smash_logs | BLIND DATES GROUP 2

BLIND DATES GROUP 2

What: BLIND DATES!
Who: Anyone who was sent a note with an C# &D# table numbers.
Where: Off-campus restaurant. AND BEYOND!
When: November 19th
Warnings: Who knows depending who is here.

[The second group's restaurant is Asian Fusion Dinning. The rooms looks fancy but down to earth and the menu is very varied. Still expensive, however, but you've been given a 100$ budget for eating each!

The lighting is dim, with flickering, oil candles on every table. The place is decorated in stylish black and browns, with Japanese and Chinese wallscrolls and paintings. The overhead music is traditional yet somehow futuristic Asian music, to fit with the theme. Your servers are all dressed up for the occasion, and speak broken English.

Beside each candle, there's a card. Each card has a different letter-number combination.

Find your table!

OH YEAH AND FEEL FREE TO LEAVE THE RESTAURANT AND GO ANYWHERE ELSE!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He didn't know why he was there. He didn't know how he had been talked into this.

Cyrus took another look at the card in his hand before finding the table and reluctantly sitting. This was the sort of place he saw around Jubilife, in its attempts to pass itself off as a modern city, whatever that meant. And he'd had to sit through business meetings at tables just like this, with far-too-expensive menus and far-too-elaborate setups, just to get his advertisements on the air.

The outcome of those meetings had been worth it. The outlook on this didn't look so good.

He sipped his water, noting that the salt content was too high to be healthy, as he looked around for whoever could possibly be sitting with him.

Unlike Cyrus, Rhys had volunteered himself. Never having been on a date before, he wasn't sure what he was getting himself into, but it would certainly be an experience! Speaking of experiences, he'd never been in a restaurant quite like this before, either, so it was a lot of fun to take in the environment.

Next order of business would be to find his date for the night. The school nurse wandered past tables and recognized familiar faces each time, counting down the letter-number combinations until he reached C6. Positioned in the seat of one of the chairs was none other than Cyrus. At first, he felt a little confused, but then realized that some dates appeared to bring two people of the same sex together. That shouldn't be too much of a problem, right? Rhys didn't really have much of an opinion on that question, but at first he did expect a woman.

"Hello, Cyrus," Rhys greeted with a buoyant tone and a soft smile. "How are you doing this evening? Well, it looks like I'm going to be your date for tonight." The other man didn't seem too happy, if his face was any indication.

Rhys. Cyrus remembered speaking with the young man before, after his ear injury. "I will inform you that I have no interest in a romantic encounter and am here as simply an attendee of a school event." He had come up with the statement in advance, of course, but it didn't matter. "Additionally I will caution you not to drink the water. The salt content is of unhealthy levels."

He sat stiffly, uncomfortable in the decadent surroundings despite his suit and tie making him seem a natural.

Unhealthy levels... Rhys blinked once at his empty glass and made a mental note to avoid the water at any cost. Concern crossed his features. "Oh... I won't, then." Right after that, he bounced back to acknowledge Cyrus's request.

"And it's perfectly fine by me! Being on a date, especially a blind date, shouldn't mean anything significant. I'm just volunteering, as well as taking the opportunity to meet new people and get to know them a little better." He scooted back in his chair a bit to get more comfortable, then folded his hands in his lap. "I think it's a swell idea, don't you?"

"If that is how one is so inclined..." Cyrus said, idling with his cloth napkin. Going by the feel, it was at least half artificial.

"I question the motives of those behind this, however," he admitted. "Certainly the cost will be at least one hundred thousand p, once things are settled. Quite a bit for a social experiment that could be easily replicated at a fraction of the cost."

"Hmm. I never really thought about it." Rhys wasn't one to consider anyone's intentions, particularly ill ones, and this could be viewed as a fault of his when it got him into a bad situation. "But you do have a point... Maybe they're conducting a study on what types of facial expressions we used? Hand gestures? Or maybe it has something to do with the food we choose..." Yayy, shots in the dark! Rhys was seriously guessing, though.

"But anyway, I just heard we were being paid to do this. One hundred! It's a little too much... And that's not all. The food is free. The ones in charge of this experiment are so generous to offer this much for their test subjects."

"Generosity is often used by wicked forces as a means of masking their true intentions." Cyrus was, as always, suspicious. "Especially when one is threatened into attending."

"Wicked?" His smile fell. "I don't think that's a very fair assumption to put on these people. Wicked is a strong word... What harm can you see coming out of a few blind dates?" Not only was he curious about what Cyrus thought, but he wondered if there really could be something he should be aware of that he could be totally overlooking.

"Quite a bit. When one looks at the world with an unbiased eye, one notices that there is...venom lurking all about."

Perhaps this could be fruitful after all.

Suddenly, Rhys felt a little "biased", and maybe a little guilty about it. But he knew Cyrus spoke a truth. "Mm, I'm pretty notorious for having a foggy view when it comes to harmful intentions, I admit... Sometimes, people are hard to read. I like to think I'm getting better at it, but... well!" The healer laughed lightly, a bit embarrassed.

"And yet there is always advancement to be made. Another step to take, another detail to learn."

For the first time since arriving, Cyrus glanced at the menu. And then immediately away--how could any place justify charging that much for food? But then he didn't eat most of the things they served either.

"Tell me of your recent endeavors," he asked as he pushed the menu back to the side.

Seeing Cyrus take a look at the menu made him want to do the same with his, but he was quickly distracted by the next question. "Oh. You mean what I've been up to? Not much, I don't think... I am kept pretty busy in my office sometimes. Being the nurse at a school like this... ha ha, you can definitely imagine what kinds of colorful problems I get to see!" He felt a cough rise up in his throat and stayed it with a face of discomfort. How rude would it be, now, if he wound up coughing all over his poor date? Not good.

"I think taking up this job has certainly helped me," he continued, smile returning. "Why, back where I come from, the knowledge on various subjects is so limited compared to the... well, even the school library itself! It fascinates me to learn about topics I never even considered. I swear I learn of a brand new disease every day. And pray to the goddess I never have to catch it!"

"The ills of the world are as varied as its people. To find those from other worlds only expands both." Cyrus noted Rhys's discomfort, but said nothing. "...yet the most toxic ills are those not found under a microscope. Those things that pollute our minds rather than our bodies."

Once more, the brightness in Rhys's face dimmed. "Oh? What sorts of things are you talking about?"

This would be interesting. "Violence in our hearts. Hatred in our souls. Strife, suffering...those are their causes. They have ruined this world, this universe...It sickens me to my very core."

Rhys began to notice one aspect about Cyrus stick out amid all else. He seemed highly attuned to the vices of the world, almost fixated on them, in fact. He wondered what it was that made him so suspicious of others, much like... Soren? No, it wasn't quite the same, but definitely reminiscent. What could have predisposed him to think this way, and so often?

But how could he argue? Hatred was never a good thing, at least in his mind. He never truly knew what it felt like to hate something, but he definitely had first row seats for the strife that the violence of others had produced. He never really grasped what could make people so prompt to spill the blood of their enemies when there were more peaceful ways to settle disputes. It was cruel and heartrending. Perhaps it was simply beyond his understanding.

So he said, "You're right... Violence and hatred are ugly things. But I don't think they've completely soiled the universe." He smiled again, this one softer, like it had been coaxed by the glide of a butterfly's wing. "After all, I could never say such, not when there are plenty of beautiful things in this world to make up for it."

That had been something Cyrus encountered on a regular basis, the insistance that what good existed in the world was enough to make up for the evils that soaked through everything. "It cannot make amends," he countered calmly. "That a flower blooms cannot atone for the crimes that sprout up around it."

"But I'm talking about more than just flowers," he added soulfully. "There is kindness and compassion, even for a stranger who's lost his way. There is always love to overcome bitterness, laughter to dry tears, friends helping friends when it seems all hope is spent. I always find that... when hardship arrives, when strife has thrashed harmony into pieces, the goodness always manages to repair what has been broken by devastation. I think the world is a wonderful place."

"Yet it is only temporary. A haphazardly applied bandage to cover a festering wound. Those things that distract us." He paused slightly to ensure that Rhys was paying attention, and to alter the pace of his speech. "There will always be hardship, there will always be bitterness, there will always be devastation, and it is because we turn our backs to their roots, attention taken by those panaceas, without regard for the future."

This conversation was getting pretty sticky and complicated, and no matter what Cyrus insisted, Rhys's rose-colored opinion did not change. It wasn't as though Rhys had ever spared much thought thinking about how bad the world was, so he didn't have much to say about 'roots'. Instead, he took a new interest to heart, one directed at the person in front of him. "I'm curious, Cyrus. I hope you don't think it too forward of me to ask such, but... what was your childhood like?"

That was...unexpected. No one had asked him about his youth before, not his university classmates or his followers or anybody. The closest that had ever happened was being asked for his medical history.

It took him a moment to reply. "...Straightforward."

"Straightforward?" he repeated with a smile, almost wanting to chuckle at how short the explanation was. Instead, the cough threatened to rise again, but it was such a minor feeling that it could be repressed with ease. "How about your family? Did you have a small one? A large one?"

"I am an only child." After a moment, Cyrus added "...I have no other relatives." Another moment and he corrected himself. "...unless my grandfather is still alive. I do not know."

"No parents?" Rhys sounded surprised to hear this. "What happened to them?"

TABLE C6 : PERSON WITH THE LETTER C AS THE FIRST LETTER IN THEIR NAME OGES FIRST!

CYRUS DOES NOT LIKE THIS AT ALL. QUELLE SURPRISE.

AHAHAHAHA

Hey, at least they've met and don't hate each other.

And then one more table got to remain unflipped that night.

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