[IMPIRUIL BAILE] Teach a Man to Drink

[Brody]

Summary: Eunji teaches Kethren to drink soju in a traditional way.

<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<( Impiruil Baile )<<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~>< Eunji Impiruil Baile 09:14 PM In Character The One Tree - Bar 20 July 2650 <>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~>< With the walls of this circular room covered in climbing vines, one could easily mistake the tavern as being built inside a very large, hollow tree. Across from the entryway is a highly polished bar that follows the contour of the walls, as do the shelves lined with assorted bottles of all shapes and size. Along the front of the bar is a series of adjustable stools, and a short ways from the edge of the bar a staircase spirals up along the walls, leading up to the rooms for lodgers. Beneath the stairs is a series of booths with privacy curtains, and the middle of the room is loaded with many larger tables. This room can be tagged. See +tag/help for commands. <>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~><<>~>< Contents: Kethren 1 REM Security – Spike

Exits:
Upstairs Out

Monday nights in the bar in the Tree aren’t the busiest, but they’re hardly quiet. The crowd might even be considered boisterous. Not quite to the point of a bar room sing along, but it’s not out of the question. Still, even through this crowd it’s not hard to notice Kethren at his corner table. Rather, it’s not hard to notice a white tiger seated by the table that he’s sitting at. He’s just perusing a menu though, occasionally exchanging a word with something on his shoulder.

Eunji walks through the entrance and into the bar proper. She looks around at the vines, but seems less excited about them today. Then she looks around the room and sees Kethren with the tiger and ser. She begins walking towards him but about ten feet away stops, “Is that another robot pet?” she asks nervously.

Kethren looks up from the menu and smiles. Floriana gets up on her hind legs to offer a friendly wave from his shoulder. “Floriana? Nah, she’s a native of this world. Nuala there? Yeah, Aina built here. I think she did a rather good job.”

“Oh, okay.” Eunji says, walking a little closer to the tiger. “Do you ever run out of pets? Do you have a robot zoo or something? Do you have to recharge them at night or anything like that?” she begins with the flurry of questions.

Kethren smirks as he slides over a spare menu “Kail and Nuala are the closest things to pets that I have. Kail was mainly built to be cute and carry stuff. Nuala’s more of a guard. I’m not really sure what powers em, I’d have to ask Aina. I’ve yet to find myself needing to plug one in, though.”

Eunji takes a seat. “Soju… soju…” she says. “Do you know if they have bottles of soju here?” then her eyes open a bit wider, as if pleading, “Please say yes!”

Kethren puts down the menu as he raises an eyebrow and pulls out his pda. His eyes slip out of focus a bit as he mutters soju a few times. A few blinks later, his eyes are focusing normally, and he nods “It does look like we’ve gt a few bottles of that in stock, yes.”

“Yay!” Eunji announces enthusiastically. “Normally my manager doesn’t like me to drink it, but she isn’t here right now so I’m sure it’ll be okay!”

Kethren chuckles “We try to keep the bar well stocked. Though I’ll admit that’s not one I’ve tried. Partial to beers and whisky personally… seperately, of course.”

“How thoughtful!” Eunji says, quickly ordering a bottle of soju. Then she asks, “Enhancement?” seeming curious about this as well. “It looks kind of like the woman from the Datajack trilogy looks when she’s using her thing to work with a machine.”

Kethren nods “Yeah. Nothing fancy, just a run of the mill neural interface. Got Aina to install it awhile back when it got obvious that I could use the help in sifting through all the files I have to work with. Was an odd experience.”

“I don’t think that’d be that useful for me.” Eunji says after a moment of consideration. “Besides, that’s what Miss Amhearst is for! You met her once, do you think she has an implant to help her?”

Kethren shrugs “Hard to say. Wasn’t watching her eyes to see if they went all swirley. Some folks are naturally organized. I just kinda fell face first into a lot of jobs, so it’s handy.”

“Ohhh.” Eunji says with a nod. Then she receives her soju and takes a drink. “Oh, do you want some? Sorry I already drank out of it. I can pour some if you want.”

Kethren slides an empty glass over “I wouldn’t object to a taste.”

Eunji happily takes the cup. “Okay, we have to do this properly!” Eunji insists, lifting the glass and offering it to Kethren. “You need to take it with both hands.” she explains, “There’s a ritual to this. Very traditional and very important!”

Kethren raises an eyebrow “I’ll assume this isn’t some devious attempt to get me to sing silly songs with goofy dances.”

“Of course not! It’s tradition. Well, for those of us who still try and follow tradition.” Eunji explains. “Mult.I.Cult.Ur.Al.” she emphasizes. “Very important.”

Kethren smirks “Just checking.”

And with that Eunji pours about a shot’s worth of soju. “Now you have to do it in one shot because it’s the first one. Be sure to avoid eye contact with me while doing it!”

Kethren puts both hands on the glass and quickly downs the shot. Not without something of an odd expression at the taste, though. Curiously, the expression is mirrored on Floriana.

Eunji puts the bottle down. “Now you have to pour for me! You already did the hard part so you’re doing great!”

Kethren blinks a couple of times before pouring a shot for the visiting singer.

And Eunji takes the drink and downs in it one go as well. “Okay, now we trade back and forth. Don’t worry, you can sip it now. Most important rule is if you see an empty glass, you offer to fill it for someone. So would you like your glass filled?”

Kethren nods “Far be it from me to ruin cultural stuff. Pour away.”

Eunji pours Kethren more soju. “And just like that, you know how to drink soju now!” she declares. “Don’t worry, I’ll save the games for another time and for a place that stocks more bottles.”

Kethren flags down the waitress to order a platter of french fries, and a bowl of semi-frozen raspberries. Then he takes the glass in both hands, and drains the next round.

“You’re good at this.” Eunji says smiling brightly. “I have a duty to teach people how to drink properly. Drinking properly together is a bond that goes back millenia.”

Kethren smirks as he goes to fill her glass again “Well, proper is something of a relative term. Every culture has had their preferences on that front.”

This time Eunji drinks just a little bit, far slower. She smiles again, “But now you can go and tell people you learned how to drink from an idol! Besides, it is our duty to make the universe a more enjoyable place, it is what we do, after all.” she’s at a booth with Kethren. There’s a bottle of soju and a single glass which Eunji is currently drinking out of.

Kethren reaches down to scratch the white tiger at his side. “And you can say you’ve been drinking with government officials. Though I can’t see why you would, government isn’t particularly glamarous. Or exciting.”

“I will remember that. Maybe that should be a goal.” Eunji says. “Drink with many high ranking government officials. You do have good ideas, I can see why they put you in charge!”

Into the bar walks a fairly average looking human male and from the way he’s looking around at simply everything he is quite obviously a tourist. That ‘tourist’ image is likely reinforced by a micro-drone that follows him in and does an orbit of the room before returning to him and settling into a little module on the back of the guy’s right shoulder.

Kethren shakes his head, but smiles as the food arrives, and the kitten-ferret dives off of his shoulder into the bowl of semi-frozen raspberries. “Who said I was in charge? I’m on the council, yes. And I am somewhat protective of the city, it’s my first big project.”

“In charge enough, then!” Eunji decides as she continues to sip at her drink, quite slowly now. As Kade walks in she looks towards the drone, “Not as cute of a robot as the others.” she says to Kethren.

Kade makes his way toward a vacant table and once he gets there he sets a fairly plane looking black disc about the size of a bread plate down. Like the drone it’s not at all cute but when he waves his hand past the upper face a full ‘map’ for want of a better name blinks to life, a glorious full 3d hologram that looks more like how some people might build a map of images in their head.

Kethren nods to Eunji “Well, Aina’s an artist.”

“Does she do everything?” Eunji asks. “You already said she does so much.”

Kade, for now seems to be intent to work on what ever it is he’s doing. He grabs portions of his holographic city map and manipulates it, turning and zooming all by interacting with the hologram then he makes a series of gestures and starts typing on a holographic keypad that just seems to float right under his hand. The resulting text is in Tataskra and just seems to attach it self to the part of the hologram that he’s focused on.
Kethren chuckles “So I have a high opinion of my girlfriend. I wouldn’t say she does everything, though. She builds great robots, she heads the medical department, does a bit of surgery, both regular and cybernetic…”

“Ah, I understand!” Eunji exclaims. “It sounds like it is going quite well!”

After a few minutes Kade makes a different series of gestures and his hologram project blinks off. He picks up the disc devices and frowns at it then walks over toward the bar and snags the attention of a bar tender. “Ah, yeah, got a power outlet I can use bro?” He wiggles the disc device. Young man seems to have an interesting accent.

Kethren stretches a bit and gets up, and a raspberry juice soaked kitten-ferret emerges from that bowl to scamper back up his arm “Well, it’s been enjoyable, but I really should get going. Sadly have work to do in the morning.” The white tiger by his seat gets up and out of the way so that the small menagerie can get moving again. This leaves Eunji at a table, and Kade has somehow run out of electricity. Not like outlets are hard to find. This place may be made of trees, but it’s not without modern convenience.

“Thank you for drinking with me!” Eunji says enthusiastically to Kethren. For her part she has a glass and a bottle of soju in front of her.

The bar tender points Kade toward one of the booths, “Cool, Thenks.” He pauses a moment. “Ah, while Ihm ere could I get a beer?” Of course Kade looks sorta young so the bar tender asks for ID and all that which makes him laugh. “Seereous?” He says in an amusd tone but produces his ID for inspection. Apparently satisfied the tender hands him a beer and he heads to the indicated booth to plug the disc that he kept hold of, into an outlet.

Eunji stands and begins to walk towards Kade. “Good evening!” she says to him, she seems enthusiastic enough.

Kade was just about to take a drink from his beer but pauses at the greeting and looks toward Eunji and smiling. “Tena koe.” He pauses a moment. “Uh, Gud Evenen’, well, Tena koe’s more formal’n that but… yeah.

“Ah!” Eunji says, seeming to understand. Then she starts to look at the drone. “I’ve seen so many robots over the past couple days since I’ve shown up here. Does everyone here have them and I forgot to buy one at the spaceport?”

Kade tilts his head slightly then taps a patch on his shoulder which seems to make the dohnut size drone wake up and hover a few inches above his shoulder. “This? Uh… eet’s part of somethin ihm workin on for Uni. Camera, fast pass laser scan…” Kade seems to stop himself getting into too much detail. “I dunno abou’ everyone here, only been here a few hours m’self.”

“Ah! Okay!” Eunji says, seeming to understand this. Then she lowers her voice, “You know, my manager isn’t here right now, so you should order me something before she shows up and makes me leave. Then I’ll have to stay and drink because that would be the polite thing to do!”

Kade grins then slides out of his seat, bows -yes he bows suggesting that he probably has some knowledge of asian cultures- and indicates a chair opposite. “What’ll it be?”

“Aw! You’re bowing to me?” Eunji asks. “Are you a fan, perhaps? I always love opportunities to meet my fans!”

Kade grins, gestures in the air with his right hand and says something in Japanese which is translated out in standard Terran and Tataskra floating in the air. “Not just that, my Grandmother insists on good manners.”

“If only you knew Korean.” Eunji laments. Then she smiles brightly, “But that’s okay, I’m sure you meant well by the sentiment.”

Kade shrugs then writes in the air with a finger, the letters being traced out in light on what looks like a little sticky note that people apparently used centuries ago – ‘Learn Korean’ – he then drags that to one side where it lingers a moment then fades. “So,” he grins, “what was it you were drinking?”

“Well, I was drinking soju.” Eunji explains. “But that seems to be a rarity and I don’t have enough time to teach you how to drink it properly so you should probably just get something simple.”

Kade nods, “I theenk Ihve an idea.” he heads over to the bar and speaks quietly with the bartender for a moment with nodding back and forth and eventually he comes back with two martini glasses containing a golden yellow frosty looking cocktail. “I learnt this drink from a bartender in Kyoto, I hope you like it.”

“So… how do you drink it?” Eunji asks, looking at the drink.

Kade lifts his glass, “You sip, like a Martini.” And that’s exactly what he does. The flavour of the drink, Enuji would find is a mix of sweet and sour, the sour part being citrus.

Eunji takes her glass and takes a sip, a somewhat big one. “So, that’s it?” she asks. “You just sip? Nothing else?”

Kade nods his head, “Yeah, that’s et.” He bows his head very slightly. “The only drink related thing I know with any more formal rules is the tea ceremony… an’ I really don’ have anythin I need fer that.” He pauses then taps two points just above the top of the table, makes a slight turning motion then raises his hands. A perfect representation of a Japanese tea house appears and then the door slides open and the ‘camera’ shifts to the inside where a Tea Ceremony is taking place.

Eunji takes another sip, then her comm rings, she looks down. “Oh. It’s my manager, she’s looking for me and I have to go quickly. It was nice meeting you at least!”

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