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 Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:02 pm
Teagan groaned, attempting to push his disassembled bed frame up the stairs. His new apartment was on the third floor, and though the flyer had sported a "convenient elevator" he had found that it was in fact, broken. Sure, it wasn't the ritz, but it was good enough for him. The apartment itself wasn't bad for the price, a simple one bedroom one bath, though the neighbors left something to be desired. Noisy, he would consider sound dampening foam as a first purchase, but they kept to themselves. He had attempted to make friends with the one across the hall when he caught her coming back from the store, but she had simply shrugged him off and went on her way. This might be a little lonely. Expecting that he would be done unloading at this point he had invited Shouko over, hoping to resolve whatever weirdness had happened between them. That and, he could use a little company. However, while he scraped and bruised himself trying to get his things in order, he lost track of time and the invitation slipped his mind.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:13 pm
Shouko was trying to put the events of Halloween out of her mind. It was weird, after all, but then again, the last two months had been weird. She'd returned from Eden with Madeline to find the headquarters abandoned, and then had to return to the awful garden a short time later to retrieve Mort. But Teagan had been possibly the strangest event yet.
And then he'd called an invited her over to his new apartment. She'd decided to accept out of curiosity, and because it seemed that the rest of her friends were either too young for her now or missing. Strangeness all around.
But anyway, here she was at his front door. She knocked a few times.
"Tea?" she called.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:18 pm
"Huh?" Tea was startled from his work fixing the cabinet hinges by a knocking on the door. Maybe it was his neighbor, come to apologize for being so rude. "s**t," he mumbled, noticing that he had caught his finger on one of the nails. He grabbed a dish towel and tied it around the injury carlessly as he jogged to the door. The door took a little tug, but when it came open it did so fast. "H- Shouko?" The look on his face began as confusion, then settled to one of embarassment, "Crap, I'm sorry, I forgot you were coming over. Um, come on in, I'll move some boxes off the futon."
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:25 pm
"Ah, okay," said Shouko, though not totally certain what a futon was. It sounded familiar, though. She followed him into the apartment, noticing its messy state. When he had said it was 'new', he must have meant he'd been on premises for less than 24 hours.
"Er, your elevator's broken," she said, trying to make conversation and looking around.
Maybe that wasn't the only thing that didn't work as it was supposed to.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:33 pm
"Heh, yeah I noticed that," he laughed, "I wouldn't trust the water either. There's a few bottles of beer and I think a couple sodas in the fridge if you want something though." The floor had been carpeted at one point, but now for ease of cleanup between tenants it was a cold smooth concrete. He tugged some of the boxes off the black metal frame, revealing what he had meant when he had said futon. The cushions were old, faded to a dingy gray, but he still liked them. "Um, I don't exactly have the TV hooked up to watch shows but I could dig something out if you want to watch a movie," he offered, tossing the towel from his hand into the sink.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:44 pm
"Soda's good," said Shouko, sitting down. She vaguely remembered her most recent (and basically only) encounter with alcoholic beverages and didn't trust herself not to repeat it. Who had spiked the punch, anyway? She looked around the apartment and tried not to show any distaste. After all, Tea seemed to like it well enough. She tried to think of a recent movie, and failed.
"Tea?" she asked. "I don't know how to explain it, but I've sort of spent the last eight months in Eden. I couldn't tell you what movies have come out in the last year even if my life depended on it."
Deciding that was a weird note to leave a conversation on, she added, "But if you have any suggestions, I could watch something."
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:53 pm
"Oh," Tea remarked, not sounding too surprised by the statement. He'd spent enough time in Eden to know what the situations could turn into. "Well, I'm glad you're okay," he added, grabbing an orange soda from the fridge. He offered it to her, gesutring to the box, "I've got some action flicks, and some thrillers. I think I've got Liang's copy of The Princess Diaries if you want something like that."
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:00 pm
Shouko cracked open the can and took a sip. It tasted like orange soda should have, which didn't mean much of anything. Looking at the box, she slid off the futon and stepped over it, intending to paw through it.
"There's a third Pirates of the Caribbean?" she asked, pulling what looked to be a bootlegged disk out of the box. "How'd I miss this?"
Oh, right, she reminded herself. When you're off in an alternate dimension for eight months and turned into a tree, you tend to miss things. "Can we watch it?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:05 pm
"Sure," Tea agreed eagerly as he began to dig out the battered DVD player, silently thankful she hadn't picked something entirely girly, "There's been a lot of cool stuff lately." And a lot of not so cool stuff. Feeling as if the statement would upset her he added, "I mean, like, movies and stuff, I could lend you some." He found the machine with just a little trouble, but managed to pull it out of the box in tact.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:34 pm
"I noticed," nodded Shouko, still thumbing through the box. She'd missed all of this! No fair! Turning her attention to Tea and his struggles with the DVD player, she added, "We've got one at HQ, but all the movies are kiddie fare. I was watching something a few weeks ago, something I used to love before all the stuff in Eden and growing, and I just found it stupid."
She got up from the box, deciding to look through it again later, and went to help Teagan examine the DVD player.
"I think all you've got to do is color coordinate the wires and the slots on the TV and plug it in and it'll work," she said.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 7:56 pm
"Yeah, I understand that," he told her, beginning to sift through the box for the wires. Well, he did honestly like some cartoon stuff, but some did seem kind of dumb. The wires weren't exactly colored still, some had tape wrapped arond them, but there was enough left to tell which went where. "Um, could you unplug that stuff over there?" he asked, gesturing to a standing air conditioner and a floor lamp, "Um, you don't mind if it's a little dark, right? The kitchen light will still be on, but I don't have another outlet over there."
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:01 pm
"Sure," said Shouko, thoroughly distracted from how awkward she had thought this would be. She crouched next to the outlet for a moment, debating what to unplug first, and tugged at a plug. The fan went silent.
She cast a glance over at Teagan and pulled the second plug. The lamp turned off. Reaching over, she picked up the cords to the TV and DVD player and plugged them in. The room was bathed in an unhealthy white-noise glow.
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Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:12 pm
"Thanks Shou," he chimed, begining to fiddle with the TV. After a few tweaks the Pirates logo shone on the screen and he stood up, tossing the remote to her. "You want any popcorn or anything?" he asked, not wanting her to feel unwelcome.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:36 am
"Nah, I'm good," shrugged Shouko, not wanting to overstep her welcome. She got up from the power socket, went back over to the futon, and picked up her soda, sipping from it casually as she sat down. Hopefully watching a movie would take away some of the lingering oddness between them, or at least give them something to do.
"Why don't you sit down?" she asked, pausing it until she could properly focus.
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Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:39 pm
Tea blushed a bit under the dim lights. "Sorry," he said, not really sure why he was apologizing. He turned away from the kitchen and came back toward the futon, sitting beside her. Not knowing the whole situation he left a comfortable amount of space between them as he leaned back against the cushions.
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