be my romeo, please be my voice in this world

[boomvox]

Who: Jae and various people.
What: Various activities.
Where: Various places.
When: ... Various times.
Notes: Thread starters for a couple of characters! Otherwise feel free to fling anybody at Jae, I am easy. If you want to work out something specific vs meandering, ping me and I shall work something out for you. :>
Warnings: Various threads have simulated drug use + references to real drug use, and TMI discussions.

Jae is not, in any kind of traditional sense, a celebrity in Baedal - he'd even hesitate to call himself particularly well-known, though since the crisis and his work on the radio, the general public would have to disagree. Percentage-wise he's more famous here than he was back home (D-list radio host and DJ, a cult following and niche celebrity at best), and while it's working out fine in terms of career opportunities, he can't shake the melancholy of being primarily known for something quite so dire. When people recognize him, more often than not it's polite appreciation masking the horror of memory that he triggers.

A girl at the coffee shop he frequents offers him a wasabi and chocolate candy cane. It's horrible, but he eats it anyway, the curled end of the bright green candy sticking out of his mouth as he descends off the train, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, leaf of fliers in his arms, heading off to a printer shop. And then - the world! it's a day for running errands.

Comments

[yeouiju]

"Oh, I think it's weird for California and London too," Sunny says, without looking up from the menu. It occurs to him only then that maybe he missed a cue to replace his facetious James Bond story with more reality, but he thinks, perhaps, it was a pretty glorious mental image, and also that they could at least order first. "Weirder, maybe. But you're right. If Earth's going to be repeated over and over, in a place called Baedal--"

Then there had may as well be some BBQ. His smile widens briefly, looking up to watch Jae advocate for menu items, leaning to look where there is pointing. "Then I might get that and then the steamed tofu noodle thing. Or just give into my carniverous ways and order the bulgogi."

[boomvox]

Jae, if he was more aware of it, would realize Baedal's changed him in ways he hasn't recognized yet; in London he'd be suspicious of Sunny over his name, but here, he's written it off as a nickname. Maybe Sunny just didn't want to submit his address and social security number to a multiversal kidnap city.

"I'm going to get everything," he says serenely, and then beams up at the waitress (whose skin is blue, though her accent is well-learned Seoul, from her mother). Jae does, in fact, order a potentially alarming amount of food, but Sunny should be used to that by now. In daily settings, Jae is as fussy about calories as the next person with an entertainment industry career, but presented with freshly prepared meat and that goes out the window. Bulgogi, gopchang, the boiled whole fish that comes with tofu pots - he will inhale all of that. Happily.

And some soda.

[yeouiju]

Sunny matches this indulgence if on a slightly lesser scale, but varied platters, sides in ceramic and metal, things to share as well as to eat whole. Some sort of short-glassed cocktail as well, full of ice and herbs, and not because he requires booze with his food, but mostly to mark the occasion in some gesture of legitimacy.

"I see now why they love you so much," he states, brightly, a tip of his head towards the kitchens.

[boomvox]

He smiles at Sunny with a cocktail and him without, and inches his soda glass towards the other's, a shy toast. For all his dancefloor swagger, Jae has not been on many dates. (He has not been on any dates. Not real ones that were meant for something besides strategizing his way into someone's pants and then out the door again.)

"I love them too." He can't spread out his patronage, in Baedal. It's this restaurant or cooking it all himself, and that would be a sad state.

His free hand, forearm resting on the edge of the table, moves, then - the back of his index finger brushing against the side of Sunny's hand, a tiny echo of when he'd grabbed it desperately weeks ago.

[yeouiju]

Toast answered, Sunny has his drink up to his face when that touch registers, and Jae can see his smile widen all the more even as he completes his sip, setting the glass back down. His fingers sort of twitch up fractionally to rest the tips of them against Jae's knuckles in like but definitive gesture.

Hi.

"As long as it's an inclusive affair," he says, "because I might have to come here a lot too."

[boomvox]

Jae raises his hand, splays his fingers just enough to link with Sunny's. While they've been drowning in books and note-taking and tedious research, he's wanted to, in fleeting moments, but it seemed inappropriate and he wasn't - well, sure about it. About anything. Now it seems okay, if a little childish. That's okay.

"We might have to switch to takeout, you're too cute to share, I think."

(He's going to warm up to horrible lines, Sunny. Run while you can.)

[yeouiju]

That was pretty good though, and he gives what would sound like an abashed laugh if Sunny was capable of being sincerely abashed, which by now, Jae might know to be untrue. His hand settles easily and relaxedly into the tangle that he doesn't actually remember to affect self-consciousness.

Baedal works on different rules, anyway, or so he likes to think. "I think I could be okay with that," he says through a bright grin. "Also I don't want you to never cook for me again."

[boomvox]

That Sunny lacks that ingrained insecurity all people have in degrees at first made Jae uneasy; there's something coded into humans in modern society, in the way they interact, that makes mutual fear comforting in its familiarity. Everyone gets awkward, everyone postures to cover up for nervousness. Except Sunny, who smiles, and seems sincere instead of vacant. When he smiles, Jae feels a little bit like he did watching him hack up that monster.

Safe.

And then-

"Hopefully that's not all you want me to heat up for you, though."

/slide

[yeouiju]

Nooo. This time there is a cringe to Sunny's laugh, but it's friendly teasing, head flopping down into free hand and smile at that easy crescent white. Perhaps the only true ode to self-consciousness is being aware of the boundaries that people have, and it plays easily into the fact that Sunny likes people who like him; they also make clear things like boundaries.

Handholding and bad pick up lines. "I'll think of one or two things," he counters immediately. "You know you're meant to say things like that before you take people out to dinner."