So this is important to him, thought Tweak as she watched Kokuten struggle to think of what he wanted to say. She waited patiently for him to gather his words and, when he had arranged them in the way he wanted, she listened.


Now, the rest of the explanation denoted above by the ellipsis was probably very interesting and useful. Tweak would likely find and review that memory in detail later that night while saving an update to her record of the day. But, sitting there on the bed with her squad leader's head on her lap, his hands around her hand with fingers intertwined, and what could be called with some measure of accuracy a confession of his love for her in her ears, the neko's conscious, short term cognitive abilities were somewhat impaired.

Tweak's eyes snapped over to stare at Kokuten's face for a half-second before looking down at their hands again, red appearing on her face as well. He was drunk, true, but he was also more lucid than when he answered his door and his words were not as slurred as they had been...

WHO CARES? He-he-he just said--

"You-you-you love...you love me?"

Only a day with him. She had only known him for one day...

Does that matter? She couldn't conclusively say 'yes' to that question...and, while she didn't have first-hand memories, she had second-hand first-person memories of what he was like all of those days he remembered but she did not. What Tweak did know first-hand, she enjoyed. Was that all there was to it?

What did that mean?

"Wh-what does that-that-that mean?" Her words were skipping like a corrupted data file. Was she alright? What was going on?

Internal diagnostic initiated.

... ... ...

Tweak gulped, waiting.

What do you mean what does that mean!? steamed Kokuten inwardly, surprised by the fact that she didn't still fully comprehend it yet. Was it really that foreign to her? Did having one's memory erased every evening make for this sort of thing? Or perhaps it's just for that reason she's unable to comprehend why he meant it. Kokuten quietly mulled these things over in his head, struggling to push the concept over.

"What does it mean?" Kokuten fumbled with his words a little bit, his mechanical rolling around to the side, before looking up at her. "That I... love you?" It felt so weird just saying it. "Hard to define just straight out."

How to define it... spoke the Captain inwardly, She's already tripping over her words, so I can't go around shocking her more than she's already been. I just need to take it slow, and see where this goes.

"It means you have my adoration and trust." he said finally, getting it out after a little more thought. "And lots of it. So much so that I don't mind sharing close moments like these with you, being close here, together. I'd like to have a lot more like them. However..." He held up a metal finger up at her. "What matters is what you with all that I place in you. While I am somewhat hopeful, I did consider the fact of whether or not if you didn't feel..." He got a little withdrawn, embarrassed with how caught in this the two were getting, "... somewhat similar."

"Oh-oh-oh."

Tweak stared hard at their hands. The red was not going away, why was the red on her face not going away?

A scene from earlier that evening, before the dinner, played in Tweak's mind as she tried to think. How was this scene different than that one? He was complementing her again, both on her work and who she was, and they were again in a safe place. Why had the previous time drawn a reaction of happiness while this one made her nervous? Finally, she closed her eyes and forced her thoughts to stop. Even her breathing stopped for a few seconds. Once her mind was cleared, everything shoved to the side, Tweak allowed herself one thought at a time, taking apart what was troubling her.

She kept a close watch on her emotional responses and their cues. They were highly suspect in causing the chaos in her mind, but instead of shutting them away altogether, Tweak decided that she still needed them for what she was going to try figuring out. The first issue was how to reply. The neko carefully allowed acknowledgement of what Kokuten had said, keeping herself detached from the words at first and slowly asking herself what she felt about them...

Inside her mind, Tweak was being deliberate and thorough, but at a very accelerated pace; to her, exterior time would be perceived as running slow, as it did sometimes when she was in a combat state. Outside, Kokuten was being given his own show of strange, confused expressions similar to what he had treated Tweak to while trying to come up with his original explanation. Her 'troubleshooting mode' only lasted about ten to fifteen seconds, though, so he didn't have long to wait. It may have felt like an eternity to the both of them, but it was not.

Diagnostic results: [... ... ...]

Situation response conclusions: (...)

Opening her eyes, Tweak looked down at their hands again.

"I trust you," she said. Her voice was quiet, but calm. "I always have, as far back as my saved memories and notes go. You have done so much for me.

"Earlier tonight, being with you made me happy. That's a rare feeling for me, I guess. You kept me company, you helped me enjoy myself, even for a little while...and you even tried to cover for my social weakness, even if that didn't go so well." Her mouth turned in a half-smile/half-grimace before settling on a half-smirk. "You still tried, and things worked out; I think the thought counts in that case. You make me feel safe, despite everything I can do to take care of myself, and at the same time you appreciate what I can do on my own and you trust my work. Um...I mean...well, you just said as much...so..."

It was turning into a jumbled mess of a reply. Tweak's eyes flicked to look at his, then returned to their hands as she continued before he could say anything. "And...and it's not just what you do for me, either. I do care about you. What you think, what you feel, what happens to you. What I mean is, even if I have only known you for a few hours, and they are all I have...I-I-I wish those hours were longer."

Saying it aloud, it finally hit Tweak what tonight would bring. Even if she was saving everything...it wouldn't be the same tomorrow. Everything she knew now would be gone, present only as an echo that she wouldn't recognize any more than she recognized yesterday's stored memories as being her own. Her eyes closed again while her tactical system let her know an excess of lacrimal fluid was pooling in her ocular system and overflow was eminent.

She ignored it.

Her reply had struck him silent, the gentle glow of his eyes showing to have dimmed a little bit. So the feelings were not just his own? Even with the way her memory was, she was still able to coalesce her feelings. Still, it was a powerful message, coming from a girl like her.

Though, seeing her shed those sad tears stirred something within him. In the time Kokuten had known her, Tweak wasn't one to shed tears, even when she was most troubled. He knew her memory had always been a deep setback to her, defied only by her notes and memory back-up, but this was different. When the sun rose tomorrow, she wouldn't be able to recall this moment without having to access it through the eyes of a past self.

The Captain loosed his fingers from her hand, and wobbly sat up, the world unusually unstable.

"I do too, you know." said Kokuten, now sitting by-side with the Freespacer Neko he had fallen for. "It's a little jarring to know you won't remember this like I will. More than anything I'd like you to know this more than a recording in the future."

His arm draped around her shoulders, hand wrapping snugly around her arm as he pulled her a bit to comfort her. The other gunmetal black hand rested on top of her pearly white fingers, scooping them up in his palm and grasping them gently.

"But..." He smiled looking at her, "That's why I'll be sure to remind you what's it's like every day, to know someone loves you and that you love someone else." His gaze softened a little more, as he looked down at their hands. The words were coming more naturally now. "Even if you don't quite remember today, you'll have a million more moments just like them to make up for it. I'll be sure of it." He looked back up at her, a little more glow in the brightness of his unnatural eyes.

"So you record in that memory of yours that I'll always be there to make you happy, alright?"

What he said broke down whatever was holding her back. When Kokuten put his arm around her, Tweak let him. She put her head against his shoulder and cried. She cried for her damaged memory, she cried out the stress that built up over the day, and after that, Kokuten's promises struck her in just the right way to renew her tears again.

After a while, her crying slowed to an occasional sniffle.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." murmured Tweak as she pulled one of her hands free from Kokuten's and almost rubbed it against her face before noticing the glove still on it. She removed her other hand to take off the glove, revealing the answer to the odd appearance of the fifth digit on her normally four-digit hand. A mechanical pinky finger was attached with a somewhat complicated harness to her hand, rigged to be controllable by the movements of her other three fingers and thumb. The neko fumbled with the device, pushing at the several release points to undo the catches, sniffling as she did, before it finally came loose. She rubbed the back of her hand against her cheeks to take care of the tears, then dragged her hand and index finger under her nose.

"Ugh..." Okay, that wasn't pretty at all. "I'm sorry," Tweak repeated with a very small, embarrassed smile. "Um...can I use your bathroom?"

Kokuten gave Tweak a little grin as she seemed to lighten up a little after her tears stopped flowing. At that moment, he found himself questioning the mainstream media's depiction of Neko's at large. Promiscuous, unfeeling females that see the world as little other as something to control. Tweak wasn't any of those things. She certainly felt emotions deeply, her increasingly red eyes were evidence of that, and she was not in the least at all touchy or feely. It made him wonder.

Was this how Neko's truly were, or is this just the unique Tweak, the Freespacer Neko? As alien and artificial as she was, she was more human at heart than others would be willing to believe. That was what Kokuten thought.

"Sure." approved Kokuten, letting his arm fall from her sides as he began to slowly readjust to sobriety. "You'll be the first to use it."

Tweak quickly murmured a "thank you" and bowed briefly to Kokuten before heading to the bathroom to wash her hand.

---

Putting her other glove and pinky-finger-prosthesis on the countertop next to the sink, Tweak looked up at the mirror beyond the sink as she ran water over her hands. Her reflection was odd, as to be expected by her costume, a little on the ostentatious side with the ornamentation...

With snot removed and hands soaped, rinsed, and dried, the neko looked down at the mechanical finger as she put the hand towel down next to it. The fourth-fingers had been a good idea, very Freespacer-ish, if she correctly understood what the Deoradh were. In the end, though, it was just another part of her little white lie. After all, she was an adopted Freespacer...not one by birth, even though she let everyone assume she was.

Did it matter whether she was? I guess it does, otherwise I wouldn't need to be quiet about it, she decided. Dark red eyes looked back up at the mirror. Tweak slowly unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and let the heavy shawl slide down behind her head. Her feline ears twitched a bit amidst her streaked hair, trying to work out the kinks from being held down for so long. She was a neko. And Nepleslians hated nekos. Well, most of them.

Someone loves me, Tweak thought with a smile. And Kokuten loved her for who she was, too, not just for what she was or wasn't. And soon she would tell everyone else, removing the reason for her lie. The 'spacer neko combed her fingers through her hair, which was somewhat limp from being pressed down by the scarf. He had said she looked beautiful earlier that evening. Just the memory made her smile and feel warm inside. It was a nice feeling, a comforting feeling. Like being hugged by someone you trusted, even if they weren't physically there.

As much as she disliked wearing it now, Tweak put her shawl back on and re-wrapped the scarf before leaving the bathroom with her prosthetic finger and glove in hand and a small smile stuck semi-permanently on her face. Wouldn't do to forget it if someone showed up, she thought while walking back out.

Kokuten was sitting on the edge of his bed, rubbing his temples. There was a bit of a strain on his face, but it seemed to simply be him trying to orient himself. He looked up at her for a moment, his eyes focusing on the prosthetic and then her. It was strange, how did he not notice the extra finger on her hand? Mmm... Must have been too busy getting into everyone else's business. he thought. On that, he made the attempt to stand, and meet Tweak half way in the room, but he failed to consider the ramifications of such an action in his current state.

Worse yet, he even looked at the floor as he did it.

"Feeling a bit bet-- Oh." was what Kokuten started with, taking two steps, and leaning a bit too far forward on the second step, and began to fall forward in a somewhat drunken daze. With nary an attempt to recover, it looked like he was going to face plant on the floor.

Tweak dropped the fake finger and her glove as she tried to catch Kokuten on his way down. Despite having a strong grip, the neko's measly ninety-one pounds wasn't enough to give her leverage to keep him from the floor; all she could do was flip him over in mid-air, get her arms under hism, and fall with him until they were both sitting on the floor with his back against her. As tall as he was, the shock of sitting down so hard knocked the back of Kokuten's skull into Tweak's nose; she winced at the spark of pain and the pop of cartilage from surprise more than the injury. A drop of blood dripped from her nose, but turned to ash as it fell onto her dress. There was another popping sound in her nose and the bleeding stopped.

The neko picked herself up while keeping a hand on Kokuten to keep him sitting until he could manage it himself. "You need to stay in bed. You might be lucid, but you're still not sober." Tweak circled around to stand in front of him. "Stay still there and I'll move you back into the bed, then you can sleep it off, okay?" Just as she finished the last sentence, Tweak found herself stifling a yawn. "And I should probably go anyway..."

The transition was a little jarring for Kokuten, and somewhat confusing as he tried to figure out just how exactly he had spun around so fast. The last thing he remembered was falling towards the floor, and then suddenly spinning very fast, then the back of his head walloping into something rather hard. He turned just a little bit, refusing Tweaks command to sit still, mainly because his brain hadn't caught up with yet. She's leaving? Ah, well. He thought looking her in the eyes, not quite grasping he had caused the nosebleed.

With just enough coherence, he leaned forward and kissed her on the lips, and then sluggishly turned to plant his hands on the floor and make his way back to the bed.

"Well, then you have a good night then. Don't worry about me, I can make it this far." said Kokuten somewhat cheerily. He crawled a few feet, before he seemed to catch sight of the floor again, and then lost his balance.

Shoomp! went the Captain's head as it disappeared under the bed as he collapsed again. He let out a little grumble, and seemed to give up trying to reach the bed. The floor appeared to do well enough.