superhiro-hamada

[superhiro-hamada]

The concept of time wasn't a very friendly one for Hiro.

He had never fit into it the way that he was supposed to; he had always been too young to relate to things with people, or he had been ahead of his years instead, depending on how a person looked at it. But he had never fit into the correct time frame because his brain worked so much faster than so many people and when that was the case a person wasn't like anyone else their own age. He appreciated his intellect because it allowed him to do things that a lot of people just could not reach, it had taken him very far in a short time and had given him opportunities that were unique.

But that clock had run so fast for him he'd never really caught up to some parts of it; his brain could process rapidly but the rest of him, what he had to equate to emotions and uncertainties and all the rest of whatever it was that made up a person, had never really been prepared.

That wasn't anyone's fault, the way the world worked things like intelligence were important. Open up any record that still existed of who he had been once and the word genius would be found in the pages like a marker, a title, and an expectation that he would do things bigger than so many other people. And he had believed that for quite a long time, he still did, but he also believed now that he might have missed something along the way.

He believed it more often when he talked to his friends back home now, even though he shouldn't have been doing that, when he missed them. And when he saw Luca out with Milo and happy, when he saw other people he knew fitting right into the normal paces and he felt like he never did because he still wasn't sure how to navigate those things for himself.

He watched that clock, it continued the motions because that was all in new how to do, and he could tell how truly happy it made Luca. That was enough, he might not have felt comfortable with the idea of time and where he stood in the midst of it, but a lot of things felt outside of himself anymore; experiencing it through Luca's enthusiasm wasn't really a bad thing.

He did think clocks were imperfect though, but that was probably because he trusted processors and codes more than he did the human error involved in crafting devices that were made to last forever. Did anything really last forever?

"What happens if gravity changes? In theory it will some day," Hiro mused; it was one of those scientific theories rooted in how their world worked, and how fragile that could be that maybe there would be a point where something through the rotation off, the gravitational pull, and then everything would change. "I don't know when we collectively decided we need a way to compare; because that's what time is, right? Night versus day, years that pass and where people are in them, how far the world has come; how those changes compared." He mused; because he really wasn't sure at what point human nature had said this was a necessity, something to weigh a person against everyone else, something to track the world as it continued onward.

Curiosity, he supposed; because that was what most everything came down to when it came to people, wasn't it? If it wasn't understood there was always someone out there who was trying harder to understand it. That was one of the things Hiro liked about people.

@lucathedreamer

Mirai No Museum || Techno Wave

[superhiro-hamada]

"Do you always just assume everything?" Hiro replies, not even with any ire because he knew those sorts of people, the ones that were jump immediately to their idea of what something was doing. Most of his school days had been populated by those types, very likely because he had always been much younger than any of his peers and people who are older, for some reason, tended to project their opinions.

It probably didn't help that Hiro didn't like people doing that, but he wasn't in any mood to get into an argument with some weirdo in the cemetery.

"Just because you can talk to dead people doesn't mean you should go around telling the living ones how to deal with what they might have lost," Hiro replied flatly, for some reason in the back of his mind he thought that Tadashi would have found this guy unpleasant, and he wondered if ghosts avoided to talking to some Mediums, because clearly the man had to be a Medium the way he was going on about speaking with the dead, because of their personalities.

"You're overlooking the fact that most people can't hear those stories; that's a really messed up shot at the people who wished they'd get to hear those voices they can't ever again." Because it rubbed a nerve, like a tiny little splinter in the back of his brain and he shouldn't have been so defensive but of course he was defensive, the guy was acting high and mighty over something so personal. Something that haunted Hiro every day and reminded and that if the world were more ideal Tadashi would have walked away from the fire instead.

He was glad that his brother wasn't buried in that cemetery, it would have been far too tempting to punch the guy in the face, even if that would have taken some effort given the height the difference between the two of them.

His expression turned pointed then, because clearly he found it hard to believe Bram's whole speech there didn't ring is just a little judgmental as well. Yeah, leaving the basement had been such a great idea that day.

He wasn't sure he wanted the guy knowing his name, but a voice in the back of his head that sounded frustratingly like Luca told him not to shut himself off.

Honestly this felt like an excellent time to do exactly that, but Hiro relented.

"Hiro," he muttered.

@headless-bram

grave details // open

[superhiro-hamada]

Hiro followed along; it wasn't that his curiosity was absent, it was simply dulled lately. That wasn't Luca's fault at all, or anyone else's, only his own. Or less his own and more the dragging feeling in the back of his mind; he never managed to shake it. Some days were better than others and he was determined to make that day one of the better ones for Luca's sake.

He leg, admittedly a bit neglected that week, wasn't quite as responsive as usual. The maintenance was constant in adjusting pressure sensitivity and the multitude of other bits and pieces the highly specialized prosthetic required to function as it was meant to. Something Hiro ignored more when most of his time was in the basement in his lab, small space that required less dependence on movement.

It was a small mental note filed away in the back of his mind too have a look at later because something in the pressure sensitivity had to be off since he couldn't judge very well the sensation of where the floor was along those neuro connections.

But it was only a momentary destruction, the next his attention had swung back to Luca, who was enthusiastically staring at the clocks once they had arrived in that area. Hiro didn't exactly understand what the fascination was, but he understood how it worked; it was the same sort of feeling he knew when it came across some new advance in robotics, some new little technical idea he hadn't heard of before. The curiosity could be overwhelming.

It was also the sort of feeling that was entirely indulgent and he was happy to see Luca grasping for it.

"So what is it with the clock thing?" He voiced; he liked to talk about his computers and his bots, sometimes it was the only thing he did want to talk about, so the question was a space for Luca to do the same.

@lucathedreamer

Mirai No Museum || Techno Wave

[superhiro-hamada]

"I don't know what that means either," Hiro agreed, food was usually not one of his subjects of choice anyway. But it was one that he had been increasingly nagged about the past few months by his roommates as he had fallen back into those less healthy habits of fully neglecting that necessity unless they, or Aunt Cass, insisted he join them for meals.

That particular exhibit was likely to end up on the bottom of the list of things to do that day.

Just like he knew I'm going towards anything computer related would end in him spending more time there than he needed to, distracted, and very likely keeping Luca from doing other things they wanted to do. If they had been there with Riley the answer would have been space, stars, the sort of things that appealed to the space elf (yes, Hiro knew they were a celestial elf but that did loosely translate to space elf) but it was Luca who was there, shuffling the map around eagerly.

Space wasn't as much Luca's thing. Science overall was more appealing, Hiro knew, it was a trait they shared, one of the reasons it was so easy to be friends with the sea elf (that term was at least correct by elven technically).

And while Luca, being Luca, would be fascinated by anything and eager to see any of the exhibits because they were just the type of person whose natural curiosity would always make things exciting, given him the conversation Hiro figured it was pretty obvious where Luca wanted to go.

"We can look at the clocks if you want."

@lucathedreamer

Mirai No Museum || Techno Wave

[superhiro-hamada]

[superhiro-hamada]

Hiro found himself mostly just drifting; sometimes anymore he felt something slip and it harder to decipher what actually was really. The things that should have been no longer were; he found himself or evenings but not in the basement talking to Ari and that possibility still felt so incredibly surreal that sometimes he wasn't certain that he was talking to anyone at all on the other end of that screen and maybe it was just some sort of hallucination. Because that couldn't be real, even if it was.

Things that should make sense no longer did; the idea of San Fransokyo being anything but a distant memory that no longer was possible to return to was constant in the back of his mind, an endless question. And he wasn't supposed to be asking questions like that anymore.

Town was safe, but he wasn't really happy with safe.

Luca had talked him into that trip, he still didn't know how to say no to them and honestly he very rarely even attempted to. There was something a little jilted about Luca at times anymore, he wanted to assume it was just because their relationship with Milo was getting more intense, but he wasn't sure. It was hard to measure the subtle differences in his friend but the fact that he noticed them at all was a sure confirmation. But Luca wasn't telling him things that he didn't ask, and Hiro didn't ask things that he might not have liked the answers to.

"Hmm?" He glanced over, watching Luca practically humming with energy; he didn't really mind the trip to the museum. It felt like he hadn't seen a lot of day and weeks, which wasn't exactly the case because he still did go to work and visit Aunt Cass, but he didn't do much else. "I'm guessing you already have an answer to that question."

Hiro was content to drift.

@lucathedreamer

Mirai No Museum || Techno Wave

[superhiro-hamada]

Oh. Hiro had heard about people who could talk to spirits, although that tended to be if spirits are willing, or at least in the near vicinity. That was probably a lot to be gained from magic like that, and equal parts misery because what would people have to say when they were gone? Why would anyone linger unless they had reasons to? He didn't want to think about that, not because it was unsettling or frightening, but because there was something even worse to it; he couldn't help but wonder how hard it had to be to linger somewhere you didn't belong just because you didn't know how to let go.

Things like that weren't ones Hiro wanted to think about. He certainly couldn't imagine his brother doing something like that; Tadashi was wherever people went when they left, good people, people who should have stayed but never got the chance to.

"It wouldn't really do most people any good to stop," he reasoned; without that particular skill how would they even know who they were talking to? Hiro thought the idea was more intrusive when someone had no idea what they were doing.

There wasn't anything particularly unsettling about the man either, clearly he was trying to prove some degree of rough edge to himself but most of the effect was lost on Hiro. It wasn't even a matter of it not bothering him, most things didn't bother him lately; there was a numbness that prevailed and blanketed far too many of his thoughts anymore.

"That rock isn't for you," he pointed out. Because he'd personally never let himself get too lured in by the idea but he hadn't forgotten the shrine for his parents, Aunt Cass and Tadashi's reverence, his own silence because it was too hard to reason people were tied to those places.

But it was a comfort to someone, someone had picked that stone out, had that name engraved; it was important to someone. And he wasn't sure why it hit a nerve with him the guy who apparently could talk to the spirits couldn't respect that.

@headless-bram

grave details // open

[superhiro-hamada]

Hiro didn't actually care what the guy was doing. And the grand scheme of things in that town? There was very little that surprised him anymore, unfortunately equally little that entertained him but he tried not to let that be the case too often because the thin underlying veil of bitterness that could have come from that was something Hiro didn't want to catch too strong of a hold on him.

The general air of something like trying to pick a fight though? That struck him is a little odd since he had said all of half a dozen words to the stranger in the first place. "I think you might be vastly underestimating how that term applies in this town," Hiro speculated; he'd not met a single person during his time living there that feels under the umbrella term of 'normal'. His assumption was that was why people moved there in the first place.

"No," he actually didn't like to think about ghosts, because that thought was almost tempting in a way, but he knew his brother wasn't hanging around haunting him because Tadashi wasn't the sort that would have done something like that. No, his brother wouldn't have lingered around him to cause him grief after being gone.

"But the people's families of whoever's grave that is probably aren't going to appreciate you kicking it," Hiro added, not sure why that bothered him. It probably wasn't really even that situation specifically, he didn't like the idea of Tadashi's grave somewhere being treated that way and that was strangely easy to feel the overlap in that moment.

Wherever that somewhere was because Hiro had never seen it, he hadn't gotten out of Krei Tech's medical facility in time to look for it before he'd had to disappear. Wherever that marker was it was resting right alongside the one with his own name engraved on it.

Hiro didn't like thinking about how he was the one who had left his brother alone that way in some lonely spot among unfamiliar stones.

@headless-bram

grave details // open

[superhiro-hamada]

Despite not wanting to do so Hiro was on his way to work, he didn't need the job but everyone else in the house was convinced what he needed was to not be there all the time. So if he didn't go to work he would get those sad looks from Luca and it honestly was worse than facing down the customers. The customers weren't even all that bad, it was just a Hiro didn't feel much like being around people.

Tad was gone, so there was no real risk of running into him at work anymore. But in some ways him being gone felt worse because he hadn't known Tad was leaving. Maybe some of that was his own fault for not wanting to approach a conversation, but maybe it wasn't all of his fault either. Whatever the case though didn't really even matter anymore?

It was just going to be one more unspoken conversation that would live in the back of his mind and never have a chance to reach the person it needed to.

So with all that going on in his brain, no, the guy sitting in the graveyard wasn't necessarily strange. He was apparently abrasive since he went on the defensive immediately, but Hiro was tempted to just roll his eyes at the whole thing. He didn't, barely.

"I don't think I would call it sightseeing since I don't really know what I'm looking at," he replied, having not moved from his spot at the fence just bordering the graveyard.

@headless-bram

grave details // open

[superhiro-hamada]

"No," he actually knew exactly what leaving behind everything he'd known was like, but he didn't feel much need to make the comparison. It didn't feel as much about absolution though, Hiro didn't really think that was a thing in the first place. People could change in some ways but the core to them was as solid as any computer code.

He certainly didn't think he'd ever forgive himself for his brother's death, so it was hard to imagine how it was that people sometimes forgave themselves for things just as resounding. And so easily at times. It made him question the nature of weight in decisions; how that bent and turned at times.

"What about other people's lives?" That was the question he was the most curious about; understanding the justification. "People aren't happy about that lady on the Board but they're not as mad about her," Hiro reasoned, but he did assume part of that was because she had kids at the time she didn't want to endanger, "or the guy that works at the coffee shop."

He was curious to hear what the man himself thought about why he was the point of ire for people in town.

@sailor--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

There seemed to be some assumption that he had an overwhelming opinion on the guy living in town; Hiro in fact did not so long as he wasn't making himself a problem to the people they didn't want upset. That was mostly Luca, and to some degree Ian, since the two of them were more prone to worrying.

But what was the guy supposed to do that was threatening anyway? People would be watching him so close for a while he wouldn't be able to move with that sense of paranoia, which probably went further for lessening the risk than any actual threat might. And Hiro couldn't be threatening to people anyway; if he mentioned the ways he ruined their lives online it was incriminating himself anyway.

"Why didn't you leave earlier?" As a kid, no, it probably wouldn't have been possible, that much was excusable, but, and Hiro was guessing at this one; the guy had to be...what? Thirty? Thirties. Whatever. Older.

The entire conversation was horribly intrusive, but that didn't really sway Hiro from it.

@sailor--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

"Well, you're probably not doing any more hiding out than most people around here," Hiro speculated, and it wasn't even in a sarcastic way; the baseline logic simply was that a town that was accepting was the sort of place people who had a lot to run away from were bound to look towards as a refuge. It hadn't been the only factor in his coming there, and as time had gone by Hiro had become increasingly less comfortable with the idea of people thinking he was a Magick, but it was still one that kept his aunt safe.

Hiro wanted to have a very direct and immobile view of what constituted good guys and bad guys, in the comic books that he loved so much the line was always clear; having to question that was deeply unsettling.

"I mean personally I don't think I would want my home to be somewhere people stare at me," he mused, even during that conversation he caught the occasional glimpse from people hurrying past the aisles, "but I guess they'll get tired of waiting for you to do something unhinged sooner or later."

The bar was kind of low though, given the sort of things that happened in that town so often; it really was like living in a world outside of what should have been the real one.

@sailor--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

Could he have read it? Yes. Was he going to right that minute? No.

"So I guess it's true." Not that he had assumed otherwise, but to be fair Hiro wasn't really assuming anything because most of his interest in the topic centered fully around his roommates and their safety. It didn't even surprise him very much that there was some anti-Magick group in town, scrape away enough of the surface to just about any place and people were bound to find some ugly spots.

"So that's what you do when people ask what's going on? Give them a website?" That was a little odd, then again maybe a dozen people a day had asked that very same question and it got tedious to answer. He wanted to say that the guy standing there didn't exactly look like someone who was exceptionally dangerous, but looks could be deceiving.

"So what happens next? Do they throw you out of town or do you just have to awkwardly continue to exist here?"

Listen. Hiro didn't have a lot of sympathy for people who actively tried to harm others, that was true, but he had also been in hiding himself for a couple of years now and while it wasn't the same thing he was curious because there were always reasons to read between the lines.

@sailor--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

Hiro couldn't say subtly was his strong point when he was bored.

"You're the guy that got outt'ed by the MAFIA weirdos, aren't you?" He speculated, not that there was much to speculate really. Hiro wasn't much of a fan of MAFIA; they were incredibly sloppy in their supposed efforts, practically as destructive themselves as they claimed their 'enemies' were and it had never failed to seem wildly off skew to Hiro the logic of terrorizing people was supposed to do something positive for Magicks.

They were messy.

Although that didn't negate the exposure in that case, the whole Order thing was equally ugly. Sometimes there weren't any 'good guys' in a situation.

"Not that it doesn't feel like a blatantly obvious question but why does someone who worked for an anti-Magick group move to a Magick-friendly town?" It wasn't actually accusatory, because there had been some logic to it underlying and that's what Hiro wanted to know.

@sailor--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

Hiro usually only ventured out to the market with Aunt Cass, sometimes with Luca - the latter of which that time since it was Luca's ongoing campaign to get him to leave the house. And his purpose was to wander mostly indifferent between the aisles while his friend was busy with the grocery list. A bland pattern, more or less.

He jolted when the cart was nudged, waking him from his mild disconnection. Several things rattled but nothing was really damaged at least - Hiro was grateful because he didn't want to put forth the effort of replacing them.

He didn't really know much about the guy, specifically knew he was part of that anti-Magick group, the former sheriff and all the noise online. A little surprising just how messy a small town could be.

"Huh," his curiosity was gnawing just a little bit, he couldn't deny it. The guy didn't look much like a villain, but did it again that's probably what most villains looked like; mundane.

@prince--thomas

Accidental Run-in ~~ [Open]

[superhiro-hamada]

Anaïs Nin // John Steinbeck

[superhiro-hamada]

It wasn't Lucas fault, and he couldn't expect Luca to know how to fix everything. He didn't think he wanted someone to fix it all anyway; maybe he just wanted to let it all be unfixable for a while. Wasn't that how people got through difficult points? Feeling their way through it and letting it be bad while it was bad?

The logic hadn't really gotten him through the long nights behind him in the past year or two, but other things had; Tad being one of them of course, but not just that. There were other people, like Luca, who sometimes he got so frustrated with their efforts to make him feel better even though he realized if nobody did that he probably would just stay in the basement all the time.

Luca knew when to stop though, when trying to help stepped over that line into pushing too much; something Hiro appreciated because he wasn't good at voicing those lines. It wasn't good at voicing most anything when it came to feelings, sometimes he was terrible at even navigating his own.

He at least had gotten to the point where he could admit it.

It was another line, personal space; so much of the time Hiro either wanted no one anywhere near him or he felt disjointed being alone and there didn't seem to ever be the midpoint of normality other people found so easily. So much of it depended on the person, on the moment, on a dozen different factors and some of them he couldn't even put a name to because there was nothing inside his brain simple; it could process at such a rapid speed that it was almost laughable how sluggish it was at deciphering anything that didn't fall into patterns and logic. Something in his emotional processor was clearly not wired correctly anymore, if it had ever been in the first place.

It was Luca though, someone on the very short list of people who weren't offensive in his personal space even when that space felt very personal. It was calming in some strange way. Life would go on, it was one of those inevitable truths to the universe that Hiro had learned to live with despite moments when he hadn't wanted to live at all, and if life went on so did he because there were people that just kept anchoring him.

He sighed, allowing himself the moment to just lay there, accept that gesture of comfort. He hadn't realized until Tad, Luca, Riley, Tony, there was something very human in contact with other people, the right people, the people he trusted, that settled some of the frayed thoughts. Aside from Aunt Cass of course, because she was his mom; for the longest time she was the first and primary source of comfort in his life. But that had expanded to other people, to their presence, to Luca's presence right then; it was a soundless sort of it'll be okay by simply being there.

His head dipped on the pillow some, near enough to acknowledge Luca, reminding himself that his best friend was real and was right there with just the point of contact for his forehead met their narrow shoulder.

Eventually he would get up, Luca would finally say something as a subtle nudge at making sure he ate something, and he would go upstairs, and he would try a little harder. And the next day he would try a little harder than that until trying would still be hard but it wouldn't be impossible. He probably wouldn't figure out exactly what had gone wrong between himself and Tad but it would start to feel less like the end of the world.

"Thanks," Hiro mumbled, grateful Luca was there and understood sometimes what he didn't say.

@lucathedreamer

Blankets and Bedding || Techno Wave