Scene #8469: Misery Loves Gluttony

Owner	Pose
Kukuru	How long has it been since Kukuru had a moment to just sit down and talk to someone? Not counting her parents or anyone back home, way too long. Missions here, work there, but never enough time to just sit and figure things out. To think. To figure something out not because it's just part of her job, but out of a genuine personal need to. In retrospect, it probably would have made more sense to actually tell Ishirou she was coming to find him first. As per her usual habits, she's still brought some food along anyway, but... Well, it's not like she's going to pretend everything's fine this time. Everything isn't fine, and that means bringing this food is okay! Still, if he told her where this place was once before just to let her drop off some food, he's bound to show up again eventually, right? Right. Eventually. Sooner or later. Maybe. It's probably fine for her to be here.
Ishirou	Ishirou is laying on a bed staring up at the ceiling. He hasn't moved in... He doesn't remember the last time he moved, actually. Most things people 'need' him for are things that can be done electronically. He's completely zoned out of things anyway. A call comes in, and he almost lets it go to voice mail, but something makes him pick it up. 'Hey Ishirou, there is some strange woman waiting...' It comes with a picture. With the groan of someone who feels like he hasn't moved in days, he stands to his feet and groans. "Be right there.." he says with a tired-sounding tone and marches off to get a shower and dressed. He does remember before he gets in he's a robot now, he doesn't need this. There is a twinge of... ...Something... Regret? No that couldn't be it... Moments later he's at the cafe, where he had Kukuru meet him the one time. He looks a bit exhausted, and not at all wanting to be here, but here he was. "What are you doing?" he asks, without any emotional inflection in his tone.
Kukuru	Thankfully, Kukuru did at least grab a table. With chairs, even. Plural! Plenty of room to sit, as she gestures at the empty seats when she sees Ishirou. "He-llo, Ishi. How...?" She doesn't really need to finish that sentence. She can already kind of see it in his everything. Although her general instinct is to hammer him on eating first, instead, she just gestures at a chair and slides some of the food boxes over. It's not her best stuff, but it's still decently okay. It's not healthy, of course. "I wanted to talk about... Everything. What's happened with you, me, how... How we hurt them." She doesn't say who specifically, but it's fairly obvious who she means. Kukuru, at least, seems regretful for several people. "How to... Not do it again. How to make things better and get better." She bites her lower lip for a little longer, then looks back up. "Did you eat yet?" She can't suppress the instinct for that long, after all.
Ishirou	'How...?' It's clear as day on his face, he's not doing very well and hasn't been for a very long time. '...how... How we hurt them.' Ishirou flinches at this. Does he want to speak on this right now? Right here? With Kukuru? He sucks in a breath, apathy turning into anger for a split second, and then released. He lowers himself into the chair and opens his eyes again. "I'm a robot, Kukuru. I don't neat to eat and my health isn't based on it," he replies to the question about eating yet. "What is there to talk about? I came back wrong and broken, and you didn't do anything."
Kukuru	Even Kukuru isn't so willfully blind not to see that brief flash of anger on Ishirou's face. It's an unpleasant topic, and it's not even one she's pleased to be bringing up, but- "There's a lot to talk about. It's... It's more than what just happened recently. There's gotta be more from before that, too. Before you came back. Before I...." She sighs and slumps across the table, fighting back an overwhelming urge to just curl into herself. Instead, Kukuru pulls a white can of something out of one her bags, then pierces a hole into the side to start sipping. "... Yeah. I haven't been doing enough to help for a long while." She drains the can, then sets it aside and rests her chin on the table with another weary sigh. "Feeling like this sucks. I wanna change it for... I mean, I want things to be better for everyone else, too, but I don't want to keep feeling like this. I want to figure this out. Don't you, Ishi?"
Ishirou	'Don't you Ishi?' "Of course, I would, but it's too late now anyway. We didn't immediately act, or clear ourselves of our mental problems in the like week Petra was out again. So we're awful people who deserve nothing but scorn and hatred," he says. Though it's hard to tell how much of that he believes. "...You make it sound like this started even before the Petra things, which kicked this off," Ishirou says frowning. "If you... have something to say then say it..." he says, still not getting the core of the problem. He's approached this problem in every way he could think of. He just doesn't seem to physically understand the crux of the problem!
Kukuru	"It's not too late. And we're not...!" For once, even Kukuru sounds upset in a raised voice sort of way. It's not necessarily an angry tone, but she's definitely got some upsetness mixed in there. She takes a moment to sit up, then looks off to the side at the offerings in the cafe. It eases her mind, at least a little bit. Never mind the food she already brought. "Everyone messes up sometimes, but nobody's a bad person unless they choose to be. I don't... I don't want to just leave things alone like that. I don't want us to be hated for..." She trails off, letting out an uncomfortable noise before looking towards Ishirou again with a slow nod. "It sounded like Lili's been holding in a lot for a long time. Even before that time at New York. Maybe even before I knew her. I don't know her as much as you and everyone else do, and I don't think she... Um." She fidgets uncomfortably in her seat again, and her voice goes quieter. "I don't think she wants to talk to me anymore. I don't know if I did something else wrong before this, and..." Kukuru trails off again while trying to hold herself together, taking off her glasses to wipe her face off with her sleeve before slipping them back on. One of the lenses is missing, and the other is completely flat.
Ishirou	Kukuru's raised tone causes Ishirou to wince and shrink down uncomfortably. It's unpleasant, but those words don't leave his head, and he's extremely upset about not being 'fixed' in time. Worse that Lilian's done nothing but act with scorn towards him. He doesn't know what to do, or if anything can be done anymore. "I don't... know. I don't know the right words or the right feelings. I'm... struggling with my own things. I thought I could focus on that first, try and fix myself before..." he pauses, staring at the table. "I didn't want to drag my stuff into her again. That wasn't good enough. So what's the point?" he says, utterly dejected. "Maybe you'll have a shot, she doesn't hate you... I just don't think she knows how to interact with you..." He shrugs. "All I know is that this has something to do with the incident with Phony back then. All I know is it's something to do with how I perceived her... but..." "You know I tried to be like her, right? But that never worked out, I always fumbled, or wasn't strong enough..." he says with a sigh, "I can't be like her, I can't help her... so what point is there?"
Kukuru	Kukuru's still dabbing at her face for a little while longer before she finally settles back down, slumping back in her seat to take another moment just to recompose her thoughts. "Not dragging your stuff is... A start, mhm. It might not have been good enough for then, but it probably didn't make anything worse? Even if it didn't get... Better." She's not sure how to reassure him this time, and it's fairly obvious she doesn't even have her own thoughts fully in order yet. "We just gotta do better next time, and... I don't know. I don't even know if she ever liked me, either. It's not hate, but it's not good, either." Distracting herself momentarily with another can of drink, Kukuru slides over a different-looking can to Ishirou. It's straight vegetable oil, still a little cooler than room temperature. She wasn't sure if robots like it that way. "A lotta people wanna be like her. It's... That's not healthy, though. Doing some things to be closer to her is fine, but-" She pauses to yawn, hiccuping halfway through and wincing. "Whatever happened to her before isn't something we should wanna become." She straightens up in her seat a bit, then slumps again moments later. "There's too much stuff we don't know, and it's not something that'd really help her." "There's things Phony can do for her that only she can. Same with you, and me, and everyone else. If that's not enough, we just need to find other ways we can do it." She trails off again, slumping even further into her seat. "I just dunno how.But we can't just leave them alone, either."
Ishirou	"And when it backfires? When it makes her mad and she yells or withdraws? Or... wishes you had..." he doesn't complete the thought. Those words still hung over him, even if he tried to get better, they still hurt his soul in a way he wasn't sure he could recover. But... How did he really feel? Was he mad at her because she said those things, or mad at himself because she did? Everything he's done after he woke up from death had been one disaster after another. "Why are you asking me about this? If you think I had something I could have done don't you think I would have done it by now?" he looks up tears in his eyes. "Why are you even here talking to me, Kukuru? Isn't it /good/ for you and your family that I'm miserable?" "I mean, Eggman sure did a good job of it. I've lost so completely and utterly I have nothing left. Is this some elaborate thing to just rub it in more?" he gets up, especially staring at the vegetable oil.
Kukuru	"Kids get mad at their parents all the time. Or siblings, or... Whoever. But that doesn't mean their parents can give up on them. That's not how families are supposed to work!" Kukuru snaps briefly, nearly crushing another white can in her hand before hastily guzzling the stuff out of there so it doesn't spill out onto the table. There's a picture of a crab on it. "Mmph... I wanted to talk to you because it-ah. It sounded like you messed up really bad, too. You're one of the smartest kids I know, and you're not the kind to... You weren't the kind to give up. Not yet, anyway." There's a brief quiver of her lips when Ishirou alludes to what happened between him and Eggman, and she resists the urge to grab another can to force down. Instead, she clamps her hands against her legs, focusing herself with a brief squeeze. "Just because you're not in my immediate family doesn't mean you aren't in it at all. Same with Lili, Rita, Petra... Even Beri and Liza. I don't want anyone to be miserable, even if you're all doing different things and chasing different dreams or fighting each other. I just want everyone to have a..." She trails off again, finally taking a hand off her knee to wipe at her face again. "I can't be her real mom. Or yours, or Beri's, or Petra's or Rita's, or anyone. That still doesn't mean I can't be there for all of you when you really need it, and that means I can't... I don't get to give up on this." Kukuru bites her lip hard enough to draw blood, then fixes it up with a quick flicker of nanites while keeping her gaze fixed on the far wall again. "All I can do is keep trying different ways until something works. Even if you all end up hating me for it, I have to keep doing this."
Ishirou	'You're one of the smartest kids I know,' '...smartest kids I know,' '...smartest...' "SHUT UP!" he bursts out finally. Utterly vicious and angry. He's so angry right now, but... "Stop saying that! I am not smart! If I were smart I'd have figured this out! I'd have never let it happen! I'd have been a good hero..." He starts to die down, the anger burning away as quickly as it came. "...I'd have been able to figure out a way to stop Eggman instead of making Lilian do it all. Putting herself at risk because of that /girl/ Petra." "I'd have seen what was happening to her... I'd know how to fix myself...or even /know/ what I want! I wouldn't have mutilated myself like this... or gone off to fight Petra on my own because I was stupid... or nearly suicide repeatedly after dying..." "If I were smarter I wouldn't have treated everyone around me so awful, or feel like there is nothing I can do..." "I'd understand people... I'd know how to stop hurting them... or myself..." "I'd /still have a home/ and family..." "I would have more than nothing... I wouldn't be afraid to hurt everyone who comes into contact with me... I'd be more confident... or be able to really help Malkuth... or learned my lesson from what happened... or not hurt Angela..." "Stop it. Stop calling me smart. I hate it..." "Stop telling me to believe in this lie!"
Kukuru	That outburst actually has Kukuru flinching in surprise, and it has her quieting down as she listens to Ishirou spilling it all out. There's a little flinch each time he shouts, too, and her gaze shifts further down as she starts getting a far better understanding about Ishirou's motivations and hangups than she's ever had. "So that's why... You're... We're both... You do care, then." She murmurs quietly, closing her hand around one of those empty cans and slowly pulling it into an empty bag, then the others in an almost unconscious movement kind of thing. "You're just really... You messed up at it a lot, and you don't wanna hurt someone you care about again by making them clean up for you. Or letting them handle everything on their own." Kukuru gets up slowly, shaking a bit unsteadily from having sat down for a bit too long. She approaches Ishirou, hands going out slowly to try and pull him in. "Maybe you're right, though... And wrong. You know more than just about anyone I know about robots, and computers, and science-y stuff that doens't make a lotta sense. When it comes to people, though?" If he doesn't back away, she'll wrap her arms around his head while forcing a smile. It's not her cheeriest one, but it's something, like she's trying to reassure him despite her own misgivings. "You're about as dumb as me when it comes to all that computer stuff. That just means there's something to work on, then. We both gotta... Get better for her. And all of them. Smarter, stronger, and..." There's no and. Kukuru looks like she desperately wants to come up with something, but she doesn't know where else to go from there. She doesn't even know what becoming vaguely smarter would even accomplish.
Ishirou	Ishirou just slumps in his seat, all energy had left him and he's just /tired/ again. Tired, confused, in pain, and clueless. It hurts so much that he's like this, that he can't do anything... What does he really want..? The gesture isn't lost on him but it's just so hard to build up any energy right now. Those arms wrap around him and he sinks into them. His eyes well up as he starts letting a lot of emotion out. "I do care but..." he sniffles, "It's too late, you heard what she said. She'd rather me stay dead... I've ruined that," though when Kukuru goes into what he isn't good at... "People are complicated.." he admits, "I can't break them down into simple parts to understand them... I can't analyze them... I can't understand them. I try... I really do... but it just..." he shrugs. "It just backfires. I don't want to be nice to them... I want to be /good/ to them... but..." "Asking me is just like asking the blind to lead the blind..."
Kukuru	The hug stays! If nothing else, Kukuru's really good at hold them in that ideal semi-rocking state that's not too rough, but not too still. "And I'm only good enough to... Acknowledge. That just means we both have a long way to go. You need to get better at people. I need to get better at thinking fast. And being good to them..." '... shouldn't it be fucking obvious that you can't just offer food and pretend everything's fine?' "... It's not always about being nice, no. It means doing good for them, even if it's not something they'll always be happy with when it happens. They might even hate you when it happens, but... Sometimes, that's what family has to do, too." Kukuru's hold tightens briefly, and she gets a distant look on her face. "And sometimes, that means becoming strong enough to make things right for them, to make things better for their own good."
Ishirou	Ishirou pauses... 'Shovel that Coal..' Is this what Candy meant? Not just finding the right words, or the right things to say... but actually doing them? Even if she never knew it was him... "...There is something that Red Dwarf told me, and sent info to me about.." he says, after a moment, "About her father using his resources to keep track of her investments..." he says, thinking. "We could look into that more... and... figure out if that's all he's doing and if there is more rip it out and expose him?" he says, thoughtfully. "...It doesn't matter if she knows I'm involved, but... it'll make her life better to know how much of a scumbag he is and protect her from that asshole.."
Kukuru	"Red... Oh. The one with the scuffed helmet?" Kukuru remembered someone! Kind of. "The one that talks kind of rough? He's got a good head on his shoulders, too, so if he brought it up..." She lets out a pleased noise, eventually letting go of Ishirou so he can... Does he need to breathe? Well, too late to pull him back in now. "If her dad's not giving her any privacy, then... Maybe we can convince him not to do that anymore, mhm. Even if Lili's super strong, she's still a girl. And girls need their privacy, too." She affirms with a firm nod, but she raises an eyebrow at Ishirou's stronger choice of words for him. "Is he... Really that bad? I mean, he's still her dad, right? I'm sure he still cares, even if he's just showing it badly." She guesses, apparently intent to just imagine the best of someone she's never even met or heard about until now. "It shouldn't be too hard to reach him if we know where he is, too... And Lili'd appreciate it, right?"
Ishirou	Ishirou is released, and thankfully he didn't need to breathe. Or at least he had a very high tolerance for not breathing. One might say he's an expert at it. Ha ha... It's a start anyway... maybe Candy would have more ideas on how to help Lilian. He isn't sure... So much is still twisted in his head, and he wishes he had a magic bullet for that, but sadly... Then Kukuru says something that causes his blood to freeze. He's not mad at /her/ but... she didn't put the pieces together. No... it's more that she can't. She's missing critical pieces. "...He's the one who put those marks on her."
Kukuru	Kukuru blinks slowly when Ishirou gives her a rather key detail about Lilian's father, and her expression freezes for what might very well be an eternity. So many thoughts wash through her mind at that moment, from what it means to be a parent, to what it could feel like to be the child of someone that would do that, and she steps away slowly while keeping her gaze fixed on the wall. She takes a deep breath, wipes her hands off on her apron, then turns back to Ishirou with an eerily gentle smile. "... Ishirou. Do you know where is?"
Ishirou	"If I did, you'd be..." he thinks, "On the list to know.." Ishirou says uncertain. "I don't know, though. Maybe we can find out through this work where he might be located?"
Kukuru	Kukuru nods slowly, an odd sort of focus evident on her face. "Good. Yeah, that's... We'll figure it out. You, me, Red Dwarf. And then we'll have a nice long talk with Lili's dad and work something out. We'll make sure he never does anything to hurt her again." She lets out a gentle chuckle that still carries some of that vaguely threatening aura to it, and then she opens up a portal in the floor beside her. "Are you gonna be okay heading back on your own?" She asks, completely forgetting that Ishirou got here on his own in the first place. She also hasn't cleaned up any of her stuff.
Ishirou	"I'll be fine, just... be alright yourself, alright?" Ishirou says, not sure what else to say and honestly too mentally exausted to give it more than a simple thought. He's going to sleep after this.