Roadie 🪶Jack “ ’f it’s got uses, somebody’ll want it. Long as there’s a buyer, ’bout anything can be valuable.”
He gently nudged the remains of the Pure Wonder with the toe of his mall police shoe. As if even that could be valuable if you spun it right. Not enough for him to go hoarding broken bottles, though. He could steal an intact one if he wanted it that badly, thanks.
Asuka’s eyes dart to the Pure Wonder, a confused expression on her face. There’s nothing valuable there though. Just a broken bottle. It’s probably another trick, and not something to seriously consider. Ugh, how does she keep falling for this?
“Who’d buy a broken bottle? Some stuff is just junk, and it needs to be treated like junk.” There’s only the barest hint of disdain when she looks at Jack, but it’s visible all the same. “You need to, like, understand that, got it? Cuz like…Damn. Junk is just junk, I don’t know.”
The words are on the tip of her tongue, but she can’t find them. Maybe she just lacks the patience to.
Roadie 🪶Jack “Oh yeah, there’s this one toxic paste I spread on all my breakfast food. Built up an immunity, keeps people from eatin’ my food—for long, anyways. Good strategy all around. Wanna try some?” He patted one of his uniform pockets that clearly couldn’t have been holding much, if anything.
“….” It’d be so easy to reject that offer. But if Asuka can get a cool poison immunity out of this. She doesn’t even notice that the pocket’s empty, too caught up in her own thoughts and general silent frustration. “Fine. Just, like, know if you poison me everybody’s gonna know. Malls always have cameras, and they can just review the footage.”
Local teen asks for poison from confirmed murderer who scares her - more at 8.
Roadie 🪶Jack “Not sure why anybody’d wanna take our stuff for the death thing. Easier to kill each other when we’ve all got all our knives still, yeah?”
“….Wait, did the car steal your stuff or not? How do you still have poi-” She shuts her mouth. Ah. Okay. Maybe it just hit her what’s actually going on. She lets out a loud scream of frustration, but what else is she going to do? “…You make it sound nice. What, gonna develop feelings for the car? Thanks for taking away the easy weapons so it’s likely anybody can get murdered? …Weirdo. Do you wanna, like, try to justify your bad take, or you just gonna accept being cancelled, hm?” Wha-Where did that come from? Bad insult.
Then again, it’s clear that Asuka’s wounded pride is just causing her to take every small slight and multiply it without a need to do so. She thinks of Haruka again, however, and takes a breath. Ugh, this sucks. Playing nice sucks!
…Whatever. It’ll be worth it later when she tells Haruka and gets praised for being so cool! Or maybe R.N.A., now that she thinks of it! Asuka’s pretty sure that’s how adults complimenting you works - she doesn’t actually know. Do robots count as adults?
Roadie 🪶Jack “Broke the world record, even, but ‘pparently you gotta have an official record-keeper present if you wanna actually get in the books. Imagine finding somebody willin’ to wait that long. Wasn’t happening.”
“You probably could if you pay them. Do you not believe in paying recordkeepers? That’s so cruel. Bad stance on work conditions can be added to your crime checklist, I guess.” The snicker that follows is genuine, despite everything. Asuka’s own brand of humor helps her out, huh? “What, you also make exploitative contracts for them? Gonna steal their souls or something?”
She could see it. Jack seems like the kind of guy who could figure out how to do that on accident, and then abuse it over and over again.
Roadie 🪶Jack “Mixed up most of ’em myself. That make it more ‘r less sad? Beats wanderin’ around with bloodstains on all my clothes either way, doesn’t it?”
"…More sad. Honestly, if somebody else did it for you, that’d be king stuff. Mean you actually can get people to do stuff for you. People are power, y’know? Gotta force them into place somehow. Just don’t, like, be too awful. Can’t really get rid of all your sins, yeah? …I mean, I guess if you don’t remember them, it doesn’t count? You wanna, like, pretend to argue about it or something?
