Choi Jun He (sparks_flying) wrote in rrinitiative, @ 2012-10-21 01:29:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | day six, jun-he, jun-he and susanna, susanna |
high society
Characters: Jun-he and Susanna
Setting: Afternoon, Activity Room
The day had seemed to go on forever. Though Jun-he found himself rather distracted about the last couple days that had gone by. He made every effort to avoid actually going to see Mazie as planned and instead wound up feeling rather homesick after his talk with Wu. In a way it comforted him to know that he was not the only one so far away from where they had come from. A sense of familiarity, sure, but it could not take away the ache of being an alien to aliens.
Having left the music room, Jun-he wandered back over to block A, catching the end tail of the catfight in the courtyard. Since it had been properly broken up, there was no need to feel obligated in intervening himself, so he simply turned and made his way to the second level. A few hours mindlessly lost in some video games were just what he needed, having arrived to the activity room in a frazzled state with his personal confusions.
“Call of Duty?” he questioned to himself out loud, squatting down in front of the Xbox system and its wide array of games. He was sure he had owned an earlier version of it back in Korea, but this one seemed newer. It was all the same, he figured, popping it in and grabbing one of the controllers before heading back to sit on the couch in his black skinnies and matching black tank top. It was a simple day to simply wash away the more serious of things going on around him and in his own life. Everything was too complicated to deal with all the time. Even figuring out some of the words in the game seemed complicated, but they were easy to ignore and get the jist of. At least he was still good at shooting virtual people. A finer point to the day, he figured, even if small.
After leaving the clinic, Susanna wasted no time in removing the gauze and tape from the inside of her elbow, knowing that it would have stopped bleeding quickly enough to not need it and not wanting anyone to see that she’d had blood drawn. She balled it up and held it in her fist as she waited for the elevator. She stopped at the first floor to throw it away and then considered what she might do next. As much as she would have loved to go to the gym and do some exercises in her new shoes, she knew that they needed more time to properly break in. She would wait until tomorrow, no matter how difficult it was to restrain herself from what she’d wanted for so long.
Since she had spent most of the morning reading, Susanna had no desire to coop herself up in her room with her book, but that left her with little idea of what to do now. And then she remembered the paints and brushes still in her room. Perhaps she could paint another canvas. She didn’t consider herself an artist by any means, but it kept her hands occupied if nothing else, and it was very difficult to do an abstract piece wrong. So it was with that thought in mind that she went back into the elevator to head up to the activity room where she knew someone had stored a good selection of canvases.
There was someone playing a video game when she arrived, but no one else was there, and she didn’t pay the Asian much mind beyond the absent question of whether they were male or female as she crossed to where the canvases were.
Having been playing for a good while by the time the woman came into the room, Jun-he had a pretty good kill streak going on. He had managed to forget everything that was going on, and even where he was. In a way it had been the best therapy he had in years. It all came crashing down when he turned his head slightly at the sudden sight of someone out of his peripherals. “Ah, Shibal!” he swore out loud, mostly to himself, after having glanced to the side for only a split second and winding up shot right in the head in the game.
He watched the respawn timer go, but his broken concentration had him rather irritated. It wasn’t her fault he knew, but it was irritating all the same. Jun-he simply put the controller on the couch next to him and leaned back, taking a moment to himself before he looked back. Whoever she was, he had never seen before, and he wasn’t quite sure he cared to. There was already too much to think about, adding one more person to his list of troubles wasn’t really in his schedule for the day.
Even so, it might have been a little rude if she caught him glancing at her and not saying anything, so he took the initiative to get up from his spot and put the controller away, turning the Xbox off. Walking around the couch, he pulled out the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and took out a single cigarette from the beat up pack. Lighting it, he wandered around the room, trying to mindlessly pretend he was looking for something in particular, while deciding whether or not to actually say anything.
Susanna turned her head to give the person a mild look at what could only have been a curse even if it wasn’t in any language she recognized, but she didn’t give him any more attention than that, just turning her own attention back to trying to pick a canvas size. She would have been perfectly content to just ignore him, pick a canvas, and return to her room, but when he lit up, she just couldn’t keep her silence.
“Excuse me,” she began in a clipped tone. “But as a smoker myself, I feel it is in very poor form to light up in a room that is not your own, especially a common room.” She may not have been the epitome of consideration, but she’d been raised to know the proper manners.
Turning his attention from a pile of board games he had never heard of, Jun-he spun around and gave a moments stare at the woman. He couldn’t quite tell if she was serious or not, but figured that her tone surely suggested she was. The easy way out would have been to pretend he didn’t know a lick of English but that would’ve surely came back to bite him right in his ass at a later time.
“I think,” he began, furrowing his brow, “It is not very smart to say.” Though Jun-he did know more than just a lick of English, he often found himself saying things that were a little out of tune with what he meant. In that respect, he decidedly continued his words. “If no one smoked outside this door, then it would be the smart thing not to do. I don’t think it really matters when someone smokes in a public area here as the smoke is everywhere. If you were to ask me not to, then maybe I would not, but I don’t think it is...” he thought about saying very smart again, but that was definitely pushing the point, “proper to think it matters now if it is what you say, ‘poor form’.” That phrase was definitely not in his usual vocabulary, but he at least knew what it meant.
Those first words got Susanna’s back up, and she narrowed her eyes at him. Was he calling her stupid? “I do not think you understand what you are saying. You obviously do not have the clearest grasp of English. This is a public place, and the smoke does not dissipate as well as it does outdoors. It is rude to smoke in a room which other residents who do not smoke will use. Not to mention the fact that there are canvases in here, and the smoke can seep into the fibers and damage the integrity of them.” That last bit was a little bit of a stretch, but still true.
Jun-he rolled his eyes slightly. “You are right, I don’t understand your English very well,” he said curtly, definitely not in the mood to exchange words with a total bitch. Normally he was more accommodating about the requests of others, but he wasn’t about to get berated like a child by someone who couldn’t bother to actually ask him anything at all. She had simply tried to make a point of something. If she really thought her precious canvas was going to be ruined, he would request her a couple new ones for her trouble. In fact, he figured if she had that big of a problem with it, then why bother changing what he was doing at that point anyway.
He pointedly took another inhale off his cigarette with a small tug of a smile at the corner of his lips. “If it’s ruined, you can paint my walls in exchange,” he finally added. Though if he made a habit of offering up his walls for artistic work, he might run out of space fast. He didn’t expect her to take the offer anyhow, and he had said it mostly to get down her spine more.
Although he didn’t at all feel bad about their abrasive exchange of words, Jun-he still felt slightly uncomfortable. He was not at all apt at trying to get on people’s nerves but... she definitely started that downward spiral. He made a funny face at the awkward feeling of their exchange, and then turned his head slightly, unknowingly blowing the smoke directly out of her direction. A part of him just couldn’t be that rude.
Susanna merely raised a brow when he agreed that he didn’t understand English very well. That much was obvious, she really hadn’t needed his confirmation on that point. She rolled her eyes when he very blatantly took another drag off the cigarette. “No,” she replied simply. “One cigarette is not likely to damage them. But nevertheless it is rude to smoke indoors in public places. In fact, in the vast majority of this country, it is illegal. It is a small crime compared to what we are all here for, I am certain, but even so. Others might not take kindly to it, and it would be such a shame for there to be... more conflict here,” she said under the guise of friendly advice.
Jun-he scratched his head slightly in frustration, the black strands falling slightly into his face. He ran his hand through it to correct it while thinking. That not speaking English thing was sounding like a much better cover, but it was too late for that. “Do they write laws in your country to talk like a stuck up ass instead of asking someone with manners?” he spat out, clearly more frustrated than he realized. There was a slight elevation in his accent as he spoke, and trying to shake it off, he stretched his neck a tad. “I could have left if you asked, or put it out,” he added, “Instead you seem crazy.”
Crazy was a much lighter term where he was from. Perhaps not the best choice of words considering how high she was on her horse. Stuck up ass was clearly not the way to go either.
Susanna’s expression turned dark at that, and she stood up straighter, but stopped herself from closing the distance between them. She would not allow herself to get into an altercation. Her freedom was too important for that, but God help him if he didn’t shut his fucking mouth. “Crazy? Interesting choice of word. I am not crazy, and it is not for me to ask you to leave or to put the cigarette out. This place allows us some level of freedom of choice. I was merely pointing out that to smoke in a public room is rude. It is up to you whether or not to respect the social consideration of not doing so,” she pointed out, though she doubted he would understand what she was saying. He didn’t seem very smart.
He would definitely need to ash that smoke soon, and Jun-he was well aware of the repercussions if he let it fall to the ground. Opening his pack, he used the lid end of it to ash in and then sighed slightly. He paused, second guessing his next puff, and then dragged it along the lid to put it out without burning through. It took careful attention, and once it was out he put the half back into the pack, tossing it at her feet. “I’d rather hear nothing than more of your bullshit,” he said before turning around to leave the damn room entirely. If there was ever a time he felt like quitting, it was right then and there. Though he definitely wasn’t going to, but for the moment he’d rather not think about smoking or her at all.
Susanna scoffed softly when he threw the cigarettes at her feet, though she said nothing at his parting words or when he turned around to leave. Really, to get so out of sorts over her pointing out that it was rude to smoke indoors in a public place was just ridiculous. She hadn’t even been a bitch about it. She could have been, but she’d been very calm and level about the whole thing. Foreigners. Ugh, they really were ruining this country.
She turned back to pick a canvas, not willing to let this meeting deter her from her goal. She picked one that was much smaller than the one she’d done the other day, but it wasn’t tiny, either. And as she turned to leave again, she noticed the abandoned pack of cigarettes. It was her instinct to just leave them there. They weren’t her problem. But those in charge were watching, and if it might make her look any better, then she would pick them up and throw them away. With that thought in mind, she did just that, holding onto them until the elevator took her down to the cafeteria, dropping them in the garbage chute before continuing on to her room.