[ she arrives by cab because, look, there might be drinking later, she doesn't know, she wants to be prepared. tadashi is an easy figure to spot, between "is stupid-tall" and "hasn't aged since she last saw him, a relative two-ish years ago."
ruka, on the other hand... well, there's no mistaking that hair-and-eye-patch combo for literally anyone else, but the passage of time has made its mark, too. the hairstyle is different, cute, and less of a forest to hide behind; gloves remain, and her propensity for shorts-too-short for the weather, but it's white sneakers instead of her usual heeled boots. A small backpack, a light jacket — it's fashionable (not that tadashi likely has any knowledgeable eye for that), but it's a lot more functional than she usually dresses.
it is the end of the world, after all.
there's difference in her posture, too, and in her face — a less tense, less thin, less sallow. all in all... An Improvement.
even her expression is warm, smile edging into her cheek on the one side. ]
[Much fewer waterworks. Tadashi may not have an eye for fashion, but he at least knows when not to comment on how much better someone looks compared to the last time you saw them. He smiles at her, giving a wave and shoving his comm back in his pocket.]
Hey. I guess long time no see is an understatement, huh?
[Don't mind his burn scars, Ruka. Otherwise he's unchanged.]
[ She sees them, of course, and her gaze flicks from the damage to the look on his face — but there's no real look of confusion to her expression. No question, no anxious demand for information.
It's new, and he is her friend, but Ruka had known the shape of Tadashi's fate since before they met. She knows what it means. She knows, too, the ordeal of others picking over your hurts, your surface traumas, and the agony of all else being ignored.
Her thumbs hook into her belt loops. ]
Relatively speaking. At least some of our lost time overlapped.
Yeah? Come on, don't tell me you missed me or anything.
[ It's a teasing tone, a little more joking than Tadashi is used to hearing from her. It's a useless question, after all; someone who leaves but does not go has no heart to be missing anybody, and even if Ruka left twice-over while Tadashi was around before, they weren't exactly close. That was more her own doing, her own failings than any fault of his, of course — Ruka hardly wanted to be known back then, forget like, forget cared about.
She was pitiable, and he was always too kind for his own good, and she was too selfish for anyone's good. And, so, friends, in a way, but it's hard to imagine anyone actually missing her.
Ruka orders her drink — something strong, and fussy, and not too sweet; once Tadashi picks what he wants, she'll lead them to one of the wall-pressed tables, taking the chair that will leave the cafe visible on her good side. A tendency as natural as breathing. ]
It takes time to adjust, [ she says, easing her chair forward, letting her arms cross and rest along the edge of the table, ] so... it'll probably feel overwhelming, for longer than you'd like.
[Why would Tadashi not miss one of his friends? Sure, Ruka was more withdrawn and a little reclused, but that didn't change who she was or his friendship with her. But he sits with his drink and lets it cool for a bit.]
Probably. It was overwhelming the first time, and then the... directly after time. So maybe it won't be so bad.
[He's smiling and he genuinely means that. He likes to think he knew Ruka.... okay-ish before everything. It's enough that he can see the difference. He sips his coffee and sighs relaxed.]
[ It's not a bad thing he says, but there's something strange about hearing it. Ruka knows that things are different, and have been for a while — it crops every time she has to talk about people she knew, or people she lost, and the way things happened. Of course she was treated the way she was; with the kind of person she was, it was what she deserved.
When he says it like that, though, it makes her feel seen in a way she isn't expecting — because if he can see the change now, then it means he was able to see what she was like, back then (even if, to him, it was only however-many relative months ago that she vanished). It hadn't felt like anyone could see her, back then.
Maybe her own vision was a lot cloudier than she thought.
She says nothing to this, though; she watches Tadashi with an open sense of not-quite surprise, not-quite confusion, before eventually settling on a simple sort of realization, a little hm sound that she chases with a sip of her own coffee. It's strange, being remembered in a way that matters. ]
Um, they had me in a couple places. I was in De Chima before I moved to Jeopardy, last year, after it appeared. But with... everything that happened, and... is happening, I guess, it wasn't a good idea for me to stay there, so I'm back in Heropa.
[ Does he know? Does he not know? (Did he just forget to say, or was there a reason to skip it? She would have thought...) ]
[She says she's crashing at Jaime's lace, and Tadashi's whole face seems to light up. He's relieved, they both have someone close that understand all this shit about coming and going.]
I'm really glad. [His friends being friends!!! It makes him happy.]
But come to think of it, when did Jeopardy come up? It definitely wasn't around when I was before.
[ Relief is a little strange; who is that for? For her, maybe? She knows Tadashi and Jaime were closer than Tadashi and her had been, but he'd been worried about her too much back then; she can hardly imagine anyone on the outside looking at her and thinking that Jaime was the one being helped.
She's probably overthinking it. ]
Yeah, it was after I got back. Last year. Halloween, I think? It's hard to check, since the world history got rewritten with it. As far as the people born in this world are concerned, it's always been there. [ Her nose scrunches. ] Something like that happened back in the City, too, when I was a kid. Same kind of thing.
Weird. [Even if she says there's a precedent from that previous... place, it's still weird. An entire world's history rewritten with its appearance...
Maybe there was a chance--
His head jerks with a not-quite-full shake of his head. He has to stop that thought in its tracks. He'd been down that road with his brother and everyone once already. It's over, they failed. Tadashi knows Ruka can likely feel his frustration, but he tries to hide it behind his mug all the same as he takes another sip.]
[ It's a feeling that skims past her, like a cold fog, or like a strange muck of algae in dark water—something unpleasant, irritable, but pushed away without much thought. If Tadashi looks up, he'll see the question of it in her face, a light furrowing of her brow and a more intent stare, but the moment he provides a topic, her expression clears, the moment passed. ]
Jeez. I don't know... it's a lot of the usual chaos, you know? Things go boom, we try to fix things, we recoup. And with all this... the rest, it kinda pales in comparison.
[ It's been a hard few years for everyone, but it's a miserable time, recounting disaster after disaster. A person sticks around long enough and they go through enough of their own, and what's there to say but oh, that sucks, I'm sorry? She thinks, rolling back the months, the years, and— ]
Oh... yeah. There is something you should know. About Jaime.
[He's not surprised by that at all. Whatever the Porter does, whoever it brings, this place does tend to attract a lot of destruction just as much as it brings people who want to fix it.
It's... [ How to phrase it... ] ... it's alright now, of course, but... something pretty rough did happen, last year. But, it's the kind of thing Jaime would want to tell you about himself, you know? It might just... take him a minute, to work up the nerve.
[ She says it with a patience meant to defuser — it's nothing dire, and nothing exceeding tragic, in the end. It's just... something that happened. Her shoulders shrug a little. ]
But, if you try digging back through the Network, you might see it yourself, and... I don't think that's how either of you would want it to happen. It's, I mean, it is okay now. He's... doing a lot better.
[Something about the way Ruka is explaining this and wording it has Tadashi worried. Jaime had seemed fine when he found him in the maze - overwhelmed and confused to see him, sure, but fine. So what happened?
Normally he'd take the hint and talk to Jaime himself about it.
Normally he's not already dead with only two people who remember he existed.]
I'll keep it in mind. [When he was going through the network to find out how long he'd been gone, there'd been a sort of blip he scrolled past, chalked up to something triggering a memory of a dream he'd had. Maybe, maybe...]
Yeah. It was last year, so it's not really a big deal anymore, but... Sometimes you want the chance to tell your own story, right?
... You're the same way, I think. Just because other people know something about you, it doesn't mean you want them to tell people for you.
[ She picks up her mug, swirling the coffee a little for pause; she doesn't look at him as she mulls over there rest, but her voice has the same sort of soft, comforting tone as before. ]
You can tell him I told you that much, if you want to open the door for him. I think it'll be good for both of you.
[ Tadashi knew Ruka, when she was here before. She hadn't been gone that long before he left, and she hadn't been absent for a terrible gap before that. They may not have been close, but they talked a lot, and Hiro certainly held her in some regard. She's always been a perceptive sort; she's always been able to figure out more than what was told, and for all her abrasions and distances back then, it didn't hide how much she cared about people. How much she's wanted to help, in her own way.
There's no guile to her now, no evasive coldness. Tadashi has likely never heard her speak with this clarity of care before. ]
[She's right about that. Tadashi had been, not insulted, but felt violated when he found out people knew his fate before he even got here. And that wasn't anyone's fault. He just had to deal with it and move on.
He's already been half-reaching for his phone so he could talk with her and use his power to find that post again. But her saying that catches him and he'll... wait. He'll see if it's even something Jaime wants to revisit to tell him. If he doesn't, then that's that. He'll leave it alone.
He wasn't wrong though: Ruka has changed. For the better, he thinks. He's glad for it.]
[Tadashi's voice is small when he finally speaks again in response to that:] ....I didn't mean to leave.
[ And that's the tragedy of it, isn't it? Some people, like Tadashi, are brought to this world when they have no future anywhere else. Some, like Ruka, like Jaime, they stay too long, and change too much, that whatever "future" their original worlds hold isn't theirs anymore. It belongs to someone else — some other version of them that doesn't know these pains, these losses. There are other people, too, in similar circumstances — people that find new callings, new reasons to live, who ... find the people they fit with. The ones that, somehow, seem like they were always supposed to belong together.
And nobody gets to choose who stays, or who goes. Nobody decides who gets to come back, or when. Nobody remains forever.
Every existence is fragile. The world itself is a wounded, delicate place, even now on the verge of destruction — but from one night to morning, anyone's whole world could end, if someone leaves.
Under the table, Ruka bumps the toe of her shoe against Tadashi's, an unseen call for attention. ]
It's rare, to come back. To remember. To... have even one person left, who missed us.
[ For Tadashi, it's Jaime. For Ruka, it had been Mitchell Hundred, of all people, and the loss is still strange in a way she can't quantify. There are others who have come back, too, to only one friend, to two. Some, who come back to no one at all. By nature, the story of any one imPort is a tragedy. ]
... It's hard to lose that much time, and so many people. Even some of the lucky ones can't recover from that. ... But... I wonder, sometimes... if we're brought forward like this, because... the things we need, or that we're needed for, just don't exist yet... and we wouldn't be able to endure the wait.
[He knows he's lucky in that regard. When he found himself here, at the military facility, he had expected either no time to have passed at all and everyone was here, or for too much time and no one to know him. He was pleasantly surprised - relieved - when he saw Jaime and Ruka's names. Relieved to see Nico's name too, but he knows how the boy doesn't remember him from before.
He sips his coffee in turn, shifting his foot at the touch. A welcome moment of familiarity bringing him out of his thoughts (and new for Ruka too, he has to stop comparing her to the way he knew her before, it's been 3 years). He does manage a smile for her.]
Considering the alternative is not existing... I'm glad I was brought back too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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now worrying about your day drinking ?
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fine
coffee
go from there
pick a place thats still open because it looks like my aunt's is closed
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hang on
[ a moment later, he'll get a map ping for a place called Harborside. it is nowhere NEAR a harbor. ]
i can be there in 30
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see you then
[All it takes is a little coaxing of his comm and - fastest route mapped!
when she gets there he's standing outside, just. holding his comm like he's waiting for a response to something, but the screen's dark.]
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ruka, on the other hand... well, there's no mistaking that hair-and-eye-patch combo for literally anyone else, but the passage of time has made its mark, too. the hairstyle is different, cute, and less of a forest to hide behind; gloves remain, and her propensity for shorts-too-short for the weather, but it's white sneakers instead of her usual heeled boots. A small backpack, a light jacket — it's fashionable (not that tadashi likely has any knowledgeable eye for that), but it's a lot more functional than she usually dresses.
it is the end of the world, after all.
there's difference in her posture, too, and in her face — a less tense, less thin, less sallow. all in all... An Improvement.
even her expression is warm, smile edging into her cheek on the one side. ]
Hey, Tadashi.
[ significantly fewer waterworks here. ]
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Hey. I guess long time no see is an understatement, huh?
[Don't mind his burn scars, Ruka. Otherwise he's unchanged.]
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It's new, and he is her friend, but Ruka had known the shape of Tadashi's fate since before they met. She knows what it means. She knows, too, the ordeal of others picking over your hurts, your surface traumas, and the agony of all else being ignored.
Her thumbs hook into her belt loops. ]
Relatively speaking. At least some of our lost time overlapped.
Coffee?
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[It's almost a desperate plea. He holds the door open for her before he follows; that said, he's going straight to the counter to order.]
...It's really good seeing you, Ruka. [To see her in reality. To know she's there and he isn't just... dreaming some weird afterlife thing.
To know for sure he really exists somewhere.]
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[ It's a teasing tone, a little more joking than Tadashi is used to hearing from her. It's a useless question, after all; someone who leaves but does not go has no heart to be missing anybody, and even if Ruka left twice-over while Tadashi was around before, they weren't exactly close. That was more her own doing, her own failings than any fault of his, of course — Ruka hardly wanted to be known back then, forget like, forget cared about.
She was pitiable, and he was always too kind for his own good, and she was too selfish for anyone's good. And, so, friends, in a way, but it's hard to imagine anyone actually missing her.
Ruka orders her drink — something strong, and fussy, and not too sweet; once Tadashi picks what he wants, she'll lead them to one of the wall-pressed tables, taking the chair that will leave the cafe visible on her good side. A tendency as natural as breathing. ]
It takes time to adjust, [ she says, easing her chair forward, letting her arms cross and rest along the edge of the table, ] so... it'll probably feel overwhelming, for longer than you'd like.
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But he sits with his drink and lets it cool for a bit.]
Probably. It was overwhelming the first time, and then the... directly after time. So maybe it won't be so bad.
But you seem like you've been doing better.
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[ ... he's not wrong, either... but...... ]
Is it really that obvious?
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[He's smiling and he genuinely means that. He likes to think he knew Ruka.... okay-ish before everything. It's enough that he can see the difference. He sips his coffee and sighs relaxed.]
Where have they got you living now?
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When he says it like that, though, it makes her feel seen in a way she isn't expecting — because if he can see the change now, then it means he was able to see what she was like, back then (even if, to him, it was only however-many relative months ago that she vanished). It hadn't felt like anyone could see her, back then.
Maybe her own vision was a lot cloudier than she thought.
She says nothing to this, though; she watches Tadashi with an open sense of not-quite surprise, not-quite confusion, before eventually settling on a simple sort of realization, a little hm sound that she chases with a sip of her own coffee. It's strange, being remembered in a way that matters. ]
Um, they had me in a couple places. I was in De Chima before I moved to Jeopardy, last year, after it appeared. But with... everything that happened, and... is happening, I guess, it wasn't a good idea for me to stay there, so I'm back in Heropa.
[ Does he know? Does he not know? (Did he just forget to say, or was there a reason to skip it? She would have thought...) ]
... For right now, I'm crashing at Jaime's place.
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I'm really glad. [His friends being friends!!! It makes him happy.]
But come to think of it, when did Jeopardy come up? It definitely wasn't around when I was before.
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She's probably overthinking it. ]
Yeah, it was after I got back. Last year. Halloween, I think? It's hard to check, since the world history got rewritten with it. As far as the people born in this world are concerned, it's always been there. [ Her nose scrunches. ] Something like that happened back in the City, too, when I was a kid. Same kind of thing.
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Maybe there was a chance--
His head jerks with a not-quite-full shake of his head. He has to stop that thought in its tracks. He'd been down that road with his brother and everyone once already. It's over, they failed. Tadashi knows Ruka can likely feel his frustration, but he tries to hide it behind his mug all the same as he takes another sip.]
What else have I missed?
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Jeez. I don't know... it's a lot of the usual chaos, you know? Things go boom, we try to fix things, we recoup. And with all this... the rest, it kinda pales in comparison.
[ It's been a hard few years for everyone, but it's a miserable time, recounting disaster after disaster. A person sticks around long enough and they go through enough of their own, and what's there to say but oh, that sucks, I'm sorry? She thinks, rolling back the months, the years, and— ]
Oh... yeah. There is something you should know. About Jaime.
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But Jaime-- His eyes dart up to her at that.]
What about him?
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[ She says it with a patience meant to defuser — it's nothing dire, and nothing exceeding tragic, in the end. It's just... something that happened. Her shoulders shrug a little. ]
But, if you try digging back through the Network, you might see it yourself, and... I don't think that's how either of you would want it to happen. It's, I mean, it is okay now. He's... doing a lot better.
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Normally he'd take the hint and talk to Jaime himself about it.
Normally he's not already dead with only two people who remember he existed.]
I'll keep it in mind. [When he was going through the network to find out how long he'd been gone, there'd been a sort of blip he scrolled past, chalked up to something triggering a memory of a dream he'd had. Maybe, maybe...]
Thanks for letting me know, Ruka.
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... You're the same way, I think. Just because other people know something about you, it doesn't mean you want them to tell people for you.
[ She picks up her mug, swirling the coffee a little for pause; she doesn't look at him as she mulls over there rest, but her voice has the same sort of soft, comforting tone as before. ]
You can tell him I told you that much, if you want to open the door for him. I think it'll be good for both of you.
[ Tadashi knew Ruka, when she was here before. She hadn't been gone that long before he left, and she hadn't been absent for a terrible gap before that. They may not have been close, but they talked a lot, and Hiro certainly held her in some regard. She's always been a perceptive sort; she's always been able to figure out more than what was told, and for all her abrasions and distances back then, it didn't hide how much she cared about people. How much she's wanted to help, in her own way.
There's no guile to her now, no evasive coldness. Tadashi has likely never heard her speak with this clarity of care before. ]
He really missed you, you know.
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He's already been half-reaching for his phone so he could talk with her and use his power to find that post again. But her saying that catches him and he'll... wait. He'll see if it's even something Jaime wants to revisit to tell him. If he doesn't, then that's that. He'll leave it alone.
He wasn't wrong though: Ruka has changed. For the better, he thinks. He's glad for it.]
[Tadashi's voice is small when he finally speaks again in response to that:] ....I didn't mean to leave.
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[ And that's the tragedy of it, isn't it? Some people, like Tadashi, are brought to this world when they have no future anywhere else. Some, like Ruka, like Jaime, they stay too long, and change too much, that whatever "future" their original worlds hold isn't theirs anymore. It belongs to someone else — some other version of them that doesn't know these pains, these losses. There are other people, too, in similar circumstances — people that find new callings, new reasons to live, who ... find the people they fit with. The ones that, somehow, seem like they were always supposed to belong together.
And nobody gets to choose who stays, or who goes. Nobody decides who gets to come back, or when. Nobody remains forever.
Every existence is fragile. The world itself is a wounded, delicate place, even now on the verge of destruction — but from one night to morning, anyone's whole world could end, if someone leaves.
Under the table, Ruka bumps the toe of her shoe against Tadashi's, an unseen call for attention. ]
It's rare, to come back. To remember. To... have even one person left, who missed us.
[ For Tadashi, it's Jaime. For Ruka, it had been Mitchell Hundred, of all people, and the loss is still strange in a way she can't quantify. There are others who have come back, too, to only one friend, to two. Some, who come back to no one at all. By nature, the story of any one imPort is a tragedy. ]
... It's hard to lose that much time, and so many people. Even some of the lucky ones can't recover from that. ... But... I wonder, sometimes... if we're brought forward like this, because... the things we need, or that we're needed for, just don't exist yet... and we wouldn't be able to endure the wait.
...
[ She sips her coffee, and shrugs. ]
... I'm glad you were brought back.
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He sips his coffee in turn, shifting his foot at the touch. A welcome moment of familiarity bringing him out of his thoughts (and new for Ruka too, he has to stop comparing her to the way he knew her before, it's been 3 years). He does manage a smile for her.]
Considering the alternative is not existing... I'm glad I was brought back too.