Hiyori Tono (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mermaidkin) wrote2020-02-03 01:01 am
mermaidkin) wrote2020-02-03 01:01 am
15S R6 IC Contact
[The greetings on the other end of the phone line by time of day.]
5 AM to 11 AM: Good morning, Stranger!
11 AM to 12 PM: Good day, Stranger!
12 PM to 5 PM: Good afternoon, Stranger!
5 PM to 11 PM: Good evening, Stranger!
11 PM to 5 AM: A little late, isn't it, Stranger?
[And then:] What can I do you for?
5 AM to 11 AM: Good morning, Stranger!
11 AM to 12 PM: Good day, Stranger!
12 PM to 5 PM: Good afternoon, Stranger!
5 PM to 11 PM: Good evening, Stranger!
11 PM to 5 AM: A little late, isn't it, Stranger?
[And then:] What can I do you for?
no subject
[Still, what comes from Jonathan next isn't crazy in that sense either. Hiyori takes a deep breath.]
Whatever. You. Desire.
That's it. That's what my briefing on this was. That's what shakes out with the clearance level.
I'm telling you now since it's so late, in case you want to save your time and talk about something else.
no subject
[He sighs, after that, and the wish he has that this chair would actually creak when he leans back into it is probably obvious. Too much about this place is new for his comfort.]
... you're right, there's other stuff on my mind. Good to know we're literally speaking the same language, the Base had some kind of automatic translation deal going on and I still don't know if I was always heard as saying what I did.
Am I allowed to ask if it was "Rachel" who brought you in to all of this?
no subject
I won't say no translation has ever gone on in this place. But I know you actually listen to me, so, why not, right? ...now I just want to know what Vita Clotilde-Morris hears when you talk. Yes, I meant it that way around...
[Hiyori tilts his head into the new question.]
During this exercise, I'd never prohibit the open and honest discussion of evidence that's already out there. As for whether I'll actually answer your question?
Well, let's start here. If she weren't, you'd still have a lot of questions for her, right?
no subject
[Sarcasm and honey-in-winter Hollywood drawling are a comfortable combination, really. But he doesn't want to wear that joke out, so his voice goes back to normal after obliquely implying "Rachel" is anything but a saintly mourning mother.]
As to Vita... hell. I know she hears me, listens when she can, but... "can", that's the important part. She can't always hear me. If I come up behind her too sudden, if anybody does that - being told to give Akira the benefit of the doubt - there's times where she's just right back there about to die and there's nothing to do but make sure she's safe after she comes back.
[He is helpless against her trauma, and he doesn't know what to do, and that hits on his own. It puts an edge of despair to his voice, and makes him cut himself off, makes him try too late to redirect the conversation.] But that's not really what you asked, is it?
no subject
[Hiyori can't help himself. Jonathan is asking about Rachel and the host is just steering the conversation towards completely personal matters instead despite a professed distaste. That kind of hint, literary in its timing, to chew over, is the least deserved.]
It's not not what I'm interested in. I really do feel quite bad for her. "The new transfer student at Shujin High is a bad person"; this fact is as obvious to her as up not being down or the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. We can obviously imagine other worlds where this isn't the case; Venus is such a planet, for example. But when everything around us still looks so much like Earth...
[He sighs, shrugs, loses his train of thought so clinical.] Of course, even though I want to provide you both support, under the circumstances - who cares? [About what the host thinks.]
no subject
[And it's devoid of sarcasm, too.
He slumps down further in the chair, sliding down until he's almost slithered out of it. Again, the damn thing doesn't even creak, but this time there was probably an audible rustling as he moved.]
There's just so much I don't know. I don't know what's really safe to ask, I don't know what happened to you, I don't know if we really made the right choice sticking with everybody on the plane - I mean, I think we did, they needed all the survival-trained people they could get given where we "landed" - I don't even know what I really wanted from this talk.
["You're probably the smartest guy here" he'd said, so shortly after they'd met. "Help me, I'm no good at this kind of thing" was what he'd meant.
It's like that, again. He can't say what he means. There's even more reasons now that he can't than there were on that plane; the way he'd felt with a blade aimed at his face maybe not the first but definitely one of the most distracting among them. He doesn't know anymore if it's his own trust or something this place has put in his head that has him asking for help without being able to ask Hiyori outright, again. It's exhausting.]
no subject
[The host just wants to help and isn't even thinking of anything else. That purity of intention is saturated to the point of tainted by the grammar suggesting this voice is not his to solely own. His words themselves are clear as crystal, even though in the silence there's snow in the distance on the phone line.]
Vita Clotilde-Morris said you didn't like it when you woke up and she couldn't be seen by you. [Similar neuroses wracked him at the base; Hiyori elects not to bring up the even wider extent of his knowledge at this time.] You've realized you can't be sure what's happening to me, so it's the same thing, right? You know, I wouldn't mind if you checked in every evening! Nobody else ever called all day. You're the only one who would rather talk to us than Link, I think. So I'll have time.
...though if you do it enough I'll have to talk about the corporation sooner or later... [He sighs. He doesn't want to dwell on what sounds like a depressing thing!!] I wish you could understand what a wonderful opportunity I've received. Not to mention getting away from Yurick - powers regained - as soon as possible. But at least you can tell that this is me. I sow confusion to keep things truly classified and all, but you're the only one I can't abide not having completely sure that it's me. My point is... Even if your wife remains utterly impossible to convince, if she at least felt less completely at odds with the world I'd still be so pleased...
no subject
[He grimaces at the sheer Southernness of his own voice - this time, it definitely wasn't intentional - and while Hiyori (probably) can't see it, he can definitely hear the frustrated little noise Jonathan makes with the face.]
Just wish you two could get along. You're right, by the way. I do worry because I don't understand what's been done to you.
[Admitting it feels like burying himself in a grave he just happened upon; the choppy stiff rhythm of his speech, trying to resist the tempo set by this world, sounds like dirt hitting a coffin-lid heard from the inside.]
So, ah. Yeah, if you're sure you're okay with it. I'd like to call.
[Link is blandly placid in a way he didn't seem to be when they last met. Hiyori is very like himself, still, even when pronouns keep slipping into plural and he calls people by their full names no matter what. To people who hadn't met them, maybe the former would seem easier to handle than the latter, but for Jonathan the choice is clear. He'd rather think it's possible to maintain some kind of self, in case the worst happens, and talking to Link makes him start to doubt that. Hiyori seems far less... diluted by combination, in comparison.]
no subject
[He's asking these questions like Vita is using magic to do make-up but not fix her hair: Guileless confusion.]
You're the kind of person who wants to pick up targets and calls. That earns you admiration. It's very simple. You shouldn't... want to be hated more, okay?
[But it sounds like this kind of abstract concept is something very difficult to wrap his mind around. What Jonathan wants is to understand what's been done to Hiyori, which for the person in question is like looking at the sun instead of basking in its rays. What happened to him having so much to say? So many plans? What were some of the words he was using before?] No, literally double, haha. [Even the powers can serve as unpleasant reminders that aren't needed with so little additional information, when every inch of architecture screams the name of their new home. Hiyori decides to focus on a happy thing and end on a high note!]
Anyway, that's when I'll hear from you again then! Good night!