Naomi Watanabe's Story

At least until a certain point in the day, most people very well acquainted with Aramis will know that he keeps a very strict schedule. This is probably convenient for anyone who lives with him, as they can pretty reliably know when he will be home everyday barring some sort of work conflict. Today had not been a day of schedule variations. At 6:00am, he went to the gym for an hour of strength training. At 7:15, he went to the café next to his gym that he eats breakfast at almost every morning. By now they have his order ready when he walks in, ballcap on and dressed stylishly but not conspicuously. This is not out of fear of being recognized- Aramis is a far cry from the sort of famous that needs to worry about this. This has been his everyday style since he was in high school: nice, dark jeans with a Henley or maybe a casual button-down and a lightweight hoodie or sweater. He, as one might expect, eats the same thing every weekday morning: one hot Jasmine Tea, one small Black Coffee, and a veggie lovers breakfast sandwich (eggs, spinach, tomatoes, and provolone on a croissant).

Of course, by now that part of his day is long past. After a day spent at several different sites for a photoshoot for Calvin Klein, he is enjoying his evening jog. Or rather, he is enjoying the very end of his morning jog as he winds down to a slower pace that might be closer to the average's person's leisurely run. For him it is like slowing to a crawl, and is done simply so that he has a chance to take his phone out of the band which keeps it tightly against his bicep and scroll through his playlist to find a slower song to play. He settles on River, by Leon Bridges, just as the red building Aramis calls home comes into sight.

One of his roommates, the younger Watanabe sibling, is several meters in front of him such that Aramis can see him heading into the building while he is still walking towards it. The color of the apartment is one of the things Aramis has always been so fond of about it. The red is warm and homey, giving the building a very welcoming vibe. Before walking inside and up to his unit, Aramis stops in front of the door and takes a deep breath of the incoming evening air. The setting sun has made everything golden, as though one could breathe in honey and sunbeams. It may be quite unoriginal, but this is Aramis's favorite time of day.

Having had enough of that, he finally heads up and into the apartment. "I'm home!" he announces, more a gesture of courtesy than anything else. Kenta is sprawled out on the couch, not an uncommon sight since he came to live with Naomi and Aramis.

"How was your day?" Aramis opens the fridge and grabs a seltzer from the door of it. "Is Naomi back yet?"

Josie has spent most of her day doing much of the same but in a variety of places. She is working on concept panels for an advertisement that she has been hired on as a contractor to help do the animation for. In search of inspiration and a respite from being cooped up in her own room for too long, Josie has brought her drawing tablet with her to several places in the neighborhood by now: the park, the Mighty Bean, the communal area of the red building, and now back to her room again. She has the window pushed all the way up to let in fresh air, and has been sitting with her knee poking out the window as she sits on the very small sill of it for the past good chunk of time. Her room is the one with the window over the Daffodil building's clock, so many people who have looked up to check the time have caught sight of the redhead completely absorbed in her work. This location means there have also probably been more than a few people who have seen her leaning out of her window to blow smoke or, most concerningly, seen her changing when the girl is in a hurry and forgets to draw her curtains.

Of course, the worry about people seeing her smoking or changing has very rarely, if every, crossed Josie's mind. She has never been one to worry too much about anything at all, although recent changes in her life may push her in a direction that require her to be a bit more thoughtful about her life in general. Josie has been lucky to land jobs with some regularity, but now that she cannot fall back on her mom and dad's money she is going to have to find a more secure position- perhaps with an actual company that enforces a real schedule. The idea of that isn't one that Josie loves. This is perhaps why she is trying to focus so much on her current paying project, despite her normal tendency to have difficulty focusing on a work project for long periods of time.

Her phone buzzes with a distraction that Josie cannot resist- Deanna. The sound gives Josie a jolt and nearly sends her teetering out of the window. The young woman's hand shoots up and grabs the sides of the window before she runs the risk of falling out and breaking her back (at best). "Fudge," her words come out in a gasp but in her surprise a bit of her southern accent sneaks through. Properly spooked, Josie hurries back onto her bed (which is against the window), and lowers the window until it is just cracked open.


Josie walked out into the common area of her apartment and bursts into a smile when she sees one of her roommates in the kitchen. She has this way of making every greeting feel like she hasn't seen you in days and has been looking forward to your next meeting since the last one you had. Her grandma often likened Josie to a silly puppy, and this certainly contributed to the sentiment. It's too bad her grandma preferred cats.


"Ettie! When'd you get back?"

Josie has a very large heart, and cares about other people, but she is also a bit dense. Dense enough that she doesn't catch on to the fact that Ettie is trying to keep her wilting state hidden behind a weak smile and a mug of tea. She doesn't register that when Ettie wraps herself up in her own arms, it is a sign of a chill that has only been getting worse recently. To Josie, it is just a nervous little gesture that misattributes to Ettie being nervous about class or just happy to be back in the comfort of their lovely apartment. So she smiles, bright but fooled, cut off from any response by her sharper roommate's entrance and observation. Twyla is not one who lets things slip by unnoticed very easily at all, and it shows in her immediate comments of concern. For her part, Josie's expression falls a little bit in realization of what she must have missed. The young woman may not always catch every clue, but when something is said out loud even she will realize her mistakes.

"Maybe Twyla's right, Ettie. You have to give yourself time to feel better. And if you don't get it treated and it gets worse? What if it's something really bad and you miss it? Or you'd have to go stay in the hospital for a long time? You know I work from home all day, I'm always willing to play nurse! It wouldn't be any inconvenience and I could- Oh, Dear," Josie catches herself starting to ramble on, and even she knows how bad she can get about going off on tangents. Her voice slows back down to a normal rate, still as gentle as ever.

"I'm sorry, I guess I get a little carried away," a little drawl slips out in her 'away', twanging in the second syllable of the word and revealing her Texan origins. Of course, her accent may come more from her Mississipi Mom and Alabama Dad. A little apologetic half smile pulls at Josie's face.

"I'm just saying if you need anything, I'm here! But if you don't that's fine too. Do you want me to save you some food?" By this point Josie has gotten a little ding in her phone, which had been sagging down the pocket of her (slightly too warm for the season) flannel. Her face lights up at the sight of a text from Vincent, one of her favorite people in the group of friends.



Of course, as soon as the text is sent the obvious answer hits her.


By now, Twyla is already ready and heading out to Dea's. Josie watches her go and then looks back at Ettie. "Sure you don't want to come? What if we play improv games at dinner- that could be like an interim thing to keep you warmed up for next class?"


━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Aramis's eyebrows shoot up as Kenta's statement is cut off by the entrance of the very woman he was supposed to have beat to the trash. "Do you just have a Naomi radar or something?" he jokes before turning and smiling at Naomi. He likes Kenta well enough, but Naomi is the one he had originally chosen as his roommate and there is just a little indication of this in the greeting smile that he gives the two of them. It's not intentional, of course, but there is something a little less courtesy and a little more friendship in his greetings towards Naomi vs his greetings towards the more recent addition to the apartment. Give Kenta some more time on Aramis's radar, and this very likely will even out. But he's known Naomi a lot longer, through work and eventually their shared apartment space.

"No, I'm afraid not, but I do have high hopes for this weekend. The only thing melting at this very moment is me, I think," he evidences this by gulping down the cold bottle of seltzer in his hand. Once upon a time, Aramis had absolutely loathed the stuff. But it is part of how he kicked an old soda habit. Now he can't stand the syrupy sweetness of a bottle of pop, but loves the refreshing feeling of seltzer after a long jog. Still swallowing his drink, Aramis acknowledges Kenta with a wave of his hand as the youngest member of the apartment heads out for a rather customary dinner over at the Daffodil building. A customary dinner Aramis tends to skip out on, excusing it on a special diet or needing to workout whenever he can, unless it seems like absolutely everyone in the friend group is going. Even then, he will sometimes opt to go for a bike ride or relax with a newspaper instead. His reasoning for this is something he tends to try and protect.

Dea wouldn't say anything to reject an attempt by Aramis to hop in on her dinner, but she certainly wouldn't like it and Aramis certainly would never try to invade on someone's happy place like that. "I'll actually pass on Deanna's, Naomi, so don't worry about waiting up on me for that. I have some work stuff to look at," the excuse is not technically untrue, though he has cleared this weekend and doesn't have another job until next Tuesday.