The park. Naru's great nemesis. It doesn't look all that scary, really. It's getting late, the park is devoid of families and small children, but is filling up with teens who are glued to their phones, chasing down invisible super cute 'monsters' and lobbing virtual balls at them with a flick of a finger.
Naru is clearly dressed for a run, and by the way that she's got plenty of energetic momentum to her, she's already done most of her run, or at least a healthy chunk of it. Her phone is in an arm band, headphones snaking up to her ears, although she's already taken one out. Better to hear who might sneak up behind her.
Naru paces on the bridge leading into the park, coming up to the apex of the bridge, looking over into the park and then looping back down on the non-park side. As if it was some sort of mountain that she needs to work up the momentum to get over.
In that same moment where she turns, another foot stomps down onto the bridge behind her. Or in front of her now, as it happens to be. It's a stomp that brings the movement of someone who, independent of her, was making his way towards the park.
"...Huh?"
There, bemused, stands the european boy who made an appearance at the arcade, slightly hunched over with his hands both stuck into his pockets. There's still a bandaid strapped over his nose, but now his left eye's kept closed too, on account of a dark bruise swelling the skin just besides it.
"... Hello."
"Oh!" Naru startles as she turns and Alexis is /right there/. She skittishes back a step or two, before she entirely processes who he is and then she smiles.
"Hi!" Naru's voice is warm, friendly even as she slows her steps a bit, still moving to keep her muscles warm, but grateful for the distraction of actually going into the park.
"Did you win?" Naru asks as she glances to the bruise.
".............Sure," answers Alex with a brief pursing of his lips. He doesn't move one way or another while Naru's approaching, not even straightening himself up from that hunched over posture that might leave him looking more like a stereotypical delinquent than possibly desired.
"You did a hell of an u-turn there. Just burn the last of your calories for the day or something?"
"Right. Did you at least give the other guy, or guys, a good shiner?" Naru asks at his 'sure'. She aint buying it.
Naru at least has the grace to look entirely sheepish. "I have been /starving/ all week, I am pretty sure that I've snacked enough to today to kill any net benefit of my run, beyond having gone for a run and getting to cross off another day of training." She erms softly and then ahems. "Promise you won't laugh?"
"......Yeah," he breathes out, albeit with a glance sent aside with a wrinkle of his bandaged nose. "Don't matter now."
Suspicion spreads across his face then, with a brief narrowing of his eyes before he takes a two steps forward to bring him closer to Naru. "...Now that you have said that," he murmurs. "All I can promise is that I'll try not to, depending on what you're about to say."
"Why doesn't it matter now?" Naru asks, possibly just to avoid the next bit of the conversation.
"Well. Okay, that's fair. I just feel kinda like an idiot for being too scared to run in the park." Naru admits with a twist of her lips. "And I had convinced myself that I was going to prove the nightmares wrong on tonight's run, yep. No problem. Annnd.." She gestures, showing herself on the bridge and not in the park.
"In hindsight, I think I was supposed to have made up some excuse rather than admit to my own stupidity there. Whoops." Naru quips with a soft snort of self derision.
"It's done and dealt with is all," claims Alex with a scoff of a sound flowing up his throat.
That would be right before Naru provides him her explanation of keeping from the park. His green eyes stare at her for a moment, and then lift up to peer at the park behind her. One blink, and then his gaze flicks back down to her.
"...Why?" He asks, bluntly. "What's so scary about the park?"
"It's not the park's fault." Naru admits, as she continues to move, to cool down slowly as they chat. Muscle cramps are not condusive for conversation. "I've just been in the wrong place at the wrong time twice there.. at least twice.. and once had my best friend's boyfriend's crazy stalker hunt me down there."
There is just a moment of pause there and Naru hrms softly. "That was far less convoluted in my head."
Naru turns, to glance into the park, harder to see as it gets darker. "It's a nice park though, seems dumb for the stupid to keep me away. Have you explored it yet?" she turns back to Alexis, to ask him.
"Hmmmm." The thoughtful sound is the only thing the german boy lets out for a moment, and his gaze wanders off to the shaded park once again. And soon, he draws a foot up to set him into movement along the bridge, towards Naru-- and almost seeming like he's about to pass her, too, up until he comes to a stop standing precisely besides her, save that he's facing the park.
"Say," he lets out, then, without even looking back to her. "When was the last time you went there willingly?"
"Mmmm." Naru has to think about that a moment. She watches him move closer, almost passing her and then stop next to her. "Before my trip for sure."
"Six weeks or so?" Naru comes up with after some thought. "A bit more perhaps, it was early July, I think. I ended up missing school the next day."
Another quiet, thoughtful sound rumbles through the boy's throat while he continues to study the park ahead. Contemplating.
"You wanna show me around there?" He asks, suddenly, and without any form of hesitation, he reaches his hand out to the side towards her in apparent offer as his head tips back and to the side just enough to set one eye onto her. "I'll buy you ice cream for your trouble if you do. And if there's some creep there I'll just beat them up for you."
There is just the barest hint of pause before Naru nods at the offer. "Yes. I absolutely would be delighted to show you around." She glances down to the offered hand and then there's a faint grin.
"The rumour mill at my school already has me engaged to a guy just because we took a recreational class together." Naru points out with a roll of her eyes. "Unless you want the gossip machine to have some sort of duel or commune of I don't even know /what/ they're going to come up with next.. unless we wanna test that theory, I'm going to save grabbing your hand for in case of Naru freak out, okay?"
"Ice cream at the end sounds good though." Naru continues and then turns to face the park, standing next to him properly. "I'll help you beat up any creeps." She adds after a moment. "I'm really bad at it so far, so don't expect a lot of useful help."
Naru takes a bit of a breath and then gestures towards the park. "There's a zoo in it, y'know. Not open this late, but its cool." She takes a few steps foward as she chats. "When you're not dragged there Every. Single. Year on class field trip. It is far less cool by the third or fourth field trip."
"Not like I care about things like that," Alex claims with another scoff of a sound, and promptly sticks his hand back into his pocket, since it was declined and all. "People can think whatever they want. Not like it has anything to do with us." Hell of a way to look at life with this one, here.
Still-- the moment she takes the first steps forward and he follows along, he's watching her with one eye. Just for any sudden negative reactions over the realization that she's suddenly in that place that she's not meant to be in.
"Zoo," he repeats, with a thoughtful grunt. "Maybe another time then."
"You are /so/ not Japanese." Naru comments, although it doesn't sound especially negative, if anything, somewhat envious. "There are bloodfueds that go back generations based on gossip, rumour and heresay." She laughs softly and shakes her head. "Must protect your honour, after all." She tries to make her voice sound all deep and profound and stereotypical 'Ancient Japanese Wisdom' (tm)
Naru is tense, it's easy enough to read in her shoulders, and she's doing her level best to chat with Alex and pretend she isn't. Her attention darts here and there, a moderately effective scan for people who might be trying to sneak up on them.
"There's some little shops in here too, but I find they mostly sell complete kitchy stuff for way too expensive for what it is." Naru explains and then smiles. "Although somehow I'm hard pressed to picture you being all that interested in crafty jewelry shops." She gestures a little as she heads towards the closed little shops, sticking close to Alex, even if she turned down holding his hand. "Do you usually like parks?"
"See the difference is that I don't see any need to prove anything to anyone," Alex declares. And that statement might be backed on further by the fact that one hand has drawn out from his pockets to pick at his ear at the same time. How so very eloquent.
"If I was here just on some tourist-trip I might consider them something to bring back as souvenirs," he murmurs in regards to the shops, but-- his expression turns, just for a brief moment, dull. "...Or if I had anyone to bring souvenirs to, anyway." That doesn't last very long, though. Instead, his eyes set on Naru in curiousity more often than not, just studying her. Eventually, he can't help but ask, "You really had that much trouble here?" He can read her that much at least, apparently.
"I try for that attitude, but I end up having people that I care about what they think of me." Naru comments thoughtfully after a few steps. "Granted, one of them is the friend who the rumour mill apparently has me engaged to, which seriously just makes both of us laugh."
"Buying gifts is /hard/." Naru protests gently. "Trying to find something when I was in Europe for Usagi.. it was hard to find something nice, that I thought she'd like." She glances to him. "You know, almost all of my souvenirs that I brought back were for me. You /totally/ have someone to bring things back for, if it was a touristy trip."
Naru takes a deep breath at his question and then points over to a flat grassy spot, under a big beautiful tree. "Just over there. Grabbed, and got a full speech about how he wanted to get back at people and was going to start going after their loved ones. It's a bad sign when they have to wake you up because you fainted during the evil monologue." She pauses and considers the spot. "He didn't kill me, but he did get away, and it got messy for a while, not for me. I was well protected, but for my friend he was after. That story got tragic in the end. He was a pawn, and died to save my best friend's life."
It is perhaps not the most comprehensive story about how things went with Fiore, but technically correct is the best kind of correct.
"...You..." Suddenly, Alex looks at Naru... well, suspiciously, to put it mildly, really. His lips purse in thought for a moment before he says anything further, too. "Your friend ain't Yakuza or something like that, are they?" He eventually ends up asking, in complete deadpan. "That kind of sounds like some real dramatic gang warfare at the very least, is all."
...Well, perhaps that is the most logical conclusion one would come up with after hearing that much, if one doesn't know about the supernatural.
"No Yakuza, no." Naru chuckles softly and shakes her head. "But a really vulnerable guy preyed on by bad people and a desperate need for connection, and orphanages and the whole nine yards of potential drama, and we got the whole nine yards of drama, and then some." She pauses a moment. "Gods, I can't even start to /imagine/ how much more messy life would be if we through Yakuza or something into the mix."
And this leaves Alex to just... sort of stare at Naru in blank confusion for a few seconds. ".....Righht," he lets out in a breath eventually, though. "I'm just... not going to even pretend I get it. You have some really complicated friends is all I'm getting from this. ... This kind of thing isn't common, is it?"
"I have some /really/ complicated friends." Naru agrees wholely and emphatically. "Love 'em to pieces, but yes. Complicated."
"More common than you'd think, but not like.. everyone all the time." Naru speculates and then nods. "There's plenty of people who just.. y'know.. live normal lives. Or something approximating normal, which might not seem super normal, cause we go back to the fact that you're not Japanese."
"Two weeks in Europe and I spent a swack of time being so lost as to cultural expectations. I can only imagine you probably think this entire country is vaguely nuts." Naru quirks a smile to Alex and then leans just a touch closer to nudge him lightly. "And I am not helping, explaining about my weird friends."
Naru was doing so well at relaxing, at least until there's a sharp sound from not far behind them. A vaguely ringing thump, probably nothing more than a nocturnal creature scouting out a garbage can, but it's enough to make Naru startle like a spooked cat.
"Maybe just a little bit," Alex admits, with a faint, sheepish bit of a smile. "I mean... this isn't my first time being here, so it's a *little* familiar, at least. PArt of the reason I speak the language, you know? Still more used to Europe, though."
HE doesn't react to the sound the way she does. Not at first, anyway. It's her particular reaction that starts something else there, instead -- and in in an instant, he's turned his back to her and stepped sidelong to set himself between her and the source of the sound.
In that same motion, his posture has straightened up to bring him to his proper full height -- especially with just his back visible to her, it carries over an image like that of a firm protective wall set in front of her.
That only lasts for a few seconds, though, before his shoulders loosen up and he hunches up again. "It's okay," he murmurs, and draws his hand behind him, in her direction, trying to sound assuring. "I think it's just a raccoon."
"Okay. Just a raccoon. Who has every right to a night time snack as anyone else does." Naru comments as she tries her level best to breathe normal, not sound like she's being strangled, and not try not to hide behind Alex. No matter how damn tempting that might be.
Touch issues or not, Naru reaches a hand out to grasp his, just for a momentary squeeze of reassurance before she pulls herself together.
"For the record, your Japanese is approximately a million times better than my german." Naru comments, in a bid for a distracting topic. "And no, I'm not demonstrating, cause you /would/ laugh." She grins at him and then gestures. "I think one heart attack is enough for one park visit, ice cream?"