2024-02-06: The More Things Change
- Log: The More Things Change
- Cast: Naoko Suzuki, Eight Orlodhari
- Where: Hangar Bay, Ra Mari II
- OOC - IC Date: Early June, 0098
- Summary: Naoko's severe overworking in pursuit of her personal project catches the eye of Eight. Naoko expects a scolding, but instead Eight offers assistance, as well as a greater opportunity...
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
With her mysterious personal project well under way, Naoko has settled into a healthy routine. A routine that involves her spending basically every waking moment in the personal hangar on the Ra Mari II that Eight granted her usage of. Sometimes even the non-waking moments, when she passes out in the middle of work before she reaches what she considers a good stopping point. Whenever she does emerge, it's with a specific purpose in mind, after which she goes right back to the Work Zone. She does so hate these little interruptions, so she minimizes them by stockpiling simple vending machine food and snacks within easy reach.
What do you mean, that doesn't sound like a healthy routine? It must be, she hasn't killed herself even once! Ok maybe comfortable routine then? ...Comfortable for Naoko specifically? Let's go with that.
If it wasn't obvious yet, then it surely is by now: Naoko is an incredible workaholic once she sets her mind on something. And it's nigh-impossible to break her focus once she gets going, she wouldn't have even heard it if anybody came knocking on the always-locked hangar door. And it's impossible to predict the usually short windows where she'll be elsewhere, and also not asleep.
That is, until after many weeks of that behavior, she suddenly showed up in the main hangar again, where Sukeban still remains. Now it's its turn to be tinkered with, it seems, though Naoko is still in much the same pattern as before, where she's not doing much else except working on her machine. Mostly from the cockpit, which is often closed while she does so. Still shutting herself off in her own little bubble.
Not today, though. Today, she's seated on the shoulder of her Arm Slave, partially obscured by the large disc attached to the end, presumably having been working on something or other back there. She sits back, and wipes at her forehead with a hand holding a tiny precision instrument of some sort, examining her handiwork with a pensive frown.
"No, no... I don't think that's gonna work. Maybe I should just... but that'd be a shame, wouldn't it? Then again, saves repair time... am I still gonna need it?" Talking to herself helps her think.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Comfortable for Naoko specifically, sure. But even though it is not, technically, Eight's job at the moment to look out for her, she's been hearing concerns about Naoko from more than one source. Not least, of course, is the reports she's seeing with her own eyes. So obviously something has to be done.
Naoko is shut away in her own bubble, but... Eight knows about getting to people like that.
"Hard at work, I see." Eight steps over the threshold into the Sukeban's workspace, and looks up at Naoko. "It's Eight. Come on down. I'd like to talk to you."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
It's obvious from Naoko's reaction that she's not fully in the Zone right now, since her head sloooowly drifts over to where she's heard a familiar voice coming from. Even if the pensive expression doesn't break until she finally looks fully in Eight's direction, blinking twice before her brain's fully switched gears.
"Oh. Oh, um..."
Well maybe it hasn't fully shifted gears yet. She still seems a little... detached. But she's heard what she was told, at least, placing the tiny electronics tool in a small wallet, slipping it into the pocket of her roomy jeans, before shifting positions. Eight's seen this before, so she shouldn't be surprised by the way Naoko uses the machine's arm as a convenient slide to ground level. She usually has the arms positioned just so, perhaps expressly for that purpose.
Once she gets there, she takes a moment to dust herself off, but that's really just a drop in the bucket of personal hygiene. She showers, she'd insist, but she's certainly not been doing that every day, it may have been a couple.
When she approaches Eight, the look in her eyes seems closest to apologetic. She knows what she's been doing. She knows that Eight must know. And she has a bit of an idea about what kind of talk this might be. If that wasn't immediately obvious, then it would certainly be given her choice of words, in a small voice.
"Am I in trouble?"
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
It takes a few moments. That's fine. Naoko slides down, and because Eight's seen it before she is not particularly alarmed. Eight looks at her. She notes the hygiene, or lack thereof. She notices the apologetic look. And there's a moment's silence before she answers...
"Yes," Eight says. "I can't have my crew neglecting themselves. In order to work together at our best, we all need to do our part to take care of ourselves. That includes you, Naoko. And 'hoarding vending machine food' and never coming out of the workspace is not taking care of yourself."
"...But that's not all I wanted to talk about," she says.
Eight gestures to a convenient bench. "I'd like to discuss the future. You know that the Alliance has stepped down from a war footing. But I don't think our job has to be over. ...Certainly mine isn't."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko hears the accusations leveled against her, and her expression fully acknowledges: Guilty as charged. The way she looks down as she's spoken to like that... like a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar, one might say. And, like a child, she has a mumbled, pouty retort that objects to a small, barely related detail of the equation.
"I'm not really crew, though..."
There it is again. That constant effort to maintain distance, though the loophole of being outside the normal crew structure. Technically a guest, as she likes to say, just helping out whenever there's something she feels she can do to help. Even if, aside from having scheduled duties, she functionally behaves as part of the crew most of the time. She certainly cares about comrades. Perhaps more than she cares about her own well-being, judging from this little episode.
But that's not her real 'defense'. That's the part that she says in a normal tone of voice, with greater confidence. "I'm just... working on something very complicated. It takes a lot of time, so, I just want to be sure I get it done as quickly as I can. So I'll be ready to help as best I can. It'll all be worth it, trust me."
Well, regardless of whether or not you want to trust this irresponsible eccentric, she does mean what she says. She genuinely believes that this is the best thing she can do, for everybody. 'Everybody' meaning, literally everybody, because of course she wants to do what's best for the world, in general, in her mind.
She does take the indicated seat though, nodding a bit at Eight's words. She's not hearing anything surprising, there. "Just taking a break, right? Just a matter of time before fighting happens again... that's how it goes." She scratches her cheek. "I, uh, I don't know a lot about politics, so I don't know if anything really... changed, at all? Or if they just sorta... rebranded. The Federation, I mean."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
A little objection. Eight lifts an eyebrow. She is not to be swayed by technicalities. The 'real' defense, with greater confidence--that sways her more.
"I believe that," she says, both that she's working as quickly as she can, and that it'll be worth it. "But from now on, I'll have the cafeteria team send you actual meals while you're working." That seems a fair compromise to her, at least; it takes care of her health without having to disrupt her schedule.
Eight comes to take a seat once Naoko does, though.
"They might have changed," Eight says. "I hope they have. But they have a lot of the same people, and hope isn't a plan. So we're preparing in case. Even if NUNE is different from the Earth Federation, there will still be problems to solve, things to do."
"Officially, I'm head of the Magallanica Defense Force now. But unofficially, I'm starting a network of organizations meant to do some of the work we were doing before, and new work besides. To help people."
"I want you to be a part of it. Not just as a guest on the ship, but as a member of the organization. ...It admittedly won't change what you have to do much; it's a secret organization, so it won't be official."
"But I want you to be part of it, all the same."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko gapes a little, at that offer. Try as she might, she just can't get used to this level of kindness and understanding. She was sure this was going to end up with some sort of restrictions put on her, a punishment to go with the scolding. That's how it's supposed to go, right? Why does Eight keep making things easier for her?
"N-no no, I mean, well that's, that's super great of you to offer, but I wouldn't want to inconvenience anybody for my sake... I'm the one who decided this after all, it shouldn't..."
...be anyone else's burden, she fails to finish, as she trails off. She already can't help but feel like a burden whenever she's not doing anything to help out. Is she going to be a burden even when she's doing the very best she can, now? Even she realizes she can't keep looking at things that way, it would drive her insane. Instead, she takes a deep breath, and straightens out her back.
"...If you insist, Captain." That's the ticket to Distance Town, view it as an order, as something that she has no choice but to accept. No need to feel guilty about it then, is there?
The politics talk is even further away from her general comfort zone, but if that's what Eight wants to talk about, she can try to entertain it. Though she makes a face at the notion of 'having a lot of the same people'. Sounds like a rebranding to her if it's still the same people that are just wearing a slightly different outfit. She can nod along to the notion of 'hope isn't a plan'. Hope is what keeps her going, but she would never claim to fully know what she's doing at any given time. Same thing, right?
"Oh," she says with the first indication of surprise at hearing that Eight's officially in charge of the colony's defense force now. Makes good enough sense though, she supposes. "Huh..." is the follow-up to the new network in the works. ...Presumably not just a rebranding. But what does she know of any of these things?
Being officially invited to it is what gets the bigger reaction. "Ehh? A... a member? Me?" Even if Eight says it won't be all that official, that makes it sound a lot more official. Maybe it's a bigger step in her head than it actually is, given what she's been doing already. But that doesn't make it feel any less big. Especially when she was directly asked.
"You... you want me to...? B-but I have no idea what I'm doing..." Not inaccurate, in a way. Certainly not in her eyes. She just does things, and they happen to work out most of the time. Couldn't mean she's actually good at the things.
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
Naoko gapes, sure. But Eight considers it something plain and necessary, so when Naoko talks herself around to accepting with some formality...
"I do insist," Eight says. Sure, she could say it's less of an imposition than the vending machines turning out empty; it's just a matter of adding a delivery to the cafeteria staff's list. But if 'Captain' is what will make Naoko accept, then that's just fine with her.
Hope is good--it's important, and Eight wouldn't argue against that. But it's also, as she says, not itself a plan.
A member, though. That's what Eight said.
"You know what you're doing," Eight counters. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be working so hard. You're very good at what you do, at that. I'm not going to start giving you specific orders; you work best with autonomy, and I'm trusting that."
"But I want you to lend your talents to our cause. To the cause of harmony between humanity and its allies; to the cause of stopping the worst of what happens. To the cause of keeping the Earthsphere honest."
"Pilot or engineer, whatever you feel you can contribute. But there'll be pay in it for you, not just a place to stay. And something to be a part of."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Well, that's that then. An order is an order. Naoko now has no choice to be eat better. A fate she'll simply have to resign herself to. ...She mentally apologizes to Shinji in advance, should this cause him to have to go out of his way for her. Always easier to feel bad for the ones you know personally, and you've been a bother to in the past.
And it's way easier to get over such things when there are bigger things to worry about, or things that feel big, at least. Leave it to Naoko to still feel overwhelmed by the idea of Being Wanted, even when it's coming from those she's been around constantly for almost one and a half years. You'd think she's had plenty of time to know better by now. And yet, even now, she would have been less surprised if she'd been asked to leave. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. She has that philosophy down pat.
"W-well.. I know what I'm doing with machines and stuff, sure..." That much she's confident about. It's just, all the other things. She sure doesn't know people. Just 'people', in general. If she did, she wouldn't be so surprised by this entire conversation. She's just been doing whatever she wants, she doesn't expect people will just keep letting her do that. Even if Eight has never been anything but supportive, even now ready to let her keep working the way she wants to. Whenever she thinks about that, she...
Naoko sniffs, and wipes at her eyes. "S-sorry, I... I just wasn't expecting..." She takes a deep breath, taking a moment to refocus herself. "Hoooo... okay. I'm fine! I'm doing fine." Saying it makes it so. Now the words come easier. "Well, if you're alright with me helping out in the same way I have been, of course I accept! That's what I wanted to do anyway!"
She looks left and right, dropping her volume a bit as she sheepishly admits, "I, um. I would be really grateful for a way to make money actually... My parents left me way more money than anybody would reasonably need to get by, especially if they don't have a lot of expenses. But, I don't really have a way to get any more right now, and the parts for this project have been really eating into what I have... I was getting a little worried."
<Pose Tracker> Eight Orlodhari has posed.
He'll live!!
It is big, to be fair; Eight's introducing Naoko to an extragovernmental conspiracy, even if it's for what she would call good reasons. And Naoko is a very special young woman.
"You do." Eight has other people to be good with people--herself included. She doesn't expect that out of Naoko. And so, when Naoko wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath...
"It's fine," Eight says. She smiles. "I am," she says. "And I appreciate it."
Money....
"You can also lean on our operating budget if it's going to be something that helps our crew," she says. "And our organization. But for your own expenses... Well. It'll be your money, to do with as you wish."
"It's a real job, after all. Officially I'll get you the details. But since you're on board..."
"Welcome to Terminal, Naoko."
<Pose Tracker> Naoko Suzuki has posed.
Naoko is special in many ways, like in the way that she views this development's bigness as being a concern only in a personal, emotional sense. Being part of a conspiracy? That might be a big thing in other ways, but those ways are mostly just exciting. In as far as she can grasp it anyway. She'll certainly not be bothered too much by the morality of it, because she's pretty sure she's on the correct side. The people here are super nice and baddies aren't nice. QED.
There's a lot of other things she knows little about, such as, "...Budget? I could have a budget? Oooh. Well... huh. I did have a few ideas I'd scrapped because they'd cost more money than I felt I could afford to spend... maybe I could revisit some of those. ...Er. Getting ahead myself a bit, maybe. But, uh, that could be exciting, yeah!"
No worries about her going overboard there, the guilt would destroy her. Plenty of other ways she'll go overboard on instead. But for the moment...
"Glad to be on board!"