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Adler’s office was awfully quiet today, even if a certain awakened he loved to argue with was just standing right next to him. It was strange, to say the least.
They had an almost routine when Ulrich came by the director’s office: The ferrofluid would enter without warning, ask for an absurd amount of sharpodonty for a new project, Adler would reject it immediately, they would argue over it for hours to the point of forgetting what they were arguing about, Ulrich leaves in complete anger, then repeat the next day.
But, for the first and definitely last time ever, the amount of sharpodonty was fairly normal; inside Laplace’s budget, even. Meaning there’s no reason to reject it nor fight over it. Though Ulrich’s investigations are known for their amount of resources. If it was anyone else, he would’ve thought that maybe, the awakened gave up on trying to ask for bigger budgets, but this is Ulrich we’re talking about.
There was a rather unusual silence neither of them were used to. No screaming everyone in Laplace could hear and no fights that would leave Adler with a headache the rest of the day.
What was really weird, is that Ulrich did not need to stay in there, he could’ve left a long time ago and, yet, he stood there awkwardly as if he was waiting for something.
After a few minutes that felt incredibly long, the awakened left his documents in the nearest table and finally spoke. “Well, as a way to change the subject, i’ll ask-“ he pauses for a bit, the ferrofluid changing to three dots as if he was trying to come up with something to say. “Do you think that I’m, as humans say ‘getting fat’? It seems that for your kind it is considered bad, so i guessed it would be the same for us.”
“… what?” That question caught him off guard, rightfully so, considering how little sense it made. “Is that even possible for you?? You’re a robot, after all.” The confused tone in his voice was more than clear, not really sure what the ferrofluid’s intentions were asking such useless question.
“Not a robot, but an awakened arcanist in a robotic body. Don’t you know the difference, Adler? Besides; maybe my body was created with the ability to gain fat, and you’re just ignorant!” Ulrich was clearly messing with him, even if his usual smugness was clear from his speakers it was more of a playful tone.
“That is the same thing-“ Adler, finally catching up with what the awakened was trying to do, intends to continue their ‘argument’ with just as much ridiculous answers. “Most robots are awakeneds in the first place! Just look at Lucy, for example.”
“Then, what im getting from you is that you think all awakeneds are the same?” A remark made with a fake tone of offense, contrary to his glass head now forming a circle. “Lucy is unique, as always. And she is too just using a robotic as a vessel, remember?”
“You know that’s not what i mean” the human was starting to form a smile in his face because of the sheer absurdity of this whole situation.
“Okay, then what do you mean, substitute director Adler?” Ulrich was getting closer, normally it would mean a fistfight would start, and the Laplace workers will curse their entire bloodlines because only those two know the code to Adler’s office meaning no one could stop them. But this time, it was closer to silly teasing.
“Stop calling me that.” Adler laughed for a moment, a mere second, because this is a stupid conversation.
“Answer the question.” Ulrich tried to avoid thinking how rare it is for the human to laugh at all, or how he kind of liked when it happened.
“What if i don’t?”
“Then, i won’t stop calling you substitute director.”
“Knowing you, you would infact not stop either way.”
“You’re avoiding the subject being held now!”
“You did it first, because the subject was bullshit, fish tank!”
Their ‘argument’ went on for a while, just saying anything they could come up with. Yet again; like every other day, the topic shifted so much it stopped being what they originally talked about at all, but this time it was much better.