A guesthouse might not have been the most luxurious choice Henry could have made for accommodations while in Seoul, but there had been two, if not three, considerations given to the more homely single room he had rented for the better part of the week. For one, it was far cheaper than finding himself something much more luxurious even though there had been plenty of options available. For two, plenty of said hotel rooms would have already been booked for the approaching holiday weekend when some family homes might not have had the space for as many people as they may have expected. For three, he really didn’t care to be recognized and especially not as the super… something he had become, not quite a villain, but not at all a hero either, lingering somewhere in the middle thanks to any number of factors. Though it was hard to say it would come with any fervor, there was the inclination not to give such the opportunity to sneak up on him in an age where he was sure that one moment - that one viral monstrosity - had spread throughout the world.
Still, even if it had been far quieter than searing himself in the busiest parts of Seoul, there had been those moments where the shared walls started to close in and Henry found himself out and about, thankful for the mask on his face, however unnecessary it was in the post-Reality Gem world, to dissuade any lingering paranoia even a few days into his trip that he would run into someone - anyone - who might have known who he was despite being a needle in a populous haystack where disappearing into a crowd could be easy. One step into an alleyway or dip into a restaurant located on the basement level of an otherwise two story building meant he could disappear without a trace without the need for powers or portals or all of that which he had, if only for the week, left behind in San Francisco.
And that was just what he had done, stepping aside from the busier pedestrian avenues of Myeongdong with a piece of gyeran-ppang in tow - lunch, though no full part of it if his stomach had anything to say about such meager offerings - for the relative peace and quiet of smaller alleyways and the shops within that, inevitably, would have led him back to his accommodations had he continued; but no, this was just a stop and a chance to enjoy his gyeran-ppang in peace without potentially being in someone’s way or, as the mask came down and off of his face, that public recognition he looked to avoid whether it was there in the first place.
That, however, had said nothing about recognizing someone else, curious eyes glancing around the narrow outlet to the main streets until they had landed on a familiar face - one which, suffice to say, he hadn’t expected to see in another country as populous as South Korea, especially Seoul, was let alone in San Francisco after what he recalled to be in no small part a terrifying experience. No one, he suspected, enjoyed being thrown up into the air by the arms of creatures from another dimension who were simply protecting their one conduit into the world, and if they did, they certainly hadn’t been Aiden Park as he pieced together what he could remember from Ocean Beach.
Unfortunately, it hadn’t been that much.
“Aiden-아,” he called out with a wave of his hand and a small smile, certainly not one to be excited or grand in emotion on the best of days and certainly not when drawing such attention could have just as easily been avoided or ignored in lieu of whatever else might have brought him out of the comforts of family homes for the busy streets of the city. “추석 잘 보내세요.”
The trip back to Seoul wasn’t spontaneous. It happened every year whenever he could help it and where work allowed. Whether he had enough days in the books or not, trips back home to spend with what immediate family he had left were taken without question. This particular trip was just a little bit different. At the sudden lift of the pandemic that had landlocked him only a few months ago, Aiden was planning his trips again, securing dates and trying to predict airline prices as specific dates grew nearer and nearer, but it wasn’t with the usual excited eagerness to see his grandparents as it had been in years past. This particular trip planning had been foreshadowed with a warning - one that he had been unable to shake for some time - no matter how ridiculous it had sounded to him the first time it had burned his ears and settled in his mind.
He didn’t even know her - this girl with the chocolate brown hair and the beaming smile - but by some distant association, whether through other campers - because he still swears he was at summer camp when this happened - or simply by hearsay, she knew him and the eerily spot-on details that littered his grandparents’ Seoul home. He had been restless in the days that preceded his eventual trip even if the couple of phone calls that he made to his grandparents’ home reassured him that they were both alive and well, his grandfather recovering slowly, but surely from whatever spell of flu-like symptoms he had been experiencing during their own lockdown on the other side of the globe. Under his grandmother’s care, Aiden had some relief and security in knowing that he was going to be alright and taken care of. Any onset of illness or otherwise unnatural symptoms would be recognized, addressed, and handled as immediately as the nearest paramedics could, but to say that he was ‘at ease’ by any means was an understatement.
As is per usual in typical Aiden fashion, there was hardly a moment that he didn’t have a million and one things on his mind. Whether his thoughts zipped from one thing or another that had to do with the work he did at Warren Aviation or any of the handful of freelance projects he took on during his downtime, or whether he grew curious about the culinary experiments that Sandra Armitage continued to add to her restaurant’s colorful menu, his mind was always racing with something. Never still, contrary to how he looked standing in front of a food stall that was serving up various flavors of bungeoppang. Outside of the typical warm served flavors, there were also ice cream flavors of matcha, vanilla, and purple yam to chill and cool during the final days of warmer weather, one of which Aiden gave in after some contemplation - matcha ice cream - to have paired with the traditionally warm red bean filled fish friend he ordered first, slender fingers flexing and tapping almost impatiently around the small amount of won he held in his hands.
It took him a little bit to stir from his thoughts and the hypnotic scene of his bungeoppang getting prepared fresh before his eyes to register the sound of his name. At first, he didn’t respond, but something in the back of his mind reminded him that the voice in which his name was said was someone familiar, but he couldn’t begin to pinpoint who, especially not here in Seoul. Slowly, he lifted his head, the blank expression on his face was eventually replaced with brief confusion as he looked around his immediate area. With a quick scan of the faces of those around him, his gaze finally fell upon Henry’s familiar face as he approached and his own features relaxed as he returned his wave.
When he was close enough to receive his greeting, Aiden managed a small smile and returned the sentiment in kind with a slight bow. “Small world, isn’t it?” he said with a light laugh. “Had I known you were making a trip back, we could’ve flown out together. Make our trips a little less agonizingly boring,” he said, trying to make light of things when his thoughts didn’t exactly reflect similarly. “When did you fly in? Are you staying with your family while you’re here?”
“Ah, I wasn’t even sure I would be flying until this week,” Henry nodded, but the sentiment remained that, had he known, it would have been a welcome change of pace to endure travel plans with someone else rather than the lone wolf venture he had taken on. With the restrictions lifted, flying surely wasn’t as problematic as it had been during the pandemic, but that still didn’t mean it wasn’t frustrating nor boring - perhaps the most boring test of patience and endurance though the end result of being somewhere else for a change, one could hope, would be worth it.
So far, he had no complaints, but it was hard to find reason to with a small loaf of egg bread in one’s hands and a seemingly endless span of street food just steps away from his fingertips - perhaps far too many though there were, thankfully, seven days in the week long trip he had intended to try and making it through the full gamut of stalls and vendors. Though it in no way had been etched in stone, he briefly considered his next stop: Dakkochi… unless something else caught his senses before he made it that far.
“I flew in earlier this week,” he said, picking at some of the flaky topping on his bread, “and no, I’m staying at a guesthouse so as to not impose on my grandparents.” It was the season for family and it was very likely they had room that they were willing to set him up in however they could if only for the opportunity to see a grandson they rarely did of late, but there was something to be said about privacy and he was sure he had avoided some questions that way - assuming, of course, they knew his mantle just as well as those in San Francisco might have; but when the time came, he would reveal his presence to them with a gift in tow he had yet to pick up, much to the dismay of the won in his wallet and the inflation of prices for something so readily available in the states like fresh fruit. Where things went from there, he hoped would simply fall in line with the holiday - playing catch up, taking care of ancestral matters, and eating some delicious food.
“But it isn’t bad. The room is nice, very minimalist, as I’m sure you can imagine, and the other guests are quiet,” he continued to explain as if to shirk the notion it could’ve - and certainly would’ve - been nicer to stay in a family home instead of a room.
“All that said, it was about time I got out or else my stomach may have revolted,” he said, motioning to the egg bread in his hands. He could have had something delivered, restaurants back in operation on all fronts if they hadn’t been forced into early closure due to the pandemic, but it served one well to get out and stretch once in a while rather than hermit in a guesthouse room while housekeeping wondered if one was still alive. “How about you? When did you get in?” Henry asked, taking the opportunity found in volleying the question back to Aiden to take a bite of the bread in tow, a pleased expression veiling itself over his features.
Aiden nodded, his small smile remaining on his face as he listened to Henry speak of his flight plans for the holiday. Perhaps there were things back in San Francisco that were conflicting - or would have otherwise done so - that made his ultimate trip back to Seoul tentative. Apparently, whatever those change of plans entailed, he was happy to see him despite being in much closer proximity back Stateside than they probably were otherwise here on the other side of the globe, Aiden unsure exactly of where Henry was staying in his relation to his grandparents’ home. For a moment, that thought saddened him a bit - that they were physically so close in San Francisco, but yet had not been able to spend much time with each other even if Henry wasn’t the only one on that list. He supposed he had to attribute some of that to their responsibilities as adults - work and the like taking up time where necessary - and other such time to be split among friends and, further still, the strange occurrences that even after a experiencing and dealing with such over the course of the year and change he still hadn’t gotten completely used to nor did he quite fully understand.
For a brief moment, he thought back on the events of that one day at the beach that had followed the larger planned gathering. He thought of how vivid and terrifying that had been...and how real it had all felt. For the sake of Henry not recalling much of anything that had happened until he had finally come to after Aiden had tackled him into an oncoming tide, Aiden had tried to make sense of it while he offered the recap of the disturbing scenes he had witnessed with the hope that it might stick...hopefully unlike the tentacles of Henry’s new stomach friend and probably - hopefully - his only aquatic foe, but similarly and metaphorically so with the hope that he’d be able to make more sense of it later. He wouldn’t ask much of it here - not out in the open - but maybe at some point if it would help shed a little more light to that day and whatever else there might have been in relation to these strange days - weeks - that didn’t show any indication of letting up anytime soon.
“What a thoughtful grandson you are,” Aiden replied, his smile holding a little longer on his face when he realized that there was a faint hint of a tease in his tone when he told him that he wasn’t staying with his grandparents, but at a guesthouse. While there was nothing wrong with Henry’s decision to not impose and be as accommodating to his elders and relatives likely also visiting, it was quite the opposite in Aiden’s case. Not that he was imposing either, Aiden didn’t think twice to stay at a guesthouse for the holiday when his old bedroom was purposely vacant in the event of his occasional return. His grandparents fully expected him when he was able to finalize flight plans and on more than one occasion, almost always insisted that he stay with them, other reasons being their excuses than the one he was sure was the true culprit in their decision. “I’m clearly a thoughtless monster,” Aiden teased further, able to laugh a little bit with the hope that it would alleviate a little - if but a fraction - of whatever anxiety he was still feeling from the long flight. “At least you have quieter neighbors,” Aiden happened to agree, briefly thinking of the neighbors in his grandparents’ neighborhood and the small village of grandchildren that would be - and had been - playing about. “You’d be able to get some sleep for once.” It was another tease, but he meant well.
At the mention of his stomach, Aiden couldn’t help but look, not at the gyeran-ppang, but beyond that where he knew the overgrown kraken hid. He couldn’t help the slight narrow of his eyes either when his eyes finally did look away from his friend’s stomach and more toward the bready egg treat in his hands which just made his own stomach rumble for his bungeoppang duo. Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait too long when the voice of the older gentleman who manned the stand called to him, arm extended with his delicious fish-shaped bread friends ready and waiting to swim to their new home...in Aiden’s stomach. Eagerly, he made the exchange, his childish smile widening considerably as he slowly stepped away from the stand and closer to Henry so they could, at least, walk and talk along the line of other food stands until something else caught their eye. “Your stomach or the calamari?” He asked now that they were out of earshot of anyone that might have wanted to hear.
“I got in...Sunday? I probably would’ve flown in earlier if tickets weren’t ridiculous on Friday right after work.” He made a pout, as temporary as it was, before he bit the face off the matcha ice cream fish friend in his minor frustration when his expression melted back into a smile that mirrored Henry’s when he took another bite of his gyeran-ppang. “It’s fine though. My flight was kind of empty and I had so much leg room...which is surprising for economy. Did you know,” Aiden quipped like he was going to lay down some serious knowledge all of a sudden, “there’s this thing called Economy Plus on some airlines? I had no idea it existed until now and I don’t think I’m flying any other way...at least until I can stomach the idea of dropping the sort of cash required to fly First,” he added, eyes wide in disbelief like him flying First Class was ever going to happen any time soon even if it may be worth it given the number of hours he would be sitting in a plane.
“Who am I to deny them a good basket of pears if I can actually find it,” he said, chin rising momentarily in a beaming sort of pride that he could have been so thoughtful though the reality was that he would’ve been dropping in unexpectedly, and that in and of itself was enough for him to consider, perhaps more so than he normally would, coming in with a gift - a peace offering, if one would, for a happy Chuseok. Granted, there was no reason to believe it would be anything other than happy, but a basket of pears at least sweetened the occasion.
“It also might be dictated by the notion I am here without warning,” he added, shrugging his shoulders slightly as if it was completely normal. Yes, it was normal to be back in the motherland at this time of year and, yes, for this holiday in particular, but it was hard to say how many times he had flown into South Korea for any holiday since being only an island jump away while living in Japan. That had been some time ago, going on a whole three years before he had decided to visit again; and circumstances being what they were, it might have very well been a year or two before the pandemic ceased enough naturally to allow travel once more.
“I just think they don’t want to disrupt each other and that works well enough for me,” he said, able to reap the benefits of such silence. His grandparents may have already been housing family from afar, people who might not have been able to find a room or had first dibs on what space remained vacant, but Henry was nonplussed by staying somewhere else for a number of reasons, one of which was most certainly the aforementioned “calamari”.
“You do know they aren’t calamari and still don’t like being called that, right?” He asked though he knew Aiden was smart, thereby knowing well enough that they didn’t. Thankfully, they had been easier to control of late, no blackouts since the last week of odd remembrance he had and nothing whispering sweet nothings of malevolence and evil in his ears that ultimately took hold through emotional cracks and fissures he didn’t dare discuss with anyone. They were, as they had always been, allies to whatever Henry had been doing - be it heroics or mayhem - and there hadn’t been a moment to call for either since waking up to an empty house, no roommate, and adoptive ownership of her dog, currently in the care of a pet hotel while he was gone. “But I did mean my stomach.”
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” he said, speaking of the season where inflation ran high and everyone, just like Thanksgiving in the States, was worried about far more than what was in front of their nose - the very thing guiding Henry about Myeongndong streets towards the scents that made his stomach growl even after the egg bread had been consumed. “Oh? Economy Plus: A small taste of something more without the price and just enough to make you consider that upgrade to first class,” he joked, though the extra leg room was definitely more appealing than the coach space he had come in on. “I may have to upgrade on the way back,” or skip the travel time all together through one dimension or another.
“You know, if you want,” he said, nodding as he gave an idea a moment’s thought, “we can grab something to eat? Chimaek or maybe some barbecue? My treat.”
“I’m sure there are plenty waiting for good homes to be taken to,” Aiden commented about the pear basket, confident that there were other baskets of fruits to choose from as well on top of the assortment of cakes that happened to catch his eye as they passed yet another stall. As if to ease any sort of jealousy from his headless matcha-filled fish-shaped bread and his head-intact companion, he took another cool bite, speaking around a mouthful of food when he was able without causing a mess. “I’m sure they’d be appreciative of whatever you decide to bring them,” he added brightly, finding it easier to be happy for his friend than himself where worry still lingered beneath the surface.
He couldn’t say that he was knowledgeable to Henry’s familial relations - completely or in part - but he wasn’t really the type to inquire unless it was a topic that he wanted to openly discuss. He respected his friends that way, except, perhaps under any notion that might have been unhealthy or had implied something dangerously life threatening that he would then intervene even if he would be met with resistance. Hopefully - and he hoped this with all his being - that that resistance would never result in having to deal with the calamari that lived within Henry. Wherever that exactly was.
“What considerate neighbors you have. I may have to spend at least one of my afternoons chasing little heathens down the street with rice paddles.” Munching down the ice cream-filled bungeoppang, Aiden acted out his minor threat to the children that littered his grandparents’ neighborhood, arm waving in the air and some mockingly threatening face to match. If that didn’t work, the rip of the second bungeoppang’s face might have as demonstrated when he temporarily locked eyes with a little girl standing with her mother at a vegetable stand, her eyes wide in slight terror until Aiden dropped his act and tried to smile at her in apology, shortly verbalizing it thereafter when she tried to hide behind her mother’s skirt.
Aiden heard the soft murmur of reassurances of the mother to her daughter in their departure, amusingly validated, at least by one child, that his scare tactic could work, but wasn’t exactly sure-fire yet. Would he actually do it? Probably, just for the heck of it. The families around his grandparents’ home were longtime friends and if anything, that neighborhood would just get louder once they found out he was in the city assuming his grandparents hadn’t mentioned it to them yet. “Enjoy the silence while you can have it,” he began, taking another bite of red bean bread treat, “but if you need a reminder of what life sounds like outside of four walls enclosing what I’m sure is a cozy minimalist guesthouse, my grandparents’ neighborhood as a small village of tiny humans to terrorize and school in Go-Stop.”
His mischievous smile melted like a winter snow in summer at Henry’s mention of the calamari that he so endearingly referred to...if endearingly was the only word to come to mind to describe them. Unlike how it - correction, they - got their suckers wrapped around him that one summer day at the beach, Aiden was still wrapping his head around the fact that they were a plural entity and that they had feelings. Where calamari each had their own set of tentacles, he now wondered just how many there were in Henry’s care. Had he mentioned that there were three of them? He wasn’t entirely sure, memory failing him. No way they could’ve all been grappling with him and his outburst that day on the beach. “I know,” he replied flatly, making a noise with his tongue against his teeth. “Still doesn’t change my mind about calling them otherwise, but I’ll be sure to address them plurally from now on. I’d say that’s, at least, an improvement, wouldn’t you?” At his clarification, Aiden didn’t respond much further on the topic that featured one of the two things that seemed to reside in his friend’s midsection, figuring he had meant his stomach just by Henry’s reply alone.
With the calamari topic now off the table, Aiden scrunched his nose at the thought of how commercial holidays had become. “Isn’t every holiday ridiculous?” As a child, he was very much blind to it. Now that he was older and understood the workings of an economy, the celebration of culture and tradition was looking like one big money mill in every area possible regardless of upbringing. “The only ridiculousness I want to experience around any holiday is the ridiculous amount of food I’ll get to eat,” he mumbled once the second of the bungeoppang duo was out of sight, but still fresh in his mind, his stomach hungry for more when conversation transitioned to what sounded like a silly advertisement for Economy Plus. He cracked a smile and even broke a bit of a laugh at Henry’s joke. “It’s not wrong! I clearly don’t need it, but I sprawl out when I sleep…if I sleep so...definitely worth the extra cash if you’re still on the fence about it before you head back.”
As if ‘chimaek’ itself had magical powers to bring out the hungry beast that was his seemingly insatiable appetite, Aiden’s stomach growled, perhaps a bit louder than it had been throughout the day, clearly displeased with the offering of bready fish friends in such a meager serving. His steps halted suddenly as he looked up at Henry and although barbecue was a formidable contender, copious amounts of chicken and beer, were just as delicious and easily a pairing he hadn’t had in a while. “My bottomless pit of a stomach likes this idea, please and thank you. I trust you will not disappoint.”
“Either they’re old,” he said, nodding, “or familiar enough with the area to not make a ruckus.” It was hard to say though, Henry keeping to his room more often than not and when he wasn’t in his room, he had been out - be it to get food or to go sightseeing, something that wasn’t so readily tourist, but still edged towards the recognizable if only so he didn’t find himself lost along the way. Even with the help of Google Maps, he was sure there was such a thing as getting on the wrong train and ending up in the wrong place entirely if one didn’t realize it within the next few stops. “But either way, it’s nice, and doesn’t have any kids running around to be loud when I do get some beauty sleep,” Henry rounded the thought off though, suffice to say, the notion of beating children in games of Go-Stop wasn’t as terrible a spot of holiday fun as his loner status might have suggested.
“아이고 - I think you scared her,” he said, shaking his head as he watched the little girl hide further behind her mother’s skirt though not without a smile on his face since it was entertaining, to say the least, to watch Aiden’s pantomime of junior discipline with a rice paddle and see it get the desired effect even out of an unintended victim. “And here I thought I was the scary one,” he teased, picking apart the last few bites of his bread so he could finish it off in due time - certainly well before he had his hands on his phone to find a good place for chicken and beer that was within walking distance. Even if it just ventured off of Myeongdong’s known streets, he was sure there would be one in short order with how many fried chicken locations there were in Seoul alone.
BHC just happened to be the closest, his attention dipping into the menu for only a moment once he had tapped onto the website from his phone. “How can we have so many options here,” he said, bringing the phone up to his face for a second as he scrolled through the options - some standard, some spicy, and some even with black olives, “and sometimes KFC can’t even get their own recipe right?” An absent comment for an absent thought though he couldn’t remember the last time KFC had actually been on his menu of ‘Things to Eat When You Don’t Want to Cook’.
“I am sure there will be plenty of food to eat,” he said, his seemingly love-hate relationship with eating not in question in this moment when - as he had thought before only to find himself in another unfortunate superpower-related incident that saw him shed pounds more than one would have hoped - there was so much to take in and no Horsemen or avatars from other dimensions trying to rip the life out of him for one reason or another; and, surprisingly, none of those had been creatures of his own dimensional mechanation. “It’s my hope that when I do go back, I’ll have eaten so much that I don’t mind just how cramped my legs are even in coach,” Henry said, looking up from his phone now and then to make sure they were heading in the right direction and he didn’t lose Aiden to a food stall on the way. “And that I sleep the obscene amount of hours I will have on the plane back to the States.” That was assuming he did take a plane back in the first place.
“And there will be plenty of chicken here,” he said, his phone dipping into his pocket once they had traversed the field of pedestrian traffic for the chicken restaurant, gauging just how many people were inside - a lot, he didn’t need an exact number - before reaching out to get the door. Yes, it was contrary to his intention in not being found or seen, and a part of him was still inclined to keep his cap down low, but he wasn’t going to get anywhere - especially not with chicken and beer - unless he went somewhere, and with company, hopefully it wouldn’t be as problematic if someone did.
The only problematic thing at this point was trying to figure out which flavor of fried chicken he was actually going to start with, the perusal of the menu while en route helping nothing when it came to decision making. At least there was a seat though, a vacant table that they had found themselves in shorter order than Henry would have thought being such a busy time of the year. “This is a bit more difficult than I thought it would be,” he said, arms crossing in front of his chest loosely and staring down the menu as if he was about to go to war with it. At least he anticipated the beer options would be easier to wrangle.
“Hm.” The sound was short and easily paired with a curious raise of his brow as they continued to walk along. “I didn’t think you got either of those,” he commented in reference to ‘beauty’ and ‘sleep,’ the tease coming in the form of a jab of his words and the tone he carried. With a shrug and a slight smile on his face, Aiden sighed. “Well, if the inkling to play Go-Stop ever arises, you know who to call.” With his bready fish-shaped snacks no longer in the picture, Aiden’s fingers easily curved around the body of his phone that resided silently in his pocket, resuming the hold he had on it prior to his mini hunt for snacks and when Henry found him. In a way, holding onto the device brought some level of comfort even as he felt a brief wave of embarrassment wash over and eventually leave him as he and Henry passed the little girl and her mother. As difficult as it was to hide the slight amusement he felt when his potential scare tactic to carry out on the children that ran amok in his grandparents’ neighborhood actually worked, it was equally difficult to ignore the itch of anxiety that pierced the skin at his fingertips as he turned his phone over in his hand, reminding him what it was he was waiting for.
Thinning his lips around his smile, Aiden allowed himself to laugh at Henry’s joke, the shake of his head that followed rustling his hair. “Nah, you can keep that title.” Then he humored some reconsideration. “Or maybe let me borrow it for Halloween assuming I can nail down a costume, let alone a reason to dress for the occasion.” He couldn’t say that there were any plans at work that involved Halloween costumes - at least, none that he had caught wind of before he left on his trip - but he wouldn’t be completely surprised if there was something. A small mixer, a potential Half-day Friday in preparation of that could very well include some premature pregaming of the alcoholic sort, or even an in-house office party likely assuming everything that needed to be done was done prior to. Whatever would happen, he was sure he’d be around for it, costumed or not.
If there was one thing he missed about living in Seoul, it had been all the restaurants and food stalls, and with those, the ridiculous number of fried chicken restaurants there were. They were almost as prevalent as Starbucks in the States - one for every two blocks or so - but even that estimation was a little too ridiculous. Still, it might as well have been the case, Aiden only stopping or slowing his stride whenever Henry did to scroll through his phone, occasionally taken by the sizzle of hotteok grilling, tteokbokki simmering, or the smoky aroma of grilled meat that only seduced him against his want for fried chicken. “You better pick one quick before my stomach decides for us.” It was hardly a warning as much as it was a whine, Aiden bouncing a bit on the balls of his feet for Henry to hurry up until they were off walking again and finally into BHC. That was where his anxiety faded, if only temporarily.
The assault to his senses had been enough to coax that new desire for other food away once they were indoors, Aiden unable to wipe the goofy smile on his face as he glanced at the tables they passed and their respective menu choices all laid out. It didn’t stop even when they took their seats at their table, Aiden leaning this way and that to see what he could order and witness spoken and unspoken testimonials of the food the other guests were enjoying. It had been a while - too long of a while - since he had eaten at BHC so catching wind of Henry’s comment about, essentially, indecision at its finest over just the chicken menu, he laughed. “At any place specializing in a handful of dishes, the combinations made with anything else are surprisingly endless,” he said, finally setting his eyes on the menu, wide-eyed in awe, pointing at all the spicy items. “We’re not gonna eat anytime soon, are we?” Aiden asked around a laugh of disbelief. Too many choices, not enough time.
“Wow, this rudeness,” he said, pretending to be offended by what had been said as he looked over to Aiden with his mouth ajar, ‘insulted’ written all over his face as a hand went up to his chest, palm placed firm over an imaginary wound. “I get sleep sometimes, thank you very much,” Henry added, as if that was the more insulting of options between ‘beauty’ and ‘sleep’, “and I’ve embraced my ugly.” As that could have been true considering the powers at his disposal and just how grotesque they could be on the best of days, perhaps even foul at the worst, he meant nothing of the sort, lifting his hand to point to his face, drawing a circle around it as to motion to everything he had going on. “This ugly is all mine.”
Hands returned to his phone in tow, swaying his head from side to side for a moment as Halloween was mentioned, the spookiest of seasons for the spookiest of superheroes - or whatever he was calling himself these days, riding the fence of called active neutrality unlike his very passive brother, and jumping to one side or the other depending on what needed to be done. Doing his part to obtain the Reality Gem through a series of riddles that were a seemingly never-ending annoyance? That had been good. Supposedly storming the castle - the mutant nation of Krakoa - with a woman on a revenge mission to make a point? That perhaps hadn’t been, never mind everything else that had come from Chthon’s manipulations. “I haven’t even considered a costume,” he said, shaking his head. There had been ideas, some of which requiring some magical stitching of less usual materials and items, but as far as having anything to do, Henry couldn’t say he had penned in any parties or get-togethers into his schedule. It wouldn’t have been far off to suggest that he could have been working that night, manning any overflow of patrons that Arcana might have had even if the weekends were slotted for his days off, but that had yet to be confirmed or denied. “I suppose if something comes down the pipeline, I could figure something out,” he said, “and extra points if I can get a few scares out of it.”
Once seated, Henry did as Aiden had, glancing one way and the other at patrons that were in the restaurant and what might have been on the table, spying plenty of chicken options with a few other dishes to be considered. The warmth of odeng guk was found to be appealing even as the spicy gochujang scent of tteokbokki assaulted his senses from a table nearby, but why go to a fried chicken restaurant without getting the title menu item? Especially when it was the best pairing with beer? Still, the decision on what flavor eluded him, each passing item read looking better than the last.
“I am looking as fast as I can,” Henry commented, shaking his head at Aiden’s - well, his stomach’s - impatience. “Galbi sauce or malacan - Sichuan mala-flavored, which is probably really spicy, but might be sweet too?” He asked when he had finally figured something out, looking over the menu again before he decided against it - it had already taken him long enough to come up with two options without attempting a second round of deliberation to make sure those flavors were the ones he wanted. “Or we go old fashioned and go half-and-half, fried and 양념치킨 because you really can’t go wrong with that?”
Aiden huffed and narrowed his eyes at the menu. As simple as the restaurant’s concept was, picking only a select few items off the menu was a difficult task, even with two hungry brains at work. Familiar flavor combinations called to him, but others were just as tempting, promising a new profile that he may not have otherwise imagined in his wildest foodie dreams. The galbi sauce or the malacan? He’d have to flip a coin to decide. Sichuan mala? That lingering heat and that slight numbing sensation that warmed the insides during the cooler months? Perhaps he wasn’t ready for that just yet, but it wasn’t like he had any Sichuan dishes recently that part of him was actually considering it just as a spicy reminder.
As Henry posed his suggestion, Aiden quickly responded just to end the seemingly never-ending dilemma between delicious menu items. “Let’s do that. With all the sides,” he hastily added. The little bites of breaded and deep-fried hot dog pieces, the deep-fried cheese balls, the restaurant’s own signature french fries, and the two flavors of sotteok would be tasty accompaniments to their already mouth-watering meal. With that, Aiden set aside his menu and sat on his hands if only just to keep from having second thoughts about their meal choice even if his eyes were still tempted to look. Quickly, his eyes shifted to Henry as if there were a time crunch to their meal deliberation.
“Is that your final answer?” he asked, eyes intense as he bounced a little in his seat. The impatience of his hunger was almost laughable at how child-like it was in how he almost looked like he could throw a tantrum if Henry was still caught up in indecision. “I will call the waiter over right now if this is for sure what we’re getting.” Then he paused, almost forgetting a crucial part to their meal: the beer. “Cass?” he asked, eyes wide with a question. “A pitcher of Cass? Or something else?” The latter two questions coming out like spitfire as he spied a waiter en route toward their general direction with Aiden clearly in his line of sight to flag him down.
“Cass - Cass is fine, final answer,” he said as if he had been caught on some high stakes game show and was running out of time, the timer conveniently enough the waiter who was en route to their table, ticket pad in hand so he could prompt jot down the order as it was given to him. It was a considerable amount of food, perhaps more than he would have imagined two people to eat, but he hadn’t been so keen to the appetite of one Aiden Park nor, had the super power shifts extended to him as well, whatever else might have influenced such a thing. Henry, for his part, had almost always been a light eater, skinny but not waif, and with a handful of incidents in the past that had made it considerably more difficult to pack food away. This, however, was a different moment, a different set of circumstances and a different cuisine in a different place where he could set his worries aside; and, if nothing else, a pitcher of beer shared among friends could certainly help it.
The order placed easily enough, the beer was what had inevitably found its way to the table first along with two glasses, the food apt to take a bit more time than it took to fill up a pitcher from the tap. Standing slightly - an effort to make sure he didn’t somehow end up spilling the pitcher in an attempt to pour it - Henry went about filling up the two glasses, the pitcher placed just to the side of their table as to keep it out of the way of the inevitable food.
“So,” he started in on some conversation while they wanted, for the moment keeping any super power oddities to himself, a product of the environment as much as it was an intention to keep it back in California. There was little reason to bring it into this place over a meal that would hopefully mend some of the more troubling aspects of going lengths of time without speaking or, as had been the case on the beach, speaking at the behest of someone - something - else that he could hear very little of now. As thankful as he was for it, he supposed that entity had taken a different shape in how his mind perceived it, bearing more of a resemblance to that whom he had run into in Krakoa versus the Elder God swathed in the darkness of a void he created.
“How has your trip been other than scaring poor children with a rice paddle? Surely there has to be something more than that,” and while that was entertaining in and of itself, there was plenty one could do while spending time in Seoul despite plenty of businesses preparing to close for the holiday or opting for lesser hours so employees could be with their families. Not that his stay so far had been particularly exciting, a reprieve if nothing else from the troubles of San Francisco that seemed to hit a fever pitch with the goblin-led siege on a doppelganger mutant nation.
Here, at least things could be as calm as they could be with as much hustle and bustle as there was during the holiday season and how many more people were packed into the city. “I may brave Shinsegae at some point,” he said, mind filtered back to bringing his grandparents a gift when he showed up on their doorstep, “but perhaps tomorrow - considering the beer and inevitable chicken coma I may go into.”
With their food ordered and their drink of choice now at the table, Aiden sat as patiently as he possibly could, watching as Henry began to pour their beer. His knees bounced underneath the table, head bobbing to some tune he may have been humming in his head or to whatever music he could pick out in the restaurant over the lunchtime chatter. Whatever the case, it helped him keep his mind off of the wait, the growing anticipation of their food arriving, and the grumbling that his stomach was making. Briefly, Aiden glanced down at his own stomach, pouting as if it would get it to shut up, but unlike the calamari that he knew Henry to possess, nothing smacked him in response. Instead, he was only met with another growl and a pinch in his side, the discomfort apparent on his face as he raised his eyes to Henry’s question.
Straightening in his seat, Aiden drew in his lips and thought, eyes watching as each glass was filled as close to the brim as possible with the head of the beer daring to cascade over the side until enough of the bubbles dissipated to prevent such a thing from happening. The tease that came with his question was enough to distract him only temporarily from the thoughts that had brought him back home to Seoul in the first place. He allowed this lighthearted jab pull a smile from him, his head hanging bashfully as he kicked lightly at the table’s support, looking for the right words to string together.
Apart from the holiday which was a complete given as to why he made the yearly trip in the first place, there had been more. Perhaps more than he had let anyone in on within the past few months that followed his birthday. He had wanted to be hopeful that things were going to be alright - that his grandparents would be alright - so he spoke nothing of it, wading out the waves of the former pandemic that plagued the lives of many across the globe. When that had subsided into nothing and everything was ‘back to business as usual,’ he hoped that things would just get better after that, his grandfather no longer struggling with pandemic-related symptoms and his grandmother no longer going out of her way or worrying over things that may require care that she may not be so readily equipped to offer despite her former medical profession.
There was something else that brought him back to Seoul disguised in the face of the holiday. Something that had come in the form of an unlikely conversation that may have only started to sound more like a warning the longer he had thought on it, recalling her words as if he had just heard them yesterday, haunting him nightly.
He considered Henry for a moment, his posture now more of a slouch and his movements paused, except to nod in agreement at Henry’s decision to eventually get a gift for his own grandparents before he dropped in on them. “Stressful,” he admitted, bouncing his leg a bit if only to feel his phone slide with his movements. “At times, a little scary. Uncertain.” He reached out for his glass once the foam had settled and rotated the cool glass in front of him, not yet taking a drink. “Do you remember what you did this last summer?” He asked, eyes curious. Of the people he had asked, some were hits to the accounts made by his memory whereas others were misses. He clearly couldn’t talk to just anyone about things they didn’t remember. Although he couldn’t really recall whether he had asked Henry yet or not, he posed the question anyway, hoping he remembered and he didn’t have to explain anything beyond the warning he had received.
“I remember a lot of things,” he said, head canting to the side for a second even as he lifted the beer towards his lips, righting it once more to take a sip, “and I don’t remember others, but all in all, I suppose I do.” There were missing details, recollected replaced with eyewitness accounts of what had happened, which, with an oft manipulated mind even in the best of times, even by his own siblings that had ultimately called the shots and brought about the demise of his other and arguably better half, made it difficult to discern one from another; but while the master mutant experimentator, Mister Sinister, might have found solid reason to compartmentalize that part of his mind occupied by Chthon, and Chthon himself had reason to find a fitting magical entity on Earth for even a part of his being, Aiden had no reason to lie to him about the events as they had occurred on the beach that summer.
“I also know at least one isn’t particularly fond of you,” he said with a teasing tone, speaking of the creature in particular that had been a hinder to Aiden’s attempts to smack Henry into the sand and further continued to exchange such blows even as his mind had righted itself and the tension on the beach had settled down - no cultists, no monsters, no tears in the dimensional veil to rise up such horrors left unseen by most. He righted himself then in his seat, taking a long draw from the glass in his hand as a refreshing palette cleanser, clearing his throat a little bit as another thought - purely hypothetical, but potentially worrisome in such a place where there were people around in significant measure knowing what had happened on the beach - came to mind.
“But that is taken care of,” Henry assured, nodding as he set his glass back on the table, out of the way of where he knew food would inevitably occupy most of the space, “not that I suppose that is what made this trip stressful and a little scary.” It certainly would have made his small world appearance in the streets of Myeongdong a bit more stressful and potentially scary, including the meal they were about to enjoy, but as it stood, there had been no instances of octopus attacks out of the sea or tears into alternate dimensions to unleash any number of unholy creatures from their dark prisons - something well within his power two-fold, but with warnings heeded from she who had given him power in Limbo in the first place.
“There is something else to this, isn’t there?” Said as the waiter came out with their meal, dish upon dish was set out on the table with some sides as routine for such a meal. There had been no real rush to dig in though, a few objects removed from their respective dishes for the plate in front of him where he could eat at his own pace, even if that pace quite often resembled that of a snail when there was more focus on conversation in that moment. He was curious, after all, as to the reasons for Aiden's trip that weren’t the normal ails of travel like crying babies on a plane or extensive layovers in another country.
Aiden couldn’t help the roll of his eyes as Henry teased the truth of the creature that resided with him, uttering barely a groan as he narrowed his eyes behind the curtain of his bangs and toward, but not exactly at Henry as much as his look of distaste was to the creatures that, as far as he knew, couldn’t see him in that moment. Unless they somehow shared Henry’s eyes. That thought was temporarily disturbing. “Yeah, well...I try to make my hatred for them known whenever possible,” he replied dismissively, slightly shaking his head as he took a hold of his beer a bit more firmly, staring into the glass and the liquid within. Liquid courage, as it were. He supposed he needed it to help lure whatever words he figured he should get out and off his chest if it would alleviate this shroud of despair that was feeling a little too comfortable on his shoulders.
With a brief press of his lips in a thin and uncertain line, he raised his glass and took a slow drink letting the carbonation tingle and the bitterness linger before he swallowed. His gaze shifted to the table currently awaiting the arrival of their generous meal. No, the overgrown calamari hadn’t made his trip stressful or a little scary even though they certainly had the potential to. Perhaps if their travel plans had synced up, the creatures could have been considered a source of such feelings, but they hadn’t. Even now in their supposed presence, Aiden was hardly bothered by them and had no real motivation to provoke them to come out of hiding. Should they dare to try and steal his food though...
At the brief possibility that the creatures could be a threat to their meal, Aiden lifted his gaze from the table and at Henry again, his focus not exactly directed at his friend, but at his hidden cohorts, as their waiter approached their table. His thoughts shifted from fighting the overgrown kraken for chicken and back to the worries that plagued him prodded by Henry’s question as their plates of food were placed before them. The clatter of dishes against the tabletop were a welcome distraction, buying him a little more time to find the right words, not that he was sure that there was such a thing when his mind was swimming in a million and one thoughts of everything and nothing.
Aiden extended his thanks for their meal as their waiter took his leave, the spicy aromas temporarily stifling his hunger when his thoughts weighed him down. Still, he reached for one of the side dishes and made himself eat before he spoke up again. “At summer camp,” he began, pausing only because it might have been perceived as a past memory that couldn’t possibly be as current as he remembered it. He made a face like it was absurd, but kept on with a skewer of sotteok to fuel him. “Someone told me about my grandparents.” He took another pause, no longer searching for words, but to keep himself from choking up as the worries he had were very real and very possible and he wanted nothing more but for her words to be an elaborate lie. “That 할아버지 was going to die.”
That was far more fitting and far more concerning a worry to Henry than, their appetite for destruction considered, a bunch of eldritch limbs that came springing out at a moment’s notice. It gave him pause from the plate in front of him, his gaze extending to Aiden as his brow furrowed - both because of the notion that his grandfather was going to die and that someone at camp might have suggested such a thing, not sure if it was just some prank or something far more meaningful in the great scheme of life. There were questions sitting on the tip of his tongue, but nothing that he felt the quick compulsion to ask if only because he wasn’t sure of the circumstances. For all he knew, his grandfather could have been sick or something was wrong, and time wasn’t exactly on his side, which was far more natural an occurrence than a bunch of missing cult members on a beach.
Summer camp, however, had been an interesting experience between super powered counselors and escaping lice contamination by a Darkforce freeze out and as much shampoo as they had allowed him to use - not enough, if he was being honest with the creepy, crawly, and itchy feeling that he suddenly felt not only on his scalp, but along his skin, dancing across it like a shockwave that threatened to break him out in hives though the infestation had long passed - and late night scary stories that may have made him the bane of some other campers. There had been demons there too, but that had been something null and void as far as Henry was concerned, perhaps the only one who recognized kin of some sort in old magic beings and dark energies; but while she might have had some validation in such a claim, there was no telling who might have been the would-be soothsayer.
“Who told you he was going to die?” Henry asked, his brow furrowing a little more as he looked down at his plate and picked off a rice cake from the sotteok skewer to eat, indulging in the spicy flavoring for a moment before it met his stomach and he was back to another question. There was a small shake of his head, eyes popping up to Aiden as another piece, this time a hot dog, was removed and left on the plate a moment.
“Is he okay? In good health?” He further prodded to get a better grasp of the situation that wasn’t aligned with a super powered summer camp and more of what might have been plaguing Aiden’s mind and ailing the Park elders, considering that the most important matter than which super power might have prophesied such a thing - not that he was sure he could do anything about it even if he knew.
He didn’t notice the furrow in Henry’s brows, but he heard his concern in his voice. His eyes were fixed otherwise on their food with the hope that if he stared long enough, he’d start to feel as hungry as he knew he was before they started their discussion, but he hadn’t, emotion taking over while physical necessity took a backseat. He knew he should eat much in the same way that he knew he should blow out the candle he lit the night of his birthday, but he had let it burn down until the wick’s end, uncertain about the point of wishes that wouldn’t come true before extinguishing what flame remained before chocolate burned bittersweetly, mixing with the smoke that had filled the air. With enough mental coaxing for sustenance among troubled thoughts, Aiden reached for a piece of chicken of the crispy variety hoping that it would get him hungry again and keep him in the present with Henry.
“I don’t know,” he replied with a shake of his head, a bite of chicken keeping him silent until he finished chewing. “I don’t know who she was, but she knew my name, knew I had grandparents in Seoul, knew what my grandparents’ home looked like, how he died…” As he spoke, his voice grew softer with each statement, almost distant. The memory urged goosebumps to prickle along his skin, his own disbelief returning as he recalled her recollection of what she had seen and what she had informed him about. Stepping back from the confession, it couldn’t have been anything else but informational - a precaution, if it had to take the side of an extreme - no intention to frighten or hurt in her eyes outside of worry, but being on the receiving end of it, beyond the initial shock, it seemed outrageous to hear and even more so to believe a single word, but it didn’t mean that he could ignore her words when they hit so close to home.
At his follow-up questions, Aiden finally looked up, the piece of chicken in his hands turning to a spot that hadn’t been bitten before he let it fall to his plate. “He was fine until the pandemic hit,” he admitted, former worries resurfacing. “He was really sick for a few months. 할머니 scolded him at first for taking up smoking again,” he interjected with some lightheartedness to make the reality of his worries a little more tolerable. His attempt to smile was a bit forced, but he hoped that even the mere act of smiling - even for a second - would help a little even though he knew for a fact that smoking beyond his grandfather’s initial diagnosis was ill-advised. “Since the pandemic lifted, the symptoms he had weren’t as bad as they had been. Things were improving. Getting better… Then I was told that and I didn’t want to believe it, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking - worrying - about it since summer.”
“I’m sure at one point, I almost convinced myself that it was all a lie. A fluke of a precognition, but when the turn of the holiday came, I couldn’t help but feel like...you know, what if it’s not?” He thinned his lips firmly, trying to recollect her words again. “She mentioned a conversation she heard between them; about family and friends coming to visit,” he said, lifting his head to finally meet Henry’s eyes. “I can’t help but try to tie it to a holiday and...if it’s not 추석 then...that’s one holiday too many for me to stress over and I don’t think I have that much PTO saved up yet to make sure this vision doesn’t actually come true.”
His eating was slow, a piece now and then, carefully chewed as he more intently kept his eyes on Aiden and what he could read about his body language when there weren’t words filling in the space. Where there had been excitement before about the food in front of them, the tone of things had understandably changed and while he was sure his appetite was still there in some part, being on the subject of such dread couldn’t have been helping as his mind found it suddenly in his head, on family and their potential well-being, instead of his stomach.
“Do you remember what she looked like, this mystery girl?” He asked, eyes dropping down a moment to consider the spread of food in front of them, one of the sauced pieces of chicken making its way over to his plate where he gingerly held it between his fingers so as to not make a mess. Sticky as the sauce was, that was bound to be impossible, but he could at least minimize it as best he could short of digging out a fork and knife to do so. That would have just been ridiculous.
“The reason I ask is that, if I can narrow it down, I may be able to dig into this deeper,” he said, but there was still a problem with even that attempt to help: If it was to happen around Chuseok and not a holiday further out like Christmas, there wasn’t exactly a ton of time to track down who it might have been for some answers - not even with the abilities he had; but perhaps even without tracking down the key person in the start of this, there were others he knew he could call on for some clarity. “Or maybe find someone who can help. I’m not exactly skilled in the art of healing.” He was sure there were spells for it, perhaps even in the tomes he had in his possession, but with the magics found in such, there was always a downside to it - something to be sacrificed, something to be taken, something to satisfy the evils within.
“Do you think he got sick because of the pandemic?” Asked in a roundabout way, he suspected Aiden would know what he was talking about. Instead of smoking being the problem - not that such a habit was good, but Henry wasn’t so clean laced with when it came to those - had it been the coronavirus? Had he caught what was spreading? Was there a good prognosis or not, if there was even one to begin with? Though he imagined a bad one would have put him in the hospital on a respirator in an emergency situation, it didn’t seem that was the came - not yet, if the soothsayer was to be believed.
With the chicken finished, he took a moment to wipe his hands off before folding them in front of him, fingers lacing together. “There may be people who can help him which may not require you to take paid time off,” he said, nodding his head a little bit. “Perhaps even people who were at said summer camp with us who have better powers than I do for this sort of thing.” The Blue Lanterns, he knew, could help with the aid of the Green Lantern Corps, and there were just as many people with healing capabilities as there were those who found it in magic, but he knew they weren’t necessarily free - not unless they had the means to be.
“If you want that kind of intervention that is,” Henry added, picking up his beer to take a few gulps of it before the glass was set back on the table.
He took a moment to think, not at all needing the full of it to reply. “I just remember that she had brown hair and light eyes,” a description which did nothing in narrowing much down as far as Aiden knew, the defeat apparent in his face as he shot his gaze back down on their food. She was young when he saw her - just as he and Henry had been, the older man not once protesting about having a summer memory that differed from what Aiden had already suggested - so he wasn’t sure how any description would’ve helped unless he actually had a photo to, perhaps, compare to someone or show for some validation. “Not sure how any of that could help,” he said softly, taking another bite of chicken, trying to feel hungry.
“Yes and no,” Aiden said after some silence, his bite of food swallowed and forgotten. “He had some preexisting health concerns before the pandemic hit. Manageable things. Smoking had not been one of them since I started college.” A pause, then some clarification. “Having to bury your own child isn’t something a parent can get over so easily,” he added, recalling just how difficult it had been not just for him, but for his grandparents to lose their only son and daughter-in-law all at once. “I think the pandemic just made him more susceptible to other things that could have otherwise spiked his other conditions to just...break him down.”
Silently, he recalled the nights of shared calls with his grandmother and the updates that came with each of them asking about her health, the health of his grandfather, and if there was anything he could do in such an impossibly land-locked position. His hands were tied and frustratingly so to a point where he just wanted to take the risk and fly home, but he hadn’t. He heeded his grandmother’s wishes for him to stay, stay safe, stay healthy so that one day, when this whole pandemic finally flew over, he could come home under favorable conditions. Those wishes had, much to Aiden’s surprise, had come true, but dread was settling in and making itself comfortable in both his mind and in his heart and it was exhausting just trying to ignore it.
He considered Henry’s suggestion, another bite of chicken taken, the bone finally cleaned off. A gulp of beer chased it down, but the bubbles did nothing to lift his spirits. As much as he enjoyed food and the warm company of a good friend, he had his worries about the things that were out of his control. He tried to smile at the offer to find people who could help. Surprisingly or unsurprisingly, the overgrown kraken he harbored hadn’t come into the picture - either in conversation or in a literal sense, thankful for the latter, even when there was really no need for it anyway - but considering the vague timeline they were under - the time of gatherings and togetherness - there was no telling just how long it would be before this vision became reality.
“I appreciate it. I do,” he said slowly with a few small nods, but the doubt was obvious, more so because of the time crunch than the mention of powers - a thought that he took a few moments to let sink in further before accepting - or anything else. “I just...have this sinking feeling that no matter the amount of help there potentially could be, it’ll be too late.”
“Brown hair and light eyes could’ve been just about anyone,” he said, shaking his head a little bit, and, unfortunately, he hadn’t been so familiar with a lot of the campers and perhaps least of all those of the female variety. It had been a time of being a relative loner, hanging out with his brother and enduring some considerable moments of irritation and annoyance thanks to the inclusion of lice in his summer camp experience, and neither did a social life much good. Brown hair and light eyes may have well disappeared into the background and figuring out who she was in the present sense was equally, if not more, difficult without something more to go on.
“I’d say that is a reasonable assumption,” Henry said, nodding. Stress put the body through all sorts of things, all types of ups and downs, and even the good variety could wear someone down to a point where the immune system found itself more susceptible to certain illnesses and conditions, and mental fortitude weakened where it had once been so strong to see someone fall back into old habits. They never helped, those addictions people often dove into as a means of relieving some of the stress, but for a moment, someone felt okay, felt strong enough to handle what was going on around them, and it found means of becoming a crutch even long after the crutch stopped working. The stress of losing parents was one that he knew through his late-mother, now a ghost that showed up now and then in the more extraordinary facets of his life, but it hadn’t been in the same way that Aiden had experienced it and it definitely wasn’t the same as his grandparents’. Had the other side been taken into consideration, well… Ben couldn’t say it was sad to see Sir Reginald Hargreeves go even if he had long been on the other side of such a mortal coil.
“Is it too late because it would take too much time? Or is it too late because of unwillingness to act?” He asked, food foregone for the conversation at hand. There were boxes - they could box it up and set it aside for later when appetites had found room to manifest themselves without such trying thought, and Henry made a motion to the waiter to request such. There was no way it was going to go to waste.
“Because there are powers in this world that are beyond you and I, people who can be here at the drop of the hat no matter their means, and people who can help,” Henry said with some more definite boundaries in his words, no longer beating around any bush for the sake of publicity. “Just because someone tells you it is to be doesn’t mean it necessarily is, and perhaps it is less an omen that you’re forced to accept and more a push to action.” Considering Aiden hadn’t exactly been so willing to believe that there were other forces in the universe that presented themselves as readily as the eldritch creatures from the abyss in his stomach did physically, it wasn’t hard to see there could have been resistance to the idea; but nothing in Henry’s experience could be taken as face value anymore.
Aiden’s hands found a napkin as Henry spoke, wiping his fingers of what residue managed to stick to his skin. The thought of eating had suddenly lost its eagerness, their food barely touched even though the enthusiasm and excitement from earlier hadn’t been a ruse. Aiden had been excited for chicken and beer and all the delicious sides that still were piping hot on their plates, but now that their resting place, for the moment, was going to be within the confines of a box, he hoped that whatever plateau of listlessness killed his hunger would disappear the moment he returned to his grandparents’ home and reheated everything to plant some form of pleasantness within him, at least, until the next day.
When Henry posed his questions, Aiden’s eyes didn’t meet his. Instead, they remained fixed to the food as if they held the answers to such things. Would it take too much time to try and find help? On that, he didn’t know. Least of all, he wouldn’t even know where to begin to look for help, but that hadn’t stopped him from trying before even when Logic told him that he was just going to repeatedly run into dead-ends and people who thought he was crazy. That Battleworld business? He had no idea where to look or who to turn to when things got weird. When authorities took matters into their own hands, it hadn’t stopped him from conducting his own searches for familiar faces who had gone missing or for staking out their residences with some sliver of hope that they would, one day, show up and he could finally rest easy. Or as easy as kidnappings and intergalactic battle royales could possibly allow.
Did he stop trying then? He hadn’t...to a point. It stressed him out. There was a weight that he couldn’t carry and without whatever necessary connections he needed or seemingly otherworldly powers that he had otherwise been blind to, what point was there to go on? He could only handle so much at a time. One supernatural thing over another. One health condition more. One less worry. One more thing that he couldn’t understand. One more frustration to send his heart into a fit.
Was he unwilling to do anything about the vision that had been presented to him? Unwilling wasn’t so much the word that fit as much as Scared did. There could be attempts to be made - even the dead-end ones that he took charge to without thinking of anyone else but those who had been missing their loved ones - but how far would those efforts go? Who was to say that efforts made with good intentions couldn’t backfire and he’d be in a far worse situation than if things were left alone or if this whole thing would just come to pass and be a pretty convincing lie? Henry’s words held some promise - possibility - that perhaps, there could be something done to help his grandfather, but what could that possibly be when the silent killer in all this was, at least, as far as he had been told, natural. Here, there was no on-coming car to intercept, just abnormal palpitations brought on by...well, that part was uncertain.
For a moment, it was difficult to discern whether or not Henry was calling him lazy; that he wasn’t doing enough - or anything at all - to try and prevent another death in his family. The opportunity hadn’t been there for him the first time - with his parents when his mother’s early homecoming was meant to be a surprise for everyone - but now? There was just the vision to go off and some six or sixty degrees of separation connecting someone - or several someones - to Henry that could potentially help in this sort of situation, but in that moment, Aiden couldn’t rationalize. He couldn’t think straight, not when his friend’s words started to feel threatening when they were really just trying to push him to challenge the Fates and their best laid plans if killing off another one of his family had been part of their grand scheme all along.
Bitterness sat on the tip of his tongue when he finally did raise his eyes to Henry. “If you know such people, why don’t you call them?” Those words sat on the line between hopeful and challenging, but Aiden couldn’t be sure as to which he meant, his tone flat as the requested take-away boxes were brought to their table. As if on cue, the phone in his pocket rang, startling him and he promptly pressed the device to his ear. The tell-tale ringtone giving away the caller. “여보세요?” Aiden answered, the words that followed in his grandmother’s voice in a tone that could only be described as excited for the holiday as the laughter of children echoed in the background fading only to be replaced by kitchen preparations for the holiday, a familiar scene as described in the vision, and he paled.
“We have to go.”
There had been nothing in his tone that had suggested it was one matter or another, simply an understanding of the circumstances and doubts as they had been presented to him during the conversation and understood in former reactions. There had been nothing to suggest that it had been a full unwillingness to action as much as there had been the suggestion such unwillingness to embrace the oddities of life - and how odd they actually were, if he was to be entirely honest with himself - could curate a self-fulfilling prophecy of even natural destruction that, unlike a car accident or something of equally unexpected tragedy, could have found itself a better path - one that might have prolonged the inevitable or, at the very least, put Aiden’s grandfather on the right rails for such a course where bad habits wouldn’t have contributed to a decline in health.
But as the food was settled into separate boxes, split up among the two of them in fair distribution, and the thoughts continued to churn about what Henry might have meant, he could feel the settling of the air in the room - and it hadn’t taken magical power or anything super to recognize it. It was just something natural, an innate sense that he had crossed a line somewhere in questioning the methods of his friend rather than casting himself as the responsible party to see to it there was some valid and dutiful help, and not someone who would have done it at a considerable price. It made for the hints of his own souring demeanor, his brow furrowing as he took note of that bitterness, remaining silent as his phone rang and his grandmother came to light on the other end.
It was only a few moments more that he had waited for Aiden to hang up the call, no intention on interrupting as he had occupied himself with helping the waiter bag up the different boxes that separated the different dishes that had been ordered on much more robust appetites. If his grandmother was happy for the holidays, she was happy for the holidays, eager to see her grandson even if her focus was swayed from one responsibility to another - be it the children or the cooking in a household he was sure was far more active in that moment than his own. As if to heed what Aiden was saying, he stood, finishing off his own beer before setting the empty glass on the table again, no attention paid to what might have remained of the pitcher. With it, what was necessary to pay for the meal was set down, lodged underneath the edge of the pitcher in lieu of an actual ticket, cash requiring no signature nor receipt to be accepted.
What he wanted to do was argue. What he wanted to do was spit that comment right back into his face, not of his responsibility to make sure someone’s prediction didn’t come true. What he wanted to do was drop right out of the restaurant without warning, tearing a hole into a district of Limbo built by his own two hands and vision; but what he did was stand there, bags in his hand. “If you want to pin this on me because of my lack of action, go right ahead,” he pointed out, “but if you need to get there faster, I can at least help with that.”
He had been hesitant to hang up. He didn’t want his grandmother to stop talking to him, to stop and direct her words to his grandfather who, he had been told, was able and walking about the family room with the paper in hand, peering outside at the neighbors and their grandchildren playing in the yard. He didn’t want her to carry on with the holiday meal preparations when his heart grew into a panic when the faint and curious words of his grandfather spoke of friends and family coming over in the coming days. Were their words explicitly to the T of what he had been told? No, but they were close enough to not be mistaken for anything else.
But despite what pleas or conversation starters he tried to get through to her to keep her on the line, she let him go and he stared defeatedly at the now darkened screen of his phone. What bitterness had settled with him against Henry was fizzling, his head dizzy with the emotional shift and the tension in the air at their table. He had expected an argument, an argument that he could have lost when there was nothing to really argue against when Henry hadn’t been the party responsible. To everything strange and supernatural, Aiden had been resistant most of the time, forcing Logic to make things make sense before he accepted it. A younger version of himself - one that lived in recent months and experienced these supernatural occurrences - had been a little more receptive so how was it that he couldn’t pick between one or the other? Between acceptance and rejection?
A feeling manifested in him then as the last bit of their food was packed away and the won for the meal was placed beneath the pitcher at the table. The feeling was both disabling and enabling all at once; pushing him to leave the restaurant, but at the same time gluing him to his seat. One that may have been the reason for Henry’s choice to use the word ‘unwillingness’ in their prior conversation.
Fear was to Action as a bullet to the heart. It was a haze of confusion that threw out the ‘what if’ scenarios of every possibility there was and left the outcome - no, prediction - just as uncertain, hanging on a sliver of hope that could easily be cut when things didn’t exactly fall into place. It was a gamble - a risk - to challenge the unknown when everything - especially in the months prior - didn’t make as much sense as he would’ve liked, but what else could he do?
There was help. There were people, as Henry had said, that could help with whatever means they had at their disposal. There was possibility, but fear, he realized, had dampened that. And time? If the conversation with his grandmother had been anything to go off of, they really didn’t have much as he replayed the girl’s words in his head. Then her voice overlapped another and Henry’s words nagged at him; just because someone tells you it is to be doesn’t mean it necessarily is. Nothing had happened yet. Nothing but a few eerily vague coincidences, but his grandfather was still alive.
Tearing his eyes from the table, Aiden glanced up at Henry with a different look, one that was between lost and apologetic, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he slowly stood as if there were invisible weights tied to each of his wrists and grabbed his bags, nodding at Henry’s offer to help as he headed for and out the doors of the restaurant.