Thread: To the Beat of the Heart Drum (Retsu and Wing)

Being stuck behind the counter was the last thing he wanted to do, and this was such a slow area, that he was just sitting there and waiting for potential customers to enter and buy something. It didn't help that he didn't have many friends as he was not a native of these lands. Alyx Jefferson Shale. He was born in the United States, and had a rather fun life growing up. His parents would spoil him to a certain degree so he didn't become rotten, he was somewhat popular in all twelve years of schooling that he had, and had enjoyed his life all together. It wasn't until a friend of is, who was a major otaku, invited him over to his house. He thought it was just going to be them playing games or something, and it was just that, but he would discover his first and only true desire on that day. When he arrived at his friend's house, there was music playing throughout the entire house as he had installed stereos that were connected to his computer speakers in all the rooms of the house. He liked music, and had a massive iTunes playlist with songs of all genres. On this particular day, he was playing Japanese pop, and Alyx had never heard such music before. Just something about it drew him in, and he asked what was playing Hey Jake, what kind of music is this? he asked, as he followed him down to his basement. The current song? Um...I think this is Mr. Taxi by Girl Generation, but they share so many songs with another group called SNSD that I can't even be sure, Alyx honestly didn't quite care who made the song, and he had an amazing time both playing games with Jake, and listening to all the songs that played through the speakers. He went home that night, and started looking up the songs that had played on YouTube, and listened to them again as well as all the related videos that dealt with Japanese pop. It was there that he clicked on a video that looked like it was taken from a mobile phone. It was a video of five Japanese girls who looked like they were at some school playing at some sort of concert. It was uploaded recently, and he figured that he would watch it. Surprisingly, those five girls were amazingly talented, and he found that he rather enjoyed their playing despite not being able to understand a word that they said. One thing led to the next, and those YouTube videos inspired him to want to actually learn Japanese, and perhaps traveling their. He only had about a month left until spring break at his university, and decided to see if his school allowed studying abroad. In the meantime, he constantly studied the Japanese language, and was getting quite good at being able to at least get by out in the city. About a week before spring break, he approached his adviser, and asked if the school had a program that allowed students to study abroad, and was excited to find out that they did. He asked if it was possible that he could that he could go to Japan to go to school there, and was once again excited to find that was possible. It would just take them a few days to find a family there that would be willing to take them into their house, or to see if there was a hostel there that had room. Alyx spent the entire duration of his spring break learning to read, write, and speak Japanese. He could now function quite well in everyday life in Japan, but wouldn't quite call himself an expert by any means. And now time shifts to the present. His school had found him a hostel, and he was rooming with two other people. Two females both from New Zealand, and were here to study abroad as well. Thankfully, they spoke English as well, so there was no language barrier between them, but they did like to speak in Japanese together just to help make sure they didn't mess up anything. As the girl came up to the counter, a brief flashback occurred, and it was the time he saw someone just like her performing at some school concert, and then it occurred to him. She was the drummer in the video! There was no doubt in his mind that it was her because that yellow hairband of hers gave it away instantly. Still, he didn't want to sound like a creep Is there something I can help you with, ma'am? he asked, noting how she was looking at him and that she had two tubs of ice-cream. Which he took and scanned without her answering That will be two hundred forty seven yen.