Lunch with a Girl

Spending over an hour pondering his approach to offering a girl lunch had yielded dishearteningly little in the way of usable results. First off, he had come up with a few ideas for pulling some romcom-esque hijinks. But for one, those ideas had all required circumstances beyond John’s control to go just right. Besides, thinking through how they were likely to come across, from someone who didn’t have movie star looks or charm, had led him to discard that approach entirely.

Then, he had attempted to recall everything he knew about socializing, flirting and pickup artistry and keeping all of that in his mind at once. The hope was that he would be able to cause a relevant Skill to crop up in his system, and hopefully make things a little easier. All he had achieved was realizing how little of his ‘knowledge’ in that area was first hand, or even stemming from the real world. Well, that and he realized that he had somehow picked up quite a bit of supposed pick up artist tricks of dubious validity, despite never actually looking into the ‘field’. The people offering courses and whatnot in that direction had always seemed shady at best, as far as John was concerned.

Eventually, he had realized that even if his body of supposed knowledge had been up to snuff after all, it was entirely possible that any Skills to do with socialization could have some sort of minimum Charisma requirement that he almost certainly didn’t meet.

So he was back to his initial idea, even if it had started out as a backup plan: Observe as many girls as he could while heading to lunch, then either ask the first one with a positive Relationship Score or the girl with the least bad one if he hadn’t found one above 0 by the time he reached the lunch line. The chance of not getting shot down seemed somewhere between diminutive and non-existant, but at least the approach came with the slim hope that he could still meet the Quest objective by telling grandpa about a failed attempt, embarrassing as that would be.

27 girls with negative RS later, John was ready to make his Hail Mary pass and try his luck with a girl with -2. He knew the count because that was how much Skill EXP he still needed in Observe to level it up when he left chemistry class.

Observe skill level 5.
Mana cost reduced to 0. Relationship Score in name display now updates live while the person is in your field of vision. Skill no longer gains Skill EXP. Skill Quests for Observe unlocked.

John had just finished reading that, but hadn’t had time to ponder it or look for the Skill Quests, when he felt a tap against the back of his shoe, followed by a girl quietly mumbling something along the lines of ‘sorry’. John turned towards her and Observed.

Christie Turner-Chastain-Wessel
Lvl 2, Student
Wallflower
19 years old
Relationship: 3

Christie had been something of a mystery since she was enrolled halfway through last semester. Enough so that even John had heard a lot of the speculations and rumors about her and her foster father. Well, mostly overheard, but still. Enrolling mid semester was not something Ashcroft usually let students do. Ashcroft also had no program or other accommodations for disabled students normally, but for some reason the blind girl had applied, the school had accepted the application, a teaching aide had been hired specifically to tail her and help her with note-taking, and braille textbooks had been acquired.

The rumors about why this was had taken a turn for the nasty, when Vanessa had decided that Christie should be branded an outcast. By now everyone ‘knew’ that Christie’s foster father had gotten those favors for her in return for a large donation of money from some repugnant criminal business, for which his legitimate business was just a front. Jury was still out on whether it was human trafficking, organ harvesting, contract killing or something else along those lines.

John generally gave those rumors little credence, after all he had heard several about himself that had nothing to do with reality, but the Observe results came with a few oddities of their own. For one, she had been introduced as simply ‘Christie Turner’, omitting ‘Chastain’ and ‘Wessel’. While being known by just part of your name wasn’t unreasonable, it was also the kind of proverbial molehill the rumor mill would definitely make a mountain of once they caught on. Especially in the case of hyphen soup like that on someone non-hispanic, which many associated with European nobility. Yet for all the rumor buzz John had overheard, he didn’t remember anything along those lines.

She was also the first person John had seen with a lower Level than himself. Then again, blindness got in the way of basically everything, and if her grades were poor as well, that would probably result in a low level. Her being 19 was a bit more confusing. It was only a few months since her foster father invited every Ascroft student of their year to a party, on the occasion of her 18th birthday. John hadn’t attended, nor had anyone else. The reason was Vanessa throwing a party on the same date, inviting all the same people. That even John had received an invitation to Vanessa’s party spoke volumes about it being an intentional act of social sabotage.

Nobody had dared risk the head cheerleader’s ire by going to Christie’s birthday. Vanessa, on the other hand, had talked overly loudly about the success of her party while Christie was within earshot on more than one occasion the following weeks. In a small act of defiance, John had at least sent Christie a birthday card, excusing his absence with a pre-existing arrangement with family that he didn’t specify. That was technically true, but Grandpa and Grandma would have been willing to reschedule, especially for John to go to a girl’s birthday party. Or he could’ve done both without being any more than fashionably late for the party, if he’d been the sort of person who could pull off ‘fashionable’ of any kind.

Still, the card was probably more than she had gotten from most. Which in turn was probably why his Relationship Score with her was positive. Which brought him back to the present. Where he was talking to a girl. With a positive RS. Which is what he had been looking for. And she had talked to him. At which point he had promptly spaced out and gotten lost in his own head for a minute. ‘Way to go, John. Great work!’

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

John tore his attention away from system windows and ponderings, just in time to notice the tail end of Christie muttering what sounded like ‘you can do this’ to herself before clearing her throat and speaking louder and clearer than the muttered apology from before. A bit too loudly and a bit too enunciated to be considered normal, even.

“I’m sorry for bumping into you with my cane.”

“It’s fine; if anything, it was my mistake stopping and spacing out right in front of you.” John noticed that he was gesturing as he spoke and **** himself to stop as he continued, “Maybe I could buy you lunch to make amends?”

John didn’t even have time to admonish himself over how that had ended up sounding super cringy before Christie had tried to say something with empty lungs and ended up making an unintelligible cough-like sound instead. While she got that under control, he snuck a glance at the RS displayed above her head, since it should be auto updating. ‘20??!? It increased by 17! From being offered lunch?? Just how lone-’

“Yes! Uh… I mean, I would like that…” She had gotten her voice back in control, and the eagerness of that first word, which she evidently didn’t mean to show so clearly, also pointed at her being quite lonely. John felt a pang of guilt at that. He had known how isolated she was at school. From when she was introduced, he also knew she had been in foster care until her, apparently incorrect, 18th birthday. He had known, or at least had all the information he needed to realize, that she was in **** need of a friend. And he had done nothing.

‘Focus, John. Lunch with Christie now, mentally beat yourself up later’

“So, what do you want?” John caught himself making a gesture towards the counter and mentally facepalmed.

“... The same as you?” she replied in a somewhat hesitant tone, after a moment of thought.

‘Well, fuck. She’s probably trying not to ask for too much or too little, but now I have to guess what she would like.’

The cafeteria food at Ashcroft varied wildly in quality, but the best it had on offer was still invariably a cut below the school’s standards for everything else. That state of affairs was probably allowed to continue only because the upper crust of students didn’t eat from it in the first place, they ordered delivery from elsewhere.

As John looked carefully at the options on offer, he realized that this might be another reason why she chose to follow his lead. She couldn’t really examine the food without touching it after all. After a few minutes of examining, he decided on the sandwiches. The salad bar had been thoroughly raided by the people that came first, which suggested it was pretty good today, and the salad and the sandwiches were usually in quality lockstep. Plus, that still gave Christie a few options to choose from, so it was unlikely to result in something she wouldn’t like.

Back at an out of the way table with a sandwich, a slice of cake and a soft drink each, John realized something and sheepishly apologized. “Sorry for going all silent on you while we waited in line. I was focused on trying to find out what food options were good today.”

“It’s okay.” John wasn’t sure what to say to that, so he took a bite while thinking of where to go from there.

“What do you do outside of studying?” John had decided that asking about hobbies was probably the best way to make more of an actual conversation. Even though they probably didn’t share any, what with John’s being heavily reliant on sight.

“I like audiobooks…” she started speaking, then kind of seemed to lose momentum and quietly added, “I used to read a lot.”

“Oh. I’m sor-”

“No!” she interrupted him in a forceful tone before dropping her sandwich and clasping her hands over her mouth. After a moment, she continued meekly, “I’m sorry, I just… You shouldn’t… I mean, please just forget I said that last bit.”

“I’ll try?” John really hoped that his tone came across as confused and not something more negative.

“Thank you.” She paused for just long enough for John to worry that he needed to say something, then added timidly, “Mr. We- My foster father also started me on Dungeons and Dragons a little while ago.”

“Oh? And how do you like it?” Now there was a potential conversational gold mine. While John hadn’t managed to find a solid group in the area, and consequently hadn’t played more than a few one-offs at the pirate themed game store in town, he had been in a lot of groups online. Sadly, most of them didn’t last very long either, but a few had held on well enough.

“It’s a little weird but… not a bad weird. I’m still trying to figure it all out. And he says we’re doing a few things a bit differently than usual. Like using a computer for my rolls. Braille dice don’t really work.”

John chuckled at the last bit, then had a sudden flash of panic about how that would come across. Thankfully, that fear was defused by her RS ticking up by one. “Then it’s a good thing you found an accommodating group.”

And then he apparently managed to deflate the conversation by accident anyway, judging by the return of quiet meekness to her tone. “It’s just me and my foster father.”

“I see.” John didn’t really know what to say to that. He considered bringing up his own hobbies, other than playing D&D and such online, but they were heavily sight based and he didn’t want to risk rubbing her face in things she couldn’t do. So, they ended up eating in silence for a bit instead.

While they ate, John took the moment to look more closely at her. Aside from the messy, black hair reaching to the small of her back, the most immediately noticeable parts of her appearance were actually the obfuscations. While she had swept her bangs away from her face in order to not get food in her hair, her sunglasses still obscured a lot of her face. She also wore her uniform several sizes too big, enough so that most students would probably get in trouble for it, which combined with a slightly slouched posture to conceal her figure, especially at a distance.

Up relatively close John could make out some hints of shape that, when coupled with his extensive experience with looking at the female form, let him know that she had a slim torso with fairly large breasts, especially for her frame. At least DD, maybe bigger. Unfortunately, the table was in the way of attempting a similar assessment of her butt, hips and legs.

“What do you do for fun?” John’s musings about how Christie would look given the effort, and probably assistance, put towards being attractive, rather than seemingly towards hiding attractiveness, were cut short by her voice. John spent a half-second cringing at himself and getting embarrassed, before his brain caught up with the situation enough to remember that she would have a hard time catching him checking her out since she couldn’t see. Then he noticed that she had finished both her sandwich and her cake, while he was only halfway through the former, and got embarrassed by how long he must’ve just sat there staring.

“John?” The word was halfway between spoken and whispered, as if she was unsure whether it was okay to ask…. if he was paying attention? If he was still there? He wasn’t entirely sure.

“Yes, yes. Sorry. I, uh, I was just… Never mind.” He would’ve continued straight into answering her question, partially as a means to dodge talking about where exactly his attention had been, but was stopped when she giggled softly.

“You space out a lot, you know.”

“Yeah…” John replied sheepishly, then moved on quickly. “Anyway, you asked about what I do for fun. I play Dungeons and Dragons, and a few other games like it, on the internet. I haven’t really had any luck with in-person groups unfortunately. I draw too.” He decided against elaborating on his subject matter of choice there. “But mostly, I play video games. I… could get into my favorite genres and franchises, but I’m not sure it would interest you.”

It was at that point that John realized that he could have replied to the ‘space out a lot’ bit with a compliment. Something like ‘It’s hard not to when having lunch with a cute girl’. Then again, with his Charisma it probably would’ve come out either excessively cheesy or maybe even creepy.