"Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks." -Gandhi
Years
Old
Male
Zulfikar
IS OFFLINE
32 POSTS & 0 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Zulfikar on Jul 25, 2015 1:52:36 GMT
Zulfikar was curious as to why he didn't see any staff on the way down, but if they were anywhere, they're probably here. That's why it was so strange when the hall was empty, even by basement standards. Everything was well kept, but there were no decoractions, no clutter, no staff, no anything. The lights were dim, but still bright enough to make out the two doors in the room. In fact, one of them was practically glowing with light.
Zulfikar walked over to the glowing room and futilely attempted to get it open. "This must be the boiler room. There's even a small water resevoir in case of a fire." The room was useful, but not particularly interesting. Certainly not interesting enough to please the audience Zulfikar performed for. Fortunately, the second room was far more entertaining.
The second room wasn't as bright as the boiler room, but it was much better than the hallway. It was easy for Zulfikar to notice this room was a wine cellar. Of course, this door was locked as well. Not that he could do anything there in the first place. "I don't think the staff is planning an underage cocktail party, so these must be staff rooms. Where is the staff, anyway? It can't just be those two counselors. Are they even old enough to drink?" Zulfikar decided that he would find the answers sooner if he asked Lucca what he thought. "Hey, Lucca! What do you make of all this?" Lucca was a bit more cautious with the stairs, but Zulfikar was sure Lucca heard everything he said.
(No inner monologue here. All quotes were spoken out loud.) |
|
Years
Old
Male
Lucca Bello
IS OFFLINE
40 POSTS & 1 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Lucca Bello on Jul 25, 2015 2:56:50 GMT
Lucca followed Zulfikar down to the basement. He had trouble keeping up since Zulfikar had darted over to the basement stairs a quick as possible. Lucca had never been a fan of basements since they kinda creep him out, but he decided to give it a try since everything upstairs was so nice. Lucca slowly walked down the the wooden stairs, trying to keep his balance as there was no railing to hold on to. Each stair creaked as he walked on each one. "How fitting", Lucca thought. Although this basement wasn't as creepy as some others he's seen, he still didn't feel very comfortable in it. "Hey, Lucca! What do you make of all this?" "I'm not really sure, to be honest. It just seems like a normal basement to me. But, it is kinda cold down here don't you think?" Lucca hadn't even noticed but he had goosebumps all along his arms. Even though he had a hoodie on he still felt fairly cold."And also where's all the staff? I find it very hard to believe that they're down here drinking until they pass out while there's a bunch of high school students upstairs. And I also refuse to believe that those two are the only ones working here." "The atmosphere down here feels very different from the one upstairs. Upstairs felt very warm and friendly, but the one down here felt very sad and unwelcoming, almost as if we shouldn't be down here." Lucca thought to himself. Lucca decided to brush off the strange atmosphere and continue talking to Zulfikar, because his main goal for inviting him was to get to know him better. "Hey Zulf, you don't mind if I call you Zulf, right? Could you tell me more about yourself? I want to start getting to know the people here since we'll be living together for a little while." "Oh god I really hope he doesn't think I'm weird for asking that." |
|
"Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks." -Gandhi
Years
Old
Male
Zulfikar
IS OFFLINE
32 POSTS & 0 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Zulfikar on Jul 25, 2015 4:04:56 GMT
"Yeah, it is. Wait.. that's wierd. The boiler in the other room should be heating the hallway up." Zulfikar hadn't noticed it before, but the basement hall was surprisingly cold. No room should be this cold when it's next to a boiler. Zulfikar writes it off for now, but he writes it in his notes just in case. "Maybe they're cooling the wine cellar and it spread into here?" Zulfikar knew that didn't make sense, but thinking about it was starting to put him on edge. He would just ask the staff about it later.
"I wanted to go down here because I thought I would find some staff, but this hallway is practically dead. It's almost like the basement isn't supposed to be here at all." Zulfikar was sure the basement was sucking the life out of him now. There's nothing he could think of to lighten the mood, and it was starting to get to him. It was embarassing him to be so worried. He usually has something fun to say, but what could you say about this place?
"Call me whatever you want. I'll be fine." That was kind of a lie, but Zulfikar can't refuse an offer as simple as that. "I'm a comedian. I shouldn't be offended so easily"
Zulfikar wasn't too excited to talk about himself, but he would do anything to get his mind off the basement. "You want to know more about me? Well, I grew up in Indonesia for staters. My family is poor, so that's why I only have one name. I want to add more to it soon now that I've become so successful. I could always do one of my shows if you want something more specific. Speaking of shows, I saw you in the new Saturn's Rings recently. My condolences, by the way. That movie was horrible! The writers couldn't make decent dialogue to save their life." Zulfikar was glad to lighten the mood, and realized that the basement hall is just fine as long as he was talking to Lucca.
(Italics signal inner monologue. Thanks for the idea, Lucca.)
|
|
Years
Old
Male
Lucca Bello
IS OFFLINE
40 POSTS & 1 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Lucca Bello on Jul 25, 2015 5:09:45 GMT
Lucca could sense a hint of hostility in Zulfikar's voice just then. He could tell that Zulfikar wasn't fond of the nickname he gave him, but he didn't want to make it a bigger deal than it should be so he just ignored it.
"Really? My family is also poor, well, was poor. Ever since I began my acting career I've given most of the money I earn to my mom and sister so that they can have a luxurious life, a life that we didn't have when we were young. They're actually the reason that I even started acting in the first place, they're the most important people in my life."
Oh god, don't remind me. I may be the SHSL Actor but even I can't save a horrible movie. To be honest I never even wanted to be in that movie, my agent was the one who made me." Lucca's agent, Johnny, he had been Lucca's agent for as long as he could remember. He used to be amazing but over time he got worse and worse. The only reason Lucca hasn't fired him is because he's a nice guy. "I should have fired my agent a long time ago.", Lucca sighed. "I just don't have the heart to do it. He's such a nice guy and I'd couldn't live with myself if I hurt him like that. But I don't really want to talk about that right now, hey would you mind telling me some jokes? I love comedy shows.
It's strange, when Lucca entered the basement he was feeling tense and nervous but all of that just seemed to melt away when he was talking with Zulfikar. He never expected to make a friend this quickly, but Lucca certainly wasn't complaining about that.
|
|
"Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks." -Gandhi
Years
Old
Male
Zulfikar
IS OFFLINE
32 POSTS & 0 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Zulfikar on Jul 25, 2015 7:07:29 GMT
"I wish I had money like that. People won't pay very much to see you when they barely know what country you're from." Some people might have thought that joke hit too close top home, but no comedian is too good for a little self-depreciation. "I still don't know what it's like to live the high life, unless you count sleeping in an airplane. But its nice that you care for your family so much. They must be great people for you to care about them so much." Lucca's love of his family touched Zulfikar more than he'd like to admit. He was amazed at how they had many similarities between them, but they still ended up so different.
"This is great! I'm making progress with the agent, and I have a challenge to test my title! Not even great comedians can do a perfect show on the spot. This is a real test of wether I'm an ultimate." "I can do a show for you! No problem!" Most of Zulfikar's show was about life back in Indonesia, with a few jokes about his tour in the Americas mixed in. "On a good day you can drive from work to your house in about two or three days." "You can tell if its someone's first time in Indonesia because they'll be throwing up on the side of the road." "Imagine the most offensive caricature of a black person you can think of. That is still too subtle to describe how much of a stereotype she was..." "...And that was the story of how our dog almost became a serial killer."
Zulfikar was completely focused on creating friendship between him and Lucca. Zulfikar could feel a bond between the two forming, and if he messed up this show it was back to square one. He didn't need to know more about Lucca's agent right now. Ot was more important that he was enjoying himself, and for Lucca to enjoy him too.
|
|
years old
USER IS OFFLINE
60 POSTS & 9 LIKES
Administrator
|
Post by Arcana on Jul 25, 2015 14:09:30 GMT
It wasn't long before a few jacket-clad staff members left the Boiler Room, locking it behind them.
"Oh? Are you two... some of those new Ultimates that were invited here?" asked one, a taller man with dark hair. "We're fixing up the Boiler Room- it's ancient in there, and needs renovations badly... yet, that prissy Designer isn't going to touch it. It should start getting warmer in here soon, which is good- it's still chilled outside! Did you hear we might get snow in a couple days?" he asked the two.
It seems like this place was indeed a little populated.
"Anyway, you two should probably head upstairs! Once we get that place working, we can open up the rest of the rooms down here. There's a rec room pretty close by, but it's freezing in there so we've closed it down until we fix this place up... a-and scrub away the dust." he said, and promptly sneezed into his sleeve.
"Yeesh... yup, one more day should do it. Goshima, could you order some cleaning staff down here in a bit? They're on the fourth floor or something."
"No problem, Sakamoto." answered a female engineer next to him, before turning to the two teenagers. "Sorry about that. We didn't mean to burst your conversation or anything. Just passing through!" she apologized, before joining her male coworkers to head to the next floor up.
|
|
Years
Old
Male
Lucca Bello
IS OFFLINE
40 POSTS & 1 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Lucca Bello on Jul 25, 2015 17:25:16 GMT
"Yeah they're...." Lucca paused at this, he had never really talked to anyone about his family before ,except to close friends. For some reason he just felt very comfortable talking to Zulfikar about it. "They're two of the most caring people you will ever meet. They were who only ones that took care of me when I was young so I'm doing anything I can to repay them for that."
Lucca had thoroughly enjoyed Zulfikar's comedy routine. Each joke was hilarious and Lucca had laughed so hard that his throat started to hurt. "That was amazing, Zulf. I knew you were the Ultimate Comedian, but that was way better than I could have ever imagined! Thank you so much for that!" Lucca could tell that him and Zulfikar were going to be great friends. Lucca had been worried how he would feel being away from family for a while, even when he traveled his family always came with him, but he feels better knowing that he's going to have a great friend there with him.
Lucca jumped in fear when the two staff members came out of the room, he didn't expect to find staff anytime soon. "Well I guess that proves that there are staff members here. Now I'm just wondering why we didn't hear them out here. I don't think a boiler room would be very big and I doubt it's soundproof so It's kind of weird that we didn't hear any noise or voices coming from there.
"They all seemed harmless enough, but I still can't shake this feeling that something is wrong... It's probably just nerves, it is out first day here after all. I'm still just getting used to the new environment, haha."
"Hey, Zulf do you want to start going to look at other places now? There's still so much we haven't seen yet."
|
|
"Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks." -Gandhi
Years
Old
Male
Zulfikar
IS OFFLINE
32 POSTS & 0 LIKES
Member
|
Post by Zulfikar on Jul 25, 2015 19:39:59 GMT
Zulfikar was relieved to see staff running about, and was happy to have his questions answered. However, he found it suspicious that the staff would solve all his problems just like that. "Were they spying on us? This is way too good to be a coincidence." Zulfikar was skeptical, but the staff still explained everything well enough, so he wrote down what they said in his note pad." "If this keeps up, my note pad won't have any bits in it." Zulfikar was annoyed, but admitted that he didn't have anything better to write down anyway.
"Fine. I can tell when I'm not wanted. There was nothing to do here anyway. These guys are more transparent than the boiler room door. Wait, didn't they just come from the boiler room? Why didn't I see them?" As curious as he was, Zulfikar knew he wasn't going to get any answers. It didn't really matter right now, but he could tell that the staff was definitely hiding something.
"Its good that you value them so much. Keep them close to you." "Come on Zulfikar, stop getting so emotional. Next thing you know I'm going to spill my entire life story out to him." Zulfikar immediately composed himself. Nobody wants to see a comedian getting serious on stage. That would be unprofossional.
The comedy routine went even better than Zulfikar expected. Lucca's voice sounded a bit hoarse at the end, but that was a Lucca problem, as far as Zulfikar was concerned. More importantly, Lucca was having a good time. It was like the dreary basement ceased to even exist. Even if it all came rushing back once the show ended, Zulfikar was glad he could make Lucca's time special.
"Um, yeah. That sounds like a great idea. I can't think of any reason to stay here."
|
|
