2749/Dun Dun Dunnn

Dun Dun Dunnn
Date of Scene:	26 August 2025
Location:	Korma Chameleon
Synopsis:	Poor Rashmi. Mai Elcamino decides she wants curry. She even pays for it.
Cast of Characters:	Mai Elcamino, Rashmi Terios

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Mai Elcamino has posed:
It's still summer break, and unfortunately for everyone, it's still like 38C out, a hundred degrees F, and...

...the tall girl who walks in wearing Chanel actually smells like Chanel No. 5 instead of sweat, and she's not dripping. Her hair is perfect, her makeup is perfect, her eyebrows are perfect--

--and she was seen once last week henshining and calling up two youma because her ice cream melted onto her hand.

She clicks up to the counter in her Jimmy Choo heels and doesn't touch anything, and her mani is perfect, and she carries a breathless aura of unpredictability and power.

Her Japanese is also flawless and Tokyo-accented, her voice a husky alto, when she says politely, "I'd like to make an order to go."

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Irrashaimasu!"

It's rare that the inside of the Korma Chameleon is actually *cooler* than the outside, but restaurant-grade HVAC *can* be a draw when the weather gets hot enough, and the Terios elders are *always* happy to have their daughter help out around the shop, no matter *what* her reasoning is.

Which is why she's the waitress at the podium when Mai walks into the restaurant, and once the traditional greeting is done, and the redhead bothers to *look* at the new customer...

For a brief moment, she freezes. Oh... *no.* It's the lady who yelled at the ice cream guy.

In half a heartbeat, visions of a million Awful Customer Stories flash through her head. But there is neither time nor station to indulge in shortstopping such horror.

There is only the power of the Customer Service Smile, and hope.

"Good afternoon, customer-san!" she chirps, bright and cheerful and just *delighted* to have a new customer, and hands over a menu. "If you've never had Bengali curries before, I'd be happy to explain anything that looks unfamiliar, and can I get you a lassi while you wait? We have strawberry, mango, jackfruit, cardamom, rose..."

How Mai answers these questions will be very, very important to nail down What Kind of Customer She Really Is, and it's at moments like this that hope shines brightest.

Mai Elcamino has posed:
Mai, in fact, takes the menu. Her eyebrows are up, she listens politely, she does not smile. Her eyes slightly narrow at the enthusiasm Rashmi is displaying, tilting her head a little away and giving Rashmi the faintest side-eye. "A mango lassi," she says, "would be appreciated." Is she capable of appreciating things that aren't $5k+? We'll see.

She carefully opens the menu, touching it as little as possible, and her eyes rake down the selection like they have energy claws of their own.

She closes her eyes, then looks up at Rashmi and says with a smile that looks like it might crack her face, "So would an explanation of your heat scale. I like a lot of spice, but not agent orange."

It's taking all of her willpower not to face-scrunch.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
"Oh good then you've come to the right place," Rashmi replies, grinning. "Papi *prefers* to make food that has at least as much flavor as heat, so I'd suggest staying at three-star. We *will* make up to five-star, but, nobody'll be happy about it. Not the chef, not you, nobody." It *sounds* like a threat but the *way* Rashmi is saying it is almost like a joke that Mai is in on; who would *want* food that spicy?

"Also it bears understanding that West Bengal loves mustard. If mustardseed isn't in the spice mix, it's a good bet mustard oil's an ingredient. Which brings me to allergies; if you have any, now's a *great* time to let me know so I can make sure they're seen to?"

Mai Elcamino has posed:
Does Mai have allergies?

OH YES. Do any of them cause a histamine reaction?

Oh no. She's allergic to cheap things, dirty things, low-class things, stinky things, displaying decency (you'll note the distress she seems to be in simply interacting with someone who she probably considers common.)

"... no," she sniffs. After a significant pause, she tosses her head a little and puts on another smile. "Thank you."

She's not relaxing, though. She's just getting more tense, her dark brown eyes like gimlets as they focus on Rashmi behind that smile. She shifts her weight from one Jimmy Choo almost-stiletto to the other, long lashes shadowing her sharp gaze.

She glances down at the menu one more time and then looks back up, and she puts the menu down carefully on the counter, smile not wavering. Someone else might mistake it for warm, it does a good job mimicking it.

Rashmi knows better.

"I truly have no idea what I would like out of your... selection. Just make whatever your favorite is. If it's terrible, then so is your taste," she finally says.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
Rashmi's eyebrows rise sharply at this... request? Order? Order, it fits better on many levels. It's actually pretty amazing, watching Mai try to behave decently when every instinct is clearly screaming at her to scream at Rashmi. "I mean, to *me* it's all comfort food, I grew up here," she says with a *genuinely* warm smile. "But how about... Chili Bhajjis to start, Kosha Mangsho for the entree -- we use lamb for ours, not mutton -- and then... for dessert, half-and-half of amriti and almond sandesh?"

Rashmi thinks this over, and nods to herself. She's pretty sure that Customer-san was doing her screaming in Spanish, and her father *had* tried out chili rellenos in the home kitchen -- after which the entire family proclaimed their preference for bhajjis -- and lamb was one of the higher-ticket items to come by in Japan... and the desserts decorative enough *as well as* delicious, it should satisfy her palate.

Scribbling all this down on her pad, she throws Mai a warm grin. "If you'd like to find a table, customer-san, I'll be happy to bring your lassi out. The rest of your order should be abooout fifteen to twenty minutes?"

Mai Elcamino has posed:
There's a microscopic relaxation of Mai's shoulders, and the frowny muscles around her mouth trying to break through the fake smile start backing off, making the smile sliiiiiiightly less fake. Rashmi can take an order, so Mai is all right with her. Rashmi is doing her job and serving her and there haven't been any hiccups in that service, so this place -- if the food is any good -- might have a new repeat customer, lucky them.

"We'll see if it suits," she says neutrally, despite a brief nosewrinkle at the idea that it could take up to twenty minutes, but she's willing to accept in this case that it's the price to pay for not ordering until you've seen the cleanliness of the restaurant. "...thank you."

She confidently sits at the biggest empty table, like a cat taking up the whole bed, but much less fuzzy and nice.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
The mango lassi is brought out within minutes, along with a promise of free refills until she's out the door. But at that point, Mai is left to her own devices for a bit; curry in summer isn't *door-bustingly* popular, but the restaurant has enough regulars that one ought to be moving as much as possible.

And the table *is* spotlessly clean; not a smudge on the table beyond the dings and scrapes of long, hard use. All the soup spoons are *not* the mass-produced blue-on-white plastic seen darn near everywhere in the world, but black lacquer with a subtle pattern traced in gold paint, and the chopsticks are at least a step up from the paper-packet tear-and-scrape variety. As with the rest of the decoration, care and detail have been paid upon the tables.

The atmosphere the place seeks to engender might not be Mai's preference, but even she has to admit, it hits its target well.

And it's *fourteen* minutes later, that Rashmi brings a stack of boxes and two empty bags to the table, along with a bill. "Here you are~!" she chirps, taking the smallest off the stack and bagging it very, very separately. "Amriti's fried," she explains, "and the whole point of fried food is crispy, so dessert gets a separate bag."

Mai Elcamino has posed:
There's an almost friendly amusement as Rashmi comes bustling up to Mai with the food and a bill-- she appreciates it when people try to win her favor, and fourteen out of fifteen minutes does so, and so does the mango lassi, and so does the restaurant. Mai doesn't have to admit anything...

...but if she were the type to admit anything instead of magically coming up with appreciation on her own in order to let her conversational partner know that she condescends to faint praise. Pennies from heaven for the poor and low class.

The grating kind of noblesse oblige.

She takes out a gleaming black Obsidian credit card and hands it to Rashmi: in hiragana, 'Elcamino', in kanji, 'Mai' -- the kanji that mean 'absolutely' and 'magnificent'.

This unbelievable woman literally sits there and looks expectant, because if the server comes to you with a bill, then you hand them your card without looking at the numbers and you finish your lassi while the server is supposed to go to the register and do sales-y things, and then the card and the receipt come back with a pen, and then you can leave.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
The black card was not a surprise, but Rashmi does make a point to go 'oooh,' as she takes it, immediately moving to the register to perform Menial Arcanery. If she expects Rashmi to be impressed by her Unlimited Money Slab, well... it hurts nothing by at least putting in the energy to *attempt* to fake it.

'Erukamino Mai,' is her name... And of all the spellings for the kanji, *of course* it would be that. This is clearly a woman who either has been raised to believe the hype of her name, or *fakes very impressively* believing the hype of her name.

Either way, it's... not pitiable. but something within shouting distance of it, at least; five minutes' interacting with her outside of a youma-generating tantrum, and already she has a very good idea that Mai is neither the type to have friends, nor the type to even know that other people exist for something *besides* generating admiration and things.

Stir in her Obsidian job, and you have a recipe for an extremely noxious pile of conflict and misery. And to subject a Device to that kind of environment...

One at least hopes that she'll matter enough to Riventon to ensure basic regular maintenance.

It's not long at all before Rashmi is back, with card and bill to sign. "There you go, customer-san, and I hope you enjoy your food!"

Mai Elcamino has posed:
At the 'ooh', Mai does have the grace to let loose something that resembles the almost friendly amusement she had when Rashmi bustled over with her food. At least her handwriting is legible. And at least it's not perfect. Those might be the only points in her favor, her only redeeming qualities as a human being.

She puts the signed bill and pen down on the table instead of handing them to Rashmi, and as she gets up, she inclines her head slightly instead of bowing. "Thank you. I hope I do too!" she says with that same haughty sniff of a smile, and then she takes her bags and clicks out the door.

Rashmi Terios has posed:
And of course Mai gets a full bow, and when she leaves the door... Rashmi's Customer Service Face manages to hold until the door closes, at which point it cracks, then crumbles completely. Loosing a long sigh as she picks up bill and pen -- seriously, it's like she *tried* to find every tiny way to irritate a 'customer service peon' without being outright abusive! -- and stores both where they belong.

Well, *that* was unpleasant, and if she likes the food it's gonna get unpleasant for a lot more people than just herself. Luckily, she happens to know the owners of the restaurant, and through them can warn the entire staff of the new Microaggressive Problem Customer; in her favor, she at least isn't so picky that she hands off *her* recipe to take to the kitchen...