Day 56: T&M Electronics (Early Afternoon)

[predictator]

The grocery store had turned out to be useless in terms of tools, but at least it hadn't been boring. After leaving, he'd made a brief stop at Tasty Burger to use his coupon on lunch and contemplate his next move

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[heroesdontshave]

Snow moved closer, too, once Izaya had acknowledged him, more than happy to get away from the doorway. They didn't exactly regulate building temperature as well as he'd have liked here, so it wasn't all that much better in here, but it was warmer. That was good enough for him.

"Hah, you're tellin' me. Been gettin' kinda hectic around here, right? Almost makes you miss the naggy supervisor ladies they used to have wandering around," he said, laughing lightly. "I been fine though! I mean, things're kinda more annoying now but nothin' too bad."

It was kind of funny, Izaya asking if he had been holding up alright. True, neither had gotten into detail regarding each others' private lives, but it was more than apparent that Izaya was just a civilian and Snow was... well, Snow. Maybe he wasn't the picture-perfect representation of an elite fighter, yeah, but he was sure he at least gave off the impression of being able to handle himself. He definitely didn't want anyone to think they had to worry about him at all. That was just silly.

"How about you? You been handling things alright? Must be a big adjustment goin' from nurse-guards to guys shoving guns in everyone's face, right?" Then, a thought. "Haven't been shovin' you around too much, right?" Snow knew how soldiers were. They loved shoving around people who were otherwise helpless.

[predictator]

The nurses had certainly been easier-going (and didn't gas a room full of bystanders just to quell a food fight - an incident that still irritated him), but the military wasn't without its own charms... Izaya didn't particularly care which faction was in power as long as he could use it to his own advantage in some way, no matter how small that way might be. So far, however, he'd been able to do remarkably little with the factions themselves-but there was always the patient populace.

Izaya shook his head. "Oh, no; I've been fine. Other than the gas in the cafeteria, I've been left alone," he said in a way he hoped sounded assuring. "I've been trying to not stand out." That much was actually true; Izaya preferred to be unseen even when his influence was felt, and that was unlikely to change.

He glanced back towards the majority of the store, no longer quite feeling like going through every little item. It was unfortunate that electronics were too expensive for his budget, but it was true. While he'd been willing to look through everything before Villiers had shown up, the idea of going back to it now seemed boring.

"If you were looking for something here, you're going to find everything is fairly expensive," he said. Snow had been here for the same amount of time as Izaya had, so he would have been allotted the same five dollars. "I was just thinking about heading somewhere else, so..."

The 'if you'll excuse me' was left unspoken. It could have been interesting to talk to Snow a little longer, to see what he could find out, but he also wanted to be sure he found something to spend his little bit of money on before they were all shipped back to the hospital.

[heroesdontshave]

Ah, right. That gas incident he'd heard about. He hadn't experienced it himself, what with him and Light having taken the fight out into the Son Room. That was when everyone had gone and started fighting back all at once. That was a great day. Sure, it didn't exactly have the ideal ending, but it was a sign that things were starting to move along in a more preferable direction. He liked it. Hopefully next time, they'd be able to break through and get out of this place for real.

Izaya's other comment though seemed to catch Snow off guard. He pulled his eyes away from the guy to scan the contents of the store. Expensive? Really? It looked like a bunch of... could you even call these old relics? Books could be considered antique and definitely came at a high price, but this stuff struck him more as junk than antique. No one wanted to collect anything like this. When it came to devices, most people wouldn't want to buy old fashioned versions. Snow himself though kind of loved it. NORA made a habit of collecting these kinds of old things, tearing them apart, and modding them for personal use since they didn't have all that much money to begin with. See? The fact was that old machines were supposed to be cheap not expensive.

Then again, everything he'd seen in that building they were being held in was like this, too. They were accustomed to simpler technology here. So that would... make this new to them. Right? ...It was kind of hard to wrap his head around. Harder still to keep himself thinking from that different of a perspective. But the fact that he had managed to do that at all was more than he normally would have stopped to do. So this was an epiphany for him. Still, he couldn't keep the baffled expression off his face as he looked around, finally turning back down to Izaya with a strange expression.

"Uh. Okay." If you say so, the look said. "Wasn't really looking to buy stuff or anything. Was just kinda lookin' around, you know? 'S my first time in a town like this." A few seconds too late, he suddenly realized he maybe shouldn't be advertising that. If the wrong people realized he wasn't from the area, he would be in a hell of a lot of trouble. Subject change then! "Ah... Ahahaha! So! Where you wanna go then?"

Apparently, he hadn't gotten the hint and was inviting himself along.

[predictator]

Oh? That was an interesting look Villiers had as he turned to scan the store. Confused, maybe? Izaya wondered what it was in particular that had triggered it: that the goods were expensive, that Izaya was leaning, or maybe the idea he'd been looking for something in the first place... Villiers did say he hadn't been looking to buy anything, and Izaya had gotten a decent piece of information from the fact he'd never been in a town 'like this'.

Izaya didn't mind when Villiers invited himself along, but he did start to move, heading towards the doors of the store. "The hardware store," he answered. "It's not far; just next door."

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