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Xennik's pulse fluttered at her words. How much was 'a lot'? How could he not feel nervous around her? It had been quite a while since he'd looked up from his work long enough to develop a crush on anyone. Second date and it was becoming more than a crush. More than he knew how to handle.

And, man, she had a gorgeous smile.

He struggled with himself for a moment. Then, seeming to have managed to calm himself down, he took a pen out of his pocket (he went nowhere without a pen), and held it up. "Alright then, let's play a game." It sounded childish, but he pushed on. "Whoever holds this pen gets to ask the other a question, and that person has to answer it as honestly as they can. Okay?" His heart was still fluttering and there was a small tinge of pink in his cheeks, but he was calming down.

Xennik laughed, her childish behavior helping him relax. "When you answer a question, then it your turn, and we'll go back and forth. Yes?" He too adjusted so that he sat facing her, on knee bent in, his leg lying in front of him, the other leg off to his side, the toe of his boot touching the grass. "Do you want to go first?" He held the pen out to her with a smile.

Shivers ran down his spine at her touch, and Kana only missed watching Xennik blush because she was gazing up at the sky.

Xennik was jealous of that pen. That thought both amused him and horrified him.

He pursed his lips in thought at the question she'd asked. "My biggest fears..." This was a question to be thought out. "Dying of starvation." He said after a moment of thought. "Causing someone I care about to be hurt." He flinched at that one. That was a fear he had experienced before. "Rejection." He could have kept going, now that he was on the right track, but he didn't. Those three were bad enough. "Was that a satisfactory answer?" He asked, holding out his hand for the pen.

"Alright..." He took the pen from her hand, shivering at the breif touch, and tapped the pen against his chin so that the gold bottom of the fancy pen stood out against the small black soulpatch-like beard beneath his bottom lip. He tried to think of a question as deep as hers had been.

"If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?"

Xennik's face melted into a soft expression like the kind people wear after watching a kleenex movie; he looked touched and almost choked up. He wanted to hug her then more than anything. She seemed so lonely and lost. He moved ever-so-slightly, as though his body had decided to embrace her without his mind's permission, but the movement turned into his holding out the pen for her instead. When she reached for it, he caught her hand in a gentle hold. When he had her eyes on his face he gave her a smile. "You're welcome in my home at any time." Then he released her hand and it was her turn.

He actually wasn't surprised when she wrapped her arms around him. Feeling her closeness caused his heart to skip for the ten thousandth time that evening - and he'd only been here for an hour! The feather attached to his belt flushed a deep purple that would have caused the man to pass out if he'd seen it. But he didn't. He was too busy trying to catch his breath as Kana buried her face in his neck - payback, he supposed, for the way he'd kissed her earlier.

His heart continued to skitter even when she pulled away, and he knew if he looked at her face at that moment he would break down and beg for a kiss.

But he didn't, and the game continued.

"Yes, there are a lot of dreams I haven't accomplished yet. I haven't seen my mom living in the lap of luxury like she deserves. I haven't seen my brother Airik make something of himself and put his energy into a dream rather than into making a mess of himself." He smiled a little bemusedly. "I haven't seen my name in a textbook." He couldn't help but grin a little at that dream. He'd never told anyone that one.

Xennik laughed. What was she thinking? "I'd like to do something worth remembering, like discovering something that would change textbooks forever, or saving someone's life, something that would make me someone, even when I'm not around any more." He smiled at her, holding out his hand for the pen, wondering in the back of his mind if by 'novel' she might have meant a romance novel. Again, he was both horrified and amused by his own thoughts. "My turn?"