Mime Spent Apart

Part 18

Menhaus kept mingling with the other people at the party. He felt a little uncomfortable. He was normally not that great with social situations at the best of times but he had only come to this one to chat to Calliope about her agent. He hoped he wasn't becoming too annoying to her. He wasn't picking up any negative vibes, but still. He suddenly realised he had no idea what she looked like. Well, most of the people here now knew who he was by him turning up, introducing himself, asking who they were and then, after a few seconds of awkward silence, excusing himself, which was probably what they were hoping her would do. None of the people there so far had been online on the night of the accident though, so there was no reason for them to talk to him or any frame of reference they could hang their conversation with him on. He went over to the snack table and got himself another cube of cheese and a salted cracker. He loved cubes of cheese. He understood why a lot of people, when they got made redundant, started eating a lot of cheese during the day. It seemed heavenly to him but he also knew it was basically pure fat. He wondered if the propaganda-like videos he had seen his vegan friends spread about cheese being 'addictive' and really horribly bad for the body were actually true. It was usually a case of 'half yes' and 'half no' with that sort of thing so he decided to just keep eating the cheese and forget about it for now. It was the only thing that was actually making the party bearable for him. He heard the lift go off in the hallway outside during a lull in the music as it changed to another track and kept an eye out for who it would be. He thought it was strange there even was a lull in the tracks and normally these days DJs mixed tracks into eachother but he guessed the DJ thought the song needed some sort of introduction.

He saw a man walk in with jeans, futuristic looking sneakers, a suit jacket over an anime tshirt that seemed to have a bubbly looking girl with pink hair and cleavage bending over and blowing a kiss. It all fit well though. The man himself was a bit chubby and had a bit of stubble. Kusa? It had to be, it fit his profile too well. He decided to walk over to him and chat.

"Hey there!" he called out the guy looked at him

"Yes?"

"Is that Kusa?"

The guy looked unsure for a second then relaxed, "Yeah, that's me. How did you know?"

"The get up. It just suits you and everything I've talked to you about."

Kusa looked really proud at this, "Well thanks, I try to just dress like myself, you know? But you have to take pride in your dress code."

"That's right. So what's been happening?"

"Not a lot. The usual trouble with my car and my cat."

"Nink jumping into the seat whenever you open the door to drive somewhere? I remember you talking about that."

"Yeah, I'm just worried it'll get dangerous."

Menhaus started to relax. This conversation was easy, he could take part in this.

"Oh wait, this is rude of me, who are you?"

Menhaus was slightly taken aback and then realised Kusa had probably never actually seen him and they hadn't really walked about anything specific. "Oh, I'm M in the chat room"

"Oh that's right! Hey M, how are things?"

"They're not bad, you know. Everything is coasting along for me really."

"Yeah I can imagine with the copywriting and everything. How is your friend doing, the one that got hit by the car? Peter?"

"Yeah he's doing alright now. Just needs to be careful doing something like swimming or yoga where he needs to do deep breathing."