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 Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 3:31 pm
Rin heaved a deep and exaggerated sigh, "there you go again." Then she lifted her menu and was quite thoroughly distracted. "Hmmm maybe I'll get the same. Fish sounds like a nice light starter." And one she was at least semi-certain she liked. No way was she eating fish eggs.
She lowered the menu and looked at Melvin. "Look Melvin. I don't understand why you have to preemptively make so many excuses for yourself all the time. I found it cute you seemed so clueless on complementing me but now I'm just annoyed having to hear all about past experiences with easy women to 'explain' it away. I didn't even ask."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:15 pm
There he went again? He was confused until she explained. "I...I wasn't trying to excuse it. I just didn't want to come off as if I didn't know what I was doing. Like I never dated before, and why I'm sorta bad at it now." Then he considered his actual record with dating. "...though I guess I wasn't good at it before."
He set the menu down, feeling bad again. "I won't bring up other women. I just don't know what I'm suppose to share about myself when we're talking, so I'm just sorta saying a lot of things. I'm...not doing good. If I don't say anything at all, I come off as not sharing and I don't want to do that to you. Now I don't know what you even want to know when I do talk." He wound up just feeling lost when he was talking now.
He reached for his glass again to sip and look away at the other couples. "I just wanted to make a good impression."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:31 pm
"I like it better thinking you didn't know what you were doing." She raised an eyebrow at him critically, it was almost as if the entire explanation went right past his big dumb head. But. She let it go at his final remark. "Look. I just want you to listen sometimes to the words I'm actually saying. I sometimes ask you things and at those times I tend to expect real answers. I don't need you erupting in long stories about every little thing you do."
She eyed him over looking for something, anything, for an example. "Like. Your glasses. You're always wearing goggles back home so I never really knew you had real eye-wear. Or are those just to blend in better?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:47 pm
He looked at her and then down, organizing his sentences. He wore goggles at work because it kept him safe, but also he sorta didn't want to admit that he wanted to be unique in being one of the few guys with prescription goggles. Would she want to here that? Hmmm, probably not. She just wanted short replies.
He looked back up and opened his mouth, closed it, thought about it for a few more seconds, and started. "Blend in. They're nicer than my goggles, and I didn't want to stand out too much." He had wanted her to draw the most attention on this date, as that what was hot dates were supposed to do. Not be seen with some guy who was wearing a suit and yet was wearing lab goggles. on his own, he didn't care. But on a date, he worried that Rin would get embarrassed and he would stand out too much with just his choice in eye-wear. He liked his goggles more though.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 4:51 pm
"Well, to be specific I wondered if you had an eye-thing or if your eyes were actually bad?" Yes, she didn't know this for certain yet because... well. Melvin.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:04 pm
"Oh, I'm near-sighted." He took off his glasses as if she could tell better. "I can read stuff in front of me, but after a few feet everything starts to get fuzzy." He put his glasses back on. He paused, wondering if he should continue, and ventured just a little more. "I tried contacts once, but they really bugged me trying to put them in and I kept forgetting to take them out."
The waiter came to their table, and refilling their glasses, took their selections for the evening before taking their menus and leaving them to talk. Despite all the other couples in the room, Melvin didn't feel as if their privacy was being invaded. The mood music playing was also enough to drown out most everyone, but not loud enough to make him want to raise his voice just to be heard.
Glancing about, he noticed a few people holding hands, and one couple was already kissing. Looking back down, he reached over and took Rin's hand.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:38 pm
"Contacts just seem creepy to me," Rin chimed in with her two cents. Her menu was then removed and replaced with hand and she looked a bit shy to the gesture, glancing away from it and turning a bit pink but not withdrawing from it. "J-just the idea of an item touching my eyeball I guess."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:54 pm
"It hurts a lot. Everyone said I'd look better if I gave them a shot, but my eyes were always irritated and red. I just kept taking them out and walking around blind. I finally just had to go back to glasses." He rubbed at his eyes under his glasses just thinking about it.
"Some people said I should get laser surgery, but that worries me a lot." He admitted.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 5:57 pm
"Don't," Rin looked slightly annoyed. "Glasses are very attractive."
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:05 pm
"Oh..." He looked at her and then looked down, noticing he didn't have a menu to pretend to be distracted. Out of habit, he touched and adjusted his glasses again. "Thanks. You too. I mean, not the glasses. The attractive part." Yup. Just knocking it out of the ballpark here.
He was suddenly reminded of another step he had planned in his date, and while garden and now diner was being marked off, there was still more he had planned. The biggest was possible right here at the table.
Pulling his hand away, he set his hands in his lap to pull the black gloves off. He took deep breathes. Okay, so Rin might have touched some plants or dirt, but he was sure she was fine. Right? It was Valentine's after all, and in the scope of things and all he observed, she was very tidy and clean. He just had to not think about the fact that hands were, statistically, the dirtiest part on a human body and that they would be eating soon. He just had to not think about flamingo dirt particles invading his meal. He just had to not....think.
Setting his now bare hands on the table as if they weren't such a big deal, he reached out slowly and took her hand again. He tensed a bit at the sensation of skin on skin, but curled his fingers around her's to try to work past that. He might have been staring at their hands too much though.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:10 pm
Rin chuckled as his awkward approach loomed in again. Luckily for him, she still liked it despite his earlier explanations. It was because of this that she didn't realize what he was up to until she felt bare fingers gently touching her hand. She tensed up just slightly before looking at him as if he'd lost his mind. He looked sort of like a zombie zoning in on her hand like that, so it wasn't entirely impossible.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:41 pm
He took deep breathes, mentally fortifying himself against the onslaught of worries and concerns whenever he touched anyone that he hadn't seen just wash their hands seconds ago. Right now, he needed a distraction - badly.
He looked up at her and how even she seemed alarmed, and he tried not to panic out of her own surprise. "So.." he said, his voice slightly raised as he tried to ignore the many alarms ringing inside his head. "...why do you like birds?"
He hoped it was a long and very detailed story. He needed help.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:49 pm
Rin reached to give his hand a little squeeze she hoped was reassuring - but she knew better. She dove right into the question though. This was weird.
"I like birds because they are intelligent, beautiful, and they are capable of things humans could only dream of. Like flight without machines doing it for us." She leaned on, conspiratorially in case anyone overheard and thought her a crazy bird woman. "Did you know they can see more colours than humans can?"
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 6:54 pm
He squeezed back, and while the hand was the cause for his anxiety, it was also the one thing he was clinging to for reassurance. He tried not to crush her hand, and instead held tightly to it, taking another deep breath as he tried not to make a big deal about it - which wasn't working so well. He just wanted to this so badly for her. For them.
"Oh, I didn't know." He managed, focusing as hard as he could on all that Rin was saying. "We never got birds near our house. We had a cat. I liked birds just to look at." He didn't know much about them, and they tended to wind up blending into the scenery. There to look at but not to really think too hard about.
"Did you have a pet bird?" Yes, they were talking about birds in a romantic Valentine's day dinner. This was far from what Melvin had planned.
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Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2014 8:26 pm
"No. But I always wanted one. Like a homing pigeon or something. Teach it to send notes to and fro." She took pause to eye his face. "What about you?"
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