The Adventures of Turkey Boy and the Evil Overlord [Oriel]

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Oriel felt inclined to thank him again for his spontaneous generosity. How was he supposed to feel about this? Weird is what it was, but again, Oriel’d take it. And will probably enjoy the gift to it’s fullest. Hopefully. If he could get around the fact that a laptop was too nice a thing for someone like Oriel to have. He’d have to…take really good care of it. Even if Gryph could easily afford another one, Oriel wasn’t about to go mistreat and break something so delicate and expensive. Why did anyone think that Oriel was such a fucking neat freak?

He was basically rooming at the school for free…even if his attitude towards people was shit, he didn’t believe in living in it. Oriel didn’t have to live in a filthy, horrible place…so why would he choose to? It’s why he didn’t understand when people didn’t clean their rooms and literally lived in their own filth. Privileged people, he noticed, far too often took their things for granted. Seeing that kind of behavior only pissed him off. If you took care of your things in the first place, then you didn’t have to replace them as often. It was common sense, right? It should have been.

Oriel assumed that Gryph was like that too, if he could afford to buy a laptop for someone that he didn’t even like. Oriel wondered how many of those kind of things the bird-boy went through in a year? How many pairs of pants? How many pairs of shoes? When did he deem something as having been used too much to use again? Oriel had jeans with holes in them that he purposely bought too big for himself just in case he grew taller so he wouldn’t have to buy a new pair every six months. If he did happen to need something, he usually scoured through the thrift stores, where a shirt was anywhere from 3 to 7 dollars. He had to cut corners like that if he wanted to splurge a little bit in other areas, like food or movies or his bedroom toys. But this guy…probably never had to consider stuff like that.

“Guess not….” he said, somewhat irritated by Gryph’s response. “I mean…I get by alright without it.” Oriel grumbled a little. “But..bet you’d still miss it if it suddenly weren’t there.” It sounded somewhat like an accusation, even to Oriel, but it was probably true. Though Oriel wondered if by saying so he’d already screwed up his chance to get something nice and needed from this friend-type-person. “…I can’t imagine what it’s like for you any more than you can…for me…or something, I don’t know…” Oriel liked to pretend he could, but his imagination was still glorified…idealistic…not that he’d admit it.

[Gryphon Matsuoka]

....yeah, Gryph probably wouldn't replace the thing if Oriel went and broke it within the space of a few weeks - but he didn't really expect him to do so. He wouldn't consider the idea if he didn't think Oriel would be sensible about it (Oriel? Sensible about something? Insane.)

If one classed Gryphon as a 'privileged person', you would find that he kinda fit Oriel's opinion/state of thinking pretty well, but he did take care of his stuff. His room was an organized mess, with a number of items on the floor and scattered on his desk and wherever else, but he was a dancer. He could easily, and gracefully, step around anything in his way. And the more important/expensive things were taken better care of. So he wasn't exactly living in his own filth... buuuuut he wasn't the tidiest of people either.

Gryph bit his lip at Oriel's response, looking around awkwardly. This is why he never liked talking about the fact that, simple terms, his family was rich. It automatically offended people (or at least, seemed to) and made people jump to conclusions and he hated it. He felt his expressions tense in mild anger after that, though. He tried to just let it go as he spoke, "I guess I probably would." It was like a safety net. And there was the possibility of the money depleting noticeably - that was to be expected with business - but Gryph didn't focus on that stuff, and he tried not to use any great sum of money around his friends because he didn't like having so much. Which probably sounded stupid, but it made him feel like crap that he had this money which he could spend on almost anything he wanted, and then there were people faced with poverty who had nothing. He donated to charity and shit, but he couldn't not be guilty about it.

Which was also why he wouldn't go back on his offer, even if Oriel pissed him off to the ends of the Earth. He said he'd buy him a laptop, so he was gonna buy him a God-damn laptop. 'Course he was gonna get on his nerves, this was Oriel were talking about after all. He nodded, though as Oriel tried to explain his side, "No, I get it." Gryph's own attempts at understanding how it was different for others often came up short, and he knew it. He could still empathize, everyone is human after all, but the baseline of understanding life without the safety net was... confusing. Difficult. He rubbed the back of his neck, unsure of what to say or do. Awkward situations were his kryptonite.

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Talk like this always started grating on Oriel if just because he let his personal impressions of the fortunate get in the way of how he knew those people were already. When Oriel found out that Gryphon was “rich”, his first thought was, “oh, well, it figures.” That’s why he was such a wuss in the face of the serious, real-life issues that he and Phoenix had the misfortune to live through.

Oriel wondered when that ignorance was going to get in the way of Gryph’s relationship with Kodi…maybe it already had and Kodi just hadn’t complained to Oriel about it yet? Though….Oriel still wasn’t sure how much he could trust the boy’s word. He’d promised that he wasn’t going to abandon Kodi when things got rough - because they were going to get rough, Oriel saw too much of himself in Kodi to think otherwise - but was he really? What was his limit? What was too much for the silver-spoon fed boy? Oriel still thought he was going to bail one of these days, and when he did…

It was probably best that Oriel didn’t get attached and actually start liking the bird-brain…

Oriel growled lowly at Gryph’s response. It…would have been a lot easier if the guy got defensive and tried to deny it…but agreeing with Oriel was unsettling. Oriel didn’t know how to agreeable people who didn’t fight back. “Fuck….why do you have to be such a goody-goody?” he mumbled, resting his chin in his palm. “Throws me off….”

He stood up, having watched the dance enough to actually start practicing. "So...how the fuck're we going to do this?"