ArchivedLogs:WeirdClumsyHyper

WeirdClumsyHyper
Dramatis Personae Ororo, Shane, Yuehai	2016-03-02 "Language!"
Location <NYC> The Bazaar - Queens
This was once a Flushing office building that rented to startups, rapid growth industries, and fly-by-night operations who don't want any questions asked. Since the first zombie outbreak, it has lain largely empty, and as of late it has been converted into an immense indoor marketplace. The lobbies are packed with food vendors and the hallways lined with kiosks selling a dizzying variety of goods, flea-market fashion. Various offices are given over to groups of merchants selling similar wares: one dedicated to books, another to computer components, and a rather popular one selling (perfectly legal) weapons...at least during the day. Rumor has it that the Bazaar's night market is becoming the go-to place for trade in illicit goods. But night or day, the place is bustling with activity, noisy and raucous commerce in many languages (though predominantly Mandarin and Spanish). Chances are, you can find anything your heart desires here...if you're willing to pay the price. The sun has set, if only recently. The marketplace is bustling down here -- far moreso now than it was even a short while ago, now that more people have gotten off work for the day. On the ground floor the many different shops and stalls of groceries throng with noise and people. Shane is just wandering out of a smaller store (specializing in Vietnamese goods), a semi-laden shopping bag draped over his shoulder. He's dressed casually -- jeans, button down, sweater over that; the MUTANT MONGRELS MC leather kutte he wears over the sweater is pretty unnecessary identification, really: people are doing a good enough job of staring at the blue skin and clawed hands and inhuman features with or without the branding. He doesn't wander very /far/ from the store he's exited, stopping outside a small food cart in the hallway, one hand tucked into his pocket and the other fidgeting with the strap of his bag. If the owner is put off by his appearance it doesn't much show, anyway -- she greets the tiny sharkpup with ready familiarity in quick Vietnamese: "{Still alone, huh? When are we going to see your sister back here? What's it going to be today?}" It draws a (very sharptoothed) smile out of Shane, head just shaking. "{Probably when school stops eating her alive. Spence, though, he won't be able to stay away from your bột chiên for long. Umm. Three orders of bánh cuốn and a limeade? Please.}" Yuehai is making her slow way down the crowded wallway, shuffling awkwardly along and clearly not skilled in this type of navigation. Her black hair is bound up in a messy knot at the back of her head and she has a pair of black-rimmed cateye glasses perched low enough on her nose that she's mostly peering over rather than through them. She's wearing a light brown duffle coat unbuttoned over a forest green v-neck shirt, tight blue jeans with abstract fluid patterns in tiny silver studs, and tall brown boots with chunky heels. She carries a pale purple nylon grocery bag covered with happy cartoon rats doing mundane everyday human tasks (cooking, reading, bicycling) much more cutely than most humans can manage. She periodically sips from a tall paper cup, her face quirking pensively with each sip. The sight of a kiosk selling scallion pancakes draws her eyes and she veers toward it with a squeak of delight, clipping a muscular Latino at the shoulder as she does so. /He/ hardly budges, but she loses her balance and, with a startled yip, topples over toward Shane, a cascade of ramen spilling from her bag and a splash of oolong tea from her cup. Shane is just starting to get his wallet out of his pocket when there is Person toppling towards him. He sidesteps with a /hiss/, claws lengthening and sharp teeth baring. His gills flutter as hot tea splashes out over his arm, the hiss deepening into a sharper snarl. "{You fucking /mind/?}" is in sharp and somewhat stilted Mandarin, even as he is crouching to start gathering the fallen Ramen. Yuehai hits the grimy floor of the hallway -- knees, side, then shoulder. The impact interrupts the (English!) apology that she had barely begun to voice, turning it into a yelp of pain. Her glasses go clattering and the rest of the tea ends up on the floor. The crowds part slightly around them, one or two pairs of eyes straying to her with curiosity or concern (many more straying to /him/ with accusation or suspicion). "{Sorry sorry sorry!} she mutters in rapid-fire Mandarin as she pushes herself up onto her knees, wincing. Her eyes pop open wide when she actually gets a good look at Shane -- her hands still groping around for her glasses. "{Oh! I -- sorry -- don't I know you?}" Squints, finally shoving the glasses back onto her face. "{No, wait maybe I don't -- sorry. Not that you would know /me/ even if I knew you you, which I might not. Thank you!}" This last is probably in reference to the ramen he is picking up. Ororo squeezes her way through the crowds, carrying several cloth bags filled with goods from various stalls. Someone's spent quite a bit of money. She wears jeans, with an oversized beige sweater, and brown leather boots, her strikingly white hair braided and draped over one shoulder. She, too, seems to have developed a craving for Vietnamese food and she begins to head towards the stall, just in time to see the collision and spilled ramen. Shane's outburst gets a quickly raised brow. "Language!" she states firmly in warning to her former student. She then glances toward the girl, setting her bags down before kneeling to assist in the picking up of the ramen. "Are you alright?" she asks, glancing over the girl briefly for any obvious signs of injury. Judging by her lack of reaction to the girl's words, there's a very good chance she doesn't understand Mandarin. Shane turns his snarl on some of the accusatory looks he gets from passersby, baring his sharp teeth at /them/ rather fiercely -- and then turns it just as equally on Ororo at her word of warning. "/Excuse/ you? You think you're my fucking teacher or something with that attitude?" He collects the ramen into a neat stack, holding it back out to Yuehai, his gills fluttering faster still. "{I don't think I know you.}" Though this is kind of noncommittal. A shrug of one shoulder. He holds out a hand -- his sharp claws are retracting down to smaller tips, fingers -- well, they probably /should/ be webbed, but the webbing between them looks cut and raw, hanging loose between the fingers where it's been slit apart. "Shane. {Sorry} about your tea." To Ororo, as he picks up his wallet again to pay for his now-ready food: "You here looking for something in particular? S'mad busy today." Yuehai scoots back hastily from Shane when he snarls, even though it's quite obviously not directed at /her/. At Ororo's question she nods jerkily, pushing a few stray hairs back from her face. "I fall a lot, I get good at it," her English, when she replies, carries a heavy Mandarin accent. Then, to Shane, "{Sorry! I just -- you look like someone I work with. Kind of.} I mean, we work in the same building -- {sorry.}" She accepts the ramen back from both of the people helping her, shoving the Chinese-labelled packets back into her tote. "Oh, the tea was not very good, it was not much loss." She shakes her head, looking faintly disgusted as she picks up the empty cup. "Thank you, both." She stares at Shane's hand for a moment -- hard to say whether she's more disturbed by the claws or the torn webbing -- before shaking it, kind of weakly. "My name is Lin Yuehai." Ororo passes off the ramen she picked up to Yuehai, rising back up with a warm smile. "Well, I hope you'll be careful then," she offers the woman, before turning to Shane with a very...not-amused look. "Once my student, always my student," she says, before picking up her bags again. At his question, she smiles faintly again, carefully hefting her bags up a couple inches. "Mostly browsing. Stopped by the bookseller. I really shouldn't do that." She suddenly turns towards the other woman, with the look of something remembered, setting the bags in her right hand down again. "Oh, I'm so sorry, forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. Ororo Munroe. Pleasure to meet you...Lin, you said?" Shane gives the food-vendor a quick smile, bright, thanking her warmly in Vietnamese, but the look he shoots Ororo back once he turns is every bit as not amused. "Yeah, apologies if I'm -- actually /never/ in the mood for patronizing bullshit. I didn't need anyone policing my goddamn language when I /was/ a student, I sure as fuck don't need it when I'm an adult. If I needed parenting while shopping I'd've brought my -- oh, no, wait, my dad actually fucking respects me." He meanders a little bit away from the stall to free up space in front of it, dipping his rolled cake into a small tub of sauce. "Yuehai?" His brows knit together. "No, don't think I know you. I heard there's a /hella/ good tea place on the other side of the court, though. {All the way at the end on the left.} They used to have a place in Greenwich but zombies --" Shrug. "Books, fff, I gotta stop there too." Yuehai takes her glasses off and wipes them on the hem of her shirt before replacing them. "Oh, I am -- careful?" Though she sounds uncertain. "I try, yes." Her eyes bounce back and forth between Shane and Ororo, following their exchange like a dog at a tennis game. She stuffs the rest of the ramen back into her tote and ducks her head in a quick bow. "Thank you! Lin -- is my family name. Yuehai is my uh...name. {Yue as in music, hai as in ocean.}" This kind of distractedly, reflexively, as her eyes track in the direction Shane indicates with keen interest. "I must to try that, then." She shoulders the tote and shakes Ororo's hand as well, her grip weak and awkward. "Oh yes, there is also -- whole floor of books. Upstairs." At Shane's continued commentary, Ororo momentarily closes her eyes, taking in a long, deep breath, before exhaling through her mouth slowly. She then opens her eyes and nods gently. "You are absolutely right, Shane. You are an adult and may speak however you choose. Forgive me, I have a habit of continuing to see my former students as, well, my students." As Yuehai clarifies her name, Ororo 'ah's softly and smiles apologetically. "Yes, sorry, I should have known. Yuehai then." She picks up her bags once more, nodding along at Shane's description. "Fantastic tea. Well, I don't want to keep either of you from you shopping. Yuehai, pleasure meeting you. Shane...good to see you again." She gives both a polite nod before turning and making her way through the crowd once more. "Thank you." Shane relaxes, his gills pressing flat against his side after Ororo's apology and his shoulders easing from the tension that had been creeping into them. At least for a moment -- a brief thread of tension creeps back /into/ his posture as Ororo heads away, though he only dips his head in a nod, clear inner eyelids closing as he looks down at his food with a slow exhale. "Bye." Kind of quiet, a little heavy. "Lehai?" Tentatively, his lips curl back into a crooked smile. Yuehai's brown eyes are wide and nervous, but she relaxes by degrees when the apology is given an accepted. "Pleasure to meet you, yes. Have a great day." She gives a fluttery little wave as Ororo departs. Tilts her head at Shane, though, and smiles brightly. "{So many people read it that way that it has become a nickname, yes. But I do not mind!}" For the first time since she took the spill, she actually stands up straight. "{Music /is/ happiness, basically.}" "{Music is happiness.}" This agreement comes quick and easily, following a sip of limeade. "{Music is happiness and the ocean is happiness and the ocean is music so it all,}" Shane thinks for a moment, "{flows.} Do you play? Music." Yuehai bounces up onto her toes -- wobbles there for a moment before settling back down. "{Yes, yes!}" She nods...way too many times. "{I play the cello. You -- you play, too?}" "{Yeah.}" Shane dips his roll into his nước chấm again, taking another bite off the end. He offers the container out towards Yuehai with a lift of his brows, more rolls tucked into the plastic tub. "{Violin, I mean. Not the ocean. Sorry, am I keeping you? I not know what you were --}" He gestures around the marketplace. "Looking for." "{Oh! Thank you.}" Yuehai bobs her head gratefully and plucks out a roll for herself, dipping it into the sauce. "{That is delightful! Especially to think of playing the ocean. Which, with the right resonance and a very large amplifier would be...probably disasterous, actually, until you learned to do it right...}" Her brows knit pensively as she munches on the roll. At Shane's question she briefly looks perplexed. Looks down at her bag of ramen. Then looks back up at the scallion pancake stand. Kind of flails in its general direction as she finishes chewing. "{I was just browsing, really. Then I saw the scallion pancakes and...that's why I ran into you. Sorry.}" "I've known a couple people who could play the ocean. {Or small parts of it.} Probably not all at once, that would take some energy. {Though I did meet a person once...}" Shane looks briefly thoughtful, before just shaking his head. "-- {You correct though even if they learn /how/ to play all the ocean. Cause so much damage I can't even imagine.}" He glances over towards the pancake stand with a nod. "C'mon. You never did get those pancakes." Yuehai's eyes go very, very wide. "{Wait, /really/? That's amazing! I mean, not in /principle/, but in practice...}" She continues a sort of faint, barey noticeable bouncing on her feet even when she breaks off to finish her roll, her whole person sort of /vibrating/ as if compelled by some resonance of her own. "{Oh, the night market in Danshui had the /best/ scallion pancakes -- I'm from Taiwan -- I hope these are even half as good. Yes, yes!}" She half-bounces, half-walks toward the kiosk in question, somewhat more carefully than her first attempt to reach it, at least. "Oh, sweet, you're from fake Asia too." Shane trails after Yuehai considerably more sedately, weaving neatly around the other shoppers in the hall. "{Do you know you're} -- vibrating? Is that normal? Do you need more tea?" "Fake Asia? Fake?" Yuehai twists around to look at Shane and -- does not to crash into anyone. She does trip over...nothing visible, actually, but manages not to fall this time. "{Oh! It is because Taiwan is not a real country? Where are you from?}" She stops by the kiosk and bounces up and down in place. "{Two, please?}" she asks the woman selling scallion pancakes. "{Thank you!}" Then, cocking her head at Shane, "{Vibrating? Oh! Sorry, it happens when I get excited. But I /always/ need more tea.}" "{No, is because Americans do not know there is any country in Asia outside of Japan and China and Korea.} I'm Vietnamese." Shane sips at his limeaid, holding it in the crook of his arm so that he can start in on another rice cake. "Scallion pancakes /are/ pretty exciting. {Maybe want to come look with me after? At tea. I need to see if it is as good as I've heard.} I'm going to need some new suppliers for my shop." "Oh..." Yuehai nods as she digs a wallet (black, with a big-eyed red panda stretched across the outside) from the pocket of her jeans and hands the vendor a five. "{Many Americans think I mean Thailand when I say Taiwan. But then...I'm not too clear on the difference between Mississippi and Missouri, so it is fair, I guess. Thank you!}" This last to the vendor as she hands over the scallion pancakes wrapped in wax paper. She offers one of the packets to Shane. "{Sure! I grew up on a tea plantation and I'm very, uh...picky.}" Her head ducks again, then perks up. "{You run a tea house?}" "{You are very -- What was that word?}" Shane takes the scallion pancake, bobs his head in thanks. He tears off only half of it, returning the rest to Yuehai. "{No. A cafe. Food. Coffee. Tea.} Ice cream? I don't know that word. But right now it's closed. Kind of got a little fucked with the zombies. {I am working towards opening again.} But I always tried to source local so half my suppliers -- {also gone.}" SHRUG. "So --" He gestures kind of -- vaguely /around/ the large marketplace. "{I am working. On rebuilding. One step at a time, right?}" As he starts to head away from the stand and back down the hall. "{Weird? Clumsy? Hyper?}" Yuehai ticks these off on her fingers quickly. "{Or...picky? If your cafe has good tea I will /live/ there. Not --}" she adds hastily, "{-- literally or anything. I mean that I would go there frequently.}" She blows on the half of a scallion pancake that Shane haded back. /Licks/ an edge experimentally, but it's still quite hot. "{So many businesses, I think, are not going to come back from all of that. It must be very difficult, the rebuilding.} The jittery energy in her movement calms somewhat as she falls into step with Shane. "{I hope you are able to reopen soon.}" "{Picky,}" Shane repeats. "{What do that one mean? And my cafe, it have good tea. I think. I have --}" He hesitates, nose wrinkling before he just lapses into English: "Advisors! For tea picking. Who know it better than me. Well, only one advisor right now, the other --" There's a brief flutter of his gills, a small shrug. "{Soon, maybe. Maybe soon.} In the meantime you'll just have to find tea fix elsewhere. There's still good places around Chinatown!" "Oh! {It means I am...kind of a snob.} In English, um...picky? Choosy?" Yuehai blushes slightly. "{Advisor,}" she fills in, nodding. "{That is always a good idea! If you need another one, I will gladly offer critique in exchange for tea.}" Her eyes stray to Shane's gills when they flutter -- perhaps she hadn't really noticed them before. "{I have a few places I like near where my cousins live, in Manhattan, but I can never have enough places to drink tea, so...}" Her smile is guileless and hopeful, "...good luck." "What part of Manhattan? My cafe is in the Lower East Side. {And if you know good tea?}" Shane eyes Yuehai critically. "{I could use the help.}"