2023-02-01: Smoothing Over

• Log: 2023-02-01- Smoothing Over
• Cast: Qivi, Akane Shinjo
• Where: GGG Orbit Base
• OOC - IC Date: 0097-02-01
• Summary: Qivi picks up a few things she accidentally left on a 3G ship, and reaches out to Akane. They talk about things for a little while, though Akane's clearly a little worn out.

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<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi has been to Orbit Base zero times in her life.

Well, one now, she supposes.

During Tsutsujidai, she'd left something on a GGG-affiliated ship and she needed to show up to collect it. At least the macronization system wasn't military; it made perfect sense for a civilian Meltrandi to retrieve one of these on behalf of wherever she lived and there wouldn't be any awkward questions like there would be if she was to collect, say, a heavily armed Mobile Suit. (Not that Qivi knows how to drive a mobile suit, but it's the thought that counts.)

But while she was doing it she'd asked if she could visit. And that led to today: her, being on Orbit Base, looking for Akane.

It wasn't that her nerve had gone - she definitely wasn't worried about meeting someone younger than her who'd done terrible things - but after about ten minutes of wandering around Orbit Base asking if anyone had seen Akane she decided that a change in plans was required.

Which is why Akane gets a series of VERTEX messages from a number she probably doesn't recognize and a callsign she might, if she thinks for a bit.

<sarangay> hey
<sarangay> you don't have to, but if you're on orbit base I would like to talk to you
<sarangay> im in the hab section near the cafeteria unless I got lost again but I can go somewhere else if you want

Qivi is. She stands out by virtue of wearing a bomber jacket that Akane has seen - in dreams if not in reality - jeans and a shirt with a Huffman Island sports team logo on it (FREEDOM CITY EAGLES, probably, though it's a little worn off). She looks ... well, she's trying to look neutral, and mostly managing it.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

<shinjo_a> Oh, sure
<shinjo_a> I'll meet you at the cafeteria

And true to her word: she does! She's kind of starving anyway -- she feels like she really ought to be doing better than this nearly two weeks out from her ordeal, but she's still sleeping too much and still weirdly hungry. It's relatively mild, which means all she has is a smoothie, but it's still definitely present.

Qivi does stand out; Akane approaches her, since presumably the unfamiliar VERTEX number that's nevertheless familiar with her is the person in the cafeteria she actually knows. She approaches cautiously, and all she offers at first is:

"Hi."

She seems so different from who she was in Tsutsujidai; despite the fact that she made it here, part of her already looks like she's anxious enough to retreat at the sign of any loud noises. (She carries a lot of tension in her legs and shoulder blades.)

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

<sarangay> OK
(Qivi briefly debated attaching a sticker but felt weird doing it.)

Qivi does not have a smoothie. She wasn't sure if she was allowed to ask for one, as a visitor. (Honestly, she's surprised Orbit Base is so... nice. She's not sure what she expected but this isn't it.)

When Akane approaches, Qivi stops leaning where she was leaning. Her neutral expression doesn't quite turn into a smile but it definitely gets at least a little more pleasant - say, friendly-neutral instead of what it was before.

"Hey," she says. "Wanted to see you. Out of Tsutsujidai, I mean. I heard you were doin' better up here." She does notice the tension, and adds, "I'm not gonna hit you or something, geez. My temper's not that bad."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

Akane gets slightly less tense, at least, at the reassurance; it also gets her to take another step closer, which makes conversing a lot easier. "You did? I mean... I wouldn't have faulted you if you didn't want to see me again," Akane answers her, and as she says it there's a little bit of relief in it. Once the conversation is actually going, things are always a bit less stressful.

It takes her a moment to figure out what she means to say next. Going directly to 'sorry' probably wouldn't be remiss, but at the same time, she should... let Qivi decide, for the most part, where she wants to take this. There is one thing, though...

"I heard you were part of the defense operation on the other side of town. ... thank you." It comes out a little stilted and halting, but that's probably just nerves.

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

"I thought about not," Qivi said. "And I mean, I won't lie, I *thought* about going for a punch, given everything that happened. But punching wouldn't be right and the rest of it..."

She shrugs. "If work at Aya sometimes, I figure I'm going to see you eventually anyway. I thought I'd figure out where we stand ahead of time."

Qivi nods when she's thanked, just slightly - and just a little awkwardly. "It's what anyone would've done. Should've, anyway." She starts to say something else, stops, visibly restarts herself, and then lets out a puff of hair strong enough to blow some of her overhanging bangs.

"Look, from what I've been told, that guy did a number on you. Alexis. Now I'm not saying you're completely blameless but I *am* saying that I've done some dumbass things without the benefit of some devil whispering on my shoulder. They told me you're doing better now, you're trying to do things right, and I think that's good enough for me."

"Plus, you might not have meant it - and how you went about it was shit - but you helped me through something of mine, too. So."

Qivi sticks out her hand. "Truce?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"Ehe... I don't shrug those off as well as I used to. That'd probably be kinda bad... I don't think I'd've been super mad about it, though." Rubbing at the back of her head, Akane says, "Thanks for not doing that. Though that reminds me -- uh, just a sec."

Akane turns around and fishes something out of her bag -- a yellow, translucent capsule -- and dry-swallows it.

Then she's back to talking, though. "It's... complicated. I dunno if you wanna hear the whole story." Waving that off, she gets back to it -- and while she wants to be surprised at the idea she helped Qivi by accident...

... that kinda seems like it's a common thread. "I probably could've helped you better in... any other way," she says, cringing a bit from herself. "But..."

It takes Akane a couple attempts to actually bring herself to bring a hand all the way up and shake. ... her handshake sucks, too, but it's there. "Truce," she agrees. "Though... you might not be seeing me just from working at Aya. I'm actually moving out of town. I don't know if I'll never come back, but... most people I've talked to think it's pretty unhealthy for me to stick around."

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi laughs back. "Hey, I wouldn't do it that hard. Probably." She would absolutely deck Alexis if she got the opportunity. Akane...

She doesn't know what she thinks about Akane, quite. But even after she messed around in Qivi's mind - even after she stabbed someone - she can't bring herself to hate her. She doesn't seem the same at all. Maybe it's real, or maybe she's being mislead, but Qivi is more apt to follow her heart, anyway. And she knows that Yuta - Gridman - survived, and has already spoken to Akane (she asked). Since nobody seems to be dead from that discussion, it seems like it's handled.

"At least drink something with that, you've *got* a smoothie right there." Qivi hates dry-swallowing pills.

Qivi's grip is slightly too tight, but that doesn't appear to be any intention to hurt Akane, or even intimidate her - she just has a hard grip, and doesn't seem to realize. Now that Akane has shaken (and agreed on the truce) some of the stiffness goes out of her. "If you wanna say it, say it," Qivi says. "You already know more about my past than I tell most people so it's not like it's the first time it'd be oversharing."

Qivi apparently decides Akane should sit even if she doesn't need to; she turns, taking a few steps toward a table before looking back to see if Akane is coming. "Yeah, well..." She doesn't know how to say 'actually, I work with Rikka', because the Shuffle Alliance is secret, but she figures if anyone knows about *some* parts of it Akane does.

"I do some work with the Gridman team occasionally," she says. "So I guess that's why it's not really a surprised I jumped out in Minokawa to help defend the place. But it means I figure I'll hear about you second-hand at least."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

It's Akane's way to make things pointlessly harder on herself. She rubs at the back of her head as it's pointed out that she probably could have done that much easier, admitting, "... that's a good point, actually." She sounds a little more at ease -- a little more 'her' -- at that.

"No, it's fine," Akane adds, waving it off. The other topic is easier to dig in on, anyway. "Huh -- that makes sense. I kinda wondered why you were at Aya right away... I wasn't really expecting it if you just worked there," Akane thinks aloud. "I want to help them too, though that might just be part of working with 3G at this point..."

She looks off to the side for a bit. "You're right, though. Uh... did you hear Rikka and I are dating now, then?" She giggles a little, and that seems to get her out of her anxiety spiral about the conversation. "I guess I will be stopping by Aya, at least sometimes." ... Maybe Qivi won't recognize her when she does at that point, but she's not really excited to unpack that, so she can kick it down the road.

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi looks at Akane with surprise. "You're working with *3G*?" Qivi clearly had not heard that part - her news isn't that recent, perhaps, or since she's only a friend of GGG rather than a coworker, nobody thought to tell her. "Well, congratulations. You've got a better job than I managed at - what, seventeen?"

She actually isn't jealous even though that's one way to read her words. Qivi would do atrociously in the position Akane has, and she knows it, even without asking what exactly Akane is doing; she clearly doesn't own a super robot, so it's not that (or so Qivi thinks).

Akane giggles, and - for the first time today - Qivi actually relaxes. This might actually work out. Qivi wanted to get the feel of the *real* Akane, not Akane the God of Tsutsujidai, and she finds that she's a lot easier to handle. She takes a spot across from Akane if she wants to sit, but more lounges than sits properly. "I didn't hear, but I kinda guessed it might happen. Congratulations." Pause. "That going okay too?"

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"Well... strictly speaking, not yet. I'm still gonna ask if Sayla thinks it's a good idea. But Rikka said yes, and so did Alouette, so... it's probably going to happen." At the question of her age, she says, "Yeah. Last month. ... It kinda sucks that I spent my birthday moping."

She doesn't dwell -- at least, not now. (She might return to the topic and dwell later, though.) As they get situated and settle into actual seats, she says, "It's going great. She came up here the other night for dinner, and then we went to the spa and watched a few episodes of her favorite show... it was really nice." A pause. "Have you ever seen Truthseeker Serena? You're not that much older than we are... then again, around that time you probably didn't have a lot of time for TV, I guess."

Sipping at her smoothie, she adds, "She's incredible. ... so's Gridman and Utsumi, honestly. I don't know how they manage everything... but I guess I'm gonna figure it out pretty soon, actually." That gets her curious. "What are you doing lately besides part-timing at Aya?"

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

"I'm four years older than you. So I guess not *that* much older, but it's enough." Some days, Qivi feels pretty close to the 17 and 18-year-olds she sometimes works with (usually when she's had to deal with people closer to her mother's age recently). Other days, not so much.

Has she seen Truthseeker Serena? "Maybe once or twice. TV was... we weren't supposed to watch it at that school," and Qivi actually lets the bitterness show in her voice, because Akane *knows* and she doesn't need to hide it. "Didn't stop us, mind you. But not, like, on a regular basis."

Qivi looks at Akane for just long enough to make it a statement that she's doing it, and says, "The spa, huh. Good for you." She seems slightly amused. Plus, it lets her cover for how she's not answering the actual question.

But that said... Qivi's poker face hasn't gotten any better in the last couple months. The fact that it is a question that she doesn't have a good answer for is practically written there. "Well, for a lot of the last month I was in Tsutsujidai," she says. "But beyond that, uh... You know. Stuff. I do matches once in a while. And I've handled some of the science crime bullshit that keeps popping up. But I haven't done a lot. That's interesting."

The real answer is that she doesn't want to talk about Shuffle stuff in front of Akane because she doesn't know what she already knows and isn't a proficient enough liar to cover, like Sayla might. So in desperation, she goes for: "What about you? - Wait, no, that's a stupid question, forget it - "

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I hadn't either, but Rikka is getting me into it. We just got to the rival girl last night... she's so cool," Akane enthuses. It feels nice to gush about something -- and, for that matter, someone. There's just a hint of a blush, which she tries to cover -- with mixed success -- by taking a drink of her smoothie and holding the straw with her hand.

Akane notices that Qivi is getting a little bit cagey about what, exactly, she gets up to; she considers pressing -- but lets it slide. She can make some guesses based on who she keeps showing up with, anyway, and it's probably not actually that important to narrow it down any tighter than that.

... the invitation to talk about herself is indeed kind of a dumb question, but she shrugs it off. "I've been going to the gym more... and I'm still kinda getting used to food again? I guess that's not really doing a lot, but still..."

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Oh thank God, Qivi thinks, she only thinks I'm a little stupid. Could I have asked anything dumber? She feels her eartips starting to redden and reaches up to brush her hair the rest of the way over them. Desperately seeking about for something - anything - else to focus on - well, fortunately Akane herself provides some obvious distraction.

Qivi caught that blush. Good for her, she thinks. The grin returns. She can't help herself. "Well, keep it up."

"What do you mean, getting used to food?" Qivi's brows furrow. "What, were you not eating well in Tsutsujidai? I figured if you were running the place you'd at least get something good. I know I would." She can't always afford the best stuff, though it's better now than it was for a while, at least. In her early arena days she ate a lot of beans and rice.

Without hesitation, though, she decides to offer another fig leaf: "If you need someone to spot you in the gym or whatever I'll volunteer, I spend enough time in gyms. Though, I'm not exactly up here on a regular basis, but if you travel back down or whatever for classes. I know, I know - not Tsutsujidai, so I figure you're going to graduate at one of the Japanese schools?"

Which is where she spends a lot of time these days. Area 11 isn't just the Black Knights' problem. And in any case, she used to be one.

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I wasn't eating... anything, actually. Didn't need to, so didn't feel like it!" Akane says -- it's a gross exaggeration. "Well, okay, for the first month or so I kinda pigged out, but then it was kinda like... 'it doesn't matter if I do or don't, so... may as well not.'"

Having a spotter seems welcome, though. "I think that'd be okay. ... I'm definitely not very strong, so I should be pretty easy to spot for. Mostly I just wanna do all the holiday stuff and not think too hard about what I'm eating..." That prompts a giggle -- though the topic of school hangs over it.

"I'm probably going to finish out class for this year in Tsutsujidai remotely, but third year... depends a lot on where I end up. I don't have a place lined up yet. It might be in Japan, but it might be in Spain, too, actually." It's a little nervewracking to still not have things sorted -- but they've got time. People fought very hard for her to have that time, in fact.

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

"Nothing at all?" Qivi seems taken aback by this. It just feels... wrong to her. "Man, I don't know how I'd live. I mean, even if you don't *have* to, it's kind of a habit, and you can make some interesting stuff if you're a decent cook."

Qivi looks left.

Qivi looks right.

Then she leans forward and admits to Akane, "I would've done that, too.." Sitting back in her seat, she says, "Don't worry, I won't tell. That's why lots of people work out. It'll be fine as long as you stick with it. I mean, I take my workouts more seriously than most but you don't have to be me. Your core'll thank you."

Remotely? "Well, at least you're finishing. I never did. Kind of regret it, some days, but I'm a little too old to go back now. Spain - I know someone in Spain but I don't spend a whole lot of time in the EU, myself, so I don't know what it's like."

<Pose Tracker> Akane Shinjo has posed.

"I did still cook sometimes... even then I was more inclined to buy instant crap. That was all for other people, anyway." Akane grins, admitting, "I mostly like making the classics. Miso soup, omurice, stuff like that. I actually took to home ec pretty well..." She could dig into herself a bit about it, but she elects not to, focusing on where the conversation's going instead.

"Ehehe... yeah. It's gonna be a big change, but I can hang in there, I think." Thinking about Qivi's own comments, though... "Have you already tested out, or didn't you bother? It might be worth it to see if you can... I was thinking about it when I was looking at high school myself. I forget the details, and I bet it's different everywhere else, but still."

She drains the rest of her smoothie, then asks, "Do you wanna see the gym here? It's been a few days... I'm kinda bad at sticking to schedules."

<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.

Qivi, who is not Japanese - she grew up on the Britannian side, after all - has probably never made omurice in her life. They don't sound like the classics to her! But it's all what you're used to, she supposes. She's eaten a fair bit of Spanish (well, 'Area 3') and Filipino food herself.

"I didn't bother," Qivi says with a shrug, about school. "Couldn't afford to take the time or money at first, and then it didn't seem important for a while after that. I had a job, I have some mechanic experience - I worked with a scrapper at first to put a wanzer together. I just never finished high school. But these days I do regret it a bit. I guess I could try to test it but then I'd have to remember shit like biology and social studies."

Qivi actually knows plenty about social studies. It's just not a Federation-friendly attitude.

When asked, Qivi suddenly stands up. "Yeah, you know what? Let's go see the gym. If you wanna work a bit, I can do that." She raises one arm and then thinks better of giving Akane an energetic thump on the shoulders for emphasis, shoving her hand awkwardly in her pocket instead. "They said I could visit you, so they probably won't throw me out if I'm hanging out."

She is glad she came. Akane is different now; she's actually trying. She's not sure they're friends - she's not sure they *will* be, though there's always the possibility - but there's peace, and a bit of understanding, and that's a good start.