Mivuli

Closed.

That's really good to hear! Unfortunately, my own laptop screen is now glitching after a fall, and I'm not sure how long repair will take, if at all. I'll try to keep up to date through my phone but I don't think I can type out lengthy posts!

Ink On Your Soul

Oh wow I've been spelling espresso wrong all this time. Now this is embarrassing. I'll get a post up soon if I can finish my work!

Closed.

Kina started as a boy sitting right in front of him turned suddenly and introduced himself as Julio. His eyes skittered over the boy's face and distinct East Asian features, taking the offered hand and giving a small smile. He looked vaguely familiar, but in a way Kina could not pinpoint. "I'll try to keep that in mind," he said. "I'm from a small town in England." His head tilted to the side, and he hedged a guess. "Korea?"

Just as he was about to reply with his own name, a girl with blonde curls and energy levels Kina could feel in proximity sat herself down next to Kina. Bryn grinned, and Kina felt his own lips twitch upwards in a more tentative mimic as his attention was diverted. "That...might have something to do with it." He chuckled nervously, starting to sit up straighter in growing company. "I'm - "

And then another girl appeared, black locks falling primly over the back of her dress, purple to match her shoes. Introducing herself as Raquel, she gave him her hand to shake and took a seat.

Alarm now growing slightly in the pit of his stomach, Kina's smile became smaller, more nervous. With more people, came larger margin of error for making one mistake or another. And in a new school on a new continent, that helped matters none. "It is all right," he said in reply to Raquel's question. Was his voice audibly smaller? "Just a little different from what I am used to." Noisier, with more congestion, and people who either looked up too few times to notice the sidewalk dandelions - the remedy for discontentment, with a dosage of just one glance - or walked with their chins jaunty and high and thought they walked above the clouds in their gaze. The environment in this place could be so toxic. Kina did not know if the brevity of his one-week stay so far was something to take solace in, or shudder at.

He looked in turn at the three around him, hiding his anxiety behind a deflective question. "Though I guess it is home to you, and not so strange. My name is Kina. Kina Listig. What do you study?"

Closed.

@Kaalee @Ogobrogo Yeesssss suffer the pain and misery once more with me XD
@HushedWhispers Oh, most definitely!

Closed.

@Mivuli
Apparently Kina is very popular. xD

@WhiteStar19

Haha, it's mighty ironic though. He's incredibly socially-handicapped, and add to that how these people receive more money on a monthly basis than he has seen in the past 5 years, I reckon he just might botch up forming a good first impression on you guys. I'm still not decided on how he should react. XD But just know he does appreciate and admire this spontaneity. Deep, deep down, even if he doesn't show it.

Ink On Your Soul

I felt like the entire post was a little ridiculous (especially Delilah) Ah well~

Ink On Your Soul

Mia had just cinched her apronstrings behind the small of her back when the kitchen doors flew open by the reckonable force of Delilah. "What - " With two stalking strides, Delilah slammed a piece of paper torn out from her waiting pad on the stainless steel countertop in front of Mia, the metal surface rippling with the sound of thunder. Behind her, the kitchen doors oscillated slowly shut. The chef looked quizzically at the disruption, and Mia shared with him a look of astonishment over the crown of Delilah's head.

"An expresso," Delilah said with strange calmness, juxtaposing her heavy breathing and shuddering shoulders. She spat the order out with venom, and Mia half-expected a sludge of something black and viscuous to be on the floor at her feet.

"All...right," Mia said, pupils sliding from the corners of her eyes resting on Delilah to the spare machines in the kitchen, hands moving through a familiar routine to get the order out. Delilah never moved, but rested the heels of her hand on the table. Metal groaned beneath her rigid arms. As the cook muttered something faintly about realtime hulks, Mia glanced at her again in her peripheral vision, and the concern intensifying she abandoned the expresso to stand before Delilah across the table. "What happened out there?"

"The expresso was ordered by some bangin' woman sitting out there with Solenne, that's what's the matter!"

Mia pried Delilah's flattened palms off the tabletop before she could leave dents. "A relative then?"

Delilah scoffed. "Come off it. Do sisters come to cafes looking like they could make any guy drop dead with a snap of their fingers to see their brothers? Aw hell no!" An indrawn breath. Mia sucked in a sharp gust of air and Delilah's chin tilted upwards as though in triumph that Mia understood even slightly the gravity of the situation as she saw it.

Mia took several steps back, to get the drink ready. "Don't be silly, Delilah. Solenne is bound to have some old friends." Very old friends. She balanced the mug on a serving plate and slid it over the table to Delilah. "You're more anxious than I am," she said with a light laugh and a smile that felt plastic, her insides twisting as she said words for herself to take comfort in.

"Because you're as naïve as they come!" Delilah threw her hands up, and Cookie rapped at her elbows smartly as he manoeuvred his way around her. Turning, she slumped against the edge of the table. "Men are dicks," she huffed, eyeing the espresso. "And I'm not serving that, in case I sock the daylights out of the girl out there. You go on out and fight for your territory. And give him your number too, because he has the gall to ask for it now."

"Solenne is not a piece of land," Mia reminded her admonishingly, picking up the ceramic mug and dish. As she backed out of the kitchen carefully, she gave Delilah a brittle smile. "Don't worry." And she turned around, into the hustle and bustle of the cafe, ice in her veins as her eyes flew to Solenne.

Opposite from him - just as Delilah had reported - was a brunette beauty. At their table was a familiar face. Dan.

As she glided her way through messy chairs and tables, she felt a faint tingle on her wrist, as though the magic of the ink still hadn't faded completely. Or maybe it was the nervousness that everything Delilah had been alluding to wasn't as much of a lie as Mia had tried to believe. She came up behind Solenne, and set the expresso down on the table in front of the pale woman.

"One expresso," she said. A hand came up to slide over Solenne's shoulder blade, for no other reason but for the benefit of the girl before her. You're being just as ridiculous as Delilah, she chastised herself. She smiled at Dan. This time her lips did not feel too rigid. "It's good to see you again, Dan. Delilah's in the back for a while. I'm guessing you would like a drink?" Before the grin could slip, she turned to the lady. A friend of Solenne's would be no enemy of hers. "Mia," she said by way of greeting.

Ink On Your Soul

I'm kinda waiting around to see if @Mivuli wants to get a post in first.

@Silent Observer

Sorry! I was waiting for everyone else to get something up! I'll try to have Mia pitch in in time for the unfolding.

Closed.

For the past few days, Kina had awoken with a snap of his eyelids at six in the morning like clockwork. For a few seconds he would lie utterly still, as the feeling returned to bones that had fallen into slumber with him, expecting to see out the grainy film of window when he turned onto his left with a drowsy wriggle under the warm covers and to hear the birdsong of the canaries that had made their nest on the cherry tree outside his room. Instead, he would find himself staring at a blank white wall, bleached of colour and creativity, cold to both sight and touch - the window past his feet, looking out into the concrete wall of the neighbouring dormitory building.

Today was no different, although he had already spent a week tossing in vain hopes he would settle in with time.

Outside, the sky was dark still. The LED lights of the digital clock by his head flashed 5:09. It was so quiet, Kina could hear his own pulse in his ears. Or perhaps that was anxiety for the day of orientation on the docket.

He hoisted himself into a sitting position, crossing his legs on a bed tucked against the wall of his dormitory. His eyes were bleary, his vision pixellated as he blinked the webs of sleep away. His sleep hadn't been very restful. The mini-refrigerator - one of his first purchases in Hollywood, from a bargain sale - had whirred and chugged into the early hours of the morning, and then even more after that, a noisy roommate. With impeccable timing, the beaten-up little box gave another exhausted sputter from its spot beneath the window, beside the compact reading nook Kina had fashioned for himself the first day he had arrived with pathwork quilts and pillows that had been flattened by years and bottoms none too gentle, the colours washed out. His mother had knitted a few, his brothers had made forts sturdier than brick with them all. They were as much of his family and home he had been able to pack with him here in a suitcase.

Swinging his legs over the bed, Kina brushed his bare toes against the cold tiled floor, absurdly like testing the community pool for a chill before leaping in, and got to his feet. In the darkness of the room - lit only by the distant glow of streetlamps and courtyard spotlights - Kina turned to face the bare wall, feeling the gloom settle over him like a dense blanket. It was five, and all Kina could feel was trepidation for the day ahead.

"We'll have to do something about that." The quiet murmur reverberated in Kina's head. That had been his mother's catchphrase for any problem. When Kina had scraped his knee at five and needed a Band-Aid and a kiss for charm's sake; when he had come home from his first day at primary school with a blackened eye. No issue was ever too large for his mother to handle that Kina could not carry back to his doorstep for his mother to promptly declare the mantra - whether in a whisper or a firm statement - and set about fixing.

"We'll do something about this," Kina muttered to himself, his voice small in the cold and hollow room, hesitant as he tried the words. As though in encouragement, his heart rate slowed from its sprinter's pace, and the terror which had his knuckles and fingers locked in stiff calm reluctantly loosened its grip.

Moving with newfound purpose, Kina jostled his drawer open, rummaging for a new change before freshening up in the bathroom. When he emerged from the washroom again, he was wearing jeans faded from wear, and a white cotton singlet beneath a soft plaid button-up left hanging open. His bedhead had settled down from its unruly high, but the brown locks looked nonetheless ruffled all the same. Standing there, surveying the blank wall over his bed, his silhouette from the window might have looked very strange.

It took almost an hour of sorting and a steady supply of blue-tac and deft fingers before Kina leaned back from his kneel on the mattress, an empty box cradled in his hands that had once held his unalbumed photoset, now spread out in a montage before him. Warm and cool, subdued and vibrant, they formed a collage of organised chaos. From doe-eyed cats on the precipice of an afternoon nap, to a beaming boy with a smile to rival the sun behind him, to a water droplet hanging onto the tip of a leaf for dear life, the photos laid out on display illicited a tireless smile from Kina. They were works to be proud of, to be sure, moments captured just as the lighting was right. But each photo stored a memory and wending tale that lay coiled behind the instant caught, in the twitch of his finger against the button, immortalised on film. Glossy, most of them were exposed and naked to the air. But four were framed. And as Kina walked out the room with his sling bag and camera, he knew that he would sleep better that night.

~~

After a quick breakfast, Kina made his way to the gymnasium. The school was beginning to fill with students, and inside there was a clear line of division. Keeping his eyes averted, Kina did a quick panning sweep of the hall. A cavernous border lay between young adults dressed to the nines, some donning sunglasses indoors, wearing outfits and accessories that to Kina felt excessive. Slipping into a seat to the back, he glanced around, spotting some familiar faces from the dormitories he had caught glimpses of in the week before surrounding him, but isolated still from his ilk. He did not think it possible to feel even more alienated in the university than he already did.

The headmaster gave a speech, welcoming the 'poor kids' to Hollywood University in the new initiative, first of its kind. The corners of Kina's lips were pulled downwards at the term the headmaster had coined, as cheers erupted on one side, and laughter on the other. It did not sound kindly, but a taunt disguised in chuckles. Kina gnawed restlessly on his lip. Let us prove we aren't less than you, even if we have less, came the quiet, desperate thought. Another part of him - the one that recognised how deeply prejudice could run, and deaf to reason it could be - uttered not a word. Hopes that were not voiced could not crystallise into being before him. There could be no pain or disappointment when a blow came swinging to dash them to smithereens. And so with lips locked, Kina leaned back into his chair, resigning himself to his seat to listen to the principal's speech, even as a couple of students trickled their way out of the gymnasium.

Closed.

Most definitely still onboard!