Everyone on the Hagane seemed to be busy, which suited Rai just fine since he wasn't one to look for company. Yet, he had not been able to avoid everyone, and was now stuck sitting in a private room listening to a certain over-enthusiastic robot fan giving him his view of the last battle. This had gone on for twenty minutes now, and aside from giving Ryusei a couple of short replies, Rai wasn't exactly interested.

"And I tell you, those guys thought were totally safe there... And then out of the blue comes Lt. Irm's Grungust! They must have gotten hell of a surprise right there! But, did you see how he did that? Straight at them, and then transformation just before he was there and a perfect landing! That was really something!"

Rai didn't reply. He had seen Irm's latest fancy maneuver himself and did think it was rather impressive, but it wasn't anything totally unexpected or unusual in his opinion, especially considering Irm's background. Ryusei rambled on, but Rai ignored him and briefly wondered where Major Ingram was. Last time he had heard about the man he had been getting ready to write reports, and Aya had apparently gone to help him. He sighed; this obviously meant he was unfortunately the only available babysitter for Ryusei.

"Are you listening to me again?" Ryusei noted with a frown on his face. "Man, you really make it hard to try improving the team spirit or whatever Major Ingram was talking about the other day. Maybe if you tried doing something about that couldn't-care-less attitude of yours and we wouldn't have so many problems."

Our worst problem comes from you being such an idiot, Rai thought but held his tongue, knowing that it was just plain useless to argue with Ryusei.

Ryusei shrugged. "Or maybe you're too busy with your own piloting and don't care to see when-"

"If you're talking about the Grungust, yes I saw it," Rai interrupted before Ryusei could talk his ears off about how he was oh-so-annoying and never paid attention to anyone. "I do notice when someone is a good pilot, after all."

It took a moment for that to sink in, then Ryusei glared death at him but for some reason let it go. "I'd like to learn to do that," he then said, his tone of voice far more humble than Rai would have expected from him. "But not like I'd ever get to pilot a super robot like the Grungust."

"Maybe if you first knew how to pilot it properly," Rai said indifferently. He waited if Ryusei's reaction would be what he thought it would be, but the boy just looked thoughtful instead of snapping at him. "Well, Major Ingram does want battle data from different pilots," he then added with a shrug. "You could always go into the sim and load up the Grungust data, and see if you're up to it."

"Well, if..." Ryusei started, and then went silent. The look on his face suddenly turned victorious, and he grabbed a hold of the other boy's upper arms and stared at him, all excited. Rai frowned but didn't bother getting away from the grip. He had no doubt that he could free himself if he really wanted to.

"Rai, you're a genius!" Ryusei then claimed - and hugged Rai who simply froze, taken by surprise by Ryusei's overly friendly action. "If I learn to do what Lt. Irm did, Major Ingram won't ever have any questions about my piloting skills! Tell you what, I'm going to go book the sim for us right now. You'll fight against me, right? Right! Couldn't find a better pilot than you for that since I'll need someone long-ranged as my opponent!" He then let go, spun around and ran off into the corridor.

Rai stared after him for a moment until the door closed, and then took a few seconds to gather his thoughts again. Yes, sure, he could go shoot down the idiot in the sim while watching Ryusei try to pull off something that was way beyond his skill level. The whole thing would end miserably, but Rai didn't really think Ryusei would ever learn from his mistakes. He was not about to miss the chance to remind Ryusei of that, though.

It was also a good thing there was no one else in the room, he then found himself thinking. As if getting hugged by that moron wasn't embarrassing enough, but he had actually let Ryusei do it, without even slightest protest.