Joseph had never been that into videogames.
He had always been more of an outdoor sort of kid. He had never been able to see the appeal of sitting in one spot and hitting buttons all day. There was so much to do and see, so much more than a little black and white screen could provide…well there was color now. There had been color for a while. He just hadn't noticed or cared. As a kid he'd inherited a Gameboy, the grey brick version, and played about ten minutes of Tetris before he got bored. Hockey, ice hockey in the winter and roller hockey in the summer, had seemed much more appealing. He was going to play on the national team. He was going to go to the Olympics. He was going to wind up on a cereal box.
They didn't put spies on cereal boxes.
Especially not unsuccessful ones. Joseph hadn't always wanted to be a spy, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to be one now, but he was what he was and he had to do well. Doing well meant bonuses, promotions, maybe even freedom. Doing poorly meant, at best, only base pay and at worst dying in a hole somewhere while his handlers deleted any and all evidence that he had ever existed. He could not afford to fail this mission, financially or otherwise.
Which meant that he needed to learn a lot more about videogames.
"What game is that?" asked Joseph. He made sure to look friendly, but not too friendly. Open and warm but not more than what was appropriate. He made sure to keep his distance, too. No need to set off the unstable powerhouse in front of him. Serizawa Katsuya. The third most powerful esper that Joseph had ever met in his life. He was right up there with the Suzuki's in terms of raw power but he had none of their skill or finesse.
First generation.
Second generation espers, provided that they were raised by their esper parents, always had better life outcomes. The data may have been biased though as it had been stolen from Claw. There were a few, very few, second generation espers. They tended to have the best outcomes. Normal lives, decent levels of control, fewer instances of mental instability…something to do with upbringing, most likely. Most first generation espers came to the conclusion that they were invincible Gods, even the ones who could do little more than bend spoons or see spirits. Other first generation espers never even realized that they had powers to begin with, writing off the unusual occurrences around them as simply their minds playing tricks. A trick of the light, being too tired, waking dreams….the early stages of insanity. A few even believed that they were monsters.
Or cursed, as was the case of Serizawa Katsuya.
"It's just…just Mario…just the third one again…" said Serizawa. His aura was bright, his shoulders were hunched, and his eyes darted upwards every so often. Defensive. Not good. To get in good, and stay in, with Vice President Suzuki he was going to have to get in good with the inner circle, including this guy. He should have been the easiest nut to crack. He'd read Serizawa's file. Spent fifteen years in his room. Very little social contact. Wanted to rejoin society. He should have been easy pickings.
And he should not have been looking at Joseph like that.
Like he was weary of him. That defensive posture, the way his aura was trying to wrap around him but it couldn't quite settle, none of it was good. He looked like he was getting ready to hide…but he shouldn't have. Joseph knew how to be approachable. He knew how to be everyone's friend, not their best friend but a guy they were at least comfortable with. You couldn't be everybody's best friend, that was suspicious as hell, and he didn't need to be everybody's best friend. He only needed to be Vice President Suzuki's best friend.
That meant getting in good with her other, better, friends.
"I love Mario, I didn't have all of his games but I love him. I don't know if I played the third one, though. Is that the one where he gets his raccoon suit?" asked Joseph. He was, barely, aware of that franchise. He'd been a kid in the nineties, it would have been harder NOT to have absorbed a little bit of Mario knowledge. He needed to learn more, though, enough to keep up a conversation. Shared interests were important. They were the gateways to friendship…and friendship was when the real work began.
"It's an tanuki suit." Said Serizawa
"Oh, right. Sorry, not used to those." Said Joseph
"I know. You're foreign. Miss Suzuki said so. That's why you sound that way." Said Serizawa
"What way?" asked Joseph. He made sure to stay seated just as he'd been. He couldn't 'ruin the atmosphere' as the Japanese were so fond of saying. He'd picked the perfect place to 'hang out'. The lunchroom was a ghost town between meals. Very few people at this time and no windows. It should have been perfect. Serizawa hated being in large crowds, he hated sudden noises, and he hated looking out at the world. This should have been the perfect place, the perfect atmosphere, for really getting to be friends with this guy.
Why was he being so cagey.
The same defensive posture. His body and his aura. His eyes were still darting around the same way. Maybe he wasn't used to Joseph yet. He hadn't been 'friends' with Vice President Suzuki for that long. Or maybe he just didn't like people all together. The only person he ever talked to was Miss Suzuki, in any substantial way, anyway, and even then it was just to either look for reassurance or reassure her…not a lot of real, deep, conversations there. Most of their communication was done through auras…Joseph had never been able to really crack that nut. That silent sort of communication. They hadn't covered that in spy school.
Body language, though, they'd covered extensively.
Cagey. Closed off. Maybe he just didn't like people, or Joseph, or maybe he just didn't feel like talking. Joseph knew how to deal with normal people, and people who where the normal kind of fucked up, but not whatever the hell Serizawa was. A person couldn't be away from the world with only a Gameboy or whatever for company….his body language might have just been all out of whack…or maybe he was onto Joseph and the whole mission was compromised and he was going to rot-
Stay cool.
"You have an accent." Said Serizawa simply. Joseph felt some of the tension leave his body…not good, he was still being watched. Too on edge. Did Serizawa notice? Would he question it?
"Damn, I thought I'd gotten rid of that." Said Joseph, shaking his head. Serizawa looked away from him, back to his Gameboy…two screened Gameboy…DS. Dual screen….about all he knew about the system was that it had two screens…calm down, add it to the list, and keep this thing going. Serizawa didn't have the best attention span, he had noticed. Whenever he and Vice President Suzuki spoke, besides giving each other mutual affirmations that the other was doing well, they jumped from topic to topic with wild abandon.
"Why?" asked Serizawa
"Why what?" asked Joseph
"Why would want to get rid of your accent?" asked Serizawa
"It'd be nice to blend in better." said Joseph. Serizawa stopped moving. He'd said the wrong thing…no, the right thing. Body language got less defensive. Shoulders unhunched. His aura, though, still seemed ready at a moment's notice to cocoon around him. His eyes darted away, too, to the umbrella he carried with him always.
Security object.
"It's always nice to be able to…to blend in…at least I think it is." said Serizawa before he got back to his game.
"Well you'd know better than me." said Joseph. Serizawa looked up. Shock. He looked shocked…and his aura turned into a sixty-watt bulb. Joseph nearly had to shield his eyes.
"I-I would?" asked Serizawa
"Of course, you were born here after all. There's a difference, I think, when you're born in a place versus when you come later. Especially as an adult. There are just so many rules you have to learn, with the language and in life, and it's like as soon as I think that I've got it down, that I've got the book memorized, a whole new volume gets thrown down into my lap." Said Joseph
"…like a bonus stage…" said Serizawa
"Wait, I thought that bonus stages were supposed to be good. You know, like rewards." Said Joseph, leaning forward. He could feign interest with the best of them and right now he was the biggest videogame nerd on the planet. Serizawa was talking, offering up information. This was perfect.
"They are! I mean normally they are. Some of them are kind of…not fun. Like in Sonic, the second Sonic, when they try to do 3D…I mean it was cool when I was little because 3D was new but it's also hard to look at…gives me a headache." Said Serizawa
"I kind of remember that stage, the one where you have to run in the giant tunnel and you have to collect the rings." Said Joseph
"It was more of a cylinder but…but that's one of the bonus stages. I was never good at that one but…but that's ok because, um, other people aren't good at it too…so it's ok. Miss Suzuki said that not all people are good at everything and that's ok." Said Serizawa. He brought the conversation back to Vice President Suzuki…comfort? His aura seemed to look upwards, like it was trying to bond with hers or something, or cling to hers…he really did cling to her, didn't he?
Security object?
"Yeah, she's smart like that." Said Joseph. Agree. Wait for him to keep going. Stick to his favorite subject….subjects.
"She really is! Like there was this one time when we were in our chao garden and we were trying to make the best chao ever but we didn't have enough rings for heart fruits, they're expensive, so Miss Suzuki had this idea where we play in shifts but that wasn't enough because we sleep at the same time, since we have to get up early so then she got the idea to ask Hatori and…well he did a cheat where we got unlimited rings…which wasn't very nice…but we got the best chao ever." Said Serizawa. Joseph made a mental not to add chao to his research list. For now he was just going to smile and nod. Be nice, be friendly. Be a potential friend.
"Yeah, Hatori shouldn't have cheated, but at least your got your…chao." Said Joseph. Serizawa nodded.
"I mean it's good but…he knows that cheating is wrong. When you use cheats its kind of like…like skipping a whole part of the game…and also cheating is wrong. Then everything gets done too fast and…and then that's it." Said Serizawa
"Yeah, Hatori's a little shi-jerk. He can be a little jerk sometimes." Said Joseph. Hatori. Fucking. Nozomu. If he didn't have it on good authority that Hatori wasn't related in any way to the Suzuki family…that guy. That annoying…the thing with the sand had just been…immature. That was the word for it. That guy was the biggest asshole the Joseph had never met. The sand thing, the constant going through and publishing people's search histories, the sheer amount of-
Stay. Cool.
He'd fucked up. He knew he'd fucked up. It was all over. Serizawa was actually friends with that guy, there was enough overlap in their interests, and they were close in age. He had no reason to side with Joseph. Joseph was, at best, a friend of a friend. At worst Joseph was someone who was taking Serizawa's comfort object away. He was a dead man. He knew it.
"Um…Hatori is…sometimes he can be kind of mean but he's very nice if you get to know him. I mean he likes different kinds of games than I do but…but he can be very nice." Said Serizawa. Joseph kept calm. Ok, so he hadn't completely blown it…but he had to tread lightly for now.
"What kinds of games does he like?" asked Joseph. Stick to videogames. Stick to what's safe. Don't let your judgement be clouded.
"Hatori? He likes…well he likes games that I shouldn't talk about and…um…he likes games where you kill people. Shooting games, fighting games, and RPGs too…but not MMOs because he keeps on getting muted and banned from servers…it's not fun to be banned from places." Said Serizawa
"He can get banned from online games?" asked Joseph. If there was a way to keep that guy out then…then whoever brought that information to the government's attention was worth his weight in gold. Claw was a fucking nuisance. That was what had brought them, initially, to the government's attention. Claw loved to fuck with documents. Birth certificates, death certificates, passports, all of it. They weren't very honest with their taxes, either. Murders, kidnappings, arson, industrial espionage…all of it was perfectly fine but when you started messing with taxes then the government had a problem with you.
It had been worse these past few years.
Six years, to be exact. For the past six years Claw had been brazen about it. There had been no way, no legal way, no above water way to prove that it was them. Hatori wasn't a hacker per say, he was a technopath, and they didn't leave a trace. Most of them couldn't do more than make the cable go out when they got pissed off, maybe change a traffic light from red to green. Hatori Nozomu…he was something else entirely.
It was amazing he didn't come from Suzuki's line.
He was the most powerful technopath in recorded history. It was a new power, or an old one, nobody really knew. Claw didn't even know and they had the most date gathered, ever, on espers and their powers. They didn't even understand that guy….and they employed that guy. If he ever thought to act against Claw…maybe that was why Suzuki kept him so close. He was useful and terrifying at the same time….he could have taken over the world on his own if he'd had the inclination…
But there was a way to keep him out. That was what mattered.
"Yes, it happens all the time…but he does this thing where he unbans himself and then he gets rebanned and then he just keeps that up until he gets bored…but I don't know why he wants to go where he's not wanted. The President doesn't know why either so…so it's an ok way to feel. Miss Suzuki thinks that they're wrong for banning him but…but he does kind of yell a lot…and say a lot of bad words to people but…but maybe if he was nicer he wouldn't get banned all the time." Said Serizawa. He looked to the President, too, for guidance it seemed…made sense since he was Vice President Suzuki's father. He also had limits when it came to his friends…good to know. It was always good to know someone's limits, that way you didn't accidentally cross them.
The last thing he wanted to do was cross any kind of line with this guy.
"It is important to be nice, like Vice President Suzuki is always saying." Said Joseph
"Yes. She's smart like that…and she's one of the nicest people that I've ever met in my life." said Serizawa
"Mine too. She's like a drop of sunshine." Said Joseph. He meant it, too, somewhat. She was a nice person…but there was a certain something to her niceness. It was very performative. She did nice things for people but they were always so public…and the way she made sure that the Awakened always knew that anything good in their lives came specifically from her and not her father. It was almost like she was trying to take Claw from him…but that didn't add up with what he'd seen of her so far…but then again he didn't know her intimately enough, not nearly enough, to be able to speak for the inner workings of her mind.
"She is…she kind of is and…and she's a really good friend and…and she's not a loot crate!" said Serizawa
"Um…come again?" asked Joseph. Serizawa was looking right at him now and…and he didn't seem happy. He had even raised his voice…well for him anything above a mutter was raising his voice. Joseph had fucked up…he replayed their conversation in his mind…or maybe he'd done something with his aura…apparently he'd been looking at the Vice President like she was a…he didn't even know…
He didn't need to know what it meant. There were very few ways that being accused of looking at a thirteen year old girl could be taken well.
"I'm sorry! It's just that…you look at her like she's a loot crate or…or if this was a game then a one up block, or a coin block, or maybe…um…you look at her a lot, that's all, and…and she isn't a loot crate." Said Serizawa
"I'm sorry but what's a loot crate?" asked Joseph. Redirect the conversation. Get some clarification. Move on from there.
"Oh! Sorry, it's this thing where you pay money and you get a mystery box every month. Miss Suzuki and I watch unboxing sometimes…and…and I meant that you looked at her like she was a present or something…that's what I meant. Like Shimazaki looked at her." Said Serizawa. Joseph nearly tugged at his collar. That was…not the way he wanted to be seen. Nobody wanted to be seen like that….ok, stay calm.
"But how can he look at her in any way? Isn't he completely blind?" asked Joseph
"He is. He doesn't have eyes, just sockets…and he has to clean them…and sometimes he needs help. I don't really like those times…um…but he can look at people with his aura and…and he looked at her like you do but…but more like she was a present and not a loot crate…there's a difference…and…and I just…worry. Sorry! I didn't mean to be mean to you, it was just on my mind, and Miss Suzuki said that if you have something on your mind then you should always tell your friends otherwise there can be all kinds of misunderstandings and then your best friend stops talking to you." said Serizawa. Joseph let that sit for a second. He had to tread carefully or everything would fall apart…and then he could kiss going home goodbye. His bonus. His life….
"We're friends? I actually thought that you didn't like me all that much." Said Joseph. Serizawa gasped and dropped his Gameboy…DS. He dropped his DS and began to panic…good. Distracting him had worked. Now they could circle back to videogames and he could correct…he didn't even know what he'd been doing….
Not good.
He was going to get bumped back to training. He should have been bumped back to training. What was wrong with him? He knew how to discipline his face. That was one of the first things that he'd been taught. Ok….ok. He had this. Apparently he had been….leering…at her? There was no way in hell he had been leering at her. She was a kid, a teenager, but still a kid…maybe Serizawa just didn't have good social skills….
Or he was the only one who felt like saying something.
"I-I like you! I mean I don't know you but…but of course I can be your friend if you want me to be! I mean I know what it's like to not have any friends…it's really hard…and…and I don't mind you that much! Or at all. Just…just um…the way you look at Miss Suzuki…" said Serizawa
"I didn't mean to give her any kind of look. I just want to be her friend, that's all, and I guess that I had trouble expressing that. It's just kind of hard sometimes." Said Joseph. He made sure to hang his head low. Appeal to empathy. Serizawa had a lot of it, more than most espers. Anyone else would have tried to fight him, not reach across the table and pat him on the back.
Once. Way too hard.
"It's ok, I have trouble with that too sometimes…and I didn't mean to make you upset and…and um…I'm sorry if I upset you. I just worried about Miss Suzuki. She's been very upset lately. She's been through a lot since we had this big fight and now Tsuchiya is trying to take Mukai away and Minegishi stopped talking to her and she misses Shimazaki, too, and Hatori but I think she misses Hatori more…but I didn't ask." Said Serizawa
"Don't worry. You're a good friend but you don't have to worry about me. I'm not…after…her. Not in the way that Shimazaki Ryou is." Said Joseph
"So, you don't like her?" asked Serizawa quietly. That wasn't good. Joseph felt a shift in the atmosphere, both aural and otherwise. He needed to keep control of the conversation. He needed to find the balance between looking like he liked her too much and not at all.
"I like her, she's a nice person." Said Joseph. Serizawa laughed, that nervous laugh he always did, and ducked his head down….oh. Right.
"I don't like her, like her, though." Said Joseph. Of fucking course he didn't. He wasn't Shimazaki Ryou. He was a bastard but he wasn't that kind of bastard. He wasn't…ok, ok, he had to stay calm. He needed to keep calm and…and Serizawa wasn't saying anything against him. If Joseph had to guess he would have put his mental age at about twelve or thirteen…and Claw was a weird place. Sometimes it felt like anything went in Claw…and that wasn't a good thing.
It was amazing that Shimazaki Ryou was still living.
He had slept with Vice President Suzuki. At least that was how the rumor mill had spun it. Apparently Shimazaki had slept with Vice President Suzuki and now he was reassigned away from her…and that was it. President Suzuki had let him live…without any thought to how that would embolden his followers….and his enemies. He could not afford to look like he was going soft. He must have had some kind of plan…or maybe he was just weird alright with this. He did let her drink and smoke, not always cigarettes too. Maybe he was ok with Shimazaki Ryou…
Joseph couldn't even finish the thought.
"That's good. I don't think that she likes you like that and…well it's not like she would tell me, she's a girl and I'm not, but…well she kind of said that she didn't ever want to be in a relationship again because of what had happened with Shimazaki and everything…but also she really wants to have a Shoko, or a Shigeo, so…I don't know and I don't ask her about these things! Sorry!" said Serizawa
"She…is thinking about having kids…seriously?" asked Joseph. This was perfect. This was…he had no idea what his superiors would do with this…but that wasn't something he needed to worry about. She had talked about how much she likes babies but she was a teenage girl, they loved cute things. To actually have had plans…a baby would have been perfect. So far the most vulnerable out of all the Suzuki's was the youngest, but she was always with someone. Taking Hatori out or capturing him wasn't going to happen for the same reason. Sakata Shiori was under protection…a baby would be watched but…but babies couldn't walk or talk…and they cried all the time…
Not his department.
"Yes, she really wants one…but it's also kind of complicated too…but she doesn't like to talk about that stuff. I mean sometimes she does but I don't ask so I don't know and….and um…it's none of my business anyway. She doesn't like it when people talk about her private stuff, she said so, so I don't ask and…um…we mostly play games together. We've been playing a lot of Sonic Advance, but mostly just the Chao garden…um…do you like the Chao garden?" asked Serizawa
"I've actually never played that game, but I might. If you have it then maybe we can play together. That is if you have a second Gameb-if you have a second DS." Said Joseph
"Here…I mean you can just sit next to me. I mean I don't have my other DS…I mean I do but it's not the kind that plays Gameboy Advance games and…um…there's a digital version but all of my best ones are here and…um…..you don't have to sit by me if you don't want to! I mean…I know how I am." Said Serizawa. Joseph stayed calm. He wasn't going to ruin the atmosphere by getting up and cheering. He put his cigarette out. He got up. He sat next to Serizawa.
Calmly.
He was not going to lose it. He had made so much progress…but he had to stay calm. This had been one hell of a rollercoaster. What did people need to go all the way to Universal Studios for? If you wanted to ride a roller coaster then just have a conversation with Serizawa Katsuya. This guy…it had gone well. It had gone more than well. That was what mattered. He had been really killing it lately…he had quite the reward coming to him…and plenty more where that came from. He just had to keep up the good work.
He didn't care if he had to become the world's foremost expert on all things videogames, he wasn't going to fuck this up.