Are we Hunters or Partners??? I'm Confused! (Nana & Foster/Smith Partnership; So much chaos)

Nunally stared at the menu, not sure what to pick. Everything sounded so delicious to her that picking one thing seemed impossible. The modest side of her just couldn't force herself to pick more than one or two things. "Uhm... Eh... W-Well..." She mumbled as she started playing with her hair a bit. There was absolute chaos going on inside her mind.  "I... I think I'm just going to pick the same thing as you..? " Nana finally said, thinking it was the best option possible in her situation. It wasn't her fault that she just couldn't decide, right?

Joe eventually sighed and ended up ordering her a pastry and a frozen drink, called a frappucino, for her, as well as his normal boring tea for himself. Paying, he nodded for her to go to the other end of the counter and wait, not letting her see the total.

As always, Nana didn't like the fact that Joe never wanted to let her know what anything she'd picked cost, though there was nothing she could do about it. Well, it was obvious why the things were that way- it was because she didn't like it when people were spending money on her and Joe kept doing it anyway. In the end, Nunally just sighed and just tried to not think about the money, even though she could just cheat and search her memory to find the cafe's menu to calculate the price of Joseph's order. "Uhm... Do you always order tea for yourself or are there any exceptions?" Nana asked out of curiosity, even though the answer seemed obvious.

"Always tea," he said, taking the cup as it was offered to him and pushing her pastry over to her while her drink was being made. In his head, it seemed like a dumb question, but he was nice enough not to vocalize every asshole thought he had.

"Knew it." Nana replied with a smile. "It's a stereotypical British thing, isn't it? Always drinking tea, I mean." She asked, somewhat jokingly. To be fair, she had learned about stereotypes recently and they still seemed funny to her. Especially the British ones that could be applied to Joseph. She took the plate of pastry in one hand and once the drink was done, she took it into the other.

He frowned a bit at her, sipping his tea and looking mildly offended, "I like tea. It has flavor and caffeine without all the sugar." Joe looked quite grumpy, now, though not so much so that it actually seemed to be a serious expression on him.

Nana looked away for a moment, slightly embarrassed over her inability to hold a proper conversation. It wasn't her fault, she wasn't used to having those really. She wasn't designed to have conversation. That thought made her feel bad- Nana just couldn't stop with telling herself that she was just designed, like a product. Because of the unexpected stream of such thought, her face turned grim for a second. Luckily, she managed to shrug those off and try starting a conversation again. "Uhm... I know I might be saying this a lot but... thank you for always helping me so much... Um..." She paused, the conversation was going the wrong way again. "A-Anyways... the trip... I'm really glad you took us on it. It was really fun..." Nunally finally said, with both a smile and a blush present on her face. Despite all that happened during that day, it was really fun. At least that was Nana's opinion.

Joseph was quiet for a long while, watching her in silence for a moment; he didn't even respond to her immediately, this time, as a result. Instead, he waited, thinking, debating, gears turning in his head while he considered the pros and cons of an idea. Seeming to reach a decision, he stepped just a bit closer and picked up her chin between two of his fingers, tilting her face so that she couldn't look away from him, again. "You don't owe us anything, you know." He said, his gaze perhaps too intense for the scenario, scrutinizing her expression as he held her. Perhaps the voice on the other end of the phone had gotten to him, or maybe he was just tired of her thanking him all the time and wanted to put an end to it. He wouldn't say, maybe didn't even know himself, but right now, he was waiting to study her reactions to this simple gesture.

The situation took a very, very unexpected turn. For Nunally, of course. With a surprised expression on her face and with her cheeks burning red from the embarrassment caused by Joseph's unexpected move, she stared him in the eyes, literally unable to look away, even if she wanted to. Her eyes were drifting from his lips to his eyes and then back to his lips. Again and again and again. Her thoughts became too chaotic for her to focus on forming a proper response. What did he expect to hear from her? Her heart started hammering in her chest so fast, she thought it was about to burst. Why and how was Joseph making her feel that way? "I... I... b-but I... I do..." Nunally managed to mumble after a long moment of silence. She was just being honest with him, without Joe and Jazz she would probably end up starving to death in some godforsaken place. Her gratitude felt normal, at least to her, in her opinion everyone would feel the same way if they were her. "And... I'm still happy... despite that..." She added, whispering.

A hint of a smirk started tugging at the corner of his lip, and he set his tea back down on the counter before leaning forward and pressing their foreheads together. Some part of him was cursing the voice for being right, but right now, he was more than a little amused at that knowledge. "Cat got your tongue, Nunally?"

"N-No! I-I mean yes... I... mean..." Nunally didn't know it was possible, but her whole face turned even redder. Was it her or was everything around them getting hotter? What was Joe even planning to do? How should she be reacting? Why were her legs trembling so much? Why couldn't she say anything? Why couldn't she answer any of those questions? The chaos in her thoughts was like a tornado and it made her feel like her whole brain had experienced a crash and stopped responding.

He chuckled a little bit, a soft, almost weak sound that had a surprising amount of mirth to it, given his usually humorless nature. Moving his hand from her chin to the top of her head, he tilted her head back and planted a soft, tender kiss to her forehead before straightening. He took his tea back off the counter as though nothing had happened, leaning against it and sipping his drink with his free hand shoved in his pocket. At some point, apparently, her drink had been finished as well, and was waiting beside her.

Nunally ended up unable to move for a long while, absolutely confused about what had happened. Was that a kiss she had just received from Joe? He placed it on her forehead though. What did it mean? Nunally rubbed her forehead in silence, getting more and more confused with each passing second. Meanwhile, Joseph was just sipping his tea as if nothing had even happened! When her drink had been already placed on the counter, she immediately started sipping on it in silence, trying to distract her own mind. Though that didn't seem to be helping her much.

Once she'd grabbed her drink, Joe started walking over to a nearby vacant table, pulling a chair out for her to sit in. Assuming she sat down, he'd then proceed to walk around to the other chair and sit in it sideways, facing towards the door while sipping idly at his drink, a slight smirk still evident across his face.

Nunally just followed him to the table and sat down, still without saying anything. She placed the plate on down on the table and kept sipping on her drink, still trying to understand what was even happening. Of course, Nana couldn't say that what she'd been experiencing was bad. It was the complete opposite. The kiss and the closeness and even his smirk, those made her feel so happy for some reason she couldn't understand. In the end, perhaps it was just better to accept those strange emotions and enjoy the moment? That thought made Nana smile slightly as she started peeking at Joseph between the sips of her drink.

Whether he noticed her peeking or not, he certainly acted like he didn't, though the smirk would occasionally widen a bit before going back to what was seeming like a default state. In silence, he finished his tea before checking his phone and browsing through it idly. Eventually, he set it on the table and flipped it around, sliding it over to Nana so that she could see what was on his screen. He was showing her a list of movie times, should she want to go.

Nunally was actually about to start eating the pastry Joe had ordered for her, when he slid his phone over to her. She leaned in to read what was on the screen and tilted her head slightly when it turned out that it was what it was. "Hm..." Nunally murmured as she started scrolling through the list. Did he want to watch a movie with her? It seemed like that was the case, which somehow made Nunally even happier for some reason. There was only one problem though- she could pick only one movie and she didn't know which one would be the best. Even though it felt like cheating, she decided to use her internal computer to search for some recommendations online. Apparently, the most popular movie of that month was some love comedy and thus it picking that one seemed like a good idea to Nana. The girl slid the phone back towards Joseph and then pointed with her finger which movie she would like to watch.

He glanced at the phone and chuckled a bit, ignoring the blush that flashed across his face before disappearing. From there, he set about looking at the times, finding a showing that was about half an hour from now. He tapped it and spun the phone around again to show her; it would give her time to eat before they started walking over.

"Mhm!" Nunally nodded and returned to her delicious pastry. She wanted to finish it quickly so they could get going. If nothing distracted her she would be done with eating soon.

He took the phone back and went ahead and purchased their tickets; she couldn't argue with him if she wasn't aware he was doing it, at any rate. This done, he opened the QR code in question and locked his phone, pocketing it so that he'd only have to unlock it when they got there. Idly, he turned his cup, playing with it so that it was almost like a top, spin on its lower rim in boredom, though he wasn't trying to rush her. He was just shit for conversation.

Seeing that Joseph was probably getting bored waiting for her, Nana finished the pastry even quicker and then looked at him with a wide, happy smile spread across her face. "That was delicious... but also very sweet! You were right." Nunally told him, obviously referring to what they were talking about before they had arrived at the cafe. "A-Alright... we should get going, right?" She asked after a short pause.

He nodded, smiling pleasantly before gathering their things. Dropping them off in the trashcan and plate collection respectively, he then proceeded to lead her outside and guide her to the theater. "You know, you can go out sometimes without us," he said, referencing the fact that she didn't seem to do much else besides class without either him or one of his sisters pushing her in the direction of such. "As long as we know where you are and you are safe, it is not any trouble." In some ways, it almost felt like they had been holding her captive, in a way, since she was really only out and about if she was with one of them...

"I know. I just don't want to." Nunally told him. She knew well she could go out and have a walk on her own whenever she could but, the perspective of doing something alone didn't seem too appealing to her for a certain reason. For a reason, she was about to explain. "Do you remember the beginning of our partnership? You know, those times when the A.I was in control? I was basically absent for the first few weeks, if not months because the machine thought that walking around and exploring was more important than my partners. I don't want to end up doing the same things the A.I used to do..." Nunally said and bit her lip. It seemed like there was more to the story than just her not willing to make the same mistakes. "Ugh... To be honest, I'm a bit... scared... of going out alone, or just being alone, actually. I've spent way too much time on my own because of the A.I and its imperfect programming..." Nunally said as she put a strand of hair behind her ear.

He looked over at her, moving his hand from being shoved in his pocket to draping it over her shoulder and tugging her closer. "Well, you can take one of us out with you, then. I would say we could send you with a dog but," he chuckled a bit, "we got you a _cat._ Besides, I don't think Aristotle will want to be leashed."

Nunally blushed when he did that but enjoyed his closeness nevertheless. "You're right. Aristotle is a free cat, you can't just leash him and expect him to like it! Besides, I can't really have a nice conversation with a cat, right?" She said before letting out a giggle. "But yeah... I really prefer going out with one of you..." Nunally said and then blushed out of the sudden. "Especially when it's you..." She whispered quietly as she looked away.