2024-02-24: Don't Have To Threaten Me With A Good Time
- Log: Don't Have To Threaten Me With A Good Time
- Cast: Shari Loom, Naoko Suzuki
- Where: Photon Power Labs, Fujinomiya City
- OOC - IC Date: Late August, 0098
- Summary: Following the arrangements made between the Photon Power Labs and Magallanica, two Whispered friends have cause to work together on a project once again. Naoko takes the opportunity to spring a surprise appearance on Shari, and the two take a moment to catch up... as well as solidify their plans for a certain future event.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari usually stays in the parts of the Photon Power Labs opposite the wing where they do the therapy--that is to say, well away from where Yuliana Kafim might be hanging out. She only really goes over there on purpose. And today? That's not happening.
Instead, she's in a generic meeting room on her laptop, tinkering at some numbers. Today Shari's makeup is done and she's in a white off the shoulder top with obvious straps from the underlayer, with long trousers and heeled boots. She looks... very unlike most of the other engineers and interns.
So does her computer! She is doing very complicated math at the moment. Her green crystal earrings dangle and glint in the light.
It's just after lunch! She skipped it. She's been working most of the day so far...
But the weather out the window is nice, as is Mt. Fuji out there.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
One can imagine the handshake meme between Naoko and Shari with 'avoiding Yuliana Kafim' at the center. Naoko is pretty sure she'd get eaten this time. No, she is at the Photon Power Labs on business, and has been a few times already. Before, it was personal business, regarding her project, mostly involving getting Sayaka to sign off on what she needed and then picking it up.
Shari wasn't around at those times. But she is there today, and Naoko is well aware of this. The question is whether or not Shari will know that Naoko is coming. Surely she'll have heard someone would be coming from Magallanica to help with the complicated math, as it relates to the energy output requirements for the colony that the Labs will be providing assistance with. But did they mention it would be Naoko? Did they mention she'd be coming today...?
If so, then it would have to have come through an internal memo, because Naoko sure didn't say anything about this in advance. She wanted to be the one to spring a surprise this time, if at all possible. Learning Shari's whereabouts wasn't difficult. Sneaking into the meeting room unnoticed might have been moreso, but as Shari can be just like her when she's engrossed in work, she manages to slip through the door behind the other Whispered before being noticed. Which is all the setup she requires. Setup for...
"When the need is greatest, when no one else can help, she appears!"
...A prototypical Magical Girl anime line. When Shari turns around, Naoko will be standing there, back turned, glancing over her shoulder. She is quick to flash a v-sign. "Just kidding~"
Unlike most instances where she tried to act cool in the past, this time she's not trying to impress anybody. She's just leaning into her inner dork, knowing that Shari will be aware. Watching anime together has a way of removing the fear of judgment over who she is, so she can wear the dork badge with pride. ...There's also the whole 'having worked together for a few months' thing, but the anime-watching was the biggest factor there, obviously.
That's the full extent of the act though, Naoko fully turning afterwards with a cheery wave. The full denim look is a relatively new one, though the jacket hangs loosely off her shoulders, showing off the purple shirt underneath with a huge Mazinger Z head on it. Felt like the most fitting choice, all things considered.
"Long time no see!" she begins, immediately looking apologetic afterwards. "Sorry I haven't been messaging much, kinda bad at the whole keeping in touch thing... especially when I'm working on something big."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari's had places to be, things to do! She's getting a new apartment in the city! She's being successful!
And she's not talking to her parents!
She's here now though. And she is focused. As it happens, Shari is a lot like Naoko when she's working, in that she is very focused on that and not focused on anything else. So Naoko manages to sneak in and--
"!"
Shari blink blinks and turns, with a surprised expression, towards--
"Naoko!" she greets, lighting up at the sight of her good friend. It might be strange to see a goth light up, but trust that it's an experience to be remembered.
She hops out of her seat and spreads her arms happily--but she doesn't move to hug her. "Where've you been!?" she asks, "What are you doing here?"
Shari knows Naoko's a dork. She appreciates this about her. That cheery wave sees Shari looking up and down. "The denim look, huh? It's working!"
A smile back. "Z!"
When Naoko gets apologetic, Shari goes, "Pshhhhhhh," and gestures to a nearby chair. "Whatever on that. You've been busy! I've been pretty busy, too. I've got work here, and I've been trying to handle apartment stuff in the city..."
"So hi!"
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Success! This is the result Naoko was hoping for. Would've been so awkward if the beans had already been spilled to a degree that any surprise would need to have been forced, but there's no sign of that here. Genuine surprise! And genuine cheer at seeing her. Naoko isn't as surprised at that side of Shari's as most might be. It's more surprising that she can prompt that reaction, but that's her insecurity talking. Shut up insecurity, it's just nice, okay?
Not exactly known for being a hugger, it shouldn't be a surprise that while Naoko smiles at the spread arms gesture, she stays where she is rather than taking it as an invitation. "I'm good! Here to help out with a little job actually, you might have heard about someone from Magallanica coming over? That's me!" Ok, she isn't technically from there, but living on the flagship of its defense forces (and, on paper, being a part of said defense forces) is close enough for that terminology to be valid.
Now it's her turn to blink in surprise, of all things about the remark on her outfit. The way she looks down at herself, it's like she forgot what she's wearing. "--Oh! Uh, right, I guess... that's new, ha ha. Thanks." She handles clothes the same way she does everything: she just does whatever she feels like. Zero thought ever put into whether it 'worked' or not, not being a good judge of that sort of thing anyway. Shari's probably a good judge of it though, so that's nice to hear.
"Ehe, well... glad you don't mind terribly," she says as she makes to seat herself on the offered chair. "Kinda figured you'd understand, but y'know." I always feel like I need to do better, is the part she's not saying.
Immediately after sitting down, she gestures in Shari's direction. "And look at you, just stealing my dream job right out from under my nose!" She's smiling when she says it, so it's easy to predict, "I'm kidding. I'd die of performance anxiety if I worked here, I'm happy where I am right now. But it really is an amazing job you managed to land, nicely done! This isn't gonna be as long of a collab as last time, but I'd love to see what you've been working on while I'm here. Or whatever you can show me, must be all sorts of top secret projects in the pipeline."
Yes of course Naoko has a wild imagination of the sort of stuff even interns get to work on here, it's the Photon Freaking Power Labs!
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
It's very nice!!
Shari remembers that Naoko isn't a big hugger so she's not too bothered. However, "Oh, that's you!" she confirms. "Well, cool. Means I don't have to dance around some new guy who doesn't know how cool I am."
Shari is the type to notice outfits, and talk about them. So she does! But she smiles at it.
"I get it," she says. "But you're fine. We stay in touch OK. Like I said, I've been busy too, and for a while when I wasn't busy I was just jetlagged." Spain! She went there!
But she sits down, too, and laughs. "Yeah, it's funny, I never thought about sticking around here? But they were just... really nice, and cool, and they impressed me, I guess. I never put a lot of stock in talk of heroes and stuff. But they're the real deal."
A laugh. "I'm glad you're happy, though. And... hmmmm, OK. Well, while you're at it..."
Top secret projects!
"Some, totally. Like I probably shouldn't show you my calculations for a hybrid Photon-Void power source." Wink.
"But nah more seriously, right now I'm also working on some miniaturizing some of my designs. I don't need to have a beam saber at human scale or anything, but smaller power generation could do a lot for apartments or human-scale vehicles."
"...It's kinda nice to be doing peaceful applications."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko is quick to reply conversationally, "Right? Sucks when you keep having to prove your coolness. Makes you wonder, don't people have eyes?" She doesn't talk with casual confidence like that with basically anyone else. At least, not without forcing herself, putting on an act. Which isn't something she feels she needs to do right now. It's just different, when it's Shari.
"Well, if you say so," she says on the matter of staying in touch. "I've mostly been working on just the one thing, and losing track of time. Nothing new there!"
Shari of course knows what that project is. Those modifications to upgrade the Sukeban into, as Naoko might phrase it, a Miracle Machine. That was never going to only take a couple of weeks. Getting it done this year would probably be too optimistic an estimate. And she's been given the room to do that where she is right now, so of course she's happy there!
She smiles when Shari, too, draws the conclusion she did a long time ago, in regards to the hero status of the Photon Power League's most prominent figures. "So you noticed. I know I just kinda keep rambling on when you get me started on Mazinger stuff, but... you get it now, right?" Naoko naturally only ever had good things to say about Koji and Sayaka, but it was never just fangirling. She did the research, everything she said was just science!
She tilts her head at the mention of combining Photon and Void power. Maybe she wasn't meant to, but she's seriously thinking about it. Her conclusion: "Sounds like the kind of thing I would try. Take that as you will." She winks back.
When Shari speaks more on what she's actually working on, she's quick to chime in, "Oh, no kidding? You gotta let me have a look then, you know I'm all about miniaturization! ...Not to steal your thunder or anything, just, well. I think it's fair to say that I can give you a better peer review than most people. Right?" Another quick flash of a v-sign.
She sobers a little, at the mention of peaceful applications. "...Yeah. I guess... it probably is." It's not hard to guess where her mind went, before she brings it up. "Do you... think I'm doing right thing? Just... spending all my time working on something that'll be only good for fighting. I wonder sometimes, maybe I'm too quick to assume that's what I'm going to need..."
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
"Totally," Shari agrees, happy to hear Naoko in good spirits too. It's nice to see her like this; it is different, with the two of them.
"Haha, yeah. I know how you are; being your friend is just pricing that in."
She does know. She doesn't talk about it to other people. But she does know.
"I do," Shari says of getting it. She also gets that Naoko rambles on about a lot of things, actually, but she decides not to tease her about it in the moment. Instead, she grins--because she wasn't kidding about doing it. "Heheheh. I'll take it as a compliment!"
But, "Totally will," she agrees, and all that stuff about stealing thunder just gets a big wave of her hand. "Don't worry about that. You're exactly right. I'll show you the plans, they're on this computer..."
Then, Shari smiles, faintly. It's not a happy smile, entirely, but neither is it miserable. "...For me," she says, "Because most of what the Kafims wanted me to do was war, it's nice. But for you, who's figuring out how to fight to help people... what could be wrong about that?"
"I admire it. I just... don't know if I have 'fighting' in me, anymore. But I am also working on adapting my weapons to PPL machines, if it helps."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
It still kind of astounds Naoko, when she takes the time to think about it, how different things feel when that normally constant worry about the way she's perceived isn't a factor. It's hard to feel like people truly understand you, when you're always so consciously concerned about your ability to make yourself understood. It always surprises her to some degree, when such understanding ends up happening anyway.
But she has no trouble believing that Shari understands. Having the same 'condition' removed a significant amount of the barriers she thought to perceive, and as it turns out, not preemptively sabotaging yourself makes getting along a whole lot easier. There could be a lesson in there somewhere.
There are limits, though. She's still visibly surprised when Shari decides to take what she meant as a self-aware crack on her own recklessness as a compliment. She doesn't quite know how to respond to it, other than looking a little embarrassed.
It's much easier to focus on work-related things, reacting with a thumbs-up to Shari's agreement to look over her work. "Cool. Been thinking a lot about power concerns lately... I'm working with Japanium right now, myself. I couldn't get the right amount of conductivity out of the stuff I'd been using, so I decided to try my hand at some metallurgy. Figured the best way to know for sure it'll be able to do what I want is to make it myself." Just Whispered Things.
She'd be lying if she said she'd have any idea what other sorts of things she might enjoy working on. Even if Shari didn't approve, she isn't sure if she could take a different course, just like that. But hearing the opinion matters, all the same.
She seems genuinely baffled by the notion of it being something admirable. "W-well, I... I don't think it's all that, I mean, I don't blame you at all. Preferring not to fight is just... normal." She'd be the last to claim that the way she thinks about anything is in any way normal.
"I guess it's just, the difference in circumstances, probably." Not so much the difference in motivation. It's exactly because of what people like the Kafims are doing that she believes she needs to do this. If she can do things few others can, then she should oppose things that few could oppose. ...Idolizing the notion of heroes as they exist in anime and real life alike is also a part of it, of course.
Even so, she lets out a sigh, and her smile returns. "Not gonna lie, though. I'm glad you don't disapprove. Because, fair warning, I'm probably gonna gush when I'm done with it, a lot."
There's a short pause, before that thought leads her elsewhere. "...Hey, Shari? Are we... still on, for December 24th?"
It hadn't been a very solid promise at the time, spending their next birthday together too. And a lot can change in a year. But if it hadn't been clear before, Naoko was very serious about it. And is actually already kind of looking forward to it. And yet, of course, she immediately proceeds to start sabotaging herself.
"I-I mean, I understand if your plans have changed now, with all the, everything. And you know a lot more people, I can't really - I don't like big parties and stuff, so it'd just be the two of us, and that's... well, I don't know how you feel about that. And it's Christmas, also, so if you'd rather, uh... I-I mean, I'm not saying that..."
It's easy to forget they're there with how quiet they tend to remain under most circumstances, but this is enough cause for one of her friends to speak up.
>"Oh, for the love of... snap out of it, you're overthinking things again!"<
This causes Naoko to quiet down, at least, but she can't quite manage to say anything else. She may need help to get out of this self-constructed mental maze she trapped herself in.
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari doesn't think about it that much. She's not that much for self-reflection, as a rule! ...Though that's changing, since she got away from her Aunts. For some reason.
Besides, it's fun to embarrass Naoko a bit. That hasn't stopped being true.
"Ooh, Japanium. It's good stuff, isn't it?" Shari enthuses. "Yeah, that's definitely the best way."
But it's... normal? "I dunno about that," Shari says. "People here are so... altruistic. I could never be like that. I've never cared that much about anybody but myself. I didn't stop to think about other people..."
But the difference in circumstances, "Yeah. It's super different, our circumstances." Despite getting a little heavy there for a minute, she smiles again at the warning. "I wouldn't miss it," she says of the gushing. And--
"Hm?"
Are they on, for--
No, it wasn't very solid. But Shari recognizes right this instant just how serious she is about that, and a little smile starts so spread on her face, more as Naoko is so dorky about sabotaging herself.
It manages to be a gentle expression, somehow, when Naoko's friend chimes in.
"We're on," Shari says. Sure, it might be nice to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, but...
If she could take Naoko's hand right now without freaking her out, she would. Instead, she says, "It's cool. It'll be us for it. I feel good about that. So don't worry, OK? It's a definite plan."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
No news here of course, but better not ask Naoko for any self-reflection tips. Her kind tends to be the thing that happens when you have two opposing mirrors. It just goes on, and on, and on...
And yet, there's plenty she entirely fails to notice. Such as the fact that Shari enjoys embarrassing her. She's noticed it from Leina, but, well. Leina hasn't exactly been subtle about it.
Altruism, though... that prompts her to raise her eyebrows in surprise. She didn't consider that in this respect, Shari would feel like a fish out of water in an environment such as the Photon Power Labs. But, as for her perspective, "Oh, that level of altruism is definitely not normal. It's respectable, but it's not normal. Looking out for yourself is what makes the most sense for anybody to do. You've got to be a little dumb to put yourself at risk for other people's sake."
That's it, that's all she says. But she's grinning. She knows what she said, and she's comfortable with being (more than) a little dumb sometimes. But she won't outright tell Shari to dare to be stupid. After all, what she's trying to say is that it's valid to make either choice.
The heavy moment should have been passed, with that, but Naoko makes what should have been a simple question into an ordeal in her mind. There's that two opposing mirrors effect in full swing, only put a stop to by the very necessary application of the mental brakes by Uriel. Shari's smile wouldn't have done it, she has no idea what to think about that, it could mean anything!
She quickly makes a full recovery when she hears the words she was hoping to hear, clasping her own hands together. "Really? You mean it?!" A definite plan, Shari says, and Naoko immediately interjects, "Remember, I'm doing the planning this time, I promised! I'll take care of everything, so no need to bring a cake or anything like that. Don't worry about a thing, it'll be awesome, you'll see!"
Spoken with the fervor of someone who already figured out exactly what she wanted to do months in advance, having started to plan things in her head before making it an actual concrete arrangement. She does tend to overdo things, just a little...
And now that the tension has fallen away... she makes a face, speaking to someone other than Shari. "...I really didn't need the help, you know." The answer comes in the form of a chorus of two different voices.
>"You really did."<
>"You really did."<
<Pose Tracker> Shari Loom has posed.
Shari can be subtle! That's an advantage she has over Naoko, presumably.
She gives a lopsided smile to the idea that altruism on that scale is a little weird. "...Is that how it is?" Shari wonders. "Well, maybe." She does notice that Naoko is grinning, but, "It is something I like about you."
Still, the heavy moment takes time. That's okay. But...
"I mean it," Shari says. "Haha, really? You want to handle it all yourself? Well, okay!" Shari beams. "Don't have to threaten me with a good time."
Awesome... Shari has no idea what Naoko is going to find awesome, but she's willing to find out!
But then the face she makes is--
"Ahahahahah," Shari laughs, and will need a minute before she can show Naoko her math.
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko's field is definitely the opposite of subtlety. When she thinks she's being subtle, she's usually just being slightly less straightforward than usual. Too earnest for her own good, sometimes.
Case in point, that grin is quickly replaced by a blush when those words are spoken to her. That would have probably happened regardless of which trait Shari said she liked about her. That doesn't have to do with her mechanical skill, anyway. She handles those compliments pretty well. But aspects of her personality? Come on now, that can only be an exaggeration... right?
Definitely not going to say that out loud, it's an argument that she has no chance of winning. Instead, she throws the full weight of her confidence behind a future event that she's already had the time to think plenty about, responding to Shari on that topic with, "Yeah, you'll see! Look forward to it!" No issue at all doubling down on that. Even if it does mean she'll need to do a bit of work on something other than her project, it'll be worth it.
The short 'argument' with her friends leaves her pouting, especially when Shari proceeds to laugh at her. Way to embarrass her! Clearly this is all Uriel's fault, and nothing she caused herself. But it's all forgotten soon enough, nothing quite like numbers to make her feel in her element. Besides, now she has something to officially look forward to. It'll take more than that to bring down the net positive of her mood.