Description: Women sometimes drive men to do completely unreasonable things, as has been the case throughout history. One of Quon's teammates for the upcoming King of Fighters tournament goes to confront him about the hows and whys of what made him think driving drunk - while being under drinking age - was a good idea.
Few Days Ago:
Quon stepped on the pedal of the garage and immediately headed to a liquor store. He was immediately confronted with a dilema. If he didn't want to deliver the mysterious crates, however he also didn't want to deliver anything that would directly or indirectly lead to Shadaloo harming other people.
That's when an idea popped into his head. If he was picked up before he could get to the destination he wouldn't be at fault for it not getting there. With plan in mind he went to a store and bought a bottle of plum wine and headed into a bathroom and then swirled it around in his mouth so the smell of alcohol would be there, spat it into the sink and then headed back to his car.
Once in the car he made sure the clearly opened bottle was in a semi-hidden location and preceeded to drive constantly swaying but always careful not to endanger any other people on the street with his erratic driving.
Eventually he was pulled over and arrested for drunk driving and underaged drinking.
Now:
Quon was sitting at a glass window with phone close by as he waited for Rust, his visitor, to sit down for a talk.
Mr. Rust doesn't have much time, but he finds himself having to make time. He's not just teaching now, he's supposed to be keeping the fields and lawns and other such things about Pacific's property pretty and in nice order and he's behind on the morning's work. Instead of spending his lunch break catching up on mowing a field and having his allergies set off by the kind of grass they use, he picks up a sub sandwich. He doesn't even really get a bite of it along the way there.
It's good Quon's receiving visitors at this hour, the teacher thinks as the pop in one of his knees announces his appearance a second before he comes into clear view behind the glass window. He looks up once to confirm that there's Quon there. He frowns before he sits down and picks up the phone.
"Hey." He starts, thinking for a second as how to express the displeasure along with the sheer surprise within a span of time that they might actually have themselves a conversation before he needs to start driving back to Pacific. He settles on the timely classic.
"The hell were you thinking?"
It was that question that Quon was dreading hearing from his team mate but a ligitimate one nevertheless. He isn't acting when he lets out a sigh. He glances around at the people around him. After that glance around when he's certain that here aren't any prying ears and eyes around, he finally responds. "There was a bad situation that I somehow got myself into through no fault of my own and the only way out that I could see was intentionally getting myself arrested."
He looks downward with a hard frown. He doesn't like this situation but one could only imagine what type of situation he could be in where he would view prison as the only way out.
Mr. Rust seems a bit impatient for an answer as Quon glances around. This gets the teacher to look around too. There likely is at least some kind of surveillance going on here for security reasons. Maybe Quon doesn't want to tell him, maybe not, but he'd really like for him to--
One of his eyebrows raise a bit at the mention of a 'bad situation' where the only way out was to go and get himself arrested.
"Like... what? Uh, money?" The teacher scratches the side of his head as he tries to comprehend what this sort of thing would entail.
"Money?" A short pause. "No. No the problem is that there is this 'friend...'" One can practically hear the air quotes in his tone of voice alone. But while he can see a potential for friendship, her association only makes him want to put more distance between them. "She has taken an interest in me. The problem is this friend is associated with some very very bad people. As a result, I've tried to distance myself from her. People who have seen her interest in me and as a result has drawn unwanted attention towards me. People who could kill me within a heart beat."
The Chongquan fighter takes a deep breath. Quon decides to stop right there. He doesn't want to endanger Rust by telling him about the crates or anything like that so he decides to be vague. "Anyway these people put me in a situation where I either had to do what they said, or die. I chose a third option."
Friend? Who? That's what the teacher wants to know, but when he mentions a 'she,' there's really only one person that comes to mind. An association with some... very, very bad people? A local crime element? Southtown's surely still got a couple small time gangs roaming around - certainly not the entrenched syndicate from before the invasion.
Or does it?
Unfortunately for Quon's noble intentions, the teacher leans forward at mention of very very bad people. Does he want to know? Does he already know?
"It's that... it's that girl with the red gauntlet who wears that, that heavy coat, isn't it?"
Right there Rust asks the question that Quon was hoping that he wouldn't ask. It's one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. He wants more than anything to warn Rust completely about Cammy but considering that he is his team mate for the upcoming tournament, and the fact that he will soon have no other choice but to spend time with Cammy, he doesn't want to risk Rust saying anything that would put them or their team in danger.
Quon lets a sigh leave his lips. "I can neither, confirm or deny her being the one that I speak of right now."
"So that's a yes." The teacher says what Quon was probably not wanting to hear, sinking in his seat as he thinks about what this means - albeit jumping to conclusions on his part. If it is true, that may explain why she speaks so highly of Sagat despite Quon there not being bald. That bit was always a touch weird.
He lowers the phone for a moment, resting it on his lap. Exhaling deeply, he looks off to a corner. Quon can probably see it plain and clear - this is a man who is worried. This is a man who may or may not be aware of what Quon is talking about already.
"You... you gotta be straight with me." He says as he picks up the phone again. Realizing half of that probably wasn't said where the phone could pick it up, he repeats this after clearing his throat. "You gotta be straight with me."
He doesn't wait for a yes or no. "What... what do they want here?"
Quon's head drops down and to the side in what looks like a mentally uttered and possibly mouthed curse word. He leans forward with his hand on his forehead as he looks downward which keeps him from seeing the worried look on his face he still can hear the worried emotion in the tone of his voice.
"There's a limit of how straight I can be with you /here./ But I'll try to be as straight with you as I can. You deserve that much at least. As for what they want, they want I don't know. The leader has made it quite clear that while he sees my continued association with this lady a waste of her time, he has made it quite clear that I'm to continue my association with her and that if I ever do harm to her or touch her in any untoward way, that... horrible things will happen."
The shop teacher's waiting for this man to be straight with him, and Quon largely holds his ground. Yet, what Quon shares, Mr. Rust listens with the occasional nod.
He looks out off to the side again as if for his own safety, something both of them are probably being fearful for at this moment. Who knows how deeply entrenched they are in the re-emerging Southtown.
"So... so, we... we get to wait until she's... bored of you." He's not sure he parses this concept. Is there something Quon has that they want? He knows damn well that the schools themselves were primary targets in the invasion. But, every time he's spoken with her - if that 'her' is indeed that person Quon's talking about - it's always been about Quon, nobody else.
"Okay. I need you to, I need you to listen to me. All right?" He raises his free hand and starts to shake a finger as he starts to get talking. "Some time back, I got... I got caught up in that invasion. I know, I know some of these names, Quon. They're... they're names I never wanted to hear again. People I never wanted to see again."
Quon nods the moment he's asked to listen to the teacher. After all, it isn't like the older man hasn't said anything so far that would cause the young jail bird to dismiss what he says completely out of hand.
Of course the fact that Rust has been through his own scrapes with that organization is encouraging. Especially since Rust is here now speaking with him. It also provides more of an incentive to listen since it might provide information to get him out of this predicament.
"Last time they were here," he continues, "they... they were getting rid of Geese. They spared no expense, no expense on my own students." He lets that sink in for a bit, the fact that they were willing to attack schools full of largely innocent children in-between those that could fight back.
"The fact they're still here, that... that really scares me." There's no shortage of fear on this man's face. A man who can take almost any punch and keep swinging, a man who can survive six story falls, a man that can still stand - shakily - from one of Igniz's powerful chi blasts, a man that doesn't go completely face flat against Kyo's RED kick.
"I'm hopin' you're all they're here for." Not that he wishes for Quon to have to soak up all they're willing to do to ruin and/or subjugate people! The older man makes another nervous look-around.
"I'm gonna hope, I'm gonna hope she likes you enough that she understands what's really goin' on, Quon. First person she's gonna go to, I'm afraid, that's probably... gonna be me." He's already seen her just show up on campus looking for him before.
"If she does, I'll try 'n tell her. All right? I don't want to have to, to get into fights like those again. I won't threaten her, I won't... I won't make any moves like that on her." He says. "But in turn, you gotta... you gotta not look to ruining your life. They nearly did that to me with my right hand, Quon. They nearly did."
Granted, the real 'they' in this instance was more NESTS than Shadaloo.
Quon, of course, wasn't there for the Southtown invasion but he's heard bits and pieces here and there. It's one of the reasons that once he figured out with whom Cammy had been associated, he sought to distance himself from them. Of course, this doesn't quite deter someone who could pretty much break into his dorm room at will just to see him again.
In fact, he's pretty sure they can still get to him. Vega can simply appear any he damn well pleases. Him showing up in his car proved that and he's pretty sure that Cammy could break into his prison if she wanted to. But one of the things that benefit him is that they can't say anything with as much freedom here as they could out in the public.
"Right now. I'm scared that I won't even have a life to ruin if things go south."
"You're... younger 'n twenty, right?" The teacher asks. "Pretty sure they'll, they'll let you off light because of that." Of course, then Quon may not be enjoying the (relative) safety of prison for very long if that's the case as the teacher looks about the room again.
"I'm, I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed, Quon, all right? Gonna keep my fingers crossed they got better things to do," or worse things, "than to pick on you." He may not know the depths in which Quon has entangled himself in Shadaloo's affairs, but the Pacific teacher is at least relatively confident they aren't going to spend millions and millions of dollars in effort just to pick on Quon.
Quon nods in answer to being younger than twenty and closes his eyes. Behind the glass barrier he doesn't seem as charismatic as he was when they fought. There isn't the spark in his eyes. That spark has been replaced by fear, fatigue, frustration and sadness.
"The sad part is, I've come to realize something about 'her'. The way she behaves and everything, it's as though she starved for friendship and she expresses it in sometimes disturbing, sometimes distressing kinds of ways. Only once has her expression of this desire for friendship been done in an acceptable way. But in the end it's her devotion to that organization that keeps me from not wanting have anything to do with her. And the more it continues the more trapped I feel."
At that point a prison guard comes up to Quon and lets him that his time is up. "Take care Mr. Rust."
It's heavy words, there, what Quon says about 'her.' The way she seems to really want to have to reach out for him. Maybe it isn't out of sadistic amusement. Maybe she truly is looking for a friend. There is probably something just as much beautiful about this scenario as it is tragic to those of more artistic minds looking at this from the outside in. The makings of a grand modern stage drama.
Howard Rust is a forty-year-old working man and cannot look at these things in these terms, but is suitably dumbstruck at what Quon says. That it coincides with a prison guard coming up to let them know that time's up, well...
The older man nods his head, adding one more thing over the phone. "Don't do anything stupid."
He really ought to get going. He's not going to have much of a lunch break left when he gets back over to Pacific, especially with how bad traffic has been in these parts lately. Not that... traffic's ever been good in this part of Southtown.
Log created on 10:13:20 12/06/2010 by Rust, and last modified on 12:53:29 12/06/2010.