[@Furiosa][@Poi][@Jay Kalton]

"Yeah, I guess I can take raccoon." Joseph said with a surprised expression. "Honesty, I would've just gone with rat, but I'll take it."

He flinched at Ren's outburst, letting out a startled whisper of his own before screwing his eyes shut and calming himself down.

"No, I don't have a phone. I [i]did[/i] have one once, long ago, but I had to sell it the first time I ran out of food. And while gardening is a bit of a hobby of mine, watching grass grow tends to take a bit of a hit in favour of walking from city to city, you know? And finally, doorbells. I'm assuming their still the pushydingdongsounders I remember, but there was also a time when you had to flip open a phone, so the tech may very well have changed."

And then he turned his attention to the girl he'd just offered to help.

"Ye-yes. Sure!"

Damn it, he'd really been hoping he could ride his wave of desperation-fuelled confidence to speak to this girl properly, but he wasn't starving to death anymore, so it looked like he was back to his usual, panicky self.

"Yeah, we'll h-help you out. I mean, I also don't actually know the way myself, but Ren does, right Ren!"

He let out a clearly [i]too[/i] loud laugh, before promptly wishing he could kill himself through use of his brain alone. This girl seemed really nice, and was honestly quite pretty too. Naturally, this was destroying his already low confidence even more than normal.

"Um, anyway, I'm Joseph." He said, mustering his willpower to keep his stutter under control. "I'm a wanderer, and I walk around between cities barely surviving. This is Ren, he's a medical student who actually knows his way around and has less trouble staying alive. Together we make up a duo of crime-solving super-sleuthes, protecting the good people of the city from evil. That's not true. I don't know why I said that. We barely knew each other until I collapsed from starvation on his lawn about an hour ago. Please forgive me, my people skills aren't great unless I'm dying, apparently!"

And them he tried to act casual, smiling like an idiot and pretending he hadn't just had some kind of mini breakdown. This went well for a couple of seconds, before a loud sound caused him to nearly jump out of his skin.

"Jesus!" He half-shouted half-whispered, looking to the source and recognising the tall japanese woman from Swansong, who had just smacked the coffee thingo an apparently making it work that way.

He repeating his calming process from before, before smiling and trying to act normal.

"Bu-but yeah... Social s-skills could use a l-little work most of the time."