309/The Cosmological Constant

The Cosmological Constant
Date of Scene:	22 August 2023
Location:	Penguin Park
Synopsis:	Darien just wanted to talk to Kazuo. Half texts and half scene.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou

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Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: hi
    Darien TXT: I just wanted to talk to you, haha

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: Good timing, I'm on break. If I go silent it's not you, it's the summer job.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: Oh what's your summer job? I kind of vaguely wish I were a lifeguard. like, at the shore

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: My summer job is mildly unfortunate and comes with even more overheating than a lifeguard's. Do you like swimming, or like watching people?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: I'm not actually sure if I know how to swim, but I'm a pretty quick study. I do like watching people. I just kind of like the idea of being around a lot of people but not necessarily having to talk to them. In the sun.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: So like school, but with more fresh air and fewer annoyances.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: i can't much hang around on top of tall things at school unless i sit on the roof for lunch, and that's too high up. but yeah i guess so! except people always want to talk with me there. so maybe not
    Darien TXT: (i like being on tall things)

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: I was counting the people wanting to talk with you as annoyances. Sadly, I don't think perching on my shoulders for lunch would help. Where would you put your food?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: On top of your head, obviously. Or if properly standing, instead of riding around sitting on your shoulders, then I suppose I'd hold my plate.
    Darien TXT: BTW do you get in fights with Counselor Inai or is that just me?

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: My hair doesn't make the best placemat, but I could try to balance.

    Kazuo TXT: Sort of. Not quite fights. Polite disagreements or noncommittal listening. She hasn't yet warranted punching and TV tells me that arguing with possible weird cultists is a great way to wind up being sacrificed to, I don't know, the Ancestral Eidolon of the Paperclip.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: a) ancestral eidolon of the paperclip omg
    Darien TXT: b) oh i mean i don't get in fistfights with her either. i just meant verbal
    Darien TXT: (i should have specified)
    Darien TXT: c) the word 'cult' keeps getting thrown around. naru thinks i'm in one, and honestly i'm examining that because even if the question is academic, it would be interesting to know
    Darien TXT: c.5) i seriously doubt she's in a cult

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    The response has no actual words. Just a link.
    Kazuo TXT: https://writing.exchange/@golgaloth/109885788269429823

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: oh man fuck that, i wouldnt go down that hall in the first place and i AM the monster at the end

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: The word 'cult' keeps getting thrown around because honestly from the point of view of an outsider this looks very much like what a longstanding wrangle between multiple weird occult groups would look like, and if everything is generically labelled a cult until more information is obtained, it makes the hypothetical outsider appropriately wary of everyone trying to push their particular points of view until there's data to work with

    Kazuo TXT: so: here's a cult, there's a cult, everywhere a cult cult

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: her side honestly doesn't have all the red flags. and most people on it that i've met, i actually kind of like. most people i work with, except for my immediate circle, i can't stand. or they are actively horrifying. that's why, even though she and i are opposed in practice, i give her names of kids she might be able to help.
    Darien TXT: and i think that's kind of why i said literally in front of her that i wanted to make friends with you.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: I don't know what her side is. I know that she has red flags for me. But what sets me off may be things that don't bother you at all.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: Well she's overeager but like. I'm just looking at how I absolutely must have looked to you before.
    Darien TXT: On the other hand that doesn't really help since I might as well be in a cult lmao
    Darien TXT: except i'm pretty sure there's only a literal demonic entity in our division so far as i know, so the whole conglomerate can't actually be a cult, right? :|a

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: The red flags where she's concerned involve the trying to tell me what to do without giving reasons. And the hinting at thinking herself superior. Not uncommon for faculty. Which might as well be another kind of cult.

    Kazuo TXT: Are you referring to your sister or is demonic more literal than that?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: Yeah I think part of that is also that she's in her early 20s and they're all assholes. ...the demonic is more literal than that. boss's boss.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: Hm. Time seems likely to do much for only one of those things.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: By the time she stops being insufferable, we'll be insufferable. It's an issue.
    Darien TXT: Anyway my sister is a murderghost, not a demon. I acquired her about three months ago. I mean acquired isn't the right word, but neither is adopted. Are you sure you still want to talk to me?

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: That's rapid acquisition for a sister. Why would this conversation make any difference in my wanting to talk to you?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: Because it's making it clearer with everything I say how adept I am at making questionable choices

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: Well, obviously. I mean, you wanted to talk to me.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: XD XD XD
    Darien TXT: thanks.
    Darien TXT: i always want to talk to you! I'm just bad at starting conversations with people i really like and actually want to know better

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: Doesn't help that there's not much to know. I study, I fight people, and I joined kendo club in the faint hope of keeping fighting people channeled into a slightly more acceptable form. There, now you know everything.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: You also have a summer job! And also
    Darien TXT: i'm trying to be normal about stuff but apparently the dark energy i've been using is a bad batch or something, and it's really hard to be normal about anything or even tell what normal is
    Darien TXT: but dw, agera -- who is even closer to an adoptive brother -- is pretty sure that if we flush my system of the bad stuff and replace it, i'll be fine again

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TXT: This is a hell of a time for my break to be over. Can't use the phone in the suit. At least it will give me time to figure out which of the thirty questions coming to mind I actually want the answers to.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: OK! dw i'll warn you ahead of time when this will happen

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Kazuo TxT: Park later? After I get out and have time for a shower?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
    Darien TXT: sure!
    Darien TXT: i am so sorry about your job making you overheat
    Darien TXT: (... of typing a while, then it disappears)

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
    Whether or not anyone sees the ... is an excellent question. Because job. There are further texts about where to meet up, but those happen after the escape from Because Job.

    Kazuo, when he appears in the park, was not kidding about after he got out and had time for a shower; his hair is still tied back, keeping its half-damp-ness at least mostly off his shirt. Given that it's August, that means he's probably drier than a lot of people, granted. He's carrying a small cooler bag. Possibly as bribery for thirty questions.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien's given up on being remotely respectable and is wearing cargo shorts with a short-sleeved oxford shirt, and a pair of sandals. He's sitting on the edge of the picnic table they'd agreed on the location of, his feet on the bench.

The black-haired boy is looking at his phone screen until Kazuo comes within hailing distance, at which point he pockets it and hops down. "Ohhhh what'd you bring?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Necessities," Kazuo calls back, and when in range, sets down the little cooler bag and opens it. Item one: two bottles of water, very cold. Item two: spoons. Item three: two pints of ice cream. One of them is lavender. The other one is very chocolate. Three guesses whose that one is intended to be.

Expecially since that one has a little handwritten note on the top. It reads: "This is dark and has energy. But I'm guessing that's entirely not what you meant. Hope it's a good batch anyway."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Lavender ice cr-- a ~note~!

Darien leans over the table a little to read it, and grins crookedly as he reaches to pick up he pint first, and then he takes off the note, folds it up, and puts in his shirt pocket. He doesn't snag a spoon until he's got the lid off the ice cream. "I'm absolutely assuming this whole thing is for me, and I've now gotten far enough that correcting the assumption would be awkward."

The water is obviously for later, so Darien climbs back up to sit on the table instead of the bench. Again. "So, thank you very much, and I hear you have thirty questions?"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo folds himself down onto the bench, and though he's in range, does not in fact prop an elbow on Darien's knee. There, Darien can duly be tall. He claims the lavender for himself more lazily, then folds the cooler bag over to keep the water Very Cold. "That sounds like a reasonable assumption. I don't remember inviting any chocolate-thieving pixies behind your back."

A pause. "... okay, what the hell do you mean when you say dark energy? This doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the cosmological constant."

Says the sixteen-year-old.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien's just smiling down at Kazuo for a moment, and then he sticks his spoon in his ice cream, and then Kazuo pauses and asks the first of thirty questions--

--and his eyes widen slowly. Slow motion almost-cringe, which resolves into rueful apology. "I forgot how much you knew. Didn't know. I've been talking to Naru."

He doesn't nudge Kazuo with his leg.

"So, astrophysics or quantum? Or does it make a difference at that point?" Darien asks wryly, then shakes his head. The ponytail is thinking about sticking to the back of his neck again. "Nevermind. It's magic, but made out of negative emotions, and sometimes also corrupted human life force."

Then he takes a big bite of ice cream.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
... Kazuo does elbow Darien's leg. Gently. "Serves you right for talking to a genius," he says amiably, though not with the kind of hushed 'genius' that people use when they're talking about someone like Ami Mizuno. "Well. Astrophysics or quantum, I'm willing to bet ice cream," obviously, "that you're not talking about 'this enormous factor that we introduced to explain something that may well just be a modeling error.'" Unless it isn't. Unless the universe actually is being driven apart by a thin fog of whatever Darien's talking abou--

Oh.

Well. That would make sense, actually.

Kazuo takes another spoonful of lavender ice cream himself, if only to give him time to think that through a little more clearly. "Huh. And yet a 'bad batch' of it sounds like something unusual, instead of something that should be expected due to the source material. Do you really manage to get something consistent and usable out of something so wildly variable most of the time?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
As gently as Kazuo elbows is exactly how gently Darien moves with it, smirking a little.

He eats ice cream companionably, and then when Kazuo asks how, he pauses the nomf process to answer again. "I don't actually know. I mean, I don't know how we manage to get it consistent and usable, but... we do? I mean, not entirely consistent, it's not like it's uniform when we use it. I think." He laughs. "Sorry. But I've only been doing this for two years, as far as I know."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo tilts his head to look up at Darien, and gestures with his spoon. "I suppose it's what we're doing now, sort of," he says. "Putting energy together out of sugar and cream and whatever else is in this. And air, which has variable levels of ... pretty much everything. I suppose if our bodies can do it, it's not so much of a surprise if there are parallel processes. And I suppose that a 'bad batch' might turn up the same way, if there are ... weird contaminants. Emotions don't carry bacteria, do they?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"Not bac--" Darien forgot to swallow before talking, and now the back of his hand's over his mouth while he finally does. Then he licks the dribble off the back of his hand, not particularly caring about bacteria. "Not bacteria, but I don't know, it could be something like people drinking too much so everything's tainted with depressants? I have no idea what kind of contaminants there could be. I'm also not sure he's right, but it's a reasonable idea and I'm willing to try it."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"If it were drinking too much, then your people would have plenty of experience with it," Kazuo says dryly. "Besides, that's not so much negative energy, right? Maybe you ... I don't know, maybe you got an American tourist in there or something, who knows what they put in their bodies."

There's a nod up to Darien again afterward. "It doesn't sound like it's too likely to do you any more harm, unless there are complications neither you nor Agera know about, anyhow."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
More ice cream! There's a lot to go through, and it's not until now that Darien's been able to slow down some -- because now there's no danger of it dripping down the sides, he's eaten far enough down.

"And if it's what I think it is, instead, then it'll do a world of good. See, I'm not sure how other departments make their dark energy, either. It must be different because the difference in methodology of any two departments is generally pretty big. So it could be that I'm allergic to the departmental preparation method!"

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo considers his own ice cream again. Possibly because he is contemplating that different departments have different dark energy preparation methods but only one department is known to have a demon.

His head tilts just a little to one side. New perspective. On ice cream.

"I wonder," he says after a moment, "if that would be grounds to get you a transfer away from your boss. It'd have to be wrangled carefully, granted, to get all your people with you."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I wish," says Darien, giving a theatrical shudder. "My boss is the creepy cougar who hired me in the first place, and I'm her favorite, and she's on the board of directors. Don't think Takashi-kun and I haven't discussed it wistfully multiple times."

He takes another bite of ice cream, frowning, and then taps the spoon on the rim of the carton as he swallows it. "I really don't think -- even if by some miracle she let me go -- it would be possible to get all my people out. That would literally be gutting her entire top management tier."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo cranes his head back again. This time so he can direct a small frown up at Darien, one that goes alongside an arched eyebrow. "... wait. The creepy cougar is on the board of directors, and the demon isn't? What kind of plausible deniability is this?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I don't think the demon thing is actually in the company hierarchy," says Darien, and finally has mercy on the neck-craning. He climbs down off the table one-handed to sit on the bench next to Kazuo. "But... listen, it would be--"

Darien sighs and tilts his head all the way back, also slouching backwards against the table's edge. "Why am I telling you all of this? I'm not like this." He tips his head back up and looks straight ahead, into the middle distance. "Well. I know why I'm telling you all of this."

Then he turns to look at Kazuo and takes his glasses off, folding them up and hanging them over the second-to-top button of his shirt. "But if you do anything with the information it's a target on my back and yours, so it's also not fair to tell you all this."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
The demon thing isn't in the company hierarchy. Kazuo's mouth twitches up at one corner, then both. "Well, that has to be a competitive disadvantage."

Clear grey eyes meet Darien's, then. Kazuo didn't bother wearing sunglasses when he showed up. He's not wearing them now. "I know," he says. "But you needed to tell someone. And I'm the least likely to do anything with the information. And you told me just enough so that I could make an at least somewhat informed decision to ask questions or to back off. And I asked questions."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien just wants to lean on him, like he always wants to lean on Nephrite's shoulder, or Zoisite's, or Jadeite's--

--but those eyes are on him and Kazuo's answering seriously, and Darien's ice cream is melting, but Kazuo's definitely got grey eyes, not gray eyes, and--

Words. "I'm really, really glad you didn't back off. Just like I'm really, really glad Usagi trusts me, even though by rights she shouldn't."

Darien looks down into his ice cream and chuffs out a little laugh. "But I was going to say, I don't think Beryl Holdings is worried about plausible deniability."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
If there is a sudden knot in Kazuo's stomach at the name ... Darien is not looking at him, and not leaning on him, and any outward hint of reaction is gone too quickly to be spotted. If there ever was one. If, if, if.

A moment later, there's a hand hung lightly off Darien's near shoulder. There aren't any words to go with it. Just a gesture, a contact, a continued not-backing-off.

And then a snicker. "No, I was just thinking, the number of other conglomerates that probably don't care about having a demon directly on their boards. But I suppose proxies are a thing."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
The warm weight of a hand on his shoulder-- it's such a reassurance. It really is. (He wants to lean, and doesn't.) The sun is melting them, and Darien eats more ice cream, and Kazuo laughs, and there's at least an on-and-off breeze.

"I honestly don't know how they worked it out," he says with a crooked grin. "Way above my admittedly high pay grade."

Another bite, another swallow, and Darien asks, "Next question! That was nowhere near thirty."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Immediate response. "How the hell do you and Agera manage to maintain the grade standing you do and work? Does dark energy do your studying for you?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Darien snorts. "No." He licks a smudge of ice cream off the side of his hand this time, then says, "We're both quick studies, read and write fast, and like higher maths. We read ahead, I guess." And then he finishes his ice cream and sets down the empty carton and spoon, and makes the universal sticky fingers gesture before giving up and licking them sheepishly. "Sorry I literally don't know how to eat today, apparently."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Bad spoon batch," Kazuo says solemnly. He didn't think to bring napkins. A bottle of Very Cold water is offered Darien's way instead. "Are all of you like that? Is dark energy easier to use if you're good with vector calculus, or something?" Not ... that he's good with vector calculus. Clearly. After all, as stated, sixteen.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
This time Darien takes the Very Cold Water, and shivers in absurd delight at the idea of putting it on the back of his own neck. Because that would be COLD. And it is HOT OUT. But: he ends up using the condensation on the sides of the bottle to destickify his hands the rest of the way, then wipes them on his cargo shorts, because he is really classy.

He is sixteen.

"Hah. No. One of my best friends is basically court astrologer, though, if that gives you any idea of the way Beryl Holdings rolls. I mean, he is really good at it and has actual magic he can do with it, but it's not physics."

He drinks some of the water, then, and immediately tilts his head back again, pinching the bridge of his nose and grimacing. "Hnnnnngh brain freeze--"