milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Even Akito can feel that something's really wrong, and he barely knows anyone here. From the group clustered over by the fire to the weird tense feeling in the air, he's pretty sure that something somewhere has turned into a disaster.

Then again, it's not like he can do anything about it. So as he comes downstairs he simply glances around a little and heads over to get breakfast. He's going American-style for novelty value, eggs and toast and sausage eaten with chopsticks as he tries to work out what he'll do today.

[So Far: Akito and Stephanie chat for a bit about how to eat toast and Things to do In Milliways When You're Dead. Slowtime-ish.]

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Steph does her dropping-out-of-the-rafters-silently thing. "Hey. How ya doing?"

Akito manages -not- to send anything flying this time. He learns! He also twitches still, but hey.

"Hey!" He twists around in his seat and grins, setting down his toast for a moment. "I'm... all right, I guess. Is it creepy around here today or is that just me?"

"Nope, it's creepy. I had a comfy chair by the fireplace, but ... dude, I don't want to be there any more, not with everyone so tense. Something bad's happened." She looks anxious. "Or it's gonna."

He takes a look towards the fireplace. "It's like they're preparing for something. Look how that guy's all tensed up. He's been like that for a half hour now and that's just how long I've been down here."

Akito shakes his head. "You know, you'd figure at the end of the universe you could sit back and relax a little?" He grins wryly. "I mean, the worst that can happen just did." This with a wave toward the window.

She laughs, a bit wryly. "I don't know ... the whole end-of-the-universe thing is kind of distant, even if it is happening just outside. But this - this stuff looks serious - I think it's personal. I don't know, but I've been hanging in the rafters for a while, and what I've overheard - I think they're worried about someone."

Akito pokes an egg yolk with a chopstick vaguely.

"Well, that's what I was trying not to think of. That, y'know... bad things can happen even here. It makes sense, but it wasn't what I wanted to be thinking of."

He brushes his hair back and shakes his head. "Anyway. I would be offering to help except they look like they've already planned what they're doing, so... uh. How are you?" he finally meanders around to asking.

"Bad things happen everywhere," Steph says, and there's pain in her eyes. Then it's replaced by amusement. "Um, why are you eating toast with chopsticks?"

He has to agree with that, and he just nods with a slight sigh. Then he stares down at his plate. "Because I was hungry?" That seems inadaquate even to him. "They're what I'm used to using. I guess it's customary to use a fork for toast?"

"For toast? Not even. I guess you could use a knife and fork, if you wanted. I don't know anyone who does, though. That's what hands are for." She grins, and steals a slice for herself.

He grins back and doesn't seem to mind. "Okay." Thus Akito gains a new weapon in his epic saga versus food: His fingers.

"So, decided to drop the mask more or less for good?" he wonders. He's still eating the eggs with chopsticks, which seems to working for him.

"I think so," Steph says. "I'm not sure, but yeah. I talked to someone who pointed out that it's silly keeping a secret identity if you're dead. Which, I mean, most of the Bats, we keep secrets to protect the other Bats, but there's no connections between who I was and who they are anyway, so they're pretty safe." She does have the mask tucked in a belt pouch, though. It's comforting to have it around.

He nods, "I guess there's not a lot of point to it, so far as that goes." There's a few moments of quiet as he thinks about it, "Have you thought any about what comes next? I mean... I can't leave, or I haven't worked out how yet, so a little while ago I asked one of the people who work in the kitchen about a job here."

"Not really. I've mostly just been working out and lurking. I'm good at those." She shrugs. "I guess a job would be a good idea. I can't spend the rest of my l- heh. I can't spend forever brooding about things past. What are you going to do?"

There's a couple of moments where he's stuck thinking about that question. Sure, he asked -her- about it, but didn't really stop to think it over himself.

"I guess there's three things I can do. I can try and get home. I can stay and try to be a cook here, if I get accepted. Or I can stay and... and wait to see if someone I knew shows up here." he finishes.

"You could be a cook while you're trying to get home. I mean, they must be used to that kind of thing, people disappearing at short notice when they find the door home. ... When you say someone I knew..." She looks awkward (the awkward seems unavoidable) and asks "Do you mean your friend, who died?"

Akito tries to hide behind a wedge of toast for a second or two. It isn't working. "I guess you're right." he starts, avoiding that question for now. "I mean, if they can get home... why stay just to work here? Or why not leave and come back?"

Then he sighs and just bites the toast firmly. Chew, swallow. "Yeah. I'm sort of hoping Gai shows up. I mean, nobody else from the Nadesico would, not that I can think of."

She looks sympathetic. "I bet someone will turn up. I mean, I died, so I thought I'd pretty much lost everyone, but the other day one of the guys showed up... and apparently heaps of people I knew come here. He'll show up. In the end. And you're probably even more likely to meet him if you get a job here, 'cause everyone will come sooner or later."

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