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Tai

You're kinda surprised to find the address is for a small house in the suburbs.  When you ring the doorbell, Mattea answers the door.  She's got her hair up in an elegant bun, and she's wearing an even fancier, redder dress and than usual.  You're also surprised to see she's almost exactly your height, instead of a bit taller than you...  Oh.  She's wearing a pair of shining silver strappy sandals instead of the usual heels.

It's kind of jarring.

"Right on time.  Come on in."  Mattea steps aside to let you in.  It's a pretty typical house, but decorated with a few stylish knick-knacks and decorations that make it look a lot more impressive than it really is.  "Hope you like pizza.  Sachi made one from scratch."

She leads you into a small living room with a nice couch and a loveseat.  She plops down on the loveseat.  Avalon is sitting on the couch, as well as that kid with the straw hat you saw in Drama club.  "Take a seat," Mattea insists.  "We were about to pick a crappy movie to watch."

From the sounds of it, someone - Sachi, apparently - is in the kitchen.  Smells like something good's almost ready.

Tai

"Absolutely not," Avalon says. "I brought a French comedy."

"Pizza's ready!" Sachi calls from the kitchen. "And the other stuff." He walks in and notices Tai standing around. "Oh, hey. You must me the Tai guy Mattea mentioned. I'm Sachi."

Tai

"We've also got some chips and popcorn. And soda. Or booze, if you want," Mattea offers.

Tai

Mattea shrugs.  "Suit yourself.  And help yourself, too."  She pours herself a shot of tequila.  "...Don't think I'm a huge boozehound or anything.  But tonight's a special occasion, so I'm gonna party a bit!  Whoo!"

Sachi quietly pours himself some wine and takes a seat next to Mattea, leaving you to sit with Strawhat and Avalon.  You notice that he's drinking soda and she's only drinking water.  A lot of it.

The movie is... awful.  Just awful.  Even the subtitles are messed up.  But the pizza... well, it smells fishy - literally - but tastes pretty good.  Looks like Sachi can cook just as well as you'd expect.

You also overhear that Strawhat's name is Lance.

Tai

"Who cares about Karl.  I don't even care if he does win, so long as Alice doesn't," Mattea says.  "Oh, man.  I actually almost hope he does win, that'd be even more humiliating for her.  Maybe she'd even cry...!"  Mattea pantomimes some tears.

"Mattea, that's not very nice," Sachi says.

She crosses her arms.  "I know.  And you know how I feel about her."

Lance looks confused.  Avalon whispers to him, loud enough for you to hear.  "She accidentally ripped off part of Mattea's costume during the school's big play a few years ago."

"She did it on purpose!" Mattea barks.  "And it's not like that's the only thing, either.  She's always doing things to needle me...  Ugh.  Let's stop talking about Alice.  What should we watch next?"

You hadn't even noticed the movie ended.  Thank the heavens.

Tai

"Aw, that's sweet," Mattea says.  "But I don't want to see her ripped to shreds.  If she's dead, she can't suffer anymore!  Ha!"

You end up watching some horror movie where death's, like... stalking some people who should have died, but didn't thanks to some psychic vision, so it has to hunt them down and kill them in increasingly complex and ridiculous Rube Goldberg ways.  It's terrible as a horror movie, but makes a solid gore-y comedy.

And one of the characters does kinda look like Alice...

You notice Avalon clinging nervously to Lance, who looks uncomfortable. Sachi seems pretty actually invested in the plot.  Mattea ends up draped across his lap and laughs at the movie quite a bit.

Afterward, it's pretty late.  "Thanks for coming.  We'll have to do this again.  But next time it's someone else's turn to host!" Mattea tells everyone.

Tai

Mattea snorts. "I'd think it was better than 'not terrible.' Later."

Tai feels like he's learning how to deal with people. Kinda.

Tai gained an Understanding.