They don't usually appear during the day, they mostly gather when it's dark, just ignore the ones crawling near the doors as you enter a building, don't acknowledge them, and you'll be fine. Even the ones that look grabby or bitey.

The Asian food court place was a new place still unheard of and a little further down Maine, a singular building with stalls inside, or more like different counters to order different types of Asian food.

Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, and even Indian.

Dove volunteered to find a table while they all went to go order, feeling overwhelmed in an unfamiliar place, especially since she did like Asian food, and everything everywhere smelled good. Vernon sat with her, also not liking the unfamiliar, cold place where he barely saw a pot plant. He thought there was one on a counter, but he immediately knew it was fake.

Annabelle is Celtic and has mostly been part of the Western world, but that didn't stop her from going off on her own to each food stall to order something small but different.

"She said she was ordering for us; I hope she doesn't like overly spicy."

"She does." Vernon said to Dove, the girl was resigned to hearing that.

"One time, she came up to the garden to ask if there were any pepper plants. I don't grow any pepper plants, but I grow herbs and oranges, and carnivorous eaters, and other plants that I'm not allowed to talk about outside of the garden's vicinity." He said, fiddling with the soft fabric of the sleeves he had rolled up earlier when working on the bushes before.

Dove sat across from him on the table, feeling relaxed listening to him, then staring at the pot plant he brought. It was only soil for now.

"Joon doesn't like spicy food."

"He doesn't?"

"No, he likes mild, but he asked if I was growing any mint leaves, he likes the smell of those."

Dove hummed as she looked at the soil in the pot.

"What's growing in here?"

"Nothing yet, this was an experiment I was working on before they pulled me out here." 

The two eccentrics finally came back, both carrying completely different trays.

Joon's had milder food, pot stickers and a couple bento looking plastic trays, Annabelle however had a tray carrying a still boiling, mini hot pot. The smell could reach far.

Dove frantically stood up to go find some utensils or napkins as the trays were set down, getting the instinct that the sauces were going to be very messy. She also stared at the clock on her phone in the process.

Joon has careful hands, of course he does. Good for designing prototype models with just cardboard and paper, and chopsticks. Although, that wouldn't stop the pot stickers from occasionally slipping and falling into the dipping sauce.

"Blame it on the cooks purposefully folding the dough in a way that's difficult to grab." He grits his teeth while holding back a smile, also finding this funny.

"I don't think there's any beneficial reason for why they would purposefully fold it like that, the cooks simply make the food by following the instructions they were given. Restaurants are too busy to make any different decisions like that unless they want to risk slowing down work." Vernon replied thoughtlessly, picking up a piece of kimbap. 

Joon purposefully picked him one that didn't have avocado in it.

He grumbled when Annabelle teased him about owning up to his own inability to properly use chopsticks... Not like she was doing any better, she has so far just stabbed everything instead of picking it up, subtly pretending like she's a hunter as she tries to stab a piece of fried fish in the deeply red-hot soup.

The other customers, mostly Asians, some were staring at her, and I felt like shrinking.

"Watch your hair." Dove said quietly as she got a spare hair tie out of her suit pocket, handing it over for the girl to use, to which the girl rejected so Dove had to walk around the table, and put the braided rope hair into a shorter bundle to prevent it from falling into the soup or food.

She ended up grabbing just a bit more napkins that she hoped wasn't a disturbing amount for a customer to grab to clean the table later. She stared at some spots of soup that spilled out as they were all eating. She too ended up spilling a bit of water during the bits of daydreaming that occurred to her in this relaxing event, observing the mess, the napkins she grabbed and a janitor cleaning some of the messy, empty tables a good few yards away.

A tired face and slightly slouched shoulders, yet a smile for passersby who wave or speak to them. 

Are they doing that on impulse as a customer service worker, or are they genuinely happy to socialize? Or could it be them trying desperately to hide their negative feelings? She has no ghost looming over her shoulder.

"An even more unlikely theory than Joon's spiteful chefs one, would be that the chefs purposefully make food that is easy to make a mess of, so as to make more work for the janitors, and that would either be a slightly kind, or very rude thing of them to do, depending on how the janitors are paid. But then again, also very unlikely, as in this world it takes too much effort to do anything out of what work already requires of you." She said quietly, looking off into the distance where the Janitor just was.

She turns her head and feels unnerved by their heads that have leaned in, clearly listening.

Annabelle hummed in interest.

"Well, a very small detail but if it were true, then I think it'd be very nice if they knew the janitor might get canned for not being useful enough."

"They do take a lot of janitors for granted nowadays."

Dove blinked surprised, humming to herself as she continued eating one of the mild plastic bento trays Joon chose.

"Thanks for humoring me."

"I think I like your dry humor so far." Joon said, to which Dove was speechless.

How was I supposed to respond to that without ruining it?

"This is twigim, it's really good. Here, eat it with these rice cakes too." He said as he pushed it towards her.

The rice cakes were covered in this orange sauce, it smelled a bit spicy but tasted mild, tangy and perfectly salted. I wish I was able to try more unique foods when I was little.

She made no objections and had since been trying to carefully eat it with the chopsticks she is still getting used to holding, but it was easy.

A person just needs to hold it the way they would hold a pencil, just with an extra finger.

"I was worried you two would get a lot."

"I was going to, but then I saw this." Annabelle gestured to the pot on her tray filled with red soup that was just now cooling down, having almost picked all the fish filets out, the vegetables were too difficult to stab in the soup, she had to eat those normally.

The smiling blonde would stab some pieces, holding her chopstick up like a skewer and eating them like that, almost forgetting the rice, even putting some pieces on the others plates every now and then. There was a lot. Vernon would take the ones Annabelle gave him and put them on Dove's tray, when it became too much for her, she would take some and put them on Joon's, Joon had already pushed one of the bowls of noodles he ordered towards Annabelle.

"Do you not like rice?"

"I just can't stand the texture, usually if I didn't have a choice, I'd just mash them down more."

"They're fully cooked, see." Dove leaned over to pick up some with her chopsticks, squishing the few grains with ease and letting them fall back on the tray, they made no sound, unlike rice that isn't fully cooked.

Fully cooked rice is squishable and doesn't make clattering sounds when it falls. I remember learning that, it made me sort of happy to be able to share that knowledge for once.

"No, I know, but I still don't like the texture."

"Alright then, I'll take them." Joon said as Dove passed them to him across the table.

Dove helped with cleaning and took that as her chance to collect the receipts for each of the meals the two ordered, doing the math and memory in her head as she pocketed the receipts, stacking up the bowls and wiping down the table. Annabelle was looking for a place to place the trays as Joon helped her to wipe down the table.

"Should probably avoid sauce next time." She murmured mostly to herself.

"The tasty sauce is worth cleaning up the mess." He murmured back to her.

I feel I should add that sure it was a bit messy, and I was a little embarrassed being there, but I was still giddy- I was actually invited to and had a good time eating lunch with people I barely met! I was afraid I messed it up with my weird thought, but I think we're all weird. This was my first time hanging out with company like this! We even talked about a stupid theory like the chefs and their whole- making food slippery so customers make a mess for the janitor. Who would talk about something stupid like that? Apparently, we did, I made probably the dumbest theory about it, but no one looked or talked down on me for it.

She pulls her wallet out of her suit jacket's pockets as they leave the food court, even the type to keep cash on for convenience, and pulls out the calculated amount for the bento she ate, handing it to Joon.

He gives her a weird look.

"Huh?"

"Uh, it's to pay you for the rice cakes and stuff?"

"Oh, nah no need! I'm not the one in college, you drove us here anyway."

"Oh that's right..." Annabelle said out of her daze after feeling the wind.

The silver-haired girl puts her money away hesitantly as she thinks to herself.

Around the corner of the food court, she spots some kind of bush thing moving, no one else gave it any attention, some walked disturbingly close to it. It looked like it had eyes. Dove started ushering everyone to their seats.

This one looked like it had a fully stitched face, and took great effort in opening it's eyes, but it did to look at us.

"I don't think I've seen any of you anywhere around campus during the spring semester." She says as Dove leads them back to the car, looking over the seats before letting Annabelle hop in again.

Joon wanted to do the same but his prosthetic bends just slower than his other knee and he didn't want to be rude in kicking the vehicle.

Annabelle, ever the graceful being, somehow avoids hitting the seats with her shoes, more graceful than any human, hopping into the front passenger seat.

"I dropped out, didn't really have much of a presence at the campus anyway so that's probably why."

Dove was in her own world as she listened to them, starting her car gently, the vehicle model was built stronger than most modern cars, but she worries for the engine even though there's never been an issue before.

Vernon goes to a different university that specializes in horticulture, he's still taking the summer semester as he wanted to keep his routine the same, Joon dropped out, but he used to major in engineering, Annabelle is currently majoring in Psychology, and she's already signed up for a minor in theater arts-

"Hello!"

The girl let out an annoyed sound as she focuses back on the road.

"Don't scream like that, what if I jerk the wheel?"

She simply shrugs.

"Sorry but you weren't listening."

"I was, just not to the right things I guess."

"What are you majoring in?" The tall blonde asked, to which the company became silent.

Dove took a deep breath in.

"I'm not in college, I'm just working right now."

The silence then disappeared as Annabelle tilted her head.

"Why did it take you so long to say that? Sheesh. Well, might be a good choice, I have no idea what I'm doing!" She said before cackling carelessly.

Dove grimaced for her out of concern, and in thinking of herself in her place.

The last time I did something long term without a full plan, it was the worst decision that cost me everything.

"I just took the semester off because I wanted my summer freedom."

"If you're the type of person for freedom, then why did you sign up for college? You're gonna graduate poor, when the money you're earning now could be used for traveling." Joon told her in a symphonic-teasing voice as he leaned back in the back seat with Vernon, taking in the wind without having to lean his head past the car door.

"Character development obviously! Besides, I have to look like one of the normal people, no matter how many dumb choices they make financially and medically. Although, I guess I also like the idea of having a goal, something I can feel proud of after achieving it."

"I don't usually feel proud after achieving a goal if the process was bad and sucked, I'll just remember that it sucked, and even when my mother will ask, 'aren't you proud of yourself?', I tell her, 'no, my body hurts and I forgot the whole reason I did this for. I can't finish a goal if I know I won't like the process."

The girl driving hummed to herself, gripping the old-style steering wheel.

"Yeah, I can't either..."

She tried to rush back into the building after parking, unfortunately she was yanked back as Annabelle pulled her phone out.

"Here." She held her phone up.

Dove jerked back, her brain nearly having an error at the fast social interaction.

"Your number." Annabelle said as she shook her phone in Dove's face, showing the screen to be on a page to input the number into new contacts.

"Oh..."

The silver haired girl looked at the two boys who shrugged.

"She has ours too so it's only fair."

Right, she's pretty eccentric, definitely already had their numbers since she met them first.