16988/Like We Do In Japan

Like We Do In Japan
Date of Scene:	22 January 2024
Location:	Jubilee and Noriko's Apt - College House
Synopsis:	Noriko returns from the Sentinel factory with a pair of giant robot eyeballs.
Cast of Characters:	Noriko Ashida, Jubilation Lee

---

Noriko Ashida has posed:
For everyone else at the Sentinel decommissioning facility, it was a fight for their lives.  For Nori though, it was more like a boring day at the office, only having to catalogue a bunch of stuff around other people's life-fighting.  She was actually most worried about whether she was going to fry Kitty's phone than anything else.  After everyone was okay but before they could rendezvous with her or tell her to leave behind her loot, Noriko ran straight back to the campus apartments with a little something or other about her neck...a little big something actually.

Two giant robotic eyeballs that formerly belonged to a 30 m tall old school Sentinel.  They've been tied together at what could be envisioned as their optical nerve, or rather the wires that serve as such.  Giant, difficult to run with, but SO worth it.  For what purpose?  Nori doesn't even know, but they are cool and one of those weird things you just don't know what to do with when an SO brings them home.  It usually helps to have a big house with a little bonus room no one goes into to stuff all these things into.

Stepping inside, Noriko flings the eyeballs up onto a little bare nail above the door (she sometimes used for holiday decorations) as if it were a scarf.  "Honey I'm home!" she blurts out for effect and only for herself, not really thinking it through.  It just felt necessary with the eyeball toss, like getting fries with a hamburger and a coke with a hamburger and a heart attack because all of these things are ordered together.  The two dormant eyeballs dangle like two old giant clanking silver bells and then settle.

Noriko begins to stretch out a little, languid like a slow old cat not giving an eff who has to wait for it...well, slow for her, which is normal for everyone else.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilee got back from the field trip to the Sentinel factory much earlier than everyone else. The vampire phased into the building with Kitty Pryde, creating a pile of uncertainty. Did she need to be invited in? Does that only apply to homes? Does it apply to phasing? There's not really a brochure in the nurse's office that covers this. As soon as she started feeling even a little bit funny, Jubilation threw up an obnoxious peace sign with her hands and went back to the mansion. And just like countless kids who leave school with a fever, she felt perfectly fine as soon as she got home.

    The apartment is covered by a thin haze of steam that has escaped from the shower, filling the air with the familiar smells of shampoo and conditioner. The door to the bedroom bursts open and Jubilee comes out in a trance. Her eyes are closed, but her mouth is wide open. She's loudly singing along to whatever song is blasting through her ear buds. The white stick of her coagulated blood lollypop flaps helplessly as she sings. Her hair is wrapped up in a towel, explaining the shower smell and steam. She's already in a pair of jammies -- baby blue with cartoon chocolate chip cookies printed on -- that she swiped from the mall. Her feet are covered by a pair of oversized yellow slippers meant to make her feet look like Minnie Mouse's.

    So I put my hands up!
    They're playin' my song, the butterflies fly away!
    I'm noddin' my head, like, yeah!
    Movin' my hips like, yeah!
    I got my hands up, they're playin' my song!
    They know I'm gonna be okaayyyy!"

    Bump.

    Jubilation opens her eyes and stops right there, staring at the speedster. "...Yeah...It's a party in the U.S.A..." she continues, muttering the last line from the Miley Cyrus song without singing it. Busted. She yanks her earbuds out and tosses them across the room. "Oh...Hey, Nori...I uh..." Jubilation brings her fist up to her mouth and fakes a cough. "...I don't feel good," she pouts. Blink blink. Jubilation immediately drops the act, now staring up at the giant orbs that weren't in the apartment a minute ago. "...What the hecky...?" she starts. Jubilation obviously feels fine.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko enjoys Jubilation's entrance, just leaning back against the wall next to the door.  She missed this...a lot.  It brings a warmth to her that can't be manufactured or replicated by anyone else.

"Yeah, of course you do!  Playing hooky!"  Noriko teases, knowing Jubes probably didn't feel good.  The speedster smirks, obviously in a goodish mood, which has been in rare supply lately.

"Oh no!  We're both standing under the giant robot eyes!  You know what this means in Japan right?"  Never mind that they aren't in Japan.  Her eyes shift upwards to the ominous eyeballs.  "We gotta kiss now," she somehow says with a completely straight face.  "Or we'll be annihilated by all of its brothers and sisters."  Then she whispers, "They see all."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation shrugs one shoulder and yanks the lollypop stick from her mouth after crunching down it like she's the owl from the Tootsie Pop commercial. She gives Noriko a little grin to acknowledge that she was caught red-handed before curling her middle finger and using it to flick the paper stick across the room and into the kitchen sink just like an angsty teenage smoker. Ten points. "I /didn't/ feel good...Probably shouldn't have gone in with Kitty like that... but, like, whatever, I'm fine now," Jubes admits.

    Noriko's 'oh no!' forces Jubilee's attention upwards at the pair of robot eyes staring back at them. The speedster's shamless ruse earns a grin and an eye roll. Jubes gives Noriko's shoulder a gentle shove before turning and walking over to the kitchen. "You're an idiot," she teases, grinning to herself as she heads towards the sink to find the paper stick she flung. "...So, since you're bringing back giant metal eyeballs, I'm guessing you guys kicked some Super Nintendo butt, huh?"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah I figured it was some kind of quasi-welcome thing or maybe Kitty left a few of your brain cells behind," Noriko says nonchalantly.  It explains why Noriko didn't rush after Jubilation.  The vampire is a big girl/18 year old who can barely vote.  She can take care of herself in these things.

When pushed, Noriko leans as if Jubilation made a difference, trying to receive it bonelessly in anticipation so there's some effect instead of it feeling like nudging a brick wall.  "Oh yeah?  Just you wait.  They will stalk us in their dreams.  Oh I didn't bring them.  They followed me....like this." Noriko hops up to snatch the eyeballs like an NBA player tipping the ball out of the rim, with superhuman effortlessness.  Then she tries to make them float along toward Jubilation while dashing back and forth fast enough that she can't be seen.  The eyes glow intermittently from the charge that gets leaked from her body in the process as they twitchingly hover along like stop motion after Jubilation to the kitchen.

"Well, some weird not-giant-robots showed up, but I was too busy playing librarian.  You know how I have to do all the boring work," Noriko says as she abruptly stops the floating eyeball joke.  She's begins to casually spin them around her finger as if they were a giant's fidget spinner, pulling her head back just in time the first time it swings around.

"Anyways, I got you these.  It was between these and a flamethrower."  A home-warming gift, in a sense, though Noriko doesn't say this explicitly.  "I bet I can make them shoot out electricity.  Might be cool for Halloween or something...maybe set them up in the window."  She shrugs.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
     Jubilation shrugs. "Could be a little bit of both, I guess," she says, smirking a little to herself as she fishes the paper stick out of the sink and deliver it to its final resting place in the trash. Her next stop is the fridge to collect a pouch of blood she yoinked from the hospital. After turning and seeing the robot eyes floating in the air underneath a suspicious blurriness, Jubilation bends forward, consumed by laughter. "Nori, Nori stop!" she tries to get out while laughing. "I'm gonna shake it up....!" The 'it' in this case is the can of Sprite she grabbed from the fridge. "Nori! Bubbles, citric acid, natural flavors!" is the only warning the speedster gets before the can is tossed over to her.

    Free of the giggles, Jubilee turns back and starts rummaging around in the kitchen. After opening and closing several drawers and cabinets, she gets to work. The pouch of blood is emptied into a glass and placed in the microwave. She presses the popcorn button but stops after just five seconds. The final step is a teeny tiny splash of Tabasco from a teeny tiny bottle. Jubilation walks back with her drink and finds a place near Noriko, outside the swinging radius of the Sentinel eyes. She brings her drink up to her lips and answers Noriko's inevitable question without even waiting for it. "It's a Bloody Gonzales," she says before taking a sip.

    "For the girl who has everything..." Jubilee teases, grinning a little as the speedster explains that the giant robot eyes are a gift.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
Noriko has no idea what Jubes says, but she does happen to spot the Sprite can when it comes sailing into view like a squirrel being brought of extreme flow.  SPRITE!  This certainly helps the eyeball stalking cease.  The speedster plucks the can out of the air and cracks it open, one-handed.  She does more of these pointless fetes when she's not wearing her gauntlets.  "Thanks," she chirps before there's a slurp to save some of the evading, excited carbonation.

"You're getting fancy.  We should bottle that as something else and run some mailer ads.  Anything vampires can tolerate.  It's not like half of them even know what these things are.  You know the sauce business is big...Does it make you sick any?"  Ever so curious.  The speedster takes another fourth-sip of the can and then sets down the twirled eyeballs.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation takes another sip and shrugs a little at Noriko's enthusiasm. "I dunno, Nori," she begins. "It's just some blood with a dash of hot sauce. We made it at the Laughing Magician." The bar she worked at part time while running with the original Justice League Dark. It's a mixed drink, something ordered at an establishment used to catering to the undead. Her smile fades a touch at the speedster's question about her getting sick from the drop of Tabasco. "Um, no, not really. But I didn't like it at first," she answers, looking down at the contents of her glass.

    Noriko's point about finding and selling items that vampires can tolerate seems to sour Jubilation a little, forcing her to bring attention to her demerits as a vampire. "...Well, like, plenty of 'em can eat and drink things....Not me, though..." The conversation has the chance to really derail things in a negative way, but Jubilation washes over it with a thick application of 'Jubilee.'

    "...Not without getting a gold metal in the Olympics of puking..." she fires back, manufacturing a grin as she paints a gruesome picture of what would happen if she ate food. She looks away for a moment, trying to find the thread she can pull to get to the next topic. "...So, like, I hope you don't mind that I crash here for the day..." she starts. "I mean... I didn't really ask... But on the /other/ hand... I have a key and, like, the school thinks I live here, anyway... So, like... "

    She abandons that topic almost immediately.

    "So, uh... What did you say about being a nerdy librarian?" she tries, unfortunately revealing that the full idea didn't get to blossom properly and that her mind had been wandering earlier when Noriko described her role in the Sentinel mission.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Oh that doesn't matter.  Most people think beer tastes like crap but they drink it anyway to be cool," which seems to be Nori's opinion, since she has no idea what being drunk feels like.

"Maybe it's like poison tolerance."  Nori obviously learned this from the movies.  "Maybe you can build up an immunity," she says hopefully, not because she cares herself whether Jubes can eat or drink human food, but because it obviously matters to Jubilation.

Jubes mentioning crashing for the day does something to Nori, but it isn't anything that doesn't pass way too fast for the eye.  "I never told them you left so," is all she says, accompanied by a shrug.  "It's not like I didn't try to stay in your tent."  It's the only comment she has, the only defense, the comment to let it roll off her shoulders.

"Well Kitty was pulling all these records off some ancient computer, but we knew someone was creating false records.  I volunteered to take physical inventory so we could compare the records later, maybe see what whoever is up to or something.  But I was able to use Kitty's phone without frying it!  And I didn't even have my gauntlets on!"  This is impressive in Nori's book, but compared to the progress of other mutants, it's like an adhd kid celebrating that they were finally able to remember to take out the trash on their own...once.  Still, it obviously means the world to her.

"So I was taking video, photos," Lots of selfies with parts in the frame, "and taking notes.  Pretty sure it was maybe 20 hours of work at least," compressed by her power obviously...and given how crappy Nori is at time estimations, she's probably way off.  It was probably /way more/ work.  "It's not like they couldn't handle the baby sentinels.  But we found out almost immediately that the power components were logged as there but completely missing.  Like no batteries or generators or anything.  So someone is powering some kind of project...Kinda jealous.  I was hoping to bring back a giant reserve battery and make it my bed, maybe see if Hank could make it like a battery coffin for me so I can sleep without my gauntlets."  She obviously has no idea how the science would work.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "I dunno," Jubilee replies, shrugging a shoulder before bringing her glass back up for a sip. "It kinda seems gross to me now." She gives Noriko's sprite a little upnod to indicate she means human food and drink. "I kinda forgot what they're like, anyway...." She looks up at Noriko with a complicated expression, lips curling inward as she briefly lets biological thoughts take over. Jubilee lets herself enjoy them, if only for a moment, before she uses Noriko's success as a way of snapping out of it.

    When Noriko explains that she was able to use a phone, Jubilee sets her glass down on the nearest surface and throws both arms into the air. "She shoots, she scores!" she cries out. Jubilation starts prancing around the apartment, throwing each of her arms into the air in succession with a little explosion of harmless plasmoids like they're pockets of confetti. "Noriko Ashida is on the board! SHE. HAS. USED. A. PHOOOOOOONE!" Jubilee runs back over to the speedster with a big grin on her face, possibly more excited than Nori herself. "...Selfie, BAM! Selfie, BOOM! Selfie, Kapow! And the crowd goes wiiiiiiiiiild!" She twirls around in a circle, right in front of Noriko, leaving a trail of colored explosions to linger and flirt with the speedster for a moment before they dematerialize.

    "Nori, are you sayin' that you can use, like, phones now? We can take selfies? I can send you emojis and memes and stuff?" She grabs Noriko's shoulders, both of them, and gives her a little shake. "/Memes/?"

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Well, the point is that you don't tell people what it is.  You just hype it up and make a bunch of sales before people realize it's nasty.  Maybe get some socialites or influencers to spread the word."  Noriko's scamming brain is turned on, obviously.

When Jubilation starts celebrating, so does Nori.  Some might call this...the zoomies.  She runs circles around Jubilation, creating a whirlwind effect and making her hair float up like she's born with it...even as Jubilation moves around.  This is just an impulse though, true zoomies, and quickly she's back where she was when she realizes what happened.  She can't help but spin in place though when all of the plasmoids explode around her, creating a swirl of color.

"I don't know if I can.  I think I might talk to Kitty and Hank about it.  It might be easier to just have Kitty rig me a phone that can withstand the minor discharges from my gauntlets or-I mean they are expensive.  I don't know any memes.  I barely know what they are."  Jubilation is the only person Nori would admit that to.  "But I think between Kitty and Hank, maybe they could make some enhancements to a phone or my gauntlets to make it easier."  She's just at the point where she feels comfortable re-exploring it.

"Maybe," Noriko determines after the shake.  "I'll start with burners though and maybe have a phone allowance."  That sounds like a big fat yes...kinda.  "Do you think you could maybe help me...pick one out?  I don't know anything about phones," and she doesn't want to look like an idiot, obviously.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Jubilation's smile is large. Comically large. She leaves it out and on display for maximum effect. "We're gonna take selfies and, like, text each other and, oh shit, think of all the awesome Tiktoks we could do....." She stops right there, suddenly serious, and points a finger. "You better not get like Negasonic," she warns, both brows hiked, apparently trusting that Noriko will understand what that means. Both of them have a tendency to get sour but only one of them, to date, has been doing it with a phone.

    When Noriko asks her if she can help her pick a phone, Jubilation reaches out again, this time leaving both hands planted on the speedster's shoulders. "....I will do this," she says solemnly, trying to sound like she's reciting a line from The Godfather. "I...I will take this burden from you and I will help you. I will help you pick out a phone...."

    She breaks character instantly. "I know /everything/ about the phones!" she cries out.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"If you mean I'll be stuck like glue to it?  Of course I will, but it's not like you're going to notice.  I'll keep it quick."  Perhaps Noriko's brain didn't think of /all/ the angles she could become like or is like Ellie.

"I think I'm most excited for the wikis."  What age is Nori living in?  One can't clearly comprehend how awesome the internet is until they've had free reign with Google, and this is where Nori is at.  She has no idea.  NO IDEA.  Her infinite abyss of boredom might finally have a salve.

The serious pledge gets a little laugh from the speedster.  "Anything you pick out, you are also bound to show me how to work it."  Noriko knows she'd probably figure it out faster on her own, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't frustrate her as much if not more than having to wait for instructions and learning from someone else...besides, this is Jubes.  It's not like having any old teacher.

"It's a part of the deal," the speedster says, as if she has any leverage.  "Well my next paycheck is coming soon," which means she doesn't know when and it has been awhile in her book.  "So maybe we can do it then," since she blew all her reserves on food when she was trying out the streets again.

"So what /is/ Tiktok?"  Like a kid who keeps hearing words they know they should know, Nori has never revealed this ignorance.  Jubilation's social media education will need to be comprehensive.  "Also what do people mean by gifs?  How do you say that?  I keep hearing people say it different ways."  Oh dear.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    Tiktok. "It's an app for, like, making little videos and sharing them and you can, like, see everyone else's videos...It sounds stupid, but, like, doesn't everything until you try it for yourself?" Jubilee explains, trying to summarize Tiktok. Perhaps she accidentally stumbled on the right way to explain it: you just gotta try it for yourself.

    When Noriko asks about the right way to pronounce gif, Jubilation shakes her head with confidence. "No one knows how to say it because there's no reason to say it out loud," Jubilation answers with a shocking amount of wisdom. "But, they're like... pictures that move... but /not/ the same as movies.... Which are also pictures that move..." Jubilee explains. She frowns a little before willing herself to move past that discrepancy.

    Jubilation steps towards the couch and practically falls back into it. It's as though a great weight has been lifted from her shoulders. She could enjoy phones again without feeling like she's getting away with something. She leans back, totally relaxed. "This is so cool...." she mutters.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
"Yeah it does sound stupid, but that's probably because I don't know how to use it."  Which means more than Noriko lets on directly.  She knows Jubilation will show her what makes these things awesome.

"Okay so they're like synonyms for each other."  Noriko will learn.  She'll learn.  "Videos and gifs.  I guess I'll just call them all videos.  Seems safe."  No it isn't Nori.  It's too late.  It's in the vault.  She didn't even really take note that Jubilation wasn't satisfied by her definitions.

Noriko grins slightly when Jubes seems to relax into the couch.  She blurry-pads over to the fridge and grabs an apple.  Then she uses her fingernail to dig just into the skin of the fruit before spinning it with her other hand.  The peel curls out in into little spirals out way too fast away from the flesh of the fruit, slamming against the wall in the kitchen next to the stove like done noodles.  Then Noriko flips the lid of the garbage so the peel disposes of itself with the help of gravity.

As Noriko munches on the apple, she squints at the vampire quizzically, not understanding what is so mindblowing about the whole thing.   She will though.  She will.  "You know if you want this place I can just find another spot.  You seem happy here."  In fact, she'd prefer it, but it's not something she shares.  It's not like Noriko didn't run away from all the memories of this place or anything and she figures after their talks, it's pretty evident.  Instead of sharing, she just keeps her mouth full of apple.

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "No," Jubilation declares, stiffening her arm so she can point an accusing index finger in Noriko's direction in a low-effort attempt to make it clear that GIFs and videos are not synonyms. She shakes her head for a little more oomph. "They are not the same, Noriko Gertrude Ashida. They are not the same." Full name means she means business. She even made up a middle name for the speedster that time. Trusting that the matter is settled, Jubilation relaxes back into the couch. She's about to elaborate, perhaps continue about the merits of gifs and memes, but Noriko's question about the apartment drains the enthusiasm Jubilee was just riding.

    Jubilee looks down at her lap and remains quiet for a second. "Uh... okay," are the first words that come. She tries her best to save face and pretend that it doesn't bother her. "...Yeah, sure, cool, if, like, that's what you want." Jubilation slumps her shoulders a little as she throws an internal temper tantrum. She stares at her lap, trying to summon some of that old courage she had mere moments ago. How did everything get like this? So confusing. So hard. So clandestine.

    Fuck this.

    Jubilation rises from the couch in that weird, stiff upper-body way that vampires do to spook the mortals. She walks across the room with purpose, perhaps to start packing Noriko's bags for her so she can appear nonchalant about this horrible idea. She scoops up the pair of Sentinel eyes first and marches towards the door with them. Is she tossing Noriko's things out into the hall?

    No.

    Jubilation goes up on her tippy toes and hangs the robot eyes on the bare nail above the door. Once they're nice and secure, Jubilee stands underneath them, silently watching what Noriko will do.

Noriko Ashida has posed:
No?  Videos, gifs, what's next?  Noriko foresees a lot of research in her future.  The middle name earns a disgusted look from the speedster and she lets it stick long enough for Jubes to see it.  Basically lemon-face.  "Okay okay, I believe you.  Did you have to pick the whitest name you know?"  she says as if on the back of a promise to never assume that gifs and videos are one and the same ever again.

But no matter how she fronts, Noriko can't get rid of that giant knot in the pit of her stomach, something that tightens at Jubilation's response.  "Well I don't want to live here alone or with anyone else.  It doesn't feel-" right...but then Jubilation rises.  "Okay-" she starts as Jubilation's march begins.

Noriko's about to sigh, maybe punch something or throw something or flick something in anger (since that's the safest), when suddenly Jubes is re-stringing up the robot eyes.  At first, there's a brief moment when Nori's head is cocked to the side, a hint of confusion in her pouty features, stubbornly trying to hold her emotions together.  Then a breath.  The confusion gives way, melting from her features.

Nori remains in the moment, not giving way to her natural velocity.  She walks to Jubilation with purpose and stands in front of her.  "It's not what I fucking want."  Jubilation is given a beat before Noriko reaches out to pull her into a kiss, a kiss burning with a longing that transcends the physical, that melts complication.  Nothing exists for Nori in that moment but Jubilation.  It's clear what she wants.  It's clear what her heart wants.  "I want you."

Jubilation Lee has posed:
    "Ow, fridge!" Jubilee blurts out as a reflex response to the sudden shock of electricity brought in by Noriko's body. She's not really hurt, not really, but there's still that instant of surprise that comes and some habits are just hard to break. She rises a little on the balls of her feet so she can meet Noriko's lips for the kiss, practically falling forward into it. She closes her eyes and smiles, even with her mouth against Nori's, as a ribbon of fireworks swirls around the pair a couple of times before exploding into nothingness.

    When Jubilee breaks from the kiss, she leaves her hands on the speedster's forearms, not wanting to go far. She comes back with that same fangy smile, all in service of the snarky remark that comes. "...Tabby's going to be pissed," she warns, remembering that their apartment shares a too-thin wall with hers. Without waiting, Jubilation leans forward towards Noriko and the kiss resumes!