Chapter 15, everybody! Forgot to mention this last chapter, but this week and most of next is a palindrome week—the same backwards as it is forwards. So cool stuff.
I've tried explaining this before that some people, myself included, have only so much interacting juice to use per day, and they need time to themselves to build it back up. It's not exactly something extroverts get, but honestly if a person says they need some time to themselves, barring suspecting the person to be a danger to themselves or others they do need it. Like Gogo with her birdwatching.
In other news there's really no reason for the Mad Jacks to actually show up this time and that's a bummer I like the Mad Jacks they honestly feel like Kim Possible villains and seeing as how the series is made by the same guys who made Kim Possible….In other news doctors are in the habit of just yoinking the appendix out during surgeries where they're fooling around down there, mostly because they don't know what it's for, people do all right without them, and removing them also removes the chance of the person having appendicitis later on. You can live without your tonsils too, although doctors are generally less blasé about yanking those out.
James the apple, thanks for the review! 1) yeah it's a shame, 2) ah thank you—gotta get the fluff in before everything hits the fan. X'D
KeeperOfTheBigHeroQuintessence, thanks for the review! Yes, the snoring. XD And thank you, glad you liked that line—one of my favs too. And Gogo and Obake do seem to vibe—probably because they both wake up and choose violence. XD
Big Hero 6 © 2014 Disney
Discussing this later didn't make things any better, as it turned out, and Tadashi and Baymax's attempts at mediation had Gogo running everyone out of her apartment.
"UGH," she groused as she stomped back in—froze when she spotted Obake. "What are you doing here?"
"I'm going to say I was smart enough to sit out of the way," he told her, sitting crosslegged on what was apparently Honey Lemon's bed with his laptop open. Currently he was trying to hack Krei Tech and having to remind himself that hiring the Mad Jacks again was out of the question, considering he didn't have Big Hero Six to pit them against this time. "As for why I was dragged along on this farce, Hiro is out with a cold and thus Tadashi has diverted all annoying brother instincts to me." And still was not letting him sleep on the couch, both of them stuck in sleeping bags in the living room instead. At least he had the noise-cancelling headphones.
"Ugh I swear I'm going to throw that man through the wall," Gogo said, looking like she was planning on strangling air as she stalked into the kitchen.
"Do tell."
"Look—I get that Honey Lemon needs a place to stay, but that place cannot be here. I mean look at this!" she said, tugging a half-gallon of milk out. "She's put stickers on everything."
"An annoying ball of sunshine."
"Yes."
"Who doesn't understand personal space."
"Exactly."
"And who thinks that if they just work hard enough, they'll change you, despite not understanding that some people don't have an endless supply of interaction juice and need to recharge by themselves."
"Yes. You, you get it," she said, drinking out of the carton. "Maybe we can swap you and Honey Lemon out."
And that would have been tempting five minutes ago before he had watched her drink out of the carton, despite doing the same frequently himself (before Momakase he had basically had the lair all to himself, Globby roomed with some guy named Carl which spared him from dealing with the man too often). And yes he was sure he and her could get along if you totally ignored the prickly issues that came with his current situation, she reminded him very much of Momakase and he had somewhat gotten along with her, mostly because she too had understood the importance of personal space and alone time.
But then he remembered how horribly echoing and terrible being alone with his thoughts were now.
"It is annoying," he said, balling his fists on his laptop. "Dealing with people like Tadashi and Honey Lemon on a regular basis. But…I've also found it's worse when you go back to the silence. Something about it feels wrong, afterwards."
"Now see, you almost had it," Gogo said, sitting at the island and waving off another butterfly. "Tadashi wasn't telling the truth about where you lived before, was he? I figured he was exaggerating."
"Tadashi is an annoying goody-goody who does everything he can to get on my nerves, telling the truth included. When I tell you the silence is worse…during the whole microbot production I was going to being surrounded by you all to being by myself. I still need time on my own and I really do have to steal it at this point…but it's different when you're going back to the silence instead of needing some time to yourself." Huff and flop back against the wall. "I'm sure I could explain it better."
"No, I think you managed," Gogo said, looking pensive. Looked over when the door clicked open and Tadashi asked if it was safe to come in. "Why, did you remember you forgot Obake here?"
"If I tell you I figured you two could commiserate together, am I not allowed back in?" Tadashi asked.
Obake shook his head at her, mouthed don't do it. Gogo sighed, waved him in. "Okay, fine, what does the sunshine brigade want?"
"Okay, not saying that that's not an awesome name, but," Honey Lemon said, pulling a calendar out and putting it on the counter. "We were talking, and I totally get that going to living by yourself to having a roommate is really jarring, so…we can work this out. Like, you can put something on the calendar when you need a day to yourself and I can go do something else, or you can text me and I can stay at the library an extra hour or something. I really want to make this work."
"Communication is important to long-term relationships," Baymax offered.
Gogo sighed, picked up the calendar and looked at it…looked back at Honey Lemon. "You totally intend for me to use stickers to mark this, don't you."
"Stickers are important," Honey Lemon insisted.
"Fine, fine—" Made a face when Honey Lemon hugged her. "But we need to talk about the stickers all over the food."
"That reminds me, I found these other stickers where we can write the dates on them so we know how old the leftovers are."
"Okay those stickers I might tolerate," Gogo said—made a face when Honey Lemon showed them to her. "These have smiley faces all over them."
"Aren't they cute?"
"So we're going to go while you girls discuss sticker rights," Tadashi said, sidling over to Obake. "Come on, Obake."
"Ask me if I need a personal day, Tadashi," Obake said.
"Not in Gogo's personal space, she needs to work up to more than one roommate."
"At least you asked that time," Gogo said.
"I asked before too."
Obake grumbled, slid off the bed because he knew if he didn't he'd be carted out like a sack of potatoes, followed Tadashi out with the healthcare robot trailing behind.
"So," Tadashi said once they were a few blocks away.
"Are we going to talk about you leaving me behind in there?" Obake asked.
"I figured you didn't want to tag along with the sunshine brigade—by the way I'm totally using that from now on."
"It suits you and is appropriately threatening to those of us who can't stand interacting with you."
"So halfway through I figured you were about to admit to being a vampire."
Obake made it a point to look up at the sunny day before giving Tadashi a deadpan glare. "You are aware that you speak nonsense on a regular basis, correct?"
"I'm just saying it explains the nocturnal tendencies."
"Obake: is not a vampire," Baymax said.
"We've talked about your robot scanning me," Obake said. "And really? You've programmed identifying mythical creatures into your healthcare robot?"
"So that might have been during my heavily-caffeinated stage sometime before midterms last year," Tadashi admitted. "Also I'm guessing you and Gogo talked?"
"Were you expecting her not to notice that you left me behind?"
"Did you want to go shopping?"
"No. And yes, we talked. About what, I'm not sharing."
"So I'm right," Tadashi said, grinning smugly as he leaned over Obake, hands stuffed in his pockets. "You do have a heart."
"No I don't."
"Obake does have a: heart," Baymax offered. "Also: lungs, liver, spleen—"
"Thank you, Baymax, we don't actually need confirmation that he's got all his internal organs," Tadashi told him.
"Obake does not, as he is missing his: tonsils, and appendix."
"Please stop your robot from scanning me I did not give permission," Obake told him flatly.
"Yeah sure—gotta ask about that though," Tadashi said.
Tonsils were lost from a complication from removing his wisdom teeth, appendix was just yoinked out while the doctors were trying to stitch him back together after the SFIT explosion, neither one was actually any of his business. "No, you don't."
"You sure?"
"If you must know, our conversation was mostly bellyaching because certain balls of sunshine don't know when to leave well enough alone. We agreed it was annoying."
"I guess that's fair," Tadashi said, leaning back.
"You guess? Not everyone has an unlimited tolerance for interacting with other people. Sometimes we just prefer to be left well enough alone."
"So left to your own devices you'd find yourself a bunker or something and seal yourself in, never to interact with other people."
Okay, Obake was going to have to start asking if Tadashi was a ghost haunting him in the original whatever, because he kept jiving scarily close to accuracy. "Preferably."
"Okay I get that you need your alone time—which preferably you don't spend building battlebots—but you can't just never interact with anyone for the rest of your life. It just isn't done."
"Oh it can be done. In fact, watch me."
"Oh wait this is why you call yourself ghost isn't it? Because it's what you do to people."
"Kill them when they annoy me?"
"Ghost them and make them wonder about you," Tadashi said, arching an eyebrow. "We really gotta talk about the fatalistic humor you've got going on."
"No we don't, actually."
"Yes we do, because normal people don't joke about killing people."
"Gogo does."
"And sometimes I'm not sure if she's joking."
"She offered to swap me out for Honey Lemon, by the way—let you have the other annoying ball of sunshine and we both get more sleep."
"And if I thought you'd agree to get more sleep instead of just…whatever it is you stay up late to do I'd agree to it. Seriously, what is with the weird hours?"
Actually those were his normal hours before whatever this was happened—circadian rhythms were for the weak. "It's the only time annoying teenagers don't notice I'm gone."
"Excuse you I'm twenty years old I graduated from being a teenager a while ago," Tadashi countered.
"And this makes any difference how?"
"It means I don't make questionable teenage decisions anymore like some people."
"Oh so we're discussing Hiro now?"
"No we're still discussing you," Tadashi said, poking him in the side of the head and prompting Obake to bat at him irritably. "And your bad sleep habits, and the fact that if left to your own devices you'd never interact with anyone. Just sit in your room and never come out, and play on your computer."
That last bit sounded like he was quoting something, which Obake felt fortunate in not recognizing. "Is irritating me supposed to make me have a change of heart?"
"Actually the line is I prefer to be called a hacker—haven't you ever watched Jurassic Park?"
"No." Honestly he wasn't in the habit of watching movies, it always felt like he should be doing something else in those two hours.
Tadashi gasped, a hand to his heart in faux drama. "Okay we're going to fix that we're stuck in the living room anyway so we might as well."
Oi. "I had other things I wanted to do, Tadashi."
"Like what?"
Like finishing rebuilding his drone and stopping himself from blowing everything up, although after this frustrating conversation he was tempted to just let it all go blooey. "Other. Things."
"Uh-huh. So the fact that you can't actually tell me tells me that it's probably something illegal and you really need better things to do."
"Oh please."
"Tell you what—you give me the movie night, and I'll give you a day to yourself. Sound like a plan?"
"Does it get you off my back?"
"For a day. Twenty-four hours."
"Then I suppose I'll take it."