[[ @waspandr continued from here ]]
“You sound shocked,” She noted a little crossly before shooting a slight glare from her beyond her shoulder. Given her experiences prior, it wasn’t an unusual reaction. It seemed everyone was surprised whenever she was outside of her uniform. Still, that hadn’t stopped the flush of pink from crossing her pale cheeks. The way his gaze lingered on her with that dumb grin spread and plastered itself across his face hadn’t helped either. Shifting awkwardly on her feet, she’d start to dust the sheer fabric off, picking bits of lint here and there from looser threads, more or less fidgeting in place with whatever she could until he regained what little sense he had.
“How long will it take to get there?” Following the blonde, she threaded through the aisles and endcaps, stopping a few steps behind him as he reached the threshold. She’d already consigned to spending four hours with the blonde but, that had been with multiple stops. Now, as far as she knew, there was only one place to stop by but, that didn’t mean it would be a shorter trip.
Browsing out from the Shouten doors, her eyes followed the trodden-down path southbound for a time. Then, as that arm jutted out in offering and caught her eye, she lowered them and stared, almost baffled by the gesture. A second passed, and she drew her attention higher, catching a glimpse of gray staring right back at her from the shadows.
“Hurry up. I want to get there before its’ all sold out,”
Now he stood awkwardly stooped in the doorway, abruptly blindfolded by his own hat's brim, one arm dangling akimbo and untaken, as she proceeded past him out the door.
After a moment's pause, he tipped up his brim, straightened up and chuckled breezily. For all her show of impatience, she wouldn't get terribly far without him, now would she? With a smirk, he stepped forward, and then continued his stride apace, trusting her to fall in beside him.
"It's only a few minutes' walk to the station, and then it shouldn't be a long wait for a train at this hour." Gravel crunched beneath the teeth of his geta as they set out in a southerly direction. As he walked, he drew an old dog-eared timetable from his coat pocket, unfolded it as a comically floppy accordion, and consulted it. Of course he could avail himself of the trip planner on his Aifōn, but consulting the shopworn pamphlet was habit. "I believe Chuo Line to Nambu is the most straightforward," he determined. "And then it's just a brief jaunt on the Tōyoko Line to Motosumiyoshi Station. All told, a little over an hour? Haha—" It struck him that the trip might test her patience, but what a fine opportunity to cultivate that quality, no? "It's just three trains—a hop, skip, and a jump, and worth every step!" Not that he'd ever been to the Ikumi Mama donut shop. But he was selling the experience of an outing with him, after all, and he could show a lady a good time, couldn't he?
With almost the same panache with which he folded his fan—or at least so he attempted; the light breeze fought him and some of the folds bent backward until he got it all sorted—the timetable was refolded.
Once he'd stowed it, he gave her a sidelong smile. "Have you taken a train before in the Living World, Soi Fon?"
