[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/yMYUUW4.png[/img]
[h2][u][color=steelblue]K E N I C H I[/color][/u][/h2]
[h3][b][i]Dorm Lobby[/i][/b][/h3]
[@Feyblue][/center]
[hr]
"I... Umm..." She hesitated. Kenichi tried to urge her to go on with just his eyes. 

[i]It's been four days, after all. She probably has a lot of stuff she could tell me about...but I wonder if she's going to literally answer my questions again? Does she know how to just...talk, in general? Without having a specific answer to give to a specific question?[/i]

"Hmmm... I have a roommate now. Her name is Hatori-san." She turned around, motioning to empty space. Kenichi looked, but noted from the expression on her face that she must have been expecting her roommate to be there. Why wasn't she? Kenichi thought back, but he was sure that only Fumika had come down the stairs earlier, and he hadn't heard anyone else's footsteps. Hm. Was this Hatori-san kind of rude, or had Fumika just spaced out as she sometimes did?

"...Oh." She murmured, her bangs wriggling in disappointment. She glanced back at him with a slightly sheepish look. "Umm... Anyway, she's very nice. And really strong. Oh, but when she fights, it's actually a bit scary... But she's nice, so it's alright. We're friends now. I think."

[i]Did they pair ya up with a roommate?[/i] Yep, it seemed she was still being very literal with her speech. But, she [i]had[/i] added a lot of extra information Kenichi hadn't asked about with computer-pinpoint-accuracy. He smiled at her, and nodded to encourage her again to continue.

"And... I also made friends with a few other people in class, too. Like Reina and Jett. Oh. And I visited Haruka the other day, too. We had pizza and watched a show about superheroes. It was fun."

As she spoke, a faint but nevertheless warm smile had, for the briefest of moments, crossed her face. Kenichi's own grin grew more satisfied. So she was still answering everything like a machine...but hey, there was [i]feeling[/i] in it. She could do this! 

But then she stopped, frowned, and tilted her head slightly to the side, her upright antenna of hair curling itself slowly into a confused spiral. Kenichi's own expression changed to a puzzled one, his eyebrows lifting slightly.

"...Is talking like this... better? I'm sorry. I don't usually talk this much, so it's... difficult." Ah. So that was it. Just like Kenichi had thought before, he acknowledged to himself that from his point of view, the only reason she felt like she wasn't good at talking was because she wasn't used to doing it. He tried to think of some way to...some way to use his limited smarts to figure out how to help her. He could just keep asking questions, but...

[i]Man, it's tough when the only thing you know anything about is muscles--wait a minute![/i] That was it! To make a muscle you didn't normally use stronger, you had to work it out, true. But if you overworked it, you could damage it. Because it wasn't used to it. So in a situation like this, he shouldn't make Fumika talk too much for her--but at the same time, you had to push a muscle past what it [i]was[/i] used to. You might have to do one more rep, every session. Or add a few more pounds of weight, every week. So this...maybe this would be good enough. He just had to push her a little further, and then maybe she could feel a little more confident for next time...

"Hey, no worries!" He reassured her, giving her a bright smile and a thumbs up. "No need to apologize. That comfort zone of yours just got a little bigger, is all!" He crossed his arms and nodded. "I haven't spoken to Reina much, I don't think, but Jett's cool. I hope he and Ezra didn't get in too much trouble for that stuff in the cafeteria on the first day." [i]Now, what's one more thing I could ask, just an easy thing to answer to get her to go just a little beyond...[/i]

"What show was it you and Haruka watched?" He asked, tilting his own head in a manner similar to hers. He didn't have an ahoge to make neat little punctuation points like she could...although maybe if he developed the muscles in his forehead he could make that one top spike of his hair flex? Now [i]there[/i] was an experiment for later...