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Who: Jirou, Marui, and Kirihara
When: After the teams return, before the end of August sometime
Where: Marui and Kirihara's room
What: Making a video for the youtubes
Jirou was excited. Marui was finally back from his mission. He was a little injured, sure, but he was back and he was going to have one hell of a story to tell. And Jirou got to help tell that story through video editing!
He was pumped to do this.
"Marui, I'm here!" He called, knocking on Marui's door instead of just using the overrides to break in. He had some manners! "Let me in!"
Probably for the best, because Marui still hadn't realized just how much access Jirou had to the base. Marui opened the door by voice command, and when Jirou entered he was sitting propped up on his bed surrounded by pillows, rapidly clicking a pen. Also the bed was a bunk bed now. That was a thing.
" Hey, Jirou! Miss me?" Marui seemed to be in a good mood, despite all the bruising.
Jirou perked up seeing Marui, ever the joyous fanboy. He went over to start examining his friend and idol's poor injured head.
"Marui! You're okay now, right!?" He asked, very concerned. "I heard you got brained on your mission!"
Marui soaked up the attention, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. He parted his hair, showing Jirou where the lump was. "Yeah, I'm fine. Atobe fixed the important stuff up pretty good with what he had, the concussion just needs a while for the medicine to heal and then I'll be as good as new." Until then he would be sleepy for a while while his body patched itself up, but it was worth the results.
"I didn't get any footage in the cave but Ibu did, wanna see what he sent me?" Marui didn't wait for an answer, he was already headed for his desk.
Jirou ooh-ed and ah-ed over the apparent severity of Marui's wounds and his deep relief that Marui was okay, before eagerly nodding his head and sitting next to Marui.
"Yeah, I want to see what cool stuff happened on your mission! That way maybe I'll know what to expect when I'm eventually sent on one!" He replied.
"Depends on where they send you, doesn't it? Who knows what they've got planned for the next mission." Marui scrolled through the files on his tablet before pulling one up full-screen and hitting play. It wasn't a lot of footage, but it was all Marui needed: some general footage of the cavern and the gold, the baby crawlers, and the arrival of the mother. There was no actual footage of the battle, for obvious reasons Ibu was keeping that for himself, but he had been kind enough to share some of the basic parts.
And then at the end was some bonus footage: night vision footage of Marui huddling in a corner, screaming and throwing a rock at the camera, before the footage blurred with movement and presumably Marui got hit on the head.
"Gotta give it to Ibu, he's good at what he does," said Marui, nodding at the footage approvingly.
Jirou nodded his head, impressed. "Wow, you were really going to brain Ibu with that rock, huh? It must have been pretty traumatic."
Marui seemed okay now though. Thank goodness. He liked Marui not being crazy.
Marui liked not being crazy too. “I guess so, I don’t actually remember any of it. Shock is pretty nuts, hey?” Marui laughed, like the whole situation was totally normal and not traumatic as hell. “I’m gonna do one last camera check, you want something to eat? There’s some stuff Akaya didn’t find in the bottom drawer. …yeah, the lighting on the bunk bed sucks, maybe I should move it to the desk…” As Marui spoke, he started messing with the tripod and the lights until he was happy with his new setup. “You know how to use a camera, right? Basically all you have to do is hit record, this is the easy part.”
Jirou nodded his head and gave Marui a thumbs up in approval. "Yeah, I've worked with cameras before, so I've got this! You can count on me, Marui!"
With a smile and a thumbs up in return, Marui sat down in his desk chair and faced the camera. “Give me a countdown, let’s do this.”
As soon as the camera started rolling, Marui was in his element. He gave his usual intro, everything was going well, until a few minutes in he trailed off looking for a word and a good ten seconds later of staring blankly into the distance he realized he had lost his train of thought. “Oops. Brain fog. Hold on, I’ve got a script…” And a minute later Marui’s back and going on about head injuries.
Forty minutes and a lot of redos later, Marui had made it through the whole story, with much prompting from his script and Jirou. “There, done. Not my best work, but it is what it is.” He clicked his pen a few times, hobbling from his chair to his bed, where he flopped down face first, clearly exhausted by his efforts. “Give me five minutes and we can start editing.”
Jirou bit his lip, a little concerned about how foggy Marui seemed to be, even if it made sense because of the whole head injury thing. Still... it was kind of scary.
"Take your time, Marui. You seem pretty jumbled up right now." Jirou pointed out, moving to feel his friend's forehead just to make sure that he wasn't feverish or anything. "I can take care of some of the editing while you sleep if that's what you need..."
“I’m fiiiine,” came Marui’s muffled response. He turned his head to look at Jirou. “Atobe said it’d be like this for a while. I’m just tired ‘cause my brain is doing the whole healing overtime thing, it’s not like I’ve never been tired before… Gotta finish the video so it’ll be ready for deadline… Move the tablet here so I can see it, that way I don’t have to get up.”
"I mean, they don't send the data off until the 15th. You probably have time for a nap." Jirou argued stubbornly, now genuinely worried about his friend. If he body was saying sleep he should be getting some sleep, damn it!
“Incoming on the 15th, outgoing on the 30th,” corrected Marui. Which was still around a week, but Marui was stubborn and didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t function the way he wanted to. “I’m already lying down, that’s practically the same thing as a nap anyway. You said you wanted to help, right? So help by working with me here.”
Jirou sighed, but got to work, skillfully starting to edit together the clips. Really skillfully, actually. He'd done this before, and he knew Marui's work like the back of his own palm. So making something up to Marui's standard would be easy peasy.
“Make sure you use the new Yomi intro… cut that bit I look stupid….. lol zoom in on my face there……” Marui threw in comments as Jirou worked at first, but slowly he made fewer and fewer, until he stopped making any at all and all that could be heard was quiet snoring. In the end Jirou got his way; Marui’s body had decided to take a nap whether the rest of him wanted to or not.
Jirou looked down at the sleeping Marui for a second, before setting about nicely tucking Marui into bed. It was kind of fun to be the person on this end for once!
When he was done he resumed working on the video, unsure what else to do with himself.
Kirihara tucked the little drone under his arm, trying to hide it from the cameras. They were everywhere, something he knew from his work position. He was almost certain that Yanagi knew he had this thing anyways but it was better to try and keep it hidden than it was to lose it.
Opening the door to the room he shared with Marui, Kirihara stopped when he spotted someone he'd never seen before in the room, sitting at Marui's desk. And didn't see Marui either. "What'd you do with Marui?" He asked, immediately worried that the UEA had decided to replace the guy. That would fit with this place.
Jirou blinked as a curly haired kid burst into the room, pointing over to Marui's bed and making a shushing motion at Kirihara. "Shhh. Marui needs his rest to keep recovering! I'm working on editing his most recent movie for him."
Kirihara stared at the stranger. "Who are you?" He asked, not lowering his voice at all. His volume dial was busted, always had been and always would be. "Marui's never had a helper before." Was this guy some sort of Marui super fan who had snuck into their room?
He was indeed a Marui superfan. The fanniest, to be honest. "Oh, me? I'm Marui's friend, Akutagawa Jirou! I guess his head has him pretty scrambled, because he invited me to help this week... do you want to help too?"
"Marui's never really talked about his friends," Kirihara replied as he stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him. He took a few steps over towards their new and awesomely improved bunk beds, spotting Marui on the bottom bunk. Well at least the guy wasn't being replaced. That was good. "What's he got you doing?"
"Editing the footage we just filmed into a video! Wanna have a look!?" Jirou cheerfully offered, scooting over to give Kirihara a place to sit. "You're Kirihara-kun, right? It's nice to meet you!"
"Yeah, I'm Kirihara," he said, nodding his head. Stepping closer, he continued to stand but leaned over to get a better look. "What's it a video of?" Marui had mentioned that he made videos but Kirihara hadn't actually seen any of them.
"This time he's talking about the mission he went on! It's super cool!" Jirou enthused, pressing play to let the mostly edited video run for Kirihara so he could appreciate how awesome Marui was. "Did he tell you about the mission at all?"
"He's mumbled some stuff," Kirihara replied, his voice trailing off as he watched the video start to play. It was clearly edited to make Marui look cooler than the guy really was. But at the same time, it was pretty cool. All it did was make Kirihara want to go on a mission himself.
"He got a bad head injury in the cave they found, but he seems to be getting better." Jirou explained, watching the movie and pumping his fists. "Man, the mission sounds so cool! I want to go on one!!!"
Kirihara shot an annoyed look at Jirou. He'd heard about the head injury. There'd been a whole talk about keeping their room a calm, quiet place while Marui was recovering. That annoyance quickly faded though at talk of missions again. "They are cool," he agreed. "I keep hoping I'll get picked to go on them again."
Jirou nodded his head eagerly. "I hope when I am selected for one it's an exciting one! Finding a cave made of gold sounds pretty awesome!"
He cocked his head at Kirihara. "You said 'again', so does that mean you've been on missions before? What were they like?"
A slow grin spread across Kirihara's face as he was asked about missions. Moving over to Marui's bunk, he did check to make sure he wasn't going to actually sit on the guy. "Up until I came here, I went on a bunch." It was more like a year but he didn't want to think or dwell on that.
Jirou looked genuinely impressed by that. "So you're a veteran at missions! And so young too... that's super cool! What's the most exciting mission you've ever been on!?"
Jirou clearly had a new friend.
Leaning back some (and definitely leaning onto Marui), Kirihara frowned as he tried to remember what he was and wasn't allowed to say. There was a whole list of things he'd been told not to speak about. He hadn't fully been paying attention at the time but most of the things he wasn't supposed to mention were related to his missions. "I'm not allowed to talk about that," he admitted, annoyed at that limit but not wanting to get Marui (or this Jirou guy) in any sort of trouble.
Oof. Marui squirmed and whined under the weight, clearly distressed. A few moments later he woke up, eyes looking every which way until his brain caught up with reality and his whole body relaxed with a sigh. No bugs here, thank god. “Ugh, don’t do that. You freaked me out.” Hi Kirihara. Sup.
Jirou peered happily at Marui. "Did your nap make you feel any better Marui? I'm almost done here!"
And he'd made a new friend, go him!
Shifting, Kirihara moved over to let Marui sit up if the guy wanted. "Don't worry. I'd stop you if you ever freaked out and tried to hurt someone," he promised, his face and tone completely serious and innocent all at the same time, not catching that that wasn't the issue at hand.
“Gee, thanks.” Hopefully Kirihara’s way of stopping him wouldn’t involve more rocks. Marui sat up now that he had the space, and yawned. “Yeah, definitely better. How long was I out? Did I miss anything important?”
"Not much, just your roommate coming back!" Jirou happily replied, starting the video again so Marui could see the progress that he'd made.
Kirihara couldn't help but yawn too after seeing Marui do it. The thing was infectious. He leaned over, resting against Marui. He wasn't good at words but that was his way to try and say he'd be there for the guy. "Is there going to be a really cool soundtrack for the video?" Kirihara asked. That was the one thing that would help make it super badass.
Jirou’s work was incredibly good. If Marui didn’t already know Jirou was obsessed with him, this would be enough to tip him off, but this time it was convenient instead of creepy. “Jirou, you’re amazing. If you ever want a job after we get off this planet, you’ve got one.” Marui continued to watch his face on the screen (handsome, talented,) when Kirihara added his two bits and Marui scoffed. “The soundtrack is my beautiful voice.”
"I'd be paying my own salary though!" Laughed Jirou at the job offer, taking Kirihara’s advice and starting to scroll through background music options for some of the clips from the expedition. "It does need a little something here and there, Kirihara is right."
Marui sighed dramatically. “I guess you’re right. Add whatever you want, I trust you, my sweet unpaid intern.”
"Of course I'm right," Kirihara said. He was an action expert. It was kind of silly but he used to imagine cool action-movie music in head head when he'd been out on missions so it just fit to have some in the video too. And that just left him to ask about the other thing that caught his attention. "You pay Marui? For what?"
"I'm his number one fan! I support his patreon at the highest tier!" Jirou declared proudly, like it wasn't somewhat weird. Because in his mind it was totally natural to be a Marui fan.
He kept flipping through music before settling on a song and inserting it.
Kirihara couldn't hide the confusion on his face as he heard that. Yeah, Marui was a fun guy and definitely one of the best people he could have gotten as a roommate. But that? That was weird. In his quietest voice possible, he actually managed a real whisper for possibly the first time ever in his life as he spoke to Marui. "I thought you were the one with the head injury."
Marui couldn’t even be offended by that, it was so funny. The look on Kirihara’s face, the whisper like he was mentioning a delicate issue… Marui had to laugh, almost to the point of tears. No words. Just side-gripping cackling.
Jirou wasn't dumb, he could tell that he was the butt of this joke, even if he wasn't able to hear what Kirihara had said. So he frowned and glared in the pair's direction. "You know, I can unsubscribe from Patreon any time."
Yeah, that got Marui’s attention. He stopped laughing immediately, rolling over and crawling to the edge of the bed. “Noooo Jirouuu I wasn’t laughing at you, I was laughing at Akaya because he doesn’t get how youtubing works.” Big sad face. He was so innocent. Believe him.
Jirou pouted. "I don't know, I mean, it is pretty weird to keep paying you now that we actually know each other, but... okay fine, I'll keep funding you."
As if he could ever stop.
Kirihara had seen a lot of strange, unexplainable things in his life. This was hands down the strangest thing he'd ever seen in his life. "If this youtubing then yeah, I definitely don't get it," he agreed, shaking his head in confusion. Honestly, this made no sense to him at all and he made a mental note to ask someone smarter if it made sense to them.
Immediately Marui cheered up. “Yay! Tier benefit!” And then he tossed Jirou a pack of candy from under the bed. What better tier benefit than one received directly from the Marui himself?
Jirou took the candy happily, saving the video. "Okay, I think I'm done with this, unless either of you have any more input!!! I'm so excited! My first video with Marui!!!"
It was said as if he planned to make more videos with Marui, because he did.
“Looks good to me,” was Marui’s response, without even looking at the edits. He trusted Jirou well enough, and even if he didn’t… ehh, he had a head injury. The UEA could take what they got. “What do you think, Akaya? Five stars like and subscribe?”
"Seems fine to me." Kirihara didn't really get all the youtube-y references. It wasn't exactly something he'd been given a lot of free access to watch. Then a thought hit him and he grinned. "The next video should be a day in the life of Marui. Follow him around for a day and just watch everything he does." It'd be the stupidest video ever but it'd probably make the weird people like Jirou happy.
Jirou perked right up, hella excited by the idea.
"That's a great idea! We should do it, Marui! A video of your life on base is sure to be a big hit!" At least as long as they didn’t film on one of the days Marui was being overly slutty. That might get him banned from YouTube, which would be a tragedy.
Marui nodded thoughtfully. “Day in the life vlog, a time-tested classic. Yeah we can do that, on a day where I’m less sleepy though. Gotta make the video fun. Lots of activities, really play up the facilities and all that. You guys can help me film it.” Because getting to hang out with Marui and help him film things was the highlight of any normal person’s life. Of course.
Jirou looked excited at the prospect. "Yeah! Let's do it when you're feeling better! For now you should probably rest though."
And he should get going to work.
Kirihara didn't know if he should be flattered or disturbed they were taking his suggestion seriously. "People actually watch that sort of thing?" He couldn't quite believe it. "I guess I could help with it." He'd probably get pulled into it anyways.
“I’ll show you some of my videos later, you’ll get it then.” No, he probably wouldn’t. But that’s not Marui’s problem. He yawned and stretched, still flopped over the edge of the bed. “I’ll take another nap soon. Thanks for helping, you’re the best.”
"Yeah, you get some rest, Marui!" Jirou chirped, moving to shove Kirihara off the bed and helpfully start tucking his idol back in to get some good sleep. "I'll visit again soon!"
Kirihara shot Jirou a dark look as the guy shoved him. He could have asked Kirihara to move. "Marui's in bed so you can go now," he told Jirou. "It's weird to hang out in someone's room when they're sleeping."
Jirou nodded his head, happily heading for the door. "Bye Kirihara-kun! Take care!"
He didn't like you too much, Kirihara.
Kirihara just nodded, not actually saying anything. He had a funny feeling it'd just make things worse for someone. Probably Marui. So instead, he just watched the door, making sure that Jirou closed it.
Marui watched all this in silence, because like Kirihara, he thought it more prudent. He waved again to Jirou, and then when he left immediately sat up and looked at Kirihara and grinned. "So, wanna play a few rounds of something before I pass out?"
When: After the teams return, before the end of August sometime
Where: Marui and Kirihara's room
What: Making a video for the youtubes
Jirou was excited. Marui was finally back from his mission. He was a little injured, sure, but he was back and he was going to have one hell of a story to tell. And Jirou got to help tell that story through video editing!
He was pumped to do this.
"Marui, I'm here!" He called, knocking on Marui's door instead of just using the overrides to break in. He had some manners! "Let me in!"
Probably for the best, because Marui still hadn't realized just how much access Jirou had to the base. Marui opened the door by voice command, and when Jirou entered he was sitting propped up on his bed surrounded by pillows, rapidly clicking a pen. Also the bed was a bunk bed now. That was a thing.
" Hey, Jirou! Miss me?" Marui seemed to be in a good mood, despite all the bruising.
Jirou perked up seeing Marui, ever the joyous fanboy. He went over to start examining his friend and idol's poor injured head.
"Marui! You're okay now, right!?" He asked, very concerned. "I heard you got brained on your mission!"
Marui soaked up the attention, it was a mutually beneficial relationship. He parted his hair, showing Jirou where the lump was. "Yeah, I'm fine. Atobe fixed the important stuff up pretty good with what he had, the concussion just needs a while for the medicine to heal and then I'll be as good as new." Until then he would be sleepy for a while while his body patched itself up, but it was worth the results.
"I didn't get any footage in the cave but Ibu did, wanna see what he sent me?" Marui didn't wait for an answer, he was already headed for his desk.
Jirou ooh-ed and ah-ed over the apparent severity of Marui's wounds and his deep relief that Marui was okay, before eagerly nodding his head and sitting next to Marui.
"Yeah, I want to see what cool stuff happened on your mission! That way maybe I'll know what to expect when I'm eventually sent on one!" He replied.
"Depends on where they send you, doesn't it? Who knows what they've got planned for the next mission." Marui scrolled through the files on his tablet before pulling one up full-screen and hitting play. It wasn't a lot of footage, but it was all Marui needed: some general footage of the cavern and the gold, the baby crawlers, and the arrival of the mother. There was no actual footage of the battle, for obvious reasons Ibu was keeping that for himself, but he had been kind enough to share some of the basic parts.
And then at the end was some bonus footage: night vision footage of Marui huddling in a corner, screaming and throwing a rock at the camera, before the footage blurred with movement and presumably Marui got hit on the head.
"Gotta give it to Ibu, he's good at what he does," said Marui, nodding at the footage approvingly.
Jirou nodded his head, impressed. "Wow, you were really going to brain Ibu with that rock, huh? It must have been pretty traumatic."
Marui seemed okay now though. Thank goodness. He liked Marui not being crazy.
Marui liked not being crazy too. “I guess so, I don’t actually remember any of it. Shock is pretty nuts, hey?” Marui laughed, like the whole situation was totally normal and not traumatic as hell. “I’m gonna do one last camera check, you want something to eat? There’s some stuff Akaya didn’t find in the bottom drawer. …yeah, the lighting on the bunk bed sucks, maybe I should move it to the desk…” As Marui spoke, he started messing with the tripod and the lights until he was happy with his new setup. “You know how to use a camera, right? Basically all you have to do is hit record, this is the easy part.”
Jirou nodded his head and gave Marui a thumbs up in approval. "Yeah, I've worked with cameras before, so I've got this! You can count on me, Marui!"
With a smile and a thumbs up in return, Marui sat down in his desk chair and faced the camera. “Give me a countdown, let’s do this.”
As soon as the camera started rolling, Marui was in his element. He gave his usual intro, everything was going well, until a few minutes in he trailed off looking for a word and a good ten seconds later of staring blankly into the distance he realized he had lost his train of thought. “Oops. Brain fog. Hold on, I’ve got a script…” And a minute later Marui’s back and going on about head injuries.
Forty minutes and a lot of redos later, Marui had made it through the whole story, with much prompting from his script and Jirou. “There, done. Not my best work, but it is what it is.” He clicked his pen a few times, hobbling from his chair to his bed, where he flopped down face first, clearly exhausted by his efforts. “Give me five minutes and we can start editing.”
Jirou bit his lip, a little concerned about how foggy Marui seemed to be, even if it made sense because of the whole head injury thing. Still... it was kind of scary.
"Take your time, Marui. You seem pretty jumbled up right now." Jirou pointed out, moving to feel his friend's forehead just to make sure that he wasn't feverish or anything. "I can take care of some of the editing while you sleep if that's what you need..."
“I’m fiiiine,” came Marui’s muffled response. He turned his head to look at Jirou. “Atobe said it’d be like this for a while. I’m just tired ‘cause my brain is doing the whole healing overtime thing, it’s not like I’ve never been tired before… Gotta finish the video so it’ll be ready for deadline… Move the tablet here so I can see it, that way I don’t have to get up.”
"I mean, they don't send the data off until the 15th. You probably have time for a nap." Jirou argued stubbornly, now genuinely worried about his friend. If he body was saying sleep he should be getting some sleep, damn it!
“Incoming on the 15th, outgoing on the 30th,” corrected Marui. Which was still around a week, but Marui was stubborn and didn’t want to admit that he couldn’t function the way he wanted to. “I’m already lying down, that’s practically the same thing as a nap anyway. You said you wanted to help, right? So help by working with me here.”
Jirou sighed, but got to work, skillfully starting to edit together the clips. Really skillfully, actually. He'd done this before, and he knew Marui's work like the back of his own palm. So making something up to Marui's standard would be easy peasy.
“Make sure you use the new Yomi intro… cut that bit I look stupid….. lol zoom in on my face there……” Marui threw in comments as Jirou worked at first, but slowly he made fewer and fewer, until he stopped making any at all and all that could be heard was quiet snoring. In the end Jirou got his way; Marui’s body had decided to take a nap whether the rest of him wanted to or not.
Jirou looked down at the sleeping Marui for a second, before setting about nicely tucking Marui into bed. It was kind of fun to be the person on this end for once!
When he was done he resumed working on the video, unsure what else to do with himself.
Kirihara tucked the little drone under his arm, trying to hide it from the cameras. They were everywhere, something he knew from his work position. He was almost certain that Yanagi knew he had this thing anyways but it was better to try and keep it hidden than it was to lose it.
Opening the door to the room he shared with Marui, Kirihara stopped when he spotted someone he'd never seen before in the room, sitting at Marui's desk. And didn't see Marui either. "What'd you do with Marui?" He asked, immediately worried that the UEA had decided to replace the guy. That would fit with this place.
Jirou blinked as a curly haired kid burst into the room, pointing over to Marui's bed and making a shushing motion at Kirihara. "Shhh. Marui needs his rest to keep recovering! I'm working on editing his most recent movie for him."
Kirihara stared at the stranger. "Who are you?" He asked, not lowering his voice at all. His volume dial was busted, always had been and always would be. "Marui's never had a helper before." Was this guy some sort of Marui super fan who had snuck into their room?
He was indeed a Marui superfan. The fanniest, to be honest. "Oh, me? I'm Marui's friend, Akutagawa Jirou! I guess his head has him pretty scrambled, because he invited me to help this week... do you want to help too?"
"Marui's never really talked about his friends," Kirihara replied as he stepped into the room, letting the door close behind him. He took a few steps over towards their new and awesomely improved bunk beds, spotting Marui on the bottom bunk. Well at least the guy wasn't being replaced. That was good. "What's he got you doing?"
"Editing the footage we just filmed into a video! Wanna have a look!?" Jirou cheerfully offered, scooting over to give Kirihara a place to sit. "You're Kirihara-kun, right? It's nice to meet you!"
"Yeah, I'm Kirihara," he said, nodding his head. Stepping closer, he continued to stand but leaned over to get a better look. "What's it a video of?" Marui had mentioned that he made videos but Kirihara hadn't actually seen any of them.
"This time he's talking about the mission he went on! It's super cool!" Jirou enthused, pressing play to let the mostly edited video run for Kirihara so he could appreciate how awesome Marui was. "Did he tell you about the mission at all?"
"He's mumbled some stuff," Kirihara replied, his voice trailing off as he watched the video start to play. It was clearly edited to make Marui look cooler than the guy really was. But at the same time, it was pretty cool. All it did was make Kirihara want to go on a mission himself.
"He got a bad head injury in the cave they found, but he seems to be getting better." Jirou explained, watching the movie and pumping his fists. "Man, the mission sounds so cool! I want to go on one!!!"
Kirihara shot an annoyed look at Jirou. He'd heard about the head injury. There'd been a whole talk about keeping their room a calm, quiet place while Marui was recovering. That annoyance quickly faded though at talk of missions again. "They are cool," he agreed. "I keep hoping I'll get picked to go on them again."
Jirou nodded his head eagerly. "I hope when I am selected for one it's an exciting one! Finding a cave made of gold sounds pretty awesome!"
He cocked his head at Kirihara. "You said 'again', so does that mean you've been on missions before? What were they like?"
A slow grin spread across Kirihara's face as he was asked about missions. Moving over to Marui's bunk, he did check to make sure he wasn't going to actually sit on the guy. "Up until I came here, I went on a bunch." It was more like a year but he didn't want to think or dwell on that.
Jirou looked genuinely impressed by that. "So you're a veteran at missions! And so young too... that's super cool! What's the most exciting mission you've ever been on!?"
Jirou clearly had a new friend.
Leaning back some (and definitely leaning onto Marui), Kirihara frowned as he tried to remember what he was and wasn't allowed to say. There was a whole list of things he'd been told not to speak about. He hadn't fully been paying attention at the time but most of the things he wasn't supposed to mention were related to his missions. "I'm not allowed to talk about that," he admitted, annoyed at that limit but not wanting to get Marui (or this Jirou guy) in any sort of trouble.
Oof. Marui squirmed and whined under the weight, clearly distressed. A few moments later he woke up, eyes looking every which way until his brain caught up with reality and his whole body relaxed with a sigh. No bugs here, thank god. “Ugh, don’t do that. You freaked me out.” Hi Kirihara. Sup.
Jirou peered happily at Marui. "Did your nap make you feel any better Marui? I'm almost done here!"
And he'd made a new friend, go him!
Shifting, Kirihara moved over to let Marui sit up if the guy wanted. "Don't worry. I'd stop you if you ever freaked out and tried to hurt someone," he promised, his face and tone completely serious and innocent all at the same time, not catching that that wasn't the issue at hand.
“Gee, thanks.” Hopefully Kirihara’s way of stopping him wouldn’t involve more rocks. Marui sat up now that he had the space, and yawned. “Yeah, definitely better. How long was I out? Did I miss anything important?”
"Not much, just your roommate coming back!" Jirou happily replied, starting the video again so Marui could see the progress that he'd made.
Kirihara couldn't help but yawn too after seeing Marui do it. The thing was infectious. He leaned over, resting against Marui. He wasn't good at words but that was his way to try and say he'd be there for the guy. "Is there going to be a really cool soundtrack for the video?" Kirihara asked. That was the one thing that would help make it super badass.
Jirou’s work was incredibly good. If Marui didn’t already know Jirou was obsessed with him, this would be enough to tip him off, but this time it was convenient instead of creepy. “Jirou, you’re amazing. If you ever want a job after we get off this planet, you’ve got one.” Marui continued to watch his face on the screen (handsome, talented,) when Kirihara added his two bits and Marui scoffed. “The soundtrack is my beautiful voice.”
"I'd be paying my own salary though!" Laughed Jirou at the job offer, taking Kirihara’s advice and starting to scroll through background music options for some of the clips from the expedition. "It does need a little something here and there, Kirihara is right."
Marui sighed dramatically. “I guess you’re right. Add whatever you want, I trust you, my sweet unpaid intern.”
"Of course I'm right," Kirihara said. He was an action expert. It was kind of silly but he used to imagine cool action-movie music in head head when he'd been out on missions so it just fit to have some in the video too. And that just left him to ask about the other thing that caught his attention. "You pay Marui? For what?"
"I'm his number one fan! I support his patreon at the highest tier!" Jirou declared proudly, like it wasn't somewhat weird. Because in his mind it was totally natural to be a Marui fan.
He kept flipping through music before settling on a song and inserting it.
Kirihara couldn't hide the confusion on his face as he heard that. Yeah, Marui was a fun guy and definitely one of the best people he could have gotten as a roommate. But that? That was weird. In his quietest voice possible, he actually managed a real whisper for possibly the first time ever in his life as he spoke to Marui. "I thought you were the one with the head injury."
Marui couldn’t even be offended by that, it was so funny. The look on Kirihara’s face, the whisper like he was mentioning a delicate issue… Marui had to laugh, almost to the point of tears. No words. Just side-gripping cackling.
Jirou wasn't dumb, he could tell that he was the butt of this joke, even if he wasn't able to hear what Kirihara had said. So he frowned and glared in the pair's direction. "You know, I can unsubscribe from Patreon any time."
Yeah, that got Marui’s attention. He stopped laughing immediately, rolling over and crawling to the edge of the bed. “Noooo Jirouuu I wasn’t laughing at you, I was laughing at Akaya because he doesn’t get how youtubing works.” Big sad face. He was so innocent. Believe him.
Jirou pouted. "I don't know, I mean, it is pretty weird to keep paying you now that we actually know each other, but... okay fine, I'll keep funding you."
As if he could ever stop.
Kirihara had seen a lot of strange, unexplainable things in his life. This was hands down the strangest thing he'd ever seen in his life. "If this youtubing then yeah, I definitely don't get it," he agreed, shaking his head in confusion. Honestly, this made no sense to him at all and he made a mental note to ask someone smarter if it made sense to them.
Immediately Marui cheered up. “Yay! Tier benefit!” And then he tossed Jirou a pack of candy from under the bed. What better tier benefit than one received directly from the Marui himself?
Jirou took the candy happily, saving the video. "Okay, I think I'm done with this, unless either of you have any more input!!! I'm so excited! My first video with Marui!!!"
It was said as if he planned to make more videos with Marui, because he did.
“Looks good to me,” was Marui’s response, without even looking at the edits. He trusted Jirou well enough, and even if he didn’t… ehh, he had a head injury. The UEA could take what they got. “What do you think, Akaya? Five stars like and subscribe?”
"Seems fine to me." Kirihara didn't really get all the youtube-y references. It wasn't exactly something he'd been given a lot of free access to watch. Then a thought hit him and he grinned. "The next video should be a day in the life of Marui. Follow him around for a day and just watch everything he does." It'd be the stupidest video ever but it'd probably make the weird people like Jirou happy.
Jirou perked right up, hella excited by the idea.
"That's a great idea! We should do it, Marui! A video of your life on base is sure to be a big hit!" At least as long as they didn’t film on one of the days Marui was being overly slutty. That might get him banned from YouTube, which would be a tragedy.
Marui nodded thoughtfully. “Day in the life vlog, a time-tested classic. Yeah we can do that, on a day where I’m less sleepy though. Gotta make the video fun. Lots of activities, really play up the facilities and all that. You guys can help me film it.” Because getting to hang out with Marui and help him film things was the highlight of any normal person’s life. Of course.
Jirou looked excited at the prospect. "Yeah! Let's do it when you're feeling better! For now you should probably rest though."
And he should get going to work.
Kirihara didn't know if he should be flattered or disturbed they were taking his suggestion seriously. "People actually watch that sort of thing?" He couldn't quite believe it. "I guess I could help with it." He'd probably get pulled into it anyways.
“I’ll show you some of my videos later, you’ll get it then.” No, he probably wouldn’t. But that’s not Marui’s problem. He yawned and stretched, still flopped over the edge of the bed. “I’ll take another nap soon. Thanks for helping, you’re the best.”
"Yeah, you get some rest, Marui!" Jirou chirped, moving to shove Kirihara off the bed and helpfully start tucking his idol back in to get some good sleep. "I'll visit again soon!"
Kirihara shot Jirou a dark look as the guy shoved him. He could have asked Kirihara to move. "Marui's in bed so you can go now," he told Jirou. "It's weird to hang out in someone's room when they're sleeping."
Jirou nodded his head, happily heading for the door. "Bye Kirihara-kun! Take care!"
He didn't like you too much, Kirihara.
Kirihara just nodded, not actually saying anything. He had a funny feeling it'd just make things worse for someone. Probably Marui. So instead, he just watched the door, making sure that Jirou closed it.
Marui watched all this in silence, because like Kirihara, he thought it more prudent. He waved again to Jirou, and then when he left immediately sat up and looked at Kirihara and grinned. "So, wanna play a few rounds of something before I pass out?"
