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 Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 12:22 am
Typically, Kaifeng didn’t think of himself as somebody who kept overly busy? He had a lot of things that he enjoyed doing, yes. As Kaifeng, he had patrols to do, and people to protect, and a Wonder to look after. As Líanlí, he had projects to work on. Especially for his Youtube channel, he’d been hard at work lately, making sure that he would have all of his October videos ready—gotta make the most out of that Halloween AdSense money!—as well as preparing a special video to drop on September 13th.
No, technically speaking, it wasn’t a big deal holiday or anything? Not so far as Kaifeng was aware. But it was the tenth anniversary of Hozier releasing “Take Me To Church,” and that was the sort of thing that Líanlí felt compelled to commemorate. Even putting aside how well cover songs tended to do in the algorithms (getting attention by using the name of someone more famous and all that), he just really liked that song. He wanted to do something special for its birthday.
On top of that, Kaifeng liked people. He liked meeting them and being around them, but he wasn’t always the best at remembering to do things that he wanted to do for/with them. Or remembering that he had things to give them. But tonight, as Kaifeng passed by a liquor store near one of the fine parks in Destiny City, he remembered something that he’d carried around in his subspace for………a while, kinda? The memory compelled him to pull out his pad of Hello Kitty stationery and write a note to a particular senshi that he hadn’t seen in a little bit.
 Quote: Hey, Fang! How’s it going? Also, are you free to meet up, maybe? It’s okay if you’re not or like you’re busy tonight or if you just don’t want to? But I found a cool thing up on my Wonder and it made me think of you and I wanted to share/gift it to you!
I’m gonna be in the park where we fought the spider-youma tonight, if you want to meet up. If not, I’ll see you some other time! [smiley face]
emotion_bigheart , Kaifeng of Saturn!
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 12:46 am
Fang startled when the letter appeared to him, though he thought he should have gotten used to this by now. He took it, opening the stationary with... some kind of (goth?) kitty on it, which made him make a face. Reading still took some effort, so it was a few minutes before he was able to decipher it fully, and then to recall who Kaifeng was. Well... He shrugged. It wasn't as though he was doing anything else—patrol was proving boring today anyway. He made his way to the meeting spot, curiosity consuming him. After his trip to Fang with Michel, he felt a little less fragile. A little less like anything concerning who he was over a thousand years ago would shatter him to pieces. He wanted to know.
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 12:52 am
While waiting for Fang, Kaifeng didn’t see any reason not to keep up some semblance of a patrol. Maybe he didn’t feel any youma, Negaverse, or Dark Mirror auras lurking around in the park, but you could never be completely certain, given Destiny City and how much oddness went on around here……and how often that oddness tended to end up meaning that someone would be at risk of getting hurt (probably pretty badly).
When he felt the approach of a more powerful White Moon aura, Kaifeng vibrated with excitement, ready to share what he’d found. But he also tried very hard to rein that impulse back in somewhat, just in case the one who showed up was Not Fang, Actually. Fortunately for him, the senshi who soon appeared had the height, the wolfy ears (which did not actually belong to wolves, per se), and the brilliantly orange-and-red fuku. Only one person who it could’ve been, then.
“Fang, over here!” Kaifeng grinned in his direction and waved. And even though he had a bottle of liquor in his subspace, ready to be shared, he didn’t want to be rude or anything, so he first asked, “How have you been lately? Did summer treat you kindly?”
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 1:00 am
Fang's ears perked up and he twisted his torso, looking to Kaifeng in the distance—oh, so that was him that he'd felt with his aura senses a moment ago. Good. He smiled slightly, striding over to Kaifeng and bowing his head slightly. "Summer nice... mostly," he conceded, looking back up with a slight frown. "Learned things. Many things. Visited home for first time since come to Earth." He shuddered. "Still scary. But, Fang more brave now, with pack leader," he affirmed quickly. "What about Kaifeng?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 1:16 am
Smiling, Kaifeng nodded to Fang’s little story of what he’d been up to for the summer. All of it sounded fascinating, like there had to be more going on—but Fang had been sort of taciturn before, as well. Didn’t seem to like talking as much as Kaifeng did, and he seemed to have a good head on his shoulders about not revealing too many personal details about himself. (Not that it was, strictly speaking, possible for a senshi or Knight to get doxxed as far as Kaifeng knew……given the way that their glamors worked, that might have proven very difficult to pull off……but still, Fang didn’t reveal too many potentially dangerous personal facts and details, which was a very wise decision on his part.)
“Kaifeng’s been keeping pretty busy while learning my way around being a Knight,” he answered Fang’s question with an eager little bounce on the balls of his feet. “I’ve been cleaning up my Wonder when I can get up there to visit. Getting some memories from the last Kaifeng Knight when I visit, too. Learning how to fight youma better. Helping out a family member who turned out to also be a Knight. And—” His smile lit up brighter, more eagerly as he said, “I’ve been exploring around my Wonder? Which is, like I said, how I found the thing that made me think of you. So, the last Kaifeng Knight seems to have collected alcohol or something?” Really, Xingyi seemed to have had a drinking problem the size of Siberia, but Kaifeng didn’t want to depress Fang with that notion. “My Wonder has cellars with bottles from all over—a lot from Murikabushi, some from Kerberos, a lot from senshi worlds I didn’t recognize—and one of the bottles……”
Moving quickly, Kaifeng reached into his subspace for the bottle. Once he got it out, he looked to Fang’s chest and felt certain: the pawprint symbols were the same. “I can’t read anything on the label,” he said, holding the bottle out toward Fang, “and I don’t know what the grain in the picture is, but……it has your symbol on it, so? I thought that it must’ve been from your home-world……?”
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Posted: Wed Aug 30, 2023 10:54 pm
Fang nodded—getting memories seemed Important. He wasn't sure if he would get any, given just how long ago his last life was, now. It certainly wasn't something he ever thought about in his thousand years of isolation. Learning to fight better was also good! He wanted to ask about the family member that Kaifeng had, but the desire evaporated the moment Kaifeng brought out the gift. "It..." His ears fell back on his head, completely stunned as he reached for the bottle and held it ever-so-gently in his hands. "This from home." Slowly, he ran his fingers over the label, tilting his head inquisitively at the grain on the front. Something in the back of his brain tickled, some scrap of memory that was his own, a discussion between the villagers he'd overheard as (they died one by one, slowly, painfully, wishing for one last drink they'd never get—). "Fonio whiskey?" he said, ears twitching. His tail slowly swished behind him. Yes, that sounded right. "Not know name—Fang forget how to read." His face reddened with shame and he ducked his head.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 1:03 am
As Fang took the bottle and looked it over, Kaifeng watched in a mixture of curiosity and hopefulness. They hadn’t had much time together—and some of the time, over dinner, Fang had spent as Todd, concealing his natural ears and tails because so many humans were weird and prejudicial about people not fitting into their preconceived ideas of how they were supposed to look—but Kaifeng really wanted to learn his way around interpreting Fang’s different cues, the ways that his ears and tail moved, what those movements meant. If they got to be better friends, then it felt like knowing what Fang’s physical cues meant would be a Very Good Idea.
……Fang’s reaction itself, though, got Kaifeng to tilt his head bemusedly. Nodding, he said, “The last Kaifeng Knight kind of……collected alcohol? From all over the universe, I think?” And drank it. Copiously. Usually, if not always, to excess and in ways that had blatantly upset his poor husband. But Fang probably didn’t want to hear that part. Probably would’ve upset him. “I found the bottle in a cellar under his workspace, up at my Wonder.… I don’t know if you should try to drink it or not? It could be okay, but……I really don’t know how long it’s safe to store alcohol like that?”
Taking in the sight of poor Fang right now, though, Kaifeng gently asked, “……Is Fang okay?”
The answer seemed like it was probably “no,” but……still. Was only fair to let Fang decide how he felt for himself.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 12:40 pm
Fang inhaled slowly, turning the bottle over and over in his hands, eyes looking at the symbols but not comprehending. There hadn't been much chance for reading in his native language for so long, it felt more alien to him than English. Of course he wasn't okay. He felt like an alien to his own planet, to his own culture. How was he ever supposed to be the one to make his planet thrive again? He was the last Fangan perhaps to ever be. He doubted if he even fell in love with someone he could have a biological child with that they would look like him. Even if that did happen, even if the child looked Fangan down to the last tuft of fur on their tail, he would never be able to teach them enough about where they came from. He ducked his head further, shaking it. "No," he finally answered in a whisper. He'd probably never be okay. "... Fang doesn't... I do not like al-co-hol anyway," he said stiffly. "No worry about..." He took a deep breath. "Do not worry about F—me drinking something... expired." The least he could do, he figured, was at least make it sound like his Fangan parents had tried to raise him to speak correctly before everything got clouded in chaos. Do right by the life he should have lived, on his home planet.
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 11:11 pm
……Yeah. Yeah, that sounded about right, and it broke Kaifeng’s heart. He didn’t know Fang’s story, not really. What his planet was like, what had happened there, what had happened to him specifically or to his people or any of it.…… Kaifeng just didn’t know.
But even without knowing exactly what Fang was feeling aside from “Not Good”—even without knowing exactly what circumstances had brought on his current emotions—Kaifeng could admit: it made perfect sense that a reminder of Fang’s homeworld had brought up messy feelings instead of warm, pleasant nostalgia.
Both of those things had been equally likely.
Nodding slowly, Kaifeng tried to keep his voice gentle and reassuring as he told Fang, “That’s okay.… You don’t need to be okay if that’s not how you feel. However you feel, you’re allowed to feel that way.”
An affirmation that Kaifeng, as Líanlí, had heard and managed to commit to memory during all the therapy sessions that he’d treated as a form of hangout time rather than taking them seriously because, as far as he’d wanted to be concerned, therapy had only been a necessary evil to get his meds. Maybe Fang didn’t need to hear it as much as Líanlí’s old therapist had believed he’d needed to, but……who knew? Maybe Fang did need to be told that however he was feeling, he wasn’t wrong or bad or whatever for feeling however he did.
“Do you want a hug?” He offered it without expectation—and then, in case Fang maybe didn’t, Kaifeng held up his right hand, where he wore his signet ring. “Or is there someone I can message for you, maybe? Somebody who might help to have with you right now?”
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Posted: Thu Aug 31, 2023 11:18 pm
Fang breathed in deeply. What did he want? He could ask Kaifeng to message Michel... He swallowed. No, no, he'd rather be alone right now. Maybe it wasn't the best decision, but he needed some time to think. "Hug," he said, leaning and embracing Kaifeng tightly after storing the bottle in his subspace. He kept it brief. It felt nice, but still, he felt... too much. Everything was too much. "Good night, Kaifeng," he whispered.
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