Newly Acquainted (Alex)

[Deleted]

Naozumi was excited for next week. What was going on next week? Well, it was his birthday of course. But that wasn't the point exactly. What he was excited about was that coming into his 16th year, his parents had agreed to pay for the fees to send him to the local dojo instead of having Nao rely on the basic/beginner classes that were taught at the Hammel Institute. He'd spoken to his former Shihan, the one from back in San Jose, and it was confirmed that the only thing standing in his way between taking his Shodan blackbelt exam was his age. Shihan said he would speak with the instructor of the dojo in Pilot Ridge about serving the exam in his place, but if not...well, they'd figure something out. They'd rather see their students progress according to their abilities than hold them back due to technicalities.

Until then, however, Naozumi would continue on with his normal training, going to the club practices with Meian-sensei and then practicing on his own either afterwards or early in the morning. Today was one of the days he was going to stay late and practice.

The rest of the students were shuffling out. Some of them new, whom Nao hadn't had a chance to speak to one-on-one yet; others were older members, who'd been there at least as long as he had. They'd lost a lot of members over the past year, unfortunately. Some graduated, like that hyperactive cat-girl that was always pestering Xun, while others seem to have dropped out, such as Mathis, a boy that Nao was casually acquainted with, but hadn't become much more than that after the first time they hung out. Xun was still around. Matt was still around. The rest.....the rest were people who had also been in the club a while, but whom Nao never made much effort to get to know. He could feel guilty about this if he realized how bad it was. After all, Nao managed to live with his roommate for nearly a year before they finally sat down for some one-on-one conversation. Introducing himself to people and socializing just wasn't a priority for the introverted, studious pupil.

Nao took a long drink of water as the other students started gathering their things and heading out the door. That was refreshing. Then he set it down and grabbed for his hand-towel to wipe his face, to rid himself of the sweat from the long workout. However, as he did so, the tail end of the towel knocked against the water bottle and knocked it to the floor. "Ahh!" he cried out, still wiping his face. The bottle rolled across the wooden floor until it stopped against the foot of another student. "Sorry! Can you get that for me?" he asked of the brunette girl.

[Genesis Kyland]

Practice over for the day. Alex found a wall and seated herself against it to do some stretches. Always best to stretch after a practice... It wasn't as if she really stretched any other time, after all. It wasn't that she didn't want to stretch regularly, and thereby get flexible, but she always forgot. Or was doing something more important. Or more interesting. Or less tedious ... Okay, so she didn't want to stretch regularly. She did this for fun and to keep sharp, not because she wanted to be the next Jackie Chan.

She leaned over her left leg, clucking her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she did. Some of the other students had stayed after as well. So it had been wise to do her stretches close to the wall. Much less chance of someone tripping over her. People had an irritating habit of not watching where they were going. Seriously, she was pretty sure she knew her surroundings better than most seeing people sometimes.

Ah well.

Thump. Alex sat up a little when she caught the sound of something small falling, followed by an "Ah!" and the whatever-it-was rolling across the floor toward her, where it bumped up against her foot. She reached out and picked it up. Ah, a water bottle. Made sense. And also illustrated her point about observing one's surroundings. Smirking to herself, Alex got to her feet and held the bottle out in the direction of the speaker. "Careful, these things'll run away if y'don't watch 'em."

[Deleted]

The girl whose leg his bottle had rolled up against was positioned on the floor, her legs stretched as a part of her cooling down practice.  It was something that Nao also practiced, but since he planned on staying behind, he decided not to engage in it yet.  This girl, Nao noticed, was very athletic and practiced well.  She was a hard worker, but also relaxed, unlike some of the more serious practitioners, such as himself and Xun. 

He hadn’t yet realized that this person was blind. Naozumi wasn’t the most perceptive of people. In fact, if he saw her outside of class, it was doubtful that Nao would remember that they were in the club practice together, despite them ‘seeing’ each other every other day for almost a year. Naozumi may as well have been as blind as Alex was, for all he paid attention to other people.

So he also didn’t notice if her aim in the direction in which she offered the bottle was off or not. He’d walked over to her in a short amount of time and took the bottle from her hand with faintest smile and nod of the head. “Thank you,” he said to her. “I’m sorry I interrupted your stretching.” Naozumi didn’t much like being interrupted either when he was in the middle of something he was deeply focused on.

[Genesis Kyland]

Alex listened to the steps of the water bottle's owner as he approached. She was fairly certain he was a he, anyway-- the surprised exclamation at dropping the water bottle had sounded so. She mused on the sound of the steps, judging a ballpark of his height and weight. Not remarkably tall or heavy...

"Thank you," he said-- so it was a he. Alex smiled and waved a hand. "It's fine. Not like you tripped over me or something." She grinned and plopped back down on the floor. "You already get your stretches in? You're welcome to join-- it's boring by yourself." Of course, some people had told her it was peaceful and calming. She'd never agreed with them. It took forever and you just sat there. Stretching. Ugh.

"I'm Alex, by the way," she added, figuring she might as well know the person the fellow martial art-ian. He didn't sound like one of the people she'd worked with a lot, or talked to much. She really needed to work on getting to know at least most of them. "You are...?"

[Deleted]

Naozumi tilted his head and considered the offer. He wasn’t planning on leaving just yet, he wanted to stay and practice more, so taking stretches for cool down was really necessary at the moment. Then again, it also didn’t hurt to pause at some point in a workout to give a healthy, gentle stretch to your muscles, to help relieve any cramping or tension that may have built up. Also, muscles tended to be more pliable after having been worked for a time, rather than jumping straight into a hard stretch, which could often tear something that oughtn’t be torn.

Or at least, it was something like that, wasn’t it? Nao didn’t quite remember.

In either case, Nao nodded and crouched down to the floor with her. “I haven’t yet,” he admitted with a soft smile. “Thank you, for the offer.” She was really nice.

“It’s nice to meet you Alex,” he said automatically, then tucked his chin in a blush. “Well….I supposed that’s strange to say at this point, isn’t it?” They’d been attending the same class for a while now. That he didn’t even know her name was Alex…Nao felt terrible for. “I’m Naozumi. Nao works too,” he explained, putting an extra emphasis on separating the syllables of his name so as to not get it confused with the word ‘now’, like Ray had done on their first meeting. He stretched out a leg and reached over to it with ease, holding the stretch for a good fifteen seconds before doing the same to the other one.

[Genesis Kyland]

Alex grinned faintly. Not meeting someone in her classes... That happened more often than she cared to admit. Out of sight, out of mind, she liked to joke. She had enough friends that she wasn't really desperate to make more, so she didn't really place high priority on meeting new people in class. Not that she actively avoided it either, as today proved.

"Not too strange," she said. "Unless you're one of those super extroverts." She chuckled. She'd met a few of those. They were too loud for her to enjoy being around them for too long. Not that they weren't cool people too, but they were just filed under those friends who she could only enjoy for short periods of time.

"Nao...." She blinked. "Nao Maki... something?" She'd done some reconnaissance on the "Naozumi" person Ray had mentioned. The one he had a crush on, but was much too shy to admit. Not that she could blame him-- it was hard to admit something like that, with the fear of messing stuff up and all. "You know Ray, right?" She listened for his reaction, hoping to gain something worthwhile from it. She'd promised to do some spy work, after all. She had to have something to report back.

[Deleted]

For Naozumi too it happened far more often than it should have. While Alex had her lack of sight as an excuse, Nao only had his lack of attention, which had a tendency to only focus on one thing at a time. Multi-tasking? Not happening, at least not for Nao. But also like Alex, Nao was content with the number of friends he did have already and while he didn’t actively seek out new ones like a ‘super extrovert’, Naozumi didn’t brush off the opportunity either. The two of them were similar in that regard, at least.

“I’m not,” Nao said simply. “Just the opposite, I think,” he added. He knew what she meant about those super extroverts being loud, but honestly, Nao didn’t quite mind them himself. Ray was certainly like that, quite often too. It helped draw Nao just a little bit more out of his shell. A shell he barely knew he had up half the time.

Although they had only ‘just met’, it was still pretty awkward that they didn’t know each other’s names already, as they’d probably been said a number of times during the normal course of club practice. So it was confusing when she reacted to his name with a surprising curiosity. As if she knew the name, but she should have known it already, but obviously she didn’t, so she must’ve known the name from somewhere else….? Yes, that was confusing. “Yes,” he said staring at her with confusion clear on his face. “Naozumi Makiguchi.” He said his full name for her, assuming that’s what she was trying to pronounce. He knew the whole thing was a mouthful for some people, and a little bit awkward when it came to his surname. Naozumi nodded, pausing a moment before replying. “Yes, I know Ray. He’s my….my best friend.” Best friends that kissed and cuddled on a regular basis, but she didn’t need to know that. The real question was, how did she know Ray? And Nao spared only a brief moment before posing that question to Alex. “….how do you know Ray?” His voice was soft and steady, but carried the slightest hint of disturbance.

[Genesis Kyland]

Though Alex was pretty sure she'd probably heard Nao's name during the course of the class, she wasn't terribly surprised she'd not taken much notice until now. Though she was fairly observant in general, there were some things, random names being one of them, that she didn't pay exceptional heed to. Really, until she met the person they were just disembodied words, so she didn't see much point in fussing over it. Just as she hadn't seen the point in learning how to spell at first.

As Nao answered her, she almost regretted being so obvious. She could hear the confusion plain in his tone, uncomfortable too, perhaps. Whoops.

"Sorry, didn't mean to sound creepy." Alex gave a lopsided grin. "Promise, I'm not a stalker. Not too much of one, anyway." She snickered and shook her head. "Ray's a good friend of mine. So obviously he's mentioned you before." She pondered, then added, "I'm disappointed that I didn't make a mention, now that I think about it."

Really, it didn't matter too much to her whether she were mentioned or not, but she figured it might lighten the possibly awkward atmosphere otherwise. She'd be weirded out if someone had reacted how she had, anyway. At least the guy seemed pretty chill.

[Deleted]

Nao knew that Ray had a number of female friends. Maud and Maddie being two of them. And now, apparently, there was Alex. Nao wasn’t so horrible to say that Ray couldn’t have any other friends besides Nao. He simply….wasn’t sure if any one of them was a potential ‘girlfriend’ or not. He assumed that if Ray did have a specific interest in one of them, then he would say so outright. Wouldn’t he?

Wait…had Ray mentioned an Alex before? “….now that I think about it,” he said, putting his fingers to his mouth thoughtfully. “He may have once or twice before.” Maybe. Alex was right in that it would be strange if he hadn’t mentioned her at least once, if they were as good of friends as she claimed. “Sorry,” he said, looking at her with a near blank stare. “I don’t remember names very well. That might be why.” Faces were easy. It was the names that usually got him.

Her attempt at diminishing the awkward was futile, unfortunately, considering Nao was practically made of awkward, especially when it came to talking and conversation. He fell silent after that, unsure of where to steer the conversation next. This never happened with Ray. Somehow, Nao just seemed more able to relax more when around the older boy. So, rather than say anything, Nao returned to stretching, though his mind kept whirring with that burning question he wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure how he should ask it. It was a very private question, after all.

“Are you his girlfriend?” he asked suddenly, after several moments of silence. Direct and blunt, as always.

[Genesis Kyland]

Alex shook her head. She knew all too well the not remembering names problem. "No judgement here. Names are a pain." Useful, but a pain. She sometimes wondered why seeing people didn't remember names more easily-- she would've thought that with a whole other sense, remembering names would be loads easier. But then again, she picked up on some stimuli that seeing people didn't, and that didn't help her remember names brilliantly. Some people were just doomed to suck at remembering names, it seemed. Could've been worse.

As the silence drew itself out, Alex felt pretty sure the awkwardness levels had stayed pretty much the same. Or somewhere in the same ballpark, at least. She hm'ed to herself, but didn't try to pick up a new conversation yet. Not only was she not particularly sure what to talk about, wonderful conversationalist that she was, but she was also feeling somewhat lazy about taking charge of the conversation in general. It wasn't as if there was anything wrong with silence, anyway.

"Are you his girlfriend?"

Alex blinked and cocked her head, taken by surprise at the question. "Ah... Well, I'm a friend that's a girl, that's sure." She leaned back to slouch against the wall, but misjudged the distance slightly and ended up unbalancing herself somewhat. Thankfully, the wall wasn't thatfar away, so she just ended up leaning back a little further and hitting it a little harder than originally intended. A brief look of irritation twitched across her face as she shifted to be more comfortable. That'd sure been graceful.

Anyhow. She shook her head. "Why do you ask, anyway? You interested?" She grinned and batted her eyes, content to let the question be somewhat vague as to whether she meant him being interested in herself or Ray.

[Deleted]

Naozumi had always been bad at names. Some of the nice people he’d met when he first came to Hammel he could remember from appearance only. He knew they’d told him their names at some point, but for the life of him, Nao couldn’t remember a single one. He would try to remember Alex’s name, though. Since she was a friend of Ray’s. That association would make it somewhat easier, he hoped.

As soon as the question left his lips, Nao immediately regretted it. It was none of his business anyway, why did he ask on such a sudden impulse? Naozumi wasn’t the nosy sort at all and that what he felt he was doing by asking that sort of question. At least Alex didn’t seem to be offended by—Oh, dear.

Naozumi’s thoughts of regret were interrupted when Alex tipped over into the wall. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes widened slightly in his concern. She seemed fine, but one never knew.

He still hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary with her gaze. His mother used to joke that he wouldn’t even notice if a car of ten clowns sped down the street and got in a five car pileup. If he were eating at the time, then he’d not even notice the sounds of sirens and flashing lights speeding their way towards the scene of the accident. Naozumi never liked that she said that. That didn’t make his perception any less terrible.

Nao dropped his head slightly. “It’s not that,” he said, her question of ‘interest’ bringing out only the slightest blush from him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked,” he said, keeping his eyes dipped to the floor. “It’s just he never talks about that sort of thing, so I wasn’t sure.” With the number of friends that Ray had that were girls, Nao figured Ray must be interested in one of them….maybe…

[Genesis Kyland]

Alex rubbed the back of her head and shrugged off the moment of misjudgement. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm just drunk, that's all. Nothin' to worry about." She snickered and gave an innocent grin. Of course, she had been drunk before-- a moment of rebellion and peer pressure. It had been far from the most pleasant experience, and she hoped never to repeat it again.

She was fairly pleased that Nao hadn't commented on her gaze being off. She figured either he'd noticed and didn't want to say anything, or that he really hadn't noticed anything strange about it because she'd gotten so good at pretending. She liked to think it was the latter. She had, after all, worked hard to "look" as normally as possible. It took many years of consulting with friends, being coached by them, and plenty of practice, of course. Her power made it even easier, because of the mental pictures she could create from the echoes. Of course, a lot of people still tended to figure it out eventually... No amount of practice could consistently replicate something as complex as facial cues and the sort, it seemed. Ah well.

"Hey, you're chill." Alex sat up a little. "To be honest, I ain't heard him talk about any girls that way either." She shrugged and went quiet for a moment, thinking. How to gather interest on whether or not this guy liked Ray without being blatantly obvious? She drummed her fingers absently on the ground. Hm.

"What about you?" she asked. Surely that wouldn't be too suspicious, considering he'd just posed a similar question to her. "Got a girlfriend? Boyfriend? Whatever?"

[Deleted]

“Eh? You’re drunk?” Did he hear that right? Nao stared at her with incredulous eyes, literally trying to figure out how she got away with drinking at the school. Nao had been tipsy before, though he still didn’t realize that that’s what happened during the spin-the-bottle game he went to with Ray last year. But she didn’t act drunk…or maybe she did and he just couldn’t tell because he’d never been around it enough to recognize it?

“I suppose that would explain it…” he said quietly, trailing off in his pensiveness. He wondered why her eyes seemed a bit glazed and distant. Nao figured she was didn’t like making eye contact. Or maybe he was just overthinking things again.

He hoped he didn’t look too relieved to hear the news, though, that Ray hadn’t spoken to Alex either about any particular girl he might like. “I see,” was all he said.

Nao should have expected the question to be directed right back at him, but considering how in his head he was all the time, it wasn’t that surprising. He snapped his head up when she said that word. “B-boyf— Why would you—?” Why would she even consider that as an option? Did he look gay? Was he giving off that vibe and didn’t realize it? Nao was never actively trying to act differently to give the opposite impression, but it’d been so long since someone made that assumption, he couldn’t help wondering just how obvious it was. “I don’t,” he confirmed bluntly, though there was a bit of defensiveness in his voice as well. “None of those.” He didn’t offer anything more.

[Genesis Kyland]

Alex blinked at this Nao guy's reaction to her comment. Was be being serious? Did he really think she was being serious? If she was drunk, she definitely wouldn't be going around admitting it to people she'd only just met. She shook her head. Just in case he really did think she was being serious, it'd be good to clear the matter up. She didn't need people going around with the impression she was a drunk. If the wrong people heard... Well, obvious bad things would ensue.

"I was kidding, dude. I'm definitely not drunk." She paused, then cocked her head to the side as she added, "It explains what?". Had her falling backward really looked that much like she was drunk? She'd known it'd been clumsy, but really.

For a moment, Alex thought she detected the slightly bit of relief toward her comment about Ray not having a girlfriend. The slightest difference in tone, a different beat to his heart... But she couldn't be completely sure. It was hard to tell things like that sometimes, most of all with people she'd just met. Sure, she'd already started formulating a "normal" tone and beat for him, but it took time to get a reliable norm set out for a person.

Alex furrowed her brow as she listened to Nao's stammer and... awkwardness? Nervousness? Shock? That her questioning had sparked. Perhaps he was shy about it. Or perhaps he was appalled she would think that. Or... She chewed her lip in thought for a few moments before moving forward.

"I didn't mean to offend," she said, almost cautiously, before regaining confidence again. "There's plenty of people who swing both ways here, so I never know who goes what way. And I don't really wanna offend someone by assumin'." She gave a casual shrug. "You know what I mean?"

[Deleted]

“Oh,” he said, his face quickly flushing a bright red. “Sorry, you’re right, that wouldn’t make sense, wouldn’t it?” he muttered, averting his gaze in his embarrassment.

Yes, Nao was that dumb, unfortunately. Jokes had a tendency to fly right over his head if he wasn’t paying proper attention, and his analysis of body language was even worse. Hence why he was always so blunt with his questions. If he couldn’t read the person like a normal person, then he had no choice but to simply ask them outright. Inferences were not his strong suit. Nor were people. Or noticing things about people.

Hence why he still hadn’t realized the issue of Alex’s lack of sight. “Sorry, it’s nothing.” And probably quite rude to say, now that he knew that wasn’t the reason for it. He blushed again. “I was just noticing that your eyes seem a little unfocused, so I thought that might be the reason.” But since it wasn’t…. “I’m sorry,” he offered, bowing his head slightly.

Alex’s question had completely thrown him off, though, and while he’d composed himself again for the most part, there was still an air of discomfort around his tone. Nao wasn’t about to deny his preferences…but he didn’t really want to advertise them either. So that she was asking him outright, or at least asking him a question that addressed the matter so directly, set him off his normal pace. “It’s okay,” he said softly, hesitating on continuing. Naozumi closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath. “…..please don’t tell Ray,” he asked tersely. As confusing as always, Nao failed to elaborate precisely on what she wasn’t supposed to tell. Either he assumed she’d already figured it out, or he simply forgot that he hadn’t actually said it, but he didn’t want her to go around telling people whatever her conclusion was, one way or the other. Alex was a nice girl. He didn’t want to have a reason to dislike her.