2022-02-27: You Gotta Get The Cheap Stuff
- Log: 2022-02-27- You Gotta Get The Cheap Stuff
- Cast: Akane Shinjo, Rei Ayanami
- Where: Tsutsujidai Markets
- OOC - IC Date: 0096-02-27
- Summary: Akane goes shopping for bottles for nefarious purposes, and makes a new acquaintance.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
This kaiju plan is getting really involved -- maybe too involved for exam season. Akane knows she needs to start escalating in some sense if she wants to actually put up wins against Vessels of Light; even the Last Judgmenter really struggled. As far as she can tell, though, the amount of effort she puts into a kaiju is a direct correlate for its performance -- which means this next one has to be really, really fussy and specific.
All that to say that Akane is at the grocery store in the bottled drink aisle, because she needs things to use as volcano channels and she doesn't want to do that the hard way. She picks up a bottle of unsweetened green tea and starts looking at it from a variety of angles. To someone who actually intends to do a normal thing with a bottle of tea, like 'drink it,' this is probably kinda weird-looking.
For whatever reason she concludes this isn't the winner -- size of aperture, height of bottle, take your pick -- and moves on to a wide-mouthed foreign drink bottle. "Hrmmm... mRrmrmrm..." she mumbles to herself, brow furrowed.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Akane raises the bottle.
The aisle is empty.
She puts the bottle back. In the reflection of a selection of flavored ramunes, there is a girl there with powder-blue hair and a school outfit that isn't local.
There is a sense of someone standing there. A faint physical warmth. That subtle sense of Presence that can misfire but which comes from someone standing very near you; that sort of consolidated subcritical sensorium presence of another individual.
A white hand comes forwards, past Akane's head, barely five centimeters away from the ear. It grasps a bottle and turns it.
"ah" the person who is WAY TOO CLOSE behind her says, as the full title of the bottle is revealed, rather than two visible letters. The white hand relinquishes the bottle and pulls back.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane's first thought isn't to fully assess the situation and realize there's someone here who wasn't here before; it's to assume she zoned out and was unknowingly in the way of someone who needed access to what's in front of her.
"S-sorry! I'll get out of your way!" Akane stammers, briefly, shifting two steps to the side with a slight wince. It's only after she does that that she glances back, sees the unnaturally pale young lady behind her, and pieces together the *actual* narrative of events. She takes a momentary breath, turns to fully face Rei, and asks:
"Hey, don't sneak up on me like that," Akane says, slightly more disarmingly, with a slight tilt of her head and an easy smile. "Kinda rude, right?" She glances back to the bottles for a moment, picking up another one and thinking about it long and hard -- and subtly keeping it between herself and the mystery girl.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei turns her head to look towards Akane as she notices her and then moves away, creating a greater reserve of space between them. She gazes at the lilac-haired woman. She blinks once, which is at least a mild reassurance in some obscure ways.
"Understood," she says, without a response in other facial features. Her attention returns to the beverages.
"I don't know," Rei answers, about the rudeness. "I do not shop often."
She turns several other bottles, but seems to notice a trend. She relents afterwards.
Rei gazes at the shelves.
Her head turns again to look at Akane, slowly.
"... I need to find something. I do not know what it is."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Oh, wow, Akane thinks. She sounds just like one of the aliens from Tarabaman S. Maybe if I touch her face it'll wink out like a hologr --
Rei blinks. Akane does not fully ditch the alien hypothesis, but she gets an okay distance into doing so.
"Okay, so you're... looking for something. What are you looking for?" Akane starts. That's a nice, harmless question, and can flow neatly into...
"Hey, I know a lot of people in the ward but I don't think I've seen you before. When'd you get into town?" she asks, seemingly making casual conversation. (It is anything but casual.)
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"I need to find 'how to cook a delicious meal,'" Rei says, as if she's reading off the script. This probably costs her not-an-alien points.
"But, I need to find peperoni." She doesn't say it quite right, as if she's read the word in katakana but has never actually seen the object.
She looks at Akane, as if expecting (hoping) for her to say something further.
"I saw where he went," Rei says. "I suppose I went the same way."
Rei looks at the ground.
Rei looks up, and to the side. Out towards a door.
Then upwards.
"... the ceiling's unfamiliar."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
... aaaand it's back to alien. Definitely an outsider... kinda helpless... kinda cute. Akane usually prefers them just a *bit* above her own age, but hey: cute's cute. "He? Which he?" Akane asks, now genuinely curious. It sounds like she's friends with another outsider... it could be a Vessel, but it could also be the pilots of one of those giants... or maybe even a pilot of a mobile suit. Hard to know without more.
"Pepperoni, though?" Akane's foreign language skills are a *bit* better; her actual comfort zone is French, outside of the usual amount of Japanese and Britannian English you'd expect from a girl her age. (Plus: she likes food.) "You're in way the wrong aisle! C'mon, follow me."
And right back to grilling. "Unfamiliar ceiling, huh. So you're saying this is your first time here?" The fact that Rei's *so* weird has her attention -- plus, well, she enjoys shopping for people. "What are you trying to make? I used to cook for myself a lot -- and, actually, who are you cooking it *for*?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"The administrator," Rei says, which is probably not the best illuminating answer, but seems to be what Akane is getting. Rei looks down and meets her eyes again. Despite what could be taken as albinism she's having no problem seeing.
Akane says a name. "Yes," Rei says. After this, she begins following after Akane, maintaining the two-paces-and-change distance that Akane set. Unless Akane really starts peeling out, because Rei is not the longest of leg.
"Yes," Rei says, about it being her first time here.
"I am trying to make 'pizza,'" Rei says. This one she does nail.
"I am making it for Ikari," she continues, in perfect innocence. "Although, it is a pleasant food, so I will also eat it."
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane is less than 10 centimeters taller than Rei is; they actually match pace pretty comfortably.
Rei's red eyes meet -- equally red eyes. Huh. Not super common, that. "Oooh, pizza," she says, with a grin. "Is Ikari the administrator?" Akane's irritation with answer clarity is getting just a *bit* higher, but she's not quite mad enough to drop the mask and play it totally flat just yet; besides, it's not like she started the interaction with an eye toward grilling Rei.
"Okay, soooo... hm. Hm. Pizza for pepperoni... you're gonna want a full stick instead of just buying the little packages," Akane offers. "It's kinda a pain in the butt, but that way you can decide how thin you want the slices to be."
She slowly leads Rei toward the meat. "If you're using it on pizza, the cheap stuff's kinda better! Weird, right?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"No, the administrator is the administrator. Ikari is not the administrator," Rei explains.
She does not seem to have reacted to being grilled.
"Stick," Rei says about the pepperoni. As they get nearer to something else - Rei seems to slow, her footsteps halting for a moment. Her nose wrinkles.
"Is pepperoni meat?"
"Why is the cheap stuff better?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yep! Pepperoni is, uh... it's like a sausage? Usually it's beef and pork, but sometimes they'll put other stuff in," Akane explains -- though it's kinda wild that Rei is going to try to cook something it sounds like she's never seen. "Plus I guess there's, like... pepper and garlic?" That's about Akane's limit of pepperoni knowledge.
Her brow furrows a bit, as she gets around to the other question. "So, like... it's not that it tastes *better*, but more -- pizza's like..." She gestures vaguely, trying to find the words. ... Nope, this one's too hard. "... People just get used to how it tastes, I guess! People usually just want the same experiences they used to have." Every day the same... that doesn't sound bad. It was nice, like that, before people from outside started showing up.
"Hey -- what's your name? And what does the administrator do?" She gets a *little* more specific with her questions, now.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
As Akane reveals the dark truth about pepperoni, a change comes over Rei. She looks over towards the side with a dark, drawn expression, lips pursing as if she was just informed about an unpleasant and painful diagnosis of something that will specifically exclude her from a favored activity.
She lets out a small, but distinct sigh.
Rei sweeps a hand up to smooth out her hair.
"... Yes," Rei says. "I don't eat meat. But, I know that pizza does not require meat. It is like onigiri, or sandwiches. The dish has many forms. All of them are the 'same'. But, the familiar form for him, may need meat."
At the question, Rei seems taken aback.
"I am," Rei says, before there is a longer and distinct pause than there really should be. "Rei Ayanami."
Another question. This one seems to take a long time to get a response although Rei's demonstration of some kind of emotional range is not further exercised.
"... Administration," Rei concludes.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Yep, that's right," Akane says, with a nod. "It's just like... bread with stuff on it, basically. You don't even have to put the same stuff on the whole pizza!" Akane enthuses. There's a certain part of her that enjoys teaching people about things they don't know. "Here, uh -- like this." She reaches into her bag, poking around a bit; she finds a notebook first, and then a moment later -- after significant fumbling -- fishes out a pencil.
She draws a circle. Then, a slightly smaller circle inside it. "So this is your pizza, right? And you can put the pepperoni on this side..." Circle, circle, circle, circle... "And mushrooms on this side!" Akane's mushrooms, for purposes of this literal pencil sketch, are question marks.
For some reason, 'food for other people' seems to have Akane much happier to talk than she usually is.
"Rei Ayanami, huh..." She commits the name to memory. "Akane Shinjo." An outsider with an 'administrator' they're cagey about has the God of Tsutsujidai increasingly annoyed; there's been a lot of people coming through, and any one of them might have sent Rei here.
She asks, slightly more clipped, "And, right, stupid question. Of course an administrator does administration." Her teeth grind for a moment, before she asks more directly: "Administrator with *who*? Does he have a name? What *is* it?"
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Akane reveals a dark magic of pizza. Rei seems subtly but authentically shocked at the prospect of a half-a-pie. "... But the toppings would spread," she says, before Akane makes an illustration.
Rei looks at it. She seems to get the idea immediately. Glyphic logic.
"When I ate pizza," Rei says, "there were peppers, onions, mushrooms and a black vegetable I did not know. There were also tomatoes, but coarser than the sauce beneath the cheese. I could taste garlic, but it was not in its usual form."
"Understood," Rei says to Akane's self introduction.
And then Akane asks her a question. Several, though they're interlocking questions. Rei looks at Akane's paper.
Rei thinks.
Rei then tenses up...
... and stalks into the meat aisle. She seems mildly revolted by the entire situation, but she seems to be studying the objects. Her arms come together, folding before her, defensively.
"... thhch," she half-sibilates. "... Shinjo," a look back at her. "Which one is the 'stick of pepperoni'?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Right, so you could do half a pizza with the pepperoni, and half of it with all that stuff. The other thing you're looking for might be black olives... we can go by that aisle in a bit." Akane feels good, for just a moment, about successfully explaining how to food to someone who very demonstrably has never done anything remotely like make food in her entire life. She follows along with Rei, eyes slightly narrowing -- but she does take a second to make an exasperated, "Nnhhh," noise before she follows Rei.
"You're looking for a stick," Akane says, "About... this long," a gesture of about 40 centimeters, "and this wide." Holding her hands in a circle a bit smaller than a soda can. "It's gonna be red." Her tone is less enthused, explaining this.
Then: "Do you always just ignore when people ask you questions, Ayanami? I asked you three of them."
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"Understood," Rei says, about the olives. There is a tone of - gratitude? Something there. She is soft and soft spoken but there is something there. Alien may be plausible but at this range robotic is not.
Rei seems somehow even less pleased at this description than she had been before. However, it helps her identify the object. She picks one up from a shelf, holding it before her. It sits heavily in her hand. She is holding it like a bludgeon.
She grimaces faintly as she turns it over, to look at the label.
"There are questions I cannot answer," Rei says, looking at the label. "If it is troublesome, you do not need to assist me any further. You have assisted me already."
She puts the thing back on the shelf, with an air of reverence. Gently placing it down; tucking it inwards.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
That makes Akane start to wonder, a bit. Maybe... hm, no, this couldn't be one of her people -- they're not from out of town, usually... "Fine," she says, at first, before following up with a, "Hrm." She chews at her upper lip this time, tapping at her chin. An out of town middle schooler...
... if Rei can't answer any of those questions, maybe Akane needs to try a long shot. "... Did you have dinner in town about two weeks ago?" she asks, instead. "Maybe Chinese or ramen?" It sounds like a potentially much more innocuous question, but it's Akane's hail mary on actually learning anything from this particular outsider. If actual job questions are out of the question...
Akane pulls out her phone. Lazily, she swipes through a few potential contacts.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei awaits Akane's thoughts.
"No," Rei says. She thinks for a moment. "Fourteen days ago, I ate Thai noodles. I do not remember the dish's name. It had peanuts and it was very spicy."
Rei is silent.
Again.
She seems to be struggling --
"Ramen is pleasant," Rei concludes.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Well, she can't say she didn't get an answer. She's left with a near-total enigma, though. Just who is this? "Sometimes I like the broth... usually I'm more about sweet than salty these days, but still." Akane shrugs a bit, finally deciding to move on for now. If she thinks of a better way to push for information, she'll go for it.
"Wanna go to the canned veggies aisle?" she asks, instead, deciding to do the thing that makes her feel less bad about the conversation. It's a little tainted now, but still... "I bet we can find the other stuff you're looking for." A second passes, and she adds, "... tell me about Ikari instead." Open-ended. Easier, probably.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"The broth is pleasant. It feels rich in the throat," Rei says. "It is good with the garlic as well."
"Yes," Rei says, about the canned vegetables.
Walk, walk, walk.
"... he was kind to me when he was not ordered to be," Rei says, after another long pause.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hmmm, yeah. You can't cheap out on that kinda stuff, either." Akane nods to Rei, and says, "Here we are! Canned veggies. Let's see, olives, olives..."
She starts walking down the aisle very slowly, looking.
"I'm guessing he's about our age," Akane offers. (Adults who are kind when they don't need to be are the exception.)
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"Yes," Rei says. "We are in the same class."
Volunteering information!? A weakness!?
"... so many," Rei says, with an abstract sort of wonder.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"... Have you really never been shopping before?"
Alien begins to seem more plausible to Akane. Then again -- would an alien also attend middle school?
Akane starts picking *other* pizza-topping veggies off the shelf.
She remembers she was doing something with her phone, before she got distracted by questioning Rei. She snaps off a quick text.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"I have been shopping," Rei says, which is an ambiguous statement.
Mushrooms.
Little onions.
The black olives. ("Yes, these," Rei confirms.)
"Is it best to use the canned vegetable?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"Hrrmmm..." Akane taps her chin. "Probably for your first attempt, yeah. That way if you screw up you're not out more than a couple bucks." Akane seems like she's intimately familiar with cooking failures and the long, slow art of trial and error.
"You should have everything," she says, eventually. "Other than the dough, the cheese, and the sauce. ... oh, right, and the tomato. And the spices." Pizza is kind of an involved dish, Akane reflects.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"I have tried to make the dough," Rei states.
Which suggests a lack of success.
Rei isn't picking things off the shelves. Presumably she will be going home to make this. She seems to be studying things intensely.
"When I can complete the operation, I will use the fresh ingredients," Rei says.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
Akane realizes Rei isn't actually taking anything. "Are you... not going to actually buy it?" she asks, a little confused -- and, if she's honest, weirded out.
"... wait, *operation*?" This is a sudden spike in seriousness regarding pizza-based activities!
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"No. I do not live here. I did not bring money."
A beat passes.
"Yes," Rei says, soberly. "It is an integrative project. Food decays quickly. Is pizza desirable when it is not hot?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
The whole assembly here can't be much past 20 gilla. "Mrmrh... I'll pick this stuff up," she says, reaching into her pocket again. Even if she's *annoyed* with Rei, and how intransigent she's being, she's still worth at least a little play-acted care.
"You can leave it on the counter for a few hours and it'll stay okay -- it's usually pretty salty," Akane answers. "And after that, pop it into the fridge. Some people like to eat it cold after that, but I think it's better warmed up."
She gives Rei about 20 gilla in loose bills. "Here, don't even worry about it," she says, pleasantly.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Akane gives her money.
Rei looks at it for long moments. She arrays the bills gently into something resembling order and tucks it into a small pocket in the side of the dress. There are no words of thanks.
It may occur to Akane that Rei is in a summer uniform right now.
"How much pizza would a lunch consist of?" Rei then asks.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"... when people do something like that, you're supposed to say thanks," Akane says, a little sulkily. Following Rei's action gets her to notice the summer uniform. ... hhhhuh. That's -- usually outsiders are still in their winter clothes. Was she briefed ahead of time...?
... it's a lot to think about. "Hmmm... I'd say, for the usual circular pizza... well, how many people are you thinking about? If it's just you and Ikari, I'd say maybe like... this?" She puts her hands about 20cm apart. "If it's more like four of you, go bigger. Remember, if you double how wide it is that's four times as much!"
Huh. School actually came in useful for once.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei looks at Akane as she explains about thanking people.
Good to know, perhaps: she does not remark on it. Her eyes go down to Akane's hands. She gently mirrors the gesture. Her head nods once.
"Yes. The total size will increase geometrically in a two-dimensional plane," Rei says. "As the pizza is topologically flat, it will only increase in area. Volume will remain consistent. The angle of individual portions may increase, or subdivisions will be larger."
"Where do you make the purchase?"
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"There's checkstands out closer to the doors. They've got conveyor belts on them and stuff," Akane explains. "Just put the food on the belt, the person will scan it and bag it up, and then you give them the money! Sometimes you give them too much and they'll give you some back." She has finally realized, perhaps, how much she actually needs to explain.
"Do you need me to walk you up there?" she asks, before snapping off one more text.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
"Yes," Rei says.
She is able to check out like a pro, at least. It is clear if only from inference that Rei has interacted with currency and stores before. Maybe she has been to supermarkets but never left a particular narrow band of items. That makes a certain amount of sense, given her demeanor.
She turns to give Akane back the change once everything is put into a happy little bag for her.
<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.
"... Ehhh, keep it," Akane says, with a shrug, as Rei finishes checking out. "I don't need it. My guardian takes care of that kinda thing."
... at least she's pretty polite, Akane thinks. Not like that other brat from school.
<Pose Tracker> Rei Ayanami has posed.
Rei pockets the money.
"Goodbye," Rei says, and turns to exit the store.
That's not the strange part.
Eventually Akane will have to leave the store, unless she lives here. When she does, she will find that change - and a dropped bag containing several canned pizza-making vegetables (Rei put the pepperoni back on the shelf) - resting right on the curb.
If someone was watching--
Rei walked out of the street and looked up and down along it. She had then seemed to look upwards, peering towards the sky. After doing so for several seconds:
One moment she was there.
The next, she wasn't -- but the money and the little bag of canned vegetables stayed behind.