Prompt 3 (Drink Yourself Silly): Pop up shops are a dime a dozen in Destiny City this time of year, and for as much weirdness as they cause, there’s still something alluring about them. Walking through the city, you happen to come across one that seems particularly cozy and is decorated in such a way that you just know they’re trustworthy. The menu only has a few items but there’s something for everyone.
Maybe it’s hot chocolate, maybe it’s coffee, maybe it’s some chilly winter sweet--whatever it is, it’s delicious. And magic, but you didn’t know that when you ordered it. It started with an itch at the back of your throat, but what happened after that was anyone’s game. Some of the drinks turn into a tickle in your nose, and now you’re suddenly sneezing snowflakes for the next hour. Maybe you finish your drink and you suddenly feel warm--like you’re in the middle of summer. (Do you even need your coat? It’s so hot! --Or is that a fever?) Or, the itch turns into something else--and suddenly you feel the urge to sink. It’s compulsive, you can’t help yourself, you must sing. It’s like you’ve forgotten how to communicate in any other way. It fades an hour after you finish the drink, but still...
Eion finally encountered the downsides of having a robust team — eventually, everyone got busy. With each other. Waru was out with his sister Ana, likely both investing in getting Ana's apartment properly decorated. Haru and Hina were also out, getting a better wardrobe together for Haru. Lionel was working. Haymitch was — not a consideration.
So Eion went out alone. There was shopping to be done for the team, shopping that he intended to handle with someone else's funds, but Eion knew very little about clothes or toys or whatever the ******** Waru would be into (though he had a tendency of getting thrown out of those kinds of shops), and by the time two hours passed, he was both empty-handed and exhausted. Too many people, too many Karens, and he was too used to being noticed by others for being on fire that his newfound anonymity was maddening. Sick of shouldering his way through selfish crowds, Eion broke from his attempt at holiday shopping to wet his throat and try a few Google searches.
The first, and easiest, place for drinks was a tiny shop with bar-style seating and a surfeit of winter drinks as options. Though styled like a bar, it was nonalcoholic, sponsoring drinks like hot toasted marshmallow, s'more, creme brulee, white chocolate mocha, peppermint mocha, mint shakes, and more. Seeing as there were only a pair of seats available, Eion slipped out of the slow-moving crowd and took a seat on one of the chilly leather barstools. He hadn't looked to see next to whom he sat; it was likely to be someone he didn't know, and who would scowl for Eion looking at them.
Once the bartender came around and asked his order, Eion asked for a hot toasted marshmallow drink and a mint tea. Afterward, he sighed, and rubbed his hands together to chase the cold out of them. What a trying day…
Posted: Mon Dec 13, 2021 9:40 am
Yuri sat at the counter of the bar-style pop-up enjoying the sounds of clinking glasses and the smell of fresh brews. Like this. He thought. Just like this.
Finally, it seemed, he had settled into this place he once called home. And how short a time it seemed since he had been gone!
Everything felt as though it was falling into place now for once in his life. Since he had called his family to let them know he was coming home at the end of last semester, things had gone as well as he could have ever hopped. In truth, he had been tentative about returning to Destiny City. He knew, better than most, what awaited him there. He’d become a knight right before leaving, yet he knew, especially now that he had been gone, that this place was quite different. He’d need to be a knight here like he had not in a good many years. Still, that had not deterred him from creating the life here he had always wanted.
The place he had rented next to his family’s arcade and game store had been, over the last six months, cleared and renovated and retrofitted to be his own. The place was old and had not been used in years and it hardly had the room for a bar like this one, but he would make it into his shop. Somehow. He stilled need to build the bar and buy the expensive steamers and grinders he would need for coffees and teas. He had sighed at how much debt that would put him in. Had his family not owned the place, it would have been quite a bit more. He should count himself lucky.
Just like this! He thought again. He’d put a bar in the new place, though it would need to be considerably smaller.
Someone had sat next to him and ordered a mint tea and the thought of ordering finally stirred him from his daydreaming.
“Another mint tea for me as well.” He said pushing his long ago finished cup aside. For all his musings, the empty cup had already lost its heat. “It’s an excellent choice… the mint tea, I mean.” He said to the stranger next to him for a moment imagining himself serving it in his cafe one day. A bit embarrassed at the thought, he realized he was talking to the man next to him. “Sorry! I was just a bit lost in thought. My name is Yuri. What yours?”
Initially, Eion hadn't responded to the voice. He stayed silent for a few seconds, mulled over the statement, then realized no one else had a mint tea next to them. Then he looked over, finally taking in who was talking —
It was a boy.
A blond boy, about his size, of a friendly enough disposition to talk to him, a stranger. Normally he would've answered with something sufficiently frosty to n** any conversation so he could sit undisturbed by humans, but since the operation, he wondered if there wasn't more to gain by actually having conversations with people. Meatbags for draining or not, boys were cute.
This one was no exception. Eion watched him, even as the boy stared into the middle distance like an aged war veteran. Except, he supposed, the boy had a more pleasant look on his face than what he would have expected. He waited, brow quirked in confusion, until he got a name.
Yuri. Didn't that sound familiar. Eion smiled at the thought of telling Yuuri about another Yuri, and if they could possibly be friends, then Eion could refer to them as 'the Yuuris'.
"Eion," he offered in return. "Must be a tea drinker, then." He knew of a few sham humans who ordered tea to look sophisticated, then let it cool to room temp and never bothered touching it. And, as he glanced across the bar, he noticed the majority of drinks sitting around were hot coffee-based drinks, with a few iced coffees for the people with completely broken internal thermostats. This kid wouldn't be ordering mint tea to impress Eion. And Eion couldn't exactly suggest going back to Yuri's place right after an introduction -- he learned that the hard way.
"Haven't tried this place before." Two mint teas were set down; one for each of them, and each on their own snowflake-patterned napkin. "Is it good?"
meighei
Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 4:47 pm
“I’ve come to appreciate tea. A really good tea is hard to find sometimes. But I have to say, this place does make a really good mint tea.”
Yuri looked down as the new cup was placed before him. Even the presentation was nice!
He thought of all the places he’d gotten tea before. The bubbling cafe owner in him wanted to compare them all. He’d gotten many different teas in Japan and had even brought some home with him. One of the reasons he had gone to Japan to study aboard was to connect in some small way with his biological parents. They had met in Tokyo — he on a trip from abroad from Britain, she a native of that city. He found there was something about the place he instinctually liked. Or maybe it had been the tea he liked.
“I wonder where they get their tea from.” He said as his hand played with the decorative napkin, his fingers tracing the pattern under the cup.
Must not have liked tea earlier in life, if Eion had to guess. Understandable; tea had been an acquired taste for him, too, until a crush's mom made him a cup of black cardamom tea. He remembered the flavor being so strikingly distinct that at first he was repulsed by it, but politeness compelled him to keep drinking. By the end of the first cup, he wasn't sure what he thought, and she hadn't asked before she poured him a second. By the third cup, he decided he was quite taken by it. He wondered, then, if Yuri came around to tea the same way.
Eion was quiet as he sipped his cup, content to listen to Yuri muse aloud. His curiosity was refreshing — so much of the Negaverse instilled 'don't ask questions', or attracted types that never thought to ask, that hearing Yuri wonder about tea was both endearing and refreshing.
Yes, he decided. He would've taken this boy home, if he had a home to go back to. What a shame, he thought, as he swirled the half-drunk cup. What a pity.
"Might say where on one of their menus," he offered. He'd only seen that in dedicated tea shops, though, with their huge binders of teas.
Looking at the blonde boy, he asked, "How'd you get into tea?" Felt a shiver for it afterward; maybe he should've worn a second overcoat to chase the cold away.
meighei
Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2021 2:52 pm
“Initially, I didn’t like tea very much. Too bitter.” He admitted. “I’d add milk and sugar to it until it wasn’t really tea anymore.”
He’d done the same thing with coffee. It was something about the aftertaste that the additives calmed. There was no one to tell him how to drink tea or appreciate it.
And, so, he’d gone with what was safe. Known. He’d add the milk and sugar every time.
But then he went to a restaurant that didn’t have milk and had ordered not thinking.
“One day, I tried it without milk. It was as if the tea had changed. It didn’t taste bad at all.” He waved his hand. “Of course, the tea hadn’t changed. My tastes did.”
Was it possible that spending time away from something — deliberately, for years — could make it different when you encountered it again?
"Pleasant," he remarked. Eion wished that anything in his life could be so simple — or so simply appreciated. The change Yuri described was a pleasant one, and Eion supposed he should feel glad that the other boy got interested in tea in such a straightforward manner.
Really, he couldn't relate at all to someone who led a human life. And being asked about himself — that was stranger.
Eion took another sip of his mint tea, stared into it, thought about his answer. Anything having to do with Elex was too obscure, too insignificant to attract any attention, he supposed. Almost smiled for that, and for the memory.
"Didn't care for tea when I was young. Wasn't 'til I had tea at my crush's house that I liked it. Tasted a thousand times better than the lawn clippings Mom used to boil." Hurt to talk about that, about any of it. About all the details of an austere life he couldn't lead anymore, the people he couldn't talk to, the times he couldn't share. He reminded himself that this was why he didn't care for questions. Too many windows back into all the things he'd lost.
Feeling a tickle, Eion sneezed into his elbow. His overcoat was an emerald green; when he pulled it back, he saw a streak of white. His thoughts went a very different direction until he realized that they were snowflakes.
He stared at his coat, then furrowed his brow, then uttered a not-so-polite "what fresh ******** s**t…"
meighei
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2021 2:41 pm
Yuri listened to Eion’s tale about tea wondering if there wasn’t a bit more about it that he wasn’t saying. He wondered what about it made him think that. Perhaps it was the tea getting to him, but he was feeling a bit warm…
“Here’s a napkin…” He began to give Eion the napkin under his tea, but he paused a moment, holding the it over the stain in his coat. Was that a… snowflake?
He looked to the snowflake-patterned napkin and then to the snowflake on Eion’s arm and back again.
He felt a bit dizzy. Perhaps he was seeing things?
He quickly gave the napkin to Eion’s elbow to cover up the snowflake or what ever his mind was telling him it was and started to take his own coat off.
"Thanks," he returned quickly as he wadded the napkin up and caught the snowflake on his arm. It crumpled down and dissolved as he looked at it, confirming his ******** fantastic. He was sneezing snowflakes. He always felt cold as Eion, and now his body was turning to ice from the inside out. But that started only just now; Eion spared a look about the place, spotting no one that resembled the startlingly strange getups that senshi often sported. But if this wasn't senshi magic, then was the building enchanted? Were the drinks? Would it go away, or get worse as he kept drinking?
Eion decided quickly that he had very little self-preservation left these days, and that he would do nothing to discourage whatever bullshit magic this was. It could freeze him over, and that wouldn't matter. He was tired. He was sick of carrying his private pains until his burden stooped his back.
Besides, it might prove helpful to him — "Borrow your coat?" Eion asked, gesturing to it as Yuri shrugged it off himself. Boy was cute underneath, too — narrow, like his Yuuri, despite very different personalities.
Pausing, he then sneezed again into the napkin. As he pulled it away, he saw more snowflakes before they lost form and melted into the paper. A shiver coursed through him.
meighei
Posted: Thu Dec 30, 2021 9:58 am
“Here. I don’t need it. You can have it.”
Yuri was more than willing to let Eion borrow his coat. Anything to get it away from him. It’s warmth was too much for him right now.
Had the weather changed? Why was he so hot all of a sudden?
He looked down to his drink again. He was burning up and yet his companion was freezing. What’s in these drinks?
A nice hot flash went over him before he could contemplate its source. His face flushed bright red. For a moment, he thought he was going to faint right there at the bar.
Eion nodded his thanks, took the coat, slipped his arms into it and buttoned it about himself with no objections. Felt the heat roll in at fever pitch, but it hadn't penetrated deep enough to warm him up properly. Eion knew he'd have to quit sitting around and get his heart rate up if he expected to warm himself — assuming it wasn't a magical chill.
Still, around all this mundanity — he had to second guess that notion.
After a shiver passed through him, Eion downed the rest of his drink. Felt another chill then, followed by another sneeze full of snowflakes. More than a few this time, and he figured the drink had something to do with it.
And if Yuri was too hot… He was sure they could even each other out. Eion surveyed the boy from where he sat, coal eyes taking in a boy that was ready to jump out of his clothes and lay in the snow outside.
"Come on. Get you outside." Eion stood, and the bar stool groaned to the side. He reached for Yuri's arm, thinking nothing of it. The boy was blessedly hot to the touch, and he wondered if —
Pushing the thought away, he added, "Carry you if you need it."
meighei
Posted: Tue Jan 11, 2022 9:22 am
Yuri let Eion take the coat and put it on himself. How was he not burning up too?
And he was sneezing… snowflakes? Yuri was sure he saw the small shapes of snow this time. He blinked half expecting to start shedding snowflakes himself.
He let Eion take him by the arm.
“Outside. Yes. Good thinking.”
Before leaving the bar, he grabbed a whole stack of napkins. Just in case Eion needed them.
He'd been used to the outside chill biting him to the bone; being outside now, while sneezing snowflakes, wasn't any different in its intolerability. He hated it both times; he felt chilled to the core both times. After bringing Yuri outside, it felt somehow easier to deal with his perpetual chill.
"Could go back to your place," he offered in the wake of an icy gust. Feeling about, Eion found the furry linings of a hood that he pulled up over his hair. "Even each other out."
Eion hadn't pinned his hopes on it. He knew he lacked Waru's way with people, that he hadn't understood the first and most basic tenets about how to flirt with someone or make them feel wanted. He couldn't convey that in his body language, because he was still adjusting to the body language that made sense to people rather than youma. But he could hope, he supposed.
At worst, he could walk the kid home so he didn't pass out from fever.
meighei
Posted: Tue Jan 18, 2022 4:59 pm
Feeling the cold, fresh outdoor air made Yuri a little less dizzy. He’d been burning up and now, well, he was still rather hot, but at least he wasn’t going to faint now. He looked at Eion with his coat and remembered how not hot he should be in the snow.
“Sure. I’d… appreciate it.” He stumbled over his words again. Maybe he did need help getting home…
Eion couldn't stop smiling a margin at the agreement. He seldom smiled much anymore, and the strangeness of it pulling at the corners of his mouth and cheeks drew his attention to it. Better, then, that he took up Yuri's arm to help him along in case of fainting.
Felt even stranger, being that close to someone. Felt his body go rigid with the expectation that he would scorch the boy, even if that wasn't the right body for it. The instinct burrowed deep; Eion was glad that the tension was obscured by Yuri's coat.
It wouldn't be long, he supposed, if Yuri had walked. He'd shivered again, glad for the heat radiating off of the boy.
Whatever happened to them, it had to be magic. Eion wasn't complaining; magic had gotten them talking to one another, and magic had Eion bringing Yuri back to his home. Better yet if they could make some magic of their own.
