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A waitress brought everyone their food after a few minutes.

"Yup. That is big. I dont know is it the shape, but in the bowl it looks like even larger than takeaway portion. We need to show this place to Aaron." Matt commented with wide smile.

Meg poked at the soup curiously and smelled it before tasting it. "Oh this is really good," she commented. "I'll admit, I'm totally ignorant when it comes to Asian cuisine. I didn't realize Vietnamese food was so different from Chinese. I guess I need to get out more and try new stuff."

She turned to Danny.

"So, wasn't this worth coming out of your apartment for? After this, how can you possibly just do delivery," She asked. "Like Matt said, you get a bigger portion if you come into the restaurant!"

The rude woman didn't return and dinner passed peacefully. "Okay, I'll admit coming in here was totally worth it," Danny admitted at the conclusion of the meal. "But, don't expect me to go out to eat regularly. Once I get everything set up, I tend to order stuff. I mean, I do get bored and am totally up for exploring and all because I need a change of pace, but I'm used to doing work and school from home. I'm a remote kinda guy."

Once they got the bill, Danny left a generous tip. When the others were ready, they headed back to Meg's Kia and prepared to return to the apartment complex. Since the parking lot was down the street from the complex, Danny hoped Meg and Matt would help him with his stuff. Otherwise, it was going to take him a few trips to get everything unloaded.

Once they arrived to the parking place, Matt picked up good amount of stuff Danny had bought. Once Danny picked up full load as well, there were just few items left. Meg assisted with the rest, so they got the whole car empty with one round. They headed to Dannys appartments, left the cargo inside, wished their farewells for that day, and headed back for their own appartents to continue their own day.

Foxlake Appartments
Wednesday, August 24, 11 AM


Time was passing slowly. Meg was minding her own business and running her chores. Suddenly, strange tapping sound started above her. It was almost like some kind of small firearm, shooting with rapid fire. It went of for perhaps a minute, and stopped. After that, all fell silent. After a short silence.. "Bang". Loud sound of some kind echoed upstairs. It was strong, and Meg had a feeling that it sent a shockwave throung the builings walls. "Bang..Bang.....Bang..Bang..Bang!"
The sound came again and again. Frequency was irregular, perhaps once in 10 seconds. They were like something between a gunshots and hammer blows. And they kept on coming.

Meg tried again to play through the verse of the song on her guitar. The banging started as soon as she began. It was really getting nerve-wracking. Unfortunately, since Meg didn't own an electric guitar, it wasn't really possible for her to practice with headphones and she really needed to work on this new song for Friday's gig. The maintenance people were probably doing some work around the building.

Tap tap tap... BANG! No. That was definitely coming from above. Wasn't that Hue's apartment? She said that she lived in the same complex and Meg was pretty sure it turned out that she was right above her. The banging was getting louder and more persistent now. It had been going for several minutes. Maybe she got a desk from Ikea or something that she was assembling.

The walls shook and the banging was getting louder and more constant now. The wall between hers and Danny's apartment was shaking. Maybe Danny was the one making all that racket. He did need to order furniture after all and probably had overnight. Meg couldn't tell anymore where the noise was coming from. All she knew was the entire apartment was shaking. Meg sat her guitar down and opened her front door to see if the source was coming from Danny.

OOC: I'm a little confused. Isn't this supposed to be Hue? Did you post as Aaron by accident?

Sound was not so clear on the outside. Meg realized that it must have been kinetic rather than just loud. It seemed to come from above, rather than from Danny. She could feel the shockwave on the wall, as she touched the wall between her appartment and Danny.

Meg saw that Aaron was squatting in the garden near her door, cheking at some bucket. There was some kind of wooden device above it. Aaron seemed very focused, yet bit annoyed.

OOC - for the first post, posting under spesific character is bit irrelevant, since it is just a narration. The noise is Hue indeed. Aaron is ready for conversation.

Just as Meg opened her door, Danny stepped out of his apartment. "What are you building Meg," Danny asked.

"I was going to ask you the same thing! The entire building is shaking," She replied.

"It's not me," Danny replied. "Must be coming from upstairs."

Meg noticed Aaron. The banging could be heard outside.

"I think it is coming from Hue's apartment," Danny observed, recalling she had mentioned she lived above Meg.

"What are you doing," Meg asked Aaron momentarily forgetting the banging noise.

"Oh, hi Meg. I tested last night a quick prototype of a rat trap. I dont know is it legal, but I couldnt help myself from trying it. This thing is supposed to drop them and drown them to water below, but now that I check it, all of the bait is gone and there is nothing in the water. Not even mice. I wish i had night vision camera to see what went wrong." Aaron explained.

He looked at Meg and Danny and then upstairs towards the noise.

"Danny, you came also? Seems that you also hear that banging. I thought it was you with your furnitures. Someone must have an intense project going on as well. Like... an average Ikea assembly attempt. Just that the craking sounds and intense cursing are missing."

"Oh, hi Meg. I tested last night a quick prototype of a rat trap. I dont know is it legal, but I couldnt help myself from trying it. This thing is supposed to drop them and drown them to water below, but now that I check it, all of the bait is gone and there is nothing in the water. Not even mice. I wish i had night vision camera to see what went wrong." Aaron explained.

"Oh, this is Danny. He just moved in yesterday," Meg explained. "He went to dinner with Matt and me last night while we went shopping. He needed a couple of things to get him through the night."

"Sup," Danny said to Aaron with a nod. "Yeah, we met briefly the other day."

He looked at Meg and Danny and then upstairs towards the noise.

"Danny, you came also? Seems that you also hear that banging. I thought it was you with your furniture. Someone must have an intense project going on as well. Like... an average Ikea assembly attempt. Just that the craking sounds and intense cursing are missing."

"I think it must be Hue," Meg replied. "Let's go see what she's up to!'

Meg headed towards the stairs leading to the second floor landing. The stairs were located outside in the breezeway between the units. Danny followed. Meg tapped on Hue's door once she got to the top of the stairs. The noise definitely appeared to be coming from her apartment.

At the same time, Matt walked down the stairs, holding a bike oil bottle.

"Whoa, what's the gathering for?" Matt asked with a surprised voice.

"Hello Matt, your new friend is making a lot of noice, and we came to check what's going on. What was her name again, Hue?" Aaron said.

"OH YEA, Hue! Too bad you missed the trip yesterday. She is a lovely young chef working nearby. Turned out she lives right above Meg and Danny." Matt explained.

Now, the whole group was standing in fronth of Hue' door. Banging stopped, and all went silent for a while. After that, the door opened. Hue was standing behind the door, wearing a white apron above her regular clothes. The apron had skillfully hand made decorated cute family of ducks, combined with vietamese text. Either it was imported or someone really skilled sewing professional had tailor made it for her, because no shop in US sold stull like that. Apron had tiny red spills all over it, that looked like blood. On her left hand, Hue was holding a massive 6-inch meat cleaver, that had signs for being recently used for cutting something organic. One could only conclude that it had not been vegetables. Hue looked surprised for a brief moment.

"Oh Hi! Nice to see you all! How are you today?" Hue asked, smiling from ear to ear.

Aaron' eyes were about to fall off from their sockets. He looked at Hue, then the meat cleaver, then Matt. Matt had similar look in his face. Neither was able to say anything.

Danny was as surprised as everyone else when Hue opened the door. The first thing he noticed was the apron she had on. The second thing he saw was the large meat cleaver she was holding. Was that blood on it? The apron appeared to have some drips on it, too."

"Oh God, we are witnesses to a murder," Danny said. "Or at least the dismembering of a body! No wait, we've not seen anything yet. Disregard that! We didn't see anything at all... or hear anything. None of us know anything. At least, not me! No one else saw anything suspicious either, did they?"

Danny quickly glanced between Aaron, Matt, Meg and then back to Hue.

OOC: I forgot Danny briefly met Aaron. I was thinking this was his first time encountering him. I edited my previous post slightly to fix it.

Hue looked stunned for a brief moment, looked down to her tool, and hid it quickly behind her back. She started to look kinda embarassed.

"No no no, dont get me wrong, I was just so deep in my cooking. This..this... It must look really creepy, but I just forgot to discard it on the way to the door. You see.. im making traditional dish called "Chicken ginger". It is a lot of work, and I need strong tool to do it.. you wanna see?"

Hue tried to smile, but she clearly was in bit of distress. She left the door open, walked back to kitchen, wrapped a tissue around the meat cleaver and quickly stuffed it into her fridge. She then came back halfaway to the door with her both hands now empty.

"Please come inside, and see." Hue said, and clearly displayed her two empty hands.

Meg was caught off guard when Hue opened the door with a large bloody meat cleaver in hand and a slightly dirty apron. Had they walked in on a murder in progress? Danny beat her to it, clearly making a joke. Before Hue explained what was going on, Meg had already pieced it together. She was chopping something up and busy cooking.

It was surprising how much noise it made, though. Hue quickly put the cleaver away and came back to the door empty-handed. She invited the group in. Meg filed in behind the 3 guys and closed the door. She was curious to see what Hue was working on given the amount of noise all the chopping had made.

Once they arrived to kitchenette, there was large wooden cutting board next to stoven. On the cutting board was about a half of a chicken as a chunk. Next to the cutting board were two plates, one bigger and one smaller. The bigger plate had chunks of chicken, chopped through the bone. Chicken looked like ordinary, so it wasnt unusually bloody or such. Red drops on Hue's apron were more likely from the bone marrow than just blood splashes. Each piece was small enough, so that they would fit into the mouth. Cuts were rather clean, but there were some pieces that had sharp edges and partially crushed structure. There were also some small bone fragments around the kitchen. On the smaller plate was long and thin sticks of raw ginger.

Cutting board had taken really serious beating. Along with the deep cuts and holes, there were small pieces of bone fragments from the chicken. It appeared that as Hue had been chopping the chicken in pieces, the cleaver had also cut of some pieces of wood from the cutting board. She may have looked small and gentle, but since she was capable of doing such damage to piece of wood, she clearly had quite a physical strenght as well. No wonder her cooking made such a loud noise.

”Im about halfway through the process here. Once im done with the chopping, I will make caramel sauce. This is kinda big portion, but I prefer to make bigger dish to eat for a while. This is not the most guest friendly dish, since you have to watch out for sharp bone fragments. Some of my friends don’t dare to eat this because of it, even tough this is very tasty. Soo.. I can let you try once im done.” Hue explained the conditions as everyone was looking around her kitchenette.

Danny surveyed the kitchen. "Well, I know who I'm calling if I ever need a body dismembered," He remarked. "You sure know how to go about it."

"I don't know," Meg protested. "That was pretty noisy. I think the whole complex heard it. She's definitely good at cutting things up. Cutting things up subtly, not so much!"

"Well, dirty deeds don't come dirty cheap ya know," Danny replied. "So, sorry we interrupted your chicken dismemberment. How much more do you have to do?"

”Im about halfway through the process here. Once im done with the chopping, I will make caramel sauce. This is kinda big portion, but I prefer to make bigger dish to eat for a while. This is not the most guest friendly dish, since you have to watch out for sharp bone fragments. Some of my friends don’t dare to eat this because of it, even tough this is very tasty. Soo.. I can let you try once im done.” Hue explained the conditions as everyone was looking around her kitchenette.

"I"m all for free samples," Danny volunteered eagerly.

"I kind of figured you would be," Meg said, rolling her eyes.

"Hey, I'm all about free food, even if it's a taste. I'm with Hue. Ordering too much, for a single meal is a great plan" Danny agreed. "Pizza is a good example. I can usually make two, maybe 3 meals out of it if I get breadsticks and an extra large. Anytime I can get a large portion of something that reheats well, that saves me from having to order more food immediately. Remember kids, microwaves are your friend!"

"I can give it a try too, don't worry about the fragments" Matt said enthusiastically.

"Something new I surely havent tried. Keep it coming. Im in too." Aaron commented, marvelling the scenery. "Your cutting board seems a bit beaten up, you want me to make you a new one?"
"Umm.. no thank you. I go to work, so that I can take care of my own property, but thank you from the offer." Hue replied with a bit of surprise in her tone.

Hue resumed to her process, giving the first row seats to the group on how to 'punish a chicken'.
"This is not among the easyest dishes in our cusine. I don't do this very often, and I don't plan to make this as a habit. Still, most of vietnamese dishes follow somewhat the same logic: stand in the kitchen for 10 hours and gone i
60 seconds. Also, since I work in restaurant, I also appreciate that I dont have to cook every time. If me or my friends ever come to visit your places, just promise me that you dont serve leftovers. Make something new. Fast food pizza is bareable. Unopened, straight from the shop, you get the picture. Even frozen french loaf baked in oven would be enough. Just make sure you wont bring chicken tenders in tupperware box to the table."

"In Vietnamese community.." (Hue placed largest piece she could find into the cutting position, and slammed it in half with particularily stong blow.) "..we only eat our own leftovers.." (second piece got the samekind of treatment.) "..among our own family"

Aaron turned towards Matt. "#subtlemessages". He whispered. Matt nodded, with shivers. Clearly, Hue did not like leftovers.

"This can look a bit intimidating, but hey, its food. You gotta do what you gotta do. This is my business as usual. What about you all? What kind of activities do you normally do? I do so much cooking I would like to try some new things, that are not related to eating or cooking" Hue said with innocent smile, and chopped last chicken piece in half with a big bang.

Meg was surprised to hear Hue's comments about not being willing to eat other people's leftovers. She'd never heard that before, but she did explain that was how things were done in her culture and Meg respected that. If she was going to have anyone over for dinner, she wouldn't serve leftovers to guests anyway. It would either be ordered fresh or something she prepared herself.

When asked what kinds of activities the others did, Meg perked up. "Well, right now, I'm in a band... well, a duo. I sing and play guitar... well I sing backup. Wednesday is the lead vocalist. We're playing at the Cosmic Cafe off of Stevens St. Friday night," she offered. "No cover charge. We start at 8 PM. We'll play several sets and be there til about 11."

"Cosmic Cafe," Danny asked.

"Yeah, it's a popular coffee shop just off campus. As you probably guessed, it has a sort of alien or sci-fi theme to it. Lots of robot sculptures, the furniture looks futuristic and the walls are black with spaceships and planets painted with neon paint so they glow. The whole place is lit by black lights," Meg explained. "They don't offer a full menu, but you can get pastries and things like that with your tea or coffee. They have a small stage and host acoustic acts like us. Some nights they do poetry readings or stand-up comedy. It's a small place."

"Live music.. well that is something new. I honestly don't remember last time I heard live music. Mostly I just listen something from YouTube. Yea, I could come. The scenery also sounds fascinating. Definitely a whole new place for me. You said there are stand up comedians sometimes as well? For sure I have never seen stand up comedian on live show." Hue said, tapping her cheek.

Hue started making caramel sauce on kettle. She first heated the sugar, so that it turned brown, and added some liquid.
"My brother called me some while ago and said he bought tickets to "Paris By Night". That is a massive music performance spectacle among Vietnamese community. It looks like Oscar gala, but there are no awards given. Very flashy, talented performers and everything is very expensive. I did not ask how much the tickets were. My parents have some episodes on DVD. The show has been running longer than I have lived, so it is a big business with long history. Among my friends and family, that was pretty much the only music we ever heard. Oh, and soundtracks of Korean drama series. My boss loves that stuff."

"Do you listen to K-pop?" Aaron asked.
"Not really. Some series have music from K-pop stars, but usually they put the best songs to the series. Anything else from the same artist is usually just lame. I think people who are into k-pop are primarily just after sixpacks. I can't see the point. Anyone can do push ups, and look fit. I'm not sending my money to some random dude, who sings with autotune without a shirt." Hue said plainly. She checked the sauce, spiced the chicken and started to fry in on a massive wok pan.

"Yeah, not a Kpop fan either. I think that's kind of a chick thing," Danny replied. "No offense intended there or anything. I'd rather support local music, on the rare occasions I do go out that is. Going to see a big-name act in an arena is way too expensive. I've gone to a few major concerts in my life. Most of the bands I like are from the 80s and the bands are either long gone, dead, or in their 70s at this point. I'm not much into modern-day music. I think I was born in the wrong decade." Danny shrugged.

"Anyway, we should go to Meg's shin-dig just to support her if nothing else," Danny encouraged. "So, how is the food coming Hue? It smells good!"

Hue stared intensively her dish, while stirring it around.

"Looking good. It just needs a little bit more. "

She stopped for a short while to put the noodles boiling. They looked smaller than the ones in Pho earlyer.
”My dad always made a big issue on supporting local communities. I also feel better for buying from someone I know rather than bigger nationwide companies. Many of my relatives have small business somewhere. My uncle actually runs a small shop in the town. He sells food and kitchenware.”
Matt noticed the size of the noodle, as he looked over the kettle.
"What are these? They look different." He said, peeking to the kettle.
"That is because they are different. Pho and chicken ginger use different types of noodles. There are many noodle variants, and they are often purposed for a single dish. You could basically use them in other dishes as well, but everyone who know the original dish will look at you like 'what's wrong with you, did you ran out of noodles?' You got Bán Phở previously and this is Bún Tươi. In our cusine we use like 10-20 noodle types more or less on a daily basis. I heard italians have over 200 pasta types, so I don’t think that our noodles are overly complicated in comparison.”