I Guess I Owe You... (Lucky)

[Price]

Price leaned against the wall next to the double-doors leading to the Academy's cafeteria. He watched all the students walking by, whistling a little tune as he did so. Many of them looked at him rather funny, as he did seem a little strange, just randomly hanging out next to the cafeteria and whistling to himself, checking out all the people who walked by. In truth, Price was interested in the other types of magic around here. From what he'd heard, Phae could channel energy through her sword, and the summoner Ziare he'd met later on had quite the impressive abilities, as well. Thus, even though he was simply whistling a little tune to himself, in all honesty, as each student passed by, Price was trying to guess what they did magically.

That one there, she was probably a summoner too. Oooh, I bet that one channels energy through that dagger! Price whistled along as the people passed. That one must mess with fire, he looks like a hothead. So many people, Price thought, and so many possibilities. Maybe Phae would know some more about the students and their powers, he'd have to ask her, if she would hurry her butt up. Her very cute butt, that was. Price shook his head, smirking to himself, the thought causing a sudden stop in his whistling. There would be time for your average teenage thoughts later. First off, he had to make sure that butt, so to speak, was his to think about.

No problem whatsoever.

Price checked his watch. 11:58. Phae had better get a move on, or else she was going to be late.

[Phae]

Phae had spent a while getting ready. She had never spent so damn long getting ready for one day in all her life. It was just the way Blacky had about him that made her want to try just a bit harder to look nice but not too nice. She wanted to be pretty but not look like she had forced it on.

She had finally after much deliberation picked out what to wear. A short pleated blue jean skirt. It stopped at midthigh so it was short but not slutty. On top of that she wore a white button down collared shirt that was short sleeved. Buttoned across her stomach leaving the bust and up open so the deep red tank top could be seen beneath. The top was all very form fitting at the skirt flared when she moved just a certain way. Perfect. She slipped on some cute white tennis shoes that were pristine and she wore them without socks.

On her hip of course was the loose belt and her sword as per normal hung off her left hip. Silver earings adorned her ears and her deep waist length red hair hung down loose. Clean and sweat free from her shower earlier. She deemed herself done and nervous as she left her room and headed down the hall. Down the steps and into the main hall.

And there he was. For a moment she stopped just looking at him as if she didn't believe he would show up at all. Yet, there he was a bright smile crossed her face. She put her hands behind her back one holding the other loosely as she walked up to him.

"Hey there, Blacky. Nice to see your the punctual type." she said letting her hands fall to her sides. She looked up at him rather nervously wanting to hug him again.

The hug at the gate and the kiss on the forehead and sent her heart racing in her chest. She had not expected it even if he had said she was going to get them. She wished for another but if anything she would be holding his hand again.

[Price]

Breaking from the roots of his nickname, however, Price wasn't completely decked out in black this time around. Instead, he wore a pair of black carpenter jeans, loose and flowing, and a tight blue shirt that showed his well-toned abs and pectorals perfectly. Considering they were inside, and it wasn't exactly cold, he also didn't bother wearing the long coat either.

Phae had finally shown up, and it was all Price could do to keep his jaw from falling straight to the floor. Simply put, the girl looked GOOD. Dressed as she was, in a downright sexy way, Price's eyes widened, as that same, damned genuine smile that he couldn't help but show whenever Phae was around appeared for a few moments, before he was finally able to pull himself together and shrink it back down to a grin.

"Hey Lucky." He replied simply, putting his hands behind his head for a moment as he looked at her. Pushing off the wall, he approached the beautiful, yet regrettably already taken girl, and without a single fret of worry about it, wrapped his arm over her shoulder, smirking down at her.

"Of course I'm gonna be punctual, it's rude to keep a lady waiting. 'sides, a girl pretty as you, it's just be damn stupid to do so anway."

He grinned and, his arm around her shoulder, escorted her through the doors of the cafeteria. Perhaps there were people around that knew of her boyfriend, perhaps there weren't. Right now, it seemed as if Price didn't care about that one bit.

It was as if he was showing off to all of Arcane Academy that this Junpei guy wasn't the only one vying for Phae's affections.

"So, Lucky," he said, looking down at his most beautiful of companions for the afternoon, "what's best around here? Or is it all the same kind of magical gruel at each window?"

[Phae]

She could tell by the widening of his eyes that she at least had once decent when she dressed for this date of sorts. She smiled at him as he too looked very nice indeed dressed in something that accented him and wasn't covered in black. Not that she minded the black of earlier but this was a rather nice change.

His arm went around her and she smiled making no move to remove it. She smiled up at his comment and let him lead her into the cafeteria. Yes, she knew that this could get back to Junpei and in the event it did she would have to talk to him about it. There were a lot of things they needed to talk about.

"You look pretty sharp there, Blacky." she said with a nudge on his side as they walked towards the lines.

She looked up as he asked her how this whole cafeteria thing worked and she chuckled. It was neat having a new student, someone you could show the ropes to. Helped that he was damn fine looking and had a great personality.

"Basically you walk up to those nice ladies over there. You tell them what you want, and they get it for you. It's magic, Blacky, they basically give you whatever it is you want." she said with a smile.

[Price]

"So... is it REALLY magic, or are they just that damn good?" he asked rhetorically, not necessarily needing a reply, and his little laugh and naturally following smirk would easily make that point clear. Turning to face the line of students, Price simply watched for a while, his arm comfortably around Phae's shoulders, as each student who went up did, indeed, get exactly what they ordered. One came back with mashed potatoes and roast beef, another with a hamburger, and still another came back with a teriyaki stir fry that looked delicious.

"So... anything I want, eh? Hmmm... this could be interesting." As usual, Price's philosophy on life, Challenge everyone and everything as often as possible, kicked into gear, and he strode up to the end of the line, waiting his turn with Phae as a mischievous grin crossed his face.

The ladies were super fast, and it wasn't long at all before Price was at the window and ready to go. "What're ya eatin'?" one of the lunch ladies asked casually, and Price, grinning as toothily as possible, replied with little hesitation.

"Can you whip me up some grilled mahi mahi over a bed of Pakistani Biryani, with an Australian meat-pie and a skewer of barbecue shrimp?" he asked challengingly, certain that no cooks of such broad tastes would all be under the same roof, not even at Arcane Academy.

"Certainly," she said, matching his grin, and turned away for a moment, returning with the exact meal he had ordered on a cafeteria tray. His face fell, and hers only brightened. Clearly, this hadn't been the first time she had been met with skeptical students, and doubted it would be the last. Much as he had done when faced with a similar shock at the training grounds, Price let out a long, low, defeated breath. Looking back over to Phae, he grabbed his tray and spoke to her.

"Go ahead and order whatever you'd like, so long as you eat it. And pay the lady, for cripe's sake," he began jokingly, handing her the money that would surely cover the two meals. "I'll be sitting right over there," he indicated with his head to a convenient little table for two right next to a window overlooking the training grounds, "watching some of those freaks throw fire and such at each other." And with a smirk, he was gone, striding over to the table and putting down his plate, looking at Phae and watching her move in all her splendor instead of watching the 'freaks' as he had said he would.

[Phae]

Phae couldn't help but smile as he began to place his order. She laughed a little as she leaned into him slightly and waited for him to finish ordering the craziest meal she had ever heard of. The woman smirked behind the counter and Phae knew before hand that it wasn't going to be hard for her to fill.

And sure enough it wasn't and she smiled even brighter as he looked dismayed by the fact it had taken her almost no time at all to get his order done and right. She took the money from him and watched him leave as she stepped up to the woman.

"Spaghetti and meat sauce please." she asked with a smile and the woman came back in only a few seconds with a steaming bowl of pasta and some bread on the side. Phae grabbed an iced tea and payed the woman.

The woman gave back her the change and she took her tray and smiling she made her way back over to Blacky. He was watching her and she blushed. She didn't know why but it was light and hopefully he wouldn't notice. She sat down across from him and took her bowl and bread off the tray setting it in front of her.

"Here you go. By yourself something nice." she said with a chuckle as she placed his change over on his side of the table.

She opened her tea after shaking it and sat it aside before she carefully cut up all her spaghetti to make it easier to eat. After all she was wearing a white shirt. Though she could take it off is she stained it she would rather not have to make an idiot out of herself.

"So what did you do this morning Blacky? And it better be good or I'll get mad." she said as she repeated his words from this morning.

[Price]

"Oh, well, look at you, putting me on the spot like that. For your information, I took on a giant dragon today, courtesy of something you magic people call a 'summoner', or so I hear, with really long blonde hair. She a friend of yours, by chance? Cuz damn, that dragon was... huge."

Price laughed, and once Phae had sat down and situated herself, began to eat as well, thought not quite as greedily as he had for breakfast. While still being his usual casual self, he seemed to show a bit more manners this time than he had earlier as well. As he ate, he watched the girl across from him, lowering his head to presumably look at his plate to decipher the next point of attack at it, but in truth, was to hide yet another smile that crossed his face without his permission. What was it with this girl that made him act like that? It wasn't Price, and even if he liked the way it felt, it still seemed weird to suddenly break out into the happy-grins like he was doing. Looking back up, he had that tell-tale smirk on his face as always.

"And you, Lucky? I'll bet you dinner tonight that you can't top something as exciting as fighting a dragon. What'd YOU do today so far?"

[Phae]

A dragon? Her eye brows rose and then she smiled. She knew exactly who he was talking about. How unlucky she decided to fight him. But she couldn't help but imagine his reaction while seeing a dragon appear out of no where.

"Ahh, yes. I think her name is.. Z.. Ziare.. something like that anyway. I had a class with her once but I've never really met her." she admitted with a smile. She watched him look at his plate and her eye brow rose once more.

Phae ducked down when he looked down at his plate and a bright smile crossed her face as she saw his own smile. He couldn't hide them completly. He was so cute. She chuckled to herself as she took a bite of her pasta and watched him. She had to admit Lucky really did suit her when she was wit him. She not only felt happy, as happy as she had been on her very first day of the academy. And she had nothing but fun with him.

"I'm totally going to owe you dinner then. Not that I mind, mind you. But, since I'm controling this one we're spending time from lunch to dinner together or no dice." she said with a smile.

"As for what I did. I showered, very important thing to do." she chuckled. "I did some homework and went to the library. I cleaned up the dorm and got dressed to come see you. Yay for interesting fun!"

She laughed before she went back to eating her meal a smile on her face. She really wanted to hold his hand again, but she wasn't sure this was the place nor the time to do so. So she didn't but her hand almost itched to do so.

"Next question, how much did you miss me?" she asked as a joke but she wanted to see how he would answer that.

[Price]

Price listened on interestedly as Phae not only accepted his date to dinner, but added a new stipulation, to which Price raised his eyebrows, mock-disbelievingly, his mouth open in protest.

"I'm insulted that you'd even think I'd want for anything less than to spend the whole day with you, Lucky!" He smirked, and gave her a little wink across the table as she continued to talk a bit. She explained her day, and Price couldn't help but shake his head. She'd done exactly what one would expect of someone in a morning, nothing more, nothing less, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with that. Either way, Price couldn't help the rising smirk as he finally commented, speaking only two words on the subject:

"You're boring."

He laughed a little, his hand reaching across the table to grab Phae's, giving it a little squeeze as if to say 'you know I'm joking' before letting go, but leaving the hand quite close to hers on the table anyway.

Phae asked him how much he had missed her, jokingly it would seem, but Price figured he knew that no one ever asked anything completely jokingly. Raising an eyebrow, Price jested right back.

"Miss you? Eh, not too much. Only when I was fighting for my life against a fire-breathing dragon, thinking that my last days were upon me and I wouldn't get to spend them with you." He winked and laughed. "So yeah, a little, I guess."

Price shrugged, jokingly, as if to say 'sorry but that's all you're getting.'

"And what about you? Didn't pine for me too long after our last meeting, didja? I wouldn't think that whack-job boyfriend of yours would care much for that, heh."

As usual, that same edge was in Price's words and eyes when he spoke of Junpei. He hadn't even met the student, but the prize he was already fighting him for was worth too much to him to NOT get just a little competitive.

[Phae]

Phae's eyebrows shot up at the word boring and she laughed. His hand grabbed hers and she stopped laughing and looked at him. His hand left hers but stayed close and she smiled. She let her fingers run just in between. So they weren't holding hands but they were touching and her fingers were between his.

She went and took another bite of her meal as she listened to how much he didn't really miss her. She chuckled and looked up at him in time to catch his wink. She winked back and smiled. She felt so at ease here and she hadn't smiled this much since before Junpei had left and that had now been some time ago.

"Hmm, first off he wasn't there. So for all you know I could have pined away for you all morning." she joked and winked at him telling him that was all he was going to get.

"So, for the rest of the day. I was kinda thinking movie, and maybe some dancing, or .. something like that." she offered as she took another bite. She looked up and met Blacky's eyes with her own. "You have any other ideas?"

[Price]

It seemed like a reprise of the morning, with his hand there in contact with Phae's, Price didn't much want to move it away, not anytime soon, not anytime ever, if he could help it. He kept eating with his free hand, listening to her talk about just how much SHE had missed him.

"I'll just take that as a 'it's true, Blacky, every minute away from you is pure torture' and leave it at that." Price grinned and let out a little laugh, but his disposition then grew a little sour as he moved on to the next part of his little speech. "But the boyfriend wasn't there? Sounds like a real testament to how great of a guy HE is, eh?" Price 'tsked' and shook his head, his like for Junpei lessening more and more with every new piece of information he found out about him. He let it pass, however, as Phae brought up the next course of action, what was going to happen from this point until dinner. Something that interested Price greatly, as he was looking forward to anything, really, so long as he was with Phae. He, of course, didn't let this on as she spoke on about it.

"Movie and dancing before dinner? Well doesn't that just sound cute and fabulous," he said sarcastically, but winked back at Phae to assure that, as usual, he was just kidding, just being himself, really. Regardless, to clarify, he qualified the statement in the sarcastic way that seemingly only he could pull off so well. " 'course, I've got nothing better to do, so... I SUPPOSE..." He grinned as he continued to eat for a few moments, before a question of his own came up.

"So, Lucky, you know this place well enough, I'd warrant. Tell me about it. Tell me about some of the people you know here. I won't lie, after meeting up with Ziare and her dragon, I've been more than a little interested in what kinda things everyone can do around here. I mean... suddenly my own talents are seeming a little less impressive..."

Price trailed off, almost disbelieving of his own words. The ever-confident, ever-cocky Richard Price, doubting his own abilities? The thought seemed to be completely absurd, but here he was, spilling out to Phae in this way.

[Phae]

Phae laughed at his 'oh Blacky' comment and she just shook her head. Her eyes seemed to sparkle like the sapphires they were supposed to be. But at the mention of Junpei her eyes fell and her face became down cast. She kinda picked her fork through her spaghetti for a few moments her fingers took a bit of a firmer hold on his.

Her eyes and face rose again when he began talking about the plans she had thought about. Slowly the life came back into her face. She smiled weakly at him when he said it was 'cute and fabulous'. It wasn't until his sarcasm returned, yes that long, that a true smile returned to her face.

"So kind of you to join me." she said without a chuckle. The subject of Junpei had indeed touched a sensitive chord in her it seemed. Her eyes looked out the window for a moment before they flitted back to her meal and she ate a bit mechanically. He asked her about magic and she nodded.

"Well, lets see. There's a guy whose my best friend, he can disappear completly and move without making a sound. Pretty nifty. His girlfriend, can create images and spells by playing her flute or singing. I met an angel once wings and everything, she was really nice. There are alchemists. I saw a girl, Shea, she can focus her power through gems and they have elements which is just neat to watch. There's gun mages that shoot special bullets that allow them to do special things. There are a ton of different talents you just have to go out and meet them all. It's pretty neat." she said with a shrug.

Anyone who knew Phae would know immediatly something was bothering her. Phae was the one girl that seemed completly enamoured with magic. She loved to learn about others talents and see how it worked no matter what. She was always eager to meet and greet the new students and learn their own unique talent. Talking about it non chalantly was not her style.

[Price]

Something was wrong. Price wasn't exactly the brightest bag of beans in the fridge, no, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to notice the sharp change in the conversation's temperature. It also didn't take a genius to decipher about when the conversation took a turn for the worse.

Junpei. That whack-job was even affecting her when he wasn't here, it seemed. Despite himself, Price scowled, already growing in even more disdain for the guy. Phae's fingers tightened around Price's, and Price wiped the dirty look off his face only a moment after it came about, for Phae's sake. He moved his hand closer, completely interlinking his fingers with hers and catching her eye, as she tried to look about and avoid the situation.

"Hey... you, get the heck out of here and give me back the girl I know and like better," he said jokingly, a warm grin on his face as opposed to the usual smug one he would don. "Buck up, Lucky, I'm here for ya. If you don't smile, I might just renege on our little plans for the evening."

He smiled broadly, it was obvious that he would do no such thing. Regardless, his fingers closed around Phae's, giving her the silent reassurance that, no matter what, regardless of how troublesome the home life might be, he was right here and willing to help with anything.

[Phae]

Phae looked up when his fingers completly interlocked with hers. Her own eyes were wet with uncried tears but she blinked them away as she heard his words. She smiled at him and blushed for some reason.

She wanted to be the happy Phae of a few moments ago and this was probably the only man that could do that in any short period of time. But the 'buck up Lucky' line got her to chuckle and then Phae was back. She shook her head and dropped her fork in her plate for a moment. Phae reached across the table gently and touched his cheek gently her eyes thanking him. She brought her hand back and she began to eat again.

"Aren't you going to eat. I mean, you brought me ALL the way to lunch and you aren't even going to eat? Geez, Blacky what an example to set." she said with a wide grin on her face.

"So anything you want to do after dinner?" she asked as she looked back up at him but kept her hand firmly wrapped in his. She didn't care who saw. And she didn't care who they told. It would come out sooner or later and right now she needed this extra support. And Blacky was giving it to her.

[Price]

Phae's hand reached across the table, Price's heart stopped as he watched her. Was she going to be alright? He was worried about her, but she touched his cheek gently, causing that same damn warm genuine smile to cross his features, the one he only seemed to get when he thought about her.

"Sorry, sorry, I've been wasting all my time staring at you, let me be." Price smirked at Phae's proceeding little comment, glad that he had been able to help her come back to normal. Quickly the conversation shifted again, moving on to evening plans. She asked if there was anything in particular he wanted to do after dinner, and to this, Price could only shrug.

"Not especially, no. You lost the bet, don't try to weasel out of having to think up ways to entertain me!" He grinned and smirked, but then leaned across the table, his face getting closer to Phae's as he whispered, as if it were some big secret that no one else was allowed to know.

" 'Course, I'm perfectly fine doing anything, as long as it doesn't involve us parting ways immediately after."

He pulled back again and smiled at her, his hand still comfortably in hers. For the second time, they were holding hands over a meal, and once more, he had no intention of letting it go. Hell, for all he cared, this could be just another message to the world. This was the girl he cared a lot for, no matter how much he would deny it outwardly, and as such, he had no qualms with what he was doing.