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| Shopping list; Geoff, ask | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 15 2016, 02:31 AM (259 Views) | |
| Flop | Jun 15 2016, 02:31 AM Post #1 |
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Afternoons like this were the precise reason her family had moved to Nagashima before the start of the school year. She knew it had been a smart, considerate decision. And was accordingly grateful. Grateful, too, that it was happening now and not some nebulous, more crucial later. But it wasn't measles -- she wasn't immune after one brush. Being lost wasn't a disease, after all. Hana found herself in front of a map of the Tanjiro shopping center... but it didn't seem to help. In her handbag -- a dowdy over-the-shoulder item that suited her general aesthetic -- was a list of groceries. Hana only realised, staring at the unhelpfully annotated map of Tanjiro, that she didn't recognise any of the chain grocery stores she knew by name. Hana's family had always shopped at a competing shopping center; one that, of course, was not present in Nagashima. She weighed her options. The first was to look up Tanjiro's website on her phone, and then match what was there up to the center map. Accordingly, she fished the device from her bag and eyed the battery -- not great. It was best preserved for the bus ride home, in case she found herself on the wrong route. That left the option she both dreaded and leaned towards, in equal parts: asking someone. Hana knew right away that a cashier would be the safest bet -- someone who knew Tanjiro well, and whose continued employment there obligated them to at least try to steer her the right way. She knew her first impulse should have been to trust in the kindness of strangers, but... Hana shoved her phone back into her back and proceeded into a nearby bookstore, as though movement were enough to dispel thought. She made a show of browsing new releases until she spied the shop's counter, clear, and proceeded to it, hands empty. "Excuse me..." she stared down at the counter, embarrassment getting the better of her. "I'm, ah, a little lost." |
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| Kfrunt | Jun 15 2016, 02:56 AM Post #2 |
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Maximum Over-Baka
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Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty copies of the latest romantic thriller from some apparently popular series. Geoff had once found the time to peruse one of the tomes and found the characterization lacking. That didn't stop him from continuing to read the ghastly things, but he always scoffed every time the two leads avoided each other's advances while pretending to care about their detective jobs. Really, just how many significant glances could people give while still actually focusing on a case report? It was absurd. Petty complaints about a guilty pleasure of his aside, Geoff was out of things to do. He recounted the number of books he had put away twice more, just to kill time before checking his watch. Only seventeen seconds to go. He spun on a heel, coming face-to-face with a new customer. No, face-to-face wasn't quite accurate. It was more face-to-top of the head. The girl in front of him practically radiated shame, or something close to it. Amused at the change of pace, Geoff checked his watch again and stepped forward. He had fifteen seconds to kill. "Welcome. Luckily, if you're a book, we can sort you by release date for the newer ones, or genre and title for older works." He tapped his chin for a second and nodded. "You seem... newer, at least to this region. I think we might have a spot for you up here on the shelf." He turned around, tapping a lone empty spot in the sea of new releases. He shrugged and turned back around. "If you're not a book, I can't really help you if I'm on my shift." He looked down at his watch then, grinning ridiculously. "Which just ended. Where are you trying to get to?" |
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| Flop | Jun 15 2016, 04:19 AM Post #3 |
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When addressed, she jerked, and forced herself to look ahead -- no, up, because straight ahead meant meeting eyes with the buttons of a polo top. Up. Someone young, another teenager, male, maybe a little older, stuck in that place where neither boy nor man fit as a label. Very clean-cut, so that was promising. "Hey!" her voice was little more than a squeak, and her eyes widened to match her protest over the shelf remark. He seemed, for a moment, determined to be unhelpful -- an unhappy surprise! Hana bit the inside of her bottom lip -- but thankfully decided to reel back from the precipice. How playful. "Sorry," why was she apologising? Why? "I'm, ah, I am new around here, yes." Hana fought the urge to apologise again. Ridiculous. All she had was a simple request. "I'm looking for a grocery store. Y-you see, I've never shopped at a Tanjiro center before, so I'm not sure about... much, really." She smiled, all nerves. It was at least an attempt. Edited by Flop, Jun 15 2016, 04:50 AM.
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| Kfrunt | Jun 15 2016, 04:34 AM Post #4 |
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Maximum Over-Baka
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Oh no, he thought, A mouse has snuck its way in. Maybe I just should get a broom. Musings aside, Geoff listened to the nervous girl, nodding here or humming thoughtfully there. Really, he was making a great, wonderful and terribly friendly show of listening to her. Honestly, he was doing such a good job of listening, he realized that it was his life calling to do so. He listened with a renewed purpose, absorbing each stammer and stumble with the attention of detail expected from a professional listener such as him. Geoff realized that she had finished and a slightly awkward silence was beginning to mount. Listener of the year, he was. He thought back to what he had actually heard between all that listening and picked out the words "new" and "grocery". He put the pieces of the puzzle together, having picked up the nervousness and awkwardness earlier, and gathered an imperfect but serviceable picture. "New kid. I've been there." He plucked his name badge from his polo, waving off to a coworker. They exchanged goodbyes before he stepped around the counter, gesturing for the mouse to follow. "I can get you to a grocery, but you have to tell me your name in return. You've probably already read my name tag and I don't like being put on the back foot on these sort of things." Despite his dismissive attitude to the whole situation, he lingered at the entrance, ready to guide the nervous thing to her destination. He mused to himself, thinking that she'd probably wind up in the less hospitable parts of town without him. |
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| Flop | Jun 15 2016, 05:07 AM Post #5 |
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Hana scuttled towards the cashier, once beckoned. She had deliberately averted her eyes from the name tag, sharing the inverse of his aversion. But speaking up now to declare as such, when she had already spluttered and stammered and squeaked... the notion was anathema. Maybe if she stuck to Cashier-san and played it off as ultra-polite... he'd almost definitely see through it in a second. Any child could. But before that -- "Oh! Well, thank you. It's not a very exciting name, but I'm Hana. Watanabe, which is pretty common, so..." Even if the cashier didn't have the blond hair and blue eyes that foreign men tended to possess, he was definitely one of them. It had taken Hana a moment to work this out -- his perfect Japanese, and her only fleeting glances at his face had let assumptions fill in the gaps. But now, standing at the entrance to the store he worked at, waiting for him to pick a direction for her to follow, she was able to catch a slightly better look at him. "...but maybe not very common where you're from?" she said, tentatively. |
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| Kfrunt | Jun 15 2016, 05:22 AM Post #6 |
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Maximum Over-Baka
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The crowd before them was imposing. Geoff found himself at a loss, trying figure out why so many people were flitting about here and there, doing everything in their power to have less money and more things, at this time. It wasn't any special day, and he couldn't think of any sales. There was just an abnormally higher concentration of people, and it left the bookworm feeling rather bored with the line of thought. Maybe someone else could pick up that thread, but it wouldn't be him. Bored with his observations of the crowd before them, Geoff instead focused on navigating, stepping out in parallel to the droves of people. He kept his pace slow enough for the girl to follow, but just ahead of hers to put his nonchalance on full display, complete with all the essentials; pocketed hands, an uncaring glance here and there, and above all else, seeming apathy for the current task at hand. "You know, for such a meek front, you're a pretty observant person. No, Texas is not known for its Watanabes, Watanabe-san. It's known for-" he paused, realizing his statement was beginning to grow sour before he spoke it. He repurposed the statement, making it something more playful than bitter. "It's known for big trucks and bigger meals." Perhaps when he knew the girl better he could go on a baseless rant about his home state, but that was some other time. "Though I guess that just makes me the outlier here, right?" He grinned viciously, knowing full well that the girl probably didn't know enough English to parse that sentence. "Ah, but c'est la vie! Tell me, Watanabe-san, what brings you to this city? I'm sure you have a story there." In this town, it was basically impossible not to have a story, he found. |
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| Flop | Jun 15 2016, 06:15 AM Post #7 |
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Her tongue stumbled over a graceful response to his compliment, even if it was a qualified one. Hana followed the cashier out into the crowd, a quick half-step behind him. Texas. That was America. She missed his flash of hesitation entirely -- he had hidden it well. And, Texas was where cowboys came from! And cowboys seemed very cool. But asking him if he knew any, Hana concluded, would be like asking her if her father was a samurai. Putting that unfortunate idea aside, she had heard that Americans were generally loud and friendly, which was nice. Trustworthiness usually sprung from those qualities, too. She laughed nervously when the cashier showed off his command over English. Hopefully he hadn't said anything to her that was too off-colour -- there didn't seem to be a point in doing so if he assumed (and correctly, if he did) that she wouldn't understand a word of it. "We've always moved with my father's job," she said, happy enough to volunteer the information. It was polite chatter -- and that was perfectly fine. "But his time, he's got a permanent job. And it's here. "Well," Hana added, quickly, "not here here. Probably in a skyscraper somewhere. You know." Hana looked over at him, expecting a perfunctory nod in reply, if not a follow-up question out of politeness. That was how it went, usually, and the years had taught her to be very good at it. |
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| Kfrunt | Jun 15 2016, 01:35 PM Post #8 |
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Maximum Over-Baka
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A smirk played the part of a perfunctory nod, and an absurd statement took over for a follow-up question. "You'd think they would come up with something better than skyscraper. It just doesn't feel very inspired, now does it?" He shook his head, as if disappointed in the human race as a whole for letting him down on this one word. "It doesn't roll off the tongue either, nor does it really describe what they are or do. I don't notice any skies being scraped on a daily basis. I do notice the business monoliths, though. And the abode columns." He sighed, shaking a sarcastic fist at an uncaring world. With his tirade over, he reset to a normal pace and gait, hands returning to his pockets. A silence fell over the boy for a while, though it wasn't entirely clear if it was to invite Hana to speak, or to let her recover from his complaints. Or maybe he was allowing a moment of silence for the fallen words that never made it into the light of day once skyscraper became the go-to. |
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| Flop | Jun 15 2016, 07:48 PM Post #9 |
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"Abode columns." Hana giggled, repeating the turn of phrase. The cashier seemed to be trying to make her laugh. That was good, nice, both of those things. "Cockroach boxes if you're very unlucky?" the rising intonation in her sentence was almost a plea for approval. Approval of her joke -- her attempt. Americans laughed a lot, didn't they? So it stood to reason that they were very funny. A laugh from him would carry weight. |
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| Kfrunt | Jun 17 2016, 03:39 AM Post #10 |
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Maximum Over-Baka
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"Only if you don't shop around well enough, I'd think," he quipped with a shrug. After a beat, his mind switched tracks and he found a new avenue of questions. "Do you think anyone raises cockroaches as pets?" The pair passed in front of a store front, a grocer no less. Geoff was so enraptured with his new query that he very nearly missed it. A full second passed before he froze in his tracks and spun to look at the place. "Aha! I knew we'd find one eventually. Even if there wasn't one nearby, if we kept walking we'd find one." He nodded sagely, content with the wisdom he provided. "Now, do you need help finding heads of lettuce too, or would the nice people inside who get paid for such things suffice?" He quirked an eyebrow. He wasn't adverse to staying in the girl's presence, despite his displayed eagerness. Quite the contrary, he enjoyed having someone he could attempt to baffle and perplex. Still, he wouldn't blame the girl if she wanted to shoo him away. It would be only natural. Who went shopping with a total stranger, after all? |
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