Not a date

It was interesting information, but there wasn't much for Naoko to jump on. She'd been sort of hoping he could give her a major talking point so she could delay opening the door a bit longer. No such luck. And, if she was being honest with herself, if she lingered in the entrance that much longer her mom was going to open the door herself.

"Come on in," Naoko said, letting herself in and gesturing for Devias to enter as well. "We're a shoes off household, so you can just leave them in the doorway," she added, kicking her own shoes off as she did before tucking them to the side of the entranceway and stepping inside.

"I'm home!" She yelled, in case it wasn't already painfully obvious she was home, and her mother immediately rounded the corner.

The family resemblance was strong. The same light eyes, and similar hair even if Naoko's was slightly darker. Both Naoko and her mother had their hair pulled up into buns, although Naoko's was far messier. The same height, the same cheek structure... no one would mistake them as anything other than related.

Her father, who appeared not much longer, was less obvious. It was only under scrutiny that the similarities appeared. He was a tall man, with wide shoulders and a perpetual scowl that might have been intimidating if not for his body language--perpetually nervous bordering on terrified, lingering half around the corner as if expecting to dart off at any moment. He hung back, while Naoko's mother headed for the door.

"You must be Devias," she said, offering a hand for a shake before catching on to Naoko's gesturing and bowing instead. "It's very nice to meet you - welcome to our home."

If Naoko had her way, she'd have simply moved away almost immediately. She didn't want a prolonged introduction. Only that would be unbelievably rude, and her mother would get annoyed if she did, so Naoko instead patiently waited for the introductions to finish themselves so they could get on with things that weren't Devias introducing himself to her parents.

"You can call me miss Tanaka," Naoko's mother added, glancing between Devias and Naoko carefully. "I was told you're going to be watching a movie for the film club - would you like to stay for dinner?"

Two feet behind Devias and a bit to the right, Naoko considered her options: Maybe she could spontaneously will herself to burst into flames if she thought about it hard enough? Why was her mother asking if he wanted to stay for dinner?

In truth, it was next to no issue at all. They were married--although they'd only married after arriving on Manta Carlos--but Naoko's mother had always found miss sounded better than any alternatives.

Naoko wouldn't have even thought it was odd.

"Of course it wouldn't be a bother," Naoko's mother said without missing a beat, while Naoko tried not to cringe. It wasn't that she didn't want him to stay over--she was fine with that--she was just more than a bit wary of all the things that could go wrong at said dinner.

"If you have anyone you need to call, you're free to use the home phone," she added. "And otherwise I suppose I should let you two get to your movie!"

Naoko's father hadn't said a word, still half-hidden behind his wife. He was at least watching, however, lurking to the side and clearly trying to size up Devias as well as he could.

"Good idea! The living room with the TV is right this way," Naoko said, doing everything short of physically pushing Devias into the living room, her parents letting them go.

Why was meeting the parents so hard?

Truthfully, Devias had nothing to worry about. Naoko's mother dealt with people from all kinds of cultures, and anything short of literally spitting in her face was going to be glossed over without issue.

In a lot of way, the living room reflected that. It was more western in style, but with plenty of signs that it wasn't just western. Even if much of the design was akin to an american room, the squat, flat couch and long flat table were a compromise of sorts. People could still sit on the floor beside it, or they could take the couch, and Naoko herself took the couch, reaching over to fumble for the remote before realizing she was going to have to get the bluray and getting right back up again.

"Thanks," Naoko said, even if she didn't really have anything to compare to. "She's always excited for guests, honestly. We've got a lot of family friends, but I don't normally bring people over rather than just meeting at the school, so I think they're excited for that."

This was a bit of a special occasion, since they'd needed the TV, and Naoko suspected her mom was reading a bit too much into it.

The room had plenty of decoration, but not much that stood out. There was no family shrine, although there were several family photos, and a collection of Disney movies sat on one shelf, the cases neatly ordered by year.

"Not really," Naoko said. "My parents tried to naturalize to the island pretty quickly, so even I barely know how things are supposed to formally go. Eat what you want, ask for seconds if you want, let them know if you have any food issues we need to watch for..."

Naoko paused for a moment, then decided that pretty much covered it, popping the DVD in.

"You really, really shouldn't worry about it," Naoko said, carefully considering where to sit before deciding that the couch--close enough it wasn't going to be too close--was ideal.

Basically exactly where she'd first sat, which made her wonder if Devias was thinking the same way.