The University of Chicago is no longer safe. It's DANGEROUS.
Dangerously awkward.
Ji-Ho settles up a little closer to the museum side of Hyde Park and away from Javi's PERCEIVED reach within the University of Chicago. Safe and cozy, Ji-Ho lets his guard down just a lil -- a tiny, smidgeon of a smuch of a bit -- as he settles at a table in Morry's Deli. It's a bit on the early side yet, and the lunchtime crowds have yet to truly build, which makes it a perfect time for Ji-Ho to sink his teeth into a big bite of beefy sandwich and sigh with satisfaction. For a moment -- just a moment! -- his view of street and door is blocked by his big ol' bite as he sits within view, like a special advertisement for awkward encounters plastered across the windows.
Unfortunately for Ji-Ho, Javi is around way more than it might seem like he ought to be, considering he's not actually a student //here//. Of course, when your bestest bud is not only a UofC professor but also now apparently in charge of the whole place, it stands to reason. But Ji-Ho does not know that. MAYBE HE WILL ONE DAY.
All that to explain why Javi is walking past that very sandwich shop right now. He might have passed right on by -- but one of his absent scans of the street has his gaze catching right smack on the man on the other side of the window. His eyebrows raise in brief surprise, but his reaction time is impressive. He doesn't give the other man any time to see //him// and bolt before he's taking a few more quick steps to open the door and head inside.
"Hey, Ji-Ho!" Okay, maybe this isn't the best way to begin. It's just a bit loud, enough to draw an eye or two of the other patrons. However, he realizes it a moment later, and he winces, holding up his hands palms out and modulating his voice down as he starts toward the table. "I'm good," he assures him more quietly. "Not tryna start shit."
Ji-Ho appears to operating under Jurassic Park logic: he is frozen in place, sandwich halfway to his mouth for another bite, with his mouth open. He does not move.
Maybe Javi can't see him.
"Uh..." Javi comes to a stop about a foot away from the table. His brow furrows, and his head pulls back and tilts a little to the side, studying the man from another angle. And then to the other side, and //forward//, for another. If he can find //just// the right one, maybe he will understand what the hell is going on.
"Can I, like...sit for a second?" Apparently he is a velociraptor, not a t-rex.
Oh no. Javi can see him.
Ji-Ho visibly deflates. He lowers the sandwich, folds the wrapper around it, and picks up a napkin from the table to try to clean the smears of a delicious sandwich from his fingers. His head is tipped low, chin dipped, but his eyes are upswept beneath his dark brows, looking left, right, and marking the quickest path to the exit. He fidgets, braces, and plants his feet. He is READY to BOLT. But, just for a moment, curiosity catches him with a hook and his eyes lift, searching Javi's features and then slipping past him as if to search the space around him for something unseen. "Soooo."
Since Ji-Ho didn't actually say yes, Javi does not sit. Instead, he stands. Awkwardly. A foot away from the table. Though it has the benefit of putting him in between the other man and the door, so it may actually be a prime spot if he wants to talk. No escape unless it's straight through.
"So." His study of the man doesn't let up, but it shifts a little more speculatively, instead of like he's wondering whether one or the other one of them is crazy. "How come you didn't just ask me if you could come with me? I woulda said yes."
Ji-Ho visibly weighs his options. His eyes return to Javi's features as he fails to find whatever it is he is looking for in the air around him. He searches his features as intently as he studied his escape route, and with a thoughtful narrowing of his eyes. In the end, he is blunt: "I'm not used to asking. Or going with people. Or working with people, generally speaking."
Javi still doesn't move, watching Ji-Ho throughout all that weighing and measuring of the space. His mouth presses closed a bit more firmly, brow furrowing -- but thoughtfully. That expression clears almost immediately when the answer comes, and he nods. Like he was expecting it, but he just wanted to hear it out loud.
"Okay." A beat; then: "Next time, just ask. Don't be fucking weird about it." However, the last thing doesn't sound angry. Actually, it has the feeling of imparting advice he feels will be very helpful. It also assumes a next time, which may or may not be welcome on the other side of this conversation. He does shift a second later, though, sitting down across from Ji-Ho at the table and consequently leaving a much easier potential exit path. A peace offering, maybe. "You got anything else you wanna ask?"
The tips of Ji-Ho's ears pink. He slowly picks up his sandwich again and unfolds it in a great show of nonchalance. He takes another bite. It's delicious: classic corned beef. He looks a bit stubborn and mulish about the advice, which informs his tone as Javi offers an answer for a question: "Yeah." His jaw sets; his chin juts. "Who were you talking to?"
Javi leans his forearms on the table, clasping his hands together in front of him and tapping one finger against the back of the other in an absent rhythm as he waits. He doesn't rush him -- and when the answer comes, he's not disappointed. It //does// draw a little snort, maybe more for the manner than the content. It doesn't stop him answering, though, and candidly to the point of blunt, as well. "A ghost."
Ji-Ho's eyes narrow as he looks at Javi. He studies his expression, searching for signs of sincerity -- but let's be real, Javi has never been anything but sincere. Ji-Ho folds back the corner of the paper wrapped around his sandwich and says, "Neat. So do you love ghost stories, or do you hate them?"
Javi may have answered easily, but as he waits for Ji-Ho's reaction to it he straightens up a little bit in the chair, his finger tapping a little bit faster. Like depending on what happens next, he might be the one to hop up and go. However, when Ji-Ho takes it at face value without question, his shoulders relax again. Then, he shrugs. "Kinda depends on which one," he replies. "Some of 'em are pretty good. Some of 'em suck." He shifts in his chair, not //uncomfortably// but with that same feeling he's projected in every one of their meetings. He's never still for very long. "How'd you like that one we did?"
"Haha." Ji-Ho's teeth flash in an easy grin. It's hardly transformative, as Javi's smiles are; it's just a common, everyday sort of smile, the kind that scrunches his cheeks and marks itself in the corner of his eyes. There is nothing remarkable about it; he is remarkable, perhaps, in his unremarkableness.
A bland affect ruined, of course, when he's a big weirdo.
"It was a pretty good story. Satisfying," Ji-Ho says, which is -- speaking of! -- a bit of a weird answer. After a beat, he says, "I mean, you know. It's that good sad story catharsis kind of satisfying, right?"
The smile may not be particularly notable, objectively, but it seems to settle Javi further in the chair, enough so that even that slightly strange answer fails to get his back up again. Of course, he might assume that Ji-Ho is speaking metaphorically.
"Yeah," he agrees, "right. Like that." His hands unclasp, and one of them reaches up to rub the back of his neck as he considers it. "Sometimes they don't turn out that good 'cause you know, it's weird, right? Some random dumbass bringing you a letter from your dead husband or, like...telling you where you left your favorite scarf you can't find or that Kevin said he'll see you in hell." That last one is followed by a bright flash of teeth, suddenly amused again -- he may be joking. "But yeah. I know it's weird." And yet, here he is.
Still where Javi is restless, distracted where he engages, Ji-Ho once again sits at a slight angle, halfway turned away, angled toward the door. His responses come at a slight delay: tracking someone entering the shop all the way to the counter, watching them order, then looking back at Javi and picking up where he left off. "I mean, it's a little weird." He pauses. "No, okay, that's actually really weird, isn't it? How do people tend to react when you come up and tell them about their scarf? Why do you do it? Do they bug you if you don't?"
"Yeah. It's weird as hell." Ji-Ho is watching people, but despite the barely-contained energy that spills out here and there in finger tapping or shifting back and forth in his seat, Javi's watching //him//. His attention is focused, noting the way he's seated or when his eyes move away and the direction they go. He files it all away, whether from pure curiosity or for later use. Or for some other purpose that is not apparent! He doesn't share it.
The question of //why// has him smiling again, but this smile is slow, a gradual shift of intensity rather than the immediate flick of a switch. "Uh-uh," he replies, shaking his head. "You don't get that one for free. You gotta give me something back." His expression shifts expectantly this time, and he gestures a little vaguely toward Ji-Ho. "You got some weird shit going on, too." It's not a question.
It's fair. Of course it's fair! Ji-Ho's been poking, prodding, prying. Everyone knows the rule of give and take. But he scowls despite himself as Javi flips it back at him. His gaze slips back, fixing on Javi. "I didn't agree to give you anything," he says with a defensive wariness that prickles up his spine to lift him a bit more alert in his chair.
There's nothing Javi can argue with there, and so he does not try. He holds up his hands again in that placating gesture he'd had at the beginning of the conversation, but that bright smile has not faded. It's not //quite// as wide as some of his grins, but he still wears it very well. "I know," he confirms. "I'm just saying. If you wanna know why I do it, you gotta give me something back. That's it. I'm fine with being that weird guy who likes to hang out with ghosts for no reason."
Ji-Ho's eyes narrow. He looks Javi over again and then shakes his head as his lips close, pressed to a thin line. After a moment, he relents, and he sounds almost apologetic as he says, "I'll buy you lunch instead? I mean, not a combo or anything, just a sandwich." He is Cheap. "It's like -- I mean, cornering me, totally fair, that was kind of weird, I guess you can keep the cash -- oh, hey! Wait! I threw like a whole fistfull at you!" Of ones. "That means you owe me!"
Javi is eyeing Ji-Ho speculatively again now -- but far from the wariness of before, he now seems oddly charmed by the other man. That smile stays right where it is as his eyes move over his companion's face as if in some attempt to discern answers there. Or maybe to make him //think// he could, though there's absolutely nothing about him that indicates he has that sort of power. He might just be poking the bear a little bit.
"Fuck if I do," he counters with another shake of his head, about the owing. "I never agreed to //that//, either. Not like I was out there stripping on the street and tryna make it rain. That's on you. But thanks for the coffee. I drank the hell out of it." He's judged them at a stalemate for further discussion of their respective weirdness, but as he'd said, he seems to be happy to let it go. "I can get my own sandwich. But if you change your mind, let me know."
Ji-Ho looks a bit unsettled by the continuing scrutiny. He looks uneasy, riled. HE LOOKS POKED. He pulls his sandwich up in front of his face, elbows planted on the table. Hiding behind a veil of corned beef screening his expression, Ji-Ho mumbles, "Yeah, okay, that's pretty fair," and then chokes a little as Javi talks about stripping on the street. He cackles, overt and undignified, then says, "Oh, fuck," as he lowers his sandwich to grab his drink and chug. (Peach iced tea.) "Look, it's not -- okay, actually, it's definitely that I don't trust you. Or know you. But it's not _personal_, okay?"
The delight Javi takes in eliciting all those reactions in the other man is immediate, and as obvious as any other expression that seems to cross his face. However, there's nothing mean-spirited about that delight -- he's just pleased with himself. His affect is still bright, and warm, the sort that does make him seem like he'd be a very attractive target for someone who needed help. Even if that someone is technically dead. "Right? If I was I woulda made a ton more money 'cause I'm fucking cute as hell." As if that's what Ji-Ho meant to imply by the choked laugh -- but the amusement is back. He's joking. Mostly.
He gets more serious at the end, though not more somber, and he shrugs again. "It's all good," he replies. "Believe me, I get it. We're still cool." At least on his end. And in that vein: "You got a phone?" He holds out his hand palm upward across the table to accompany the question. Okay, maybe it's a little weird, too.
Ji-Ho slides his phone onto the table and across, thumbed on and opened to a new contact. He keeps his hand on the phone, angled so that he can see EXACTLY WHAT JAVI IS DOING. Everything he does -- the way he watches, the way he offers the phone, the way he gives him an _extremely limited window of access_ -- speaks to his deeply trusting nature.
But.
He still slides his phone over, leaving it there for Javi to poke. Or attempt to grab and run. YOU NEVER KNOW. "A _ton_ more money. You would've deserved at least two coffees worth of cash."
"Mm hmm. Bet." Javi proves himself worthy of that tiny sliver of Ji-Ho's trust today. He does not try to go through anything else in the phone. He doesn't even pick it up all the way, leaving it on the table as he taps in the information with one finger. 'Javi R,' and a number that is presumably his. If not, the exchange would be really weird. And also, does Ji-Ho have any other Javis in there? Well, maybe.
"You were moving boxes in the library, right?" he says, in a further explanation of the offer of his number. "Been mostly doing shit like that, too. Kinda trying to get a regular job, you know?" Hence the EMT class. "But I know a bunch of people who need people so yeah, if you want some extra cash or whatever just let me know."
Flipping the phone back around, Ji-Ho immediately texts: 👻👻👻
You know, just to see if it works. He thinks he's so funny.
As quick as he is to reclaim his phone, Javi's still able to see that there is, in fact, no other Javi, and there are, in fact, very few people at all. One or two people per letter, some stretches of the alphabet entirely blank. "Yeah, just kind of keeping an ear out for things, and--." He jerks his head toward a token community bulletin board, but those things get less and less traction every year. Some of the things on the board are weathered by sun and time, paper dry and curling. "It's not like, you know. I got some stuff goin," he says in a deeply shady way, "but if you hear of something, let me know?"
Javi may not have grabbed the phone and took off -- or tried to -- but he's not going to completely miss a chance to look at the things that are in full view. So, he does catch a glimpse of that extremely thin contact list. He's not rude enough to comment it, though. And anyway, he's distracted by having to reach into his pocket for //his// phone at the immediate ping so he can look at the screen. He snorts, rolling his eyes so far back in his head that it's a wonder they don't pop right out. He's still smiling, though.
"Right," he agrees, "uh huh." But he also does not ask about any of that 'stuff. Instead, he nods. "Sure thing. No problem."
With that, he pushes his chair back to stand, but he doesn't quite leave yet. "I'll see you, yeah? Take care."
"Yeah." Ji-Ho salutes Javi with his sandwich and slumps low in his chair. He is clearly making even more of an effort to be Unobtrusive now that he has been spotted once already, and even Javi -- who knows he's here, who was just talking to him -- might find himself looking a little less hard as Ji-Ho tries so very hard to fade into the background of reality. "Later, Javi."
Javi starts to turn away, though when Ji-Ho starts to disappear before his VERY EYES, he does a double take. He squints, briefly confused -- but it's only another second before he lets it go. "Later." He lifts a hand to wave, then starts out of the cafe and on his way again.
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