Waterlogged Stress (Melody)

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

Marie merely nodded in agreement, not really on-the-ball on thinking up something to say besides quiet reaffirmation of plans. This still felt a little weird, but...also good? It was a nice opportunity to get to know someone, after all. And, like, controlled exposure to stuff that brings about anxiety was one way you learned to deal with it, right? At any rate, she was concentrating on not clamming up any more than she usually did.

Standing up after her, she followed Melody’s lead back into the changing room (taking care to to duck her head on the way in, a reflex she’d quickly developed after her growth spurt) to dry off and get dressed herself. She was quick to slip her old gray tanktop and black shorts back on, but her shoes were another matter - somehow her laces had knotted in the process of her removing them earlier, so she started on unknotting one of them while Melody talked about her rooming situation.

”Well hey, if you two are a good match and everything, then no harm, no foul, right? Life’s too short not to enjoy happy accidents. Especially when getting a roommate you like is kind of like a shot in the dark.” Finally getting that knot undone, she quickly re-laced and tied the offending shoe in question. Marie didn’t really have much of an opinion on her roommate this year, to tell the truth; at least she hadn’t outright insulted her like her previous one, but at the moment she didn’t have that much to go by. Part of her imagined the the people making the rooming assignments like they were writing up a synopsis for a fake sitcom. ”I don’t even think they’d shift around rooming assignments unless it was, like, a major problem? So you’re more than likely good.”

”Oh, uh, one second-” With one shoe tied, she crossed over to the opening at the other end of the changing room, which led to the hallway and little lobby area of the hot spring. Leaning against the wall for support as her free hand worked at unknotting the other shoe, she raised her voice a little to make sure that the faculty member from the school could hear her. ”Hey, Ms. Hayakawa? Thanks again for coming with me, and I really do appreciate it, but I met up with a friend, so you don’t have to walk back to the school grounds with me.” Upon hearing the woman’s affirmative answer, Marie refocused her attention on her now freed shoelaces before tying them as well.

Straightening her back, she brushed her hands off on her shorts before sort of turning her wrist and catching her cane out of the air as it dangled from the wrist strap. With her other arm outstretched, she momentarily lowered her head and shoulders in a jokey sort-of bow. Hopefully it’d come across as the aloof joke she intended it to be, instead of some awkward attempt at familiarity. ”After you, Miss Melody.”

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Marie was probably right. Her rooming situation was likely permanent for the year either way. It wasn't like they were separating roommates by year to keep them isolated. It was more than likely to make it easier to find friends your age that you would grow up and eventually graduate with. It made sense, really, and so what if a mistake was made otherwise? Even if they did want to change it, it was probably some sort of paperwork someone wouldn't feel like doing. "Yeah, that's true," she nodded with a grin. "I'm pretty happy with it. She's managed to be taller than me too, I actually look like the younger one somehow." Not like a year made a big difference, right? Not after you were like... thirteen anyway.

The other girl made sure her escort knew she'd be walking with someone else before getting up and doing some sort of imitation of a high class bow... or something. Melody raised an eyebrow at it, but she wasn't exactly scared of Marie seeing it and being embarrassed. Melody even started to chuckle; it had been amusing, after all. "My, you're quite the gentlewoman," she bowed back habitually, before turning around and heading casually out of the building and back onto the streets.

It wasn't hard to find the dorms, and the two made it back with a bit of smalltalk. "Alright," she finally halted when they got to the second-year dorms. "Where is it you live?" she was pretty sure Marie could find it, but knowing where she was walking, herself, was probably a good idea as well.

Marie Reisender

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

”Well I do try sometimes.” The mere fact that her gesture hadn’t fallen flat made her crack a wry grin. Maybe she could get the hang of this sort of thing after all. Who knew?

With the day starting to wind down, the atmosphere in the dorms was pretty light - every so often the door to a room would be left open, with the conversations of the people inside spilling out into the hallways. Upon reaching the second floor she heard stop, inquiring as to which of the rooms was Marie’s.

”My room is actually-” Fishing her key out of her pocket, she promptly turned to her left and felt for the doorknob of #200. With a guiding hand on the knob and a flick of her wrist, she pushed the door open. ”-right here. Lucked out and got an end-room this year. Don’t even have to count doorways or anything.” She wondered if her roommate was in as her right hand felt for the lightswitch, but considering the light was off? She probably wasn’t in. She couldn’t decide whether or not that was a good thing before turning on the lights.

She couldn’t say anything about Mi-Yun’s side of the room, obviously, since she had no idea what it was like, but Marie’s side must have been somewhat empty in comparison. There were still some boxes sitting beside her bed that she hadn’t unpacked yet, although they were mostly bits and things she didn’t have time to go through yet. One of the boxes was opened, however, with what appeared to be a label maker and a roll of thin adhesive tape sitting underneath the flap. Strips of said adhesive tape were affixed to various points in the room, though it was pretty evident that this process wasn’t done just by virtue of all the things that didn’t have any tape. For the most part, it was concentrated in Marie’s little area, like on the drawers of her nightstand.

In the small crevice between her bed and the nightstand sat nestled two very distinctive cases, one smaller than the other, which were her violin and saxophone, respectively. The case for the violin wasn’t new, but it was clear that it was very well taken care of; in contrast, the case for the saxophone showed signs of cracking and had the appearance of old leather. Sprawled out next to them on the floor and half-hidden under the bed was a plain black canvas bag that she used to carry her stuff.

The only other bit with flair, the top of her nightstand, was pretty sparse as well. At the moment, very few things stood out - an alarm clock, a simple flip-style cellphone, her regular pair of sunglasses, a metal thermos that probably still contained a bit of coffee from earlier that day, her laptop which was currently charging, and - probably the thing that would stand out the most - a novelty tesla ball that was sitting on the corner, gently pulsating with a blue light.

Her clothes were one thing that she did have unpacked, thankfully, so she felt around on her bed for two plastic clips - both of them with a strip of identifying tape on them - before fetching some other clothes from her closet. With them draped over one arm, she made her way to the bathroom with the intent to change in there as she addressed Melody over her shoulder. ”If you want to take a look at 'em, I keep my spare recorders in a drawstring bag in the second drawer from the top of the nightstand.” The next bit was slightly muffled as she shut the bathroom door. ”I think I’ve got some in different colors. I’ll need to see if any of them still have stuff on them though! Most of them should be blank.”

Sure enough, if Melody decided to take a look in the bag residing in the second drawer, she’d find the recorders; various colors, seemingly chosen at random, all of the same slim model with an lcd display screen on the front. Each of them had a strip of tape on the back to differentiate them. Sitting at the bottom of the bag, neatly done up in ties, would be a few similar looking cables. Most likely they were spare USB charging cables for this particular model of recorder.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Melody followed Marie into the room, glancing around as she did. The first thing she noticed was the tape over things - something it took her a moment to realize was an identifier for the blind girl. That made sense; she would have ways to act on her own like this if she was independent enough not to stay at home with her parents. It was actually pretty impressive, The corny jazz girl had some nice tricks up her sleeve... so to speak. "A Tesla ball?" she asked, after she took Marie's side of the room in. She walked over and poked it, reacting when the electricity arced towards her finger with a small 'eep.' She hadn't seen one of those in years! "Cool."

While Marie went out to get changed, Melody picked up one of the recorders. Which one didn't matter, besides, she was fond of red, and this one was nice and red. She doubted Marie cared much about the colors at this point either. "This one will work... I'll let you check to see if it's empty though," she decided. She'd hate to accidentally stumble upon her private journal or something. Who knew what people put on those things?! She'd stumbled across some pretty embarrassing stuff in the past when she'd taken stuff from other kids in middle school. Once again, another part of being the school bully she didn't miss. She'd found out several embarrassing things about admittedly sweet people from their journals. Once kids had started bullying her back for liking girls, she'd realized how stupid she'd been.

Something caught Melody's eye as she examined the recorder. Nothing on the recorder, mind you, but a detail on the roommate's side of the room. A with a paper sticking out, the name familiarly hyphenated. Melody couldn't help herself. She walked over and examined the book, her cheeks turning slightly red. "Hey. Is Mi-Yun your roommate?" she asked. "She's the one that accidentally hit me in the face with a volleyball..." she still had a small bruise beside her nose from that. "She was really sweet after though."

TAG: Marie Reisender

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black | i’ve been up for way too long but i’m pretty sure this reads alright

A helpful reminder; she’d have to remember to unplug the tesla ball later tonight. She'd gotten too used to the habit of leaving it plugged in to make sure it still worked alright.

 ”Alright, be there in a second!” Taking care to set down the two clips from the clothes she picked out on the bathroom counter for later, she quickly slipped out of her tanktop and shorts before changing into some stuff that she felt was a little bit more appropriate. Still simple, really - a slightly faded pair of boot-cut blue jeans and a short-sleeve black t-shirt with the graphic of a blue rose splashed across the front. Briefly running a finger over the two clips she’d grabbed from her bed to double-check which was which, she attached them respectively to the tanktop and shorts before placing those in a little clothes basket.

After slipping her shoes back on and tugging at the bottom of her shirt to straighten out any wrinkles, she hooked her sunglasses onto her collar so she could lean over and splash a bit of water on her face from the sink. She wasn’t someone who perspirated much at all, but she didn’t know exactly how long she’d been sitting in that hot spring and she had the opportunity at the moment, so why not? At least the cold water helped to ease the anxiety that was slowly but steadily diminishing in the pit of her stomach.

She shut off the water just in time to catch the question about her roommate. Patting her face dry with the hand-towel and pulling the bathroom door open, she took the few hairpins holding her hair up in a bun as she loosely shook it out with one hand, finger-brushing through it to make sure there weren’t any tangles as she walked. Her cane still hung from her left wrist, but for the moment it was retracted; it was evident that Marie was familiar enough with the room layout to not need it, although she still stepped softly as she moved.

”She is.” Pulling out the top drawer of her nightstand, she dropped the hairpins into the corner of an organizer. She didn’t dwell on questioning how Melody had guessed that; depending on when the two had met, Mi-Yun might have brought her up, or it could have simply been some identifying piece of room decor like a book or a framed picture. Better not to think about it. Turning to the head of her bed, she probed the sheets to make sure the space was clear before taking a seat. ”Yeah, she seems nice enough. I haven’t really talked with her enough to form more of an opinion beyond that though.” Still, it was a stark change to be rooming with someone who seemed to actually care about what they said around her. Without thinking about it, her head tilted downward in the direction she knew her instruments were sitting. ”We actually didn’t know we were roommates until we got partnered up for a class project, so...that’s a pilot for a comedy show, I guess.”

”So,” she began, raising her head back up as she got back to the earlier topic. ”Which one did you pick out?” Her right hand, calmly stretched out before her palm-side up, patiently waited for the touch of the recorder. As long as the braille on the label identified it as one of the numbered ones, chances were good that it’d be blank. If it turned out to be ‘Practice’ or ‘Journal’ then she’d have to pick another, awkward as that would make her feel, but oh well. Melody didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d be hurt or insulted by something like that, at least.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Quite the comedy show indeed. Melody's own roommate experience had been rather different: A mistake had placed her in the first year dorms with a lovely girl who was a bit taller than her, and who she'd basically become best friends with already. Well, it helped that they had agreed to talk to each other every day and hang out so they could get to know each other better.

Melody handed the recorder over, continuing to look around the room curiously. Mi-Yun lived here, huh? She learned new things every day. It was an interesting thing to learn, if nothing else. She had no idea what she'd even do with the information.

"So uh, will that one work? Cause there's this blue one I liked the looks of too. I'm not really picky, I just chose by color." She shrugged, scratching her nose idly as she glanced back to the tesla ball. Those were fun toys. She should really get cool decorations like that when she had the money. Maybe Shion would think they were cool too.

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black | I imagine one of the jokes was “what’s the difference between a dog and a violinist? A dog knows when to stop scratching!”

”Well, let’s see-” Gingerly taking the recorder in her hand, she ran a finger over the tape to find out which one Melody had picked out. Luckily it turned out to be neither ‘Practice’ nor ‘Journal’. The identifying strip, instead, simply read ‘Four’. ”Yeah, probably. This is one of my numbered backups, so if there’s anything on here, I don’t need to worry about deleting it.”

Well, at least she hoped so. If she was the sort of person who actually believed in superstitious luck she would’ve been crossing her fingers by now, but she wasn’t, so instead she just switched the device on and hovered her thumb over the play button.

Here goes nothing.

There was, evidently, at least one file on it. The first ten seconds or so of audio were quiet, save for the sounds of someone breathing. Marie raised an eyebrow in response as she took the moment to replace her sunglasses on her face. Why would she have recorded something like this? ”That’s...boring.” But then the source of the breathing finally spoke up, a voice shaking behind a layer of anger and resentment: “S-she broke i-” With lightning-fast reflexes she brushed over the device, tapping one of the buttons twice and deleting it. Her own voice sounded pretty alien in the playback, which was to be expected, considering she didn’t let herself get emotional too often. ”Whoops, finger slipped.” The flippant remark was a bold-faced lie, but she didn’t want to just let that moment fill with awkward silence. She needed that less than she needed to listen to her past self angst.

There was only one other file left in memory, which was fortunate, because it was the complete opposite in terms of tonal shift. A message that her dad had snuck onto the recorder before she’d left for Fukui, cheerful and full of dad-tier jokes. Even after living with her mother for so many years, his German accent was still as strong as it ever was. A smile crept across her face by the end of the short recording, tapping the button to delete it before testing the play button again and handing it back over to Melody. ”And that’s why I’m a dork, incidentally. It’s genetic.”

”Here’s a charging cable,” she announced while pulling one of them out of the bag. ”If you need one, I’ve also got some USB wall chargers in one of these drawers.”

”So, ready to be off?”

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Melody wondered what the recording was about, but about the time she might have asked, the recording was suddenly gone forever. She looked up at at her blind companion curiously, but she couldn't actually tell if she'd meant to erase it or if her finger had slipped or not. Maybe Melody was a bit too trusting of people she considered friends.

The dad one was playing then. He seemed almost overly daddish. It was adorable; Melody's dad wasn't that dorky, though she found herself wishing he was. Maybe then she'd have his voice to listen to when she missed home. "Dorks are the most fun anyway," Melody shrugged. She took the recorder and the cable, figuring she had something she could attach everything to in her dorm. "Thanks," she told her again.

Melody made an 'uh huh' noise as the other girl asked if she was ready to go. So the two were off, headed towards some hole in the wall with good food and cheap prices, which was perfect for Melody's wallet. Making a pretty friend over dinner was never a bad thing, and it was worth spending a bit of money on. The evening was nice and pretty too, almost relaxingly quiet. Not so quiet it was spooky, not so loud it was distracting. Melody wouldn't mind spending some time outside after the dinner, really.

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black | Marie is horrible at small talk

They found the place with little to no trouble, thankfully - Marie didn’t have the exact street address, but she remembered enough to know where it was in relation to some local landmarks. As they drew closer, she was reassured by the pleasing smells that were wafting out of the open store-front. Seems like the stuff I heard about this place was true.

It was easy enough to find an empty table, taking a seat before retracting her cane and placing it safely in her pants pocket. Keeping in mind that this place wasn’t a very popular choice, it sounded to her like tonight they had a slightly smaller gathering than they expected to average. All things considered, a good atmosphere.

”If what I’ve heard is true, this place might just have a new repeat customer.” She sat back against her chair as they waited. ”At least for the times I remember.” The smell of food was so prevalent that she guessed there was a grill set up somewhere in the open, possibly set aside for smaller things or appetizers cooked-to-order.

Part of her wondered what they were going to talk about, if anything, seeing as how she felt like her well of interesting conversation had quickly dried up. She was grateful when a server approached and asked for their orders, deciding to start off with a few chicken wing skewers.

"It seems like tonight was a pretty good time to get off campus."

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

The night was a pretty good one to get off campus. Melody rarely actually left the campus in her short time there, and it was absolutely beautiful. The smells were appetizing, the place was very nicely decorated for a hole in the wall. "It's my first restaurant since I started at the school," Melody was glancing around a bit, trying to take in the different atmosphere born of the different culture. "I expect I'll come here again out of nostolgia if nothing else." She was a sucker for nostolgic things, after all.

Melody wasn't entirely sure what to talk about either. She could ask what brought the girl to Fukui, but she was pretty sure it was her ability to play instruments. "So, do you like it here?" she finally asked after what was too long of a pause. "Er, sorry, I'm not actually sure what to talk about. Half the questions I thought to ask were things I'd already found out." She chuckled at the thought of being this bad at conversation. She'd never fancied herself bad, but... she'd never had to try that much either. "I mean, hm... maybe we should make a game of it." That sounded easier. "We can take turn asking questions or whatever."

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

She was certainly appreciative that the ice had been broken again before it’d gone on for too long. It was sort of comforting, in a sense, that they were both at least a little out of their respective elements. ”That’s perfectly fine,” came her warm response as she raised her palms before placing them back down in her lap. ”It’d be rude of me to pick at you for something like that anyway, being the obvious paragon of sociability that I am.” Slowly but surely now, she was getting back her figurative sea legs. The anxiety from before was now almost completely unwound, so she found herself nodding along to Melody’s suggestion.

”That could be pretty fun.” Tilting her head to one side, she briefly gave thought to the question posed to her before answering. ”All things considered, yeah, I’d say I enjoy it here. School’s in a nice location, generally pleasant weather year-round, it’s not in the middle of an incredibly busy city...teachers are well-qualified. Student body’s not a bad sampling, either; maybe everyone turning up here because of their passion factors into that.” Not that she was the foremost expert on other students, but she didn’t pick up on a whole lot of negativity, so it probably straddled the line between “middle-of-the-road” and “pretty okay”.

Had she been focused, she would have been able to keep track of the time from when she first heard the sound of food touching the grill and probably would’ve been able to guess when it was done, but multi-tasking had never been her strong point. It wasn’t like she was cooking anyway, so there wasn’t really a reason for her to try.

”How’d you hear about Fukui? I know it’s a prestigious school, but I haven’t really heard anything about what kind of influence it has internationally.” Truth be told, the only other thing she’d heard about it was the rumored reputation of the aforementioned student body, but she didn’t really know what to make of that. Equal parts expectation and experimentation, most likely. She had no plans of seeing whether or not the rumors were true, but she’d idly wondered more than once just how widespread they were. She doubted her parents had heard any of them. The second they knew, they’d be all over themselves with really obvious and embarrassing jokes.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

It was a little awkward for Melody to admit her general lack of actual social experience. She could be very social if she forced herself to be, which she did a lot lately. She could even do it without seeming like an awkward person. Conversations didn't have to go very far when you were generally a jerk to people though, and while she was great at making people angry or sad or whatever... that really wasn't helpful at a school where you were starting over and hoping to actually find a girlfriend and whatnot.

"Me? I found out about the school from a bit of research," Melody admitted. "I wanted to get away from home, and this place seemed perfect for someone like me." The websites hadn't mentioned anything about the school's local reputation for girls finding love with other girls, but Melody still had high hopes... at least if she could stick around here and stay away from her closed-minded parents.

"I guess it's not a place everyone's heard of, but if you really want to go somewhere for music or writing or whatever, it's not too hard to find. Getting in... is a bit harder though, from what I've heard." Oh, right it was Melody's turn. Since her mind had turned to her parents... "So what do your parents think of you coming here?"

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

”Learning abroad is certainly an attractive idea.” Not one she’d be jumping at herself any time soon, really, considering how much traveling to a foreign place with no knowledge of anyone there seriously unnerved her, but it was a common enough sentiment. ”Bonus points for being proactive about it, too.”

Presently she was aware of the server returning, bringing with them glasses of water and a small tray of the requested chicken skewers. After thanking him (and making sure they’d put her glass down where she anticipated it to be) she felt carefully along her side of the table with one hand, finding and retrieving one of the skewers as the game of twenty questions continued.

”They’re perfectly fine with it. In fact, they’re the ones who suggested I go. I’d heard of it, but I didn’t really have strong opinions one way or the other. But my options weren’t exactly that open, so eventually I wound up agreeing with them.”

”So since you kind of asked me earlier, what do you like to do for fun?” Sliding the end-piece of chicken off the skewer in her hands, she took her turn to direct a question before popping it in her mouth.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Learning abroad was an even more attractive idea when it was an all-girls school, you were a fan of girls, and your parents would never understand that, what with you being one as well. Melody wasn't really sure how to bring these points up in person, but it was true nonetheless. "Heh. I can be proactive when I want I guess," she shrugged, taking a piece of the meat and trying it. It was good!

The server had practically snuck up on her, focused as Melody had been on both Marie and her own thoughts. She'd jumped a little, but she was pretty sure Marie had very little chance of noticing, though if she did it probably wasn't a big dea.

"My parents are both artists, in their own way," Melody told Marie in response to her own statements. "They didn't exactly encourage me to go this far on my own before I'm even eighteen... buuut they were aware I could use a chance to make new friends and in the end I persuaded them."

The actual question was directed at her, asking what Melody liked to do for fun. These questions were always so simple, yet so difficult. She liked to do lots of things! How to figure out what to say so they'd know you liked things they liked without them having told you... well that was harder. "Music," She answered after a moment. "Anything music related. I kinda get lost in music, and I've bumped into more than a few people since I came here already. Other than that... I play a few games... I sometimes jog a bit to keep the fat off... uh..." Melody shrugged. "There's lots of new things to figure out if I like here, so... I'm still finding that out, myself..."

Oh, it was her turn to ask something again, right? Melody had to think of something; she'd had her thoughts on the question that was asked of her, which... she supposed was a good thing. "Uh..." Darnit, now was not the time to not know what to say. It was going to get awkward! "What's your favorite part of this place, you know... to continue my question from before I guess."

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

Melody’s reaction to the server, it it hadn’t gone unnoticed by Marie, at least passed with no remarks. She was certainly someone who could understand others being startled occasionally, at any rate.

Swallowing the piece of food that she’d been carefully chewing, one hand delicately brought her glass of water up to her mouth to drink as Melody trailed off after answering her question. ”With all the like-minded girls around our age here, I’m sure you’ll have fun figuring that out,” she shot back before taking another sip. There hadn’t really been any implied message intended in that remark, but it was really more a subconscious thought that she often had; it was kind of hard to think of activities you could do with her that didn’t just involve her sitting around like a- well, like a bump on a log. She’d grown so used to deflection over the years that she didn’t really even parse what she’d said.

With the figurative mic passed back to her, Marie sat back against her chair as she idly tapped a finger on the end of a skewer in thought. It was a pretty thoughtful question, after all, so she didn’t want to rush her answer. ”...hm. Probably that everyone is here for their passion, in one way or another.” A brief pause as she sat forward again, still tapping on the skewer like a metronome. ”I mean on the surface, we’re not all here for the same reasons, but there is that inherent sort of understanding. Even if I can’t appreciate art, I can appreciate that the artist who made it connects with their medium in the same way I do with mine. It makes it easier to relate to people when you sit back and remember that we’re all human.”

Tap. Tap. Tap. That was kind of heavy, even for her. She let the skewer rest on her plate for now as she took another drink from her glass. ”Is there anything you haven’t liked since arriving here…?” Her delivery was hesitant, a half-shrug following as a means of apology. ”Sorry, that’s kind of a weak question.” In the back of her head she was trying to think of a topic to switch to, because wow, her bank of interesting questions was pretty clearly tapped out.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

Marie had a point. Everyone at the school was here for a similar reason. They might not all see it that way, but in the end each and every one of them sought to master an art - to become successful in their own field in some way or another. There were varying degrees of talent, from those who were here because of her talent to those who were here because they had the money, and everything in between. "Heh, You're right, Marie," she nodded, forgetting for a moment that it was bad etiquette in Japan to call someone by their first name unless you were family or friends. "I mean, at least there's some form of common ground even if you don't like someone especially."

She was asked if there was anything she didn't really like since arriving. "Uh, my clumsiness..." Melody rubbed her chin in thought. She was holding onto a bit of chicken so she wouldn't be chewing while it was her turn to talk. "How much harder constantly speaking another language is... Oh! And having to re-learn a bunch of etiquette and things. I can't tell you the number of times I've already been scolded by teachers for forgetting things!"

Melody wasn't sure what to ask next either. Wow, this game was a flop. Neither of them were sure what to ask each other. Ugh, non-social problems. "Alright!" she decided after a moment of chewing on her food to buy time to think, "What should we do instead of ask questions when we don't know what to ask about? That's my question."

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

Marie allowed herself a small smile as she swallowed another small bite of chicken, not wanting to seem like she took some weird delight in hearing Melody’s discomforts. ”Yeah, culture shock is quite a trip, but you seem like someone who’ll get the hang of things eventually.” Another cool sip of her water. ”Honestly sometimes I conveniently 'forget' some rules when they get to be aggravating or I don’t want to bother too much. I generally go by my first name because people seem to have difficulty pronouncing ‘Reisender’. And I don’t think I’ll ever get over how weird it sounds when people attach honorifics to my name, so of course that means that my parents like to tease me over it.”

A corner of her mouth drew in as she again sat back in her chair, thinking hard on this new open-ended question.

And I was literally just thinking about that…

”How about how we came to our interest in music? That might be a good topic, for starters at least. You mentioned your father is into classical music - is that what sparked you?” Leaning forward in her seat again to place a firm grip on her glass, she waved her free hand in the air in a disaffected manor. ”Feel free to ignore me if I ask something uncomfortable, by the way.”

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

'That's easy,' thought Melody. She let out a sigh as she grinned before the sigh turned into a small chuckle. Her life before Fukui played in her mind as she thought of what led her to music. "My parents were both artists - er, are both artists. They exposed me to a lot of things like that, and what they didn't they encouraged."

Melody shrugged, taking a sip of her drink and a quick bite of her chicken. The place was good, the atmosphere somehow relaxing despite the noise. Even her company was interesting... or at least not mad at her for slamming into them. "So really, I got to try a lot of things, genres, instruments, even painting." Melody's mind wandered again as she thought about how abysmal she'd been at visual arts. Her paintings had all ended up being kinda brown because she'd never washed out her paintbrush enough.

"I suppose really I came to loving guitar because they've encouraged me to do anything my heart desired except my liking of giiiiiirls..." her last word was prolonged before trailing off as she realized what she'd admitted in her distracted aloud thought process. Her eyes went a bit wide and her face blushed a crimson. She had no idea what Marie thought, but her history with such things wasn't so good. There was Shion... but before that there had just been a lot of teasing that had essentially laid her time as school bully low, as well as a lot of what little self esteem she'd felt during that time.

some coincidences are deliberate

Melody Black

Oh. Well. That certainly clarifies why her parents were reluctant to let her enroll here.

Her natural reaction to hearing something that it didn't seem like she was supposed to hear was to raise an eyebrow in question, and she fought that hard because right now did not seem like an appropriate time. Fortunately, she resisted the urge to do so; unfortunately, both of her eyebrows shot up over the rims of her sunglasses before she quelled that idea and brought them both back down. Hopefully it had gone unnoticed, but that still left the problem of how she should respond.

It was a pretty heavy subject to talk about - heavier than whatever she sometimes spouted about 'understanding' and other hippy-sounding stuff. Sure, people sometimes poked fun at her for that, but it wasn't really comparable in the slightest. Plus, could she understand something like this? She'd never given it much thought, but the closest she herself had come to any sort of attraction was to a childhood friend, and she had no idea where she stood on the whole spectrum - she'd largely shut out those thoughts after puberty. But despite not knowing exactly where Melody was coming from, she still felt like she had to say something - maybe it was whatever little bit of her mother's personality that she'd adopted.

"That's...horrible, really," she finally returned with, resting her hands in her lap. "That's as much a part of you as anything else, and denying that part is wanting you to not be you. They should know better."

...that was probably overstepping her boundaries, wasn't it? Disparaging another girl's parents?

Another girl might have thought back to earlier in the day, when they'd met at the hot springs, and reconsidered the situation with this new information, but even if she weren't caught up in the current conversation Marie wouldn't have been leaping to any conclusions. Sometimes, being aloof was a boon.

CODED BY DUCKIE OF GS

"Heh, well... the truth is," Melody blushed, rubbing the back of their head with a nervous chuckle. She was talking herself into a hole. Well, maybe not, but she felt like it. Revealing her secrets always made her feel defensive and judged these days. "I haven't ah, actually told them." As far as they knew, Melody was here to relax and practice her music and get a good career as a musician going. They had no idea the reason she was actually here.

"They're just... vocal about certain issues when they come up." Melody fidgeted again, she had no idea why; she just wasn't comfortable all of a sudden. But she wasn't going to just get up and run away either. "I can only imagine if I get a girlfriend like I'm hoping for and they decide to make a trip to visit though... Heh..."

After a moment she shook her head. 'Get ahold of yourself, girl.' "Anyway, I guess that's not really ah... important." At least she wasn't taking what Marie said badly. "So uh, anyway... where were we?"

TAG: Marie Reisender | going out of town for the weekend. Sadly there won't be internet till at least sunday evening.