Let's do this~

From what could be seen, this town looked nice enough. But one word caught her attention: “Teacher.” Not only that, the first building that she saw when the boy pointed had these strange round things on the borders of the roof. She was curious to find out more. She pointed to the building and asked, “Is that where your teacher works?”

“...Hm?”

Until now, he hadn’t really considered his teacher’s job “work”, but... yeah, that was technically what any job was, huh?

“Huh... I guess so. You wouldn’t know it was work from watching her, though. She seems to like teaching a whole lot.”

At that moment, a thought came to him.

“Black... huh? Sorry, but I don’t know what that means... I don’t like the color black that much...”

“Oh, except on bees. They have black and yellow stripes, and I think those look nice on them. My favorite are the big fuzzy honeybees. Oh yeah, and the black spots on ladybugs! I love those, I think they’re cute. I still have my ladybug bag at home, even though it’s too worn out to really use anymore...”

“Yes, That large fellow who was infatuated with Raffina. His Puyo skills were acceptable, but his attempts to woo her were fruitless to say the least.” 

 supposed Sig would have seen Tarutaru at least briefly before he left Primp, but when Sig arrived he definitely received more attention.

 “No, it’s not, but I suppose I shouldn’t talk. My name is the German word for ‘smart.’”

“Well, I mean... your name is fitting for you, cause you are smart.”

“Though now that I think about it, Ringo and Maguro said they were both named after food too, didn’t they...? So maybe food names aren’t that weird...”

Sig looked off into space for a bit, as if thinking hard about something, before his gaze suddenly shifted back to his classmate.

“Sure? I think Glasses already talks about himself plenty, but... alright.”

“Let’s see, um... well, he wears glasses. He’s the only one in our class who does besides Teacher, but his are more normal-sized while Teacher’s are super tiny, and... oh wait, I guess you meant what he’s like on the inside, right?”

“Well... everyone says he’s mean, and they’re... kinda not wrong? He says hurtful things sometimes and he’s pretty harsh, especially when it’s about studying and other school-related things. I guess that’s why a lot of people at school don’t like him...“

He had already hooked her interest. “Oh, it’s fine. I’m still interested. I honestly don’t really care how much you can show me, at least it’s something.” She couldn’t wait to tell Tokei about her encounter, at least if they got back together by the end of the day. “So, uh, where is your town?”

“It’s right here. We’re standing in it. Well... kind of.”

He pointed toward the brick road nearby, which led into a street lined with some cozy-looking residential houses. The street itself disappeared beyond that point, but behind the houses, one could clearly see the larger, fancier structures that made up the more public and business-oriented areas of town. From where they stood, they could clearly make out the museum, the town hall, and most prominent of all, the Magic School.

“Actually, no, I’m not. I’ve never even been in your town, wherever it is. I’m… kinda curious, actually.” And now was when she noticed the boy’s appearance. He had a claw that replaced his right hand, and one of his eyes was red as well. She wondered if the other people in his town were similar, which made her even more curious about that place. “Maybe you could show me around.”

“Oh, so you’re like a traveler.”

Sig smiled a little. It was always cool to see new people passing through... he didn’t even mind that much when he noticed her looking over his hand and eye. He was very used to strangers’ stares by now.

Haiko nodded and went to the rock carefully. When she was close enough, she crouched down and tried her luck. The catch was a success. Satisfied by the result, she slid the sheet of paper under the jar so that he wouldn’t fly away again. Walking back to the boy, she was kind of glad she’d get the chance, as she hadn’t been able to catch any bugs, let alone a stag, in quite a while. She let the bug inside the cage, closed it, and sighed in relief. “Well, that’s that.”

“Yep... wow, nice catch.”

It was so rare to see someone else who was that comfortable handling bugs, and a girl no less, that Sig couldn’t help but be a little impressed. He took the cage and tucked it carefully back into his bag.

The frog took notice that his - ‘opponent’ - had begin chaining, even if they were small chain, and begins to attempt chaining as well. Somehow this tactic would prove to be at least a bit more successful than what it was Sig was doing - as a 3-chain would soon result from his attempts to set up a chain.

But he was sure Sig would at least try to retaliate…

And try to retaliate Sig did... the key word being ‘try’. While he had plenty of groups ready to offset the garbage about to drop on him, he got unlucky with his colors, and only managed one chain before reaching a dead end. His reward was a decently-sized pile of garbage to the head.

“...Oof.”

It didn’t do much other than startle him a bit, and he quickly got to work clearing the garbage away.