Description: A new Chinese restaurant opens in Southtown, and a local student signs up to work there after school. Perfectly ordinary. Nothing to see here. Except the old man who owns this restaurant is...somewhat more than he seems. And the girl seeking a job? She knows that. She knows that well.
Southtown is a city of many faces. The dismal urban sprawl of the Gedo industrial area, the gleaming ultramodern spires of the business district, the hip and trendy waterfront...
...then there's Chinatown.
In some cities, Chinatown's a gentrified tourist area, nicely cleaned up for commercial shopping and such. But in a city like Southtown, not so far removed from its port roots, and not so far from mainland China itself...it's more like a chunk of the busiest parts of Hong Kong's old city, or a dusty slice of bustling Suzhou.
Noisy, too.
Especially this afternoon, where, above the sound of the pedestrian traffic, there's also the loud sound of an angry old man - one who's mastered the feat of making himself heard without resorting to something as undignified as an actual /shout/.
No. He's just loud.
"YOU BIG FOOL," he spits, pointing one wizened finger, "THAT side up! THAT side up!"
The workmen beside the parked truck grimace, and hurridly move to comply, groaning as they shift the big cooking stove as it comes off the loading ramp...all under the watchful eye of a frowning figure dressed in a deep purple changshan. He isn't tall, isn't big, really isn't that remarkable at all, with his stooped shoulders and wispy beard.
But those big workers in grimy coveralls and rolled-up sleeves over their muscular arms...look terrified.
Ah, Chinatown. In some ways, it's Shurui's birthplace, a colorful part of Southtown filled to the brim with a melting pot of expatrities, immigrants, confused tourists, and, because of those very tourists.... thieves. Thieves like her, once upon a time ago, before she tried to rob from the wrong store. The thing is- Shurui wasn't a *bad* thief. She just... was really horrible if she worked by herself. For obvious reasons.
Now that doesn't matter. There's no need to steal. Not win you haggle like an elderly Chinese man. "No, no! How can you quote a price like that on cabbage like this? If I wanted to, I could've gone to the dumpster behind the supermarket downtown and gotten cabbage much fresher than this. Really, is this how you gain business? You need to make room for fresher stock, not hoard old vegetables!" She quotes a price. It's a dance, and it can only end when both dancer and dancee are satisfied enough to part ways. Cabbages, beans, onions. She points, and the haggling begins anew. In the end, the vegetables become hers, and she carries them back in a large paper bag, nearly obscuring her view. Could've gotten it cheaper, yes, but does she want to be blacklisted throughout the markets here?
The street runs thick with traffic as Shurui carries her quarry, walking casually past the angry old Chinese man, moving to the side to accomodate the first man lifting the stove.
.... Unfortunately, the man isn't paying as much attention to the short girl who is attempting to slip by; he's too busy thinking about things like heavy stoves, angry Chinese men, and reminding himself of how much he'll be paid for this. The stove slips, he moves to accomodate it in a rapid motion. Despite the girl already registering this disaster in motion, she's bumped, a couple of vegetables spilling onto the ground below. The man contributes to try to move in accordance with his partner's shakey movement, resulting in his foot smashing into a small cabbage with a wet squish.
..... A few seconds later, when all is said and done, one workman is on the street, having slipped on the cabbage, one is still holding onto the other side, completely shocked, and...... well, let's just say the girl has her priorities screwed up and is underneath the stove, grunting as she shakily supports it. "FUCKING HELL THIS IS HEAVY FUCK!"
Thank god the other guy had the wits to take the other end, or the disaster would have been furthered.
Now, this is where our gallant hero swoops in and rescues the poor innocent maiden from her plight, but taking the immense weight of the stove upon his broad shoulders, gracefully saving her from the burden and a very sticky end.
Except our young maid is hardly an innocent, not with the language that's coming from her throat, or the sheer ire radiating from her small form.
And that hero business...
...is for young men.
As Shurui and the workman struggle to keep the suddenly unbalanced stove aloft and avoid a further messy turn to this accident in the making, the elderly gentleman who was, until a minute ago, supervising the proceedings...takes a deep breath, and breathes a sigh. Shaking his head in disgust and dismay, he steps forward, his slippered feet gliding over the sidewalk. With deft grace, the old man bends over, slips his thin hands beneath the big black bulk of the stove, now trembling in the air...
...and withdraws a moment later, bearing the open paper bag of vegetables Shurui dropped. Ignoring the struggle going on with the stove, he instead peers inside Shurui's shopping bag, looking critically at the contents.
Raising his voice above the suddenly frantic and shocked crowd, Gen declares:
"Hmph. Young lady, you obviously have no idea how to select proper kailan. And your choice of beansprouts! Honestly."
To be honest, it's more the vegetables that Shurui is worried about. The guy below her struggling to get up after taking that fall? You *bet* she'll be handing this damn stove back to him. "GET UP!" she yells at the slack-jawed man, ire and malice glinting in those dark eyes of hers.
No, no heroes are needed here. And certainly not graceful elderly Chinese assassins. Just brawn, which the guy getting up has an excess of, being able to carry with his hands what Shurui could only do with her entire body. Brains? Not so much. The worker finally snaps to his wits and clasps the unoccupied end of the stove, lifting it up to a point where Shurui can slip out.
Her back cracks as she straightens, one dark eye closing as Shurui sighs. Her vegetables. Where. Are. They.
Oh. He has them. And he's examining them. The presence of elders makes Shurui immediately regret her earlier words, as 'pressed' (haha) as they were. She straightens, attempting her best to maintain a calm composure amidst the audible complaints of her back as it realigns to a vertical position. Never interrupt your elders, especially if they are scary old Chinese men. This much she learned from her father...
.... who also was a scary old Chinese man, though not of the same variety as this one.
"If I chose the best, I wouldn't have the money to pay for it," she replies matter-of-factly. "And even then, they're *still* better than the horrible produce at the markets outside of here."
One white eyebrow arches, as the elderly man lifts his head to regard the teenage girl. The old man stares straight at the youth. His eyes are white, cloudy, with the distinct milky edge of cataracts. But he seems to have absolutely no problem looking straight at the teen, matching her gaze...hidden behind the tinted lenses of her glasses.
"You think," he laughs, harshly, "that small merchants have the best produce, hm? Or the cheapest? Those /Western/ places, those so-called super-markets, often stock better, girl. If that's all you're after. And they select the vegetables for you, if you can't do your shopping right. Hmmm?"
Gen holds the bag out with one hand, swaying it in the space between him and Shurui. He shakes it, slowly, deliberately.
Meanwhile, the two workmen have finally managed to regain control of the huge stone and cast iron monstrosity that Gen considers a proper cooking range. One of them looks helplessly in the old man's direction. But by now he's all but ignoring them. Gen's hand rises in a negligent gesture, flicking his fingers in the direction of the restaurant's back entrance.
He's got more interesting matters to attend to.
It's easy to meet Shurui's gaze, especially when that very gaze seems to look just slightly *off* your own face. Is she avoiding those eyes? Is she inwardly intimidated? It could be, with how halting her speech is.
Of course, in reality, Shurui's just trying really, really hard not to be smart with the man. Asshole or not, you *don't* smart back to your elders. You can't. You just can- "I'd *like* to be able to afford nicer things, but we have to make due with what we *got*." Well, damn. Okay. Biteyourtonguebiteyourtonguebiteyourtonguebiteyourtongue
.... Granted, it's not like she *is* poor. Whip and K' made a nice amount of money. It's just that Shurui, the weirdo that she is, still feels weird buying anything with their money. Even if they're eating whatever she cooks. And, in the case of K', a *lot* of it.
The bag sways in Shurui's field of view. God, this is annoying; sure the shades help her guard against the literally colorful sights of Chinatown, but face to face it's hard only *feeling* the presence and not *seeing*. She takes the shades off her eyes, propping them against the top of her forehand, and reaches out a hand to grab at the offered bag when-
She pauses. Her eyes now become finally focused *on* the elderly man, though seeming to stare at something just beyond cheongsam and aged skin and beard. Something not physical. Something.... strong? Well, okay, something more abstract than that.
...... Holy shit.
A smile plays across the old man's face, his lips curling back. His wispy, flowing, beard sways as his facial muscles grow taut, the expression taking over his features. His arm remains extended, still proferring the crumpled bag of groceries.
Far as the people on the busy Chinatown street are concerned, there's nothing to see here. In the eyes of the passers-by that happen to still have an eye on the scene, there's just an old man in a traditional robe, smiling kindly at a girl...and returning the groceries she dropped just a moment ago, patiently waiting for her to take them back.
That's what it looks like.
But then, there's what's underneath.
There's the fact that, up close, that smile doesn't look kind at all. Not grandfatherly, not anything of the sort. No. It's something else entirely, something more primeval than paternal. And his gaze, despite the milky cataracts, seems somehow...predatory.
And then there's what lies beneath /that/, something only Shurui can see, with her special eyes.
It lasts a moment. A heartbeat, two.
Then his demeanor changes, and that edge...is gone.
"If you are satisfied with mediocrity," Gen says, pleasantly, "then that is what you are. But are you...young lady?"
Shurui's breath catches in her throat. But it isn't fear that causes this; she's faced men like Kain in SNF fights. Faced their auras. Faced their fists and feet and chi. She was cautious, calculating, ready in the idea that she might lose, but never was she solidly afraid. Not unless she knew she couldn't afford to lose.
It's shock. The idea of age sometimes not collerlating with what her third eye saw is not foreign; her adoptive father was an example of this. She's seen teenagers similarly with weak and tired auras. Gen, though....? Another category, completely.
A car passes, loudly honking at a young man on a bicycle who cut too close. Shurui recovers.
If Gen doesn't somehow retract his hand and with it, those groceries, the short girl takes those groceries back, rolling the top up. Is she mediocre? "No." She's silent a moment, then adds, "Do you think you are?" A stupid question, perhaps, considering what she's just seen.
Maybe it's just to hide the fact that she now feels he might be anything but.
The old man regards her for a second longer. He arches one white eyebrow, shifting his head so he looks at her, askew. He blinks once, quite deliberately so, opening and closing his eyes. He lets Shurui take the bag, releasing his own grip on the groceries. Once his hand parts from the paper, he raises it, and lifts one wizened finger.
He waves this in the air before Shurui, admonishingly.
"That," Gen says, "would be telling."
He smiles again.
She regards the resturant, then back towards the elderly man, his height a few inches over hers. Her hands go to her tinted glasses deliberately, pressing them back against her nose. .... She still has to look up, even if she's already excused herself from the task of making eye contact. Her eyes may not clearly see it, but the smile and the motion of the finger are telling enough of that seeming quizzical quirk of his mouth. "...." He's....
... a really interesting person, now. And not in an ironic way, either. Dangerous, perhaps, but... perhaps this could be something used to her advantage.
"I see," she replies, a faint smirk growing on the edges of her mouth. "Alright. So. I'm assuming by that oven that was carried in- you're opening a resturant here?" An odd germ of an idea forms in her head, an inspiration. Something utterly crazy.
It's simple. She needs money. Money that *doesn't* come from Whip or K'. However, she needs a job that *won't* make her end up endangering the lives of others with her presence. ..... Of course, her reading of this man's aura may be wrong; it's happened before. She could perhaps see what she can find online, however, once she recieves a name.
That if, if the first part of this plan gets beyond this one stage.
"If you keep finding mediocre people..." Shurui looks at Gen carefully. Sure, it's a question she may never follow up on; there are issues currently afoot in her life. Missing psuedo-sisters and MIA psuedo-brothers pursuing said sisters. NESTS. *School*. "... Would you consider hiring someone willing to learn?"
Gen lifts a hand to his chin, his head upward. His thumb and forefinger move, clasping strands of white hair from his beard and stroking them thoughtfully, with the air of a long-practiced habitual gesture.
And then...
There's just no other word for it. He /cackles/, a harsh and sharp sound. The sight of a bemused Gen is probably enough to frighten small children. It's lucky, then, that Shurui is no longer a small child, and probably already has enough psychiatrical baggage to keep a practicing shrink in coffee money from now to eternity...meaning that any trauma from exposure to an excessively cheerful Gen is practically just a drop in the ocean.
He gestures expansively to the building behind him, set a ways back from the main Chinatown street - an old structure clearly undergoing the final touches of renovation.
"And," he says, finally, as the last of his laughter dies down, "what do you think you can be, girl?"
An artfully phrased question, that.
A nice dollap of trauma does a body good. Or not. Shurui isn't *stupid*, but she's certainly not easily scared. Much. Meanwhile, a few children walking home from school, pause to stare at the scary Chinese man's back.
....... They -cross the street right there to avoid him-.
Shurui's gaze follows Gen's gestured hand vaguely to the blurry building. She squints, masking the action by pressing a hand to her brow, as if to shade her eyes from the bright fall sun. .... She could do it. Whatever 'it' is.
Somehow.
Shurui looks back towards the old man. She thinks on his words, taking on Gen's question as if it was just applying to the resturant in itself. The answer that comes out, however, seems to be just as vague. So what does she think she could be?
"Whatever's needed." Well, that's Shurui in a nutshell, really.
There's still a smile on Gen's face, the corner of his lips twisted upwards, his mouth parted to show far too many teeth. He's definitely amused, oh yes.
He gives another low chuckle, the sound starting from deep in his chest, travelling through his throat and out in a sound of bemusement. Oh yes. This has promise.
The old man inclines his head, folding his hands together, clasping them beneath the folds of his long sleeves.
"Then that will have to do," Gen says, slowly.
Pause.
"For," he adds, slyly, "a start."
The laughter further alarms many people, but Shurui? ....Okay, even *she* is a little taken back.
But that's just life. If she wanted to work at a nice normal job, she'd have to accept the consequences that, if NESTS tried a surprise attack, she might be the only person who could find back. As someone on the lower end of the chain power-wise, that would not be good. Not good at *all*.
Better have your boss be a scary Chinese man. At least she's used to that.
That will have to do, indeed.
Shurui reaches into the folds of her hoodie, searching around before she produces a scrap of notebook paper. What was her number? Her cell phone number. She then produces a pen, and, placing the piece of paper in her left hand, she frowns. ..... Better make this readable. Carefully, she writes, the bright sun helping her along as she presses the pen to the paper a line of numbers.
She holds it out to Gen. "Call me if and when you need me, and give me a schedule. I can come during classes, but I can come on weekends and after."
She pauses. ".... provided there aren't any issues."
He's only hiring a new part-time member of staff. A young student who seeks to work after her schooling hours. That should be a normal state of affairs. Something everyday. Not to be taken...
...with the weight Gen puts upon it, as he calmly unfolds the slip of paper, regarding the letters and numbers inscribed upon it.
That smile remails on his face as he inclines his head.
And he speaks, once:
"Done."
Log created on 20:18:38 10/10/2008 by Gen, and last modified on 18:19:48 10/14/2008.