let's go to the mall everybody!!!

[helpline]

WHO: the Doctor & Kagerou
WHERE: some mall somewhere
WHEN: sometime before Christmas
WHAT: RAMPANT CONSUMERISM slash teaching the robot how to be a person
WARNINGS: n/a!

Teaching Kagerou how to do normal human things like "buy clothing" might not be a good idea in the mall. At Christmas. Because the mall is packed, as people go from store to store, kids wait in line to sit on Santa Claus's lap, stores are having major sales so all sorts of people are at the stores, tacky Christmas music is being blared from the speakers, and so on and so forth.

The Doctor and Kagerou are standing in the middle of the food court. The Doctor's holding a pretzel and looking around with a little frown.

"Ah. Perhaps I should have picked somewhere smaller." He turns to Kagerou and gives him a little smile. "Shall we go shopping anyway?"

Comments

[fuckinstoplights]

"Because clothes are strange to me."

A simple enough answer. But he follows along, regardless, trailing on the doctor's heels.

"Green. Like I am."

[helpline]

"Well, hopefully by the end of this shopping trip, they'll be less strange."

As they leave the dressing room, the Doctor puts the shirt that doesn't fit on the rack of clothes to be reshelved. Once they're out in the main area, he grabs two other green shirts, the same size as the purple one.

"Now for trousers...how many pairs do you have? We'll get shirts and slacks and worry about shoes later."

[fuckinstoplights]

"Maybe."

He doesn't sound so hopeful. Idly running his fingers along racks of clothes they pass. Lingering on longer, more loose-fit items. However, when he's asked a question like that, he just blinks. Staring.

"What are trousers? And... slacks?"

Kagerou they're pants.

[helpline]

"You know, those things you wear on your legs?" The Doctor looks confused for a moment before it hits him.

"Americans call them pants." Thanks slang differences.

[fuckinstoplights]

"Pants."

That word he knows. It translates better. Easier. He's not sure why -- maybe 'trousers' are harder to write in katakana than 'pants'.

[helpline]

"Pants," the Doctor repeats. "Don't ask me why Brits call trousers one thing and Americans call it another. I would say it's a language thing except we both speak English."

[fuckinstoplights]

"You do. And it's very confusing."

Says the guy who only knows English thanks to the translation magic technology here.

[helpline]

"People keep trying to make a universal language every now and then. Basic, esperanto, things like that. Never really sticks, mostly because people are just far too stubborn."

[fuckinstoplights]

"I only know Japanese."

Maybe a little English by now. But mostly Japanese. There hadn't been a reason for them to upload anything else, after all.

[helpline]

"Well, if you ever want to learn another language, I'm fluent at some and rusty at most."

One of the perks of being over two thousand: you learn some really weird nonsense.

[fuckinstoplights]

"How many are there?"

Hi, he lived in a science facility all his very short life.

[helpline]

The Doctor lets out a low whistle as he thinks.

"In the universe? Probably an infinite amount. I'm only passable at a hundred or so, though."

It's entirely possible that is an exaggeration.

[fuckinstoplights]

"How is anyone supposed to talk to each other, if there's that many?"

That's a bigger number than he's ever thought about learning. Wow.

[helpline]

"The universe is huge. At least a million people speak English, so you've got at least a million people to talk to if you speak English. And most people aren't going to talk to over a million people in their lifetime."

Most people aren't going to talk to over a hundred thousand people in their lifetime, but maths has never been the Doctor's strongest suit.

[fuckinstoplights]

"That's... There's that many people?"

No, Kagerou, there's several billion. But still. He's boggled by that number alone.

[helpline]

"There's more than that many people. In the universe as a whole? There's probably billions of billions of people."

The universe is big, the universe is huge, and the universe has planets that are definitely habitable, no matter what some stupid boring Earth scientists say.

[fuckinstoplights]

"Billions...?"

He repeats it slowly, his eyes gone a little wide around the edges. It's hard to picture the number itself. Let alone that many human beings.

[helpline]

"Billions," the Doctor repeats, in a very matter-of-fact tone.

[fuckinstoplights]

"How... is that possible?"

He needs to not be having this conversation in the middle of a mall, but oh well, that's Kagerou for you.

[helpline]

The Doctor's at least continuing this conversation like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's possible because it is. There's just that many people."

[fuckinstoplights]

Well good. At least one of them has a decent grasp of things.

"But where do they all... there's not that much room, is there?"

[helpline]

"Not on Earth, no. But there's an infinite number of planets out there and a smaller subset of that infinite can support life."

As he talks, the Doctor brings his hands together then moves them out, as if that will somehow show just how infinite and large space is as a whole.

[fuckinstoplights]

"I... didn't know there were so many..."

He didn't know a lot of things, let's be real here. It's practically a miracle anyone uploaded basic earth facts into his brain, let alone space ones.

[helpline]

"I should take you to a planetarium one of these days," the Doctor idly muses, looking Kagerou over. "That's a place where you can learn all about space and the stars and things like that."

[fuckinstoplights]

"A planetarium?"

He tilts his head to one side, the gesture birdlike. At odds with his human appearance. "Is it like a school?"