Karaoke Night at Coombs Tavern [For Riley and Val but open to anyone]

[phoenixfalling]

Kim was super excited. Probably weirdly excited if he had to be honest, but it was a good way. The nervousness that was accompanying the excitement wasn't so great, however. Whenever he thought of Riley or being around Riley he got all flustered. He was almost frustrated by how awesome she was just because... well she was really awesome. Once he was around her he was fine, like he was too excited to be in her presence to worry about anything else.

It was just leading up to seeing her that was difficult. Tonight would be fun though, because tonight was karaoke night at Coombs Tavern and Riley and Val were supposed to go with him. Or at least meet him there. That was why he'd been at a table for half an hour, having arrived early just to make sure he could get one. It was good planning but unfortunately meant a lot of anxiously waiting around for Riley and Val to show up.

Still, this was going to be fun. There was nothing he loved more than performing and he had texted and called a few other people to invite them as well since it was a group thing. Not that it was any guarantee they would show up, he wasn't the most social person. You never knew who might show up though.

[Anyone is welcome to join in for karaoke night! Be someone Kim texted or maybe the friend of someone he texted that invited your character. Or just be there because karaoke is fun.]

Comments

[bewitchinghaze]

Val wasn't a hundred percent sure yet how she felt about hanging out with new people, but when Riley mentioned they were invited to karaoke, well... She was hardly about to pass that up.

Finishing up a late day at the shop, she quickly runs home and cleans herself up, changing into something more appropriate for the bar before she heads off. It isn't until she arrives that she realizes how weird its going to be not having her sister there to make introductions. But it isn't like she won't be able to find the guy. There aren't that many Koreans in Siren Cove. So she shakes it off and heads in, spotting Kim almost immediately and picking her way over through the tables.

"You must be Kim, right?" she asks, grabbing a seat. "I'm Val. Riley's sister."

[jiyunnies]

Riley's just a few minutes behind her sister. She spots Val's familiar figure and tugs at her shirt, strolling up behind her.

"Ready for some karaoke?" she asks Val with a smile. Then she looks at the table and notices that Kim's already made it.

"Hi, Kim! I see you've met my little sister."

[phoenixfalling]

"Hi, Val," Kim said, grinning at her. There was no doubt that she was Riley's sister and that thought brought a whole other set of nerves to him. What if Val hated him? Ugh, he was totally going to throw up. "I'm glad you guys could come!"

He was about to say something more when Riley showed up and he just sighed, unable to help the ridiculous grin on his face at seeing her . When she turned to say hi he beamed a smile.

"Yeah, we just met! I was saying I'm glad you could both make it."

[bewitchinghaze]

The guy's barely spoken to her for two seconds before he turns to Riley with the most painfully dopey look on his face and Val is already cringing. "Hey... Nice to meet you."

She reaches up, grabbing her sister's hand and tugging her into the seat beside her. "Hey, unnie," Val smiles. "Good day at work?"

[jiyunnies]

Riley sits down at the table, completely unaware of the look on Kim's face when she arrives. "Mmhmm. It was productive. I hope you weren't too busy to enjoy tonight."

"Any ideas of what you'd like to sing tonight?" she asks Kim.

[phoenixfalling]

"I don't know, I was looking at the catalog earlier and they have pretty much everything," he said, turning back to Val. "Riley said that you two do karaoke pretty regularly. Do you have any favorite, go-to songs?"

Because that's really all he knew about Val. That and she paid a ridiculous amount of money to date some guy and was scary.

[bewitchinghaze]

Val shrugs, grabbing a waitress and ordering them each a beer. "We usually just go with whatever strikes our fancy at the time, honestly. 90s pop songs are always fun though. How about you? What are you into?"

[jiyunnies]

"And the classic Korean pop songs," Riley adds as she thinks about what to sing tonight. "Oh, and 80's. Always love the 80's."

[phoenixfalling]

"90s pop songs are awesome for karaoke, there are so many good ones and most everyone knows them," he said. It was kind of fun sometimes if everyone got into it, singing along to themselves. Kim had always liked when the crowd sang along at his concerts.

"And I was thinking maybe some Queen?"

[bewitchinghaze]

"Well, of course. It wouldn't be a proper American karaoke without Queen," Val smirks, taking the beers as the waitress comes back and handing them out. "Journey, too."

[jiyunnies]

Riley sips her beer, completely unfazed by the face that Val may be making Kim uncomfortable. This is her sister having a good time. This isn't the intimidating and terrifying side of Val.

"Definitely Journey. The big question is which is the first song?"

[phoenixfalling]

Kim wasn't sure if Val was mocking his choice of Queen or not. He was a little bit pre-disposed to be afraid of her after what Riley had said while they were painting. It didn't matter though because Queen was amazing.

"You two should go first, unless you're going to set the bar impossibly high and I'll seem terrible."

[bewitchinghaze]

Val laughs, getting to her feet and offering her sister a hand. "Sounds good to me. What shall we start with, my dearest unnie?"

[jiyunnies]

"Mmmm..." Riley gets out of the seat, following Val closely. "Beyonce?"

[phoenixfalling]

"Alright, you two start and I'll order some shots for when you're back," Kim said, grinning and practically bouncing in excitement at the idea of a performance, however small.

[bewitchinghaze]

"Beyonce sounds perfect," she agrees, leading them up to the stage and searching through the selection available. "Any specific song?"

[jiyunnies]

"Your choice," she says, taking a mic off the stand as she settles herself on stage. Public speaking scares Riley. But karaoke? All her nerves leave as soon as she gets on stage. "I picked the artist, you pick the song."

[bewitchinghaze]

"Run The World it is then," Val grins. If she'd been up here alone, she might have picked one of the more risqué songs, but there's something incredibly awkward about singing about sex next to your older sister, no matter how close you are.

Flicking the music over to the right backing track and hitting play, she quickly scrambles up next to her sister, grabbing the other mic just in time for it to start.

[jiyunnies]

"Great song choice," Riley smiles as Val takes the stage beside her.

It's really easy for the two to perform the song since they've sang it about a million times at home. Riley knows her parts, Val knows hers, and they pretty effortlessly perform the song. Of course, Riley gets caught up a few times, laughing at herself and Val when she realizes how into the song they get.

The song ends and Riley quickly scoots off the stage.

[phoenixfalling]

Kim, along with most of the patrons in the bar, cheered for both girls when the song was done. They really were quite good and he was willing to bet that if they hadn't wanted to they could have sung professionally. They knew how to sing and they had an awesome stage presence, especially Riley.

"That was awesome," he said, grinning at them both as they returned to the table. "Way to not set the bar too high or anything."

[jiyunnies]

:"Thanks!" Riley laughs a little breathlessly as she sits back down in her chair. Being best friends with the owner and with their history at the tavern, a staff member immediately brings water and two beers over for the girls. She takes a satisfied sip of the water.

"I didn't warn you because I didn't want to scare you off," she teases Kim.

[bewitchinghaze]

Val takes the drinks with a grateful smile at the waiter. She pushes her hair out of her face as she grabs her seat and gets comfortable again.

"We've been doing this awhile. Almost every karaoke night we're down here," she explains, sipping at her beer.

[phoenixfalling]

"Well, I hope you two have a fun night after they boo me out of the place for how bad my performance is going to be after that," he said, taking a drink of water before heading up on stage. The closer he got to the stage the more excited he was. Any need to impress Riley just faded away in the excitement of performing.

"Alright, after that I'm going to need a little help if I want to impress you guys," he told the crowd as his song began to get queued up. "So audience participation is absolutely encouraged."

When the song started to play he heard a few claps and a few groans in the audience. It was a hard song to pull off live but Kim wasn't worried. He absolutely loved Queen and knew he could nail it.

Whenever he played live, Kim couldn't help but work the crowd a little bit. Seeing other people get into the performance was so much fun and made him so happy there was no even trying to hide his charisma. He just wanted people to have fun with the music. It was easy to work the small stage too, he knew every word by heart and didn't to look at the screen at all.

Most everyone else knew the words too because by the time he nailed the final note most of the bar was singing along and he had a giant grin on his face. Sitting back down at the table with Riley and Val he took a giant gulp of water before relaxing back in the chair.

"This crowd is amazing."

[jiyunnies]

"And at home," Riley adds to her sister, thinking about all the times, usually on weekends, where they have their music up loud in the kitchen as they work on their own projects.

As Kim sings, Riley's impressed. She shouldn't really be surprised since he's mentioned he studied music in New York. As she listens to his performance, she can't help but feel a tug of familiarity. His voice, the way he works the stage...she feels like she's seen this before. Shaking her head, she nods along, singing a few lines with the crowd as Riley teases her sister a bit.

"Holy crap," she says as Kim sits down again. "That was awesome! I mean, no one beats the Jungs," she gestures between herself and Val. "But definitely a close second."

[techwitch]

Luke's father had pointed out that the karaoke bar needed a tech guy, but he would rather offer himself as a cocktail guy. If they had a license for alcohol, of course, which he was pretty sure of because how else did you get people to sing?

While waiting for the manager, Luke looked around and saw a familiar faces. And Kim. Wasn't that one of the Jung girls? His old friend was surely moving fast.

[phoenixfalling]

"Hey, Mar- Luke!" Kim said, grinning as he saw his friend. It was still weird to think of him with his new name but he was getting better at saying it.

"Are you here for karaoke night?"

[techwitch]

"A job, to be honest. You know between the two of us it's you that has the musical talent."

He nodded at the Jung girls. "You move fast, Kim."

[phoenixfalling]

"Yeah but karaoke can be fun because you don't have any talent," Kim said, although he knew that Luke wasn't going to get up and sing. That didn't mean he wasn't going to tease his friend about it.

"Fast? I don't- what do you mean?"

[techwitch]

"You were buzzing about Riley and now you're- you're not here with them?"

Luke scratched his collar bone. "Just saying that this is new for me, not judging."

[phoenixfalling]

"Oh, oh that?" he said, blushing a bit, remembering that he'd told Luke how much he thought Riley was pretty amazing. While he wished that it was a date, that was certainly not what it was.

"That's just me hanging out with them. That's all. It's not... anything."

[techwitch]

Kim was back here for less than a month and already meeting up with girls. Luke rolled his eyes at that thought. How very grown up of him.

"Cool. And hey I don't think either of them has anyone in their lives so I'm not saying anything besides good luck."

[phoenixfalling]

Kim was pretty sure that Luke was giving him way, way more credit than he deserved. Besides, he wasn't interested in being anything more than friends. Well, maybe he would like to be more than friends with Riley but he wasn't really holding out any hope for that.

"Okay, I'll take good luck. To you too as well with the job."

[techwitch]

"it's really different to ask for a job, you know?" He guffawed. "While sounding like the biggest butt ever, good that I have you to spar with now. Seriously, good to have you back, Kim."

[chasingtwisters]

Working at Coombs Tavern when she isn't able to drink os almost a pain in the ass as much as being pregnant proves to be; Moira tries not to stare at the glass bottles shimmering beneath the dim lights, but well. It's rather inevitable. She shakes her head, chest heaving as she sips from her glass of water. She sits on a nearby stool, overseeing the entire operation. At seventeen weeks along, she's starting to have difficulty walking, her center of gravity thrown of kilter by the growing babe in her belly.

Still, she's been resting as much as she can, and the tavern, like the apothecary, is like her child. She got a text from Riley saying both her and Val were showing up, anyway, so Moira figures tonight can't be as difficult as the rest of her life is turning out to be.

[phoenixfalling]

Kim stepped away from the table with Riley and the others for a moment to order some more drinks at the bar when he saw the pregnant woman. Or the woman that might be pregnant, because it was always dangerous to assume unless you actually see the baby coming out. He did wonder if she was bored though, being at a bar when she couldn't drink.

"This place is pretty amazing," Kim said, deciding to strike up some conversation while he waited. "Do you know if it's always this popular?"

[chasingtwisters]

"Thank you," Moira says with a grin, towards a kid who looks vaguely familiar. She doesn't really keep up with Top 40 radio, or any kind of music even resembling smash hits. But she does remember one of her siblings listening to a song she thinks this kid might have sung, at one point. She doesn't say anything, though, content just for the company at the moment.

"On Karaoke Nights? Yeah, usually," she nods. "I own the place, so I'm usually here a couple of hours every night."

[phoenixfalling]

"Oh," Kim said, surprised that he'd found the owner. Not because she was young or because she was pregnant he just didn't expect to run into the owner relaxing on a stool at the bar. That was kind of cool, actually. He kind of instantly felt more at home there.

"Well, you have a great karaoke set up. This is my first time here, some friends brought me, but it looks like you have a great system."

[chasingtwisters]

"Don't worry," she assures him with a grin. "I'm not one of those hardass bar owners. I own the store above too, actually. This place has been in my family for centuries." She stops when she realizes she's on the verge of babbling to this poor kid who never asked for her life story. "Sorry, didn't mean to ramble there. But thank you! It means a lot to know that people like our set up as much as we do."

[phoenixfalling]

"Oh good. I saw you and thought maybe you were going to turn this place into a biker bar," he said, unable to resist grinning back at her. She must care a lot about this place if her family had owned it for so long. For a moment he wondered if maybe somewhere, his family used to have something like that.

"And it's fine. I'm just here with my friends Riley and Val for the karaoke."

[chasingtwisters]

At that, Moira can't help but burst out laughing, hair shaking in time with her giggles. "Well, I think 'prime supernatural drinking hole' kind of does enough on its own, but perhaps I'll expand to too much leather and ridiculous boots next," she says. Before she had inherited the business, it had belonged to her late father; even now, she still catches glimpses of the love he'd had for his family through traces of his old spells caught still in the wood work.

"You're friends with Riley and Val?" She quirks an eyebrow, suddenly very interested. She notices he says Riley's name first; she'll have to keep an eye on him.

[phoenixfalling]

"Well, the biker-witch crowd will be disappointed but the rest of us are sure happy about it," he told her. He'd never been old enough to come here when he still lived in Siren Cove but he liked it here. Kim wasn't generally big on mingling in crowds but this place felt... comfortable.

"Well, sort of. I met Riley at her auction and helped her paint some of the museum and I just met Val. But we all agreed to meet here. Together. And act friendly toward each other."