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[She smirks a bit.]

Apex predator, right?

[He's incredibly biased and she's got a soft spot for people who go after what they want.]

I'm actually surprised that you haven't asked about it. [Not when they met that day and not now, as they make more room for conversation.] Or maybe it isn't the most normal thing to talk about?

[She hasn't dated since she was twenty so! It's a fair concern.]

[He briefly meets her smirk before returning to his food.]

I think it's a social faux pas to talk about exes to people you're currently dating, right?

[Not that either of them particularly care for the conventions, but still.]

Look, all I really need to know is that he missed out on the best thing that ever happened to him. That said--if you want to vent about it, I'm all ears; but otherwise, I'm not going to ask questions.

Hmmm! Is it really?

[... She's always ended up hearing about exes with her boyfriends, huh! But, hey, this means she gets to be mysterious, too, so it's okay.]

You don't know that yet, though! I could still be a horrible example of a person! You'll have to keep dating me to really figure it out!

[See what she did there Boxer.]

It's what I've been told.

[Said in a tone that reads: "It could be total bullshit."]

Well... [he gives her a lazy shrug, head canted to the side.] I guess that's an obligation I'm willing to take on. I'll have to make up some sort of rubric to make an assessment with, too...

[So srs!]

Oh, I'm good at those! [Assessments, that is.]

But in exchange I should ask you a series of benign, but very important questions about life.

[She's only being half serious, but:] Like: Have you ever been in love?

[Not entirely not-serious, she's too curious.]

Love?

[Huh. He has to think about that one.]

I'm in love with the city...with the ocean and everything that lives with it. My job. Watching cloudy sunsets over the water.

But that's not the kind of love you're talking about, is it?

[There's a pregnant pause. His vision casts downward, and he pauses from his eating.]

...Lots of times.

[Well, so much for 'benign'.]

Well, that must have been incredibly torturous.

[Romantic love is ... Not the easiest thing in the world, despite what tv shows and movies and most books communicate.]

[He shrugs.]

Stories that were not meant to be written. Admittedly, I fall pretty easily.

[Aw, and she thought she was special! Well, she probably still is, somehow!]

Big guy, big heart. [But it doesn't seem like something he wants to really delve into so she isn't going to push it.

She is going to finish off her sub, though.]

[Her comment makes him laugh, but he can't exactly follow through with that and still eat his food. He covers his mouth to finish his bite, then holds up three fingers with it.]

Three. Three hearts.

[If she wants more details, she's going to ask a more specific question; there's too much there to just start talking.]

[She almost spits tomato on him and his neat suit, but thankfully it's ultimately downgraded to an embarrassing sputter, and the napkin saves the day!]

Okay, [Said when they're all clear.] big guy, and multiple hearts in order to adequately support an equally big and gorgeous body, then!

[That's a far more complicated response but it's incredibly accurate and genuine, so there you go.]

[Accuracy is important!]

Aw. You flatter me.

[He bats his eyelashes at her briefly before sinking back into his sandwich.]

You deserve it.

[Especially for that very impressive eyelash batting technique. There's a moment where they're both just eating, so it's a companionable, easy form of silence, but it shouldn't be any surprise that Nariko talks first. If you let her she'll basically go on and on about whatever crosses her mind for at least an hour.]

You know, I almost left entirely. Nathan's old enough that I can trust him to be on his own, after all, he probably doesn't need me around so much.

[She screws her eyes shut and adds, in a kind of self-deprecating tone:] ... I shouldn't say that about a fifteen-year-old.

[Boxer doesn't mind the silence at all. It's hardly awkward, after all, because the company is great and the sandwich is fabulous.

Until she speaks up again.

He instantly stops eating, mouth full, as he stares at her like a deer in headlights. That...sounds an awful lot like...]

Yoo haff a thon?!

[A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD SON??? Pardon the full mouth but he really can't help but jump to conclusions, especially when she's never told him her brother's name.]

Wh - Oh, no! No, no, no!

[You have completely misunderstood Boxer, let's reverse this for a second!] He's my little brother! He goes to a private boarding school at the edge of the city!

[And then she ... Kind of bursts out laughing.] Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I just - [Wait, let her giggle some more.] I wasn't thinking!

[Granted Nathan might as well be her son, considering how things have gone down but that's a technicality that doesn't need to be mentioned right away.]

Oh. Oh, [he says, laughing. He really doesn't mind that they're both kind of laughing at his mistake, because God, is that funny. If she had a 15 year old son, when would she have had to have him? Ten?]

You made it sound like--well, you're his caretaker, right? Heh.

[Pretty much! Which isn't impossible, per se, but it's thankfully not quite how things went down.]

I suppose if you want to look at it from a legal standpoint then that's a good word for it, actually. Someone has to look out for him.

[Don't you know she and her brother sprouted from the Earth, Boxer. There were no parents involved in the making of these two!]

[Well, she did give him a brief explanation on them before. To be honest, Boxer doesn't think of the concept of parents very often, because he sprouted from the Earth.

Or, perhaps more accurately, an egg on a coral bed.]

Fifteen, right? As long as he's hanging out with a decent crowd, he'll be fine.

I know. He's much more responsible and well adjusted than I was at that age, so who knows why I worry so much about it.

[Probably because that's what you do when you're looking after someone for the majority of their life.] He's in band, makes good grades, I even like his boyfriend! I think the worst thing he ever did was go to the gas station and scare me half to death, once.

[She reaches inch her clutch really quickly and pulls out her phone, when she turns the screen to Boxer there's a picture of herself and a rather gangly, blonde haired boy wearing a huge smile in front of Nathan's school. He's wearing his uniform and she's a bit dressed up herself, too.]

That's him. He's about taller than me and I still think he's going to get in trouble for helping every single person he comes across ...

[This poor man's already been roped into pictures of the family! She really does like him.]

[He is.

Eating.

It.

Up.]

He sounds like my kinda guy.

[Watch out, Nariko, or your horny boyfriend might go after your little brother, too! He has a fond smile on his face while Nariko shows him the photo.]

Cute, too.

[Okay now he's just acting pervy on purpose.]

What was he doing at a gas station that was so scary?

Moving on from me already, I see.

[If it's a faux pas to talk about exes with current attractions, isn't it maybe not a bad idea to eye someone else on the first official date? But she moves onto the story easily enough.]

He was ten, and he decided he was going to get up and go get ice cream at two-thirty in the morning. There's no city in the world that's safe enough to go walking around in badly lit streets for ice cream.

[What might be equally as strange is that the middle of the night was a nap and not, y'know, going to bed for the evening.] I thought he'd been kidnapped and nearly lost my mind.

Just giving you a hard time.

[It's a funny idea of what teasing is.

He chuckles.]

I don't think I could have a craving bad enough to get me off my ass at two thirty in the morning, much less navigate dark streets at that hour.

[Stilted sense of humor: check. But as long as he's only teasing, then it's alright.]

I mean, we didn't have food, exactly, so I kind of understand why he went, but who the hell isn't scared to walk around so late? Augh. [She rolls her eyes at the memory, and suddenly realizes how heavily contextual it is.] He was fine, of course, I just chewed him out for a solid ten minutes and cried hysterically while doing so.

[She gathers her trash up rather neatly, and if he's done with everything but the cole slaw then she'll end up taking his stuff, too.]

[~~He's too young for him anyhow.~~]

So did you end up getting some ice cream to keep at home afterwards?

[Boxer can honestly imagine Nariko both chewing someone out and bawling at the same time without much trouble.]

[If he can imagine it then he already knows her pretty well.]

Ultimately, yes, he was at least smart enough to get a tub.

[So they ate that all night until the situation resolved itself over the following twenty-four hours.] Let me go throw this out.

[She's a neat freak, but only gone for a few seconds.] Now if I ever cross my eyes at rocky road you'll know why!

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