recolle | French Roast (Closed)

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yugioh: malik ishtar

French Roast (Closed)

WHO: Chloe and Malik
WHERE: Starbucks
WHEN: 4/2
WHAT: Coffee and Talking about Retrospec
WARNINGS: Nup

Well, today the local Starbucks was offering its french roast, so Chloe was in a good mood. If she was going to be drinking coffee, it might as well have been strong and dark as sin. She waited for her cup while looking around to see if her fellow guest had arrived yet. In truth, she didn't really expect the conversation to accomplish much at all, and it would cover ground she'd covered a hundred times already, but that wasn't actually the point of the exchange.

She was becoming convinced that people needed to do this, more and more, so that they could help each other stay focused on the problem when necessary and have support when it became too stressful. It was important to communicate and make sure they were all roughly on the same page. So, meeting another soul? Just standard practice at the moment. Therefore, she stood there, heavy green cloak draped over her shoulders and a curious look in her eyes.

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This was going to be the first time Malik would tell someone about the all-too-real vision that lurked in the back of his mind. Funnily enough, he was more cagey about telling people he were close to, but he meant what he said about Chloe seeming reasonable. It was easier this way, with a relative stranger. He wasn't seeking any sort of counsel or comfort for it, but being able to say it - free from any sort of emotional context - was a good starting point.

It doesn't take long to spot who he's pretty sure is Chloe upon entering. Not too many people stand around alone like she is. He keeps his approach casual, but direct. He knows that she knows why he's here.

"Are you waiting for someone?"

...But he has to ask just in case.

"Yes, I was suppose to meet someone here by the name of Malik." She hadn't been paying attention when she'd gotten the messages to his icon, so she didn't immediately recognize him. When she spoke, it was with a pronounced French accent, the r's rolled and h's silent. "I believe that I owe him a cup of coffee for one, though do not use that as an excuse to get a cup from me if you are not him. I cannot give coffee to everyone here, after all, no?"

In Chloe's defense, Malik's user icon is a blurry mess anyway.

He smirks. "That may be the case, but you have nothing to worry about as far as I'm concerned."

He produces his school ID to hand to her, and sure enough, there's his name right at the top: Malik Ishtar. He's tall and gangly, but obviously in that awkward way that most teens are. Definitely a high schooler, as much as he pretends he isn't.

"I'd like to order my coffee before we proceed."

She laughed. "I would have accepted your word, but now we know for certain," she said, motioning for him to take the lead. She'd ordered hers already, so it was his turn. "I think there's a couple of the booths and chairs set into the back where we can speak more or less privately. I remember you preferred that."

Either way, she was in no hurry. They'd get around to talking in a moment, once he had coffee in hand.

"Can't take any chances. I doubt you'd want to keep buying coffee for others, as you said."

He's happy to move on, however, and place his order: nothing fancy, just the house brew, but he also picks up several sugar packets to dump into his drink. Once they get settled, anyway - and Malik is quick to make a beeline to what he considers to be the most secluded of the booths Chloe pointed out.

"Now... Where to start. I suppose I could go first, since that's why we're here." He says, tone even. He's not eager to talk about himself like this, but it is what it is. Plus, it's only fair that he goes first now that he's made Chloe pay for his coffee, right?

"Very kind of you," she said with a mildly bemused look on her face while she waited for him to place his order. At the very least, it wasn't going to be a long wait with the house blend. Chloe followed right after him and settled into a comfortable seat, her back towards the main room so that he could keep an eye out if someone happened to come close.

"Yes. I think we were here to discuss your visions and mine, to some extent, so that we could pool what little we know."

Malik hums thoughtfully, as he idly pours sugar packet after sugar packet into his coffee.

"I'm not sure a single vision could be of much use... Then again, perhaps there's a trend I'm unaware of." There's a moment of hesitation before he continues, "I haven't discussed much with anyone else... just one other person, actually. I'm typically not too interested in others' affairs."

He likes to hear himself talk, but this is edging into 'stalling' territory. He checks their nearby surroundings. It seems safe.

"...Anyway, I hardly call mine a vision. It seemed more intrusive than that. It wasn't even about me, it-- I was there, but in someone else's mind. I could see their life, their dreams... their lowest moments of utter despair. And I manipulated that in my favor."

He leaves off the grisly conclusion, eyes steady on Chloe to gauge her reaction.

"I am unsure as well, but some have been related, while others have not. Anything to find a pattern, if you will." Admittedly, she had her doubts, but it was also a good excuse for curiosity, which she always had in spades. She nodded, though, at his explanation for why he hadn't really shared or inquired much into this so far. It made sense.

She blinked, though, her eyes going wide as soon as he finished the brief explanation. Leaning back, she sipped at her coffee gradually and nodded. "So... you had a vision of strange powers, like some I have seen so far. I must admit, though, that would be a ... well, that kind of power would terrify me to have." Easy to abuse, after all.

"Have you begun to feel that power here?"

'Easy to abuse' was quite the understatement, although neither had a way of knowing that.

Malik almost seemed amused, although it's not clear whether it's because of Chloe or his own disturbed thoughts. He carries on, "No... nothing like that. I only have the vision of it. Terrifying as it may be, it seems like it could be fun. Useful. If such a thing were to exist."

He's still not entirely convinced about these being memories. A powertripping fantasy was sadly, not uncommon to Malik, so he didn't see why this particular scenario would be more twisted or unsavory than the rest. At least not to other people.

"But I do believe it's your turn to share." He sips his coffee, back to being casual as ever.

"Good." She nodded. At the very least, he wasn't reading her mind, or at least not claiming to read her mind. She took another sip, considering which part of her stories to tell. there were a few visions after all. Perhaps it would be best to boil it down to the basics.

"I've had four so far. They're a little tied together, but I can't be sure how. I traveled a lot, to exotic places, like the Alps, Corsica. But it seems like everything I did wrapped around a pair of other girls who never seemed to like or trust me." She shook her head. "I've chatted with them, and every time I see them, I remember feeling things, noticing things I never notice here. Like where someone might be hiding a gun, if someone was armed. It was... surreal, knowing what type of gun someone was pointing at me, feeling no fear because of it."

"Considering the circumstance, real or not, that also seems like it'd be rather useful." Malik says, slightly more keyed into this conversation now. It'd be a lie to say his interest wasn't piqued.

"I wonder... have you had anything happy? Something that didn't involve guns? A confirmation is fine, I don't need all the details... Just, the other person I spoke to before also had a violent vision as well. That's the only trend I'm seeing." With a small sample size, there's no way it's indicative of what people on the whole are seeing or feeling, but it's curious coincidence, if nothing else. Hence Malik's growing interest.

"Well... even the vision with the gun wasn't 'bad,' exactly," she said, shrugging and glancing to the side. "I mean, yes. I had a gun pulled on me, and the conversation was strange and uncomfortable, but I remember feeling almost happy about it. In fact, I always remember being mostly happy in them. And the trip to Corsica wasn't unpleasant at all. No death, no horrible things. I just remember wandering the streets, heading to an old ruin I wanted to see."

Her visions had been deceptive, sneaking their way around some of the most violent aspects of her life. "So I don't know that all of the visions are ugly, though quite a lot are."

Malik raises an eyebrow as he takes a drink. "You know, it's refreshing to see someone not in hysterics about this."

Even if he was surprised that having a gun pulled on her didn't seem to phase her.

"Still, most would consider guns to fall into a negative category... and I wonder why so many seem to involve negative situations. Ugly, as you put it. I can tell you right now, we wouldn't be having this talk if everything were positive in the typical way." He pauses to sip again.

"I want to know the lengths these visions go and why they're happening. I don't expect anyone to have that information, but the more I get, the better."

"Then we are both fortunate you did not see my explosion over the network a few weeks ago." She laughed a little at her expense. "Though, in my defense, I was not expecting to have a flashback where I kissed someone that is not my girlfriend. But, I won't pretend that I wasn't scared. It just... it wasn't real. There wasn't an actual gun pulled on me. That helps."

She nodded as he went on. No, that made sense. At best, her visions had been neutral, and there was always something disturbingly 'off' about them, that was difficult to put into words. Something sat wrong with her about everything that she saw. "Yes, I can understand, though I am unsure that there is a 'how far these go' to this, unless it starts to truly affect our persons here and now."

There's a suppressed laugh from Malik, though it isn't clear exactly what it is that he found so funny. He's not one that really has a sense of humor as it is, so he's more than glad to move on and keep the subject rolling:

"There's a reason for this. I doubt there will only be sterile, irrelevant thoughts. It may not affect others on a grand scale just yet... but there are many more unanswered questions I have about the situation. Retrospec is clearly involved somehow, to start. But just how responsible are they for what we see? They send inexplicable gifts to people and on top of that, gifts that seem to be tailored to the individuals that receive them." To prove his point, he stands up so he can retrieve something from one of his pockets and place it on the table. It's a card in a thin plastic sleeve.

"I don't know what this is, but Retrospec does. If it's connected to me, and connected to what they want me to see in my own mind, I want to know." Repetitiveness serves to emphasize his point, or so he hopes. Malik hates not knowing things or being made to look stupid, so not having all the pieces is really starting to frustrate him, as it becomes more obvious just how much he doesn't know.

She frowned, looking at the card. What on earth? "It looks like one of those cards that people play with in the stores for... oh, what did someone call it?" She reached up and tapped at her lips. "Oh yes, nerds. Yes, that was the word that they used, though I don't really know much. I only visited one a few times and they were playing with something that had a lot of very fancy colors and pictures of wildlife that they turned a lot."

...that was perhaps the dumbest explanation anyone had ever given for a magic the gathering game in the history of dumb explanations. But, it said exactly how little she'd thought about it. "It is pretty, but I don't see why they would give you it. They know something, but how much do they truly know? With the whole 'proposal,' I have to wonder if they truly know what they are doing, or if they are blundering around with our minds and lives."

Her tone? It said she thought the latter was the case.

"Are you implying that I'm a nerd?" His tone drops into something more prickly. He wants to be cool! He's no nerd!

"I've never played cards. There's no indication to what this is even for, so don't lump me in with people like... that."

He continues to frown, mulling over the more pertinent information about Retrospec. The latter definitely sounded more up their alley. It's also true that Malik really wanted this to mean something, that there had to be a cause. He wasn't into conspiracy theories, and he wasn't paranoid... but still. Could it really be that something so serious was being caused by something so stupid?

"Blundering it may be. It's too early to tell, even with their... excessive mistakes. I can't accept that a group of idiots has this much control over me."

"No, not truly. You don't control what it is that it brought you, after all," she said, raising her hands and shaking her head defensively. "It simply looks a bit like them. Really, it's strange as it is. But, I think I can understand what you mean. As much as they seem like fools, the idea that a group of idiots has this much control..."

"It would almost be more terrifying than them being very very odd."

"That's exactly what I mean. It's no accident that they have this sort of power, while appearing to be entirely stupid. It's easier to quell the masses, however, with that sort of persona. Don't you agree? We get annoyed but move on. No one has taken any drastic action... not that I've seen."

Satisfied that he is not being labeled a nerd, Malik pockets the card.

"I don't know that many of us are really moving on, but that is because the foolishness does not end. Still, I would agree that if that is their intent, then the plan makes sense." It did if you wanted to keep people busy. "At the very least, they clearly wish us to be busy doing meaningless things."

"Of course, none of this helps us know the truth behind it. And I do not know how many of our visions are connected."

Malik drums his fingers on the table. "Hm. This information has been helpful, but there's still too much we don't know. I've offered up all I know... so unless you have any other thoughts you'd like to share, I think our meeting is reaching its end."

Although he still has a coffee to finish. Alas.

She sighed and nodded. "Let me offer you my number. If you want to talk again in the future, we can, be it socially or to try and get a closer tab on what is going on with this app." She reached for her phone and began writing her contact information down. It seemed best to be ready for anything, and having ample contacts couldn't hurt.

Malik let out a hollow laugh. "I wouldn't get too used to this. I don't make a habit of being social. Although... I appreciate the information." He's quick to write his own information down on a napkin for her.

"Oh, and I suppose I should thank you for the coffee." He tips the cup a little in acknowledgement.

"Let me know if you hear anything pressing. I want to know."

"Then I will share it with the understanding that this is mutually beneficial, not necessarily friendship," she said, trading the numbers and nodding to him. She could certainly appreciate the arrangement, particularly since it was nice and up front from the start. "And you're welcome. I will contact you if anything major changes."

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