Sorry

It didn't take Takashi half an hour to pack his stuff after Ami texted him wanting to meet up. In fact, he was already packing up his work - carefully - between thier texts. This lets him arrive home long before the time she was scheduled to meet, which basically turns out to only being condusive to worrying.

While Ami had essentially offered to put them back together, contact between them had been sparse since that dance - for a lot of reasons. From Takashi's perspective, it meant he had to spend less time worrying about the comittments he'd made. Less time trying to figure out how to explain things. He'd busied himself making sure there was a safe way for her to make the trip he'd offered safely, then thrown himself into his work again.

But, one can't run from these things froever, as Ami's text indicated. So, it's here that he finds himself standing in front of his door, tense, and jumping when the knock comes, opening the door, not in his school uniform, but a black buttondown shirt with long sleeves and black slacks, with the labcoat still over them.

Ami could thank Hannah's suggestion for the fact that Takashi has the long white lab coat - and it's not -the- lab coat, either, because it doesn't reak of negative energy. It's a show peice.

When you can literally skip through a doorway and appear several kilometers away, thirty minutes of travel time to anywhere in the city might as well be a lifetime. Suitably, Ami spent most of those thirty minutes figuring out what to wear, and then arranging for a locator beacon that could monitor her physical condition for distress. She initially programmed it to contact Makoto, but almost immediately thought better of it and instead set it to notify Usagi, instead.

With nothing else to do, she sat around worried for another five minutes, then opened the portal across town.

Ami has elected for a pair of red shorts and a white blouse, with a blue vest over top. Her saddle shoes are shiny white and black, over a pair of think socks with little lacey frills at the ankles.

Spotting the lab coat, Ami frowns faintly, then looks up (and up ..) at Takashi. Clearly, the reminder of what he was probably doing when she texted him is not going over as well as Hannah might have hoped. "Do you need a little more time to finish putting everything away?" she asks, rather than stepping through the door. "I can wait."

After Takashi opens the door he spends some time looking at Ami, too, far more than is strictly necessary to ascertain identity... but eventually, he finds the elsuvie things called words. "No, no, I'm good. I wasn't doing anything more important than meeting you, anyways. I just ran right over." he says, stepping out of the door, pausing for a moment.

He doesn't pick up on the way the coat is reminding her of the parts of him that she doesn't like, and it doesn't come off immediately. "I missed you a lot." he says, finally, bluntly, just letting it fall out of his mouth before trying to recover. "...you look nice, you always look nice." He seems somewhat more out of his element than usual.

Ami doesn't blush. If nothing else, that should be a clue that she isn't into the random flattery right now. But then, he's never seen her like this before, so maybe he won't notice. Instead, she glances past him into the house, takes a breath, and steps through the door.

"Are you intending to conduct experiments with me here?" Ami asks awkwardly after a few moments pause. Then she turns and toes out of her shoes, placing them just inside the door. "I hadn't intended today to be the day we visit your Dusk Zone, but I suppose i haven't got any particularly good reasons why we shouldn't except that I'm probably not in the best mental state for it."

Takashi looks over Ami and he notices the lack of blushing. And he notices the way she's more emotionally dim, and the tone in her voice, and the way she takes that breath, and in a moment, he changes his own attitude rapidly.

The labcoat comes off, hangs on a hook by the door, first, and then comes the reactions. "No, I'm... not really intending anything, honestly. I just was so happy to see you. So I don't have plans." he says, keeping his tone even and quiet now.

Then, after a pause. "We shouldn't consider going if you're not in the right state - way too dangerous." he says, firmly.

"What's wrong, Ami?" No honorific, but not out of a lack of respect, and certainly the tone indicates carefully measured concern. He doesn't reach out to touch her, but it wouldn't be hard to notice him shifting a little bit closer to her unconsciously. He's bad with people, still, but for Ami he'll do his best.

"Wrong?" Ami asks, turning to look up at him. She blinks like she doesn't know what he means, but just for an instant there is a flicker of the fear, the doubt, and the self-consciousness visible in that gaze. It's gone as quickly as it appeared, leaving behind the question of whether it was ever there.

"I don't know, Takashi," Ami tells him, voice entirely devoid of emotion, "my boyfriend is an asshole, my best friend hates me because my boyfriend literally kidnapped her, my other best friend is trying not to get between us, and I'm responsible for the lives and well-being of more people than I can count.

"What makes you think anything's wrong?" She blinks at him, then crosses her arms over her chest.

"We're supposed to be figuring out what ethical oversight for your research means, and what going to the Dusk Zone entails, and what ... what us means. I'm still not even sure whether I should be here. But I can't keep putting this off. So ... I'm here. Let's figure it out."

Takashi notices that flicker, but only because he had enough residual attention from before, and it's a sudden change that vanishes so quickly. But then she launches into 'all of the things that aren't wrong' and, to put it bluntly, Takashi rapidly looks crestfallen.

Hearing her talk in that way - not just about him but without the emotion - it doesn't make him feel good. And the fact that he still doesn't like Makoto doesn't help that. He looks down at her, trying to push all of the negative feelings away so he can talk to her, and it doesn't entirely work. "I apologized." he says, more aggressievely than he intended, and to the point where it catches him off guard too.

So he tries to recover by explaining. "I apologized to you at the dance for it. I'll do it again now. I'm sorry things didn't go the way I planned and I'm sorry it hurt you. I'm sorry it hurt your friends. I'm sorry I hurt your best friend."

Then another sigh, tone from aggressive to sad, dissapointed. "I know that doesn't make it better but I can't really undo it, can I?" he says. "I'd apologize to her but half my face just stopped looking like a grapefruit that took a tumble down a flight of stairs." he says.

"These sort of things - helping you see things the way I do, letting you check over my shoulder for my work - isn't that supposed to be the actions I take to make up for that, as best I can? Something concrete you can have instead of apologies."

"But how am I supposed to do that if you're walking in here already upset with me, already judging, already hostile? I'm not going to get a fair shake."

"Hostile?" Ami asks, arching her brows. "Takashi, if I were hostile, I wouldn't have texted you. I'd have shown up, waited for you to arrive, and then accused you. I haven't accused you of anything. I'm not judging you, I'm not upset with you, I'm just ..." she trails off, then throws up her hands and sighs. "I don't know what I am," she says. "Frustrated. Hurt. Feeling all used up. It doesn't matter. I'm not here to break up with you, if that's what you're afraid of. And yes, all of these things should help, in time. But that's a should, and it's not now, and things aren't just going to magically be okay because we're working on it.

"The world doesn't work that way," Ami says, now just a bit of that upset starting to break through her facade of emotionlessness."I can't just write my feelings off, and pretend like they don't exist. That's why I'm not breaking up with you, even though by all logic I should. Emotions aren't logic and they can't be treated like logic, much as I wish they were. So I'm here. I want to figure this out. And putting it off won't make me any less hurt. So just ... let's figure this out. And maybe, with time, we'll be able to fix this. And maybe, if I am very lucky, I won't have to lose all of my friends because of you."

Takashi shakes his head slightly. "No, I'm not afraid of that." he says, finding his calm, finding his caring, and burying his hubris. "Well, I'm not saying this because I'm afraid of it, anyways. That's not what's driving this talk now."

"I can tell you're hurting though. What I want is to find a way to make you stop hurting, or hurt less, or help in some way. I don't exactly know what I'm doing either, but I want to work with you, not against you." Takashi has such a hard time keeping any distance from her now, but manages to out of respect.

These kinds of words are often hard for Takashi and yet somehow he finds at least a goodly pile of them. "I don't want being with me to take other things away from you. I want to make your life better for knowing me, not worse. And I haven't always done that. Recently I didn't just fall short of that goal, I crashed and burned." he admits. The downcast eyes further clarify his sudden lack of hubris.

"I don't want you to lose anything because of me, and especially not friends." he says, quietly yet clearly and forcefully. "I... can't explain the way I feel about you either. I can't treat it like logic either, because if I did, I wouldn't be offering all this. But..."

"Maybe the magical girls like your friends are right about something they've said to me and I don't understand what love is. But if the way I feel for you isn't love than I'm not capable of loving anyone, because I feel too strongly about you for me to imagine this is anything else."

"And so because of that I want to do whatever it takes to make you happy, not sad. When you're happy, so am I - and when you're sad, I'm upset too. I want you to understand me so that maybe you'll be less sad when you see the things I do... maybe it'll mean less sadness and less apologies."

Ami squeezes her hands once, then makes another soft noise of exasperation. But then she lets it go, purses her lips, and closes her eyes. For a moment, she just stays like that. When she opens them again, the emotion is gone once more.

"Too late," she tells him. "I'm pretty sure I've already lost my best friend because of you. But that's my problem. Yours is making sure you aren't the reason I lose another one," she points out. "So you want to know what you can do to make me happy? Stop hurting people. Stop using the darkness within you as an excuse for being a jerk."

Here, she pauses, then holds up a hand. "Nevermind. I didn't come here to yell at you, nor to dump my burdens on you," she says. "I came here to work out what the heck we're doing about the oversight and the trip into the Dusk Zone."

Takashi shakes his head. "It's impossible for me to avoid when you're upset, Ami." he says, plainly. "It's... not something I can just ignore. Maybe there's not anything I can do other than be aware of it, though." he says with a sigh.

He almost raises a finger to stop her mid-talk, but in the end doesn't, and he sighs. "Oversight can't come till the trip does. The point was to get another set of eyes who understands what I see, someone intelligent enough that I could trust their decisions. But that doesn't work untill we go on that trip together."

"But it's dangerous for you to go if you're going to walk in carrying this sort of emotion." he adds, plainly and clinically. "You might think you're externally calm, but I can see it breaking through, the chaos within. It limits the control I can have on the place, and I don't want to expose you to any risks there that I can avoid. I understand a lot, but I can't exactly take you the way I took my last passenger. I had to build a sort of magical hazmat suit, and if your heart is roiling and unsure it might cause resonance that weakens everything." he says, slumping against the wall.

"And yet I don't know if we can do anything about it without going, since that's what you're so focused on."

Rather than addressing Takashi'desire to deal with her upset, Ami lets it go. She's already gone over her feelings on it and rehashing them aren't useful for his desire to help, nor for her dersire to hide from those same emotions.

But oh how she frowns when he reminds her that the trip to the Dusk Zone must come first. She nods her head nevertheless, but the unhappiness is evident. "So what you're telling me," Ami says, "is that I need to get my house in order before I come in yours." She squeezes her eyes shut briefly, then nods her head again. "Right. Okay. I guess I'll ... figure that out, then. Meanwhile, do not kidnap anyone else. I'll ... text you again in another week, I guess. Maybe two. I don't know how long this will take."

Takashi looks at her carefully. "I won't kidnap anyone else." That's a promise he can keep in letter, if not precisely in spirit. "It makes sense, doesn't it? I'm counting on you to be a second pair of eyes, to see what I see, to tell me if I'm as crazy as everyone else says I am, or if the things I think make sense." he admits, quietly.

"And that means I need... Ami, the full Ami, not a hollow Ami." he says, quietly.

"I don't guess there's anything I can do to help here? I don't... like being away from you." he admits. "But right now it's like even though your physically here, you're trying to put up barriers, so I'm still... a little away from you." he says, trying to put it into words.

Ami shrugs half-heartedly. She glances around at the livingroom. She never even made it to a seat, or a polite drink. For a brief moment, that frustrates her even further, but she doesn't give any visual indication of it. Instead, she just turns her gaze, oh-so-slowly, back to him.

"I understand," she tells him quietly. "If I go to a place of dark energy while so filled with negativity, I risk being poisoned by it. And if I'm poisoned by it, then I can't provide the unbiased viewpoint that we are both hoping for."

Reaching up, Ami runs a hand through her hair, briefly, then says, "I'm sorry I'm a crappy girlfriend, right now. I don't think there's anything you can do except ... be patient with me. Give me some time to work through it. I'm not ... avoiding you," she notes. "I'm just not likely to be good company until I figure things out with Mako-chan. So ... I guess ... I don't know what that means. It's not fair to you," she admits. "But I guess none of this is fair to anyone."

Turning away from him, Ami crouches down to begin pulling her shoes back on her feet. "I do care," she says softly. "Even if I suck at expressing that right now."j

Takashi looks at her. "You're not a crappy girlfriend. That's just as true today as it was every other time I said it." he says, hands trying to find a spot to be and eventually settling on just wringing themselves.

"I'll give you as much time as you need, I owe you so much more than that." he says, looking at a suddenly very interesting floor tile. "I'm just glad you're willing to take the time. I know we haven't... done much since... but I feel... better." he says. The words still aren't coming the way he wants them, but he tries to say the jumble anyways.

"...I really want to kiss you good-bye - but I also feel like that'd be wrong at this juncture." he blurts out. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore than you do. Maybe even less." he says. "I just fake it better."

"But I know that I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make this work." Which, given the speaker, may be a more serious, or even more dangerous, comment than it would be coming from someone else, especially said in the tone he's using, with the way he's looking at her.

Ami freezes with her shoes half tied, crouched down with her back to him. She reaches up to put a hand on the wall for steadying herself, then grimaces through it. "I ... I think maybe this is not a good time for firsts," she notes quietly.

But of course, he already deduced that. Finishing tying her shoes, the bluenette sighs and slowly rises, hugging herself as if to try and encourage her own courage. "Maybe ... a hug, instead?" she suggests.

Takashi nods a bit. "I think a hug would be good." he says, quietly, and then really before he gives either of them a chance to reconsider - she offered, and he thinks its a good idea, so seize the moment - and he leans down and wraps the much shorter and smaller girl in a hug that surrounds her and presses her up against him.

And as quickly as he's swooped down upon her, if she's anything more than just tense, he'll break away. But he does get in. "I really do love you, even when it doesn't seem like it - maybe especially when it doesn't."

Ami squeaks just faintly when he wraps her up in his arms. The suddenness of it took her by surprise. And of course she's tense, for about an instant. But that tension melts as she puts her forehead on his chest and just lets him hug her. She doesn't hug back, but given the way she melts against him, it might feel like she does.

Rather than responding to his words in kind, she simply says, "I know you feel that way. It's why I'm here, right now, despite everything around me going wrong. Just ... try not to do anything that's going to make things worse. Please," she begs soto-voice.

It's now Takashi's turn to tense up for a moment, before that falls away too - but it's there for a moment. "Yeah, I'm trying to stay... out of the trouble. I am trying to keep from making things worse for you... actively." he says. And yes, that means he's letting some of his plans go by the wayside - which is as much a gesture of caring as perhaps he can give.

"I'm doing my best. I'm going to keep doing my best. And if you keep doing your best, we have to believe that's enough, right?" he says, even though he sounds a bit unsure himself - motivational speaking not relating to getting angry isn't his strong suit.

Ami sniffs just faintly at that, then leans away to look up at him. "You sound a little like a magical girl who thinks she can just believe hard enough and friendship happens." She smiles at him, but there's no warmth to it, then slowly disengages and turns for the door. "I'll text you soon," she promises.

Takashi makes sure to see her every little step towards the door, opening it slowly. "I just believe in myself. And I believe in you." he says. "I can't do anything less than that. It's too important not to." he says, standing at the door, knowing she doesn't exactly need a ride.

"If we can't do it together by our combined efforts? Everyone else would be totally doomed."

Ami considers him only a moment before holding up her hand, palm out. A bead of subspace forms there, and as she concentrates it warps and twists, opening the way for her to step through. She doesn't say good bye. Doesn't argue for or against this point. She just steps through, and the portal closes behind her.

Takashi doesn't wave good-bye, either, but he watches where she was just a moment ago for a long time, standing in the doorway of his house.

Eventually, he turns on his heel and returns into the house, and as he closes the door, he catches the immaculate white of the lab coat he wore when she showed up - and in a moment, it reminds him of too many things - of the difficulties he's encountered, balancing the things he wants with the other things. Of experiments, and love, and upset girlfriends, and loss...

And he grabs the lab coat off the coatrack with such force the rack goes crashing to the floor, as he holds the coat in tight hands, surging enough energy into it that it flakes away, dissolving in the air, and he stands in the entryway of his house quietly for a long time.