Re: A Sight to See

[Nyako-Chan]

Nathaniel blinked. Something about biker and an X-ing. He just nodded, not sure he'd care enough if he heard what it meant to biker swag. He heard swag as style, so something about a bike style. "Well, how often do you use those words, anyway? Some of our slang is a phrase, you say a phrase more often than words in sentences." They'd have to change their sentence to get the word to work right, wouldn't they? "Why bother with it anyway?" he wondered, looking at the Americans they passed by. How many of these people knew all of these words?

[RippedNose]

Draylen laughed slightly at Nathaniel's obvious confusion. "Well, pretty often really. Almost every day" he shrugged, sure he had used a lot of slang today before he had met this other man. He had been holding it back once he figured out that Nath had no idea what he was talking about, as difficult as it was. "I dunno. Same reason you bother with your slang?" he suggested, making the final turn towards West 49, which was just a few stores away now.

[Nyako-Chan]

"You just learn slang as you grow up," Nathaniel said, having grown up around parents and relatives who loved being as colorful as they could with their slang and such. They thought it was fun and nice to learn so Nathaniel could understand what other British people were talking about. It was silly for an English kid not to understand some of his own slang. "Well, either way, it baffles me. I don't think it'd be much use to learn your slang." Just a bunch of words picked from the dictionary and messed up to not make sense with the original meaning.

[RippedNose]

"I didn't use much slang until highschool. Except that day when I learned the F word and yelled it five times when I was mad at my mom. But I don't think that counts as slang" Draylen grinned slightly, recalling how angry his mom had been. "I'm sure you could if you wanted to" he shrugged, turning into the store. "Here we are" he glanced around for a moment before choosing a random direction to go to look at things. He didn't have enough money on him to be buying things, but he always liked to look.

[Nyako-Chan]

"Er, I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure it's not officially counted as that if it doesn't stand for anything." Most swear words were originated off of regular words, or made up, to be offensive. He looked at where they were, looking at the store and to Draylen. He could see him going here, he supposed, but that was just from what he knew of him so far. "Do you go to these places often?" he asked, only going to his favorite places maybe once a week or something.

[RippedNose]

"Yeah, thought so" Draylen grinned, brushing his hair back again. With his bangs at that length, he had to do it quite often, but he liked them. "Hm? Not really, I guess whenever I have spare time, or if I'm here with a friend" he shrugged, looking at a few of the sweaters that were hanging on a rack. "But I like the style and such" he added, looking up to Nathaniel through his bangs for a moment before back down at the clothing he was flicking through.

[Nyako-Chan]

"Not too many of you American's have that," Nathaniel mused, looking at the assortment of different people in the mall. How many of them weren't saggers or weren't wearing pajama bottoms and looked like bums? Some of the people looked pretty cool, or just looked liked a poser or some sort. He looked at the type of clothing they had here, he supposed it could be called style if he really wanted to. It wasn't his style, but it was Draylen's, as long as the other male considered it to be stylish.

[RippedNose]

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult, but I'll take it as a compliment" Draylen shrugged, pushing to look at a sweater, thinking it was pretty cool. His birthday was coming up soon, so he was always on the lookout for things to tell his family about, knowing that they always needed help with what to get a nineteen year old. Sure, he was just turning nineteen, but he still considered himself to be that age, since it would only be a few weeks. "Where do you generally shop?" he asked, looking back up to Nathaniel after making a mental note to ask about this sweater for somebody.

[Nyako-Chan]

"For, what? Clothes or items in particular?" he asked. He liked not having to ask the shop owners if they did items here, they took it the wrong way most of the time. In England, they could ask a shop owner if they did something like batteries, and the shop owner, in complete business approach, would tell him they did do batteries, and they were right by the register. He found at 80% of the population had their minds in the gutters when they heard the words did or do, and something following straight after. "Clothes wise, I have no problem with Wal-mart, but do avoid Target and K-mart. Anything else, Wal-mart or Borders."

[RippedNose]

Draylen nodded when he recieved an answer. "Yeah? I'm not bad with Wal-mart clothes, but I normally get my stuff from here or other skate shops" he was pretty easy with his clothes, brand name not meaning much to him, but he found that places such as this had the style he liked more, even if it was a bit expensive. "If my parents got their way, I would probably get all my clothes from robbing hobos, I'm sure" he grinned slightly at the truth in his statement, knowing how cheap his parents could be sometimes.

[Nyako-Chan]

"What's to rob from bums?" he asked, since he did say hobo. Hobo's generally didn't have anything, if he recalled the term correctly. "Well, anyways, these are decent quality, I guess." He felt the material under his fingers, looking at how it was made. It could be worse, at least most of Wal-mart had okay clothes. "If you don't want to spend so much money, just buy junk at a regular store and customize it." He did that, buy clothes from any place and just throw them together to make a different type of clothing.

[RippedNose]

"Not much, but if you rob enough of them I'm sure you could have enough clothes" Draylen was only assuming on this, but he knew all the clothes he got from them would have holes in them, and would probably smell even after washing them a few times. "Yeah. . . I'm not too great with creative things though. I kind of fail. I got a 55% in art class my freshman year" he grimaced slightly. If he tried to mod his own clothes, he would end up ruining them.

[Nyako-Chan]

"I thought art classes were just participation grades in America," Nathaniel asked, pretty sure most of the people in his art class hadn't even been that great, maybe a handful, him in the middle of it, but they had still passed because they turned in work and were quiet most of the time the teacher told them to be. Art was sometimes fun to go back to, he might take a class next year for fun. He really wanted to design his own tarot cards some day, because he had seen others how they drew some, and had instantly fallen in love with them.

[RippedNose]

Draylen grinned, scratching the back of his head a bit sheepishly. "Yeah, well I needed an arts credit, and I can't play an instrument, and I'm horrible at drama. Don't even get me started on dance. I figured art would be easy enough to pass at least" he made a face. It was a pretty bad class, even if he had a few friends with him. He was just bad at art, no matter how hard he tried. He kept on looking around the store, avoiding the section that held the items for skateboarding and such, that were of no use to him.

[Nyako-Chan]

"Well, you take those classes to learn, not because you're already good at them, no?" Nathaniel questioned, using his idea of what school was for. High school especially was for that, free schooling to learn how to do something instead of being in the adult world and paying for all the classes and lessons they might need. "I mean, if you have an honest limitation on learning something, physical or mental of some sort, then sure, don't take it, but to learn it, even gain an interest in it, you have to try." He shrugged, that his his philosophy, he didn't know how many others went by some idea like that just to learn in life.

[RippedNose]

"Yeah, but you normally have some kind of knowledge from elementary school before you head into the classes. And I knew a bit about art from before, so I chanced that" Draylen explained, shrugging. He took one last look around, away from some kids he knew, before back to Nathaniel, his green eyes bright. "Okay, I'm done looking here. Where do you wanna go?" he asked, tilting his head to the side, his bangs half covering his eyes.

[Nyako-Chan]

Countries had different schooling all around, America couldn't be compared to Japan easily, like Australia couldn't be compared to Switzerland. They had different methods with few things in common. Whatever worked for their country, he supposed. "Hm, no clothes stores, I guess. Nothing at the mall really catches my interest, but bookstore, probably." He didn't know if he was going to buy anything there, but he liked seeing new series that might be out, or something to get next time.

[RippedNose]

"Bookstore's cool" Draylen agreed. Reading was one of the things he loved to do when he was freaked out, or just bored. It was a great way for him to get away from whatever he was thinking about, and not have to worry about ghosts for a while, as long as he was away from them while he read. He stuck his hands in his pockets and shook his bangs back, heading to the door again, turning in the direction of the bookstore. It wasn't too far from where they were. "So you read then. . . what genres?" he asked, looking up as he walked.

[Nyako-Chan]

Nathaniel left the store with Draylen, heading for the bookstore. He loved bookstores, there was something about them that made him happy. He felt very at home amongst all the other books, even if some of the books were boring, writing was writing. The English language was something amazing, and the human mind even more to manipulate the language to become so entrancing. "I read some history, I like to know how things went so I know what I'm talking about and not just using a gob to spout rubbish. I'm not much for mystery or realistic fiction though." About anything else was all right.

[RippedNose]

"I'm not one for history" Draylen admitted, "But I do like historical fiction. It can be pretty sweet sometimes. I like my fantasy. . . and a bit of sci-fi. But not too much." He went through books pretty quickly, since when he got a particularily good one, he would curl up and read it until he was done, which could irritate his parents quite a bit. "Mystery reminds me too much of my own life sometimes, same with horror. I try to stay away from the things that all the little girls seem to be buying. It's a good guage as to what not to read.

[Nyako-Chan]

"Good point, stay away from what the preteens read," Nathaniel said, knowing some of the popular books were to be avoided because they were too popular to be healthy. He had read some of them out of curiosity to see what was so great, and it turns out they weren't that great. They were good, in terms of reading to kill time, but in other terms, they were dead awful. Nathaniel liked Harry Potter books due to the relation in culture. "I read things pretty quick. I tend to change some of the spelling when I'm reading."

[RippedNose]

"Yep. And if you hear something being talked about obsessively while you work, stay away from it" Draylen advised, in case Nathaniel didn't already do that. "I read fast too, depending on how much time I have. But I don't generally change spelling. Unless it's Canadian or British or something. You all spell weird" he had had a pen pal in the fourth grade from Canada, and just assumed that the kid was just really bad at spelling, until he was in the eighth grade or so. "Maybe you can help me translate some British terms I don't understand?" he asked, laughing slightly. Books always confused him if they used British terms and such.

[Nyako-Chan]

"If you really wanted, but that's what the internet is for, and I imagine reading around the text might help some," Nathaniel shrugged, since he had to read around the text to understand some of the American or other terms that he didn't hear very often. "I just change the word mum around most of the time." When he read his everyday British would just break in and change some of the words that he spelled and said differently, it wasn't that big of a change.

[RippedNose]

"Ehh, I would, but I hate the internet. I occasionally check my e-mail and the facebook account my friend forced me to make, and that's it" Draylen made a face. The internet bored him, and he found that there were too many people that lived glued to their computers, and he never wanted to be like that. The longest he was on the computer for would be when he was working on projects in highschool. "Ah, right, you guys spell it with a 'u' right?" he asked curiously, unsure if he was correct.

[Nyako-Chan]

"The internet is abused these days," Nathanial sighed, which is why he stayed away from it when he could. He went on to mess around sometimes, but didn't go on daily. He had a laptop for his college files and such, but he usually liked playing with the pain program or the writing program. "Yeah, a 'u'. I tried pronouncing it with an 'o' before and it sounds off. Can't place it, but I say it's just from the long term of hearing it and being taught to say it as mum." He didn't want his speech to change just from being in America. He didn't like theirs because it wasn't what he had learned.

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