zerotohiro | Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

[ athena pops her head from the kitchen. hiro should be able to see her from the door. ]

Hey! Come on in. Clonco, let them in.

[ clonco moves and gestures for hiro to go in. ]

It's nice to meet you! Clonco loves to meet Athena's friends!

[Well don't mind if he does, Clonco. He's stepping past the bot and pulling Baymax's case with him, grinning up at Athena even if a lot of his focus is on Clonco. At least he remembers to shut the door. He thinks he might have met Clonco once in his very first game here, but it's a fleeting thought and he's not focusing on that.]

He's a lot different than I thought he'd be. Remind me how long's he been here?

Four months or so, but he was with Miss Aura then.

[ her smile disappears at the mention of aura. the two of them didn't get along very well, you see. what with aura accusing athena of two murders. it hasn't been a Fun Ride. not to mention, she was in love with athena's own mom and was jealous of the attention metis gave her daughter. ]

He's been helping around the apartment, but Clonco's just kind of like a baby.

[ especially with how it cries almost every night about how he misses his mama. clonco wheels over to where athena sits, and just chills there by the table. ]

[ There's so much he could say to that. So much, he doesn't even know where to begin.

Is anyone supposed to die?

Nanako wasn't supposed to die.

Tadashi...

Yu is silent for a long time. Longer than Hiro might even be comfortable with. Finally: ]

I won't ask if you understand the enormity of what you're saying. I know you do. I think anything like this is worth at least trying. [ He finally glances at Hiro again, after a long moment spent looking away. ] But how would you test it?

[What a good question. He doesn't know, truthfully, and Yu's right in that the stretch of silence is almost uncomfortable. For a moment, he'd thought Yu would actually tell him it was a stupid idea. This isn't the case and he's left struggling with putting his thoughts into words.]

...there's that Nexus. It's where we supposedly all go when our code gets corrupted somehow, and...and people have come back out of there with new memories. I could test it myself. I could fix the coding and then test my own memories to see if I had new ones of Tadashi being alive. Something. Something that wouldn't hurt him or anybody else. I could try that. If it didn't work I could rewrite the code again until it did.

You want to corrupt your own coding and then try to fix yourself? Hiro...

[ Yu sighs. ]

Whether or not you're certain that would work, it's dangerous! I know you're meticulous, but what you're proposing goes beyond just a scientific experiment. I don't want to be the person that limits you, Hiro, but... what if something goes wrong? Who would be the person to bring you back?

I do have a body temperature - it's ice cube fahrenheit. Wanna give it a try?

[He likes messing with scanners, though he feels he shouldn't tell Hiro that.]

ok you deserve a lol
both at the joke and at being so protective of your roboboyfriend

...I think I met her once. [But that's all he says. He doesn't like the way Athena's mood just deflated, that wasn't the goal. The goal was to keep things light and check on things.

He's actually going to sit on the floor in front of Clonco to get a better look.] Even babies have to grow up sometime, right? I wonder how intelligent he can actually be.

His primary purpose is to be a companion for astronauts, so he knows a lot about space and the Cosmos Space Center.

[ she nods sagely. it's nice to talk about home! ]

Oh, that's like... the lead government space agency in California.

Has he actually been to space? [That's pretty cool. He likes space. But he makes a face in response.] And how come I've never heard of this space agency then?

From what I know, they haven't implemented the A.I. companions yet, but they'll be doing it soon. I'm pretty sure Clonco was supposed to go to space a few days after my last trial.

[ she starts poking her earring. was it clonco, or ponco? no matter... ]

Maybe we don't live in the same universe. I mean, it'd be cool if you di— wait. Are you from Los Angeles, too?

I can't get anyone else involved. I'm not losing anybody else! [That outburst is probably expected but he's looking up and staring Yu in the face with a weird sort of ferocity.] I'll figure out a way to bring myself back, I'm not letting anyone else touch my experiments again!

[There's a pause and he's struggling to keep it together, shaking slightly in his fury at the idea of messing this up.] I can make this work, Yu. I don't...[He stops, floundering on what to say. He knows Yu's right. He can't exactly argue against it.]

[Don'tfallforitdon'tfallforit...]

Yeah. Yeah, I do. I don't think Baymax has ever really scanned you before, has he? I wanna see what he comes up with.

He is NOT my roboboyfriend, wtf. He's my best friend. Wouldn't you be protective of your best friend too?

[He mulls over that, muttering to himself about what a robot would need to sustain the pressures space would put on it before he winds up shaking his head. Athena's question seems more important.]

No, that's like five hours south of where we're from. We live in San Fransokyo. I didn't know you were based in LA though.

[ I'm not letting anyone else touch my experiments again!

Again... there's a history there. More than Yu knows about. Hiro's body language would be a dead giveaway even if what he'd just said hadn't been. Yu watches him calmly. ]

Calm down, Hiro. It's alright. It's not that I don't believe you. But what you're saying... it's risky. And you want to do it alone. That's the part I can't let you do. Don't you see now? You have bonds, here. Me, Dipper, Ruby, Rei-san, Minato-san, everyone else you've met here in Cerealia... we're going to back you up.

[ Yu leans over, placing both hands on Hiro's shoulders. ] I know you're scared of losing us. But as much as you're asking us to trust in you, you have to trust in us as well. That's what the power of bonds means.

Edited 2016-01-24 08:20 (UTC)

I am calm! [This sure is calm. He tries to pull back but it's either he's not applying enough of his strength or Yu has too much of it that finds him unable to move. So instead he's clenching his eyes shut and shaking his head again.]

And what happens if those bonds break? Not all bonds last forever. I need to keep all of them as long as I can and the only way I can really do that is by keeping everyone else safe. [There are some deep-seated issues here.] Do you know what happens when people die here? Their coding gets messed up. It eventually reverts back to how it was but who knows what other lasting damage there could be? I don't know if I can rewrite someone else easily, but I can fix myself in the tests.

You're not. Take a moment and breathe, alright?

[ He won't continue this while Hiro is freaking out. He lowers his chin, trying to get Hiro to look hm in the eye and just breathe. He's not doing this because he's looking down on his friend; quite the opposite. He appreciates just how big and important this is, and precisely why this needs to be approached as calmly as possible. ]

[Nononono. His brain's buzzing too much and he's not sure where his thoughts are going, but Yu's voice cuts through all of that clean enough and leaves him with nothing but that thought.

"Breathe."

There's a brief second or two where he's doing just the opposite of that. Suddenly though, he takes Yu's advice. He takes a breath to calm down...

...and finds it quite horrific when that breath turns into a choked sob. 'Not now...please not right now.' This is still the opposite of calm but it's a little too late to stop the overflow of tears and another strangled sort of sound.

Maybe it was easier when he wasn't breathing.]

[ Yu knows what's coming before Hiro seems to. It's why, gently, he sets aside the food he'd brought. It had been sitting between them, and would have gotten in the way.

When Hiro starts to cry, Yu is ready for him. One arm is circling around the younger teen's shoulders, the other going round his waist. And just like that, he's carefully pulling Hiro against his chest, propping his chin on Hiro's head. He had a feeling this was coming. All that wound up energy, the topic at hand, the buzzing terrible readiness... this must have been weighing on Hiro for some time. And more than anything, wanting to do it alone... to do something as terrifying as attempt to raise the dead, and conduct all the experiments on himself, all to protect the people he loves...

Yu will admit Hiro is incredibly brave. But he's also extremely foolish. And he hugs his friend tightly, thinking all these things as he lets the boy in his arms cry himself out. ]

[There are several things here that need to be said and context to be given but that will come in due time. Maybe it's just due to Yu being older and wiser or maybe it's due to Hiro being far more stubborn than he should be, but it's absolutely no surprise that Yu catches on much quicker than Hiro does. He's surprised, if anything, to find Yu responding and part of him thinks he really needs to stop and pull away and suppress everything. They'd been having a very serious conversation and now...well. Would Yu take him seriously after this?

The other part, of course, is a little relieved and as such he finds himself more or less burying his face somewhere in Yu's shoulder. It's probably best for both of them that it doesn't take him long to cry himself out and pull himself together, but it's clear that this has been a long time coming and probably needed to be done. In the end when he does stop, he keeps his face hidden there and allows his words to be muffled.]

S-sorry. [A small sniff. He certainly feels foolish, but probably for all the wrong reasons.] This isn't why I asked you to come out here. Promise.

[ Unsmiling, but not unkindly, as he strokes a hand over Hiro's hair: ]

You know it would be okay if it was, right? You don't have to promise me anything. I'll always listen to whatever you have to say, Hiro.

...even if what I had to tell you would probably change your entire opinion about me? [He's still not moving, but at least he's oddly comforted by this.] I don't usually do this. [Cry on people, spill his guts, either or.]

.... you're smart, [ he begins, quietly, with the self-obvious. ] You're brave, and pretty spunky, too. You're not afraid to speak your mind when you feel like it. But you keep a lot of secrets, because you're afraid of getting hurt again. Beneath it all, you're pretty damn strong, Hiro. [ The arm around his friend's shoulders cinches a little tighter for a moment. ] Nothing's going to change that opinion, because it's the truth.

Some Legends Are Told, Some Turn To Dust Or To Gold [CEREALIA INBOX]

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