Taking a Medium-Length Walk on the Beach. xxx words

Dinner plans are made over a bit of beachcombing. Hesitantly for sure, but they are made!

It took less coercion than Ram expected to get Koji down to the beach. Ram's reasons were particularly brought on by homesickness, but Koji, as always, has remained a mystery. The sound of midday gulls soothes part of that.

It'd be hard for him to not wonder about Koji for five minutes, but the waves against his claws helps to distract the dragontaur as he meanders along. He's not particularly searching for anything, though it'd be nice if he had a metal detector, just to see if anything lies buried in the sand.

No, the metal he's brought is his laptop, settled nicely in the bag resting at the curve of his back. He'll have to get Koji to be a desk if he wants to use it and not get sand in it. Hell, sand will find its way in anyway, but he's minimizing damages.

Ram fiddles with the strap of his bag as he tilts his head towards his companion. "So..." His voice drifts aimlessly without any goal in mind, just to fill in with the noise of the ocean's churning.

If there were a word to describe Koji for the moment, it'd be absent-minded; not in the dissociative sense, but merely in that he's mindlessly strolling along at Ram's side. You could say that he looks like an escort, except there's hardly any visible assessment of the environment going on. Only on a few occasions does he glance down at his own claws, idly watching the surf push and pull at the loose feathers.

Ram's voice breaks him from his loosely idle stupor with a quiet "Mm?" of acknowledgement. Koji glances over and down at the dragontaur, expression as passively neutral as ever.

Well, maybe there's a bit of an unhelpful furrow to that brow.

Well, he didn't have anything further than that. Ears flick back as he darts his eyes back to the water, watching as it continuously smooths out the sand before them.

He shouldn't have said anything. Alas, he's put himself in this situation, so Ram only sighs quietly and continues on. "I was thinking about going out to eat somewhere." He's worried that Koji would be worried about that. The venom cleans off well enough from plates, right? Not that Ram has to worry about eating after him, and the plates he'd used at the house were fine...

"Nothing fancy. Just sitting down and eating somewhere else." He shrugs and kicks water midstride to feel the water through his digits. Burgers would be weird. When was the last time he'd ever sat down at a burger place and ate? Is that an American thing to not do? Hm— "I've never been to a hotpot before."

Plus, maybe he could steal off of whatever Koji orders. That's a date thing to do. Might as well be a date, if he's going to look at it that way.

Viridescent eyes find themselves wandering off in the time between Ram's beginning and hesitant sigh; and it's off to the sight of the midday ocean just beyond his head that they go— forcing Koji to squint at the reflection of the sun off its surface and avert his attention to a loose shell that he's happened to step on.

It's quick work, pinching it from the surf and holding it between his claws while missing no single beat in his stride.

He looks to Ram again, once he does let loose that quiet sigh, and tilts his own head. Months of takeout and ordered-in food happily managed (even with Koji's own frankly paranoid stipulations of having it delivered far from the doorstep) and... so suddenly, this?

Koji holds in his surprise (and therefore his own hesitation and familiar misgivings on being "out in the general public") lest that dampen Ram's enthusiasm any further. The fact that he's putting forth the idea at all is quite a lot.

"Even before you came around, it'd been... a while since we last properly went out." Furrowed brows give away to a poor imitation of relaxed facial posture, and the Ketixi-lookalike hums quietly. The uncertain flicking of his tail betrays him, if the maintained lack of eye contact doesn't. "... feeling cooped-up?"