Time To Explore, Hopefully [ Knightsbridge / Public ]

What a lovely day. A lovely. . . Boring day. Or at least nothing eventful had happened yet to Richard and he was just sitting in the ticket office out front, observing the sky for the moment since he lacked anything better to do. It’s not like the carnival was open yet.

With a long, fairly agitated sigh and leant on his arm. At least sitting here bored meant he could avoid the man who was paying him peanuts to work since he was one of those people that the Londoner had taken a near instant dislike to and not insulting him was painfully difficult. Not that he’d had more than a very brief encounter with him, but whatever. He didn’t want to send more time with him.

He shifted his weight, leaning back in the chair and leaning on his hand again in thought. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to suck in his pride and just go home to his parents. They had money, a nice house and at their age hopefully his younger brother would be off to university somewhere and he wouldn’t have to put up with him. And he did miss his sister. . .

No. He was much too proud to run home to his parents with his tail between his legs which he was pretty sure they had been expecting when he left. Come to think of it, why was he hiding in the ticket office? If that pompous and pathetic man Richard (begrudgingly) called ‘boss’ wanted to pester him, would this not be the first place he’d look for him after where he was staying? Of course. He didn’t seem to be that much of a moron. There was suddenly a tingling feeling in the man’s leg as he felt and increasing need to go for a stroll or just explore the carnival further, getting up and stretching his back before leaving the booth and locking the door behind him while he tried to think of where to check out first. He felt almost . . . excited for once.

[[ Solaaame. :c Sorry-- ]]

((FFFFUUUUUUUUUUU--How am I just now seeing this. How. HOW?? :( :( :( /sob If it's okay with you, I'd like to make a super-late reply--))

A lot of things had happened, in a very short period of time, after Hanako had been brought to this place.

For one, there'd been a large fire that had destroyed what she understood was the brothel, not to mention at least one of the sleeping cars. The man who had purchased her had also run off into the night, making her question what her purpose was in being there, anymore. She would have left, too, if she could, but she had nowhere to go. No one to turn to. No money. And no way of protecting herself in this foreign land.

Thus, she stayed at the carnival, wondering if this was what her life ultimately amounted to. Being brought to a strange place, to be purchased by strange people, to live a strange and pointless existence. It was nearly surreal--she often wondered if she was dreaming.

She'd taken to walking about the carnival grounds, sometimes in her full dress and makeup...sometimes not. When she didn't, there was a rumor (half in jest, half not) that there was a ghost of a woman running around, for no one knew who she was or where she'd come from, just that she 'appeared' and 'disappeared' periodically. Without her fancy clothes and makeup, she was nobody. Just a shy, strange Asian girl with a shy, strange, pockmarked face.

But with her makeup, she was far more likely to accidentally look into a man's eyes and attract potentially unwanted attention. And that was perhaps worse than being taken for a ghost.

Today, she chose to dress up, despite whatever risks may or may not have been there. In this place, in this radically different culture, she sometimes felt that all she had was her beauty. Without her makeup, she was just plain...ugly, even. It almost broke her heart to look at herself when she was just herself, and not a geisha. The geisha was who she'd worked so hard to be--who she wanted to be. Not the unremarkable slave girl.

And the geisha, that artisan of everything alluring and elegant, was what she wanted others to see, too.

She'd never been around to this side of the carnival before; she took it that this was the front. She was walking around the perimeter of the tent, on the outside, where she wouldn't bump into anyone who was working. ...Or at least, that was the original plan. Passing by the entrance, a man walked through carrying a large (and no doubt heavy) crate, and knocked her shoulder lightly, causing her to stumble onto someone else. Someone who'd just stepped out of what was, unbeknownst to her, the ticket booth.

"Ara--!" She gasped on instinct, bracing herself against the stranger so as to not fall over. How shameful. She hadn't been forced to act so ungracefully in...years, it seemed.

Mortified, she quickly stepped away, taking care even in her distress to not look him directly in the eye. Thankfully, the repeated bowing she was having to do made eye contact rather difficult, anyways. At first, she apologized in a smooth string of ultra-formal Gion dialect, but, remembering where she was, she gathered together her English and corrected herself, "Excuse me, I'm so very sorry--I should like to die, I'm so terribly ashamed..."

That was subdued enough...right? It seemed that sometimes what she considered basic formalities were taken as over-the-top politeness, in this country. And that was without implementing her special training as a geisha in the nuances of polite language.

[[Shooosh, of course it's cool, gurl. <3 ]]

Richard hadn't really been paying much attention to his surroundings prior to leaving the ticket booth-- Well. He'd seen people doing something with boxes just out of site when he'd exited, but he hadn't really cared too much and ignored it. At least until it had caused someone to bump into him and thus bumping his head on the door with a loud clunk.

He scowled a bit to himself, rubbing his head for a moment and muttering under his breath. It felt like it was going to leave a lump on his head-- Or maybe a bruise. Or he could just be over reacting, but really his reaction would depend on who had bumped into him. He span a near perfect on hundred and eighty degree turn on his heel to face the offender, only to stop and stare for a moment.

He couldn't see her face, but she was. . . bowing? It took him a second to register what was happening after hitting his head, shaking his head lightly to regain his senses. He took a second to look the other other since she was certainly not dressed like most of the people here-- if he remembered correctly she was dressed like a geisha. Perhaps his parent's brief phase would actually come into play, unfortunatly not choosing to keep practising the little Japanese they'd made him learn meant he could barely understand her as it was, let alone with her dialect. But oh, she was talking English now--

"Excuse me, I'm so very sorry--I should like to die, I'm so terribly ashamed..."

"No need to be quite so. . . severe about it. It was an accident, after all," he sighed, putting it down to being a sort of 'lost in translation' moment. He raised an eyebrow at her not looking him in the eye but not pulling her up about it. For the moment. "Ahh, you're Japanese, aren't you?" Well, he could at least try and make polite conversation for the moment.

[[ so lame sorry ffff ]]

...Again, she'd gone too far? Well, at least he didn't seem upset--which was ideal, since she couldn't even fathom what she would do if a man was angry at her, in a foreign land. Faint, maybe.

Although, perhaps this person was not as foreign as she'd immediately assumed. She hadn't actually gotten to look at his face, yet. Could the fact that he recognized her nationality mean that he, too, was...? There would be no greater blessing than meeting another Japanese person here. It could mean someone that would help her get home, someone who would understand that she didn't belong in this place. Or if nothing else, than at least someone to speak to in her own tongue.

Tentatively, she glanced upward for just the briefest of moments, looking at everything but the eyes. Ah... It would have been a lie to say that she wasn't disappointed. Clearly not Japanese, or even close. (Attractive, though--not that she'd gotten to look for very long.) On the bright side, that didn't necessarily mean that he knew nothing about her homeland. Perhaps she'd still found an ally, of sorts.

Gathering herself up, regaining her poise, she just barely covered a smile with the tips of her fingers, while continuing to keep her gaze averted. (She would have passed it off as modesty...but she didn't know what passed for modesty, in other cultures. Besides, with the dress--not to mention undergarments--they'd put her in, it would have been a joke to pretend like she could still try for 'modest'.) Time to put her training to use, hopefully without having to rely on pseudo-hypnotism. "Yes, I am Japanese...from Gion, in Kyoto. How very impressive, most people do not realize..." She trailed off indicatively. It was a compliment, but it was also true.

Stepping aside, she bowed her head slightly, again (though this time, purely on instinct), "Ah--I'm sorry, I am standing in your way. Please excuse me." Then, almost as if to herself, looking off to the side at nothing in particular, she noted worriedly, "I'm not entirely sure where I'm going, myself...without an escort..." And then a murmur in Japanese about how large the carnival grounds were, just for good measure.

A little white lie never hurt anyone. Though half of it was true: in the hanamachi, she was privileged enough that she wasn't actually used to going about unescorted.