[ORP] Obligatory Spa Scene and Obvious Fanservice

[Suudonym]

He flashed a devilish smile in response to Akira's comment, neither confirming nor denying it - though that smirk certainly made it pretty clear which he believed. The question, though, caused him to raise his brow in surprise. "I thought it was pretty obvious," he said, shrugging. "I guess I just piss off a lot of chicks. It's a body-language-and-tone thing." Girls all seemed to express anger in similar ways, falling almost neatly into categories. It was what triggered that anger that was unpredictable. "But no, I'm not exactly boyfriend material, so."  

[Tori Honoo]

She paused just inside the doorway, able to hear the conversation behind her.
"It's not you, Nate. I don't know you well enough to grace you with such flattery," she called with a wicked smirk and a wink. It wasn't his fault she her heart was racing in panic.

It faded quickly, though, as she realized her reaction and turned the corner, putting herself out of sight. Covering her eyes with a hand, she leaned back against the wall, hoping the cool stone would help her sort out her thoughts. She had to calm down... Why was her heart flying? She hadn't had a panic attack in months, and though this one wasn't as strong...

She stayed still, piecing things together one thing at a time.... She couldn't afford to be rude to Nate or Sera... they hadn't done anything to her. Then again, neither had Akira, though he had ignored her entirely and stung her pride...and he sounded exactly like her missing friend...Lovey had been nonsensical over his presence...he had described the missing boy's spousal situation without flaw... and looked like he at the very least had to be related.

His eyes weren't the right color.
Neither was his hair.
But what did that mean?
There was hair dye.
Contacts were a thing.

No.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to calm down, the adrenaline making her head swim. She wasn't going to let this control her, not today. There had been enough of this over the past few weeks and she certainly didn't need anything else to worry over. Especially not if she had agreed to journey with Yuri...

Too many stresses...  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"Hmm...perhaps you're right. How perceptive of you, Miss Seraphine." Looking to Sera, Akira found himself astonished by her once again. She hadn't seemed all that close to the other girl, and yet she evidently had learned enough about her and paid enough attention to her to theorize something different for Dove's reasoning. It seemed she cared more about others than either she knew or she chose to let on. Maybe that's why she avoided going after the other girl. "As the only other female currently in our company, you don't plan on discovering what she's up to...?"

When he turned back to Nate, the pale-haired guy's grin made the brunet flush. For once he actually caught a glimpse of the multicolored irises that had been briefly mentioned earlier. Akira quickly returned his gaze to the steaming water. "Ah...well, I'm in the habit of doing the same, it seems, so I can never be sure if the cause of distress is me or someone else." He shrugged. "Not that I do it intentionally."

Raising his eyebrows at the last statement made by the male teen, Akira chuckled. "Aren't you?" he jeered. "I wouldn't have known."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again when Dove called out from the locker rooms. A coy smirk spread across Sera's face as she tilted it up to Nate, "Something tells me that wasn't it." Although really, she hadn't any idea what it actually was that had bothered Dove. That was kind of weird.. Though she had gotten all stiff and prissy at Akira. Maybe it was something he said..? She hadn't any idea what though. Oh well, she was sure they'd all find out soon enough.

Akira's question caused her gaze to switch to him, and she frowned thoughtfully. "No, I wasn't. Why?"  

[Suudonym]

"Pro tip," he said, leaning forward conspiratorially, "you can piss off almost anyone by saying almost anything. It's like five percent what you're saying, five percent how you're saying it, and ninety percent what the other guy's feeling at that single moment in time." 'And that's why I don't worry about pissing other people off,' he would have liked to add, but it was a little too untrue to reach his voice.

He laughed fully at the comment, raising a finger smartly, "Yeah, right? Boyfriends can't be ladies' men, you see." A passing wink before he leaned back, allowing his weight to fall to his hands and exhaling. "She doesn't seem the grudging type one way or another, so I'm sure she'll be back soon enough." That had looked like one of those 'gonna go cool my head' huffs, after all, not a 'storm out of the restaurant and force the date to pay' huff.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

"Oh, well you just seemed to have a little more insight into her thoughts was all," he answered Sera, making a general gesture. "Since it's said that no man can hope to understand a woman's thoughts, I just guessed you might have known what was wrong while we were feeling around in the dark."

"So true," Akira agreed with Nate, nodding with a solemn smile. "And isn't that a shame? One who takes the time to evaluate all those factors before speaking ends up being unable to speak very much truth at all. What a tragedy it is for those societies who have found politeness over honesty to be the most acceptable policy."

What Nate said about being a boyfriend made sense. And yet... "One has to wonder, though," he voiced, "what is the advantage to being a ladies' man if you never find a worth-while lady? Or, if you do," he added, considering, "would it be worth meeting a hundred other less-worthy lovers to give up one you really, truly connect with?" Akira turned his eyes on Sera, wondering as to her opinion on the matter as much as Nate's.  

[Tori Honoo]

After a few more long moments of stillness and silence, Dove straightened from the wall, taking a deep breath. She could handle this, she told herself, moving into the locker room for a mirror. Once one was located, she looked herself over, surprised at the few small tears that had formed at the corners of her eyes. "Of course..."

At least she had picked up the habit of not wearing much makeup from a young age, unless of course, a shoot required it. Frowning and perplexed at the tears, she brushed away with her fingertips, studying her face in the mirror as he hand then fell to her hip.

Forget it. She took another deep breath then took the elastic band from her hair, the long dark locks falling over her shoulders and cascading down her back, tousled and full. If her emotions were going to play with her today, so be it. She would look every bit the model she was all the same.

Now, though her mind still raced, she made her way back out to the others, sinking back to her seat at Nate's side with a quiet, 'Sorry about that...'  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Sera straightened up again, putting her hands in her lap as she merely offered Akira a shrug in response. "Not really," she said, then elaborated, "I just know I told her who I invited earlier and when it turned out we both knew Nate, she wasn't upset at all." So for her to be upset over it now would be silly and ridiculous, so obviously it was something else.

She didn't comment on his words of honesty and politeness to Nate, since she'd had a similar chat with him before, though she didn't at all miss how he looked to her immediately after mentioning worth-while ladies to Nate. The brunette shot a very quizzical and vaguely suspicious look at Akira. Just what was he getting at? "I'm not into ladies, so don't look at me," she teased, although she figured he wanted to know her take on the same with men or something. She didn't feel like answering at the moment, though.  

[Suudonym]

Wow okay, once words like 'society' started rolling around it was usually a good indication that things were getting a little too philosophical for Nate. He shrugged with a general sound of confirmation but decided against pursuing that subject any further lest he make an a** of himself - more than usual, even.

He laughed somewhat awkwardly, shaking his head, "I dunno, man, I'm only 20. Committing to much of anything in the long term at this age just sounds like a bad decision." He'd tried the whole 'exclusive relationship' scene before and nothing much had ever come of it, so… At the sound of someone approaching, he glanced back over his shoulder and raised a hand, offering a general greeting to the returnee and wondering if she had gotten over her anger or just come back to seethe quietly.  

[Akira Midoriyama]

Akira beamed at Nate's answer. "I think I'd have to agree with you there." Bad decisions, alright - ones he'd made time and time again.

He still really needed to work on this socializing thing. At least beyond the connection-making small talk that mattered little to commoners normal folk. It seemed like he wasn't the only one, either.

"Good to know," he laughed at Sera's tease. Her expression spoke more, but he wouldn't allow himself to read into it. He was done with trying to assume emotions and make sense of hints, only to get them completely wrong. If she wanted to ask him something, she could do it directly - either now or later. At least if she was as forthright as he'd originally made her out to be.

"Feeling better?" Akira asked Dove off-handedly.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Well, neither Nate nor Akira mentioned it, so maybe it wasn't anything.. Maybe he was just looking between the two of them innocently and hadn't been hinting at anything. She didn't like being wrong though. Inwardly she noted that Nate was indeed only 20, and therefore must have a fake ID in order to have gotten drinks for them both every time she saw him in clubs. "I think so too," the brunette agreed on the matter of serious relationships. "It's much better to go out and have fun." With a bunch of different guys. Ohh yes.

She didn't notice Dove had returned until both boys had commented on her return, so she leaned forward a bit and raised one hand briefly in greeting. Since Akira had already asked her, Sera refrained from asking also. The girl didn't need two people asking how she was.  

[Tori Honoo]

At Nate's feeble acknowledgment, she nodded offering a weak smile to both him and Sera in return as she too let her weight back on her palms behind her.

As the conversation continued, she stayed quiet, unwilling to jump into a conversation she is willingly let herself out of. When Akira addressed her, however, she turned her eyes to him for a brief second then dropped her gaze to Nate's foot in the water, pausing a moment as if surprised he had bothered to notice her. "I've been worse," she told him quietly, her voice much calmer. "The stress and steam was just getting to my head."  

[TRHQ Yuri Lowell]

Seeing Luke's hesitation, Yuri had a good idea what that was about.

"I don't think they'll mind. They just want you to be happy, and you're not happy here, so there's really no point in staying, right?"

Sounded like they were having fun out there without them anyway.

---

Emil though was just sitting there in awkward silence as Dove left, the others talked around him, and the Dove returned. He didn't really know any of them and didn't know what to say. So he just sat there.

Dove would probably see Repede watching her though as she went in an out of the women's locker room.  

[Suudonym]

Nate blinked in unvoiced confusion over Dove's explanation. Steam he could understand, it being a hot spring and all, but he wasn't sure about where this stress was supposed to be coming from. This chick sure knew how to be weird sometimes. "There's probably a vending machine around or something," he commented absently, shrugging. But then since she hadn't come back with a drink in a hand despite leaving in part because of the heat, maybe there actually wasn't a vending machine around. Hm.

--

Luke was quiet a while longer, the conflict of his thoughts manifesting clearly in his features. "I don't know," he repeated at length. "At home I'll just…" Lock himself in his room alone with his thoughts for at least the remainder of the day, despite the fact that that technique had been helping him exactly not at all. But if he stayed, then what? He'd just return to sitting off to the side, resisting any attempts at interaction and generally making everyone uncomfortable. There just wasn't really anywhere for him to go, no matter how he thought about it.  

[TRHQ Yuri Lowell]

Yuri blinked once and put a hand on his hip, looking at Luke quietly for a few moments as the boy seemed to struggle with indecision.

"All right. Then what do you want to do?"

Granted, Yuri wasn't really expecting a definitive answer from Luke. The poor kid didn't seem to know what he wanted.