Wake up (and forget the coffee). [Tag to Komui, Closed]

[kuroi_kutsu]

Funny, even after so many years Linali never grew tired of bringing her brother coffee in the morning. It was a repetitive task, but comfortingly so -- it was something she could automatically fall back on in the morning whenever she was too worn out or dazed to think of anything else

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[supervised]

Komui had been just a little out-of-sorts the whole morning.

Maybe it was just the stress of a new, not yet entirely familiar job getting to him, but he kept having the constant nagging feeling that he was forgetting something very important. Even when he'd talked to Linali over her golem earlier -- he never forgot anything to do with Linali and yet--

Something was... off. He didn't know what it was. He didn't have all the information. And not having all the information made Komui very cranky. For starters -- he knew for a fact that he'd had half a month's backlog or more of business to work through, but the only papers waiting to be processed on his desk seemed to be intelligence reports from today. How was this even possible? He was going to have to have a few words with people later...

...but first, coffee. And a very welcome chat with his favorite person. "Good moooorning, Linali~~" he called as he tossed his pen onto the desk, taking a moment to shove the papers to one side so there would be room for coffee mugs. "

[kuroi_kutsu]

She nearly dropped the tray she was holding at his sudden outburst, but managed to quickly set it down before retreating a little.

"I--? Huh? What are you talking about?" She was unsettled by his yelling, his confusion only adding to her own.

Something was hurting at the back of her mind. There was something about him that was extremely familiar yet so out of place, and the contradiction was splitting her head in two.

[supervised]

"Linali--" Komui had sprung from his seat as he continued to stare, looking utterly shellshocked.

"Linali, you-- you have boobs!! ...And you're old!!"

Quickly rounding the side of his desk, he strode over to her side to peer down at her in utter horror, taking hold of her by the forearms to give her a slightly panicked shake.

"You-- You almost look my age...! What's going on here? What did those Science Department perverts do to you!? Is this permanent!? Do I need to start building a death ray!?!?"

[kuroi_kutsu]

...Old? If this had been any other situation with any other person, she might have felt insulted. But this clearly wasn't the time for that, and she tried to assuage him, if not for the sake of the rest of his department.

"It's okay, they didn't do anything to me. And I--I don't know what you mean," she stammered, blushing a little at his comment but avoiding it, "I'm only twenty-two, so that would make you--"

Thirty-five...

An overdue alarm clock went of in her head and she blinked hard, eyes snapping wide.

"How old are you?" She blurted out loud, unable to stop herself.

[kuroi_kutsu]

"Twenty-three? That's not--"

She trailed off, her concern mirroring his.

"But when I last saw you--"

And there it was again, this obscured hole in her memory. There was a brief moment where his face flashed into her vision, clear and panicked, but the rest of it was swallowed by dark distortions. The more she searched around, the more lost she became, until she wound up back at the start.

"I can't remember anything," she sighed, waiving her memories for the moment.