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Even the dismalness of autumn can't stop Kai from sitting outside with a hot beverage, damn it. He's in the park (which park? Any park), and he's got a styrofoam cup of coffee. He's seated on a bench, a scarf and coat keeping back the worst of the chill. His blond curls shift in the breeze, and he stares at a bunch of pigeons that are staring back at him. "I'm out of crumbs," he says, "Now you're just trying to make me feel bad."
Hajime frequents the parks after his studies because they offer a brief respite from his otherwise stressful life, also, he tends to meet the most fascinating people in these places. He's stopped by a man talking to the pigeons and chastising them for making him feel bad for being out of crumbs. That makes him laugh a little which draws their attention to him as well. "Well don't look at me, I don't have any either."
Kai glances to Hajime. "That's how they get you, those sad beady eyes." He shakes his head. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating they get jobs and earn their crumbs. I'd never tell someone to get a job, goodness no." One of the birds gets bold and flutters up to land atop his golden hair. Peck peck. "Aw, look. He likes me." He shoos the bird away.
Hajime smiles. "That or he's roughing you up for the bread crumbs you've clearly shorted him. Or he thinks your pretty hair looks a lot like a pastry." Pretty, damn it, Hajime, you're not allowed to just tell men that they're pretty.
Kai smiles as he pushes his hand through his hair. "I've never had my hair likened to a pastry before. I'm rather fond of pastries." Behind the Englishness of his accent. He's not from around here. "You think it's pretty? The cold sometimes frizzes it." Fortunately, Hajime has found someone so fruity even Toucan Sam is like 'dial it back, bro.'
Hajime is a bit taken aback when the other man doesn't belittle him for the compliment or insult him but even asks if Hajime really thinks it's pretty. The accent tells him Kai is from another country, but Hajime is wondering if he's from another planet. Hajime edges closer to Kai, scaring a few pigeons off as he does, edging close to Kai as if he were a ticking time bomb. "It's pretty, very bright and vivid." He answers when Kai asks for confirmation. "I.. I'm Hajime." He offers out his hand for shaking.
Hajime isn't wrong, about the planet thing. Kai watches Hajime's edging with a pleasant smile on his face. "Thank you," he says, pushing his hand through his hair again, causing the curls to bunch up, then spring free. He then shakes Hajime's hand and says, "Kai. It's good to meet you." He pats the bench beside him. "I'm just killing time til this guy I know walks by. If he decides to today." His eyes are rather vivid, up close, with silver flecks in them like moonlight on water.
Hajime's approach to Kai is still cautious, like he expects the other man to explode at any given minute but he takes the seat beside Kai. "Kai," He allows that name to sit on his tongue, get used to it. "Where are you from? If I can ask? That's not an accent I hear much."
Nothing makes Kai want to yell 'KABOOM' and lunge at Hajime as much as that caution, but he behaves himself. Poor Hajime doesn't look like a fellow who needs more scares. "London," he replies, "but I've been in America for so long I bet I barely have any accent." Lies! He sounds as American as the Queen of England's corgis. "Are you from around here?" He doesn't let Hajime's appearance lead to any assumptions. After all, Hajime is at least probably from Earth.
Hajime smiles a little when Kai says he barely has an accent. "Now, you know that can't be true when I just asked you where you're from, Kai. You still have an accent, a heavy one. It's just as pretty as your hair though, I promise. Even if you sound like I've just dumped all your tea in the harbor." Hajime teases. "I live in East Village, my family owns a restaurant there."
Kai grins. "Well, here's to trying." He gives in to the fate of having an accent easily enough. The comment about it being pretty gets a grin from him. Then he laughs. "Thank goodness I don't drink tea as much as you'd think. I'm more of a 'fermented grains' person, myself. He perks up. "A restaurant? I love those. What kind?"
It actually feels nice to have someone not automatically assume that his family must run a Chinese restaurant. Most everyone just thinks all flavors of orientals look the same so he gets called Chinese often. He ducks his head shyly and then answers. "It's a Japanese restaurant, we sell ramen and sushi."
"Ramen and sushi?" Kai says. No, no Chinese assumptions. One should never assume! People assume he's human all the time, and they just go around being wrong all over the place. "I've never had sushi or ramen. Ramen's noodles I think? What's sushi?" He says the word again. "Suuuushi. That's a fun one."
Why exactly was this man so adorable? That must be his mutation for sure. "Ramen is noodles. Sushi is raw fish and vegetables wrapped up in sticky rice and seaweed. It's actually very good. You can get some without the raw fish if you're worried about getting sick, but I have never had any food poisoning in all my years."
"Raw fish is fine," Kai says. "They eat herring raw in Scandinavia all the time." He adds, "My parents are Norse." Not Norwegian, Norse. "Americans are a little, like, too easy to freak out with food, you dig me?" He just shakes his head. It must be an Alfheimian thing, the dorbsness. He smiles suddenly as he tells Hajime, "I'd love to try some."
Hajime just stares at him for a couple moments when he says 'norse' wondering if he's heard that correctly or if maybe years of eating raw fish had done a number on him. "Norse. Like, mythology, Norse." He repeats back just to make sure he'd heard the other man correctly. "I.. you can come by anytime, it's the Wasabi Bistro, but you said 'norse.'"
Kai considers for a moment. Generally, he tries to be in the closet about the whole Aflheim thing. Lately, though? Lately, Loki has let his freak flag fly, and it inspires Kai to pipe right up with, ""Exactly like Norse Mythology. Have you heard of the ljosalfar?" The word rattles off his tongue like he's fluent in… whatever that was. "Wasabi Bistro," he murmurs under his breath. "Hajime, Wasabi Bistro. Hee! I feel so international."
Hajime narrows his eyes at Kai as he speaks. "Bless you?" He says in confusion to whatever the hell that word was, if it was a word at all. Well, aliens apparently exist, so why can't Norse Gods? "So, what are you then? You're not human, I mean, that was rather rude, I'm sorry." He asks, completely dropping any conversation about himself now very interested in what Kai had to say.
Kai shakes his head and says, "No, it's all right. I don't think it's rude. I think the only reason I pass as much as I do is because people see what they want to see." He gestures vaguely at… space. "Ljosalfar," he says again. Then laughs. "Oh, because it sounds like a sneeze, I get it now." He laughs. "It means light elf."
Hajime smiles when Kai says it means 'Light elf'. "Well no wonder you're so pretty." He teases. "Can you bend light or something? Is that why thats a part of your name? Is that your mutation? Or I guess, well, it's not really a mutation for you is it?" He's full of questions now, as he always is when he meets someone new and different from himself.
Kai grins. "You're so sweet. No, I mean yes, I can play tricks with light, but I really do just look like this. I think you're pretty, too." He nods slowly as he listens, then shakes his head. "No, it's not a mutation. Another way to think about us is 'good' elves. We're all about, like, kicking back and relaxing, man. Just taking it easy, not hurting anyone. There are svartalfar, dark elves. They're bastard-flavored bastards."
Hajime blushes when Kai calls him pretty too. He waves a hand away at the compliment, not truly believing it. He chuckles at the bastard flavored bastards bit. "I wonder what your genetic make up is like. I'm sorry, that's real creepy to say. I'm studying to be a surgeon and I'm curious about everyone's body." He admits, rubbing a hand over the back of his head. "What can you do with light? Can I see?" 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours'.
Kai shakes his head and says, "It's not creepy. I wonder, too. Do you want some of my blood?" Like that's a normal thing to ask after and offer. Then he says, "All right, look at this." He gestures to the pigeons milling about, and for a moment, one of them looks like a cat. It slinks between the other birds. Then it turns, the light play breaks and it's a pigeon again, its dorky head bobbing as it walks. "It's just a little parlor trick, but if I'm ever in a lineup…"
"I would literally love that so much, but I don't want you to get hurt. It would be interesting to study it under a microscope and see what various poisons do to it. If you're completely immune to them or not." He pauses when Kai shows him his light trick and Hajime's eyes light up in excitement. He even claps, startling some of the birds. "That was amazing!"
Kai shrugs and says, "It won't hurt me. I'll come eat at your restaurant and I'll let you have some then." He considers for a moment, then says slowly, "Waaaaait, you wouldn't study it to find out how to poison me, would you?" He flicks his fingers and turns another pigeon into a cat. Briefly. Then he laughs. "It's fun."
Hajime shakes his head furiously. "Oh, no, no, no. Absolutely not. I want to know what could potentially hurt you so I could fix it. I want to be a surgeon to help mutants more than anything else, otherworldly beings counts as well. Except, maybe not the bad elves." He explains.
"Well, that's just nice of you," Kai says. How kind Hajime is, not wanting to murder him or his kind. "The bad elves are the worst people you could imagine," Kai says. "Ugh. They kidnapped me last summer and hunted me down like a fox. I got my throat ripped out, it was this whole big deal. You don't want to help them. They'd turn around and bite you for it."
"Your throat ripped out." Hajime repeats, horrified, a hand moving to Kai's neck when he speaks as if to make sure it's still there but then he moves his hand quickly away, as if being close to Kai's skin had somehow scalded him. "How did you survive that?"
Kai tugs down is scarf to show his throat is indeed intact. No scar to speak of. "I didn't," he says. "Someday I'll make a tapestry of it, because the story is an epic. I was taken to the underworld, but I pleaded my case to return to the world of the living. It was granted, but the condition was this: I had to betray my beloved Loki to death. The short version is, in the end, he stormed the afterlife to bring me back." He beams, dimples and everything. "And that is why he's the best."
"Loki. Like, the god of mischief, Loki." Hajime sits heavily back in his seat and looks like he's on the brink of an existential crisis, first because Gods and underworlds exist and then secondly because he kept telling Loki's lover he was pretty. "You know, uh. I should probably leave because well, I called you pretty, a lot and your beloved can probably easily kill me." Suddenly incredibly anxious.
Kai nods quickly. "Yeah, the god of mischief, but in his defense, mischief plays an important role in the moral ecosystem." He's about to expound on this, but he says instead, "He's not going to kill you. Not for saying I'm pretty. You've done nothing wrong, and it was really nice."
Hajime fidgets nervously. "I don't normally just.. just go around telling guys they're pretty either. You're just exceptionally pretty, that's all." The nerves make his body temperature fluctuate from hot to cold quick, like someone fiddling with a water faucet.
Kai lays a hand on Hajime's arm, and he says kindly, "You've made my entire day and night by saying that." He offers the poor anxious youth a soft smile. "I should get going, but I wanted you to know that. That you've made my day, and that Loki isn't going to hurt you." Then he gets to his feet. "Wasabi Bistro. I'll be there, and you can have some blood."
Hajime doesn't know how much he trusts Kai's reassurances but the hand on his arm at least helps. "Alright, sounds like a plan." He says, touching the hand on his arm briefly before nodding. "East Village. I'll probably be there."