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Excellent! We'll drink together. It'll be fun. Promise.

(Seunwoo of course has no idea of Ambrose's struggles with Victorian fashion... No, he's more obsessed with Prada and Hermes and the fancy brand names that he can get his hands on these days. He does enjoy a good hat now and then though. He's dressed and ready, anyway, and is already on his way to Ambrose's with a bottle of wine because he knew he could convince him; he's very persuasive after all.)

I'll be there soon, okay?

(Looking out the window of the taxi as he sends that message, he wrinkles his brows at the sort of neighborhood they're heading towards. It looks awfully... Stuffy. Ambrose did have that "rich bastard" [and Seunwoo notes that as nicely as possible] air to him but... Maybe it was just coincidence. Right? Suddenly he's wishing he bought a more expensive bottle of wine... But there was only so much a baker with a brand name addiction could afford.)

{ 'we'll drink together. it'll be fun.'

he can do this... it can't be impossible to simply act naturally. Ambrose performs for his passion — perhaps acting is a significant piece to the art, but to him, it's something more akin to playing an instrument. in truth, Ambrose is a terrible liar.

it isn't only the fear of being found out that has his mind coiling in on itself, but worse — it's the fear of disappointing Seunwoo.

the neighborhood is awfully nice, and despite his landlord being a lycan, Ambrose does not succumb to whatever predisposed incompatibility he should have for them in his artificially-gained instincts. it means...they have a solid understanding, which netted him a pleasant studio in a side of town that he could never afford on an artist's salary.

the buzzer finally chimes away through the interior of the decorated home — heavy velvet textiles draped around the windows, pulled away now to let the open air in from outside; antique and Sicilian lamps, candle holders, open cabinetries spilling with books and cherished oddities, some small tables, even a lush fainting couch fill the apartment. the kitchen is certainly the odd one out, simple as to appear uncannily devoid, too-clean and hardly touched.

Ambrose moves languidly to the console beside his door, presses a button to release the lock in the door for Seunwoo, knowing it must be him without peering out his window to see.

it's a few short staircase climbs from there, but once Seunwoo clears the softly carpeted steps with aged brass banisters, Ambrose will be found in his doorway, waiting for him with a gentle patience. } Good evening, Seunwoo; I hope your travel was well?

(Seunwoo's no different in terms of lying; he's never been able to say anything that isn't on his mind and that gets him in trouble fairly often. Actually more than that, but who's counting. At any rate, he's now making his way through the opulent surroundings and trying not to wonder just what Ambrose does to be able to afford all this. He could only dream of living in a place like this. In some ways it rekindles memories of the five star hotels and three star restaurants he used to work in under Jean-Baptiste in France... But that way lies madness. Shaking off those lingering memories, he finally comes to the doorway where his host for the evening stands with a fearsome aura.)

It was! Thank you for having me.

(He bows, a custom from his land that he never quite grew out of. In one hand he holds a bag with the bottles of wine he promised and in the other he's got his satchel with his work clothes in it; he's just come from his shift at the bakery so he didn't quite have time to swing home and drop off his stuff.)

I feel like I'm not dressed sharp enough for this place.

(It's an unfortunate truth, under his jacket he's only wearing a loose dress shirt with a pair of black slacks... Not quite the three-piece suit this sort of place feels like it demands. As he waits to be let inside, he gives Ambrose a bright smile; once he is invited in, though, he toes off his dress shoes at the entryway. Yet another custom from his homeland.)

It's very nice.

(He adds, as if saying his outfit wasn't fit for it wasn't enough in terms of describing just how kingly it all was.)

{ not dressed sharp enough for...? the remark is clearly unexpected, proven in the manner of Ambrose pausing shortly to look up the rest of the hallway, and overhead to the tall ceilings with delicately papered walls with their ornate half-wall baseboards. nothing in the prim detail explains to Ambrose what dress code might be expected for this place, and if there is one to be complying with, then Ambrose might be just as doomed as Seunwoo; the vampire stands here with his shirt not fully buttoned and feet bare to the floor. didn't he say he was going to make himself ready to leave...?

Ambrose waves a forgiving hand over Seunwoo like a priest blessing over his fellow misfit in their congregation of unintended rebellion. } Please, you're dressed just fine for any place, especially the one in which I dwell.

Come in. { at least he is quickly joined in the abandonment of shoes once he lets Seunwoo into his home. }

Is it? { in response to his guest's stated approval. Ambrose is pleasantly and blankly surprised, } Thank you. I don't usually entertain company. { the subtext here being a soft admission that he doesn't have much practice in making this space serve as a conscious effort toward being a venue for anyone but himself. }

You can sit where ever you'd like. { the settee is throned before a low glass-top table and framed by plants and a console table behind it, gilded in trinkets and unlit pillar candles; a corner is littered in throw pillows and a velvet duvet beside another low surface, a record player left to guard the vacant space for someone's eventual return; and a windowsill sits below opened panel windows before a small balcony looking over a courtyard. at a distance, a bed looms in the farthest corner of the studio, canopied in heavy materials, which probably just seems...as decadent as everything else seen until now. the true irony that it's the most practical thing for Ambrose in his entire apartment.

brunette coils of hair sway as Ambrose tilts his head in curiosity beside Seunwoo. } What have you brought with you?

(The ringlets of deep mahogany are almost hypnotizing when Ambrose moves his head to look at him that way; chuckling, he sets down his work clothing bag so he can take out the two bottles of red wine. They're a little old - about ten or twelve years - but nothing super fancy... Maybe a hundred dollars a bottle? Surely nothing on the level of a house like this but it's the best he could get at the shop before coming over on short notice.)

Nothing much. Just some wine. Hopefully it's decent enough? (The loveseat and its surroundings are just so opulent... He feels like he's going to stain something by just being here. This place reminds him of being back in France with every passing moment but he just feels so out of his element.)

This is... Really not anything I'm used to. (Stating the obvious as he gently skirts around the glass-topped table to set the wine bottles down upon it, he smiles apologetically at Ambrose. He then seats himself gingerly upon the sofa - if such an expensive thing can be called a sofa - and perches his hands on his knees after crossing his legs. He still can't stop gazing around at everything in here, immaculate and intricate in both its composition and arrangement. It's cozy, still, a very "lived in" feel despite being suitable for a regal king.)

That's some bed you've got over there. (Attempted small talk, still not quite knowing what to say in the face of all this. His little studio apartment with its kitchenette, small bed, and little living room area feels like nothing compared to this, well, palace.)

{ the staggering irony is that Ambrose has never had wine half as valuable as what is set on the small table before him...and he is no connoisseur, either, has no real way of discerning that value by a name or a label. he doesn't even know that wines with twist-off caps are in the lowest class of wine finery, and why would he? Seunwoo is silently reeling at the perceived status of a person who, in truth, was a country cottage lad living impoverished at his turning. this decadence is genuine and haphazard, by stumbling circumstance... this, a dwelling to a man who would be just as suited living as a clotheless nymph in some wood with no luxury other than what the seasons themselves grant.

Ambrose doesn't intend such contradictory secrets to keep, they just...all happen this way. }

More than decent, I'm sure. { he would be gracious for any gesture, and from Seunwoo, the work is already one — he already holds his visitor in high regard and in genuine care. he's taking the neck of one bottle in hand, gazing over the deep green glass down to the label pressed around the belly of it. still so reminiscent to his time, one of a few odd things Ambrose can recognize on the spot despite the revolutions of the earth in all this time. the label lists a date he has never been awake for. the sensation is a unsettlingly dichotomous.

Ambrose surfaces at Seunwoo's prompt, looking up over to the corner where his guest refers to, his bed, canopied and standing as a distant monument. } Oh, yes... { there is something tentative here, but it can't be in having his private home commented on. Ambrose invited Seunwoo in, anticipated his presence here... it isn't a fiercely personal thing he might wish to keep hidden. it's his wording, that Ambrose is undecided on, not a visitor in his home. } I suppose it seems a little grand. I can't sleep in confined spaces...and any sliver of light disrupts me.

{ he hates them as soon as he's spoken the words aloud, committed to the air, manifested. it feels like a morbid joke he would find on a script with the stage direction, '[ and then he, the VILLAIN, stares out into the audience and to them, gives a knowing and hearty CACKLE of ill intent. ]' how did his life get to this point? he's trying not to think about it too closely.

Ambrose turns to disappear into the kitchen. } I'll pour us some glasses.

Feel free to be at ease. You may like to tip something over, if it would help. { the smile is kind, truly, one of a forgiving benefactor. Ambrose sees the rigidity in Seunwoo's shoulders, now narrow he makes himself on the settee, virtually holding onto his breath to keep from disrupting the air. darling, if you catch a sight of his vanity near that bed...it's absolute chaos. makeup everywhere. don't let the ornate mirror fool you. }

(With his bag left at the door he has no other baggage in hand so he simply just stays seated where he is, trying not to even think of tipping something over the way Ambrose suggests. Perish the thought. The things in here cost more than his Hermès collection, he's sure.)

I can understand that - the light thing, I mean.

(He has to admit he's gotten used to it, though, the light coming through his window through the curtains that are so thin they might as well not even really be curtains at all. While Ambrose is out procuring the glasses and pouring the wine, Seunwoo does take note of the disarray on the vanity. It's a little bit of something "normal" in this otherwise picturesque setting. At least he can take solace in the fact that this well-put-together man has problems with his make-up too. After all, looking effortlessly good does take several hours of preparation in his experience. Your hair just doesn't fall perfectly into place without some styling. What he doesn't know is it's probably really difficult to apply make-up on your face when you can't even see it in the reflection of the mirror.

When Ambrose returns with the glasses - long-stemmed things, he's sure - he smiles at him and bows his head in thanks as he accepts it before moving to the side so that the other man may sit alongside him if he wishes.)

Thank you. And I'm not Godzilla or anything like that, so no rampaging through your wonderful place nor tipping things over, I think.

(With a little laugh, he begins to swirl the thick, heady liquid around in the swell of the glass to prime it for drinking. They might both be country rubes playing at being nobility but will either of them admit to that? It's anyone's guess, after all, with Seunwoo wearing high fashion like it's going out of style and Ambrose styling himself like an aristocrat out of the 1800s in France.)

So. Tell me about yourself. I know you aren't familiar with clubs and nightlife. What are you familiar with?

(Hiding a grin by raising the glass to his lips to sip, his eyes still display the mirth with their little sparkle and glimmer. He hasn't much of an idea about this one but it does seem like they're on opposite ends of the social hierarchy; he's curious to see just how far apart they actually are.)

{ it's here in the kitchen that Ambrose realizes a fatal (not really) mistake — he doesn't own a corkscrew. why would he, now? he stares across his unsettlingly bare kitchenette dumbfounded at the scenario he has just awoken to, caught and betrayed by lady fortune and the pattern she has chosen to weave for him. is the cosmos so aligned against him? Ambrose reels in silence just out of full view of Seunwoo, who, when he checks, seemed preoccupied with the details of his living space.

a life spent undead and drinking blood from the living...at least has its benefits. coming in clutch is a strange and revolutionary thought, and it has Ambrose peeling the foil away from the top of the bottle before...grasping into the cork stopper with his bare fingertips, cleanly manicured nails clasping into the porous piece and ripping the pressure-suspended stopper like some uncultured, raised-by-wolves oddity. Ambrose...wasn't entirely sure it would work, until it shockingly did, and with that, he narrowly avoids a questionable challenge liable to disrupt the momentum of having Seunwoo here, blissfully spared of any off-beat moments.

not that he is entirely saved from any more hurdles in his pantomime performance tonight, knowing his own luck, or lack thereof. the true betrayal is having spent the majority of his own adult life taking the roles of things he is anything but — and not a single day of convincing acting can favor his odds here, tonight.

but Ambrose can smile at Seunwoo when he returns with the glasses, and that smile can at least carry the merits of being genuine, because that is the very reason why this farce is challenging at all: Ambrose likes Seunwoo, and with that fact, he can't bear to tarnish the image that Seunwoo holds of him.

he sits beside him, taking his own glass to rest the stem against his upper lip, demure and thoughtful in this image. the glass does not fog with his breath, not even when Ambrose makes an effort to appear idly respirating now. he knows being too-still is enough for any living human to sense something uncanny about him.

as Seunwoo prompts, Ambrose tests the wine with a sip — the scent and the taste are all alarmingly amplified in his senses, but none of it is enough to overwhelm. once off of his palette and down his throat, however, the sensation disappears, liquid turning to ash down in his chest. harmless in small amounts, but he had been warned by his sire one, 'too much indulgence in what does not sustain us, will ultimately backfire upon us.' he wonders which difficult fact makes the wine taste more bitter to him.

but Seunwoo is vividly sweet in every sense he possesses, and Ambrose is keen to take him in — equally a benefit as much as a trap, perhaps, but this vampire is still brave enough, or stupid enough, to keep going. } Familiar with? Oh dear, I'm afraid I'm a rather open and regretfully dull book to read.

Art, and its history... I portray, I perform, I live on stage, I convey spectacular lives born out of the genius of others. I am sustained by the sublime and attempt to entertain others with the happiness it gives me.

The only boisterous music I am familiar with is a pit orchestra at an opera. { these things feel like the bourgeois luxuries of the old and the rich, but not even Ambrose has the awareness or ability to loom with an aristocratic air, even if his dwelling can; he seems to glow with something inspired, a fondness too genuine to mistake for some clamor for a status symbol. even in his time, he looked to the ancients, gods of Greece and Rome with their too-fantastic dramas interwoven into the very nature of the earth. } Recently, I've been inspired by design, of garments and of the self. Fashion and beauty are such intimidating realms, but I can't help but be pulled in by what I see. { says an actor that suffers through complicated costumes and spends most of his time off the stage wearing...as little as he can get away with, in truth. at least he's earning some reconciliation there. }

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

up all night

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apologies for being dead there for a hot minute 8)

welcome back to the land of the UNdead... i'll see myself out

don't go seunwoo just showed up!!

it was because of my terrible pun T_T

this is a no judgement zone u_u

i judge myself the most

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