G2+HK+TGQ+T+NwP+HYD+MBMH- "Japan is Still Very Small"
Title: Japan is Still Very Small
Universe: Gokusen 2/Nobuta wo Produce/Hana Kimi/Tantei Gakuen Q/TricK/Hana Yori Dango/My Boss My Hero
Theme/Topic: More crossover exercises to make me feel productive.
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: Nakatsu Shuuichi, Sakurakoji Jun, Yabuki Hayato, Kiritani Shuuji, Nishikado Soujirou, Odagiri Ryu, Kusano Akira, Yamada Naoko, Ueda Jiro, Amakusa Ryuu, Kyuu, Kazuma, Minami Megumi, Touyama Kinta (suggested MakioxJun, one-sided NakatsuxAshiya, potential SoujirouxJun)
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack? OOC? Stupidity? All of the above!
Word Count: 2,908
Summary: Companion piece to "Japan is Very Small"- More running into each other. More stupid cell phone pictures.
Dedication: Nico- WATCH MORE TANTEI GAKUEN DAMN YOU.
A/N: Once again, having writer’s block means more random drabbles that make no sense to try and jump-start my muse. Bear with me? I um, will try and get through that INTENSELY LONG LIST OF THINGS I HAVE TO WRITE soon. Really. No really.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
1.
Shuuji figures that he might as well pick up dinner for himself and Akira on the way back to their apartment from his classes tonight, since it’s Tuesday and on Tuesdays Akira’s lectures end later than his. The idiot always gets back from class on Tuesday nights and declares that he is absolutely starving and dying and Shuuji feed me noooowwwww, so Shuuji stops at a ramen shop that’s a few blocks from the train station on his way back. He’d heard from a female classmate in his English lecture that this place is pretty popular lately.
He naturally assumes that it is popular because the food is good.
However, it seems that in reality, it is a different story altogether. From what he can tell, the place is popular only because a lot of college girls go there after classes to take cell phone pictures of the “cute guy who just started working the register.”
Shuuji overhears this type of conversation as he passes by a group of said girls loitering outside the ramen store’s window, craning their necks at awkward angles to try and catch a glimpse of this guy who apparently has really cool hair and a killer smile.
Shuuji sighs and wonders if the ramen is actually any good after all.
But he figures that since he’s here anyway he might as well go ahead and get the food to go and see for himself; it will be too much trouble to wander around in search of a new place on his own at this point, when he already made the effort to come all the way out here.
So he hopes for the best before sidling past the throng of admires and pushing his way into the store.
The minute he walks through the door, the waiter-who does have pretty interesting hair, Shuuji supposes- freezes and stares at him.
Shuuji blinks, a bit nervously. “Um, two chashu ramen. One with fried gyoza um… in it,” he says.
The waiter just continues to stare at him and doesn’t say anything at all. In fact, he doesn’t even blink.
After a moment, Shuuji clears his throat. “Hello?”
“Oh my god,” the waiter finally says, and his voice sounds very close to what Shuuji thinks “Akira-shock” would be if it were on another person. The waiter’s gaze never wavers from Shuuji’s face. “That’s amazing!” he exclaims to himself. “Completely amazing!”
Shuuji blinks. “Excuse me?”
When the waiter’s cell phone pops out a second later and he starts taking pictures of Shuuji with it, Shuuji turns around and walks right back outside again-he figures he and Akira can make do with convenience store bentos tonight after all.
2.
Nakatsu tells himself that it’s all okay now, everything ultimately turned out for the best in the end.
Because he is actually a she, and as such, that means that Nakatsu Shuuichi absolutely, 100% not gay.
It doesn’t matter if he didn’t get the guy-girl- when everything was said and done; what really matters is that everything makes sense to him now.
That’s what Nakatsu tells himself anyway, over and over again as he sulks around the plaza alone, dodging the plethora of couples shopping for Christmas presents together. To stay focused, he kicks a small stone along the sidewalk with his foot. “Life is good!” he insists, and then ends up kicking the rock a little too hard when he does. It skitters across the concrete and rolls right into someone else’s shoe.
“Eh?” the victim murmurs, and looks down at her foot from where she is sitting on a bench, drinking a warm cup of cocoa.
Nakatsu is about to apologize, but before he can, he glances up and suddenly loses his voice. He might have been out of the game for a while now, but even still, he knows a cute girl when he sees one. This girl is really, really cute.
“Huh,” he says dumbly, and just kind of stares at her for a minute. Small frame, round face, big eyes, full lips, looking back at him like he’s a weird…
He quickly snaps out of his daze. “Sorry!” he manages, before the girl can stand and back away from the creepy pervert watching her. “I was lost in my thoughts.”
She relaxes then, and offers him an impossibly sweet smile. “It’s okay.” She sips her cocoa and her nose is a little red from the cold; cheeks pink and demeanor cheerful.
She kind of reminds him of…
He shakes his head. She does not remind him of anyone. Rather, she’s absolutely adorable and that is all. End sentence. Period.
“Yosh, I have not been forsaken yet!” Nakatsu murmurs to himself, and then smiles and bounces over to her. This is clearly a sign from Kami-sama that it is time to celebrate his reclaimed heterosexuality rather than sulk about his recent defeat. He thinks he’ll go ahead and take the opportunity to make a new friend.
“So,” he starts, once he’s standing in front of her, “this thing didn’t hit you too hard, right?” He toes the pebble so that it is balancing expertly on the edge of his shoe.
She laughs a little. “Of course not. I was just wondering where it came from all of a sudden.”
Nakatsu winks at her and begins juggling the little stone on his foot just like he would a soccer ball. It’s what he’s good at, and besides, he knows from experience that chicks love this stuff. “I was just trying to, you know, stay in practice over the winter holidays. I like to practice wherever I go,” he explains coolly, and throws her a winning smile.
Rather than be impressed and giggly like most girls are, she watches him for a moment, before sticking out her foot and intercepting him. She catches the pebble on her own shoe instead, and bounces it once or twice- almost as good as he can. Nakatsu is mesmerized.
“S-soccer player?” he manages. His throat is suddenly dry.
She nods. “For a while. Now it’s only soccer video games, unfortunately.”
Nakatsu thinks that he might be in love.
“I’m Nakatsu Shuuichi,” he tells her. His voice cracks a little.
“Sakurakoji Jun.”
He grins. “Ah, Jun-chan, huh?”
The girl blinks. “Er…”
“Sakurakoji-san,” Nakatsu hurriedly amends, with an apologetic smile. Too fast, too fast, he thinks. Play it cool, man… you’re just getting back into the game, after all. Don’t strain yourself. He clears his throat. “So, what’re you doing, sitting out here all alone in the cold?” he asks, and mentally congratulates himself when he only sounds a little bit nervous.
“Oh, me? I’m just waiting for someone,” Jun responds.
“Ah, your boyfriend?” Nakatsu crosses his fingers behind his back and prays for a little more good luck. Be single, be single, be single.
A blink, and then those impossibly big eyes get even bigger with surprise. “E-eh?! H-how did you know that’s what I was doing?” Jun asks, and blushes bright red like she’s been caught doing something naughty.
Nakatsu manages to keep from looking overly disappointed at the affirmative answer. Be cool, be cool. Maybe you can still get her number anyway. From the way she’d reacted just now, she seems extra embarrassed about her whole boyfriend situation anyway. Maybe he’s not the type of guy she wants people to know she dates. Which means…
There’s still a chance!
Nakatsu crosses his arms and looks amiable. “Ahahaha…” he starts, with a lopsided smile, “What do you mean how did I know you were waiting for your boyfriend? Are you kidding? A cute girl like you… of course you would have a…” he trails off when he sees the surprised, embarrassed look on her face suddenly turn into something a lot less cute. He swallows. “Uh…is something the matter?”
“Girl?”
Nakatsu blinks. “Well yeah, I mean…”
Jun sighs and it is long-suffering, like she has already heard this sort of thing a million times in her life before. “I,” she begins, slowly, “am not a girl.”
Nakatsu stares. Is he having hearing problems? “I-I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard… not a girl?”
A nod. “Not a girl.” It couldn’t be said any more clearly than that.
Even still, Nakatsu takes a minute to process this. A very long minute.
Girl? Guy? He can’t be sure around the oversized winter coat and the cute pink-and-white striped scarf.
Though as far as he can tell, there is nothing he sees here that would indicate that this person is a guy.
But then he stops and thinks about that-hasn’t his radar been kind of wonky lately?
Not knowing a girl is a girl and thinking that girl is a guy instead. Likewise, wouldn’t it be just his luck to still be all reverse-polarized from that, or something? And if that’s the case, then wouldn’t a guy that is a guy look like a…
Nakatsu freezes.
Stares.
And stares.
Then, “I AM NOT A HOMO!!!” he shouts by rote, pointing accusatorily at Jun. He starts backing away from the bench slowly, though at the same time, he is somehow unable to look away from the other boy and his stupidly cute face. “STOP USING YOUR WEIRD GAY WILES ON ME,” he demands. “I AM STRAIGHT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. THIS IS NOT NORMAL.”
One, two, three steps backwards, and then the soccer player whirls around and runs down the sidewalk screaming.
“I AM NOT A HOMO!”
He doesn’t stop until the shopping center is blocks and blocks behind, and only because he is out of breath and fairly certain that that unusually cute boy is not following him or anything. He plops down onto a bench and buries his head in his hands with a groan.
There must be like, gay pheromones in the air. They’ve polluted me! Now the gays are following me! Everywhere!
But strangely enough, that’s not the worst part of this whole thing.
The worst part, Nakatsu thinks, is that a small-small- part of him still feels like it wouldn’t have been so bad to get Sakurakoji Jun’s phone number anyway.
He wonders if Kami-sama is trying to tell him something here.
3.
Ueda bursts into the warehouse with a very dramatic, very loud flourish; his index finger is in the air and he immediately strikes a superior and knowing pose. “This was not the work of a ghost!” he exclaims. “It was a human, and it was premeditated murder!”
He remains in his dramatic pose and calmly waits for applause.
Naoko arrives at the warehouse a moment or two after him, holding her chest and panting. “Idiot gorilla!” she gasps, and ruins the atmosphere completely, “Where is the takoyaki you said I could have?! Stop running around, your legs are freakish and long!”
The five members of Q Class blink and look up from where they are studying the crime scene evidence. It is suddenly too loud in here to do any real investigation anymore-luckily they are just about done anyway.
“Who’re the old people?” Kazuma asks after a moment, when no one else does.
Ueda sputters. “Old?! I am in the prime of life, you brat! And I am here to solve this mystery with the power of physics, so run along and play somewhere else, okay?” Then he makes shooing motions at them with his hands, like they are small animals instead of people.
Megu blinks. “What does physics have to do with mysteries?”
Kazuma and Kinta shrug.
Ryuu on the other hand, doesn’t say anything; he just sighs and makes a few more notes in his notebook.
Kyuu is more amiable; he stands and greets his elders properly. “Actually,” he starts, after he bows, “we already figured it out from walking around the room. It was the plant manager. But thank you for your input!”
Ueda just stares at him. Then, after a moment, “What are you, five?”
“Thirteen!” Kyuu replies cheerfully, like he gets asked that question every day.
Ryuu ignores the conversation and finishes making his notes. “Alright, let’s go,” he says once he is done, and everyone stands. “The manager should still be in his office for another fifteen to twenty minutes. We’ll wait until he’s gone and hack his files. You remember the passcode to get into the building, right Megu?”
Megu nods. “Of course!”
“We should just go in there now and kick his ass,” Kinta suggests, pumping his fists as Ryuu leads everyone out through the back door. The other kids roll their eyes at him.
In the meantime, no one pays Ueda and Naoko any mind. Well, except for Kyuu.
“Bye!” Kyuu says, and turns to wave over his shoulder at the newcomers as he leaves with his classmates. “Thanks for your help!”
The door closes behind them.
And then there is silence.
After a moment, Ueda frowns and turns to stare at the police chalk outlines with an expression of intense concentration. “Hmmm,” he begins, as if nothing at all had happened just now, “from the looks of things here, I was right, as usual. It was definitely murder and not a ghost at all.”
Naoko doesn’t care. She stalks over to him and swats him upside the head. “Takoyaki,” she demands.
4.
Jun is sitting peacefully in a coffee shop sipping tea and reading his psychology textbook when the rumbling of an obnoxiously loud motorcycle from outside suddenly disrupts the quiet. The engine sounds die down a few minutes later, but the peace is short-lived.
When the door opens and the bell rings to signal the arrival of a new customer, all of the girls in the shop inexplicably start giggling and murmuring amongst themselves excitedly.
“That’s Nishikado Soujirou-san of F4!!” they squeal to each other in whispers that might as well be screams.
Jun looks up just in time to see a tall, skinny guy with dramatic hair come into the shop. He has a leather jacket on, and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. He tosses his head very dramatically as he enters, and this action causes several girls on the other side of Jun’s table to pass out.
Jun will never understand girls.
So he turns back to his reading instead-maybe he should go to less trendy places to do his homework from now on. There would be a lot fewer distractions if he took the time to do that, he thinks. Though he does like the mushroom and spinach quiche they serve here quite a bit.
He hears heavy-booted footsteps in the background after that, can feel all eyes in the shop instinctively follow the newcomer (except for his, because he really needs to get this homework done).
It’s only when the light shining on his textbook is overshadowed that he looks up again.
As it turns out, the tall guy is standing right in front of his table, looking down at Jun intensely.
Jun sighs and tries to go back to reading-maybe if he doesn’t say anything this guy will go away and stop blocking his light.
“You’re new around here,” the guy says instead, and smiles crookedly. “And trying really hard to avoid me for some reason. It’s cute.”
Jun ignores him.
“My name is…”
“Not a girl,” Jun breathes, before this Nishikado Soujirou-san can finish his introduction. He doesn’t even bother looking up from his textbook.
A beat.
Then, a vaguely flustered, “Uh, right. Master, I’ll have two lattes to go.”
The guy is gone about five minutes after that, but not without one last, suspicious look at Jun from the doorway.
Jun sighs and thinks to himself that between yesterday and today, maybe this is a sign from Kami-sama after all.
It looks like it is time to get a haircut.
5.
“Look, senpai!” the freshman who sits next to Ryu prompts suddenly, and then shoves a cell phone right under the older boy’s nose. “See? Amazing right?! Completely amazing!”
Ryu doesn’t see anything amazing on the screen at all; rather, he sees a picture of a pale, skinny-looking guy with bad hair.
“Amazing!” his classmate repeats, happily.
Ryu can’t help but wonder if maybe this kid is some sort of special needs student or something-shouldn’t there be an aide from the disabilities center here to monitor his behavior?
“Stop it,” he says after a moment, and swats the hand holding the cell phone away from his face.
Five seconds later, it’s back, but with a different picture of the same boy. “Amazing!”
“Stop it.”
“SO AMAZING.”
“Stop it.”
“AMAZING-AMAZING!”
Ryu gives up. Sighs. “Right. Amazing,” he concedes, and somehow feels like he has absolutely no energy left all of a sudden.
The freshman grins at him. “I told you so. Haha, amazing!” Then he goes back to fiddling with his cell phone and chanting “amazing!” to himself excitedly.
Ryu pinches the bridge of his nose wearily before turning back to his notes and praying for a quick end to the semester. He is not sure he can endure this every other day for two more months.
Later, when Ryu gets a picture-text of the same pale, skinny guy with bad hair from Hayato (with an attached message that incidentally reads: “AMAZING!”), Ryu wonders if maybe he should have listened to his parents and gone to college in America after all.
He thinks his life would feel a lot less stupid if he had.
END
EDITS PLZ.
Universe: Gokusen 2/Nobuta wo Produce/Hana Kimi/Tantei Gakuen Q/TricK/Hana Yori Dango/My Boss My Hero
Theme/Topic: More crossover exercises to make me feel productive.
Rating: PG
Character/Pairing/s: Nakatsu Shuuichi, Sakurakoji Jun, Yabuki Hayato, Kiritani Shuuji, Nishikado Soujirou, Odagiri Ryu, Kusano Akira, Yamada Naoko, Ueda Jiro, Amakusa Ryuu, Kyuu, Kazuma, Minami Megumi, Touyama Kinta (suggested MakioxJun, one-sided NakatsuxAshiya, potential SoujirouxJun)
Warnings/Spoilers: Crack? OOC? Stupidity? All of the above!
Word Count: 2,908
Summary: Companion piece to "Japan is Very Small"- More running into each other. More stupid cell phone pictures.
Dedication: Nico- WATCH MORE TANTEI GAKUEN DAMN YOU.
A/N: Once again, having writer’s block means more random drabbles that make no sense to try and jump-start my muse. Bear with me? I um, will try and get through that INTENSELY LONG LIST OF THINGS I HAVE TO WRITE soon. Really. No really.
Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wish constantly.
Distribution: Just lemme know.
1.
Shuuji figures that he might as well pick up dinner for himself and Akira on the way back to their apartment from his classes tonight, since it’s Tuesday and on Tuesdays Akira’s lectures end later than his. The idiot always gets back from class on Tuesday nights and declares that he is absolutely starving and dying and Shuuji feed me noooowwwww, so Shuuji stops at a ramen shop that’s a few blocks from the train station on his way back. He’d heard from a female classmate in his English lecture that this place is pretty popular lately.
He naturally assumes that it is popular because the food is good.
However, it seems that in reality, it is a different story altogether. From what he can tell, the place is popular only because a lot of college girls go there after classes to take cell phone pictures of the “cute guy who just started working the register.”
Shuuji overhears this type of conversation as he passes by a group of said girls loitering outside the ramen store’s window, craning their necks at awkward angles to try and catch a glimpse of this guy who apparently has really cool hair and a killer smile.
Shuuji sighs and wonders if the ramen is actually any good after all.
But he figures that since he’s here anyway he might as well go ahead and get the food to go and see for himself; it will be too much trouble to wander around in search of a new place on his own at this point, when he already made the effort to come all the way out here.
So he hopes for the best before sidling past the throng of admires and pushing his way into the store.
The minute he walks through the door, the waiter-who does have pretty interesting hair, Shuuji supposes- freezes and stares at him.
Shuuji blinks, a bit nervously. “Um, two chashu ramen. One with fried gyoza um… in it,” he says.
The waiter just continues to stare at him and doesn’t say anything at all. In fact, he doesn’t even blink.
After a moment, Shuuji clears his throat. “Hello?”
“Oh my god,” the waiter finally says, and his voice sounds very close to what Shuuji thinks “Akira-shock” would be if it were on another person. The waiter’s gaze never wavers from Shuuji’s face. “That’s amazing!” he exclaims to himself. “Completely amazing!”
Shuuji blinks. “Excuse me?”
When the waiter’s cell phone pops out a second later and he starts taking pictures of Shuuji with it, Shuuji turns around and walks right back outside again-he figures he and Akira can make do with convenience store bentos tonight after all.
2.
Nakatsu tells himself that it’s all okay now, everything ultimately turned out for the best in the end.
Because he is actually a she, and as such, that means that Nakatsu Shuuichi absolutely, 100% not gay.
It doesn’t matter if he didn’t get the guy-girl- when everything was said and done; what really matters is that everything makes sense to him now.
That’s what Nakatsu tells himself anyway, over and over again as he sulks around the plaza alone, dodging the plethora of couples shopping for Christmas presents together. To stay focused, he kicks a small stone along the sidewalk with his foot. “Life is good!” he insists, and then ends up kicking the rock a little too hard when he does. It skitters across the concrete and rolls right into someone else’s shoe.
“Eh?” the victim murmurs, and looks down at her foot from where she is sitting on a bench, drinking a warm cup of cocoa.
Nakatsu is about to apologize, but before he can, he glances up and suddenly loses his voice. He might have been out of the game for a while now, but even still, he knows a cute girl when he sees one. This girl is really, really cute.
“Huh,” he says dumbly, and just kind of stares at her for a minute. Small frame, round face, big eyes, full lips, looking back at him like he’s a weird…
He quickly snaps out of his daze. “Sorry!” he manages, before the girl can stand and back away from the creepy pervert watching her. “I was lost in my thoughts.”
She relaxes then, and offers him an impossibly sweet smile. “It’s okay.” She sips her cocoa and her nose is a little red from the cold; cheeks pink and demeanor cheerful.
She kind of reminds him of…
He shakes his head. She does not remind him of anyone. Rather, she’s absolutely adorable and that is all. End sentence. Period.
“Yosh, I have not been forsaken yet!” Nakatsu murmurs to himself, and then smiles and bounces over to her. This is clearly a sign from Kami-sama that it is time to celebrate his reclaimed heterosexuality rather than sulk about his recent defeat. He thinks he’ll go ahead and take the opportunity to make a new friend.
“So,” he starts, once he’s standing in front of her, “this thing didn’t hit you too hard, right?” He toes the pebble so that it is balancing expertly on the edge of his shoe.
She laughs a little. “Of course not. I was just wondering where it came from all of a sudden.”
Nakatsu winks at her and begins juggling the little stone on his foot just like he would a soccer ball. It’s what he’s good at, and besides, he knows from experience that chicks love this stuff. “I was just trying to, you know, stay in practice over the winter holidays. I like to practice wherever I go,” he explains coolly, and throws her a winning smile.
Rather than be impressed and giggly like most girls are, she watches him for a moment, before sticking out her foot and intercepting him. She catches the pebble on her own shoe instead, and bounces it once or twice- almost as good as he can. Nakatsu is mesmerized.
“S-soccer player?” he manages. His throat is suddenly dry.
She nods. “For a while. Now it’s only soccer video games, unfortunately.”
Nakatsu thinks that he might be in love.
“I’m Nakatsu Shuuichi,” he tells her. His voice cracks a little.
“Sakurakoji Jun.”
He grins. “Ah, Jun-chan, huh?”
The girl blinks. “Er…”
“Sakurakoji-san,” Nakatsu hurriedly amends, with an apologetic smile. Too fast, too fast, he thinks. Play it cool, man… you’re just getting back into the game, after all. Don’t strain yourself. He clears his throat. “So, what’re you doing, sitting out here all alone in the cold?” he asks, and mentally congratulates himself when he only sounds a little bit nervous.
“Oh, me? I’m just waiting for someone,” Jun responds.
“Ah, your boyfriend?” Nakatsu crosses his fingers behind his back and prays for a little more good luck. Be single, be single, be single.
A blink, and then those impossibly big eyes get even bigger with surprise. “E-eh?! H-how did you know that’s what I was doing?” Jun asks, and blushes bright red like she’s been caught doing something naughty.
Nakatsu manages to keep from looking overly disappointed at the affirmative answer. Be cool, be cool. Maybe you can still get her number anyway. From the way she’d reacted just now, she seems extra embarrassed about her whole boyfriend situation anyway. Maybe he’s not the type of guy she wants people to know she dates. Which means…
There’s still a chance!
Nakatsu crosses his arms and looks amiable. “Ahahaha…” he starts, with a lopsided smile, “What do you mean how did I know you were waiting for your boyfriend? Are you kidding? A cute girl like you… of course you would have a…” he trails off when he sees the surprised, embarrassed look on her face suddenly turn into something a lot less cute. He swallows. “Uh…is something the matter?”
“Girl?”
Nakatsu blinks. “Well yeah, I mean…”
Jun sighs and it is long-suffering, like she has already heard this sort of thing a million times in her life before. “I,” she begins, slowly, “am not a girl.”
Nakatsu stares. Is he having hearing problems? “I-I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard… not a girl?”
A nod. “Not a girl.” It couldn’t be said any more clearly than that.
Even still, Nakatsu takes a minute to process this. A very long minute.
Girl? Guy? He can’t be sure around the oversized winter coat and the cute pink-and-white striped scarf.
Though as far as he can tell, there is nothing he sees here that would indicate that this person is a guy.
But then he stops and thinks about that-hasn’t his radar been kind of wonky lately?
Not knowing a girl is a girl and thinking that girl is a guy instead. Likewise, wouldn’t it be just his luck to still be all reverse-polarized from that, or something? And if that’s the case, then wouldn’t a guy that is a guy look like a…
Nakatsu freezes.
Stares.
And stares.
Then, “I AM NOT A HOMO!!!” he shouts by rote, pointing accusatorily at Jun. He starts backing away from the bench slowly, though at the same time, he is somehow unable to look away from the other boy and his stupidly cute face. “STOP USING YOUR WEIRD GAY WILES ON ME,” he demands. “I AM STRAIGHT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. THIS IS NOT NORMAL.”
One, two, three steps backwards, and then the soccer player whirls around and runs down the sidewalk screaming.
“I AM NOT A HOMO!”
He doesn’t stop until the shopping center is blocks and blocks behind, and only because he is out of breath and fairly certain that that unusually cute boy is not following him or anything. He plops down onto a bench and buries his head in his hands with a groan.
There must be like, gay pheromones in the air. They’ve polluted me! Now the gays are following me! Everywhere!
But strangely enough, that’s not the worst part of this whole thing.
The worst part, Nakatsu thinks, is that a small-small- part of him still feels like it wouldn’t have been so bad to get Sakurakoji Jun’s phone number anyway.
He wonders if Kami-sama is trying to tell him something here.
3.
Ueda bursts into the warehouse with a very dramatic, very loud flourish; his index finger is in the air and he immediately strikes a superior and knowing pose. “This was not the work of a ghost!” he exclaims. “It was a human, and it was premeditated murder!”
He remains in his dramatic pose and calmly waits for applause.
Naoko arrives at the warehouse a moment or two after him, holding her chest and panting. “Idiot gorilla!” she gasps, and ruins the atmosphere completely, “Where is the takoyaki you said I could have?! Stop running around, your legs are freakish and long!”
The five members of Q Class blink and look up from where they are studying the crime scene evidence. It is suddenly too loud in here to do any real investigation anymore-luckily they are just about done anyway.
“Who’re the old people?” Kazuma asks after a moment, when no one else does.
Ueda sputters. “Old?! I am in the prime of life, you brat! And I am here to solve this mystery with the power of physics, so run along and play somewhere else, okay?” Then he makes shooing motions at them with his hands, like they are small animals instead of people.
Megu blinks. “What does physics have to do with mysteries?”
Kazuma and Kinta shrug.
Ryuu on the other hand, doesn’t say anything; he just sighs and makes a few more notes in his notebook.
Kyuu is more amiable; he stands and greets his elders properly. “Actually,” he starts, after he bows, “we already figured it out from walking around the room. It was the plant manager. But thank you for your input!”
Ueda just stares at him. Then, after a moment, “What are you, five?”
“Thirteen!” Kyuu replies cheerfully, like he gets asked that question every day.
Ryuu ignores the conversation and finishes making his notes. “Alright, let’s go,” he says once he is done, and everyone stands. “The manager should still be in his office for another fifteen to twenty minutes. We’ll wait until he’s gone and hack his files. You remember the passcode to get into the building, right Megu?”
Megu nods. “Of course!”
“We should just go in there now and kick his ass,” Kinta suggests, pumping his fists as Ryuu leads everyone out through the back door. The other kids roll their eyes at him.
In the meantime, no one pays Ueda and Naoko any mind. Well, except for Kyuu.
“Bye!” Kyuu says, and turns to wave over his shoulder at the newcomers as he leaves with his classmates. “Thanks for your help!”
The door closes behind them.
And then there is silence.
After a moment, Ueda frowns and turns to stare at the police chalk outlines with an expression of intense concentration. “Hmmm,” he begins, as if nothing at all had happened just now, “from the looks of things here, I was right, as usual. It was definitely murder and not a ghost at all.”
Naoko doesn’t care. She stalks over to him and swats him upside the head. “Takoyaki,” she demands.
4.
Jun is sitting peacefully in a coffee shop sipping tea and reading his psychology textbook when the rumbling of an obnoxiously loud motorcycle from outside suddenly disrupts the quiet. The engine sounds die down a few minutes later, but the peace is short-lived.
When the door opens and the bell rings to signal the arrival of a new customer, all of the girls in the shop inexplicably start giggling and murmuring amongst themselves excitedly.
“That’s Nishikado Soujirou-san of F4!!” they squeal to each other in whispers that might as well be screams.
Jun looks up just in time to see a tall, skinny guy with dramatic hair come into the shop. He has a leather jacket on, and a motorcycle helmet tucked under his arm. He tosses his head very dramatically as he enters, and this action causes several girls on the other side of Jun’s table to pass out.
Jun will never understand girls.
So he turns back to his reading instead-maybe he should go to less trendy places to do his homework from now on. There would be a lot fewer distractions if he took the time to do that, he thinks. Though he does like the mushroom and spinach quiche they serve here quite a bit.
He hears heavy-booted footsteps in the background after that, can feel all eyes in the shop instinctively follow the newcomer (except for his, because he really needs to get this homework done).
It’s only when the light shining on his textbook is overshadowed that he looks up again.
As it turns out, the tall guy is standing right in front of his table, looking down at Jun intensely.
Jun sighs and tries to go back to reading-maybe if he doesn’t say anything this guy will go away and stop blocking his light.
“You’re new around here,” the guy says instead, and smiles crookedly. “And trying really hard to avoid me for some reason. It’s cute.”
Jun ignores him.
“My name is…”
“Not a girl,” Jun breathes, before this Nishikado Soujirou-san can finish his introduction. He doesn’t even bother looking up from his textbook.
A beat.
Then, a vaguely flustered, “Uh, right. Master, I’ll have two lattes to go.”
The guy is gone about five minutes after that, but not without one last, suspicious look at Jun from the doorway.
Jun sighs and thinks to himself that between yesterday and today, maybe this is a sign from Kami-sama after all.
It looks like it is time to get a haircut.
5.
“Look, senpai!” the freshman who sits next to Ryu prompts suddenly, and then shoves a cell phone right under the older boy’s nose. “See? Amazing right?! Completely amazing!”
Ryu doesn’t see anything amazing on the screen at all; rather, he sees a picture of a pale, skinny-looking guy with bad hair.
“Amazing!” his classmate repeats, happily.
Ryu can’t help but wonder if maybe this kid is some sort of special needs student or something-shouldn’t there be an aide from the disabilities center here to monitor his behavior?
“Stop it,” he says after a moment, and swats the hand holding the cell phone away from his face.
Five seconds later, it’s back, but with a different picture of the same boy. “Amazing!”
“Stop it.”
“SO AMAZING.”
“Stop it.”
“AMAZING-AMAZING!”
Ryu gives up. Sighs. “Right. Amazing,” he concedes, and somehow feels like he has absolutely no energy left all of a sudden.
The freshman grins at him. “I told you so. Haha, amazing!” Then he goes back to fiddling with his cell phone and chanting “amazing!” to himself excitedly.
Ryu pinches the bridge of his nose wearily before turning back to his notes and praying for a quick end to the semester. He is not sure he can endure this every other day for two more months.
Later, when Ryu gets a picture-text of the same pale, skinny guy with bad hair from Hayato (with an attached message that incidentally reads: “AMAZING!”), Ryu wonders if maybe he should have listened to his parents and gone to college in America after all.
He thinks his life would feel a lot less stupid if he had.
END
EDITS PLZ.