Science Experiments: A Tale of Two Antagonists

Inque

"It's psychology, group psyche, all of that. Normally people can pick up on the moods of those around them." I was going in the wrong direction for my class, being a different grade, apparently. What did it much matter if I might be late? "Fine, be a stick in the mud. I'll be the exciting one," I say, ending the conversation and turning around on my heel to head off.

Edgar

"I still maintain that I am not a stick in the mud. You're free to maintain your own opinions however..." I stated as she was departing to get to her own class.

I went ahead into my morning programming class, and fell asleep promptly at the keyboard. As usual. I was, in short order, awoken and asked to actually run tech support for a bit, because as usual the textbooks were hideously outdated. I had my own sleep to catch up on... though, I couldn't put myself in danger of failing the class simply for lack of participation or whatever drivel they shoved down your throat at report cards.

And so for a while, I served as the walking textbook on PASCAL. Not that I used PASCAL anymore, I had moved on ages ago.

Anyway. I wasted my morning not sleeping.

Inque

Went by fairly quickly, mostly during which I was simply paying attention to the words that were unknown to me to see if someone spoke it for me. Boring work, but it was better than staying at the apartment the entire time.

The bell rang for lunch, and I walked to the cafeteria to join the line. Knew what to do, had money of my own, so food for the girl wasn't a problem anymore. Didn't see Face yet, which simply meant that he wasn't here yet, obviously.

Edgar:

I walked into lunch on my own, resenting the absurdly slow pace at which people walked. It was like they were trying to reverse the timeline with their pacing issues, they were going that slow. And to make matters worse, one couldn't simply cut in front of them in the hall, because they walked four across. And if I let on that this was irritating me, there was a fifty percent chance that that would only exacerbate the issue, causing them to continue with the behaviour intentionally.

It was a relief when I was finally able to turn into the cafeteria and duck under the door. I made my way to the usual line, wondering where exactly she was. Distinguishing one female from another in a situation where there were large quantities of them was difficult. Like figuring out if your socks match when all of the colours have the same ribbing on the sides. I couldn't quite tell the difference from one face to another, because it was just too fuzzy.

I fiured she'd find me eventually and did not worry any further.

Inque

It's not hard to find him when he walks in, though he doesn't seem to spot me. I go over, cutting in line the person behind him who I don't pay any attention to. "Hello," I greet, following along.

So...If I don't move...he'd do the sneaking up for me? Weird... Not any fun either.

Edgar:

I heard her come up behind me. Well alright, if you want to be technical about it, I heard someone cut the person behind me in line, and was then greeted by the voice that was technically hers while she was in the body that she was borrowing. "Hello." I replied. "How has your morning been?" I asked after a moment, edging forward as the line moved. I disliked lines of people. It seemed terribly inefficient to waste everyone's time like this.

On a tangentally related note, I had to wonder how today was going to unfold at lunch, since we seemed to draw a bit of attention yesterday. It had been kind of amusing.

Inque

"Eh. Didn't pay so much attention. Except people kept looking at me unusually," I comment. Still were, I saw them from the corner of my eyes as they glance over when they think I'm not watching. All it gets them is a quick flash of a funny face back at them. More strange stares, but that's was what was fun with this game.

Edgar:

"Ah. I regretfully was unable to notice whether or not people were staring or not." I noticed her move her head quickly to the side, and went ahead and turned my head in that direction as well just to indicate that I'd noticed her move her head. "And I'm guessing that that has continued to the present." I stated as an explanation. I continued 'looking' in the direction she'd briefly turned her head. "I must say, this is a fascinating social experiment." I commented.

Inque

I smirk as the people look away as he joins in the staring, going back to whatever the ladies were putting on the tray in front of me. "All of this is edible?" I ask, getting out the amount Face had yesterday. It all had me vaguely missing Gotham.

Edgar:

"Largely yes. Though I would be wary of anything that has a vaguely slimy texture." I stated. I was normally pretty god these days about getting things off the line that were actually edible.

Inque

That was a strange way to put it. Everything looked slimy... Would I have to touch it or something?
No, follow by example. Face isn't dead yet from all this. I follow behind, getting what he does quietly.

Edgar:

I sat down where we'd sat yesterday and started on whatever was actually on my plate. Eating was always a strange experience for me in that I had to take caution to not skewer my own tongue on my teeth.

I wondered if we were going to have any unsolicited provocations today or if we would be left alone... It would probably be amusing either way.

Inque

I sit next to him once again, start eating as well. Day two of sitting here with Face seemed to be a cementing fact for most of Lumi's friends who were looking at us. Yup, stayin with Face, and there wasn't a thing you all could do about it... The attention was amusing.

Edgar:

After a while, I realised that we did have an uninvited guest standing at the table. "Seriously. Lumi. If this is a joke, it's the worst joke on the planet. Stop it now, and just... drop him."

Again, I feel that I ought to state how nice it is to be talked about as though I am not present.

Inque

I don't turn to look at who ever. The girl from yesterday, maybe. She seemed like a persistent one. "And I said, this is serious; there's no joke," I say lightly. "So if you'd just leave..."

Edgar:

"I don't believe you. Why would you ever choose to hang out with..." I had the feeling that I was being scrutinised. "that. I mean... Are you really just that desperate? Because I could have Ramen hook you up." She sounded... odd. I didn't quite know how to interpret this all. I mean, she was clearly perturbed by the perceived relationship, but I wasn't quite sure how to articulate her...tone at that moment. There was a hint of condescension in there, but something...I didn't know. Really, I am no psychiatrist.

I wondered briefly if initiating something would cause more of a rise from her. I then surmised that initiating something would be all well and good if I actually knew how one was to go about initiating something, and what that would actually be.

I then concluded based on those facts that perhaps I should just sit here and wait for a moment to see how this all proceeded.

Inque

I don't say anything back. Hesitant, because if I attempted to do something directed at her, she'd just sort of... go to the floor dead the next second... Which wasn't any good for this social game, Face said. I slide closer to Edgar, though, attempt to shut her out so she'd stop talking already.

Edgar:

And then she had closed the distance between us considerably. I was again at a bit of a loss as to what exactly to do, considering that I had never been the subject of this particular kind of negative attention.

I kind of felt like grinning, because this whole thing was quite amusing...how easily we could upset the balance simply by rearranging a seating order. "Perhaps you didn't understand her the first time through, which, honestly considering the single digit that must comprise your IQ score, I wouldn't begrudge you- I do believe that she told you to... I don't know... "be gone from this place"?" ...I felt as though my own IQ was dropping by simply allowing that reference to drop from my mouth, but...Really, colloquial nonsense often appeared to be a way to get them to respond to stimuli.

"See... the problem with that is... I'm not the zombies. YOU ARE." The sheer nonsense of that apparently well thought out reply was...in and of itself amusing.

I sort of...hmm. Synonyms for the word "looked"... never thought I'd need those... briefly looked down in Inque's direction, hopefully replicating a facsimile of the expression indicating that I had no idea how exactly to reply to that utter nonsense.

Inque

I peek up at him from the corner of my eye, unnamed still standing behind us going on about some nonsense... And she seriously needs to shut up. Still didn't want to talk to her, because some level of communication would most likely lead to some sort of bodily harm to her. Which wasn't good.

So...the hell...would make her shut up about...whom I hung out with and why, and.../zombies/... ...What?

But then... this little social experiment... I had persuaded Face to get me a girl host for a reason, hadn't I? He didn't seem to get it, but fine. I'd deal.

Adjusting to sit on my knees for the height difference, even with him sitting down, I whisper under my breath for only him to hear. "Yell at me later." He's already 'looking' at me, which was lovely, like it was mutually agreed for both parties that second.

So, lightly and slowly - to minimize his weirdness about space - I kiss him.

Edgar:

...

...Excuse me, what. For what reason was her face touching my face? What was this...? Why was this---

"UGH! That... that.. you disgust me! That is worse than...idon'teven... furries maybe!" And...oddly, the bizarre intrusion of personal space seemed to have fit the bill for our mutual want to get her out of our hair, and fanned the fire further.

Right, now back to the important question: what was that, why did it happen...and...Quite honestly it took a good quantity of self control to not immediately start on her with a litany of...interrogatives... But I wasn't an idiot, and I realised that whatever that intrusion just was had been responsible for our current comfortably empty lunch table...so I refrained, forming an itemised list for later.

Inque

I peek over to unnamed, making sure she left completely before settling back to my original spot at the table. Pretty sure everyone was at least giving us a glance now, which just had me humming a giggle out. "We've got everyone's attention now." I liked attention, so long as people like unnamed didn't come randomly spewing nonsense at regular intervals.

Edgar:

" That is evident even to me." I stated. It was one of those things where it was actually what one didn't hear that gave it away. Ordinarily this place was downright cacophonous to me. And now... well, the variation in volume was extremely notable. It was kind of interesting to know that one breach in personal space could dampen the audio in a room like this.

I mean, yes, it was a breach in personal space...though not nearly as invasive as the last had been-- but I suppoused that pending further discussion this could be tolerated as a means by which to toy with the masses. The whole thing would have to be evaluated qualitatively at a later time to estimate the relative worth of a spacial intrusion such as this one.

Inque

I glance over at him, smirk on my face. He was either very good at hiding emotion, as requested, or... "You're confused?" I phrase it as a question, though it was more definite to me. When he didn't want to deal with me before, he simply lapsed into an angry silence to ignore what I said. He responded to me this time. Or he simply wasn't angry, which was odd... How many levels of this privacy thing was there...?

Edgar:

"I suppouse that could be regarded as one facet of this...thing..., yes." I replied. "Though there are several more facets that I expect will be elaborated upon this afternoon, once we are out of mixed company." I was currently kind of in flux as to whether to be outright angry or not. Because on the one hand: personal space. That subject had already been addressed extensively, and the blatant disregard for it was...upsetting. However, the one redeeming aspect of it was the effect that that had on the crowd. Which...honestly, was quite an amusing effect. Additionally, the lack of completely invasive procedure involving cranial intrusion made it difficult to put it on the same scale of severity as...that whole... fiasco.

Inque

Oh, God....I'm gonna have to explain affection or something, aren't I? No, wait... Oh, Internet... /That's/ going to be largely stereotypical and basic definition, for my terms of the word... Didn't like that crap...