Blue screen of death (Kousuke)

[Tobias Xenos]

Toby frowned deeply at the blue screen of death. His entire English paper that he had worked on for hours... gone. His mouth hung slightly agape as he stared in shock and misery. His paper, the one he had been in here for almost four hours doing... gone. It was part of his final grade, it wasn't much but the thirteen year old nobody had so much trouble writing it that it was almost like he should just give up and take the failing grade. Or maybe his teacher would understand. Not too likely. It was only a four page paper, double spaced so it should be too bad. But it was on a book they had read and Tobias had had to have an extra tutoring session for that because he was confronted with so many words he either didn't know or if he did he was so focused on understanding the book that he missed all the special stuff, like the figurative language and stuff they were talking about in class.

Also Toby's paper was one that was apt to be covered in red when he took it to be proofread. He could work on it for hours, as he had this one, and still have a ton of time left in it because he most likely would have to write a whole new paper. He reached out a hand and without thinking batted the computer monitor on the side, like that would help. Well it did something, the computer screen blurred and shut down. He could have cried. He slammed his head on the keyboard. "Why me?" He muttered darkly, very very close to tears. Where was a technopath when you needed one? It was a shame he couldn't heal it like he healed people. This sucked. He had at least saved the first two paged but he was almost done with the third page, this was going to suck.

Toby frowned imagining himself as the Hulk and tearing the computer out of the wall and sending it flying across the room. But Toby was the kind of person who really dislikes getting into conflicts with people, especially the librarians... they were scary. Slowly panic set in, and the hyperventilation, if he failed another class his father would kill him, literally. The boy with no past would have no future! Even though he no longer had contact with his father he still couldn't get out of the fear of failing. "Com'on!" He cried desperately shaking the computer, "Don' do this to me!"

[Kousuke Nanohara]

Kousuke scrolled down to the next item on his phone's to-do list app under tag: "Hammel Spots to Scout Out". He saw that it t was the library, and a rare smile crept onto his lips. Despite belonging to a demographic that often dismissed them as "oldmedia," he's always had this soft spot for books.

He pocketed his phone and pushed open the door. Turning the first corner, and walked past a few shelves of reference books to see a computer area and bright, blue.... screen of death. Unlike most of the population, he liked those, too. BSODs can tell you exactly what went wrong where with a PC; you just had to have the knowledge and the means to fix it. Kousuke did, but guessed that the kid staring at it didn't, because the next thing he did was slap the monitor, and it fizzled out. Kousuke sighed, giving up on the notion of making some armchair diagnosis of the problem. He turned around and took two steps before he heard the boy start sniveling and mechanical rattling.

Kousuke looked around, feeling rattled himself. He'd heard rumors about a librarian that knew everything, or something like that... but no one else seemed to be around. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with some random kid's tantrum, but he couldn't just stand there and let him beat on perfectly good equipment. He stifled a swear, took a deep breath, and marched over to the boy.

"Hey, kid," he went, waving a hand to get his attention. "You'll only make it worse, doing crap like that." The kid looked to be on the brink of tears... yes, this was the vary last thing he want to deal with. "Look, whatever happened, I can probably fix it easy, so... don't do that," he said, gesturing at the boy's watery eyes.

[Tobias Xenos]

Toby was about ready to call it quits and find his English teach and beg for more time. His paper was gone. For good. He was sure. He couldn't just leave the compute like this though... what to do? What to do? Tobias' lip curled into a snarl and he clenched his fists. Why couldn't anything go right!? He screamed internally. It was like his dreams were being torn apart in front of his eyes by this small error. Everything that had ever gone wrong in his life seemed to pile onto him. Even the things he didn't remember weighed heavily. Like life was taunting him. He didn't realize how close to tears he was until a mysterious person approached. He was older, that was obvious. Dark hair and of mysterious origin. He'd had a few Asian friends back at school, but he was always hesitant to identify them, as in complete honesty he didn't want to offend someone with his ignorance.

He blinked several times as he was addressed. Oh great, he thought, another person who just thinks I'm a kid. He looked up at the older boy a very defined and hopeless frown on his face. He sighed and couldn't help it. He pouted. He crossed his arms and chewed his lip wanting nothing more than to smash this thing. He slumped back and sighed. He felt hope when the boy said he could fix it. He blinked away tears and set a smile on his face. "Tha'd be more than wonderful!" He exclaimed nearly bouncing. "I dunno wha' 'appened. Un momen' fine, the other this!" He gestured frustratedly at it, his frustration making his accent even more slurred and hazy. Maybe he had too much stuff opened at once, he didn't know the first thing about computers. He'd had the class in school but Mr. Kesling would never have let him have a computer.

"Ilithios ilektronikos." He muttered under his breath. "Stupid computer." He repeated in English. He needed to stop slipping into Greek when he was mad. He backed off even standing up so the boy could have his chair. It was best that Toby stay out of the way on this one.

[Kousuke Nanohara]

OOC: Sorry this took a while, but now my IRL computer has been fixed, yay~ XD


It took a moment for Kousuke's brain to process what the boy was saying, which was odd. It wasn't like he a stranger to accents. The globetrotting had exposed him to many, and being the son of two ESLs had slightly marked his own speech... but this boy's was on the thick side. Another transfer student, Kousuke guessed.

A few complaints and a forlorn look later, the boy perked up. At that sight, Kousuke breathed a sigh of relief. Not only was the boy's fit annoying, but there would be no way he would even attempt to focus with a whining kid under his nose.

When the boy offered his seat, Kousuke set his bag down and moved to take his place. Instead of immediately sitting down, he leaned over the table and began poking around at the wires. It took a few attempts, but he finally found the right one to jiggle and the monitor flickered back on.

He then sat down to look at the restored display. Reaching into his backpack for his glasses, he inspected the death screen for the important details. Error name: check. Hex code: check. It looked simple enough; he could probably fix it with minimal use of his power, if any.

He hit the power button for a hard reset, and watched the Windows logo appear. "Probably a virus thing. It's not too serious. By the way, beating on a computer is like shouting at a deaf guy. They can communicate, but not like that." As that lengthy loading screen commenced, Kousuke preemptively tapped his fingers against the keyboard when suddenly a thought crossed his mind. He stopped and looked up to the boy standing beside him. "Speaking of which, what language was that? I've never heard that one before."

[Tobias Xenos]

((YAY! And my exams are finally over!!! So I should be more on top of thing now, sorry as well for my neglect.))

Toby was extremely happy he could have hugged his rescuer. It wasn't unlike Toby to try to latch onto people he just barely met, but it did take a little while for him to accept them into his life. It was more like the boy with no past was very interested in knowing about the other person's life but asking about his life was a little too much. He knew it was unfair but he couldn't help it. He always felt a little embarrassed when he told people about his no history past.

Tobias couldn't help it he hovered nosily over the older boy's shoulder with interest. He blinked and made a small noise of surprise when the screen came back, bright and blue. "Woah! 'Ow did you do tha'?" He backed off a little giving the man more room. If only he could do with computers what he did with people. But then, being a healer of computers was useful but a healer of men was something Tobias Xenos would never give up for anything in the world.

He watched as the person turned the machine off and watched it come back to life whirring like a plane engine. He blinked away the memory. You never would have thought something like that would trigger nausea in him. He remembered quite vividly the sickening nervous feeling when the plane took off and he left England and Mrs. Puffy forever. But soon the noise settled and he was back in the present and the older boy was talking to him.

"Virus?" Toby said thoughtfully, "like its sick?" He listened carefully his brown eyes growing wider as he considered what the older boy was telling him. Lecturing actually. "Sorry," he said finally hanging his head to hide the flush of embarrassment. He glanced back up and force cooled his face. "I dunno, Mrs. Puffy say's its Greek, 'cause she speaks it too. I dunno why, it jus slips out sumtimes." He shrugged it off. "Ah, miname's Toby, by the way. I can't thank you enough!"

[Kousuke Nanohara]

OOC: Yay for completing your exams! Though I have to apologize for another slow reply... >_>


As the boy hovered around him, Kousuke got the strongest urge to swat him away like some kind of bug, but he endured. Instead, Kousuke leaned forward, focusing on the screen. "'Sick?' I guess you could say that."

Though he'd been absorbed in the computer before, only then did Kousuke really take a look at the other boy. Did he really not know what a computer virus was? Not that Kousuke expected everyone to know how to work DOS mode or something, that was the most basic of the basic. Nowadays, weren't most parents buying cell phones for kids in primary school? Then again, the kid obviously wasn't from the States and possibly from a background where computers and the like were rare.

Kousuke inwardly groaned. He didn't care to tread any touchy subjects but by then the OS had finally loaded. He went to work, opening command prompts and do some manual overrides, as he half-listened to the boy continue. He couldn't help but feel a bit of empathy when he heard the lamentations over the language slip. "Greek?" he mumbled, his lips curling into a smirk. "That's cool. Mondai nai, y'know. Hakuna matata... que sera sera. No worries."

Then he fell silent again, as he turned his attention back to the computer. It only took him a few minutes to manually change some settings and delete the traces of the file that caused the problem, and a tiny "nudge" to run a virus sweep outside of the original settings. Kousuke was still feeling his way around Hammel, and was still cautious using his powers on the school's devices. He didn't want to get into trouble so soon, especially in dealing with something that didn't even have to do with him in the first place.

"Toby, huh? I'm Kou, and no thanks needed," he went, spinning around to look at the boy again "Just promise me you won't go beating on computers anymore and we can call it even." Kousuke turned to check the screen before he looked back up to Toby. "Oh, yeah, weren't you doing something when you got blue screen'ed?"

[Tobias Xenos]

((Its all good :) ))

Toby nodded in more understanding, at least a virus and being sick was something he could understand. He wondered how much computers and people had in common. Or whether such similarities such as viruses and such were just named so, so that people could make sense of the problem. He flushed, he felt so ignorant talking like this. He ducked his head and averted his gaze when the older boy looked at him. This was embarrassing... The man probably thought he was some backward hick from god knows where who was less intelligent than a door nob.

Toby shrugged, "Hakuna matata," he repeated with a large smile. He liked that. He had seen the movie once with Mrs. Puffy and the other orphans. It was rather nice, put your past behind you and don't worry about it. Toby sighed wistfully he wished that when he told himself it didn't matter that he didn't remember anything but he never really believed it.

He watched the man with interest. He couldn't even begin to understand what was going on with the thing he was doing. It all looked like a whole bunch of numbers and letter, it really had his brain reeling. "'Ow did you learn to do tha'?" He asked interested. He knew most people his age had grown up around computers and couldn't understand how to be without one, but Toby had never really gotten that connection. It was useful yes but did he need it? Probably not.

Toby smiled, "Thanks a lot Kou!" Toby looked back at the computer and grinned, "Yessir, I can do tha'." Panic rose back in him at the reminder of him working on something. "Aye! I was workin' on m'English paper. Oh no! Do you think it's gone!?" His hands flew into his hair and started pulling nervously.

[Kousuke Nanohara]

Kousuke shrugged slightly as he continued to type."It's not hard. Nowadays there are a million tutorials on the Internet. With those, it doesn't take a lot to just mess around and figure things out yourself."

It wasn't that Kousuke minded that stereotype that computer geek types were geniuses, but it was far from true. Enough free time, some trial and error, maybe a touch of problem solving skills... that all it takes. Kousuke had all those way before his meta kicked in.

He couldn't help but smile a little himself at Toby's enthusiastic answer, but it only took a few seconds for the boy's mood to take another turn.

"Don't," Kou huffed, waving a finger. If the kid started throwing a fit again, he'd just get up and leave, he swore it.

While he could steal a quiet moment, he finally relented to using his ability, and closed his eyes to scan the computer for the last written document file on the hard drive. From there, it took only a few clicks to get it to appear on the screen.

Kousuke released a sigh of relief, raising his hands in mock excitement. "Yatta!" he, went, turning back to the boy standing behind him. "Thank God for AutoSave, kid."