solarhippie | MCA #10, Monday Evening

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MCA #10, Monday Evening

Karolina had almost forgotten what day it was. It wasn't until the late afternoon that her phone beeped to signal the arrival of an email.

From all of us here at the Dean Foundation, we wish a very Happy Birthday to you, Ms. Dean!

It was January 28th. And Karolina was turning 23. And it didn't feel like much of anything. It wasn't a significant birthday in any legal sense, and it wasn't one of the culturally important ones, either. But even more than that... Karolina's relationship with her birthday had been pretty weird ever since her parents' deaths. Kinda hard to have a birthday and not think about the people who were the reason you were in the world in the first place, you know?

So she wasn't going to be making a big thing of it this year, either. The same as every year. But she had gone down to J,GoB and bought a box of vegan cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles. And then a small package of those cute little candles meant for birthday cakes from elsewhere in town.

And now she was in her kitchen, trying to decide whether she felt like being this dorky or not.

[ooc: Open for visits and calls and texts, should you feel a reason for any of those! ETA: NSFWness down-thread!]

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You know, given her neighbors on this floor, it was kind of a miracle that Beau, disaster connoisseur of attractive women that she was, was still alive. But yet somehow here she was, still breathing, and stopping by to see when Karolina wanted to do that drinks thing they'd talked about. (Or if, even, the stupid insecure part of her brain had to put it.)

She actually did knock, though it was a little bit too loud and aggressive. "Hey, it's Beau. You there?"

Well, at least that helped Karolina drop several of her more maudlin strands of thought. (For now, anyway. They always tended to come back.) Of course, they were immediately replaced by a couple of self-conscious thoughts along an 'I would've worn something different if I'd known this was going to happen' vein, but oh well. Nothing she could do about that.

She left the cupcakes and the candles on the kitchen counter, and made her way to the door. Then, after a second to at least straighten both her cropped hoodie and the shirt underneath, she opened the door.

"Oh, hey." Karolina, you knew who was behind the door before you opened it. Don't 'oh, hey' her. "What's up?"

"Heyyyyy," Beau replied, drawing out the word after a split second pause in which she'd convinced herself no one was home or wanted to answer the door now that she'd gone and announced herself; her surprised expression when Karolina actually opened the door was really just not smooth at all. "I was just kind of bored, thought I'd stop by, you know . . ."

Gods, she was terrible at making small talk sound anything but awkward.

"Were you doing something that I interrupted, or . . .?"

"Um, no, actually," Karolina replied, a little too quickly for reasons that weren't entirely clear even to herself. Even if it was good to be clear about how she hadn't been doing anything more important than talking to Beau.

She ran a hand back through her hair and smiled and most importantly, got a better handle on sounding at least a little more measured with her words. "I mean, I was just... about to have some cupcakes." And she chuckled a little, because that sounded really kind of lame when she put it like that. "I would make a joke about partying hard, but it is Monday, so I think I'm allowed."

Beau was getting better at translating the names of the days of the week in her head, because she just nodded and leaned against the doorframe, tucking her hands under her arms to try and make herself look a little more buff.

"Beginning of the week? Totally valid party reason," said the girl who was still slightly hung over from drinking at Miguel's on Saturday night and then trying out absinthe at Caritas last night. "Like . . . gotta give yourself some fuel to make it through the rest of the week, right?"

"Right, yeah, pretty much."

Also the birthday thing, but she felt weird about springing that on people. Was it actually weird? She wasn't sure. She wasn't going to lead with it, anyway.

Instead, she kept smiling, and nodded vaguely back at her apartment. "Did you wanna... come hang out?"

Probably not as weird as whatever cheesy and embarrassing thing Beau might have come up with to say in response, honestly.

"I mean, sure," was what she said instead, in response to the invitation, although she didn't manage quite the level of casual indifference she'd been going for. "That'd be cool. I didn't have anything to do tonight anyway."

Maybe this was a bad idea. Was it? Did she really care? Nah.

"I was gonna ask when you wanted to go for those drinks, actually, but I could hang out now, too. If you want." Just leaving some room for rejection, just in case. "Less boring than my night would be otherwise."

What a glowing compliment that was, Beau.

But this being Karolina, she chuckled softly in kind of a self-deprecating fashion. "Well, I mean, I don't know how entertaining I am," she said, shrugging. "But you're totally welcome to hang out with me now." In fact, she stepped back, opening the door further. "'Cause, like I said, I wasn't doing much. And, I'll even share my cupcakes!"

A beat, and she tried a small smirk on for size.

"At least if you ask nicely."

Beau hadn't been expecting that last comment, or the smirk, and that surprised a laugh out of her. "How nicely do I have to ask exactly? Is there like a minimum threshold or something I have to reach?"

She pushed away from the doorframe and stepped inside, clearing her throat, because she wasn't even sure why she'd just said that. "Considering I was pretty much just going back to my place and staring at the walls otherwise, the view is a lot better here," she said, both eyebrows quirking upward in a completely unsubtle way. "So yeah, I'm into it."

The door opened right into the living room. And Beau was about to find out that Karolina's apartment was much like her office: sparse and not too big, but with key details that made it hers, like the rainbow throw blanket over the back of the couch and the two framed posters on the wall, one of a painting of poppies, the other a poster for ~~meta for~~ Rebel Without A Cause.

And despite the boldness of her smirk just before, Karolina maaaybe flushed at the remark all the same, as she closed the door behind Beau. "I mean, that --" You know, the compliment, no matter how cheesy. "-- probably counts for some points towards asking nicely. But I'm probably still gonna have to wait for a 'please'."

It had a lot more character than Beau's apartment, which was just as sparse but didn't even really have any personal touches yet, and the movie poster got an approving nod and grin from her when it caught her eye. (She hadn't seen it, of course, but now she thought she had to.)

"It'd be cool if you could share one of those cupcakes with me," she said, and she could swear she heard Fjord sighing at her in her head as she went on with much less confident swagger than usual, "please?"

If it sounded -- and looked -- like she was completely out of practice saying it, that was because she actually was.

But the thing was, Karolina kind of liked that. Sure, maybe it being so clearly an almost foreign word in Beau's mouth wasn't the greatest sign, but Karolina had always liked seeing people not try so hard to project an image. Even for just a second.

It was endearing, in its own way.

She also knew better than to draw too much attention to it. So, she just said brightly, "Sunce you asked so nicely for it." And headed for the kitchen.

And Beau, for her part, kind of deeply appreciated the lack of comment on her social fail.

"I had good incentive," she said, trailing along a few steps behind and then pausing. "Uh. Should I just wait here, or . . .?"

"No, it's totally fine," Karolina replied with a little chuckle. "It's not like I keep any secrets in my kitchen."

Except that as soon as they stepped into the kitchen, she realized that she did. Because the cupcakes were on the counter, yes - but so was the still-unopened box of birthday candles. But, hey, maybe Beau wouldn't even know what those were for!

... And then she immediately felt bad about even thinking of taking advantage of someone's lack familiarity with a cultural thing. Karolina Dean, ladies and gentlemen.

"So, uh. Here we are." The smile faltered; the gesture at the cupcakes was just a touch awkward. "They're vegan."

"Oh, right, gotcha." Beau scratched idly at her ear, glancing at the box of candles without appearing to recognize exactly what they were for. "Cool. Yeah, I actually have no idea what that means, but they look good?"

She was looking at Karolina when she said that, though. Not the cupcakes. Very subtle.

". . . is setting them on fire part of the whole process, though?"

To be fair, Karolina was also vegan!

A vegan.

Anyway.

"Uhhh, no," she hedged, "those were actually... for something else. Kind of."

"Something weird?" Beau wasn't really trying to be nosy, but she had that pesky innate sense of curiosity. "That's not like a kinky thing, is it, or --"

She cleared her throat. "Never mind. It's cool. You don't actually have to answer that if you don't want to."

She could tell when someone was trying to avoid a question, and while she had no issue making people squirm in general she was starting to feel kind of bad about making Karolina uncomfortable.

Karolina's eyes had already gone a little wide, which nicely distracted from the flushing of her cheeks. "Oh, no," she said, "not that there's --"

Anything wrong with a kinky thing with candles, but she wasn't going to say that, so what was she going to say?

"They're birthday candles," she blurted out. "It's, it's my birthday. Today. I just thought it was weird to spring that on you, since this is kind of a -- anyway." Real smooth, Kar. Reeeal smooth. She looked sheepish. "I'm 23. Surprise?"

“Wait, shit, they’re — ” Beau laughed, a little loudly and a lot awkwardly, and for a second it looked like she was about to facepalm before she reined in the impulse and just looked about equally sheepish. “Yeah, that thing about — I didn’t mean that — ha. Wow. Um. Happy birthday?”

She cleared her throat.

“Yeah. Happy birthday.”

It was really too late to look cool about that, but she was trying anyway.

'Cool' had gone out the window a considerable while ago, hadn't it?

"Thanks," Karolina said, then tried to keep her exhale afterwards from sounding too much like a sigh. She pushed her hair back and ended up wrapping thin strand of it around her fingers. Not in a flirty fashion, even. More like it was something she did while thinking. "Sorry, I don't know why I was so weird about that."

Okay, she did know. Kinda. But it was depressing, so, maybe she'd rather just move on. So:

"I mean, the candles are for birthday cakes, but I was gonna stick one in the frosting of one of the cupcakes. Like a... mini birthday cake, kinda?"

No, cool was not even a remotely viable prospect at this point. Which was fine, really, and Karolina still seemed to be putting up with her so honestly it was kind of a nice relief to know that lack of cool wasn't a total deal breaker.

"That's nice," she said, not even sarcastic; she had enough 'don't want to talk about it' mess of her own to feel like she recognized that tone of voice in someone else, so she could respect that and just focus on what had been said. "So I kind of crashed your birthday party then, huh? And I didn't even bring a gift. That's like a thing I'm supposed to do, right? I mean, I didn't know, but."

"Well, I think I can probably forgive you for that," Karolina told her, shrugging while regaining some of her earlier smile. "I mean, my birthday party also kind of crashed you, you know?"

"I --" Beau thought about that for a second, then just laughed. "Yeah, that's fair, I guess. So what exactly do people do to celebrate birthdays here, anyway? Is it like a big thing?"

"It kind of depends on the person, really?" Karolina offered, not really shrugging but just raising one shoulder and letting it stay up for a little bit, to really drive home the vagueness of her answer. "Some people want huuuge parties and some people just wanna spend it with a few close friends and family, or ignore it completely like it's just another day."

Karolina herself had gotten awfully close to that last option over the past couple of years.

"But usually there's a cake and maybe balloons or something, and the Happy Birthday song. And you put candles on the cake and you blow them out and make a wish."

“Situational kind of thing, yeah,” Beau said, her expression going distracted for a moment while she tried not to think about years of being reminded she wasn’t the child her parents had wanted, and the baby brother she’d never met who was the reason she was fine with not going home. “I get that.”

She leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, looking curiously at Karolina like she was glad for the diversion from her own thoughts. Which she was.

“So kind of a low-key thing for you then, huh? That’s cool. I respect that. Were you gonna wish for something?” She tilted her head toward the candles. “‘cause . . . yeah.”

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