," he pointed out, trailing a finger over his own age tallies.
 
Internally, she winced, but externally she was all smiles. Her heart, though, was beating faster. "Yeah, but I assume getting a custom event might take longer than the usual tally or job description. Creating something unique per individual and event, I thought, might take a little more time."

She felt like she was drowning.

Her neck was warm and she prayed the blush wouldn't spread. This is why she didn't get close to people because it meant opening her mouth. Laila tried keeping her breathing even, but it sounded loud to her own ears. "So I can keep you company for twenty to thirty minutes," She smiled, bright, trying to move past this subject.
 
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Otto nodded, his slight confusing ebbing away. "Well, yeah, I guess so," he said with a slight chuckle. He glanced at his watch. "Well, you could pretend to be really picky and opinionated," he offered. "Then you can stay as long as you want."
 
She let out a sigh and her smile didn't feel quite so forced. "So, you're saying you want me to stay for longer than thirty minutes." Her eyes were playful again, "At any rate, if you get any real customers, I'll be sure to get out of your hair."
 
Otto smirked, putting his chin in one of his hands. "I really doubt we're going to get anyone coming in. You were a breath of fresh air," he said, pointing at Laila with an accusing finger.
 
"You're welcome," she responded, cheekily.

The moment of suspicion was gone and her heart had slowed to it's normal rate. "Want to play tic-tac-toe?"
 
Otto looked down at his work notebook. "This is meant to be my professional designing book," he said, though he was already flicking to the back and drawing out a grid, a small one in the corner. He could just tear it out and stuff it in his pocket when they were done. "You wanna go first?" He asked.
 
"Who knows," She laughed, "Maybe someone will really need a tattoo that represents the constant struggle for dominance in the work place or something." She took the pen and drew an 'O' in the middle.
 
Otto laughed. "Or something to do with racial prejudices. The X's are white people and the O's are black people, maybe?" He suggested, taking the pen. He drew an 'X' in the bottom left corner. "Whoever wins decides the outcome of a racial war. Careful now," he joked, holding out the pen again.
 
"Well, now I have to weigh my decision very carefully." she beamed at him and considered the page before drawing a careful 'O' in the top right box. "I could so be an inker." As if.
 
Otto raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He asked, voice teasing. He drew an 'X' in the bottom right box. "We should have a drawing competition, then," he said.
 
She blocked his move in the bottom middle and laughed, "Okay, you've got me there. I can't draw, just good at making symbols out of nothing, then." She passed the pen back.
 
He drew in the top middle spot and shook his head a little. "Symbols out of nothing?" He repeated, a slight chuckle in his voice. "This is going to be a tie, by the way," he pointed out.
 
She nodded, "I saw that after your first move," she admitted, but when ahead and filled in the middle right. The game must finish, "Finding symbolism in a game of tic-tac-toe," she reminded, "but writers are good at making nothing into a symbol." She grinned at him. "We're playing hangman, next."
 
Otto raised an eyebrow. "You got any examples off the top of your head?" He asked, voice maybe just that little bit taunting. He nodded as he filled in the middle left. "Should I start thinking of a word or have you got one?" He asked.
 
"I started this game, you can go next." She filled in the last space and pass both back to Otto, considering his question. "All books have themes: romance, epics, adventure. And the theme is always represented somewhere in the little details, often random things like an empty park bench or the moon, or," she gestured to the notebook before them, "a game of tic-tac-toe." She caught his eye and wondered, if they were a book, what that game would have symbolized for them.
 
Otto nodded, and scribbled roughly over the game. As he listened to Laila, he drew out the start of the game, with fourteen blank dashes and two spaces. He glanced up at her, smiling just a little with one eyebrow quirked. Were his ears looking a little red, maybe? "I see," he said, spinning the notebook around for Laila to see.

_ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _
 
If she noticed the pinkness in his ears, Laila didn't comment on it. Instead she smiled, too, catching his eye a moment before looking down at the spaces before her. "A."
 
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Otto nodded. "Yep," he said, spinning the book back around. He filled the letter in. "Just the one, though."

_ _ _ / _ a _ _ _ _ / _ _ _ _ _
 
She went with more vowels, always the go-to in this childish game. "E." and when he'd marked whether or not there were any "o"
 
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