[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/c574c3d1-731f-4eee-bb06-412d93a16e91.png[/img][/center][center][h3][i][b]S[/b]omewhere in [b]C[/b]entral [b]P[/b]aris | [b]A[/b]pril 14, 2012 (08:32 [b]AM[/b])[/i][/h3][/center]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpVga7kLnrY][sub]♫ Final Fantasy Type-0 HD OST - A Day Like any Other / Day of the Sun[/sub][/url]

	`So he [i]is[/i] from Asia then...?` Leonard contemplated as Rein mentioned he was from Singapore, smirking a bit in response to the clear joking tone that the guy was using to explain where he hailed from. While it did not prevent him from paying close attention to the young man as he had been, he liked that the fellow had a sense of humour. He nodded slightly in response, wondering if this was Rein's preferred greeting over a hand shake. Leonard actually tended to greet people with a casual hand wave instead of shaking hands, but he knew some people expected more formality.

	In all honesty, Leonard was not educated enough to have been capable of pointing out Singapore on a map if he was asked to, or even the 'Malay Peninsula'; in fact, he had never even heard of the latter until just now, though he guessed that the guy was referring to Malaysia -- a place he had only heard of vaguely, and subsequently also would be incapable of pointing out. All he knew about some smaller Asian countries was that people there apparently had bad living conditions or something -- he could sort of relate to that, but had no idea if Singapore was one of those places. Nevertheless, he had at least gotten the answer as to where Rein was from. It was still a bit jarring hearing someone from Asia speak without the accent he was used to hearing Asians use if they were not native to English, and it was also weird hearing him seemingly mix accents around. He sort of wondered if all people in Singapore sounded like that, or if it was a result of Rein travelling around -- he travelled [i]here[/i], after all.

	Leonard's initial thoughts upon seeing Rein for the first time were to assume he was from Asia -- it was only logical in the same way that the first thing you would think if you saw a French man would be to guess they were from France. He did know that Asian people immigrated a lot though (in all fairness, most ethnicities did), so he could have come from anywhere realistically until an answer was given. The accent - or lack thereof a specific one - had [i]completely[/i] thrown off the conceptions Leonard could have about Rein's place of origin though, which resulted in his initial curiosity about where this guy was from. If Rein had sounded like what Leonard was used to hearing from Asians speaking English, he would not have even given any of this a second thought. That was not what happened though, so the whole thing got him curious, and now that he had an answer the way the fellow was talking actually seemed weirder -- Singapore must have been an odd place.

	`Ah, I'm doin' it again, aren't I...?` Leonard thought to himself suddenly, moments before Rein continued talking to him.

	Without even really thinking about it, Leonard had gone into what he sometimes jokingly called 'detective mode' -- staring at a complete stranger and analysing every tiny detail about them, both out of curiosity and also out of caution. Had Rein not started talking to him again at this point, Leonard probably would have apologized or something by saying it was a 'bad habit' or whatnot. This really would not have been a lie -- Leonard [i]had[/i] admittedly picked up the habit of going into 'detective mode' a lot, to the point of sometimes spacing out and losing track of anything except what he was focused on. This was partially due to his dad drilling it into his head to find the truth through the details, so he had almost been [i]raised[/i] to be a detective to some extent, though he was far from savvy about how detectives did things 'by the book'. The habit sometimes caused him to have people call him out for it during conversations, since it made him a bit socially awkward when you considered how street-smart he was. Not that Leonard thought he was inherently doing something wrong - his staring having been out of inquisition, not hostility - but at this point he could tell Rein was getting uncomfortable now that he was less focused on thinking over the details.

	At this point, Leonard eased up on the staring a bit -- his glance became a lot less focused. He was still on his guard, but unless this guy's appearance was as misleading as Leonard's was then he doubted Rein would be able to cause him a problem if he tried anything. He did not seem hostile though, so Leonard was fairly relaxed -- all the staring before would not have seemed inherently aggressive anyway. Also, Leonard was very good at appearing casual even when he was ready for an attack, given his lifestyle. The fact that Rein was seemingly unarmed put him at a disadvantage technically, so Leonard had far less reason to be on edge then back home where anyone might pull a [i]handgun[/i] out on you at any moment. Not that Leonard thought an unarmed person was incapable of being dangerous, since [i]he[/i] was dangerous unarmed, but when compared to armed gangs a single unarmed person was a lot less to be concerned about generally speaking.

	"Heh, honestly I'm not that great at it either..." he replied, admittedly having picked up only a small bit of the language from the manual he was given, "I can order food an' ask for directions somewhat, but not without checkin' my book first -- tawkin' fluently or somethin' ain't happenin'..."

	Nevertheless, Leonard had a bit of time available to him. The information provided in his letter about the escort had explained that it would be provided at the appointed location at five o'clock PM. Leonard's phone was currently in his pocket and both his hands were full, but he assumed that there was still several hours until he needed to head back to the airport -- that was assuming he took the offer, given how he sort of thought a fancy escort could be a bit awkward for him, but he figured it was better than getting lost due to potential issues coming up from asking directions. He had charged his phone before leaving the hotel, but it could run out again during the journey. There was a map explaining how to get to the location on the other hand, so he had not exactly decided yet -- he really needed to sooner than later.

	"I've got a li'l bit'a time on my hands, so if ya think I can help out then I'm cool with it." he continued shortly afterwards, taking only a moment to think that over and not particularly giving Rein a chance to say anything in response prior. There would not inherently have been enough of a pause for him to accidentally interrupt Rein unless the guy literally did not even take a moment to think the initial answer over.

	"Ah, yeah..." Leonard quickly added, "Sorry if I was starin' earlier -- habit'a mine..."

	There were probably people who would say that Leonard's tendency to be really straightforward and direct with people was off-putting, but to those who were constantly dealing with the toxicity of people who hid behind masks, his honesty - even if it was honestly to a fault - could actually be extremely refreshing. Just the ability to talk with someone who never bullshitted with people and just said exactly what he was thinking. Dishonesty - when without any sort of truly good reason - was one of the worst traits a person could have, in his eyes.[center][h1]~[/h1][h1][u][i][b]NPC[/b]s[/i][/u][/h1][/center][center][h3][i][b]B[/b]ritish [b]T[/b]hemed [b]C[/b]afé | [b]A[/b]pril 14, 2012 (08:34 [b]AM[/b])[/i][/h3][/center]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-OzzbfV70M][sub]♫ 10.000 Bullets (Tsukiyo ni Saraba) OST - Joni Scott Club[/sub][/url]
[hider=Note][sub]To be honest, this is the piece of music I listened to when I was reading your collab post. For some reason, it just fit perfectly to me, even during the more serious moments.[/sub]
[sub]Sort of pictured your post perfectly as an anime or a VN/game, down to even imagining the character portraits and the background. Anyway, here's the music.[/sub][/hider]
	"She's a bit late... isn't she, Boss?" asked the female barista who had served Lucia previously.

	"Isn't she always?" the middle-aged man who had been called 'Boss' replied, smirking as he read his newspaper, "I swear, that girl... If she wasn't so bloody good at what she did, that would've gotten her fired ages ago..." he continued -- his attempts at mimicking the British accent being slightly better than his workers, though not by much.

	Meanwhile, a short distance away from the café...

	"Oh crap! Oh crap! Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!" a young woman said as she was running down the street, doing her best not to run anyone over on the way as she moved like a speeding bullet, "I woke up late [i]again[/i]!" she flailed, moving a little faster. Her speed was amazing considering she was [i]running in heels[/i], even if they were fairly short heels -- an inch or something. Her balance must have been phenomenal.

	Arriving at the café soon afterwards, her dash came to an almost instant stop. Had she been a cartoon character or something, this probably would have been the moment where a very loud skidding sound had been made for exaggeration at how abrupt and sudden her stop had been. Quickly, she rushed over to the door and a loud jingle could be heard as it opened hastily.

	"I [i]made it[/i], Boss!" the young woman spoke, clearly addressing the middle-aged man and seemingly exhausted as she was leaning down -- buffing her lungs out, her entire upper body was slouched significantly forward and her knees bent slightly as she held the doorframe with one hand in order to keep herself balanced.

	The weird young woman who just entered the café looked like she was in her early twenties at most. She had pale - though not too pale - skin and large expressional eyes that were light brown, and long hair that was a honey chestnut brown colour -- tied up in a ponytail using a large scrunchy. Some bangs moved down in front of her forehead in a few places, and she had sidebands framing her face that were wavy and long enough to easily go down to her chest. She was wearing a tucked in white blouse (woman's dress shirt), black leggings, and black heels that were not excessively high. A dark blue-ish purple jacket was worn over her shirt, which was open and had no buttons, and a similar coloured skirt that stopped a fair bit before her knees was worn as well. No other noticeable articles of clothing or accessories were worn, apart from her black purse being carried in her free hand and currently draping down almost against the ground.

	"Speak of the devil." the middle-aged man said, chuckling a bit, "Paula! You can't afford to be so late with your [i]new[/i] job, you know!" he continued, the way he spoke almost sounding like an uncle scolding his niece, "Our little girl's going to work for 'The Methuselah of Paris', after all. Isn't it about time you started getting to places on time?"

	Out of everyone in the café, those who seemed to be regulars did not seem even slightly surprised by the abrupt entrance of this 'Paula' girl, nor the words spoken by the man known as 'Boss'. A couple of them were even chuckling to themselves about the whole situation. The whole back and forth seemed to be pretty much an everyday event to some extent, apart from the mention of 'The Methuselah of Paris'. Though perhaps not as commonly heard of as 'Monsieur Bonaparte', the name was known within circles who followed urban legends as a nickname for Lucifer Van Bonaparte -- since the enigmatic celebrity had seemingly not aged a day in over two decades, at least according to the few who had seen him, myths and jokes had spread around that he was an immortal vampire who swooped in and captured virgin maidens as his prey.

	"It's n~" Paula started trying to say, but she was still really exhausted, so she had to take another breath, "... It's not very polite to call a nice girl like me 'the devil', [i]you know[/i]!" she said, a friendly expression on her face as she smirked up at 'Boss' and winked, sticking her tongue out at him slightly.

	"All the more reason you should rethink leaving us, right?" the middle-aged man said, "He might drink your blood if you're not careful! I heard some girls just like you went missing recently!" he continued, though the tone in his voice was clearly joking to anyone who was paying attention -- he was teasing her, and no apparent behaviour coming from him implied he was serious about anything terrible like that happening lately.

	"Oh, [i]very[/i] funny!" she said with the same friendly expression on her face, "You're such a jerk, you know that? [i]How[/i] do you stay in business?" she said, smirking.

	By this point, there was something that Conrad and Lucia might have noticed about Paula, or at the very least they [i]should[/i] have noticed it -- her British accent was [i]noticeably[/i] better than everyone else who worked there, including the man called 'Boss'. There was the occasional moment where the fact that she was born in France became apparent, but she spoke English perfectly enough like a British girl that one could easily have believed she had at least one British parent, and her physical features looked as such as well -- she clearly stood out a bit from a regular Parisian.

	"That's a good question, isn't it?" the middle-aged man replied, laughing a bit afterwards. Paula laughed a little in response to, and the female barista did at the same time. A couple of the regulars of the café seemed to be chuckling a bit more too due to all of this. For some reason, the moment this girl had entered the building the entire atmosphere of the place got a whole lot warmer, "Seriously though, this is a big opportunity -- don't blow it, okay girl?" the man said, "Also, once you seduce the bloke and make a fortune, put in a good word for me, ey?" he continued, smirking again.

	"Stop [i]teasing[/i] me!" Paula called out, flailing for a moment.