The rather nice day has lead the recently freed Naomi out into the park. With her is a rather large boom box that looks like it's from the early 90's. Oddly its working rather well. Some swing music fills the air. Naomi smiles as she begins bobbing her head to the music.
Quickly she pulls out a tablet which looks to be in rough shape. A trip to Yootoob later and A lesson in Swing dancing is on. She stands up and begins moving around. Its rough. She is clearly not the best of dancers. Still she is trying. She's learning and learning quickly.
And then there's someone who does not look like he belongs at all, really. Mostly by virtue of him very blatantly being caucasian, and not at all looking like a tourist. Or at least not like a stereotypical tourist anyway, what with a lack of a camera and any form of look of interest in the sights around.
Alexis prowls on through the park, with both hands stuck into the pockets of his jeans, with a brown leather jacket hanging by it's sleeves wrapped around his waist (it's too warm to keep wearing it all the time okay). He also wears a steadily-healing bruise around his left eye, and a bandage slapped over his nose. Someone's been having a really good time, apparently.
...Now, Alex normally doesn't spend much time gawking at the people around, but eventually, when the path takes him along to where he can see Naomi... well. He ends up looking on from not even that far away, curiously. It is TOTALLY not because of the roughness of her particular still-in-learning dance moves.
Or maybe just a little.
Naomi's moves begin smoothing out. She's getting more confident. Quickly she switches to a little box step turn. Overconfidence! Her feet get a little tangled up and... *THUD!* Down she goes. Right onto the ground. Quickly she picks up her glasses and puts them back on. Making a little face, she quickly gets back to her feet and starts again.
Her moves become more fluid as she keeps going. no more attempts at flourishes. No more fancy. Just the basic steps. She's gotta get those down first. She smiles bright, simply having fun with what she's learning. Sure she's a rookie but, dancing is fun!"
Oof. It might not be immediately obvious, but Alex winces when she ends up falling down. "...Hey," he calls out immediately, and takes a few steps forward -- which probably looks a bit more threatening than intended, with his hunched hands-in-pocket posture and all. But he *tries* to at least *sound* nonthreatening, even if his japanese is obviously accented. "You all rig--?" He goes on to ask, but she's up agian before he even finishes, so he stops both his words and steps there to just sort of look... sheepish.
Naomi turns around and gives a warm smile. "Konichiwa!!" She states as she continues moving. "I'm alright! I've taken much worse then that before." She giggles a little bit and then twirls around. This time she stays upright. The young girl is clearly having fun.
"Do you dance?" She asks with a smile. "I'm not very good! A friend taught me a few steps and pointed me to the internet for actual lessons. I've been practicing since! Its so much fun!" She giggles and continues her dance. Finally the song ends and she moves to grab a bottle of water. Sipping it, she lets out a satisfied, "ahhh. "
"...Konichiwa..." the older German boy repeats -- quieter as it might be, it definitely comes out much smoother than the earlier words, likely on account of it being repeated much more frequently. Since Naomi's not immediately freaking out over him coming over, he allows himself to step further towards her, and crouch down, hands drawn out from his pockets to let his arms rest over his knees. "...No, never. Never really could get into it." And back to the more obviously accented words, even if he is speaking japanese itself decently enough. "You enjoy it though, huh?"
Naomi Yomada nods, "It helps me out!! I found out that dancing clears my mind and lets me focus on my passion! I love inventing things and trying to improve on other things. A lot of times though, I blow things up. That's fun too though! You can't get good at stuff if you can't fail good too! You learn from it!"
With that she gestures towards him and tries to lead him to the space beside her. "Okay. Watch my feet. I'll go slower with this. This is a type of swing dance." She begins moving her feet slowly. Its a simple box step but its clear that it could be come a high energy dance very quickly. "Give it a try! Its worth it. If you fall, get back up."
"...Wait, you do *what* lot of the times?" Yeah, Alexis just kind of mentally tripped on that one. It leaves him staring at the girl with slightly widened eyes for about five seconds before his brain catches on to her urging him to... try dancing along.
"...Uh. I dunno about that..." He murmurs hesitantly, but since she's already setting herself into it, something in his brain urges him into movement to go stand beside her even in spite of those particular words. Even his feet start moving in following her. Even if it starts out mostly as shuffling, at first.
Naomi Yomada smiles happily, "Thats it! Now you're getting it. Now lets try to go a little faster." She begins moving a little faster. Not so fast that she gets herself tripping. Just a little quicker. It's not fast enough to add the music in yet. She just smiles and giggles a little.
"Oh I sometimes blow things up! Not every invention goes well. Sometimes I use the wrong resistors or diodes and things just go poof! Sometimes it's more impressive then others." She giggles. "I accidentally blew up a hot water heater and turned my momma blue recently." She states as she keeps going.
"I... yeah, sure... I guess it's not that different from the usual footwork..." Alex mutters, still sounding just the faintest bit uncertain, but at least he's letting himself get into it.
At least up until he hears the last few words from the girl. "Wait, wha--?!" Concentration is duly lost, and his foot shuffles the wron way over, into the way of his other, and--
THWUMP. Doooown goes the tall german teenager, face-first into the ground. "...Ow," his muffled voice lets out more as a statement than an actual wince, and the moment he's rolled himself around onto his back and propped up on his elbows, he's staring up at Naomi once more. "...What do you mean you made her blue?! Is she-- uh..."
Naomi Yomada giggles and stops to offer the much larger guy a hand up. "I was setting up a prank for my big sister. She was being a jerk so I wanted to get back at her. So I loaded the hot water heater with blue hair dye. I heard someone moving around so I had to rush to put things back together. I wound up with extra parts but, I figured it would be okay. The next morning I heard a boom and got yelled at by my mom. I was just trying to turn my sister's hair blue. I wound up turning my momma Blue!" She laughs a little.
"Ready to try again?" She asks as she puts on some slower swing. She starts snapping, finding the rhythm of the music. THen she starts. She begins dancing, moving in time with the music. Its a little faster then before but not by much.
"I-- I'm fine," Alex immediately claims, and just pushes himself fully up onto his feet rather than taking the offered hand, his own sweeping down along his pant legs to swipe dirt off of them. "...Oh. So... it was just like... blue dye or something. Right. Okay. I thought... Eh, nevermind..." One hand flicks side-to-side in a sort of dismissive gesture, and he sheepishly steps on over to besides her again.
"...I guess. If I don't get distracted it's not that hard. I just have to... copy you, really."
Naomi Yomada smiles and nods, "Okay!" She begins moving in tempo with the music. She grins and moves in front of the man, facing him. "here we go! Now we're dancing together!" She giggles and keeps going. "Don't even need to touch to do this dance but, from what I learned, this is the bases for a lot of swing dancing!! I will need to talk to Nagihiko when I see him again and see if he can show me a few new moves! I think it would be fun!"
...It might look a bit amusing, considering the height difference between the two. Even if Alex is still a bit slouched over. At least he's tryin not to let that get too distracting for him yet. "Swing dancing," he repeats the words, with some mildly bemused curiousity. "Not sure I ever heard of that. ...Then I don't really keep much attention on the whole dancing thing in the first place." Still moving with her. Though the faster they get, his movements start getting more uncertain again. Unfamiliar motions and all.
Naomi just keeps going just enjoying the dance. "Its okay. We can switch to a slower song if you like. THis one is getting a little faster then I thought it would. Its still fun though!" She moves over to the old stereo and switches it to a slower song. She smiles a little as a man begins singing in english. While she knows a little of the foreign language, she doesn't know enough to actually understand what the guy is singing about.
Happily she returns to dancing opposite the man. She actually does a little turn. Her footwork is the same. Then it happens. She loses her balance and trips over her own two feet and falls into Alexis. "Oh... umm... Sorry."
On the other hand, Alex has travelled a lot with his parents, which has inevitably resulted in him learning a passable amount of english, too. Hopefully the man in the stereo isn't singing about anything embarrassing.
As hesitant and slow as he has been with his movements of copying Naomi's dancing, his reflexes do turn out to be right on top of things when she stumbles-- he straightens up just a bit and his hands snap down to her to ease her thump against him and provide further support. "It's fine," he assures her, and... even offers a small smile down towards her when he tips his head down far enough to establish eye contact. "Not the only one tripping here, remember?"
Naomi Yomada blinks a few times and looks up into Alexis' eyes. Her cheeks turn red and everything seems to go multi colored. At least for her. "Sorry." The smile just makes her turn even more red. She doesn't move for what feels like hours for her. In reality its only a few seconds.
"You're right. We are both new to this!" She quickly gets off him and backs off for a few moments and grabs a bottle of water. She pulls another out and hands it over to him. "Here you go." She giggles nervously. "My name is Naomi. Naomi Yomada. Its nice to meet you."
"...?" Alex doesn't... seem to really fully comprehend what happened. Sure, he sees the red gathering on the girl's face, but he mostly just watches after her in confusion after she's backed off, and even goes on to ask, "...Are you feeling okay?" A hand comes up to rub briefly at the side of his skull with that, before it reaches over to take the offered bottle.
"Alexis," he offers in return. "Alexis Raskoph." OH god, that last name has to be horrible to pronounce for the japanese. With that occuring to him, too, he quickly offers, "...Just 'Alex' is fine, really. I don't mind."
Naomi Yomada smiles and gives a polite bow. She is still blushing. "Alexis Rashcop. It is a pleasure to meet you." She's close!! "Okay, Alex-san. You can call me Naomi." If he could see what she sees, he would likely note plenty of bishi sparkles around him. She has hearts in her eyes. Yup potential crush!
She shakes it off, "I feel okay. Not bad. I just feel a little head spinny!" She giggles happily. "Maybe I should stop dancing for today!"
"Naomi it is, then." It doesn't really seem like he's very used to using the japanese honorifics, anyway, even if he speaks the language pretty well. And for that matter, Alex seems *completely* oblivious as to whatever is going on in Naomi-vision. Poor clueless guy.
While he's sipping at the water from the offered bottle, he eyes her with a faint bit of concern. "...Head spinning, huh?" He murmurs, and frowns faintly. "You don't have a fever, do you?" Absolutely misinterpreting. He even takes a step closer to her and reaches one hand over to press the backs of his fingers to her forehead. You know, just to see if it's all heated up.
Which is probably not going to help matters at all.
Naomi Yomada shakes her head, "I don't feel feverish." And then... touched! Her face goes bright red again. She gives a soft smiles. Oh look more sparkles. Hearts are definitely flying. Blue's going to kill her for this. But she told him she didn't agree with the rule anyway! Oh well! She looks at Alex and just beams. "I feel really off. Nothing makes sense." She speaks softly.
Quietly a little rustling comes from her bag. She looks down at it and blinks a few times. Opening it, Alex would see a lilac plush that looks almost like a bear. It of course doesn't move. Quickly she finds a folded small piece of paper. She looks at it, making sure Alex doesn't see it. ::Naomi-chan! You know better! You're not allowed to fall in love!:: She balls up the little note and slips it into her pocket.
Poor Alex has NO idea what is going on. But he is growing steadily more concerned, still, even more so with a smile being paired with her particular words. "...Maybe you should sit down," he suggests, voice a bit uncertain. "Drink some more water. It's kind of a warm day so you might be dehydrated..." It *sort of* makes sense. Kinda.
And just because he somehow still has no idea on proper etiquette in this situation (or even realizing what the situation is for that matter), the hand set to her head lowers down to her shoulder when he steps forward to her side, gently urging her towards a nearby bench. "When's the last time you ate? I can go find something to snack on from one of the stalls down the road, probably."
AT LEAST he has the decency to *not* try to peek at the note she draws out. Even if he does kind of look endlessly curious about that, too.
Naomi Yomada idly taps her bag with her foot jarring the fairy inside. She blushes softly wishing she could actually fight this feeling but there is no chance of that. She won't say the word. She won't believe the word. Crush yes. The one that starts with an L? No way. "Oh what am I going to do!" She mutters as she covers her face for a moment. How is she going to explain this to her friends. What will they even say?!
She looks up to Alex and smiles to him. "I ate before I came out here. It might be the heat." Then more touching! Hand on the shoulder Oh gosh it feels nice! More blushing! She just smiles again, keeping herself from leaning her head against his hand. Even if she really wants to. He seems really nice! "So umm Which school do you go to?" She asks curiously.
"...Do about what?" Alex asks in confusion, but he pparently immediately comes to some conclusion of his own and goes on to say, "Just sit down a moment, drink a bit more water, okay? The heat can hit you pretty bad if you let it, you know." So clueless. He even brings his hand up to the top of her head to give a brief, gentle pat over there. "You'll be okay."
"Huh? Me? Oh." He lets out a small, quiet cough. "I'm... uh. Gonna start in Verone pretty soon. Tenth grade. Parents put me up to it. I'm uuh... Coming from Germany."
Naomi Yomada smiles bright, ignoring the question at hand. Just gonna let that elephant in the park sit there. She smiles and does as he says. She sits there and just sips at her water a little more. Then more touching! Her mind is all over the place. From how she is going to break this to the rest of the team to how she is going to explain to Blue. To how cute this guy is! She can't help blushing yet again.
Then its onto the School conversation, "Oh Verone? That is a really expensive school. I go to Infinity. Its a good one!"
"Yeah, well..." Alex doesn't sit down, himself-- at least not yet. But he does stay standing pretty close to her, regardless, while he peers on off to the side with his arms going crossingup behind his head. "I guess 'expensive' is supposed to mean the same as 'really good'. Especially when your parents have more money than they know what to do with, you know?" ... He doesn't exactly look like a rich kid, though, with the way he dresses.
And yes, he is still utterly clueless.
Naomi Yomada smiles a little, "Its a really good school. A private one. My parents sent me to Infinity because its a very tech savvy school. For someone who enjoys working with technology like me, its really cool!"She smiles and giggles a little. "Wow! My moms aren't really rich. Mom works at a garage, fixing up cars and stuff, Momma works at home. Its cool. "
She is finally beginning to cool down. The red in her face is starting to fade. She simply smiles. Her heart is still racing and she is still smiling a little too much.
"...I'd probably like workin with cars or bikes, actually," Alex admits suddenly, with the mention of Naomi's mom working at a garage. "Don't think my parents really understood that. Not sure Verone is a good place to learn about that stuff either." He lets out a quiet, rueful sigh before he looks down to Naomi again, to study her momentarily. "...You look like you're doing better, at least." Because obviously that's what the red and lack of it correlates to, right? "How are you feeling?"
Naomi Yomada smiles and nods, "I feel good." She felt good before! "You know, you could probably see about switcing to Infinity University. Its also a high end school and it's really good for stuff like that. Like technical stuff. Verone might have a club or something for automotive. I am sure if you want though, My mom could help you with a job."
"I'm like hundred percent sure my parents will not let me swap schools," Alex points out with a disappointed wrinkle of his nose. "I'll manage somehow, I guess. Whatever." He peeks down to her at the offer, eyes blinking once, twice. "It's... fine, honestly," he assures. "No need to go out of the way for me, you know? I'm just some guy."
And slowly, he nods his head. "Good. You should probably not do too much straining stuff for a while though, just in case. Okay?" Because, yes. Clueless.
Naomi Yomada smiles, "You're more then just some guy. Also you wouldn't be making me go out of my way. I see my mom every night. Its no trouble for me to get in contact with them. Besides, its not like working on vehicles is a bad thing. Its a good paying job and it can be a real money maker doing custom jobs and stuff. Plus you could do it for a part time job. Trust me."
She nods. "I think I need to head home. I still feel really flighty." She smiles and stands up, finishing her her water off. She grabs her boom box and her bag. "It was lovely meeting yuo Alex-san. I will tell my mom about you and maybe the next time we meet, you might have a job."
"I'm not sure it's as simple as that," Alex murmurs quietly, sighing out quietly again with that. He doesn't say anything further on that particular matter, and instead reaches his hand down to give a brief squeeze down to the smaller girl's shoulder, gently. "Just take it easy, alright? The heat can get to you really hard, you know." Still concerned. And completely clueless. And-- he even smiles faintly, for a few seconds, when he draws his hand away. "Take care, Naomi."
Naomi Yomada immediately starts blushing again. She quickly bows again. "Thank yo uso much! Be well, Alex-chan err... Alex-san!!" She blushes even brighter and takes off running. Gull-chan is not going to believe this one!