Logs:Feeling Froggy?
| Feeling Froggy? | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
|
2020-09-07 “I thought forth of July was over awhile ago.” |
| Location
<XAV> Gardens - Xs Grounds | |
From indoor gardens to outdoor, though without the protective greenhouse glass the back gardens do not last all year round. Still, the gardens out here are well-tended and well-worth spending time in, as well. The paths wending through the beds of flowers and herbs and vegetables spread out through the school's back grounds, tended by students as a credit class. Benches offer seating and a small pond is home to koi and turtles, as well as a few frogs. At the far back edges of the garden, a droning buzzing marks a few stacked white boxes as beehives. It's not quite fall but it's starting to feel like it, this last night of freedom before classes start tomorrow. The garden is mild, verging on cool, tonight, a slight breeze rustling the greenery. It's quiet, the mansion brightly lit and boisterous, the playground and sports fields off in the distance still occupied, but out here, mostly, peaceful. Way off in one corner by some pink-blossomed butterfly bush there's a snap-crackle of a sparkler, drawing bright zigzagged swirls in green light in the air. A small Japanese girl is perched on a rock, thermos held between her thighs and her eyes tracing the path of the sparks. In the crackling illumination she's by turns too bright and only a dark silhouette, her black dress, lacy shrug and chunk-heeled lace-up boots hard to pick out too many details on. Taylor’s body was draped on the ground as he laid by the koi pond his fingers danced in the water as he made small ripples in the water while the fish swam lazily around the vibrations caused by Taylor. He didn’t even realize how late it had actually gotten until he looked up seeing the dusk settle over the backyard and the bright sparks coming from the corner. He pushed himself off the ground shoving his hands in his jean pockets and letting his worn out sneakers guide him to the sparks. “I thought forth of July was over awhile ago.” Taylor said when he eventually got close enough. "It's a holiday," Nanami replies lightly, "I'm sorry you hate fu --" Her sentence cuts off here as she swings her sparkler around, its bright but erratic light illuminating Taylor's face now for the first time. She lets out a high-sharp yelp, dropping her sparkler to slide down the side of her rock and fall to the smooth-paved stone pathway. Her eyes are big-wide, her hand flying to her mouth. Then dropping back to her side. "Um," she fumbles. "We -- you -- are -- new?" He stopped walking as she turned around quickly waving the light through across his face and her surprised expression as well. He ignored the usual reaction and focused on the sparkler that now laid by his feet still slightly illuminating the two in the dark. He quickly stepped on it to extinguish the light as the girl stammered yo stumbled talking. “Yes I’m new. What gave it away?” He asked hypothetically. He could still make out small facial features of the girl under the stars and moon but not as much as before which is more of a relief for him than for her. Nanami starts to slide down after her sparkler but stops with a frown when Taylor steps on it. Her eyes narrow; she clambers back up the rock, crossing her legs and reaching for her purse. "Chee, you worry the rock gonna burn?" No worries; she has a whole pack! She tugs another long slim stick out of her purse; a cheapo lighter, too. "This school has like, ten people in it, new faces stand out. Is ragging on people for enjoying themselves how they say hi where you're from or --?" Flick, flick; the next sparkler sputters red light, when she gets it lit. Taylor smiled and shook his head, “no I got bored talking to the fish and figured in person conversations might be a tad bit better.” He confessed, as she lit another sparkler as once again both of them were lit up by now a red light between the two of them. “Is playing with off season fireworks how an enjoyable past time or...” he said leaning the side of his body against the rock where she was sitting. "Funny, I'm getting bored right now. Between fish and smug douchebags who think coming over literally just to shit on someone else's fun is a good time, I'd take the fish." Nanami isn't looking at Taylor anymore; she's pulled headphones out of her purse, too, tucking them into her ears and tapping at her phone. Happily returning to tracing designs -- a loopy-curled flower, this time -- in glittering red burst in the air, the fluttering edges of the sparks shivering down above where Taylor now leans. Was he being an asshole? He thought he was just making conversation... he would have to work on social cues later. He grabbed onto the rock letting his palms stick to the surface before he climbed up easily and sat next to the girl partially to be out of the way from the sparkler and she seemed to be ignoring him. He watched her trace flowers and other stuff with the sparkler leaving delayed lights here and there as it spun in the air. “I wasn’t making fun of your past time.” He said after a big fo her drawing. He wasn’t even sure if she could hear him with her headphones on but he figured an apology is an apology still. “I was just making an observation.” Whether or not Nanami can hear him with the headphones on is an open question -- but her eyes narrow sharply when he starts to climbs up the rock beside her. Her jaw clenches sharply, she transfers the sparkler to her off-hand -- -- only to ball her right one up and slam it, hard, towards his chest as he starts to settle. Her small size belies a lot of compact sports-player muscles; her prim dress and neat makeup belies the fact that this is definitely not the first punch she has thrown in her life. "You fucking lolo, boy?" Taylor felt his chest compress as he was knocked off the rock by the punch and laid on the ground wind knocked out of him from the sudden punch and fall. “I-I don’t even know-“ he had to pause to catch his breath as he wheezed out his words “what a fucking lolo is.” He said confused on what he did to be punched like that. Nanami's jaw has set. She flexes her fingers, cracks her neck from side to side, pressing the earbuds against her shoulders to settle them more firmly. Then scoots just a little farther back on the rock, snapping a picture and then tapping quickly at her phone to send a message as Taylor wheezes on the ground. It seems -- unlikely, at best, that she is interested in clarifying the definition of lolo, or anything else, for that matter.
Taylor sighed and pulled himself into a seating position in front of the rock. What did he even do? As he looked up he noticed the girls door dangling just above. Instinctively his tongue shot out from his mouth and wrapped around the girls ankle before pulling her off the rock the only reason he pulled away is because a strong elected current ran up his mouth and it hurt like hell on his wet tongue Nanami squeals as Taylor's tongue wraps around her. She skids, sliding towards the edge of the rock, and slams her free -- heavy, hard, stompy-soled boot, heel-first towards his face as he drags her down. Her breath whooshes out of her; she lands kind of scrambling, ankle twisting, back slamming against the rock. Throws the still-lit sparkler angrily towards him, more a reflexive panicked flail than an actual attack. "What the fuck is wrong with you you fucking perv?" Snatching her bag off the rock, she hastens -- half limping -- back towards the school.
| |
