2025-11-14: The Style is Classic For a Reason
- Log: The Style is Classic For a Reason
- Cast: Laurent Fontaine, Maria Sakurai
- Where: Kagurazaka - Hillside Street
- OOC Date: November 14, 2025
- IC Date: August 10, 2012
- Summary: Slipping away from her friends after spotting her ex-boyfriend, Maria wanders over to Kagurazaka and encounters a foreign man...! But he's a professor, so that's okay. He tolerates her Maria-ness, and they have a nice chat.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
Kagurazaka has a market some weekends.
Tokyo has street markets -- really, any city of its size is bound to have a lot -- but Kagurazaka's market is special. The French expatriates that call Kagurazaka home mean that French, and especially Parisian, goods are at hand. If someone wants a baguette or a croissant, or imported clothes from France, or to just people watch folks from outside of Japan...
Well, the Friday evening market is a great time to do it. The market runs along the street that runs next to the former moat of a Tokugawa castle, now turned into a canal.
Most of the people here are still Japanese. And thus, as always, Laurent Fontaine stands out.
Literally.
He is some six feet, four inches in height -- towering over most of the crowds, tall even by European standards. Laurent is wearing a collared navy blue shirt, untucked but buttoned -- and slacks. This is what passes as casual for him. He runs a hand through his beard, as he turns over an apple at a fruit stand, considering it.
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
Maria shouldn't have come to Tokyo. It had just been to check out a new shop the other girls had been raving about, and all had been well on their shopping trip until she'd seen him.
With his new girlfriend.
He hadn't seen her.
Maria had run away, leaving her friends behind. And then she'd ended up here, in a place she doesn't think she's seen before. There are more foreigners here than other places, she had noticed after wandering a way. And foreign things! And foreign foods. Look, croissants!
(Maria, most cafes have those...)
Unsubtle, she's been staring. It's almost like being in a foreign country! You know, if it were still majority Japanese. And that man over there is at least a foot on her...
Dressed in the Seven Sisters uniform, she's certainly a high schooler of some extraction, just not one from Tokyo. Her uniform places her as someone from Sumaru if one is familiar. Her long pink hair is pulled up into a high ponytail with a large white ribbon. Her schoolbag clutched behind her thighs, she's staring at Laurent.
"Hi!" she says at last. "You're really tall! I've met an American before, you know, and he wasn't as tall as you are!"
This may be the warning sign about how this conversation will go.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
Laurent is getting used to attracting stares. It comes with the territory of being foreign born and with his height -- though the fact he has money, and dresses like he does, has a way of making the stares not be too awkward. He turns his head, as he catches Maria looking at him. No, staring.
His eyebrow quirks -- and then there's a smile. He doesn't place her school uniform; the only one he really recognizes in Shujin's, and only because his daughter goes there.
"Bonjour. But, I'm no American," he says with a wink. His Japanese is heavily accented. "But... I have heard there are tall Americans, too, hm?"
He is in his mid-thirties, easily. He smiles at her and rolls with it -- maybe he's charmed, or maybe he is just being nice. "But, I wonder. Can you guess where I'm from, by the accent?"
It might be a joke. There are literally French flags decorating some of the nearby stalls.
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
His accent is different than Tyler's. Less... nasal, among other things. Isn't it weird, how Americans have a nasal accent?
"Uh huh! Some of them are very tall," she tells him. "I've seen movies, you know," she informs him, as if to explain how a Japanese high-schooler is an authoritative source on the heights of Americans.
But, can she guess where he's from by his accent?
"Um..."
Kagurazaka is known as a neighborhood for many FRENCH expats.
Decorating many of the stalls are FRENCH flags.
There are many distinctly FRENCH goods and foods for sale all around her.
Maria stares up at Laurent, doing a fine impression of a website trying to load and failing.
"Um... England? Scotland?" she hazards, full of hope.
The only reason Maria isn't in the bottom third of her class is because of her math scores.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
"Ah, movies! Of course," Laurent says, with a patient smile.
He looks down at Maria and he waits as she tries to work through the answer. A French flag flutters behind him; in the distance, a man with a red beret and a striped white and black shirt plays the piano. When she responds, he keeps smiling.
"I'm afraid not. South of there," he says. "I'm from France. Paris, originally." He extends a hand to her for a handshake. "Laurent Fontaine, professor of history at the University of Tokyo, at your service."
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
Maria takes in all these things.
She still gets a failing grade.
"South?" Maria says, and she's already starting to think about what's south of England. A dotted line travels south of the British Isles and lands on... on... there's a section of the map that just has the words 'Spain? Italy??' scribbled on it in her mental map of the world.
Mercifully, he explains. "Oh! France! The Eiffel Tower! ...But you don't look French?"
...Laurent may well be starting to get the impression that there is not a lot going on in this girl's head. Some people are very simple! That's fine.
"But, you don't look French," she says, glancing down at his hand and pausing for an uncomfortable period before remembering, oh, yes, foreigners shake hands. She extends her own.
"Wow... at Tokyo University? Oh-- um, I'm Maria! Maria Sakurai." She pauses. "I'm just a student, though. At high school. I'm not a professor. I've never thought about being a professor, you know."
A long silence follows behind.
"So, where is this, anyway? I mean-- we're still in Tokyo." The uncertainity in her expression does suggest that there is a '...right?' still present, though.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
"I don't, do I? What does a Frenchman look like, then...?"
He says it with cheer. It is a type of fun to get an unfiltered view of what expectations a Japanese high schooler might have for his homeland. Laurent looks thoughtful, for a moment, then -- though he shakes her hand, before pulling his back.
"It's good work, if it is your sort of thing," he says. "And yes. I teach European history and some courses on ancient history. Perhaps, one day, if you should attend there..."
He smiles. The smile flickers, though, with confusion. She doesn't know where she is?
"This is Kagurazaka. A... neighborhood?" He sounds unsure. Tokyo's neighborhoods and regions are a little confusing to him, still. "Of Tokyo. A lot of French expatriates live here, you see. A little slice of home, I suppose."
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
What does a Frenchman look like...?
Maria gazes up at him, her expression distant as she thinks carefully about what makes someone 'look French'.
"Epaulettes," she says, and there might be some surprise, perhaps, that she knows a word like that. "And a feathered hat. And a cravat." ...Maria, that fashion is over one hundred and fifty years behind at least.
One other fun Maria fact: she reads way too many romance novels. She also is a girl of culture and has read Rose of Versailles. Please don't quiz her about any historical facts in the manga, she won't remember them.
It would probably just make Laurent sad, anyway.
"Maybe?" Maria offers, because she's a second year, and even if it feels like it's coming at her too fast, a third year and the entrance exams are a long way away. And... does she want to go to college? Does she even know what her future should look like, so near and so far off?
"Kagurazaka... Kagurazaka," she says, repeating the name for good measure, like she doesn't want to forget it. "Got it! I was with my friends in, um," she pauses, thinking as she takes a quick look about, "Kaguragashi. At the mall?"
It's really just across the Kanda River. She's wandered a bit, but hasn't gone too far off-course.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
"Hm," Laurent muses. "A little out of date... though, the style is classic for a reason." After all, some of his Hunter's garb is much like that. Though, Laurent dare not mention that to her. She wouldn't know anything about that, he is sure.
He doesn't press the point about college. Oh, he encourages everyone to go -- but she seems reticent. Moreover, he is beginning to think she might be lost. This makes him need to be a responsible adult.
"Ah! Across the river," he says. He looks thoughtful for a moment. "You wandered a little away from them, then? Or did you split up for the day?"
He tries -- and fails -- to do the train route in his head. He still needs his smartphone to handle navigating Tokyo's subways and trains, though.
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
"Uh huh!" Maria says, pleased. "I think it looks good!" Especially on the front cover of a slightly spicy light novel, which may comprise 100% of the things Maria actually reads these days. "No one dresses like that here, though." She may have an odd idea of what people should be wearing in other countries. But perhaps he should be happy she's not saying they wear striped shirts and berets and carry around baguettes. ...Like a mime.
She seems like she might be a little lost. Some less kind people might say she's been a little lost most of her life.
Her expression turns a little more... reticent than before. She looks away, as if something were on her mind. "Something like that. Anyway-- um, I have my phone, so I can call them...? And, if it's just across the river..."
She doesn't seem like she's in any great hurry to get back, though.
'He' might still be there.
"So-- uh, you live here, Fontaine-san?"
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
"Well... I suppose it would be a little like everyone wearing kimono and samurai armor," Laurent says, with a briefly thoughtful look. He keeps his voice patient; she might be a little lost, but having had over a decade of teaching introductory history courses in different cities, he has gotten used to such patience.
He catches the way she looks reticent. He doesn't pry -- no, best not to.
"Good," he says. "As long as you're pleasantly lost, and not unpleasantly." Then, he smiles at her question. "Just so! I live here, with my daughter. She... is also in high school, though--ah, not yours, going by the uniform."
His nose wrinkles, for a moment. "I moved here last year, to teach at the university. And do research, too, of course."
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
"Hmm..."
Maria thinks about this.
"That would be... really cool, though? It would be like living in a samurai epic..." she muses aloud, starry-eyed.
It may be possible to consume too much fiction for entertainment.
"It's not pleasant," she says, all of a sudden, only to start like someone flipped a switch on the back of her neck. "But-- not unpleasant! It's... it just 'is'." She shrugs, helplessly.
Teenager matters are like that sometimes.
Not hers, going by the uniform. Maria tilts her head to one side, like a puzzled dog. It's almost like she has to think about that for a moment, a little mental math playing its way out as she considers if they had any transfer students in the last year.
And to be fair to Maria, there is actually a reason why there could be a missed transfer student in her school and she would have missed it that has nothing to do with her powers of perception.
"Yes. There's no one like that at Sevens," she says. "Besides, it's over in Sumaru, right? Your daughter would live with you."
At least, that's what a 'normal' girl like Maria assumes, forgetting in the moment that she's met a young foreign girl, all in the midst of an exploration of a 'haunted hotel' featuring 'actors' (real ghosts).
Yeah. She's already met his daughter and has failed to, once again, thread the needle.
Continuing blithely on, Maria says, "Oh, I see. So you're new. But your Japanese is very good!"
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
"It would be exciting... though, perhaps too exciting," Laurent says. He tilts his head, then -- his eyes blinking when she says that it's not pleasant. Or unpleasant.
"It sounds complicated," Laurent says. "And--ah, yes. She lives with me. She goes to Shujin Academy. It's a good school, I understand, though... that business with that bastard of a teacher."
He frowns for a moment, and then he smiles at the compliment of his Japanese. "I studied when I was younger," he says. "I've learned a few languages, in fact. Some ancient ones, for my job."
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
What else is she going to say about it? It's going to be super awkward when she calls them. They'll proably tell her off for ditching them. They wouldn't get it, even if she told them, though.
No one does.
But right now, it's neither here nor there.
Or actually, unfortunately, it is. Maria wrinkles her forehead, her mouth twisting in a frown. "Shujin, huh... That's... um, nevermind." She blinks, though, at what else he has to say. "Um. What was that about a teacher?"
It's not like she'd really heard about it, since by the time she was out of the hospital and returned to school, the conversation at Sevens had moved on well ahead of 'old' news like that.
So he's studied a lot of languages? Even old ones. "Oh! Like, um, pig Latin?"
...Almost, Maria. Almost.
<Pose Tracker> Laurent Fontaine has posed.
Laurent certainly wouldn't be the person to go to -- but, for that matter, he knows that.
"Ah, just a rotten teacher who was there," the professor says. "He is gone now, though, and that's that." He doesn't see the need to give Kamoshida the dignity of speaking his name aloud; some don't deserve such things, Laurent thinks.
At the question of pig Latin, though, he laughs.
"Latin, not of the porcine variety," Laurent says, after a good chuckle. Then, he glances at his watch -- he still wears one, and it's very fashionable -- and then looks up. "Ah, but pardon me. I should be getting home. I'll need to help make dinner. It was a pleasure to meet you, madamoiselle. Enjoy Kagurazaka, hm?"
He puts the apple he was considering back and smiles -- then tips his fingers to his brow, before he starts off.
<Pose Tracker> Maria Sakurai has posed.
"Oh. Well, that's good. I hope he didn't die, even if he was rotten." This is a sentiment that might well shift, though, if she knew at all what he'd done. Maria pauses, though, on the subject of Shujin and that bad teacher there before offering up, "Our principal died, you know. They say it was the Joker Killer who did it. The police can't catch him..."
She's pensive, thinking again of what Akechi had told her.
People who don't deserve to hurt like that, rotten people, and... people who can't be caught by the law. It's all a jumble. It's almost like-- the answer is there, and then.
And then she hesitates and pulls away.
"Oh. So, 'Regular Latin'?" she says, turning the new subject over eagerly. If there's Pig Latin and Regular Latin, then... "Do other languages have things like that? Um, like... Horse French and Regular French? There's nothing like that for Japanese, though. But I think it would be good if there was."
She has no filter, it seems.
But-- ah, they're out of time. He has to go home and help make dinner, and she...
"Ah! I see. Then, please take care, Fontaine-san!" It's probably not likely that they'll meet again. But...
Her gaze turns to the apple, resting there by itself. What was that about apples? About rotten apples. ...How would it be, for someone who died at the hands of the Joker Killer?
Enjoy Kagurazaka, he'd said. Perhaps she doesn't have to call her friends. Not today.