Fifth Floor Common Room, Monday Evening

[not_in_the_book]

"Can you hand me the ginger?" Ronan asked, as he ground some spices with a mortar and pestle. "The fresh, I mean." The fragrant smells of cooking curry were already pervading the common room, and probably making their way through the rest of the dorms. When Isabel handed over the asked-for ginger, he added some to the mixture in the mortar, and went back to grinding. "Thanks. I hope this isn't too spicy for whoever else comes along," he added.


[OOC: Open, as common rooms are! Come have some curry. :D]

Comments

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"Good, because it all smells really good," said Hoshi.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"It's all Ronan's doing," Isabel told Hoshi. "I've never had Indian food before. He's fixing that."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"Oh, that's nice," said Hoshi. "It's always good to try new things."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"That's what I figured," she nodded. "He said it's spicy. I love spicy stuff so I'm sure I'll love it."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure you will," said Hoshi. "Remind me to make mapo tofu one day. It's a Chinese dish that's really spicy, but it's very popular in Japan too."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"I'd like that," Isabel smiled. "I've had tofu but not like that."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"It's really good," said Hoshi. "Tofu has this reputation of being really bland but it picks up the flavors of whatever you cook it with."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"That's what was part of the problem. Mom was serving it while she was on a health food kick," she explained, wrinkling her nose.

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

Hoshi chuckled. "Seriously, if you cook it with something else, you could probably pass it off as something else. There's this guy who always shows up at the hotel during my shift and makes comment about the tofu. I think one day I'm going to cover it in Thai peanut sauce and pass it off as chicken satay to see if he can tell."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"It'd be a good test of how observant he is," Isabel nodded. "And if he doesn't get it, you can spend the afternoon snickering."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"It would also be worth the reaction when I tell him just what he's been eating," giggled Hoshi.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"Make sure to have your camera handy. I'm sure his face will be memorable."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

Hoshi grinned. "Definitely. Even better, I think he actually works at the Photo Hut. I'll get him to make copies of the pictures."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"Oh that's wicked evil," Isabel laughed. "Hoshi, I didn't know you had it in you."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"I can be full of surprises," said Hoshi, smiling.

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"I'll keep that in mind," she smiled.

"So are you going to dress up for Halloween?"

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"I don't think so," said Hoshi. "It's not a really big holiday at home, and I've dealt with enough scary stuff lately."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"Oh? Are you okay?"

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"I'm fine," said Hoshi. "A couple weeks ago, something jumped me on my way back to the dorms but, thank goodness, another student came along and rescued me. Then the next day, I thought I was safe going out for pizza with someone else in the daytime and a monkey attacked us."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

Isabel wondered if Hoshi had been attacked by one of the vampires Xander had mentioned. But then Hoshi mentioned the monkey.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry. The monkey was my fault."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"Your fault?" asked Hoshi. "Umm, should I be sorry that I sort of killed Mr. Monkey when it tried to drag Annette away?"

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"No, don't be sorry," Isabel said instantly. "It was my fault because I found an enchanted board game. When we started to play it all sorts of weird stuff started to happen. There were monkeys, giant spiders. It got crazy and scary for a while."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"Giant spiders?" said Hoshi. "Thank goodness I didn't run into one of those! Actually, after getting my butt kicked by a vampire, saving Annette from the creepy monkey felt really good. So at least something good came out of it."

[izzyalienqueen.livejournal.com]

"You saved Annette? Go Hoshi," she smiled. "And don't feel bad about not being able to fight the vampire. I couldn't do anything the one time I got attacked."

[itsjustlanguage.livejournal.com]

"So I'm not the only one?" asked Hoshi. "It was pretty embarrassing. Everyone else around here has all these skills and I couldn't even defend myself."