Sensational

[Brackie]

"Welcome to Guitar Center, how can I help you?"

"Hi, I was wondering if you had any Grade 5 Piano Music books?"

"Yeah, we have some around the back with the others, we have...about ten in stock."

"Alright, thank you!"

--

"Welcome to Utrecht, what can I do for you today?"

"Hi there, I had a set of fluro acrylics reserved here, under the name Huang?"

"Is that H-W-A-N-G?"

"Uh, H-U."

"Alright, well we don't have a H-U, so-"

"Fine I'm H-W."

--

"Hey dudette, welcome to Gamestop."

"Yo Rob, how's the missus?"

"Not too well I'm afraid, she found my stash and made me throw it out, and then she threatened to call the police-"

"Yeah yeah yeah, I had a copy of Syndicate pre-ordered?"

"Ah, got it right here for ya Penny."

"Thanks Rob - could I get a receipt for that?"

--

"Welcome to Starbucks, how may I help you?"

"Hi, could I get a Cafe Mocha on soy?"

"Certainly, is that all?"

"Hmm...could I also get a chocolate chip muffin?"

"Of course, and that comes to $7.50."

"..."

"Tip non-inclusive."

---

"Hi, welcome to Java City."

---

Penny sipped her Mocha as she relaxed in the uncomfortable metal food-court chair. She felt like she'd been walking around this mall for hours now. Her Sunday had been filled with Escalators and bustling crowds and lines, don't even get her started on the lines. Gamespot was almost packed to the brim, and there was barely even breathing room in Starbucks. Penny didn't like lines, so she was kind of questioning her choice of popping around to do her errands on a Sunday.

Then she remembered that she had literally nothing else to do. Mom was home, so shooting zombies with three strangers was out; the only paint supplies she had were now nudged against her leg, so they were out, and it's as if the circus was in town or something, because nearly everyone she knew on Facebook had plans.

Come to think of it, it wasn't that bad. She was going to do these things anyway, the only thing she was really complaining about was that she was doing them all at once when she could be doing something else. But when you have nothing else to do, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad. It was probably more the fact that she could be doing something else, not that she was. Either way, she was here, she was thirsty, she was armed with everything she needed to buy for school and stuff, including a Starbucks muffin and a Java City Cafe Mocha.

But she was still hungry. Penny looked around at the all-too-familiar food court just to see if anything had popped up over the past week she hadn't seen yet, taking a bite out of her muffin in the process. Well, there was a lot of the staples she'd seen advertised: Mickey D's, the Colonel's, Tacos, Mickey D Junior's, Starbucks, a Kebab shop, a Subway's, another Starbucks, Java City, Cafe Fresco, another sandwich store, another Starbucks, a Chinese takeaway, some Mongolian BBQ, Mikayla D's, and heaps of other places she'd never been, or places too boring to even tick something off in her head. But the Chinese takeaway did look good though. She thought about going over and grabbing some Honey Chicken.

After her muffin and coffee of course.

[ViolentMedic]

  ((Mallory McCormick: start))

  Working at Macy's could be a freaking Hell sometimes. Especially when someone called in sick and Mallory had to work closer to the customers. She liked working with people, sure, but she wasn't very good at it. And despite attempts to hold her tongue, thoughts just tended to slip out.

  Besides, Mallory would want to know if she was buying clothes that were clearly four sizes small for her. Why did customers always get angry when she said things like that? Better to know while still in the store than to turn up at some fancy party with your stomach hanging out like a construction worker.

  But now it was lunchtime. Normally, Mallory brought her lunch from home. But she'd forgotten it and her stomach was bitching at her like crazy. Concerns with work and angry looks could wait until later.

  She wandered over to Taco Bell. They'd probably have cheap food. She didn't really know what they sold. Probably tacos. But which one to choose, there were so ma—ooh, red tortillas.

  "Yeah, I'll have the red taco and whatever drink is associated with it."

  A couple of minutes later she walked away with a volcano taco and something called a cherry limeade sparkler, which looked significantly more sparkly on the advertisements. Mallory stared around for somewhere to sit.

  As she looked around, she spotted a girl that seemed vaguely familiar to her. Probably someone from school. She was sitting nearby, looking over at the Chinese takeaway place. Where did Mallory recognise her from... right, she was one of the cheerleaders. Her name was... Jenny or Lenny or something. Wait, Lenny couldn't be right, that was a guy's name.

  In any case, Mallory hadn't really talked to her before. But no time like the present. Mallory walked over and plopped into a seat across the table from the other girl.

  "Hi. What's going on? Also, I don't know your name. I know you vaguely from school and that your name is something-enny, it's on the tip of my tongue, but I can't quite remember it."

[Brackie]

While she took another sip of Mocha, a rumble centred from the other side of Penny's table took her from her Chicken-related musings. Which was odd, because she hadn't told anybody she was coming here, nor did she know anybody here. It looked like Honey Chicken for lunch was going to have to wait, because plopped at the table's other seat was a girl.

Not just any girl mind you, but a girl who seemed to know who Penny was. Granted, a lot of people knew who Penny was, she was on field at every game and she'd heard one or two of the footballers gave her butt a 7 out of 10. But she didn't really like what this girl was up to right now as she started inquisitively at her.

Don't get her wrong, Penny was a friendly nice girl. She had more friends than appendages, as you do, and anyone could really be her friend. Hell, she even pretended any of her enemies were friends just to piss them off. But who goes and sits at the table of a girl you don't know and asks for her name as though you were old friends and you had dementia? Because if you do that, Penny's liable to screw with you.

Penny cocked her head to the left, sweeping the strands of hair out of her glasses, and simply looked at the girl. Then her lips opened.

"<Hello, did you have something you wanted to ask?>"

Korean was such a colourful language. The chances of anyone in Seattle knowing it were...(she'd read this somewhere)...3.8%? She was willing to bet that the girl across the table was in the 96.2%.

[ViolentMedic]

Crap. Mallory didn't know what the girl--Benny, Denny, if I run through the alphabet I'll have to remember the name eventually—was talking about. She didn't even know what the language was. Something Asian? And that guess only came from the fact that the girl—Kenny, Lenny, Penny, Penny sounded more right, was it Penny?—was Asian as well.

Stupid language barrier. Funny, though... Penny didn't really sound like an Asian name. Mallory probably had it wrong, though.

Mallory scratched at the sleeves of her work uniform, frowning a bit. What to do... Of course, she could try sitting with someone else. But she didn't see anyone else she recognized and it would be weird to sit next to a complete stranger.

Wait. There was a thing that pops up in some movies about sharing food which somehow overcame language barriers, and they were in a food court, but—

"Do you want half a taco?" Mallory asked, holding out the bag her food was in. Because of mild frustration at not being able to communicate plainly, the question came out a bit louder than intended. "You can't have it all because I'm hungry. But you can have some. It's volcanic."

—maybe that didn't work outside of movies.

[Brackie]

Was this girl for real?

Did she really just offer her a half-eaten taco?

There were some things in this world that left Penny gobsmacked. She hadn't been this shocked over something someone else unintentionally showed her since she played Call of Duty for the first time with Christy that weekend. Oh, the times she had popping open virtual brains. But that was neither here nor there. In fact, she was pretty sure it was then and there.

But so far, Penny had really come to the right conclusion about this girl. So rather than keep up this ridiculous charade until she left, it was time to break character.

She giggled slightly as the taco was moved towards her face, and moved another strand of hair away from her glasses.

"So..."

"I take it you're not good with people, right? It's okay, I can tell."

[ViolentMedic]

Not good with people? Dammit, how'd she know? Did I say something stupid again? ...Oh yeah, I just waved a bag at her and yelled about tacos. That probably didn't look too normal. Fuck...

"Damn, is it that obvious? Mind you, I'm good with people when I think," Mallory muttered. "It's just that I don't do that much." As she spoke, she unwrapped her food. She glanced down at the taco before breaking it in half. Penny hadn't said whether she wanted any or not. Mallory left one half lying on the wrapping, just in case she still wanted it.

"Sorry, that was kind of weird. But I thought... you know how in movies people who don't speak the same language sometimes bond over food because food is more powerful than words or something? I guess it's like how pictures are a thousand words, but food is, like, ten thou--wait."

The fact that Penny was now speaking English finally caught up with her.

"Wait, you mean you can speak more than that Asian-ish language? Why'd you not say so until now? Did you think I was a... erm, a person who could speak that language? No, that probably wouldn't make sense, because I don't look like someone who speaks any Asian languages... oh, wait, wait, wait..." Mallory's thoughts finally clicked into place. "Were you trying to get me to leave by pretending not to speak English? If you were... well, you could have asked. It would have been quicker and--" Mallory knocked her knuckles against the side of her head, grinning sheepishly. "--it actually would have gotten through my thick skull."

[Brackie]

While the girl (Mallory right? Seemed a bit too "not butch" for someone like her) started rambling on about something or other, Penny eyed her muffin like it was some sort of ancient delicacy. Sure she wanted to hear this wonderful story without distraction, but...muffin. Muffin right there to be eaten. Muffin right there to cram into your mouth. Do it Penny, do it. Do it. Do it.

While Mallory seemed to grasp the concept that Penny could speak more than one language despite the fact she was "Asian-ish", Penny had a similar grasp around her muffin now, and took a big bite out of it while the cogs started to click into place. Almost the entire top half of the muffin was now in Penny's mouth, and she sort of gave a shy glance away when Mallory accused her of trying to get rid of her. Well, the train was now stopped in awkward town.

"Nff, iffs no-" Penny started, spraying crumbs everywhere, only to catch herself before it was now Mallory's muffin (Mallory was not getting Penny's muffin). She held up her hand as to indicate a time-out, and took a swig from her Mocha and washed down the soggy lumps of chocolate pastry inside her mouth. Chocolate, more chocolate, and coffee in one sitting, truly an incomparable flavour. As soon as it left her mouth down the hatch, she let out an audible satisfied gasp, and continued.

"No no, it's not like that or anything, honest, it's like...well," Penny started, trying to think up a better excuse than 'I just wanted to screw around with you', "I do that sometimes, it's kind of a mental thing when you can speak two languages y'know? Sometimes I <just switch between the two without noticing, cause I speak Korean at home, so like I barely notice when> I'm not speaking English, y'know? It's hell when ordering something."

That sounded like a satisfactory excuse.

[ViolentMedic]

Mallory had to tug back the remaining half of the taco to stop it from getting covered in the muffin crumbs that were flying everywhere. Penny didn't seem to want it, anyway. Probably because she had a muffin. Muffins were pretty awesome. Now, if there was some kind of muffin with chili in it... that would be the best of both worlds. Hm. Or the opposite. Maybe muffin crumbs on a taco wouldn't be that bad. Didn't chocolate and chili go together well or something?

Mallory's attention came back in time to hear most of Penny's explanation of why she'd been speaking... damn, Mallory still hadn't caught the name of the language. It might have been in the part where Penny slid into the Asiany language, but that had just been a blur of words she didn't understand. But what Mallory understood of Penny's reasoning seemed to make sense... it would probably be hella confusing to speak two languages all the time, mixing them up seemed reasonable enough.

"Ohhhh. Okay, then. I don't know much about speaking other languages. Wasn't ever very good at learning them in class. Too many words." Mallory took a large bite of her taco and munched on it for a few seconds before adding, "Do you think chili would go well with chocolate muffins? Or would it just taste like stadium dirt? I actually tried eating stadium dirt when I was nine... it wasn't very good..." Mallory peered into the taco. "Ooh. Good taco."

[Brackie]

So now she was talking about eating dirt. While a preferable option to this most awkward of conversations, it wasn't something that really interested her. I mean, here was this girl she hadn't spoken to in depth before talking about all this personal stuff. It was really weirding Penny out. Although in actuality, there was no real harm in humouring her, was there? Sure, let's bond girl.

"Yeah, other languages tend to have a lot of words."

"You know German? I mean you know of German, right? You know the Germans have a specific word that means 'to enjoy someone else's misery.'?"

Penny made sure to put the largest amount of suaveness and deepness into that phrase right there, because she really wanted to drive that point home.

"I mean, who else but the Germans, right? And there's like, a slang word in Russian that means 'I love you, but I HATE you in this moment!'. Cause like, there's none of that in English, it's all about being wordy, while in Korean or Mandarin or German, you have specific words that mean specific things."

"And that's my lesson on languages for today, I hope you all took notes because we're going to have a short quiz next period."

[ViolentMedic]

While Penny was talking about fancy German words that mean things, Mallory looked around the food court for any clocks. She spotted one near the place with Chinese food. Jesus and Mary, was it that time already? Must have taken forever to line up and get that taco, because it wasn't too long before she had to be back at Macy's. She took a couple of large bites of the remainder of her taco before realising that Penny had stopped talking.

"Mmmph. Hangoo." Mallory finished chewing as fast as possible. It was difficult. The taco was rather spicy and it had been a mistake to shove so much in her mouth at once. "Aaaaagh! Wherza--" She grabbed her drink and drained half of the cherry-limeade-whatever-it-was. "Damn. Sorry, uh... where were we? Oh right. German words.

"I didn't know the enjoying misery one. But I remember my little brother mentioning some weird, fancy German words. Don't remember what the exact words were, but there was this one that meant 'a face crying out to have a fist in it.' I remember that one because it came up when he was chasing me around the house for... well, I don't remember why, it happens a lot. But yeah, the word was... back-something.  I think he just likes to sound more--" Mallory waved her hand around, trying to think of the word. "--more fancy-word-speaking than me or Riley, because he's more bookish while me and Rikey are meatheads who like tackling things. Actually, he brought up a lot of weird German words, like this one that meant something like 'grief bacon' that was used for... you know that thing where people eat because they're sad, like the big panda in that movie? Anyway...

"Had no clue about the Russian one, though. Sounds interesting. Do you learn a lot of languages? Like, at school and stuff? I mean, I wouldn't have seen you if you had. I only know you by sight because you're a cheerleader and all."

Mallory took a break from talking so that she could fish some of the ice out of her limeade and chomp on it. Crunch, crunch, crunch.

"I hope there's not really gonna be a quiz next period," Mallory added, grinning. "I don't think I can memorize stuff about German, Russian, Korean and Mandarin so fast."

[Brackie]

There wasn't any possible way this situation could get any more awkward. Mallory seemed to pride herself on not understanding how to have a conversation, and as nice as Penny was there were many things in this world she could not handle. Awkward conversations were one of them, especially when they had the capacity to go on forever.

So while Penny nodded occasionally to whatever she was talking about, she slipped her phone out of her pocket and silently buttoned in the directions under the table towards the settings, and then the tone selection. She moved the cursor down without checking, and suddenly a loud, obtrusive ringtone played somewhere in the middle of Mallory's awkward response. Penny's response was to sigh and take out the phone from her "pocket".

"Sorry, could you hold on a sec? This is from mom." Penny let out before going back a menu and immediately stopping the tone. She held the phone to her ear and started speaking.

"<Wake up?>"

"..."

"<Wake up, grab a few brush, make-up!>"

"..."

"<Hide the scars fade away, fall and up?>"

"..."

"<Do not think you believe self-righteous suicide cry when angels die?>"

"..."

"Fine."

She pressed the home button on her phone, and slipped it back into her pocket before gathering her things.

"Look, I'm really sorry, but I was supposed to be back home an hour ago, and my mother gets really pissed when I'm not home when she says I need to be so yeah, I gotta run. I'll see you around though!"

And like that, Penny was off.

First she interrupts my fantastic lunch alone, then she ends up forcing me to not enjoy Honey Chicken. Mallory McCormick, you are my mortal enemy for life.

[[Penny Huang continues in Clap Your Hands]]

[ViolentMedic]

When Penny had answered her phone, Mallory had taken the chance to try and finish her taco. She hadn't learned her lesson after the first attempt to eat too much spicy food at once, so when Penny said that she had to go Mallory couldn't answer right away because she was trying to wash the food down with limeade.

So while she wanted to say 'that's okay, I needed to leave in a few minutes anyway, it was nice meeting you, see you around', instead all she managed as Penny hurried away was a grunt and a flailing sort of wave.

Well... that went well. It didn't even cross Mallory's mind that Penny had been trying to get away from her. If that had been the reason, Penny would have told her, right? Besides, her phone had rung.

Mallory finished her taco and glanced at the clock again. She'd be back at work a few minutes earlier than normal, but that couldn't hurt. She pulled the lime slice off her drink and stuck it in her mouth before getting up and hurrying back to Macy's.

((Mallory McCormick continued in A Tale Of Blood and Sweatsocks))