Otaku's adventure - Chapter2: First date

[Tringa]

My wrist watch shows 6pm, though this is not a typical time to end one day’s lab work, I’m just too anxious to continue on any of the experiments. Certainly I have concerns in my mind, for this is my first date with her anyway. Wandering to Faye’s desk I ask if she is ready.
“I’m not going with you to that café. I thought it over. ” And that is her answer, with her head still buried in the eye sets of the microscope.
“Hey, you can’t just say that, you said yes earlier today.” I protest, obviously a little pissed.
“I said yes because I was too busy processing the unexpected reactions you had by then. Please, use your brain, mister! How am I going to appear in public pretending to be a human dating someone while wearing this boomer tag? People would think you’re a freak.” She finally turned to look at me.
Dam, right, the new compulsory rules. That’s why I hate those politicians, who always want to make life more miserable. But still, I won’t just give up: “I don’t care. No matter what, this might be the only shot I have with you, even if you agreed only because you were shock at me willing to date with a boomer. Just for the sake of friendship, can we hang out tonight PLEASE?”

Seeing my humble pose, Faye makes an “okay you win” face to me and says: “Fine. Again I’m not trying to turn you down, but I do feel uncomfortable about showing this ID tag in public. Can we go to my place instead after I finish these stuffs at hand?”
That last sentence just freezes me immediately. I bite my lower lip hard to see if I’m in a dream. Ouch! Apparently this is real…
Faye just looked at my clumsy facial expression, and gives me a flamboyant smile before digging her head again into the optical sets of the lab equipments.

I spend the next 20 minutes or so flipping the pencil among my fingers or playing stupid games on my wrist watch, and thank god she finally finished her examining of some remote mountain grown herb species and is ready to leave. We said goodbye to Doc who is a little surprised seeing us leaving together at this early time, but he doesn’t seem to oppose this.
After 2 or 3 stops of train ride Faye leads me out of the subway. “I never know you live so close to town…” I am about to comment and try to start some nice topic but she heads straight toward a convenient store. “…so, you live h.. here?” and that’s what I end up saying.
“Show some respect, would you? Even as boomer I don’t stay at a store! I’m grabbing some liquor and snacks for tonight. This is a date anyway, right?”

The sales girl, obviously another boomer with also a tag on her sleeve, greets Faye like old friends and she sees me: “Oh Faye, how interesting, you are finally with someone today. Is he that cute Homo sapiens from work?” “Well yeah, this is Gira. Gira, Lin.” Faye is introducing.
I step forward and gestured hello: “Nice to meet you, Lin. Here, let me take Faye’s bill…” I hand over my credit card, trying to show some decent manner of a guy.
“She’s already got that taken care of wirelessly, never mind.” Says the smiling Lin.

After Hasta luego to Lin, Faye takes me to her real home: it’s a small basement near the convenient store. It is like a studio cabinet with a private restroom. “The kitchen is upstairs shared with my neighbors. Although I never used it, I can steam some buns we got from the store if you want?” “I’m not that hungry yet. Let’s get in and have some chatting first.” “Okay, whenever you want to eat, just let me know.”

The place has not much furniture: A big couch, facing a big piece of calligraphy work on the wall that reads “The Tao follows the Nature”; on the left hand side of the couch is a lamp and a big wooden cabinet, on the right of the couch is a night stand and a fridge. The middle of the room is a wide desk what seems a place for her calligraphy hobby. All the stuffs are put away in a rather tidy way that reminds me a woman’s organized habit of life. And it is not surprising for me now that I don’t see a bed in this room. Bummer.

“This is a nice little place.” That’s what I can say.
“Yeah, I wanted it bigger but the landlords were always putting the priority to humans. But why bother spending more on housing anyway, I’m already happy enough.”
“Fair enough,” I stand up to look at her desk, “you don’t have any other entertainment except for doing calligraphy?”
“I have high speed wi-fi in this room, what else do you need in the world?”
That is a strong argument. So I continue looking at the stuff on her desk: A shelf hanging brushes of various types and sizes, a couple of ink sticks and a very elaborately made ink stone, and several shredded pieces of raw paper lie neatly on the desk’s surface. On one of the pieces with scripts, I found what seems to be an incomplete copy of the Tao Te Ching.
“Hey, I love your handwriting, these characters look so elegant from a girl’s hand. So you are a Taoist philosophy fan?” That compliment is for real. I can’t even hand write classic characters properly because every intellectual and literal work is done electronically now.
“Not totally a fan, I just read through the classics and found the Taoist school most favorable.”
It is amazing that she actually reads stuff like this. The traditions formed some 2500 years ago are not taken seriously by most young people in this society nowadays. So it is ironic that a boomer, which the tradition is thought to oppose to, is cherishing some of the oldest wisdoms.

“So, from a Taoist perspective of view, what do you think about the current policies?” Well done, man. That’s some “awesome topics” to talk with girls on a date. I am already regretting how clumsy I am in social skills.
“Well, you don’t force anything in a Taoist world. I’m worrying a little bit about what the ‘human rights renaissance’ people can lead to, you know, they are now distinguishing boomers apart in public, there were examples in history…”
“Yeah, like the horrible things happened to the Jews.” I completed her sentence.
“Wow, you know about the history of 20th century? Hmm… so you are not as ignorant as most human guys of your age.”
“Hey, even if you can have access to anything via wireless you still can’t look down upon us! I’m not that kind of guy who cares only about playing and fu*king all day long, I do read about stuff that I find interesting.”
“Alright, relax, sir. I don’t mean to be offensive.” She opened two beers and hands one to me: “let’s go sit on the couch and talk about something else. Cheers!” She engulfs a large amount of beers after saying so.
“You…drink? I thought you told me you can’t eat.” I’m totally surprised.

To be continued.