He tried to get back to work, painting out his indecisiveness and questions in abstract pieces. Every time he got a text message from Kaihou, he responded back immediately. But neither had said anything about the possibility of hanging out in person. Probably because Quentin always made it a point to mention how busy he was. Catching up with months of inactivity left him with a new portrait or mural every few days, if it came down to it, he thought he could've painted with his blood. Lily would visit occasionally to bring leftovers, mostly because he couldn't bother to even order delivery, too many options. 

"You smell like Chernobyl." She quipped as she dropped off another rice and chicken.

"I haven't showered all week, probably why." Quentin responded, too tired to make up an excuse.

Lily cringed and laughed as she put the food on the counter. "Duuude, gross. I thought you had OCD." The artist sighed, dropping his brush in the water and getting up from his stool to lecture Lily on the conditions of his disorder again.

"OCD is about giving in to intrusive thoughts, not necessarily being clean." His friend repeated him for the last few words.

"You say that all the time, at least your slump hasn't changed how nitpicky you are." She pulled the food from her bag and put it in the fridge. "You're compensating, aren't you?"

"What would I be compensating for?"

"That boy who killed someone."

"Kaihou? How did you already forget his name?" He sighed.

She rolled her eyes, "I have a life too man, I can't just think about poor taste all day.

He thinned his lips and spoke. "So you agree that it was a bad idea to keep him in my life."

"What? Are you questioning your decision? Dude, you committed don't be an asshole!" She turned from the fridge to stare at him judgingly.

"Great, okay. But just talking on the phone is so... weird."

"Almost like you're avoiding him." She said sarcastically.

"I am not. In fact, I'll invite him to go to that new boba place down the street... tomorrow."

"Oooh you're such a rebel." She finished packing the food into the fridge. "It's called Teatanic right?"

"Yes." He was already texting Kaihou.

Kaihou spent the entire morning getting ready. Face masks, eye masks, even jaw masks. Oils, creams, lotion. Shaving, picking the right outfit, picking a better one. What was well dressed but not overdoing it? He hogged the bathroom, doing each thing as their steps required and going on YouTube if he had no clue what to do. 

"That sounds like you're opening MY hand cream."

He froze in place, not answering his sister. "Well... it isn't it's mine."

"Liar, you don't even have as much as conditioner that isn't 2-in-1 Shampoo." Yuri said mockingly.

"Hey! There's nothing wrong with combining your hair products for efficiency."

"It's ineffective! ...and stop using my stuff!" She walked off.

He waited until the coast was clear, then put on some music and went back to using said stuff. 

Once he'd finally gotten ready, he walked out and went to the lobby to wait for Quentin to pick him up, ignoring the glare his sister gave him when she could smell her lotion. He kept staring at his phone, was it stupid that he got so nervous and giddy when the boy asked him to a tea place? They were just friends, but he'd never gotten to do something like this before. Something normal people did. Hell, he's never even had fast food. He spent the entire night watching a documentary on the production of boba, the fascination people in the West have with it, the origins of it's name, who does have nice boobs.

At last, Quentin had arrived. He perked up and opened the door, getting in. Quentin immediately took in the smell, "Is that... mango?"

"Apricot." Kaihou corrected, "I like to pander myself occasionally, went to the spa yesterday." Buuuuull shit.

"Hm, it's nice." Quentin noted, putting the address of Teatanic into the car's GPS.

They rode in awkward silence for a few minutes until Kaihou decided to break the tension with some of his newly acquired tapioca knowledge. "Did you know that German researchers claimed to find traces of polychlorinated biphenyls in tapioca pearls? It's the stuff in motor oils but the Taiwanese FDA were able to confirm that it was false."

Quentin raised his eyes, "Wow... I didn't... know that." He nodded, "Cool." What a nerd.

"Yeah, and we have fruit flavored pearls today because people decided to upscale the size of the original pearls."

"Interesting!" The boy kept trying to seem like he cared, but Kaihou was unconvinced.

He fidgeted with his fingers, trying to think of something cooler to say when the car halted to a stop.

"Well, we're here!" Quentin got out, Kaihou following him quickly while the car auto-drived to a nearby parking space. As they walked in, the name Teatanic started making more sense. The cafe was ocean themed with shell decorations and an aquarium to top it off, the girl working the counter had teal hair tied into twin buns, the uniform was teal, so it was easy to confuse her as the owner. Both boys stood a good distance from the counter to look at the menu. 

"A human worker, that's not common right?" Kaihou commented, not knowing how most services looked aside from videos.

"Eh, when it comes to drinks there's a lot more customization so engineers don't completely trust machines to do that instead just yet. Which is why coffee places like my friend's have a bunch of different machines for different purposes.

"Right, right." He recalled his last conversation with her.

"Do you prefer cold or warm drinks?"

UHHH- UHHHHH- "Cold." He said, never trying a single special drink before. He liked iced tea so it made sense at least.

"I prefer warm myself, but cold is cool."

"Ha." He laughed, not understanding if that pun was intentional or not. Quentin didn't respond.

"...I think I'll just get jasmine tea, I'll try something cold. What about you?"

Kaihou finally looked at the menu name by name, getting overwhelmed with the options. Wintermelon? Matcha? What the hell is Hot Cheeto Cheese foam? He eyed their 'Top 10' list, "Their QQ Passionfruit tea looks good, it's a top ordered drink so it can't be bad, right?"

Quentin nodded, going up to the barista and ordering. The boy accompanying him got even more confused, 50% sugar? How could he tell what was too sweet or not sweet enough? Why did it cost more to not have ice? Macarons... should they get macarons? "And for you?" Kaihou looked up, seeing his friend gesture towards the barista who was waiting for his order.

"QQ Passionfruit." He said, the barista, who's name was Tiffany based on the nametag, nodded as she tapped the cash register.

"Size?

He could feel sweat forming on his head. "...medium."

"Okay, anything else?"

"No." Quentin answered, pulling out his credit card and paying for the both of them before Kaihou could even get a word in. As the two waited for their drinks, they sat down at one of the tables. 

"So..."

The artist responded, "So..."

"This place is nice." Kaihou noted.

"Yeah, it's the first one I've been to in California." This must be how conversations are like when the only thing two people talk about are themselves as they try not to talk about themselves.

"Oh, how are they in Japan?"

"Pretty good, but you're a Californian local, how good would you say the other places here are?"

"I- uh, they're... okay. Having to rely on American ingredients will never make it compare to the real thing though, you know?" He hoped that was accurate.

"Yeah, but I'll have to try them out for myself to see. You haven't exactly proven to have the best taste."

Kaihou scoffed, "I haven't? Since when?"

"The shows you watch all the time, Rivervale, really?"

"It's comically bad, it's intentional! That show is a masterpiece."

Quentin smiled as they let go of their nerves, "Yeah, yeah. Sure. I would compare it to the shows I watched but they all got wiped with the power outage."

The boy across from him put his leg on the chair and rested his head on his knee. "Describe one to me, unbiased as possible."

"Okay, so... I binged a show with six seasons in about three days, it was a reality show where the contestants would kill each other in a simulation and try to get away with it for in-game money to buy weapons and the like, winner got a huge reward in money." He rolled his eyes. "But, you know, that didn't really matter when the only people who were poor chose to be. I swear the government was lying about the financial state of that country because there's no way people were surviving off of music or acting only." 

The blonde laughed, "What was with the rush?"

"Well, I was gonna compete on the show."

"No way. You applied without knowing a thing and got in?" He looked surprised but paused his thought while Quentin brought their drinks. "Did they not care?"

"No, I was pretty famous. Why would they care about logistics if they could get all these celebrities on their show?" He slid his straw into the lid and took a drink. "This is really good, I knew you had bad taste.

"Haha." Kaihou took a sip of his own drink and was careful to chew each pearl well. "But why that show? Thought murder wasn't your thing."

"It wasn't, I got out the second round." He shrugged. "I just wanted to prove something, make a name for myself outside of Qua-san."

"Qua-san? That's what you went by as a model?"

"Yeah, it's based on my actual name, Quy." He took another sip.

Kaihou smiled, "Huh, well that's really interesting, Quy." He put his leg down and arms on the table, reposturing himself. "I'd love to know more."

The two talked until it was time to close, greatly bothering Tiffany.