witchesreign | round five

Say it's your friend's birthday tonight. How would you celebrate it? Personally, I'd head down to the ~~bar~~ ~~pub~~ restaurant and treat him to a good dinner, but I'm curious as to what you guys think. Sometimes the same old gets a little boring, so... what do you guys do to shake things up?

Just keep your suggestions PG-13. I'm pretty sure kids're still reading this thing, even if they're not very vocal about it.

- Instructor Tom Bronson

[As par for the course, Tom's hanging out in front of the local bar tonight. One has to wonder if he'll actually get kicked out for loitering around one of these days... Tom certainly remembers the days of hanging around the bars and getting treated as some suspicious creep just because he didn't actually go in for a long period of time.

He gives someone the Look before continuing to wait outside. Leaning against the wall, he folds his arms and stares up at the night sky. It's a lot prettier here in Fisherman's Horizon - and he can actually see the stars a lot better than back home - and for a moment, it takes his breath away.

... Right, he's waiting for someone. It'd probably be better to look ahead than up, but Tom doesn't seem concerned with that at the moment. If someone's looking for him, they'll know where to find him.]

[ooc | backdated to the 16th because I can't get things up on time. ;~; As usual, strikes're backspaced.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Shall I enlighten you as to what transpired that night, or would you prefer not to know?

[Cid allows himself to take another sip of his drink, smiling around his glass.]

Hmmm... [He taps his chin, pretending to seriously debate it.] I don't really care. If you want to, then you want to... and if you don't, it will just be the Greatest Unsolved Mystery in my life.

In that case, I shall leave it for another time. It would be a shame if I told you, and then you drank to the point of forgetting it--I'd have to repeat the story all over again.

[He answers this in a very serious tone, but his lips quirk upwards into a smile as he finishes.]

Besides, I would hate to mar your homecoming victory with such a sordid tale.

[Ugh.... reminding Tom of the victory he really didn't want in the first place. Even if he's trying to smile at Cid, Tom's eyes are totally glowering as he flags the bartender for another beer.]

I'm just glad Shar and Grell won too. For everyone's sake---it'd be like a really bad explosion if either she or Grell lost.

[Well, that's an oddly glum look on Tom's face. He gives his friend an inquiring look but doesn't press the issue.]

Yes, they did become rather competitive didn't they... Quite different than the races for the king and prince positions.

[Cid's still nursing his first glass right now, taking his time as always when he drinks.]

[He's trying to be grateful about his victory! It's just... not something he wanted in the first place.]

I was actually a little worried there'd be some huge competition for King. [Laughs in-between sips] Like, I'm not as familiar with Snow as you are... but it looks like that worrying was for nothing.

Did you now?

[Cid smiles at that.]

I would not consider Snow and myself as... friends, per se, but considering what I do know of him, I did think that he would have done more campaigning.

I guess so. Still, I'm just glad none of us really cared who won. It made the outcome a lot less awkward.

I suppose so.

Still, I imagine Sharpay was happy that you were her king.[A pause, a sip, and a smile.] Or am I wrong?

[He said the magic words. Tom freezes mid-sip before hastily swallowing the rest. God, he thought it wasn't obvious! At all!]

We-we're just friends. Somehow, I don't think it made much of a difference beyond the campaign being successful.

[Cid watches his friend's reaction with a touch of amusement in his gaze.]

Are you so sure of that? [Cid pauses just long enough to maybe make Tom wonder if Cid's referring to the friend bit or what he said next.] I'm not so sure of that. A pair--[He's careful not to use couple.]--campaigning together surely attracts more positive attention.

[Long pauses like that are the absolute worst. It's pretty obvious that this line of thought's totally killing Tom... he's already on his third beer.]

I am very sure. [siiiiiigh] And even if I did like her, she's totally and completely oblivious to it all.

[Tom's going to have to do better to get Cid to drink more. The guy's still on his first.]

So you've noticed that she is "totally and completely oblivious to it all"? It would seem to me that for someone so very sure of your platonic relationship that this is a rather interesting detail to take note of.

[Dammit! Well, he'll get Cid to try some more. Eventually.]

It's just the truth. You don't remember the gossip columns? They kept claiming we were a couple, but... [He snorts, trying not to sound flustered or nervous.] Shar thought they were ridiculously false because we're "just friends" and it'd "never happen."

[The faint smile on Cid's lips clearly states that he is not convinced--at least of Tom's feelings on the matter.]

I suppose I will have to take your word on it. That gossip column really is absurd at times...

You're telling me. [Even if Cid's not convinced, Tom's trying to play this off as a victory. An awesome victory.] If the Cadets here have enough time to gossip, surely they've also got enough time to do other... more imaginative things.

I'm no artist, but seriously, maybe we could get them involved in something else?

Did you have something in mind? I know there are several clubs, but I assume that's not what you're referring to.

Nah, it could be a club. Just something that keeps the kids out of trouble, you know?

[It's the voice of experience speaking here.] I know that if I didn't have my clubs, I would've probably joined a Jewish gang or something.

A... Jewish gang?

[Gangs are something Cid can understand--not in the sense of ever having been in one, but for all the apparent paradisiacal nature of Cocoon, they had their own fair share of less-than-appealing groups running amuck. This Jewish bit though? That's a word he's never heard of.]

[Ah, right. Tom keeps forgetting that Cid's not from Earth.]

It's... a religion back in my world. My hometown had a lot of people called "Jews" and so it made sense that we had Jewish gangs.

[What he neglects to tell Cid is that he's technically Jewish. He just... doesn't act like it. At all.]

And are these Jewish gangs any different from normal ones?

[--Because Cid's fairly sure that they didn't have religious gangs back in Cocoon. The idea is, admittedly, a bit odd to him.]

Kind of. They have slightly different accents and the slang's different... but they're not like on a jihad or anything.

[Because while Tom knows a lot about Judaism, apparently Islam is a foreign concept.] I mean, uh... they're not crazy. Just violent.

[Cid is... not especially fond of the moments when he runs into topics he's not even at least a little familiar with, but any apparent displeasure is carefully masked behind a visage of polite confusion.]

Forgive me for needing to ask, but... Do you mean to imply that those who are on a jihad are crazy and violent?

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