Between a Rock & a Soft Place [Percy/Juuya]

 
It was almost foreign to him—society. He couldn't tell how many years had passed since he was taken to those laboratories. Five years? Ten? It's not like the researchers kept him up to date or made sure his sense of time was in tact, so it ended up fizzling into nothing only after a short period of time...

He hated this country. He hated everything about it and hated everyone in it. No one probably gave a damn about what happened to him, and if they did, it's not like he wanted their pity to begin with. However, not everything was completely awful about this place. In just a span of a few days, Juuya had discovered worlds of flavor than he had ever experienced in his entire life. Pizza pies, fried chicken, and namely bubble tea. Or boba tea. Whatever—it was great all the same.

After escaping the laboratories, Juuya had found a guild who shared his interests, but he wasn't one to isolate himself yet again after just escaping isolation. As soon as he offered himself to their cause, he was gone. There was a whole new world to explore, after all. All sorts of foods to try and places to sleep in. The people he met were amusing, too. In just a few days, Juuya had found himself in more street brawls than what would be the acceptable amount.

He didn't actually know where he was going. Instead, he sort of rode on top of this train and that one until they stopped, and then he'd go off and do something he thought was interesting. This time, he was in Magnolia Town, "waiting" in line for bubble tea. Really, despite wearing a ripped hoodie, people were easily able to catch a glimpse at his gnarly and gross burn marks all over his face, eyes, and wrists, and when they stared at him, he stared back with a particularly ravenous glee in his eyes. Needless to say, they were kind enough to let him ahead of the line until he was the first one! It was really such a kind thing to do!

Juuya left that stand with a rather large honey boba in hand, none of which he paid for. Intimidating people into giving you things seemed to work for him so far, so he hadn't even thought about what the country's sense of currency was.

Somewhat violent, crude, and rudely playful, Juuya meandered through the streets of Magnolia. It wasn't until he had bumped into something hard and felt something wet spill all over his hoodie that he stopped in his tracks with an astonished look on his face. It was a look of someone who hadn't fully processed what had just happened.

"What... the hell?"

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WC: 460 | Total WC: 460 | WC Needed: ??? @Percy ""  —
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A tie, tablet, and a messenger bag to top it all off, the hard thing that bumped into Juuya was some kid with a large scar on his face. He had this resting look on his face that made it difficult to tell what he was thinking, like he wasn't really there despite being there. To Juuya, at least, he reminded him of a puppy. But what did he know? He had known the guy for a matter of five seconds, and all he's managed to do was spill his tea and ruin his clothes.

Anyway, although he was quick to resort to violence, Juuya was surprisingly levelheaded. So, he took the whole incident in stride, but needless to say, he was still upset. Why not milk the opportunity while he could? To see how far this kid would go, Juuya had made a decision.

"Pffft!" Juuya snorted, flicking the liquid from his hands before taking the napkin, using it, and then burning it to smithereens with a small blue flame from the palm of his burnt hand, "You're kidding, right? Man... I can't get 'nother one of these things today, and these are my only clothes. You think apologies and napkins fix this kind of shit, huh?" While he said all of this, he had this long smirk on his face and an attentive look in his eyes that made you feel like you were being studied. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned down so that he was face to face with the kid, his gnarly face in full view. He wasn't really that upset about the whole thing, but he liked to get a rise out of people when he could. Sometimes his teasing seemed too real.

"You're gonna make up for it and then some, right? It'd be real shitty not to."

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WC: 308 | Total WC: 1174 | WC Needed: ??? @Percy ""  —
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When Juuya put on this little stunt in front of boys like this, he normally got a more frightened and anxious response. Either people were quick to apologize and then some, or they'd have an old fashioned fistfight. He didn't mind being seen and treated like a thug, because oftentimes that's how he acted. He threatened people with violence in order to get what he wanted, and saved his cunning for matters or delicate. Juuya found some sort of excitement in just surviving as opposed to living a secure life, since anything was better than the place he came from. Still, it was irritating that the fruits of his physical labor had suddenly spilled all over his only set of clothes. Breezes were especially chilly with skin like his, after all.

The look on this guy's face was priceless. It was like watching a slow computer process information in realtime. What was he thinking about and why... why was he taking out a checkbook? Juuya might've been imprisoned in a laboratory for most of his life, separated from society and thus lacking many basic understandings of how the world worked, including currency to some degree. But even he knew that pulling out a checkbook, ready at hand, was not really a gesture one would be able to make in this situation. When people did that, they must've had a lot of money.

"Eh? Pfffthaha! You're... You're really somethin'! Pff!" Juuya lowered his head as peals of laughter fell out of his mouth, drawing a blank as the stranger asked him how much he wanted. Not only was it a little weird, but he didn't know what to say, either! He wasn't really sure what was a lot and what wasn't enough. What was cheap and what was expensive were equally mysterious to him, especially since he never had money of his own. He laughed so hard that some people stopped to look at him, and small tears were beginning to form in the corners of his enigmatic cyan eyes. After a fit of delight, he finally managed to muster up the strength to complete his thought with a crooked and pleasant grin on his face. "Sorry, Oero, but I can't quite put a number on the pain, y'know? Maybe a new bubble tea will make me feel better. The mango one."

Juuya bobbed his head in the same direction he came from, where the Bubble Tea stand was selling their drinks. He knew exactly what his new plans were today now that a somebody with money in indebted to him. Really, he wasn't sure that this guy, or Oero as he coined him, would even follow through with this obvious exploitation, but it never hurt to try. How far could he go?

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WC: 462 | Total WC: 1927 | WC Needed: ??? @Percy ""  —
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Watching Percy offer a check like it was the completely normal thing to do in such a small transaction was both eye-boggling and hilarious. I mean, compared to him, Juuya literally had nothing. He guessed by other people's standards, he was living in poverty, being homeless and all. But it was little things like this that made his aimless exploration so worth it. It probably wasn't very often that you'd get to see a rich kid in the wild like this... or so he thought. Really, he was new to this whole "society" thing too, seeing as he just escaped isolation a week or so ago.

"Thanks, kid," Juuya plucked the bubble tea from Percy's hands and gave it one big sip. He had never had this flavor before, and while it was sweet, heavy, and tasted just as he expected it to, he was frowning. "I thought this would make me feel better, but my sadness is just bleeding into the tea, ya know? Messing up all of those sweet, tropical flavors. Something's missing, something that could really make me feel better... something likeee..." he bobbed his head from side to side in feigned thought until Percy had made the sheepish suggestion of shopping for new clothes. The moment he said that, Juuya snapped his fingers like a lightbulb just lit up. "Something like that."

Juuya wrapped his arm around Percy, reeling him in close as he began shuffling them both down the path leading into the depths of Magnolia's shopping district. Well, he didn't know for certain that that's what it was, but he saw a lot of large and small shops selling various things, so clothes would eventually pop up too, right? He had been wearing the same pair ever since he found them when he left the lab, and although it hasn't ever bothered him, he'd be a fool to not milk this opportunity now that it had presented itself.

"So you're pretty loaded, huh, Oero? You just reek of jewels. Daddy's boy?" Juuya stared straight ahead, lazily sipping his mango boba with one hand and dragging Percy alongside him with the other.

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WC: 357 | Total WC: 2640 | WC Needed: ??? @Percy ""  —
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