![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Who: Hiyoshi and Niou
When: 3AM 18th June
Where: Engineering labs
What: Hiyoshi meets Uion☆
Night shift, 3am. Hiyoshi's first one inside the base. Night shifts hadn't meant much on the surface where everything was light 24/7, but down here was the proper thing, with dark looming shadows and silent abandoned hallways that Hiyoshi was still learning to navigate. Not that he minded the dark and the quiet, it was kind of nice-- TOO nice actually, which was proving a huge problem because thanks to Niou's chickens Hiyoshi's sleep had gone to shit.
Willpower alone kept his eyes open against the temptation of the wide selection of cozy dark corners. Honestly, he was so sleep deprived even his senses were off, he could swear he heard some sort of grinding, tapping, something echoing from down the hall. But who the heck would be up at this time of night? Hiyoshi reached for his radio but then paused. It would be a bad look if he reported something that wasn't actually there on his first day. Pinpoint the noise and make sure it was actually real first, that was a better plan, so off he went.
Niou hadn't worried too much about working through the nights before everyone moved in - it wasn't like security, or the rest of the engineering team were likely to be down there while he was working. And it was weird, having to turn his music down just in case someone was lurking nearby, and to actually think about noise levels. He disliked the extra paranoia, was all he thought.
In front of him tonight was the now mostly pulled apart sections of the previous bartender bot, to be repurposed for helping with food service and Niou cringed as he levered out the pcb to work on, knocking over the rest of the bot as he moved past it. Too noisy.
Okay, that DEFINITELY wasn't his sleep-deprived imagination. The crash woke Hiyoshi up in an instant, and he dashed down the hallway towards the source of the noise, cursing each thud of his regulation boots. Maybe if he asked later he could go barefoot for night shifts. Command wasn't likely to allow it, but Byodoin seemed crazy enough that he might.
He turned one more corner and skidded to a stop. Partway down the hall he could see someone doing something to a robot... he'd figure that out in a minute. Right now, the important thing:
"Identify yourself."
Better listen to him, his hand is on his gun.
Shit shit shit. Niou cursed at the sounds of approaching footsteps and he considered for a wild moment if he could just put the whole bot together again, turn off the lights and pretend nothing had happened. But of course it couldn't be that easy.
He at least got the lights off with a voice command, but then… Niou sighed and straightened up, the lights turning back on again.
"Uion, engine–" his voice died as he spotted his roommate and oh no. "Engineering department. Who are you?" Play dumb, always worked.
Niou. Please. It said ‘SECURITY’ on his chest in big block letters. Hiyoshi will give him the benefit of the doubt though, for protocol’s sake: “Petty Officer Hiyoshi, Security.” Protocol is also the reason his hand hadn't left his gun, despite Hiyoshi's internal alert level evening out again once the offender offered a recognisable name.
He took a few more steps to close the gap. "What the hell are you doing in the middle of the night like this?"
Okay, so maybe Niou could understand why Hiyoshi was being particularly suspicious, because working at - he glanced at the clock - 3AM probably wasn't normal. He stood his ground though, as Hiyoshi got closer, spinning his screwdriver in his fingers.
"I work at night," he explained, keeping a very wary eye on the hand hovering at Hiyoshi's hip. Niou gestured vaguely down at the bot remains at his feet. "And I'm modifying one of the bots for another job. It's all very routine. It's on my nightly to do list and everything, if you want to see."
“I do want to see.” The closer Hiyoshi got, the more suspicious he got for a very different reason. He held out his spare hand for the list, staring Niou down right in the eyes.
Okay Hiyoshi was getting way too close. "It's on my desk," Niou said, holding his hands open to show he was only holding a screwdriver and carefully stepping over the robot remains backwards. He finally broke eye contact as he grabbed the clipboard and held it out.
It was a fantastic to do list, which included playing his next move in the go game against Sanada set up in the corner, printing 3 helmet designs for chickens and of course, pulling apart the bot for repurposing.
Hmm, fascinating. Hiyoshi's eyes flicked up and down the list, and after a painfully long moment, handed it back to Niou. And what he got out of all that is: "Getting the chickens out of our room isn't on it."
Whoops, sorry Niou. The one upside is Hiyoshi isn't fingering his gun anymore.
Oh, apparently Hiyoshi had taken notice of his face from the one time they’d briefly run into each other in their room. Not the most ideal situation. Niou made himself look puzzled for a bit, staring at Hiyoshi’s face and then he clapped his hands together once. “Ah. You must be my brother’s roommate.”
Yes, that was going to be the story he went with as he put on the distant, polite smile from his days of running the mechanic shop. “I’m Niou’s twin brother.”
"His twin brother. That nobody knows about. And only works at night."
Please. PLEASE. Hiyoshi was sleep deprived, not brain-dead. He'll give Niou props for the delivery, because the acting WAS convincing, but there was no way in hell he was going to accept 'secret twin brother' as a legitimate excuse. This wasn't a shitty manga, buddy. You see this look? Hiyoshi was not impressed.
“That’s correct. I’m actually the one the UEA recruited, to look after the machines here. Niou just came along for the adventure.” Sprinkle that bit of truth in it.
At least the gun wasn’t as big of an immediate threat right now, although he’d seen Hiyoshi attempting to attack Byodoin the other day in the hilarious not-a-fight, so that was still there. Niou took a couple of steps back again and gestured to the side. “Do you… want a drink? I still have some of the caffeinated drinks they had at the party.”
So he was really sticking to it. Hiyoshi had to give him props for that, it took guts to go all in on a big stupid lie like that. He also had to admit that he was curious just how far he'd take this. It was bizarrely fascinating, a bit like watching... well, nothing quite this strange was coming to mind right at this moment.
The offer of caffeine was admittedly tempting. The thought of poison briefly passed his mind, but... he had regular check-ins, and he doubted 'Uion' would be able to hide his body before the next one of those came around, so it was probably safe.
"What've you got?" Just for the record Niou, just because Hiyoshi accepted the drink doesn't mean he's letting his guard down yet.
Niou glanced up at the camera in the corner of the lab - Yanagi truly was everywhere - and made a mental note to definitely look into how he could just loop the feed one day. “I’m pretty sure it’s just like caffeine in some carbonated water,” he said, and he took the opportunity to move away from Hiyoshi to the miniature fridge, pulling out a can for each of them. “It tastes a bit citrusy?”
See, Niou would totally toss the can, maybe drop it so it would fizz up and make a mess when Hiyoshi opened it, but Uion☆ was a decent human being. And so he put it on the desk and gestured for Hiyoshi to take it before stepping away again. “So you’ve got a lot of chickens in your room? I told Niou to install a better lock system on the door, but… he didn’t listen to me.” Niou shrugged and grimaced as if to say ‘he doesn’t listen to anyone’.
"As long as it's not algae." Was Hiyoshi... making a joke? With his roommate that he hated? Well, that could have something to do with the fact that literally every movement Uion made had Hiyoshi questioning his own judgment. He wouldn't call himself convinced yet, far from it, but the seeds of doubt were there.
He picked up the offered can, cracking it open and taking a sip while he continued to watch Niou. "They're there on purpose. A broken lock explains them getting out of their coop, not them making it all the way to the residential floor."
Niou laughed - it was good to know at least someone was suffering from the algae tasting food. “Definitely not algae. I think it’s just made in a lab.” He waved at his workbench and the stool there. “You can sit down if you want, you’ve probably got a long shift ahead of you.” Get Hiyoshi to relax a little, maybe ease a bit more into the story about him having a mystery twin brother.
He drank a gulp of his own drink and started picking up the knocked over robot parts. “He’s not in the room very often though, surely you could just… kick them out.” And Niou felt himself die a little inside at the advice he was giving, but he’d deal with that later. “Install a new lock on the door? I can put the job request in for you, if he’s broken it.”
Hiyoshi eyed the seat, but didn't move. "I'm on shift." God, it was so tempting. Be strong, Hiyoshi.
"I'm waiting for the gloves I requested. Apparently the birds are poison." Which, now that he said it outloud, didn't make sense in something that was supposed to be edible. He frowned. "Or he said that to keep me from moving them. I don't know. The whole thing is idiotic. He's idiotic."
“You’d still be working. You’re supervising to make sure I’m being safe and secure.” Niou started to move around a bit more easily, putting things in the right places to show Hiyoshi that he definitely did work in this space and he definitely knew where everything was.
He bit back a laugh at the next comment, and then the follow up comments. “They’re not poison,” he said, laughing that Hiyoshi had actually believed him enough to order gloves. “Niou is… unique.” A phrase he’d heard many times about himself while growing up. “But mostly harmless. I shared a room with him growing up, I know what you’re dealing with.”
Stubbornness was not something Hiyoshi lacked, so nothing short of an order from an officer could get him to sit right now. That said, he was already standing around drinking the weird caffeine juice, so it's safe to say that Niou had already won on some level.
He frowned a bit at being laughed at, but surprisingly it didn't bother him much. The surprise of course coming from the fact that if it had been Niou laughing at him, he'd be pissed. He was having difficulty mentally reconciling how the 'Niou' persona could rile him up so much, while the 'Uion' one just didn't.
He did, however, feel the need to justify how he could have believed (in retrospect) such an obvious lie. "If you'd seen the chickens, you'd believe they could be poisonous too." He's pointedly ignoring the 'growing up with him' bit-- acknowledging it would be too close to saying he actually believed they were separate people.
Oh okay, Hiyoshi was just definitely not sitting down then. Niou made a detour to his snack pile to grab a bag of seaweed crackers to drop on the table next to Hiyoshi as well. "Not algae either," he said, taking a sip of his own drink before moving away.
Niou started to disconnect the wires inside the bot and laughed again as Hiyoshi kept talking. He wasn't outright rebutting the growing up statement, at least. "I've seen them on the trip over, Niou kept distracting me with them because he didn't have a job at the time. They're pretty bad looking, but they're not poisonous." He hummed to himself and sat back on his heels to look at Hiyoshi again. "What time does your shift finish? I can go help you remove them from the room so you can sleep." Surely Hiyoshi's shift ended before anyone actually woke up and would see him.
Accepting snacks on duty was totally fine, right? It didn't count as slacking off as long as he stood the whole time, right???
"5 am." Crunch crunch. Oh man these were good crackers.
Definitely relaxing, Niou noted and tried to hide the grin.
“I finish at 5am too,” he said. If he helped Hiyoshi out to continue the trickery, he could probably get the chickens out of the room in 15 minutes tops, and then get a couple of hours of sleep after. “I can meet you at your room if you want, and we can clear the chickens out.” Although he wondered if Hiyoshi was going to actually be able to sleep after that with the caffeine rolling around in his system.
Hiyoshi nodded. “Sounds good.” He doesn’t say much more; he may or may not be fixated on the crackers now. (Mental note, his first pay cheque was definitely going to snacks. Cheese man had the right idea by using his luggage space for food.)
But all good things must come to an end, including crackers and generic caffeinated citrus beverage. Upon finishing he straightened up, taking a glance around. He’d dallied here too long. “I need to go. Thanks for the food.” It’ll keep him going for the rest of his shift, and that’s more important than being able to sleep after.
It actually was nice having silent company in the lab with him, with the music playing in the background and Niou humming along while he worked. And he was actually surprised when Hiyoshi finally spoke… maybe he’d relaxed a little too much.
“Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit near your room.”
Niou went back to work, and as it approached 5, went through the end of shift routine of leaving Sanada his to do list, putting down a new move on the go board, and then packing up. And then he made his way to the residential floor, keeping a very close eye out for anyone who might be around to see him.
5AM was still very early though, thankfully and Niou headed over to the door. He thought he could hear the clucking of the chickens already behind it and tried not to laugh.
Hiyoshi appeared shortly after five. He couldn't help but be a bit surprised that Uion actually showed up, and that he hadn't actually been some bizarre figment of his imagination. He waved (or not really, it was more like just holding up his hand) in greeting.
"We'll need a box. There's a few of them."
Niou mimicked the hand raising action at Hiyoshi. “We shouldn’t need boxes. If you just stand at the door to block any from getting back inside, I’ll go in and get them out.” And just… he’d deal with the backlash later when they had chickens running around the residential floor.
There were a few pieces of the puzzle that were concerning Hiyoshi here, Uion. Like what he planned to do with them. “How are you going to handle all of them at once?” He squinted suspiciously, this was reeking of Niou-brand nonsense.
“There’s only like two of them in there, isn’t there?” Niou asked. … How many chickens had managed to get into the room in the hours that he hadn’t been in there? “I can just carry one under each arm and take them back.”
Check out our boy Uion saving the day with a believable excuse. Of course he wouldn’t know how many were in there. Once again Hiyoshi’s level of belief in the twins existing tipped towards ‘plausible’. “Eight. And you know what they look like.”
Hiyoshi opened the door a crack, guarding for any possible escapees before sliding in. He leaves the door open a tiny crack as an invitation for Uion to follow.
“Oh…” Niou bit his tongue to stop himself from just laughing at Hiyoshi’s pain. “Eight might be a bit harder to deal with.”
He followed Hiyoshi inside the room, pushing back a chicken with his foot as he shut the door behind him. And then looked at the room… with the chickens mostly all piled on Hiyoshi’s bed. And it looked like there may have been some eggs even, tucked up next to the pillow.
“... Okay then. This is going to be a bit more difficult.”
Maybe if there had been an extra chicken, he could have stuck it in a bag and just apologised while carrying it back to the agricultural section? But right now? “Niou used cages to transport them into the chicken coop. I had to build them,” he told Hiyoshi, just in case that added to the suspicion. “You go do pre-bed things and I’ll go get one. And we can put them all in that. And I’ll take them out.”
Hiyoshi nodded– it sounded like a solid enough plan, besides the tiny voice at the back of his head telling him that if this really was Niou, he likely just wont come back. But physically he was worn out, and even the caffeine from a few hours ago wasn’t enough to keep him going much longer, so going along with it was the easiest plan. Worst case scenario, Niou’s bed was mostly empty of chickens, so Hiyoshi could sleep there.
Niou went to the - suspiciously closed - bathroom door and opened it, turning the light on. And yes, there were two extra chickens in there, sitting in the shower. He grabbed them, one under each arm and went out again. “Go do things. I’ll be back.”
And then off he went to agriculture, with two chickens in tow.
It didn’t take that long, and it was accompanied by many apologies to his beloved chickens, for Niou to deposit them back in the chicken coop, grab the cages that were compacted off to the side, and head back.
He almost opened the door to their shared room himself, but stopped right at the last moment to knock. “Hiyoshi, you’ll have to open the door for me.”
Sick fucking save, dude. That would have given the game away immediately. Instead Hiyoshi opened the door for Uion, again just a crack so nothing could escape in the meantime. Once Uion slips in, it’s obvious that Hiyoshi is a bit preoccupied, and not just by the chicken circling his feet.
“They laid eggs.” And lo and behold, there’s a good dozen eggs that Hiyoshi’s gathered together in a makeshift sweatpant-nest on the bed. One of the broodier hens, probably wondering where her egg went, quickly finds the pile and immediately makes herself at home.
Oh. Niou dumps the cage parts onto his bed and quickly puts it together. And then grabbed the nearest chicken and shoved it inside, shutting the cage door behind it. “You can probably keep them,” he said. Actually he really would like them back, so he can check for fertilisation and whether he needed to incubate them for later hatching. “Eat them as my brother’s payment.”
Niou managed to grab another two chickens in quick succession and shove them into the cage.
“Yeah?” Hiyoshi doesn’t give a shit about propagating the species, and the idea of actual protein is sooo tempting. Omelettes, scrambled eggs, egg quiche… oh the possibilities. Having twelve real eggs would make him the richest guy on the base. But Uion HAD shared his snacks with him earlier, and Hiyoshi wasn’t a stranger to just how valuable those were, so in the interest of fairness he offers a deal. “You can take half if you want. I’m not the only one sick of replicator food.” Wow, HIyoshi. Niou doesn’t deserve your kindness.
“Yeah. I mean, they laid it in your room, they’re yours. He’s not going to miss a dozen eggs.” Niou was going to definitely miss a dozen eggs.
He chased another chicken around the room before nabbing it, and another one, that went into the cage and he nearly dropped the chicken as Hiyoshi offered him… half of the eggs back. Wow, was his roommate actually… being kind?
“Yeah, alright. I’ll take half. You’ll probably have to drop them off at my lab tomorrow or something though, I won’t have hands to carry them tonight.” A chicken came to cuddle up to his ankles and he grabbed it to stuff in the cage as well. Sorry chickens.
Crazy, right? It’s almost like Hiyoshi could be nice if he likes you. Not that he likes Uion of course, because he’s still not 100% sure it’s not just Niou lying to him, but again, whoever he was he HAD shared his food with him, and now he was getting the chickens out of Hiyoshi’s room, so… yeah, that was easily worth six eggs.
“I’ll bring them when I wake up,” was Hiyoshi’s response, and now that the chickens were mostly dealt with he was looking more relaxed and closer to sleep. He cracked his neck and shoulders, stretching his arms and feeling at home in his room for the first time since he’d got there. “Thanks for helping. I know you didn’t have to.”
“I probably won’t be there, so just leave them on my desk,” Niou said. Because he would likely be sleeping somewhere as well, or in the chicken coop. “I’m used to cleaning up after Niou, it’s fine.” And it was extremely entertaining.
He grabbed the last couple of chickens and did a final sweep of the room, and even checked inside the bathroom one last time. Just some stray feathers here and there.
“Right. You should come visit me when you’re on night shift again. Tell me more about the chickens and stuff.” Niou hefted up the cage and staggered a bit under the weight. It was going to be a bit of a struggle to get it back to the agricultural section.
A nod. “I’ll come by if I have time.” That was the plan, because there was still a lot more to unravel about this whole mystery. He watched Uion struggle with the weight of the cage, and for a second considered helping but… no, he could deal with it on his own. After all, Uion was still probably Niou and Niou deserved to suffer at least a little. The best he can offer is to hold the door open for Niou, which he does. Now get out. Lol.
When: 3AM 18th June
Where: Engineering labs
What: Hiyoshi meets Uion☆
Night shift, 3am. Hiyoshi's first one inside the base. Night shifts hadn't meant much on the surface where everything was light 24/7, but down here was the proper thing, with dark looming shadows and silent abandoned hallways that Hiyoshi was still learning to navigate. Not that he minded the dark and the quiet, it was kind of nice-- TOO nice actually, which was proving a huge problem because thanks to Niou's chickens Hiyoshi's sleep had gone to shit.
Willpower alone kept his eyes open against the temptation of the wide selection of cozy dark corners. Honestly, he was so sleep deprived even his senses were off, he could swear he heard some sort of grinding, tapping, something echoing from down the hall. But who the heck would be up at this time of night? Hiyoshi reached for his radio but then paused. It would be a bad look if he reported something that wasn't actually there on his first day. Pinpoint the noise and make sure it was actually real first, that was a better plan, so off he went.
Niou hadn't worried too much about working through the nights before everyone moved in - it wasn't like security, or the rest of the engineering team were likely to be down there while he was working. And it was weird, having to turn his music down just in case someone was lurking nearby, and to actually think about noise levels. He disliked the extra paranoia, was all he thought.
In front of him tonight was the now mostly pulled apart sections of the previous bartender bot, to be repurposed for helping with food service and Niou cringed as he levered out the pcb to work on, knocking over the rest of the bot as he moved past it. Too noisy.
Okay, that DEFINITELY wasn't his sleep-deprived imagination. The crash woke Hiyoshi up in an instant, and he dashed down the hallway towards the source of the noise, cursing each thud of his regulation boots. Maybe if he asked later he could go barefoot for night shifts. Command wasn't likely to allow it, but Byodoin seemed crazy enough that he might.
He turned one more corner and skidded to a stop. Partway down the hall he could see someone doing something to a robot... he'd figure that out in a minute. Right now, the important thing:
"Identify yourself."
Better listen to him, his hand is on his gun.
Shit shit shit. Niou cursed at the sounds of approaching footsteps and he considered for a wild moment if he could just put the whole bot together again, turn off the lights and pretend nothing had happened. But of course it couldn't be that easy.
He at least got the lights off with a voice command, but then… Niou sighed and straightened up, the lights turning back on again.
"Uion, engine–" his voice died as he spotted his roommate and oh no. "Engineering department. Who are you?" Play dumb, always worked.
Niou. Please. It said ‘SECURITY’ on his chest in big block letters. Hiyoshi will give him the benefit of the doubt though, for protocol’s sake: “Petty Officer Hiyoshi, Security.” Protocol is also the reason his hand hadn't left his gun, despite Hiyoshi's internal alert level evening out again once the offender offered a recognisable name.
He took a few more steps to close the gap. "What the hell are you doing in the middle of the night like this?"
Okay, so maybe Niou could understand why Hiyoshi was being particularly suspicious, because working at - he glanced at the clock - 3AM probably wasn't normal. He stood his ground though, as Hiyoshi got closer, spinning his screwdriver in his fingers.
"I work at night," he explained, keeping a very wary eye on the hand hovering at Hiyoshi's hip. Niou gestured vaguely down at the bot remains at his feet. "And I'm modifying one of the bots for another job. It's all very routine. It's on my nightly to do list and everything, if you want to see."
“I do want to see.” The closer Hiyoshi got, the more suspicious he got for a very different reason. He held out his spare hand for the list, staring Niou down right in the eyes.
Okay Hiyoshi was getting way too close. "It's on my desk," Niou said, holding his hands open to show he was only holding a screwdriver and carefully stepping over the robot remains backwards. He finally broke eye contact as he grabbed the clipboard and held it out.
It was a fantastic to do list, which included playing his next move in the go game against Sanada set up in the corner, printing 3 helmet designs for chickens and of course, pulling apart the bot for repurposing.
Hmm, fascinating. Hiyoshi's eyes flicked up and down the list, and after a painfully long moment, handed it back to Niou. And what he got out of all that is: "Getting the chickens out of our room isn't on it."
Whoops, sorry Niou. The one upside is Hiyoshi isn't fingering his gun anymore.
Oh, apparently Hiyoshi had taken notice of his face from the one time they’d briefly run into each other in their room. Not the most ideal situation. Niou made himself look puzzled for a bit, staring at Hiyoshi’s face and then he clapped his hands together once. “Ah. You must be my brother’s roommate.”
Yes, that was going to be the story he went with as he put on the distant, polite smile from his days of running the mechanic shop. “I’m Niou’s twin brother.”
"His twin brother. That nobody knows about. And only works at night."
Please. PLEASE. Hiyoshi was sleep deprived, not brain-dead. He'll give Niou props for the delivery, because the acting WAS convincing, but there was no way in hell he was going to accept 'secret twin brother' as a legitimate excuse. This wasn't a shitty manga, buddy. You see this look? Hiyoshi was not impressed.
“That’s correct. I’m actually the one the UEA recruited, to look after the machines here. Niou just came along for the adventure.” Sprinkle that bit of truth in it.
At least the gun wasn’t as big of an immediate threat right now, although he’d seen Hiyoshi attempting to attack Byodoin the other day in the hilarious not-a-fight, so that was still there. Niou took a couple of steps back again and gestured to the side. “Do you… want a drink? I still have some of the caffeinated drinks they had at the party.”
So he was really sticking to it. Hiyoshi had to give him props for that, it took guts to go all in on a big stupid lie like that. He also had to admit that he was curious just how far he'd take this. It was bizarrely fascinating, a bit like watching... well, nothing quite this strange was coming to mind right at this moment.
The offer of caffeine was admittedly tempting. The thought of poison briefly passed his mind, but... he had regular check-ins, and he doubted 'Uion' would be able to hide his body before the next one of those came around, so it was probably safe.
"What've you got?" Just for the record Niou, just because Hiyoshi accepted the drink doesn't mean he's letting his guard down yet.
Niou glanced up at the camera in the corner of the lab - Yanagi truly was everywhere - and made a mental note to definitely look into how he could just loop the feed one day. “I’m pretty sure it’s just like caffeine in some carbonated water,” he said, and he took the opportunity to move away from Hiyoshi to the miniature fridge, pulling out a can for each of them. “It tastes a bit citrusy?”
See, Niou would totally toss the can, maybe drop it so it would fizz up and make a mess when Hiyoshi opened it, but Uion☆ was a decent human being. And so he put it on the desk and gestured for Hiyoshi to take it before stepping away again. “So you’ve got a lot of chickens in your room? I told Niou to install a better lock system on the door, but… he didn’t listen to me.” Niou shrugged and grimaced as if to say ‘he doesn’t listen to anyone’.
"As long as it's not algae." Was Hiyoshi... making a joke? With his roommate that he hated? Well, that could have something to do with the fact that literally every movement Uion made had Hiyoshi questioning his own judgment. He wouldn't call himself convinced yet, far from it, but the seeds of doubt were there.
He picked up the offered can, cracking it open and taking a sip while he continued to watch Niou. "They're there on purpose. A broken lock explains them getting out of their coop, not them making it all the way to the residential floor."
Niou laughed - it was good to know at least someone was suffering from the algae tasting food. “Definitely not algae. I think it’s just made in a lab.” He waved at his workbench and the stool there. “You can sit down if you want, you’ve probably got a long shift ahead of you.” Get Hiyoshi to relax a little, maybe ease a bit more into the story about him having a mystery twin brother.
He drank a gulp of his own drink and started picking up the knocked over robot parts. “He’s not in the room very often though, surely you could just… kick them out.” And Niou felt himself die a little inside at the advice he was giving, but he’d deal with that later. “Install a new lock on the door? I can put the job request in for you, if he’s broken it.”
Hiyoshi eyed the seat, but didn't move. "I'm on shift." God, it was so tempting. Be strong, Hiyoshi.
"I'm waiting for the gloves I requested. Apparently the birds are poison." Which, now that he said it outloud, didn't make sense in something that was supposed to be edible. He frowned. "Or he said that to keep me from moving them. I don't know. The whole thing is idiotic. He's idiotic."
“You’d still be working. You’re supervising to make sure I’m being safe and secure.” Niou started to move around a bit more easily, putting things in the right places to show Hiyoshi that he definitely did work in this space and he definitely knew where everything was.
He bit back a laugh at the next comment, and then the follow up comments. “They’re not poison,” he said, laughing that Hiyoshi had actually believed him enough to order gloves. “Niou is… unique.” A phrase he’d heard many times about himself while growing up. “But mostly harmless. I shared a room with him growing up, I know what you’re dealing with.”
Stubbornness was not something Hiyoshi lacked, so nothing short of an order from an officer could get him to sit right now. That said, he was already standing around drinking the weird caffeine juice, so it's safe to say that Niou had already won on some level.
He frowned a bit at being laughed at, but surprisingly it didn't bother him much. The surprise of course coming from the fact that if it had been Niou laughing at him, he'd be pissed. He was having difficulty mentally reconciling how the 'Niou' persona could rile him up so much, while the 'Uion' one just didn't.
He did, however, feel the need to justify how he could have believed (in retrospect) such an obvious lie. "If you'd seen the chickens, you'd believe they could be poisonous too." He's pointedly ignoring the 'growing up with him' bit-- acknowledging it would be too close to saying he actually believed they were separate people.
Oh okay, Hiyoshi was just definitely not sitting down then. Niou made a detour to his snack pile to grab a bag of seaweed crackers to drop on the table next to Hiyoshi as well. "Not algae either," he said, taking a sip of his own drink before moving away.
Niou started to disconnect the wires inside the bot and laughed again as Hiyoshi kept talking. He wasn't outright rebutting the growing up statement, at least. "I've seen them on the trip over, Niou kept distracting me with them because he didn't have a job at the time. They're pretty bad looking, but they're not poisonous." He hummed to himself and sat back on his heels to look at Hiyoshi again. "What time does your shift finish? I can go help you remove them from the room so you can sleep." Surely Hiyoshi's shift ended before anyone actually woke up and would see him.
Accepting snacks on duty was totally fine, right? It didn't count as slacking off as long as he stood the whole time, right???
"5 am." Crunch crunch. Oh man these were good crackers.
Definitely relaxing, Niou noted and tried to hide the grin.
“I finish at 5am too,” he said. If he helped Hiyoshi out to continue the trickery, he could probably get the chickens out of the room in 15 minutes tops, and then get a couple of hours of sleep after. “I can meet you at your room if you want, and we can clear the chickens out.” Although he wondered if Hiyoshi was going to actually be able to sleep after that with the caffeine rolling around in his system.
Hiyoshi nodded. “Sounds good.” He doesn’t say much more; he may or may not be fixated on the crackers now. (Mental note, his first pay cheque was definitely going to snacks. Cheese man had the right idea by using his luggage space for food.)
But all good things must come to an end, including crackers and generic caffeinated citrus beverage. Upon finishing he straightened up, taking a glance around. He’d dallied here too long. “I need to go. Thanks for the food.” It’ll keep him going for the rest of his shift, and that’s more important than being able to sleep after.
It actually was nice having silent company in the lab with him, with the music playing in the background and Niou humming along while he worked. And he was actually surprised when Hiyoshi finally spoke… maybe he’d relaxed a little too much.
“Yeah, I’ll see you in a bit near your room.”
Niou went back to work, and as it approached 5, went through the end of shift routine of leaving Sanada his to do list, putting down a new move on the go board, and then packing up. And then he made his way to the residential floor, keeping a very close eye out for anyone who might be around to see him.
5AM was still very early though, thankfully and Niou headed over to the door. He thought he could hear the clucking of the chickens already behind it and tried not to laugh.
Hiyoshi appeared shortly after five. He couldn't help but be a bit surprised that Uion actually showed up, and that he hadn't actually been some bizarre figment of his imagination. He waved (or not really, it was more like just holding up his hand) in greeting.
"We'll need a box. There's a few of them."
Niou mimicked the hand raising action at Hiyoshi. “We shouldn’t need boxes. If you just stand at the door to block any from getting back inside, I’ll go in and get them out.” And just… he’d deal with the backlash later when they had chickens running around the residential floor.
There were a few pieces of the puzzle that were concerning Hiyoshi here, Uion. Like what he planned to do with them. “How are you going to handle all of them at once?” He squinted suspiciously, this was reeking of Niou-brand nonsense.
“There’s only like two of them in there, isn’t there?” Niou asked. … How many chickens had managed to get into the room in the hours that he hadn’t been in there? “I can just carry one under each arm and take them back.”
Check out our boy Uion saving the day with a believable excuse. Of course he wouldn’t know how many were in there. Once again Hiyoshi’s level of belief in the twins existing tipped towards ‘plausible’. “Eight. And you know what they look like.”
Hiyoshi opened the door a crack, guarding for any possible escapees before sliding in. He leaves the door open a tiny crack as an invitation for Uion to follow.
“Oh…” Niou bit his tongue to stop himself from just laughing at Hiyoshi’s pain. “Eight might be a bit harder to deal with.”
He followed Hiyoshi inside the room, pushing back a chicken with his foot as he shut the door behind him. And then looked at the room… with the chickens mostly all piled on Hiyoshi’s bed. And it looked like there may have been some eggs even, tucked up next to the pillow.
“... Okay then. This is going to be a bit more difficult.”
Maybe if there had been an extra chicken, he could have stuck it in a bag and just apologised while carrying it back to the agricultural section? But right now? “Niou used cages to transport them into the chicken coop. I had to build them,” he told Hiyoshi, just in case that added to the suspicion. “You go do pre-bed things and I’ll go get one. And we can put them all in that. And I’ll take them out.”
Hiyoshi nodded– it sounded like a solid enough plan, besides the tiny voice at the back of his head telling him that if this really was Niou, he likely just wont come back. But physically he was worn out, and even the caffeine from a few hours ago wasn’t enough to keep him going much longer, so going along with it was the easiest plan. Worst case scenario, Niou’s bed was mostly empty of chickens, so Hiyoshi could sleep there.
Niou went to the - suspiciously closed - bathroom door and opened it, turning the light on. And yes, there were two extra chickens in there, sitting in the shower. He grabbed them, one under each arm and went out again. “Go do things. I’ll be back.”
And then off he went to agriculture, with two chickens in tow.
It didn’t take that long, and it was accompanied by many apologies to his beloved chickens, for Niou to deposit them back in the chicken coop, grab the cages that were compacted off to the side, and head back.
He almost opened the door to their shared room himself, but stopped right at the last moment to knock. “Hiyoshi, you’ll have to open the door for me.”
Sick fucking save, dude. That would have given the game away immediately. Instead Hiyoshi opened the door for Uion, again just a crack so nothing could escape in the meantime. Once Uion slips in, it’s obvious that Hiyoshi is a bit preoccupied, and not just by the chicken circling his feet.
“They laid eggs.” And lo and behold, there’s a good dozen eggs that Hiyoshi’s gathered together in a makeshift sweatpant-nest on the bed. One of the broodier hens, probably wondering where her egg went, quickly finds the pile and immediately makes herself at home.
Oh. Niou dumps the cage parts onto his bed and quickly puts it together. And then grabbed the nearest chicken and shoved it inside, shutting the cage door behind it. “You can probably keep them,” he said. Actually he really would like them back, so he can check for fertilisation and whether he needed to incubate them for later hatching. “Eat them as my brother’s payment.”
Niou managed to grab another two chickens in quick succession and shove them into the cage.
“Yeah?” Hiyoshi doesn’t give a shit about propagating the species, and the idea of actual protein is sooo tempting. Omelettes, scrambled eggs, egg quiche… oh the possibilities. Having twelve real eggs would make him the richest guy on the base. But Uion HAD shared his snacks with him earlier, and Hiyoshi wasn’t a stranger to just how valuable those were, so in the interest of fairness he offers a deal. “You can take half if you want. I’m not the only one sick of replicator food.” Wow, HIyoshi. Niou doesn’t deserve your kindness.
“Yeah. I mean, they laid it in your room, they’re yours. He’s not going to miss a dozen eggs.” Niou was going to definitely miss a dozen eggs.
He chased another chicken around the room before nabbing it, and another one, that went into the cage and he nearly dropped the chicken as Hiyoshi offered him… half of the eggs back. Wow, was his roommate actually… being kind?
“Yeah, alright. I’ll take half. You’ll probably have to drop them off at my lab tomorrow or something though, I won’t have hands to carry them tonight.” A chicken came to cuddle up to his ankles and he grabbed it to stuff in the cage as well. Sorry chickens.
Crazy, right? It’s almost like Hiyoshi could be nice if he likes you. Not that he likes Uion of course, because he’s still not 100% sure it’s not just Niou lying to him, but again, whoever he was he HAD shared his food with him, and now he was getting the chickens out of Hiyoshi’s room, so… yeah, that was easily worth six eggs.
“I’ll bring them when I wake up,” was Hiyoshi’s response, and now that the chickens were mostly dealt with he was looking more relaxed and closer to sleep. He cracked his neck and shoulders, stretching his arms and feeling at home in his room for the first time since he’d got there. “Thanks for helping. I know you didn’t have to.”
“I probably won’t be there, so just leave them on my desk,” Niou said. Because he would likely be sleeping somewhere as well, or in the chicken coop. “I’m used to cleaning up after Niou, it’s fine.” And it was extremely entertaining.
He grabbed the last couple of chickens and did a final sweep of the room, and even checked inside the bathroom one last time. Just some stray feathers here and there.
“Right. You should come visit me when you’re on night shift again. Tell me more about the chickens and stuff.” Niou hefted up the cage and staggered a bit under the weight. It was going to be a bit of a struggle to get it back to the agricultural section.
A nod. “I’ll come by if I have time.” That was the plan, because there was still a lot more to unravel about this whole mystery. He watched Uion struggle with the weight of the cage, and for a second considered helping but… no, he could deal with it on his own. After all, Uion was still probably Niou and Niou deserved to suffer at least a little. The best he can offer is to hold the door open for Niou, which he does. Now get out. Lol.
