Day 30: Men's Showers (Fourth Shift)

[broken_exorcist]

As though his conversation during the last shift hadn't been terrible enough... the way that girl had treated him like a child, it was just another nail in the coffin to be herded along to the showers with all the other children.  Allen knew he must be dirty, but he was far from enthusiastic about the idea of public nudity.

When he arrived,

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[osakapwnzu]

"Hey, thanks babe~" Heiji said, taking the towel his nurse offered and proceeding to strip down in front of her. It wasn't all that hard. Shirt, sweatpants... oh right, bandages.

Heiji's nurse carefully removed the delicate wrappings. Fortunately, the teen detective had removed the scalpels he'd shoved down there during the riot while waiting for Tyler to wake up. It was quite the ordeal, but eventually all of the bandages were removed from Heiji's arms, neck, torso and legs. Was there a part of him that wasn't bandaged

[forgot_it_all]

Ritsuka didn't mind public bathing, except for the fact that he was injured at the moment. Thankfully here people probably wouldn't pay too much attention to the bruises and how they were more like fists and scratches than monster bites and claw marks. His nurse waited while he undressed and then removed the bandages carefully one by one. Ritsuka waited for a minute before he finally shoved her hands off and did it himself, ripping the final one off his face with a grimace

[osakapwnzu]

"Heee?" Heiji raised a thick eyebrow at the kid who'd just suddenly, out of nowhere, walked up to him and gave him lip. What the hell had he done to deserve that? There wasn't a square inch of his body un-mauled by cat claws--of course hot water was going to hurt.

His eyes narrowed at the kid in question, taking in his injuries. Well, Heiji was no expert on battery cases, but he knew when someone was being shoved around. Unless there was a monster he didn't know about that just beat their victim to death.

"Obviously my voice echoes in here, kid. 'S a tile room," He shot back. "'F y'don't like it, I'm sure the lovely ladies over there would be happy t'escort you to the carpeted shower room." He snickered and shook the wet hair out of his face. "Nice ta meetcha, too, by the way."

[forgot_it_all]

Ritsuka had heard about the differences between Osaka and Tokyo, but he hadn't put a lot of weight into them. Stereotypes were horrible things to believe in and they were often based on some small part of the populace and not representative of the whole at all.

Apparently, Ritsuka was wrong.

Smart-mouthed and loud - the joys of Kansai. Ritsuka started washing his neck and shoulders, careful not to press too hard on the bruises sprinkled here and there. "Any idiot knows when hot water hits wounds like yours it'll sting, so why did you go shoving hot water on yourself?"

He paused and gave Heiji a look before he went back to his shower. "Yeah, same. Aoyagi Ritsuka. You?"

[osakapwnzu]

"'Cause it's like rippin' off a bandaid! Feels great now~" He sighed and stretched his shoulders. After sitting in that wheelchair all day, it felt nice to stand and stretch. "But yeah, I knew it'd hurt. Guess that makes both you 'n me idiots, naa?"

He started shampooing his hair--always the hair, then the rest. "'M Hattori Heiji. You can call me whatever you prefer, I really don't care. 'S long as it's clean," He laughed.

[forgot_it_all]

"I would say it only makes one of us an idiot," Ritsuka muttered under his breath. He sighed, wondering if it was just his headache that was putting him in a bad mood or the Socratic Dialogues and that damn names passage. Things like that, thinking of names and his future and everything else always soured him like milk left in the sun. "Call me Ritsuka."

He took a few more moments to soap up and finally decided it wasn't worth the trouble of being hostile anymore. Maybe he should sleep during dinner instead of eating. That might be a good idea. Looking over at Heiji, he asked, "You're from Osaka, aren't you?"

[osakapwnzu]

"Bingo, Ritsuka-han~" Heiji grinned, winking at the kid. "You're a sharp little tack, ain'tcha? Was it the accent? Or the fact that I'm just that charming and friendly?" That was what bothered Heiji so much about visiting Kudo--everyone was so serious and stiff. And they called his accent weird. That was enough to make him want to pay for all of Shinichi's train trips down to Kansai.

The detective continued on to soaping himself up. "And, by the sound of your dialect, you're from Tokyo, huh?"

[forgot_it_all]

"Don't call me little," Ritsuka snapped, a little more forcefully than he intended. He hated being called small. Why was he so damn short while everyone else got to grow up? "And it's more that you're just as loud as they are on TV."

Not that he should be using the weird comedians his father used to watch on TV when he was younger as any comparison to real life Osakans, but...well, he didn't have a lot of experience otherwise. Maybe the other Ritsuka did. Who knew. "...sorry, just... Yeah, your accent."

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"And yeah, just another suburb of Tokyo like any other. No changes, just as boring." Except for spell battles, murders, intrigue, magical powers, the sort of things that had become insanely normal for Ritsuka lately.

[osakapwnzu]

Heiji felt his eyebrow twitch, but he managed to maintain his smile somehow. "What... about my accent? Hm? I know I'm loud, but I can't help bein' personable and friendly like you c'n."

Oh no, this kid hadn't just crossed that line. Heiji prided himself on a few things: his heritage, his abilities as a detective, and his accent. He always flew off the handle when people insulted his accent. Just what was wrong with his accent, huh? It made him unique, as far as he was concerned. None of that standard Japanese crap for him. It hurt him to talk like that.

"Well, guess you can count your lucky stars then," If Ritsuka was calling his hometown calm and boring, a certain murder magnet hadn't been to town yet--apparently. "Nice to have someplace calm and quiet to live in, but I suppose that'd get pretty boring, yeah."

[forgot_it_all]

"It's unique - no one speaks like that near me." Ritsuka had his head down as he said that, busy trying to get the grime out of his hair with shampoo and water. Careful not to get soap in his eyes, he glanced at Heiji and frowned. "Don't get so defensive. I wasn't saying it was a bad thing."

Man, were all Osakans this crazy? The boy sat up and slicked his hair back, heavy with shampoo bubbles. He stared at the wall and considered correcting Heiji. He had been the one to say that it was boring, but... "I wouldn't call me lucky."

Ritsuka sighed heavily and dunked his head under the shower head, letting the water hit him hard and drown out anything else. Take a few moments, get back together, then talk - calm, that was the way to be. Pushing back again, he took a deep breath and wrung the water out of his hair. "So is Osaka crazy busy or something? I heard Tokyo was in a bigger hurry than Osaka is - no one knows how to calm down in the big city."

[osakapwnzu]

"Oh," Heiji said, his face breaking into a grin. "I gotcha, I gotcha!" He laughed and rubbed Ritsuka's head as if to ruffle his hair. Which didn't work very well, seeing as Ritsuka's hair was wet. "Sorry, a lot of people from Tokyo give me such crap about it. I think it sounds awesome, but they're always going, 'Whaaat? Speak Japanese you crazy tan-skinned freak!'" Heiji growled at the mere memory. Osaka-ben was perfectly good Japanese! Why did everyone think he sounded weird? Well, at least Kaito hadn't given him lip about it

[forgot_it_all]

On instinct, he reached up to throw Heiji's hand off his head, but the hand was gone as quickly as it came. Why did everyone treat him like he was somet stupid child? He hated it when they touched his head here! This guy acted a bit like Kio, outgoing, carefree. ...lucky. "You speak fast and they're probably not used to hearing it. They're just trying to catch what you say."

Operate in? That was a weird way to talk about where he lived. Did Heiji work instead of going to school or something? Or was that some sort of Osaka slang? "Huh? Oh...yeah. It might be awhile before I can get down there - and there's the issue of whether or not your world and mine are the same." Getting down to Osaka meant convincing his mother he could go, or taking her with him. Taking Misaki anywhere was a bad idea. If she lost it on the train, they might get separated or worse. "But what do you do in Osaka? I mean, you said 'operate' like you work there or something, but you can't be an adult yet."

[osakapwnzu]

"Could be," He shrugged as best he could. Heiji didn't have a problem with being different, but he did have a problem when people called his accent weird. More often than not, people complained that his accent was stupid or strange rather than asking him to repeat things. Or, in the case of that stupid jewel broker, did both... "D'ya have the money ready? Kaaah, it still sounds weird even when I try so hard!" Heiji was talking to himself now... Ritsuka was getting a great first impression, no doubt."

Heiji bit his lip and tried to wash himself. Ouch, ouch, ouch. Soap and open wounds as a combination? Sucked, for the record. "Ah, well, yeah that could be a problem. I read somethin' about that on the board, but I didn' pay too much attention, really. Doesn't really matter, right? We're all here now, so..." He grinned.

"Ah! That's right, I left that out of my introduction, didn' I?" He laughed. "'M Hattori Heiji--Great Detective of the Kansai Region! Cool, huh?"

[forgot_it_all]

"..." The twelve year old only stared at Heiji as he randomly started talking to himself. Oookay, that was a little weird. He turned back to his shower and finished washing himself off, wringing out the towel before loading it up with more soap. Heiji was doing a crap job at avoiding his injuries in the shower, meaning he'd probably had little experience at it. Ritsuka, on the other hand, knew all too well how to get clean without making him want to peel his skin off from the pain. Standing up, he moved behind Heiji and sighed. "You're going to aggravate your wounds that way

[osakapwnzu]

Heiji smiled, "Hey, thanks! It's kinda hard to maneuver stuff with my arms all scratched up." He sighed happily as Ritsuka scrubbed away. How come the kid could do this, but he had issues with it? Must be used to it, sadly enough. But didn't he say he lived in a suburb or something?

Well, he'd met stranger people in the span of three days. Exorcists, people who should be dead, et cetera. This kid could have been like Kudo--young on the outside, world-weary on the inside.

"Yeah... That'd be fun, I guess," Heiji hadn't exactly met anyone he was particularly attached to. At least, no one that wasn't from his own world. Did Okita even count on the alternative dimension front? He'd existed in Heiji's 'world' per se, but he was dead. So would that be time travel or...? Agh, he didn't know. Homura was a demi-god, so he could probably go wherever the hell he wanted to, and Kaito was from the same city as Shinichi. "D'you have many friends from other dimensions?" He asked, smiling over his shoulder

[forgot_it_all]

"Yeah, I kind of guessed." The claw marks were deep, painful looking, made by a creature that was good enough to get onto the boy's back and cling to his body. Cats? He remembered hearing about mutant cats here. Or maybe it was more of those nasty gray eyeball...things. "This might sound weird, but you want me to get your arms and stuff? You must not get hurt here often