Questions, questions [Shou/Open] [Lake Towada]

Sora didn't say it out loud, but he was glad she was as understanding as she was too. If she wanted, she could have had him arrested or something. At least he didn't have to worry about her being some psycho. He dealt with too many of those.

Though he tried to hand the drink back, she was kind enough to let him keep it. He looked at it, shrugged, and then popped the top open. He took a drink and smiled at her. "Thanks for that," Sora said. "I actually was getting pretty thirsty."

Sora was ready to walk away, but she struck up conversation. There was no way he was going to be rude and walk away from her, so he took a deep breath and slowly let it out to try and relax himself. He felt less nervous around this woman than he had others. Why was that? He thought it was probably her childish nature.

"My name's Sora," he said. "And sort of? I'm kind of waiting on a call. Hoping for a new job. What about you? Are you wandering around doing some sightseeing?"

"Sora! That's one heck of a good name!"

With a big smile on her face, she gave him a thumbs up and went ahead to introduce herself as well to not be rude.

"The name's Shou! Fu Shou! You can call me mega ultra giga super cool-"

Cutting herself off mid-sentence, Shou covered her mouth with the sleeve of her sweater and couldn't stop giggling as she couldn't hold back from joking around with him. After spending for a few seconds giggling, she gave him a pat on the side of his arm and continued on.

"I'm just messing with you, call me Shou!"

Listening in to what Sora was saying, she gave a bit of a nod, looking a little impressed that he was waiting for a call for a job. Man~ What a hardworking lad, unlike Shou who was relying on her abilities to get scrap changes here and there and didn't even bother to get a job. She likes her freedom afterall and being tied down to one place was boring.

"Hey, you're pretty impressive to be getting a job, good luck. For me, I am just traveling across Japan to see what's out there in the world. A wanderer, a traveler, anything you can think is suitable."

Sora blinked, mildly surprised by the compliment to his name. Most people told him it was too girly, or some version of tearing down his masculinity. As she introduced herself, he smiled a bit. Her energy was different, weirdly refreshing in a way. Sora just watched her giggle after she cut herself off. The more she giggled, the more he had to hold back his own chuckle. He wasn't sure why he would be laughing.

"Nice to meet you, Shou," Sora said. "And thanks... for the name compliment."

In listening to her explanation on travel, he was surprised. His eyes danced around as he tried to figure out how she took care of certain things. " I travel too, but I still need money. How... do you eat? Where do you sleep? Or bathe? You'd need money for some of that at least. You're not going around thieving are ya?"

Ah~ What an honest lad.

Shou nodded her head happily with a smile when he thanked her for complimenting his name, really wanting to give him a pat on the head but their massive height difference was just making it impossible for her to do it. Oh well, its not that it bothered her much anyway.

It wasn't all that surprising when Sora sprung her with all sorts of questions about her travel. Afterall, it is suspicious that a girl of her age is claiming that she is traveling around Japan and that just raises all sorts of red flags. And so was his words.

Eat? Sleep? Bathe? Shou hugged herself, pretended to tremble and looked at Sora with a mild disgust on her face before she spoke up.

"Dude.. why do you need to know all these things about me eat, sleep and stuff? You're interested in me or something?"

Pft.

Seeing how Sora would react to that, she couldn't keep that up for more than a few seconds before she bursts out laughing. It was part of her nature to just mess around honest people like this since it is always fun to see how they would react.

After calming down, she got closer to the man and gave him a few pats on the back and continued on as she wipes off the tears.

"Just messing with you! You should be more careful with your wording or else girls might misunderstand!"

Letting off a few more giggles, she continued.

"I ain't that bad enough to go around stealing. I'm just relying on my powers to survive."

Waving the empty can of drink that she had earlier in front of Sora, the can would just suddenly disappear into thin air before a few pieces of 10 yen dropped into the floor in its place. That was her power, just selling off an empty can and "buying money" - sounds like a convenient recycling machine, doesn't it?

"See~? I make an honest living, y'know? That's how I get to eat properly. For sleeping, I just camp outside alone as usual. Bathing? I don't think you really need to know that, right?"

Answering the rest of his questions, all she did afterwards was just looking at the man with a grin on her face.

Everything in Sora’s being was stunned to a stone silence. She was right! He had no business asking such questions to a young woman! How dare he ask about her eating habits, her sleeping habits, and even her BATHING habits? What was he thinking? His jaw dropped, the life drained from his eyes. He was dying inside. For this CRIME, he deserved any consequences she deemed necessary.

“I-I-I…” Sora couldn’t get out anything.

And then she began laughing at him. Wait, was she joking? He wasn't really able to calm down after that. The way he saw this female was no longer kind of innocent. She was like so many others. A demon! A devil! Sora watched in horror as she kept on. She showed her powers, explained herself, and even claimed to be making an honest living. How?! With counterfeit money created by this weird ability she has?! Sora was SURE there were one or two laws about using your abilities this way.

"Are you kidding me?!" Sora said, shocked and slightly angry. "I was just curious whether or not you had the capability to bathe, you know? Bathing? Being clean? It's a health thing! Nothing else! Also, counterfeiting money with your powers is probably illegal! You can't do it! Do you know what happens if you get caught?! See, people make fun of me, but this is why women freak me out. You're all crazy!"

Hoho~

Shou whistled, surprised at Sora's aggressive reaction to her teasing and seeing him go off in an entire rant. Man, out of her experience of messing around and teasing people, this one was definitely the most amusing of them all.

When he was done with his rant, Shou only snickered in response, unintimidated by his reaction and spoke a single sentence.

"You done throwing tantrums now, boy?"

Yes, to her, all of that was a tantrum to her. She didn't care nor was she afraid how he would react saying that. Shou knows very well that she is very disadvantaged here - that if Sora wanted to do so, he could easily overwhelm her due to their physique and probable ability differences.

Still, she wasn't afraid.

"If you cannot handle small, dirty jokes, you could've just told me so instead of going off like a bomb and I'll gladly apologize for making you uncomfortable. I am, after all, the type who is willing to adjust and reflect on myself."

Walking closer towards Sora, she stared him straight in the eye and continued on.

"But if you're freaking out like this because I'm a woman, then aren't you a sad and irrational person? Then should I act appropriately like any other girl should and screamed that a suspicious guy is trying to know my living habits?"

Pointing her finger towards Sora for a few seconds, she waved it off afterwards and let out a sigh.

Even more amusing is him telling Shou how exchanging money from scraps are counterfeit money. That sends her off to just burst out laughing from how ridiculous that had sounded to her. Counterfeit money? That's the first time she has ever heard of! Seriously, this guy can think up the funniest things.

Ah~ Its just difficult to get bored of him at this point.

"So, if someone brought an empty can to a recycling centre and got a few cents out of it, they are all now earning counterfeit money? Then a shop selling you drinks is just doing the same thing, aren't they?"

Holding her stomach and giggling away even more, she wipes her tears off and continued to clarify with him.

"My powers are just like a walking shop or a market to be exact. Everything I sell, I can buy something equal in value of it which means I can't even get any money out of dirt and can only do it out of trash or scraps that people find useless and throw it away. You think I can do anything illegal with this useless power? If such a dream is real, I would've done so a long time ago!"

Boy?!

Sora took in a deep breath and just glared at her as she went on. It wasn't a glare full of hate or rage, but a 'what the hell is happening' type expression. There was no real reason for her to fear him. Sora would never attack her. He'd have to feel threatened to raise a hand to her, and he'd have to fear for his life to raise a weapon to her. He wasn't the type of man to get angry and react with physical violence. Besides, he wasn't even really angry. It was more confusion, shock, and frustration all thrown into the same basket. Why couldn't women just be... normal?

As she stepped closer to him, he leaned back. He didn't take a step, but he leaned back like someone was about to touch him with something sharp. That. It was statements like that, the accusing, manipulative, accusations that women were able to put out because they took something out of context. It was one of this fears, something he always watched out for. He let himself be comfortable for a moment, talking to her like a normal person instead of being on guard, and this is what happened. He said nothing. He clenched he jaw and stayed silent.

The stuff she started spouting about counterfeiting did let him know one of two things: either she knew very little about the world and how currency works, or the "money" she suddenly got with her powers was randomly grabbed from someone in the world, and she was stealing it. It helped shape a different view of her, and even allowed Sora to calm down. She was too young to continue bothering him.

"Yeah, that's not how the world works," Sora said, shaking his head and rubbing his hand down his face. "You can call it 'buying' if you want, I guess, but either your power is turning stuff into money, or you're taking that money from someone else. If it's being created out of thin air, yeah, it's counterfeiting. If it's being taken from some other place, then it is stealing. Do you even know which it is? I might not be explaining the subject very well. Either way, you should be careful."

Well, he ain't wrong. Nor is he right.

She understands where he is trying to get to - it could be stealing or it could be counterfeit but there was no way to prove that at all either. Even Shou herself had no grasp or understanding of her powers so she doesn't know how, what or where is it doing all of this buying and selling, so the answer could be neither as well. Regardless if there is an answer for it or not, she is just using her powers just to survive while traveling. After all, no one wants to hire someone who doesn't even have an identity.

Shou was pretty observant too - watching his body language while her ears listened. Sure, she wasn't the smartest of the bunch but she isn't stupid either. Her traveling experience, albeit not a lot, had helped her know someone to a certain extent and be a little more careful of her words.

Her eyes gazed onto Sora and went silent for a bit after he had finished speaking, thinking a bit on how she should respond and spoke up when she had things in order, maybe.

"You might be right but both you and I don't have an answer to it either."

Putting fingers around her chin and tilted her head for a bit, she continued.

"Even if it is my powers, its not like I wanted it in the first place. Let's assume you're right, I might be stealing or even counterfeiting money but we have no clue where the source comes from. After all, I am doing this just to survive off of scraps and at least not 'buying' a thousand dollars out of thin air."

Taking a piece of coin that she had 'bought' earlier, she lightly flicked the coin over to him in hopes that he'll catch it. Though whether or not he does, she doesn't really care.

"For it being counterfeit, all it means is if its fake, right? Then you're free to check it yourself if you got an expert with you."

Saying that, all Shou does was smile a bit and waved at him before she continued again.

"If you think its bad, then I'll just stop using it. Then I'll ask you: how am I going to eat from now when I travel?"

The silence. The look in her eyes. It was like she was trying to creep him out! This time, it was him who fell silent. He watched her carefully, trying to gauge her honesty in the explanation she gave. She seemed honest, but he'd never claim to be a good judge of character. As the coin was tossed to him, he instinctively caught it. He took a look at it to measure how real it looked and felt. It seemed real enough, which still may create a problem! Even if she didn't consider it stealing or counterfeiting, if she did that in front of the wrong person, things could go bad.

"You still have to be careful," Sora said, sighing. "Since you don't know how real it is, then you should figure that shit out. And why make money anyway? Use your power to help other people out. If I can grab odd jobs around any city I go into, I'm sure you can to. It's legal, it's helpful, and you don't gotta worry about gettin' in trouble. Besides, why would you stop doin' your thing just because I said so? It's not like you know me. I bet the moment I leave you go back to doing what you wanna do."

"Alright, alright, I'll be careful~"

Shrugging with a smirk on her face, Shou will take his advice to heart and at the very least, won't be using her powers willy-nilly and make money in front of thin air.

Listening in to the rest on what he had to say, it sounded very protagonist-ish to her. Use yer power for good!, that sort of vibe, you know? While it sounds noble and all, its not that she's using it for evil anyway and just like every other living being, she is just doing what she can to eat, drink and sleep. Still, she does get where he is coming from.

"Figure it out? Man, if it sounds that easy, I would've done so long ago."

Chuckling a bit as she said those words, she continued on.

"I would help people if I'm given the chance to. Maybe you can't tell but I am not very well-off and just like every other human, I need to eat, drink and sleep. There's a reason why I gotta make money. Plus I would be hella happy if I can even get a job in the first place but with my situation, it's just impossible."

Laughing away, she wasn't really lying about her financial situation. A person with no parents, guardian and relatives and worst off, don't even a proper identity because she couldn't even remember her own name and life for god's sake.

Walking up closer to Sora, she pulled a pretty worn out wallet of hers with very little money and not even any identification, and left it hanging over her fingers, as if she is handing over it to him.

"Unless you want to help me. A new identity, a new life, a new job. Can you?"