xp_logs | Log: Clarice & Noriko

Set Jan 17th (before Clarice was nuked!) Clarice and Noriko hang out, formally introduce themselves and play the international game of win - DDR.

Generally, Clarice was not a DDR girl, but she needed to work her legs out more, especially her right one, and she was sick of doing weight reps in the gym or running on the elliptical. This was why she was playing DDR at midnight instead of partying like a proper college student or sleeping like an old mature fogey. Plus, it was mindless and right now mindless was good. Between Nate and Angelo and Jean and Shiro and Lorna and well, everything really. Clarice was loving the mindless. She was just glad she wasn't involved in any of it.

It wasn't unusual in the slightest for Noriko to be up this late, although she usually tried to stick to the suite as much as possible so as not to worry or disturb people. Some nights, though, it just wasn't enough space to move in. Hearing the music coming down the hall from the lounge caught her curiosity and she paused at the top of the stairs - she'd been thinking of going outside, but it was cold and if there was someone else up. Mind made up, she turned back and headed for the lounge. "Hello?"

"Hi!" Clarice called, not recognizing the voice. That didn't surprise her though, there were enough new people that she hadn't officially met, even though she saw them in the halls. The entire point of moving back to the school instead of living in the dorms was to prevent this, but she'd been spending so much time on campus anyways, that it hadn't really worked that way,

Noriko recognized the game before she processed anything else - after all, Clarice's back was to the doorway and the lights were low. And it wasn't as though purple hair was all that strange. It wasn't until after Nori had dropped onto the nearest couch and really started to watch that she caught sight of a purple hand. "Sugoi..." she muttered.

"What?" Clarice asked, turning around to figure out what the other girl was talking about. She didn't care if she lost a round or not. "What's so cool?" that wasn't exactly an exact translation of the word, but she'd hung around with Shiro long enough to learn a few words here and here.

"Kono murasaki... Purple." Her pronunciation was atrocious, but the word was recognizable. "Sugoi kirei."

Turning the DDR off, Clarice stood in front of the other girl blinking for a minute trying to guess the meaning of the words. She understood purple and sugoi. "I'm Clarice," she finally said, dredging up some of Japanese phrases she had learned with Shiro and Leyu, "Namae Clarice. Namae?"

Noriko blinked, surprised by the Japanese. Clarice's accent wasn't fabulous, but she was understandable and Nori hadn't been expecting it. She wondered how likely it was that the girl would understand more, then shrugged. "I name is Noriko. Yoroshiku."

Spending the last several years studying Arabic and dating a Japanese guy had not been Clarice's best idea ever, but she liked the languag and had been to the country quite a few times for various reasons, "Yoroshiku," belatedly, Clarice remembered to bow slightly. The last time she had really used any Japanese other than buying gelato once really early in the morning for a study group (yay time difference!) had been at Mariko's wedding nearly two years ago now. "Um. I don't know any more Japanese."

"Is ok," Nori said, shrugging. "Nori is not speak English." She managed to hold a straight face for a moment, then grinned brightly.

"Oh, well, yeah," Clarice replied, then gestured towards the DDR pad, "Do you play DDR?"

Noriko nodded. "Can. Is not good..."

"Wanna play then?" she gestured to the other DDR pad someone had left against the wall near the TV. Randomly, Clarice wondered if they bought the DDR pads by the gross and just took one or two out of storage as they broke the others. It would make a lot of sense if they did, especially given how enthusiastic some people were when they played.

Nori considered the offer - it wasn't like she'd be sleeping anyways, and it might help her burn off some energy. "Hai," she said, nodding. "Let's play."

Pulling the other pad over and hooking it up, Clarice admired Nori's hair. It was really pretty, "Easy setting then?" she asked, using the controller to change the settings. She always used the easy setting, but different songs were good too sometimes for variety.

"Eh?" Nori tilted her head at Clarice, the gesture one of complete bafflement she'd probably seen from Leyu more than once. "Gomen... Sorry. Is Nori English not good."

Great. Yay communication breakdown, "Are you friends with Yvette?" Clarice asked randomly. The duelling accents and broken English, even though Yvette's was improving remarkably, could be entertaining, "Easy DDR?"

"Aa. Hai. Ok." The pad all set up, Nori stood up and waited. "Yvette is nice. Is Nori suite mate. Kedo... But is very... anou... prissy." She'd gotten Jennie to teach her the word, after doing a bit of hunting in her dictionary, the day there'd been all the yelling.

Yvette? Prissy? Was she hearing correctly? Well, it seemed she was. "Yvette's prissy?" she repeated, doubtful. There were a lot of adjectives to describe the other girl, but that wasn't one that immediately came to her mind.

"Nori is think sometimes." The Japanese girl shrugged - she lacked the vocabulary or the inclination to really try to explain. Besides, maybe she had gotten the wrong word, or said it wrong, and she really didn't want to fight with English, particularly not this late at night. Waving a hand at the screen where the selection screen was, she cocked her head at Clarice. "Is ready?"

"It's ready," Clarice reminded herself that speaking Engrish would not help Nori's English improve, even if it was easy to do, "I bet I can beat you, even with a screwy ankle!"