"Nice to meet you, Mason." Chu-e smiled back, soft and warm in a way that reached his eyes. "I'm Ji-Hoon Ki. Feel free to call me 'Ki'." But he took the hand, giving a surprisingly firm shake for his feeble appearance. One of the pluses of being chronically ill was how it made you look soft and vulnerable. They were both lying to one another. It would just be a matter of who picked up on it first.

"Well... you look kind of young. Maybe I'll call you 'kid'?" That seemed to amuse him slightly, lips curling into something mildly teasing. "Thanks for coming out to help. Here, you sit down. I don't think we can help much over there." He motioned vaguely to where their pokemon worked. The perks of commanding super powered creatures. "You can help me make these for the kids."

A bundle of feathers sat on the ground next to him. In front of him were two dye pots, pink and yellow. The fathers were blue and white, having been shed feathers that come from his own Taillow. Sitting beside him was another pile of feathers, spaced out as they dried, the tips of them dyed pink or yellow. "These are dry, but it would be faster with two hands. Just dip the bottom in the opposite color! So it shows all three colors together. I'll work on getting these started."

A small laugh. Oh, so this kid had a little sass to him. Chu-e could appreciate that. "I think I can handle that. It makes sense since I feel like one." He nodded along as well as he watched Mason work, pleased with the results. Chu-e did internally agree these things were kind of weird and ugly; the ones from when he were a kid were better quality with nicer materials. But it was the thought that counts, right? And since it was, like, kind of a religious symbol it was best not to invite smiting out loud, just in case.

"Not really." Turning, he pointed toward the treeline. "I live back out that way. You see one tree you've seen them all." Said pointing was, like, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, even farther away from where they were at now. Not much was on that part of the island except a few houses and an old shrine. Hell, even this little stretch they were on was more populous.

"Do you live around here? Just visiting?" Chu-e hadn't seen him before but it wasn't like he knew everyone on the island. He was usually kind of a homebody.

Ah, but, nothing could ever be easy, could it? At least, not with the mildly suspicious air both of them had for the other. On the last of Mason's glances, Chu-e would happen to catch him- and oh, the facade was dropped for just that moment, and there was something flat and dead and scary hidden in his eyes. Then he blinked and looked away, falling back into the delicate persona he was putting on. Yet with mischief there, a challenge. A 'I know you saw, what are you going to do about it?'.

"it's nice and quiet out here. I've been to Mauville a few times. Very loud. Lots of people. But they have better shopping selections." Chu-e hummed to himself and continued with his task, not glancing up at the other for now. Their dance was just starting. It wouldn't be fun if he showed all the tricks he could do right away, after all.

"It's good to travel. You see a lot of interesting places and meet new people that way. I'm retired, actually! But my job had me travel a lot, too. I was in Kanto for a while before I came here." And he flicked his eyes over lightly to the other, before handing over another feather to dip. "Mostly I just... well, I'm out here making old folk charms from what I was a kid. That should tell you all you need to know about how exciting my life is now." And he at least chuckled lightly at that.

"What about you? Your said your job has you travel, right? That could be a lot of things."

"Ah, that can be a hard job. I hope no one has given you any trouble. People can be very cruel, especially this time of the year..." Which may have sounded contrary, since the various winter holidays like Arceumas and New Years were supposed to be about togetherness and love. Chu-e was of the opinion that instead it just made people grouchy and spiteful, feeling the need to provide excess gifts and niceties more for show and praise than for the goodness of their hearts. Service people, like Mason, often were the ones blamed when a package couldn't be delivered despite acclimate weather or other circumstances making it difficult. A shame, really.

But, ah, seemed this one was a little pushy, wasn't he? Not going to go without a proper answer. Well, Chu-e could lie. That would take away all the fun, though. Telling the truth would be fun but he also didn't want someone to try and arrest him again, even if he had a solid 'out'. So instead he would let the guy draw his own conclusions.

Putting on a mildly mournful look, as false and well practiced as Mason's smiles, he paused in his work and instead turned the feather in his hands, eyes drawn to it as if he was deciding how to continue. "Well..." A soft sigh, a small frown. "I did say I used to be in Kanto.... and... well, after, I got hurt pretty badly...." He let the silence settle between them before he slowly perked up again, a sad smile on his face this time as he finally glanced back up at the other. "Sorry. It's still... hard to deal with."

His words were filled with all the sweetness of sugar and sincerity of a snake. So what was he? A battered ranger or officer, maybe? Or rocket? Well, that was for Mason to puzzle out.

Another small smile crept it's way onto Chu-e's face, more genuine than the usual one he kept on there. This one was the slightest bit toothy, radiating amusement. "Well....That's maybe laying it on a little thick." He chuckled to himself. 'it's okay, though. I've made peace with it, it's just not fun to chat about when I don't know you that well." Which he thought was fair. "I won't say I'm any of those things, though. Now that I've been forced to retire, I'm actually pretty lazy. I just wanted an excuse to get out of the house." Which was probably the most genuine thing he had said since they first started to speak.

Soon, he found himself out of feathers on his end, which just left the second dip that Mason was working on to be done. The pokemon, who had all been working diligently, also seemed to have the area mostly cleared out. It wouldn't be too long now.

"So, do you think I would make a good Mauvillite?" The sudden overdose of compliments was suspicious. Color Chu-e curious on what the kid was after. He would be more than happy to play along for a bit longer.

At seeing the flicker into the boy's depths, Chu-e couldn't keep the smile off his face. It was as sharp as a knife. So far, this had been more fun than most of his night at the Mistletoe Matchmaking speed date event. He had had a few good meetings but it had been rather dull.

"Well, you're always free to stop by my house if you're in the area, too. I need as many people as possible to test out my cooking." Face back to that passive normal, he laughed as he slowly stood up and dusted off his pants. He did take the time to place the lids back on his pots and the gather up the feathers; some of them were still drying, but he could deal with a little dye on his hands. "Thank you for helping me today, Mason. I'm sure that the owners will be able to start rebuilding a lot sooner now." And he said it as if he actually cared, a fake to a fake.

"I'll look you up if I'm ever back in Mauville, too! It's always nice to see a familiar face." Reaching into his pockets, he took out his pokeballs to call his gaggle of pokemon back. "You can go on ahead. I'll take care of all the paperwork." And he gave Mason a little wink before he started to walk off, conversation done.