video | merriment 15

[jingyeets]

( Jingyi anchored, and thus he's still tired. Very tired. Flopping between areas and people to nap with kind of tired. It hasn't resolved yet, and he hates that, but he can't let him not get around to important questions.

Which is why he's on camera as crossed legs only, laying down on the bench with the ICP swiveled his direction. It's almost like he's shy... but no, he's not, he's just exhausted. )

Everything was a mess and all of us there had strange illusion things to deal with before things went really bad, but I have a question. About my friend.

( A pause. He does, in fact, literally mean this about a friend. )

Say he was in a situation where... certain boundaries were willingly crossed, but what it meant in the illusion was different from what it means outside of the illusion. And explaining what that means and how it's different is kind of important to the one they were crossed with.

( For both sides, but he's more worried about his friend than he is the other guy, for various biased reasons he has no regrets over. )

How do you handle when people here do casual things with 'dating,' but I'm from—he's from—a place where you definitely don't?

Comments

voice

[almukhtar]

( The voice sounds... very tired. But he has a lot of passion for the topic, and so. ) An honest conversation is always the first point of action, I find.

[jingyeets]

Right, right... what if it starts with "I'm going to punch you for being a jackass about this if you're a jackass about this?"

( Key word here, Atem, is: honest. )

[almukhtar]

( This reminds him of someone and it gets a lazy chuckle. ) While I assume this is indeed honest your concern I imagine is something a little more vulnerable in nature, am I correct?

[blitzcheer]

[ hahahaha he's saying this is for a friend!!! CLASSIC.

Tidus has the decency to wait for the chuckles to leave him, and then he comes onto the ICP, smiiiling, but very normal, thank you!! ]

Sooo, your friend - or friends. They know you're talking about this? 'Caaaause, [ eheh, ] you're kinda talking to the entire train right now.

[ Just.

You know.

Pointing it out!!! ]

[jingyeets]

( Dennis is not a friend so SUCK IT DENNIS, YOU GET NO JINGYI RIGHTS as of yet, to be determined for future reference, file under option b. A tired scoff, and a hand appears to wave over the area of his knee. )

My friend knows. Talking to the whole train is kind of the point.

( The hand disappears again, while those cargo pant crossed over legs bounce a little. This is why he is asking, this is why my friend is not named. )

[blitzcheer]

Okay! [ One hand flies up on his end. ] Making sure, you never know.

[ Doesn't make Tidus smile any less at this love advice hour. ]

Well, I'm with the guy who spoke up before me. You just talk about it, right? You or...your friend. [ Whatever it is. ] And if they don't like it, then - [ now he waves a dismissive hand. ] That's that, right? End of relationship.

[ Pretty simple, right? ]

[flatteries]

...

[ There's a small pause even after Inigo starts the feed on his end, like he's hesitating. Then he leans closer to the screen - you know, as if the whole train can't see or hear this regardless of his proximity to it - and lowers his voice to say: ]

Were you.. thinking of doing the whole dating thing after all? [ Guess who's misunderstanding.

Because no one actually ever asks that for a friend!! (Hello, Jingyi, it's your single-braincelled friend..) ]

With who?

[jingyeets]

( Mostly because he recognises Inigo's voice, and can't figure out why he's asking that, he makes one of those sad grunting noises of someone laboriously sitting up so tousle haired, he can squint dubiously at the ICP. )

Inigo?

( Which may sound like an answer, but he's really just what? How is this a question? That's not even my question! Where's the friends with more braincells, pls )

[flatteries]

[ Please, Jingyi should know better than to say anything that sounds like it could even remotely be interpreted as an answer - especially since Inigo's brain is waiting for an answer, so of course it's going to take the first thing it comes across as one. Even if it makes no logical sense.

.. aka, even when it's this. It makes Inigo stare for a moment, stunned, but then his entire face starts to grow just about as red as a tomato. ]

H.. Huh?! M-Me?!

[ P-PAL? ]

[calmness]

While I know that this is an attempt to support a certain friend, Jingyi, you have also just turned a personal situation which is likely uncomfortable for both parties into the gossip of the train.

[calm but stern, the next words are followed by a soft, tired but amused sigh.]

Be mindful.

[jingyeets]

( When your sect head, who is barely older than you through bizarre twists of fate, chimes in and you're forced to sit up and cup fist and bow your head because he's your sect head, no matter the world or age. )

Yes, Zewu-jun. ( He's being mindful. ) Though this train gossips freely either way.

( .............. he's not even trying to justify, just. They live in an entrapped space. Certain privacies are hard to come by, and this was... going... to be loud. At some point. If he doesn't drag Dennis into the quiet cars when he has the energy to do so. )

Besides, we don't have the answers, Zewu-jun. I don't know anyone in our worlds who... acts like this. Flirting's one thing, but worthwhile people don't... you know.

( Get overly intimate. Holding hands is one thing, but Zewu-jun, they kissed! Jingyi suspects it was much more than once. Gasp! Shock! Sadness, because he just wants something happy for Sizhui, not, you know, the opposite. )

[calmness]

And yet that is still not reason to add fuel to the flame, is it?

[he says carefully, though he sees how tired this young man is. it's strange to know that right now, in his home, jingyi is a child he does not know well but knows.

not the young man he grows to be.] Perhaps not in the world and social circles we know but it is not... so unfamiliar to some. [it's good to know that he's grown up with the precepts so dear to him, though.]

Either way, were there not other ways to ask?

[thawed_pride]

[He's not the only one who's exhausted. Vexen is holding his head in his hand, elbow propped against whatever surface is convenient for leaning on.]

Should it not be the meaning it held in the illusion that carries the significance? After all, that is the meaning that informed the choices made, and it would be quite harsh to judge them based upon other expected implications.

Though, for what it is worth, I do understand the awkwardness that comes from certain...choices being made while deprived of context that would normally make a difference.

[jingyeets]

It was more like... because of things from the illusion, stuff I talked about there, that I'm worried? Or that things need to be clarified, because it wasn't like something just started, it was something that'd already happened. But it also wasn't like waking up married, you know?

( This with a bob of his folded over legs. This is... not a well thought out pose, but also, it's kind of how he fell over and it's so much more comfortable to lay here for a while... )

[thawed_pride]

Well, that makes it either more or less awkward...but it sounds as though it is a conversation that needs to be had, and sooner rather than later.

[He stifles a yawn and a grumble.]

Otherwise, you risk having to give that explanation in the wake of said boundaries being inadvertently pushed.

video

[agoodsoul]

[Dennis is actually a wee bit miffed as it doesn't take a rocket scientist, at least for him in this context, to connect the dots.]

Could just talk to them.

[Like is any of this really any business for the rest of the train, as vague as it is for most people.]

why hello sir, fancy seeing you on this train we're all trapped on together

[jingyeets]

( GOOD THERE YOU ARE he thinks, but it still takes him a long, huffed grunt to heft himself up and smack his arms into the table, earning... a grimace, a muttered ouch, and then the rubbing of one arm. )

Yeah, planning to. When I can stay awake for more than ten minutes.

( So he, well. Looks directly at Dennis, across the screen, because he is not, well, a subtle man. )

Dennis, do you drink?

( This isn't a loaded question, this is Jingyi starting groundwork on their talking date. THE ONE DATE HE'S SIGNING UP FOR. Also signing Dennis up for. He's, uh, welcome? )

well well well~

[agoodsoul]

Couldn't've done it before you did this?

[He's really trying to keep his temper down, but truly this is aggravating. He sighs heavily and wrinkles his nose at Jingyi, but he really doesn't want to get into it with Sizhui's bff.]

... yeah.

video

[wenyuan]

[His friend? Well, Jingyi has many friends. It could be about any of them. Or himself. He listens anyway, eyes widening when he realizes who he's talking about]

Ah? Didi is dating someone?

[jingyeets]

( It would of course be Wen Sizhui who calls out that Lan Sizhui is involved, mostly because he genuinely would be curious. Meanwhile, Jingyi panics, limbs akimbo and flailing as he sits up, having an apparent coughing fit as a hint hint stop mentioning who you're mentioning even if it's not by name people might understand what you mean by didi.

To all other appearances, Jingyi just managed to choke on air. )

[wenyuan]

Jingyi!

[Panic mode!]

I'll bring you water!

[paopuofyourlife]

Hmmm... [Was she actually think or was this a case of just prolonging an answer. One will never know.]

I think its one of those times where talking is a good thing. I think a lot can be solved doing that even if it's hard.

[jingyeets]

I'm planning on talking, it's more if someone was trying to say this to you, what would you think, I guess.

( he sighs, only legs partially visible on screen )

voice

[foxyou]

[Is it possible to recognize him if he does voice only and uses his adult form? Is there even a reason to bother? Maybe he just feels like being tall today, okay?

His tone of voice is kind of cold as he speaks, regardless.]

If there is a misunderstanding, it should be most definitely be cleared before anything else. Leaving things as they are without an explanation can only lead to pain and broken friendships, if not now then sometime in the future. And if both parties are amenable to this 'dating' thing, then what does it matter whether or not it was allowed in another world? Unless you believe the rules enforced in your homeland should be applied to the rest of the universe as well?

[jingyeets]

Where'd you get to that conclusion, huh? Pretty sure the point is not trying to tell people to be like us, but how to talk across a whole... ugh, I don't know! Culture thing!