un: thief | video

[mitsubishis]

[A shitty-looking teenager appears on-screen, wearing sunglasses despite the obvious lack of sun in his cabin, dressed in a white tracksuit rather than the standard-issue uniform, smoking a cigarette like he's not even on a space station with maybe limited oxygen supply. He gestures at the camera as if he's already mid-conversation with the audience, amicable and Balkan, just like his accent:]

You miss some shit from back home, right? Whatever you had before whoever-the-fuck ripped it off you. Or, like, maybe some shit you didn't even have before, but you want it now, anyway. What I'm saying is: What're you missing? If your genie or your fairy godmother or whatever came around, what would you ask for?

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@skull

[ryuji]

[Immediately takes note of a few things going on here- how he has things that he shouldn't, and the username that he's toting- thief. Huh.]

What's with the tacky ass jumpsuit?

And hey, do you think it's dangerous to be smokin in here? Like... no goddamn clue how air filtration works in here, but I can't imagine it's good for anyone to be rebreathing that stuff in

[mitsubishis]

do you have something against nike activewear

don't worry man i can get you some pampers pullups

are you gonna go tell mommy

[ryuji]

Not really, I'm just more of an adidas guy myself

Shit, man, 20 seconds of texting me and you're already calling me baby

Get to know a dude first

I mean, do whatever you wanna, I'm not about to get close with anyone in a position of authority here anyway. But if the place blows up cause of your dumb ass, I'm gonna haunt you for all eternity

[mitsubishis]

you came at me crying like what was i supposed to think

if this place blows up cuz of 1 ciggy i'll be laughing for all eternity

that would be some funny shit

[ryuji]

Can't laugh if you're dead, dude

Although it would kinda be messed up

Anyway

How the hell did you get nike shit up here to begin with? It's a goddamn tragedy what they're forcin' us to wear

[mitsubishis]

i went shopping

you missing your adidas huh

[ryuji]

Is there like a skymall service up here or something? I thought they turned that shit off at 30,000 feet

Yeah, I mean... I honestly just miss wearin' my regular threads.

Probably TMI but the tightness down there is really startin to ride up, yknow?

[mitsubishis]

big boy huh

come by and let me take a look

maybe i can find something that fits you

[ryuji]

Yeah pretty much. I have to keep a needle and thread on me at all times just in case I bust out.

[Deadpanning, of course.]

Oh shit

Man if you're serious about this stuff

[mitsubishis]

why the fuck would i say it if i wasn't serious

[ryuji]

I don't know you that well, you could just be messing with me?

Alright, cool. Where's your place?

[mitsubishis]

deck 6 room 6

[ryuji]

[Okay, so, he doesn't really know what's in store for him out of any part of this conversation, but he had been watching Akechi's discussion through the network, and he was kind of intrigued at what the hell he was capable of doing. And being the idiot who rushes into things to test, rather than study things from afar and gain intel as to what the nature of shit really is, he finds himself wandering to the 6th deck.

Knocks on his door, because really, what's the worst that can happen? A dream thief and a thief of hearts- two wildly different, yet incredibly similar circumstances that could make for some really fucked up collisions of cognition.

At least he'll have his adidas shoes to run around the station with.]

Yo? Ryuji here. Uh... 'Skull' on the network.

[mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky slides the door open to greet Ryuji with a smile, waving him on in. His room is somehow a mess already, the floor scattered with objects both found and dreamt. More than one fashionable outfit has been acquired, already worn, and left rumpled on the ground. His bed is scattered with several open packages of candy and cigarettes. His gun is nowhere in sight now. (Neither is his drug stash.)

Sitting back down on the bed, Kavinsky picks up a twizzler and gestures with it like a wand.]

Make yourself at home.

[ryuji]

[Look at this wizard, just conjuring shit up with twizzlers.

He gives a perfunctory glance around the room- it's all he needs to see to know that none of this looks or feels natural, but doesn't question it outright. If anything, he's slightly disappointed in how messy everything is. That's what you get when you grow up poor as shit- taking care of everything neatly, and not letting clothes sit on the floor like that.

Still, he smirks at the sight of everything. It's like walking into an oasis after the world's given him a giant fucking hit of dry mouth.]

Huh. This is kinda messed up. But cool. Hey, throw me one of those, will ya? As long as it ain't made outta protein gloop that's scraped out of a dinosaur's bunghole.

[And takes a seat, after moving some of the replicated fakes scattered near the desk area.]

That's one helluva shopping trip you made.

[mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky passes along another twizzler. He's got plenty.]

I'm on an all-sugar diet now. I can't eat that other shit they're serving up. I puked like three times on the first day and I was like nah, fuck this.

[ryuji]

[He grabs onto it like it's the holy grail itself. One giant chomp and it's already halfway gone, but it's like pure cocaine rushing through his system.

Ryuji tries not to cry.

He's a big boy.]

I flushed a burrito out into space. I guess you could call it a burrito. Someone, thousands of years from now is gonna find that shit, reheat it, and puke. The world's oldest frozen dinner.

[mitsubishis]

[Kavinsky does not miss Ryuji's worship of the twizzler. He passes along a couple more without being asked.]

Nothing rots in space, you know. That burrito's gonna outlive both of us while we're in here getting starved to death by aliens.

[ryuji]

[He lets one of the red licorice strings just dangle from his mouth as he thinks about that for a second. Kind of fucked up, actually. And kind of sad, in a way.

He plucks it out, and gladly accepts a few more. What a nice guy.]

Y'know... if you think about what you've left behind in life and all you got to show for it was that floating through a vacuum.

Like the last footprint of your existence as you kinda just... die out here with no one to give a shit.

[He finishes the piece, now, eyes wandering around the room and eventually landing on Kavinsky again.]

I kinda thought it'd be more than that.

[mitsubishis]

[Something sharpens about Kavinsky's gaze. He is keenly interested now. Not in the existential musings themselves - he arrived at his own conclusions long ago - but at the process that's apparently taking place right in front of him. Here is one innocent youth before him, at last confronted with his own meaninglessness. It's more delicious than the licorice.]

Why?

[ryuji]

Everyone wants to be someone more than they really are.

[Ryuji shrugs. At some point in his life, he wanted to be famous. Either through track or... other... more nefarious things, but in the end, none of that really mattered. He left his home world right before the brink of its own implosion.]

Or at least not be boring. Run off to college, become a salaryman, raise a few kids. [God, if he ever wound up like his father- an abusive drunk- he'd never forgive himself.]

Eh, it's no big deal. Hey, we're in space now, so something musta went way off the goddamn track, right?

[mitsubishis]

[If Kavinsky were a kinder person more inclined to utilize empathy, he might point out that having an adventure in space makes them considerably more than most of their peers back home. But Kavinsky is not such a person. He laughs - a single cutting sound - and tears off a chunk of twizzler with his teeth. His words are slurred as he chews:]

It's all the same, man. Earth's the same thing - just a hunk of junk floating through a vacuum - and then you die and nobody gives a shit.

[ryuji]

[Ryuji's mouth opens to refute that- that he has friends here on the station that would be really fucked up if he bit the dust, and a mom at home that'd cry herself to sleep every night if that happened. But beyond that, he's not that far from the truth. Eventually, even those feelings would have to fade away. It's only been a month since Akechi's first death (and revival), and already, all that fuming anger had resided considerably.]

Eh. Might as well make vacuum time worth it then. At least if you're happy in life you don't go out with regrets.

[mitsubishis]

Yeah, yeah, yeah! That's what I'm always saying, baby. Live your fucking truth. Follow your fucking joy. All that cross-stitch embroidered pillow shit. All for one and all for one.

[Hedonism is probably not what Ryuji was getting at, but it's what Kavinsky takes from the conversation.]

[ryuji]

[He sits there, kind of staring at Kavinsky, eyebrows furrowed and lips slightly parted like... w...hat?]

O...kay.

[He makes a mental note to somehow find a way to draw him some inspirational posters. The ones that have positive words on them with a picture of something triumphing. That'll be a defining decoration to this otherwise totally fucking drab room.]

And how do you suggest goin' about that, anyway?