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[log] niou and marui
Who: Niou and Marui
When: Friday...?
Where: Niou's office
What: Niou and Marui are terrible friends
Niou had gotten one beanbag filled up, but wanted to check if it was to Marui’s standards before he started on the second one - sitting off to the side with its bag of 3D printed beans. He tapped away on his communicator and spun in his desk chair while he waited for Marui to arrive.
’Do you want to come help with the beans’, honestly. Niou really couldn’t be a normal person and just ask him to hang out from the start. With half his other friends out at the mining outpost, Marui wasn’t about to turn him down however, and down he went to engineering to meet Niou.
“Yo.” Marui gave Niou a nod when he found him. No pillow with Marui this time– a good sign.
Niou swiveled around to face Marui and glanced down to his hands immediately to check for a pillow or any other ‘I might be trying to kill Niou’ hint. “... the drones are definitely armed because I’m going out to the outpost next week,” he said, just in case Marui had any ideas.
He did however offer up a bowl of surprisingly edible replicator crackers and a cup of vaguely lemon flavoured drink as a sort of peace offering. “The first bean bag chair is there if you want to try it,” Niou said. “Or you can sit and try it out later.”
Marui held up his hands defensively. “I’m not going to touch you, relax. I can’t believe they actually let you have bullets, don’t you have to pass a psych test or something?” Verbal jabs aside, Marui has no intention of actually fighting Niou, and taking the snacks and drink he plops down in the bean chair. The plopping is very important– this thing has to stand up to Kirihara. “Not bad. Seems pretty tough, that’s good.”
Niou blinked. “I passed one when I came here. I’m quite sane and mentally capable.” Although he was pretty sure there were multiple people who would disagree with that assessment. He watched Marui move, still a little on guard that he might suddenly… spring at him or something - maybe throw some sort of baked good at him. “It’s not too hard or soft? I have more beans I can put in it.” The 3D printer had not quite replicated the traditional feel of polystyrene, but the little balls were good enough.
“Nah, it’s pretty good. Have you never sat on a bean bag chair before or something?” Marui shoved a handful of crackers into his mouth, surprised that they were actually pretty okay. The drink… not so much, but whatever, it would do to wash the crackers down. “It’s pretty straight forward. You need to be able to sit in it and relax, but not have your butt touching the ground. That’s like two rules. It’s fine.”
“No, I haven’t sat on one before.” Honestly, they seemed extremely impractical, and the more he watched Marui, the more Niou settled on that decision. He went back to picking at his container from Tachibana, eating a couple of mouthfuls as he thought. “When have you sat in one? You didn’t have one in any of the videos on your channel.”
“Uh, cuz they’re crap for filming in.” Marui had long since given up worrying about the weird shit Niou did, like watching and apparently remembering all of his videos. “I’ve done lots of stuff that didn’t make it into videos. I have a private life, you know.” As hard to believe as that was.
Niou raised his eyebrows and looked doubtfully at Marui’s claims. “I just always thought your private life was just you sitting in front of a computer editing videos. Or when you were having sex.” Although there had been a couple of videos of Marui editing other videos, to ‘show the process’. Niou thought it was just an excuse because he’d been low on content ideas at the time.
That was exactly why Marui had made those videos, don’t question the process. “No. There’s other stuff. Did I ever tell you it was weird that you marathoned my whole channel? Because it is.” As mentioned earlier Marui wasn’t worried about it, but Marui was annoyed and it was an easy thing to turn around Niou.
“You said it was kinda creepy when I’d done 24 hours worth of it,” Niou said with a shrug. And what he’d ended up watching was significantly more than just 24 hours worth, even on double speed, that had become quadruple speed once he’d figured out the general formula to Marui’s videos as it followed trends. “I found your sped up voice to be good for keeping my brain busy while trying to work. Kept out the stray thoughts.”
“Yeah, well kinda creepy times however man hours of content you watched equals ultra creepy.” Marui grimaced dramatically. “I’m not letting you see my new videos. Something has to be off limits to you.” He waved the hand with the snack bowl around as he spoke to emphasize his point, and then picked up the crackers he’d spilled one by one off himself and the chair and ate them.
“I don’t really have any interest in seeing your videos about life on Izanagi,” Niou said with a shrug. “I’m here with you anyway, I know partly what you get up to.” And some of the other stuff… he didn’t want to know. Niou watched Marui for a moment more before taking another bite of his food and pushing the container away for another hour or so. “Besides, we get the data from Earth eventually. I can probably just watch it when the updates come through.”
“Nope. You’re not allowed. I’m personally banning you.” Marui was imagining the stupid anti-Niou graphic he was going to make to use as a banner for his channel as they spoke. “Break the ban and we’ll find out if doxxing works across the universe.” Brush brush. There, no more crumbs.
Niou shrugged again. While Marui’s content had been entertaining, it wasn’t something that he was particularly sad over losing. “Okay. I guess I’ll return to watching the uncut Ibu Shinji documentary footage then. Great ASMR. Very educational.” He stared at the crumbs that Marui pushed onto the floor and then up to his face again. “Did you enjoy the replicator crackers?”
Ibu Shinji footage, uncut? Damn, Niou really was a masochist. Marui looked entirely unconcerned about the mess he just made in Niou’s workspace, taking another sip of his drink. “Those were from the replicator? Huh, not bad. I guess it’s harder for it to mess up seaweed flavoured stuff. Still sucks at lemon though.” FInishing the drink in one long swig, he set it down. “Do you actually drink that stuff or did you pick it just watch me drink pee?”
“It’s been pretty consistently good with seaweed flavoured things. Things that are close in nature to the algae source tend to be done well.” Niou stayed silent on the lemon front… he didn’t think it was that bad, and he knew Hiyoshi thought the same. And between Hiyoshi and Marui, Niou knew whose opinion he trusted and respected more. “I do actually drink it.” Niou picked up his own cup of it from next to his screen and showed Marui. “It’s fine. Could do with some caffeine in it, but…” he shrugged.
Marui sighed dramatically. “Yeah, and you admitted you have no taste buds. I’d make you something to prove it sucks, but you know. Poison.” Marui waved his hand vaguely to show how silly he thought that sounded. “Who’d be stupid to try something like that on a base where everything is filmed and the supplies are all recorded? It’s dumb as hell.” But Niou was also dumb as hell, so there was that.
Niou smiled at Marui and sipped at his drink. “I don’t need you to make me something to prove that. I have a chef for a partner-thing, I know what good cooking tastes like.” And he enjoyed it, really. Probably not as much as someone like Marui would, but even he could admit it was better than the replicator. He shrugged at the question. “Someone who’s stupid enough to try and smother someone else on camera might try it? And who tried it in a space with weaponised drones?”
“I wasn’t ACTUALLY trying to kill you. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let people see if I was.” Marui’s childish pout was at odds with the fact that he was defending his murder tactics to someone he’d recently assaulted. “And how was I supposed to know you had drones with real bullets? I told you, that’s nuts.”
“Forgive me for not being able to read your actual intent regarding murder when you were on top of me trying to shove a pillow on my face,” Niou said dryly. Though, the actual anger that had followed really was more about the touching than the attempted smothering. And since the whole thing had been explained… well, it wasn’t an issue really. “It’s not as if I don’t talk about it openly? I’m guessing you don’t read other people’s conversations though.”
“Not the boring ones.” This was exactly the reason Marui and Niou could be friends; despite bickering about it, neither of them was actually that upset about what had happened. It had happened, it was dealt with, case closed. “Anyway speaking of boring stuff, aren’t I here to help you with beans? I hope you’ve got a funnel, I was imagining you putting the beans in the bag one by one.” A hilarious mental image if there ever was one.
“My conversations with Hiyoshi are never boring,” Niou said, almost indignantly. He always enjoyed them, anyway. He got out of his chair and grabbed the bag of balls to go into the second beanbag, heading over to Marui. “I just put them in by the handful,” he shrugged. “Less chance of making a mess when it was just me doing it.” And it wasn’t like he could ask Sanada for help, since Sanada was out at the outpost, and Akutsu would probably just laugh at him.
Marui just rolled his eyes. That made two people who were strangely defensive about the kid with the dumb haircut. Whatever. Marui straightened up, checking out the supplies. “Couldn’t you rig something up to hold it in place while you poured? I thought you were an engineer.”
“It’d be a waste. It’s not like I’m planning on making more than these two.” And if he did, whoever was ordering it could come and fill the bags up themselves. Niou sat down on the floor and spread open the empty bean bag, putting the bag of 3D printed beans next to them. And picked up the first double-handed scoop of them to drop into the seat.
Wow, Niou was seriously doing this by hand. Sighing, he got off his seat, and started helping, scooping handfuls of beans into the bag, careful not to do a popcorn-in-a-romance-movie move and touch Niou’s hand by accident, because the last thing he needed right now was to get shot again. It was slow going and kind of tedious, and Marui was just about to suggest figuring out a way for one of them to hold the bag open while the other one poured, when in his handful of beans, he came across… something.
Something with way too many legs and a stupid frill around its neck.
All at once, Marui had hurled the 3D printed crawler at Niou and scrambled backward like a crab, all while screaming incomprehensible bloody murder.
Niou hummed to himself as he worked, not bothering with trying to make tedious conversation with Marui. And it was actually going much faster with two people. And he was just adjusting the beanbag slightly to make sure the beans were being distributed properly when he spotted the telltale pause. He caught the miniature crawler with his hand and burst out laughing at the reaction before he pressed his hand to his mouth to smother to laughter.
It took a second for Marui’s brain to catch up with the fact that the crawler was fake, and the screaming to turn into heavy, unsteady breaths. It took a few more to piece together that Niou laughing like an idiot over his suffering meant that it had been his fault, and as soon as that clicked, Marui was back beside Niou, smacking him with his fluffy designer slipper. “Bastard! That’s not funny!!”
Even being hit with a shoe wasn’t enough to stop Niou’s laughter entirely and he fended off Marui with one arm. “It’s exposure therapy! I’m helping!” Of course, the bubbling laughter wasn’t entirely helping with making him sound sincere. Niou opened his hand to show Marui the 3D printed crawler again. “See, it’s extremely cute. You could put it on your desk. Give it a name. Put some googly eyes on it.”
“Get that fucking thing–” Marui smacked the mini crawler out of Niou’s hand with his slipper like he was trying to hit a home run and watched it sail across the room. Then he slumped back, trying to catch his breath now that the urge to smack Niou into oblivion was subsiding. “You’re such an asshole, god. ‘Put googly eyes on it’... screw off…” Marui started rummaging in his pocket, eventually pulling out his oil roller and starting to apply it with shaky hands.
Niou sat, watching Marui curiously now, taking in the shaking hands, the… he sniffed the air… the essential oils?? And his eyebrows drew together as his laughter was definitely gone. “Wow they really did a number on you,” he said, turning back to the bag of beans to start scooping them into the seat again. “What is it that’s so bad about them? Just the idea of them, or the flashbacks of being stuck underground with them crawling on you?”
“All of it. They’re gross and skittery and they try to burrow into your skin and ugh.” Marui was decidedly cranky now, and applying enough essential oil that the whole engineering bay was going to reek of lavender for days at this point. “It was dark and I couldn’t see them coming but I could hear them and smashing them didn’t even help because they just kept coming.”
Did essential oils actually help Marui, Niou wondered distantly as he listened, still scooping handfuls of stuff into the bag, frowning. It was different hearing Marui recount it, versus what he’d read on the open communication channel and afterwards. “And the fact that there’s none here, or that you can sleep with a light on to see if any approach, it doesn’t help?” he asked.
“No. That’s not how PTSD works.” The roller was at least back in Marui’s pocket for now, but now he was busy huffing his wrists like some sort of flowery drug user. “Plus, there was one here. In the beans. Thanks for that. Bastard.”
“Fair enough. Like when Renji and Sanada locked me in the room to sleep. I knew it wasn’t the same, but it didn’t help.” Niou pushed himself up off the floor and grabbed his half-finished container of dinner and chopsticks, holding it down to Marui on the floor. “I don’t have clean chopsticks, but you can eat it if you want.”
“I’m not hungry.” And that right there was the ultimate sign that Marui wasn’t faking. He crawled over to the finished bean chair, curling up and laying down sideways. “Stupid mission. I told them it was a dumb idea to send me.”
Niou stared for a long moment before shrugging and putting the container back on his desk. And then went back to filling up the beanbag chair. “Yeah, well the UEA doesn’t exactly make great decisions sometimes.” He sighed. “Though, you guys were just meant to be scanning for possible deposits. We didn’t really expect you to find that series of tunnels.” Or all the gold. The engineering department was still fussing over it. “It really should have been a safe-ish mission that they sent you on.”
“Three of the times I got hit was from the people on the mission with me,” complained Marui. He seemed a lot calmer now, but his panic was replaced by moody moping. “I don’t want to be on this stupid planet anymore. I wanna go home.”
“Ah… we probably should have built in some sort of thing for extra protection against Tooyama,” Niou said. Hindsight was 20/20, afterall. The scooping of beans really was quite mindless and Niou glanced up again at Marui. “It never seemed like you wanted to come here in the first place,” he said. And… it had been weird for a person who lived on youtube to move to a planet with a huge time lag with internet uploads. “You could leave. You could probably afford to pay the penalty on breaking your contract early.”
That only seemed to make Marui more upset. The sad pout on his face was so extreme it was comical. “I can’t leeeave, I’m too pretty for jaaaaaail.” Oh, the drama. Marui hugged his knees even closer, practically burying his face in them, like he was trying to take a break from the world.
Niou stared. And then kept staring as Marui spoke and then sulked and what the fuck. “Well, then it’s not really a matter of going home then. So it’s either here or jail.” He knew what his choice would be and Niou shrugged unhelpfully. “At least here you only have one ex-convict to keep you company in your law-breaking ways, and not like… a whole jail.”
Just like Niou to give such a cold answer, but considering how giving Marui attention just made him worse, it was probably for the best. Marui sniffed, looking over at Niou pitifully. “I didn’t even do anything. I don’t deserve to be here.” Hopefully Niou knew Marui well enough to take his words with a grain of salt, since he was getting a bit creative with the facts now.
“Then take the next shuttle off the planet and go home and file an appeal, to avoid jail,” Niou said, shrugging again. He could at least maneuver the bag enough now to tip it into the bean bag’s opening, carefully scooping in beans at a faster pace. “If you want to get out of here and can leave, then leave. And otherwise, just accept that you’re stuck here and make the most of it. Stop changing your story.”
Marui took Niou’s words like a slap to the face, first surprised, then following it up with a dirty look that could peel paint. “Fine. I’ll shut up then. Maybe I’ll just lie here and die while I’m at it, don’t mind me.”
Oop, the beanbag chair was filling up quite nicely now and Marui’s look just bounced off Niou who barely even registered it. “Let me know if you’re going to die there, so I can bother someone to come and remove your dead body after. I don’t think the trash bots can carry that much weight.”
Marui sighed as loudly and dramatically as he could, sulked for another ten seconds, then sat up properly in his chair. “I want your food now.”
Niou was half tempted to tell Marui that the offer of his food had finished after it had been rejected, but okay maybe he did feel a little bad for the bug thing still. … Not bad enough to get up and get it for him though. “There’s nothing wrong with your arms and legs. You can get it yourself.” Niou scooped the last few balls into the beanbag chair and closed it up.
Ugh, Marui’s life was so hard. He whined accordingly, but got up and got it for himself like he was told, settling back down and tucking into Niou’s food. It would have tasted better when it was fresh and warm, but Tachibana knew what he was doing, and the meal wasn’t half bad. “You’re gonna keep the chairs here until Akaya’s birthday, right? Obviously he’ll see them if they’re in our room.”
Well, at least Marui wasn’t complaining anymore, and Niou had no doubts that if the food hadn’t been acceptable, that he probably would have whinged about that too. “Yeah, I’ll hide them away in case he comes down here.” Since he’d taken full advantage of Akaya being away at the outpost to make the seats. “And I’ll let Sanada know, so you can come pick them up when you need them.” Niou eyed the very empty looking container that Marui was still inhaling. “You know that would have probably lasted me another like… 4 hours.” And Marui had demolished it in what, 4 seconds?
“That’s why you’re so skinny,” replied Marui, pointing his chopsticks at Niou before continuing to destroy the last bits of Niou’s daily meal. “Just ask him to make you more, you know he’ll do it. Or ask for something else. Doesn’t it bug you eating the same thing all day?” Because Marui knew it would bug him for sure. Food needed variety! Niou’s sad sad diet was no way to live.
Niou bit back his automatic response of he was fine. He shook his head at the question. “I eat something different every day? And Kippei takes requests if I have something in particular that I want to eat.” But really, it was best to just let Tachibana surprise him with whatever meal he wanted to make that day. “And I’ll just wait. It’s only 4 hours. And get him to make me something when my shift is finished.” Maybe have it together… Niou sent a message to Tachibana with that thought.
Marui personally thought not eating for four hours when you had the option to sounded miserable, but kept it to himself for reasons unknown. (Reasons that may or may not have been related to the fact that he was savouring the very last bite of Niou’s meal right then and therefore his mouth was too full to speak.) Once he was done, he set the finished container aside together with the chopsticks and stood up, testing the second bean bag chair for firmness. Hmm. Nice.
With the chairs done, Marui was ready to leave. “Tell Tachibana before he comes down to meet you so he has time to make it. Food doesn’t appear out of nowhere.” That right there was Marui’s chef solidarity. He and Tachibana understood each other, they had to look out for each other. “Thanks for the food. Enjoy starving for the next four hours, I guess.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Niou said dryly, as though he hadn’t just sent off that sort of thing to Tachibana just before. Well, there were no complaints about either seat, so Niou assumed that they were satisfactory and therefore his IOU to Marui was paid off. He stood up as well, picking up the empty container to put back on his desk. “It might be good for me. He so enjoys having meals together, and if I’m actually hungry it could work out well.” He paused and looked at Marui. “That’s not an invitation to come back in the future and eat my food again though.”
Marui gave Niou one last dirty look before turning to go. "Then stop pulling stupid stuff to mess with my head. Whatever. I'm out. By-ee." And in a cloud of lavender scent, he left.
When: Friday...?
Where: Niou's office
What: Niou and Marui are terrible friends
Niou had gotten one beanbag filled up, but wanted to check if it was to Marui’s standards before he started on the second one - sitting off to the side with its bag of 3D printed beans. He tapped away on his communicator and spun in his desk chair while he waited for Marui to arrive.
’Do you want to come help with the beans’, honestly. Niou really couldn’t be a normal person and just ask him to hang out from the start. With half his other friends out at the mining outpost, Marui wasn’t about to turn him down however, and down he went to engineering to meet Niou.
“Yo.” Marui gave Niou a nod when he found him. No pillow with Marui this time– a good sign.
Niou swiveled around to face Marui and glanced down to his hands immediately to check for a pillow or any other ‘I might be trying to kill Niou’ hint. “... the drones are definitely armed because I’m going out to the outpost next week,” he said, just in case Marui had any ideas.
He did however offer up a bowl of surprisingly edible replicator crackers and a cup of vaguely lemon flavoured drink as a sort of peace offering. “The first bean bag chair is there if you want to try it,” Niou said. “Or you can sit and try it out later.”
Marui held up his hands defensively. “I’m not going to touch you, relax. I can’t believe they actually let you have bullets, don’t you have to pass a psych test or something?” Verbal jabs aside, Marui has no intention of actually fighting Niou, and taking the snacks and drink he plops down in the bean chair. The plopping is very important– this thing has to stand up to Kirihara. “Not bad. Seems pretty tough, that’s good.”
Niou blinked. “I passed one when I came here. I’m quite sane and mentally capable.” Although he was pretty sure there were multiple people who would disagree with that assessment. He watched Marui move, still a little on guard that he might suddenly… spring at him or something - maybe throw some sort of baked good at him. “It’s not too hard or soft? I have more beans I can put in it.” The 3D printer had not quite replicated the traditional feel of polystyrene, but the little balls were good enough.
“Nah, it’s pretty good. Have you never sat on a bean bag chair before or something?” Marui shoved a handful of crackers into his mouth, surprised that they were actually pretty okay. The drink… not so much, but whatever, it would do to wash the crackers down. “It’s pretty straight forward. You need to be able to sit in it and relax, but not have your butt touching the ground. That’s like two rules. It’s fine.”
“No, I haven’t sat on one before.” Honestly, they seemed extremely impractical, and the more he watched Marui, the more Niou settled on that decision. He went back to picking at his container from Tachibana, eating a couple of mouthfuls as he thought. “When have you sat in one? You didn’t have one in any of the videos on your channel.”
“Uh, cuz they’re crap for filming in.” Marui had long since given up worrying about the weird shit Niou did, like watching and apparently remembering all of his videos. “I’ve done lots of stuff that didn’t make it into videos. I have a private life, you know.” As hard to believe as that was.
Niou raised his eyebrows and looked doubtfully at Marui’s claims. “I just always thought your private life was just you sitting in front of a computer editing videos. Or when you were having sex.” Although there had been a couple of videos of Marui editing other videos, to ‘show the process’. Niou thought it was just an excuse because he’d been low on content ideas at the time.
That was exactly why Marui had made those videos, don’t question the process. “No. There’s other stuff. Did I ever tell you it was weird that you marathoned my whole channel? Because it is.” As mentioned earlier Marui wasn’t worried about it, but Marui was annoyed and it was an easy thing to turn around Niou.
“You said it was kinda creepy when I’d done 24 hours worth of it,” Niou said with a shrug. And what he’d ended up watching was significantly more than just 24 hours worth, even on double speed, that had become quadruple speed once he’d figured out the general formula to Marui’s videos as it followed trends. “I found your sped up voice to be good for keeping my brain busy while trying to work. Kept out the stray thoughts.”
“Yeah, well kinda creepy times however man hours of content you watched equals ultra creepy.” Marui grimaced dramatically. “I’m not letting you see my new videos. Something has to be off limits to you.” He waved the hand with the snack bowl around as he spoke to emphasize his point, and then picked up the crackers he’d spilled one by one off himself and the chair and ate them.
“I don’t really have any interest in seeing your videos about life on Izanagi,” Niou said with a shrug. “I’m here with you anyway, I know partly what you get up to.” And some of the other stuff… he didn’t want to know. Niou watched Marui for a moment more before taking another bite of his food and pushing the container away for another hour or so. “Besides, we get the data from Earth eventually. I can probably just watch it when the updates come through.”
“Nope. You’re not allowed. I’m personally banning you.” Marui was imagining the stupid anti-Niou graphic he was going to make to use as a banner for his channel as they spoke. “Break the ban and we’ll find out if doxxing works across the universe.” Brush brush. There, no more crumbs.
Niou shrugged again. While Marui’s content had been entertaining, it wasn’t something that he was particularly sad over losing. “Okay. I guess I’ll return to watching the uncut Ibu Shinji documentary footage then. Great ASMR. Very educational.” He stared at the crumbs that Marui pushed onto the floor and then up to his face again. “Did you enjoy the replicator crackers?”
Ibu Shinji footage, uncut? Damn, Niou really was a masochist. Marui looked entirely unconcerned about the mess he just made in Niou’s workspace, taking another sip of his drink. “Those were from the replicator? Huh, not bad. I guess it’s harder for it to mess up seaweed flavoured stuff. Still sucks at lemon though.” FInishing the drink in one long swig, he set it down. “Do you actually drink that stuff or did you pick it just watch me drink pee?”
“It’s been pretty consistently good with seaweed flavoured things. Things that are close in nature to the algae source tend to be done well.” Niou stayed silent on the lemon front… he didn’t think it was that bad, and he knew Hiyoshi thought the same. And between Hiyoshi and Marui, Niou knew whose opinion he trusted and respected more. “I do actually drink it.” Niou picked up his own cup of it from next to his screen and showed Marui. “It’s fine. Could do with some caffeine in it, but…” he shrugged.
Marui sighed dramatically. “Yeah, and you admitted you have no taste buds. I’d make you something to prove it sucks, but you know. Poison.” Marui waved his hand vaguely to show how silly he thought that sounded. “Who’d be stupid to try something like that on a base where everything is filmed and the supplies are all recorded? It’s dumb as hell.” But Niou was also dumb as hell, so there was that.
Niou smiled at Marui and sipped at his drink. “I don’t need you to make me something to prove that. I have a chef for a partner-thing, I know what good cooking tastes like.” And he enjoyed it, really. Probably not as much as someone like Marui would, but even he could admit it was better than the replicator. He shrugged at the question. “Someone who’s stupid enough to try and smother someone else on camera might try it? And who tried it in a space with weaponised drones?”
“I wasn’t ACTUALLY trying to kill you. I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let people see if I was.” Marui’s childish pout was at odds with the fact that he was defending his murder tactics to someone he’d recently assaulted. “And how was I supposed to know you had drones with real bullets? I told you, that’s nuts.”
“Forgive me for not being able to read your actual intent regarding murder when you were on top of me trying to shove a pillow on my face,” Niou said dryly. Though, the actual anger that had followed really was more about the touching than the attempted smothering. And since the whole thing had been explained… well, it wasn’t an issue really. “It’s not as if I don’t talk about it openly? I’m guessing you don’t read other people’s conversations though.”
“Not the boring ones.” This was exactly the reason Marui and Niou could be friends; despite bickering about it, neither of them was actually that upset about what had happened. It had happened, it was dealt with, case closed. “Anyway speaking of boring stuff, aren’t I here to help you with beans? I hope you’ve got a funnel, I was imagining you putting the beans in the bag one by one.” A hilarious mental image if there ever was one.
“My conversations with Hiyoshi are never boring,” Niou said, almost indignantly. He always enjoyed them, anyway. He got out of his chair and grabbed the bag of balls to go into the second beanbag, heading over to Marui. “I just put them in by the handful,” he shrugged. “Less chance of making a mess when it was just me doing it.” And it wasn’t like he could ask Sanada for help, since Sanada was out at the outpost, and Akutsu would probably just laugh at him.
Marui just rolled his eyes. That made two people who were strangely defensive about the kid with the dumb haircut. Whatever. Marui straightened up, checking out the supplies. “Couldn’t you rig something up to hold it in place while you poured? I thought you were an engineer.”
“It’d be a waste. It’s not like I’m planning on making more than these two.” And if he did, whoever was ordering it could come and fill the bags up themselves. Niou sat down on the floor and spread open the empty bean bag, putting the bag of 3D printed beans next to them. And picked up the first double-handed scoop of them to drop into the seat.
Wow, Niou was seriously doing this by hand. Sighing, he got off his seat, and started helping, scooping handfuls of beans into the bag, careful not to do a popcorn-in-a-romance-movie move and touch Niou’s hand by accident, because the last thing he needed right now was to get shot again. It was slow going and kind of tedious, and Marui was just about to suggest figuring out a way for one of them to hold the bag open while the other one poured, when in his handful of beans, he came across… something.
Something with way too many legs and a stupid frill around its neck.
All at once, Marui had hurled the 3D printed crawler at Niou and scrambled backward like a crab, all while screaming incomprehensible bloody murder.
Niou hummed to himself as he worked, not bothering with trying to make tedious conversation with Marui. And it was actually going much faster with two people. And he was just adjusting the beanbag slightly to make sure the beans were being distributed properly when he spotted the telltale pause. He caught the miniature crawler with his hand and burst out laughing at the reaction before he pressed his hand to his mouth to smother to laughter.
It took a second for Marui’s brain to catch up with the fact that the crawler was fake, and the screaming to turn into heavy, unsteady breaths. It took a few more to piece together that Niou laughing like an idiot over his suffering meant that it had been his fault, and as soon as that clicked, Marui was back beside Niou, smacking him with his fluffy designer slipper. “Bastard! That’s not funny!!”
Even being hit with a shoe wasn’t enough to stop Niou’s laughter entirely and he fended off Marui with one arm. “It’s exposure therapy! I’m helping!” Of course, the bubbling laughter wasn’t entirely helping with making him sound sincere. Niou opened his hand to show Marui the 3D printed crawler again. “See, it’s extremely cute. You could put it on your desk. Give it a name. Put some googly eyes on it.”
“Get that fucking thing–” Marui smacked the mini crawler out of Niou’s hand with his slipper like he was trying to hit a home run and watched it sail across the room. Then he slumped back, trying to catch his breath now that the urge to smack Niou into oblivion was subsiding. “You’re such an asshole, god. ‘Put googly eyes on it’... screw off…” Marui started rummaging in his pocket, eventually pulling out his oil roller and starting to apply it with shaky hands.
Niou sat, watching Marui curiously now, taking in the shaking hands, the… he sniffed the air… the essential oils?? And his eyebrows drew together as his laughter was definitely gone. “Wow they really did a number on you,” he said, turning back to the bag of beans to start scooping them into the seat again. “What is it that’s so bad about them? Just the idea of them, or the flashbacks of being stuck underground with them crawling on you?”
“All of it. They’re gross and skittery and they try to burrow into your skin and ugh.” Marui was decidedly cranky now, and applying enough essential oil that the whole engineering bay was going to reek of lavender for days at this point. “It was dark and I couldn’t see them coming but I could hear them and smashing them didn’t even help because they just kept coming.”
Did essential oils actually help Marui, Niou wondered distantly as he listened, still scooping handfuls of stuff into the bag, frowning. It was different hearing Marui recount it, versus what he’d read on the open communication channel and afterwards. “And the fact that there’s none here, or that you can sleep with a light on to see if any approach, it doesn’t help?” he asked.
“No. That’s not how PTSD works.” The roller was at least back in Marui’s pocket for now, but now he was busy huffing his wrists like some sort of flowery drug user. “Plus, there was one here. In the beans. Thanks for that. Bastard.”
“Fair enough. Like when Renji and Sanada locked me in the room to sleep. I knew it wasn’t the same, but it didn’t help.” Niou pushed himself up off the floor and grabbed his half-finished container of dinner and chopsticks, holding it down to Marui on the floor. “I don’t have clean chopsticks, but you can eat it if you want.”
“I’m not hungry.” And that right there was the ultimate sign that Marui wasn’t faking. He crawled over to the finished bean chair, curling up and laying down sideways. “Stupid mission. I told them it was a dumb idea to send me.”
Niou stared for a long moment before shrugging and putting the container back on his desk. And then went back to filling up the beanbag chair. “Yeah, well the UEA doesn’t exactly make great decisions sometimes.” He sighed. “Though, you guys were just meant to be scanning for possible deposits. We didn’t really expect you to find that series of tunnels.” Or all the gold. The engineering department was still fussing over it. “It really should have been a safe-ish mission that they sent you on.”
“Three of the times I got hit was from the people on the mission with me,” complained Marui. He seemed a lot calmer now, but his panic was replaced by moody moping. “I don’t want to be on this stupid planet anymore. I wanna go home.”
“Ah… we probably should have built in some sort of thing for extra protection against Tooyama,” Niou said. Hindsight was 20/20, afterall. The scooping of beans really was quite mindless and Niou glanced up again at Marui. “It never seemed like you wanted to come here in the first place,” he said. And… it had been weird for a person who lived on youtube to move to a planet with a huge time lag with internet uploads. “You could leave. You could probably afford to pay the penalty on breaking your contract early.”
That only seemed to make Marui more upset. The sad pout on his face was so extreme it was comical. “I can’t leeeave, I’m too pretty for jaaaaaail.” Oh, the drama. Marui hugged his knees even closer, practically burying his face in them, like he was trying to take a break from the world.
Niou stared. And then kept staring as Marui spoke and then sulked and what the fuck. “Well, then it’s not really a matter of going home then. So it’s either here or jail.” He knew what his choice would be and Niou shrugged unhelpfully. “At least here you only have one ex-convict to keep you company in your law-breaking ways, and not like… a whole jail.”
Just like Niou to give such a cold answer, but considering how giving Marui attention just made him worse, it was probably for the best. Marui sniffed, looking over at Niou pitifully. “I didn’t even do anything. I don’t deserve to be here.” Hopefully Niou knew Marui well enough to take his words with a grain of salt, since he was getting a bit creative with the facts now.
“Then take the next shuttle off the planet and go home and file an appeal, to avoid jail,” Niou said, shrugging again. He could at least maneuver the bag enough now to tip it into the bean bag’s opening, carefully scooping in beans at a faster pace. “If you want to get out of here and can leave, then leave. And otherwise, just accept that you’re stuck here and make the most of it. Stop changing your story.”
Marui took Niou’s words like a slap to the face, first surprised, then following it up with a dirty look that could peel paint. “Fine. I’ll shut up then. Maybe I’ll just lie here and die while I’m at it, don’t mind me.”
Oop, the beanbag chair was filling up quite nicely now and Marui’s look just bounced off Niou who barely even registered it. “Let me know if you’re going to die there, so I can bother someone to come and remove your dead body after. I don’t think the trash bots can carry that much weight.”
Marui sighed as loudly and dramatically as he could, sulked for another ten seconds, then sat up properly in his chair. “I want your food now.”
Niou was half tempted to tell Marui that the offer of his food had finished after it had been rejected, but okay maybe he did feel a little bad for the bug thing still. … Not bad enough to get up and get it for him though. “There’s nothing wrong with your arms and legs. You can get it yourself.” Niou scooped the last few balls into the beanbag chair and closed it up.
Ugh, Marui’s life was so hard. He whined accordingly, but got up and got it for himself like he was told, settling back down and tucking into Niou’s food. It would have tasted better when it was fresh and warm, but Tachibana knew what he was doing, and the meal wasn’t half bad. “You’re gonna keep the chairs here until Akaya’s birthday, right? Obviously he’ll see them if they’re in our room.”
Well, at least Marui wasn’t complaining anymore, and Niou had no doubts that if the food hadn’t been acceptable, that he probably would have whinged about that too. “Yeah, I’ll hide them away in case he comes down here.” Since he’d taken full advantage of Akaya being away at the outpost to make the seats. “And I’ll let Sanada know, so you can come pick them up when you need them.” Niou eyed the very empty looking container that Marui was still inhaling. “You know that would have probably lasted me another like… 4 hours.” And Marui had demolished it in what, 4 seconds?
“That’s why you’re so skinny,” replied Marui, pointing his chopsticks at Niou before continuing to destroy the last bits of Niou’s daily meal. “Just ask him to make you more, you know he’ll do it. Or ask for something else. Doesn’t it bug you eating the same thing all day?” Because Marui knew it would bug him for sure. Food needed variety! Niou’s sad sad diet was no way to live.
Niou bit back his automatic response of he was fine. He shook his head at the question. “I eat something different every day? And Kippei takes requests if I have something in particular that I want to eat.” But really, it was best to just let Tachibana surprise him with whatever meal he wanted to make that day. “And I’ll just wait. It’s only 4 hours. And get him to make me something when my shift is finished.” Maybe have it together… Niou sent a message to Tachibana with that thought.
Marui personally thought not eating for four hours when you had the option to sounded miserable, but kept it to himself for reasons unknown. (Reasons that may or may not have been related to the fact that he was savouring the very last bite of Niou’s meal right then and therefore his mouth was too full to speak.) Once he was done, he set the finished container aside together with the chopsticks and stood up, testing the second bean bag chair for firmness. Hmm. Nice.
With the chairs done, Marui was ready to leave. “Tell Tachibana before he comes down to meet you so he has time to make it. Food doesn’t appear out of nowhere.” That right there was Marui’s chef solidarity. He and Tachibana understood each other, they had to look out for each other. “Thanks for the food. Enjoy starving for the next four hours, I guess.”
“Thanks for the advice,” Niou said dryly, as though he hadn’t just sent off that sort of thing to Tachibana just before. Well, there were no complaints about either seat, so Niou assumed that they were satisfactory and therefore his IOU to Marui was paid off. He stood up as well, picking up the empty container to put back on his desk. “It might be good for me. He so enjoys having meals together, and if I’m actually hungry it could work out well.” He paused and looked at Marui. “That’s not an invitation to come back in the future and eat my food again though.”
Marui gave Niou one last dirty look before turning to go. "Then stop pulling stupid stuff to mess with my head. Whatever. I'm out. By-ee." And in a cloud of lavender scent, he left.