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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Sept 8, 2013 10:43:20 GMT -8
She supposed it was only a matter of time before she'd ended up here on one of her days out when she'd decided to explore around. Well, okay, she'd come for a legitimate reason - coming to check the shops here to see if they had her preferred phone in stock, hoping to nab a temporary one while she was here. They'd had them, for sure – but as soon as she'd been told 'oh hey yeah by the way you gotta sign up for two years' she'd gracefully bowed out - she'd been hoping they'd give her a little slack and not trap her into a service contract since she specified she was just visiting, but apparently not. Bit too optimistic of her, she supposed. So this left her with time to spare (her schedule wasn't exactly busy while she was here) and being smack dab in the middle of the closest thing to home she could reach in a reasonable amount of time, so why the hell not?
Out of the sheer paranoia when she'd left earlier, due to the higher chance of being recognized in somewhere entrenched in her native culture, she'd gone all out ensuring she looked very much female, layering on more cosmetics that she'd dare admit to any of her band mates (luckily she still remembered what she was doing in that department so it didn't just look like an overdone disaster), and went out wearing a ruffled blouse, a nice layered skirt, even managed to fish out kitten heeled shoes which very likely hadn't seen use for a good two years. She patted herself on the back when she found them, too. She'd made a point to pull her hair back and arrange it so the freshly dyed pink streaks she'd put in the other day were almost invisible, covering up every hint to her identity that she could. The results were pretty good, she decided – she could blend in with most crowds back home with it, anyway, so it definitely had to work here.
Despite that she couldn't help but be amused when she passed a few store that had a large poster taped into the window boasting Sound Fuse, reaffirming that her decision to go all out wasn't unfounded. She ended up being ballsy enough to actually go into one of said stores, though to be fair it was also because they had advertisements for a snack she hadn't had in almost a month now. She ended up getting a bit more carried away than she meant to, however, and grabbed something for each of the boys for when she got back as well – small things, it didn't seem like it would be a big deal when she grabbed them. She didn't think to check her bag for how much money she had beforehand, however.
So by the time she hit the line and did dig into it for the money, she was horrified when she realized she hadn't actually brought anything extra with her and what she did have from the remnants from her last tourist trip out – which covered all but...oh yay two dollars short. Using an ability to sense how to save money that she hadn't used in years, she eyed up the cashier, who was apparently having a time with the customer ahead of her – arguing about a discount that didn't exist apparently. Nope, they definitely wouldn't feel like indulging her after that. Next tactic. She casually eyed for any people behind her, which she was actually surprised to find one – the store had seemed pretty quiet she hadn't even really known there was someone else in there.
'Then again you were too distracted debating what level of sugar you dare give Leon' she noted, before deciding it was worth a shot. She supposed she should feel bad about bumming money off strangers when at this point she had plenty to spare, but she'd relied on the better nature of some people so many times before in a spot that it didn't properly occur to her. She turned around to the blonde behind her, mentally prepared her English directory, and had a go. “Excuse me, but do you have a spare two dollars?”
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May 8th
About 3-4pm
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Sept 8, 2013 20:54:35 GMT -8
tagged: kazue. time: may 8th, 3pm. notes: none. All things considered, Keijiro spent a ridiculous amount of time in Little Tokyo. To him, it was like a second home. He was familiar with most of the regular shopkeepers by that point, and on good terms with all of them. Most of them had technically started on bad terms, confused by the clash of his accent and his appearance, and almost all of them had apologized profusely when they had understood that no, he wasn't some overly obsessed Japanophile, but instead someone who had grown up in Japan and just so happened to be Caucasian. It had been a painful experience having to repeatedly go over the situation, but in the end everyone had felt bad for him and tended to treat him especially nicely as a result.
This store was no different from any other. He was friendly with most of the cashiers, and on a first name basis with a few. The cashier that was currently working wasn't one of those--he'd been served by them a few times, but hadn't really had time to chat since they often worked the afternoons when there were other customers waiting. He did like to chat to people who spoke in Japanese, but he certainly didn't want to cause trouble by trying to chat while they were supposed to be checking customers out.
That day he'd gone searching for a CD. As archaic as buying a CD was in 2012, the internet had not blessed him with a half decent download for a CD as obscure as the one in his hand. Miho: Journey to the Mountain might have been a grammy award winning album, but that didn't mean that any American record store had even heard of it. He'd been forced to pull on a light hoodie despite the heat, combing his hair over most of his scar, and then braved the city to try and locate a copy nearby. Eventually he'd given up and sought it in Little Tokyo, finding it without issue.
He wasn't expecting anyone to talk to him, and yet someone did. The girl in front of him turned around, addressing him in awkward English. Even if she looked Japanese (and her English was perhaps a shade more awkward then his), it was still habit to respond in the language spoken to as he dug into his pocket, riffling around to locate his wallet and pulling it out. American money was just so awkward, without the subtle signs that separated Japanese bills.
His accent was just as heavy as hers, if not more so, and he gave her a little smile before pulling out the two bills. "Here you go." Two dollars really wasn't anything at all, and it would be rude to turn her down. |
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Sept 11, 2013 12:00:53 GMT -8
Kazue was a girl who wasn't easily thrown off, miffed, offended...whichever term one wanted to use, but generally she was pretty unflappable. She'd heard it all and had found a way to brush all of it off or make an even worse joke about it, which was the best way to scare off anyone attempting to harass her because they knew they wouldn't get to far. But that was easier to do when you were on home ground speaking your native language, and while she had been getting steadily more confident in the couple weeks she'd been here, it didn't take a whole lot to give her pause if what she was saying was brought into question. Normally it was correct her, which, while mildly embarrassing, was actually helpful for later.
However, what she wasn't expecting the obviously blonde, obviously white kid she answer her in a mirror of her own accent as he handed her the extra she asked for. It threw her for such a loop she wasn't even sure what to say at first, and the thanks she was going to give got stuck midway in her throat. At first it made no sense to her, then a slightly less happy thought dawned her that maybe he was making fun of her...which seemed a bit extreme seeing as he'd been nice enough to loan her her extra money, but she'd seen someone insult someone and do them a favor in the same breath before. It wasn't anything new, she'd been harassed plenty of times in her life over many things.
'Just make a joke and turn around' her brain told her. She had a few on hand, even. 'Obviously I'm so charming that you feel I should be emulated, I'm flattered' or even a more patronizing 'That's okay sweetie you don't have to try to impress me', which both were about in equal terms of offending as she considered imitating how she spoke, but the wind in her sails was less than strong when it came to her English skills, so when it was knocked out, she tended to revert to even older habits than her terrible sarcasm. “Are you...I am sorry is there something wrong with how I speak? Because it sounds like you are taunting it.”
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Sept 11, 2013 14:33:42 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. It wasn't the first time someone had taken Keijiro's accent as an insult, and he really didn't think it was going to be the last. It wasn't something he could avoid, either. There was no way to get around the simple fact that he did have a thick accent, and he didn't look like he should. In time, his accent would wear down as he spoke more and more English, but it would be years before his accent was good and truly gone. Even then, it would probably return with a vengeance every time he spent time in Japan. That was how accents worked, after all.
Even so, she had taken it badly. She hadn't joked or made an offhand comment--she'd outright confronted him with it, and his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment. Even if he knew objectively that it wasn't his fault, that nothing he could have done could have prevented it, it still was never comfortable to have someone confront you with something like that.
He cleared his throat, opting to try and diffuse the situation as fast as possible. He could have explained himself, could have tried to protest, but in English it would likely fall on deaf ears.
"No. There isn't anything wrong." He responded in fluent Japanese, and if she was going to look for an English accent there, she wouldn't find one. He spoke like someone who had been speaking Japanese his entire life, simply because he was someone who had been speaking Japanese his entire life, and he squeezed the CD in his hand without realizing. He didn't like the situation at all. |
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Sept 13, 2013 16:35:55 GMT -8
She'd already steeled herself for a less that happy response, mentally flipping through her sarcasm library (both English and Japanese, just in case, though the former was a bit more limited), and hoping she didn't end up making a terrible impression by getting into a verbal spat in someone's store – that tended to go horribly when she couldn't whip out an identity or a band manager that could fix everything. She was thoroughly prepared for a backlash – she wasn't prepared for a calm response in a language she was far more comfortable with. For a second her mouth fell open a little, and she lifted one hand to raise a finger skyward, before pointing at towards him with an expression best described as complete shock.
“That...was not what I was expecting.” she responded after a few moments of holding said expression, seeming to deflate as she said it, her wrist falling limp after a few moments of gesturing towards him so that her hand hung to mirror the defeat. She was completely at a loss for a second, dark eyes doing a rapid-fast once-over of the boy as she tried to regain a little ground, unsure if she should just minimize damage, apologize, and turn around. Curiosity was always a weakness of hers, however, and while she was suffering a serious case of foot in mouth, she couldn't help it. “Your accent is quite good, you're native?” she asked, tone genuinely curious.
She suddenly realized she'd completely neglected something rather important, and before he could even respond she abruptly dipped her head at him and added “Also I'm sorry for being a complete tool.” Obviously she was considerably less restrained when speaking something she actually knew how to speak. She made for a quick glance over her shoulder at the cashier and the customer they were still attempting to reason with, mostly to make sure she wasn't holding up anything, before turning back for her response, hoping she wouldn't get a giant 'screw you' for her rather terrible faux pas...which she wouldn't blame her for, she supposed. 'You're only supposed to make terrible impressions to people who are already stuck with you Fujihara, get your shit together.'
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Sept 14, 2013 16:39:43 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. It wasn't ever what anyone was expecting. People looked at him in Japan and expected nosy white tourist. Instead they got someone who was Japanese in everything but looks. He'd been raised there, knew the ins and outs, and spoke Japanese flawlessly. It was his mother tongue after all, and while he had learned a bit of English as a child, it had lapsed into misuse in his teen years before it had become an actual focus at school.
It went without saying his accent was good, and he hesitated, unsure of what she was actually asking. Was she wondering if he was a native of here, or a native of Japan? Rather then trying to answer with a yes or no, he opted to half-dodge the question. "I'm from Japan originally. I was raised there." For his entire life. Not just a few years. He'd spent maybe two weeks as a child in America. His accent was flawless because, to him, his accent wasn't even an accent. It was just how he talked. When he spoke in English... well,that was an accent. A big thick one that left people confused and disoriented, seeing someone with blond hair and blue eyes speak with an extremely heavy accent.
He flushed as she apologized, shaking his head. "It happens all the time."[/] Which it did. It happened constantly. "I don't look like someone who speaks Japanese." Which was the understatement of the year. He shifted his weight between his feet, feeling awkward and nervous. No matter how many times it happened, it never got any easier.
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Sept 17, 2013 17:51:26 GMT -8
'Way to assume way too much' she informed herself when he explained he'd been raised in Japan, even if it was what many others would also consider a 'safe assumption', and would probably back her up. When, in reality, he knew it was just her own sensitivity to her shaky-at-best English. It was funny, how she lost the confidence in her reviewer crash course she'd done the week before she left before she'd even gotten off the plane. And that was a few weeks ago to boot...actually being forced to speak the language was way more informative than any crash course, but it also ended in more disasters and scaring people off when she ended up accidentally saying something that made no sense.
Well, no he didn't look like someone who spoke Japanese, she could agree when he said that, but priding herself in being easygoing and letting most insults roll off her was dampened by the fact she'd bit at someone because she thought they were poking fun at her accent. Plus, now she was curious – he was definitely different, and so long as she still heard that stupid argument in the background she may as well talk to him, in some hope that she could prove she wasn't just a naturally irritable person.
"Well, I don't look like I should be speaking English either. Which, I probably shouldn't because I'm pretty sure at least once a day I offend someone." she admitted, which was a more evasive way of saying 'yeah by the way that's why I may have reacted badly'. It was close enough right? "I'm also very talented at offending people who do me favors. It's a thing." she added, casually gesturing at the money in her hand to make her point. She really did wish she had a way to pay him back now – though she wouldn't have one until she got back to the hotel and while she felt bad, it wasn't quite bad enough to go all the way back home to steal two dollars off someone.
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Sept 19, 2013 13:31:11 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. He knew how weird he was, but he could only shrug when she said she didn't look like she could speak English. "You look like a nisei. No one would question it." He offered with a shrug. There were plenty within Little Tokyo. He imagined that at least half the people in little Tokyo had never even been to Japan. It was expensive and costly, and most people had neither the time nor the funds to go back and visit the place where their extended family lived. Most of them had been born in America, and to them, they were simply 'American', no matter how they looked.
In a lot of ways, they were the reverse of Keijiro himself.
"It really isn't a problem." He tried to sound reassuring, because it really wasn't. He'd done it so many times before, and it could hardly even be considered an event to have someone act that way. No, he had other things on his mind, the foremost of which that the girl in front of him seemed, god forbid he actually thing it, cute.
"You're just visiting, yes?" A safe assumption, considering how her English was. Any real nisei would have much less of an accent. She seemed more like a tourist who'd just arrived, and was paranoid and nervous about how the locals would perceive them. There were lots of tourists coming to visit, not all of them even Japanese, but it was interesting just the same to see them all arrive in little Tokyo. A lot of the time he wished he'd actually got an apartment closer, simply so he'd be able to feel more at home then he did that moment. |
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Sept 24, 2013 15:55:09 GMT -8
"Yeah, well, here they wouldn't, sure." Well hey, points for trying. He of course, had a better point than she did – considering the mass amount of Japanese people here (which funnily, she'd still kept to speaking English the entire few hours she'd been here...good practice at least) she didn't stick out that much. Or at all. Though, that would change when she went back to her hotel, which she was pretty sure she was the only Asian staying in besides her bandmates. It made pretending someone got the wrong person very difficult...which had been a problem for her for the past week or so, thanks Theo.
"Dragged here by my family." she confirmed, which was actually pretty close to the truth. Eric decided to fish for publicity in other countries, and had invited all of them – and by invited, she had felt the 'you better show up because if I have to go anywhere with just half the band I'm firing one of you' hidden beneath it. Naturally she'd piddled around for about a month before finally flying over, just to piss with him. "Sort of a business trip, though no idea how long it'll be." she added, wondering vaguely if her manager had any idea what the word 'vacation' meant since that's what he'd advertised it as, but she was just waiting for the day of 'hey guys guess what I ass-kissed my way into getting you to do an opening for x band here'. Which was exactly why she had brought all her guitars.
"It's been fun so far, though...if you ignore the crippling moments of 'oh my god did I say your name wrong I'm sorry'. Then again, maybe it's karma, considering I've been called 'kazoo' about three times now."
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Sept 24, 2013 17:24:55 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. Keijiro was normally a fairly somber person. He wasn't the sort of person to make random jokes, or even to laugh at ones, but he really couldn't help letting out a snort of amusement at her plight. "Well, I can definitely sympathize. Kazue, I assume?" That was his best guess anyway, but her name could have been a lot of things. "People keep pronouncing my name wrong as well. I suppose it's an issue with the romanji used. They pronounce the j, when it's supposed to be silent." He explained with a shrug. "At least my last name is pronounced right." That was a small mercy for him, and amusingly, most of the minorities he'd run into could pronounce his name just fine after reading it.
He knew why she was there, and he could understand that. Probably her family had some business and had opted to take her along, even if she looked old enough to be on her own. It was hard to tell--she might be just starting college, even if she looked like she could be done it.
"It seems like there are lots of tourists in Little Tokyo any time I come, but I'm... sort of local I guess. I'm here for school, but my home is back in Japan." Which was a quick way of heading off a lot of the curiosity that came with being white but speaking fluent Japanese. His home was there, no matter what his skin tone implied. He'd already sort of mentioned it once, but better to reiterate. |
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Oct 5, 2013 3:33:07 GMT -8
She lifted one hand beside her palm forward in a gesture of 'that'd be me' as soon as he mentioned tourists. "That's me. Tourist. Though, I was...here to see if I could get a secondary of my favorite phone but they tried to loop me into a two year deal so I sorta turned into a tourist for a few hours to kill time." Meaning, she didn't want to go back to the hotel yet because unless she was just having one of those bad days, she wasn't a person who liked to be cooped up for too long or too often, and seeing as her bandmates had a habit of being too paranoid about her ventures into the city, she tended to abuse her approval to leave alone. She hadn't been given the 'I am disappointed' speech yet, so why the hell not. She supposed because it was less of a risk than it was back home...though she'd done it then, too.
'It's amazing I haven't given Eric an aneurysm yet.' she thought idly, which reminded her vaguely of the fact she as taking home sugar. That was probably why no one liked letting her wander out – 'being tourist-y' typically ended in items that look unoffensive at first but in her hands...not so much. Like the replacement headphones she'd gotten for her electric guitars – nothing said 'wake up' like sticking those on someone and picking a few notes. Briefly amused, she held the entire handful of packages full of said offensive food. "It was only a matter of time before I poked around enough and managed to get ahold of something my family will hate me for because I'm going to feed it to the hyper one and I'm not the least bit sorry." she added in embellishment to her 'killing time by probably doing things bad for everyone's health' issue.
"Which looks incredibly mature of me to someone who's buying that." she added making a motion to the album in his hand, which she admittedly knew the album but only in passing. What could she say – she wasn't what you'd call a 'take the high road' person. However, she was now legitimately intrigued by the blonde kid – music, of course, tending to instantly perk her, even if it was something outside her usual range. Well...'usual' being a bit unfair of a term, considering she didn't have a proper 'preferred' music taste...she supposed 'unexplored' was a term a bit closer to home.
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Oct 9, 2013 10:58:40 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. She was a tourist then. He'd been right all along, and he felt a tiny smile forming when he realized that he was right. She was out shopping mostly for things to do, and Little Tokyo had plenty. Plus, it was like a little slice of home, and it wasn't horribly different from shopping outside of Tokyo. Of course, Tokyo shopping was much different, but the idea was still there.
She noticed the CD of his, and he glanced down at it, vaguely surprised that she knew of it at all. It had been a pain and a half to get, and he had a good feeling that even most of the people from Japan didn't know about it. He raised it up a bit, looking over the cover before looking back at her. "I'm surprised you recognized it at all. Most don't. It took forever to find a copy." Apparently there had been a spark of interest not long after it won it's grammy, but that had been it. Old music simply didn't sell all that well. "I'm a music major, so it's relevant to what I'll be doing. Plus it's just a great CD, and I wanted to have a real copy, rather then a low quality one from the internet." Music piracy did not cut it when you were a music major. A low bit rate was practically a death knell as far as he was concerned, and even CD's weren't that good anymore. For at least a few he'd gone out and found high quality official downloads, paying with his credit card to get things online.
There was still something special about having a soundtrack in hand. "Are you a fan of Paul Winter Consort? Or one of the instruments?" Or, he supposed, Japanese music in general. It was possible that she could be any of the three, but he honestly considered the last unspoken one to be the least likely. Japanese music didn't have much of a draw even inside Japan, and while there were certain groups of Americans who loved JPop or JRock, it was all synthesized and disregarded more traditional instruments. It might have been Japan's twist on American's music, but it wasn't authentically Japanese.
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Post by KAZUE FUJIHARA on Oct 16, 2013 12:41:50 GMT -8
At his surprise, she waved one hand dismissively. “Lets just say a lot of my free time is spent on music.” That was a hilarious understatement. So long as she wasn't talking, she had headphones in, and whenever she got ahold of a computer it was spent browsing more music that most people would consider healthy. She was, after all, one of those people who would rather die than live in a world without music, and while she'd told no one she would have loved for a chance to actually learn about it professionally, through school. Though, by the time she'd hit that point in her life she'd have been able to afford something like that, she was a bit...involved already.
So to say she was just a tiny bit jealous when he said he was a music major was pretty accurate. No one would probably believe it either – who in their right mind would choose that over fame – but there it was. It wasn't like she couldn't try to run the same path later in life herself, but she doubted anyone would take her seriously with a resume like 'Oh hey yeah I played electric guitar for this band'. Oh yeah, that was high quality music material. She'd dabbed in a few other things, borrowed a friend's violin for a day, played around on another friend's piano, but nothing beyond learning scales, C and E flat at best, maybe, then ending up often messing about and trying to imitate songs by ear – that definitely did not qualify as a master of instruments.
The hand that had formerly waved a dismissing movement lifted back to face him, adjusting to a placating gesture this time as he launched straight into a subject she'd accidentally breached. “Whoa whoa, I've only dabbled in any knowledge of symphonic music, don't get too excited. I have an old high school acquaintance who likes to send me a million recommendations, I can only click so many things.” 'Plus it's a bitch keeping up with people with my time schedule.' It was amazing she managed to fit out contacting her brother on a regular basis, so to say it was nothing short of a miracle that she managed to keep in touch with some of her old friends was about right. “Just lump me in with 'over enthusiastically listens to everything while wishing she actually knew more than she does'.” 'Yeah lets roll with that.' Well, it was pretty much the truth.
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Post by KEIJIRO WATANABE on Oct 21, 2013 13:29:41 GMT -8
tagged: character. time: date & time. notes: none. Alright, maybe he'd gone a little bit too overboard. He'd just been very enthusiastic, and the number of people who actually knew anything about traditional Japanese instruments were a tiny minority. Even when he found people who knew about music, most of them didn't run in quite the same musical circles as he did. They cared about Kis-My-Ft2 and Arashi, not the myriad of quasi-famous koto players who adorned his computer. He actually flushed a tiny bit red, embarrassed by just how far he'd gone. He should have paused, should have asked first, rather then just jumping right into his musical life story.
The thought that she might have been jealous didn't even occur to him. Why would it, after all?
"Sorry. I got overexcited there. It's not often people recognize a CD like this, even if you only dabble." Dabbling was still more then most. Dabbling still gave him a rough place to work from. "I'm specializing in Japanese instrumentation, which doesn't get much of the focus that European instruments do, but it does get a good amount of work." Plus, every so often someone famous would use a traditional instrument in a more modern soundtrack, and then that particularly instrument would get a surge of attention. Every player hoped for that sort of thing to happen to their instrument, and Keijiro was hoping he might have been able to do that himself one day.
"There's nothing wrong with wishing you knew more, either. I just wish more people would take an interest in it. Too many high schoolers completely ignore traditional instruments, and jump straight to western ones." Which was a sad but true state of affairs. Only those with specialized interests actually went for traditional training. He would have said that the old arts were dying, but to be fair they'd almost completely died out. What was happening was actually a resurgence, a return to form after the near complete abandonment after world war two.
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