2023-06-17: Radio Contact
- Cast: Rikka Takarada, Qivi
- Where: Tsutsujidai - Junk Shop Aya
- OOC - IC Date: 0097-06-17
- Summary: Qivi, who's been taking shifts at Aya again, has a talk with Rikka. A connection is reformed over the shared appreciation for the junk nobody else wants as Qivi recalls the advice Rikka once gave her.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Rikka's condition has been steadily improving. She's been much more active lately - the big meeting was only a part of that, she has also recently gone out for karaoke with friends, and even started asking to help out around the shop again!
Today is more of the latter. She can't work for extended periods of time(and one would be well within their rights to tell her to get some rest if she tried) and she can't manage the front counter by herself again yet, but she can at least help with chores and small tasks.
That has mostly been today - and with break time rolling around, Rikka makes her way to the shop floor sofa... and collapses into it, leaning back and exhaling dramatically.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi hasn't been working here at Aya every day, but she's been active enough days that seeing her around is not really a surprise. Part of it is, yes, that she wanted to keep an eye on Tsutsujidai to make sure nobody pulled a fast one and attacked it, but part of it is just that... Rikka gave her a place to work while she was nothing, under Akane's dreaming impulses. When she felt she wasn't capable of much, Aya gave her something to do she was comfortable with.
She'd feel right awful if she didn't help it feel like a place for Rikka to be comfortable right back. More - it's Rikka's place. That she can't feel comfortable here of all places... Well. Qivi has opinions.
Qivi can handle the front if she's trusted to do that, and at other times she's cleaned up. She can just about handle cooking things (she admitted she's not very good at that), and the junkyard is sorted even if it still looks like a scavenger's pile (and precisely stacked to obscure any mobile suits that may or may not be in the center of any heaps, which it still looking like a mess helps with).
She showed up macronized one day to help with that. Which may have been a surprise, but having Qivi just pick things up is a hell of a lot more convenient than getting equipment to move heavy things around.
Today she is not macronized. She is a perfectly normal size, because being macronized means she doesn't fit inside, which makes some of the other jobs more difficult.
Qivi hasn't pressed Rikka very much. She knows it's hard for her - she spoke to Akane, if not Rikka - and didn't want to make anything worse. But when she dramatically drops onto the couch...
"Heh. Busy day?" Qivi has been, today, doing some minor repairs to some stuff she found in the back (it sells better if it's fixed), which means she has some indeterminate parts that she swears are two thirds of an older style of radio and has been trying to wire them up correctly. So far she has made at least one feedback squeal and some static, but nothing else.
She looks at Rikka over the electronic debris. "Or just a long one?"
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
It's touching, really. It's impossible for Rikka to overlook the number of people who have shown up to help in her time of need. Seeing everyone working so hard... it's definitely been encouraging.
As Rikka plops down she looks up toward Qivi briefly as she works on the radio. It catches her interest for a second before she looks down toward Qivi herself.
"A little bit of both, I guess." Rikka admits. "I might've pushed myself a little hard, but it didn't feel right quitting when I was almost done."
She shakes her head.
"...What're you working on?" She asks.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi told Akane that she got furious when she heard what had happened, and she meant it. But also, Rikka had been one of the people there for her in her time of need. She really does want to do what she can, even if that's not as much as she'd like, sometimes.
"Heh," Qivi agrees, more or less. "I get that. Just remember what you told me back then. Just do what you can, and if it doesn't work out... well, you've got people on your side."
Still, it doesn't hurt to hear that she's pushed herself, a little bit. In a situation like this, where pushing herself seems safe, Qivi can't imagine it's a bad thing.
"This? I found most of a radio when I was picking up some of the old stuff." Qivi tilts it this way and that so that Rikka can see most of the insides - she doesn't have any kind of case on it right now. "It's got a connection for you to hook up a media library or a phone to it - I guess you'd need a converter, it's kind of an old one - but it gets the old emergency radio bands, too. Probably thirty or thirty-five years old... it's old enough that I don't actually know how well it'll work around Minovsky anything, it has no shielding at all. Or even if they broadcast on them any more around here. Mostly I just wanted to see if I could get it working, it's kind of neat in a retro sort of way."
"Mostly it's just getting static right now, though," Qivi shrugs. "I'd have to find some sort of a connection converter, I don't know if I could wire one myself. Want to see it?" That with a glance up toward Rikka again, wanting to see her reaction and response.
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Qivi gets her a solid piece of advice - which, as it happens, is the advice she gave her. It's just a little funny, receiving her own advice... but she can't deny that she needs it right now. Rikka thinks it over for a moment, nodding.
"...Yeah. You're right." She admits. "There's a lot of people pulling for me lately... I should lean on them a little more."
She listens with interest as Qivi explains what she found, though. An old radio, with connections for a media library or a phone...
"...Huh. We've had radios before, but this model is new to me." Rikka considers, looking it over curiously. She nods, that Qivi says it's kind of neat. "Yeah, it's pretty fascinating."
As for a connection converter... Rikka considers that with a 'hmm'.
"We might have something like that...? Or at least something you could jury-rig into one. I haven't looked at the inventory in a while..." She considers. Though when Qivi asks if she wants to see it... "Oh, sure."
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi grins at Rikka, suddenly. "Yeah, see? I don't mind. I've got broad shoulders, they can handle a bit of leaning." She's joking, but not entirely.
More seriously: "I know it's sometimes hard to ask. Even when I was..." She trails off, waving a hand. "I had trouble asking, you basically had to hold me down to offer me a temporary job. And what you went through is worse. And I know probably everyone's come out of the woodwork to offer to help, or whatever, but... I gotta do it too. If there's anything I can do, or anything I can help with, you let me know. Otherwise, I'll just keep covering around here."
It pisses Qivi off - but not at Rikka, so she tries not to show it. She was furious - is furious - at the people who would do it, who took all of them and still have Leina, but not at the people they did it to, so she tries to calm down. It has mixed success; Qivi is not good at hiding her emotions, at all. But she's trying to be supportive, so what's actually more obvious is the tension, which she lets out in a long breath. The supportive part, at least, is going better than expected.
Qivi steps around to let Rikka get a good look at it. It's more or less complete being probably close to forty years old, except for the case (which is in pieces off to the side, as Qivi hasn't yet even started to reassemble it aside from putting things on the base). It needs some care and repair, which Qivi has begun to work on in a slightly slapdash style; her experience is more toward jury-rigging than restoration and unfortunately it shows. It probably will work, though.
"You might have something like that! I haven't really looked yet," Qivi says. "I thought I'd see if I could see if any stations were broadcasting to make sure I had it working, but maybe that'd work better..."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
Rikka laughs a little at Qivi's joke - but she can tell there's a core of seriousness to it, too.
"...Thanks." She replies with a smile, then listens as she continues. She nods. It is difficult to ask.
"I think... you're doing a great job already." Rikka replies. "Mama and Akane already have a lot on their hands looking after me. If it wasn't for everyone coming together to help, we might've had to close the shop down for a bit... I know Mama would've done it for my sake, but it makes me feel better knowing she didn't have to."
Qivi steps around so Rikka leans in, getting a better look. It really is pretty neat. Qivi's repairwork might be slapdash but right now... Rikka thinks that's fine. More than fine, really.
"I think you had the right idea. It'd kind of suck if you went through all that trouble to put it together and there was nothing left to actually pick up on it." Rikka replies with a shrug. "...I can help you look for that converter, though, if you want?"
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
"Hey," Qivi says. Another grin. "What are friends for? I mean, we work together too, but this is a little more than work."
She might be the older one in this group - Qivi is an adult at 21, not a teenager any more even if she'd be comfortably college-aged had she not failed to graduate from high school - but she really does like most of the people she's met in Tsutsujidai, and respects them for what they do. Even Akane, she's made her peace with.
But Qivi is perfectly happy to let Rikka focus on something that's a lot more fun than thinking about that. "We can look for it, sure. You'd have a better idea of where it is than me, probably; I'd have to go checking through miscellaneous drawers, and I KNOW not everything is labeled." She wiggles the speaker, gets another burst of static -
- and this time, behind it, a crackle of words, incomprehensible. "Ha!" Qivi beams. "It DOES pick something up, at least a little. I don't know if that's some enthusiast broadcasting or if you actually still have FM here... I din't think it's popular on colonies, but I guess this place wasn't always a colony - or I guess it sort of was, but nobody thought it was, so..."
Having successfully lost that train of thought, Qivi clears her throat. "Well, it's working well enough that I think we should look for the converter, anyway. See if we can get some real sound through it."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
"That's true." Rikka agrees with a laugh. ...She really appreciates that. It's good to hear it said. She nods, then. "Yeah, I have some ideas where to look, if they haven't been sold off already."
But Rikka watches Qivi wiggles the speaker to another burst of static - but also, words! She can't understand them like this, but that's a step.
"Wow, I'm kind of surprised." Rikka remarks, impressed. "...Good question. I always just listen through my laptop, so I haven't looked into Tsutsujidai's radio habits..."
She 'hm's consideringly, smiling just a little as Qivi goes through Tsutsujidai's history.
"It's complicated." She concludes, before standing up. "Right. Let's see... I'll look through the drawers, you check the boxes around Junk? That's computer parts, mostly, but there might be something we can use still, too..."
The drawers might not be labeled, but she knows the way they organize things around here by heart. It's better if she handles that. She approaches the drawers and begins to rummage, eventually returning to the counter.
"Here's my haul." She says, setting them down. "If these don't work, we might have to ask mama..."
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
Qivi admits, "Most people do. It's kinda just a novelty these days. At least this one's got a connection for a phone or something... you go older than this and it might not even have the hookup for something local."
They have been making these since before the Universal Century. How far back does Qivi think they're going to find in a junkyard??
Qivi heads over toward Junk. She's only seen it a few times before - well, no, she's seen it but she hasn't really looked at it. She does that for a few moments, thoughtfully, before turning toward the boxes, starting to rummage. These mostly look like computer parts to her, as promised; she doesn't recognize most of them at all, as she doesn't spend much time with this branch of electronics.
"Huh, looks like we might be out of luck unless you lucked out..."
<Pose Tracker> Rikka Takarada has posed.
"I think there's something to be said for at least knowing how to work with this stuff... It's kind of a shame to let it just go to waste." Rikka considers. There's a reason why they work so hard at Aya to make sure there's a home for everything.
But for now, searching. Qivi's search doesn't turn up anything they can use on its own, so Rikka takes a moment to consider what they do have.
"Let's see... I think we can do something with this and this... And, oh, can you hand me that?" Rikka starts.
...She seems to be enjoying herself, actually, and looks lighter than she has all day. She's always had a knack for this - and she'll be glad to continue tinkering until the next customer shows up.
<Pose Tracker> Qivi has posed.
"Yeah, of course!"
Qivi may not have found the exact parts they were looking for, but she did see equipment and was using some of it beforehand, so she gathers it - and the other things Rikka has asked for, at least the ones that are over by her.
Qivi is pretty happy to see Rikka happy. It's a big step, from what Akane told her - and she's perfectly content to tinker with her for a while, until someone comes in.
And who knows? They might even get the old radio working again.