Welcome to Gaia! ::

Menta hummed to himself as he finished checking off his list of opening duties. It was quiet so far, not many wanted to get candy first thing in the morning, but that was okay with Menta. It meant he could finish his opening duties that much quicker.

He worked in the store that his friend from Community College owned, and while he hadn't been quite sure of working in the store at first, his friend Frost had asked it of him as a favor. Besides, he needed a job an experience if he was going to go out and look, so why not have this one in the meantime? Besides, it meant that he was getting paid.

It was more successful than the two of them realized, and Frost quickly had to bring someone else in to manage the more minute business tasks of the store, so that Frost was free to manage it. He wasn't a bad boss though, he expected his employees to behave appropriately and not eat all of the candy. He also knew that the store would be empty quite a bit, so if there was a long lull between customers, then they were allowed to read or work on homework. It didn't happen too often, since employees had to keep an eye on the customers to see if they were eating the merchandise, but it wasn't that dull either, which Menta was very thankful for. He quickly put the list away and moved to stand behind the counter, waiting for his first customer. Though, he had heard that one of Frost's sisters was supposed to come in for... something, and he was to look out for her. He just didn't know when she would be coming in.

Menta waited for the female to finish what she needed to do. And then it hit him, she was Frost’s sister! How could he not realize it! They looked so alike! Well, except for the hair… and the coloring. But the patterns looked the same, so it was easy to tell that they were related. “You must be Aria then! Your brother had your order ready for you and told me to give it to you when you came by.” He said, going behind the counter and grabbing the bag that contained her “special” order. He wasn’t sure what was inside of it, but it couldn’t have been anything too… exotic. He made sure to keep his face straight when the thought had crossed his mind when Frost had first told him.

He went back around the counter and up to Aria and held out the bag for her. “Here you go! I’m glad that I was able to give it to you while you were here!” She was quite cute. Frost had warned him about his sisters and that Menta should be careful. After all, he didn’t want to lose his friend and employee from a breakup if his sister and Menta happened to get together!

Menta was only glad that Frost wasn’t the over-protective type.

When their fingers touched, Menta felt something from it. He wasn't sure if it was because she was a bit warmer compared to the somewhat cold environment that the candy store had to be in at all time. Couldn't let the candy melt after all. He thought he had seen her backing up a little and couldn't blame her. Kirin were pretty tall after all, and most were intimidated by his size. It was a reaction that he had gotten used to seeing at this point.

"It's no problem. He told me how much you wanted this and that you were really excited for it. He just didn't tell me how cute you were." Well, there it was out in the open. But he didn't like to mince his words. He could tell she was nervous, though he wasn't sure if that was because of his size. If it wasn't, then perhaps something could happen? If she ran out screaming in fear or slapped him then he at least knew where he stood on the "how does Frost's sister feel about me" scale.

Menta could tell that she was starting to have some reaction. He wasn’t sure if she wasn’t used to this sort of situation, because he certainly didn’t think of himself as amazingly handsome or anything, but Aria looked like she was about to faint! That and she kept opening her mouth over and over, he wondered if she needed water or something! He figured it was because of what he had said, and either she was incredibly nervous or incredibly embarrassed, but he realized that he should probably do something to calm her down.

He held out his hand, though he doubted she could see it since she was now looking at the floor. “Hey, look. It’s okay. Why don’t I get a chair for you and you can take a moment to breathe a little?” He said, not waiting for her answer, if she could even articulate one, and grabbing one of the spare chairs they had for sitting when nothing was going on.

He brought it back around and offered the chair to her. “It’s totally fine to use! Trust me, it’s okay.” Really, he hadn’t dealt with women too much, but he at least wanted her to calm down so she didn’t pass out or something.

Menta waited patiently for her to calm down. And he wondered if Frost had made fun of her a bit too much to the point where she was afraid to even talk to someone who had complimented her! He would have to ask and if the answer was ‘yes’ he would make sure to smack the little hybrid upside the head.

Or make sure that he had to clean more. Probably best to take the less physical route when it came to his boss.

He hummed a bit as he waited for her to be able to talk again, wiping the front counter a bit to make sure it was still clean and thinking about what he still needed to do for the day, which wasn’t much and he certainly wasn’t expecting anyone else to come soon.

“Just talk when you’re ready.” He said, nodding to himself about making sure that she was feeling okay before he let her out of the store to go wherever else she needed to.

Menta was not very experienced with women, whatever the hybrid may have thought, so he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing by letting her calm down herself or if he needed to be doing more. He certainly didn’t want to try being too closer to her in case the nervousness was about her reaction to him and would cause it to become worse! He continued to clean for a bit, not using any of the smelly cleaning chemicals since there was another person in the store, but he made sure to wipe the rest of the counter down thoroughly.

When he was done with that task, he put the supplies away and went back over to Aria. He waved a hand in front of him, silently telling her that whatever she was going through, it was no trouble. “You’re fine, though I haven’t had a woman react to me like that before. I hope I’m not doing anything, intentionally to upset you. And you certainly don’t have anything to apologize for!” He would have mentioned that there were worse things she could have done, but he decided against it in case it caused her to be more upset. There were things that he never wanted to clean up again in the candy shop, but when one worked at a place that attracted many young Freshlings… they were almost unavoidable.

It was now Menta's turn to blush when he heard her compliment him, though he thought it may have been a bit exaggerated. After all, he was just a Kirin, and he had been made fun of plenty of times for looking like some sort of candy. And he couldn't count the number of times that Freshlings had tried to take a bite out of him... at least he had hooves and a horn so he could defend himself if he really needed to!

He stared at her, mouth agape for a few moments before closing it and feeling a small, embarrassed smile make it's way onto his face. "Th-thank you... That's quite nice of you to say." He needed to remember how to speak again and took ten seconds before continuing. "If you want... since we both seem to be, interested?, in each other then would you want to go out on a date? Not here though, that would be silly. And I'll make sure that your brother won't tease you about it. He tends to take my word seriously, even if it makes him pout a bit." He said, wondering what the reaction would be from Frost. Though he doubted the other would be too displeased, he wasn't the over-protective type of brother, but Menta would be getting a raised eyebrow at the least, perhaps a roll of the eyes too.

One of Menta’s eyebrows raised and he was definitely interested in this Aria who had suddenly gotten all of this courage. She was very interesting to say the least! And he couldn’t help but find her new found courage exciting. He couldn’t tell what she was going to do next and it intrigued him!

He laughed a little at the mention of Frost. “Don’t worry. If he wants to start teasing you just remind him of how short he is. He can’t stand it.” And usually when that happened, Frost would immediately shut up and start to grumble about how it wasn’t fair that others were taller and whatnot. Menta found it a bit cute that his friend would get so grumpy about it, but he really couldn’t imagine being that tiny, considering he was a Kirin.

“And awesome! You want to meet a café somewhere or go to a movie or something? I don’t know of any “good” dating spots, so to speak, but going out and getting some food or watching something together could be interesting! Though if we go the food route, we’ll be able to talk a bit more. Unless you wanted to do both of course.” He made sure that what he was saying didn’t come out as rapidly as his brain was telling him. Otherwise he was pretty sure he would have started to mash words together and become unintelligible.