Our Last Days as Children

[Nayt]

Eld pulled away before Etsu did, and Etsu found herself wanting to just lean back in and kiss him again. It felt just as nice as it did at the lake. Though, she hadn't actually heard the establishment's owner clear his throat. Fortunately, she recognized that he and Eld were both saying words, and this realization overcame her almost inescapable want to disregard morality and throw herself at Eld.

"A-- ano . . ."

The girl was noticeably uncomfortable with her thoughts at the moment. She'd all but put those feelings aside for four months, now, and she was fairly happy with that . . .

"S-- sou desu--" she said under her breath before nodding sightly to herself, "That is . . . that is good. That-- that the photo-graph was good . . . ano . . ."

She trailed off there, face burning and heart racing. She didn't completely remember what she was doing or why she was doing it . . .

[Zach Kaiser]

"Why don't you go change into a different outfit for the rest of the pictures?" the well-dressed man suggested. "Variety is the spice of life, as they say." Of course, this would also serve the purpose of giving the girl a chance to regain her composure. He wanted the confident diva from earlier, not the disoriented one that stood before him now.

I'll bet there's an interesting story to these two, he mused to himself.

******

Between changing outfits (and the backdrop; the hearts looked silly for single shots), finding new accessories, and taking the actual pictures, it was another hour before they were all done. Having changed back into his street clothes, Eld just browsed the store, though he didn't stray too far from where Etsu was. He still didn't trust the completely.

The guy, as he belatedly introduced himself as when he brought out the contract for them to sign, was Raymond Kessel. Thankfully, the contract itself was clearly worded and made no attempt to take advantage of Etsu. Once they'd picked their outfits (Eld picked the white suit, plus the three piece Cizokian one), they received a wrapped package which was their prize for the initial hoopla.

Eld got the distinct impression chance had nothing to do with what they went through, no matter what other claims were made.

It was just after they finished signing the contract (or two, rather, with one copy going to Etsu) that a roaring boom echoed through the store. "Sounds like you kids better hurry on home," Kessel observed. "Have fun you two; you're welcome back here any time."

[Nayt]

Fortunately, provided time to cool off, Etsu was able to regain her composure and return to what the man-- Kessel --considered to be a diva-like attitude. She was no longer soft in her dialogue and showed confidence where moments earlier she appeared to have none.

And it certainly made for some good shots . . .

Especially the cropped suit, actually. That shot probably turned out the best. Etsu wore dark sunglasses for that one, pushed her hair all back behind her ears, and wore noticeably red lipstick for that shot. She looked ten kinds of dangerous during that one. And honestly, that was probably the appeal. Or at least it should have been. The other shot entailed her wearing a green-ish, sleeveless kimono that came down to the middle of her thighs. It came with fishnet stockings and fishnet sleeves and it was kind of weird to Etsu. It gained much more attention than any of the other outfits (excluding the red dress), so she went with that, regardless of how wrong it felt, and adopted a very "mysterious" like persona for the shot. It went well, but she was still more fond of the suit.

By the end of it, she picked a total of four outfits to call her own: the dress, the suit, an outfit seemingly built around intentionally damaging denim and leather, and this fairly modest (or at least as modest as it could get) corset and knee-high skirt combo. Which wasn't to say that, before signing her contract with Kessel, she didn't buy some accessories and shoes to match, because she did. And Eld was probably going to wind up carrying a majority of them.

"Arigatou gozaimasu, Kesser-r-san," Etsu said at last with a slight bow of her head.

Hopefully this would help her in the long run, because now she was most definitely not an amateur. There were now photographs of her as a model out there, and she now had a contact in this town. So if that career ever became a potential option for her-- which was most certainly something she'd never ever considered before --she had a foot in the door already.

So she took her rewards and her purchases and left with Eld . . . but not before "gently" coercing him into carrying over half of her bags for her.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld heaved a sigh as he gathered up most of the bags; while the ones with the clothing were light, he wondered why he had to get the one with her shoes and all her accessories as well. All of it combined together was a little straining.

Once they stepped outside, the source of the earlier roar would become obvious: the sky was now dark not just because it was getting late, but because black clouds had completely covered it while they were inside the store. "Ah! We better hurry back and get home."

This shopping trip had taken a lot longer than he'd thought; granted, there was no way either of them could predict what just happened, but Etsu didn't exactly help with the way she jumped on the chance to model.

[Nayt]

Despite the kiss and a brief reprise of feelings she'd long since tried to bury, Etsu was on cloud nine. She kept feeling as if she'd really taken a step forward in her life. Maybe it wasn't exactly a step that would drive her parents to take pride in her work, but when was that something that ever crossed her mind? . . . Actually, making her mother proud was something that dominated Etsu's thoughts for a long time, but as she hadn't heard from her mother in months . . . Well, suffice to say, while she wasn't exactly going out of her way to spite the woman, she wasn't exactly keeping her best interests in mind anymore.

Outside, though, Etsu found the sky dark, muddled with storm clouds, and roaring down at them like an angry lion. Before, she was completely fine with taking her time getting home. In fact, she was going to suggest they get something to eat while they're out. A cost covered by Eld, of course. But now . . .

". . . that is . . ." she muttered under her breath, ". . . not very good at ar-rr."

. . . hurrying was suddenly a great idea. Though . . .

"How r-rong wir-rr storm r-rast?" she asked as an afterthought, a decision on a moment's notice as she thought of an alternative option to running like crazy for the next two hours and probably being drenched by the storm anyways.

[Zach Kaiser]

"I don't know..." While Eld was certainly well educated in a number of subjects, he couldn't exactly predict the weather. It might be pour itself out in twenty minutes, or it might last well into the night.

Then he spotted something he really didn't like. "Uh oh. See that?" He pointed at the sky in the direction Hillcrest was. "The way those clouds are kind of swirling? We might get tornadoes; we really don't want to get caught in those."

"Besides, if we try and walk back in the rain, we'll ruin our new clothes." Even though they weren't wearing them, the bags wouldn't be able to hold up for two hours in the rain. "We should find somewhere to wait it out."

[Nayt]

There were very few times when Etsu smiled. So far, there really seemed to only be two reasons she ever smiled around Eld. First, if he was getting his just desserts. Being Eldridge Tsukimono was a sin enough that he deserved some level of consistent punishment. Second, if she was feeling particularly soft and wanted to reassure him of something. There was, however, a secret third, one that happened even fewer than the former two: when she was actually impressed with something he said or did. It was the very reason she smiled just now.

"Tame, Tsukimono-kun," she replied as though Eld was somehow worth talking down to as if he were a dog, "I was thinking of same."

She began to look down both sides of the street. From what she knew, night life in Galaens was very active. There was no way they were going to be without at least something to do.

"I sug-gest you take me to dinner," she said with a sagely nod, "And after, if it is no r-ronger storm-ing, we wir-rr war-rk home. Or . . . if it is not so bad, we wir-rr get umbre . . . umbure . . . umburrer . . ."

Oh God it was that word again. How could she have forgotten? That's what she got for thinking in Cizokian and speaking in Common! Etsu hated that word. It was evil. Sort of like "refrigerator." She simply could not say it. No one where she came from could.

". . . amagasa," she used the Cizokian word for it instead, "Or there are many other activ-ity that I think possibr-re here, if storm stir-rr bad."

[Zach Kaiser]

"Umbrella," Eld supplied helpfully. Granted, he knew she couldn't pronounce it, but that was she got for patronizing him. Really, knew didn't know how much an umbrella would help though; if they had tornado like conditions, it was going to get a lot windier before long.

I knew we should have taken a horse. But Etsu didn't know how to ride very well, and the idea of the two of them on the same horse was...well, given what happened at the store it seemed kind of silly to worry about now.

"Well, is there any place in particular you want to eat?" He Etsu wasn't very familiar with Galaens, but they'd been walking around it all day and she might have seen a place she liked. If not, she could always suggest what she wanted to eat, and he'd probably know of a place.

[Nayt]

Etsu paused to think about it for a moment, which was decidedly better than stamping on Eld's foot and ruining all of their outfits simultaneously.

"I have not had food from home in many month," Etsu replied pointedly, adding a moment later: "And ojisan is horribr-re cook."

Because they'd eaten Cizokian food at Eld's house before and it was a travesty. It was really no wonder why Eld did most of the cooking around there. Which was better than Etsu, at least. Urikuse knew how to cook something. Etsu, on the other hand . . .

Suffice it to say, though she'd gotten near perfect scores in all her classes, house keeping was her weakest subject.

[Zach Kaiser]

"W-Well...supposedly he was pretty good once," Eld said in a halfhearted defense of his father. Before he started doing the cooking it was mostly his father doing it, but that was a long time ago now and he was probably well out of practice. "But I think I know a place."

He led her a few blocks down; it would be pretty obvious where they were going even before the got there. The three story building stood out from others around it, as it was built from the ground up in Cizokian style. Like most restaurants in Galaens, it doubled as an inn; only the especially fancy ones or smaller cafe's didn't, usually.

Hopefully this would meet Etsu's tastes; another boom of thunder echoed down the streets, causing Eld to look up at the sky. It seemed like it would rain any minute...

[Nayt]

Etsu followed Eld's lead, saying nothing to Eld's defense of his father. If Urikuse could cook well at one point or another, why could he not do it now? Cooking was one of those things that you did not fail at because you were out of practice. You'd at least do decently . . .

"This wir-rr do," she replied.

She tried to sound uninterested, but the very fact that this place was built using traditionally Cizokian architecture was really quite exciting to Etsu. That must have meant their food was great. Which was kind of a misnomer on her part, but she didn't know any better.

After all, where she came from, everyone cooked fairly traditional meals. So if you had a Cizokian looking house and you owned that house, you probably cooked fairly traditional food, and it was always good to her.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld nodded in affirmation, and led them inside. They were seated by a Cizokian girl he probably would have noticed as pretty if he wasn't relatively used to being around a very pretty Cizokian girl.

Their waiter, however, was notably not Cizokian. He had a ponytail that went just past his shoulders, a scraggly beard, and glasses that were perpetually falling halfway down his nose. His nationality could have been anything from Algerothian to Greoulian to something on the other continent.

"Hello, I'll be your server today...can I start you two with something to drink? Sake, sodas...?" He squinted at them; they both appeared to be around sixteen, so they were old enough to drink, he was pretty sure.

[Nayt]

At first, Etsu was fairly pleased. A Cizokian to seat them? This was a good sign. In no time at all, though, they were met by someone who clearly did not belong here. This was disappointing to her, but oh well. She wasn't in Cizok. She couldn't hope for a completely ethnic experience.

Etsu looked at Eld curiously when prompted to ask for a drink. She'd never had sake before. No one would actually let her drink it back home. The same applied to a lot of alcoholic drinks--and all things smoked, too. Not that she was ever too interested in trying them all out, but . . .

"Do you want sake?" she asked him in all honesty.

She wasn't necessarily against it, and they weren't going anywhere anytime soon, either. This was all coming out of Eld's pocket, anyways. Sake, from what she knew, could be kind of expensive when not consumed in winter, but money wasn't something she had to worry about when someone else was spending it.

[Zach Kaiser]

"I've never had sake before," Eld admitted. The responsible thing to do would be to go without; he was barely of age and Etsu was actually underage, but...well, he always wanted to have more experience with Cizokian culture, and his parents didn't generally keep sake around. (His father sometimes bought some for special occasions, but he'd never had any.)

And they'd probably be here at least an hour while the storm was outside, and that was a low estimate. As long as they were reasonable about it, it would be okay, he figured.

But he'd leave it to Etsu; he wasn't going to drink and potentially be an ass if she was going to abstain. "Do you want to try some?" he asked her.

[Nayt]

Etsu shrugged her shoulders. "I have not had it be-fore."

It just never came up. Well, not when it was actually imperative or whatnot. When she was younger, she once asked to try some, and she was not allowed. She figured she wouldn't be allowed right now, either, but the waiter was offering it to the both of them, so . . .

"But I wour-rd try it, yes," she said with a nod.

Why not? What would it hurt? It wasn't like their day could be ruined. No matter what, they were going to be walking home in the dank darkness, practically in the middle of the night, with nothing but mud between them and Hillcrest. The night was going to suck no matter what they drank.