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 Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:13 pm
"Excuse me, sir."
Kamboja had been busy studying his handiwork: a bright blue flyer he had taped up to the side of McDonald's, just outside the door, with big bold letters that read: 'HAVE YOU SEEN THIS KID?'. He loved McDonald's, he knew lots of people loved McDonald's, so it had seemed like a pretty logical place for one of them. He hadn't stopped to think that the establishment might not approve so, when he looked down and saw the timid highschool kid trying his best to look authoritative, he had no idea what the problem was.
"Yeah, what do you want?" He glanced sideways without turning to face the employee, watching as the kid squirmed and plucked at the shirt of his uniform and tried to avoid any direct eye contact.
"W-well, we don't allow advertisement of any kind on the-"
"Are you ******** joking?" Kam cut him off, turning completely now to face the greasy-haired boy whose uniform had 'manager' sewn just about his nameplate. Kam's full attention made the poor employee take a step back and begin wringing his hands. "Look, Marvin, finding this kid is really ******** important to me so why don't you just do me a damn favor and get back to your real job."
The manager hesitated, as if he might say something else, but as he looked between Kam and the face of the kid on the poster, something made him give up. Maybe Kam was just that frightening or perhaps he really just felt sorry for him. Regardless of the reasons, he finally just nodded and disappeared through the swinging door of the restaurant.
Kam, with a satisfied look on his face, turned back to stare at the poster. He'd cropped the one picture he had of the dark-skinned boy and put it dead center. It was a kid of twelve or thirteen that stared back at Kam with a smile on his face and the beginnings of dreads sprouting out to frame it. "You don't look a thing like that now, you little punk," but even through the words it was clear that Kam was more disappointed in himself than anything. It was the only picture he had, so it was the only option - he would be damn lucky if anyone who knew the kid even recognized him from such an old photo.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:39 pm
"Y'know, as soon as you're gone they're just going to take it down. MccyD folks have something serious shoved up their asses." The girl stood just a few paces behind Kamboja, and would have walked right by him if not for the scene the manager had helped make. She'd been thrown out of this place before, but that was months back and she was positive that they wouldn't remember her. Delphine Amary had been forced onto a radical diet that involved every fast food restaurant but McDonald's, her normal hunting ground. It was unacceptable, and so she was back. Now, if she could just get through the door without any drama it would be a miracle.
She tucked the keys to her parent's car in her back pocket, and she probably shouldn't have taken it, and probably shouldn't be lollygagging around McDonald's, but Delphine did a lot of things she wasn't supposed to do. Eying the taller boy, it occurred to her that dreads had to be the look of the past five seasons. "Nice hair," she snorted softly. Brown dreads, blonde dreads, red dreads - now she just needed to see some blue and green ones, and that was most of the color spectrum covered. Maybe she should consider following the trend...
Wait, where did that thought come from.
No.
She wouldn't even do it in fond remembrance of a lost friend. It was rare for her to find someone she could tolerate, and it was a loss that he had been gone these past few months. She figured Khaldun had moved, because it was probably one of the better things to assume about what happened to people in Destiny City. He should have told her if he was moving, though. Delphine credited him with at least that much common sense.
Whatever, she really didn't want to have to think about that. There was some vague hope instilled in her heart that he'd crawl back home like a lost puppy, and she would have that one person who didn't drive her absolutely ******** crazy. Delphine was sure dreams like that just didn't come true, though. "What're you trying to sell?" she gestured to the flyer, naturally assuming that well, he was selling some sort of junk. He didn't strike her as the kind of guy to have nice things.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:27 pm
"They won't if they know what's good for them," he responded without looking around for who was talking. It was an empty threat because, honestly, he wasn't going to come back and check every day just to make sure these asshats kept his sign up. He'd just come by every time he wanted a burger and slap a new one on if they kept taking them down. That was about all the perseverance he had in him.
He finally stopped inspecting his masterpiece and turned around to look at whoever was addressing him. He had honestly expected some sad, overweight teenager because that was who he associated with fast food restaurants (other than himself, of course). He was surprised when he saw a fairly fit looking girl instead.
He didn't bother responding to her compliment - he knew his hair was nice, so why shouldn't other people think so? He didn't see any point in thanking her for an obvious statement. It did make him smile in that cocky, conceited way he had thought - at least until her next question.
"Come on, is it that hard to read?" His smile faded into a quick frown and he brought up one hand to point directly at the kid on the poster, jabbing his finger through the air for emphasis. "I'm looking for him, not selling him."
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 4:42 pm
Delphine snorted, and was thinking that the flyer really wouldn't remain standing for that much longer. If this dude was fortunate, maybe all of five people would see it before the sign was torn off. "You sure have a lot of faith in the people who work at McDonald's." They weren't the most upstanding citizens, and if the food wasn't so devilishly greasy and delicious, Delphine would not eat here just because of the people. Perhaps she still felt a little prejudiced over that french fry incident months back.... yeah, she definitely felt prejudiced.
Eventually she took her first good look at the poster. She had to at least defend her intelligence and pretend to care enough to read what was on it. Suddenly, it became rather hard to stifle a chuckle. "I doubt you could sell him for all that much." Her words, before the boy's appearance, got her mind turning. That was definitely something she'd say about Khaldun. With a thoughtful look, she stepped up to get a better view of that flyer.
Hoollyshit. It was Khaldun! Aww, look at how little he was! God, she needed this picture so she could torment him whenever he got the balls to show his face around her. Delphine thought Khaldun had understood the friendship conduct - the one where, say, you don't get up and disappear without telling your friend where you're going. "I totally know Khaldun. We used to sit on my couch and watch horrible movies, and then he'd eat all the food in the kitchen." Fond, fond memories. Oh god... did she actually miss him?
"I'm Delphine," she felt that now was a good time to introduce herself.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:46 pm
The comment made him smirk, if only because that definitely sounded like something he would also tell the kid. "You're probably right, he's not worth a whole lot." Well, not any monetary value anyway - he was worth a lot to Kam, but that worth wasn't really tangible.
He was just about to write the girl off as another random stranger when she suddenly seemed to recognize something in the outdated photograph. He was hopeful for the span of a few seconds, and then she said that name: Khaldun. "Watching horrible movies and eating all the food in the house sounds like him, but I think you might be talking about someone else." He took a few steps closer to the poster so he was standing beside her, also staring up at the photograph, a frown on his lips and a look of concentration pulling his brows down. It was a rare face for him.
Had that little twerp changed his name to avoid being found? She did seem to really think the boy in the picture was this Khaldun guy.
"That's not the name I know him by, at least." He stopped looking at the poster and down at her instead, giving her a cursory glance over: no heels, sloppily braided hair, grungy clothes. He'd never known 'Khal' to be the dating kind, but this girl did seem like someone he'd bum around with.
"I'm Kamboja, but just call me Kam." He really wasn't in to this hand shaking business and he was glad she hadn't offered. He wasn't really into long, detailed conversations with random girls at all - at least not when he had no interest in getting in their pants. This girl offered some answers though, and he was damn well going to squeeze them all out of her. "When was the last time you saw Khal?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 5:58 pm
She was convinced that the boy in the picture was Khaldun. There was no mistaking that face, even when it was a few years younger than what she knew him by. Maybe he changed his name, he'd do something stupid like that. But why would he change it to Khaldun? It was about as attractive as the name 'Kamboja', which was not attractive at all. "No, that's definitely him. I suffered his presence for long enough to know his face anywhere... and the hair. You two are related, I take it?" Sure, hair style wasn't something genetic, but Kamboja looked like Khaldun. Plus, the ridiculous name sort of gave it away too.
"It's the name he introduced himself with. What name do you know him by?" It was a curious thing, Khaldun's disappearance, the sudden discrepancy with his name. Just as Kamboja was hounding her for information, she was looking for information from him. ********, she must have really valued Khaldun as a friend if she was investing time on figuring out what the ******** was up with him. "That's... a nice name," the sarcasm dripping from her voice was more than obvious.
"We hung out a lot a few months back. He just ******** upped and disappeared at one point. Maybe he moved, who knows? When he drags his sorry a** back, I've sworn to make him miserable." She hoped he would come back. Bad things happened to civilians in Destiny City, things she had witnessed first-hand. Khaldun wasn't in the hospital, so if he was smart, he had moved. If he wasn't smart, he was probably dead. But, she didn't want to think about that. It was better to work on the assumption that he had just vanished.
"It's sad, I liked having him around just to freak my brother out." Her mother probably flipped a nut too over Delphine's friend. But, hey, she lived to antagonize her family every now and again. It was a hobby.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 8:14 pm
Kam studied the picture in front of him for a long time after she said that the kid in the photograph was definitely this Khaldun she knew. That made her his best lead, gave him the most hope of finding him, and even if he wasn't a very good team player he still knew when to take advantage of what life handed him.
"Is it that obvious?" He laughed, half-heartedly, and reached into his back pocket to pull out a wallet. It looked new, barely used, but the photograph that he flipped to and held out for her was well aged. It was in a nice plastic sleeve now, but it was obvious that it had been through some serious handling before from all the creases and worn out colors. What was more interesting though was that it was obviously the photograph he had taken the poster picture from. Younger Khal sat at the side of two very proud parents while Kam, already growing like a root, stood behind them with a hand on his mother's shoulder.
"He's my little brother," he frowned and glanced down at the photograph, looking at the faces that stared back at him, "and he's been missing for three years now." There was more to it, there was a bigger story, but he wasn't going to spill his guts to this girl even if she was the last person to see his brother alive. He folded the wallet back up slowly and stuffed it back into the back pocket of his worn out jeans.
"I don't know why the little punk changed his name - maybe to just hide from our family. It seems like something he'd do." He crossed his arms over his chest and glanced back up at the poster, as if the kid there might just walk out of the photograph and turn into the boy himself. "His real name is Khetal."
He looked back at her then, turning his back on the poster - it had already done more than he'd hoped for, it had brought someone that actually knew Khetal out of the woodwork. "You're the only person I know that has seen him in the time he's been gone. At least I know he hasn't been dead the whole time." The unspoken words hung in the air though, the implications his new absence might mean. Kam had come too far to give up hope now, though.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 8:40 pm
"It's a little obvious, but he never mentioned... family." No, Khaldun had made it seem like he had no family, no other place to go to. If Kamboja had any sort of importance to Khaldun, he would have talked about him, whether it be good or bad. If the boy in the picture did not resemble Khaldun so heavily, Delphine would have doubted his identity. But, no, this was definitely Khaldun. She leaned over to Kamboja, inspecting the picture he had fished out of his wallet. Yes, it was definitely her missing friend. The colors were muted and worn, but that was Khaldun with... family. What the hell had he kept from her? She thought they were friends, and pretty decent friends at that.
What more could Khaldun have asked for from her? Sure, she had teased him... but that was the extent of her meanness when it came to him. Delphine had a surprising level of tolerance for his stupidity, considering how she reacted to other people. "Well, ********. I don't know what the hell is up with him, but I'm beginning to suspect he didn't think I was a good enough friend to tell that he had a brother." She was agitated. Here she was, just about to really care, and reasons were being shoved in her face to convince her not to.
"I'll be the first to admit that Khaldun is a step up from Khetal. That's a really shitty name to get stuck with. I'd take Bob over Khetal, you know?" it was a lighthearted joke, an attempt to quell the urge to find Khaldun and hurt him. She still couldn't help but think of what a d**k Khaldun was. Delphine assumed many things about Khaldun, but being a d**k certainly had not been one of them.
"He's fine, probably off somewhere getting drunk off his a**, trying not to panic at his first view of an actual v****a." It was the best assurance she could give - at least Kamboja knew that Khaldun hadn't been dead for MOST of those three years. There was no guarantee over the last bit, but Delphine had faith. Khaldun was a resilient b*****d.
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Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2011 9:39 pm
What could Kam say? He had no idea why his brother had done any of the things he had in the last three years. Why run away, why change his name, why forget he had a family and never talk to them? In the end, Kam could only find say one thing that might make her feel better about it all.
"Who knows why he's doing all this s**t, he's a dumbass at the best of times anyway." It seemed the two had a common ground in insulting people when they were pissed off. "I think this all has more to do with him trying to forget us than it does with him not thinking you were a good enough friend." At least that was all Kam was getting from this situation now that he knew he was probably still alive.
Normally, he wouldn't have been too keen on someone mocking his brother or their namesakes, but he knew how to recognize hostility as a defense mechanism - he was a master, after all. He just put his hands in his pockets and shrugged. "It's part of the heritage." Even if her first insult was mildly upsetting, the second one made him laugh out loud - probably because that was exactly something he would have said.
"Come on," he finally let out a long sigh, trying to relax and keep himself from bursting into another laugh, "I'll buy you lunch." He reached for the handle of the glass door and pulled it open, walking in and holding it open behind him. "If the manager doesn't kick me out the second I walk in, anyway."
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 3:43 am
She was beginning to like Kam, if only because he wasn't getting pissed off at her for the small insults she was making. Perhaps, it was due to the fact that he was joining in with her on the insult-Khaldun spree. Kam seemed pretty cool at this point, and was far more likable than some of the people she had to suffer through for the sake of propriety. "Then the question is, what did you guys do to make him want to forget you so badly?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders, their names being part of the family heritage didn't mean they weren't horrendous names to have right now. Sure, 'hip' couples named their kids Clover or some crazy s**t like that, but not even the hippest of the hip would name their kids Khetal and Kamboja. Delphine was going to refuse to think of Khaldun as any other name but Khaldun. Khetal just didn't seem to fit when she knew him so well by the name he had taken up.
"Thanks." A smile flickered across her face, a rare expression considering her tendency to brood. Oh yeah, Kamboja was definitely going to work his way up to her 'favorite people' list. There was no way in hell that Delphine was going to pass up some free lunch. "Please, if they don't kick you out, they'll kick me out. Khaldun and I got into a fight with the uhh... esteemed management here. I'm hoping they forgot my face."
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 1:59 pm
Then the question is, what did you guys do to make him want to forget you so badly?
The question hung in the air but Kam didn't want to answer. He could point at a dozen different reasons why Khetal would have wanted to forget his life, but if he gave a voice to them then that meant he was admitting that his brother was justified in what he was doing. There was just too much hypocrisy in shaming Khetal for it, but at the same time, he didn't want to say that anything he'd done could have forced his brother's hand.
"I have no idea. Teenagers are such pains in the a**, who knows if he even has a reason." It tasted like a lie when he said it, but there was no code of honor holding him to telling this girl the truth. Sure, she was tolerable and she was the best clue he'd had about where his brother might be, but she didn't get to come into the inner sanctum and learn all his dirty secrets just for that.
"That sounds like him," he said with a laugh, stepping into the busy lobby of the fast food restaurant and looking up at the menus. He simply stood there, arms crossed, staring up at the pictures of burgers and fries that looked infinitely more appealing than what the average customer actually got. "Maybe we'll get lucky and someone will think I'm him, beefed up and back for revenge on their greasy heads." He would have liked to see Marvin try and stand up to him - it had worked so well last time.
"Come on," he started walking towards the meandering line that lead towards the registers, "I don't think they're going to say a damn thing." He walked on without waiting for her, taking his place behind a small, balding white guy that shifted and took a few steps forward and away from Kam immediately.
The smirk on his face said all it really needed to.
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Posted: Tue Apr 05, 2011 7:21 pm
It did sound like a lie, but Delphine had sense enough to realize what it was and not pursue that particular subject anymore. If she didn't like Kamboja, she would have just to piss him off. But, considering he was half-decent, and Khaldun's brother (aka: the next most likely person to beat the s**t out of him when he returned for being an idiot), Delphine would go easy on him. Every now and again, her black black heart had just a little room for goodness in it. Today she was going to use that up, but it was for a good cause. "Maybe he thought he'd get more pity points if he played off having no family... eh, that's a little too smart for him."
She followed Kam up to the counter, glancing idly up at the menu to figure out what she wanted. Again, because she liked him, she wouldn't ask for everything on the menu despite feeling like a garbage disposal at the moment. A soft laugh coming from behind Kam was enough to indicate that Delphine had noticed Marvin's behavior. It was their lucky day, the b***h was intimidated silly by Kam. "I am beginning to suspect no one is going to have enough balls to step up to the register and take your order." She could file a complaint!
...But they'd likely realize who she was at that point. Delphine didn't want to quite give up a delicious and greasy free meal ticket. "If you don't mind, I'd just like the number two meal with a coke." Now it really was a sort of wait-and-see deal with Marvin. Was he going to brave the dangers of taking their order?
Would he make it out alive?
WHAT WOULD THE CHILDREN THINK?
"Excuse me, we'd like to order." Being pretend-polite couldn't hurt. She was doing it for the children!
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 8:48 am
As Delphine stepped up to the counter, Kam shifted to stand to the side and slightly behind her so that he was looming over her shoulder to stare down at the poor little manager on the other side. Marvin looked uneasy as he stared up at the pair of them - or maybe just as he stared up at Kam. He was cowering behind his cash register and it took a few tries before he managed to find the words.
"What would you like, ma'am?"
Slowly, an amused smirk spread across Kam's lips and the gleam in his eyes looked more fitting for a lion staring at injured prey. Kam smelled weakness and he was going to revel in his superiority.
"Right, the lady here would like a number two with a coke," he leaned forward and draped one arm over Delphine's shoulder, leaning on her. It was mostly just to exaggerate the size difference between them and show the poor, defenseless manager how really ******** big he was. "I'd like a 20 piece - wait." Kam cut himself off after he glanced up quickly at the menu and saw something glorious and new, something amazing that he had never seen before.
"Scratch that, I want a ******** 50 piece mcnugget, fries, and a soda." Oh, the things he'd missed while he was gone. The McDonald's employee on the other side mumbled through repeating their order and then pointed at the register when the total flashed on the little screen. Kam reached into a pocket, dug out that barely used wallet again, and forked it over.
Once he was done and he had his cups in hand, he looked pointedly at the man once again. "Oh, and how about adding a couple of those complementary apple turnovers while you're back there." The little man said nothing, just greeted the customer in line behind the pair.
Kam held out Delphine's cup for her and began to walk towards the fountain machine. The only thing he was thinking was that Marvin had better ******** give him those free apple turnovers.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 10:05 am
Delphine smiled as sweetly as she could manage, which wasn't all that much, but she put some effort into comforting Marvin enough so he could take her goddamn order. It took a few tries, but finally the manager was able to spit out the appropriate words. Delphine had to hold back the urge to praise him for finally managing the task. Kam was going to end up intimidating this man too much for Delphine to get her food, and that would be a tragedy. Perhaps Kam could scare him so much he'd be afraid to not take their order.
"Jesus Christ, what are you, a black hole?" Delphine snorted at Kamboja's order, glancing up to the taller man. She didn't seem particularly bothered by the fact that he was leaning against her (despite him being ******** heavy). If he was actually doing it to hit on her, that would be another thing. Kamboja, though, was out for blood - Marvin's blood. There was no way Delphine was really going to step in-between this little battle of wills. She'd just let Kam bulldoze the poor manager over.
She took her cup, stepping away from the register to let the people behind them take their own order. "Thanks," she muttered as she meandered over to the fountain drink machine. "I hope you don't eat all of that in one sitting, might turn you off from chicken nuggets forever." It was a huge order, and Delphine was secretly hoping they would give them some goddamn apple turnovers, because really, who didn't love apple turnovers?
"So, am I the only person you've found who knows Khaldun?" She still couldn't call him Khetal. It was weird.
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Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2011 2:12 pm
Kam paused as Delphine made the wisecrack about how much he was eating. Very seriously, he paused and wrapped his hand around the plastic cup he had been carrying to the fountain machine. Then he curled it up slowly, making sure to strain his muscles, so that they bulged beneath the hem of his t-shirt.
"Do you think you make muscles like these out of eating rabbit food? No, you have to eat real men's food." Which apparently meant hormone-pumped chicken. He smirked then, which could have meant he was joking or he was just a complete narcissist, but he finally stopped the public display of his self-affection and walked after her to the soda fountain.
"Seriously though, I'll probably just give some to Bo. I just want to see what a ******** 50 piece looks like." He reached out and filled up his cup a quarter of the way with Mr. Pibb, took a sip and then promptly up ended it into the tray below the soda fountain with a look of distaste. Instead he decided on sprite, popped a lid on it, and stepped aside to let her get to the fountain.
"Yeah, you're the first lead I've found to him at all. My Aunt and Uncle had no ******** idea what happened to him." He leaned back against the counter of the condiment island, half of his attention on Delphine and half listening for his number to be called. "Once I find him, I don't know if I'm going to hug the kid or beat the s**t out of him for being such a dumbass."
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