2687/Catra Says She Doesn't Explode Things

Catra Says She Doesn't Explode Things
Date of Scene:	12 July 2025
Location:	Mamoru's Apartment
Synopsis:	Kazuo takes care of an overheated Mamoru while Mamoru tells him about Entrapta and how she's going to have labspace in the building. They catch up. It's nice. It's so nice.
Cast of Characters:	Mamoru Chiba, Kazuo Saitou

---

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
It's mid-afternoon on Saturday, so school's been out a few hours at this point. It's also disgustingly hot. On the monitors, Mamoru appears walking home, and he smiles at each camera he passes just in case Kazuo happens to be looking, all the way through the building.

"Kazuohhh," comes a princely ('princely') voice attached to a boy carrying a box of mixed Persian sweets, "these are not a bribe they were on sale in the international section and they're kind of a bribe so I hope you like them and also share them."

He looks hopeful. He's in the deep blue with gold gingko leaves yukata and his hair is sweaty because it's a hundred degrees out. His face is red. He is probably dehydrated.

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Kazuo must have been looking. Because the air is cooler in the apartment than it has any right to be, and also because Kazuo meets Mamoru at the door with a cold bottle of melon soda in one hand and a glass of ice water in the other. Whether the second is for drinking or wearing is probably up to Mamoru.

"They are absolutely a bribe but I have no spare hands yet," he says. "Also it's due to rain in the next day or two, so we should be able to go around and scrape anyone who's melted on the floor back into a bucket. Possibly including you. Why are you bribing me? Did you give Saphir an apartment?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"That would take Izou-kun bribing me first," Mamoru says after stumbling over the last question and looking hilariously Called Out. "But no," he fills in after taking the bottle of melon soda and drinking a bunch of it in one go. Since that frees one of Kazuo's hands, the box gets transferred, and then Mamoru takes the glass also. "Rashmi-chan asked me to give Entrapta-san space for a lab so that we don't lose her to Kirakirafantastica's libraries. She made the mistake of getting recruited by Obsidian, was startled and alarmed when her work got stolen, and left immediately."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"-- was alarmed when her work got stolen," Kazuo repeats. "What did she think Obsidian wa-- wait." The box is taken to the nearest table and set down, very gently. That's so he can go to the kitchen and get another bottle out of the refrigerator. "This is the one who was taking anthropological notes at the wedding, isn't it? So she didn't know what Obsidian was. All right. I don't know how to secure for interdimensional research, off the top of my head, but I'll talk with Izou about maybe automating checks for movement in the ventilation system. I'd rather get to know their current residents than have one of her strays surprise my mother and get a dubious artbook slammed on it. Are there any specific areas of research we should be prepared for untoward results from? Biohazard precautions? Gray goo scenarios?"

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
Mamoru is Too Hot. He has set down the now empty first bottle of melon soda on the counter as he trails after Kazuo. "I'm too hot to track that many words in a row all at once," he announces, then sets the glass down and loosens the neck of his yukata even further, then picks the glass up and starts gulping water down too.

Finally he says, glass down again and sleeves up over his hands to wipe at his face and neck and the sides and back of his head, muffled, "Catra-san says she doesn't explode things. That's her yes, she also ended up being videographer completely by accident, I have to see if I can get copies from her."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Catra would know," Kazuo concedes. "Not exploding things is a bonus." He leaves off words there; water runs, and then when Mamoru is done with his sleeves, he is being offered a cool damp towel and another bottle, this time of Mamoru's preferred version of electrolyte drink. "Wedding videos as rent? There's an idea."

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"We won't have to pay for the utilities or construction or equipment, and the idea is to avoid Entrapta getting a job with anyone who could conceivably pay for her, so it's more like Coco-chan and Setsuna-san are giving her the job of Not Being In Obsidian and I'm providing space where people will look in on her regularly and also... what you said. But I have Ami-chan looking at helping Entrapta sort out what she'll need in there already, and Ami-chan has her hyperspatial sphere thingy with I think is slightly dimensional?"

This as Mamoru's taking the towel and cooling himself off with it. He takes it and the bottle and pours himself into one of the big old captain's tavern chairs around the dining room table, then briefly puts the towel around the back of his neck and head while he drinks electrolytes.

Rolling his head back and to the side to look at Kazuo without moving, Mamoru takes his glasses off and the blue is suddenly unfettered. "I like her a lot. She's very Leonard of Quirm."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
Ami-chan. Kazuo relaxes visibly at the mention of her name, and actually goes so far as to bring Mamoru's water glass to the table with him once he's refilled it, setting it down neatly in reach. "A hyperspatial lab would not be the weirdest thing in this building," he agrees. And then Mamoru's last remark catches him, and he gives a half-startled smile, genuinely amused. "Complete with European-style patronage. But hopefully no Patrician. You'd be irritated as hell if you had to be Vetinari." Sweaty hair is tousled a little more, very lightly, with fingers still cool from the icy glass. And then Kazuo drops into a chair beside Mamoru, close enough to touch, far enough away not to get more heat on him.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
"I would be incredibly irritated to have to be Vetinari, yes," says Mamoru with a little crook of his mouth, eyes sparkling as Kazuo ruffles his hair, and then he drinks some more electrolytes and mops his face with the towel, then opens his yukata some more and mops his chest with it, then just slouches until the cushion is padding the edge of the chair behind his lower back. (Then he pushes himself up a little because that's not comfortable either.)

"The best thing would be if we could get Rashmi-chan to build a non-intelligent Device to put up a barrier for Entrapta-san that she can turn on and off when she's about to run anything," he muses. "I'll suggest it in case she didn't think of it; I've worked with Device mages a lot more than she has." Riventon, for one. Koji and Rashmi.

He's silent for a moment, and then he reaches over and very lightly places overwarm fingers atop the back of Kazuo's hand. His mind is still hazy from the heat, but he's satisfied, he's happy, he's still made of sparkles and rainbows; there are pieces of anxiety floating around, but it's all known things he's already put out of his conscious thoughts as 'cannot solve yet'; he's idly chugging through allocation of resources and considering the engineering of the building and what would be easiest to reinforce given what the walls have said to him--

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"Now you're making me curious what it takes to generate a barrier," Kazuo observes. "And if we could contribute toward the parts somehow. But that's a question for someone who wants to study under Rashmi, and I don't think any of us have the time and the degree of interest to do it justice." It also might be unanswerable without a Device to translate concepts, for all he knows. Some things overlap. Some things only pretend to.

At the touch, Kazuo brings his other hand across and lays fingertips just against overwarm fingers, the least heat-enducing method of clasping hands possible. The warmth at those rainbows hasn't ebbed, nor the satisfaction in turn at Mamoru's happiness. They will manage. They will make a place Entrapta can use as a home for her mind - and the mental image of that might amuse Mamoru, a little diagram of apartment rooms with a bright spark careening around inside them, full-speed bouncing off walls and ideas and sometimes zipping outside a door and taking a while to remember there's a place to go back to until she finds something she wants to look at in the lab, and then it's back to careening again. The back of his mind is turning over a hundred things, as ever, of which two might be needed and one of those more likely from Ami or Rashmi than from him - but the other ninety-eight are worth a glance even if it's just to set back.

He's accepted the idea, and he's working, and Mamoru is happy, and tomorrow or the next day it will rain and Zoisite will be happier, and what could be better than this?

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
There is sheepish affection at how quickly Kazuo accepted the idea, and a vague continued amusement fluttering back about how some days he's like Vetinari, some days Vimes, and some days Carrot-- gallows amusement; there's a snippet of memory of Hinoiri telling him that King Endymion was a jerk, and wondering if they-- she and Mamoru-- were really friends. There's a conflation of the brightness that Kazuo sees when he thinks 'prince' with an amused mental image of Carrot, and the Black Moon Clan calling him the Young King. But he wants to think he could be more like Vimes--

He's starting to cool off enough to be able to think, and the haze starts clearing away from his thoughts and they start actually happening with some sort of continuity and focus. He gives his own mental image of what Entrapta describes as how she grew up: in a few rooms with only the robots she built as company and friends. He gives an impression of her emotions as he was able to pick them up, and apparently he mostly got fascination and the kind of excitement that air molecules get in the heat.

Then out of nowhere, "Are you going to wait until Saphir is dead and Zoi is recovered to introduce him to your mom? Because I can't gossip with her until you tell her about him."

His hand creeps, sliding between Kazuo's hand and the fingertips of his other hand, clasping Kazuo's more properly after a moment. He's amused, he's laughing, just only in his mind and his eyes. He's teasing about the gossip, but only partially. He loves, he love love loves, and there are warm fuzzies attached to the image of the memory of Kazuo and Izou dancing at the wedding, and incidentally of Izou putting him to bed after teleporting back with him--

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
... there is just an instance's flash of Mamoru wearing a winged, golden hat.

After Mamoru largely confirms Kazuo's internal image of Entrapta, the verbal conversation's changed - and Kazuo blinks at the question. "I don't have any particular timing in mind on that," he says. "Who knows? Demande might decide his brother's worth more than his ego after all." He isn't expecting that to happen. There's a flash of a surprisingly deep grief - but it's stepped past without a blink or a pause, because it's for who Demande might have been, a person strangled to death in the cradle and unlikely to be resurrected now. "We'll see when the opportunity comes up. Though now you have me rethinking the whole idea." (This is a lie.) "After all. What would happen if she started gossiping with Izou?"

Kazuo love love loves in return, and wraps the memory of Izou putting Mamoru to bed in warmth, and then shares the image of chibi versions of Saori and Izou blinking wide eyes innocently in unison. Clearly Not Up To Anything.

Mamoru Chiba has posed:
This is such a lie. Mamoru looks and feels appropriately entertained.

(The grief he's not surprised about. But if he can be philosophical about their own potential deaths someday, he can be philosophical about the Black Moon Clan's unsalvageability. Plus Demande beat the shit out of him and he's going to be smug when he dies.)

(The idea that they might not win simply doesn't occur to him.)

"She better not gossip with Izou, it might be about me," Mamoru says, mock-offended but mildly alarmed all the same. And then sudden laughter in his head and he says archly, "It's fine when it's me and her about you."

Then he sits up and twists around in his seat, letting go of Kazuo's hand for a second to do it. Then he picks it up in both of own hands and turns it over to lightly kiss Kazuo's palm, then the inside of his wrist, before letting go again and getting up. "I have to put on dry clothes, I'm starting to get chilly now."

Kazuo Saitou has posed:
"You do that," Kazuo says, his fingers having curled to touch Mamoru's cheek before trailing away as Mamoru let go and got up. "I have a bribe to investigate. And eat before you come back out."

This is, in fact, also such a lie.