It was an awesome day for sign spinning.

Then again, for Fred, every day was an awesome day for sign spinning. It didn't matter if it was rainy or sunny, hot or cold. His suit kept him dry and warm, kept the sun off his head, and if he got sweaty he could take a break in the science lab and watch his friends at work. There was never a downside. He could stand street side in his giant lizard suit and practice his moves, flipping and jumping all over the place as he twirled his advertisement for The San Fransokyo Institute of Technology. He liked to think he was doing the school a service, luring in potential students with his rad skills.

But today was a particularly awesome day for sign spinning, in comparison to other days. The sun was out, but there was a nice ocean breeze blowing in and cooling the city off. Sure, his suit was a little hot anyway, but that didn't bother him. Sunny days meant more people walking by, and more people meant more chances to showcase his amazing talent. Plus, it was a day off for some grade school kids- a staff day or something he guessed, since SFIT was still in session. But school kids loved his mascot suit and how he could stand on his hands, so that meant more flipping and stopping to take pictures with the little ones.

Eventually he'd take a break and go see his friends, but during the day most of them were in class. He'd go with them, but a lot of the professors had pretty much banned him from their classrooms on account of his many questions... and the distracting nature of his mascot suit. (Where was he supposed to put it? In the back? No way!) So he would take his breaks in the lab instead, watching Wasabi tinker with his lasers or Hiro improve his microbots.

Too bad his friends had late classes on Wednesdays; he was on his own until almost six in the evening. Four extra hours of mascot work wasn't bad, but it wasn't what he was used to. Still, he wouldn't complain, not when he got to take pictures with kids looking like he was ready to destroy a city. He almost wished he had his superhero suit instead, but after the first couple times, the others made him promise not to wear it. Killjoys. The super jumping totally drew people in. He even promised he wouldn't breathe fire.

It was close to two when Fred took a break from sign spinning for a minute, sitting on a stone bench with his backpack and his hood down so he could have some lunch. Heathcliff had packed him a ham and cheese sandwich with mayo, which looked delectable as usual. Licking his lips as he held the sandwich in one hand he'd snaked out of his suit's armhole, he took a large bite and hummed delightedly, looking around at the people passing as he chewed.

Glimpsing a bright red splotch out of the corner of his eye, Fred almost missed the shock of red hair that was passing by. But he turned quickly and swallowed his food as he realized who it was- that was Hiro's friend from the tattoo shop! "Hey!" He yelled, standing up and raising the hand with his sandwich to wave with enthusiasm. "Hey, Ninja!" He tried, and the girl stopped and turned, looking back at him with a confused expression. Fred grinned and laid his sandwich down, shoving his arm back in the suit as he met her in the middle distance between them.

"How's it goin', miss kickass kaiju master?" He joked, face all but split in half with the grin he was giving her. "You remember me, right?" He hoped so.

"Yeah, you're uh. Fred?" She questioned with a raised brow, which Fred realized had two lines shaved out of it. "The one with a normal name."

Snorting, Fred waved his hand like it was no big deal. "Naaaah, the others have normal names! I just gave them really awesome nicknames, that's all." They couldn't deny his nicknames were pretty cool- Wasabi? Now that was pretty rock and roll. Perfect for a superhero, anyway.

Ninja girl- or should he call her kaiju girl? She didn't seem really interested, though. She was checking out his suit. "I didn't realize the school mascot was a giant monster. You must get hella roasted in that thing." She observed, and again, Fred scoffed at the notion and waved a dismissive hand.

"No way! It keeps the sun off my beanie, and the breeze keeps me cool." He explained, and with a gasp he realized she had probably never seen him before, which meant- "Awww man, you need to see my moves! Wait here." He instructed before running back to his bench, hearing her laugh behind him as he picked up his long SFIT sign and returned. She looked skeptical, but Fred was no stranger to the nonbeliever. "Prepare to be amazed!" He explained in the best stage voice he could muster, and she stepped back, gesturing.

"Show me your stuff, oh please." She hummed, and Fred lifted his hood just a little, smug smile on his face.

"Is that sarcasm I detect?" He joked, and now he was the one giving her a skeptical look. "I'll have you know I am highly trained in the arts of sign spinning and mascot-ery, oh you of little faith." He tutted and put his hood back down again, standing back and holding his sign. "Check this out!" He yelled, and he started spinning- his sign was in one hand! Now the other! Now over his head! He was jumping! It was behind his back! He was spinning, and then he was doing a flip! "Kachow!" He yelled as he landed. "Wa-BAM!" He called as he flipped the sign around his head. "Ohhh yeah!" He yelled as he tossed his sign in the air, did a handstand on one hand, and caught the sign again- striking a pose and then flipping the hinged mouth back without using his hands.

The redhead nodded, obviously impressed. "Wooow." She admitted, arms crossed over her chest. "Okay, pretty cool. Pretty cool." She conceded as she nodded, leaning on one hip. "Where'd you learn stuff like that? They teach classes on it here?" She questioned as she pointed at his sign.

Shaking his head, Fred tossed the sign back back his things with ease. "No no no no no, I'm not a student." He explained, feeling a tinge of déjà vu as he did. When had he said that before? "I just come here to hang out with my pals. The mascot gig's just to give me something to do while they're in class. Plus," He gestured down to his suit, "Dressing as a giant monster? So cool."

"You look like a cross between a murloc and Titanosaurus from Mekagojira no Gyakushu." She tilted her head a little to get a better look at the spines on his back, and Fred grinned.

"Whaaat? I always thought I looked more like Gamera."

"Gamera was a turtle."

Man, she was a kaiju master. "Well... what about Rodan?"

"Rodan had wings." She raised her eyebrows at him with a victorious half smile.

"Barugon!"

"Now you're just being silly." She scoffed, looking up to the clear blue sky with a laugh. "Baragon, but that's a big maybe. You'd still need a horn." She reached forward and closed his suit's mouth, then pressed between its eyes, nudging him a few steps back. "Right there."

Lifting it up again, Fred gave her a lazy smile. "Okay, so which is your favorite?" He questioned, making her blink.

"My favorite monster?" She questioned, and Fred nodded enthusiastically. She knitted her eyebrows together in thought. "Maybe Guiron?"

"From Gamera vs. Guiron? No way!" Fred laughed. "Guiron had that weird knife on his head!"

"Yeah, but he almost killed Gamera! His blade totally cut through his shell! And it could reflect a monster's beams back at it."

"But he pretty much got beaten by getting stuck in the ground." Fred raised his eyebrows and crossed his arms.

"Hey, you asked." The tattoo artist hummed, and then pulled up the side of her shirt a little to reveal a small, chibi Guiron tattoo nestled in the rest of the body art that was inked along her torso. "See? Adorable. Look at that little knife."

"Dude, that's so cool." Fred admired it before she pulled her shirt back down. "Hey, are you busy?" He asked suddenly, realizing he might have caught her going somewhere.

Looking down the street, Vesper chewed her lip. "Uh... No, not really. I'm off work today." She admitted, and Fred grinned.

"Cool! We should totally grab some lunch together!" He declared as he started walking back to grab his stuff. "I don't get to see the others until six, and I have a sandwich, but I'll still be hungry-"

"Whoa, hold up." Vesper stopped him, and he paused mid-stride, looking back at her. "You want to have lunch with me? Today?"

Frowning, it was Fred's turn to look confused. "Well, yeah. That's what I just said. Duh." He rolled his eyes and picked up his backpack, before realizing what she meant. "Ohhhhhh, you mean the suit, right? Nah, I'll just put it away in the school's lab, it'll only take a couple minutes." He picked up his sandwich and, after a moment, took a couple large bites and put it back in its plastic bag, then into his backpack. He would save the rest for later.

Looking him over, Vesper still looked skeptical. "You don't even know me." She pointed out, but followed him anyway as he walked.

"Sure I do! I met you a week ago." Fred shrugged off her reasoning. "Plus, you're Hiro's friend, right?" She nodded. "And you were Tadashi's friend too?" She nodded again. "Then you have earned the Fred stamp of approval! Easy peasy, bacon's greasy." He got a laugh for his trouble, and took pride in that.

"Well I know this great place we can go to then, best Korean food in all of San Fransokyo." She promised, and they were about to enter the robotics lab when Vesper came to a stop. "I'll wait for you out here." She told him- it wasn't a question. Clearly, she didn't want to come inside. Fred couldn't see why she'd be so nervous, but he shrugged it off.

"Okay! But I'll be right back. Like, if I had super speed, that's the only way I'd be faster." He promised before he dashed inside, climbing a flight of stairs to the second floor where his couch was waiting for him- along with Honey Lemon, who was mixing chemicals at her station.

"Oh hey Fred!" She chirped at him, watching with curiosity as he climbed out of his costume. "What're you up to?"

"Getting lunch with Ninja!" He declared, hopping on one foot as he kicked the last few inches of his suit off.

"Ninja...?" Honey questioned as he set his sign across his chair and threw his backpack on over one shoulder.

"Yeah, you know Ninja! Red hair, tattoos..." He was clearly trying to live up to the promise to be right back, and he was walking backward toward the door.

"Hiro's friend?" She raised an eyebrow, confused.

"Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, we're going for Korean!" He explained as he exited. "I'll be back later!" He yelled back down the hall, the final 'r' echoing back.

When he got back to the entryway, he found Vesper still standing there, looking at her reflection in the glass and messing with her hair. He popped out the door and held his arms out. "Tada! I have morphed back to my normal form." He joked, and Vesper rolled her eyes and smiled as they started walking.

"While you were inside I called the Korean place, they'll hold a table for us, but they're pretty busy." She warned, watching Fred stretch his arms above his head. While his mascot suit was cool, it felt nice to move freely again.

"Awesome. Oh man, Bulgogi sounds so good right now..." Fred held his stomach and sighed as he looked into the distance wistfully, his sandwich all but forgotten. "How far away is it?"

"About five minutes, since neither of us have super speed." She joked, looking over with a smirk on her face.

Fred was tempted to tell her about his super suit and how its jumping capabilities would get them there in no time, but he stopped himself. Superheroes had to keep their identities secret, after all. It was the curse of a double life... And it was also super cool. "So why are you over on this side of town anyway? Your shop's up by Hiro's place, and that's a pretty far walk." He pointed out.

Shrugging her shoulders, Vesper paused at an intersection as the two of them waited for the light to change. "It's just a place to be." She offered vaguely, and Fred narrowed his eyes at her, making her laugh. "What? I come down here a lot. Tadashi and I used to hang out and have lunch all the time."

Her mentioning Tadashi sparked a million questions in Fred's mind, and unlike other people with a filter, he wasn't afraid to ask them. "Were you at the funeral?" Probably not the best question to start with, though. "I mean, we didn't really see you..." He backtracked lamely.

Vesper's eyebrows knitted together and her lips pressed into a tight line. "I didn't stay for long." She explained, gesturing for him to turn left with her. "Funerals bother me."

It was time for a different topic, maybe something a little less morbid. "So you and Tadashi were besties, then?" Good memories were a better option, he figured.

It seemed to cheer her a little. "Yeah, he moved in with Cass when he was about ten, and the first time I met him, he came to my birthday party. He'd only been in San Fransokyo for about a week and didn't really have any friends." She was much more animated when she was happy, Fred noted. She used her hands as she talked. "My Dad and I knew Cass from the café, so she had called to ask if Tadashi could come. He was... the only kid who showed up." She smirked and looked back to Fred. "I wasn't very popular in school." She clarified. "And after that I hung out with him and Hiro almost all the time."

Enraptured as he was with hearing stories about 'The Adventures of Little Tadashi' (he was already cooking up a theme song), Fred was even more curious about her mentioning Hiro too. "You and Hiro were friends too?" He questioned.

Vesper laughed. "It was pretty much a requirement if I was going to be friends with Tadashi. We babysat him for Cass a lot." She pointed out a shop front down the street. "The Korean place is right there." She changed the subject. "It's nice to be celebrating with someone today though, I was planning on lunch by myself since Yusei isn't really traditional..." She hummed, and Fred paused.

"Celebrate?" He questioned, trying to figure out what holiday it was. Not Christmas, it was September- maybe a birthday? Labor day! No, it was too late for that...

As she held open the door for him, Vesper also looked confused. "It's Chuseok?" She told him slowly, and when realization didn't dawn on his face, she huffed and blew a chunk of hair from her face. "It's a Korean holiday? Why do you think school's out today?"

Feeling a little embarrassed, but still willing to learn, Fred shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands in apology. "I am but a humble nerd..." He joked, and she rolled her eyes as he sidled inside the restaurant.

Vesper was right, the place was packed. There were people waiting in line, even. But that didn't seem to be a problem for Vesper, she waved to the hostess and then gestured for Fred to follow her up. "I know some of the people who work here." She explained, then turned to a short old woman who reminded Fred of GoGo if she were to suddenly age fifty years. Vesper spoke in quick Korean, and even if Fred knew the language he expected he wouldn't be able to keep up with their conversation.

A few seconds later, and they were escorted to a table toward the back. "I think you just ninja mind tricked her or something." Fred muttered in awe as they slid into a booth, both of them ordering sodas when the waitress came by. "Did you? Because if you did, you have to tell me."

Pulling her jacket off, Vesper merely smirked and said nothing. It didn't matter though, Fred had some learning to do, apparently. "So what is Chew-sow?" He questioned, hands flat on the table. "I am a young grasshopper, waiting for lessons."

The waitress came with their drinks and straws, Vesper told her they needed a few more minutes on the menu. "Chuseok." She corrected him. "It's a traditional Korean holiday; a harvest festival. People use it to go pay respects to their ancestors, and then we eat a lot of food. It's celebrated on the... Fifteenth day of the eighth month on the lunar calendar." She looked pleased with herself for remembering it, and then she tore her straw wrapper and blew it at Fred's face.

It struck him right in his kaiju beanie, and he mimed injury. "Augh, Ninja was defeated me! I go to a... better... place..." He slumped sideways in his booth and Vesper snickered, before he sat up with his own straw and fired at her. "Sneak attack!"

But the wrapper missed her and hit the booth instead, making her raise her hands up. "Ohhh, looks like being dead's ruined your aim." She boasted, sipping her soda. "Also, on Chuseok, we have Songpyeon. Have you ever had it?"

Fred shook his head, gulping down his own drink. "Nope! But it's food, so it must be good!" He declared, and when the waitress returned, the two of them ordered- Vesper and Fred both decided on Bulgogi, and ordered a bowl of songpyeon to split. Once the waitress left, Fred relaxed back in his seat. "So you visited your ancestors today?" He questioned.

Shaking her head, Vesper stirred her soda. "I was going to visit Tadashi's grave, but..." She trailed off, sipping her drink.

Fred's face softened a little- he could see her struggling. It reminded him a lot of Hiro, how he was when Tadashi passed. It had been a few months, but he imagined that for Vesper, having known him for so long, the wounds were still fresh. "You can talk about it if you want. I mean, Tadashi was my friend too, and Gogo's, and Honey Lemon's, and Wasabi's, but you knew him for like... Way longer than the rest of us. You'd totally be part of his superhero backstory." He tried to cheer her up.

It worked, a little. Vesper sat back in her chair and stopped staring at her drink. "It was just..." She chose her words carefully, mulling over her thoughts before she spoke. "Tadashi was my best friend, my whole life. I dropped out of high school for... well. He was still there for me, corny as it sounds. Then he went to college, and we didn't hang out as much anymore, mostly just had smoothies at The Lucky Cat. I mean, I have Yusei, and some of the artists at Tattoo Temple, but..." The nostalgic look on her face was shattered as she laughed it off. "It's okay, though. We move on, we grow. 'You can't let the past stop your future'." She quoted, and the bowl of Songpyeon arrived, saving her.

After that, the two of them ate and chatted over Bulgogi, topics ranging from Tadashi to monster movies to Fred's sign spinning. Eventually, the food was eaten and they had empty glasses of soda hoarded on the end of their table. Leaning back in his seat, Fred patted his stomach and sighed, closing his eyes. "Food... coma..." He groaned, and Vesper laughed across from him.

"I told you not to eat all that songpyeon." She chided, snatching the last bits of beef from his plate of bulgogi, totally unsympathetic to his plight.

Looking into the empty bowl to make sure there was no more, Fred sighed happily. "But it was so good." He stressed, and when the waitress came by with the checks, he sat up and took them both, handing them back. "Just one-" He burped, "Please."

Vesper watched the waitress go and gawked. "No, it's fine, you don't have to-"

Blinking lazily, Fred waved Vesper's incoming stream of complaints away. "It's for the holiday!" Never mind that money wasn't really an issue for him. He supposed he could tell Vesper that, but the thought didn't cross his mind. It rarely did, to be honest. "Happy Chuseok." He even said it right this time. When the waitress came back, he paid with a couple crumpled twenties and a ten, telling her to keep the change, which was about an eight dollar tip.

When the two of them emerged, Fred turned to head back to the college, but Vesper stopped him. "Hey, I'm gonna head out, actually." She explained, looking at her phone. "I'm meeting someone later and I have to do some things first."

Some things- it sounded a lot like the excuse she gave Hiro when they visited the tattoo shop. "Secret ninja things?" He questioned, miming karate chops as he sang a quick theme song- "Vesper the- ninja! Yeah, she's gonna- get ya'! Bumdum dada duuuum-" It made Vesper laugh, and he clapped his hands together and bowed exaggeratedly. "I await the many tales of your heroics, oh ninja-kaiju master!" He told her in goodbye.

Smirking, Vesper shook her head at Fred as she turned to walk away. "You're so weird." But she got two steps before she turned around, walking back. "Hey, give me your phone."

Fred fished through the pockets of his shorts before he found it, handing the device over to Vesper, who inspected it, then touched their two devices together- automatically exchanging the contact information. Technology was so rad. Looking at her info, Fred read her last name aloud. "Jihoon?" He questioned, and she nodded.

"Yeah, you got it." She pocketed her phone in her skinny jeans, then waved. "Now I can text you, in case I need some sign spinning back up in my ninja adventures." She joked, grinning as she turned around and walked off, waving goodbye over her shoulder. "See ya, Fred!" She called, crossing the street.

Fred waved goodbye, despite her not being able to see it. "Later, Ninja!" He yelled after her, and despite the babble of San Fransokyo surrounding him, he swore her heard her laugh. Turning and heading back to the college, Fred smiled lazily. His stomach was full of good food, the sun was out, there was a nice breeze- and he just made a new friend. He needed to work on her theme song, though.

"Vesper the- ninja! Yeah, she's gonna- get ya'! Bumdum dada duuuum- She's got superpowers, yes she does, badumdum, and she'll kick your butt, because, badumdum-"