Terrible Ideas (Maia/Isaac/Elliot)

Okay, yeah. Those questions were a lot harder to answer. Thankfully Maia took the spotlight off of him before he could come up with another crazy excuse. With questions that hard, either he'd have to know his shit really well or come up with some really lucky excuses. Either way, it'd only get everyone dug deeper into this mess, which would only lead to disaster with how hard-hitting these questions were getting. A shame. At least he tried his best.

It was worth it for the look on Maia's mom's face when she first saw him, though.

As he tried to think of a way of politely stepping down the situation, Kuu decided to drop down the truth in that special Kuu-like fashion. The situation went from bad to worse as the room fell silent, Isaac deciding that he'll be calling out both Kuu and Elliot on his gravestone if he gets killed over this. Why couldn't his first meeting with Maia's family have been nice and normal, instead of this seemingly endless string of bad choices? Figuring that with the cat out of the bag there was no way this situation could get worse, he decided to just come clean.

"Okay, that's only half the reason I came." No, really? I never could've guessed! "I'm mostly here because I've been worried about Maia. She hasn't been too happy at school lately, and we haven't been able to text or video chat in a while, and, I, well-" A red tone started to come to Isaac's face, the mark of someone who was about to step up in a potentially disastrous situation.

"And I really care about her. A lot. Your daughter's really special, and I couldn't just not be there for her when she's been feeling like this. Even if just for a quick visit, I wanted to help brighten her day a bit." The blush started to cool as he finally squeezed the words out, but a bit of pink still lingered as he continued. "I'm sorry if this isn't really the best first impression." At least he came clean about it.

Isaac bristled slightly at the casual insult towards Maia. Come on, she was great! Was it really that hard to believe someone could see Maia as amazingly as he did? Still, at least she left, and now things seemed okay. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not. "Thank you very much, Mrs. Quinn!" he said, the cheerfulness trying to push down the nerves currently building up in his throat. On one hand, this wasn't a disaster! On the other hand, oh god, there was still so much room for this to be a disaster!

Once the dust settled he turned to Maia, frowning slightly. "I made a huge mess, didn't I? I'm really sorry," he said. Sure, he was really excited to have a chance to eat with Maia again, and maybe meet the parents in a less scream-y fashion, but he was also concerned that he was giving poor Maia a massive headache with his presence alone. Maybe pushing him out the window would've been the smarter idea after all.

Then Isaac felt his phone buzz. Quickly he pulled out his pocket and checked it, only for his nose to wrinkle in irritation at the text he got.

"Are you dead yet?"

He showed the phone to Maia, sighing a bit. As irritating as the text was, though, at least Elliot had lightened the mood a tiny bit. "Can you believe it? After everything I've done for this kid," he muttered, now having a new goal in mind. It was officially Prove Elliot Wrong Day.

"So, is there anything I should keep in mind for Family Dinner Night? You know, besides no Digimon stuff."

Isaac took Maia's hesitation as a vote of confidence, considering that she would be the first one to tell him to his face when he's screwed. It was tricky territory indeed, but he was just going to get down there, be himself, and hope everything turned out for the best. Kuu being there helped, but what if that brought the conversation to Digimon? Oh god, what if that brought the conversation to being a spirit user? When Maia's mom was already freaking out about demons, "by the way, I turn into an imp" was probably the worst possible thing Maia's boyfriend could ever stay.

Isaac looked thoughtful for a second, then shrugged and lobbed his Digivice out the window. Better safe than sorry. It landed in the bushes, upon which he heard a thunk. "Hey! I was joking!" came the protesting voice of Elliot.

"Sorry!" Isaac called. "I'm not dead yet, but lets call that your inheritance."

"I'll call the mourners." And with that Elliot prepared the long walk back home, Isaac rolling his eyes.

With Maia explaining the situation, there was a renewed confidence in Isaac's step. He gladly took Maia's hand, following her to the door before stopping as she asked her next question. It was a very important one to consider, especially because asking the wrong questions at the dinner table could make today a nightmare instead of a dream come true. "Mind telling me a bit about your family? Just quick little details, so I can try and find common ground with any of them. That'd probably be a huge help.

Other than that, I'm ready when you are."

Isaac listened attentively to Maia's advice, constantly jotting down mental notes about the few, yet important, details there were to spare. "Does she call him a devil for speaking in tongues?" he asked, getting the one joke he had out of the way so it wouldn't come up at the worst possible time during this dinner data.

The rest of the information was silently and diligently processed. If anything but phones and live animals was fair game, that was still more leeway than what most houses had. "That shouldn't be a problem," Isaac said confidently. "Back at home, mom'd kill us if we brought anything to the table, let alone phones. Besides, I'm here to meet your family, not do other stuff.

Or, at least, now I'm here to meet your family." To think today had started with the simple mission statement of sneak in and brighten Maia's day. And now, here they were. Hand in hand he followed Maia out of the room, ready to see the horrifying secrets that lied within the Quinn household.

Shock and horror! It was perfectly normal. It was interesting how much of a complete transformation Maia's mom had made, from intimidating and furious to relaxed and casual. Sure, she was still chiding away at the family, but she was treating her husband way more laxly than she treated Maia earlier. It gave Isaac hope that this was going to be a perfectly normal family dinner.

How long had it been since he had one of those?

He slipped his hand into his pocket, hitting the mute button on his phone a few extra times for good measure, and steeled himself for touchdown at the table. Of course, before he could do that, there was one more person left to greet. Admittedly, this was going to be the hardest part. On their first few dates, Maia had made it perfectly clear that her dad didn't want any boys in the house. Now he was going to be sitting across the dinner table from him. If Maia's mom was scary enough, her dad was going to probably send shivers down his spine. It didn't help that Maia was his first girlfriend, and he really had no idea what to say in these sorts of situations.

Well, in the end, honesty was the best policy.

"Hello, Mr. Quinn. My name is Isaac. It's a pleasure to meet you," he said, bowing respectfully. Maia's dad might not have even seen, considering he was super into his book, but Isaac was still going to do his damn best to leave a good impression.

Yep. As Isaac figured, Maia's dad was currently in a world of his own. At least it seemed to be the case willingly, judging by the misdirection he pulled with his glasses. Seemed like he would be picking book after fingers after all, or at least he would once Maia's mom went back to the room. Judging by Maia's smirk this seemed to be a common occurrence, or at least one that happened often enough to get recognized.

Was this their secret signal for talking about Kuu, prior to the incident? Isaac couldn't be sure if he meant 'friend' or 'friend' with his prior comment.

"Oh, do you mean my brother?" Isaac asked, deciding to play it safe for now. "He gave me a boost before heading back home. We may not have been here before, but he's getting surprisingly good at finding his way around." As for what je was doing now? Well, when a big new release dropped, there was only really one place Elliot decided to go. It was amazing Isaac was able to pry him off of World of Warcraft long enough for this plan to work! Still, he decided to let the first half of the question answer the second for him. Maia's father already seemed to understand what was afoot nine times out of ten, judging by what Maia and Kuu always said about him.

At Maia's father's request Isaac took a seat, picking whichever one was across the table from Maia. He was going to need all the help and support he could get from her to survive this crazy day. Besides, if he was directly across from her, he'd easily be able to pick up the atmosphere in the room from her facial expression. It would make finding which conversation topics worked and which were no-gos so much easier. "What are you reading?"

Maia's dad seemed to be way more supportive and relaxed about this than Maia made him sound, considering his comments about the door. Briefly Isaac felt like a huge idiot for planning all of this sneaking around without guessing that he could just ask for permission. Then again, even Maia seemed surprised about how calmly he was taking everything. Isaac just chalked it up to things for keeping in mind in the future.

Like how tall Elliot was. Considering that Isaac knew a growth spurt would be hitting Elliot any day now, it was a statement that rang more true than Maia's father could ever realize. That was tallness in the future, though, rather than the problem solving of the present. "Eh, not really. But we're pretty clever at solving problems," he explained, letting Maia's father come to his own conclusions. The mental image of Elliot on stilts was probably the best one he could think of at the moment. At the second comment from Maia's father, Isaac grinned a little. "That's fine. Getting a chance to see her was worth the climb," he said. Sure, Mr. Quinn might have made him work forcthe right to see his daughter, but there was no work that could ever dissuade Isaac from her.

He watched curiously as Maia's father and Kuu put their plan into motion, with an efficiency that suggested they had made bargain for table scraps many times in the past. Briefly, Isaac wondered what Maia's mom thought of her husband making pacts with a demon, but he shook the thought to focus on the book that was placed in front of him. Surprise, surprise, he couldn't read it. There went a possible conversation topic. He nodded to concur with Maia's statement, but figured he would at least ask a little further. "What's it about?"

And then Maia's mother made her return, serving up a question that Isaac definitely wasn't going to give the full story of. "Well, me and my brother, while sharing a body, tumbled out of a trash can and met your daughter" wasn't a story that Isaac wanted to tell Maia's parents. Or anybody, really. In fact, he would be a far happier person if he never brought that incident up again. Instead he decided to just tell the relevant parts of the truth. "My brother and I were doing some exploring, getting a feel for the city. It was only our third day here, so there was still so much we needed to get accustomed to," he explained. "And while we were there we bumped into Maia. When you're at Scramble Crossing and don't have a strong grasp of the language meeting another English speaker makes things so much less confusing. So we decided to stick together to keep from being overwhelmed. We helped her do some shopping, she helped us navigate back home, and we ended up chatting the day away. She's probably the first friend we met here in Japan, really." And nowadays she was so much more.