maskormenacelogs | [Closed] Had a dream of a new tomorrow

Entry tags:

[Closed] Had a dream of a new tomorrow

WHO: Kururu, Mark
WHERE: Sweet Surprises bubble tea shop, Nonah
WHEN: 8/1-8/3, 3:00-4:00PM
WHAT: Following an open-ended invitation in an anonymous thread, two socially awkward teenagers have a chance to be a little more social and a lot more awkward
WARNINGS: None

[ Most people who visit Sweet Surprises don't stay too long. It's a small place, and the decor is far more more outdated mall food court than upscale café. The drinks are good, but the plaza's courtyard is a better place to enjoy them, to say nothing of the park beyond.

Still, there's the odd patron that sticks around. A businessman seeking shelter from the summer heat, a pair of summer school students comparing notes. A girl lost in thought, tapping a silent melody against her tabletop. Maybe something that had been playing from the headphones resting around her neck.

A normal crowd. Mostly.

you seem normal

It's true. She doesn't look too out of place here. Ordinary summer clothes, a canvas messenger bag tucked under her chair. Even the lavender-pink of her hair doesn't stand out as much as it could; it's almost tame beside the bright splashes of red and blue and orange trending in the area.

That's outside, though. Inside . . . behind those unfocused eyes is mind immersed in sound. Footsteps going to and fro, the hum of the smoothe machines, the whir of the blenders (the motor in the one on the right is wearing out). Conversations whose words aren't as important as the tones that weave through them, sharp with frustration or warm with camaraderie, light with humour. Strong with confidence as they stand by the counter, ordering favourites.

People who aren't who she's waiting for. That person . . . they'd never had bubble tea before, it would be different. They might not even want to be here at all—they probably won't, actually.

That would be okay. Making it this far . . . that alone would mean a lot.

So she sits, and waits, tapping out the beat of the symphony around her as the seconds and minutes tick away. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Sometimes it's hard being in a crowd. Being out among people. Part of it was that his training had taught him paranoia: he'd been trained to be aware of every trajectory of every person around him, the angle of their gazes, the murmur of their voices, and that hyper-awareness tends to lead to some sensory overload. So there's that. But there's also the part where it's awkward being out in a crowd because people stare. A small, fat kid in an expensive suit with a permanent glower - that tends to attract some attention, and the more people look at him the more hostile he feels. The more he slouches to emphasize his bulk, and the more dangerous his look becomes when he meets people's eyes. That's right. Here I am. Take a look and go straight to hell.

And so his courage fails the first few days. Because how couldn't it? He's afraid of going and seeing Sumeragi dismayed by the angry spherical little man who'll come to stand before her. Or laughing at him. God, he's afraid she'll laugh, because how ridiculous is it to have someone who looks like him be that weird and that crazy? Or that she'll see him and cluck about how he's some poor dear, look at him, so small and soft...Or that she'll remember. Recognize him on the network every time he shows up - because how could she not? - and tell others about just how screwed up he is...

But she'd been so kind. She? In his mind, the person on the network is definitely a she. And she'd been so gentle with him in his self-pity. And the one thing Mark craves more than he fears human attention is...human attention, honestly. The only thing he wants and hates in equal measure is compassion.

Also, bubble tea sounds really nice.

And so he comes to the shop. He has no idea who he's looking for, but somehow he'd just sort of assumed that he'd know who it was as soon as he showed up. He...doesn't. Instead, he just stands there, shoulders hunched, searching the place, his heart beating hard with fear. ]

[ Idle daydreams of hover engines and ventilation systems shatter at the first sound of those hesitant footsteps.

Someone who isn't sure if they belong here. Someone who isn't sure if they—if he wants to be here, and

He looks like Tetsuo, she thinks. A little angry at the world, a little mistrusting. Fluffed out like a cat with a bottle brush tail.

He's even glowering. It has to be him. Almost certainly. It doesn't matter that it took all three days . . . the warmth in her chest is something like pride. He did it. No mater how scared he must be (how scared he is, he's so tense), he still came.

He made it.

Her eyes meet his as he scans the room, and she just . . . holds that gaze a moment. For a heartbeat. For two.

The corners of her eyes soften, and she smiles. ]

[ Why is that ridiculously pretty girl smiling at him? Because, obviously, she's the one waiting for him, Sumeragi, the one on the network - because natives don't have pink hair and reddish eyes, that's an imPort thing. Obviously. He eyes that smile of hers, searching it for mockery, or pity, and doesn't find any of that...And so for just a moment he lets himself imagine that she's actually smiling because she's happy to see him. Not the twitchy, nervous, unhappy charity case from the network, but him, Mark. That she likes him as a person.

Maybe she will like you as a person. If you don't screw it up. Which, hah. There's an idea. Him not screwing something up...

He moves over to her table. He doesn't look at her, stares off to the side, and mumbles - ]

Sumeragi, right?

[ His accent is non-native - and also very unlike his brother's, his entire family's. ]

Mm!

[ She gives a single enthusiastic nod, her curious smile breaking into an all-out grin. ]

You made it!

[ And he's definitely a boy, and . . . right around her age? Not that far off. Business clothing but no business confidence, and the way he holds himself . . . he'd been hunted a lot, maybe even hunted back a little. Police? Military? Maybe something that wasn't so formal . . .

It didn't matter, honestly. People's pasts are things in the past; they're never as important as this moment right now, and all the moments that will follow. And right now he's here, and it's really warm out, and there's bubble tea to drink.

Her words are edged with a soft accent of their own, betraying that however fluent she may be, English isn't her first language either. ]

Do you know what you'd like to drink? The menu . . . it's a little big, isn't it?

[ He reaches up to rub anxiously at his ear, and casts a glance over at the menu board over the register. It's...intimidating, yeah. He doesn't even know what half the things are - what makes a tea Thai tea, for example, or what taro is, or what melon tastes like. There's still so much of the world to learn about and experience; sometimes that fills him with joy, and sometimes it makes him want to break down crying because he just doesn't have any idea of how he's ever going to learn everything he wants to learn. He's starting from such a deficit - so much ignorance, so much blindness...

Still. He has a strategy to deal with this sort of thing, one that hasn't failed him yet. He shrugs, and says, casual as he can: ]

I'll have what you're having.

[ She sits back just a little, silently inviting him to the other side of her small table. It'd be less awkward there, wouldn't it? Instead of standing. ]

But what I'm having is what I'm having, right? That doesn't mean it's something that you'll like. And it's your first one . . . it should be something good.

If you've had it before . . . do you like milk? That's the first really big thing.

I, um...I don't know.

[ He runs a hand over his slicked-back hair, embarrassed and self-conscious. Still, he sits. ]

I guess I've never really had it.

That's okay. It's one of those things that's kind of a little weird when you think about it—people have kept cows and goats for a long time, right? But thinking we should drink the same things the cows and goats feed their kids, when we don't really think the same way about human milk at all . . .

[ Aaand this is weird. This is a weird conversation and he's barely even sat down . . . she rubs the back of her head. ]

Anyway! It's. Well. If it's not something you grew up with, or if your ancestors didn't really do that . . . ahh, you might not be able to digest it so well, and that's not really good . . .

One of the non-milk teas would be better. Have you had tea before?

[ He's clearly weirded her out. Great. That has to be some sort of record, right? Weirding out a girl before you even sit down...

Not a girl. He tells himself that firmly, then allows - Well, okay, yes a girl, but she's not here because you're a boy and you're not here because she's a girl. You're here because she's being nice. Not because she's pretty or you're dating material or anything like that...And yet he can't help but be aware of the fall of her hair, and the way those headphones rest against her collarbone, and don't look at her breasts don't look at her breasts don't be creepy don't look at her breasts - ]

We don't have much milk where I'm from for economic reasons. The planet where I grew up is inhospitable and so we don't have the means to support something as energy-wasteful as dairy production. [ It's not because I'm weird or deprived, damn it. I'm a normal Jacksonian. Well, a normal grubber-class Jacksonian...I'm sure Baron Bharaputra has never gone without any food he wanted. ] We have tea. I do know tea.

[ And then, because all of that had sounded faintly hostile, he offers something actually helpful. ]

I like black tea better than green.

[ They are, for the record, at least reasonably nice breasts. A little on the smaller side for sure (she's a little on the smaller side, barely five feet and tiny in about every other way too), but still enough to fill out the top of her tank top, adding gentle curves to her silhouette. ]

Heeh . . . that's really interesting.

[ And opened up approximately a hundred other questions, none of which have anything to do with the drink menu. Unfortunately.

The questions stay, though, sparkling behind her eyes. Eyes that haven't left him since he sat down—for all her earlier focus on the shop as a whole, right now her world is just him and her, and the small table between them. ]

But . . . black tea, right? Black tea, plain instead of with milk—unless you'd like to try that?—and . . . the only last thing is if you'd like tea just as tea, or if you'd like one of the flavoured ones.

The fruits are all pretty different too, right? If the agriculture you know is different. So maybe just . . . do you like sweet things?

Uh, yeah, I guess so...

[ She...chats a lot. He almost draws in a breath to comment on it, except that that would sound like a criticism and it's very much not one - he likes that, likes listening to her talk. He'd like it even more if she were just saying things instead of asking questions, especially questions he has no idea of the answer to. But her voice is nice. Speak again, bright angel - But no, he tries hard to stomp down that sort of thought - he's more Caliban than Romeo, after all. ]

I like most things. [ Hah. As if that weren't obvious, with how fat he's gotten. Trying to push the conversation back towards her: ] What's your favorite?

Mine? I guess . . . the royal milk tea, for milk teas. Maybe the lemon tea for straight ones.

I like black teas too, and both of those . . . there's still a lot of tea flavour mixed with the milk, or with the lemon—that's a citrus fruit, kind of a sour one that's tart and good with sugar.

If I was recommending one for you, though, I'd say . . . try the mango. Or the lavender tea. They'll be new tastes, probably, mango is . . . it's a tropical fruit, kind of yellow-orange on the inside. A really rich flavour. Lavender's a flower, so there's more tea taste and it's not as sweet on its own, but it's . . . a gentle taste, a little bit like how a cool breeze would taste.

. . . if something like that had a taste, I mean.

Yeah.

[ He ducks his head and runs his hand over his hair. Royal milk tea - He wonders what that is. It sounds glorious. ]

No, that makes...sense. [ A beat - ] Lavender sounds nice.

[ She tilts her head a little as he ducks his head. Watching him. Listening.

So many of the boys she'd met here were full of questions, and so few asked any of them . . . ]

Hey.

What's . . . [your name?

She shakes her head, her voice softening.]

What would you like me to call you?

Mark.

[ It was a name so hard-won - if it was truly won, that is. If it was truly his, and he wasn't just pretending at it being his in truth. But he needed it. He craved being called by it. ]

What's your name?

Mark.

[ It's a familiar name, one of the most familiar of English names to her, her accent all but gone as she feels out the sound of it, tying it to the person in front of her rather than memories of wooden seats and scripture. ]

Mine's Kururu. 'Sumeragi' isn't wrong—it's my family name. Kururu Sumeragi.

[ And here her accent returns in full force, the pitch of the syllables changing instead of the stress placed on them, the R's softening to something that almost sounds like an L. ]

I'd like it if you'd call me Kururu.

[ Kururu. He wishes he knew the significance of her asking him to use that. Does everyone get to call her Kururu? Is that the universal preference? Or is it a sign of friendship, that she wants that from him? Who knows... ]

Uh, okay. Whatever your preference is. Kururu.

[ Somehow, it sounds a lot more pedestrian when he says it. ]

What kind of tea are you having? I can buy you another one.

[ It would be a culture lesson. Two culture lessons, really, both of the one she'd grown up in and the one they were in now, how both of them clashed and interacted, and in how much giving her his name had meant to her, too . . .

She stands up and shakes her head, the multitude of barrettes through her hair catching the light. ]

This one's my treat! I was the one that asked you all the way here.

Mark can get things next time.

[ As if there being a next time is just a given at this point. ]

No - I, uh, have a lot of money.

[ He flushes just a bit, realizing what an asshole he sounds like when he says that. Still, he forges ahead: ]

I'd like to buy one for you.

[ His words are enough to make her pause, and she stops to reach down, taking the strap of her bag and looping it over her shoulder.

There it is again.

He can be very kind. It'd been there before, threaded under and between the anonymous words on the network, woven in with gentle threads of compassion he might not even know he had.

It's not a constant, not something that shines easily to the surface. So much of it seems buried under his fumbled words, his shy glances and nervous gestures.

But there really is a good person there. He's someone who could be a really good person, if he could figure out how to be.

And this is important to him. ]

All right.

Come with me? We can order together.

Edited 2016-08-07 23:46 (UTC)

[ He hesitates a moment, but then agrees - ]

Yeah. All right.

[ He lifts his eyes to her face, and then looks down again. ]

If you do the ordering, I'll pay.

[ That strikes him as completely ideal. ]

Deal!

[ She nods as if to seal it, fingers lacing behind her back as she gives him a moment to get up too. ]

One medium black lavender bubble tea, one medium black lemon bubble tea. And one mango strawberry bowl—we can get two spoons.

If you'd like the milk kind, it'd be a 'milk bubble tea'. And one without the tapioca balls would just be a 'tea' or a 'milk tea', no bubble. Those are fun though, as long as you don't swallow them whole.

[ He follows her a little shyly. It's nice, how she's not so much taller than him when they're standing - barely half a head taller than him. That's nice. He'll take women at any height - literally any height at all, please, any woman - but he likes it when he doesn't feel tiny in comparison to them. (Well. Tiny vertically.)

He doesn't respond to her explanation of the tea, and hopes that it doesn't sound like he's unfriendly; he's just a little helpless, that's all. Instead he just listens, equal parts fascinated and anxious over her sweetness and kindness and energy and brightness. He imagines himself as a black hole next to her radiant sun, selfishly absorbing all that warmth and light...He imagines himself, too, turning into a cat like Gregor does and just laying down and basking in it. In her brightness.

When she orders at the front, he pulls out a fifty dollar bill from his wallet without question, the high denomination rather completing his general air of tiny, teenaged mafia don. When the clerk gives him his change, he stuffs an excess number of bills in the tip jar and glances over to see if she noticed. See, look how kind I am... ]

Do they, uh, bring it to the table? Or do we wait here?

[ The size of the bill draws no question at all; maybe, like her, he comes from a place where cash is far more common than in this country of chips and card readers.

It's the tipping, oddly enough, that draws an oddly bemused look. She'd been here on her own long enough to realize that there's a whole silent etiquette around tipping, but the nuance of who and what and when and how much and even how was still uniquely foreign.

Clearly, Mark had figured out a good deal more, and she made a mental note (on what was quickly becoming a very long list) to ask him later. ]

We wait! It won't take long.

[ She steps away from the cash, moving over to the counter beside it. Half turning back to him, she gestures—palm down, fingers curling gently like a kitten patting at air—waiting expectantly. ]

The jars there—those powders are for a lot of the flavours. And the clear containers there with all the squishy things inside are jellies. You can get those instead of the tapioca pearls if you find you don't like them much.

But the neat part is the machine she's putting our cups in. That seals the top with an airtight plastic film, so they can shake everything together right in the cup, and so we could take them anywhere we'd like and they wouldn't spill. That's why the bottom of all the straws—they're big straws, aren't they? That's why they're sharp, so they can puncture the top when we're ready.

It's smart. The ritual of it. How elaborate it seems.

[ He looks at the machine closely to avoid looking at her. He's intensely aware of her presence, though, at his shoulder. He leans on the counter. ]

That's the sort of thing that can build a real brand. And that leads to turning a very healthy profit.

[ Business is safe. He likes talking business. It's always a little safer-feeling. ]

How many of these sorts of shops are there?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject