oh man i totally should've given you a fake number

except i don't have any friends with korean numbers except mimi whose number you already have

so it probably wouldn't have worked that great

hi

hi!

so do you want to get very inadvisedly drunk tonight?

invitees include my partner, woo-young, and woo-young's partner

fuck yes!!!

i think woo-young doesn't hate me yet even, this is gonna rule

cool!

I'll send you the address

see you~

There's a little bit of outfitting to get through. (Marza has grown out of the phase where she pretended not giving a shit what other people think meant she wasn't vain and a little bit socially anxious.) She decides to show up in a red cocktail dress which she's pretty sure is overdressy enough to be clearly intentional and mildly entertaining, without making her look like a stray bridesmaid. And metallic gold eyeshadow, blingy but not too Trixie Mattel.

She shows up at the address and scans the heads for – yep, there's the grass she was looking for.

"Good evening," she says, slipping into a seat. "Either you gentlemen are Yoo-min and Woo-young's – nim's – partners, or I'm being very weirdly trolled. How are you both."

"Good evening, Marza-shi."

"Good God Joo-ya please drop the formality."

He grins. "I'm Choi Seungjoo."

"Seo Tae-hwan."

"And I'm Lee Tae-gun."

Ooh aah. "Wow, Gunbae, it's such an honor! Did you do something to your hair? And your ass? Anyway good to meet you both and uh. Also Woo-young-shi who I just remembered I hadn't in fact met in person before. You have the teddy-bear chat sticker nature, I recognized it from the door."

"Glad to be recognisable."

"You settling in alright?"

"Pretty well! My silo rules, it's like a medieval torture chamber with a pool. Apartment's pretty good too. I think I need physical possessions so it feels less IKEA-y though."

Drinks drinks drinks. Caaaaan she get a fruity girly cocktail but with the shot on the side, that's her move here.

...sure, they have non-alcoholic versions of the drinks as well as shots.

"Okay, I'll bite. Why?" he asks, after she orders that.

"If I want alcohol, I like it to hit quick and hard. If I want a fruity drink, I don't want it to taste like hand sanitizer. Thus: virgin girlydrink and a shot. I don't get what confuses people about this."

"If the girly drink tastes like hand sanitiser the mixologist doesn't know what they're doing," Tae-hwan opines, "and otherwise the kick offsets the sweetness nicely. It's the same as food that's got sweet and sour stuff together."

"I am told that I am 'sensitive to the taste of alcohol,'" Marza admits. "Personally I think my tongue is an appropriate and correct amount of opposed to me poisoning it, and I am ignoring its good advice."

"Feels like if you're gonna poison yourself anyway you could do it in a way that feels nice but what do I know."

"The shot's fun! It just tastes bad and then I win. And I get to have sugared-up fruit juice to sip at with no poison in it at all."

"If you say so."

"What're your next steps? With Quasar, I mean. It feels like it's been a lifetime ago since I joined..."