Christ, Tat!

PFFFFFFFFF

What was that for?

okay okay sorry. i mean i half-expected you'd be here

I think everyone wanted to just get this over with early.

beats going during rush hour. we can go grab a bite after, too

mmhm. Are you going to get a spot in line?

ah, right

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hm, electronic identification on every student. Blade Runner was right, the future's gonna suck

it's a pile of hot garbage if you ask me.

Hey, don't knock it until you've tried it.

you made me try it when you brought me over last week and i thought it was shit

That's because you didn't even try to reach that bar of fundamental understanding which makes the experience enjoyable. You can't just thrash the mouse around and expect all your shots to connect, video games are a discipline which takes investment to fully appreciate.

and you said it was easy to learn?

If you actually care about it.

which i don't

You know what, Mie. How about you tell our friend here about the importance of interactive media as a soon-to-be pillar of modern culture.

Well, I think it would be of more immediate importance for you two to quiet down. We're about to get our drinks.

What do you- oh.

[step]

[step]

[step]

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Red tea... caffè latte, and an iced coffee for Russ.

Thanks, Yun.

Thank you.

We wish you a pleasant morning tea.

do they make you say that every time?

It's not strict policy but it was part of tr

then you don't have to do it when we're around. learn to loosen up a little, it's not like there's anyone around to give you shame for it

Ai told me it'd be good preparation for working full time.

oh come on, they're probably just gonna have you cooped-up alone in a cubicle like everyone else. it's what they want to do with me, it's what they want to do with Mie. Russ is doing it on his own volition

someone probably just told her to tell you that, or your dad's rubbing off on her. couldn't imagine having that sort of stress in my life, maybe that's why she went to Stanley

Come on, that's a little much.

I think someone's still a little worked-up over

Don't.

Sorry.

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Yeah anyway, Stanley. Heard it looks great this time of year now that there's actual forests around.

what's the point if they're just gonna pave it over in fifty years anyway?

They probably want to set up some mills eventually, and it makes the place look nice.

more places for kids to mess around in too. you don't have to build parks or anything

Nah, they're all around the mountains and stuff, decently far from everything else.

and you think that's gonna stop a kid? anything around like a mile and a half's radius from home is gonna be fair game

actually, have i told you about

Oh I swear to god.

ok ok, like now i have to

I've sort of just accepted this as an inevitability, just go.

right, yeah. so remember back when they had that baseball park around? it was called uh, Davids Field, right and they built it in the sixties as part of the old army base but that's besides the point. so before they tore the place down there was this big line of trees on the opposite side of the bleachers and on the left end of it there was this really tall pine. this could have just been kid me thinking everything was really fuckin big but it had to be at least thirty meters high, it was a pretty old tree

Shame we don't have stuff like that anymore.

i know, right? it's gonna take at least another few decades for the ones at the new park or urban space or whatever the hell they're calling it to get big

anyway

it was late Spring, Mie and i were seven something years old and when you're at that age you just, don't think shit through before you do it. but it's not the walk-into-a-busy-street sort of not thinking, you get an idea and you just go "oh, that seems pretty fun and reasonable" and you keep on thinking that until someone breaks something or gets attacked by bees or whatever. usually Mie's parents would hang around so we wouldn't have any of that happen but since we both went to Brook Elementary — i dunno if you know Brook — but we'd walk home together

so that day we decided to go grab some lemonade and on the way there we were passing by Davids Field and the sidewalk was right along that big row of trees and

You dared me to go climb the big one.

yeah yeah. and the thing you guys gotta understand is that seventies Mie is not the person sitting at this table right now. she could go out there and do stuff

Always a few steps closer to death at any given moment.

well i liked that sort of self-drive you had. it's the thing that made you scale that entire goddamn pine in what, a minute and a half flat with your bag still on

so Mie's a good thirty meters up and we're joking around a bit but eventually i tell her to come down and she says she can't. and i'm like, "alright, i can wait on you" but she says it's probably gonna take a while to come down and so after some negotiation she throws her change down and tells me to go grab the lemonade on my own. now the place where we were gonna get it is this parlor a good five minutes away from the field so heading back with the drinks i'm expecting Mie to meet me on my way but she doesn't and when i turn the corner onto the street where Davids is, the first thing i notice is that dark blue speck of her uniform

still

in

the

tree

pffff

Ugh.

ok, but what happens after makes it a lot worse. so my parents are still at work so i run to Mie's place, tell her mom and dad that she's in a tree, tell them that she's in the big tree and,

the thing is, nobody here knows what to do about it. she's like seven so it's not like anyone can go up and grab her but at the same time nobody owns a ladder. ladders are the sort of thing that you normally put in your garage but NOBODY has a garage around here. we asked around and the only thing we could find after thirty minutes was this half-meter step stool. eventually, Mie's dad phones a co-worker whose wife owns this repair place and they get one driven over. all the while Mie's still up there, no food, no water, no nothing, but she gets down eventually. whole ordeal takes a good two hours and by then the lemonade's gone all lukewarm from sitting on the counter

Terrible experience all-around.

hey, i ran four miles at least in the sun and it was thirty something degrees that day. god, feels like we've never gotten that sort of weather since then

You probably at least got a drink of water during the whole thing. I was- oh, thanks.

Sorry for being late with these.

don't sweat it. didn't even notice you left for a bit. what are they?

Biscuits. Any order over five gets them free, eight if you're... in a group.

oh yeah. isn't this like a rich people thing though? heard MEV started it a while ago and now everyone's gotta do it

I mean it doesn't really carry that sort of weight if you're having it for tea. Also even for companies it's more of a formality or even just a marketing thing. Anyone who shows up to an expo is gonna get offered at least a dozen.

They're rather good. Here's to hoping it won't just be a fad.

even if they are you'd still probably be able to get your hands on 'em afterwards. there's still people buying tie-dye stuff in America and it isn't costing them much more than it was twenty years ago

You can't just leave a box of food in the back of a shop for decades though.

eh. even if people don't keep them around you'd probably be able to order some from Europe or whatever now that they're actually opening up.

right, anyway. we were talking about

The tree story.

oh, yeah

sorry, don't really have anything else to add to it. does really make me wish we had more in terms of courts though. you can't really do an indoor baseball diamond and i don't wanna drive out twenty minutes if i ever want to pick it up again

Hm, we only had a football and tennis place back at the Key school.

We could pass by that new place then after this, the temperature's not too bad.

Sounds good.

i'd be up

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Mie?

Hm?

your tea's getting cold