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Kaname Chidori, age 16, has been living on her own ever since her father and younger sister moved back to New York sixteen months ago. Part of her figured she'd live alone in her apartment until she got married or something. Never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine that she'd be forced to live on a military base.
Say goodbye to sleepovers with Kyoko. This whole moving business was something that she didn't even want to begin to explain to her best friend. She didn't bother to even try and explain it to her father. Instead, she just told him that there were problems with packages being stolen at her apartment complex and provided him with a PO Box to send letters to instead.
It was probably better if he and her young sister, Ayame didn't know what was going on, anyway. If they knew she was in sort of danger, they'd only worry. Her dad would probably move back to the US, and moving to this base was bad enough. She was still trying to come to terms with all of this, herself.
Goodbye, perfectly normal high school life.
Kaname shifts the box in her hands. Most of her things she had shipped off; they should already be in her room. But this box is filled with things that are special to her. Old family photographs -- especially ones of her mom. A few photo albums. Her childhood blanket. The Bonta-kun plush toy she's had ever since she was a baby. The box isn't exactly heavy, perse, but it's certainly large and unwieldy. That's part of the reason why she's having such a rough time carrying it.
Still, she's been walking around this base for ten minutes now, and she's still completely lost. And unfortunately for Kaname, her usual shadow, Sousuke Sagara, wasn't around. Thankfully, though, there's a figure up ahead.
"Hey!" Kaname calls out, as she quickens her pace. "Do you know where the dorms are?"
Say goodbye to sleepovers with Kyoko. This whole moving business was something that she didn't even want to begin to explain to her best friend. She didn't bother to even try and explain it to her father. Instead, she just told him that there were problems with packages being stolen at her apartment complex and provided him with a PO Box to send letters to instead.
It was probably better if he and her young sister, Ayame didn't know what was going on, anyway. If they knew she was in sort of danger, they'd only worry. Her dad would probably move back to the US, and moving to this base was bad enough. She was still trying to come to terms with all of this, herself.
Goodbye, perfectly normal high school life.
Kaname shifts the box in her hands. Most of her things she had shipped off; they should already be in her room. But this box is filled with things that are special to her. Old family photographs -- especially ones of her mom. A few photo albums. Her childhood blanket. The Bonta-kun plush toy she's had ever since she was a baby. The box isn't exactly heavy, perse, but it's certainly large and unwieldy. That's part of the reason why she's having such a rough time carrying it.
Still, she's been walking around this base for ten minutes now, and she's still completely lost. And unfortunately for Kaname, her usual shadow, Sousuke Sagara, wasn't around. Thankfully, though, there's a figure up ahead.
"Hey!" Kaname calls out, as she quickens her pace. "Do you know where the dorms are?"
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Kaname shrugs.
"What's your name, anyway?" It's weird; everyone on base seems to have her at a disadvantage. She didn't have the slightest idea who they were.
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My name's Leos Klein. Its nice to meet you Miss...
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"What's up with all the teenage pilots?" she asks. It's a question that's been on her mind ever since she saw Sousuke slip into that AS during the mission.
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[Piloting being the only thing they have left? That's a scary thought.]
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Well, you've got her on a roll now, Leos.
"You guys should be going to high school, not piloting giant robots!"
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[Leos digs around his pocket and shows Kaname a slightly worn yet well kept photo. Leos was there, mid way through an enthusiastic spin with a girl who looked to be torn between giddy happiness and telling him to let her down before she smashed her fist into his face. Both clearly dressed for the occasion.]
See? That's me right there!
[Along with them was his family; there was a little kid making an exaggerated sick face at the sight, a cheerful mother unfazed by the antics of the couple and a stern father trying his best not to smile and failing terribly at it.]
And.... and.......
...and...
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[He lowers the photo as the expression returns.]
My family's dead... Callista's dead... all my friends are dead and my home's a crater that got paved over for some rich guy's new office block...
[He's actually crying this time.]
This really is all I have... trying to fix everything by stopping people like the ones that killed everyone...
Especially that man...
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And then... things quickly take a change for the worse.
Ohhhhh man, did she manage to screw up now! Why her? All she wanted was to find her room. The last thing she wanted in the entire universe was to say barely two words to a person and then set off their waterworks! What kind of luck did she have? What did she do in her past live to deserve this, on top of everything else that happened this week?
But there's no time for Kaname to feel sorry for herself! Not when there's someone who needs her help! And Leos, regardless of if he knows it or not, is just about to get a good old-fashioned helping of tough love from one Kaname Chidori.
Truthfully, she's never been all that great at the whole comforting thing. And she knows she's probably about to do a bad job of it right now. But Leos needs to know something that she had to figure out when her mother died back in junior high.
"Look, I don't mean to sound entirely unsympathetic, but the honest truth is you do have something to live for: yourself."
She shifts the box in her hand.
"I won't say that I know what you went through. Because the truth is, I don't know what any of that feels like." Her mom's death kind of paled in comparison to the death of his entire family. "But feeling sad all the time -- that's not going to do anything. And neither will throwing yourself in battle over some crazed quest for revenge. What you should be doing is living your life happily, the way your family would want you to."
Kaname lets out a long-suffering sigh.
"I understand where you're coming from. If someone hurt my little sister, I'd want to put the hurt on them, too. But I'm just saying, try to be careful about it. And... try to be happy, okay? There's still plenty of things in this world that make life worth living."
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I don't... I don't know a lot of things...
It just hurts inside a lot whenever I think about it because I don't know what will make-
[Leos presses a hand to his face and trembles.]
I.. I'm sorry. You said I should try to be happy... right? I'll try. Promise.
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Kaname doesn't wait for an answer.
"There's plenty of things in this world that you haven't done yet, so of course you don't know that they make life worth living. So keep living and then figure those things out for yourself!"
A beat.
"And don't think so hard about the things that make you depressed! They're just going to make you sadder!"
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[Leos seems to be slowly working his way back up to his sunny demeanor again.]
And... and I'll try! I promise!
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Unfortunately, in the process of doing so, the box tilts in her hand -- and before she can swing her arm out to stop it, the box topples to the ground below, sending her most important possessions spiraling across the floor.
"Oh great," she says, picking up a framed photo of her and her mother. "The glass is broken." Cracked, actually, but it still means that Kaname is going to have to invest in a new frame. She liked this one, too.
She sets the picture back down in the box, and returns to gathering the rest of her things.
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[Despite some clumsiness he's going to help Kaname, looking a little guilty at this mess.]
... I could buy a new frame for it if you want. I mean its my fault and all the box fell over.
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She places her photo album back into the box, only to notice that one of the images has slipped out. It's an image of her whole family just shortly after she enrolled in junior high.
"Wanna see a picture of my younger sister?" she asks. And before he can give an answer, she slips the photo in front of his face.
A small part of her doesn't know why she's doing this. Maybe she feels guilty because he doesn't have a family of his own. But if that were the case, then why rub it in?
"That's Ayame," she says, directing a finger at a young girl with blonde-brown hair. "And the other two are my mom and dad."
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[Well it didn't look like it was backfiring. In fact Leos seemed a little more at ease.]
Did Ayame like to bug you a lot when you two lived together?
[He was genuinely curious now.]
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"The two of us were actually pretty close, though," she says, slipping the photo back into her photo album. She'll worry about sorting it into its proper place later. "She's probably the only reason I have to regret staying out here when she and dad moved back to the states."
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Then you don't have to regret anything anymore right?
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Well, given all the other weird things she's learned since she came here, she wouldn't put it past them to have some sort of top-secret teleportation technology.
"Yeah, but that would probably require a whole lot of explanation." Why she didn't call in advance of her arrival. Why she didn't want to be dropped off by the airport.
"But I'll have to consider it, anyway. I do miss her."
With all of her belongings picked up and placed back in their rightful place in the box, Kaname rises to her feet, box in hand. "How far away are the dorms from here, anyway?"