[EVENT] Beautiful Flowers, Beautiful Girls

Wong Ha Jung

It felt a little odd to walking through the festival alone, Wong Ha Jung found, but it was nice to see people so happy. He had never really realized how many people were on the island itself until right then, when most of the faces in the crowd were totally foreign. Every once in a while, he would caught sight of somebody he could recognize but to his dismay, the names were slow in coming to mind, even though he had specifically been making an effort to memorize them. Nothing to do but to try harder, the man supposed.

Today was one of those days that the counselor had actually decided to wear glasses. The prescription wasn't quite right -he still hadn't seen an optometrist yet. Terrible of him to put it off for so long- but at least the lenses were mostly unscratched. He had ditched his usual suit as well, wearing brown slacks and ochre colored sweater vest instead. Now that Wong Ha Jung thought about it, however, he probably shouldn't have been wearing earthy colors when most everybody else was in pastels.

He had brought his umbrella along, too, for no particular reason besides that fact that he wanted to. It didn't look like it was going to rain but if the sun burned any brighter, he might end up using it anyways.

For the time, however, Wong Ha Jung was content to simply look around, not really going to any stands. To be honest, he was kind of bird watching from a crowd of people, strange as it was. Since coming to the island, he hadn't gotten a chance to do that. In fact, most of his time so far had been spent walking around the Academy grounds to become familiar with the place. Being comforted by routine, he hadn't really felt the urge to break the cycle.

I probably should have come here earlier, Wong Ha Jung mused, a little ruefully. The downtown areas of the city were quite nice and there were a few points that automatically caught his interest. He heard some people talking about a park, as well, and that went down as a place he would definitely have to visit sometime soon.

As he walked down the street, really only partially paying attention to the people around him, his ears picked up on a businesslike clatter of footsteps. Wong Ha Jung turned his head in that direction and a few moments later, a green haired woman dressed almost completely in black passed by. Before he could think that maybe he wouldn't have been out of place in his usual clothes after all, a weight suddenly crashed into his side. The force sent him stumbling a few steps and threw the glasses off of his face.

As he scrambled to find his glasses -hopefully untrampled by people's feet, and oh God, this felt so much like elementary school- he heard a woman speak.

"Ah, yes, I'm fine!" Squinting, he flashed her a smile. Because it was bright and his eyesight was already poor, it was hard to see her face. "Sorry! It's my fault, I wasn't looking where I was going." The man looked around for a moment because asking sheepishly, "You wouldn't happen to see my glasses anywhere, would you?"

"Are these your glasses?"

A welcoming voice came from overhead the man scrambling for his glasses. What he would have seen could have passed for a human being. It possessed the general silhouette of a person, except there was something wrong with the head. It went on for longer than a normal head should, standing taller and much more awkwardly shaped. It lacked the symmetry of a natural head and, if he could see it, it did not look like the thing was holding out his glasses at all.

"Can I try 'em? Look at me! My eyes are awkwardly oblong causing the focal point of my eyes not to line up with the position of my retina!"

That was because he was not actually offering to return his glasses right away. Orion instead chose to put on Wong's glasses and then stumble about awkwardly, and perhaps mockingly, as he feigned not having good eyesight.

Those with clarity of sight would notice why Orion's head looked so awkward and unnatural: he was wearing about half a dozen hats stacked on top of each other, and they all looked to be the kind of souvenirs one might buy at the festival. It looked like he started with a large lilac-colored sun hat then bought a couple of novelty lilac hats of various sizes and then managed to toss a baseball cap on top of it all, somehow. It all clashed with his normal attire of pants and an open vest with no shirt underneath. Impressively, he showed quite a mastery of balance and poise even though he was shambling along with Wong's glasses like a drunk zombie.

Wong Ha Jung

Wong Ha Jung squinted in direction of the second stranger, doing a double take at the sight of so many hats on the other person's head. There was some kind of explanation given as he stared uncomprehendingly for a moment before the scenario clicked in his mind. Oh. Well... the Chinese man thought, half wonderingly. The other half of him, though, was unexpectedly paralyzed by panic because even though he had been kind of revisiting childhood traumas for the last few weeks already, this was hitting more on the main part of the issue than the rest.

"Ah," the counselor started hesitantly, voice a little faint and feeling foolish. Wong Ha Jung winced slightly as a pain in his chest flared up. "Have you considered surgery for that? It seems like a serious problem."

He wasn't having a panic attack over something so small as this. There was a not so vague urge to be sick but other than that... No, truly, not at all. For one, there was a minimum of four symptoms he was supposed to have to be even diagnosed with that. But psychology wasn't like Oh, you have all of these? Great! Now you know for sure that you have... Fill in the blank.

The itch to start running away, though, he should probably think on more. Later. Because that really was something that he should have outgrown by this point, even as he quietly envied Xenia on some level for that ability. Distracted by the internal struggle, Wong Ha Jung missed on everything that happened up to the point when the green haired woman put his glasses back onto his face.

"Oh!" The counselor flinched in surprise but made sure to smile, at least, even if he had to close his eyes for it. "Thank you very much!" The hand he put up to adjust his glasses trembled slightly and he wasn't quite sure why. He glanced at the strange man and then away nervously. Even though it was in his nature to try to approach people, Wong Ha Jung found that on this occasion, he simply didn't want to. Probably because the idea was already making his heart start to race.

But his personal problems seemed like such a weak excuse for avoiding others.

"Would you excuse me for a moment?" Wong Ha Jung said to the woman who had bumped into him. She was rather pretty, he couldn't help but notice that, but the normal feeling of sheepishness was buried under everything else at the moment. He smiled at her uncertainly. "I'll get you something for the trouble later, if you'll let me. Ah, both of you," he added a second after. The lady with green haired hadn't really needed to help him, after all. It seemed to only be proper that he extend the offer.

Then he turned to that strange man, even though he didn't really want to and the pain was really getting to be a bother for a few moments. "That's an interesting arrangement," Wong Ha Jung said to him, referring to the stack of hats. It sounded like such a lame thing to say but as it was, he was glad just to be able to get coherent sentences out. The counselor forced himself to keep up with his normal expression and tone, although it both were probably still just slightly strained.

Okay, so maybe this was a panic attack, or something close to it. He had to pause to wait for the feeling in his chest to lessen. When it had passed, though, he sighed and raked his hand through his hair nervously. The shaking was still there so the man clenched his fingers and kept them tangled in the ends. That way, he wouldn't fidget as much.

"I can't do anything about your eyes," Wong Ha Jung said lightly. "But um, would you like another hat instead?" Whatever it was hadn't quite passed yet but the man couldn't help but relax as he spoke. "I can't imagine you've gotten all of them yet."

It was probably a bad idea to offering to pay for things for a bunch of strangers but Wong Ha Jung didn't buy that much for himself anyway. And really, as long as he was making rent, bills, and food costs, that was all that mattered to him. There was always bits of translating work that he could pick up if he ever got desperate, anyways.

The sick feeling was still vaguely there, too.

"Oh, refractive lenses, make my eye sight clearer than--Oh."

Orion sounded vaguely disappointed when Yura pulled the glasses off of his face without any warning. Anyone who was staring at him went completely unnoticed by Orion, even when he held a teetering, off-balance pose for a few moment before returning to a normal standing position. Although Yura had cut his fun short, he held no ill will against the green-haired lass and was immediately back to standing with the three others, cheerful as ever.

As the stack of hats wobbled on his head, Orion took particular notice of the man's very strange behavior. (As if anything anyone else did could be considered strange next to what Orion does regularly). The man was doing a poor job of hiding his... symptoms. The erratic movement. The off-kilter breathing. The strange responses he was giving to Orion. Something was up, and Orion wanted to know what it was.

"Oh, my eyeballs are fine..."

Orion nonchalantly poked the side of his eyeball for emphasis as he leaned-in closer to the man, squinting curiously. The look on Orion's face was serious and inquisitive, the kind of look a scientist might give to a subject of study. But the presence of his stack of hats countered the almost professional aura he was giving off.

"Mm. Yes. You can purchase me another hat, but only after you tell me what is going on with you. You're acting quite curiously, sir."

By that point Orion had also started inching closer to Wong for a better look.

Wong Ha Jung

Wong Ha Jung dipped his head nervously and clasped his hands in front of him as the sick feeling came up. The man with the hats was couple of inches shorter than him, and unconsciously, the counselor attempted to shrink in on himself a little. It was times like this that he wished he were shorter, so that he wouldn't have to look people in the eyes. Emotions constantly were getting the better of him and he was far too transparent to hide them very well.

"Oh," he said with a soft, anxious laugh. Playing things off as minor was a skill that Wong Ha Jung had never truly mastered. But it was still better than saying things outright and making people worried about him."I had a traumatic childhood incident involving windows. It was, ah-" the pain in his chest spiked for a moment and he sighed because otherwise, it would have been a gasp "-an embarrassment." Which it was. It really was. That wasn't lie at all.

As the man edged closer, Wong Ha Jung simply froze. Even though he would have quite liked to run away right then, it would have been rather rude. (It also might have been seen as a challenge and no, no he wasn't going through that again. Because of the way that Vermillion Summer worked, all it took was one stupid action on his part and then...) It really was foolish of him to be so affected. It was a relief, though, when that pink haired woman came between them. (He disliked -no, hated, no disliked- hiding behind other people. Fortunately, usually wasn't anybody else anyways.)

"I'm all right," the counselor told her quietly, not really sure how well he was doing with returning the smile. "The bench would probably be a good idea, though, thank you." Anything to help get this whatever under control. (And it was kind of an escape route, too.)

So Wong Ha Jung went over there, still trembling slightly as he sat down. It wasn't quite so bad now. (Which was good because normally these things went on longer for him.) But as the breeze ran by, he could see just a few strands of black in his hair. Nothing too serious yet, they were appearing and disappearing fairly rapidly. It shouldn't have been especially noticeable to anybody.

He took a few deep breathes. He just needed to calm down, that was all, and stop making such a big deal out of the little things. (Although, for a few moments, that scene had really reminded him of...)

Ah, the counselor thought, glancing up at the sky. I'm kind of a stupid man, aren't I? (It was easier to ignore things if he just said it was his fault to start with.)

"Windows, you say? Fascinating."

Not once did Orion show any pause or hesitation as he inched closer to Wong.

"Perhaps your glasses are subconsciously reminding you of windows. A penance you place on yourself because you blame yourself for whatever happened, and your eyes aren't actually dysfunctional. You're jus-"

Orion DID stop when the pink-haired girl intervened, and his approach came to a sudden halt. His movement may have stopped, but he still kept up the same inquisitive/accusative look on his face, a look that went right through the pink-haired girl and to Wong as if she had not stepped in between them at all. Even when she turned to address Wong, Orion kept "looking" at him. The pose could have been a sign of deep concentration, until he maintained the same position and direction even when they had left to rest on a bench.

He slowly turned to face Wong, again keeping his stack of hats strangely balanced despite all of his movements. He stared for a few moments, then brought his gaze to the green-haired girl, a girl who seemed enthralled by her own little gadget. Orion wanted in on that action.

Bringing up his metal glove, Orion furiously typed out something or other while intensely looking at the green-haired girl. A smile would appear on his face just as a text message would appear on her phone reading: HI!

Orion following it up with a playful little wave would indicate whom the test was from.