You Weren't Supposed to See That (Rainforest Spirit and Tinder)

Jareth watched as Liang gestured for him to go ahead before beginning to walk. His bemused smile returned as he started after the brunette. This must be why they say truth is stranger than fiction. Never in a hundred years could he have made-up a persona like Jack Liang for Phantasm. He wasn’t that creative. It had to be either the greatest act or the greatest paradox he’d ever witnessed.

He caught up to Liang as they started down the stairs. “Sounds good. I haven’t been out to eat in a few…months. Unless eating in a cafeteria counts.” He frowned. God that sounds pathetic. Eating at the college had become Jareth’s way of treating himself; a decent meal that he didn’t have to cook. Well arguable decent. They made pizza that tasted marginally better than the frozen variety and had semi-fresh produce. Jareth had the sad realization that was the closed he’d gotten to fine dining since moving to the city. He needed to stop dwelling on the current quality of his existence.

Time to change the topic, he thought as they exited the building onto the street. “So…” He trailed off as he searched his mind for something to talk about. Their previous conversations--all two of them--had both centered on Liang’s secret which Jareth doubted he’d want to talk about in public. Best to move on to something more casual, maybe attempt to actually get to know the other man before another morality debate broke out. “How long have you been living here?”
 
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"Sounds good," Jareth intoned as they made to exit the building. "I haven’t been out to eat in a few… months. Unless eating in a cafeteria counts."

Liang cast an odd glance at the other man. "Uh, only if my nightly walk to the corner store for groceries constitutes an exciting night out. Seriously, man, you might actually be the one person under eighty years old in this entire city whose social life is deader than mine is." And then, as if worried the words may have come across more mean-spirited than they'd been intended, he smiled unevenly, and added, "Okay, on second thought, at least you have the campus social scene, such as it may be. You may still have me beat there."

By then, they had stepped out into the city streets; it was spring then, and an unusually warm one at that, and the sidewalks were thronged with shoppers and city-goers eager to enjoy the sunny weather and the sights and luxuries of Metro City. The later hours of the day would bring out a different crowd as the city's vibrant night-life revved up, but for now, a pleasant, easygoing atmosphere had fallen upon the sun-baked streets. I forgot how nice this batshit insane city can be when you're not robbing it, Liang observed, watching children chase one another and couples joke and laugh in the sunshine.

Downtown was maybe a half-hour's walk away, through the sprawling Metro Park (Liang had vivid memories of his mother dragging him out to the tennis courts there in a doomed effort to get the bookish child physically active) and into the heart of the city. As they started down the street towards downtown, Jareth asked, "So, how long have you been living here?"

"Here as in-- ?" Liang jerked a thumb towards the building they'd just left, before reconsidering and adding, "Oh, uh, I was born in Metro City. Been here my whole life. Can't even remember the last time I left for any meaningful period of time, to be honest. How about you-- you from here too?"
 
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Jareth took in the activity around them of strolling families and groups of teenagers window shopping. The pleasant weather almost made losing his extra sleep worth it. Living and working in the rundown end of town, among other issues, allowed him little time to see appreciate the better parts of Metro City. The people at his university often talked about restaurants and shops that they frequented, always insisting that Jareth ought to see them sometime. He always told them he would when he had the time and money; short hand for in the next century. Apparently the only encouragement he’d needed was to be offered a free lunch.

Liang took a minute to clarify Jareth’s question before answering. It made sense Liang being from the city. He moved like someone who had walked this ground for years and knew it well. He must have if he could escape from Nisha as he often did. “How about you—you from here too?”

Jareth shook his head. “I grew up in Strapford about four hours south of here. Pretty small, the sort of place most everyone leaves after they get out of high school.” He hadn’t thought of his hometown in a while. Not a bad place to live but closer in quality to the lower end of Metro City. “I moved here a few years ago to go to school. Ended up in our building to make paying my way through school easier.” He smirked. “It’s a shithole but about the most affordable place in the city.”
 
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“Huh.” Liang was silent for a moment, racking his brains for any recollection of a place called Stratford and coming up decidedly empty-handed. Folks in Metro City tended not to be terribly concerned with the stretches of rural farmland and villages that lay on the outskirts of the commuter belt. And if they left town, it was to shop in the shimmering electric districts of New Cosmopolis, or to visit friends and family who had settled for domestic indolence in the placid suburbs of Fairville—you know, places they had heard of. Sure as hell nobody was taking a four hour trip to freakin’ Stratford.

“Yep, never heard of it,” he finally confirmed, satisfied that the town wasn’t hiding in some dark recess of his memory. “Guess I can’t blame you for moving out here, but honestly, pretty much this whole city is a shithole. Either you work your ass off day and night to afford a tiny studio apartment in the ass end of town, or you get put up in a cushy penthouse courtesy of a couple million bucks from Mom and Dead.”

As they walked along, the residential district on the outskirts of downtown—mostly low-income housing, much of it claimed by city college students from out of town—began to give way to the constellation of little esplanades that orbited Metro Park. Stone paths snaked their way from the sidewalk and through the grass into the parks, punctuated here and there with benches beneath the shade of the trees, waystations for weary pedestrians. Continue down the street for a couple of miles, and you’d wind up at the Metro City College; take a right at the college and continue another half a mile or so and you’d find yourself downtown. But you could get there a lot faster cutting through Metro Park, and so Liang led Jareth off the sidewalk and onto one of the paths to the park.

They were far from the only ones there. Every couple of minutes, a jogger would come sweating their way past as they walked—or they’d come across a group of friends tossing a frisbee around, college students enjoying a day off—or they’d pass by a family with a picnic laid out on the rolling green hillside. They made small talk as they went—idle chitchat about the city, about the college (Liang had, he admitted, been a student there for a couple of years before dropping out, to his parents’ malaise), about work. It had been so long since Liang had made small talk, he’d almost forgotten how to do it—almost forgotten how to have any kind of prolonged conversation that wasn’t witty repartee with a superhero or a bout of cackling with another of Metro City’s Most Wanted. Still, he liked to think he held his own.

‘Held my own’, he repeated silently, restraining the urge to scowl. Like it was a damn boxing match.

Metro Park became Metro Downtown like a cliff dropping off into the sea—it came out of nowhere, tranquil stone paths and lazy green hillsides displaced in the blink of an eye by bustling sidewalks and storefronts. Liang glanced down the row of shops and restaurants in search of Japanese cuisine (he'd said it was a Japanese place, right?), and was relieved to catch sight of Sunset Sushi not far down the street. "That's the place I mentioned earlier," he said, nodding towards it. "Best, uh, Japanese food in all of Metro City."
 
Their conversation flowed better than Jareth anticipated. The longer they talked, the easier it became for him to forget the secret identity of his seemingly mild-mannered neighbor. He stopped being Phantasm, the city’s most wanted thief, and started being just Jack Liang, one of the few people with less going on in his life than Jareth. Well, less if he intentionally ignored the super villainy. Though Liang had more to him, the ordinary him, than he first let on. Nothing extraordinary, just that down to earth quality that made him easy to talk to. Yeah, he came off a little awkward from time to time, but it made him more approachable. Almost charming in that bumbling kind of way.

He felt like in another life they could have been friends.

Upon arriving downtown, Jareth took the chance to look around. He rarely got to this part of town. His life revolved around work and school and studying to get out of his shitty job, so being anywhere without the constant fear of being mugged was a refreshing change of pace. So many people walked around down here just enjoying their lives with the constant need to glance over their shoulders.

His attention swerved back to Liang when he mentioned the restaurant. Had he said Japanese? He thought he had said Chinese. Shit, if he said that, would Liang think he was racist for confusing one of the other? If he came off as a jerk, that would destroy the little rapport that they had managed to build on the walk over. Rather than risk it, he nodded. “Sounds good. It’s been a while since I had sushi.” Specifically about a year since he had that dollar plate in the cafeteria which left him feeling wrong for about a week. This place had to be better than that…he hoped.

He hooked his thumbs into his pockets as he sauntered toward it. “I don’t think I’ve been downtown since the first year I came here. I forgot how nice it looks. Do you get down here much when you’re not…working?”
 
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"I don't think I've been downtown since the first year I came here," Jareth idly remarked as they went. Liang glanced at him—had to glance up just a little, hadn’t realized until now just how much taller Jareth was than he was. Frowning, he trained his eyes back on the door to the Japanese restaurant, squared his shoulders back, and tried to very subtly stand up a little straighter. When this failed to result in a spontaneous eight-inch growth spurt, he conceded defeat and almost visibly deflated.

“Do you get down here much when you’re not… working?” Jareth finished. Liang pushed the door open and held it for Jareth, gesturing with a little flourish for him to proceed. It had only gotten warmer as they had walked, and he was grateful for the cool air inside the restaurant against his skin. So too, he suspected, were the many families packed inside the place, lined up along the sushi bar and thronged around every table. For a moment, he worried that there might be a wait—hell, he didn’t know what he was doing as it was, if they threw a five-minute wait at him now everything was sure to go off the rails.

Blessedly, they weren’t there five seconds before a chipper young waiter—probably a college student himself—appeared like a mirage from behind the row of philodendrons that separated the waiting area from the restaurant floor. “Two? Right this way!” he effervesced as he appeared, very nearly causing Liang to jump into the philodendrons.

“I, uh, try to,” he finally managed to answer as the waiter led the way to a little table for two nestled in the back of the restaurant. He took a seat and, before he could so much as blink, the waiter had waters and menus on the table in front of them. “On those rare occasions that I have the time. It kind of grounds me, you know? It reminds me that I’m more than… uh, what I do for work. It reminds me that I’m still a person.” Oh god, was that too much? That was too much. I went way overboard with that answer.

To cover for his misstep, Liang grabbed the menu and attempted to read it, and was briefly flummoxed by his inability to read any of the item names before he realized he was holding it upside down. Clearly, turning it over would only draw attention to it, so he decided his only recourse was to pretend he hadn’t noticed. When the waiter appeared, again out of damn near nowhere, to take their order, he merely pointed at one of a photo of what looked like an upside down bowl of thin noodles, and though the waiter gave him an odd look, he was mercifully silent.

“Anyway,” Liang piped up as the waiter collected their menus and whisked off. “Enough about me, I’m not all that interesting. What’s your deal? Like, what’re you majoring in?” He leaned back in his chair, rubbing his chin thoughtfully with a curious smirk. “I’m guessing… psych, or something like that.”
 
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Jareth nodded along as Liang spoke, only somewhat distracted by the cozy little corner the waiter had tucked them into. Despite the many people in the restaurant—Liang had to be right about this place being good—their table felt isolated from the others. While it allowed them more privacy for chatting, it hardly felt like the sort of table two friends got when going out to eat together. Or maybe he was reading too much into the placement of a table. Were they even friends or just neighbors brought together by circumstances?

Liang scooping his menu up distracted Jareth from his foolish thoughts as he hurried to do the same. He didn’t want to make Liang wait forever or keep awkwardly making small talk while the guy read. Since this wasn’t his money, Jareth turned his attention to the lunch specials. Thankfully, they had several deals for a plate of sushi that looked to be a reasonable price given what the dinner dishes ran for. He managed to settle on a veggie and crab plate just before the waiter reappeared.

Once the order was in, Liang got back to chatting thankfully. After that menu grab earlier, Jareth thought he might have pissed off on the way over.

“Near-ish but not quite there.” He took a sip of water, blissfully cool after their walk over. “I’m a nursing major and you can keep the jokes to yourself. I know there aren’t many men in this field and I don’t care. I wanted a decent job that will stay in demand where I can help people. It’s hard paying my way through a four year, but I’m making it work. I can’t wait for the day when I can get registered as a nursing assistant and quite my current crap job.”

Not that he had much of hope of actually doing that given the other reasons behind him having that job.

“So what do you do? During the…day.” Suddenly, their isolated booth seemed like a godsend. “I’ve passed you in the hall in the mornings before, so do you have a nine to five or something?”
 
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Was it only Liang’s own nerves, polluting his perception of the world, that made Jareth seem every bit as apprehensive as Liang himself felt? He thought he could see it in the way Jareth seemed distracted as they were brought to the table, the way he glanced at Liang when he grabbed the menu, heck, even the way he spoke.

It began to sink in—This really is just as weird for him as it is for me, isn’t it? Not for the first time, Liang found himself wondering if this was all a good idea. I swear, I’m the only supervillain in town who winds up in these situations, he could have grumbled to himself. I mean, can you imagine Headhunter getting lunch with her next door neighbor after accidentally outing her secret identity to him? Hell no. She’d’ve turned Jareth into a shish kebab.

And yet somehow, here he still was, enjoying what must have been the first instance of small talk he’d had with another human being since his college days. Hell, the more Jareth talked about his nursing aspirations, the more Liang found himself restraining an earnest smile, and the thought of the absurdity of their situation—or of shish-kebabing Jareth—vanished from his mind.

“No, no,” he was quick to assure the other man. “No jokes here. I think that’s… you know, great. That you want to help people, I mean. Sure as hell beats what I do for a day job.” He made a dour face. “I work in a warehouse. That’s probably where you’ve seen me heading off to in the mornings. I mean, it pays the bills and all, but it’s not exactly a labor of love. So if you can find a job where you do what you love, help people, and get paid all at the same time…” He raised his glass of water in a kind of toast. “Screw what anybody else says. Right?”

The food arrived in short order—Liang was relieved to find the noodles lived up to his inadvertent quality guarantee—and the conversation continued, light and airy as ever before. They artfully danced around the subject of Liang’s nightly activities, of the previous week’s unexpected encounter with Phantasm, of superheroes and supervillains. For all the world, they might as well have just been two friends grabbing lunch on a warm spring day in a city that didn’t routinely get demolished by people with superpowers.

Hell, by the time Liang slurped down the last noodle and paid Jareth’s bill, he’d damn near forgotten it all himself. He held the door for Jareth as they stepped out from the cool air of the restaurant and into the warmth and sunshine of downtown, and said, “Man, that was actually really good… Uh, as usual, of course.” He scratched the back of his head, and added, “So… what now?”
 
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As it turned out, Jareth liked sushi when it was made fresh by someone who had actually learned how to make it. He made a mental note to remember this place if he ever had the chance to splurge again in the next decade. Once he had taken care of Liang’s meal, he followed him out of the restaurant feeling much better than before. Liang, as it turned out, was a chill guy once the initial awkwardness had passed. Or rather once Jareth had grown accustomed to the awkwardness. He had yet to understand how this man could be the same one who routinely cracked jokes with the local superheroine on TV, but it mattered less and less as the day wore on.

Liang’s question, however, caught him off guard. He had assumed they would go their separate ways after lunch, yet he found himself biting his tongue. Probably because this was his first real opportunity to social outside of work or school this year and he wanted to keep it going. Not even his desperation for sleep overcame this new urge.

But what could they do? He searched his memory for mention of a place or event or movie that Liang might be into. What had people in class talked about—wait.

“I know about a festival going on this weekend. If you’re game.” He cleared his throat, trying to think of a way to sell this to someone who routinely duked it out with a superheroine for fun. “There’s a spring festival that my university does. Nothing huge, mostly food booths, games, and a couple of rides. I thought about checking it out, but I never found a group to go with.” Did that sound normal? He hoped it sounded normal. He shrugged. “It might be fun. Unless you’ve got somewhere to be. No pressure.”
 
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That little moment of hesitation didn’t go unnoticed—hell, Liang hadn’t made it this far in the business of villainy by being oblivious. He could see Jareth biting his tongue, holding something back, considering. For just a moment—a fleeting, panicked moment—Liang wondered if he’d overstepped some unseen boundary, if he’d made the mistake of seeing something that wasn’t there. He hadn’t meant to imply he wanted to spend more time with the guy, but hell, he did, and not just because the rest of Liang’s night otherwise consisted of a family-size bag of potato chips, his couch, and reruns of Sonnets for a Super. As far as Jareth was concerned, Liang was the bad guy, a threat so long as Jareth knew the secret that could be his undoing.

But—not for the first time—Jareth surprised him. Liang hardly had a chance to walk things back before Jareth spoke up. “I know about a festival going on this weekend, if you’re game,” he said. He cleared his throat—was he nervous about this, too? “There’s a spring festival that my university does. Nothing huge, mostly food booths, games, and a couple of rides. I thought about checking it out, but I never found a group to go with. It might be fun. Unless you’ve got somewhere to be. No pressure.”

Liang had to give himself credit where credit was due—he didn’t immediately give voice to his first thought, which was I can’t even begin to say how much I don’t have somewhere to be. He didn’t give voice to his second immediate thought, either, which was Oh thank God I didn’t weird him out or anything. Instead, after a second’s pause, he gave voice to his third immediate thought: “You know what? That sounds good.”


.


.


.


“Man, these people are total amateurs.”

Day had given way to evening, and the sun in its death throes had cast shades of red and orange across the deep, dark sky. The cool evening air had brought a new crowd out-- gone were the joggers and families out for lunch, the university friends tossing around a frisbee. Couples walking arm in arm and hand in hand thronged the streets, strolling between the festival stalls, stopping to play a game or grab a bite to eat. Many were headed for the ferris wheel at the end of Main Street, because, as Liang had become aware after years of rom-coms and TV shows, few activities were more romantic than being suspended two hundred feet above the ground on a hastily-erected contraption.

Not that Liang had any problem with heights-- you really didn’t have much reason to be afraid of falling when you were pretty much capable of flight-- but the moment he and Jareth had met back up near the start of Main Street and begun working their way through the festival, he’d had eyes for only the games. He’d always had a competitive streak. Most villains did. Hell, plenty of heroes did, too, even if they liked to pretend their motives for fighting crime were purely righteous. It was the thrill of the competition, of besting Metro City’s most wanted-- or its best and brightest.

The same competitive streak that had drawn him into nightly battle against the resident superhero had prompted him to drag Jareth off to the darts booth the moment he laid eyes on it. Had Liang ever thrown a dart in his life? No, he had not. Was he walking up to the booth with all the confidence of a professional darts player? Damn right he was. As he approached to take the place of the latest amateur, he even glanced over at Jareth, grinned, and said, “Lemme show you how it’s really done.” All the while, his right hand was stuffed in the pocket of his jeans, clenching the bunched up fabric of Phantasm’s mask, as if it were a totem through which he could summon strength and grit.

The woman working the booth had just finished pinning up balloons to replace those that had been popped by the last player. Above the board, three rows of prizes had been arranged-- your standard-issue carnival fare, stuffed animals, toys, paraphernalia and whatnot. The woman turned to him with a smile, holding out three darts with bright red tails. “We have three tiers of prizes,” she explained as he took them. “If you pop one balloon, you can choose anything from that first row--” She pointed, prompting Liang to briefly wonder if she thought he was brain-damaged and incapable of distinguishing what the first row was. “Two balloons for the second, and so on.”

He frowned. “I can hit any of them? That’s it?” he said dubiously. Hell, that almost seemed too easy. Feeling pretty confident as he stepped up to the chalk line in front of the booth, he tossed one of the darts up in the air, and then astonished himself by managing to catch it by the tail instead of impaling his hand with it. Hey, maybe I’ve got a knack for this darts business.

It was a pleasant thought that was promptly dispelled the moment he threw the first dart. He watched it sail through the air, missing the booth altogether and spinning off into the street. Wincing a little, he glanced at the woman running the booth. “Sorry,” he said tepidly. “That was, uh, a warmup.” She didn’t look particularly convinced as she went off to retrieve the wayward dart. As she returned, he looked back at Jareth, and then shoved his hand back in his pocket, grabbing hold of the mask. No way he was going to be zero for four in front of Jareth. Phantasm had a reputation to uphold, after all-- I mean, imagine if it somehow got back to Nisha that I missed every single dart. That’d be a disaster. I’d never hear the end of it. It’d be darts puns for the next year.

Resolved, he squared his shoulders back and stepped back up to the line. He reared back and cocked his arm as if he were about to throw a baseball rather than a dart, and then sent it flying. It veered off to the left for just a second before Liang reached for it psychically, latching onto it and guiding it right to the balloon at the center of the board. Smirking a little, he fired off the second-- it seemed about ready to soar above the board before it corrected itself midair and found its way to the balloon right next to the first dart.

“... wow,” the woman said as Liang turned away from the board, hands on hips and triumphant grin on face. She stared at the board, brow furrowed. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen a dart do that.”

Liang waved the words away modestly. “It's, uh, a special technique I learned a while back.” He looked back at the prizes over the board, and said, “So… what, I can pick anything off the second row?”

“That’s right. Anything you want.”

In the end, he walked away with an enormous stuffed dog whose shaggy black bulk damn near blocked Liang himself from sight. “It looked much smaller up on the wall,” his voice emerged from somewhere behind the dog as he approached Jareth.
 
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Much to Jareth’s surprise, the day went well after they made the decision to go to the carnival. Well, not to immediately go. No one would be there before sunset unless they had small children and neither of them had any interest in being amongst that crowd. They wasted away the hours just walking around the city and chatting. The unspoken agreement not to speak of Liang’s other job remained, so they focused instead on what areas they had in common such as school and working dead-end jobs for the paycheck, though one of them used said paycheck as more of a cover. Despite the little reminders, Jareth soon forgot that the man beside was anything other than his neighbor. Some nerves remained between them as it always did when two people were getting to know one another, but soon it began to feel just like a couple of guys spending the day chilling together.

And for a psychotic villain, Liang was fun to hangout with.

By the time they decided to make their way to the carnival, Jareth already found himself having more fun than he’d had in weeks, maybe even months. For once he had no concerns over money or his job or any of the baggage that dogged his steps around the city. Liang actually helped him out by showing him around the parts of the city that he knew, something which Jareth could have used a few years back. It was hard to dedicate time to exploring when he either had to be earning money for rent or studying to avoid having to retake any of his classes. Now he had the names of a few restaurants and shops that he might actually try to revisit if he ever had the cash to spare. Or maybe he could go back to them with Liang.

Though thinking about future hangouts might come off as presumptuous. Liang had his own life and Jareth had no idea if the enjoyment he was getting out of this was mutual. Not to mention getting comfortable around a supervillain seemed like a decidedly bad idea. A thought which fell flat when he watched Liang run off toward one of the game booths like a kid going into a candy store.

Jareth chuckled as he paused to watch the game. The girl running the booth seemed to have a good sense of humor about the whole thing despite the game itself probably being rigged to force parents to dedicate twenty bucks to get the plushies for their screaming children. Donations all went to the college for scholarships, so not many people bothered complaining.

It took real effort to keep himself from laughing again when Liang discovered that truth for himself as his first shot sailed far from his intended target and nearly hit a young couple walking past. Damn, rigged or not, that was sad. Which made it almost no surprise when the following shots all miraculously found their marks despite their wonky flight paths. He had never known what Phantasm’s powers actually were—other than apparently being able to phase people into walls—but they must have extended to being able to manipulate a manipulative game. He shook his head while Liang picked out a giant dog plushie, not about to make a fuss over him cheating at a carnival game. The school duped more than enough people on nights like these to make up for any losses.

“That was some throwing technique,” he joked when Liang returned. “Not many people can redirect a dart mid-throw.” He shook his head and picked the dog up from Liang’s grasp, tucking it under his arm. “How about I carry this so you don’t mow down a small child when we’re walking around? Injuries might make tonight more complicated than anyone wants it to be.”

He glanced around the nearby booths. “I think I know that guy running the overpriced lemonade stand over there. Want to see if I can get us some free drinks?” He motioned with his head before he started toward the stand in question.

Sure enough, Lenard, a pre-med major who often bemoaned his choice of majors during their early morning anatomy class, stood behind the counter cutting up lemons. He waved as soon as he saw Jareth approaching. “Hey, man! Great to see you. I didn’t think you were coming out to this thing. Looks like you’ve already been busy cleaning Libby out.”

Jareth shook his head and indicated Liang where he stood. “My friend did the cleaning, I’m just doing the carrying. You giving out free samples tonight?”

“For the needy? Always.” He grinned as he set about mixing up two cups. “It’s been good, but I think we’re nearing the end soon. The kids are going to be going to bed and anyone left will be heading for the bars before too long. I’ve got plans to meet up with a few people myself. Feel like joining us for a pint tonight?”

“Still broke, man. And I’m busy tonight.”

Lenard glanced between Jareth and Liang. “Oh? What kind of busy?”

“Get your nose out of my business,” Jareth shot back after the juvenile taunt. “We’re just doing the kind of socializing that doesn’t have an eight dollar charge.”

Lenard set a pair of glasses in front of him. “Lame!” His attention turned to Liang. “You a student around here? I don’t’ think I’ve ever seen you.”
 
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Liang reluctantly allowed the enormous canine to be pried from his arms, looking dour as a French bulldog after a bad vet visit. “You know, I could lift you and that dog, no sweat,” he grumbled as he followed along after Jareth. “And the lemonade stand too, while I’m at it. I’m just saying, if I could use my powers without being assaulted by a million news crews and Metro City’s finest…”

He trailed off into an indignant silence as they approached the lemonade stand, mulling over all the mild inconveniences in life he could have circumvented if only he could’ve used his powers in public. Times like this, he thought-- oh, times like this, he could almost sympathize with old Animus and his whole super supremacy schtick. I mean, really, Liang mused, you set aside all that stuff about committing genocide against the human race and clearing the world for ownership by supers, the guy had a decent argument.

By the time Liang had quit relating to the philosophies of erstwhile psychopathic supervillains and tuned back into the real world, he’d already missed the start of Jareth’s conversation with the lemonade stand guy. More to the point, he tuned back in just in time to catch the lemonade guy looking from him to Jareth as if he’d just pieced together an amusing secret. “Oh?” he chirped innocuously. “What kind of busy?”

“Get your nose out of my business,” Jareth shot back. Liang blinked, half of his brain still back on the pleasant fantasy of being able to use his powers in public. The minute the rest of his brain caught up to the moment and he realized what the two men were talking about, his face went about as red as a strawberry. To try and cover for his embarrassment, he grabbed the freshly-poured glass of lemonade and downed it like a shot. This mainly had the effect of compounding his embarrassment when he promptly began choking on the lemonade.

“N-no,” he sputtered between coughs. “Not a-- not a student.” He finally managed to get the hacking and coughing under control long enough to stick a hand out and offer a timid, “Jack Liang. Professional darts thrower.”
 
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In that moment Jareth knew that if he had wanted to out Liang no one would believe him. He was the antithesis of the villainous persona he portrayed for the headlines. Jareth had begun to wonder if Liang didn’t have two people in his head in addition to his villainous inclination. It would explain such an abrupt personality shift. Either that or he was a selectively good actor which seemed equally as puzzling. Was Liang an average man with a theatrical hidden life or was he actually playing Jareth for a fool?

Lenard took hold of his outstretched hand and grinned. “Good thing they rigged the game before you showed up then or you’d have a whole zoo of stuffed animals going home with you,” he chuckled.

Jareth doubted that, though Liang had already cheated to get the overstuffed canine to bring home so maybe he would have continued on if the game had been easier. “I’d say more of a professional prankster.”

“Aren’t we all?” Lenard joked as he cleaned up his cutting board. “How long have you two been friends then? Did you meet at work or something?”

“We’re recent acquaintances.” Jareth decided to leave that answer there and picked up his cup to take a sip. His lips contorted when the taste hit him. “You’re putting way too much sugar in this. I’m guessing no one gave you a recipe.”

Lenard snickered, “They’re just hoping I don’t give too much of it away. Do what other stands are you two gonna hit up? More food? Rides?”