a lack of control

who: Chie and Roy
where: The streets
when: Late afternoon

It was probably a hugely bad sign when getting jumped by street gangs and getting into fights made one feel better than they'd been feeling before said fight. But that was the case with Roy Grady that day. He'd been in an ugly place for a while, something that kept steadily getting worse, and getting into a fight had let him have an outlet for at least a little while. He didn't pick any fights, but as he was out for a 'walk', fights found him.

By late afternoon he was looking one hell of a lot worse for wear, but he was still walking around, letting the rain wash the blood from his cuts and scrapes. It felt okay, especially since it was kind of warm out. Warm enough that he didn't seek shelter, anyways, even if he might just find another fight eventually. But he didn't want to go back to the vault. He didn't want to be anywhere, and that was the problem. There wasn't anything he could do about that though. Not really. So, he wandered, hoping inspiration would strike, some bolt from the heavens that would let him know what the fuck to do with his life, since it seemed to be crumbling around him.

Chie had been out of the tea house for some time now, wandering the streets to find fresh customers. Sadly, most of them seemed to be street kids--not that couldn't smoke, no, Chie had no qualms in selling her opium to children. It was that they couldn't pay. That, and they were mostly too busy fighting each other for her to even be able to proposition them with a few grams of the sweet-smelling leaves.

Still, she had to try. She leaned in the alleys, watching the fights and watching the passers-by, scanning each and every one for the type that might buy from her. The young man nearing her was a bit of stretch. He was wet and bloody, but he didn't look quite as miserable as some of the other kids she'd seen. He certainly looked like he could use a smoke. And most importantly, he looked like he might even have a job. She shrugged her shoulders a bit, letting her shirt slip off an arm a bit, tousling her hair, leaning casually against the alley wall as though she hadn't prepared for his arrival in front of her. "Having a bad day?" she called out to him as he started to pass they alley, head tilted curiously.

It took a second to recognize that he was being addressed, but when he did he stopped and looked at her. His eye was of course drawn to her shoulder, her hair, but then back to her eyes. Had he wandered into Chinatown again? He hadn't really been paying attention, so he guessed it was possible, but either way, she'd said something to him. So he headed closer. "Sorry?" he asked, not being able to mentally rewind enough to know what she'd said, just that she'd said something.

Chie smiled, though the triumph in it was held back. Got him. The closer he got to her, the more she had to look up at him, but she knew the right way to do it, looking slightly through her eyelashes. "I asked if you were having a bad day," she said, her accent giving a peculiar lilt to her words--English was far from her first language. "But it looks like you are. You fighting with all these other crazy boys?"

"That obvious?" he asked, quirking a half smile. Then he shrugged. "They're fighting with me. There's kinda a difference." he answered. "I'm just out for a walk, on a notably bad day. It happens." Not that he had ever seen street fights like he had today. No, today was a special occasion, certainly. He'd just also had fights before. He'd been jumped before. It wasn't anything too new. He'd just gotten into more than one fight today, was all.

"Little bit." She reached up, swiping a finger across a path of blood coming from a cut on the man's forehead. She pulled her hand back, showing it to him, before sticking it outside of the alley, letting the rain wash it away. "Then what did you do that makes people want to fight you when you're just out for a walk? Bad day for a walk, by the way, with no cover."

Roy was a little taken aback when she reached up and touched him, that being something he was really not at all used to. The only person who got touchy with him was Maddy, and definitely not random strangers. It had him taking a step back as he blinked, trying to cover the fact that it had thrown him. Because of that, it took him a second longer to answer than it usually would. "Because it's a day where all the street kids are at each other's throats, and I'm one?" he suggested. "And I like the rain." he said. Which wasn't always true. Sometimes he hated it. But today he did, so it came off as true.

Chie smirked when he moved away, letting him, for the moment. Her arms crossed over her chest, shoulder of her shirt sliding a bit lower. Unlike him, she had an umbrella at her side, ornate and highly decorated, so she was dry, protected from the rain by the alley. "Maybe you should find a better place to like the rain? Somewhere will people aren't trying to fight you."

"Today I don't think that would work. Seems like everywhere I go, there are fights." Roy admitted. "And I'm fine. If it was bothering me that much I'd go inside somewhere." he admitted. But he still wasn't quite prepared to sit anywhere. He'd get antsy and immediately get up to leave, he knew himself well enough to know that. So why bother. Instead he just kept walking, knowing eventually exhaustion would set in.

Chie arched an eyebrow, flicking her eyes up and down the soaked kid. Now she was genuinely interested. "Then you want to fight," she said, nodding her head to confirm her own statement. "That's the only reason getting into a fight wouldn't bother you. Right? So what you trying to work out then?"

Roy leaned his back against the opposite wall of the alley from her, and he shrugged. "I wouldn't say 'want' to." he said. "More I'm in kind of a bad mood, as you noticed, and it's not the worst thing to happen to me of late." he admitted. "So, it's sit inside somewhere and just spin my wheels, which isn't usually good for me, or go for a walk and risk getting jumped. Right now the better option for me is that second one." He paused, considering her question. "I don't know what I'm trying to work out. Life, I guess."

"You look like you got beat up bad," Chie said, looking at him somewhat dubiously. "What's worse than that?" She was looking at him hard again, her dark eyes keen. He didn't seem that much younger than her--she'd guess sixteen or seventeen at the youngest. And yet he seemed much, much older than that, if only because he looked so tired. It was strange, and she was interested.

"there are a lot of things worse than that." Roy said. And sometimes, he just took the track that physical damage healed, it was the damage in his head that never seemed to. So if he had a choice between the two, he'd go for physical. "Depends on your point of view, I guess." he offered, not at all sure how to word things. Or that he'd even make sense to anyone. He was well aware of the fact that he didn't make a lot of sense to most people. Like his brain just didn't fit in with everyone else's view. Or maybe they were wrong, he didn't know, he was just more apt to decide he was wrong before someone else.

"Well," Chie began, looking at him with a little smile, one corner of her mouth quirked. "I'm asking your point of view." She inclined her head towards him, nothing that his cut had stopped bleeding. "What's your name?"

That had him quirking a half smile again, even if it faded quickly. "Roy." he said. "Yours?" he asked. "And I guess my point of view is bruises and cuts heal, but if I spend too much time in my own head, the whole world looks like it's full of broken glass and razor blades." he admitted, putting it the simplest but most descriptive way possible. He'd never had to really put it like that but when he said it out loud, he didn't think he'd choose any other way.

"Chie," she said, the two syllables rolling with ease off of her tongue, the clearest thing she'd said since they began speaking. "The world is full of broken glass and razor blades. Trick is how you avoid them." Chie knew that quite well. Her father's legs, her family's life, their money, their business--everything she knew was constantly being cut up and ruined. She pointed a finger in Roy's direction, waving it up and down the length of his body. "Looks like you don't avoid them too well."

"Chie..." Roy said, trying out the pronunciation, but he wasn't sure he got it right. Then he listened to the rest of her point. "Again, that depends on your point of view, or what you consider damage. I'll be fine. I'll heal." It was all the personal stuff that he couldn't quite deal with. That was the sucky part. The part he couldn't quite manage to get past, or even see a path through. Then he decided to share a little of that bit. "It's the things with other people in my life I can't do much about. That's damage I can't just heal up from."

"Chi-eh," she corrected, smiling. "But not too bad." When he spoke again, though, she felt a little chill. That was exactly where she was, with the Jade Lotus sliding the knife in again and again, preventing wounds from healing, scarring up and moving on. "Only so much you can do when it's somebody you can't control," she said, a little corner of her mask slipping. "Just keep surviving until they're gone."

"Chi-eh..." Roy tried again, laughing just a moment at himself. "Sorry if I butcher that." he said. "What's it mean?" he asked. Then he turned serious again, looking slightly stricken with what she said. "You can't control anyone." he said, believing that. Even if he'd seen pretty much overwhelming evidence to the contrary in his life. "And what if them being gone is the problem?" he asked, wondering what was going on in her life. It looked to him like she was talking about personal experience, with that little chip in her armor.

"Is okay," she said, smile widening. "I'm messing up Roy too, I think. It means, like... blessing." She looked at Roy as the conversation progresses, eyes narrowed. They had the opposite problem, then. He wanted to hold onto the people in his life, and Chie would do anything to be rid of them. "It depends," she said, shrugging. "If you can get them back, you should try. But if they're gone, you let go. You control what you can control, you control you."

Not so much. he thought. "I'm not so sure I do have control of me. Or anything in my life." he admitted. "What about you? You...something's going on with you." he noted, so she'd know he did catch that. "You want people gone?" he suggested, latching onto that point.

"I do," Chie said, though she seemed suddenly guarded. She had to be careful about who knew about the Lotus and what she was doing, nevermind that she didn't like sharing such weakness. "They try and control my life but they can't control everything." She took a few steps closer to Roy. "This," she said, poking the left side of his chest, "and this," poking him in the forehead, "are mine. And yours. They can't touch it."

He twitched a little when she touched him again, very aware of the wall against his back, but he didn't try to sidestep her. He just kept his hands in his pockets, and looked down at her. "So...physical stuff belongs to us, and...other things don't?" he asked, trying to understand, but he didn't think he had put it all together properly. But he was interested in what she had to say, interested in her point of view. Especially since he could kind of grasp a sort of intensity she had going on that he knew mirrored his own. He could get pretty intense too, and he knew sometimes that put people off. He just didn't usually see it in others.

Chie nodded. "It's the engine, Roy. They take your freedom, they tell you what you can do, and maybe you do it, maybe you don't. But they can't control Roy. They can't say, Roy, think this, Roy, you are this." She shrugged her shoulders again. "But you can let them. And that's how they win. But we won't let them win. Right, Roy?" She looked up (and up, since she was so short) at him, smirking.

Roy was left blinking at that. Okay, yeah, she was definitely intense. But it was also the most interesting conversation he'd had in ages, so he wasn't about to end it yet. He just thought over what she'd said, giving it a good think before he responded. "Who's 'they'?" he asked, voice a tiny bit quieter than it had been before. If only because he certainly had a 'they' in his life. The shadow of the DiGiovanni family fell over him all the time. But she was being far too engaged and such to really be talking hypothetically. So she had a They in her life, he was sure of it.

"They are whoever," Chie said, backing up to her side of the alley again, guards getting thrown up. She'd said a bit too much, been too enthused with the idea of someone who knew the way her days went, someone that she could share the trick that helped her get through them. "Whoever it is that has control over your life that you should have yourself."

He watched her, that attentive, unwavering gaze locking in. He said nothing for a few moments as he studied her. "You're talking about something specific, though." he said. "Someone in your life's trying to control you." It wasn't really a question. "Who is it?" he asked, sort of hoping it wasn't a parent, or step parent or anything. He'd seen that a couple of times in his life. People were creepy bastards.

"Someone with more power than me," Chie said, shrugging carelessly. With the way Roy was looking at her, she felt a bit like the tables had suddenly been turned. She felt pinned, and she was immediately grasping for threads to weave together to cover it up, to give him a story that would deflect him from her. "Who has control of you?"

His eyes never wavered, they kept directly on her. He searched her eyes, trying to see whatever he could. Trying to understand. At her question, he shrugged one shoulder, though still didn't stop that scrutiny. "Everyone but me." he admitted, not an answer he actually thought through. It was just the first thing that came to mind because really? It was true enough, wasn't it? Everyone could sway him, or the people in his life could. Even if it wasn't the mob, and them fucking with him on a constant basis, the people around him? They all had sway. Marian had the power to build him up or utterly crush him. Maddy's moods and situations directly effected him and his mental health. So yes. Everyone had control. Everyone but him.

"That's not so good," Chie said, meeting his gaze despite how much she felt he was looking through her. Among the Lotus she had all of her faces carefully constructed, perfect and impenetrable, but all it had taken was one chip and it seemed like Roy knew. "What's the problem? Somebody got you under their thumb? Or you care too much?"

Again, one shoulder rose and fell, as he kept hold of her gaze. "Some of both." he said. "I'm paying a debt that isn't mine, and the only people I have around me..." he shook his head a little. "They're far too wrapped up in their own heads to help me with mine. But I'm supposed to help them with theirs. And I do. Or I try." Sometimes he knew for a fact he didn't help matters. And up til recently any time he'd made things worse it had been unintentional. "Add onto the fringes of my life people who would gladly see me go down if they could..." he trailed off. "Who has more power than you?" he asked.

"Sounds like you need new friends," Chie said, ignoring his question. Nevermind that she didn't want to answer it; there was way too much in what he'd said to let it go unexamined. "You've got enough enemies, yes? You give and they take and they don't give anything back. Nobody left to help Roy with Roy. No wonder you look so tired."

"Basically." Roy answered, then he stepped forward, farther into their conversation than he'd been in any in a long time. Because of that he forgot a little more of his normal standoffish behavior, and looked down at her. "You didn't answer my question." he said. Because she'd pretty blatantly ignored it, and he was aware that they'd been going over his issues for a few minutes, and he wanted to shift things back to her again. Back and forth, right? That was how it was meant to go?

Chie didn't intimidate easily. She was a tiny woman, but her arms were stronger than some men and she knew karate. She could hit and make it hurt, turn almost anyone's strength against them, and walk away with a bounce in her step. And while she wasn't worried about Roy hurting her, the way he looked at her was a little unsettling. "You're right," she said. "I didn't. Because I'm talking to Roy about Roy."

Roy hadn't been trying to intimidate her. It hadn't been anywhere in his mind when he stepped closer, it was just more in pursuit of the conversation at hand, figuring her out. But then she said that. Which finally had him looking away for a heartbeat, before he was back to looking her in the eye. "Then the conversation's over, because I didn't keep talking to you just to talk about me. There's back and forth." he said. "Or there's supposed to be." he amended. "Guess I'll see you, Chie. I hope you get control back."

"Hey," Chie said, frowning. Her hand pressed against Roy's chest, deftly pushing him back against the other side of the alley, where he'd been standing before. "You walk away so easy? You have too much back and forth already. Too much forth, not enough back. I'm not the one walking in the rain and getting into fights. I want to talk with you, Roy. I think you need it."

He let her push him back against the wall, feeling the brick twinge some of his bruises, not that he reacted. And he twitched slightly less over the touch this time, since she'd already done it a few times in the last half hour or so. "I walk away before I start spiraling." he said. "Or I try to. Doesn't always work." For instance, when girls pushed him against alley walls. "And my issue is the not getting enough back. Just because most of the people in my life don't have time for it or the like doesn't mean that I want everything to be all about me. I'd hate that. I like talking to you so far, I don't want it to be focused just on me. Back and forth." he said, gesturing between the two of them. He didn't answer whether or not he needed it. she was right. so he just opted to let the point stand.

Chie narrowed her eyes slightly, looking up at Roy. She thought about what she could tell him, what story she could make up on the spot, but it felt too much like he'd know. He was staring at her so intensely that she was sure he could tell, and it was a rare thing when Chie's masks didn't work. "I can't tell you who has control of me," she said, opting for veiled honesty. "I'm not out here in the rain because I want to be. I have a job that's not like other jobs. I do it so my family doesn't suffer."

Roy took that in, frowning. "What job?" he asked. And he could understand not being able to tell. That didn't mean he'd not try to find out, but he could deal with the sort of non-answer at the moment better than a complete deflection. And she'd given him enough to work with, at any rate. "And how will your family suffer?" That seemed pretty damn important. Family was something that Roy always held high in his mind, even if a good lot of the time it seemed like all it did was hurt him. Like it didn't work how he wanted it to and he needed to give up the ghost, and accept it.

Chie was quiet for a few moments, finally speaking in a lower voice, her eyes hot. "In Japan, my father worked for very powerful people. When he tried to leave, they cut off his legs with a sword." She looked up at Roy with one eyebrow arched, her mouth tight. "That's how my family could suffer. And that's how you could suffer if you know too much."

Roy's eyes definitely went wide. He knew brutality, had seen it up close and personal and all, but hacking people's limbs off with a fucking sword? That was new. He'd really missed out on that special gem of Fucked Up. There were flickers of emotion going on behind his eyes as he processed that. "What are they holding over you now?" he asked, voice quiet. Almost a whisper but not quite. It didn't occur to him that she might be telling tall tales. Occasionally Roy was just a little too trusting, but she seemed sincere. He couldn't for the life of hm spot anything that looked like a lie.

Unfortunately for Chie, this wasn't a tall tale. The Yakuza really had sliced her father's legs off. So he couldn't run, but could still work. She didn't know if the Jade Lotus would do something similar, but the greatness of her father had already been cut down once. She didn't want to risk what they would do that might be worse. "I didn't say there was a they," Chie said, her gaze unwavering though she wasn't telling much of the truth now. "We ran from Japan. Are they on our heels now? I don't know. Probably. But better safe than sorry."

"You started this conversation with 'they'." Roy pointed out. "Completely went off on an entire bit about 'they'. Don't go back on it now." he told her. "And that doesn't add up, what you're saying. You say you have to do a job you don't want to to save your family suffering. But if you don't even know if they're out there, then why would you do something you didn't want to do?" he shook his head. "I think you just started lying to me." he said, watching her eyes intently.

"Not the same they, then," she said, looking up at Roy with her head tilted. "Clever boy, though." That was true. The Yakuza and the Lotus were different, and she genuinely didn't know if the Japanese mob were still tailing them. It seemed unlikely, if only because it had been so many years since then now. "Too clever. I told you I couldn't say."

"Yeah but there's a difference between not saying and lying." Roy said. "Or, there is in my book." he added. Possibly not everyone went along with that sort of mentality, he could recognize that. But it did make a difference to him. "Who would even know if you told me?" he asked, glancing out of the alley into the street. "Are you being watched?" he asked.

"Not really a difference. You end up not knowing the truth either way." When Roy stuck his head out of the alley, she grasped his shirt and tugged him back, arms crossing over her chest and mouth pulled to one side. She looked somewhat amused though, despite her stance. "If I was being watched, you're doing a bad job of being sneaky."

"If you were being watched, calling people into the alley to talk in the first place isn't all that sneaky either." Roy said in return, looking back at her as he leaned back against the wall again. "You like to manhandle people, don't you?" he asked, giving her the faint little edges of an amused smirk in return. She certainly seemed to be taking liberties with him, at any rate. Not that he was actually complaining. It was jarring at first, because he wasn't used to anyone touching him period who wasn't Maddy, but he was becoming accustomed to it from her already and he'd only known her for like half an hour or so.

If she were being watched, calling people into alleys was exactly what she wanted to be seen doing, but she kept that to herself. Talking to someone for this long without a sale was a bad idea, though she couldn't quite pull herself from her conversation with Roy just yet. "Maybe if you didn't give me so many reasons to manhandle you," she quipped back, giving him another solid poke in the chest.

Arching a brow as he looked down at her, he didn't say anything for a moment. "I'm not actually sold on the idea that I have given you much in the way of reasons." he told her. "But sure, whatever you say." Then he continued studying her. "So what is it you can tell me?" he asked, figuring they could start up their conversation again if he changed the parameters.

His damn eyes on her again. She wished that he'd stop doing that; it was hard to keep the mask going. Hard, but certainly not impossible, and she maintained her facade as much as she could. She looked up at Roy, giving his question some thought. "I can tell you that I called you over to make a sale. But now I kind of like talking to you, so I won't sell you anything."

Roy's first reaction was a terribly naive one, which was confusion. But that very quickly cleared to understanding, both of which were on his features, along with a light little frown that settled in afterwards. "You're a dealer." he said. It wasn't a question. He was glad that she was abandoning trying to sell him anything, because he definitely wasn't buying.

"I'm a dealer," Chie confirmed. She'd hoped that he wouldn't have been able to guess what she was selling, but he knew now. She could have backed out of it if she'd spun a better story, but her words had been too close to the truth. She shrugged her shoulders, shaking her head. "It's a job."

"A really bad job." Roy observed. But then he knew about having to do jobs you weren't all that happy with. Like his number running, though that seemed pretty damn tame in comparison. He wasn't dealing with people who were fiending for a fix, which he was sure wasn't a pleasant or safe part of her job description. "And if you don't do it, bad things will happen." he said, to sort of confirm in his head he had things right.

Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You are a clever boy," she said, not frowning, though she didn't look especially pleased either. People weren't supposed to examine her like this--that was her job. She was elusive, she was the shapeshifter that no one could pin down, and yet Roy had done it. Part of it was her fault, underestimating him and not putting up enough of a guard in front of some street kid.

He was quiet for a moment as he kept studying her. "So is that it, then?" he asked. "This is your life, and you're not going to look for a way out?" he asked. Though is tone wasn't pointed. He wasn't actually making a judgment call on that. Not in the slightest. He understood, to a degree. And the majority of the people in this entire city were in the same boat--unable to change their lives, no matter how awful they happened to be. Hell. That applied to him.

"I look for a way out every day," Chie said, the most honest she'd been, eyes intense as she looked up at Roy. "But you have to survive until then. So I sell. I do my work. And I wait." If Chie didn't have her family to worry about, she'd have told the Jade Lotus to go screw themselves and left ten times over by now. But she was too worried about her mother and father, too scared at the idea of her father wheeling himself around the city, trying to sell opium to the fiends who would steal his stash and tip over his chair without a moment of hesitation or conscience.

"What would it take?" Roy asked, considering everything she was telling him. He didn't think he could help, but that didn't mean he couldn't think it over. Or try to think about angles on things. but then that was a part of his personality. And actually part of why he felt as alone as he did. He was the kind of person who was often geared towards making people's issues something he was working through, trying to find a way out for, focusing much less on himself. This was no different. There was a girl here in deep trouble, who wanted to get out, and his first, natural reaction was to try and help her come up with one.

"I'd know it when I see it," Chie said, shrugging. She kept her eyes on him though, staring into his face with the same intensity he'd had looking at her. "Don't add me to your list, Roy. You have too many people to worry about. Worry about yourself."

"You don't know what I have to worry about." he said. "You know I've got a few people in my life I worry about, and that I don't seem to have much in the way of control of my life, but you don't know what my list is like. Besides. Call it me taking control of something in my life. I get to add you to the list if I damn well want to." he told her, that very faint hint of a smirk back.

A smirk crept onto Chie's face despite herself, eventually erupting into a laugh. "Too clever for your own good," she said. She'd been standing close for a while now, but now she retreated back to the other side of the alley, leaning against the wall. "Fine. I won't tell you what to do. But know I'm not like whoever else is on that list," she said, looking over at him with a fiendish smirk. "I don't need you to take care of my problems for me."

"Right." Roy said, not taking his eyes off of her. "You don't need me to take care of your problems. You didn't ask for help, you're just find all on your own, even if there's some big looming shadow of doom over your existence and you're doing a job you hate. I got all of that right? You don't need me and that's the end of it?" he asked, that smirk becoming more full as he spoke. "I miss out on anything? Because now would be the time to add onto this."

"Oh, so you a smart ass too?" Chie continued to meet Roy's gaze, both of them like unwavering cats on either side of the alley. "The shadow's not so big. You can take bites out of it sometimes. Feels pretty good." Chie's little acts of mischief, the bastardized tattoos she did sometimes, the pepper in the tea here and there, they didn't do much of anything in the long run, but it had helped her get through the unbearable feeling of being under the Lotus's thumb.

"It happens now and then." he commented to the smart ass thing. And it sure as hell didn't happen often, but it was coming out at current, and he wasn't fighting it. It was at the very least a better feeling than how he'd been in general lately. He was usually kind of an intense guy, but that didn't mean he was incapable of other things. His life just didn't usually lend to that. "If the shadow wasn't that big, wouldn't you have gotten out by now?" he asked. "What else do you do? Or is it just..." he made a gesture towards her. "This?"

"I do tattoos," Chie said, after a few moments of wondering whether or not she should tell him the truth. If he knew the worst of it, her being a dealer, then being a tattoo artist was tame in comparison. At least that was something she was actually proud of. "See?" She let the shoulder of her shirt drop further, exposing more of her tattooed arm. Her father had done what she couldn't reach, but she'd done the rest. "You should come get one. I'll do it for you."

Roy looked at the ink he could see, then stepped closer so he could get a better look at it. He reached up and almost touched her arm, but didn't, instead letting his hand find it's way back to his pocket before doing so. "How long does it take?" he asked. "And how much would it be? What would you even do?" he asked, looking up to her eyes for a moment, before he looked at the design again. It was something he'd never ever thought about. But seeing it on her skin sort of put a spin on it, and he thought maybe it it was her doing it, he'd go through with it. He'd already decided he kind of wanted to see her again. If nothing else, talking to her had drawn him out of the spiral he'd been on.

"Long time. Depends on what you want." Chie had noticed how he'd almost touched her, but didn't comment on it. She lifted her hands instead, miming the motions of the tattooing needle. She did it the old-fashioned way, digging a needle into the skin by hand, none of the fancy tattooing guns they used now. "I'll do whatever you want. Maybe a reminder would be good for you. Something so Roy knows to take care of Roy first."

Looking to her eyes again, he arched a brow. "And what would that entail?" he asked. He had no clue, really, tattoos weren't all that terribly common in the circles he ran in. Most of the ones he'd seen were on the flesh of criminals, and sure, he understood that, but he kind of was one. Or, he did some criminal type things, even if he didn't want to. But if she was talking about doing something that was more specific to him, maybe that would be different. Plus she hadn't said where she was putting it.

Chie shrugged, smirking. "I don't know. It wouldn't go on my body." She pushed off of the alley wall, taking a step forward, not quite close enough to touch him. "Take control. You decide on what you want. You look at it and you know that you can control some things. I can't tell you what to get."

He looked down at her, the angle sharper since she got closer, and he didn't step back. He didn't say anything for a few moments. "What if I wanted to trust it to you?" he asked. "What if that was my decision?" He guessed he could try and come up with something, but she seemed to know what was acceptable and what wasn't. She was the artist, right? And if she thought he needed a reminder, what would it be a reminder of? It seemed like too many variables to him, too many angles he wouldn't consider that she would.

Chie made a noise of disapproval, crossing her arms over her chest. "If you want me to decide because that's what you want, then fine," she said, though she was eyeing him closely. "But if you say that because you don't know what you want, then you should think about it until you do."

"I have never in my life even considered a tattoo." he told her. "Not once. I don't know what to get. I don't know where to even start thinking about what to get. You know more about it. And you're the artist, you'd be the best to ask for a design, right?" he suggested. "Plus, you think it should mean something specific, and I don't know what I would do for that, but I bet you would."

"Then don't get one because I say you should. Get one because you want one." She tsk'ed at Roy. "You should fight against the current sometimes." Not that Chie did much of that herself. She tried, but her methods were too small, too subtle to make much of a difference. Not that she would admit to that.

"Isn't taking a chance on something fighting against the current?" Roy suggested. "It's something different that I've never considered, why not just go for it?" he added. "And while I'm at it, why not trust someone I just met, and not be as careful as I usually am?" his tone was reasonable, like it made sense to him. "Why not take a chance with things, period?"

Chie chuckled, looking up at Roy with an amused smirk. He really did find all kinds of ways to wiggle his way around what she said, didn't he? Making it work for what he wanted. Clever. Very clever. "Take a chance on something that's not going to be on your skin forever. Think about this."

"I've thought." he said, not taking time to do that. Instead he just kept watching her eyes, from where she was a little closer than he usually let people get, especially strangers. "And what I think is I'm up for taking a chance. I think I'm the kind of person who's guarded all the time, and maybe that's part of my problem too. Maybe I need to take a leap of faith now and then. Call it a leap of faith."

Chie looked at Roy for a few long moments, studying him, her eyes keen and dark. "Alright," she said, finally, her judgment apparently ruling in his favor. She pulled a card out from somewhere inside her shirt, ones that the Jade Lotus had had printed to draw in more people when she was out dealing. "Come by the shop."

He reached out to take the card, and could read some of the words on it, since he'd gotten slightly better with that, but didn't know all of them. He figured he'd be able to find it, though. And while he'd been honest with her today for no good reason that didn't mean he wanted to immediately own up to the 'not so educated' thing just yet. "Okay. When are you going to be there?" he asked. Since he assumed considering she was in an alley at current that she wasn't there all the time.

"Mornings," she said, picking up her umbrella from where it had been propped up against the wall, opening it up. It was decorated with Japanese motifs, swirling cherry blossoms and brown branches. "Whenever I don't have appointments. You'll just have to keep trying." She looked up at Roy with a full-lipped smile. He was certainly interesting.

He watched her getting her umbrella up and open, which he took as the cue that it was time to part ways. "Mornings." he repeated. "Okay." Then he gave her a little light smile, something that was a touch unreadable. "It was good meeting you." he told her. "I'm sure I'll see you again." He planned to be sure he did.