note taken

When you are hungry, you eat, when you are thirsty, you drink. That is simply the law of the land. You can push yourself past these boundaries, but it will not be pleasant, it will not be profitable, and to the extreme, it will not be possible. That is to say, if there is a need that has not been met, meet it. Or at least do your best to do so.

At the beginning of the week, before Tetsu had his guest, he bought a load of groceries. For one person. It was supposed to last an entire week, but it was all gone now, and they'd even eaten a bit into his store of non-perishables! Not that he was gonna ever eat that chili, unless the expiration date came up. But whatever, it was food, it was meant to be eaten. Now he just had to get some more, sooooo...

"Hey Nero! Do you wanna go to the grocery store with me? I don't know what kinds of food you like, so it would be nice to have you along to get that right." Nero, right in the middle of looking jobs up on the PC, stood up, stretched, and said "yeah, sounds good. The pages and pages of listings were starting to make my vision swim."

And so they were off. The trip wasn't as eventful as the time they went out yesterday, but they did have a choice of store to go to. There was the big supermarket that every town despite size, seeming always had, called TBRS, standing for The Big Red Store, which was weirdly a continuation of a store that had its history around a hundred years ago, which was interesting. There was also a mid sized gimmick store, called Dan's Barter Warehouse, having a weird frontier lodge aesthetic, despite being started in silicon valley, and not having anything at all to do with bartering. And of course there was the lone mom and pop grocery store, called Sam & Dot's, somehow still operating just like it always had, the proprietors knowing each of their regulars by name and operating directly with the local farmers, even if the original Sam and Dot were long gone.

Eventually they settled on Dan's Barter Warehouse, it was the most visually interesting of the three and had the most evocative narrative surrounding the mere act of going to the store and buying. Tetsu supposed that was the whole point of it and that they were directly playing into their hands, but what can you do?

Inside, the store was pretty busy. It wasn't that big of a store, it wouldn't keep the homely atmosphere if it was the size of a city block, after all, but that meant that there was more density of people and items. Unfortunately it was getting into the peak hours of the day for business, they spent most of the morning looking at job listings and they only realized they were out of food when they went to eat something for lunch. They had to squeeze by people to get through some aisles, and it took 10 minutes just to get the essentials of fruit, veggies, meat, and dairy. Just as they were getting around to some of the fun stuff, the snacks, the desserts, the- CRASH! CLUNK! Tetsu bumped his shoulder into an elderly woman and dropped her basket, and it made a sound that could be heard from the other side of the store. She whirled around and opened her mouth to say something while everyone around them turned to look at them. Tetsu froze like a deer in headlights and fell down onto his knees.

"A- ab, buh, s- ss- sor, i, I'm, u-uh, n-not, not wha-, ah" This was just the worst, everyone was looking and something probably broke and he'd have to pay for it and it'd be awkward and they'd hate him forever and they'd yell and scream and call the cops and-. Just then, Nero picked up the basket, checked that nothing was broken, and handed it back to the lady. She took Tetsu's hand, pulled him up, and quickly led him to the next aisle, where she picked out a nice granola with chocolates and clusters of almonds and put it in their basket. They checked out, Tetsu keeping hyper vigilant to not even brush against anyone, and started on the walk home.

"You don't need me."
"Yes I do."
"I need you more than you need me."
"No you don't."
"You've already learned enough to be able to live on your own, you can leave any time you wanted."
Nero stopped in her tracks and grabbed Tetsu's shoulder.
"J-just stop it, okay. Just stop. I'm n-, I'm not leaving you. You can talk about who needs who all you want but that doesn't matter. I'm staying with you either way."
"But why? Why would you want to stay with someone like me? Someone that can't say anything but information, someone that can't take it when they hurt someone."
"IT'S BECAUSE I L-"
Nero cut herself off and blushed, before turning away and hiding her face.
"It's... It's because I don't have anywhere else to go, if I didn't have you I-"
She cut herself off again and turned and looked at him dead in the eye, almost as if she was staring right past him.
"It's because if I did, I wouldn't have a house to live in. It's because without you, I wouldn't have food to eat. It's because I need to know more about earth."
That answer seemed to calm down Tetsu.

There's a concept in psychology of emotional connection. The more you invest yourself into someone or something, the more it hurts when that connection is hurt or damaged. Inversely, when the connection is strong, so to are you. It is under this framework that types of connections can be examined. Coworkers are weak connections, damaging neither overly so, but strengthening equally so. Family, strong connections that aren't easily weakened or broken. Where this gets interesting is where the connections are lopsided, one party believing they have a stronger connection, or investing themselves more heavily into that connection than the other. Often this is the basis of abusive relationships, as stronger connections can lead to greater power in a dynamic, but not always.

It is also good to note that these dynamics are purely created in the mind of the person analyzing a relationship in this mindset, and that human beings, real or fictional, can be nearly infinitely deep.