The Game Begins [Open]

    Finally, a day off. Not from school, of course, but at least Asher didn't have to hurry off to work today! It was getting really tiring balancing work, class, and a new hobby. But, the teen didn't have many options as far as what to drop. Drop out of school his senior year? That was a joke! And, quitting his job just wasn't an option. So that just left hobbies, and that didn't necessarily seem like the type of thing that he could just opt out of.

    Fingers instinctively reached into his jacket pocket, to brush against a small device. Stupid obligations. At least the movement was enough to bring the redhead out of his thoughts, and focus on where he was. What had been planned as a run through the park had turned into an incredible slow wander, with little motivation to do much else. Now that he was at his destination, what should he do? It was kind of weird to just walk here and leave, wasn't it?

    Walking a little further into the park, the teen hummed a random tune while looking at the scenery. It was really weird to just come here for no reason, wasn't it? Were people looking at him? This was awkward. Pulling his hood up, Asher tried to find something to do to make this trip worthwhile. Like, oh! Board games?

    Why was the park full of board games on tables, anyway? Were they always there?

    Oh well, it was a convenient thing to busy himself with. If the young man could find someone to play with, of course. One table stood out, a chess set with a girl sitting alone. Chess was easy enough to play, wasn't it? It had been a while, but it couldn't be that hard to get back into the mindset for such a game!

    Stepping behind the empty seat, yellow eyes shifted to look at the person on the opposing side of the table. Gently pulling on the chair, Asher paused before even beginning to sit down. "Do you mind if I join you?" Props to him for trying to start off on the right foot with someone, for once!

    Hesitating for a second at the surprising response from the girl, Asher flashed a small smile. What, had she been off in her own world? He could relate to that all too well! Taking a seat, the teen took a better glance over his opponent. She was probably close to his age, and... well, pretty! Learning from the last time that he had tried to compliment a girl on her appearance, he chose not to make comment. Asher really didn't want to get kicked again! Not that this person seemed quite as volatile. Looks could be deceiving though, couldn't they?

    "Ah, right," the redhead hummed, debating on what kind of move to make. In the meantime, since introductions were being made, eyes lifted back up from the board to try to make eye contact with the girl. Amelie? That was a pretty name, too. "I'm Asher." Smile widened slightly, with a tilt of his head. They didn't seem to be following Japanese formalities, considering he had no idea what this girl's last name was, so he wasn't going to bother providing his own! "Hope you don't mind, it's been a while since I've played." He was probably going to be awful at this!

    Trying to play safe, Asher shifted the pawn, closest to his hand, two spaces forward. What would that be? H-4? Maybe he should leave it to his sister for figuring out what numbers and letters corresponded to everything on a chess board.

    Still, the teen seemed caught up on the name that he was given. It certainly wasn't a name for someone from around here, was it? "I think there's a French movie, titled the same as your name," he hummed, thoughtfully. "I haven't watched it, but..." Where was Asher going with this? Trailing off, the young man didn't seem to have much intent to continue that train of thought. Oh well! "I guess I should have asked first," Asher was quick to find something further to state. If Amelie had been wanting a more talkative partner, it seemed that she might have gotten it! But, only if it was acceptable. "You don't mind talking during the game, do you? I know some people really need the silence." Or, maybe, his sibling just wanted him to shut up whenever they played! It was hard to say! But, some people had a hard time concentrating when there was noise, didn't they?

    Man, he was going out of his way to be considerate today, wasn't he? Maybe the teen was finally learning how to properly communicate with people!

Luckily, Amy's initially strange response was taken in stride. That was kind of a relief.

"Pleased to meet you, Asher." She responded, a small smile gracing her face. At least everything was going well now. "Oh, of course I don't mind. I haven't played in a while, either. At least if you don't count the games I've played today, that is."

Getting some rust off her hands was probably one of the reasons that had drawn her here in first place. She enjoyed playing, and because she wasn't interested on being anything more than a casual player, this environment was just perfect.

The game itself started in... a rather strange way. To say the least, h4 wasn't a very common opening move, and had Amy slightly puzzled at it. Before she could make her move, however, his comment caught her with the guard down... again.

To not to delve to deeply into the matter, she had watched the namesake movie some time ago, like... when she was thirteen or so. She remembered seeing a part of it that, well...

Let's just say that, right now, she was blushing in a really bright shade of red at the memory of it.

"I-It's an interesting movie." The brunette mentioned offhandedly, or at least trying to. Concentrating on the board again, she took a pawn and placed it on d5, really thankful that the topic had gone towards another direction.

"Don't worry. I don't." Imagining herself all concentrated at stuff at something that at the core of it was just a game sounded a bit ridiculous, in all honesty. "I mean, I can imagine people playing silently in competitions and that stuff, but this is just for fun."

In a way, the social aspect was one of the things that made games enjoyable for the teen. What she didn't enjoy, however, were expected crashing sounds. Jumping on her chair, both surprised and a little scared, Amy looked in the direction where she had heard the sound.

"Oh... it was just a ball." There was some relief on her voice; somebody must've kicked it too strongly or something. Accidents like that could happen at any moment, and the responsible seemed like a good enough person to take responsibility on his actions.

She decided to focus on the game and her opponent's move once again, initially deciding to ignore the strange electronic sound coming from the newcomer's direction, but eventually... growing a bit concerned about it.

"Are you okay?" The girl asked him. Those were some weird sounds.

Ramon froze in place like a deer caught in headlights, the situation beginning to unravel around him. The stupid thing wasn't shutting up no matter how hard he jammed on the buttons. Since most of the pieces had been picked up Ramon felt somewhat justified to address the two of them. When Ramon turned around his heart sank just a little bit more, both of them were way taller than he was. Internally Ramon cursed, talking to tall people in a foreign land was a bad recipe for good conversation.

Ramon coughed to clear his throat before he addressed the two of them, but he made the mistake of speaking in Spanish instead of Japanese. "Hola! I'm sorry I interfered with your game amigos! It's uhhh... my phone's really crappy!" Ramon stated with a slight nervous glance at his digivice. Typically the thing made no noise at all, but suddenly it felt the need to never shut up.

"Me? Who me? I'm doin' just fine!" Ramon stated stoically, trying to hide his nervousness. From where he stood it looked like these guys were playing....chess? He'd never played it before, what with him being a sports guy. Feeling his nervousness abate just a little, Ramon walked over and inspected the chessboard. As if his brain had suddenly switched back into Japanese, he turned to the two and asked. "So how do 'chu play this game?" he said quizzically.

Thus far, Asher’s company had been enjoyable for Amy; hopefully he’d think the same about her.

Or maybe he just thought about having a good time, or maybe… make her live in a state of perpetual blushing. It wasn’t very hard to guess that her reaction at being called “hot” was exactly that.

“Uh… what?” Probably it was a misunderstanding on her part? Or maybe he was just flirting with her. In any case, he corrected himself rather quickly. “Warm? That’s a strange word to describe a person. what’s that supposed to mean?”

Still, the brunette did her best to not lose concentration. She thought she had succeeded… at least until the ball incident happened.

Going back to the person who had just smashed a board game into the ground, he seemed to be a good person that had just done a honest mistake; nothing too bad, and certainly nothing that couldn’t be fixed rather quickly. Also, somebody who was currently talking Spanish. Not the most common thing to do in Japan, but probably he was nervous or something.

“Nothing to apologize about, don’t worry. Accidents; they happen, you know?”

The girl made a tiny shrug as she observed the newcomer more throughly. He looked like he was around her age, and that he probably liked sports and outdoor activities rather than board games.

A suspicion that his question would confirm. Still, she gave him a small smile as she explained some of the basics.

“Chess is one of those games that’s easy to pick up, but really hard to master. I’m oversimplifying a lot, but let’s just say that each piece has its own role, and that the goal of the game is to strategically outmaneuver your opponent with them. You may want to take a seat if you want to hear the details, though. Might take a while.”

Surprises wouldn’t end just there, though. Now somebody she didn’t know waved in their direction, uttering a greeting.

“You know him?” She asked them. That was probably the case, because she had no idea who the newcomer was. Her brain couldn’t process the moment when one of his arms rounded her shoulders, or when of all things, he kissed her.

Not giving him even a second to explain himself, Amy was already trying to undo the gesture. Who this guy thought he was?

“What are you doing?” Her tone wasn’t friendly, and one could say that it bordered anger, but that was to be expected. Her personal space had been invaded without her consent. “You have five seconds to get away from me.”

    Did the girl seriously not understand his wording? Ah. It must have been lost in translation, or something. Or Asher was just really bad at words. Shaking his head, the teen waved a hand in a dismissive manner. "Don't worry about it; I was just making small-talk." No point in explaining it to her, right? It might just make the blushing worse! And, as cute as that was, flat-out embarrassing a girl about how much she was blushing wasn't really in his plans for the day.

    It was easy enough to drown out the conversation with a distraction, anyway. Like the guy who had made a mess of the other table. At least he seemed friendly enough! The Spanish was certainly a throw from the norm, though! The technological sounds seemed to be brushed under the table with ease, though, and the spirit user let out a small sigh of relief, glancing back to the table.

    Feeling that Amelie had the explanation of chess under control, the redhead simply glanced over the board, debating on what move he'd want to make once they resumed their game. "Yeah, pull up a chair," the teen suggested, as his opponent neared the end of the explanation. "I get this feeling that Amelie's really good at this game." Now, was that just an empty compliment? Or did Asher seriously think that way? Then again, he expected to horribly lose the match, so it was likely that he was going to consider the winner better than him, at the very least!

    Though, if there was a saying about three being a crowd, what was four?

    "No idea," the teen found himself responding, while lifting a hand to questionably wave back at the stranger. Okay, this was just weird. And it only got weirder with the guy kissing Amelie! While normally, Asher wouldn't bat an eye at someone's boyfriend coming over to give their significant other a kiss. Especially when some guys were flocking around her! But, it was really obvious that this girl didn't actually know the stranger!

    Swinging a leg out a little, Asher caught a handle of the bag with his foot, and dragged it closer his chair, while raising an eyebrow. "Bro," the actor's tongue burned using such an awful term, but a convincing grin spread across his face. Play the part. "You know she hates when you do that in public," he pointed out, trying to talk over Amelie's warning just enough that it wouldn't go noticed by eavesdroppers, but still could be heard by the weird guy that was touching her. "And I just don't want to see it. Public displays of affection are gross!" To emphasize, the teen stuck out his tongue in disgust. It was really gross, honestly. Who would stick their lips on a stranger?

    Betting on the fact that the new-newcomer was too pre-occupied with being a total creep to notice, Asher reached down to pull the backpack up onto his lap, seeming intent on opening it. "Are you going to pay attention to her? Or do I get to see whatever secrets you brought to school, today?" If anything, fingers tapping on the top of the backpack would hopefully draw attention off of touching Amelie. Pssh. And people thought Asher could be a creep! At least he didn't go around putting his mouth on people he didn't know!

    Just don't punch the guy. Surely, Amelie could handle that part on her own, if she deemed fit.

Lugh is silent for a long moment, looking off in the distance. He seems to ignore everything that was said to him by all three people standing there. After he is sure the people following him are gone he exhales a sigh of relief. Releasing the girl he takes a step back, presses his hands palms together in front of him and offers the girl a slight bow.

"Forgive me for my rudeness, but I do believe you just saved my life. You have my humble apologies and I am in your debt." He says, very earnestly to the girl. Through his well fitting jeans, one could make out an oddly shaped device in his pocket if they were to look.

Turning his attention toward the two males, he inclines his head toward both of them. "Thank you all for playing along in my little ruse. I gotta admit I was in over my head there, and you all helped me out like I couldn't explain."

He looks directly at the guy sitting across from the girl and smirks a little. "However you won't find anything in that bag other than my sweaty clothes...and I doubt you'd be willing to do my laundry for me, hmm?" He holds out his hand toward the guy, expecting his bag back.