Room 505 [open]

[tea]

((Meant for Adrian and Jing, but if you'd like to visit them in their dorm, then I don't think they'd mind. ))

"Damn Ling,"[/i] Jing quielty grumbled to himself in Mandarin as he stirred the contents of the pan on the stove. "'You must use what you've been given naturally to concieve and continue our family,' he says. Like hell that'll ever happen. I didn't ask for a friggin' vagina or to be born a-"[/i] He reached over and lowered the heat for a another pan on the stove.

Classes had ended a short while ago and he had come straight back to the dorm and started cooking after changing into some loose jeans and a grey t-shirt sans shoes and socks. He was frustrated and cooking had always helped calm him down. Why was he frustrated? It was his extremely old ancester, Ling pestering him for the pass two weeks! The old, dead woman persistently appeared at night in a ghostly form and demanded Jing's attention to talk to him about 'serious matters' in the dead of night.

Because of Ling, Jing hadn't got much sleep in his own bedroom. He tried sleeping in class instead and got yelled at. Because he was sleep deprived, he was frustrated and when he got frustrated, he had a tendancy to think out loud. He was sure his roommate had heard and that embarrassed a little by it, so he reverted back to grumbling in Chinese. It was less embarrassing because at least the guy wouldn't understand what he was saying.

Even when he wasn't upset however, he enjoyed cooking, so he did it a lot. He had come to like it and had gotten very good at it when he and his father stayed at a restaurant in China while they were still traveling and Jing got to work in the kitchen with the chefs. On today's menu was orange chicken, which he had put his own special touches in and a vegetable stir fry.

He slowly stirred the pan of orange chicken and then lowered the heat. There was enough food cooked for four to five people, so it would last them a while. He was the official cook of room 505, since his roommate didn't seem to like it as much as he did. Jing only knew how to cook Chinese and maybe a few Japanese dishes. He wondered if Adrian was getting sick of Asian food by now.

[Faye]

Classes had finished for the day an hour or so ago and Adrian had beat his room mate home by a few minutes, enough time to get changed from his ghastly uniform and into some more comfortable clothes which consisted of a pair of navy blue jeans and a random black t-shirt he randomly picked out from his drawers. It had white and green paint splatter like patterns all over it, but he took no notice of what it looked like. It was a dark colour. Like the rest of his wardrobe, really..

Adrian had his laptop set up on his bed, a few windows open, mostly the internet (firefox of course~) with all the random sites he visited and his favourite current MMORPG. He enjoyed playing until the wee hours of the morning, ignoring his sleep deprivation and slept during class. He usually sat down the back and had a little act to make it look like he was writing when he was actually sleeping. But he only did that when he went to sleep for an hour and then had to get up, all nighters weren't so bad, he usually felt kind of hyper.

The sound of his room mate babbling onto himself caught Adrian's attention for a few brief moments. He was speaking mandarin. Adrian took a mandarin class so he picked up a few phrases from his sentence but all he could make out was a bit about his family. By the tone of his voice, it must have been something he was annoyed about. He swallowed and slowly stepped out of his room, "What.. what about your family?" Adrian didn't normally talk to Jing but mandarin was an interesting language. He glanced down at the pan Jing was using for cooking and breathed in the amazing smell of orange chicken, to be honest, Adrian didn't care what he ate as long as it was food.

[tea]

Jing paused and glanced over his shoulder to Adrian surprised. He was mostly surprised because the normally anti-social- well, maybe not anti-social, probably very reserved? Jing didn't blame him because he was the way. Anyhow, he was mostly surprised because Adrian was even talking to him. It was an afterthought that he realized that Adrian understood a little of what he said in Mandarin.

Jing took off his apron, and laid it over a chair as he walked out of the kitchenette. "You know Mandarin..?" He shrugged at the question of his family. "My.. Great grandma's just really giving me a hard time. She wants to see a new generation before she dies, she says. She doesn't realize that I'm not even old enough to drink yet. She's becoming senile." He answered, smiling sourly at the thought of Ling. His lying skills were also up to par, he had thought that up in an instant.

"Dinner's ready, by the way." He wasn't all the hungry, so he decided to find something else to do with his time. He walked over to the couch at the corner over the room where he had left his laptop, sat down and booted it up. His step-father had bought him this new laptop for Christmas last year in reward for passing all of his classes as usual. Hm, maybe he'd look a recipe for dessert.. Perhaps some apple pie? There was plenty of apples in the refrigerator.

[Faye]

Adrian flinched a bit at his question, well, it would have been surprising to see someone who looks completely not Asian come out and start asking you what you meant when you had been speaking Mandarin. He nodded slowly in answer to the question, he may have struck up conversation with his room mate but that didn't mean he was going to keep it going for very long.

"A-ah, okay," He answered, averting his gaze from Jing to hide his brightly coloured eyes and shifted into the kitchen to serve himself up some dinner since Jing said it was finished. "Thanks for making dinner," He said, not really caring if Jing heard him or not since he could still say he said it. He grabbed a plate from one of the cupboards and dished the food up the way he wanted it before retreating back to his room to place it onto his desk. While eating, he'd move his laptop and other things to his desk so he didn't drop any on his bed.

Adrian walked back out of his room and went into the kitchen again, opening the fridge which squeaked a little as it opened. Adrian shrugged it off and bent down to see what he could find to drink. Water didn't appeal to him tonight so he went for one of the cans of soda he had put in there a few days back.

[tea]

"No problem.. Tell me if it's good," Jing replied, and watched Adrian move in and out of the room out of the side of his eye. Perhaps withdrawn was the right word? But Jing didn't mind, he liked the quiet anyway. Plus, Adrian was better than having a noisy roommate who bummed off of him. It was nice, too. No one had ever told him 'thanks for making dinner' before he came to T'zenshin. No matter how quietly Adrian said it, he heard it, or at least figured he'd said it, and Jing felt a little better.

He smiled to himself, but hid it behind his hand as he started up the Internet Explorer and started searching for recipes. "Hey Adrian, how much of that did you understand? It's surprised me.. I thought barely anyone at the school spoke it." He said casually while scrolling down his web browser. He was curious and a little worried about it, but was calmed because the other teenager didn't seem the least bit freaked out. "Do you like apple pie?"

[Faye]

Adrian stood in the kitchen for a moment and couldn't help but smile a little, "Your foods always good..." He said, adding another compliment to Jing. Jing really was a good cook and he didn't mind all the asian food and everything, he didn't mind at all. It was filling and delicious. Adrian was feeling a little better about himself right then because he was actually talking to his roommate instead of withdrawing himself from the world like he always did.

He blinked, stunned by his question since he thought the subject would be dropped. He thought for a moment, trying to find an answer, there wasn't much he did understand. "Not a lot, just that you were talking about your family..." He said, tapping the bench top with his delicate looking fingers lightly. Then Jing asked him if he liked apple pie, he didn't mind it. "Yes, I do," He felt weird about talking so much, but at the same time a little good about it. Still, it was strange to go from being withdrawn from everything to start talking again.

[tea]

Surprised by being complimented, Jing blushed faintly and grinned. "Thanks, you just earned yourself a free meal." He meant it, too, though all of the meals were free anyway, since they split the cost on groceries. Adrian wasn't that bad of guy and seemed perhaps more reclusive than he was, so Jing felt a little more impelled to talk to him. Maybe he could reach out to Adrian through food among other things.

Just like how Jing was learning French, he could understand a few words in a sentence when it was spoken to him. Maybe Adrian was learning Mandarin or maybe he had been to China. "So like.. Are you studying it? Or have you visited China before?" Jing asked, he was a little curious, since he barely knew anything about Adrian, aside from him liking apple pie.

Jing skimmed over a recipe page on his screen before getting up and walking into the kitchen. He stood behind Adrian and waited for him to find whatever he wanted in the refrigerator. "Hey, while you're down there can you get the bag of apples out for me? I'm going to make pie." In the glow of the light from the refrigerator, Jing noticed the silverish-greyish highlight in Adrian's hair and briefly thought about what it would feel like to touch.

[Faye]

Adrian opened the can of soda he had gotten, hearing the bubbling sound of the carbonated liquid. He brought the aluminium can to his lips and sculled back at least an eighth of the can, he was feeling pretty thirsty but because of all the bubbles he had to stop drinking. He gently placed the can back down on the bench and glanced back at Jing who was still talking to him about Mandarin. "I take it as an elective," He said simply, not going into any detail unless Jing asked.

The boy nodded at Jing's request and shifted back over to the fridge where he grabbed the bag of apples Jing wanted and placed them on the bench, having to stop a couple from making the entire bag fall into the sink. He picked up his soda and walked into his room, leaving the door open which was highly unusual of him but he suspected Jing would continue talking and at the moment, he didn't want to feel so withdrawn with other people.

[tea]

"Thanks," Jing said and opened one of the kitchen drawers to take out a knife sharp enough to pare the apples. He set about paring the apples one by one over the sink. He glanced over his shoulder towards Adrian's room and saw that he had left the door open. That was strange, normally he'd shut himself in there after coming out for food. Maybe he should take it as an invitation, Jing wondered as he concentrating on paring and slicing up the apples without cutting himself.

He didn't want to seem overly eager, either, like he usually was when he was trying to be friendly with new people and came off a bit rude instead. "Crap.. Shoulda made the crust first." He muttered to himself after noticing a few of the pared apples starting to brown. He took out the flour, eggs and other ingredients to make the pie crust and started mixing them in a bowl.

Well, at least he could try talking to Adrian more, the worst thing that could happen is if he pissed his roommate off, which probably wasn't that bad anyway, since Adrian would most likely ignore from then on. Sometimes, chatting with other people came naturally to him, but right about now, Jing wasn't sure what to say, so he fell back on the topic of Mandarin topic. He tried to sound casual in attempt to hide the awkwardness he felt. "Oh right, they do have that class here. I probably should have took it, it would have been so much easier than taking French." He said with a small laugh. "If you want, maybe I could help you learn it."

[Faye]

Adrian had made himself a nice comfortable seat on his office like chair at his desk. His right had was on the touch pad of his laptop, carefully clicking each function to make his character do things on his current MMO that was open. Every now and then he would reach over with his free hand to place food in his mouth. It was a routine, almost.

However, his concentration was broken when he heard Jing continue to talk to him. It was about Mandarin so he didn't mind so much. He paused the came and turned around, listening to him speak. A smile tugged gently at his lips but barely made it out. "That would be pretty cool," He replied. He rose up from his desk, taking his bowl of food with him and leaned against his door frame to continue talking to Jing. He glanced at the pie Jing was making, "Need any... help..?" He said slowly.

[tea]

Jing glanced back towards Adrian feeling a bit surprised and pleased. "Uh.. Sure, could you pare those apples?" Jing asked slowly in Mandarin and pointed to the bowl of apples and peelings in the sink. He had only only finished paring couple of the apples for the pie. "If you don't mind."[/i] He added. He figured Adrian constantly hearing Mandarin would help him improve, that's how Jing learned English.

He began to smile as the mixture he was stirring started to form into dough. "I said, "Sure, could you peel those apples? If you don't mind." He said in English. "Unless you were busy in your room or something, but I always wanted a sous-chef." Occasionally Jing watched reruns of Iron Chef and other cooking shows, which was how he came to be familiar with the term.

[Faye]

The grammar Jing had used didn't process in Adrian's mind very well as he hadn't gotten around to learning that yet but he did learn verbs and all of that so paring the apples is what he understood. As much as he didn't like cooking, it wasn't really cooking, it was just the preparation for it... which wasn't so bad. Adrian moved over to the sink and began paring the rest of the apples carefully, the skins forming a snake like shape before they fell into the sink. "I understood most... of that, kinda," He said with a nervous edge to his voice.

"I wasn't doing anything important, so I don't mind," He answered, not looking up Jing as his eyes were fixated on the apples, plus it was a good excuse to hide his brightly coloured eyes.

[tea]

Jing pulled out an old pie pan from one of the bottom cabinets and then a container of cooking spray from one of the cabinets up top. He lightly sprayed and greased the pan, tilting it back and forth to spread the oil more. He set the pan aside for a moment to work on halving the dough. "Do you think you'd catch on more if I spoke it alot to you? That's kinda how I learned English, since I didn't know a lot when I came to T'zenshin." Jing said, and sighed a little at the memory of his first year at T'zenshin. "Rolling pin." Jing said in Mandarin and pointed to it where it laid on a rack among other utensils on Adrian's side of the counter.

Jing paused and looked at Adrian, feeling his curiousity get the better of him. Had he seen what he thought he had seen? He tilted his head in front of Adrian to get a better look at the other boy's face and his eyes. "Wow, you're eyes are... Bright! Are those contacts?" Maybe he'd noticed Adrian's unusual eye color a while ago before tonight, but wasn't quite as interested enough to ask about it.

[Faye]

Adrian reached over and pulled the second drawer open to get out an apple corer so he could remove the cores from the middle of the apple. No use in having apple seeds in an apple pie. That was as bad as egg shells ending up in whatever dish you made with egg in it. He didn't know where to start with naming dishes, he hated cooking so he didn't really pay attention.

"Oh, yeah," He said in reply to Jing, him speaking it to him a lot might help him with recognition as well as conversation, maybe once they learned a little bit more, he could hold conversations with Jing in Mandarin for practice. Oooh, he felt excited.

Although, his excitement was broken as Jing said something was bright, he immediately thought of his eyes and looked away briefly. His assumption was confirmed when he asked if they were contacts, he shook his head, "No." He answered quietly.

[tea]

Jing reached over to get the rolling pin himself, dusted the pin with flour and started rolling out the dough. He glanced to Adrian briefly while flattening the dough. Jing noticed Adrian's slight change in tone when he mentioned Adrian's eyes. Maybe Adrian had gotten a lot of comments about his eyes in the past about them, and was annoyed with them by now. But he had to admit, Adrian's eyes were sort of pretty, not that he was ever going to tell another guy that his eyes are pretty. Adrian would probably punch him.

"Your eyes are pretty, a lot of girls must compliment you on your eyes, yeah?"[/i] Jing said, veiling his words in Mandarin, and almost laughed a little. He also noticed that Adrian walked with his head down a lot, and assumed it was a self-esteem issue, because Jing, too, used to walk that way, but was starting to think it had something to do with Adrian not wanting other people to see his eyes. "You must hate it, huh?"