savetheearth | Action

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Action

Who: Kenji and OPEN
What: It's getting harder and harder to dodge that elephant--but he's giving it his best shot!
Where: On the pier at the beach
When: Saturday, June 22

Over the past week since the debacle in the mines, Kenji had avoided logging onto the network, for the most part. The few times he had looked in, most of the posts had been about what had happened down there, and...he didn't really want to think about that. Didn't want to think about it, didn't want to hear about it, and he sure as hell didn't want to talk about it. So aside from a few comments on posts dealing with safely innocuous matters, he'd dealt with the problem mostly by not dealing with it. So far, it had worked pretty well.

The damned jacket, though...that was a problem. It seemed to confirm everything about those bogus "memories" that he was trying to deny. And it was a determined bastard, too. In the week since it had suddenly appeared while he and Tadashi had been stuck in the mine, he'd tried throwing it away, donating it to Goodwill, and tossing it in a dumpster on the other side of town from where he lived. Each time, he'd found the damned thing draped over the back of the chair in his room the next morning--and if it was possible for a jacket to look smug, that one did.

So. Yeah. That son of a bitch had to go.

After it had made its way back to him from across town, Kenji had taken the jacket and tied it around his old bowling ball--his family hadn't gone bowling together since moving to Locke City anyway, and if the 'rents suddenly decided a family outing was in order, he'd just say that it had gotten lost in the move or something. Whatever. This was more important than bowling. Once he had the jacket weighted, he'd stuffed the whole thing into a spare duffel bag--another casualty of the move, if anyone asked--and had carried everything out to the pier. With any luck, this would get rid of the damned thing once and for all.

Standing at the end of the pier, he held the bag out over the side and dropped it into the water. A faint splash, and the bag containing the demon jacket hit the surface and quickly began to sink. A faint smile played about his lips as he watched the bag sink into the murky depths, presumably on its way to an extended stay in Davy Jones' Locker.

"Yeah...let's see you get outta that, Houdini."

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"Yeah, man, mission accomplished--and sure, I'm always up for food and surf talk." Kenji offered Ciel a broad--and somewhat relieved--grin as they turned to head back down to the beach. Now that the troublesome jacket had been safely disposed of--he hoped--he could definitely use some R&R, and the fact that Ciel was almost a total stranger was only a plus as far as he was concerned.

"So, which place do you wanna hit?"

Ciel had seen a lot of grins coming from a lot of people. And that hint of relief only confirmed to him that there was something in that bag that his new friend was trying to get rid of. Now what it could be, that was all up in the air. But for now, he'd roll things at face value and try to get away from his fascination with the network and all the stuff that'd been going on with it lately.

So he makes a gesture down the boardwalk, "There's a couple places I like down this way. One of 'em has a more island-y type menu; so you'd see stuff like teriyaki burgers and sliders there. The other one's a quarter mile past that; more gourmet. One of those fancy stands where if you ask for the works, they'll probably give you portobello mushrooms and the cheese 'd be something you can't pronounce... but it's good shit."

"Huh. Don't think I've tried either of those places, yet."

In Kenji's world, food ran a close second only to surfing among his favorite things--and he'd rarely met a food he didn't like. Upon being presented with the two alternatives, he pondered them both, giving each its due consideration, and finally shrugged. "I ain't picky, so I'm good with anything except liver and shit with tentacles. So whichever one you're in the mood for, I guess?"

"Sounds like a teriyaki burger day then." He remarks casually, making a gesture for Keiji to follow along with. "Definitely hear you on that though. Liver's got a texture that's really hard to make palatable unless you dredge it in flour or batter and deep-fry it. Comes out kinda slimy otherwise. So it's a pain in the ass to cook. Tentacle 'd stuff though; easier to deal with. The Italians and the Japanese made a fine art outta making squid and octopus edible years back."

The part of Ciel that's actually trying to be half-way considerate as the pair walks down the boardwalk doesn't take long to realize that he's probably going into details no one gives a damn about. Figuring that there's going to be an odd question coming his way fairly soon, he decides to try heading it off at the pass.

"Don't mind the ramble there. I've been working on culinary degree, so ya leave me on the subject of food too long and I'll probably ramble about types of food or ways to cook it that'd bore you half to death."

"Sounds good to me," he replied, falling into step beside Ciel. As they walked, he nodded agreeably in response to his companion's culinary rambling, although privately he disagreed. As it was a matter of taste, however, he didn't really consider the point worth arguing.

He didn't mind the rambling, though, and waved the apology away with a good-natured chuckle. "No worries, man, ramble all you want. I dunno much about cooking, but I'm a big fan of food in general."

Odds would be that Kenji may well regret giving Ciel the go-ahead like that as he spends most of the ten-minute walk describing how to basically take any grade of hamburger and make it taste on par with a lot of the fancier burger joints; the kind of place where a good one would run about twelve and some change.

"So ya see, it's all about seasoning and grilling it right to seal the juices in." It's about in the middle of that remark that the scent of sizzling beef fills the air and Ciel glances at the stand his feet have stopped before, "Oh and we're here. You can order first. Figure we'll talk more once we're ordered and waiting for 'em to grill everything up."

Kenji didn't really regret giving Ciel permission to ramble about cooking, although given that he was almost as much of a disaster in the kitchen as he was behind the wheel, most of what his companion said sailed right over his head. Mostly, he confined himself to smiling and nodding in the appropriate places.

After perusing the menu for a few moments, he decided to go with the classics and ordered a teriyaki burger all the way with fries and a soda. Taking his drink and the number they gave him, he headed off to find a table, eventually finding and laying claim to one on the patio. Once Ciel joined him, he took a sip of his drink and nodded toward the beach.

"Man...I'm glad summer finally decided to show up. Don't think I'll ever get used to the beach only being a seasonal thing."

It doesn't take too long for Ciel to place his order. Today had been one of those days where of all the people; he'd forgotten to eat earlier and at the moment, seemed intent on making up for it. So he got the teriyaki burger with an extra pineapple ring and then upgraded his fries to chili cheese fries.

Appreciably, no sooner than did he rejoin Kenji at the table than did their conversation resume. While he was enjoying some decent company, some part of him was still wondering what had been up with that bag that'd been dropped earlier. More over, it left him wondering just how many people around him these days were the people on the other side of the numbers he saw when on the network.

"Oh? You from a place with better weather than this weird little berg here?" He inquired casually.

Now that the bothersome jacket had been disposed of (he hoped), Kenji was doing his best to just forget about the network for the time being. Of course, he knew it would be only a temporary respite, at best, that eventually he'd have to go back, but for now he was happy to just continue ignoring the problem.

"Yeah," he replied with a nod. "I'm from California. Seal Beach. Not exactly the most jumpin' joint--but the surf's almost always good."

"Huh..." Ciel remarks casually, pausing and setting his burger down for a moment his hand could scratch his chin a little bit in thought. It takes about a moment, but it doesn't take long before a connection forms in his head and the blonde speaks up again.

"That's not far from Los Angeles, is it? I've been to LA a couple of times to attend the X-Games -kinda a mecca that I'm aiming to get into as a challenger one of these days."

"Yeah, it's in west OC, just across the line from LA."

Taking a sip of his drink, Kenji nodded. "Good luck, man--that's some pretty stiff competition. Just getting in at all means you're pretty damn good." Taking another bite of his burger, he chewed thoughtfully for a moment before asking, "You done much competing?"

"Not too much." Ciel's remark is paused by a bite of his burger and a sip of his drink, "I only started a few years back, so been trying to get a feel for things with the local scene and work my way up. I'm supposed to be getting an invite to a regional gig sometime soon, but there's been no sign of the invitation in the mail."

His look turns contemplative as he takes another bite, chewing both on his food and a thought for a moment before speaking up again, "So how'd you end up out here? I mean, seems kinda like a downgrade from where you were."

Kenji snorted a wry laugh. "Yeah, well, that wasn't exactly my idea. My dad got transferred out here about six or seven months ago--he's an engineer--so I didn't have a whole lot of choice." Shrugging, he took another sip of his drink before continuing. "I wouldn't say it's a downgrade, exactly--I mean, cold-ass winters aside, it's not that bad here, or anything, it's just not home, y'know?"

Actually, for reasons that had nothing at all to do with the climate, it was pretty bad--and getting worse by the week. But before that train of thought could take root and ruin what was turning out to be a rather pleasant afternoon, he glanced over at his companion, "So what about you, man? You from here, or are you a transplant, too?"

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Sorry for the delay, bro. Was off at con.

No problem! I've been pretty busy this week too

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