2024-02-23: Roux Gets Ramen! Love, Life, and Hairstyles
- Log: Roux Gets Ramen! Love, Life, and Hairstyles
- Cast:Boss, Roux Louka
- Where: Boss Ramen, Fujinomiya City
- OOC - IC Date: July 0098
- Summary: Roux heads to Boss Ramen for a good meal, and to catch up with Boss after recent events. They talk about what motivates people, what /defines/ "people", and a few shorter topics.
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
Another day is close to wrapping up at Boss Ramen. The chatter's been more energetic than usual today - a little after lunchtime, someone's pulled up a strangely-cropped but quite loud video of The Slap on their phone. (Thanks for setting that in motion, Leina.) Boss isn't quite sure how to react to this; he's all for some teasing between friends, but he's a little unsure how it feels with people who don't know Koji or Sayaka. Still, he hasn't let it bother him much. Conversely, Mucha has no such qualms, and so he'd taken the role of serving meals so he can spend as much time as possible laying into Koji with everyone. He's having a great time. (Nuke also thinks it's very funny, but he's been hanging back in the kitchen to let Mucha have this.)
By now, though, the restaurant has quieted considerably, and Boss is back out in front taking orders. Mucha's cycled back to kitchen duty, and Nuke is wrapped up in an unrelated conversation with a small group near the back of the restaurant. The smell of ramen is as inviting as ever.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
The door opens.
Roux Louka walks in, glowing.
She isn't really glowing that much. The Photonic Spa and Hotel which she has gone to several times does use a token amount of photonic what-sits and do-globbers in what is otherwise excellent if mid-tier spa and beauty treatments, which rarely leaves anyone actually glowing, at least for very long.
But Roux has been thoroughly scrubbed, conditioned, moisturized and pampered, from fingernails to the crown of the head, and sometimes it's about how that makes you feel. Roux is wearing the same dress that she did on That Day, aqua-green, sleeveless, knee-length, sequined. She still has those two red streaks in her blueberry-yogurt-violet hair.
Sauntering inwards, Roux moves to set herself down at the far side of the counter, sitting straight and slightly smug. When Boss's attention turns to her, she says, "A medium and some gyoza, please~" with a lilt.
Which is when she leans forwards slightly, looking at the lantern-jawed man behind the counter. "How have you been? I mean," one hand comes up for a vague wave, "just, with everything. Don't let me hold you up if you're getting a rush, but --"
She looks over towards where Nuke is involved with some of the locals.
Back to Boss. "We've got like an hour until closing, anyway? -- Oh, do you have beer?"
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
Boss is also not glowing. He cares about his appearance, sure, but he's never gone to a spa or anything like that. (Mucha will have the eye to spot Roux's freshened-up state, though; he /has/ been to the Photonic Spa before, and seeing Roux might later remind him to suggest it to Boss and Nuke. Uncertain odds if he convinces them; probably 50/50.) Boss more immediately recognizes the outfit; just like Shinji a few days ago, Roux is Playing The Hits, and he respects that. (Granted, Roux is probably substantially more into fashion than Shinji, but the point is that sticking with what works is a good play.)
So, too, does he recognize Roux's expression: he's got an excellent memory for his old adventures, and he can draw the line from their first meeting all the way to now, with them having kept in touch in the middle. "You got it", he answers to her order, and he swiftly passes it along to Mucha.
'With everything' is a pretty wide descriptor as of recently, but it's been a lot more meaningful positive experiences than little hiccups of trouble. Boss responds to her wave with his own one-handed motion of dismissal about closing time. "Honestly, it's hard for me to even say 'we're closed' when there's still people here, but it's a long time 'till we're even 'supposed' to finish up. No rush here."
To answer her question: "Things have been moving quickly for sure, but it looks like it's all for the best. Obviously, The Wait is over... even if I'll have to get used to every customer in the city knowing about it. And I've been seeing a lot of familiar faces recently; always happy about that." He's got thoughts on something else they were both there for, too, but that was a few months ago. He'll wait for Roux to make it a little more clear that she wants to talk about that before he lets himself go into it more.
It's not too often he's asked for beer; Boss Ramen is all-ages. It's almost closing time anyway, though, so... he gives Roux a conspiratorial look. "Listen. 'We', the restaurant, don't have beer. ...But 'we', us three behind the counter, might know where some is. Just keep quiet about it, alright?"
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
The order is made and the order is passed along. Roux Louka becomes another link in the great chain of commerce; she will, of course, pay for this meal (her pride would accept an upgrade, but not a full treat - she works for a living) and thus, Boss will use that money to buy more noodles and... ramen juice.
Roux doesn't know much about how ramen works if you aren't using a powdered packet.
"They finally pulled the trigger," Roux concurs, with a faint chuckle. "And I guess it's a little famous now? I saw it in a group chat thing, but I didn't really watch it, I kind of hate watching video on my phone after everything."
"It took US a while to get there," Roux continues, her hands folding together loosely. "I mean I... well, I didn't WANT to ask myself, you know? I know it's kind of retrograde and everything but I wanted to feel like I was getting asked, not just being pushy." Her lips pooch into a slight pout. "And it took imminent death to get us to say it!"
"That's actually a funny story, even if we didn't get a video," Roux says. At the statement about the beer, she winks and raises a hand with two fingers. Whether this is a peace sign, an indication that she wants two beers, or just a general indication... these things are up to Boss to intuit.
(That intuition probably suggests she just wants one, but she may be handing one back to the Boss Man.)
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
Boss will indeed use Some of that money on further supplies. The trio set aside a percentage of their earnings each day on keeping Boss Ramen going, and then split the rest evenly. Some of that great chain, no doubt, will go towards Boss buying yet more yellow bracelets for the world's most ridiculous Borot-themed outfit. He's very pleased with himself.
"It's more like Koji 'pulled the trigger' and Sayaka pulled his body off the ground for it. But the point is, it happened, and right now we don't have to worry about any giant Mazingers that make things un-happen. Here's hoping they get to enjoy some peace while they're getting ready for the wedding."
He doesn't say anything, but he's a little visibly confused at what "after everything" refers to. It's up to Roux on whether she wants to pause what she's saying to explain.
He chuckles a little on hearing that there is yet more confession-delay-based comedy in the air. "Being around Koji and Sayaka has definitely give me some Opinions on what's the point where you should just hurry up and go for it. You've already done it, though, so I don't have to go for round 2 of that. Still, I can understand the feeling."
Nuke is done with the other patrons he was talking to, and he hears Roux's conversation starting from talking about herself. "It's pretty bold to follow 'imminent death' with 'funny story.' Did an enemy mobile suit point a gun at you, and out popped a flag with 'BANG!' on it?" Look who's talking, Nuke of Boss Borot.
Boss's intuition ends up not being the one that matters about the beer. He tries to quietly make a hand signal to Mucha in the direction of the basement - Mucha responds with an exaggerated shrug, as if to say "what's that supposed to mean?" To his credit, Boss tries again; quicker hand movements, he flicks his eyes in Roux's direction, he's even tilting his head towards the door. Mucha lets this go on for several seconds before smirking to himself and disappearing below Boss Ramen to go get the drinks. (Of course, he's known what to do since he saw Roux's raised hand; he's back with two small drinks with surprising speed.) With Nuke now here to help him, he'll also have Roux's ramen served to her very shortly afterwards.
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"Yeah," Roux concurs, "but I can tell, I mean -- she was hoping to get that question."
"Just," Roux says, with the viewpoint of the world focusing on her eyes, "perhaps, not in that way."
A beat or two passes. "Oh -- when I did long range patrols with the Energy Fleet, you only had what you had with you," Roux explains, "and you couldn't sideload it into the Mobile Suits - security risk out there. So, if you're bored... you have to get out your own device. Because that's secure, right?"
After this she takes a deep breath and lets it out. "Oh, no," Roux explains. "So basically what happened is -- we were up at Magellanica, an industrial colony, right? This was what was going on when Mineva did that big infodump on the whole world and everything. Well, I mean, it was a little before that."
A pause. "They had a colony laser," Roux continues, which isn't funny at all, "and we were all kind of... like... We were going to try to block it, because they shot it, at Magellanica. I guess it didn't really come up when we were on our big Earth tour," in other words, the events of ZZ Gundam, on sale now! "but the Double Zeta has this thing in it, the 'Bio Sensor', that can sort of... magnify things, and I was in there with Judau. So both of us are sort of staring towards this giant lethal backscatter light wave coming towards us, and--"
Roux raises both her index fingers, "BOTH OF US, AT THE SAME TIME, proposed."
Roux is present and appears to be intact, so presumably it worked out. "Isn't that funny??? We just both busted out laughing so hard!"
As Mucha deploys to recover BEER, hopefully not LITE, Roux straightens up. "I'm hoping they get all the peace they can stand," she says, eyes widening slightly. "Did they pick out a venue or anything? I haven't even finalized my dress, I'm still stalling on trying to look up my mom and tell her about this..."
Roux's jaw tenses and she breathes in through her teeth, even as Mucha arrives. "Merci beaucoup," she tells him, raising up the drink to Boss with her pinky finger extended. "To Koji and Sayaka." And the ramen also shows up around now, which means Roux doesn't get more than a token sip of the devil's hooch before turning her attention down to it.
"God! This smells so good," she says. She seems content to bask in it for several seconds, even as she cracks a pair of chopsticks. "Do you ever get tired of ramen though? I mean just being with it, in and out so much."
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
"In the end, I guess it'll be a lesson to future generations. 'Try not to whiff it; but even if you do, if it's genuine, you'll be better off having went for it.'" A quick glance to the side. "Even if your significant other has very powerful arms."
Boss is quite familiar with Mineva's big infodump; it so happens many of his patrons are part of "the whole world." Roux's story is new to him, though. (Nuke does imagine a colony-sized flag with "BANG!" on it, but he can tell it's not the part that's supposed to be funny yet, so he keeps it to himself as he goes to help Mucha.) The story continues; it would take a pretty particular kind of person to find humor after the harrowing experience Roux describes.
It's a good thing she's at Boss Ramen. Boss breaks out laughing once she drops the reveal; Nuke is also full-on giggling. Even Mucha, door half-open to get drinks, pauses for just a moment to snicker at it. "We're lucky no one went and fetched a death laser for the other topical pair of lovebirds. Even if they do offer good relationship advice, apparently."
In his head, Boss is imagining someone like Leina pulling that kind of scheme; but he is of course joking. He knows she wouldn't really do that. ...He is perhaps underestimating what Yuliana might do to speed things up, but the thought doesn't cross his mind. Perhaps Koji has another reason he should count himself lucky that he finally popped the question when he did.
With drinks now before him, he matches Roux's toast. "Hear, hear!" A beat; he realizes there isn't anyone else to hear. He decides he doesn't care; it's about the feeling of it. The ramen arrives, its very familiar scent even stronger now that it's right in front of them.
"There's a few answers to that, I think. First off, we don't eat just ramen; we love it, of course, and we'd have to have it anyways to check that it's good, but we all do different things for our other meals. For me, I don't try to perfect anything else the same way; I like trying a bunch of different stuff a lot more. As for being around it, 'ramen' isn't the full story there, is it? I'll bet I would get sick of it if I were in some kind of ramen factory."
Here he gestures widely around himself, to indicate the entire restaurant. "But to me, 'ramen' means all of this. It'd be kind of like asking me if I get sick of talking to people. Which, now that I say it, I guess that can happen - but it's never happened to me. So I've never gotten tired of it - I think I'm real lucky that this place worked out for me this way."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
("Hopefully it doesn't scare them OFF of getting married... I mean, I don't want to sound all conservative about it, but it's pretty good to get married if you want to, you know? Don't let your fears eclipse your dreams.")
It probably reflects on Roux that she found that particular horrifying turn of events 'funny'. Whether to her credit or her debit depends on how you want to look at it. She's grinning afterwards, though. As she takes a sip of the beer, she follows it up by gathering up some noodles and ducking down to slurp on them.
"I grew up in a restaurant," Roux comments then. "My dad ran it. My mom's an accountant, so... well, it was pretty good. But it wasn't much like this, though we had seafood, kind of." Another slurp. Her eyes turn around at the statement of the entire Experience.
"Yeah," Roux concludes. "I get you there."
But after this, and a deep breath, Roux falls silent, long enough to eat some more of the food.
"... though," Roux continues, "you know who I think about, sometimes?"
She looks up and over. "Atrytone. Or Asciel or -- I don't know, I couldn't keep track. I feel like I never understood her. She was just in this... whirlwind. I thought I had a feeling for how she was like, and I even thought maybe I had some insight, but..."
"Mmh. I guess if she's online, at least she knows what happened," Roux concludes. Her eyes turn down towards the ramen. To ease her heart, she fishes out the hardboiled egg, carefully, in order to pop it into her mouth without stabbing it with the chopsticks. (That is RUDE. This may have come up in the past.)
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
"I wouldn't be worried there. Now that there's no more uncertainty between them, I can't imagine that relationship could be anything other than a success story. Plus, Tetsuya's been championing the idea of marriage ever since he got together with Jun, so the influence of Mazinger pilots is already trending in that direction."
Boss is a man who likes to laugh. He thinks it's a reasonable bet that Roux finding the situation funny isn't hurting anyone, so he's got no troubles with her making the best possible memory of it. Plus. much like how Boss's laughter spreads easily to others, it spreads from others easily to him.
Boss nods in acknowledgement at Roux's history with restaurants. "I think a place means a lot more than just the food it serves, and based on that I'll bet you agree. Even if we served seafood, of course it'd have a whole different set of memories for you."
After Roux makes more progress on her gyoza, she brings up a new topic of conversation. The restaurant's basically empty by now, so Boss decides it's fine to talk about. "I'm pretty sure 'Asciel' is what she calls herself when she isn't fighting. I still don't get exactly what she's about, but I think there's hope for her."
He glosses over the egg; even besides him getting ready to get into a larger topic, you have to remember the ramen crime he heard tell of just a few short days ago. Ordinarily he takes some pride in how ramen is eaten; but Comparatively, he will easily let this slide.
"You weren't there, but I actually met her about a week earlier. She was threatening some political target, and now that Borot's back on the field, us three were some of the pilots who went to protect them." He takes a breath while he collects his thoughts to be said out loud. "She wasn't as intense then, but she was still talking about humanity being unforgivable and stuff. And you know, having heard enough of it from Dr. Hell, I don't really buy that. So I went into a whole speech on Human Spirit and how it'll always win."
Boss sighs as he shakes his head. "No good. I thought I'd be encouraging her to have faith in us; turns out she took it as saying that we're Better than her. Should've seen that coming. And she whipped our own attack back at us just to prove the point."
He might sound slightly down as he relates this, but it's only as he tells that specific part of the story; he shifts right back into his usual conversational tone as he continues. "So over that week, I thought about why that didn't work. And I figured the better way to say it was to cut out the 'human' part of that phrase; good things don't only come from human beings. Although I'll admit I still don't have the same kind of word for it; just saying 'spirit' or something isn't as clear a message. The important part is it's not leaving anyone out."
"And I say that was the right call. Obviously we didn't really 'win' at Isaac City, but she got herself out of super-final-battle mode. Even if we end up having to fight her again, I think that's progress."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
Roux waggles her chopsticks. "I never thought of that one, huh. You're approaching a hundred percent there. You looking at anyone yourself?" Roux adds, voice lighting at the end. Then she takes another sip of her beer.
"I don't want to do it today, BUT, if you can get some filleted whitefish sometime, I know a great way to make it," Roux tells Boss. "Though actually I taught it to Shinji, if he's hanging around the area, you could ask him. It's called 'blackened fish,' but I don't think he knows the spice mix..."
Munch, munch.
Roux's eyebrows draw down as her brow furrows. After she swallows, she says, "So she comes back from whatever the hell she was doing before her big Arabian Nights adventure, and she had just started threatening politicians?"
A beat passes. Roux lets out a breath that is, somehow, fond. "Ugh, I was just there to stack more cash, Leina throws me these contracts... But, that figures," she continues. Her eyes turn upwards for a moment after this, and she straightens upright. "... sometimes I think about that," she says. "I heard a lot of stuff from, like... Yuliana and her psycho wife, about how horrible Newtypes are and everything. And the funny thing -- like, this is the funny thing, people on Earth only really know it from Zeon stuff, right?"
Roux spears another gyoza. "The whole word, Newtype, was like a joke in Side 3! It was like what you called someone who claimed he could tell what horse was going to win a horserace by how long it took a vending machine to spit out a coffee. Then they figured out more about how it worked, and, well."
"Maybe 'human' isn't a word we should be using any more," Roux continues, with a half-shrug of one shoulder. "We already had to stretch it with the Zentradi. Right?"
"Mm," Roux continues, about 'progress'. "You know what, Boss, I'm going to believe in you because otherwise I am going to sit right here, eating noodles, and you're going to watch me turn into Char Aznable, and then you're going to have to leg-drop me through this counter, and I just got my hair done."
That must be pretty good BEER.
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
Boss doesn't react much to the question of love. "You're not the first to ask. I don't think so, though. Obviously I had to calm it down from when I was younger, and once I did, I realized I don't really have much in the way of romantic feelings right now. I'm not writing off the possibility eventually, but nothing for now."
"Shinji was just here a few days ago, actually. He must be back home by now, but he should be coming back sometime soon; he asked for advice on making ramen, and hopefully he'll be back to tell me how it went. I'll ask him then."
Time to talk about Asciel. "Yeah, she's definitely proactive. I'd compliment her on it if the thing she was so passionate about wasn't causing trouble." Roux continues; Boss bristles ever so slightly at "her psycho wife", but he still doesn't fully understand what's going on with Elisa vs. The Empress, and he's pretty sure that's private information anyways. Besides, it's not the point Roux is making.
Her thoughts on "Newtype" as a word do sound comparable to what he means. "They probably could've called it something better, too. Having a 'Newtype' means you also have an 'Oldtype', and nobody likes being called outdated. -Well, I guess I don't mind, but that's just 'cause I had to get used to it driving Borot into fights."
"I talked about it with someone else, and I ended up thinking the same thing. Like, it still means something, but we shouldn't use it as 'everything that makes a Person.' Although- is 'people' human-only? I think that might be better instead of where we say "humanity", but maybe that's not the right word to choose."
Roux's patience is evidently being tried with Asciel Colette. Boss acknowledges that "hey, I did say we might have to fight her again. And I'll be there if I can. I'm just saying this isn't a kikaiju or some other problem you just punch through. Hopefully that's agreeable enough to protect your hair." Mucha makes an aside comment: "If you turned into Char, you'd have hair problems way before any drop-kicking. That stuff's seen better days."
<Pose Tracker> Roux Louka has posed.
"You'll find someone or something," Roux says, resting her chin in her hand for a moment. "I'm not a fortune teller but I just know it. You're a good guy. And so are YOU, Nuke!" Roux calls at a near-passing Nuke. Then, Shinji.
"Huh!" Roux says. "Yeah... I'm not sure where he's living now. Actually, it might be Magallanica. I think that's kind of their home port on the RM2? I dunno. I was visiting there and Captain Eight asked me to do something to cheer him up. He went through a lot... like half of his team got killed fighting one of those monster Angel things."
Her tone has genuine sympathy, sliding underneath the glibly chatty-Cathy overnotes.
"Yeah," Roux exhales, about Oldtype vs. Newtype. (If she noted that tension about Elisa, she isn't remarking on it.) "Yeah, that's just another problem they left us with. If you make anything, I guess, and you put it out there, someone's going to turn it around -- turn it all, up, look at it from every angle... and try to find the bad parts."
She slurps up some more ramen. "People isn't just human anyway," Roux mumbles before finishing off her bite properly. "I mean everyone just does that anyway. And it's true! There's Super-AIs like those nice big guys with the Galaxy Gutsy Guard (I'm getting that wrong, I know it). Asciel, even if she pissed me off, she was obviously a person. Ummm. Hm. I guess there was that pop singer... bad example, maybe? But," Roux adds, tilting her head, "Iino always told me, like: Just because you're a minority doesn't mean you have to be perfect or you're letting people down."
Enigmatic. Good ol' Iino.
"... you're right," Roux says, with a breath. "It's kinda funny. You've got a good outlook on this... I just feel sometimes like I look at stuff too... too, I don't know, ordinary. So like you said, she's not a problem to punch through. I mean like, she's not a problem, full stop, she's a person, it's just that a person CAN cause problems, and sometimes they cause a TON of them but, if she is a computer or whatever, she's got to be, what, five?" Roux leans forwards a little. "When I was five I was figuring out why my name had so many extra letters!"
Then she looks at Mucha. "Right? I never got the whole blonde thing." Back to Boss. "This has nothing to do with anything, but I want your honest opinion on one thing, just, like, out of nowhere, close friend, fair and trusted, speak your heart."
Roux reaches up to slide her fingers into her hair, right where there are two red highlight-streaks. She bounces the lock of hair forwards, narrowly avoiding having it land in her soup.
"Is this pathetic?" Roux asks. "Like I know I'm not eighteen any more, I just thought this looked cool."
<Pose Tracker> Boss has posed.
"I appreciate the vote of confidence. Really, I feel fulfilled and all already... but like I said, I'm not ruling anything out." Nuke is substantially less prepared for this than Boss was; the most he manages is an "AH, uh, thanks!!" and on he goes.
Boss very quickly goes uncharacteristically silent on the topic of Shinji, and it's not a hard guess as to why; he has a massive amount of emotions connected to his 'team' being okay, and he can only imagine how Shinji must feels if the boy saw his own team anything close to how Boss sees his. It's all he can do to manage a response: "I'm not sure where he lives, but it's not too far. I'm sure he can make it back to Fujinomiya if he wants."
"Yeah, that's what I thought", Boss notes about 'person' as a word. "I was a little worried that someone like Asciel might say that that's just a synonym for human, and we'd be back where we started. But if it's not like that, I think it makes a lot more sense." On the topic of Asciel: "For sure. How fair would it be if we asked her to improve 'as a person' if we wouldn't even say she is one? It'd be ridiculous."
He gives a small laugh as he circles briefly back on Roux's aside: "It's Gutsy Galaxy Guard. Every so often customers talk about it, and they argue over what the 'G's stand for more often than they don't. For a guy who doesn't work there, I wouldn't be surprised if I've heard the full name more times than some people who do."
Boss thinks over Roux's concern: he doesn't want to devalue her opinion, but he does want to explain how he sees it. "I don't think it's useless to look at the straightforward view. We wouldn't have beaten Dr. Hell if Koji got stuck on trying to 'hear him out.' But here it's more... well, that's why I brought up 'progress'. You do have to be able to see if she's causing problems right now, but I also try to think about whether she might eventually stop doing that. I don't know if "computer years" are a thing, but she's got plenty of time - as long as she doesn't end the world or anything before that. Then we might have problems. But we'll be there to stop her if she tries it."
On "the whole blond thing", Mucha again only offers a shrug - but this one seems genuine. Truly, this needs to be examined further. Let Mucha write the history books.
One last question tonight, it seems. Boss readies himself for whatever he might hear, and nods once to let Roux know he accepts the contract and will hear the question.
Beat.
"Roux, look at me. No, not in the eyes - at the red shirt, which I keep buying new copies of. Let's also remember all those yellow bracelets I was wearing at the party. And spare a thought for Boss Borot underneath the restaurant right now."
"There's no way I wouldn't support "what you think looks cool."