[Open] Nothing like fresh air.

<Damn, that is definitely a grimm future to look forward to>

"I think I might do that. I noticed a good chunk of the library is in braille, and I'd hate to think I might be missing out on something."
Upon arriving at the dorm, Chiharu stops and turns to Izumi to say, "I can take it from here. You'll be here when I come back, right?"
<Woah... Deja vu>

"I don't think I'd just up and leave on you, you've been quite nice to me. It would be quite strange for a person who wished to walk with another to leave them behind. Even if I was cruel like that, you've peaked my interest, I want to get to know you. "

Izumi maintains his smile and waits a little ways away from the door, so as to not peek inside the dorm. If she's not letting you in, she's probably not going to like seeing you try to see what her dorm looks like either. Strange logic, but it was his logic.

"I guess I just felt like saying it, I never thought you'd actually go anywhere."

...

When Chiharu returned, she had removed the bow tie of the uniform and replaced it with a beige scarf. She walks up to Izumi and does a somewhat joking bow and says with a smile, "I commend you for your service, it was much appreciated."
She motions forward with an outstretched arm as she continues with, "Now shall we be off?"

Returning the comedic gesture, Izumi mocks a bow. 

"The pleasure was all mine."  He returns to an eased position and starts leading the way, advancing with, "As you wish, mademoiselle."  

The general tone of the conversation had taken a turn towards the lighthearted, helping relieve Izumi's slight concern earlier. It was hard for him to ever even mention much about his Heterochromia, as nice as it looked, he knew that there was a price to pay and all must pay the piper. It's not my fault, as long as I remember what I have isn't my fault, I'll be okay. Quite okay with someone to talk to as well.  He thought as he started to go down the stairs, he also thought of another thing as he stepped down across the weathered steps. What of the others here, he's been here a year and only a handful of times has he ever had substantial conversation. Everyone seemed to be in their little world and he in his, perhaps he should ask if she knows anyone. Sure she was only here a pair of days but it never hurt to ask. Smiling faintly, he asks another question pertaining to this thought.


"Have you met anyone interesting so far in your early days? I would imagine a school as diverse as this one would bring quite the colorful people about."

"Well everyone here seems to be interesting, but I haven't really met a whole lot."
Chiharu looks over and lets out a small smile as she says, "Really, you're the first person I've legitimately met under normal circumstances"
<You're also the most interesting>

Normal circumstances, was there really such a thing as normal circumstances here at this school? Taking it at face value it was almost oxymoronic, Izumi thought.  However various factors arise such as differing perspectives, how those conversations went, how she felt, how she sensed the other person must have felt and other various factors; including the circumstance itself would have to also be evaluated. There were generally generic ways of first meeting a person, for instance Izumi was sitting on a bench, seems very nondescript and plain. Not much substance to be gathered there. Perhaps those she had met were out of spontaneous occurrences, falling on one's face, getting bumped into, being caught doing something strange. Perhaps the definition of normal here was more along the lines of "sensible". In which case there is a degree of such. This was how he thought and how quickly he arrived at these conclusions. Akise, his father did a good job at training Izumi's mind to think quickly and reasonably so not to offend his benefactors and friends. He knew what she must have meant, and spoke of it no further than he thought. He continued on the anterior subject instead of dwelling on this one. 

"I've been here a year, there are some very colorful people here, I am sure you'll be quite well off once adjusted. I'd like to ask one more thing, how well acquainted are you with the town, I could end up giving you a bit of a tour if you'd like, if not there's a park around here, it's quite nice and has a walking trail. I know you probably love reading, but some of the sciences must be truly experienced to really find the marvel in it. I myself, seem to lean towards being an ecologist when I leave here, I am not sure yet however.

"I've thought alot about what I want to do with my life, I haven't really come up with a conclusion just yet."
She looks over to Izumi with a soft smile.
"A wise man once said, 'One step at a time', So for now, lets go to this park of yours."

She seems to keep that very nice smile on ever-constantly which during these trying times is a testament to herself as a person. From where they were it would be no longer than a few minutes walking continuously. To avoid having dead air as they walk, Izumi continues the conversation.

"You are a Freshmen, I take it, you have plenty of time to think about what you want. I am sure whatever you decide to do, with your penchant for learning you'll do quite well. I'll be rooting for you now that I know you a little."

<Why would he be rooting for me if I'm not in a competition. I don't even have a goal>
"Maybe you should start a fanclub."
She looks off into the distance as she continues with, "Speaking of clubs, are you apart of any?"
<This school does have clubs, right?>

Izumi shakes his head, the figure of speech seemed misplaced and he realized it instantly. He smiles as he does so realizing what occurred. 

"I think I realized what I just said, sorry, it's that I used to be in an environment that always had competitions going on, no need for fan-clubs, it was just a common phrase of speech I misplaced forgetting where I was.  Anyways, in this school there should be some, I haven't haven't joined any yet; I Haven't found any I personally would like to be in. Anyways, activity is suspended until this whole debacle ends. So nothing is being done at present."

Chiharu looks a bit surprised for a second as she notices how he seems to feel the need to apologize over nothing, but dismisses the thought.
After a short moment, she looks over with her signature inquisitive visage as she asks, "What was it like? Before you came here?"

Izumi tries to remember how it was before the incident that brought him here, life was fairly kind to him before that. He never lacked much because his parents did their best to provide as much as they could, even though it was his father that influenced him more as he was just more inclined to go along with him. He had no ill feelings toward his mother it was just that she couldn't do a lot and he, being very active always wanted to go somewhere or try new things. She just couldn't do all that much, she did well in raising him regardless he feels. It was his father that was able to play, teach and help Izumi experience all that he knows now. 

"Life was good, I lacked very little but we weren't rich. I suppose the word was comfortable and it was, I also wasn't and still am not very imprudent so I didn't ask for much.  I attribute most of what I know now to my father. It was my father who was always available to play with me when I was small and anytime I wanted to go out and do something he supported me in the cause as long as it was somewhat acceptable. Of course every time it wasn't he had a way of showing me why it wasn't and not just telling me. One time I asked if I could go out into the streets here alone and he said I couldn't. I asked why and we went out into town and he showed me all the bad areas of town and detailed where people had gotten shot and/or kidnapped. We lived in a town a little ways away from here, and it was relatively safe however after that I didn't try anything on my own. 

My father was the person who got me so involved with nature, we used to go out fishing and he would used to sing a song for whatever reason, and when he did fish actually came around the boat. He took a net and caught them all. I was fascinated and from then on we went on expeditions up in the hills and camped out. I enjoyed counting the stars with my father there explaining why they appeared here but not in towns. He used to gather books for me and said it was up to me if I wanted to read them or not. I found a book about scouting as I looked through them and saw that they did a lot more than what my father and I would do and I wanted to join. My father obliged and called the number displayed on the back of the book. Scouting was fun once I started, I met a lot of cool people and they were very kind to me. I always wanted to be the best once there. I just had to, I wanted to make my father proud. However I suppose that drive is what got me here in the first place. 

As part of my final badge, we had to raft down a particularly rough patch of river. To make matters a little worse you had to beat three other teams from other middle schools and their scouting clubs. I knew I was starting to lose my sight however I was sure I could work past that, I had to win, I had to make my father proud. However, as we entered the last stretch, my vision blurred a bit and I couldn't gauge the distance of the next rock, I ended up hitting the rock and sent the whole raft flying. Luckily it was toward the bottom so it wasn't horribly bad, it was quite the mess regardless, but I am alive and the rest of the team was fine at the end too. However, after finding out that it was because of my eyesight, and the fact that I incurred the most injuries, I ended up here after graduating; it took that long to recover from them which meant I was in the hospital for a good half week as it was during my graduation week. I ended up missing it, I didn't mind however. Also, my father was an alumni here, so it made it easier for me to deal with coming here as I knew it was good enough for him, it probably would take care of me too. " 

They had reached the park by the time he finished speaking. 


"I sort of hope you're still awake over here, I was about to return the question."

"Yeah, I'm still here... But all I can think to say about the way things were back home, is well... I got bored alot."
She walks ahead a bit and slowly spins around, taking everything in.
"It was nothing like this place." She says with an almost blissful smile.

Izumi paused as he looked on as she spun, if he wasn't captivated before, he may have to check his pulse, he might be now and he's only just met her. He knows it's much too quick to gauge anything and quickly dismisses the thought before he makes any more mistakes. Izumi knew boys such as himself were naive, and thinking like this is naiveté at it's strongest point. So the best thing to do, is to just continue the conversation and forget he ever felt anything. That was the correct course of action at least for right now. 

"This place is very nice and serene, the world seems to be at peace if you stick around long enough. Even now, it doesn't look like anything is really going on. Was it terribly hectic where you were, perhaps you like the peace that exists here because you never had any?"

"Heh, Hectic is an understatement when you're talking about 15 million people within 14 hundred square miles. I couldn't go very far outside without getting a migraine, or worse, so I never did."
She looks over to Izumi with a mischeivous smirk.
"Or atleast during the day. I'd go out in the middle of the night sometimes, it was quite a thrill to be honest."

"You were quite the risk taker then, tell me then how was the night around those parts, I want to be able to picture it." Izumi looks at her quizzically, his smile becoming one more of intrigue than politeness.

"Well..."
She takes a moment of contemplation.
"Even the darkest nights are bright as day, there are always electric lights everywhere. hmm.. I think the best way to describe it is to say, It's a very worried city, trying desperately to be happy. There's bright decorations and signs and stores all over the place, and no matter the time of day, there's always someone waiting and someone in a hurry. There's mazy backstreets to get lost in and around every corner you could get great food and sit down at the worlds smallest bar just to relax."
While she was speaking she had begun staring off into space, but a moment after she was done she snapped back to reality and looked to Izumi to ask, "So, what kind of daring stuff have you done?"

"What sort of daring things have I done, hmm.. I remember once one of the other scouts thought he was some sort of invincible superboy and decided to climb one of the tallest trees of the encampment, he got stuck at a very high point near the top of the tree and by morning we could hear the cries from up there. I took the initiative to go all the way up there, got him to calm down after a few minutes of negotiating. I don't blame him for being concerned, the only way down was by zipline and we only had one setup. If you look at me and see how skinny I am... I think you'd also understand his concern. We finally took the ride down a zip-line all the way back to the base of the encampment. Mind you, this was hard as he was quite a bit heavier than I was and he was on my back, like about a good fifteen-twenty pounds heavier and we had quite a long way down, about 550 feet to get back to camp." 


Izumi looks around and takes in the sights of the park, there are people throwing Frisbee in the distances and others ahead of them walking on the trail. There were people playing with their pets and others talking about how wreaked they were last night at someone's party. His perception was trained to be keen, whilst his acquaintance had natural ability. He catches up with her once more. 


"Was there anything else of note in the town you used to live in, like, people you knew or things you used to like doing?"

Chiharu doesn't cease to let her gaze wander about as she continues on with the conversation.
"I spent alot of time with my best friend Sayuri. It was nice cause she lived right next door to me, so I didn't really have to go far or anything. Heh... I kinda miss her. I should prolly be over her by now, she had to move a while back. Gosh... I prolly spent more time at her place then at my own...."
Her voice seems to trail off in thought as they walk along.

"What did you two used to do together if you don't mind me asking, sounds like a lot of fun times were had. Also, people usually remember the most vivid and most important memories to them, if she was a good friend, I would imagine those memories would stick for a while.

Izumi noticed her voice tail off a bit at the end, and wants to gauge the reason why by continuing on this point.

"Heh, yeah... We did plenty of fun stuff. I learned to play piano because of her. We used to make up stories sometimes, she would make characters and love interests and all that stuff, while I would point out all the stuff that didn't make a bit of sense, a-haheh.. and you know she never listened to me. It was always so cute how she used to say how all of her works were 'fictitional'. Yah, she had all these crazy made up words she would use. Like how she said I was always 'super cerealous' all the time. It's not like she wasn't smart, she was just a little nuts, and that's what made her awesome."

She looks over to Izumi.
"Why do you ask?"

"You seemed to trail off a bit, that was all. I was just wondering..." 

Izumi looks away for a second, trying to hide his sudden pang of embarrassment. 

"I was just wondering, since I haven't really had any friends that closely knit if we could hang out more often was all..."

"Oh, I'm sorry..."
She lets out a small smile and continues in a soft comforting tone.
"Maybe you spent so much time competing against your rivals you never had the time to make a good friend."

"I believe that might have been the case and it's not that far off from being wrong, I've always been trying to be the best at something. My father was one to tell me that there wasn't necessarily a "best" only better. I may have taken it the wrong way and tried to be a little too much better. " 

Izumi returns his gaze to a neutral position; deciding that it would be better to change the topic. 

"Being out here is better than being cooped up in the school don't ya think."

"Yah, of course."
Chiharu lets out a bit of a giggle
"You know, it was kinda funny when I tried to leave class as soon as I was done with the class project."