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Mayumi has been sitting at the table for a while, judging by the empty plate at her elbow, and is currently nursing a cup of coffee while reading a tattered looking book. At least she is attempting to read it. Her brow wrinkles as she stares at the pages, then smooth out as the door opens. May looks up out of habit and gratefully closes the book, pushing it aside to smile up at Rayne. "Hey yourself. Grab a seat?" A hand waves to the open chairs nearby, inviting the other woman to pick whichever she likes. "I've been trying to catch up on the history of this place," she states as she motions towards the book. "But it's just giving me a headache." Rayne takes a seat and frowns at the book for a moment before sighing. "I suppose I'm going to need to borrow that when you're done with it." She stops a passing waitress and asks for a spiced tea latte before looking back to Mayumi with a smile, weak though it might be. "How's your sword training going? I heard you were taking the chance you were going to get stuck in melee seriously?" Mayumi snorts softly at the suggestion that Rayne would be reading the book, too. Maybe they could study it together? "I'm still working on getting my balance with a long range weapon. More often than not I fall on my backside or get bruised somewhere embarrassing, but it's getting better." Formalities over, Mayu leans closer and tilts her head she tries to get Rayne to meet her eyes. She's come to like the other woman a lot, but she also doesn't want to pry where she isn't welcome. No way to know but to ask though. "Is something wrong? You seem a bit down?" Rayne sighs and puts a hand to her forehead. "Ehhhhh, sort of yes, sort of no? It's kind of like getting a promotion you didn't ask for. Long story short, I might be playing a bigger part of running Twisted than just being second in command of TASK. I'm okay with it, I think, but it's still a lot to wrap my head around." Her tea latte arrives and she smiles and thanks the waitress before taking a sip of it. "Oooh, hot. Good. Needed that. But yeah. It's a lot suddenly thrust onto my plate, and that's assuming everything goes as planned... and why I now feel like I probably should know more about what's happened here before me rather than just what's happening now." "O-kay... Well, wow." That is a long story made short and lacking important details. Mayumi blinks at Rayne and tries to puzzle through what she just heard, but there are too many questions. Again with the prying. "When did all this happen? Give me more details than that." Her fingers curl with the desire to place a comforting hand on Ray, but she knows that such a gesture would have the opposite effect. Instead Mayu turns herself slightly, giving all her attention to Rayne. "Maybe I can help?" Rayne says, "Last night... Our..." She frowns again. "'Training session' got interrupted by... Caliga, I think it was? Showing up to basically let Kotal know that he and... whoever else is involved in this whole thing, have figured out who to assign to a new council, apparently. I... I really wish I knew more about it myself. Kotal's another one named, so at least I've one familiar face on it... and another, Luna, I've met before, she seemed okay. But I have no clue who the other two are, never seen or met them before." She smiles at Mayumi's offer to help. "Thanks, I... believe me, I'm going to be relying heavily on my friends for this. You, Silencia, Serenity, and Sunset have all given me their support. I guess that might be why I was selected? He said I was there to represent those that are trying to make Twisted their new home." Mayumi chews on her lower lip for a moment then sips on her coffee. "Well, I don't know what your duties are exactly. But I'm sure Silencia and I can help you find some balance. I'm fine with paperwork." Not really, but she's willing to help out and be part of the team. Her cheeks take on a bit of a blush as she looks at the table top. "I know I'm new, but I feel like I haven't been pulling my weight. Training is all well and good, but I always seem to be neck deep in it when stuff happens." Rayne tries to give Mayumi a reassuring smile. "Hey, don't worry about it. You know, I was basically thinking the same thing about myself for a while here? Boy, Kotal got pissed when I called myself cannon fodder in front of him. I really had a major inferiority complex." She takes another sip of her latte before continuing. "That, of course, was before he declared me his second. Really, it's going to be my friends that get me through this, I'm not going to try to do this on my own, and I'm realizing that I really, really shouldn't. So yeah." She then frowns again. "Hrm. Maybe I will need a personal assistant, now that I think about it. Ugh, so many issues. I'm gonna have to deal with when this hits." Momentarily a hand moves up to her forhead again, but it just as quickly moves back down to her steaming hot beverage for another sip. Mayumi smiles back then winces. After that head/neck strike from Rayne during her try-out she has been thinking much the same thing about herself. Not that she cannot hold her own, but that she might let her team down at some point when they most need her. Hence all the intense training alternated by caffienne binges and sleep. "I can do that!" she replies, a little louder than intended. "I mean... If you want me to, and... Rayne can't help but laugh at Mayumi's enthusiasm. "Hey, I have no clue what this is going to entail. For all I know, there's going to be an official secretary or something that keeps all notes and I don't have to worry about those kinds of things. But... If you really want the job, you'll be considered." She gives a bit more genuine a smile this time. "But as a job, I'll not be able to take you just because you're a friend. I have to be serious about that kind of thing." Her smile turns to a bit of a frown, however. "I'm a little worried about TASK, though. I mean, do I continue being his second there while I'm his equal in another job? If we can't do both, I'd almost have to decline you as a personal assistant... TASK can't loose two good fighters like us." Mayumi shakes her head. "No, I'm not worried. If there is someone better for secretarial stuff, then good. What I was thinking was more the organizing that would be required at TASK. A Second for the Second, I guess. That way you could know that things were still running smoothly when you had politics to deal with." And she was sure that Rayne would be far better at the politicking than she. Mayu isn't the kind to put up with falsity of any sort and her mouth tended to run away with her. It got her into all sorts of trouble as a child in school and hadn't changed my since. "Keep patrols moving, field calls, assess the need for more attention to an area, that sort of thing." Rayne says, "Hrm." She nods, seriously considering this. "As things currently stand, Minu is more or less the 'third' due to her vastly superior organizational skills. It is official, by the way... Kotal has already said that if something were to happen to both myself and him, Minu is next in line. But yeah... Both Kotal and I are slated for this council, so we'd need that... fourth, really, in case of something happening while council things are happening." She then tilts her head, thinking of something else. "...As if anyone would be able to stop Kotal from going out and dealing with a problem even if that were the case, but still." She shakes her head. "That's a serious consideration, though... And probably one best left to Kotal, honestly. Sorry, but that's really a serious matter, and right now, Dorian would be a higher choice, I think." She gives Mayumi an apologetic look. "He's shown a little promise in command already... not a whole lot, but some... from that 'rift' situation. Really, I appreciate the desire to help, though." Mayumi nods her head in understanding. She hasn't been able to really spend time with her fellow members of TASK in order to get to know their strengths and weaknesses. That is certainly on her agenda though. And it isn't so much that she enjoys paperwork or anything. Does anyone enjoy paper? Well, maybe Minu. "Gotcha. Just know that I'm willing to help if you need it. I haven't really seen Dorian except the other day at lunch (with chalupas). Or anyone else but you and Silencia. I will have to fix that soon." She waves the waitress over and orders a basket of french fries and another coffee. "But, really the point is that you are okay." Rayne nods, glad Mayumi understands her own thought process on the subject. "Right, that'll be the first step to getting to a higher point." She then smiles as Mayumi orders her fries and reiterates Rayne being okay. "Yeah... I think I am. This talk has... helped a lot, actually. I'm realizing that all my nervousness is when I think about the future, but when I'm there, when I'm down to business... I'm okay. I just need to think of it the same as when I became Kotal's second. I almost didn't take it, but when I was there, I did... I'm doing a decent job, I think? If it's more or less the same... I should be okay." Mayumi grins and leans back, more relaxed now that she can see Rayne is more or less settled. "Whatever happens it will be alright. Between Kotal and you all the matters regarding the running of TASK and the council seats will be taken care of. If you don't think you can do both, you will pick one and that will be the right choice. Mayumi says, "You aren't abandoning anyone either way, but doing what you feel is best for the people of Twisted. Since there aren't two of you, you will do the best you can at one or both, or neither if something else comes up that you feel would be better suited to your talents." Mayumi shrugs. "You do what you can and trust the others will take up where you leave off. In your case you have a whole team to back you up." Rayne smiles and nods. "I really appreciate the vote of confidence, Mayumi." She then - Seemingly a bit reluctantly and definitely with a bit of unease and a lot of awkwardness, reaches over to put a hand on the other woman's shoulder. "It means a lot, what you, Silencia, and everyone else are doing for me, staying behind me on this." She then quite quickly removes her hand from Mayumi's shoulder, returning it to her cup of latte to take a rather hurried swig. The cup remains up near her face a bit longer than necisarry as Rayne realizes she's probably flushed a little from that. Mayumi's eyes widen just for a moment as Rayne reaches out to her, but she manages to cover her reaction with a bright smile. Holding still while the hand rests on her shoulder, she then politely looks away while Rayne covers her face with her latte. Thankfully her fries and coffee come then and she can busy herself adding sugar and milk to her drink. "You're welcome, Rayne. You've been nothing but kind to me since I showed up, I couldn't repay that by abandoning you." Mayumi pushes the basket of french fries between them. "Help yourself." Rayne says, "Heyyy, don't mention it, it's just what I do, yeah? Try to be friendly to everyone, it makes you friends, right? Always better to have more friends than enemies, right? Ha!" Yeah, she's a little bit either giddy or trying to cover up her nervousness at actually having made physical contact like that, and has a bit of a goofy grin on her now. "Ooh, hey, thanks!" She then promptly stuffs her face in an attempt to get herself to stop babbling." Mayumi grins back, hers quite a bit less goofy. "Always favored that philosophy myself," she agrees. While Rayne babbles and tries to distract herself from being nervous, Mayu bites back a chuckle by shoving fries into her mouth. After she swallows she pushes the book towards the other woman. "Seems you'll need this more than me. If I find anything else of interest I'll let you know and we can study together." Rayne sighs and looks at the book with a bit of annoyance. "Yeah. Great. Studying. More to keep me out of the present, so to speak." Well, at least that calmed her down. "At least I'll get a bit of a study buddy, right? Not that I've tried the whole group study thing since.... I was in my twenties. Looooong time ago. You might need to give me a refresher on how that works." Mayumi bursts into laughter at Ray's expression, one shared by every student at one point or another. A hand rises to wave of the idea that she is being rude. "There really isn't much to it. We each read the material and compare our understanding of it. If we agree, great. But if we disagree then we can talk about why or do more research. Not my favorite task, but often necessary when facing different foes. Information is a power all its own." Now that it has cooled a bit she takes a long drink from her coffee. | |
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