[Log] Don't hate us 'cause you're miserable

[dae_han]

Participants: Yao and Yong-soo (Possibly Kiku or Ivan… if they so wish)
Can people just hop in? Hm… probably not.
Where: Advertising Department
When: Sometime during Yong-soo’s third week of work and Yao’s first
What: Two brothers finally meet face to face in a surprising fashion.
Summary: Yong-soo goes to Advertising to drop off some records he’

Comments

[dae_han]

Yong-soo didn't really move much, being a bit too well-grounded to stagger. He blinked though at the sudden impact. The papers fell to the ground in a wild blizzard, left completely sprawled over the ground like fallen leaves. Immediately, he went down to help pick them up and then he heard that voice. Some papers in hand, he froze as he looked up to finally realize who had just run into him.

"-Yao hyung?" he breathed, eyes suddenly going very wide and round. "It's really-" He immediately got up to his feet like a jack-in-the-box, finding himself bowing immediately.

Yao- he didn't look that different. Still tired eyes and wryly polite smile. God, they were even the same heights they used to be. It was as if nothing ever had changed-

"I didn't expect to see you here!" he said earnestly and suddenly embraced the older man, giving no regard to propriety or manners. Because this was his brother, someone who had been his family, who had been away, gone, lost, what have you, for the past ten years. And now he was back... and nothing seemed to have changed.

[pandaru_yao]

Yao jumped slightly when Yong-Soo latched onto him so suddenly, pinning his arms to his sides. He blinked rapidly, the nostalgic feeling brought on by his brother's tight embrace coming down on him like a bucket of warm water. Yong-Soo had always been... unconventional, almost to the point of being extremely irritating.

The last time Yao had seen him, he'd mellowed a bit from when they were kids, but right now as he was being virtually smothered by the other's arms he felt a kind of youthful energy bubble up in his chest from a distant place inside him he'd almost forgotten existed. He'd been growing tired lately, so it was refreshing.

He struggled to bring his hands up to Yong-Soo's back in an awkward pat, a difficult task when his torso was being affectionately crushed.

"Neither did I, aru." He said with awkward cheerfulness. While he appreciated the impromptu hug, the intensity of it really was starting to hurt a bit, so he carefully pulled away with a look of fond exasperation.

"W-what are you doing here, aru?" He asked while stretching his neck and back slightly, sporting an awkward smile on his face.

[dae_han]

Yong-Soo breathed in the smell of Yao, the smell of spices and soy sauce and those odd herbs he liked so much. Good old Yao... he never really changed. And he felt both terrified and comforted by the thought.

...

I've never seen you this quiet.

...am I quiet?

...It is probably nothing, isn't it?

Y-yes. It's nothing at all, Yao-... Yao-hyung.

He finally let go of Yao, realizing that he was probably suffocating the older man. "Oh- Sorry about that!" He bowed again. "Er- I hope I haven't hurt you!" He finally met the other's eyes, a look of childish chagrin lingering there but also the same eagerness as a puppy.

"I work here!" He looked around. "You're probably working here too!" He indicated the papers before blanching and going to his knees again to help gather them up for the other man. "Sorry about that!"

Hee~ Yao smells like soy sauce? XD <333 Awesome (I hope I'm interpreting things right)

[pandaru_yao]

Yao knelt down as well, gathering papers slowly in a somewhat sedated manner. He felt a little dizzy from the way he dropped to kneel on the ground. Laughing lightly, he looked at his brother with a tired gaze that held a kind of joyful energy at the very corners as they crinkled into a smile.

"Don't worry about it, aru, it was my fault." Then taking in Yong-Soo's coat and tie, he mentally kicked himself, "Ah, I suppose I should have guessed you worked here, aru," He said in a dry tone while watching Yong-Soo's quick hands gathering his documents and chuckled, "And thank you for helping, I see you're still rather excitable."

Though, internally he wasn't so sure about what to make of Yong-Soo at the moment. There was something different, under the surface, beneath all his cheer at their reunion. When he met his brother's gaze, he knew in his gut that there was something deeper linked to his current excitement. Yao just couldn't quite put his finger on it.

^^;; Like...cooking, basically.

[dae_han]

Ah, the same look. Well, maybe with some more affection visible in it now. How odd. Then again, maybe he'd learned to read faces a lot better, right? He'd been so blind as a kid. Ten years definitely caused some sort of change. Though to be honest, he wasn't a complete and utter idiot; he'd known what rankled people and just how to push their buttons. Like Yao.

"I hope you don't need to organize these," Yong-soo said, pushing the edges of the papers even and offering the stack back to the Chinese man. "You work in this department, don't you? I'm in Sales." Two different Yong-soos warred in his mind. First, the kid he had been (or some close approximation of it). Second, the man he was now, trained in hierarchy and forced to retain some sort of veneer of calm and respectability. Good workers didn't just spontaneously hug each other; that was what personal offices were for.

He always changes in the bathroom now.

Why is that?

He came here three weeks late too.

Was he in an accident?

He has his own room now...

Ah, I see, well I'm cooking up a souffle, how does that sound?

[pandaru_yao]

It was a bit strange how unsure he felt right now. This was Yong-Soo, a man he'd spent the better part of his growing-up years with. But they hadn't seen each other in ten years, things were bound to change in that time. In fact, things had already changed so rapidly towards the end of High School for the three of them, Yong-soo, Kiku and himself. It was a sad thing he'd never been able to fully understand.

The tides of time and change had morphed them all in these past ten years, moments in their lifetimes like water continually shifting the metaphorical sands of their respective lives. Though for him, he felt like his life was more like sandstone, a material worn down more slowly, so slowly that he himself probably wouldn't even notice the changes that did occur. His changes were deep and buried in his heart... but Yong-Soo's were like the calm following a hurricane. What that storm in Yong-Soo's past was exactly, he didn't know, if there was anything to know.

Yao looked down at the now somewhat neatly piled stack of documents, then back up at his brother, a little dazedly, only just coming out of his thoughts, and blinked, "Ah! Organize?" He put his hand to his forehead in panic, "I need to drop these off in Ivan's office, aru!"

He stood up suddenly, pile in his arms. A little too suddenly. Steadying himself on the secretary's desk and placing the pile on it with an apologetic smile to the young woman behind it, he started rifling through the papers to put them in a respectable order.

"Ah, I'm sorry Yong-Soo, I just need to drop these off in the Director's office, then I have time to catch up, aru." He turned to look at Yong-Soo with an apologetic grin, "You..." he paused, wondering if this was such a good idea, "You can tag along if you like, aru..."

DELI- oops...

[dae_han]

Yong-soo had always found Yao an enigma. He respected him greatly and loved to learn from him, attached himself to Yao like an enthusiastic puppy. But he never... "got" Yao. Not like he got Kiku. Nonetheless, their relationship rarely soured. Perhaps it was because they knew who they were and where they stood in their relationship? Hierarchy... hierarchy made sense of the world.

Of course, Yong-soo never really thought about this then. He never thought about it now, for that matter. All he knew was that while he had trusted Yao with his life, he was most definitely puzzled by the elder Asian.

"Have you been eating all right, Yao-hyung?" he asked, blinking and looking rather concerned, definitely meaning the usually light pleasantry. Yao always did have a few constitution problems (not as bad as Kiku though). At the mention of Ivan, he winced, ever so slightly. He stood back, knowing better than to try to help.

"If you don't mind, I'll wait out here, I think. I don't think it's good for me to go in," Yong-soo replied, looking polite and formal again. He smiled though. "What if I buy you lunch? We can catch up, right? The Chinese place around here is pretty good, actually. Not as good as your cooking though..." Oh, he was babbling again. And he was aware of this to actually care... but not stop.

Dumplings~! ^_^

[pandaru_yao]

Yao looked up at Yong-Soo from where he was fiddling with his papers, lifting a certain amount, removing a section, then placing it somewhere else, rinse and repeat.

"Eating alright, aru?" He blinked quizzically and tilted his head slightly at his brother's tone, "Yes, I've been eating fine," Then he brightened, "Though, lunch sounds good, aru!"

Though, at the compliment of his cooking, he waved his hand up and down in a dismissive wave, "Na li na li, I'm sure the restaurant is fine, so long as they have good dumplings, aru."

He gave Yong-Soo a small smile, "You don't have to pay for me though."

(OOC: Na li na li is a polite response to a compliment in China, and I didn't know how to carry it over to English, sorry. I hope using random Chinese isn't annoying X3 however, note that I know little Chinese on the whole XD)

Yum! ^___^

[dae_han]

Yong-soo shrugged a little. He'd always looked after Yao, despite his seeming selfishness. Bringing tea was a ritual he'd developed though the older boy had always scolded him for not being precise enough. He still drank it though. "All right. Just wanting to know."

"Modest as always, Yao-hyung," he laughed, eyes sparkling. "Except when the dorm cook-offs began. Then you were a slave driver to the rest of your team. And yes, they have really good dumplings. Still, not as good as yours." Two of the easiest ways to bribe a hyperactive Yong-soo was through Yao's dumplings and Kiku's cakes. Particularly helpful during finals.

"Na- I invited you. It'll be my honor to do so," he replied almost flippantly. But knowing Yong-soo... one would have to practically bodily wrestle the check away from him.

Mmm, Barbecue (I read the Logs XD)

[pandaru_yao]

Yao paused, an invisible pole seemingly erecting itself in his back at Yong-Soo's casual remark on that distant memory. It would seem that his brother still had a certain way of passively poking at sore subjects through a veil of insistent, cheerful flattery. Honestly... he shook his head lightly, closing his eyes briefly and turned back to Yong-Soo, eyebrow twitching in mild annoyance.

"Hm, I suppose you're right, aru." Slave-driver? "Though, we lost that cook-off anyway, despite any of my... extra efforts, aru."

He paused to reflect on that time back in boarding school. He had to admit, while he was a tiny bit annoyed at the fact that Yong-Soo had dug up such a subject from the pile of their childhood memories, it was nice to remember those times for the good memories that mingled in with the... not-so-good ones. "Hm, though your bringing that up reminds me of what happened after, aru. How you ate all the dumplings and stir-fry we made and got sick from eating too much, aru."

It wasn't the fact that he had gotten sick that was a fond memory, of course not. Yao remembered how Yong-Soo adored the things he cooked, and just by getting so excited by the food that he and his team made and eating the better half of it had made him forget all about losing. The three of them each had their own culinary talent, Kiku could bake fantastic sweet cakes (he loved sweets... a lot), and Yong-Soo could barbecue better than anyone else he knew.

He looked at his watch and furrowed his brow. He was late, though maybe he'd get lucky and Director Braginsky would be out of the office getting coffee, or indulging in one of his other vices. Making a small, distressed noise in the back of his throat, he picked up the documents and sighed.

"And I suppose there is no point in arguing with you over the check," he gave Yong-Soo a lighthearted look of exasperation and continued, "I'll be back in a minute..."

He cringed slightly at the idea of going to possibly see his boss so late, the man made him nervous enough as it was.

Because Yong-Soo is a pyromaniac

[dae_han]

Yong-soo never really meant to irk Yao most of the time. Except when he really was trying. Because it really was far too entertaining to see Yao's responses to these jabs. Just like Kiku, though generally Yao didn't end up hurling himself at him and trying to beat the ever living crap out of him (Oh, how many interesting trips to the infirmary that had caused...). He grinned at the Chinese quite incorrigibly.

"You were quite... upset, I do recall." Something along the lines of nearly ripping out his hair. "And it was worth it," he said with quite a bit of dignity, even as his eyes sparkled. "Your cooking is worth that." Well, he'd been a bit upset himself, being rather competitive by nature. But still... The three brothers, they were called all over campus, never mind that they were utterly unrelated by blood and completely different in personalities. After all, all three of the cultures they hailed from valued family and adopted families.

"Oh- am I keeping you?" Funny, funny... Yong-soo seemed to have picked up social signals. Or maybe he chose to acknowledge them now that he was older. He did seem to have an expression of knowing mischief when he knew perfectly well that he was being absolutely annoying. "I'm sorry about that. Please- I'll meet up with you in a little bit then. I have some things to do." He bowed politely but a grin still flickered onto his face.

"It was nice seeing you again," he said.

I assume Vice-Directors have their own offices in this AU XD

[pandaru_yao]

Yao bowed in return, though it was a little awkward when his arms were occupied by his pile of documents, and smiled tiredly. He was a little taken aback by Yong-Soo's perceptiveness, it was different, though not unpleasant.

"No, it's quite alright, aru. It was worth the delay, it has been so long, aru!" He rolled his shoulders tentatively and adjusted his hold on the papers in his arms, "When you're done with what you need to do, you can just come by my office, and we'll talk more, aru."

Hopefully you don't mind my skipping forward?

[dae_han]

Yong-soo smiled at him, less tiredly. Then again, the man always had energy for three (which was what drove teachers absolutely up the wall... except for the gym teacher). He rubbed the back of his head slowly, the single hair that always defied gravity bobbing as if making its own bow to Yao.

"Ten years is a long time," he agreed. He smiled. "Of course. I will." With another bow, he exited the department to head up to his own office. Well, technically he still had his data base work but it could wait just a little. Sometimes he had the vaguest impression that he was doing more work than he ever had to; certainly more than Director Jones, who was off tornado chasing with Director Bonnefay. But it was about an hour later, just in time for lunch, he knocked on Yao's office door, wearing his suit jacket still but his tie just a little loosened.