#//and hes so teenage boy lonely pls sb invite him to a game of cards or smth 😭😭😭

[thatonesakudere]

"I'm looking for Mays." // mansk for mayu or masa or both

@badtrigger

Masa knows not when exactly the mess hall has become his refuge, a place he finds himself lingering at whenever his body doesn't feel as though made of lead. Here, he's free. Free from sterile sheets, from half-empty pill bottles and deafening silence, from hours stretching into days, years, millennia, and from the bottomless gulf of his restless mind. It's close enough to reach on his own, and for Mayu not to worry, and-- It's public.

No matter the hour, people mill around, talk, eat; RDA employees of all kind, from officer workers to scientists, laborers and marines. The Recombinants come too, whenever off duty, blue and tall and loud. Ironically, they never make him feel small — perhaps because they dwarf over everyone else as well.

He sticks to corner tables and slinks into the shadows, a spectator in a video game, a conductor in a music hall — there's an order to this chaos, to the coming and going of workers like the rise and fall of notes on a stave. Crescendo and diminuendo, the bellow of an orchestra followed by a soft pluck of the strings.

Day after day, the piece turns more familiar, rhythmic, but never quite the same. Watching as others chat and laze around, with a worn notebook in his hands, Masa finds that he enjoys it all the same, even if he rarely participates. 

The consuming loneliness cannot reach him here, where bodies and sounds fill the emptiness till no space is left. And that is enough.

He pointedly ignores the fact he craves more still.

"I'm looking for Mays."

"I thought he was my babysitter, not I his," a quiet hum is given, amusement tinting Masa's tone as he eyes the marine intruding upon his quaint little bubble. Mansk, he recalls, brain wracking for what little he has on the Recombinant. A squadmate of Mays. Quiet, but not stupid. Owns a huge gun.

"Haven't seen him today," he shrugs. "You best ask Nee-san — he tends to trail behind her, from what I've seen." Like a dog, ever so loyal, Masa muses in his mind, idly moving the pen between his fingers. "Try her office, she has no meetings planned for today." Mayu always informs him of her weekly schedule, in case of-- Anything, really. It makes him feel like a baby sometimes, but he listens nonetheless, makes sure to memorize it. She has enough to worry about as is; he doesn't want to add to her load by acting childish.

"Just--" A pause, teeth chewing on the inside of his mouth. "Make sure to knock first," he hurriedly adds, the grimace of discomfort on his face rather telling of the possible horrors waiting behind the sturdy doors. As much as the boy likes knowing things, he can absolutely do without certain knowledge.