moonchild

"Hi!" Cora smiled, stepping in someone's path right as they were about to walk past. "Quick question, won't take a minute -- would a dance school opening up in Swynlake be something you'd be interested in? And if yes, what kind of dance would you be interested in learning?" She raised her notepad, ready to write down their answer.

Immediately Tae's eyes lit up and he smiled at the person who had stepped in his path. "Oh, wow! Yeah, actually, I'd be super interested in that. I know a dancer and he's amazing! It would be really cool if I could learn dance and maybe surprise him. The only dance moves I know are the ones he taught me. I think it would be cool to be able to bust out some hip hop moves or some ballerino stuff."

Sid did not want to be there. That was the first important thing to note, actually, as he wandered down the pathway in Enchantra - right, of course it was Enchantra, fairytale forest was probably too long to slap on the tourist brochures - with absolute suspicion of every crack of branches, snap of twigs, and rustle of leaves. He was not, by choice, an outdoors person. Growing up in the Isles Sid had a healthy appreciation for the weird magical animal shit that came with the territory but this wasn't the place he knew.

Stomping around in the forest was never a very good idea. Tae knew that. He also knew that his boots were made for stomping and that's what he was gonna do.

“Would you mind?” Maddy held out a bottle of sunscreen to someone at the lake. “There’s this spot on my back that I just can’t reach.” She pulled her hair over her shoulder, and turned to show off the spot. “It’s like… right there.”

Tae was really here to see if he could spot anything cool in the lake. Sure, he was gonna swim too, but maybe he'd also get lucky and run into some unknown species of merman or something. He was focused on his goal, his towel thrown over his shoulder, when he was stopped by a bottle of sunscreen in his path. He blinked and turned toward the person holding it out.

This was probably one of the funnier conversations Shang had had in a while. This boy was cute, and was stammering over him which was altogether amusing to Shang when he really wasn't a TV personality like the boy had thought at first.

Tae forgot why he was here. Why was he even talking to this person? Did he approach him to ogle? That didn't sound right. He wouldn't do that. Tae could feel the tips of his ears trying to burst into flames.

Shang couldn't help but stare for a long minute.

Tae was the reddest he'd ever been in his entire life. This didn't happen to him. He didn't get flustered by hot people! He was impervious to charm! It was like, his super power, and his super power was really letting him down right now because the longer he looked at this guy, the less English he could remember.

Shang had a good deal to prepare if he was going to open up his new home to a housewarming party. He needed to make sure he was well supplied in drinks, in good food, and plan out a decent playlist for music. That and he had a good chunk of meetings for the company that would start at weird hours since he was not in fact in China. It was all a bit of a headache to worry over. 

Tae was just here to buy some snacks. Or like, take some snacks--if his brother wasn't around to make him pay full price. He had a little tally in his phone and knew what he owed and he was sort of in a hurry anyway, so he was just going to pop in and pop out.

Best friend…

Four languages? That was actually pretty impressive--not that a prom king had to know four languages, but a prom king usually was impressive. "Maybe not, but it probably doesn't hurt. Which languages do you know?"

"It's harder than it looks. But that's the fun part of it, these things gotta look easy." Randall mused with a grin pulling out another one so he could show the kid slower.

Tae tried one more time, failed, and laughed again. "Is it easier with a bigger coin? I guess it would be. Harder to hide a bigger coin, though."

“Yes,” said Gil. “Much to my dismay.” He shook his head. “Leo’s having a great time with it. And I’m very sorry you got caught up in this. He’ll be back with a whole speech, so if you want to brace yourself for that, I understand.” 

Tae was surprised by how sorry the dude looked when he spoke. It sort of made Tae want to apologize for being accosted, which was really the opposite of how he should feel. He looked over at the guy who was ordering their drinks and then back at the very apologetic man in front of him. "Is he like, your best friend or something? I know best friends can be really enthusiastic sometimes."

“Hey! I’ll buy you a coffee in exchange for listening to my pitch about why you should vote this guy for prom king!”

What was happening?

Randall nodded, he didn't have anywhere else to be right now so teaching hand magic to another generation was kind of cute.

The guy did some kind of complicated looking maneuver with the coin, running it between his fingers. Tae had seen that done before in movies, but seeing it in person was even more wild. Like, he knew the coin was in the guys hand, but watching him flip it between his fingers then only stick out the back, he could almost be convinced he actually was performing real magic. He took the coin when the guy offered it and tried to do the same.

Cursing didn't matter to Randall, it couldn't when you had an outspoken sibling. The words he had heard were much worse than shit.

Tae listened in fascination. It was like he was in a masterclass! Sort of. He wasn't actually learning anything yet, but he wanted to make sure he didn't miss a single thing this guy said. This was the most interesting thing to happen to him all week. (A blessing and a curse, truly, because in Swynlake, sometimes you didn't want things to be interesting.) "Can you show me how? Do you have time? I'm not holding you up, am I?"

Finn couldn't help the giggle that bubbled up from him. He knew talking about movies was a good idea. He could remember Tae getting excited about these before. And now he even remembered the movie name that Tae and Nemo used to talk about before. "D-Die Hard! I me-mean... I remember that's the one you g-guys talked ab-b-bout a lot before." He'd thought about watching it once before when they had been so enthusiastic about it...but he'd reconsidered it. Maybe it would be better watching it with Tae who clearly loved it anyway.

Tae hadn't seen How to Train Your Dragon, but he'd heard of it and he'd definitely be down for watching it. "That's the animated one, right? With the adorable black dragon that kind of looks like a cat?" That dragon was everywhere and no one could deny it was adorable. "I didn't know that was one of your favorite movies. I've never seen it but I'd probably like it. Is it your absolute favorite?"

Finn blinked at Tae for a long minute, a shy smile spreading across his face. Was this what Tae was always like? Just more... shy and easy to fluster rather than grumpy like he used to think? Maybe Finn had never been able to see much of this side of Tae before. Probably because Finn had generally been more of a nervous wreck. Now... well now he thought Tae was really sweet and it was kind of cute to see how he didn't know how to respond to Finn's words.

Tae got so excited about the Fast and Furious movies he didn't even really register that Finn was holding his hand and pulling him. "The Fast and Furious movies! I don't know if you'd like them, actually, but you might. We could try. Or we could watch something you like. Or maybe we could take turns. I don't want to just make you watch things like Die Hard and Fast and Furious without you getting a chance too." Tae laughed and then let go of Finn's hand so he could skip ahead a little, turning around and walking backwards to talk to Finn. "They are really good movies though. Kind of violent, but good."

Randall brushed off his pants as he stood up. Not that there was anything on him but it helped to straighten everything up and if he didn't need to be leaning down to a child's height he wasn't going to.

"Holy shit!" Tae said, then his eyes went wide and he looked at the man. "Sorry for cursing," he said, looking around to make sure there were no kids. He spotted a kid and their mother walking quickly away from him and he winced. Oops.

Tae grinned. "Dude, yeah, I'd love to do that. We could get it spruced up and looking like a home, you know? That's one of my problems with moving out, aside from the obvious fact that I don't have to. I don't want to move into a drab empty place. I feel like it would just make me sad."

"I to-to-totally get that." Plus, Finn wanted a space that suited him as a merman. It was nice that he could go to the Tritons and swim in their amazing pool if he wanted, but... well it would also be nice to have his own space to do that freely whenever he needed. That was his dream anyway, though he didn't know how he could explain that one to Tae.

Well, fuck that was a really sweet thing to say and not something Tae had expected to hear. Tae's family was, for lack of a better term, emotionally constipated, and even though Tae didn't really have that problem, he'd learned to coexist around it. He wasn't used to people saying nice things like that out of the blue. When someone showed emotion, it was usually because it was dragged out of them kicking and screaming and Tae didn't know what to do with docile emotion freely given.

Randall shook his head, that was the fun thing about hand magic, it was meant to entertain. It was meant to gather attention. And honestly a lot more fun than his own magic.

Tae nodded eagerly before he could stop himself then cleared his throat. "I mean, yeah I do. I've only seen it a few times though and never this close. It's even cooler close up because you would think you'd be able to see how it's done, but you can't." Tae moved a little closer.