"No, no... ugh, that stuff is for amateurs!" Yet another note from the box was tossed aside into a nearby trash can, one that had certainly seen a fair share of notes today. Tian's nimble hands reached into the box to read yet another note. The box was meant as a way for him to find work as a lacrima repairman in Era. After all, pursuing his career was the main reason he came back to Fiore, though not the only one. Still, he couldn't accomplish any of the other reasons without first fulfilling the need for some sort of income.

The box was simply full of small notes, something he considered a local store owner to put in their shop for him at the exchange of fixing a faulty lighting lacrima. It came with a small little note that advertised a "Skilled Lacrima Technician" that would do work in Era. All that was required was what he was fixing and their address. Still, Tian had gotten a little bit tired of fixing the most basic stuff. He had done that enough already back in Sin - he wanted to move onto more complex things now that he was an independent worker.

"No, not that one," adding to the pile of trash, Tian moved onto the next note "aaand no to that one too. Last one.." Tian sighed, reaching the last of the notes in the box. He hoped this one was at least decent...

Reading it, Tian noticed that the best one came for last. It was a request to repair a faulty game console. Tian's eyes lit up. Those things were like, super advanced! He was certainly up to the challenge of fixing one of those. Even just thinking about it made him feel nice. Plus, who knew, maybe this client would go on and recommend Tian to their friends. That would be a pretty good upstart, right?

Well, it was still pretty early in the evening. If Tian ran, he could probably make it there just before the time where it would be considered "creepy" to arrive at someone's place as a repairman, right? Locking the door of his hotel room hastily, he rushed to the address provided on the paper. The evening wind of the approaching fall would slow him down a little bit, but this opportunity was too good to pass up. After all, he had been bored for quite a while since he had got in Fiore. While he tried to convince himself this was all for money, Tian knew it wasn't the real reason. If he just wanted money he would've taken the easy jobs. He wanted to do something much more fulfilling.

Panting, Tian caught his breath in front of the address given to him. "Okay... here goes." finishing up with his preparations, Tian straightened his toque and hoodie, made sure his jeans were on right, checked his shoelaces and knocked on the door, calling out to whoever was inside - should they be in there at all. "Hey, I heard you need some help with a game console?" Tian knew that he could sometimes be a little bit too rude or hurtfully truthful to people, so he cleared his throat and reminded himself to be on his best behavior. "I had gotten a note about it, and I think I can fix it for you!"

Mei couldn’t live without her video games. Even though she was traveling at this time, she still brought her game console and some games she enjoyed playing for her free time. The reason she was here in Era was because there was a huge art exhibition coming up next week and she couldn’t miss it if she wanted to get some connections. Like every other day, she was sitting at a small distance from the window, enough to feel the occasional breeze and far enough so that the sunlight didn’t ruin her paint. Perched on a wooden stool in front of the canvas, her left hand moved with a soundless rhythm as a new piece of art came to life. She was satisfied. It seemed like she was improving with every stroke of the brush.

“...hard to knee Somal win a gay can fold...!”

Retracting her hand after hearing the muffled shouting, the freelance painter froze for a second. With earplugs inserted into her ears for better concentration, it felt like she had woken up from a deep, sound slumber. Clearly, she had forgotten that she had put up a request for lacrima repair work. Quickly plucking the earplugs out and grabbing the nearest weapon she could find—a piece of wood to prop up her canvas—she headed towards the entrance, trying to be as silent as possible in doing so. The man at the door continued yelling...about fixing something. It still didn’t click in her mind.

Once she reached the entrance, she moved closer to the door with her weapon held up, and swung the door open, ready to smash them in the face with her piece of wood. Lucky for the repairman, she stopped halfway in her attack when the two words ‘note’ and ‘fix’ registered in her head. And the way he was dressed. Mei lowered her weapon and blinked a few times. “You really didn’t need to yell, you know.” She pointed to the doorbell next to the door and then slowly pressed the button. “My doorbell works...”

Though she felt a little annoyed at how he had disrupted her artsy little mood, she did need his help. “Come on in,” she said, pointing at the small area where he was supposed to take his shoes off. She was Sinese. She couldn’t help it, even if people thought it was rude or something.

Tian had looked down at the floor for a second, nothing to himself that he liked the color. That being said, what wasn't quite as pleasant was the very sudden sight of a young woman about to swing some sort of weapon at him. Shocked, Tian fell back instinctively, almost enough to hit the floor - though he was able to catch himself just in time. Ignoring the woman's comment about the doorbell, Tian decided to speak at her in an irritated voice instead, his face clearly in a state of nervousness and shock. "G-god! You didn't need to swing at me!" he stated, shaking his head quickly to snap himself out of it. He was supposed to be polite, he was supposed to be polite. Those words kept ringing in his head. He wouldn't find any success in Fiore if he was rude. "Ahem... sorry. You startled me. I'll ring the doorbell next time..."

Making his way in, Tian took his shoes off very quickly. In fact, he took them off so quickly that it was almost like he had started before his mind could even process the info that Mei told him. This was mostly due to his own Sinese raising, though it would be hard to notice to an average person. Unlike his sisters and brothers, Tian looked almost entirely like his Fiorian dad, not taking much visually from his mother's side of the family. Tian quickly noticed the game console in the girl's room, and moved to examine it, his eyes gleaming as though he was a child who had gotten a 3 scoop ice cream cone given to them. "Ooooh, so this is it! Man, I gotta admit, I was really happy when I saw your request. I haven't seen one of these since I was a kid, and I didn't really know how to repair stuff like that back then."

Moving to a small toolkit he kept with him in his pocket, Tian took out his mini-screwdriver, getting his hands all over the girl's game console without a clue in the world. It was still clear that he needed to work on his manners, despite how much he had been telling himself to be polite. His head popped up a little bit, almost as though he was a guard in a game who had just noticed the protagonist sneaking around. He forgot to ask what was wrong with it!

Putting the console down gently, Tian chuckled to himself, facing the woman once again with his hand behind his head an an innocent fashion. "Ahh, I forgot to ask what was wrong with it! Is it like, not turning on at all, or is it not reading the games you put in properly, or...?"

Even though she had requested for a repairman for her game console, Mei’s focus was on the painting that she was working on, so she went back to her canvas and took a moment to take in her art. She liked to walk around and come back to her painting sometimes, because only then she noticed some things that were out of place, or looking unnatural. This was one of those times since she just went away to get the door. She did spot some things that needed to be fixed and added, though she wasn’t going to do those right away. She had to tell what was wrong with her game console to the repairman, who seemed unnecessarily excited over this job. Maybe he had never seen the model of her game console. Whatever it was, she was pretty confused.

Leaving her painting materials as well as her apron in her little inspiration area, she moved back to where her game console was located and saw that the repairman had got his hands all over the device. With her eyes a bit wide from being a little weirded out by this, she reached into her little storage box and brought out a game that she bought recently during her stay in Era. Taking a closer look, she noticed that the repairman was actually pretty young, probably the reason why he was so easily excitable.

“Oh, no it’s turning on. The issue with it is it won’t read this game I bought like last week. It just gets stuck at the loading page and nothing,” she said, handing him said game. She was kind of concerned about the cost of the repair. She didn’t have too much money, so she hoped it didn’t cost much. “How much are you going to charge me for this work?” She couldn’t help but ask.

"Hmmm, okay, so I'm guessing it's probably something to do with a certain part. I think I have a vague idea of how to fix it it now, though I'm sure I'm oversimplifying it and all." Tian really hoped that he wasn't oversimplifying it. His hands basically took the game cartridge as soon as he could, almost as though he was a child who took the piece of candy their mother was offering them the very instant they were told they could have it. By the time the woman was asking him a question, he was already starting to make his way to being able to take a look inside. "Oh? The price, uh..." he hadn't even thought of the price yet. Despite telling himself earlier how much he needed to make money in Fiore, he had become so excited about the working part that he had forgotten that you needed to be paid for working.

Tian's hands slowed down a bit as he though, still opening it up from the bottom in order to inspect the technology at work inside. Actually, what was the price of repair for this kinda thing, even? In fact, how much did people in Fiore even pay for repairs? Usually he would let his mentor back in Sin handle the stuff like this. A nervous look upon his face grew as he noticed that he couldn't think of something. Growing impatient with his own thoughts, Tian shook his head. "Uhh, just pay me whatever ya think is right!" he said, his hands once again moving faster as he could get to the good part of it all. He would finally be able to see inside. His hands parted the heavenly plastic, as though he was opening the gates to heaven itself, and...

A look of disappointment washed upon Tian's face. It was so... simple. Seriously, this was one of the first things he had learned in his training. Even upon further inspection, there really wasn't much to fix here either. He simply noticed one wire was out. He moved his fingers and put it back where it was supposed to be within the machine. Wow. That was such an exciting experience. Totally worth running over. Though, sarcasm doesn't translate well to third person writing, but rest assured, Tian was feeling very bummed right now.

Tian really wished he hadn't of said that bit about the price now. "Do... do you have anything else I can fix?" he asked, still looking at the game console with a sad look on his face as he put it back together.  "Or maybe sew? I'm good at that too..." he mumbled, putting the pieces back on right again and resting it down. At this point, Tian was almost like a sad puppy. Sure, you had no real reason to let him inside, but at this point, many would have no choice but to pity him a little. His disappointment was immeasurable.

The repairman seemed unnecessarily excited about the repairwork. Mei was pretty baffled by this sight. She witnessed most repairmen feeling the exact opposite while doing repair work. Personally, she found it quite boring since she sat through most of the repair work done back in her parents’ home, given the responsibility of making sure they were properly repairing whatever there was to be repaired. So as usual, Mei watched his every movement. One of the reasons she liked to observe when repairmen were doing they work, was to learn from them. If she ran into a similar problem in the future and she already knew how to fix it, then she wouldn’t have to spend money to call for a repairman.

“Whatever I think is right..?” she asked. This made her really question if he was even a repairman at all, or just someone who was here to steal all her things. Suddenly she didn’t feel so safe, but as soon as he got down to business, she couldn’t help but pause her doubts.

Mei had assumed that this repair work was going to take at least an hour or so, considering how complicated the matter was, at least to her. Truly, she felt incredibly stupid when Tian took like a minute to fix it. She couldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t not believe it either. The device turned on as she stared wide-eyed, wondering how she was going to save herself from the shame. “Oh-h...wow. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” she laughed a bit nervously, and then added, “I knew it was...that thing.” All hope was lost.

The questions that the repairman continued to ask made her feel less ashamed since it kind of changed the subject. But she couldn’t think of anything except wanting him to leave. “No, no! Nothing. Everything is perfectly fine in my house. Let me walk you out while I pay you,” she said as she lightly shoved Tian out of the room and back towards the door. She brought her little purse with her and started fishing out some jewels. “So uhh..what’s your name? Thanks for the repair and I’ll call again if I need your help again.” The blush on her face was quite evidently there, but she was too busy being embarrassed to feel the heat in her cheeks.