Private Finished A Walk In The Woods

Eleanor Cheong winced with every step she took, still sore from the night before the last and trying to hide it. Kurt had worried about her enough; she thought it'd help if she eased his nerves a bit. "You don't need to thank me; I wanted to get away from all that...talk going on back there." She reached behind him into the fruit bag to take out another apple. "I've spent all my life on this island and I still can't get used to it."

As she bites into the apple, she nods. Apple juice runs down her chin when she pulls it away to talk. "Yes, better at least compared to the pain I was feeling before." She swallowed her apple bite. "Thank you for worrying, by the way--and for helping. My recovery wouldn't have been as pleasant without you."

Her brow quirked up, and she huffed, "I'm your only tutor, as far as I know. You haven't been educationally unfaithful, have you?" She joked a warning tone and shook her head before taking another bite of her apple.

"Good, I trust you're not going to go find another tutor behind my back," she said with a small laugh. "I'm kidding, though; if you need another tutor, I'm not going to stop you from getting one. It's not a crime or anything to need more help than I'm giving you."

Eleanor blinked at the napkin he used to wipe her face and huffed. "You're like a mother, I swear--everyone who isn't injured becomes a mother to those who are. Wait, you're injured. Can an injured person be a mother to another injured person?" She squinted at him, glanced down to his side, then back up to him. "I'm a terrible mother, just to let you know; completely inexperienced. My motherly command is for you to stop hurting yourself. Also, thank you for being my servant boy for a few hours. My pillow was sufficiently fluffed."

She looked back down the path they were walking and twirled her apple to take another bite. Her chewing paused when he questioned her, and she glanced back over. "What kind of question is that? Well--what I mean is, why are you asking that?"

Eleanor didn't pick up on his blush at all, nor his tail twitching and neither the strange atmosphere. She was oblivious as always, assuming that his face was red because wow this was a work-out. "If we've been friends for a while, then I think that's pretty self-explanatory. It's not like I can hate you or anything."

She dipped down to pick up a rock from the path and toss it in front of them, but his question had her fumbling and accidentally throwing the rock behind them instead. "Huh??" The look on her face was mystified as she glanced over at him. He'd caught her completely off-guard, to the point where she could barely even think. "I didn't, um...I didn't know--oh! Are...you practicing for another girl? Need a- a 'cover' or something? All you have to do is say so! I'm not very good at practice-flirting or anything, but I can certainly try if you need the help."

Eleanor visibly relaxed upon coming to the conclusion that this probably wasn't serious at all. This had happened too many times to her--some boy asks her out only to laugh in her face, say he was joking, or say he was 'just practicing'. She wasn't a very attractive girl, she knew--they told her so--so it was easy on their nerves to practice with her or ask her out to cover their sexuality up since they didn't really see her as a woman. "It's all a joke, isn't it? You're not serious?" Her tone was somewhat pained, but she forced her expression calm.

"Huh? What? I--" Blink, blink, blink. Eleanor could feel her head flying into chaos for a hot second like a Spongebob scene, mini-Eleanors running around opening file cabinets and throwing papers around as they looked for all the information they had on crushes, dating, and romance. She reached to nervously fumble with her glasses until they were settled crookedly on top of her nose. When her fingers touched her face, she could feel just how hot her skin was and concluded that she must have been blushing too.

"Wow...Are you sure?" Eleanor kicked herself for asking that and quickly added, "Nevermind, don't answer that--of course you're sure..." To his question, she gave a slow nod and glanced away, biting the inside of her cheek. "Yeah, they have. A lot of people have done it, actually. They've...never been serious."

She went to rub the back of her neck only for her hands to be caught by his, which only made her skin feel hotter. She was still prepared for that 'haha gotcha' moment, especially since it was April 1, the notorious April Fools Day, but she was taking him seriously at least. "I've...I've never had a boyfriend, or a girlfriend, or any other partner--I've never even done it with anyone. I don't have a single clue about romance--are you sure you want to ask me out, Kurt? I can't guarantee I'll be a very good girlfriend."

She winced a bit and said, "Well, I can't say I've ever had things thrown at me; maybe I'm lucky." Her eyes zipped down to their hands for a moment and she took a breath in, feeling very strange just from the squeeze he gave them. She looked right back up at him with raised eyebrows. "It's fine--it's uh, all in the past now. I would say I don't worry about it too much, but it's definitely affected my views on romance--more specifically receiving it," she said with a quiet laugh.

Her laugh was cut short but his tail bapping her head, and she huffed and lightly kicked his shoe with the tip of hers. "I know, I know...It's just that I hear all about guys complaining that their girl sucks at kissing or sucks in bed, or that she's a virgin, God forbid. I don't know how I'd get that experience without dating, but at that point it's like a job--you can't get the job if you don't have the experience, but you can only get the experience by doing that job."

His cheeks were still red, and her cheeks were definitely still red, no doubt about it. She felt nervous and jittery, unsure of how to proceed but excited at the same time. "I, um, well...I sure don't know what I'm doing, but...sure. We can try, right? I'll be your girlfriend. I like being around you too."