Marionette

Cosmos Chapter Thirty Four - Tachiba [立場]

Amaya had finally found a place where words held no true meaning, and for once her lack of finesse and talent in academic skills was practically waved off as completely inconsequential.

And never had there been a time where Amaya felt like she fit in with a new atmosphere so quickly.

Upon walking into the gym with its unfortunate namesake derived from a member of the feline family, inside was tidy, simply arranged, and the air was rather clean.

There were two forms within the rather quiet gym at the moment Amaya had wandered inside to take a look, and they neither dropped what they were doing to gawk at her or ignore her entirely.

'Hey, kiddo.' The booming voice of a man in his late twenties sounded through the sizable facility. He was a tall blond man appearing to be rather foreign to Japan in spite of his lack of any real accent, with a rather athletic build as he paused mid strike towards the sandbag in front of a Japanese man about the same in age. 'If you're here with questions, I'll be all ears for you in just a few, otherwise feel free to look around to your hearts content!'

And with that, he resumed what looked to be a demonstration of a martial arts move of some variety that Amaya knew neither the name of, or the style it was even derived from. All she knew was that the strike against the sandbag was remarkably forceful from the solid thwock that echoed through the area.

Either which, she'd been happy to leave it at that.

The interior of the gym was set out rather simply considering, with four sandbags in even intervals along the wall opposite the main door, with a raised and padded floor for sparring, speed-balls set up along the right hand wall in the very same manner, and the far left of the room was an open area with access to lockers and a secondary room for breaks.

Realistically there wasn't really all that much to look at, but the atmosphere was far more pleasant than Amaya had expected.

'Right, sorry about the wait!' The blond man spoke up with a pleasant grin as he wandered over. 'So, can I help you with anything? Any questions?'

Amaya was silent for a moment as she blinked up at his remarkable height.

'Not really, I was just curious.' Amaya hedged as she found herself feeling a little self-conscious.

'Well, that's perfectly fine, too. Curious is probably the healthiest thing to be, I reckon.' The blond man remarked as he sauntered over to one of the lockers to tug out what Amaya saw to be two bottles of water. 'In any case, the guy back there's Yamazaki Isshin, and my name's Richards Daniel, best just as Daniel, though. I'm the vice manager of this humble little gym.'

'Umm, I'm Amaya.'

'Amaya-san? Not one for the usual formalities, eh?' Daniel asked.

'Not particularly...'

'That's cool, I'm not, either. Drives the missus nuts, though.'

And with that, he tossed one of the bottles of water over his shoulder towards Isshin.

'Still, I am surprised to hear that curiosity was what brought you here, Amaya-san.' Daniel continued as he sat down on the bench next to the lockers, and unscrewed the lid of his bottle. 'To be curious you've gotta at least have a small notion of interest, which for most girls your age, there's none in this kind of thing to begin with. Do you happen to like martial arts at all?'

Oh god, this guy was the talkative sort, wasn't he?

'Not like so much as I get dragged into enough fights to learn.' Amaya eventually responded.