OPEN :: A golden bird was singing

[baedalites]

Who: Everyone!
What: St Kelley's evening
Where: The Apache and surrounding environs.
When: Veerdi evening.
Notes:
(1) The topic threads are just suggestions; if you've got somewhere else that your characters simply must be, make your own thread.
(2) All mementos will appear overnight in some part of your character's apartment.
(3) Dance!

St Kelley's is one of the more sedate occasions in Baedal, at least as holidays go. It passes more or less unnoticed by the majority of the population as many of them feel it doesn't concern them. It's not their holiday; it's for the others. Those with severed ties and broken hearts. The temple and church preach that it's a time for reflection or for glorifying the generosity of the gods. It's one of the few days on which no one looks askance at first generation Citizens mourning their missing loved ones publicly.

As night rolls around and floating lanterns are set to sea, the Apache in Mog Hill prepares to accept guests from the newer cohorts. It's something that happens every year, making it a practical tradition. The alcohol will be cheaper for first timers, and the music will be kept at a reasonable level.

Comments

[yeouiju]

Currently, Sunny is trapped.

It's what happens when you're a nice person generally, but also when you're genuinely invested in the happenings of strangers... which doesn't mean you can't be recognisably cornered into conversation. He is sitting in the lounge area, balancing a beer on his knees, and listening with empathy to some guy who bought everyone a drink, including Sunny's, talk about how he wishes his job in public service hadn't torn him away from his teenage daughter like it has, and now that he's in Baedal, can't do anything about his loss.

Actually, it's moved beyond that, and he's in detail bitching about his former manager, which is getting increasingly uncomfortable. Sunny slooowly sips his beer and wishes he liked beer more, and glances around the room, finally spying Jae and his distinctive self.

Sunny immediately lights up in enthusiasm at seeing a face he recognises, raising a hand in a wave that goes ignored by his conversational partner.

[boomvox]

Well! If that's not a cry for help, what is?

Smoothly, Jae slides over to the circle of chairs that Sunny's trapped within, and leans over the back of the other man's. "Hey, you - hi!" To the man going on about his eternal woe. Which, Jae's sure, is totally valid; everybody's got a story, in Baedal. But. "Do you mind if I steal him? It's important."

Okay, Jae probably didn't need to make that faintly suggestive, but they're on a mission, here.

[yeouiju]

"I hope you get something nice," Sunny can't help but wish, even as he rises to stand; he's being dismissed easily, anyway. In the next second, he's picking his way around the gathered chairs, his drink held up, a hand drifted to Jae's elbow as if to make sure he doesn't get knocked loose in the stream of people.

Both hands go back around his glass once they're in the clear, and he mutters brightly in Korean, "Soon, I will rescue you from a falling vending machine, and we'll be even."

[boomvox]

"I'll make sure the next time I go vending machine dodging you're around," and he answers in kind, a little buzzed and thus a bit more animated for it, but still completely coherent. "Heroes are extremely charming to me, but I don't often get to play one. Thanks."

He raises his glass at Sunny's. Cheers?

[yeouiju]

Sunny's alcohol intake has been about a third of this beer he is holding, mostly on account of not being wasteful with his money, cheap rates or not, and also because it isn't his instinct to drink a lot, nor has he been here too long. But he doesn't really have to, anyway, smiling brightly and clinking his glass against Jae's.

Taking a sip. "That was sort of the conversational equivalent. I could not get out from under. But I guess that's sort of the nature of the holiday."

[boomvox]

'Alcoholic' is too dramatic of a word for Jae, but he does drink a lot - and genuinely too much, especially since he's come to Baedal. He uses his (admittedly impressive) tolerance as an excuse to keep himself pleasantly detached a lot of the time. It's just easier.

"Most people seem really sad about it. I don't know.. if I had anyone I think I'd be happy to get something back."

Famous last words? No, but ones with a bit of foreshadowing in them. As he's not going to be very happy at all. Just confused.

[yeouiju]

"Me too. But I think the 'if' part is what makes it different."

Sunny leans against the wall they settle nearby, an arm folded under him and the other wrapped about his waist, gripping beer cup a little neglectfully. "So you didn't send a boat out?" he asks, without particularly assumption as to correctness or wrongness; hence the query.

[boomvox]

He shrugs one shoulder, body language a little reserved; maybe out of respect for people who are taking the event very seriously.

"No. I don't want to know what I might get out of it."

It's easier to lie about it than explain he wrote a letter asking his family to forget him - if they haven't already. Jae knows he needs to move on and deal with being here, find out why. He's just not ready to talk about it yet.

[yeouiju]

"Did you ever see Cast Away?"

His eyebrows go up. It is not entirely off-topic, Jae, just work with him here. Or, well, who knows. Still, Sunny looks at him expectantly over the top of his beer as he sips it, before adding; "It's that movie, on the island, Tom Hanks is in it, and a volley ball."

[boomvox]

"Yeah. Wilsooon~" a faint, sing-song imitation of the iconic scream, there. Complete with a wiggly-fingered gesture. "I think I might only remember it for the part when he jams an ice skate in his mouth to remove a tooth, though, that was terrible."

... THANK YOU, JAE.

[yeouiju]

Sunny winces. Well, he winces around a 100 WATT SMILE, throwing a hand over his eyes, and laughs, but it's a completely genuine cringe at one of the arguably most painful looking moments in cinematic history. "That's terrible and you are terrible. I was going to mention the FedEx package he never opened, and how it's like.

"How they never show you what it is, but he had it the whole time so he could deliver it one day. And I walked out thinking 'but what if it was some sort of wilderness survival pack, with flareguns and protein pills and nets'. It just occurred to me now, for some reason."

He looks back down at his beer, takes a breath like he is bracing himself, and sips.

[boomvox]

There are two kinds of people: those who watch Cast Away and remember the ice skate thing, and those who watch Cast Away and end up heartsick over the mystery box. Usually, people who fixate on the horror movie dentistry are doing so because the sheer overwhelming innocent hopeful emotion of the mystery box is too much to deal with.

Or they just wondered if it was a teleporter home, apparently.

He's quiet for a beat, then:

"That's almost really sweet."

[yeouiju]

And, well. Everyone remembers 'Wilsoooon'.

"Oh," Sunny says, pleased. He'll take that! "It had a lot of feelings to deal with either way. Are there movies here, even?" The question comes up suddenly, as if he were vocalising it as soon as he thought of it and is thusly surprised that he hadn't even considered that before.

[boomvox]

Jae smiles, though it's mostly hidden by taking another drink. (Personally he can't handle thinking about the mystery box. Baaaw.)

"There are, but it's like, the market is kind of funny. Stuff made here is crazy, and stuff from our contemporary time doesn't seem to end up in cinemas, because the potential audience is small. There's a drive-in though! Apparently it opens back up when it's not so cold." He looks positively thrilled at that. "But nobody has cars here. So it's just outdoor movie picnic."

[yeouiju]

At this news, Sunny's expression brightens (more, as he had started to puzzle about how exactly you do the whole drive-in things sans cars, wouldn't the horses get bored, etc.), posture straightening. Because anyone who doesn't think an outdoor movie picnic has its appeal is cold on the inside.

"I want to go to that," he says, immediately. "Assuming I'm still here when it's warm, or I guess I won't be. Man," he adds, vaguely introspective, "it's like going back to the fifties after so many illegal downloads at 2 am in the morning."

[boomvox]

"It sounds really good. I won't even care what's playing." Maybe it's ridiculous, being excited about things like this when they're trapped - but to be fair, if there was an outdoor movie picnic in London, Jae would be equally stoked.

And now, a near-comical side-eye. "Porn is old fashioned, yeah."

[yeouiju]

Thwap is the sound of the back of Sunny's hand automatically connecting with Jae's arm in a sort of swing-door movement while also snorting into his beer. "I was thinking more like Kill Bill or every Marrying The Mafia movie. I really hope they don't show porn at the picnic-in, okay."

[boomvox]

Immediately he laughs and sways to one side, as if Sunny nearly punched him across the room. And yet, no remorse.

"I only ever saw the first two Marry The Mafia flicks. I don't remember what I was doing when the other ones came out, in my head there's like ten..." ..stare into space a bit. "--I'm sure they don't. Well, without a head's up."

[yeouiju]

"Fffour, which is probably three too many, but." Sunny shrugs, exaggeratedly. What can you do, some things are cash cows. And if there's ever a fifth one, it's only somewhat likely that either of them will see it.

That is probably not the worst thing about their predicament. "We have Norea Serhati in town. I guess we can't discount it."

[boomvox]

Maybe if there's a fifth one, a reel will fall in through the fog. That seems like the best bet, really.

"Well, she charges to get hers made, these days. I bet somebody could dig up a movie, though." It's still crazy to Jae, how her career has taken off. "She's a headliner at the Vault, but I barely talk to her. I'm still D-list." But he's amused.