This time when Otacon was led through the halls, he made a note of the layout, comparing it to the map he'd memorized from the bulletin board. Paper and pen was a good deal more low-tech than he was used to when it came to gathering intel, but the systems of organization and information exchange in the Institute were nonetheless impressive. Otacon had spent all of last shift reading the mess of notes, as much to learn more as it was to distract him from thinking about Snake.

He sighed. It hadn't taken long for his thoughts to cycle back to his improbably youthful — and living — best friend. Wait, were they still friends if Snake couldn't remember even meeting Otacon? Or was that the wrong way to phrase it, as it seemed more likely that this Snake pre-dated Shadow Moses and therefore technically hadn't met him at all?

And here Otacon had thought that things couldn't get weirder than they had nine years ago, when he'd been attacked by a cyborg ninja and rescued by action hero Snake, like something out of an anime. When the nurse ushered him in, he was so absorbed in his musings that he'd walked all the way to his desk before realizing the room wasn't empty.

"Oh!" Otacon did a double-take of the man sitting on the opposite end of the small room. "Hi. Funny... you'd think it would've occurred to me earlier that I'd have a roommate, what with there being two of everything in here..."