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His free hand moved to cover hers in acknowledgment, his shoulders relaxing as he nodded. "I still should've warned you," he said, still feeling a little bad for startling her. He neatly stepped to the side as the woman with a baby walked by, smiling at her in a friendly greeting.
The woman returned the smile, raising one hand slightly in a wave before continuing on her way. Aika tilted her head, continuing once she was fairly sure the woman had passed. "In that case, there's a fairly easy solution. Just do so next time." She shot him a half smile, head turning up towards him.
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"Touché," Rory said with a small laugh. "I shall keep that in mind for next time." Once again, he looked around to make sure that Aika wasn't going to bash her shins into something. The path was fairly clear, though that didn't mean someone wasn't going to be careless.
"I've learned a bit about your band," Aika started, after a minute or two of quiet navigating through the tables and chairs, and one almost-fall courtesy of a napkin set over top a spill of some sort. "But tell me about your music. That of your band, or your own specifically."
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Rory tilted his head and hummed, letting her know that he was thinking. "Uhhhh…Anything specific you'd like to know?" he asked, looking down at her as he ran a hand through his hair. There was a lot he could tell her, but he didn't want to ramble on and on about it.
"Anything, everything." Aika said, shrugging a shoulder. "What kind of music you typically make. I mean you, because you already said you and your friends do that…pop punk, I think? The kind of lyrics you like to sing, the messages you send with your music."
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"Ah, that. And it's pop rock," he gently corrected. "I specifically do…uh…rap? Kinda? It's weird, I do a mix of both rap and rock… And it's mostly in Korean," he muttered the last bit. "Anyway," he quickly said, "My personal messages are usually about equality in general, but mostly the stuff people get for being mixed race, such as myself, and how young people can't be successful because they don't know how the industry works. Uhhh, personal strength and not letting people hold you down, stuff like that."
She nodded as she listened, a flicker of embarrassment at the mistake passing across her face. "It sounds interesting, for sure. I'm looking forward to getting to hear something even more now." She shot him a small smile, huffing a laugh. "Good messages, too. Those are always important."
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((if she's going to listen to his own personal songs, I'm just gonna copy and paste existing songs that I know, fyi. I'm too lazy and unskilled to come up with my own))
He smiled and rubbed the back of his neck, a twinge of pink on his cheeks. "Yeah, well, you'd be the only one to hear them. Like I said earlier, they're unreleased for the most part, but I don't mind you listening to them."
((Lmao entirely valid. Writing lyrics is hard))
"To keep attention off of you. Well, I hope my attention is acceptable, at the very least." She said with a nod, completely and utterly unaware of the fact that her words could be taken in a different way. Oblivious as always.
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He opened his mouth and tilted his head, then shook it and closed his mouth. "It's just you, and it's not like you'd snatch them up and release them without my permission. At least, I hope you wouldn't," he added jokingly, looking over at her with a small smile.
"Of course I wouldn't." She said, shaking her head as the neared the elevator. "Release them, or steal them. Either one is fairly abhorrent." She wrinkled her nose slightly, hand finding his arm to give him a small squeeze. "Rest assured, your music is safe."
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"Why thank you," Rory said, reaching over her with his other hand to press the button with his pinky—he was still holding Jordan's food. "At least there are some good souls in this country," he sniffed, then couldn't keep a straight face and ended up laughing softly to himself.
"That might be pushing it a bit, but if you say so." Aika said with a small laugh, shaking her head. She had never been one for spending time with others, but she had to admit, Rory's presence was enjoyable. "I have to agree though, too many people are unnecessarily antagonistic."
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"Ah, come now, you can't be that bad," Rory said as he stood off to the side next to Aika, "You've been quite pleasant this whole time." He hummed in agreement of her second statement, nodding. "Right? I don't understand how hard it is to be decent for two minutes to someone you meet in the street that needs a hand."
"Not bad, just not good." Aika said easily, shrugging. "And I'm glad someone gets it. I have been, on multiple occasions, shoved out of the way just so a person could board the train before me. I don't quite understand why the shoving was necessary, let alone being first, but here we are."
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"I'm sorry, but you Americans always seem to be in a rush to go somewhere, it's like the end of the world is upon you at all times," Rory said, shaking his head. "It's either do nothing or be constantly on the move with you lot, it would seem. It boggles my mind."
"All or nothing, correct?" Aika said, half a joke, and half just a comment. "Perhaps anything in the middle feels like not enough." It definitely was the case for her. Anything less than everything from her felt like…too little. Like she needed to do more. The elevator dinged, the doors opening to reveal an empty elevator.
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"Perhaps," he mused, tapping her arm once to let her know it was safe to go on. "I guess I can't really judge, as I'm usually always on the move. But the aggro isn't necessary," he said, holding the elevator doors open to let her go first. "A simple 'excuse me' is sufficient, I would think."
"True, true. Regardless of needing to be busy, manners are always nice." She agreed, nodding as she carefully stepped into the elevator and returned to her place against the railing. The tapping on her cane resumed much quicker this time as she waited for him to board.
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Rory followed after her, humming in acknowledgment of her words. He pressed the button that would take them up to Julian's floor, then stood next to her and listened to her tapping with a tilted head. He wanted to know if it was her own rhythm or that of an existing song.
The rhythm Aika was tapping was, in fact, her own. It wasn't often that she wrote her own things, usually sticking to playing songs that already existed, but she did it on the occasion. As with Rory's music, they never reached anyone's ears but her own.
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"Nice rhythm you got there," Rory said, turning his head to look at her. He was already starting to get used to the blindfold, and he sometimes even forgot that she was wearing it. He just spoke to and looked to her like any other human being. He didn't see a reason to treat her otherwise.
Aika's fingers paused for a moment before resuming, as she tilted her head up at him. "Oh-um, thank you?" A slight flush returned to her cheeks at the compliment. While she wasn't exactly bad at accepting compliments, she was incredibly unused to relieving them about her original music.
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Rory smiled, noting her flush, and realized that she might also be bad at accepting compliments, or at least about her original music. He didn't push the matter, however, and just responded with a, "You're welcome." His free hand lifted to idly pet the fur lining his coat hood, his mind wandering elsewhere.
Aika shook her head, leaning against the railing as she pressed her lips together in thought. Her fingers itched for the keys of a piano, or at the very least, the bow of her violin upstairs. She was lucky she'd even thought to bring it along, as it had very quickly become a source of relief when her thoughts became too much. The ding of the elevator a minute or so later drew her out of her thoughts, and she straightened, her tapping coming to a stop.
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"And here we are," Rory said, smiling at the people waiting for them to leave the elevator. He tapped Aika's arm once and made to exit the elevator. "You sure you don't want to back out now while you have the chance?" he asked her, tilting his head as he looked back at her.
Aika nodded at the tap, carefully slipping out of the elevator as quickly as she could, slightly proud of herself for not bumping into anyone boarding. "I'm plenty sure, don't worry. As I said before, I'm sure they're not that bad." Her lips quirked up into that small smile of amusement that seemed common.
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He chuckled and pushed his shoulders up to burrow into his furred hood, smiling idly to himself. "Alright, if you say so. Jordan's room isn't far from here, and you'd probably hear the bickering and shouting before we actually get to the room," Rory said, snorting. "I'll make sure that no one is blocking the door as well. They have a tendency to do that for some odd reason."
"That would be appreciated." Aika said with a laugh, shaking her head. She lifted her cane, tapping her fingers on the handle. "I would rather not embarrass myself completely in front of your friends. At least, not in the first five minutes."
