Family Reunion Sort of (9-5-2011) [open for all]

"It looks great," Aemilio said, honestly surprised, as he advanced through the house, "where did you get all this...? How much are those nerds paying?"
He studied it a little more and concluded: "well... it doesn't look a whole lot like a house someone 'your age' would live in... but I'm sure that'll come with time."
He looked around some more, and the mentioning of him staying over for a night gave him an idea; "have me over for one night and I'll have this place looking like a convincing senior's appartement."

At first Hoshi looked pleased that Aemilio said it looked great, shrugging when he asked how much the scientists where spending on her, honestly having no idea. Her pleased look got replaced with a confused look when he said that it didn't look like a place someone of her 'age' would live. And that he could turn it into a convincing high school senior's appartment.
"What is wrong then?" she asked, feeling unsecure again, "I'm not done yet, but... What should it look like then?"

"Well..." Aemilio replied, after a moment of being amused and endeered by how self-concious Hoshi was, "you're suppose to be a normal teenager right? It's only a small thing, really... but if you want to make this an authentic room of a highschool senior... I should not be able to see the floor."
Admitted this place was a little too big for that expression to be taken literally, but still the house was far too clean in his opinion. Admittedly his room back home looked similarly clean, but they had a maid.
"Oh well, I'm sure the mess will come with time," he concluded, not wanting to alarm Hoshi, "at least the kitchen looks somewhat used... that looks convincing."
'Well that's the weirdest compliment I've ever given,' he thought, 'complimenting someone on making a kitchen look used.'

Though Hoshi did appreciate Aemilio's input about how to look convincingly human in case she would have people over other then him. She still was a little doubtfull about him saying that her place had to be a mess to make it look realistic. She had looked into to it a little and had soon discovered that guys where a lot more messy then girls most of the time.
"Aren't girls suppose to be cleaner then guys?" she asked, her tone suggesting she already had a good idea of what the right answer was. She closed the door to her bedroom and took a seat on the couch gesturing for him to do the same.
"I don't think I'll ever use the kitchen, seeing as I can't eat..." she then said a little thoughtfull, "Is that going to be a problem?"

When Hoshi asked if girls were less messy than guys he shrugged: "possibly... well, you do whatever you want. And about the kitchen... I don't really know. Do you have a nosy landlord or future friends?" he asked as he looked around. Because it might look a little suspicious if you have someone over after living here for a couple of months and your pans and plates and... everything has never been used before...?"

Hoshi smiled when Aemilio said that she just do whatever she wants. Glad that she didn't have to make a big mess of her place just to look like a normal high school senior. And also glad that he was so willing to help her with fitting in.
"I can always blame the cleaness on my upbringing?" she suggested but hessitated when he said that an unused kitchen might raise suspicion at some point, "The landlord is fine, but I do want to have friends over once I've made them... But I can't eat so what should I do with the kitchen? Cooking and then do nothing with it seems such a waist..."

"Sure," Aemilio said with a nod, slightly impressed with Hoshi's quick thinking - that might be very useful if she ever got caught. That reminded him, he might want to talk to Axel about shutting his big mouth to whatserface. "Want me to tell Axel to keep the hole in his face shut?" he asked.

About the cooking he thought for a moment. "Well, you could just cook once in a while... that way your pans will get used... if you really want to keep up the charade you're going to have to do grocery shopping anyway. It would be a little suspicious otherwise. I'm not saying because I think people here are gonna spy on you or anything... but the white coats might." He said that last with a reasonable sense of worry in his voice; "I really doubt any of your friends or your landlord will be paying much attention to stuff like that but... what if they're keeping an eye on that? I don't want them to call you back to the lab because of stupid little things like that."

Hoshi smiled happily again when Aemilio agreed with her on the excuse of the place being so clean, she shook her head when he asked if he should tell Axel to keep her secret. "No I want to talk to him," she said still smiling, "I have seen him a few times but I have never really talked to him. And I'm sure he'll keep my secret even if I ask him instead of you."
When Aemilio said that the 'white coats' might be spying on her she looked away a little, he had no idea how close to the truth that was. The unplugged cable by the computer was for her so that scientists could go through her memory to see how well she was adapting to live outside. Or if things where going wrong and she needed to be brought back immediately. Well at least they kept out of her more personal memories.
"I guess that can work..." she said still thinking it over, "how about you come over every now and then and I'll make you dinner and maybe Axel. That way it won't go to waste."

Though he didn't mind at all about Hoshi wanting to tell Axel herself - actually, he was fairly happy about that - but when she suggested they'd stay for dinner together he pulled a face. When he was about to suggest Axel and him coming seperately ((that sounded really wrong, I only realised that after writing it and am too amused by it now to delete it)) he realised he didn't feel comfertable with that either.
"I'm sure that could work," he finally said, a hint of dread in his voice.

Tilting her head Hoshi looked at Aemilio with a somewhat questioning look on her face, having picked up the hint of dread in his voice. In her mind she went through the limited memories she had of seeing Aemilio and Axel together, she had never seen anything weird. But then again she those times that she had seen them together Aemilio's father had never been far away either.
"Why don't you want Axel coming along?" she asked, her head still tilted.

"Uhr, nothing.... never mind," Aemilio replied with a sigh, not in the least tempted to explain this to Hoshi - he guessed that if she told him he and Axel didn't get along, she'd just be more interested and that whatever information she couldn't get out of him, she'd try to strip from Axel. Then again, maybe it would be better if, at least, she'd hear his side of the story first? No, he just wanted to leave it there.
"Whatever you want, it's your house right?" he said with a smile, hoping she'd leave it at that.

Staring at Aemilio a little longer with a tilted head Hoshi was silent for a moment. "Your weird," she said, head still tilted, but then she looked very cheerfull again, "just like I remember you."
And with that having been said she hugged him.
"So why are you in Penrose?" she then asked, "The scientist didn't tell me, or they don't know... What is the mansion like?"

At first planning to reply on that comment, Aemilio decided not to; as long as Hoshi still hugged him - and considered him weird rather than psychopatic - he was happy enough to let it slide. He put his arms around her to hug her back, then smiled at her when she asked her next question; the way she did that - especially with that tilted head and those big eyes, she really did resemble a small child.
"I just wanted to get out of the house," he replied briefly with a shrug, "and this seemed like an interesting enough place to spend an exchange year at right?"
That reminded him: "wouldn't you like to be somewhere else?" His look became a lot more serious than he intended but he only just recalled they were surrounded by a forest of strange, paranormal evil beings, and suddenly he got really worried about Hoshi.

Being very capable of understanding the desire to leave home for a while Hoshi didn't ask any farther on that subject. She nodded when Aemilio said that it was interesting enough here for an exchange year, she looked confused again when he asked if she not have prefered to be somewhere else. Ofcourse she didn't know there was anything strange going on in the forest surrounding them, which made the question rather unlogical to her.
"Why?" she asked, "The scienists let me go here because your here to help me with adapting if needed. And you just said it yourself this is a nice place to spend an exchange year. Don't you want me here?"

"Don't ask silly questions," Aemilio replied with an assuring smile, "I'm glad you're here, outside the lab, close to me. It's just..." as he spoke he knew he was going to bump into this problem; how the hell was he suppose to explain to her the situation in the forest without sounding like an idiot?! He still felt like an idiot every time he thought about it, and he knew it to be true!

"I could imagine you might want to go to a place a bit more lively," he lied with a smile, "this place isn't exactly exciting. But I suppose that might be nice, for your first home."

He still plannend on telling Hoshi about the forest, but later... once he'd thought of a good way to do so. Maybe with Axel there... But until then he did want to say something to make sure Hoshi'd stay outside the forest; "hey, have you heard that stuff about the forest already...? The local ghost stories and whatnot."

Now Hoshi was really getting confused, what Aemilio was saying was so contradictional with each other. He wanted her to be here, but still he wanted to know if she had prefered to be somewhere else and yet this was a good place for a first home. And then out of, seemingly, nowhere he asked her about the local tales about the forest.
Staring a few moments at him with a look that made it clear that she was trying to find the logic in his line of questions and answers and having no succes so far. After she had given up trying to make sense of it all, having concluded that she was missing information for that she answerd: "Every time the forest was mentioned I was warned to not go into it because it's swamps are very dangerous."

Realising he must've come off extremely random to Hoshi, but decided that was his right as a big brother and didn't go into it.
"Good," he replied with a smile, aware this wasn't making all of it seem any less absurd. Actually, telling her the truth about the forest would hardly make the situation less strange about now...

Suspicious of what Aemilio was holding back from her Hoshi stared a little longer at him. Things had gotten from so great to so weird all of the sudden, what was gonig on? At first she wanted to ask about it, but then she thought that he might just be overprotective again, that would at least explain parts of his behaviour. So instead she thought of his stepbrother which made her wonder why she hadn't seen him at all while waiting outside of the university for Aemilio.
"How come I haven't seen Axel yet?" she asked out of the blue, "I was waiting for you infront of the university for some time..."

"Ah well," Aemilio started, wondering how to best explain what had happened to Axel - as well as why Hoshi asked about it, before he replied: "he's not feeling well. I'm not sure if he even has classes today but that might be why he wasn't there."

At the news that Axel wasn't feeling well Hoshi tilted her head again, though this time a slightly worried and sympathising expression on her face. "What's wrong with him?" she asked, honest concern in her voice, "Is he sick? Shouldn't you be with him to help make him feel better?"
She felt a little guilty now that she had all but claimed Aemilio as soon as he had walked out of the university while Axel was sick and could probably use some help. Even though the logical part of her mind was telling her that she had nothing to feel guilty about because she hadn't know until now. But human emotions rarely listen to logic so she still felt guilty even after that slight mind rant.

"He's had an accident," Aemilio lied, already noticing Hoshi felt bad, "but don't worry about it," he therefor added with a smile, "he's got someone taking care of him already. His own personal nurse and girlfriend," he told her with a wink. In reality he didn't know for sure if Dominique was helping Axel out but he assumed her to - and for the sake of Hoshi's eased guilt he didn't mind pretending to know it for a fact.

He felt a little uncomfertable with their topic being so close to what had happened the night of the welcoming party. For starters because he could understand that Hoshi would declare him insane if he'd tell her. But there was another reason he didn't want to tell her about it; what if the scientists could still look into her memory? They definetly didn't need to know anything about what was going on.
Not that he expected them to believe his story - at least, he highly doubted that - but what if they found out through Hoshi that he'd attacked Axel? There'd already been quite some debate on the safety of giving a strong-tempered child such powerful mechanical implants, and more than once had the possibility of replacing his robotic body parts by weaker ones (which had been developped over the years) been discussed.
Despite him being an adult now, he knew he'd still be in trouble if the scientists found out he abused his strenght to hurt people. Firstly because they might take away his superhuman speed and strenght - which he'd come to grown very fond of - and secondly because then surely his father would find out about the real cause of Axel's injury...

"Just to be curious," he asked Hoshi, "do the white coats still monitor your memory?" He realised he was only coming off even more random than he already was, but he had to know.

Feeling somewhat better now that Aemilio had told her that Axel had someone taking care of him, though Hoshi still felt a little bad that Axel had gotten hurt. She wanted to ask if she could visit him some time soon, or if he wasn't up for that yet. But then Aemilio asked her randomly about the scientist and them checking her memory.
"Yeah every evening," she answered confused again, "not my entire memory though, just how I'm adapting to everyday life and stuff like that... Personal memories, like these probaly, they'll ignore. Why? And can I visit Axel soon? I want to help make him feel better as well."

Aemilio looked at Hoshi hessitantly, very skeptic about the scientists disinvolvement in Hoshi's personal life; if anything was certain about those people was that they were nosy beyond healtiness - something that automatically made him think of Keoki and the forest trip.
He was pleased though when Hoshi didn't ask for more details about Axel's 'accident' and with a nodded smile replied: "of course... do you have time to come over tomorrow? I don't think we should burst into him now - maybe he's resting or doing homework or something..."

That was what he said. What he meant was more along the lines of; 'I need some time to tell him to keep his mouth shut about things I don't want you to know about.'

Hoshi smiled happily again when Aemilio said that she could come over tomorrow if she had time. Already being excited to see the mansion he and Axel where staying and hopefully meet other people so that she could possibly make some friends. She then remembered something she heard about the mansion from her classmates.
"I'm sure I can make it tomorrow," she said first before adding, "is it true that the mansion has such a huge garden that you can't see the otherside of it when you stand at the fences and that is has it's own pool?"
She was most curious about the pool, she had been programmed to know how to swim and was waterproof, but so far she had only swam 2 times. The first time being a testrun and the other time was to show off at the investors, so she really liked the idea of maybe being capable of swimming again. But that all didn't mean that she wasn't also interested to know if the size of the garden had been exagerated or not.

"It's enourmous," Aemilio replied after a small chuckle, "and yes, it has a pool. Just bring your swimming stuff tomorrow...?"

((zero inspiration))