fred blinked as the student put their hand in his, rather than continuing the gesture into a handshake. fred picked up pretty quickly that the student was unfamiliar with human notions of greeting and warmth, it was probably quite absurd for fred to offer his hand to him like that if he wasn’t familiar with the greeting and the hand gestures that went with it.
“if the name is too difficult you can just call me professor fred” he offered, knowing the surname was difficult for korean native speakers, he was happy to modify for anybody having trouble. he would even take a simple ‘professor’ if it came down to it, since he would not allow a student to call him the casual ‘fred’.
“here, this is what i was looking for” he grabbed the students hand and adjusted the position so that they were in a proper handshake position and gave a warm hearty shake of their two hands.
“it’s called a handshake, it’s how we greet each other in the united states”
“Professor Fred,” Suhoon reaffirmed with a nod, meeting the elder’s eyes when he spoke, as if to show respect and attention. He wondered for a long moment where such a whimsical name came from in the first place but his question was soon answered as the man grasped his slender hand and moved it up and down. The United States – he had heard of that, probably. He stared at their bouncing hands for a second or two before he smiled.
“That’s a pretty apt name. Where I’m from we do something similar when someone is going on a journey,” Suhoon offered, sliding his hand up the man’s thick arm to grasp his elbow, gently pressing his thumb against the inside crease as he squeezed gentle and firm. “There are many veins that meet here before they lead to the heart, it seems to be a place where the blood convenes again so it’s a way of wishing well in the future.”
“In the United States it’d probably be called the elbowsqueeze, huh?”
