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 Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 4:12 pm
Everyone has problems, Chione silently observed, her doe-like eyes darting between her guardian’s face, worry lines etched into the forehead, and Shin’s tightened fingers supporting his bag. She was paying intent attention to their body language, and as a result, her ears reduced the actual conversation to mere background noise.
While the young adolescent was studying the adults, Marie struggled to regain her composition. It was, as Chione predicted, that she had once again noticed her ward’s growth spurt. Alas, there was nothing that could be done, and besides, Shin didn’t seem to have taken that reality in, being as preoccupied as he appeared. The older female’s face softened, the harsh emotional lines from prior melting.
“I understand,” she said, the words applying to both the boyfriend and the rentals. She tried to procture a smile to help Shin feel more at ease. In her mind, she mused to herself, concluding that there must be some kink in Shin’s relationship. Either way, Chione and herself hadn’t come all the way to the skating rink to simply stand outside and fuss about the misfortunes of life.
Marie continued, “ C’mon Chione,” reaching for the girl’s hand. Suddenly, Chione felt a pang of anger; even if Marie wanted her to remain little, she wasn’t much of a kid anymore. She jerked her pale hand away, her naive sympathies going out to all the true children of the world for having to live ages longer in an infantile stage.
Her guardian looked slightly hurt, or maybe she had taken offense? Chione didn’t bother analyzing Marie’s face this time around. “Let’s go in,” the adolescent said roughly, trotting off towards the entrance.
Instead of taking off after the girl, Marie lagged behind to keep with Shin’s pace. “Nice dress,” she commented, feeling awkward after the “row,” or so she considered it, with Chione.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:35 pm
Yes it was true. If Shin was too preoccupied to correct himself then Choines spurt growth likely hadn’t sunk in ether. He would notice eventually though, when he wasn’t so jumpy about his boyfriend catching up. Just as he would notice his Japanese slipping in to things now and then. Even in the dresses that gave him wonderful feelings and comfort he could still feel jumpy of his boyfriend couldn’t he? Such a sweet smile in public but In private.. And nobody would suspect such a beautiful face would they?
That’s why..
When they got inside and in to the line he started calming down more. His grip loosened and his yellow eyes softened. He was dressed as a beautiful doll and the yellow contacts just made everything glow a little. The small hints that gave away fear, worry or stress slipped away from him. “Ariigato, I mean thank you. I’m sorry. I like this dress a lot. It looks like one of those beautiful old fashion ballroom dresses. Its uncomfortable to wear though, because of the thing under the dress that makes it puff out.”
But he wore that more then willingly. As long as it made him look and feel like a hole new person. He wasn’t sure why the youth had stressed so much though.. Well not until he noticed the sweet thing had grown up a little. Well that’s odd, children weren’t suppose to grow that fast were they? Still, he didn’t make too much of a fuss about it. No matter what she was which might not have been human that was alright with him. She was still Choine after all right? He wa far more accepting of such realitys though fr his own reasons though.
That was just Shin, a very complex person behind their simple smile and every little tingle of body language spoke bounds and words for him when he could not offer the courage to speak himself. But then an idea crossed his mind. Oh no! “I’m sorry about over the phone. Choine after ice skating do you and Maria still want to go to a toy store or have a snake? Or are you too old for stuffed toys now?” He said it with his usual voice, almost as if growing a few years under a short amount of time was as normal was switching dresses. At least he didn’t freak out though.
He was just worried that he might have been a little off on ideas.. Because one of the two had grown. “Maria, why didn’t you say anything over the phone?” He asked curiously, looking at the line for rentals they stood in now. It was a bit long wasn’t it? But at least the line was moving fast. That was good. So it was long but it wouldn’t take so much time. They must have very good and quick service then. That was reassuring.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:12 pm
It was cold inside. Chione was shocked. The child, for despite her conflicting views of growing older, was still a child when seen in a worldwide scheme. That didn’t affect her current mentality, the policy of being able to do it on her own. The same stubbornness that had overcome her when she had washed the paintbrushes was upon her again. She cautiously peered around the place and discovered that these so-called rentals were no where to be found. Wait. There was a sign saying “RENTALS.” It took her a handful of minutes to sound out the word.
In that time, Marie and Shin had caught up to her. When Shin asked her whether or not she was against toys now, Chione vehemently shook her head. She wasn’t that old yet! “I’ve never had a toy,” she commented with churlish glee. “Can we still go?”
Marie sighed, her relief flooding through her body. Thank god for Chione’s absent-minded nature; thank god for Shin’s distracting statement. But she might have celebrated too soon; in her concentration upon her moody ward, she had pushed the growth-spurt issue aside.
“What do you mean?,” she asked defensively, knowing all too well what Shin implied. The cause of the problem, Chione, lost her brilliant grin and stood quietly to the side, listening in.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:31 pm
“Well if she’s older she might act a bit different and like different things then before. If we all want to have fun we should think of everyone right?”
Shin said, still acting almost like odd fast growth spurs were normal. Then again he had already accepted it. He wasn’t normal, he never would be. A person like him, like he was just.. Took in the different a lot better. Others might have screamed or had a panic attack. Some might have accused Maria of switching Choine with her older sister they were never told about. He gave a soft smile with his colored lips, looking so much like a young thin teenager girl then a rich man that had a job with computers.
“But it looks like it was just silly worrying. We could all still enjoy it then after the skating rink?“ He let out a sigh of relief, “I’m glad. I just wanted out first time out doing some fun stuff instead of just bumping in for short chats was perfect. I was just hoping we would all have fun. “
He sighed. Did they not tell him because they thought he would freak out? React badly? “Maria, you and Choine are both my first friends. No matter what Choine is or how she grows she’s still Choine and nobody different.“ He just didn’t like not being trusted. He didn’t like the feeling. He could understand though, they haven’t known each other very long. “Ice is cold but its fun to skate on. It can feel like gliding on cold smooth clouds. It takes work to get good at it but its very fun once you get it right.”
He liked using his imagination. Maybe that’s a part of why he was so good as his job.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:52 pm
Marie was flabbergasted. This situation was just weird. Why wasn’t he completely weirded out? She certainly was when Chione and her had first met, but since then she had become accustomed to the random evolutions, as she preferred to think of them.
She reacted on instinct. “You’re weird,” she stated simply. Two seconds later, she quickly added, “No offense or anything! Ummmm, yeah.”
“Excuse me,” asked the salesperson at the Rentals window. They had arrived at the front of the line. Marie was thankful for the change in topic. “May I help you?,” asked the salesperson. “Yes,” was the reply, “I need two pairs of skates. One for a child, I don’t know her size, and a size eights for myself.”
During the conversation, Chione had turned away. After hearing Shin’s lack of fear or excitement or anything overly emotional, she had started watching the skaters going around the rink. Now that they were getting these elusive skates, her attention flew back to Marie and Shin.
The salesperson cast an eye at Chione and vanished behind the desk. He re-emerged with two pairs of skates. “I guessed the girl’s size. Try it on,” he ordered.
Chione did as she was bidden. Standing, wobbling on the two blades, she grinned. “They fit, Marie!,” she exclaimed. “Thank you,” said Marie to the vender, dishing out twenty dollars.
“Ready to skate?”
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:32 pm
 P ez gave a low rumble as she sat at the outer edge of the ice-skating rink looking in. She'd come here to try and apply for a job as a snack bar cashier and had been turned away. She wasn't so much upset over another failed attempt at a job as she was about the cold. She wore her lose bomber jacket, scarf, and woolen cap and still her teeth were chattering.
Her breath puffed out in front of her as she sighed, watching the masses skate in a perpetual circle. Here a little girl, there a beautiful woman, showing off was a young man. She sighed boredly, resting her cheek in her palm. It was boring, but she didn't have anything better to do. She considered going out and skating but didn't particularily feel like humiliating herself.
Idly her good eye wandered toward the rental station, looking curiously over the people that were there now. A little girl and two women.. one of which was dressed in disgustingly frilly clothes. Pez felt a small ball of resentment toward the woman dressed in era form in her stomach and she forced herself to go back to boredly watching the skaters on the ice to keep herself from tearing her hair out. Everything seemed to put her in a bad mood lately.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:00 pm
Marie made her way over to the benches which surrounded the ice skating rink, rubber mats coating the floor. Choosing a spot that wasn’t near any wailing children or overly rowdy people, she plunked down on the metal.
Chione had tottered after her guardian, half falling onto the seat beside her. Quietly, feeling slightly ashamed that she could be complaining in such an unusual and interesting place, she said, "My feet hurt." Her guardian chuckled. "Of course they hurt- I didn’t give you a pair of socks yet. Take off your skates- don’t touch the blades!- and put on these." The “these” were a pair of thick brown socks.
The Sweet Thing put on her socks and Marie did the same. Then, Chione carefully observed how Marie put on her skates, as when she had jammed hers on at the rental desk, she hadn’t actually tried to lace them up, and attempted to imitate her. She failed. "Don’t worry," said Marie, a minor note of exasperation in her voice. "I’ll help you in a second."
She was true to her word, and in just over a second, she finished lacing up her own skates, a pair of white rentals, and folded her excess sock over the top, covering the laces. Then, Marie rose to crouch at Chione’s feet. "Kick me and...," the threat was left open ended. Her ward laughed.
Gently, Marie slipped on each skate and laced them up. "Good? They should feel tight but they shouldn’t hurt," she instructed. Chione flashed her a thumbs up. "Let’s see how Shin is doing with his skates, eh?," commented Marie, but Chione was already moving towards the ice.
The guardian didn’t bother chasing after her. The worst that could happen would be that she would fall a couple of times. Nothing big.
Chione was struggling to walk as she approached an entrance to the rink. "Whoa," she cried softly as she tripped over an overlap of the mats, landing in a disgruntled heap in front of the woman wearing a bomber jacket.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:46 pm
Shin did feel hurt when Marie said he was strange. It showed in his breaths, how they stiffened a bit but nothing much. He had herd it a lot from different people. He just hadn’t expected her to say it. Even if she didn’t mean it in a bad way different was always bad right? People didn’t like different, that’s why he had no friends before Maria and Chione. He didn’t say anything though. There was no reason. She didn’t mean anything bad by it. She was just speaking what she thought. He wished he could speak things more freely, not double think every word before it came out. Still, that’s the way he was. Always fearing of the wrong words spoken that could get him to say the wrong things. And something inside couldn’t help but to wonder if she did think of the weird in a bad way.
He had reacted to her change, she didn’t notice his fussing over not knowing? But that was alright. He watched them with yellow eyes watching little Chione try on the pair and start along. Then they sort of just left him behind a little. They were there just to have fun, they didn’t have to with him. He wasn’t as close to them as he thought at all was he? People passing him, not looking and if they were they were whispering. He hated feeling like this. Once he was on the ice he would feel much better. He wouldn’t hear the whispers because everyone would be having too much fun.
If anyone was watching him and noticed how he thought much more then he spoke, his submissive ways he probably did look and act just as a women would have in the days of old. He was timid and quiet. He corrected himself and kept with his manors and fairly thin. The only thing he was missing was a chest to push up to make look better. Still, he did look very unique with the zebra colored hair that had an even amount of white and black streaks and the eyes that had yellow contacts in them. A normal women from the old era wouldn’t have these things.
He walked over to a bench, sitting down he put the box on it. With gentle small hands he opened the box and lifted his feet. Taking off the high heels he slipped them in the box and put on the ice skates. The ice felt so cold even though he wasn’t on it. As he tied up the laces and pulled out things from inside the skate he started thinking words and things. By the time he was finished he felt urged to write something. Would they notice? They probably wouldn’t he thought. That’s right, he didn’t need to worry of anyone seeing. Reaching in to his bag he pulled out a notepad then started fishing for a pencil. The notepad already had quite a few in it. It was his private thing he hid from the world. Beautiful words he didn’t feel; brave enough to share with a single soul.
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 9:59 pm
Pez gave a small grunt of surprise as a child suddenly collapsed in front of her. She quirked her eyebrow, glancing around to try and glean where the young teeny-bopper had come from. She gave a long suffering sigh and got up off her bench, tugging her hands out of her pockets as she leaned down to reach out and touch the back of the kid's hand.
"Oi, you awrigh'?" The jacket and scarf (not to mention the eye patch) did well to hide the more feminine aspects of her appearance, but her voice was still feminine, not light but definitely not a deep, male voice. It was a bit husky, though, and she squinted her good eye down at the kid, making her look rather irritated. Pez herself stood perfectly fine in her skates, ankles firm and giving nary a wobble. "Shouldn' walk aroun' on ya own in them skates before ya get used to them."
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:17 pm
Marie didn’t intentionally mean to sneak up on Shin; it just happened. The arena was noisy, her blades on the rubber mats made little noise, and she had been stepping carefully to avoid tripping as Chione, though she was not aware of the fact, had done.
She had been surprised when Shin hadn’t come straight to the bench that she and Chione had used. She did believe she had left him enough space to comfortably, but oh well.
So, when Marie ended up right behind Shin, she wasn’t sure what to do. He seemed pretty intent on.. what was that in his hand? She had to shift a little to spot the writing utensil. He was writing. Why would anyone want to write here? Maybe he had been inspired, Marie guessed. Though the source of that hypothetical inspiration was completely unknown to her; the skating rink wasn’t that exciting or anything like that.
“What’cha doing?,” she finally asked, feeling like she ought to say something instead of watching his back. She had refrained from trying to read what Shin wrote, knowing that as an artist, she abhorred it when people looked over her shoulder as she painted.
Over by the rink side, it took a moment for Chione to respond. First, she had to pulled her dress down. Her fall had accidentally revealed her underwear to all who might have wished to see them, the dress’ hem fluttering up around her hips. Blushing, for she had a sense of modesty, the little girl pushed herself up.
“I’ll be fine,” she answered Pez, her tone echoing her hurt and embarrassment. Her knees ached a little, having taken the brunt of the force. It was only after she spoke that Chione actually made eye contact.
Surprise spread across her features like wildfire; it was the first time that she had ever seen a real person wearing an eye patch before. “Are you a pirate?,” she wondered aloud, awe in her voice. The fact that Pez looked slightly irritated did nothing to defer the whimsical question; the young adolescent never heeded the emotions of others unless they reached an extreme.
She, however, wasn’t going for an answer while being on the ground; the mats were rough, dirty, cold, and wet. Chione got to her feet using the bench as a lever and then as a support. Slightly enviously, she looked at the “pirate’s” firm stance. “How’d you do that? I left ‘fore Marie could teach me how to walk on these... skuh... skates.”
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Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 10:52 pm
As late as he is, a little boy came in the ice skating rink skipping and stumbling through the people in their seats quickly and saying sorry for every single person he may disturb he frantically searches for his seat and is panicking like he was being chased by a legion of kid-eating bunnies, He came wearing a simple soft light blue shirt with long sleeves to keep him warm all the time and a small pair of black puffy and slightly, frilly shorts which kinda looked like a skirt! He also has clear innocent light blue eyes and hair which was casual but not neatly fixed yet, it looked pretty good, well and decent on him after a while he finally decided to get himself some skates and later on saw boy who seemed very interesting, so he approached him cautiously and asked....
"E-excuse me, Is it alright if I sit with you, I'm guessing that you might want some company b-because I do to, and your clothes are also very very interesting, I kinda like it.And, my name is Meyhe, What's yours?" He stood there in front of Shin with a gentle innocent smile waiting for an answer...
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:56 am
Pez immediatly fell silent, eye widening in surprise and immediatly narrowing again in acute annoyance and anger. She'd forgotten how particularily cruel children could be, even if it was in innocence. A pirate?! She stood stiffly, staring down at this stupid, bold, little kid and... oggled, her mouth slightly agape in utter shock. When she spoke, her voice was a bit more shrill and sputtery than she had wanted it to be.
"Pirate?!" She cleared her throat, giving a snarl down at the kid. She hated it when people stared, she hated it even more when they asked about her deformity and now some snot nosed kid was calling her a god-damned pirate. That's all she could think of. Pirate. She reached down without really thinking and grabbed the kid's wrist when she saw her wobble, perhaps a little tighter than necissary. "Learn some manners, midget. Do I look..." That didn't work, of course she looked like a pirate. "Do I seem li' a pirate to ya, hnn? Ya thin' pirates go frolickin' over th' ice, do ya? Where's ya paren's? They need to teach ya somthin'."
She was probably over-reacting just a bit... but... she'd been called a pirate. And she -knew- it wasn't just the way she talked or dressed, it was based souly on the fact that she wore an eyepatch. For a moment she considered flicking it up to give the kid a scare and immediatly rejected that.
She was put off when the kid asked her about how she stood in the scates. She looked down at her feet, frowning as she let go of the kid's wrist. "Wha'.. this? Jes'... stan'. Don' let ya ankles flop to th' sides an' put ya feet at an angle." She hoped the kid didn't think Pez's change in topic was going to get her off the hook. She fully intended to have a word with this nosey little son of a...
Her thoughts trailed darkly even as she tried to show the kid the right way to stand.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:36 pm
Unconsciously, Chione’s mouth tightened, the lower lip fighting to wobble in distress, as she stubbornly clenched her jaws together. Why had this lady done a three-sixty, personality-wise? “But,” she countered in a brave voice, “Don’t pirates talk like you? With the broken words ‘nd everything!” After a second’s contemplation, she continued, “Are you mad because someone froze this ocean”- she having no idea that the ice skating rink was not a preexisting body of water- “And so you can’t sail anymore?”
She took a deep breath and tilted her head slightly to the side, the way that kids know they look cute. “I don’t have parents,” Chione said in an offhand manner.
It really didn’t matter to her, seeing as she had always been the literal definition of that sentence. All she knew was Marie, though the young adolescent was pretty convinced that her guardian didn’t play the role of a full time mother or anything, at least as far as she had observed in other families. More of a- what was the term again? She always forgot those words related to the ambiguous family. Oh well, she shoved the train of thought from her mind. Yeah, it really didn’t bother her.
With the subject was changed, she did feel slightly relieved, if only because the pirate-lady, as Chione was still not convinced of Pez’s status, stopped glaring at her. “Like this?,” she asked, attempting to mimic the woman’s stance in accordance with her words. She stood proudly... for a second. But, without support, the child quickly fell towards Pez, grabbing on to the woman’s waist to avoid meeting the mats again.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:03 pm
Pez scoweled. If she were an cat she might have hissed and arched her back, fur bristling. The woman spoke through gritted teeth, being sure to annunciate every single word perfectly. "I. Am. Not. A. Pirate." What the hell... frozen ocean? "'Sides, oceans can't freeze, they've got all that salt in'nem."
She wove between outrage at this kid and grudging kindness... it was the only kind of kindness she really knew how to give anyway. There was a soft spot in her for kids... that and kittens. But no one had to know. She tried to tell herself over and over in her head : This was a kid. She was little, she didn't know better, kids said damn stupid things that got them and their parents in trouble... except this one didn't seem to have any parents.
Pez looked her up and down warily, quirking her eyebrow with a slightly less extreme scowel. An orphan maybe...? She gave a small grudging 'hrmph', hunching her shoulders up further as she jammed her hands into her pockets. "Well no wonder ya don't have any manners, then. Jesus, even I got summa'em." She gave a slight yelp of awkwardness as the child pitched forward and clung around her thin hips. She blinked, tugging her hands out of her pockets once more to reach down and hold onto the kid's shoulders. She made sure she had the wall to hold onto before finding her pockets once more.
"No... like this." Pez bent slightly, knees locked and bowed her legs slightly, showing that she had her feet at a slight angle, toes pointed inward. "Now... who're ya here with if ya got no folks." She didn't want to have to deal with a lost kid... much less one that insisted that she was a pirate.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 2:41 pm
“You’re not?,” was the disbelieving reply. Eyes wide, almost as if something had died, and indeed her overly active imagination was reeling from quite a large slap, Chione looked up at Pez’s eye patch. Then, she bounced back. “Why d’you wear that, then?,” the confused child asked, directly bringing up the cause of the initial misconception.
The comment on her manners further shocked the young adolescent. “Am I being rude?,” she asked bluntly, not knowing better. “Marie,” she chattered, “Always tells me that I need to be quiet and stop being so active and to t-t-tone, yeah- that’s the word, myself down or something like that so that I don’t disturb her ‘cause she says it’s really rude when I don’t let her think when she’s painting or making stuff, but then she once mentioned rudeness when it comes to other people and something about thinking before speaking. I don’t know!” The last outcry was both indignant and frustrated.
Calming herself down took a bit of time, during which Chione held on tightly to the wall by which that the pi... lady had positioned her. It worked. She wasn’t falling anymore and even managed to get her feet looking slightly like those of the woman.
Once she was slightly more rational, though she was a long way from actually representing such a word well, she pipped up, “Marie!,” in answer to Pez’s question. To her, Marie was such a universal figure- the person who fed her when she remembered that they had to eat- that surely everyone must know of her.
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