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"Hey, Foo."
"What's up?"
"I've been wondering....am I a good person?"
"You went to jail for a double homicide."
"That's different."
"I don't think it is."
Anasui sighed and sat up from his spot on the ground. Talking with Foo Fighters was always weird - Anasui couldn't help but feel awkward when talking to the reanimated corpse that had befriended Jolyne and, by extension, the rest of the gang. But they'd saved the world, and it didn't look like any of them were going to go their separate ways, so he figured at least maintaining a sort of friendship would be good. Besides, he needed to work on how he talked to people in the first place. He learned pretty fast that Jolyne didn't take kindly to Anasui's comments about her other friends.
"I....I just mean..." Anasui softly cursed to himself. "Dammit. I mean, we all did something good. We saved the universe, or whatever. Hooray, right? So...that would make us good people, right?"
"Sure. Or...well," Foo Fighters seemed to think for a bit. "I mean, it's a good thing we did. But you can do good things and not be a good person."
"Right. But when you compare it to saving the lives of everyone on the planet, killing two people isn't that bad, right?"
"Why are you asking me?" FF raised a brow. "I'm not the most adept with philosophical stuff like that, or whatever."
"I just-"
"You want to know if Jolyne will be disgusted if you tell her what you did." Foo Fighters interjected. Anasui cursed under his breath again. "It's kind of awful that you haven't told her already. Killing your ex girlfriend and her fling feels like something that would be important to know before dating someone. But I'm not exactly surprised."
"I don't want to scare her. And...the homicide wasn't unprovoked, you know, it wasn't exactly a good relationship." Anasui defended. He slipped the watch he had on off of his wrist. It wasn't fancy, rather just something he bought on an impulse during a shopping trip he and the others had made to celebrate their victory. It was a pink, cheap little thing, and Anasui hadn't bothered to properly set the time on it. He'd bought it because it looked like it'd be fun to disassemble.
"Yeah, and murder is a perfectly reasonable reaction to cheating." Foo rolled their eyes. "....What was she like? Your first girlfriend?"
Anasui stilled for a moment. What a question.
"....She was beautiful." Anasui started. "And kind of mean. She liked detail. Everything needed to be in its place."
"Seems weird that you'd date someone like that."
"What? How so?"
"Because you take things out of their place. You tear things apart." Foo Fighters took a long drink of water from a metal straw. Recently, she'd been pretty into not using plastic straws like she used to. It made sense - Save the marine life and all.
Anasui looked down at his hands, as he'd already begun to disassemble the watch he had.
"....It calms me down." He explained. "I like knowing how things work. Seeing all the little bits inside."
There was a bit of silence before Anasui spoke up again.
"I was a mechanic before I went to jail."
"A mechanic? Like with cars?"
"Ah, yeah. Someone had a problem with something, I could take it apart and see what was wrong and fix it."
"So you like fixing things, too?"
"It's not as fun as taking things apart, but if you never put things back together they become useless, I guess." Anasui shrugged and pulled a small gear out of the watch.
"Was your girlfriend a mechanic, too?"
Christ. Why was Foo asking all these questions? ....Why was he answering them? He took a deep breath and carefully set the gears of the watch down next to where he was sitting.
"No. She was a waitress. She wanted to write books, though. Murder mysteries."
"Ironic."
"Yeah. She wouldn't let me read the manuscripts she had, but I think she was a good writer."
"Why wouldn't she let you read them?"
"I don't know." Anasui shook his head. "Looking back on it, she probably just didn't trust me with her work. She probably didn't trust me period."
"You're not a trustworthy person."
"Wow, thanks."
"Sorry. You know I like to be honest."
"Yeah, I know."
"So you killed her because she cheated?"
"...I don't know. I came home from work, and she was with this guy, and... I don't know, okay? I got angry. Things were already bad for us. She was the center of my universe, and then all of the sudden she wasn't."
"Would you kill Jolyne if she did that?"
Anasui looked over at Foo Fighters, an expression of horror on his face. He would never. Jolyne was - Why would -
Foo Fighters just drank more water. Their expression hardly seemed mean-spirited. Just curious. Maybe a bit judgemental.
"No. No, I would never. I love Jolyne." He protested, his voice shaking slightly. "Never in a million years. No matter what she did to me, I'd never hurt her."
"Hm. Do you think she knows you'd never hurt her?"
"....She has to. I mean, Jolyne is my soulmate, she probably knows me better than I do-"
"So you shouldn't be scared to tell her what you did and why." Foo interjected.
"It's more complicated than that."
"Well, complicated or not you should tell her. She's bound to get curious one day and if you don't say anything, I will."
"Is that some kind of threat?" Anasui growled, clutching the disembodied watch in his shaking hand. "Are you trying to blackmail me or something?"
"No. It's just a fact. Jolyne deserves the truth, and nobody owes you their silence. I don't know if you know this, Anasui, but nobody really likes you."
"Jolyne likes me."
"Jolyne loves you, she doesn't like you. There's a difference."
"No there isn't."
"Yeah, there is. She can't stand you, most of the time. You insult all of us and bring people down. You're probably only talking to me because Jolyne wants you to."
"....So what? It's hard for me to be nice to people or make connections. Talking or being all sociable is hard."
"You're preaching to the choir." Foo Fighters laughed softly. "Or, well, the mass of plankton trying to be a person. I know talking to people is hard. I don't think any part of human interaction is easy. But you don't see me being an asshole."
"Shut up. I wanted advice, not to get lectured." Anasui's grip on the watch loosened, and he returned to his task of picking it apart with his fingers. Would've been easier with a screwdriver, but he didn't have one on him. People were hesitant to give him things he could use as a weapon.
"Right. Sorry, I guess. But again, you know I'm a blunt person. I'm honest."
"Yeah."
"....Hey, Anasui, what was your family like?"
"What?"
"Well, Hermes told me about her sister, and her dad. I've met Jolyne's dad, and we all know how she and him get along. Emporio didn't have a family before us, and Weather's family situation is crazy. What about yours? I'm curious."
Anasui looked down at the mangled husk of a watch in his hands. He'd gutted it as best he could. He took a deep, long, sigh, and then he spoke.
"I was adopted. I don't know anything about my real family except that they were Italian. That's why I have an Italian name."
"Anasui doesn't sound like an Italian name."
"Anasui isn't my first name, Foo. My parents named me Narciso."
"Right, Narciso. That sounds more Italian. Were you born with pink hair?"
"Yeah."
"Pink eyes?"
"No, they're contacts. Have you never seen me without them?"
"Can't say I have."
Anasui laughed a bit at that, realizing how ridiculous he probably seemed. He set the watch down and raised a hand to his eye, pulling the eyelid up before pulling out a pink colored contact lense, revealing an emerald green iris.
"See? Green."
"Oh, wow. That's pretty vivid. Wouldn't have expected it." Foo tilted her head to the side and leaned closer to Anasui to get a better look.
"Yeah. Pink is my favorite color, so I wanted my eyes to match." Anasui shrugged.
"It's fun that people can just do that whenever they want." Foo Fighters thought aloud. "Were your adopted parents good people?"
"Uh, yeah. Well, they did their best. I was a little monster when I was a kid."
"A monster?"
"Yeah. Tore things apart, bit other kids, scratched, yadda yadda. I had a lot of rage and not a lot of folks knew how to calm me down."
"Not a lot has changed, then."
"Shut up." Anasui smirked. "What about you? Your parents?"
Foo gave a confused look.
"Oh. Right, plankton, I forgot."
"Nah, it's okay. But yeah, no typical family for me. This body had one - Atroe did, that is - and it wasn't necessarily a good family, but that doesn't really effect me."
"Right." Anasui nodded in understanding. "Is it ever hard? Being, uh, plankton?"
"A little? I don't know. Adjusting to a life like this is weird, but I haven't yet discovered anything that's impossible for me. Well, aside from living without water, but everyone needs water. I just need lots of it."
"Ah, got it." Anasui was quiet for a bit before putting his contact lense back in and picking the watch back up. "You know, I wasn't expecting that you'd be such a fun conversation partner."
"You think this sort of conversation is fun? I was just calling you an asshole and talking about how nobody likes you."
"Yeah, but it's something. I don't really get to have long talks like this."
"Not even with Jolyne?"
"Usually I say something she doesn't like and she gets mad."
"Well, you can't blame her for being emotional. She's been through a lot. We all have."
"Oh, no, I'd never blame her. I just...I dunno. It's good to talk to someone honest. You don't even seem to fear me or anything."
"I guess I understand that. You're not too bad to talk to, either, I guess. Though I don't know if I like you."
"I don't expect you to. I don't really expect anyone to, actually." Anasui fiddled with putting the gears in the watch back into place.
"Hey now, don't go throwing a pity party. Just because we don't like you now doesn't mean we never will."
"I think I've given everyone a pretty good reason to stay away from me forever." Anasui punctuated 'forever' by clicking a screw into place in the watch.
"Nah, you just need to start being more honest. And nicer. Like, nice to people other than Jolyne."
"I'm being nice right now."
"Really? This is you being nice? No wonder Jolyne gets so pissed off."
"No, it's different with her. I'm better."
"Yeah, but it doesn't make you a good person if you're only ever just good for one other person."
"So I'm not a good person?" Anasui looked up, remembering the question he'd asked that started this conversation.
"You know..." Foo took a sip of their water. "Right now? I don't think so, no. But again, that could change. You just have to try."
"Thanks, I guess."
"No problem. I believe in you, Narciso."