[FIN] Coming to an Understanding

[Suudonym]

"Well no, yeah," he returned his attention to her, waving a hand to dismiss her apparent concerns. "I'm happy; I mean of course of I'm happy. I just… didn't know it was worth mentioning? It doesn't really change a whole lot, you know? I still feel the same way I have for months, just with less… doubt. And suspense. I guess." His gaze had gradually migrated back to his lap during the course of his response and now remained there once more.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

It was apparent that Luke's mind was running along similar tracks as Rosie's - meaning, he didn't really seem to know anything about dating either, if he was assuming nothing would really change. "Well of course it was worth mentioning," she replied, her eyebrows raised. "And yeah, it does change things. Man, you guys obviously don't know the first thing about dating, do you? Rosie didn't either," the brunette added without giving Luke a chance to respond one way or the other. But still, he said he was happy, but he didn't exactly look like it.

Sera turned her head to regard Luke with a soft frown, waiting a few moments before speaking again. "Y'know, Rosie seemed really happy and even excited when she and I talked about it. You... look like someone just kicked your baby pokemon or something," she pointed out. Hey, if he wouldn't get subtleties - which was obvious from her attempts to bring up this conversation in the first place - she wasn't going to bother trying them now with something else.  

[Suudonym]

"Sorry," he replied, withdrawing slightly. He hadn't imagined that it would be anything significant to anybody but himself and Rosie, and they had already resolved their feelings on the matter. Her following words elicited some confusion. She was correct in her assumption; Luke had never as much as heard of dating, but perhaps his ignorance wasn't terribly uncommon if Rosie wasn't aware either. "It… doesn't sound familiar?"

Her analogy startled him, and he shook his head emphatically, "No! I'm really happy, it's just… kind of embarrassing to talk about?" He shrugged helplessly.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Okay, at least Rosie knew what dating was, even if she didn't know many of the specifics, if any. Apparently Luke hadn't even heard of it, and such a fact was hard for Sera to wrap her head around.

"Well, I guess that makes sense," she ceded with a light frown. Girls always did seem much more inclined to discuss these types of things than guys - or at least, discussed it in a different way than guys did. Not that that meant she'd drop the topic, because that wasn't at all what she had in mind. "But really though, you've never even heard of dating?" Her tones became rather incredulous. "Y'know - boyfriend-girlfriend stuff?" Surely he'd at least heard of that, right?  

[Suudonym]

He began to shake his head but paused, thoughtful, "I might have heard the words before?" The meanings, however, were a different story.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

For Seraphine, who had practically grown up knowing such concepts and words by heart as well as put them into practice for years, it was almost unbelievable that there was someone her age - a little older than her, even - who'd barely even heard the words before, and it was a few moments before she realized she'd been staring at him with a completely shocked, bewildered expression. With a shake of her head and a frown replacing her confusion, she pulled out her smartphone and began to tap away at it with her thumb while muttering, "Arceus, you and Rosie are both gonna be the death of me one of these days. At least Rosie knew what those meant - got all excited about them, even -- here." At the last word, she pushed her phone into his hands, having pulled up a webpage on dating and its definition, various terminology and implications. "That can explain it a lot better than I can because hell if I even know where to start."  

[Suudonym]

The period of clearly shocked silence that followed shamed him, and he wilted faintly under the feeling of having unknowingly disappointed his friend. Between the circumstances of his childhood and the upbringing that followed, there were a lot of things that he didn't even know he didn't know until he encountered them. He quietly accepted the device that was put in his hand, overwhelmed by the volume and depth of information he was suddenly presented with.

"This is all kind of foreign-sounding," he admitted hesitantly after a few silent minutes browsing the page. "The way I grew up, by the time I really started to understand anything, people were already saying that I was engaged to the daughter of another family, Natalia. It was all decided by our parents, and it didn't really seem to matter how much we liked one another. So this… doesn't match up with almost anything I learned."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

She couldn't remember if she'd ever even heard that name before, but if she had it obviously wasn't important enough to remember; she probably hadn't. Though, she wasn't sure if she knew any of the other stuff... But, given how big of a jerk Luke's dad was, she wasn't the least bit surprised he'd been in an arranged marriage. Or was supposed to be in one, anyway. "Well, I guess that makes sense. Why you don't know any of this stuff, I mean," she amended quickly, now feeling a little bad for being so surprised at his ignorance. If his dad had picked someone for him to marry, what did he need to know about dating for? He didn't. Or, well, he didn't before, but now he kind of did. "But, this is how it's done in Kodo. You pick for yourself who you want to be with; nobody decides it for you. You meet someone you like, and then you start dating - you become boyfriend and girlfriend - and that's code for letting other people know to back off, you're taken, so you're not interested in them like that. There's a lot more to it than that, and it's not a permanent thing if you don't want it to be, but," she shrugged, "you can probably learn a lot more about it online than having me try to think of everything and then try to explain it." Also if it was online, he didn't need to be embarrassed by talking about it with someone else. He could just be embarrassed browsing the internet alone.  

[Suudonym]

He nodded slowly, trying to understand the concept. "Is it something complicated?" He was familiar with a variety of cultural customs that involved observing varying degrees of tradition, and he assumed that if this was the common practice that there was probably some amount of ceremony to it as well.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Uhh... Yyyyes? Sort of," she said at length, elongating the initial word mostly so she could continue to think about it. "It depends what sort of complicated you're thinking, though. Sometimes it can be simple, or it can be complicated. I think in your case though it's not as complicated, since you've already taken care of the whole 'finding someone you like' and also 'seeing if they like you back' parts," she attempted to explain as she held her hand out to take her phone back.  

[Suudonym]

He returned the phone to her waiting hand, still puzzled but making every effort to reach an understanding. "Okay… What's the difference between this an engagement?" Engagement was something he knew, so it had the potential to be a reasonable point of comparison - granted, of course, that his comprehension of engagement was similar to Kodo's.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Man, this was even more complicated than trying to explain to Rosie. "Well..." Her brow furrowed as she debated how to reply, though obviously she had no experience from which to draw her information. "Dating is a lot different than being engaged. Dating is usually more casual and relaxed, and you can date someone and then break up and date someone else if you want. Engagement is what happens after you find someone you really like and you're dating, I think," she tried to explain, though her voice was rather hesitant. "Usually then, that means you want to be with them forever, so the guy will propose to the girl and they'll be engaged for however long, and usually that's more serious than dating and those don't get broken nearly as often as people break up while dating. Then after being engaged a while and they still want to be together, they get married, which is even more serious I guess because that means you can have kids and other stuff." Though people had children while engaged - or even dating - and as true as that was, it would probably only complicate and confuse the explanation that she felt was already confusing enough. "So they're similar I guess, but still really different. Dating is like experimenting and trying to find someone you want to be with, engagement is deciding that you found the person you want to be with, and marriage is making it official that you want to be with that person. And, of course, that they want to be with you too. Or at least, that's how my mother tried to explain it to me before," she added with a frown. It made some amount of sense, she supposed. Well, to her anyway; Luke could see it a different way. "Does any of that make any sense?"  

[Suudonym]

He nodded slowly, thoughtful. "I think so. They're like… levels of permanence?" That was what it sounded like it boiled down to, but the thought brought a frown to his expression. "But if it's wanting to be with her forever, that's something I've already felt for a long time; that wouldn't have changed even if she hadn't said she loved me - or if she had said she didn't love me. So…?" He looked to her quizzically, struggling to forge the connection between what he felt and what it sounded like he was supposed to feel.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Sort of... I guess?" Man, it was so easy to just understand it and not think about it. Explaining it and putting it in so many words was just confusing. "It's that and also what you feel comfortable with, and I guess also if you're ready for the more permanent levels," she attempted to explain, borrowing his words in the hopes that would help him understand it better. "Like, I've heard of some people wanting to be together forever but just staying engaged and not getting married. Or they just date forever." A shrug. "I guess it's more complicated than that, but I guess you could think of it as levels of permanence affected by what you both want to do or how you're both feeling about it, or how comfortable you guys are with stuff I guess... I dunno, it's hard to try and explain it," she finished with a frown, vaguely frustrated that she didn't actually know a better way to explain it.  

[Suudonym]

He listened, slightly frustrated himself. It didn't seem like something that could really be explained easily to someone who was socialized differently, and he didn't like the idea of having such a blatant barrier standing between him and the understanding of something that was apparently important. "Well," he said carefully, "if Rosie wants to say it's 'dating' then I don't see that there's any problem with it… right?" Sera seemed to be the resident expert, so he assumed that if there were any problems she would know what they were.