"We're originally from New York! Not originally originally, I mean, my mom's Japanese and my dad's Korean. I wasn't born in New York either, and my mom actually lived in California when she was younger for a while, so I guess more recently than originally. What about you?"

"Kettering, Ontario. It's a small city about an hour's drive from Toronto in good traffic. I wouldn't be surprised if you've never heard of it," she adds with a laugh. 

"No, I haven't. I don't know about Canada, although I really should. It's right next door! You probably know so much more about America than we know about you."

"I guess? I definitely can't name all the states, or anything - which I guess might be a problem!" She laughs sheepishly, "Hopefully the teachers give me time to get caught up in all the America-specific history and geography." If that's even the sort of thing that will come up in the romance game version of class. 

"I don't think I can name any of the Canadian provinces. Saskatchewan?"

"That's one of them, yep! There's ten, and three territories. I can name... uh, New York, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, Kansas, Virginia... well, more American states than that, anyway, I don't want to just sit here listing them out!" 

"Sorry! I didn't mean to make this into a competition about geography! I think I know a little more about history because I was always interested in mythology growing up. Modern geography never really made the list of stuff younger Kira wanted to read."

"Oh no, me neither! I just wasn't even sure how many I knew, and started counting them out because it seemed like an interesting question, but then the list got too long, and-" she shakes her head, "Sorry. Geography isn't really my thing either. What kind of mythology do you like?"

"I was really into Greek mythology as a kid. Something about how realistic the motivations were, you know? I mean, I like to think people are better than that, but still, it didn't seem all divine and out of reach of us. After that I actually got really interested in Buddhism for a while, which isn't a mythology. Some of it has mythology, I guess, but I think that's insensitive to say about religions that people still believe in. No offense. Not that I'm assuming you're Buddhist, that would be kind of weird to assume since it's not that common in Canada, right?"

"I'm not sure," she considers, "Probably no more common than it is in the US," she decides. 

"Legends and myths are definitely fun, though. I used to pretend I was a dryad when I was a kid. There was an oak tree in my backyard and I'd climb all over the branches and put the leaves in my hair - it drove my grandparents crazy."

"I never used props when I pretended to be a fairy, but I did sometimes pretend to be a kappa. My mom didn't like that one as much, since I always got water on the floor."

"Are they the ones with the water in their heads?" She asks, vaguely remembering reading about them once. 

"Yeah. I always liked those myths. They have to be polite, even though losing the water on their heads makes it so they can't move. Kind of an easy monster to beat, and polite, too."

"It's kind of sad, really," she hums, "I kinda feel bad for them, being tricked like that all the time. Even if they are monsters. And mythical." She has vague recollections of them being rapey, too, but can't recall the specifics. It could just be bad press, anyway, if they are real. There's a lot of that. 

"A lot of myths would be less funny if they were real. I guess it's not nice to laugh at fictional people either."

"Probably not, no," she agrees with a sigh. "A lot of the stuff that happens in myths was probably really scary for the people it happened to. I mean, I wouldn't want to be a dryad in ancient Greece with all those gods around." 

Your relationship with Kira has increased!

"The Greeks seemed to like the gods a lot for how bad the myths were. It seems so different from any modern religions. I wonder if people just thought differently about what gods meant to them."

"I think so," she agrees. "Something about making nature explainable, maybe? If they gave it human-like nature, with understandable desires and hatreds, they felt more in control. You can't appease a storm, but if the storm is controlled by a person, you can try to appease them."

"I wish we could appease storms. Maybe the Greeks just didn't get their offerings right. Maybe storms want cell phones."

She giggles, "What would a storm do with a phone?" 

"Call their families. We already name the big storms, maybe we should start imagining whole families for them. Backstories, things like that."