Checking Out the Competition (Taeyeon/Open)

[Reeve Rzeznik]

Reeve clucked his tongue through his teeth as he wandered the Best Buy that was, strangely enough, attached to the mall here at Pilot Ridge. It wasn't entirely unheard of for such a phenomenon to exist, sure, but usually the store was a separate building nearby. Either way, whatever the reason, here it was, and therefore, here Reeve was. His eyes glanced about the DVDs, CDs, and video games with relative disdain. It had been years since he'd ever actually paid for any of those, and no sense of nostalgia was ever going to be enough to make him do so again.

That's what computers and the internet were for, right? Pirating media?

Reeve smirked at the thought, causing a fellow shopper to glance over at him in confusion, thinking that he was smiling at him. Reeve glanced over, and his face falls with distraught.

"I, ah, uh... yeah, nothing," he stammers, turning and walking away from the Playstation 3 aisle. Instead, he decided to follow his original train of thought, moving himself away from the media he preferred to acquire digitally and toward the hardware he used to acquire said media.

Quietly, he'd pass by the aisles, looking at the laptops and desktop computers for sale. He'd wave the salesperson away with a wave of his hand and a shake of his head; he knew the poor guy was just looking to make a sale, but frankly, Reeve had more knowledge about the stuff the kid was selling in his pinky finger than the employee had in his entire body.

And what his pinky finger was telling him was what he had expected to begin with: Even his two year-old computer was still at least four years ahead of the curve of anything they were selling here. With a sigh, Reeve grabbed another USB flash drive, he already had more than he could count, but he never seemed to be able to resist buying them. You never know when you'll need one, he always told himself.

On his way to the checkout counter, though, Reeve stopped when he saw the tablet computers. He couldn't help but chuckle, for some reason, touch-screen had never really occurred to him. This was likely because he didn't particularly require any input device, save for his brain, but it was still something worth considering for future computers.

After checking out (and managing to get into the POS system to indicate the drive was actually on sale for half off) Reeve, flash drive in hand, wandered off to the food court.

It was here that he stopped, completely stumped. The poor kid, as it were, can completely lose himself in the world of technology, but when you bring him back to the real world and ask him what he wants to eat, he'll never be able to make a decision. Reeve bit his lip and glanced at all the different choices. Chik-Fil-A, Panda Express, and about twelve other so-called 'Asian' restaurants that were all variations of rice and noodles and chicken.

He let out a sigh. Maybe he should just use the mall's wireless network to hook into a random-number generator, divide them all by an equal amount, and see what he comes up with?

[Taeyeon Kai]

“Thank you for shopping at Hollister and have a great day!” the cheery voice followed the two satisfied customers out of the store, coming from the tall young woman behind the cashier’s counter. She wore her curly hair in a high ponytail, as she usually did, and her uniform of plaid shirt, skinny jeans, and flip-flops. Checking her watch, she smiled and ducked behind the door to go behind the store, where she saw a gathering of some of her coworkers. She grabbed her wallet and slid it into her back pocket.

“Lunch break! Be back in an hour!” she called out as she practically ran out of the store towards the food court. She had had a small breakfast this morning, which really wasn’t a good thing, but she had overslept and was in danger of being late. It had been a granola bar and an apple, she remembered as she flew through the mall. Her fingers took her ponytail down, fanning her curls over her shoulders as she wrapped the band around her wrist. She stopped at the very edge of the food court, looking around for something to catch her stomach’s attention, and when her eyes landed on the McDonald’s tucked in the corner, she licked her lips and moved, but as her luck would have it, she ran into someone and stumbled into their arms.

“Oof!” she groaned, grabbing the someone’s arms and pulling back. “I am sooooooo sorry!” she said, looking into the person’s eyes. Oh, hello cutie.

[Reeve Rzeznik]

Just as Reeve was about to do something as needlessly complex as surf for the recent reviews of each individual station at the food court to compare and contrast what everyone else was saying about them, his concentration (and thus, his connection) was shattered by the sudden impact of another human being.

The flash drive fell from his hands as Reeve began to fall in a heap, and, truly, it was only the fact that the person, a girl, he noticed as he looked in that direction, had grabbed his arms to right himself that he was able to pull himself back up from falling. Even so, he stumbled back, and if the girl still had a grip on his arms, it was likely she'd be stumbling to.

Reeve pulled his feet back up underneath him finally, still holding onto the girl's arms, and it was only at this point he fully realized what was going on. His grip released as he pulled his arms down quickly, and his gaze averted as he coughed out an apology.

"No, uh," he sputtured uselessly, glancing up and looking into her eyes for a second before he broke eye contact again, looking down at a speck of dirt on an otherwise immaculate floor. "It's my fault. Busy mall. Should've been out of the way."

His hand reaches up to rub the back of his neck awkwardly, and he glances back up at her again with something of a shy smile. Inside, he was fighting to pull himself back together, to put on the usual facade and not to be as horribly awkward as he knew he really was.

C'mon, Reeve, let's play pretend, he told himself as he tried to regain composure.

"I kind of get distracted easily, I guess." he admitted at length. Hell, you try being a regular human being when you have mental access to the internet.

[Taeyeon Kai]

Tae felt the boy she was holding on to begin to stumble back and she stumbled with him, eyes wide and lungs drawing in air as they both righted themselves. He immediately let her go as he straightened, and she took the time to straighten herself too. She tugged on her clothes and hair and looked at him; he was cute, that much she could tell. Why was she making a fool out of herself in front of the cute boys?

“No, it was my fault,” she told him with a nervous laugh, mimicking his action and running her fingers through her hair. “I wasn’t watching where I was going, which I should have, and then we would never be in this mess. I get distracted too when I’m hungry.” With that being said, her stomach growled loudly enough for him to hear and she blushed, remembering the last time that that had happened. Looking at him and feeling a bit awkward, she stuck out her hand in greeting.

“My name’s Tae,” she offered with a smile. “How about I buy us lunch to say I’m sorry for running into you?”

[Reeve Rzeznik]

With the girl attempting to take responsibility for the situation, Reeve found himself no longer on the back-foot, so to speak. He had immediately assumed that she was going to be upset for having been embarrassed by running into him, and therefore, immediately try to blame him to make herself feel better. Reeve, as always, was awful with confrontation, as he never really knew how to do confrontation. With her not pointing fingers and actually playing nice, unlike most girls Reeve assumed one would find wandering the malls, he assumed, he was feeling a bit less lost in the wind, and as such, began to compose himself enough to put his best face forward.

His face wore a grin, a warm and inviting one. This wouldn't be so hard, after all.

"Reeve," he replied easily, accepting the proffered hand with a quick shake, "And I totally get you, I mean about the food thing. God knows I can barely function without my eight square meals a day."

A joke, a bad one, but delivered with the presence of someone who's been telling bad jokes all his life. Just another persona Reeve could mimic when need be.

"As far as lunch goes, wellllll," Reeve began, drawing out the word as he glanced around. "I guess that would depend on where you were taking me?"

He chuckled, and then grinned back at her. The fact that she was a rather gorgeous Asian girl was not lost on him, despite everything. This, actually, gave him more anxiety than he was willing to admit. He wanted to play it cool, but all the same, she was already asking to buy him lunch. He could keep up an easy facade for a small meeting, but over lunch? It was going to be difficult, that's for sure.