Graceful, long fingers picked up the steaming cup of tea, tipping it down against his lips. His bright eyes watched the silent girl sitting opposite him. They had been at the Café for at least 20 minutes, and she hadn’t said a single word.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” George asked as he placed down the gold leafed cup into its matching saucer. “I heard Arashi say that, but I didn’t quite believe him at first.”

Paris’s eyes fluttered, as though she had been snapped painfully back into reality.

“I’m sorry,” She replied after a moment. “I’m thinking.”

“About?”

“School.” She lied. “School and what class will be like.”

“Where do you come from?” George asked suddenly, placing his lithe hand directly next to hers.

“Why?” She said bluntly, moving her hand into her lap.

“Well, you’re not a Japanese breed.” He answered, studying her as a wrinkly old woman would a ripe red tomato “You don’t look Chinese or Vietnamese…Singaporean, perhaps.?”

“I’m half German and half Japanese.”

“Ah,” He remarked as though he had found the perfect tomato. “I could see it in your chin and eyes.”

He reached over, touching her chin gently with his hand, then retracting it before she could lean away from him. Still staring at her, George set his own chin in his palm, letting out a sigh.

“Where did you live before this?” He asked, staring at her with mesmerizing sapphire eyes. “Germany?”

On most days… no, make that on all other days, Paris would have never answered these questions. But there was something that she didn’t understand about the man sitting before her. His tone of voice wasn’t interrogative like that of others she had been forced to talk to. It sounded as though he really wanted to know, as though he cared.

“Germany.” She said softly, shifting uncomfortably.

“Germany, huh.” George straightened up and took another long sip from his cup. “Why did you transfer here than?”

“I was told to.”

“By?”

“Why are you so interested?” Paris replied quickly, defensively.

“I’m just curious. It’s not everyday that I get to sit with such a beauty from another culture.”

The sweetness in his tone could have melted a block of ice, and Paris, who was just as cold inside as ice, felt herself melt along with it.

“I was forced to come here.” She started slowly. “My father disowned me.”

Paris’s eyes shot open as the billowing laugh of George’s floated to her ears. His right hand pounded on the table as he let out another string of laughter.

“What’s so funny?!” She suddenly shouted at him, shooting up from her seat. After a few seconds, and a few unwanted glances from the customers around them, George finally calmed down, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand and taking a deep breath.

“I should have never come here!” She mumbled, throwing down the napkin that had been in her hand. “I’m leaving.”

With that she picked up her bag, turned face, and started for the busy streets of Tokyo.

“Wait!” Called George, his voice still thick with humor. “Wait…Paris!” He placed a handful of yen on the table, making sure that it covered the cost, then bounded after her.

“I’m sorry…its just that…”

“Stay away from me.” Paris snapped, not even turning her head to look at him. She wasn’t normally this rude but, like always, when she opened her heart to someone, the repercussions had smacked her in the face.

“No listen.” George cleared his throat of the outburst and swiveled around her to block further distance between them. “I’m sorry if I have offended you but its just that Yukari was also disowned from her parents…and I have come to see a pattern…”

Not able to move around him, Paris sighed and looked up into his eyes.

“What pattern?”

“Well,” He started, tilting his cowboy hat further down his head with a smirk, “It seems as though I always fall for the ones without a family.”