Plot: Jishin Da!

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

While some of the teachers register with the convention, the students of Xavier's take in the sites


Nori finds Angel rather lost in the crowds of Chingodo shrine and helps her find her way.



Angel glanced around her in confusion and then turned the map another way -- maybe she'd been holding it wrong? All she'd wanted to do was see the shrine to the raccoon dog thing but she was horribly turned around. And hungry. But mostly horribly turned around. She sighed and bounced up a few times to try to see around the crowd. Flying was right out.

The crowd was huge - the Asakusa shrine area was incredibly busy, even in the off season. Vast numbers of families and school kids crowded everywhere, with the odd young adult couple. Noriko'd been asked to show some of the students around; she'd slipped off briefly, vanishing into the crowd largly because it was still novel to be once again surrounded by people she could vanish into. Now, though, looking about, it wasn't hard to spot the puzzled looking red-head. "Ne, Angel? Doushita no? What's wrong?" Nori more or less materialized from out of the crowd at Angel's elbow.

"Nori!" Angel immediately perked up. She didn't know Nori all that well but she liked the idea of getting to know her better -- that, and she probably knew where was going. "Hey! I was trying to find the raccoon dog shrine? I think?" Eyeing the map, she pointed to the name. "Chingodo shrine, yes?" There was some stumbling over the word but she made it out as best she could.

"Chingodo jingu?" Noriko asked, peering at the English translation Angel was holding of the maps which were pinned up in on signs all over the district. She tilted her head to consider it, peering back and forth at the two versions. "Un," she said eventually, nodding sharply and smiling at Angel. "Chingodo is .... asoko... there." She pointed down a road of shops. "Is go?"

She clapped her hands together in glee. "Yes, please!" Angel fell easily into step with the other girl, a hand going to curl around the camera straps that hung around her neck. It wasn't an action to help prevent anyone from taking it but something more like a thoughtful one, as if part of her brain had already left the party and was thinking about the best shot at the shrine. "Glad to be back here?" she asked.

Nori grinned, dodging around a family who were going too slow for her tastes. "Tokyo is home. Is love. Angel is like?"

"I like a lot," she responded, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. "This place is awesome. It's different but different is good! And I totally understand about being home -- I love the mansion but I miss Seattle sometimes."

The bouncing Nori could empathise with, even if Angel was a bit too fast a talker from time to time. On the whole, though, she liked the other girl. "Seattle where?" For such a wide road, people did seem to get in their way a lot. Of course, some of it was just people stopping to peer into shops, but the crowds walking up the hill to the big shrine and the odd biker didn't help either.

Angel grinned at the pronunciation of her home city. "It's really far from the mansion -- not as far from Japan but on the other side of the country. 5 hours by a plane. Makes me think, I haven't been back in ages." Maybe over Christmas, she thought, suddenly missing her old friends.

Noriko had finally accepted that there were just going to be times when someone said something and she had absolutely no idea what it meant. In her better moods, she even kind of appreciated that the other kids didn't talk to her like she was four. "Is country same?" she asked, cocking her head. "America, ne?"

"Yep, still in America! In fact..." While they were walking, Angel dug through her khaki pants until she finally produced her phone. Keeping one eye on Nori and one eye on the phone, she navigated the streets while punching things into her phone. Finally she held out to the other girl -- on the screen was a map of the States and she'd highlighted the area that Xavier's was in and where Seattle was. "That's how far," she told her.

"Heh?" Nori's eyes widened as she looked at the map. "Sugoku toi nee? Is very far..." She handed the phone back to Angel, then grinned. "Ara! Is Chingodo!" Noriko pointed to a gate in the wall set back from the street they were on - from the outside it didn't seem very impressive, but through the gateway they could make out a small haven of calm greenery, away from the masses of people.

Angel cheered and then glanced between Nori and the gates. The two of them had a lot of energy and she knew the best way to burn that off. She grinned and pointed at the gates, seeing some school children racing around outside. "Race you? Loser buys a drink?"

"Hai!" Nori grinned back, and nodded, taking up a racing position. "Ichi... ni... san!" The two girls took off like a shot and it quickly became clear that, for all Noriko was a bundle of nerves and energy, she wasn't really in any sort of shape at all - she was doing much better than she had been when she first moved to the mansion, but it simply would take more time to recover from the time she'd spent living on the streets. But she wasn't willing to give up, even as Angel stretched out her lead. Nori put her head down and poured everything she had into her legs, pumping them as fast as she could.

Suddenly (and she really wasn't sure how it had happened), Noriko was inside the tori gate almost a body length ahead of Angel, breathing heavily and shaking slightly.

Nearly stumbling in shock, Angel slid to a halt next to Noriko and blinked. She blinked again -- that had been unexpected. They received some curious glances from the people around them but it was enough of a tourist destination that no one really paid any attention to them. "Whoa, that was...really cool? You okay?"

The shaking was dropping off, which was good. It was leaving in it's place a strange... empty feeling which Nori didn't know what to make of. But she straightened up and nodded at Angel. "Hai. Is ok." Then, covering over any worry, she grinned. "Nori win! Angel is drink buy." She pointed to one of the omnipresent vending machines to the side of the tori gate.

Well, if Nori wasn't worried and if she was okay...Angel grinned and started to feel around in her pockets for change. "Totally lost, yep! Drinks are on me and then you can show me the sights, okay?" Already, she was envisioning exactly the pictures she wanted. The area was gorgeous and she really wanted to explore. But drinks came first!

The grin turned mischievous - she'd gotten to know her suite mate well over the past few months. "Is many photo. Angel not totte dake... take only. Is photo in!" She pulled out her cell phone, swapping it to take pictures in a second. "Chiiiiii-zu!"



Meanwhile, elsewhere in the city Yvette and Kurt become the focus of attention at Tokyo Disney



It was like being in a cartoon, but then again, that was kind of the idea. Yvette stood outside 'Mickey's House' trying to repress her giggles. There was cute and kitsch, and then there was insane. Japan, apparently, favoured the latter.

Kurt was looking at the building with an expression somewhere between askance and utterly confused. He wouldn't have come to this particular tourist trap except that Yvette had wanted to, and had asked him along. "I think you are allowed to laugh", he said with a sideways glance at the girl.

Peals of laughter soon followed, Yvette covering her mouth with one long-fingered hand. "I am sorry!" she managed at last. "I did not know it would be so... so..." There were no words in English or Albanian to describe the scene around them, however.

"I find 'interesting' is a useful word for such things", was the amused response. "Would you like to go inside?"

"I think my head might be exploding if we were to go inside," Yvette replied, still giggling. "There is such a thing as too many cute." And speaking of which... she reached inside the Hello Kitty! bag she had acquired, pulling out a disposable camera. "Please to be standing in front, yes?"

"Too much cute", Kurt corrected her absently, then nodded, already moving. "Of course."

"To be saying cheese!" Yvette chirped, holding up the camera.

"Cheese", Kurt supplied obediently.

Yvette depressed the button as Kurt gave her a somewhat-dutiful smile. As she lowered the camera, she was about to thank him (and maybe tease him a little) when a high-pitched squeal reached her ears. Glancing around, she saw a group of young Japanese girls, probably around her own age, dressed in school uniforms and pointing. At them. Screaming.

The squeals were hurting Kurt's ears. He looked at the girls more than a little warily, taking a protective step towards Yvette. But it didn't look like they were scared...

"KAWAII!!!" It was almost in unison, which was disturbing. Giggling and squealing, the schoolgirls rushed over to surround them. Instinctively, Yvette stepped back, trying to find something safe to put behind her to avoid accidental contact with her hair.

"Um, konnichi-wa?" she said cautiously. The girls didn't seem angry or frightened, more... excited?

"EEE!!!" The tallest girl, her hair in pigtails tied up with Hello Kitty! bobbles, clapped excitedly. The subsequent babble of Japanese words was beyond Yvette's basics, and she looked at Kurt helplessly.

Kurt, unfortunately, didn't speak any Japanese at all, beyond a few words quickly learned from the guidebook. He stepped to Yvette's side, guarding her as best he could without touching her. "Can we... help you?" he ventured.

"Ara, Engurishu da! Eh, watashi wa shaberimasu." One of the girls waved her friends into quiet. She had her hair cut into a sleek bob, and wore a pair of Harry Potter-esque glasses. "Your costumes, they are very good!" she said, beaming at the two of them. "We are... anou, very impressing. Very good."

...well, now there was a dilemma. Let the girls believe they really were costumes, an implicit lie, or tell them the truth and bring on disappointment or possibly a worse reaction? Kurt opted for the first, since he wasn't alone, with a smile and a simple, "Thank you."

That got a fresh round of giggling, the schoolgirls hiding their mouths behind their hands. "Anou, dare desu ka?" asked one of them, then switched to English even more halting than the first girl's. "Who are you? We do not know which television show you from."

Yvette blinked. "You are thinking we are the cartoon characters?" she asked, nonplussed.

"Hai!" It was chorused enthusiastically, before the tall girl said. "Sonikku za Hejjihoggu, yes? Kuraashu Bandikkuto, ne?"

Fortunately, Yvette had been subjected to the video game by Kyle and Angel long since her arrival at the school, and she burst into laughter. "Oh, no," she said. "I'm not a cartoon."

"Anou, nani desu ka?" The smallest girl, this time, sounding mystified.

Ah, well. It had been worth a try. "We are mutants", Kurt told the girls kindly, guessing at the question from context. "And these are not costumes." He held out a hand, offering to let them feel for themselves.

"Mutanto!" The effect of the word was electric - if their voices got any higher, dogs would be barking all over Tokyo. It took prodding from her fellows, but the one with the glasses and the best English reached out to touch the back of Kurt's hand with a finger. "Oh, sugoi! Is soft!" she exclaimed. She rattled something off to her friends in Japanese that Yvette only caught one word of: neko, meaning 'cat'.

Yvette giggled a little, realising Kurt's fur had just been compared to stroking a cat. The sound drew the attention of the glasses girl, who seemed to be about to reach out and touch her hair. "No," she said hastily, backing away a little more. "It is dangerous. Abunai," she repeated in Japanese, having commited that word to memory first.

"No touch?" the girl asked, puzzled. "Danger?"

"Sharp," Yvette replied, matter of factly. "I do not want to hurt you."

"Ah, wakarimashita!. Is understand." Again she spoke rapidly to her friends, whose eyes went round. "You are gaijin, yes? Amerika-jin?"

"I am German", Kurt answered, "and Yvette is also from Europe. But you are right that we came here from America."

"You visit for vacation?" asked the tall girl, blushing furiously.

"Yes, we are here on vacation", he confirmed. "I am a teacher at Yvette's school, and this is a field trip."

"Sou desu ka, you go to school, in America?" The girl with the glasses certainly had the best English.

Yvette nodded. "The school for mutants, yes. They help teach me about my powers."

"Ii na!" Apparently they could do no wrong with this group. "Anou, may I take picture? With you?" A camera appeared, followed by several more. A couple where pink.

...well, it couldn't hurt, even if their enthusiasm was a little frightening. "Of course", Kurt allowed with a slightly helpless smile. "As long as you stand next to me, and not Yvette." No sense taking the risk one of them would forget and move too close, too fast for Yvette to recoil.

"Hai, sensei!" they sing-songed, and a quick round of paper-rock-scissors followed, to establish who was going to be taking most of the photos. With Yvette on the end, keeping as close to Kurt's side as she could without hurting him, the girls clustered around his other side, takign up various cute poses while Tall Girl gathered up cameras. Glancing up, Yvette realised one of them was making bunny ears behind Kurt's head, and she started to giggle again.

Kurt was just looking nonplussed by the whole thing. Except when Tall Girl raised another camera, and then he offered dutiful smiles.

It seemed to take forever, but eventually, after a switch when Glasses Girl changed places with Tall Girl to let her be in one photo, they were done. The girls grouped together and bowed, chorusing: "Arigatou gouzaimashita!" before waving and moving off, giggling and whispering and with many a backwards glance. Yvette blinked after them. It was a bit like being hit with a truck. Made of marshmallow.

"Mr. Sefton," she said at last. "Is that what it is like, to be famous?"

"I... I think it must be", Kurt told her. "And if so, I will be forever satisfied with only local fame."



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