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With baking ingredients to shop for and Christmas decorations to help his cousin put up, Arian's morning had passed in a flurry of activity and it was with a startled blink when he realised that the time was edging on ten past twelve and remembered that he'd agreed to meet Nischal over at the park by about half past.

Despite generally preferring to walk, there was no way that even at a brisk walk that he'd be able to cover the distance in time, however luck was with him and he was able to catch up on some of the missed time by hopping a bus taking him part of the way - even so it was close to twenty to by the time that managed to reach the park centre where they'd agreed to meet.

Catching sight of Nischal sitting on a park bench, Arian made his way over "Hi Nischal," he called when he was close enough for the other to hear. "I'm sorry for running late" even though he'd texted the other from the bus, he figured he should repeat the apology. "I hope I didn't make you wait too long." It was a cold day, cold enough that Arian had dressed prepared for the weather - bundling up in a woollen coat, scarf, mitten type gloves and a knitted hat in the shape of a pumpkin that sat on top of his raven-black hair to round out the outfit.

Arian nodded "Yes the morning turned out to be busier than I'd expected," he admitted quietly. "But I'm glad that you didn't end up having to wait on me too long."

He glanced down automatically at Nischal's gloved hands as the other held them up adding "I'm not even going to try and tell the flakes apart - I'm pretty sure even with good vision you'd need to look at them under a microscope or something to see any patterns" and Arian's vision wasn't the greatest, the glasses worn out of necessity - well and because he preferred glasses over contacts.

His voice turned amused as he continued whilst he waited for Nischal to brush off the bits of snow from hit coat "It snows a lot more here than it ever did back in England though" after all in his two and half (give or take) years in Destiny City White Christmases had become an actuality rather than a very, very maybe. "Things actually run here." Unlike in the UK where even the tiniest amount of snow was enough to ground planes and grind public transport to virtually a halt.

He smiled slightly as he added "And lunch would be nice and mayhaps even a hot drink" after all snow might be nice to look at, but it was also cold - which incidentally made it great hot chocolate drinking weather - at least to Arian's way of thinking. "Thank you for thinking to invite me. Did you have a place in mind for lunch?"

"It's probably a little too cold for milk shakes" Arian said with a slight smile as he thought it over, the weather being more in in keeping to his way of thinking with hot chocolate rather than milk shakes - especially if said hot chocolate came with whipped cream and little marshmallows.

"I'm feeling pretty hungry though so wouldn't mind checking out the burger joint anyway." His cheeks reddened slightly as his stomach chose that moment to remind him that apart from a couple of Saffy's cookies that he'd swiped from the oven that he hadn't had the time to sit down and do breakfast.

"I'm not sure I'd say I love milk shakes a lot" Arian said, a slightly bemused note in his voice. "I don't really have them that often" and the weather tended to be warmer - much, much warmer when he did.

His voice turned embarrassed as he continued "And I had a couple of biscuits earlier" although he couldn't quite remember how much earlier - some time in the morning earlier. "I think it may have been a while back though" he admitted, before adding "I was helping my cousin do stuff around the apartment and then I had to go out and buy ingredients for next week's bake sale and I kind of lost track of the time a little." Okay so maybe it was more than a little, but Arian wasn't counting.

"Um yes" Arian agreed as he fell into step, just a little behind Nischal. "They were biscuits of the cookie-variety - my cousin made a batch of them up this morning." It wasn't uncommon for there to be some sort of sweet treat around in the apartment given that not only did he and Saffy bake but they both had sweet teeth as well.

His cheeks flushed again "And I don't just eat sweets, I eat other things too." He even ate some of the stranger stuff that his cousin came up when she was in an experimenting mood, although sometimes they could be pretty miss. "I was just a bit busy this morning" there was a wry note in his quiet voice at his admission, Arian tucking his gloved hands into the pockets of his coat as he spoke in an attempt to scrounge a bit of extra warmth.

It didn't seem long before they were both approaching the place that Nischal had suggested, the smell of burgers wafting in their direction as Arian ambled after the other, his pace a comfortable one. "Just a charity bake sale" he said as they approached what appeared to be the door into the place. "My cousin and I" well okay often it was mostly him with Saffy donating baked stuff for him to take. "Do approximately one once a month."

"I'm not usually that bad about breakfast" Arian said, part of him wondering as he spoke if Nischal was one of those people who got a bee in their bonnet about breakfast being super important. He really wasn't that bad though - well rather he didn't consider himself that bad, sure there were days when he ended up skipping a proper meal in favour of snagging a quick sweet (generally on days when he was busy with some sort of project but there were equally days when he ate properly.

He nodded at Nischal's query about charity work, "Well I don't actually work for any charities" he admitted. "And neither does my cousin, but some of the local ones - like the animal rescue home hold bake sales and when they do we bake stuff for them." He nodded again as Nischal asked him about living with his cousin, adding simply "Yes I do."

They had reached the door of the burger place at that point and Arian was glad to get out of the cold, hand automatically going to hold the door for Nischal in turn.

Once they were both eventually seated, menu in front of them Arian looked over at Nischal "Is there anything you'd recommend food-wise?" He asked, adding "And do you know if they do it without mayo?" The other teen had been here and he hadn't so Arian was happy to listen to his suggestions and simultaneously hoping that if the burgers came with mayo that there would be an option to have it without given that mayonnaise was one of the few foods he disliked with a passion the white stuff in his mind right up there with canned tuna on his list of disliked foods.

"A burger with bacon sounds good as long as its without mayo" Arian said, after all he liked burgers and he liked bacon and as long as the mayonnaise was left off then it sounded like a good combination.

He thought about it for a moment before adding decisively "So I think I'll go for that, with good old fashioned fries, although the sweet potato ones sound interesting" Despite the fact that he'd been in Destiny City, in the States for over one and a half years, Arian still found himself personally thinking of fries as being chips as they were called back in England, although he knew that chips tended to be seen more as potato chips.

He scanned the menu before continuing "With mayhaps a diet coke for the drink" before adding thoughtfully. "And staying open close to midnight sounds pretty late." Or at least it seemed late by his book, but then again mayhaps the people in the shop catered mostly to people who worked late such as those at the hospital or something.