suzuki teriyaki honda sashimi [rene, rp swap]

Adrian was an odd, but rather nonthreatening presence in the establishment, and had been for a little while now. He was a regular at the restaurant, eating there at least once a week since he initially moved into Los Angeles, and taking Rosy the galah with him. It was a given; Rosy never went anywhere without him, and he rarely went anywhere without the big bird on his shoulder. Though business owners and the like were at first leery about the pink and grey parrot perched on Adrian’s shoulder being let him, they got used to it once he visited enough times. Rosy may have been a bit dim witted, but she was otherwise rather harmless and wouldn’t hurt a fly unless she fell on it. Which she would, one way or another.

So the oddball pair was sitting around in a small Japanese restaurant for lunch; Adrian had a bowl of noodles in front of him, while he’d ordered a small serving of dumplings for the bird. Rosy did rather like dumplings, and fluffed up as soon as the plate was put down in front of her. Unfortunately, they were rather hot, fresh out of the pan and all that, and the bird did not appreciate that whatsoever.

”Picky bird.” Adrian sighed, but obliged her and scratched behind her head anyway while she waited for her dumplings to cool. His own food wasn’t going to be so hot anymore, but spoiling the galah wasn’t exactly foreign territory to him, and being the single bird left from that house fire that killed the rest of them, he felt a little guilty whenever Rosy squawked for something and he couldn’t give it.

And the galah ruffled, glancing this way and that, the poor bird’s short attention span getting caught by various things and sights and smells. People coming in and out of the restaurant took up a good chunk, but so did the food. Once in a while, Rosy’s gaze would sit too long on the next table’s cabbage, or maybe a person just got served a bowl of noodles and she got it into her head that she might have wanted a taste. Either way, with Adrian actually paying attention, he had to give her a swift ‘no’ once in a while to divert.

”Rosy, no.” He had to sigh when the bird was yet again distracted by another table’s food; he suspected they wouldn’t appreciate a giant parrot landing at their table and taking a few bites. She ruffled, puffing up indignantly, before she was quickly distracted by a boy that had just walked into the establishment.

Adrian turned his back for one second to thank the waitress, and when he turned back, Rosy had decided that tea would make a wonderful bath and was practically gargling from the lukewarm cup that was supposed to be his. ”Rosy, no.” This was the last time he was bringing her out in public… But then again, that was what he’d said the last time, and the time before that, and every other time the galah had done something stupid while other people were around.

Rosy squawked but otherwise stepped off Adrian’s cup, ruffling as she looked around again. That boy that had come in through the hole in the wall with the flappy cover had now sat down not too far from them. He had brown hair and green eyes, which was entirely different than Adrian’s, but the same as a few people she’d seen in the past. Nothing too interesting about him, even if the giant bird tilted her head over at the table he was sitting at.

Adrian had gone back to talking to the human hen, and Rosy was just about to step back up on his cup and ruffle her feathers all over it when the waiter brought out a plate of dumplings and noodles to the other table with the boy. Technically, the two tables had ordered the same thing, but somehow the green eyed boy’s dumplings looked better than her dumplings, and she wanted them. If Rosy wanted them, then she was going to get them. Made sense, in a parrot’s mind.

Glancing back at Adrian, she found that he was still talking to the waitress that brought them their food. Good. With the most discrete flutter she could manage, Rosy did a flap-hop over to the table next to her and waddled up to the dumplings that the waiter had just laid out, completely ignoring the boy as she took one in her claw for herself and took a bite.

Rosy gripped the dumpling in one claw, happily gnawing away at it without a care in the world or another glance at the boy who apparently owned the plate. Nope, the dumpling was tasty and that was all she really cared about. Adrian was probablys till chatting it up with the waitress, anyways, so Rosy would be left alone to eat. Mostly.

The boy spoke up, and she did glance up at him briefly, the dumpling still gripped in her claw. What did he want? Couldn’t he see that she was eating? She puffed up at him, giving an indignant squawk as her crest rose from her scalp into a vaguely fanned shape. Watchoo looking at? Her glare seemed to say as she took another nibble of the dumpling. Humans were weird.

In the meanwhile, Adrian had finished talking to the waitress and returned his attention when he noticed that Rosy wasn’t there anymore. Her plate of dumplings remained untouched, and there was a small sense of panic as he took a look around. Somebody would’ve at least poked his shoulder if she went flying out the door, right? The staff knew him well enough to know that Rosy was dim witted, at best. He was about to call the waitress back and ask if she’d seen Rosy fly off somewhere when he spotted her the next table over.

Adrian sighed in relief. Welp, this was going to be a bit of an awkward conversation, now was it. He quickly got up and walked over, reaching out for the pink and grey bird. ”Rosy, no, drop it.” He picked her up with both hands, and she put the dumpling down, looking up at Adrian with the most curious expression.

”Hey, sorry about that.” Damn it, Rosy, why did she always have to make trouble in public places. It was like she was a magnet for those sorts of things, and bad luck, so Adrian was really forced to apologize profusely as he was at the moment to the boy in every situation. Sometimes, people thought it was just funny, which was when he got lucky. Other times, there was threatening involved, and people wanted to call animal control, and that was when he had to apologize even more profusely and get the hell out as soon as possible. Rosy may have been lucky when it came to that house fire (who knew opening her cage could come in handy one day), but not when it came to public relations.

He transferred Rosy over into one hand, where he held her under his arm more or less like a football. Her feet stuck out into the air, gripping at nothing but not really even seeming to mind. Actually, if anything, it looked like she had completely forgotten about the plate of dumplings and the boy that owned them, despite nearly getting into a shrieking match with him not a second prior, and her attention was now diverted to yet another table and their irresistible glass of water.

”Ah, yeah, it’s a she. Her name’s Rosy.” And she sure looked like a Rosy; her feathers were a mix of pink and a more… diluted pink. And grey. That too. She wasn’t exactly a small bird, but Adrian had owned bigger ones, and she was the perfect size. Upon hearing her name, Rosy looked back up at Adrian, than over to the boy and did a little claw-foot-in-the-air sort of thing that could’ve been a wave if she was standing. Yes, she did recognize her name… Even if she chose specifically when it was convenient for her to respond.

Adrian stuck out his free hand, smiling practically from ear to ear in the way that he usually did. A charmer and a lover, never a fighter… Usually. He’d been in the air force at one point, so he guessed that counted? ”My name’s Adrian. Nice to meet you.

Adrian was obviously more than glad that the boy hadn’t started screaming or anything, and made a mental note to perhaps really buy a collar for Rosy this time around. One of those bird leash things that went under the wings, but that he knew Rosy would hate and tear apart when he wasn’t looking, then blame the resident houseplant or something. And yes, she had done that once when she tipped a glass of milk over while Adrian wasn’t in the room. When he came back in, Rosy actually pointed her claw at the little aloe plant he kept on the kitchen counter and gave it the dirtiest look a pink bird could muster. She had learned how to blame a houseplant before she could speak.

”Well, a little unimaginative, but you get the idea.” He’d been, what, eight when he named her? Something along those lines, and his parents had given him the bird, so it wasn’t like they were going to interject to give her something more creative. Rosy she was, and Rosy she’d stay until she lived at least seventy years.

Hayden was a fairly nice name, though. Of course, he’d never met someone named Hayden before, but he’d certainly heard the name floating around. He seemed really interested in Rosy, which was fair, though. Not too many people got to grow up with birds in the same way that he did, and he felt a little bad about that. Having them around when he was a kid certainly helped him with a lot of things, and it did quite impress the tourists. Girls were also rather impressed whenever a guy came in with a bird freely sitting on his shoulder, too.

”I’ve had Rosy for years, actually. Since I was eight.” But a few of those years were spent separate from her, and then there was that bit where he sincerely thought she was dead, having burned in a house fire. ”Hey, mind if I take a seat?” Rosy was beginning to wiggle around in her rather annoying manner, wanting her feet on the ground and all that. He still wanted to have a bit of a chit chat with Hayden, though.

Close? Well, yes, they were rather close for all intents and purposes. Even if he lived with fifteen other birds at that time, Rosy had been his, rather than the family’s, and always the friendliest towards him. Of all the other birds, he was well aware that some of them weren’t so nice. The crane they had in their back yard, for example, was the most impossible thing to deal with. It would peck with its large, pointy beak and feeding it was a pain. His parents mostly took care of that one, and he was glad for it.

Hayden might have had a few qualms about sharing information, but to Adrian, nothing seemed to be personal as he pulled up a chair across from the green eyed boy, putting Rosy back down on the table where she ruffled again and gave another squawk. ”Had plenty of birds back home. I used to live in Hawaii, and there were lots of birds there.” He’d heard that there were cooler ones in Australia, though, and he was plenty jealous of that.

The waitress, seeing that he’d moved, went and took up his plates for him to the new table. He nodded a thanks at her, and Rosy seemed suddenly wholly distracted again by the bowl of noodles stuck down on the table in front of her. She was so easily distracted that she couldn’t even hope to go fetch a coin or something, as he’d seen some other people train their birds to do, without coming back with somebody’s shoe.

”No need. I think she’s more interested in my food now.” Adrian would likely just let her take it, though. He’d already had what he wanted, mostly, even if he wasn’t completely full yet. The galah waddled over to the edge of his bowl and reached in, taking a couple in her beak before starting to shred them into even smaller pieces. ”…yes, Rosy, of course you would.” Of course.

Still, he grinned at Hayden. ”Are you from around here?” Adrian just obviously said he wasn’t, though technically he did live in LA now… What a weird choice that had been.

A lot of people thought Hawaii was cool and… Well, yeah, they were pretty right. Adrian loved Hawaii, and sometimes he regretted not going back after he graduated school. But he went where life took him, so to speak. Though he loved Hawaii, he wanted to try out the big cities and small mainland towns, perhaps hop around a bit before deciding where to settle completely. Los Angeles was damn expensive, and that was one thing that made him hesitate, though his job paid well.

Hayden sounded like he was going to ask a question, but abruptly cut himself off. What was it? Adrian glanced behind him, but nobody was there. A glance down at Rosy said that she was still happily slurping away at his noodles and hadn’t touched Hayden’s food again. But intruding? Adrian chuckled and immediately shook his head, his smile spreading a little wider. Hey, who said you were intruding? Hawaii was a great place; I just left because I wanted something different, and Los Angeles seemed a good a place as any.” He had put a map of the States up and thrown a dart… okay, maybe not literally, but he’d come pretty close.

”San Diego… Not entirely sure where that is, but that’s cool, I guess.” As for differences, he couldn’t help but shrug a little. ”I’ve only lived in Hawaii and Colorado, and then here. I’ve flown to different places, though.” Because he was a pilot, so oftentimes he was deployed or flown into weird places and had to stay for a day or two. Still, it wasn’t like it was a nice trip, and he was often confined to the airport-esque areas.

”Ah… I’m usually in Chinatown, but I guess Little Tokyo is pretty cool, too. I come to this restaurant often, though.” Good food at a fair price, and all that… and he’d occasionally meet some really cool people, like Hayden. Rosy would meet some nice people too, on occasion.

Adrian was still smiling as he waved his hand dismissively. "Yeah, I'm sure. I like people asking questions, really. Hard to get a conversation going when nobody's talking, right?" So usually, he never minded questions. Hell, if somebody asked him about the house fire a while back, he really wouldn't have even minded talking about that either. Realistically speaking, there was next to nothing about Adrian's life that would've been considered a deep dark secret.

But at Hayden's next question, he grinned even wider and nodded rather enthusiastically, which caused Rosy to perk up and then bob her head up and down in unison, just in case she was missing something that her owner was excited about. Humans bobbed their heads when they were excited or happy, yes? As far as the galah was concerned, it was certainly the case. She went right back to slurping up the noodles, though. Because noodles.

"Yeah, flown a whole lot in my lifetime." A bit of a tilt of his head, still grinning. "I'm a private pilot now, but I had my fair share of time in the sky. I used to fly for the air force, too, but I've sort of retired from that now. I'm just flying civilian aircraft now." Though going back to the military wouldn't be so bad, now would it? Certainly earned a fair amount of bravo from people he introduced himself to, and he did miss those uniforms. Looking out at the sky from the back of those aircraft carries was also really, really beautiful. Actually, now that he thought about it, he did miss it a whole lot.

Adrian would’ve been really glad to talk about flying all day to Hayden. Really, he didn’t quite care how complicated it got, or how much he actually had to teach the boy, because his true passion was getting up in the sky. Perhaps, one day, he’d actually go out and get more birds, just because it helped him feel a little closer. He was thankful that his current employer let him bring Rosy with him, though. He even got a special cage for her and everything.

”Ah… I started flying when I was sixteen, actually.” Which wasn’t at all old, and most people who started flying would start very young. ”I went to the academy in Colorado when I was eighteen, and from there my career sort of took on a life of its own. Had a bit of a setback a few years ago, but I’m pretty good with things from there.” He was talking about, of course, the house fire. That was really all behind him now, and the greatest loss had been the family birds. Aside from that, the house was replaceable and the items could always be bought again. He had really guessed that the only reason Rosy was alive was because she learned how to open cage doors early on.

”A lot of people I know started really young, so if you want to do that, you better get on it.”