voidtreckerexpress | [Closed] He isn't too old to sulk

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[Closed] He isn't too old to sulk

Who: Senku and Gen, and Senku and Tidus.
Where: The quiet carriage, the kitchen
When: Horseshoe 17
What: After what can only be described as a diastrous bit of social interaction, Senku is not only in a terrible mood but he's isolating himself. At least, that's the plan.
Warnings: Tentatively, nothing.

[For Gen]

The first thing Senku did when he walked away, was look for somewhere private, which led him to the quiet car cubicle. He shut himself inside, flopped on the bench and did, what could only be described as sulking. He hated that. He'd much rather throw himself into a project.

He didn't have some back-breaking physical labour on hand though, he was on the train and it was much better to ignore his feelings with something to do. Feelings didn't matter, he told himself. They didn't accomplish anything.

Eventually he pulled out a pen out of boredom and looked at the ceiling. He reached up on the wall of the cubicle and tested the waters with a pen he pulled out of the arms band. It wrote okay, but it wasn't very clear. He needed a distraction.

He could be spotted briefly walking over to the art supplies and heading back with a couple of black markers in hand towards the quiet carriage.

[For Tidus.]

When he was finished with his redecorating, or vandalism project likely due to someone's perception, he'd moved onto doing something else to distract him.

Senku was back into the art supplies, at least, he had one of the sketchbooks on a table and in his hands a ruler and a pencil from his open, orange pencil case.

He didn't just draw for fun, nothing cute here, but instead he was drawing up blueprints for a fictional space station. He was working on the basic form, and if he still needed a distraction later, he might continue on to make separate inside spaces.

Technical drawing was different in that he wasn't doing very much freehand, not since he had a ruler. He could but why make it inaccurate? He started with the biggest shape that looked like a nonagon, but he also drew a miniature version up in the corner of the page that had more faded lines within it, he was intending it to be a dodecahedron.

The only indication that Tidus might get that he was still in a mood is that when he glanced up to see who was in his space is that he didn't stop working, his eyes went back down to the page as he divided his space station into sections with two vertical lines.

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Gen didn't exactly have a sixth sense about when Senku was in a bad mood. It'd be useful, of course - he'd be braced for a large project in the village or onboard the Perseus if he knew Senku needed to get something worked out of his system.

But he was his closest friend and there's just not that many places to look on a train if he wanted to hang out with him. Gen recognized a particular non-expression on Senku's face as he walked with his markers toward the quiet cars, and.

Whose beds did he need to short-sheet? Gen was technically a pacifist but he could and would make someone's life hell.

He followed Senku into the quiet car without a word, slipping inside if he wasn't stopped with a cheeky little smile.

Edited 2020-10-07 20:54 (UTC)

Senku did look particularly driven and considering there wasn't a reason for it, that was a pretty good tell that he was upset about something.

He'd made it back to that quiet car cubicle, the middle of the set on the second floor and looked up at the top of it, considering.

The fact he heard the door open and close before he could lock it, he didn't even have to look away from what he was doing. Who else would have the audacity to follow him into a private space?

Gen would have to wait a moment before he finally glanced back, project mapped in his head and climbed up to stand on the bench. "Lock that."

And, likewise. Gen didn't even ask why - he just turned to lock the door, just as Senku asked. Whatever was bothering him - he wanted to keep others out, but at least Gen was allowed in.

He approached his friend, and would swipe a marker from him given half a chance. Cornering Senku too quickly never ended well. He needed to be eased into it. Like approaching a distrustful cat. He tapped his lips with his stolen marker. "What are we doing today?"

Naturally, the marker Gen swiped from him was the one in his hand with the cap already off that he was holding to use himself.

Senku sighed slightly but just uncapped the next one before sticking the last in his pocket.

"Drawing constellations." A beat. "I got bored."

Bored. Right. He'd wait until a little while before asking, Gen thought. His grin was a little sly, not giving away his suspicions on the truth of Senku's motivations.

"I know quite a few," Gen told him, eyes twinkling. "Capricorn, Scorpio, Libra, Leo, Taurus, Cancer ..."

He was teasing, though wondered if Senku would pick up on the underlying similarity.

He picked it up, of course he did. "Know of them, or do you actually know what they look like, hack Mentalist?" Senku snorted slightly, but it was mild amusement.

He knew he was being baited, but it was just as easy to fall into it. "And if you only know twelve constellations, you clearly haven't been listening to me."

He began in a random seeming spot with Andromeda.

"You wound me, my dear, of course I listen to you!" Gen grinned at him, at least he got a kind of smile out of his friend, despite whatever was bothering him.

He hummed as he looked at the ceiling above them, and went to climb up on a chair. "Where do you want me to draw Cassiopeia?"

Gen would've been able to make a better guess if Senku was more than two dots into his constellation.

"Come closer to me, I'm going in this direction for Perseus." Senku gestured with the back of his marker, before getting back to it.

He leaned over a little bit after taking stock and tapped. "Start here. Just keep in mind Andromeda leads into Pegasus."

"Feeling a little nostalgic?" Gen gently teased, with their ship's namesake mentioned.

He went exactly where Senku had indicated. Gen's skills weren't anything like Yuzuriha's, but he could draw a little, and constellations were pretty easy if you could remember them.

And he and Senku used to only spend their nights looking at them, more or less. By the village. On the ship. And now on missions, hopefully they'd be able to do that every time.

"I'll remind you I did not name the constellations." He looked amused by that. It was a denial that wasn't a denial all the same.

"It would've been quite a feat, to name a constellation after our ship centuries before it was even built!" Gen giggled a little.

They're pretty close together, and Gen doesn't think anything when their arms brushed as they worked. He trusted Senku to tell him to back off, if he needed to. He never had been shy about that, before. He started to hum a little.

"I'm wishing we had fluorescent or glow-in-the-dark markers," Gen said wistfully.

"We're talking millennia even." Senku corrected, because he couldn't help himself and let them lapse into quiet. He didn't mind Gen's humming, he was used to it.

"Do they even have such a thing?"

"Right, right, right. Somehow, I know, and yet I always forget," Gen mused. A little sad, deep down, because he knew that Senku had been aware that entire time, whereas he was only aware for about ten, maybe fifteen minutes. He always worried what that did to him. But he didn't show it.

Gen smiled happily. "They used to! I don't know how glow in the dark paint or anything is made, I admit, but I remember it being in many craft aisles. I'd save up enough to get some so I could decorate the sets I built, when I was little."

"I meant on the train." He let out a thoughtful him as he followed his stars into Pegasus.

"It's a mixture of strontium nitrate, aluminum nitrate, europium nitrate and dysprosium nitrate." Senku explained, because when it came to chemistry, of course he knew.

"How do you think we get all of those nitrates though?" He asked, holding up a finger and offering a smirk at Gen, not unlike when he asked him how they discovered the Sagara oil fields.

Of course, Gen had been hoping to get an explanation out of Senku. Help get him on better mental footing, after whatever had him retreating into here. The more he could coax him into a slightly more normal routine ... the better he might be able to get out of him what bothered him so in the first place.

"Hmmm," Gen looked thoughtful, smile playing at his lips, and then shrugged cluelessly, "I don't know, Sanku-chan, I'm only a hack mentalist. It's not as if I'd be able to figure out nitric acid would be able to produce those nitrates, hmm?"

"Ten billion points to you, Mentalist." He complimented with a snicker. "Although Taiju could've figured that out so if you didn't, I would've been a little disappointed." He teased slightly.

Not really, but he still would've explained it like it was a compulsion to do so.

He did look a lot more relaxed through the project and the discussion, even sliding back into science facts where he was the most comfortable.

"Yes, I think I should be able to catch on a little faster than Taiju, my dear," Gen noted wryly. "Your friend comes from a good place, but his head is thicker than the plating on a nuclear reactor."

He said it in pretty good humor, though. It's hard not to like Taiju, once you're facing the full brunt of his personality. Simple, sure, but earnest.

"Don't I know it." Senku hummed. He appreciated his childhood best friend, he trusted him with his life and everything else, but bless him, he was not a smart guy.

That was alright, he had other skills, and he did have the kind of personality that people liked, unlike Senku, who did not. His humour wavered a little bit at that thought, as he connected the dots on Pegasus.

Gen saw the subtle shift, though. Most people probably wouldn't pick up on it. Most people - even those who were his friends - didn't know Senku. But the two of them had been working very closely together over the last couple of years.

He tilted his head a little. Gentle, knowing, like they're looking at real stars in the observatory, "We're not locked in this quiet car because you're bored, Senku-chan."

"No." Senku agreed, with that done and moving on to Perseus itself.

"We're putting constellations on the walls and ceiling because I got bored." He clarified.

He'd been locked in the quiet car before that, but with nothing to do, he couldn't stand it all that long. It was too much like sitting still, unable to move. That was not the case though, so he'd given himself a project.

"You were locked up in here before then," Gen thought aloud, thinking of Senku and what he was apt to do when irritated or upset, which he would only admit to under a process akin to pulling teeth.

Whelp. Time to put his dental smock on.

They were relaxing and having a pretty good time, before Taiju came up. A reminder of home? Someone saying something stupid like he used to, acting familiar? Or someone acting unlike Taiju - dumb, and their heart wasn't in the right place? ... Speculating was pretty useless.

"Someone said something dumb, not unlike what Taiju does," Gen guessed, based on the available evidence, "except, since they don't know you nearly as well, they acted dumber in a different way."

He initially shrugged at the accusation, not denying that he had been shut up in the quiet cubicle on his own.

"No, nothing like Taiju." He shook his head.

"I screwed something up, as usual." Senku responded. "I'll let you handle the social interactions."

He didn't normally just give up though, he tended to persevere, but what happened was pretty disastrous, even for him. Inigo had been so upset and he didn't understand. It didn't help that he didn't understand, and he could do nothing to help. No, if anything, he'd caused the problem. They just didn't see eye to eye at the moment.

Maybe, Senku had thought, they wouldn't.

"You don't screw up as often as you're making it sound," Gen said lightly, but he's more worried now, than he had been before.

Senku sometimes didn't get when he said something awkward. He was direct, blunt, and social nuance bored him. But he cared about how people saw him. Sure, he did that thing that all boys in their culture did and pretended he didn't care - Senku might not call that a macho thing but it kind of was. But that's why he did things for the village, for the children, for the people on this train.

He cared about other people, and wanted to make a good impression, and Gen knew he'd sooner to get Senku to admit he liked astrology than he was concerned about how other people's opinions.

"What happened?" Gen asked again, softly. He was looking at the drawing they'd made so far, instead of staring at Senku, if that helped.

"Nothing." Senku answered first.

The problem with Gen was that he knew him too well. They spent too much time together for them not to be able to read each other and while someone else might accept that answer, Gen would not.

A quick glance at his friend told him from his expression that that answer was not going to be acceptable.

He stepped aside, putting a bit of space between them, not because he needed it but because he needed to stand up on tip to to start on the next constellation, Triangulum, but he'd left the stars unlinked for Gen to finish, a quiet invitation to move with him, if he wanted.

"I...don't know. Something I did made Inigo upset. I can't stop upsetting him. It's because I'm...me." He sighed. That didn't explain much.

Gen did, decidedly, give Senku A Look when he claimed it was 'nothing'. They'd had a lot of time to get to understand the weight and difference between the different ways Senku might say that word. Flippant. Bored. Sarcastic. Honest. Or, in this case, a clear lie.

He didn't hold it against Senku, though. He stepped up beside his friend and went to delicately connect the dots using fainter lines, letting the stars be clearly defined.

"Being you made him upset?" Gen repeated the statement, making it a question. He glanced over at his friend, and wondered. "Is this related to when he took you disliking sappy things personally?"

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