triggerhappytraitor | Prisma Inbox/index

"To see you." An honest answer, as far as he's concerned. It says nothing about the reasons he wants to see him... but he does want to see him. He steps in closer, head tilting slightly, trying to take in what he's doing.

He doesn't really get it. He does not understand engines. It's all quite inscrutable.

Tachibana glanced up again, eyebrow rising a moment before looking back at the task at hand. "About what?" he asked, a small grunt of annoyance escaping as he again tried to balance the part and twist the stubborn fastener that would hold it in place.

"About finding things to do together." That hits a little closer to what his real intentions are, here. Perhaps he can convince Tachibana to join him in the VR game again... or perhaps they can find time for another fight.

Speaking of closer, he steps even closer still. Though the work Tachibana is up to is still perplexing, Tachibana himself is worth approaching.

The got another pause and incredulous look from Tachibana before he shook his head slightly, letting out a slow breath. "If you want, you can start by making yourself useful. Hold this bit in place so I can screw it in, would you?"

He blinks. Which is probably a hard thing to notice behind those sunglasses of his, and comes across more as a silent pause. But frowns down at where Tachibana indicates, then reaches in and, indeed, holds 'that bit' in place.

"Like that?"

Tachibana experimentally loosens his hold on the part, making sure Isaka has it properly before shifting to make a two handed effort to secure the fitting that had been vexing him. Making sure it was tight enough, he let out a long breath, leaning back.

"Thanks. Just enough of a rough spot on that damned thing that turning the fitting was getting to be a real pain."

It feels... good, somehow, to see Tachibana look satisfied like that. When he pulls his hand away, it's done slowly. "...what exactly are you trying to do?" Whatever it was, he seemed to be.... enjoying himself...?

"I'm building Hajime a bike," Tachibana explained, getting to his feet and stretching his shoulders. "It's been a bit slower going than with mine, since that one I had a frame and a base, it just needed a lot of repairs. This one's being made entirely from salvage," he explained, pulling off his work gloves to toss them on the workbench.

"Him?" That has him frowning immediately. It's ridiculous, they spend all their time fighting! And he's jealous, that Tachibana's not building him something. It's quite the burst of offended emotion. The rest barely even registers with him. "Him, of all people?"

Tachibana paused, eyebrow raising. "Who the hell else would I be making it for?" Other than Kenzaki, but Kenzaki had vanished again... ... not that it didn't mean he hadn't been sourcing parts for him anyway.

"...The hell do you have against him, anyway?"

"I don't know. Yourself?" It is not the swiftest of answers, but he is not feeling like the swiftest of Undead right now. Especially faced with a question that's been long overdue to be asked. What does he have against Joker these days, anyway? He pulls a face and looks away, trying to actually figure that out.

"...he's an asshole." There we go. That's a start.

"...I finished building my bike before you even showed up," Tachibana pointed out, jerking his head over to the tarp-covered bike in the other half of the shop.

He shifts slightly, crossing his arms to lean back against his work bench slightly. A small snort escaped at Isaka's answer. "So are you," he pointed out.

"Maybe you wanted a second one." Isaka shrugs and tries to make it seem as though he doesn't actually care. He does still feel somewhat foolish, though. And no less sour and irritable than before.

"I'm the sort of asshole that won't leave you alone. He's the sort of asshole that won't shut up and listen."

"Shutting up isn't the problem," Tachibana countered, almost amused. Hajime? Talkative? That would be the day...

"You're both stubborn idiots who think you know the best way to handle everything and can't deal with it when you're wrong. The only difference is that he thinks every answer is to punch something and you have more varied tactics."

"If he's not shouting threats, he's trying to pick a fight." Tell him he's wrong, Tachibana. Go right ahead.

"Hmph." The man has a point, though. One that's wrapped up in enough almost-flattery that Isaka is willing to accept it. "I have tactics, at least."

"Hajime's version of tactics is just punch if until it stops being a threat," Tachibana agreed with an almost fond hint of amusement. And yet, he was the one with the reputation for shooting without provocation, go figure.

"I would have thought it would take a bit more than just something like that to get under your skin, however."

If he were feeling generous, he might argue that a surprise attack was a valid sort of tactic... but mostly, he's feeling grumpy. "I'm also more prone to being on the receiving end of those tactics." They are driven to fight each other, after all. It makes things a little awkward.

"...I'd have thought so, too." And now he's feeling grumpy about feeling grumpy. Great.

Tachibana was quiet a moment, looking over at Isaka.

"... has he been targeting you?"

Hajime was supposed to be used to ignoring that fighting impulse... but he also might just be using Isaka for stress relief.

He shakes his head immediately. "Targeting would imply he's bothering to make plans. If get within his field of vision, it's a half and half chance that he'll try and pick a fight."

Not that he's working on a very large sample size for this sort of thing. Or samples that were reliable. Them both being drunk, or both being under weird moon influence tips the scales towards violence.

"Surprised it's not every time. He's improved a bit, in that respect at least," Tachibana reflected.

Still, something like that wouldn't be enough for Hajime to get under Isaka's normally unflappable skin...

"Encourage him to improve some more, then, if you have such a good relationship with him." He looks away, feeling restless to go with all of that irritability, and his eyes fall on that cloth-covered bike of Tachibana's. He'd had that since before he had even got here, hadn't he...?

"Is it so important for the both of you to still be 'Riders', that you need those things?"

Tachibana's eyebrow rose again. "Like he listens to me any more than he listens to anyone else?" he returned, a touch incredulous before pushing off the wall to follow over to his bike.

"I like riding," he pointed out. "Especially now that we're in a world with actual roads that go places." The most frustrating part of Limal... "It has nothing to do with being a Rider."

.... if you ignored the fact that he had basically replicated Red Rhombus with the new bike's aesthetic.

Isaka shrugs. They live together, so don't they have some sort of peace agreement? He's willing to let the matter go, at this point, though. Instead, he watches as Tachibana moves to his own bike.

"...there weren't any roads?" He will call Tachibana on just how damn similar this bike looks to his old one later, probably. There are strange Liminal things to ask about.

Tachibana nodded, one hand resting on the handlebars of the bike. "The entire fabric of Liminal would change on a whim basically every week. It almost never had roads, or even spaces open enough to ride. Hell, sometimes it didn't even have proper gravity," he scowled before shaking his head. "You could make almost anything you could think of out of energy, but it didn't mean a damned thing."

His mouth flattens out into a line at the idea of there being no gravity. Here he is, just trying to get used to the idea of his whole existence being useless here, and there are places where even something as simple as that doesn't work anymore? "How... long were you in that place, again? It sounds miserable."

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