caughtinanetwork

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For those of you who might give a fuck, Jake English is gone from the bubble again.
The kid's going to earn himself a title of flighty broad, at this rate.
Maybe the third time's the charm, if our "great and powerful God" deigns to deliver him a third time.
I rather suspect that it's too busy quoting Dirty Harry at us and our delightful circumstance.

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[There's a pause on his end, as well.]

Why the hell not. Sure, let's do it.

okay ill meet you there.

[True to his word Sola's waiting for Dirk outside the ice cream shop just off the plaza. Hopefully this will help his friend feel better. He waves when he catches sight of the blond teen.]

Hi Dirk!

[Dirk takes longer than he usually might have, to arrive. It's because he didn't do any flashstepping on the way there. The thought struck him sometime on the way over that usually he's the one giving advice to and cheering up Sola, and he's not sure how he feels about the reversal. So he took the time to get his head together. He's doing "casual" very well by the time he arrives for ice cream.]

'Sup, dude.

Not much, um, bro.

[He grins a little bit, not sure he's using that word right but he knows Dirk uses it a lot so it might make him happy? He tugs open the door to the ice cream parlor, holding it for Dirk to go in first. It's only polite.]

We should get a giant sundae with all the flavors, what do you think?

[There's something forced about that smile. Something's up with Sola too and he's terrible at hiding things, but he genuinely wants to cheer Dirk up right now, not bog the blond down with his problems. He's not going to say anything.]

[Dirk's expression doesn't change much, but his shoulders lift a little from their slump.]

Sounds boss.

[Dirk grabs the both of them a pair of seats by the counter and waits for Sola to join. Maybe he'll ask eventually, but he's not about to pry yet, when asking out of the blue is likely to lead to a "you tell me yours if I'll tell you mine" feelings conversation.]

Boss?

[He sits next to Dirk with his clueless face on. Man, all these other cultures with their weird words. The only boss he knows about is the kind at the end of a dungeon.

He looks up at the giant list of flavors on the board.]

Umm... on second thought, maybe all the flavors but the fish ones.

Slang for awesome.

[It is some sort of mission for him to provoke that face, sometimes.]

What, you have something against variety?

[No, he doesn't really want the fish flavors, either. He just has to argue for the sake of an argument.]

[It's not hard. he makes an amused 'yuck' face at Dirk's comment about variety though.]

Well if you want sardine flavor then you can get it on the side. I want all the good flavors like chocolate and strawberry and pumpkin. We should get bananas and nuts and fudge too! And a million cherries. A million.

[Not really a million, but enough to cover the entire top of the sundae maybe.]

Tell you what, I'll leave off the fish flavors if you leave off pumpkin.

[It's not that he doesn't like that flavor, it's just that someone has said something to him about pumpkins in a convoluted circumstance that basically boils down to reminding him of Jake.]

I can accede the literal million cherries, though.

You don't like pumpkin?

[But that is totally the best flavor. Still, he's sure Dirk has his reasons.]

Deal. So everything but fish and pumpkin but all the cherries you have please!

[The clerk behind the counter gives them both a bit of a wary look, but gets about scooping a heaping helping of each flavor in a giant oval bowl. This is going to take awhile.

In the meantime, Sola looks over at Dirk. He wants to help him feel better, and he's never really been one for subtlety...]

I'm sure he didn't mean to leave. No one really means to, it just happens.

It's a long story involving a complete dickhead, but for now it'll suffice to say I don't like pumpkin.

[Dirk rests an elbow on the counter as he watches the clerk scooping ice cream.]

I'm fully cognizant of that fact. Besides, he's already been decked across the face once for leaving and coming back. I can treasure that circumstance whether or not he comes back a third time.

[It takes Sola a long moment of staring at Dirk to realize cognizant isn't in his vocabulary just yet. Excuse him while he pulls a dogeared dictionary out of his sylladex to check what it means before responding.]

Wait, if you're aware of it then why would you be happy that he got punched if it's not his fault?

[Wow, that's hilariously adorable. Sola is 2 kawaii 4 lyfe, Dirk almost can't handle it.]

Because it's a vindictive emotional response. You can't tell me you've never wanted to punch someone for something they weren't doing on purpose.

Wait, uhh...

[He leafs through his dictionary. Vindictive... ah, here it is.]

Umm... well, no, I have. Actually I used to get really mad at Link for being better at stuff than me. I got mad at Lloyd for that too even though it wasn't even a thing I cared about being good at.

It's technically the same kind of thing. Think of it as a bad but satisfying way of expressing emotions, if you want.

[Dirk grabs a plastic spoon from off the counter, and starts turning it over between his fingers, unintentionally fidgeting.]

It sucks. How come people have all these sucky emotions to go with the good ones?

[He reaches over and takes a straw from the same mish-mash container of cutlery and dining accessories Dirk retrieved his spoon and began to chew on the end thoughtfully.]

It doesn't make sense.

There's some biological imperative for it. Damn if I explain it quickly, though, so let's go with the philosophical explanation for now. Which is also bullshit, but what the hell. Basically, the idea is that if you didn't feel shitty sometimes, you wouldn't understand how lucky you are when you're actually happy.

[He shrugs.]

I think they underestimate people's ability to be miserable.

[He'll need to look up a bunch of those words later, but for now he thinks he gets the gist of what Dirk is saying.]

But isn't happy just a way you feel? Like sad or hungry or whatever? I don't see why bad has to happen for good to happen too, or sad and happy, or... whatever, like that.

[Dirk twirls the spoon between his fingers as he thinks.]

You ever eaten something sweet right after you ate something sour? Y'know how makes the sweet thing taste a lot more intense? It's like that, 'cept with life.

[He thinks about that for a moment, watching the spoon jump around Dirk's fingers.]

I guess that makes sense. It's not that happy isn't just happy, but you notice it more of something sad happened first.

[He watches the spoon for another long moment.]

You're really good at that.

Ding ding ding, we have a winner.

[Dirk glances down at his hands.]

I had a shitton of time to practice this when I was younger, because I spent a damn long time being bored as fuck.

Oh. Me too, but I didn't have any spoons. I mostly just went swimming a lot and played underwater hide and seek with Morpha.

[There's really not a lot to do when you're stuck in a temple with only a boss monster for company.]

I went swimming plenty myself. Didn't have anyone to play hide-and-seek with except a fuckton of fish, though.

There were a lot of fish in the temple too but they don't play hide and seek very good. I mean. Well.

[He's been corrected on that quite a bit.]

Morpha was too good though. He's part of the water, technically, and he can grab with his tentacles so I didn't really get to hide for long.

You telling me you played games with an honest to god tentacle monster? Holy shit.

[That actually gets Dirk to crack a smirk briefly.]

A tentacle monster you routinely got caught by.

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