FFXIV Write Day 16: Jerk

Mint didn't really know what to do about Alphinaud. Even now, he was sat staring at the table blankly, a red flush on his cheeks that did nothing to make him seem any warmer. He looked haunted there, cup of cocoa or not.

Its not as if she forgive him for everything he did! Even Mint didn't know enough to stop him, he still ruined her life! Killed the only new people she'd gotten close to for years.

Its just.

He seemed.... young.

Mint paused and ran that thought back. Alphinaud seemed young? But he was about her age wasn't he? Short, but elezen were like that, apparently. Rinelle had always complained as Mint went through her growth spurts how distant her own still were.

But right now, he didn't seem like an elezen who's growth spurt should be here already. He seemed... like a kid. Almost unfamiliarly familiar in how much younger he felt than her.  

Mint tapped at the table right in front of him, and he looked up. "What is it, Mint?"

"How old are you?"

"Wh- H- I'm sixteen. Why in the world are you asking that now?" Alphinaud replied bewildered, distracted from grief by pure confusion. "Surely this information came up sometime before, and at this late juncture, what is even the point?"

Mint half nodded and then stopped listening entirely. 16... Well, she was surely older than that. By at least a few years. ...Not that she could be any more specific. How odd to think that he was so much younger.

Mint had always seen him as so confident, so sure of himself that she never doubted once they were the same age. Maybe she should have.