trans_9 | Shop 'Till You Drop! [SO VERY OPEN]

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Shop 'Till You Drop! [SO VERY OPEN]

It was nice to be out on solid ground, to breathe fresh and salt-tinged air, and to feel the real warmth of the sun on her neck and shoulders, Nanoha thought. She felt a very deep urge welling up within her breast to just take flight, to soar through an actual sky in the first time in months - and she had no doubt that she would.

But there were other things she had to take care of first. Like, for instance, swimsuit shopping with her best friend.

"Ooh, this store looks like it might have some cute ones!" Nanoha tugged on Fate's hand, pulling her towards one of the storefronts that lined this street of the bustling shopping district. Even if it didn't, there were still plenty of others to try, and plenty of cute outfits to convince Fate to try on.

(ooc: It might help to have just one thread for ALL YOUR SHOPPING NEEDS? Feel free to tag in and mingle, if you're shopping for clothes, groceries, games, whatever!)

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Miku laughed a little, and let Steve take the bags, "I'm just glad to have a better variety. I can't always wear miniskirts with it." But she still ended up with a lot of them, hadn't she. "Come on, we should go and walk around a bit."

She linked her arm in his and started to lead Steve from the store. It looked like Operation: Boyfriend Present was going to have to wait. "What did you buy?"

"Some T-shirts and jeans, a few jackets, stuff like that," Steve said, hoping she might buy that it was really sunny out and that's why his face was its particular color at the moment. "It'll be so great to wear something that's not a suit or a uniform." He had a few shirts and a pair of pants that Claire had got him for Christmas, but he couldn't wait for some actual choices.

"This is actually really nice. I don't trust the ship that much as far as knowing how to take care of us, but this place is pretty cool," he said as they stepped out into the street.

"It makes me think of Okinawa. I always wanted to go to a tropical place," Miku replied as they walked. She lifted her head to the sun and sighed. "It's so nice to feel the sun on my face again." She'd thought it when they'd exited the drop ship, but now it really felt like it.

"Are you sure you'll be okay carrying all that? We can drop it off at the hotel..." Miku looked up at him and raised her eyebrows.

"The closest I've been is North Carolina," Steve admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. He remembered a few things from that vacation-- he was 12, the ocean was really cold, his dad got buried in the sand and he'd been sunburned what felt like within an inch of his life.

"The bags? Nah, it's fine. Unless you want to buy another six bags worth of stuff," he teased her.

Miku grinned cheekily at him, "Maybe I will." Steve should've really known better. That was almost an opportunity to shop some more.

"Do you know what the best thing about this all is? We don't have to be vibrated clean." That was, out of everything, Miku's least favorite feature of the ship.

"Oh god, yes. Real showers. Real water." Steve sighed almost dreamily. You did get used to some things on Stacy but the tentacles and weird hoses and things squirming around when you were naked and rather used to things that looked like showers? Not cool.

"Real sun, real food, and real clothes. Definitely needed all of it."

"Was that the first thing you did?" Miku asked, still amused. She had, and it had been lovely, she wasn't about to lie. Being vibrated to cleanliness was a necessary evil on board but down here, she was perfectly fine to pretend it would never happen again.

"Not the first thing... but pretty close," he admitted.

He tightened his arm around hers and looked around the crowded shopping center. It was easy to pretend this was somewhere on Earth, as long as you could overlook all the strange nonhuman aliens walking around.

"Where do you want to go now?"

"Mmm..." Miku looked around. "Have you eaten yet? I'm feeling adventurous." Considering there wasn't a whole lot in recognizable food (and, Miku remembered, Cargn's gelatin had been fluorescent), it was be adventurous or be hungry.

She rested her head on his arm as they walked.

"I haven't. But you know I'll eat just about anything." He was turning the slightest bit pink again, but managed to keep his cool otherwise.

"I'm sure there's gotta be something good around here."

"Well," Miku replied as they passed a stand where a vendor sold something that looked like it had been wrapped in a dough of some kind and boiled, "it's all very interesting."

She pointed to a little cafe, "What about there? It should be safe enough." And, look, Steve, she even made sure there was meat (of some sort) being served.

"Looks good to me," he agreed. Don't think he didn't see that meat there. Of course, given that this was another planet, Steve was a little less inclined to go for meat dishes when vegetable or plant-based dishes were almost guaranteed to be safe and not containing any bizarre organ meats, rat-shaped creatures or soylent green.

They even managed to grab a little table under the shade. Hurray, less sunburns for Steve!

"I hope the menu comes in English," Steve muttered, and then it occurred to him for what might be the first time that Miku did not actually speak or read English, and he was kind of weirded out for a few seconds to think about it.

"What was that?" Miku raised her eyebrows after the waitress took their drink orders and left them with the menus. To her, the menu appeared just as everything else did and sounded: in Japanese.

Steve smirked a little bit awkwardly, leaning on his elbow. "I just thought of something. Do I sound like I'm speaking Japanese to you?"

"Well, I hadn't really thought about it before. But, yes. You do." It was a little bit off-putting, knowing he was American and speaking perfect Japanese. "Do I sound like I'm speaking English?" Because that would be a heck of a thing.

Her English grades hadn't been perfect, after all.

"Yeah," he laughed, reaching back to scratch the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. "I never really thought of it either. But I did think it was weird you spoke English so well. I mean, not that you couldn't, but. You know."

Boy, then how weird did it sound when he tried and butchered certain Japanese words?

Pretty weird, Steve. Pretty weird. "No, I really can't; my English skills are terrible," Miku admitted cheerfully. "I tried, in high school, you know, to pay better attention to my English. But, it was too hard and I was only a passing student."

She looked down at the menu again, and tapped a dish. It had veggies and meat in it, though they claimed it was a salad. And if she didn't think too hard about it, she might even enjoy it. "Maybe it's just one of those things we take for granted up there. And here, too, I guess."

"I've never spoken a word of Japanese in my life," he replied with a little shrug of his shoulders. "Except 'konnichiwa.' And now 'eatadeckymoss.'"

Steve sipped his drink and leaned on his elbow on the table. "Well, it's a good thing they have a translation engine, huh? Though I'd learn Japanese if I had to to talk to you." That was almost romantic, Steve!

Miku looked up at him and smiled brightly, then reached over and squeezed his hand. "That's sweet." She didn't even correct his pronunciation, this time.

Her cheeks were pink, but that could've easily been explained by the heat. It occurred to Miku that this was probably their first proper date, ever. "We could also take up gesturing wildly at each other, too." Though who knew where that'd lead them?

"Whatever works," he joked, and squeezed her hand back. See, this dating thing wasn't that hard. You just had to accidentally say stupid cute stuff from time to time.

It was a lot easier when there weren't nightmares and stuff going on all around.

"So what are you gonna eat?" he asked. "I'm kind of wary about eating any of the meat. I'd like to know what it is before I eat it..."

"I think this," Miku pointed to the salad. "There's meat in it, but I'm going to try to trust it because it says 'steak'. I'll let you try a bite if it's good." And... even if it wasn't steak steak, there wasn't any harm in being adventurous. "What about you?" Miku leaned over and peeked at his menu.

Steve almost suspiciously examined the item Miku was pointing at. And it looked pretty safe. "Okay," he said. "I think I'll get that too. We can be adventurous together, maybe."

"And if it's terrible, we can just put the meat bits to the side, somewhere," she suggested helpfully. Certainly the rest of it wouldn't be horrible. "Trust the steak, Steve." Miku laughed.

Their waitress came back and took their orders, refilling their glasses before she vanished again.

Steve was quiet for a long minute, tracing patterns on the condensation that gathered on his glass. Finally he looked up at Miku, smiled a little shyly, and smirked.

"This is the best birthday I thought I could have here."

Miku glanced down and hid her face as best she could with her bangs. She motioned for him to lean closer and kissed his cheek briefly. "Happy birthday."

Now she'd really have to find him a good present, something in the back of her mind piped up unhelpfully.

Shop 'Till You Drop! [SO VERY OPEN]

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