Ann notices the Earring

[All characters are 18+]

The buffet went without further incident. As they got up to leave, Ann asked him a question. "Oh yeah, where did you get those earrings?" Futaba snapped her finger in realization. "oh yeah, I knew something was different."

Ren jumped a bit, but composed himself pretty quickly. "Oh, those were gifts from my parents. to be honest I forgot I had them on." He rubbed the back of his head in mild embarrassment.

"oh that's sweet, but you are missing one now." Ann pointed out, gesturing to his left ear. Ren checked, and sure enough it wasn't there. he almost panicked before he felt his pocket. "oh right, my ear itched there, so I took it off." He gave as an excuse. He puts it back on as An looks him and them over. "Yeah, that looks more normal on you now."

Normal. There's that word again. Is that what this other ring does, make me seem normal? He ponders this as he follows the group. Sadly, not paying attention to where he's walking tends to lead to accidents. Like tripping on a crack in the sidewalk, for example.

As Ren lost his balance, he stumbled forward, accidently knocking over Ann as well. As his fall brought his mind to the external world, he realized he'd landed on something soft, putting a hand down to feel it and push off of it, he quickly realized it was Ann's ass. the realization made his hand clamp down on it, before he became aware enough to remove it as he got back up. "I'm so sorry! I was thinking of something else!" He managed to get out.

"It's okay, it was just an accident." Came Ann's voice. Looking at the situation, she had been stopped partway through the fall by Ryuji, who was helping her back up. The girl looked at Ryuji. "Thanks for catching-" She stopped when she realized Ryuji's eyes were wandering down slightly. "Hey, eyes are up here, dude!" She snapped at Ryuji, getting up and covering her blouse, which Ryuji had looked down as he helped her up.

Ren processed a couple things as the girls got on Ryuji's case. Firstly, that Ann either hadn't noticed or minded his accidental groping. Second, that they did mind Ryuji's glance a lot more. He tapped Ann's shoulder to get her attention back. "Umm, I was actually apologizing about the accidental squeeze as I got up, Ann." He whispered to her.

"Hmm? oh that. you don't need to apologize for that. That was pretty normal." She replied, Ren's head processing what that meant.

"You mean it was normal of me to squeeze your ass?" She nods, "What if Ryuji did it?"

"I'd punch his lights out." She turned back to Ryuji.

"Hey! I didn't do that! I just looked down her shirt accidently!" The blonde track star protested. This did not his help his case with the girls. "Whoa! Hey! Can you blame me if I did!? You're pretty and in that position, it's really hard not to see that even when looking at your face. That seemed pretty normal to me! Ren, back me up here!" He called for help.

Ren started feeling bad for Ryuji, given how often he got in this mess. "Y-yeah, I think it's pretty normal for Ryuji to do that when helping a girl up." Ren said, watching the rest of the group calm down. "Yeah, I guess it would be pretty hard, sorry for going in on you like that, Ryuji." Haru said, the rest apologizing as well.

Ren thought about this as they walked along, but keeping a better awareness of his surroundings. He had a pretty good idea of how these things worked. There was a lot of power behind these earrings, almost overwhelming. But he did use them to help out Ryuji just now, so he hadn't been corrupted by them. It would be up to him to figure out how to use them... Unless he could share this Info with someone he trusted, to help act as a moral compass... but who?