Description: Fate has a crazy way of putting people in the right place at the right time. A girl fresh to Southtown, a monk (sorta) fresh from the mountains. Then both travel their own fate-led paths that, inevitably, lead them not just back to each other, but to the people they met on the way. Hot dogs, hunger, and Denji mackin' style included.
"Ohhh..."
Worst--
"Noooo..."
--trade--
"I can't eat this."
--/ever/.
Denji Akiyama, peering with puppy-dog sadness at the slip of paper in his hand, rubs one eye with his other, pushing some of his long obscuring bangs out of the way, his unkempt and unbound hair ruffling as he does. The wide sleeves of his rumpled purple robe partially obscure the object in his grasp, but the barest hint of a blood-red seal is visible. He briefly examines it, but soon grows bored-- or rather, distracted, the hand at his face dropping to his stomach as he flinches.
"Wh, what am I going to do?"
It's not fair. How do people keep finding him? He always changes what bench he sleeps on; he does whatever he can to evade notice. It's not his fault he's a deep sleeper. Someone keeps digging through his voluminous pockets. The thought that his outfit makes him absurdly recognizable as That Guy Who Never Wakes Up When I Take His Shit has not yet occurred to him. And he just won a trivia night again last night, too.
"So this is what the Buddha was talking about..."
The futility of desire.
*growl*
"Ohh...!"
This /particular/ need hardly feels futile, however. Lurching to his feet, with no other options, poor Denji, looking dejected as can be, begins to stagger down the tree-lined path. It's actually a quite nice area of the park, but he's not paying much attention. So much for being attuned to nature. He's more attuned to the hot dog stand he knows is nearby.
They can't refuse a begging monk, can they?
This weekend, well... most people would call being beaten senseless on international television a bad day, but really, it's not in Farah's disposition to take that sort of thing very hard. Alma Towazu is one of her inspirations, her idols; Fei Long is clearly one of Alma's, and the Soul Star got the chance to experience Hiten-ryu as only the founder could practice it. She also got to work on her character acting, which was a nice side bonus.
~ I have a long way to go... but I won't be discouraged. ~ To give in to fear of loss is to lose. And of course, then there was the other matter of the delivery waiting backstage for her on the SNF lot. A curious-looking thing, one she had examined very carefully, and tucked away, to consider at a better time when her head was clearer and -- critically -- had not just been slammed into a metal floor by a high velocity fiery kick of Fei Long's.
Fast forward to today, and the Egyptian girl leaving her university campus to get some fresh air. Fall is settling in nicely in Southtown; the verdant green of the park trees is now turning a panoply of colors, from dull tans to amazingly vibrant reds. Considering she's from Egypt where the weather changes basically never, the whole area seems to be a source of surprising beauty to her. That a leaf, heading toward death, would turn such an amazingly bright orange color is a thing of amazement for someone whose home foliage consists of 'palm trees' and 'scrub grass kinda?'. For a while, wearing a dark brown leather jacket and a dark grey scarf, she is content to wander the park and drink it all in.
Then her stomach makes a most un-ladylike noise and she processes that she hasn't eaten anything since 6am. Hmmm.
Like an oasis unto a desert traveler appeared Mr. Frank's hotdog cart. Apparently at this hour of the afternoon he haunts the park outside Seijyun, and while Farah has no knowledge of it, his sausage products (inna bun) are perhaps the best in all of Japan, though as the home of sushi, this might not be saying much. Either way, even as Denji is approaching perhaps this very spot, hoping to acquire for himself sustenance, he MIGHT just encouter this snippet of conversation.
"Well, I've never done this before. How should I do it?"
"A good two-handed grip, otherwise it'll get messy. Yeah, there you go. Open wide..."
Cut to Farah gripping a footlong hotdog with both hands to keep the relish from sliding off, about to put one end -- the hotdog slipping off the edge of the bun -- into her mouth, which she has opened wide to make sure she can take a bite of this thing.
It's not even FAIR.
And some desires are /very/ futile.
It is indeed Denji's fate to hear this snippet of conversation, and to see Farah's lips part to take in the mighty length of that delectable sausage. His eyes widen behind their dark shading, his jaw dropping as he sees an all too familiar girl take part in a startling activity.
She seemed, you know, more the salad type.
"F..."
At once, drawing upon reserves of energy he did not know he had, the young pseudo-monk is tearing up the gravel on the path, running across the grass at breakneck speed toward the hot dog cart. He trips several meters away and rolls the rest of the way, tumbling across the soft turf, whatever stains he incurs invisible upon the deep purple and black of his flowing outfit.
"F-Farah-chan!"
He collapses at the girl's feet, the apparent mad hobo scrambling wildly for a brief moment before planting his palms upon the ground, lowering his head in abject supplication, and then looking up with wide, shining eyes.
"Please... I..."
Buddha, forgive him. His desires overwhelm his will.
"You..."
Looking upon such a sight as this, what man could resist?
"Please give me some of your hot dog!!"
The world kinda comes to a stop as Denji basically soccer-skids across the park to quite nearly knock over the hot dog cart. Mr. Frank, who is scared for his livelihood, DOES notice, and takes a step back. Farah, however, is hungry and frankly had already committed to this course of action, and so cannot be dissuaded by any force, be it cosmic or terrestrial. Just as Denji effectively unrolls on the ground at her feet, the Egyptian bites down on that hot dog, taking a rather bigger bite than she'd intended.
In the most cruel of jokes, a drip of relish escapes her lunch, on a crash course with Denji's cheek.
For a moment she has her eyes closed, chewing, while (presumably) Denji and Mr. Frank look at her, but when Denji actually SPEAKS, she does open her eyes and swallow, confusedly, before looking down and processing that someone she hasn't seen in some time now is lying at her feet, begging for just a bite of her delicious lunch.
And yet, so many conflicting thoughts whirl through her head. The last time she saw Denji, he was getting the stuffing beat out of him by Juri, which isn't exactly the happy fuzziest of places for her brain to go. The emotions in this little section of the park are strange and varied, resonating through the field of her Soul Power wildly: her own relief and curiosity, Denji's hungry desperation and [redacted], and Mr. Frank's combination of confusion and mild annoyance at that kid who expects handouts appearing out of nowhere to harrass one of his customers again.
~ ...but really, I'm glad to see him, ~ she admits to herself, privately.
"Do you want, ah, a hot dog?" she says to Denji, finally, realizing she's already bitten into hers. "I mean, you can have your own, we don't have to, you know, share one. Or something."
When she looks down, she will see the homeless sage-in-training with his mouth open and tongue sticking out, the droplet of relish that she let loose having landed directly in the center of his tongue. He swallows, eyes closing, savoring the taste of blessed nourishment. Ambrosia, as far as he is concerned. His eyes open again and, as though this alone were enough to revitalize him -- or at least rally his morale -- he staggers to his feet, weaving a little but otherwise more than semi-conscious.
"I, uh, that is /theoretically/ true," he supplies helpfully, giving her a somewhat dazed smile, "but I, um, currently lack the-- /conventional/ currency to exchange for foodstuffs. Delicious... delicious foodstuffs."
Mind racing, he abruptly begins to search through his deep pockets. "I do, however," he continues hurriedly, "have something to offer /you/. Umm, hold on, where-- yes, here! This party invitation. You like parties, don't you? This is the, uh," scanning the paper even as he speaks, dropping the red-sealed envelope upon the grass in his haste, "the 'King of Fighters' party. No, uh, wait, tournament. King of Fighters tournament."
Beat.
"Oh, hey."
Suddenly, he's grinning at her.
"I got invited to King of Fighters!!"
It is probably for the best that Farah decides at that moment to take a bite of her own hot dog, because let's be honest, watching him devour that tiny bit of relish would put the kibosh on the rest of this scenario with mach speed. It's relatively certain not even Farah is THAT forgiving, or at the very least, not able to control her instincts so well that she wouldn't be walking backwards at speed away from this place until she could collect her thoughts. Surprisingly, she actually seems to enjoy the thing. Unfortunately, this means that she approaches the eating of the hot dog with what would be in another scenario borderline obscene fervor.
It's a bit like Padma Lakshmi in that one Carl's Jr. commercial. I am just saying.
When she opens her eyes again (and licks a tiny bit of something from the tip of her ring finger), however, Denji has decided to take this to the next level, both by inferring that she would demand recompense for the proffered meat stick, and to offer the only thing he can possibly give her in exchange. The widening of her eyes in surprise actually comes in stages. The first is at the idea that she wouldn't just BUY him one; the second is at what it is he's holding. She'd been beaten vigorously about the head when it was delivered to her and then heading back to Southtown, and her schoolwork... truth be told, Farah had all but forgotten about it. Denji is grinning so madly, it is a little infectious, and she DOES have a little smile as she sets the remnant of her hot dog down on a little napkin and reaches into her jacket pocket, but the smile is more sheepish than celebratory.
Probably because she also produces a similar envelope with that same blood-red seal.
To her own surprise, the Egyptian can't quite meet Denji's gaze as she says this: "I, uh... I didn't even open it, I've been so busy..."
Denji's really happy for her.
"Oh nooooooooooo!"
You can really tell.
The young chi-wielder's jaw drops for the second time, his grin going as slack as his posture. The cry of despair is not exactly passionate, taking a tone of more conversational resignation. Maybe he's half-joking. (He's actually just too hungry to fully care.) "Well, I've got nothing," he remarks, lifting up his hands in a helpless shrug as he shakes his head. "Congratulations, Farah-chan," he adds, his grin never fully disappearing, even when the hunger pangs hit him again and he doubles over slightly. "Blurgh..."
Th-This is bad. Will he die before ever seeing the tournament!?
"Oh, oh kami... oh Buddha... protect me..."
This may be the worst, like, ever.
"I-I've still got my pride!" he manages, words defying any evidence to the contrary. "D... Denji Akiyama always has something to offer a beautiful woman!" Now he's just babbling. His mind races once again; he's really running out of steam. Abruptly, his eyes snap wide; he's come to a decision. He knows what he must do.
"Farah-chan!!"
He can call you that, right? He drops to his knees again, eyes shining, and once again plants his palm upuon the ground in supplication.
"Allow me to serve as your teammate! I will assist you in any capacity as your subordinate! Only please-- please feed me!"
(so much pride right now)
Okay even by Farah's standards this is getting a bit much.
Yet in spite of all that, she decides that she can't REALLY be sure unless she looks, and so her finger comes up and slips through the space between wax seal and envelope, neatly separating the two. Out comes the card, held before her, violet eyes skimming the language. Denji's professions of sympathetic happiness (and/or last gasps before sweet death takes him) are sort of muted as she reads what is, presumably, Chizuru's call to action for fighters to participate in KoF. ~ 'The time has come to grasp all that you desire', huh... ~ And really, she feels it for not the first time: the tingling sensation deep in her own spirit, at being challenged and her determination to meet that challenge head-on. How could she ever let this opportunity pass her--
'Only please feed me!'
She looks up with a start, the letter actually falling out of her hands, and with fingers fumbling she reaches into her bag, producing a few hundred yen coins and thrusting them at Mr. Frank; it's far more than a single hot dog will cost but perhaps, on some subconscious level, Farah's intellect is working overtime, considering that Denji all but offered to be her slave for the cost of a meal and that's probably not just the ONE hot dog if you catch my meaning. "Please," she says to the vendor, who has been watching these goings on with no small amount of nervousness. "He's, uh..."
She seems to savor the word for a moment, before saying, "...a friend."
Of course he is.
Wait, really?
At last Denji appears genuinely roused from his absurdity-inducing stupor -- an all too common occurance these days, being so often bereft of comestibles -- and blinks up at his pulchritudinous (boom, spelled it right on the first try) benefactor. Slowly, almost reverently, he gathers himself first to a kneeling position, then rises up to stand. He pushes his bangs to the side, as though raising the blinds. His eyes are slightly widened, though not shocked.
"...Thanks, Farah."
At last, he's calmed down. A little.
"What do you think? Are you going to attend the tournament?" he asks in a more subdued, conversational tone, stuffing one hand into his pocket but letting the other continue to clarify his vision, as it were. "I've been waiting for an opportunity like this, myself. Don't know exactly who I'd team up with, though. I've met a few good fighters out and about, but I can't say I... befriended them."
He smiles.
"You were really strong when I faced you last," he continues, adopting an encouraging tone. "Have you been practicing since then?"
Friend, huh? He's even forgotten his hunger--
*growl*
"Urgghh..."
As soon as the hot dog is proffered, Denji snatches it with all the courtesy of a dying man and stuffs it almost whole into his mouth. Magnificent.
There's a sparkling cascade of helpless laughter, after a brief moment with a surprised look on her face, as Farah watches Denji all but inhale the hot dog given to him. A lot of things are threaded into it: relief that this apparently starving boy has eaten, even feeling a little flattered that he remembered her as fondly as she remembers him. But he asked of Farah a question, and she ponders it for a moment as she picks up the last bit of her own hot dog, nibbling at it carefully, perhaps eating slower than normal if only to draw a contrast to Denji's voracious rampage. Her gaze drifts off to the side, as if she were scrutinizing some projection of her thoughts on a faraway screen. "Befriended, huh..."
For a moment her experiences flash back to her. Meeting Quon on campus, who seemed like a nice guy, and El Fuerte in an impromptu battle, whose spirit shone so bright. Not to mention her battle against El Fuerte as well. Yet much like Denji, she didn't particularly *connect* to those people in any meaningful way. Eventually she turns back to him and shakes her head, finishing off the hotdog and then clasping her hands together behind her back, putting a smile on her face. "I don't think I've made too many friends, either. But I've met many fascinating people. Some fights I won, some I lost... I've tried to practice. I want to keep getting better, a little bit every day, I think. Moving at my own pace."
Does she want to be in this tournament? More to the point, does she want to do what something inside her is urging her to do? For a moment, she watches Denji eat, steeling her resolve. He said she was strong, but it was Denji who won that battle... and though she doesn't feel the need to say it, she knows that there is some unique gift in this unusual young man...
For a second -- and with a visible widening of the eyes as the intensity of the memory strikes her -- Farah remembers a young Southtown boy with... the 'spark', as it were, running out of an arcade. 'But you'll see! I'll be back and you'll see my skill!'
"Hey, Denji-kun..." she says, turning back to him and smiling, hands still clasped behind her back, making a bow of her arms, "...do you want to enter the tournament with me?"
Ohh, sweet Buddha. He's been waiting for this.
"Delicious," Denji murmurs, licking his fingers.
Wait, did she just say something?
"Hm? Oh!" The chi trainee immediately grins as he looks back to the Egyptian girl. Yeah, of course, obviously. "Yeah, of course, ob..."
He trails off, blinking. Slowly, he pushes his bangs aside.
"...uh..."
Her face, so warm and radiant. Her stance, so fetchingly open. Her eyes, strangely knowing. A faint and unfamiliar rush within him. What... what's this feeling? She's an attractive girl, but--
"...Yes."
There's something different about her.
"Yes, I do."
Something special.
He is silent for a long moment, his expression serious and calm, a rare manly moment for Denji Akiyama. He promptly ruins it by reaching up to rub his lips with the back of his hand, letting his bangs drop back down over his eyes.
"But I, uh... I don't have anyone else in mind."
He clears his throat quietly, a little unsettled by his own strange emotions. His heart's still beating faster. Was there something wrong with the hot dog? Normally he has an iron stomach...
"Do you have any ideas?"
Does she have anybody in mind?
Well...
How could she tell Denji that actually, he was really the first fighter she'd really met. The first one who felt like a *fighter*, not just someone who decided to brawl a bit for fun, or money, or both. Someone who had that 'shining something' that resonated with her on a spiritual level. If he knew, perhaps he'd be flattered to know he's the gauge against which the other fighters she's met have been measured. Which isn't to say that Denji outshone them all, nor that they burned brighter than he... but rather, that the spark of something inside she came to see in him, she looks for in others. She saw it burning in El Fuerte's dynamic, rapid movements. She saw it in Quon's easygoing determination, in Fei Long's fiery passion. In...
She blinks a couple times. Was he? She never actually found out.
Turning her head up to the sky with an expression of curiosity, Farah blinks a few times, watching a cloud drift by in the brittle blue cold of the fall afternoon sky. "Maybe," she admits after a moment or two, before turning back to Denji. "A couple. One of them goes to my college, so I'll ask him soon, but his name is Quon. Ask him if you see him. He uses... uh, a Chinese style. Some type of kung fu, I think. The other, uh..." Suddenly she reaches up and scratches the side of her head in a somewhat dorky gesture of consternation and even a little embarassment. How do you say: there's this kid I met playing DDR, and I don't know if he's a fighter, but he's got that 'something shining'. Deep down.
A beat. WAY down. Still.
"You'll know him if you see him. He likes to play arcade games. And he's a little, um... you know," she finishes lamely, not having the heart to say: a raging cauldron of self-defensive macho gestures and/or a victim of hegemonic masculinity. "Maybe I'll go back and see if he's at that DDR place..."
Denji, of all things, blanches slightly.
"Q-Quon, huh? Kung fu fighter? And he... he goes to your college?" The would-be sage winces slightly, glancing aside as though someone behind a nearby tree might give him a clue as to how to believably resist that suggestion without, you know, being honest. Unfortunately, the person behind the nearby tree is a homeless man urinating. No insight there. "I, uh, I don't know about that guy. I mean, he's a good fighter. But I don't know if he, uh, he matches our vibe, you know? I think he's, like, doing his own thing."
Like, not letting Denji steal pie from the cafeteria.
But-- thank goodness, she gives him a reason to brighten up. "Oh! Wang! Long Wang!" he blurts, causing an already mildly irritated Mr. Frank to raise a dubious eyebrow. "The video game guy. I ate his lunch by accident. We became friends." Right, naturaly. "He's a strong fighter! He seems to doubt himself a bit, but really, I was impressed."
Of course, Denji won. Is he only going to let people onto the team who haven't already beaten him up? You may not want to put him in charge of strategy.
"We should absolutely seek him out. Maybe he knows someone else."
"Long Wang, huh..."
Said without a trace of irony. Also, she turns to Mr. Frank and hands him enough money for a second footlong, in what one hopes is not a massively bizarre and truly unfortunate buried Pavlov's dog sort of response. She turns back to Denji while Frank makes her second meat-based snack of the day, and contemplates what he just said. So he doesn't want to work with Quon, that much is clear. You don't need empathic powers to figure that out but they don't hurt. Still.
"I can't believe you've met them both... maybe I've spent too much time just sitting on my hands..." she says, with an almost sorrowful expression. Still, he did describe Wang as being a strong fighter, and more to the point, his read of Wang's personality is pretty much consistent with Farah's own, and that makes this all the more encouraging in the end. She tilts her head to the side. "I thought he might be a fighter. We just played, ah, what is it... Dance Dance Revolution." She carefully omits the fact that, through a combination of natural talent and sheer stupid beginner's luck, she completely obliterated him despite Wang actually being, for better or worse, *actually good at it through practice*. "Maybe I should track him down and ask for a match, see for myself..."
A moment passes, and Farah turns to get her hot dog, before she turns to look at Denji, part of his sentence coming back to smack her in the back of the head on substantial time delay. "WHY did you eat his lunch?"
Denji, capitalizing on Farah's excess capital, is already eating his second, and is halfway finished half-listening to Farah's extended commentary before she asks a pointed question. He fails to hide his quiet choking, eventually clearing his throat as he tries to think of a worthy response.
"Uhh..."
A response, you know, that will impress a hot girl.
"It was... an accident?"
Nice, bro.
Denji squints slightly, gaze traveling upward as his brow furrows, not that anyone can tell. Alas, the underside of his bangs hold no answers either. "Well, it all turned out for the best," he says, his tone philosophical. "I tend to let fate take charge in situations with people who impress me." He pauses for a moment before brightening slightly. "And why shouldn't I?"
His smile widens, and he reaches up to brush his bangs out of the way of his eyes, just so she can see the sincerity in his eyes, which are totally sincere, oh yes, definitely.
"After all, Fate brought me to you."
Nice, bro!!
Fate.
A long time ago Farah met a woman completely by chance, in a city in Italy. They exchanged few words but much of import in that sparse conversation. When Denji brings up the idea of 'fate,' Farah's hand invariably goes into her pocket and retrieves from it the satin-like dark blue ribbon that she wears around her wrist when she fights. Her eyes narrow a little bit, brow furrowed, and runs her thumb across it as it lies in her hand for the moment. The truth is she doesn't REALLY care why he ate Wang's lunch. That's something between them. It was mostly conversation, though somewhere deep inside, she's chuckling at his totally adroit(?!) attempt to sidestep the question. Was it really fate that brought these two together not once, but twice? Was it fate that brought Denji in contact with Wang, or even caused Farah to meet him, for that matter?
"When people impress you, huh..." The ribbon gets slipped back into her pocket for now, the Egyptian suddenly and somewhat embarassingly aware of how much of a security blanket it can be, now and then. She half turns, taking a step away, and brings up a hand, putting the tip of her index finger to her nose in a slightly impish gesture. "Maybe fate can bring people together, but I think it's up to the individual to make the most of the opportunity... right?"
She needs to track Wang down and see for herself, now. Not that she doesn't trust Denji's say so, mind you. But something inside... well. She needs to see for herself. She needs to take hold of fate's given opportunity.
A few steps away, almost hop-skips, and Farah turns back toward Denji, waving a hand in farewell. "Four people, Denji!" she says, a little loudly to be heard now that she's a little farther away.
What the--
"Uh..."
Is she hitting on him!?
"Y-Yeah! Yeah, definitely."
She's totally hitting on you, bro!
"I'll... I'll do that!"
Denji Akiyama's expression is dazed, his eyes slightly widened behind the curtain of his bangs, a little relish dribbling off his second hot dog onto his sandals. It's up to the individual to make the most of the opportunity, huh? Slowly, surely, a wide, hot-dog-eating grin dawns upon the young mountain boy's features.
"...Sounds like a challenge."
Sounds like /fun/.
By the time the retreating girl turns to face him again, Denji has realized, belatedly, that he is, right now, the happiest he has been in weeks.
"Uh, yeah!" he exclaims abruptly, startling slightly. "I'm on it!"
One more, huh?
Well, it better be a girl. After all--
He doesn't want to let anything get in the way of this opportunity.
Log created on 20:19:44 10/12/2010 by Farah, and last modified on 01:56:38 10/13/2010.