All the basic necessities [Mariko x Root FTE]

Dear Diary,

I’m going to kill today. I need to get out and these feels are killing me.

Root

Root laughed as he wrote the entry in the notebook. If anyone found it he’d be in trouble, but it wasn’t like he wouldn’t have fun with it. After all, he was too smart to leave such a blatant clue. Not that he was going to kill either way. He’d come to the conclusion that she wouldn’t want him to kill, no matter what. She was still alive. It was like Schrödinger’s cat. She was alive and dead at the same time until he got out. And if it turned out to be true, then he’d rather wait here forever and believe that there was a chance she was alive then to ever know for a fact she was dead. In a way, he wanted to stay in these god forsaken theme park forever.

However, as he threw the ‘diary’ notebook into a corner of his room, he realized that he needed more notebooks. Of course, he’d visited the supply store already and grabbed handfuls of notebooks, but his wall was already filled with notes from at least ten notebooks that were discarded in another corner of his room. The ‘diary’ was just a past time he had adopted to distract himself. It didn’t help that when he got started on a problem he would go days without food or drink, and sometimes would end up passed out and his mother had nursed him back to health more than a couple times, and she did too. But here he had no one and he had to distract himself so he didn’t wind up killing himself. So, he started the ‘diary’ where he would write all sorts of entries. He was planning on doing one about a giant rainbow tiger and fighting it, but for now his dark humor would suffice.

Root kicked himself up from his bed and walked out of his room, making his way through the park to the supply store. Of course, he’d already gotten fifteen notebooks and several pencils (after all, pens were the bane of his existence), usually mechanical so he didn’t have to sharpen them, but he needed more. Hopefully someone wouldn’t look up his log of what he took and ask him why needed so many notebooks. Of course, he could just show his wall full of papers, and papers scattered all around his room. He just preferred not to be questioned about such things. He preferred not to be questioned at all.

Root ducked his head as he entered the supply store, not realizing he wasn’t alone and he made his way to the notebooks where he picked up a handful before looking up. Of course it was stupid to enter a building without knowing who was there, especially with the bear trying to get them to kill each other, and with his reputation that he was sure he already had or would soon have of being a jerk. Ah well, if someone tried to kill him, he wouldn’t let them. Either way, when Root saw that Mariko was in the supply store, he carefully set a couple of the notebooks down so it appeared he wasn’t getting an abnormal number.

However, something was wrong, he could tell. Something had upset her. He cursed himself for caring, but he couldn’t help it. “Are you looking for something in particular?” Maybe he could help her find it, or whatever it took to make her smile, because apparently that mattered to him. Ha. Maybe he should study his own brain, it would probably be fascinating to explore what made him think the thoughts he thought.

There were many things that Root expected when he had said something. Maybe something like ‘shove off’ or ‘mind your own business’ or simply ignoring his words, since he didn’t actually know the director nearly at all, and he tended to cause a reaction like that out of most people. He was used to it. However, the reaction he got was something he didn’t expect even if he really should have. Root stared for a moment as his quick brain tried to keep up with the events, sluggish and completely distracted. He needed to clear his head of whatever this fog was that caused him to be so slow right now.

Blinking a couple times, Root hurried to Mariko’s side. Of course, he was a jerk, but he was also a gentleman. His mother taught him right. Of course he would normally be calling them an idiot while he helped pick up their mess, but that was beside the point. Instead, he reached to help pick up the fallen supplies with a smile on his face and a laugh to accompany it. “Careful, tiger. You know, you should watch where you flinch. Wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” ’No need for everyone to freak out thinking someone killed you. And then they would blame me because I was here,’ Root added in his head.

Then, he stood up when everything was picked up, and offered his hand to her as he regarded her question. Deflection. There was something she was worried about telling him. His need, his thirst for knowledge kicked in and now he needed to know. It was bad enough that he didn’t know whether she was alive or not, whether those videos were real or not, he had to at least gain this knowledge. But how to go about it?

“Notebooks,” Root lifted up the couple of notebooks in his hand, “So I can give people paper cuts, the ultimate torture.” Now that he revealed that, now he could expect the same from her. If another direct question didn’t work, then he would have to figure out something sneakier, because he was no fixated on why she was here and why she looked the way she did when he first noticed her. “What about you?”

Root was many things but a total jerk he was not. Especially when it came to cute director girls who acted so innocent… and as far as Root could tell were just as innocent as they were acting, unlike a certain flower maiden roaming around. Despite his vast intellect he lacked people skills, and he really didn’t care what most people thought of him, unless he liked them. And even then he was sure people would hate him regardless. There had been only two people in his life who had ever liked him. And in his life he had only liked two people. Now he had to change that to three, seeing as he seemed to like the green haired girl in front of him. That probably explained the sluggishness he was feeling in thought, as his thought processing space was all being taken up by subconscious and conscious thought focused on this girl.

When she apologized Root’s smile fell slightly. The whole environment was stressful, and he knew that the strain on some people was much greater, especially when he bottled it up and it was released all at once when he was alone, since he couldn’t let anyone see that side of him. It would completely ruin his reputation, and stupid people would start to actually like him and distract him from his work, when he really needed to focus on how he could end up time travelling if he managed to create a black hole, which would take the energy to compress something past the neutron degeneracy factor and–

“Don’t worry about it. As long as you’re not hurt, then it doesn’t matter.” Root looked to the notebooks in his hand, feeling guilty that he was hiding the fact he had come for many more, though for some reason he actually cared if she thought it was weird that he used so many notebooks so quickly. Of course, once he established the ground work he would slow down on his notebook consumption, needing all the same information he had written down in his room back at home.

As Mariko explained why she was at the supply store, Root listened, and stared for a moment at her. A camera. An image of a camera and a young laughing girl giggling that she was recording him, and him laughing and giving a lesson on modern physics flashed through his head, distracting him for just one moment.

"Something that would keep me from acting like such a coward."

Instead of laughing back a sarcastic or funny comment, Root’s face hardened with seriousness and he looked to the bins that had been left unsearched as of right now. “Then its settled. I’ll help you look. If we can’t find anything, then I’ll build you a camera myself.”

Wait. Was she… crying? Oh God, was it something he said? Shit. He was a jerk without even trying. That was Root in a nutshell. He couldn’t even be nice to the people he wanted to be nice to, he was a jerk without even trying. Ah well, he probably ruined this relationship like he always ruined everything. The only people who ever liked him had been family, and that was because they had to stand him because he was family. Even his father had once said that he couldn’t stand him, and that the only reason he stuck around was because he had to and had an obligation to him. While he knew the rest of his family felt the same, they pretended that it was otherwise. In the end, he was useless. The only thing he could do was make strides in science and leave a better world for those he cared about, as payment for them putting up with him just so he wouldn’t feel alone, so he could feel like he had a purpose.

"You'd...you'd do that, for me?"

A look of confusion flashed across Root’s face, before forcing his face into a relaxed smile, a trained smile, a smile he was so used to putting on, even when he wasn’t really feeling it. However, as he comprehended her words, his smile became more genuine. Was that why she was crying? Because she couldn’t believe it? Could it really not be his fault? That he hadn’t said something that offended her and made her cry?

He patted her head, internally cursing himself for such a move, despite already doing it. “Of course.” He watched her for a moment, his smile growing and he laughed. “If it is a camera that will bring you confidence, I would gladly build you one.” Why. Why was he doing this? Maybe he should say. Then again, his reason of ‘well, you are incredibly cute and you’re also a director, and well, I like directors and I can’t help it but you make me want to smile when I look at you and I don’t even know you and…’ would probably make him look insane. Then again, he was a scientist. He might as well act like a mad scientist. “If we’re going to survive this place, then we all need confidence. I have my notes, my work, and... the thought of my sister to keep me confident. In the meantime, if you need confidence, I’ll share a bit of mine with you.”