smash_logs | [Open Log] Life begins after school, that's where we bend all the rules...

Harpuia nodded once, though it was clear that his attention was sweeping over the bags at Zero's feet and the glimpse of their contents his view afforded him. Though he could confidently report that Zero had not barged into his room in the dead of night in a clear crazed panic, this many E-Tanks suggested he wasn't exactly getting a full charge as of late. None of them were in such dire combat circumstances here that they needed that number of E-Tanks to get through battles, after all.

"I'm shopping for clothing," Harpuia answered. No need to beat around the bush or act like it was something to be embarrassed about -- though he did feel more out of place than ever in this half-armoured state with Zero sitting there in his full armour. Not wanting to leave an opening for uncomfortable silences -- or worse, uncomfortable questions -- he instead looked pointedly down at Zero's bags. "E-Tanks, Zero?"

The fact that he had to ask made it sound all the more like an accusation, and prelude to a lecture. Zero frowned and turned his attention back at the store he was staring at, answering only with a flat, "Yeah..."

Which could easily answer the most obvious questions Harpuia could've followed with - are you still having nightmares? Are you getting less than a full charge each night? And so on. Frankly, Zero didn't want to waste time going through the whole gauntlet. Not that he could particularly stop Harpuia from prodding that subject, but the mall was hardly the place for it.

Harpuia had grown up with Fefnir and Leviathan. Of course he knew the kind of expression someone who intended to ignore every word that came out of his mouth wore. As flat as Zero tended to be, there was absolutely no mistaking the disinterested, dismissive way he looked away.

Well, fine. If he didn't intend to listen, then Harpuia saw no reason to waste his breath. He made no effort to disguise the annoyance on his face -- he had no patience for those who chose to ignore problems instead of using their heads, and it never failed to scratch at his formidable pride when he was being tuned out before he'd even begun to speak. So fine. He wouldn't pry or lecture. Nose in the air, he offered only a curt "Do better. Nobody's going to rely on someone who thinks stopgap measures are good enough."

Okay, so Harpuia was going to berate him in public. Of course. With a half-groan, half-sigh, Zero kneaded his eyelids - more out of frustration than fantigue - and bit back the uncharacteristic urge to complain. It seemed pointless to try and defend the effort he'd been trying to put in when results were really what mattered. Besides, it was hard enough for anyone else to understand what he was going through - literally no one else in the world had Zero's problems. He already had to open up to people about it. He was doing his best to reconcile his old memories with his new ones. But how was a person supposed to force themselves to stop dreaming?

This was exactly the turmoil he had been trying to clear his mind of. He already had hours and hours alone in the dead hours of the morning, stewing in his own head. He was tired of it. Just for a little while, Zero had wanted to do something other than fixate on what it felt like to be himself.

But just getting by wasn't good enough for anyone. Do better. The words instinctively made him tense up inside, like an order. Stiffly, his voice dull as the emotion drained out of it, Zero deadpanned, "Yeah. You've made your point."

This... wasn't an unexpected reaction, but it wasn't the ideal one. Hadn't the hole in Harpuia's chest been enough to drive the point home that distancing and internalizing and trying to tough it out on his own weren't going to work as coping methods?

Still... lead a horse to water, etc. Just handing out orders wasn't going to change a thing if Zero didn't have any obligation to bow to them. Even if he did, knowing his stubbornness, he would probably still disregard them completely. Fine then. Harpuia had no rank to pull these days anyway. He could no longer call himself "sage," but the sentiment behind the title lingered all the same: Harpuia valued intellect, but that also made him especially short with those who refused to learn from mistakes. "Isn't asking for help easier than--"

He stopped himself short, yanking the reins in on his temper. If Zero wanted to sulk, then Harpuia would not stoop to that level. He revised the remark to a flat "Cope with it however you please, then. I've got shopping to do."

Zero glanced back over as Harpuia cut his own sentence short - he could sense how it might've ended, of course. And the answer was no. Right now, asking for help felt like the hardest thing in the world. No matter how he thought about it, the gesture felt futile, like throwing a pebble into the sea to try and raise the water level. Even the time he did spend with people never seemed to make him any happier - no matter how much they gave him their support, Zero just didn't know how to take what they offered.

If he knew what to ask for, maybe it would've been easier. But looking at Harpuia now... did he actually want someone mutely tagging along, only halfway capable of connecting with the task at hand? Probably not. The guardian had come here on a mission - it wasn't his responsibility to escort someone, nor should it have been.

Yet despite knowing that, Zero stared, looking on the verge of saying something the whole time. His expression was defensive, but diluted by uncertainty, apprehensiveness, and a bit of confusion. He knew he wanted to say something, but... in the end, he wound up saying nothing.

Silence.

Subtle nuances of something-or-other in Zero's look, but that was it. Harpuia's brow creased, stumbling over how to interpret all this absolutely nothing. He could recognize the impenetrable defensiveness in Zero's eyes, but what did the rest mean? Was that hesitance? Annoyance? Some kind of unspoken hint to... do... something or other?

It really wasn't even an invitation. Harpuia was no mind reader, and getting along with Zero was still far too rocky and new of a thing to be easy at all. But if, in his high-handed way, Harpuia had decided that the well-being of the reploids here was his responsibility, then that also meant it was his responsibility to do the communicating for the both of them. No such thing as "not my fault" or "not my problem." Proud as he was, it felt all sorts of uncomfortable to switch tactics to trying to cajole Zero along -- the idea, along with his only half-present armor, only served to make him feel... uncharacteristically soft. But if he couldn't demand anything of Zero and Zero wasn't willing -- or able? -- to ask anything, what else should he have been doing?

Harpuia shifted his weight a little, at first interpreting Zero's uneasy expression as a desire to just be left to himself, but revised his assessment at the last second. "Come with me, if you don't have anything better to do. No point being the only reploid who doesn't own civilian clothing."

(It was arguable if Fefnir's swim trunks counted when it was civilian clothing that he couldn't exactly wear anywhere other than the beach.)

Zero's eyes widened by a fraction in what was, for him, obvious surprise. He wasn't sure what to make of Harpuia suddenly changing his tune - the guardian certainly didn't look thrilled about it. Yet despite the downpour of awkward discomfort between the two, Zero felt... What was it that he felt? It certainly wasn't relief, or reassurance, or acceptance. He couldn't describe it as warm or welcoming at all, because it was none of those things either.

But it was a absence of... absences, in a way. A small one. And maybe even the barest hope for a hope that being here, trying to emulate human life, would go easier with backup.

He spared a glance back at the shop he'd been staring at, before slowly pushing himself off the bench. Zero's tone was hesitant, but not resistant - almost sounding a bit shy as he muttered, "...Okay," ready to follow.

Well, that was a start. Anything that wasn't a "no" was progress. Harpuia followed Zero's parting glance over to one of the stores dotting the mall, and... well, why not? Not as though he had any idea what would appeal to Zero. Or himself, honestly, considering how entirely foreign the concept of 21st century civilian fashion was.

"We'll start there," he decided. "One outfit. That's the minimum. We don't have to wear them every day, but we should at least have one outfit." A clear laying-out of mission parameters, he hoped, but still something vague enough to allow room for... fun? Developing tastes? Individuality? Whatever he hoped they would get from this exercise. "I looked up my size beforehand, but you may need to experiment a little."

It did put spending an entire day window shopping out of the question, which may have been a very real possibility for Zero if he didn't have mission parameters to meet. Whether any individuality would develop was up in the air, though.

'Experiment a little...' Ignorant of the fact that not all clothing stores catered to fitted suits that took all of one's measurements into account, Zero furrowed his brows in confusion and asked, "What do you mean by that?"

"Clothing is categorized into ordinal or interval sizes, Zero," Harpuia explained. "Your armor was built to your specifications, and the suits we wore to prom were sort of similar, but unless you intend to sew your own clothes, you'll be buying items that were already made."

It might have seemed absurd that this even needed explaining, but this was new territory for them both. A reploid really didn't need anything more than the armor they had been designed with, after all, and for humanoid models of reploids, aftermarket upgrades and replacement parts tended to largely stick close to industry standards. ...But only for humanoids. "Consider it like... you could harvest parts from Pantheon units, if it came down to it, but you couldn't use a Mutos reploid's because they wouldn't fit you."

He stopped inside the store and fixed Zero with an appraising look. "In your case... I think it would be safe to start with the smallest size you can find." Harpuia was not necessarily notably tall by this place's standards for male-based units, after all, but he easily stood a head above Zero.

Okay, the explanation was starting to lean towards 'patronizing' territory partway through, and Zero frowned deeply in response. He wasn't a child. And he wasn't--

...Okay, standing next to someone a foot taller than him made it a bit harder to insist that going for the smallest possible sizes first was a bit too extreme. The worst part about all this was that he remembered how it was to be tall, too. If there was any reason to resent his copy body, it was for its vertical deficiencies.

A bit petulantly, Zero could only grumble, "I'm not that small..." There were plenty of people smaller than him. Rock, for instance. And... some girls...?

Harpuia looked down at Zero. Like, literally down. Zero on his tiptoes would still not be eye level to him.

"Small is a relative concept," he volunteered, tactfully. "If it turns out it's too small, you can always try something a size bigger. But all the same... starting from the bottom of the scale would be more efficient than starting from the top, don't you think?"

To cement the point, he moved to a rack of sweaters and pulled one off -- medium, according to the tag -- and held it in front of Zero. Even without trying it on, it ought to have been clear.

Just because it was obvious didn't mean he was going to acknowledge it. It was a sweater. They were designed to look baggy and loose for some reason, if these mannequins were to be believed. So... not a true indicator of size.

With an angry grunt, Zero stormed off deeper into the store, intent on finding something that would somehow fit him without continuing to malign his dignity. But it was... not a fruitful search. Small sizes were rare enough in the men's section that most racks barely had any. Almost everything was oversized, in Zero's world.

Harpuia patiently waited it out while Zero faced the grim inevitability of being a tiny baby shrimp man. Of course, he intended to have more tact than to say "I told you so" out loud, but one could almost taste a growing aura of it around him as he watched Zero's fruitless search.

Finally, delicately, very very tactfully, Harpuia piped up. "Have you got anything you'd like to try on? Or maybe we'd have better luck looking in the... ah... youth sizes?"

If 'youth sizes' was code for 'the children's section in the back of the store that was filled with bright colours and cartoon t-shirts,' then Harpuia could kindly go stuff it.

Glaring in the guardian's direction, Zero petulantly grabbed the closest thing with a size S clothes hanger off the rack - barely even looking at what he was taking - as he grumbled, "Don't you have your own outfit to worry about?"

Honestly, none of these clothes really stood out to him as anything he cared to wear. All the styles seemed completely arbitrary, and Zero himself felt no preference for any of them, so a random pick was as good as any. But perhaps a striped shirt wasn't going to be the best thing for making him look less like a child...

"Of course," Harpuia replied, turning away politely ~~and missing the awakening of Zero's latent PSI powers~~. While he might not have been tall compared to some of the people in FDC, he at least was lucky enough to not be 5'3", and therefore could actually probably fit into clothing straight off the rack. Compared to the sort of crowd he was used to -- reploids like X, Zero, and Leviathan, mostly -- he was downright statuesque.

But... his idea of what was appropriate clothing came from a society full of tiny crop-top vests and titanium undies -- things that did not seem to be as common around here. The only reliable basis for fashion he'd seen in this era was primarily from the school campus -- the student uniforms, and whatever the staff wore.

Well, that was fine. If he used that as a basis, he was bound to come out looking reasonably professional. He looked through the racks until he found a button-up shirt that should be his size, not unlike the one students wore.

Well, now that Harpuia's hawk eyes were off him, Zero went back to perusing the racks on his own. Buying one outfit was the bare minimum, so that meant at the very least, he needed a top and pants of some kind. But looking at the ones on display, he couldn't help but feel like they were all going to restrict his freedom of movement. All this stiff, heavy fabric really didn't appeal to him when he was most comfortable walking around in white undies.

If they weren't full length pants, then at least they wouldn't get bunched at the knees, Zero figured. In that case, shorts were probably the most practical option.

He grabbed the shortest shorts he could find, and headed straight for the changing rooms. Hopefully this would be good enough.

Harpuia was a little slower to head back to the change rooms; it took him more time to reconstruct a near facsimile of the school uniform. (His standards were narrower than "as close to undies as possible," though honestly not by much.) At any rate, Zero would have been able to get a head start on changing.

"Show me once you've got it on," he requested. Or ordered. It's a thin line when you're as bossy as Harpuia. "If it fits, I'll want to know." That, and now that he wasn't shopping alone, he could have someone lend a hand with detaching his jets. Flight: still cool, but also still very inconvenient for shopping purposes.

Thanks to his head start, Zero had stripped himself of armour and put on his clothes with ease. The problem was...

Well, the problem was that he looked like a grade schooler wearing them.

The shirt was designed to be loose fitting and casual, but it managed to hang on Zero's hourglass form like it was just a little too large. Not to mention the stripes had such a child-like quality that it seemed to amplify his small stature, large eyes and youthful face. The shorts were similarly baggy - actually a size too large, but with his wide hips, Zero could only fit into a pair that reached past his knees.

Staring into the mirror at himself, even Zero could've sworn he had just spontaneously shrunk.

Then came Harpuia's bossy-as-ever voice, calling to him from outside. Zero grimaced. "No. I'm taking these off."

How unexpected. Zero was not fond of how he looked in the things he'd picked out? Possibly because the size was all wrong? As Harpuia had predicted? Meaning that he was, once again, completely and irritatingly told-you-so right?

"Show me," Harpuia repeated, no less bossy for having been proven right. "I'll come in there if I have to. The whole point of trying things on is to understand what works, and I can hardly do that if I can't see you." It was more than a little presumptuous to assume it was Harpuia's job to figure out what works, but again: Harpuia. Besides, if Zero had wanted to figure this out on his own, he would have gone clothes shopping on his own. Surely the shared part was supposed to be a factor in this, right?

There was an angry silence.

There was really no winning here. Refuse, and he'd just get nagged at more for being an uncooperative loner who was achieving nothing by rejecting Harpuia's freely given (and obnoxious) help. Agree, and face humiliation. Also, probably more know-it-all lecturing.

Zero stood in sullen petulance for a good, long while, half-wondering if Harpuia was actually going to make good on his threat to barge in. That possibility made resistance near-pointless... Ugh. He knew he needed help with this - that was the worst part. He really clearly didn't know what he was doing...

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself out of the change room looking like the tiny little child he was, fists clenched and glaring daggers all the while.

There were two things that Harpuia had to forcibly keep from getting out of him: a triumphant "see?" and a bit of surprised laughter. It had never actually occurred to him to describe Zero as childlike -- he was short, yes, but the one reploid Harpuia respected more than anyone else for his wisdom and leadership was short too, and Harpuia knew all too well how infuriating it was to be called a kid just because you had been built looking a certain way.

But Zero... did kind of look like a kid, swimming as he was in those clothes. Those clenched fists and the steely impenetrable glare that were so formidable when he was in armour now seemed more like... well, like a child on the verge of a tantrum.

It was exactly because Harpuia knew the frustration of being teased about looking young, however, that he didn't comment on it. Zero was embarrassed enough as is; though Harpuia couldn't quite erase the I-was-right look from his face, he did make some effort to keep his gloating to himself.

"...Are those the smallest size of shorts they offer?" He questioned, looking Zero over. It seemed fairly clear that even a size small hung loose on Zero's frame, but those seemed unusually baggy and long. Was that the style in this century? "Maybe we can still find something that fits."

Okay, that was a long enough look. Whatever Harpuia needed to see, he already got it - so this stuff was coming off.

"They're the smallest size I can fit into," Zero muttered back as as he pulled off the t-shirt. A cascade of hair fell over him as he slipped it over his head and threw the striped tee on the bench. The shorts were next - a bit more awkward to strip off in a fit of aggravation, but he managed to kick them off with the contempt they deserved.

As Harpuia suspected, they were a medium. The waist was loose, but the hips had been perfectly snug, especially around his thigh holsters. There was no way Zero could've squeezed into anything smaller.

With that fit of frustration done with, Zero simmered back down into a state of disgruntled discomfort. At least... at least Harpuia hadn't laughed. It must've been extremely tempting, he was sure of it.

Crossing his arms over his naked chest, Zero grumbled, "Now what?" Since the guardian just had to be so smart about everything and all.

Harpuia picked up the clothing that Zero had tossed off, taking a moment to look at the tags as he neatly returned them to their hangers. No reason to make a mess, after all. Shirts... overall, he would need something smaller. Pants size... that seemed a bit trickier, if he required a medium for one measurement but the others were positively dwarfed.

"Wait here." Another request-slash-command. Obviously this outfit wouldn't do, and neither would having Zero leave empty-handed and dissatisfied. He handed his own clothing, still untried, to Zero to hold onto, then turned and strode out before much time could be allowed for protest.

He knew that Zero likely wouldn't go into the children's section of his own free will, so Harpuia took the plunge himself. No point getting more shorts here, but he grabbed a shirt with a random cartoon character he didn't recognize -- hopefully the "large" on the label would be more soothing than the obvious place the shirt had come from. But... that was only half an outfit at best, wasn't it?

Harpuia paused, looking to the opposite side of the store. It, judging by the presence of mannequins in dresses on one half of the store only, was divided into mens' and womens' clothing. Hm... Well, it was true that women were, on average, shorter than men, and their clothing did have more room around the hips and thighs than menswear did. Would Zero perceive it as an insult if...?

Well, worth a try. Some randomly chosen shorts in a couple different sizes, maybe a shirt or two for good measure (all of the button-up variety that matched the school uniform, naturally). Arms full with this selection, Harpuia made his way back to the change room. He said nothing about which part of the store these had come from, only requested-slash-commanded, "Here, see if any of these fit."

[Open Log] Life begins after school, that's where we bend all the rules...

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)

(no subject)