“Just go with it. It's Tradition.”

The lime-haired girl had to admit this was probably the best birthday party ever thrown for her. The girl was currently on a spacious leather couch in some white shorts and an overly large tee-shirt that was at least twice her size. She was currently rather busy shoving another piece of pizza down her mouth. There were two large pizza boxes sitting off in the corner, empty and lonesome. She had finished one of them by herself and the second one had been for the bear of a dog who was currently being used as a headrest by the girl. Yumi was upside down with legs hanging over the back of the couch and head laying on the back of the dog who was watching her pizza with ample interest. She had probably ordered far more pizza than was necessary, but when you loved it as much as she did and funds to afford it there was no point in saying no.

She had found Zuko in a box outside the front gates of her school. He had been pretty small when she first met him, she hadn't known what breed he was but kept him anyway. However, in the past year or so he's grown to be tremendous. She had taken him to the vet and he now weighed 343 pounds, measured 8 feet 3 inches long to his nose to his tail and stood 37 inches at the shoulder. He was enormous, but usually pretty sweet tempered. So long as she accepted whomever the person was he often followed her lead, she called the shots in their little pack.

Today was her birthday, the day she turned seventeen. She didn't really care much for it, it was just another year to her life. But like the last four years, her parents weren't around to celebrate it. She had been disappointed the first year, now this was nothing. Like she had done the last three or so years, she found herself at Aura's house being a bit of a bum. Yumi wasn't sure if it was being rich was what made her so lazy or it was just a trait of her's, but she was in no mood to move or do much of anything besides eat pizza and watch tv. Year after year it seemed to be the same thing and she was slowly getting bored of it all.

The golden eyes flickered over into Aura's direction as spoke about being bored. Okay, so she wasn't the only one with this feeling. Yumi took another bite out of the pizza slice hanging from her mouth while trying to think of something they could do that would be different. There wasn't much coming to mind at the moment she's never been at coming up with things to do. As if hearing their silent pleas, she noted Zuko lifted his head for something other then food and the sound of tail thumping loudly on the ground. She did what she could while hanging upside to look in the direction the dog was staring at. The girl gave Avalon a wave and a mild look of confusion when she heard there was a gift involved.

Yumi pulled the pizza out of her mouth and tossed her leg over the arm of the couch as she straighten up and sat correctly. She looked over at Aura as if expecting the girl to tell her what it was. Yumi didn't have many friends mostly because she didn't want many friends, too much of a hassle. She had Aura and that was good enough for her. So getting gifts from Avalon's friend who she highly doubted she would put in the friend category was weird. She carefully crawled off the couch and sat her rear end on the floor next to her dog while reaching for the gift with one hand and giving the rest of her pizza to her dog. She was still dreadfully confused here, what if it was something dangerous or embarrassing.

She looked at Avalon as she shook the box lightly to hear what was in it. "Why am I getting random gifts from your friends?" Yumi got the feeling that there was some kind of catch to this gift. This was different from her yearly birthday, yes, but she wasn't sure how much she liked different at the moment. "Do I have to open it now?" She added while setting the box near Zuko, the mastiff took very little interest in something that was not food and laid his head back down on the ground. Well, search dog he was not. Truthfully, she felt like waiting to open it until she got home and making one of many servants open it. She was very hesitant on opening a gift from the unknown, there was no card, or any form of identification on it. Most gifts she got she liked to know where she got them from, unfortunately, Avalon's "friend" wasn't enough of an address for her.

Tradition? Yumi gave Avalon one of the most bitter glower she could make as the older girl answered her question without really answering it. Avalon made her head which is why Yumi didn't start conversation with her when she was overdosing on pizza, it just didn't work. The girl let out a very long and exaggerated sigh when Aura encouraged her to open it now. "Your definition of interesting and mine are often very different." She commented to Aura, pulling the gift onto her lap and looking at it like was going to explode or something. The golden eyes lifted back up as Avalon recalled something. Her words left Yumi even more confused then she was a few seconds ago. This Tradition they had was weird. Who gave random girl gift for their birthdays, the fact that Avalon kept calling this person her friend and didn't give a name at all simple added to the mystery.

As Aura brought up trust and her sister Yumi's lips pulled themselves into a frown. Yumi wasn't a trusting person, people who trust to easily get hurt and in the end you couldn't blame anyone but yourself for that. She grew more fascinated with it, however, when the word fun was involved. Curiosity buzzed like bee within her mind and so she began unwrapping the gift. The wrapping paper wasn't something she'd pick out but it was pretty neat, she liked to collect neat things so was careful not to completely tear the paper up. Once the paper was off she stared at the small box on her lap with a raised eyebrow. Upon opening the box she found the oddest looking thing. It was a rectangle with two holes and some weird tape in the reels. It looked sort of like those old VHS tapes her grandparants had for home movies, although, it was smaller.

Yumi continued staring at it like she had just been given a prehistoric dinosaur. She and old things have never gotten along. She picked up tape and inspected it, one side said one and the other said two, beyond that it looked pretty normal. She's not going to lie she's never seen something like this and had no clue what she was suppose to do with. "What is this for?" Yumi wondered looking over at Aura in hopes she made more sense of this then she did. Yumi and ancient things like this tape were not going to get along at all. "I am not seeing the fun in this at all!" She exclaimed, feeling very deceived right now. How anyone was suppose any fun in a tape was lost on her.

This had to be the most complicated gift she's gotten in her entire life, and she has gotten a lot of gifts in her short seventeen years of life. She didn't get it. They lived in a very nice modernized time period where the world ran off of electronics, like mobile phones, laptops, tvs...text! She could even deal with an Ipod. Who in their right mind gives a seventeen-year-old teenaged girl something from the Stone Age? Clearly, this person was insane. Yumi stopped glaring at the tape and looked over to Aura as she joined her on the floor. "Mixtape? Like for songs?" She asked, not processing what was being told to her. She didn't understand how anyone could possible fit music on it.

The teen leaned all of her weight against the dog behind her and was tempted to tell Aura she could have her gift, however, chose to wait it out and actually see what was on the tape first. Who knows maybe this could turn out fun after all. She glanced up as the tapping sound claimed her attention. Avalon was back. As the older one set down another very ancient looking device and sort of explained how to use it, Yumi found herself moderately fascinated and exasperated at the same time. As Avalon left them to themselves with no further instructions, the girl wrapped the old-fashioned device in a pale hand and picked it up to inspect it.

It was kind of cute if you were into the old stuff. It wasn't a touch device and looked a little fragile, so if Yumi accidentally threw it against the wall in a fit of rage she doubted it would stay in its current condition. The girl had a shorter fuse than most, one of her worse flaws, and had a bad habit of throwing things or hitting when this fuse was all burnt up. Granted they weren't as bad as when she was a child, something said that finding a....work-man...walkmon...walkingmen? Whatever it was called wasn't going to be easy to find and buy online. Plus upsetting Avalon would most certainly upset Aura and considering Aura was the only other person besides her dog who put up with her, Yumi would rather not upset her.

"Here." She handed both the cassette tape and the walkman to Aura. "I have no clue how to put the tape in or work it in general." She explained, seeing how interested Aura was in all of this she guessed this was as much as her gift as it was Yumi's. Aura was also less likely to break the thing as well. "What you know about this tradition thing?" Yumi was clueless yet Aura seemed to make more sense of all of this then she was.

Yumi tipped her head to one side, allowing her lime-green hair to fall in one of her eyes. The more she heard about this tape the worst it seemed to be. She knew what a CD player was, it was like a dvd player, she could have handled that over these old-fashion player. She merely let out a low huff of aggravation before turning her attention to her dog's ears. Yumi got very bored very quickly so it wasn't all that surprising when she found more interest in her dog over the old tape. She began playing with the floppy ears on Zuko's head, but he didn't seem to care at all. He didn't move a muscle besides the mild upward roll of his eyes. She returned her attention back to Aura and the tape when the other teen actually got it working.

Yumi was internally alarmed when the masculine voice came blaring out and not an old song. She wasn't sure if she was disappointed or not just yet, so settled for her normal indifferent attitude on everything in life. She leaned over and reached for another piece of pizza and ate while listening to everything that came from the walkman. Whomever was talking sounded like someone that Yumi went out of her way to ignore. She had no clue what he was talking about and appeared to be rambling on. The lazy girl hoped whomever was on the other side of the tape made more sense then the first one. Why someone would agree to make a tape on a random whim from a friend to a stranger made no sense to her. There was no logic in any of this, but continued listening for there was little else to do now. When had her life become so dull? Or rather when had she become so dull? Questions she couldn't answer right now.

As the new voice sounded through the walkman, her interest mildly perked up. As she heard the number twenty-eight she arched an eyebrow. That was big number, why twenty-eight? By the end of the tape she was more confused then she had ever been. She was trying to make sense of this, but she wasn't getting anything logical out of this. Random strangers made twenty-eight tapes for another random stranger to find, she couldn't wrap her head around this tradition no matter how much she thought about it. She could see the point in if maybe mutual friends or even acquaintances did this, strangers not so much. It was possible the of sense in all of this had her so interested in the first place. Yumi hated it when she didn't understand something or someone, as stupid as this was there was probably something she was missing here. The teen finished her pizza in a few swift bites and feed the crust to Zuko. She was debating should could ignore, mostly being pestered by Avalon if she did however no has ever been able to make Yumi do something she didn't feel like doing. Yet, she wasn't all that disinterested in it.

At Aura's question Yumi kept her face rather vague as she thought this through. It wasn't like she had anything better to do right now and she was intrigued with understand why not only one someone but two someones would take time out of their day to do something like this. On the other hand this would cut into pizza and lazying around time. Such difficult decisions!!! She pushed herself off her bear dog and sat up straighter, if she thought about this like a treasure hunt, with her getting something at the end of it, she supposed this should be of some entertainment. "Fine, let's go." She spoke lightly while pushing herself to her feet. "Zuko gets to come too." She wasn't going around to place to meet strangers for random tapes from strangers without the dog. Aura was really the only one she talked ever, she was no social butterfly if she wasn't getting something out of it or unless forced to be. She could hear her mother's voice in her head scolding her about going on weird senseless adventures with Aura.

Yumi's neutral facade creaked a little as a grin inched it way on her face at Aura excitement. It never took much to make the girl happy. Aura seemed more into this then Yumi, however, Yumi never showed very much interest in anything that wasn't pizza, Aura, or her dog. As the blonde went to put on her shoes Yumi glanced down at her clothing, as much as she wanted to go out in her lazy clothes, she'd bring shame to her family name and risk the wrath of her father. Something she'd rather not evoke right now.

She had to change her clothes, damn it! She also needed to grab her phone which was at home. The golden eyes looked down at the dog who was slowly getting up from his long nap, if only he had been a retriever she wouldn't need to walk to her house. "Nope, I need to change and I guess go get my phone. There at my house." She didn't see her parents much with work, but they called a lot. If she missed a call that either meant one of two things, she was dead, held for ransom, and or kidnapped or doing something she wasn't suppose to be doing. It was a little terrifying thinking of something of things they could come up with. "Come on, Zuko." She beckoned the mastiff to her side with a light wave of her hand while yawning softly.

The dog moved like his owner, sluggishly, as they went through to the front door of the house. "You can hold onto to the walking...thing and the tapes we collect." She added, turning the handle and yanking the door open. It was still pretty warm outside, as the breeze blew by and brushed her long hair from her shoulder, she headed down the steps and to the sidewalk. It didn't take her longer the five minutes to reach her house, she pushed the gates open and headed up the driveway to the unnecessarily large house. Her mother was a model and she wasn't sure what her father did for a living, she just called him a businessman. Whatever it was, it kept them away from home for long period, of time, which often had her stay at Aura's home, but either way it brought home a lot money.


She nodded her head in greeting as she got the front door and found it already opened by the elderly, rather stern woman who 'ran' the house when she was about. The maid, Amara, has been in the family for as long as Yumi's been around, longer really. The two tolerated one another, Yumi ignored the woman as stepped inside and headed straight up the staircase and towards her room. By the time she changed into jeans, a tanktop and pulled a jacket over it, she found her phone on the nightstand with a great number of calls missed. One from her father and around thirty from her mother, they were disregard as she grabbed a pair of shoes and her wallet while darting out of her room and down the stairs. "Should I be expecting you home anytime, Miss?" Zuko was waiting at the bottom of the steps with the gray haired maid.

"I'm going out with Aura and will probably crash at her place again." She didn't wait for the woman response as she called Zuko with her and headed back outside the mansion.
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She could practically feel the glare the older woman was giving her as the door shut behind her. Yumi didn't say anything as she took a seat on the steps to pull on her shoes. She raised an eyebrow as Aura asked about leaving, sometimes the girl reminded her of a child which entertained her to no end. Yumi pulled on her shoes as slowly as she could and then stood up and stretched her arms towards the warmth the fading sun offered. "Yes, we can go." She told her with another yawn. Yumi wouldn't say she had as much interest in this as Aura did, but there was enough interest there to make her want to find the rest of the tapes. Even when Yumi found something utterly fascinating, she often regarded it as she did now, passionless. It was simply how she was.

As she took the first few steps down the driveway, she felt like she was missing something kind of important. That's when she remembered Zuko. The mastiff was padded slowly at her side and looked up as they stopped walking together. Even though the dog was well trained, she couldn't walk around without a leash. She was about to tell Aura that she'd have to wait a few more seconds until Yumi found a leash for the dog, although when she turned back to the house she found the old maid standing at the top of the steps with a black leash in hand. There were days where she wondered what she'd do without the hired help.

She jogged back over to the woman and thanked her with a light smile. Akihira kept her face a void of emotion, however, spoke in a disapproving tone. "Make sure you call your parents." That was it before she headed back inside and shut the door. Yumi almost wanted to pout, but schooled her expression into something more simple while walking back over and hooking the leash around Zuko's collar. "Come on." She called to the dog while heading to the side walk. She looked over to Aura as she waited for her, clearly expecting her to lead the way. Yumi's sense of direction sucked big time. She never really knew how lost she'd be without her best friend until she really did think about. She probably would of been home-schooled if not for her...huh scary thing to think about.
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