rabbithatch | morning after | outsiders canon

Entry tags:

!outsiders

morning after | outsiders canon | ryusei and kengo

The night had been rather uneventful. While Ryusei slept, Kengo had quietly worked at his desk on his latest project. There were no Foodroids to do any kind of reconnaissance work, which had made him feel even more useless during the adjutant attack. He would have felt bad for sending Burgermeal into danger, but that was what they were for -- to handle jobs that he couldn't risk his life with. Tracking the adjutants would have been useful.

Aside from that, he'd talked with Daisen, the salarian who owned Ariake Technologies (or at least the branch he worked at) about alternatives. There were combat drones that could be created and compatible with the omni-tool. It wasn't good for tracking, but it would be a handy defensive tool when Kengo had few options. There was the option of depending on others, but Kengo didn't want to be defenseless for the rest of his life.

During the night, Kengo occasionally got up from his work to clear his head, quietly pacing around the room and checking on Ryusei. Some part of him expected the other would suddenly die or disappear now that someone familiar had finally shown up, though he wondered if he should have been more worried about the potential that Ryusei would try to kill him while he was distracted.

After a number of hours had passed, Kengo had put his head down on his desk to rest his eyes for awhile, but had ended up falling asleep instead. The last three weeks, he'd barely slept at all thanks to different factors. It would have surprised him, though, that he had managed to fall asleep in the same room as Ryusei.

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The memory of shadowy dreams, Gentarou and Kengo falling, fled rapidly as Ryusei swept his sleepy gaze across the unfamiliar room. How did he get here?

... Right. He didn't know. He pushed himself to a sitting position, looked over at Kengo. Idiot... At least sleep somewhere more comfortable. There had been a couch out in the main room, hadn't there? He should have moved Ryusei there. Ryusei should have moved there himself, he thought as he pulled the blanket off the bed and draped it over Kengo's shoulders.

There was one reason Kengo might not have gone out there to sleep. If he didn't trust his new friend not to do anything. In that case, could Ryusei feel safe leaving this room? Kengo's new friend hadn't acknowledged Ryusei's existence last nigh... how long had Ryusei been out? Well, Ryusei didn't know how to act with someone whose status he didn't know.

It would be fine if he stayed largely silent or politely say he wanted an introduction before conversing, he supposed. But he didn't like that option. For one, Kengo's new friend was someone Ryusei could ask about all of this while Kengo was asleep. Ryusei would just have to navigate the conversation with care, but that was fine; he was awake enough to do it. He got up and went to the door. How had Kengo opened this? Had he just....

A few minutes of waving near the door made Ryusei feel silly, as had patting the door down, so he went back to the bed and gingerly sat so he wouldn't be tempted to hit a wall.

Within minutes of the blanket being placed on his shoulders, Kengo had reached up with one hand and pulled it closer around himself. It wasn't as though Zeta District was subjected to the same cold as space, but it wasn't as warm as the fancier apartments were. The utilities also seemed to be rather hit-or-miss depending on the time of day.

It took Kengo another half hour after Ryusei had woken up for him to wake up as well. He stirred in the chair a bit, burying his face in his arms and making a frustrated noise, before forcing himself to sit up. Feeling the weight on his shoulders, Kengo reached up and pulled the blanket closer around himself. ... strange. He hadn't remembered grabbed it off of the bed the night before. Had he really fallen asleep at his desk again?

When he moved his chair to stand up, Kengo visibly jumped a bit when he noticed Ryusei was in the room. It took a few seconds for him to calm back down. Part of him felt as though he'd simply dreamed about the other showing up. He'd had a lot of unpleasant dreams concerning both of his friends showing up on the station, only to lose them somehow.

"... morning." Kengo muttered, feeling significantly more awkward than he had the night before. He couldn't even remember half of what had been said between them.

Ryusei had noticed Kengo's astonishment out of the corner of his eye as he'd lowered his gaze to the ground when Kengo turned around. Ryusei didn't know what it meant. If anyone but Jirou had slept over in Ryusei's room, Ryusei would jump, too.... Probably. Maybe. It wasn't like he would have been so accustomed to sleeping at his desk that he wouldn't have remembered right away why he was. Was Kengo used to sleeping at his desk?

Ryusei didn't not remember what—when—what Kengo would have last remembered, but it took him a moment to acknowledge it. Kengo had a right to be startled, didn't he? If Kengo's last memory of Ryusei had been....

"Is it?" he muttered. "I couldn't tell. ... You locked me in."

"It's a force of habit. Morning doesn't technically exist here." Kengo started his omni-tool up and checked the time on it. He still had an hour or so to go before his alarm for work would go off. Hopefully it would be enough time to get Ryusei used to things -- not that he intended on leaving Ryusei alone after this. Lessening any risk of Ryusei running off and disappearing was on Kengo's list of priorities. Putting his arm back down to his side, omni-tool still active, Kengo stood up and brought the blanket with him back to the bed.

The look on his face about the locking situation was a bit sheepish. He really hadn't meant for things to happen like that. "I didn't want to risk anyone hearing what we were talking about." Not that it was a big deal. His roommate knew enough about all the strange people showing up out of nowhere, but Kengo hadn't known where the conversation might have gone.

Dropping the blanket onto the bed, Kengo had his suspicions about how it had ended up over with him. It made his stomach twist uncomfortably, though he didn't know the exact reason why. That was something else he had a few theories about -- none of them he was willing to acknowledge just yet.

"You could have woken me up." Kengo walked over to the door and held the hand with the omni-tool over it. Both the orange light on the door and Kengo's omni-tool reacted, a small series of beeps sounding before it made one last sound, the light on the door turning green. "... they're difficult to get used to."

That couldn't have been true. As far as Ryusei recalled, Kengo had been awake when Ryusei had passed out. He'd woken intermittently but had always opted not to get up because he hadn't wanted to face the possibility that he'd find himself alone. On Amanogawa school grounds, maybe, with the bodies—

That hadn't been what he'd woken up to. And he had to shove that kind of weak thinking away. He'd thought he was over this. It'd been like this on and off when he'd had to deal with the Jirou situation; he should be used to this.

Focus. Even after Ryusei had passed out, Kengo had kept the door locked. He could have forgotten, Ryusei thought uneasily. But even if that were so, it had been true that Ryusei had woken up before Kengo and had been unable to get out. Was that what Kengo had wanted to prevent? For what? For whose sake?

"Kengo—" Ryusei got up and grabbed Kengo's shoulder. Are you really alive? "Do you...." He stopped, grip tightening as he glanced away, anxious. Looked back up, continued. "Do you trust me?"

As soon as Kengo felt the touch on his shoulder, he had immediately tensed up and swung his hand back to shove Ryusei's arm off of him -- unfortunately, the light force he'd felt was necessary didn't push Ryusei's hand away. It had been a panicked reaction from having Ryusei so close to him, now that he was rational and still remembering what the other boy was capable of.

Kengo lowered his head a bit, then turned it away and attempted to pull back from Ryusei's touch. He stepped towards the common room, unsure of whether or not he should have been exposing his back to anyone.

"I don't trust anyone." ... it was essentially true, at this point. Kengo hadn't even known if he had trusted Gentarou, but they'd had a strong bond. Kengo had trusted Ryusei, to a degree... but now? He knew how cold it sounded, but it was true. Especially with where he was now.

Ryusei let go. He should have expected that. He should have expected both those things. He could accept that. He could.

He crossed his arms. He'd just have to earn that trust back, then. Or make Kengo remember, but Ryusei still didn't know if he wanted to do that. Not the Ryusei I know, Kengo had said yesterday. That was true, if Kengo didn't remember. But what would have caused the memory loss? The trauma from dying? Of course Ryusei didn't know if it worked that way; people didn't come back to life, and the one person Ryusei knew who had hadn't manifested any problems. On top of that, Kengo was the Core Child. But even if Ryusei accepted that, why that memory in particular? If.... If despite the way Ryusei interpreted his actions, Kengo had never forgiven Ryusei for—

Kengo wasn't a ghost, who held grudges that kept him in the world of the living. The last thing Ryusei needed was to dwell in the past. Focus on the present, then. "Not even your roommate?"

Was that why Kengo had kept the door locked? In the case that both of them were asleep? Ryusei could guess at why Kengo had needed one, from the looks of the apartment, but on the other hand, Ryusei didn't know what a 'good' place looked like. From what Kengo had said, they were very, very far from home.

"Is he... Is he an... alien?" The word felt strange. But this was a strange situation he'd found himself in.

"He's here because we're not allowed to live alone. We have to find someone and he seemed like the best match. For the most part, we keep to ourselves." It was true. The quarian was always so busy working and trying to make money to get out of Omega, or at least up a few rungs higher than he currently was, though Kengo wasn't sure where the other planned to go. Everyone talked about how the system was shut off from the others. Kengo hadn't investigated that very much, mostly because of the fact that he didn't have the time to think about things that he couldn't fix.

Stepping into the kitchen area, Kengo pulled a pair of small, plastic covered boxes down from one of the shelves. He tossed one onto the table in front of Ryusei, bringing the other over and starting to open it. From the looks of it, it seemed to be some sort of pre-packaged ration with a number of components.

"Ash is a Quarian. They look like humans, but they're pretty different. The suit he wears has its own environment. Their immune systems are so fragile that they can't be exposed to anything, or they risk dying at the slightest infection. They also can't eat human food because of the composition of their bodies. They also primarily live on a large numbered set of ships known as the Migrant Fleet, but they send out Quarians once they hit a certain age to perform something called a Pilgrimage. He has to find something valuable for his home and bring it back. That's how he ended up here. Otherwise, they don't leave and don't tend to socialize with other groups, so you won't see too many of them here."

As Kengo spoke, he tore off the wrapper of his ration and had gotten to work at separating everything. There was a process of adding the contents of one pack to another and closing it to, it seemed, heat up the food. It didn't look fancy, but Kengo hadn't been very concerned with eating since arriving. "There's a lot of different races here. Quarian, turian, salarian, krogan, batarian, volus, vorcha... Some others I'm probably forgetting."

The explanation was very Kengo-ish, but Ryusei pinched himself anyway. There was a part of him that wanted all of this to be a dream, but also a part of him that didn't, because he'd have to face Kengo's death then, and he didn't think he could do it after having been with Kengo here, for even these few moments.

He pinched himself once more, to be sure, before he copied Kengo; he assumed Kengo wanted him to, since he wouldn't toss it at Ryusei otherwise. "What is this?"

He was going to be asking that a lot, he felt. Who had Kengo had to ask about these things? The roommate? If you don't trust him, kick him out and I'll stay with you. But Kengo didn't trust Ryusei, either.

Focus. He needed to order his thoughts, put his questions in order. Kengo had said that he didn't know how he'd gotten here, but Ryusei needed to make sure. "To continue— Have you discovered any transport mechanism here?"

"Rations. Military-grade standard supply. I can't afford anything else, since I've been skimping on food to pay for tech. I can't survive here unless I adapt." Technically, Kengo hadn't thought he'd be able to survive at all. Within the first few days of arriving, he'd had something of an emotional breakdown, where he could barely function for a few days. It was the pain of having lost everything, including his home and his friends, being completely alone in unfamiliar territory. Dying had honestly seemed like the lesser evil. Kengo couldn't even be sure what had kept him going, but the emotional break he'd had during those few days was still with him. It felt as though he'd lost part of his soul.

Aside from that, he felt more alone than he ever had before, since arriving. Having Ryusei back did nothing to quell that. It was as though there had been a constant white noise in his life that was suddenly gone. Kengo couldn't explain it at all.

"There are the shuttles they brought us in on, which connect to ships. The Omega Nebula is cut off from the rest of the galaxy. There are things called mass relays that allow for quick travel between locations, but the one here seems to be non-functioning, other than the Omega 4 relay -- the one everyone says we came from. No one has ever made it back from trying to go through it. No one knows where it goes."

That hadn't been what Ryusei had been talking about, but he wasn't sure if Kengo knew that or if he was avoiding the question. "Anything similar to the Gate Switch? And Cosmic Energy?"

He'd had to ask, but he didn't know if those were extraneous questions or not. If there was any way home, Kengo would have found it by now. Any progress to the way home would have been found, and Kengo would have told Ryusei. Would he? Kengo right now thought of Ryusei as.... He shouldn't ask this question. He shouldn't, but.... "Kengo... why did you bring me here?"

"No one here has heard of cosmic energy. I have Switches with me, but I have no way of telling whether they work or not without the Fourze system." Which was with Gentarou, wherever his body happened to be. Kengo continued staring down at his food, shaking the container lightly. The idea of eating alone with Ryusei again brought up completely different feelings from what it had the week before the Aries incident. The memory made Kengo's stomach twist. Everything really had changed so much since then...

When he heard Ryusei's question, Kengo glanced back up at him. There was a look on his face as though he wasn't sure if he wanted to answer or not. What could he say? A long, heavy moment of silence stayed between them, before Kengo set his food aside and moved to get something to drink. Moving around always seemed to help his nerves. "I didn't want to lose you." The words came out sounding far more caring than he'd intended, but he couldn't do anything about that now. "Keeping track of you now that you're here is one of my priorities."

Kengo glanced back over his shoulder while grabbing a cup from the cabinet. "You don't understand what it's like to be alone here until you have to do it. No one deserves to go through that. ... even if I can't forgive you, I wouldn't want anyone to kill you." Anyone else, his mind corrected. Kengo didn't want to admit how many times he'd imagined getting back at him that way. It wasn't something he was proud of. ... Gentarou wouldn't have wanted him to think that way at all.

There was no way back, then. Unless Ryusei had lost his memories, too, but.... He looked down at his hands. Kengo had healed the injuries there, but everything else on Ryusei's body was evidence of the fight with Tatsugami. There couldn't have been any memories to lose. Gentarou.... Hopefully Gentarou had made it out the actual door and was even now protecting the others.

Ryusei put his elbows on the table and bowed his head behind them to obscure the expression he was making. It was a reflex, as it was for most people, to hide the tears.

He had to pull himself together. Ryusei had asked Kengo; Kengo didn't have injuries consistent with a later time, either. Something else was going on here. But then again, Kengo was....

Kengo was dead; the fact that he was here was evidence of 'something else' going on, not the memory loss. If Kengo hadn't found a way back and Ryusei was here.... Ryusei was going to have to consider everyone dead. If they ever got back to Earth, everyone would be dead from the ravages of time. If no one here had heard of Cosmic Energy and there was no Gate Switch and there was no getting off this asteroid, this was what Ryusei was going to have to deal with.

"I won't... disappear," he said in a whisper to minimize any other sound he was making. "I won't leave you, too."

Kengo had long since tried to convince himself that everyone back home was dead and the entire situation was out of his control. He had failed his father, with the mission he'd been entrusted to keep. He had failed Gentarou, somehow, blaming himself for thinking that maybe if he'd tried harder, if he hadn't allowed himself to trust Ryusei, that somehow he could have prevented what happened. He had failed Yuuki and the rest of the club, anyone he had ever felt a connection to, because they were most likely dead by now with the events that had taken place. Even if Ryusei was here, that didn't mean that the other was telling the truth, or that it was even a sign of his timeline working out properly, somehow. No. Ryusei had been worried about him.

Kengo closed his eyes when he heard Ryusei's voice, allowing himself to take a deep breath. It really was best for Ryusei to start to believe everything sooner, that he would have someone to break the news to him all at once, rather than stumbling around blindly like Kengo had for weeks, trying to piece together any information he could find. He still felt horribly lost.

How was he supposed to respond to that? How could he let Ryusei see him so vulnerable again, as he'd been the night before in the hallway? After a minute or so had passed, Kengo was still unsure about how he should be reacting, but he took his glass of water and set it on the counter, turning back around.

"I don't..." Kengo trailed off, knowing he couldn't lie in a situation like this. His conscience wouldn't let him. I don't need that. I don't need you. had been the first things he'd wanted to say, but it was the complete opposite of how he felt. He wanted to move closer and grab at Ryusei, to somehow convince him that everything would be okay. Why was it so hard to hate someone?

Lowering his head, Kengo shoved his hands into his pockets. It seemed like forever before he could get himself to speak. "I'm not sure if I could handle that. ... I'll hold you to it."

It had to have been worse for Kengo, Ryusei thought after a minute or so. You ruined our chance of winning, he'd said yesterday. It would no longer be a comfort for Kengo to hear that Gentarou had been revived after that incident. It must not have been a comfort to see Ryusei at all.

He could deal with that. He could deal with everything.

Start with the beginning— No they couldn't. There was no way back. Discard that, then. Discard it all. Start with their arrival. Kengo and Ryusei had arrived with.... He held out his arm. "How does this work?"

Kengo wasn't sure how he'd allowed himself to get so emotional in response, though he knew his outward display was nothing like how he was feeling on the inside. It really was a constant struggle among how he felt he should treat Ryusei, considering how Gentarou had treated him, how he wanted to treat Ryusei, and his pride that only allowed him to do certain things. Everything really was such a huge mess.

Stepping forward, Kengo grabbed Ryusei's arm and turned it just enough that the display would be facing Ryusei and he would be working backwards. It was the same way he had worked with a girl who had been confused over the interface. For now, Kengo tried to ignore how awkward he felt with Ryusei's hand resting on his, giving Kengo easier access to manipulate the object on his wrist. With a quick press of one of the raised areas on the wristband, the program snapped to life and the orange interface covered Ryusei's arm as Kengo's own had worked earlier.

"You should get used to using it. It works like a portable Kaban." It was like a cell phone was in Japan, really. Everyone had one and was always using it for something.

If it was going to be used to lock and unlock doors, Ryusei was going to have to. Works like the Kaban, Kengo had said, which meant, probably, that it had analytical functions. And Ryusei already knew about the healing. Kengo had shown him how to turn it on; Ryusei could figure out the rest on his own.

Next. "You came here earlier than me. How often do people show up at the hangar?"

There was some kind of space-time compression theory out there, Ryusei knew, but without knowing exactly what the theories were or how space travel actually worked here, he didn't know whether it applied to his and Kengo's temporal displacement situations or not.

—It didn't matter. The question he'd just asked didn't matter.

"No, never mind that." Next. "How'd you get this apartment? Not allowed to have one without a roommate, did you say? Allowed by who?"

Kengo didn't see the point in ignoring the first question when it was something Ryusei wanted to know, so he went ahead and answered it anyway. "It's hard to tell how often people show up. In the beginning, there were large groups on a certain day of the week. Now, it doesn't seem to make any difference. The amount of arrivals is random and dwindling. ... I already wondered if there's some specific reason we've been drawn here, but no one seems to know why we're here."

Not that something like that made a lot of sense, but really, none of this did. Kengo only then let go of Ryusei's hand and left him to work with the omni-tool on his own. He returned to his food, opening the packet and shaking it again before starting to poke at it with a utensil.

"There's a woman here named Aria. I made arrangements to meet with her once, but no one ever responded to me. She rules over everything, somehow. Her role isn't as passive as something like a queen. She's constantly keeping an eye on everything and anyone who is from this world seems to be afraid of her, or at least respect her. Aria's rules dictate that we have to pay a certain amount of money for protection. You can't afford it while living on your own." He hesitated to take a bite of his food. At least this one seemed to taste better than the last one. "I found someone else who needed someone to stay with and made arrangements with him."

Specific reason? That didn't matter; what mattered was the how. But that didn't matter, either. It couldn't. Unless time could be traversed backward, but that—

He couldn't allow himself that line of thinking. Focus on the present.

"Rules over...?" Kengo would have already thought of the possibility that she'd been the one to bring them here. That might have been why he'd asked to meet with her. Paying for protection. Sounded like some idiotic money scheme, if his suspicions were true, but it also seemed like so much effort for very little gain. With that kind of ability—

Who was to say that it wasn't a common or low-class ability? Ryusei certainly wouldn't know. Ryusei didn't know much about cons, either. As far as Ryusei knew, he and Kengo were trapped here for life. Multiply that by however many people were living here.... But there was nothing Ryusei could do. Not right now. "What else do you know about her...?"

"That's about all I know. She's the unofficial ruler of this place and most everyone respects her because of her power." Kengo leaned back against the counter and continued to eat, focusing more on his food than on Ryusei. "I never heard anything back about my attempt to meet her. Since all of us have been here, I haven't heard about her speaking to anyone. I'm not sure what she's up to."

It was a little worrying, with how powerful she was rumored to be, but Kengo couldn't do anything abou that. He still had the research data he'd gained during the adjutant attack, tucked away for safekeeping. What was he supposed to do with something so important? He really didn't know... There didn't seem to be much he could use for his own work, but it always seemed like such a waste to destroy research.

That was that, then; they'd need to do some proactive poking around to learn any more. Next.

What was next? Naturally, the question of lodgings. Ryusei couldn't stay here, not when he'd be ousting Kengo from his bed. "Kengo... can I stay here... on your couch until I can get myself...."

Until Ryusei could get himself some things. Some information. Situated. ... Made a new home for himself, whatever that meant. Focus. "I'll pay you back," he continued, softly.

Kengo wasn't sure how to respond to that. What could he say? There was still the anger he felt over the whole situation with Aries, though it had calmed significantly from the first days he'd arrived on Omega. Survival was far more important than holding a grudge. There was also the factor of the attachment Kengo still felt towards Ryusei, despite all of that. The core of his feelings hadn't changed even after the betrayal and seeing him again. It really was insane. This Ryusei and the one who had lied to him couldn't possibly be the same person... but he could still feel the similarities. Somehow.

He really did owe it to Kisaragi. He couldn't be angry when his friend had cared so much -- or at least, he couldn't feel as justified in his anger. ... and there were still Kengo's feelings to consider.

Kengo kept his head down as he responded. "I would rather you stay here." He didn't know how Ryusei would ever pay him back. At this point, Kengo wasn't sure there was anything he wanted.

So, yes, then? Did that response mean Kengo wanted Ryusei here for longer than Ryusei's question implied? Ryusei didn't want to ask. He had to remember that Kengo didn't—had said he didn't—trust anyone. Maybe he just wanted to keep Ryusei close to monitor him.

Did Ryusei really want to think that way? This was getting dangerously close to distrusting Kengo. Ryusei was getting confused. He needed to stiffen into someone who could handle all of this, but— But he couldn't stiffen so much that he'd be easy to break. He had to remember that. It was adapting that he had to do, not—

"I won't get in your way," he said, head down. "I'll just... be around," he finished lamely.

"I don't have a way right now. All I'm doing is trying to survive. ... that should be your focus, too." There was that conflict of interest again, but Kengo really didn't want to see anything happen to Ryusei now that he was here. Maybe it was some crazy psychological issue where he was overly attached to Ryusei now that the other was the only familiar thing in this world.

Lifting his head, Kengo motioned at the other's food packet. "You should eat. Stay here and rest for awhile if you have to. I'll give you coordinates for the shop that I work at, once you get out for the day."

There were so many things that he needed to get used to. This room that didn't look like anything back home. This stuff which was allegedly food. He wasn't hungry, but he started eating anyway. He had to keep his energy up. If it really was morning—and that was another thing; how was he supposed to get used to the lack of time of day like this? He had to. He could get used to anything. But. But—he would have eaten something, back home, before he left for school.

School. No, don't think of that now. That was in the past.

Now. Now he needed to familiarize himself with the place he'd found himself in as soon as possible. There was no time for resting. "I'll follow you around for the day," he said. "If... that would be okay by you," he continued hesitantly. He'd follow Kengo anyway, but there was no reason to make Kengo suspicious. "I'll be able to handle myself by... tomorrow. Please bear with me for now...."

"That's fine. You can learn your way around and it's probably better than being in here all day." Kengo continued eating, occasionally focusing his attention on Ryusei in an attempt to judge how he was handling things. It had to be easier to have someone else around, right? Kengo could still remember how lost he'd felt when he'd first arrived and how scared he'd been. Even though Ryusei was here now, enough of a sign to prove that his life before had really happened, he could still feel the pangs that he was completely alone.

"Take your time with adjusting. It's... difficult. I'm still not entirely used to it yet, but it gets easier." Kengo didn't know how well Ryusei would adjust to a new environment -- if he would adapt better or worse than Kengo had, but grudges really did have to be pushed aside for now. He couldn't just leave Ryusei to fend for himself. Not when he was acting like this, even if it was some sort of trap.

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morning after | outsiders canon | ryusei and kengo

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