Why was I here again? (Tomomi/Isabella)

Rain. Again. Well, that's autumn for you, rain and grey and just generally terrible to be outside much of the time. But a bus stop, and the shelter and seating provided with it served as a brief spot of sanctuary from the downpour.

The rain had plastered some of the woman's blond hair to her scalp, what little of its usual volume remained was kept up by the valiant efforts of hair spray. valiant, but ultimately vain. She had her left hand slipped into the pocket of her trench coat, while in her right was a smartphone the screen of which she was tapping lazily away at.

The expression Isabella wore as she sat there seemed to be one of longing, the edges of her mouth slightly downturned, her eyes apparently not so much even focused at the screen of her device. Instead, she seemed to be staring down at the edge of curb, at the wheels of vehicles passing by.

"I wonder how he's doing nowadays?" She thought to herself, no answer to be had. Not that iwas the only question that would plague her. Had he survived? Would she ever know?

Working working, work all day. At least, he had been, before thankfully finishing the job. Then, just as he'd tied up the last of his bags... The heavens had opened. A reminder that the rainy season had come in full. Quickly, Tomomi was reminded that maybe saving up for a coat would be a good idea, as his hair quickly became sodden and draped over his face like a mop. Still, he'd finished, so it was time for the long walk out of Suzie Q and back home.

At least, that was the initial plan. But, between strands of sodden hair, Tomomi spotted a familiar face. Recently familiar, but familiar none the less, and it would have been rude to not say hi. Plus, making friends was nice! And given the prior circumstances, it was good to see her unharmed and safe. So, smiling beneath his hair, Tomomi walked over, waving. "Ah! Hi miss Isabella! Nice to see you! Um, i-if you remember who I am that is!"

More tapping of the screen, brushing aside advertisements emails, hitting the little star icon for messages to reply to later. It was all fairly automated, something that she'd gotten used to. So she'd time to have her thoughts elsewhere. Not for much longer though, as a voice calling out to her would bring her full attention back to the present.

Her attention turned to where the voice came from. A young man, oh yes, the one from the other day. "Oh, Tomomi. Nice to see you as well." Isabella spoke, before shifting on the bench she'd seated herself on to make some space. "Why don't you come and sit down, get out of the rain for a bit? She'd reveal her left hand from her pocket, tapping her fingers on the space next to her.

"I'm probably safe in assuming you've been working?" he blonde would ask, ogether with a small gesture toward the bag of trash, and the tool used to collect it.

At the offer of taking a seat, Tomomi grinned and nodded, pulling his hygiene mask from over his face. "Thank you, I appreciate the offer!" The boy declared, giving a thumbs up before moving and taking a seat, setting the bag of rubbish and the litter picker in front of him, mask hanging around his neck.

"Yeah, you could say that. Literally just finished my route for today, so, once I drop off this bag, I'm done for the day!" The boy declared with a smile and another nod, before looking to Isabella almost expectantly. "So, um, how did it go with work? I mean, aside from the whole not being hurt thing, which I'm very glad to see, but like, did you get the stuff you needed alright? Or, did the police turn you away at the door?"

She gave him a smile as her offer to take a seat was accepted. As Tomomi sat down, she would pocket her phone. "Must be a job that doesn't receive much thanks, what you do. Or am I perhaps wrong?"

Then he'd bring up their previous meeting. "Yes... That. I decided not to go, after you left. I stood there and thought seriously for a good long while, and in the in the end I decided that the potential threat, no matter how fantastical it might seem on paper, wasn't worth it just to show up my editor." There was uncertainty to her tone, her eyes moving away from him as she spoke."

At the comment about his job, Tomomi rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah... But hey, since nobody really, uh... Likes the job, or the people doing the job, then I mean... I have job security? So um... At least I don't need to worry about that." He declared, rather matter of factly, or as if it was a recited answer, yet still maintaining the boys naturally delicate tone.

As Isabella talked about what happened after they parted ways, the boy nodded in understanding, waiting, before speaking up, taking mental note of her shift in tone and posture. "I mean... You can always get new material right? Make a story better than the um... Original one, and show that editor who is the... What's the term... Who isn't the boss?"

Job security? True, if no one wanted the job, he probably wouldn't loose it anytime soon. "Well, it's good to find the silver lining, even with things like that. Though I do have to wonder, for how long would people remain ungrateful if people like you suddenly stopped doing their job? Things would probably get quite... Unpleasant around the city, wouldn't you agree?" She'd reply, with a small chuckle.

The blonde then nodded, turning to look at the young man. "True, I could make a better story. I've one in the works that had a better place to begin with from the start. But my editor can... And I know I shouldn't about people like this behind their back, but she can be something of a bitch at times. I imagine you know the types, the one who'll hang your past failures above your head, and just won't let go." Despite the negative contents of her words, her tone seemed more.. Amused than anything else.

Tomomi opted to hold off on commenting about the importance of his job, hearing first how Isabella found her editor, and how she could make a better story. The types who held things over you eh? Yeah, she could say that. Something along those lines...

At the implication that it was a shared experience, Tomomi laughed a bit, nodding his head. "Well, if we're uh... Talking behind peoples backs, then, well, I guess my boss falls into that category. Oh but uh... P-please don't tell anyone I said that, I may have job security, but um... Not invincibility to losing it..."

Readjusting his shoulder so that the jacket resting atop it did not fall off, Tomomi decided to rather haphazardly now answer Isabella's rhetoric on his job. "Well uh... With my job anyways, hypothetically speaking, if all of us went on strike or something, well uh... I think it might cause a problem? Like if transport services all stopped... But um... I think they know that exactly and that's why it's an unpleasant career choice I guess? So um... If anyone you know is ever looking for a job, tell them to avoid this type of work, because um... There's no reliable way out. I mean... Picking up rubbish doesn't look good on a CV, and the work takes so much time but pays so little that I can't really afford to quit to go job hunting, so, um... I wouldn't recommend anyone take it, aha..."

She'd chuckle, waving her hand. "Don't you worry, I'm no tattletail. specially when I just gave you something that would just give my editor another excuse to place more unreasonable demands for me." She spoke, in reference to her comments just now. Following that, she'd listen to the other. And  it was quite hard to listen. Troubling, that's how she'd describe it.

"I'm not even talking transportation stopping. Imagine if sanitation workers and litter pickers went on strike for a month, or even a week? How quickly would the streets be covered in garbage and filth? Most people won't admit, but a lot of the modern definition of cleanliness, on a scale this big, is reliant on people like you." She tried to get an encouraging tone to her voice. "That said I'm surprised your parents allow you to work a job like that. I'd imagine you come across some fairly hazardous item every now and then. Used drug needles and the like."

At first, the positive comments were nice, Tomomi blushing slightly at the concept of his work being important. Even if just one person, to hear that his effort was useful to people was a nice thought. Then the comment about how his parents would allow him to work on a job like it. Parents...

Tomomi swallowed, trying to keep the emotions back. Right, of course it would be natural to ask something like that. Right. After all, Tomomi was still young, and still technically a child. He should have had his parents looking out for him these years. Right. He should have been okay with hearing a word like that. Right.

But he wasn't.

Like a little child, Tomomi suddenly burst into tears, crying with his head in his hands and quickly curling up into a ball.

Her eyes had turned away, staring up at the grey sky as she had spoken, so what subtle changes could have preceded what was about to come was lost on her. Thus it only came as even more of a surprise and shock when the young man seated next to her burst into tears. She'd never really been much around kids on any kind of long-term basis. At most it had been when cousin Sonja had brought her kids over for a visit, and even then only if Isabella herself had been around during the time. She was not good with kids.

"T-Tomomi? What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Her voice was much more frantic than before. Her hands waved about, the woman unsure what to do with them. Should she hold him? Stroke his hair? The outburst was so sudden, she couldn't draw that connection to his sudden tears and her words just moments ago. Well, maybe she could have, had she been thinking straight. But she wasn't.

The sounds of Isabella speaking were borderline distant. Tomomi could hear the words, but at the same time, couldn't. As though he were speaking a different language to her but not one spoken through verbal communication, but through emotive understanding that at this moment, the young Japanese boy just couldn't deal with. Still, it forced an acknowledgement in him... Even if he couldn't quite figure out what she was saying, it was a reminder that space did exist. Tomomi was not alone at this moment. What was Isabella thinking at this sight? Pity? Disgust? Embarrassment?

Regardless, Tomomi had to get his shit together if he wanted to make sure she didn't get distressed from it. Plus, he should... Probably explain, so that such a thing could be potentially avoided.

Gripping at his chest with a pained squint of an expression, Tomomi forced himself to sit upright, ignoring the tears that continued to stream down his face. In a near instant his clothes were disheveled from his scrunched posture, and were it not for the wet hair covering his eyes and a lot of his face, he would appear almost dead inside.

"I... I have... Haven't seen my parents in... In... In... In... In..." For a moment, Tomomi was at a loss for words like a broken record, the events of the Eternal Divide replaying inside his mind as he clenched his fist with all his might, scrunching his shirt more. "Since the Divide... I... Don't know where... Missing since then..." At this point, his words grew more disheveled, more discordant, with very little audibly understandable.

Her worry only grew as she didn't seem to get a response from him. Her arms still failed about, eyes shooting about wildly. Then she'd see something, the boy gripping his chest? Heart problems? Was where her first guess went, and there was an immediate urge to stop him from moving as he began to sit back up. And the look on his face, felt like someone was driving nails into her heart. He was in pain, but The woman was clueless to help him.

And then he would begin speaking, and Isabella stopped moving in that moment, eyes going wide as suddenly the pieces fell into place. The Divide... It all made sense now. The low paying, probably dangerous job. The lack of weather-appropriate clothing. The boy was probably just scraping by. It wasn't that his parents didn't care or couldn't afford the boy a rain coat, there weren't parents... at all.

"Tomomi..." The intonation of the words was slow, but one could hear compassion in her tone. Five years had passed since the Divide. Five years, had the boy been alone all that time. Her hands rose, the left wrapping around to his back, while the right would cup the back of his head. A horrible, crushing guilt clawed at her chest.

"I'm sorry." Again, her words were slow, but her words almost trembled, the woman putting forth much effort to keep it together. Five years. How old was he when the Divide forever changed everything? Probably not much older then ten, if even that. She gently pulled him in closer. Her grip gentle, but firm.

"I'm so, so sorry."

The sudden muttering of his name after a moment of silence... Tomomi barely registered it, head kept low as if trying to avoid seeing the world, or perhaps like a lost child, trying to avoid having the world see him. Yet soon he found himself dragged back to reality at the sudden contact, Isabella bringing him into a hug. Beneath his hair, Tomomi's eyes grew wide, the tears seeming to pause their outflow for a moment as Tomomi seemed to freeze in place. Then the apologies. Why was she... Why was she apologising? Tomomi didn't understand, but to hear such heart felt apologies both hurt and healed him in that instant, Tomomi's chest feeling like it was about to burst through his throat as his words got caught in his mouth.

For a moment, the boy was just stuck like this, silently sobbing, before eventually, he moved to hug Isabella in return, the tears and sharp inhales resuming as beneath his breath, Tomomi uttered a single phrase. "T-thank you..."

A small, sad smile was on her face as this went on. Her thoughts on an old memory, when cousin Sonja had been visiting with one of her children, and the family cat. It had been a lot like this after the cat had gotten run over in a freak accident. So she'd just hug him, her right hand stroking his hair, gently patting him from every now and then. "That's it, just let it all out." She would lean in to whisper to him. Just what her cousin had said, those exact same words. She wouldn't try to stop him, or quiet him.

"I'll have to remember to thank Sonja... If I ever see her again." She thought to herself, but quickly let it pass, turning her full attention back to Tomomi.