FREEDOM!!!

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((OoC: I think everyone should know by now that I don't put the little tags in my titles cause they ruin them. My beautiful titles... *pets his title.* er >.> um... Yeah. Anyways Chi only! Whoosh!))

The taxi slowed to a stop in front of the small pizzeria. Saint removed some money from his wallet and paid the driver, with a nice tip, before getting out with Chi. The small Italian decorated restaurant was about a tenth of a mile from the beach, allowing the seats outside to get the smell of the sea and feel the breeze. If someone wanted that ambience all they had to do was ask. Saint opted for the outside seating, so the waitress lead them back out the door to one of the tables. He hoped Chi didn’t mind pizza, well Italian. Once seated Saint took a moment to glance over his shoulder at the ocean behind him, it was great to be out of that hospital. The hostess handed them a pair of menus before going about her business, soon her place would be taken by a waiter who stood ready to take their orders.

“Can I get a medium mushroom pizza and a cheery coke?”

“And you miss?”

The waiter then turned to Chi after scribbling down Saint’s order. Saint was personally starving and would probably finished the pizza by himself. Though, it might not be considered the best thing to do, to eat an entire pizza in front of anyone, he really didn’t care. Being out of the hospital after all that meant doing whatever he wanted for a day. Yay freedom!

[chihiro]

Things moved fairly quickly after they walked out of the hospital doors and whoosh, they were in front of the pizza parlour. Glancing up at the big pizza slice that served as a sign, the dark haired girl clutched her stomach as it grumbled. Food had been a good idea afterall.

She was glad to be sitting outside, the weather was quite nice out, and it was a wonderful view of the ocean from here.

“Can I get a medium mushroom pizza and a cheery coke?”

“And you miss?”

Chi looked up from her menu at the waiter, contemplating her choices.

"Umm...can I have a lemonade? And add an order of breadsticks to that pizza, thanks."

She smiled warmly, closing her menu with a light snap as she handed it back to him, and leaning back in her chair with a sigh. Food was on its way, everything was right with the world.

[Deleted]

Saint sat there for a moment while the waiter brought out the drinks before receding again, the pizza would follow shortly. But there was something that Saint need to ask. It would most likely be the last time he would mention anything that happened in the hospital. One of the perks of having such a selective memory was being able to forget almost all of his breakdown. After all he had done it once before, chances were he could it again. He shifted himself before glancing at Chi. Though unsure how to start, he got his footing sort of speak as he went.

“Um… why were you… um… at the hospital?”

Naturally Saint had assumed she had been there for a reason that was less-than-pleasant. That assumption had lead to his hesitation to ask, nobody wants to talk about going to see the sick grandparent. Especially if their trip ended with running into an insane boy who was cowering in his room. Or at least that is what Saint had thought. He awaited her answer quietly, if she choose in fact to answer. Either way was fine with him.

[chihiro]

Once the drinks arrived at the table, Chi began stirring it around with her straw, watching the ice clink against the glass. She paused though, glancing up at Saint's question, dark eyes wide and curious.

"Oh, well, um...my mother's there."

She replied vaguely, stirring the straw around her drink once, twice. She didn't exactly think he would want her to go into details about her mother's problem, especially since he seemed to have enough to worry about at the moment. She glanced back up, her dark brown eyes scanning over the boy in front of her. When he wasn't all rumpled and broken down like he was when they first met (which seemed like ages ago by now), he was actualy quite attractive. Green eyes, very nice. Breaking her gaze, she looked down at her drink again.

[Deleted]

There was a somber expression on Saint’s face when he heard her mention her mother was in the hospital. It was exactly what he had suspected, a close family member. Ironically focusing on other people’s problems and difficulties helped him forget about his own. But he realized something when Chi mentioned her mother, his probably would check the hospital looking for him and he hadn’t told anyone he was leaving. He dug into his pocket and sent a quick e-mail through his cell phone to her e-mail at the university. Perfect timing as the pizza had been brought out along with two plates and the breadstick. The waiter set it all in the middle of the table and went to see to the other patrons. With the waiter gone glanced up at Chi, his head tilted downward though because that was how Saint was.

“…I’m sorry about your mother…”

Amazing how a few kind words, a change of scenery, and some good food could transfer a man. Saint grabbed himself two slices of pizza placing them on his plate so he could take a sip of his soda before devouring them. His thirst momentarily dealt, the boy lifted one of the slices up to his mouth slowly before biting half of it off. Bits of sauce were left hanging from the corners of his mouth as he chewed the delicious food. Sure he was sloppy but he hadn’t technically eaten in almost five days.

[chihiro]

A small smile passed across the girl's face at the boy's sympathy. it was sweet, in a way, that he felt sorry for her, since he had more problems than she did. She thanked the waiter as they brought the food out, taking a slice of pizza herself, eatting it a little bit neater than her lunch date did.

"That's alright, she does it to herself."

She replied, taking a large bite of pizza. She was really hungry. She hadn't meant to give away that much information in that simple statement, she could have simply said, 'I'm used to it,' or she could have left it at 'that's alright,' but she didn't really care anymore. She doubted there was a person in town that hadn't heard rumors about her family. Everything was always so hushed and not spoken of about her family that it seemed to attract attention instead of dissapate it. Not taht anyone said anything though, it was a silent kind of attention, the kind where people watched and thought, but never saw it fit to do anything about it.

Chihiro paused to take a sip of her lemonade before continuing with her pizza, it was really good.

[Deleted]

That end of her statement puzzled Saint, what did she do to herself and why? But as curious as he was, the boy wasn’t about to ask about something that bring back bad memories, or was something she didn’t want to talk about. So he simply went about eating his food without furthering mentioning the subject. He figured that her family in general might be a sore spot for discussion. Still, Saint was curious about her, she was the third or fourth person he had met at school. Not being a social bug, it was a little difficult for him to meet people and make friends simply because of his timid nature. However the more he was around people the better he got at it. He swallowed a bite of pizza before decided to ask another question.

“So… how do you like school?”

Simple enough question. Saint wasn’t about to ask about her hopes or dreams or something that personal. He, in no way, had enough charisma to make such a leap. Easing in to conversations was much easier for him to do, besides he had made his bold move for the day by inviting out with him.

((OoC: I used stats lol XDDD))

[chihiro]

The dark haired girl shrugged at Saint's question, answering with her mouth partially full. Oops.

"S'alright..nutthhin too exxciting..Hmm"

She giggled, swalling her mouthful of pizza and reaching for her lemonade. After taking a sip, she gave another half giggle.

"Heh, sorry. Good pizza. How about you?"

She asked, meaning school of course. She wasn't sure if he even went to 259, she hadn't seen him around or anything, but it was possible.

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Saint couldn’t help but snicker as she began to speak with food in her mouth, it was funny. Despite being raised on manners, which even he sometimes failed to follow, it almost seemed sweet. To Saint that was an odd thought, but this was an odd day. He was mid way to biting a slice when she posed the question back at him. Freezing with the pizza dangling before his mouth, the boy tried to find a good answer, his eyes shifting about as though he would see one walking by. It took a few second before he glued together a simple response.

“It’s… interesting. Not like public school in Rio.”

There. That would be a good enough answer, Saint though as biting into the piece of pizza to delay having to think of any answers to follow ups. What could he say? That the level of violence disgusted him, that he had been involved in the attack days early by men pretending to be Greek gods. No way. Saint planned to just let that little piece of his recent history slip by, not like anyone at the fight knew him… he hope they didn’t at least. Frankly he couldn’t remember the entire event anyways.

[chihiro]

Chi stifled a laugh at Saint's expression, it was so candid. She quirked an eyesbrow as he began shifting his gaze around as if her were looking for something around them. I spy with my little eye.. That's what it reminded her of. Her thoughts were brought back to the present as Saint opened his mouth to speak. Rio? He went to a school in Rio? That was pretty interesting, she wondered what had made the change from Rio to Long Beach, but she wasn't about to ask because 1) she didn't want to be too prying and 2) her mouth was full of pizza again. So, swallowing once again and taking another sip of her drink, she posed what she thought was an intelligent, thoughtful, and well worded response to his answer.

"Rio?"

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The boy nodded a bit while finishing his bite. Though it didn’t show, Saint was relieved she didn’t ask him to explain interesting. Rio would be easy to explain, how school here was interesting would be complicated, troublesome, and just not fun. He swallowed his food, placing the remaining bit of the slice of his plate for the moment while he spoke. The boy took a sip of his soda to clear his throat and wash down and pieces of food that might be stuck on the sides of his mouth. With that taken care of all that was left was to pick a place to start his answer and what better place than… the beginning?

“Um… yeah. Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. My mother and I stayed there while she was studying animals in the Amazon and stuff like that. That was the first time I attended public school and it was… nice. I was on the school’s boxing and soccer teams, also I started learning Capoeira. Made a lot of friends and had fun going to the beach every weekend. After a couple years my mom got a job offer to teach at UCLA, so the three of us moved here.”

Saint shrugged lightly as he finished his little explanation. Sure it may have not been the shortest answer but if it wasn’t something he wanted to hide, Saint had no qualms about telling people what they wanted to know. He was the kind of person that once they got going they could talk for hours, that liked to talk and like to listen to other people talk. It was just the kind of guy he was. He finished the little bit remaining from the piece he had been eating before leaning back in his chair with a soft sigh.

[chihiro]

"Cool."

Once again, Chi just had a way with words. Chewing a bite a pizza thoughtfully, she pondered his explanation. So the Amazon, huh? Tres interesting. The freshman's eyes sparkled in recognition when he mentioned Capoeira, she's tried it once as a part of a summer program, but unfortunately never pursued it and eventually forgot basically everything she had learned. It was a beautiful practice to watch, it was about the only thing that she and her father actually agreed on.

"I dabbled a bit in Capoeira in the day, I'd be damned if I could remember anything now though. Maybe you'll have to refresh my memory."

She said with a smile. It was a pretty good idea, as Capoeira was something done by more than one person, traditionally two people, as a form of defensive moves and dance. Having finished off her slice of pizza, she took another from the pie between them. It was one of her few weaknesses. Yummm...

[Deleted]

A small quirk of the eyebrow arose when Chi mentioned that she had dabbled in Capoeira. Saint wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by dabbling, though she did say she believed herself to have forgotten the basics. In all honestly, it had been a while since Saint had done any pure Capoeira. Most of his training time was spent working of his fusion of the Brazilian style with modern boxing to create something, new, original and interesting to both user and observer. Even that wasn’t something he did ritualistically, sort of a minor hobby of his, but the challenge did seem interesting.

“Um… yeah… maybe… when did you learn it?”

Saint asked out of fleeting curiosity while sitting back in his chair again. He was for the most part filled up on food and was happily sipping his cherry coke.

[chihiro]

Picking at a gooey bit of the cheese on her pizza that was falling off, and placing it back on top, the freshman girl furrowed her brows momentarily as she thought back to when she'd leanred Capoeira, of what little she learned. It was back in the summer of her eighth year, she'd been sent off to a summer program by her parents the first time they tried to 'sort things out.' As one of the activities, they'd brought in some older students that had attended the program when they were little, and wanted to contribute back to the place that had given them so much happiness by giving a Capoeira demonstration. They spent a week practicing a few of the basics: stance, block, hit, kick. It was like a dance, and all the children loved it. Grinning slightly, she returned her attention to the conversation at hand, her thoughts stilla bit foggy from nostalgia.

"Well, one summer, I went to this camp thing, they taught us it there...it was quite a lot of fun I remember, and beautiful in it's execution."

[Deleted]

Saint nodded lightly, after Chi’s quick explanation. Until then he had never thought about it, but he had never gone to a camp. Of course he now knew exactly why that was, what camp would want a crazy child to be one of the campers? None. After all he had a breakdown during something it could be a danger to other campers. Surprisingly that realization didn’t bother him that much, though he did wish he could see what a camp was like, if only for a day. But the chances of that were slim at best… oh well. He shrugged while placing his almost empty soda down on the table.

“Sounds like that was fun. Is that a usual activity for a camp?”