Curiosity killed the cat [Nickolette]

[Yumi Kururugi]

Curiosity killed the cat, Yu...

Or as the saying went. Yumi could still hear her brother's, Suichi's, words ringing through her head. He warned her about her curious nature--always going on about how it would get her into trouble. What could the harm be from exploring just a little bit? Though, the girl had no real idea what that saying meant; but, it had to do with a cat, and she was well aware she was no cat! Nothing would happen from a little running around.

Although, it probably was a really bad idea to go out on her own. This was a whole new place, a new city, a new country. She didn't know many people, where she was, or even sure how to get home. That didn't seem to be much of a problem to her, either! She had her cellphone with her, right in her pocket. She could call home when she her curosity was sated, and tell them to come get her. Her father and step-mother would be mad, but they would send a car for her nonetheless.

Her father, afterall, did complain that she wasn't getting to know her new surroundings.That included the entire city, in her thoughts. He couldn't blame her for wanting to find out where everything was. It was the perfect excus--er plan--for skipping out on her step-mother's "proper lady" lessons, and for sneaking out.

Yumi smirked to her line of thoughts as she walked down the path. "Huh, this is nice..." She muttered to herself, eyes glancing at all the stores. There was just one issue. Where was the candy store? The bakery? She needed to find a good place that sold quality sweets! All the sweets her step-mother kept around the house just weren't her cup of tea. She needed lemon filled sweets! "Where are the swee-!" She wasn't paying attention to where she was going. Too bad she walked right into someone.

"ACK! I'm so sorry!"

[tsarashi]

People were staring at her that much was obvious. She hated when people started at her, but of course, it was only to be expected since she had forgotten to change out of her school uniform before venturing out into shopping district. Many people recognized the uniform and Nickolette could hear people speculating about who she was, how much money she had, and more importantly what was she doing in their shopping district.

Was she not allowed to shop there just because she had money? It made no sense to the little Russian girl. Sure she could have sent out one her maids to do this bit of shopping for her, but where was the fun in that? Besides, the maids were all so busy cleaning that manner that really didn’t need to be cleaned again. Her chef, Erick, was visiting family for the day and Viktor her everything man and driver felt like she needed to get out of the house.

He was such a sweet heart. After all she was the only person living in that house; it became lonely when the help weren’t around to talk to. Stir crazy. That was what Viktor had called it. Though she was pretty sure that she wasn’t mad nor was she stirred. Either way he had dropped her off at the place of her choosing and would pick her up the moment she called.

Her shopping bag felt heavy as she walked past the various shops, her yellow dress made her stick out like a canary, but she loved that dress and found no reason why she absolutely had to change out of it after school. But now that she noticed the attention she was getting, she sort of wished that she had.

Nickolette snapped out of her thoughts the moment someone ran into her. It was not the best way to come back to reality, but it certainly did the trick. She gasped as she was forced to grab hold of the stranger’s shoulder for support. ”I’m terribly sorr-“ But her apology would go un finished as she let go of the stranger to look in horror at the massacre of sweet dumplings that had scattered when her bag slipped from her fingers. ”Oh dear, my sugar buns…”

They were going to be her breakfast for the next week. She loved those soft dough balls with their light sugar glaze, they were the only reason why she had gone to this part of town in the first place. The only shop that she knew sold them was a little traditional shop around the corner. Nickolette slowly lowered herself to the ground to see if any of them were salvageable.

To her dismay none of them had survived the impact or stayed in the paper bag. That meant that she would have to go back to buy more. She sighed as she straightened her legs and brushed her dress. When she looked up at the stranger the exchange student was shocked to say the least. ”Miss. Kururugi?” She asked. The underclassmen infront of her was the Kururugi daughter, and though she had never met her in person, her family was quite a subject of gossip among the older money at parties that she had attended. Apparently there was quite a scandal when the mother disappeared to America with the children only to get killed.

Nickolette frowned. Rumors were such terrible things.

[Yumi Kururugi]

Yumi couldn't believe she just walked into som--okay, she could. It wasn't like it was aything new. This happened often; she always did it. The girl couldn't begin to count how many times she walked into someone, someones, or something for the same reason. The reason being that she wasn't paying attention, or got distracted. Oops. At least, this person she'd managed to run into was the... fifth or sixth person since she'd been in Japan! That wasn't so bad. It's not like the amount of people she'd managed to bump into before coming here. This was a new record for her. Anyways, back to the issue at hand...

Yumi's hand lashed out to try and catch onto the arm of the person. Before the girl could actually latch on to keep said person from hitting the ground, that person grabbed onto her shoulder first. That's when she realized that this person was actually another girl. Whichever helped keep herself up, she supposed. Uh oh. Looks like she caused the girl to lose control of her shopping bag, and what was inside of it. Her bright green eyes scanned over the fallen buns, before she pouted. Oh great. Not only did she bump into her, she made her drop all those delicious looking dumplings! What a waste of good food! Somehow... that made Yumi feel worse. She made someone waste sugar buns! Perfectly good sugar buns!

"I'm sorry, sometimes I don't pay attention to where I'm going..." She muttered, sweatdropping at herself. If she did, then this wouldn't have happened. She watched the girl, keeping the saddened expression on her face. By the looks of it, none of the girl's sugar buns made it. They'd all "died" or "abandoned ship" and hit the hard ground in the process. Hey! She recognized that uniform. The yellow dress was the same exact one she had worn earlier that day. Though now, Yumi was dressed in jeans, a shirt, and a nice teal colored open-sweater. And, she wore tons of bracelets, and hair accessories besides the bandana. It something that her step-mother would deem wrong. Well, there was nothing exactly wrong with it. So the clothes weren't super-expensive. Why should she wear good clothes to go out and explore in? The girl knew herself all too well. They'd get torn, dirty, or she'd just be uncomfortable in them.

Yumi was snapped from her sudden line of thoughts by the other's voice. "...Huh? Yeah... how did you know...?" She was slightly surprised. She'd never seen this person a day in her life (that she knew of anyways). How did this stranger know who she was? Yeah, they went to the same school, but that didn't answer any of the questions now popping into her brain. She smiled slightly, before dropping to her hands and knees, looking to pick up the mess. She didn't care if she had to crawl a little bit to reach each bun. Even if it was just putting the buns back into the paper bag, leaving the mess there just didn't settle right. Bracelets clanged together, and beads rubbed with each movement. "I'm reaaaallly sorry about this, though!"

[tsarashi]

Nickolette blinked when the girl spoke. She thought it was perfectly normal to know who people where, she did research and learned of people’s pasts and that made it easier when meeting someone for the first time at parties and balls. Everything was easier when you recognized the faces, even if not one of them knew you. It still took her a moment though to realize that people didn’t know her the way she knew them and they thought it odd that she would know who they were.

Some people were obvious and were flattered to be known, but people like Miss. Kururugi were probably unused to it. Especially since they had never formally met before. In fact, Nickolette had only ever met a friend of her father’s family who had spoken about her mother, Nickolette couldn’t even remember the girl’s first name. She had seen the girl in passing and over heard words whispered about her, confirming her identity, but that was it.

Nickolette was older and didn’t associate with underclassmen often, and that was probably another reason why they hadn’t been introduced. She shook her head lightly and smiled at the younger girl while brushing her light brown hair delicately behind her ear. ”I’m your sempai; I’ve seen you in the halls a few times. It’s only natural for me to have learned your name” She said as if it explained everything, she didn’t want to go into the details of the rumors that she had heard, so the exchanged student kept it at that.

Shock and disgust flooded her though as the girl crawled onto the grubby sidewalk to pick up the smashed dumplings with her bare hands, glaze and sticking to her fingers. Nickolette gasped quietly in horror. It was too much to watch, after being raised in such a delicate and clean environment this sight was almost mutiny. Her hand would become filthy and her clothing ruined, Nickolette just couldn’t let a lady of Miss. Kururugi’s… stature lower herself to a appearing as a grungy commoner.

That was the Russian bent her knees again and brushed her long dress under herself for modesty and to keep it from touching the ground. Her tiny hands reached out to hold onto the younger girl’s wrists lightly to stop her hands from roaming over the ground any longer. ”Please, you do not have to do that. You are going to get filthy. Though from the look of things this girl didn’t care if she was going to get filthy or not, so she added on top of that ”There are people who are paid to clean messes such as this off of the street, if you do it for them they would be out of a job. And if a commoner lost their job how would they be able to feed their family?”

It sounded terrible and rude, but it was the truth and she knew it. They had money, others didn’t, others had to work to be able to buy sweets and sugar buns. Nickolette had heard how hard it was for commoners to get a job, as well as keeping that job. They didn’t have the security of owning their own company. Nickolette sighed and stood up, taking the girl’s wrists with her. She had wanted to try and pull the girl to her feet, but she was too scrawny to do so, so she opted with saying ”Let’s get you cleaned off and then how about you help me buy some more, the shop is just around the corner.”

[Yumi Kururugi]

Yumi was... a bit confused to say the least. Just who was this girl anyway? She thought aboout it, rumaging through her memory bank as quick as she could. She really stood there and tried to match this young lady's face to one she knew. Too bad, she came up with nothing. She couldn't find herself a match. With that, she was sure she'd never met this girl before, she would've at least remembered her face. At least, that's what Yumi thought. She was good with first names and matching them to faces. Even if she did have trouble remembering last names, knowing their first was plenty good, right?

When the other girl informed Yumi of seeing her in the halls, it seemed to wash the look of confusion and shock from her face. "Oh, I see..." But why would that be natural to learn her name? Was that something super-rich people did--know everyone else by face and name? Wouldn't it be natural to learn her name if they were introduced or bumped and exhanged names? Although she didn't really get along with her step-mother (stupid lessons!), she'd definitely make a mental note to ask her. Hinako would know the answer! With all those other lessons she'd come up with, she out to know the answer to this question at least. Yumi had to wonder... was it the talk that went around the school? Maybe that was how this girl knew. She was a little bit of an airhead at times, but Yumi was no dummy.

She'd overheard others, here and there, with their hushed whispers when she walked by. "Hey, isn't that Yumi Kururugi?", "They say she just came back from America", "Yes, her mother took them with her when she left", "She's back because of an unfortunate accident," and whatever else they all had to say. Some saw it as a scandal. Yeah, her name and her being in America was the truth... but she didn't like when other's spoke of it. Not one bit. Well, even back home, people gossiped. She supposed even rich people had to, too. She couldn't keep herself from lowering her gaze, green eyes staring down at her own sneakers."Can you just call me Yumi, please?" She asked, voice meek.

"What's your name?"

This meek, and saddened attitude didn't last long. Nope, not at all. When she got down on all fours to clean up her mess, she was as happy as could be again. She hummed a small tune to herself, a little song she could recall Miss Rivera (a babysitter and house keeper) humming as she cleaned. It reminded her of home, back in America. It just made her smile as she put dumpling after dumpling into the brown paper bag. She didn't care if others were staring. So what? She was just cleaning a little mess she'd made. What was wrong with that? What she wasn't expecting, however, was for the other to stop her. Didn't she clean up her own messes, too? "H-hey! It's okay. These aren't very expensive clothes anyway. So it's okay. Besides, I can throw them into the wash tonight." The girl whined, before pushing her bottom lip out into a pout. She wasn't very happy, that was for sure. Why did these people call people without money commoners? People were people, right? They were all the same...

"...'Commoners' have feelings just like everyone else. How would you feel coming to work, and there being even more of a mess than what you need to clean up? Or if you just cleaned this street up, and as you're walking home from a day's work, there's suddenly a big sticky mess all over your cleaned street? I'm just picking up after a mess I made, nothing else. I know no one else around here will, because they expect someone else to." She replied with a huff. Even after she had stood, Yumi was stubborn and remained on her knees. She didn't like to leave the mess. She didn't want to. She wanted to pick up every single sugar bun that'd been lost, and throw them into the bag. Her mother had always told her she needed to clean up her mess, be it at home or on the streets. Why wouldn't anyone around here (even at home) let her clean up?

"Fine." She replied after a moment's silence, keeping her pout. Yumi finally got to her feet, blowing hair out of her face. She couldn't win, anyways. She knew if she didn't just go with the flow now, she'd just end up offending someone later down the line. She didn't want to hurt someone's feelings, but she couldn't understand why. Boy, life as an even richer person than before was weird. New. And she didn't like it.

"Okay..."