Moonstrike 11: Re-introducing the heartthrob

“137 new followers,” Ji Min read off her screen, bemused that they just kept coming this morning. “84 notifications.” Her actual account only had like 400 followers, mostly people she actually knew. It was so weird.

She dismissed the notifications before shoving the phone back into her pocket. She brushed out her hair and pulled it back tightly so that she could put on a layer of moisturizer and then sunscreen. While it dried, she pulled on jeans and picked out a sleeveless black top for the day. She didn’t feel playful today. She went with a dark red lip and a small black cat-eye look, no jewelry or accessories aside from her pedometer watch. The urban running workshop was today, so she picked comfortable shoes and laced them tightly. The last thing she grabbed was a pair of black gloves that she tucked into her back pocket. She didn’t wanna fuck her hands up on concrete more than she had to.

She was ready for a few minutes before Alex finished his morning routine. He looked at her stern ponytail and self consciously touched his gelled hair. He’d done something a little different with it today.

“Nice curls,” she said, and pushed past him. “Let’s go, my body is so ready for the workshops.”

On the train, she pulled out her phone again and frowned at it. It was full of notifications again, new followers and comments and likes. There were a few tags begging for her attention. What was wrong with people? She hadn’t even done anything yet.  “This seems a little excessive for one profile photo.”

Alex leaned over to see and huffed a laugh. “There’s an appetite,” he said, sotto voice. “Since that guy’s kinda been hyping you up.”

She hummed noncommittally and looked at the first comment tagging her.

“Girl ur hot” it read. “Brake my leg bones and make me crawl after yu”

“Ugh,” Ji Min said, and hastily clicked a different notification without seeing what kind of cursed fucking conversation that had spawned. The next one was a speculation about the location for the profile photo. It was wrong. She clicked on the comment chain and read through to make sure that no one actually figured it out. So far, no one had narrowed down the city, but the existence of the debate made her a little uncomfortable.

“I guess you shouldn’t post until after you’ve left an area,” Alex mused. He was frowning a little. “I even knew that, I just didn’t think about it. I didn’t even realize people would find the account this fast. We just took it off private.”

“Yeah, that’s weird,” Ji Min agreed quietly. Then she frowned. “How’d that one guy find and message me when it was on private?”

He blinked at her. She blinked back. The train rocked gently.

“That’s a very good question,” he said, and didn’t try to volunteer an answer.

She went back to her phone. She had a lot more DMs now. Most of them were fanmail, but there were a couple scammy type things asking about collaboration.

“Wait.” She shoved her phone in Alex’s face. “Is this the guy without any underwear on?”

A lot of people looked up, interested in that. Ji Min confronted them with a dead-eyed stare that dared them to say anything or smile. One by one, interested smiles dropped away in favor of nervousness. Once they’d all looked away again,she turned back to Alex to continue the conversation.

He had pressed his lips close together in obvious disapproval. She rolled her eyes. He sighed and apparently decided it wasn’t worth asking her to be less unfriendly. “Yeah, that’s the same guy,” he said under his breath. He shook his head slightly. “Collaboration?” he wondered. “What kind of collaboration could you possibly do with this guy?”

“A photoshoot?” Ji Min guessed. “A fight to leak and raise both of our profiles?” She wasn’t even sure what kind of suit he was. Probably hero-adjacent, right?

Alex pursed his lips. “Not the worst idea,” he said. “Bring me, I need to get my name out there.”

She knocked her shoulder into his, not sure what to say.

“I’m serious,” he said, grinning. “I’ll ride your coattails. I don’t think I have your star power.” A hand raised self consciously to his hair and gently touched at it.

Ji Min frowned for a moment before she got it. “Are you insecure?” she asked, incredulous and a bit condescending. “You’re hot too.” She gestured at him. “You’ve got shoulders for days. You don’t need to worry.”

He flushed a brilliant red and mumbled something. He looked at his phone and pretended to be really absorbed in it. His eyes darted over to her and back to his phone screen to see if he’d thrown her off.

“We’ll pick this up later,” she threatened lowly.

He went even stiffer somehow. She let him avoid her. The atmosphere went back to normal by the time they reached the convention center. They breezed in and found seats at the first workshop.

“I wish that we did more professional development,” Alex muttered to her. “They’re so organized here.”

“It’s the unions,” Ji Min said, agreeing. “The subculture sticks together and shares a lot of innovation.”

He shook his head ruefully. “It just makes sense,” he marveled. He sounded a bit jealous, maybe even unhappy that he was admiring how the villains did things.

The lights dimmed as a spotlight came on the stage. It illuminated an enormous woman with a white smile and statement-making red boots. “Good morning,” called the speaker. “I’m Tripwire, but you can call me Tippy if you’re nasty.”

The room broke out into chuckles.

“On your table in front of you is everything you need to assemble a bomb, except one critical ingredient. That’s because we don’t trust you assholes.”

This round of laughter was much more sincere.

“Let’s go through it together, shall we?”

Alex was much faster and more sure at this than Ji Min was. She watched his hands move, impressed.

He sensed her attention and grinned at her. “It’s the inverse of what I did the last few weeks,” he confided. “More specific, though, that was a survey of a lot more tech and obviously was concerned with the other end of things.”

She smiled back at him, a little uncomfortable with talking in the panel but kind of enjoying the feeling of having someone to talk to here. “Is this too much putty?” she asked.

“No, more,” he advised, and then turned back to his own work.

Once that panel was done they had a late breakfast in one of the coffeeshops inside the center before going to the parkour panel. It was packed. Ji Min glanced around the room and felt her smile freeze on her face.

“Oh, shit,” Alex said quietly. He was following her gaze.

Hammer seemed to notice the attention. He looked over at them with a camera ready smile, blinked, and then waved. A despicably genuine cheer washed over his face. He used both hands to do it. He looked like he'd never been happier to see anyone in his life.

“He’s coming over,” Alex said, horrified.

“Shut up,” Ji Min hissed. "We have to- fuck, shit,-"

“Why is he-”

He was upon them before they could escape. “I remember you,” Hammer said cheerfully. Ji Min dodged the hug he tried to give her. “You were at the seminar on criminal networking 3 years ago! Wow, I thought Raccoon Man got you or something, which would have been a shame, because I really liked you," he effused. "I was really rooting for you to develop some social skills. How have you been? What have you been doing? Did you consider my offer? It's still open!”

Her whole body was too tense. She couldn’t speak.

Alex cut in. “We haven’t met, have we?” He reached out to shake Hammer’s hand. Hammer blinked and went along with it, which gave Ji Min a chance to slip backwards. She wasn’t too proud to step behind Alex. "I'm here with her."

"Wow, she brought a guest?" Hammer seemed impressed. "Good to see you, man!"

Anger burnt across her face. She wanted to kill him. He was such an asshole, wishing her well and success. Like she needed him? Like she needed better social skills or she was such a freak that her bringing a companion was worth commenting on?

"Security probably wondered about that," Hammer said cheerfully. He was obviously answering something Alex had asked but she'd missed the question. "She got into a fight at the seminar on alliance building after we got partnered into groups that we should network with, and then when the lecturer tried to cut in, she-"

"Shut up," Ji Min snapped. She put a hand on his shoulder and pushed. He moved back a little, laughing cheerfully. His eyes sparkled like they were in on some kind of joke.

"She likes me," Hammer confided in Alex. "Deep down." He clapped a hand on Alex's shoulder. "My friend just got here but it was great to meet you, bro! We should hang it out sometime." He breezed away to greet someone, leaving Ji Min a furious wreck and Alex shell-shocked.

The room around them went on with cheerful conversation, but their corner was silent for a moment. Alex broke the quiet with a serious tone. "Tell me," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "Is the reason you hate him that he tried to help you make friends?"

Ji Min kicked at his shoe.

Alex jumped with a curse. "I'm going to take that as a yes," he whispered spitefully. "Really - that's it?" His voice turned bewildered. "He's so friendly! He's nice!"

Jim Min hissed like a cat.

"Did you really start a fight at a seminar on making friends?"

Okay, she didn’t have to put up with this. She turned around to leave the room. But that was when the microphone crackled on and someone extremely perky introduced themself and the day's activity.

Pointedly, she stepped away when it was time to choose partners. Alex turned to where he thought she was, blinked, and then rolled his eyes. He easily found a new partner.

Ji Min scanned the people nearby, determined not to be the last one paired up. She zeroed in on someone who looked athletic and grabbed her.

"Partners?" Ji Min asked. It came out a little too brusque.

"Uh, yeah." The other woman, an orc, shook her hand off and gave her a thin smile. "That's fine."  She was obviously mostly focused on the visible obstacles and mats.

"Lovely." Ji Min turned back to listen to the trainer explain the benefits of parkour for evading the law.

When they’d gone through a review of the fundamental movements they took turns critiquing each other's basic rolls, vaults, and jumps. The coach went around the room to explain variations that she thought would suit them. When they'd all demonstrated the basics, the coach pressed a button. A wall rolled up to reveal a course.

Everyone oooohed in unison. Ji Min squinted to see the details.

"Parts of this imitate the urban environment," effused the coach. She gestured with a hand at points as she talked. "Scaling a small building, jumping over a car, going through a window, scaling a narrow alley, and there is my favorite!" Everyone craned to see. "We brought in real crocodiles," she cheered. "We might see death today!"

The group clapped politely.

Alex shifted back and forth on his feet.

"If your partner doesn't clear the pit, then you can help them if you choose to. No one else is going to interfere, alright? I don't want it to get crowded, that's dangerous. Any questions?" She clapped her hands cheerfully.

There weren't any, so the workshop moved on. This wasn't a beginner's course, so Ji Min didn't really expect anyone to get hurt. But she thought Alex seemed stressed enough that he might not know that. She considered sidling over to reassure him.

"I'm Tariasti," said Ji Min's partner. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself before. I was kind of in the zone!" She had a light, tinkling kind of laugh.

Ji Min blinked to focus on her. "I'm Kiara."

Tariasti blinked at her. "I've heard that name. Cat burglar, right?"

She nodded.

"I see." Tariasti's eyes crinkled when she smiled. "I'm just a scientist, but I'm here on an invite."

"That's cool," Ji Min said, not really interested. "How are you liking it?"

She mostly tuned out the other woman in favor of watching Alex run the course. He did well, of course, which was great because she'd mostly gotten used to him.

"3 minutes and 17 seconds," the trainer announced, stopwatch held in the air. "That was fantastic, team! Who is next? Can we beat that?"

The next team couldn't. One of the people in the team after that fell in the crocodile pit, but the crocodile only watched warily as he scrambled out of the water. The next team was Hammer's. He gave it his best effort, but he didn't beat Alex's time.

She crossed her arms and kept her face stern. She wasn't going to let on that she was kind of proud Alex was the front runner.

'I'm going to deliberately bomb this,' Ji Min decided. 'There's no reason for my criminal persona to be as fit as I am. It's more data than anyone here needs.'

When it was her turn to run she let Tariasti take the lead and set the pace. They did fine, finishing around 4 minutes. Everyone clapped politely and their attention moved on. Ji Min avoided Alex's attempt to make eye contact and wished he had the tact not to make such an obvious face of confusion.

"That was soooo fun," Tariasti effused. Her whole face was shining. She was a miniature sun of a person, all butter yellows and rosy pinks. Ji Min took a subtle step away. "It was really nice to meet you!"

"Yup," Ji Min said, resigned to the social ritual. She was going to have to exchange contact information and pretend they'd hang out soon, and maybe Tariasti would actually message her and it would be too cold to not message at all-

She blinked. Tariasti had turned and walked away, slinging a bag over her back as she cheerfully hummed to herself. She was beelining towards a tall male figure in black armor.

"Oh," Ji Min said, charmed. "That's good."