[Summer; Jousting] Hero of Another Story 1.2
Title: Hero of Another Story
Author: alchemicink
Rating: G
Fandom: Hey!Say!JUMP
Pairing(s)/Focus: Gen fic, Keito-centric
Length: ~14,300
Summary: Keito thought the hardest thing in his life was the possibility of making a fool of himself on national TV. He never expected to get stuck in Medieval England with his bandmates and participating in a jousting tournament.
Warnings: An abundance of historical inaccuracies, the author’s fondness for running gags, Yuto’s inability to keep his pants on
Notes: The title of this fic comes from this TVTrope. And please have fun spotting the references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail! Special thanks to xingphonic for beta-reading this craziness. I appreciate all the support! And also thanks to turtleheartz for cheering me on too! I couldn’t have made it to the finish line without either of you <3
Okamoto Keito was pretty sure his father never had to do things like this. But then again, his father was mostly active as an idol in the 80’s, a time when variety shows were much less ridiculous. Probably. Most likely. In any event, Keito was reasonably certain that his father had never been forced to wear full samurai armor and then perform strange tasks in front of a film crew.
“Will you stop poking me?” Keito snapped at his bandmate, Yaotome Hikaru, who had been happily hitting him in the side with the blunt end of his spear for the past five minutes. The dull repetitive clang against his armor was starting to grate on his nerves.
“I’m practicing for when we get to storm the castle,” Hikaru announced with a toothy grin showing all his crooked teeth. Keito turned his head to look up again at the large feudal era castle they were filming at this morning. The TV crew was still trying to set up the equipment and discussing logistics with the castle staff. And they were also wrangling up all the horses. Keito had hoped that their manager had been joking about the horses earlier, but he could see some of the animals from a distance being handled by the crew. He shuddered to think how disastrous that was going to turn out. With his luck, Keito would probably end up on the wildest stallion of all.
Feeling the strain of all the extra weight from the armor, Keito lowered himself down onto the nearest bench to rest while he waited. But his solitary peace was short-lived once Chinen Yuri slid right into the empty spot beside him, wearing a slightly mischievous grin on his face. Despite being the youngest and shortest of their group, Chinen didn’t seem to be showing any signs of being uncomfortable in his own samurai gear.
“So is something bothering you or are your warrior pants just pinching you in sensitive places?” Chinen asked as he sprawled out like he was just relaxing in his pajamas in the comfort of his own bedroom instead of on a public park bench.
Keito scowled at the question and shifted slightly in his seat to remove the pressure of the tightly bound plated armor. It was true that the outfit chafed a bit. But it was also true that something was bothering Keito. Chinen had always been astoundingly perceptive when it came to figuring out stuff like that. Back when they first debuted together as a group and Keito felt like he was the one who didn’t belong, Chinen had been the one to see through his smiling façade, had been the one to reach out his hand and welcome him into the group.
“I don’t think you’ll understand,” Keito said, hoping maybe Chinen would drop the subject and stop worrying about him. He turned to look away from his friend who hadn’t even broken a sweat in the mid-morning sunshine.
Much like his eight other bandmates, Keito had been really excited when they found out their variety special Itadaki High Jump had been approved as a regular show. The show consisted of weird and strange challenges, like making them run races against each other at 5am or have them dress up in absurd costumes to help people out. But once they started filming more episodes of the series, Keito began to worry. Was he entertaining enough? Was he interesting? Was he making a fool of himself on national TV because he was terrible at everything?
“Are you insinuating that I’m not smart enough to understand your problem?” Chinen teased to lighten the mood. “Because I happen to be very smart, if you weren’t aware.”
Keito leaned back a little and gave his friend a particularly exasperated eye roll. “That’s exactly it. You’re smart. You’re amazing at acrobatics. You’re a fantastic dancer. Everyone wants to be your friend. And you can even manage to sleep in the van when Daiki and Hikaru are having a rap battle in the backseat.”
“Well, the ability to sleep through loud obnoxious noises is a Chinen family trait…” he answered with a smirk before letting a more serious look settle on his face. “You have your own talents too, you know. Don’t let yourself feel inferior next to me. We’ve all got a place in this group.”
Keito still disagreed and frowned, but didn’t respond. He was startled when Chinen suddenly patted him on the shoulder. “You’re important, Keito. You’re our anchor in the storm. Don’t forget that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Keito muttered quietly but Chinen had already jumped up and wandered back towards where the rest of his bandmates were mingling together. With a sigh, Keito followed after him to see what everyone else was doing.
“Hey,” Takaki Yuya called out as he jogged back to the group from where he had been talking to the staff. He couldn’t travel too fast because of the bulky armor but the curled ends of his brown hair bounced as he moved. “They said it still might be an hour or two before they’re ready to shoot.”
“Ugh,” Yamada Ryosuke whined and dramatically leaned against Keito’s shoulder since it was closest to him. Keito sort of awkwardly bent at the knees a little to accommodate the height difference. “Do we have to keep wearing all this armor?”
Takaki shook his head. “They said we could leave the heavy stuff behind and check out the museum nearby while we wait.” He pointed to the building across the road that they’d passed by earlier. Medieval History Museum was written in both English and Japanese on the sign in front.
“Let’s go learn things,” Arioka Daiki exclaimed and pulled Yamada off of Keito’s shoulder. Keito rolled his shoulder to loosen it up again and then reached to undo some of his armor but then-
Clang
He paused and glared at Hikaru who just gave him a couldn’t-resist shrug of explanation before turning to help Yabu Kota stumble out of his samurai gear.
“I’m keeping the hat though,” Yabu insisted. He rested his hands protectively on the helmet, like the sturdy steel was capable of shattering. One lone feather stuck straight up in the air in the center of the helmet, adding some character to it.
Since there was nothing better to do, the whole group trudged to the cool, air-conditioned museum building. Nakajima Yuto brought up the rear as he struggled with his armor removal.
“Wait for meeee,” he shouted after them. “I need to take off my pants!”
Chinen doubled back to help Yuto remove the bottom half of his armor. How he managed to get tangled up in the metal in the first place, no one knew. Once Chinen had successfully separated Yuto from his metal pants, he dragged his tall friend back to where everyone was waiting.
Exhibits from all around the world lined the walls as they all stepped inside the cool air-conditioned building. The nine of them shuffled through the ticket line quickly since they were apparently the only visitors at the moment. The ticket lady gave each of them a friendly smile, like she was used to all her visitors being half-clad in samurai armor, until she got to Hikaru who was still carrying his spear. She gave him and the weapon a silently disapproving glare as she handed him his ticket. Hikaru easily ignored the glare and just proceeded to poke Keito again.
“Will you stop that?!”
Hikaru cackled and then wandered off with Inoo Kei to look at the sword display. “Hikaru, I bet you couldn’t juggle these swords?” Inoo teased. He swept his arm out to gesture at the katana collection on the wall.
Keito didn’t hang around to hear Hikaru’s answer. He walked off to the nearest exhibit. It was about sports like archery and jousting and games similar to horseshoes and golf played around the world during the medieval time period. He carefully read each information card to learn about them all. He never knew when he was going to need to whip out random bits of information on a variety show.
“Hey you guys, come look at this!” an excited voice called out. Keito turned to see Daiki excitedly gesturing at a display over in the corner of the room. The group gathered around to see, their armor clanking together as they moved.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to shout in a museum,” Yamada scolded.
“No, no, you’re thinking of movie theaters,” Daiki answered.
“Or libraries,” Hikaru added.
“Churches!” Yuto called out as well.
“Memorials?” Takaki guessed with a shrug.
“My great aunt’s house!”
They all stopped and stared at Inoo, who blinked back at them. “She has very sensitive ears,” he explained.
“Anyway,” Daiki said, returning their attention to the small exhibit in the corner. “Look at this fancy trophy.” The trophy in question looked like a large silvery chalice with a nice design etched around the rim. Keito imagined that it could easily pass as a prop in an Indiana Jones movie. “And also, look at this.” Daiki pointed to the one line of information about the item written in the display card nearby.
This trophy was won in a jousting tournament in England, year 1257 by the mysterious Heisei Knights who were never seen again.
“That’s weird,” Yabu said. He reached to scratch his head in confusion but then remembered his helmet was in the way. He settled for his exposed forehead instead.
“Yeah, so weird,” Takaki agreed. “Who gives out such a fancy trophy for jousting?”
Daiki elbowed Takaki for his dumb comment and immediately regretted it as he bounced off the other’s plated samurai armor covering his torso. “I meant the name heisei,” he clarified as he rubbed his sore elbow. “Isn’t that weird?”
They all looked to Keito for confirmation since, as the only one of them who’d ever lived in England before, he was the supposed authority on the subject. Keito did indeed think it was strange that some medieval knights happened to share the same name of the current Japanese era of history their group was named after. “Yeah, it’s weird,” he conceded.
“It’s a really shiny trophy,” Inoo said, leaning over the rope barrier to look at it more closely. He began to reach his hand out towards it but Yamada slapped it away.
“Dude, no touching museum exhibits.”
Inoo leaned back. “I don’t see any signs anywhere.”
“That’s because people generally know not to touch things in a museum.” Yamada whipped his head around as a bit of movement caught the corner of his eye. “Chinen, what are you doing!?” While Yamada was lecturing, Chinen had slipped under the rope and saddled up to the stand where the trophy rested.
“Yeah, Chinen the rebel!” Inoo cheered him on and gave Yamada a smug look.
Keito watched his friends’ antics and tried to ignore the feeling of dread building up in his stomach. He glanced around to see if the ticket lady was anywhere nearby, watching them with a glare reminiscent of a librarian with rowdy loud children within her sanctuary. Keito was sure they were going to get kicked out of the museum any moment now. But the lady was nowhere to be seen.
Chinen grinned as he stretched his fingers out and said the words that were always heard right before something really bad happened: “What could possibly go wrong?”
And as soon as he touched the trophy, they were all engulfed in a bright white light right before everything went dark.
***
To say that Keito was surprised to open his eyes and see blue sky above would be an understatement. Much like saying nobody likes Mystery Meatloaf Day at the cafeteria would be an understatement. He had been inside the museum half a second ago and now he was lying flat on his back facing the sunny cloudless sky that hadn’t been there before. Keito tried to move but then realized there was a person lying on top of his legs.
“Um, Inoo?” he began tentatively as he recognized the familiar messy mop of hair, “do you think you can get off my legs?”
Having just regained consciousness, Inoo blinked a few times as he tried to orient himself to the situation. He didn’t bother moving however, but pouted like he’d just been roused from a pleasant nap. “Has anyone ever told you that you have very comfortable knees?”
“…thank you?” Keito wondered if maybe Inoo had hit his head in transit because Keito was still wearing the bottom half of his armor and he couldn’t imagine that the hard metal would make a good pillow. Then again, Inoo was always saying weird things. As Keito glanced around, he saw that the rest of his bandmates were tangled up in similar positions. Amusingly, Yuto had landed directly on top of Chinen, and so their tallest groupmate was completely obscuring their shortest.
“Get off,” came the muffled grunt from below, “I’d like to be able to breathe again.”
Yuto rolled off with an “oops” of apology which he repeated as he collided with Yabu and Daiki nearby. Takaki, who had managed to untangle himself from Yamada, grabbed Inoo by his shoulders to hoist him off of Keito. Once free, Keito stood up too, helped up by an extended hand from Hikaru, who thankfully resisted the urge to poke him with the spear again at the moment.
Now that he had a better view of their surroundings, he realized that there really wasn’t very much to look at. They were standing in the middle of a grassy plain of gently rolling hills that seemed to stretch on for a good long ways. A few trees dotted the horizon in the distance but not much else. Keito felt like something was missing, and after a moment, he realized it was sound. The usual symphony of city life that he’d grown accustomed to his entire life was absent.
“So…” Yabu began slowly, “what just happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Yamada said as he put his hands on his hips and began to berate them all like a tiny angry housewife. “I said ‘hey don’t touch that’ and Chii said ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ and then everything possible went wrong!” Once he finished his rant, he was red in the face and breathing heavily, shoulders heaving as he glared at all of them.
“Don’t panic,” Yuto said as he patted the top of Yamada’s head.
Yabu gently clapped Yamada on his exposed shoulder where he’d taken off some of the armor earlier. “The best thing for a panic attack is to stick your head between your knees.”
Yamada did as he was told but the weight of the armor he was still wearing threw off his sense of balance and he toppled forward into a somersault and then ended up lying flat on his back again.
“Even when he’s falling down, he’s graceful. How does he do it?” Hikaru complained.
“It’s the Yamada charm,” Chinen explained.
“Yeah, the Yamada charm,” Yuto agreed.
“All of you shut up,” Yamada grumbled from his position in the grass.
“Do you hear cheering?” Takaki asked, interrupting.
“Everyone is applauding Yamada’s amazingly graceful somersault,” Inoo joked.
“No, I hear it too,” Keito said. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of a nearby hill.
Curiously and cautiously, the group climbed up to see what all the fuss was about. In the distance past the bottom of the hill, there was a small group of spectators watching two people on horses. The audience looked to be wearing relatively simple and plain outfits, but the horse riders were clad in full armor, each holding a brightly colored lance and shield. Keito quickly recognized the activity as jousting from what he’d just read about in the museum.
“Hey, did we get transported to a Renaissance fair?” Yuto asked. At the top of the hill, Yuto was craning his neck forward to focus better. Keito reached his hand out and grabbed his accident-prone friend by the back of his armor in order to keep him from rolling down the hill and making an unwanted scene. “Do you think they have deep-fried oreos here?” Yuto continued. “I’ve always wanted to try those.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Inoo said, shaking his head. Keito looked to Chinen to see if he had any explanation for the situation, but even he was frowning in confusion at the medieval jousting spread out in front of them. His eyebrows drew close together as he made the same face he made whenever someone refused to buy him a soda from the drink machine.
Nearby, Daiki dug his cell phone out from somewhere inside his armor. “I’ll just use my GPS to figure out where we are.”
“Shh,” Yabu said, waving his arm towards Daiki but never removing his eyes from where they were locked on the joust below. He began quietly commentating on the match like a sports announcer watching a soccer game. The only one really listening was Takaki, but even he looked like he was nodding with feigned interest.
“That’s weird. I have absolutely no service out here.” Daiki frowned and shook his phone as if that might help. After that was unsuccessful, he flipped the phone upside and waved it in the air while he put his hand to his forehead and made antenna-like motions with his fingers. That, too, didn’t restore service to his phone. “Anyone else’s phone work?”
The screen of Keito’s phone indicated that it didn’t have service either. It wasn’t even roaming for nearby cell towers. He was starting to get a bad feeling about it. He looked back at the jousting tournament-one knight had finally been knocked off his horse-and he hoped his gut instinct was wrong. Time travel had to be impossible, right?
“Let’s just go ask the cosplayers where we are,” Inoo suggested.
Since the joust was over, the crowd began to break up and slowly make their way back to what looked to be a small village in the distance. Keito could make out a few thatched roofs and some small gardens. They weren’t sure who to approach since the peasants were either giving them wary side-eyes or ignoring them completely.
“Um…hello?” Takaki called out tentatively in English. It was clear that they probably weren’t in Japan, so the odds of someone around there speaking Japanese were slim.
The winning knight had just helped up his competition from the ground. He waved as the other knight trotted away on his horse before he turned to address the group of strangers in front of him.
“Greetings, fellow knights,” the knight said as he removed his helmet. “You all look a bit lost. From where do you hail?”
The group immediately looked to Keito to translate the knight’s English. He resisted the urge to scowl because as many times as they’d been to Hawaii together, they all knew enough of the language to at least understand mostly what the guy was saying. But Keito translated the question quickly before beginning to answer.
“Well we’re from…” If Keito was right about his time-travel theory-and it was looking like a legit possibility-then it would be pointless for Keito to answer honestly with “Japan.”
“France,” Takaki butted in before Keito could think further. The group nodded in agreement and Keito resisted the urge to slap his hand to his forehead. At least Takaki and Chinen had been to France before and could speak a tiny bit of the language if questioned.
But thankfully, the knight seemed to accept this answer and continued. “You looked like you’ve run into a bit of trouble during your recent travels,” he pointed out, obviously noticing that they were only partially clad in their samurai armor, which probably looked extra strange to him since the style was a bit different from British armor.
“Yes,” Keito said, finally deciding to just say whatever came to mind. “We were attacked by some nasty roving bandits.” He spoke slowly enough so that everyone could understand his slightly accented words.
“Who were these bandits?”
“They called themselves…”
“Stormtroopers!” Yuto filled in the blank. He looked entirely too excited saying the name for someone who had supposedly just been attacked by them. But again, the knight didn’t seem to take much notice.
“Hm… well I am the protector of this realm, so I’ll look into it,” the knight answered. “For now you can stay at my castle to rest up. In fact, I’m hosting a jousting tournament in two days if you’d like to stay and watch.” He smiled and gestured for them to follow him as he climbed back up on his horse.
“He’s giving us a place to stay and probably free food,” Keito translated quickly at his confused bandmates. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, I’m being rude,” the knight began again. “I should introduce myself. I’m the Lord of Angleton, Guardian of the Sacred Tambourine, Keeper of the Scrolls of Antioch, and Knight of the Order of the Brotherhood. But most people just call me Tim.”
“Tim,” Yabu repeated with a nod. “Good name.” Keito was sure that Yabu hadn’t actually understood any of that except for the “just call me Tim” part.
“And you are?” Tim asked Keito.
He hesitated for a moment before realizing what the answer had to be. “We are the Heisei Knights.”
***
“So… time travel, huh?” Chinen, having just removed all of his armor, flopped down onto the straw mattress in the small guest house Tim had provided for them. They had just recently finished a lovely feast provided by their host which Keito probably would have enjoyed more if he hadn’t had to play translator the whole time. Although he supposed he couldn’t blame his bandmates for not understanding Tim’s old-fashioned way of speaking because he had a bit of trouble with it too. But even he didn’t need to understand English to recognize the trophy sitting on display in Tim’s castle. They’d all noticed it as soon as they sat down to eat dinner. It was the same as the one in the museum, and apparently it was going to be awarded to the winner of the upcoming jousting tournament.
“Looks like you got us into this mess by touching the museum exhibit,” Keito said as he sat down beside his friend. Having removed the heavy weight of his own armor, Keito felt a bit lighter. He still felt bulky and unnatural while wearing the extra weight.
“Or…” Chinen suggested, “it was destiny for us to come here. You’re welcome.” He teasingly stuck his tongue out before rolling over to his stomach. Sometimes it seemed like Chinen was much younger than his actual age.
Keito shifted a bit on the lumpy mattress to get more comfortable. He already missed the conveniences of modern society like pillow-top mattresses, cell phone games, and indoor plumbing. “Even when you mess things up, it turns out good,” he complained.
Chinen plucked a few bits of straw out and threw them at Keito’s head. They fluttered through the air and landed in Keito’s hair, but he didn’t bother brushing them away at the moment. “Still feeling useless, huh? You know, you really should stop comparing yourself to others.”
But before Keito could respond to this, the rest of the group trudged back in one by one from wherever they’d been earlier. The sun had just set and now it was too dark to do anything else but sit by the candlelight in their little wooden guest house and hope Yuto didn’t accidentally set the curtains on fire or something.
“Fun fact we just learned,” Daiki announced as he snagged the nearest chair. His clothing had grass stains smeared all over it. “Cows don’t like it when you try to sing to them.”
“No they do not,” Hikaru agreed and sat down too. He tried to smooth away the grass and dirt stains from his own clothes.
The group just looked to the two of them in confusion. “Why did you even…?” Yamada began to ask.
“We don’t want to talk about it,” Daiki said. “So how is everyone else?” He not-so-subtly changed the subject.
“Well, we have sorta important news,” Yabu announced. He picked up the nearest candle and held it close to his face like he was setting up ambiance for a ghost story or something, but then his eyebrow was dangerously close to catching on fire so he quickly set it back down on the table. “We’ve entered ourselves into Sir Tim’s jousting tournament.”
“We’ve what?!” several voices called out at once.
“Well either that or we volunteered to cook roasted chicken for dinner,” Yabu clarified. “But I’m 86% certain it’s the jousting one. It’s kinda hard to talk to Sir Tim when you only understand half of what he says. Anyway, it’s definitely all Takaki and Inoo’s fault.” He pointed to the offending parties in the corner.
“Hey!” Takaki protested, but Inoo just shrugged like he couldn’t deny it.
“This seems like a terrible idea,” Chinen complained quietly, which Keito thought was strange for him considering that he was usually very excited for whatever challenges were thrown his way.
“So how did this happen?” Yamada asked, crossing his arms and giving them all a stern look again reminiscent of an angry housewife.
Yabu swung his arms out as he prepared to tell his epic tale. “It all began when the three of us were hanging out with Sir Tim. He asked us about France and Takaki tried to tell him things about cheese and then Inoo said he would speak to him in French.”
“Except Inoo actually spoke in really poor Chinese,” Takaki added.
Inoo gasped in mock-offended tone. “Hey, I studied Chinese in college.”
“Are you sure?” Takaki questioned.
“Like you know how to say anything in Chinese other than I love you,” Inoo scoffed.
“Anyway,” Yabu continued, “Sir Tim has never been to France so he didn’t notice the difference. So after that he told us about all the cool things he does as a knight. I didn’t really understand most of it but he didn’t say anything about dragons so that’s disappointing. And then he asked if we wanted to participate in his jousting tournament and I said yes.”
“…then isn’t it really your fault we’re in the tournament?” Chinen asked.
“Takaki and Inoo were there and they didn’t stop me so… they’re responsible.” He pointed to the two of them again for emphasis.
“Hey!” Takaki repeated but Inoo just shrugged nonchalantly again.
“We don’t really know anything about jousting though,” Daiki complained. He leaned his elbow against the table but accidentally shook the candle so that it tipped precariously towards its side for a moment. He frowned and scooted his chair away from the table.
“Keito does,” Chinen said, clapping him on the shoulder and bringing everyone’s attention over to their direction.
Keito automatically wanted to sink into the wall as the whole group turned their eyes on him. Chinen wasn’t entirely correct. All Keito knew was just what he had read in the museum before they had travelled through time to get here.
“Uh, well…” he began. It suddenly felt very hot in the small room. “It involves horses.”
“Really? I hadn’t guessed,” Hikaru drawled out in a sarcastic voice.
Feeling more flustered, Keito struggled to find the right words to explain the details of the sport. He stuttered a moment, suddenly feeling like a kid again just returned from his years at the boarding school in England, unable to articulate his feelings in Japanese accurately at the time. But then Chinen caught his eye and gave him a friendly encouraging smile. That seemed to help.
With a deep breath, he continued with a bit more steadiness and explained to them the rules of the game-simply knock your opponent off of their horse-and the importance of chivalry and sportsmanship-i.e., don’t use any dirty tricks to cheat. They all seemed pretty interested once he got into it, and he felt good once he’d finished.
“So do you think we can return to the present if we win the tournament?” Yamada asked.
“Maybe if we have the trophy that brought us here?” Hikaru suggested. “We don’t know what really happened but if we recreate the circumstances, maybe we can go home?”
“Do we all have to participate in the joust?” Chinen asked, suddenly looking concerned.
“With nine of us, we’ll have better odds of winning,” Yabu said. “Inoo did the math earlier.”
“He really just scribbled out some numbers on paper to make Yabu happy,” Takaki pointed out.
Inoo whacked Takaki on the top of his head. “Stop it.”
“I think we have a bigger problem though,” Daiki interrupted their squabble. “Do any of us know how to ride a horse?”
“I do!” Yuto exclaimed with a happy grin as he jumped up from where he had been sitting and bumping into the table in the process. Yamada reached his hand out to stabilize the wobbly candle again and shot Yuto an exasperated glare.
The anxiousness he was feeling earlier was welling up in Keito’s stomach again. But he supposed they didn’t have much choice. The information in the museum had said the “Heisei Knights” had won the tournament, and they couldn’t do that unless they participated. He looked to Chinen for reassurance again, but the younger was picking at the straw mattress and trying to hide a hint of a frown on his face. Keito suddenly remembered that Chinen didn’t really like animals, so the thought of having to ride a horse, let alone one charging at another opponent, was probably a bit intimidating.
Yabu nodded in an attempt to look determined but he didn’t look completely confident about their chances. “Well I guess tomorrow, you can teach us all how to ride,” he told Yuto and then he turned to Keito, “and you can teach us more about the game.”
“This will be fun!” Inoo said and pretended to wave his arms like a cheerleader.
Chinen rolled his eyes and began to speak. “What could possibly go-”
“Don’t you dare finish that statement,” Yamada cut Chinen off, pointing dramatically at him.
Hikaru yawned and stretched, bumping into the table and setting the candle into motion again. They all held their breath and watched as it wobbled again, and then collectively let it out as it finally stabilized. That, of course, meant someone accidentally blew the candle out, plunging them all into darkness.
“…I guess it’s time for bed, then?” Takaki suggested.
It took a few moments for everyone to shuffle around in the dark before they all settled down in mostly comfortable positions to sleep. Keito pulled the slightly itchy wool blanket over him as he curled up on his part of the lumpy mattress.
“Goodnight Yabu, goodnight Chinen,” Yuto called out into the darkness.
“Goodnight Yuto.”
“Goodnight Takaki, goodnight Yama-chan,” he continued.
“Goodnight Yuto.”
“Goodnight Inoo, goodnight Daiki.”
“Goodnight Yuto.” At this point their voices were beginning to sound annoyed.
“Goodnight Keito,” Yuto continued, oblivious to the fact that they just wanted to sleep.
“Goodnight Yuto,” Keito replied, actually not really minding it. Yuto’s happy attitude was comforting when they were so far from home. It helped him forget that there was a possibility they may never make it back to their own time. If they didn’t, at least they had each other.
“Goodnight Hik-”
“If you don’t stop, I will smother you with this pillow,” Hikaru threatened.
“-aru,” Yuto continued, unfazed by Hikaru’s warning.
Keito heard the sound of a pillow hitting something in the dark.
“Dude, I’m not Yuto,” Yamada complained. “He’s on the other side of the room.”
Yuto’s cackle-like laugh echoed throughout the tiny space.
Yabu coughed. “You’re getting feathers everywhere.”
“I thought we were sleeping, you guys. Shut up. I need my beauty sleep,” Inoo said from somewhere in the room, but his voice was muffled like he hadn’t had the energy to move his face off of his pillow long enough to speak.
“Are you sure?” Takaki’s voice joined the fray.
“Hikaru, hit Takaki with the pillow too,” Inoo said.
Another thump and then another cough from Yabu.
“I think you’re hitting me on purpose,” Yamada complained again. “I didn’t even do anything.”
“Guys, there are feathers everywhere,” Yabu whined.
Keito smiled and snuggled down further under his blanket, drifting off to sleep thinking about his silly bandmates instead of the jousting training they’d have to face in the morning.
***
Keito wondered who was going to blink first. His eyes were beginning to water but he held strong. His opponent would surely break at any moment. But then, just as he thought he was going to win, that horrible itching feeling right before a sneeze made its way into his nostrils. He scrunched up his nose and mouth to try to stave it off, but it didn’t work. He knew he’d lost as soon as he sneezed right in his opponent’s face.
Thankfully, the horse apparently didn’t take offense to being sneezed on. Instead, it just ambled away across the grass, having lost interest in staring contests.
“I’m not sure how this is going to help,” he said to Yuto.
“Yeah this is dumb,” Hikaru complained while he was trying to keep his horse from galloping away. His seemed to have a short attention span. Hikaru dug his heels into the grass and tugged on the reins, but he still ended up being dragged forward.
“No,” Yuto shook his head very seriously. “This is important. It’s how you earn the horses’ respect.” He turned back to stare into the eyes of his own horse.
“They’re not freaking hippogriffs, you know,” Daiki complained. “You don’t need to bow to them like in Harry Potter.” Daiki’s horse didn’t seem to like that, and neighed loudly right in his face. “I’m sorry Buttercup, I didn’t mean it!” He petted his horse’s nose to appease her.
Keito grabbed his own horse and brought it back to the group while he observed everyone else’s progress. Yuto, of course, was a natural with horses and surprisingly, Inoo seemed to be doing quite well too. Inoo was already riding his horse around by the stables and jumping over small bushes like he had been doing this his entire life. It seemed like Inoo’s horse was a bit of a showoff. Takaki, who had ridden horses a few times before, also seemed to get along well with his own, although he had spent the last twenty minutes just happily brushing his golden-colored palomino’s mane.
Yabu, on the other hand, seemed to be having an actual conversation with his horse, and so Keito thought it was best to just leave them alone. And Yamada, over by the edge of the group, was still in an intense staring contest with his horse, determined not to lose. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been going, but Yamada wasn’t showing any signs of needing to blink any time soon.
He turned to Chinen and frowned as he realized his friend was having trouble. Chinen stood facing the horse which towered over his short figure. Chinen held his shoulders up like they were tense, like he was wary of making any sudden movements. It was strange to see Chinen like this. Keito had seen their youngest groupmate do all sorts of high-flying trapeze tricks and even dangle over their concert audience by just a few ropes. He’d seen the DVD of Chinen parasailing in French Alps, excited and happy about it while his companion Takaki had just tried to avoid it. Normally, Chinen was fearless.
“Maybe you should give your horse a treat?” Keito suggested.
His voice made Chinen jump before he resumed his wary staring in case the horse made any sudden movements. Keito handed Chinen a carrot. “Just say hello and be friendly?” he suggested. He didn’t really know anything about horses either but that had worked for him.
Chinen held the carrot out and winced as the horse stepped forward. “Hi?” he said in a quiet voice. The horse ate the carrot and Chinen tentatively patted its nose. “This isn’t so… bad. Maybe.”
“You’ll be fine. You’re Chinen Yuri. You can do anything.” Keito hoped that sounded encouraging. His own horse nudged the side of Chinen’s horse in what looked like its own form of friendly support.
Keito laughed. “Look, our horses are friends too.”
“Seems like it,” Chinen smiled.
“Alright people,” Yuto called out and clapped his hands for attention. “Time to ride! Inoo, get back over here.” Inoo and his horse trotted back over to the group, narrowly avoiding running into Yamada who glared at them all for interrupting his staring contest.
Yuto demonstrated the proper technique for getting on the horse a few times before the rest of them tried it. Keito took a deep breath and somehow managed to get on his horse. He petted its mane and said a quiet thank you. He looked to his side and found that not everyone else had fared so well. Yabu had apparently climbed up on his horse and then fallen directly off the other side. Hikaru had made it up there but his horse had bucked him off right away. And Daiki was having trouble reaching high enough to even climb up at all.
“We’re doomed,” Keito said.
“Well we can’t all be The Horse Whisperer like Inoo over there,” Chinen said, pointing to the pair that had already galloped away again.
“You made it,” Keito said, realizing Chinen had managed to climb up on his horse. “Good job.”
“I… needed a running start,” Chinen admitted. Keito wished he hadn’t missed watching Chinen apparently vault himself onto his own horse.
After a few more tries, and a lot of carrots for Hikaru’s horse, the nine of them were finally on their horses. Yuto led them around a bit as they got used to guiding the horses and learning what different speeds they could move around at.
“It’s kinda hard to move in all this heavy armor,” Daiki complained. He’d borrowed a helmet from Tim, but the rest of his armor was the antique samurai stuff they’d been wearing when they arrived here. They had all supplemented their missing armor parts with English armor normally worn by the local knights. The two styles clashed, so they all stood out in a crowd, but at least they were safe.
“Would you like to have someone charge at you with a lance without all the heavy stuff?” Yabu asked. He was leaning to the side and looking like he was dangerously close to sliding off his horse again.
“Definitely not,” Daiki answered. “Hey Yuto, maybe you should put on some pants.”
Yuto looked down at his legs just to check what he was wearing. “I’m wearing pants!” he exclaimed. Daiki gave him a deadpan stare for a long moment. “Oh, you meant I should put the lower half of my armor on.” He was the only one who’d neglected to scrounge up some extra armor earlier.
“Yes.”
Yuto pouted and then galloped away towards the castle to go borrow some. While he was gone, Takaki passed out lances and shields for everyone. Keito explained more of the particulars of the sport to refresh their memories, but he really didn’t know anything about properly handling the equipment. There weren’t details like that in the stuff he’d read at the museum.
Both the lance and the shield were heavy in his hands while also being large and unwieldy. It took all of his concentration to hold them both up at once. His fingers curled around the hilt of the lance and the strap of the shield, and he wondered whether he’d be able to defend himself at all. It’d be embarrassing for him to be the first one out of the tournament. But on the bright side, at least this wouldn’t be on national television.
Once Yuto returned, they decided it was time to divide up into pairs so they could run through a few practice jousts. First up was Inoo versus Yamada. Their horses began galloping towards each other, picking up speed as they got closer and closer together. And once they were almost in range of the lances, Inoo let out a ridiculously loud shout through his helmet, startling Yamada so much that he fell off of his horse without even being touched by the lance. They could hear Inoo laughing as he circled back around to wrangle up Yamada’s free horse that had continued on without its rider.
“Inoo used Intimidate. It was Very Effective,” Hikaru said, like he was commentating on a Pokemon battle.
“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated again.
Next they paired Yuto up with Yabu. It seemed like things were going to go better with this joust until Yuto tried to do some fancy swinging thing with his lance and accidentally dropped it before he even got close to Yabu. He tried to defend himself with his shield but was knocked off anyway.
“I win!” Yabu cheered, and then slipped off his own horse.
“We’re going to be stuck here forever, aren’t we?” Daiki said.
Takaki versus Hikaru was a better match but it took a while to begin because Hikaru’s horse wouldn’t listen to any commands and kept trying to go eat some nearby flowers. Once they finally got going, they both managed to make a hit with their weapons, but both remained on their horses. They went another round but Hikaru’s horse veered off course before he ever got close, seemingly distracted by some tasty-looking grass.
“Who thought signing up for this was a good idea?” Inoo asked.
After finally declaring the Hikaru/Takaki match a draw, Keito and Chinen were up next. Chinen kept adjusting the borrowed helmet that was too big for him, and Keito just hoped he didn’t throw up from the nerves. The horses galloped forward and Keito was surprised by just how fast they were. The wind was rushing past his armor as he moved ahead. Once he was close enough he extended the lance out but it only bounced off of Chinen’s shield. At the same time, Keito leaned to the side to avoid Chinen’s lance. He almost fell off but somehow managed to adjust his weight in time to hang on.
“Guess this one’s a draw too,” Yamada announced with a sigh.
The only person left was Daiki. After an intense game of rock-paper-scissors, Yuto ended up being the one to face him. They squared off and charged towards each other. But instead of holding the lance straight out, Daiki held his like a baseball bat. Yuto looked like he was going to try to twirl his like a drumstick again, but thought better of it and just mimed Daiki’s pose. When they met, they crossed lances like two swords, so both of their attacks were ineffective while also looking really dumb.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it,” Takaki said, scratching the side of his head.
“Does anyone listen to me when I explain things?” Keito muttered.
They continued for a few hours before finally deciding to take a break for lunch. Yamada had planned ahead and packed a picnic lunch for them all. Keito sat on the ground and munched on his sandwich, trying to ignore all the aches and pains from their training session. His muscles felt like they were on fire. He’d never realized how bouncy a galloping horse was until he spent hours on one. On top of that, the armor was really starting to chafe in uncomfortable places.
Everyone else seemed to be tired out from all the training too. Inoo, helmet removed, was lying face down in the grass snoring away loudly, scaring away tiny ants that were just trying to go about their daily business. The only person still full of energy was Yuto, of course, but only because he had removed the bottom half of his armor again and was running around with the horses.
On the bright side, at least they had been improving a bit. Yabu still couldn’t manage to stay on his horse longer than a few minutes, but during his last match-up against Daiki, he managed to tackle the shorter boy off of his horse while on his way towards the ground. Keito decided not to point out that was against the rules because Yabu had been so proud of his accomplishment. And after tying a carrot to a stick, Hikaru managed to lead his easily distracted horse in the right direction for the joust, but the only problem was that they both moved a bit too slowly for a real match.
“I think maybe we should just wrap up for the day and rest until the tournament tomorrow,” Chinen suggested. “We don’t want to be too tired to even participate.”
“I think I’ve already pulled three different muscles,” Daiki said with a nod of agreement.
“I told you you were supposed to stretch,” Yamada said as he packed up the remains of their lunch back into his picnic basket.
“I think we’ll be just fine,” Takaki said. “We’re destined to win after all.”
“You’re just saying that because you didn’t fall off during any of your practice jousts,” Yabu complained.
Takaki patted Yabu on the shoulder and gave him a smile. “I believe in you, Yabu.”
“Believe in the me who believes in you who believes in the heart of the cards!” Hikaru shouted at them both enthusiastically.
“…what does that even mean?” Yuto asked.
“It’s a mash-up of anime… references… oh nevermind,” Hikaru said and walked away to track down his wandering horse again. But not without poking Keito with his lance first. Keito sighed.
A shriek from Inoo startled everyone and they all turned to see what was going on. He was sitting on the ground, rubbing his nose with a really disgusted look on his face, apparently having been woken up unpleasantly from his nap.
“What happened?”
“I think an ant crawled up my nose,” Inoo answered. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to stick his finger up his nostril to check if it was still there or not.
“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated once again.
Next
Author: alchemicink
Rating: G
Fandom: Hey!Say!JUMP
Pairing(s)/Focus: Gen fic, Keito-centric
Length: ~14,300
Summary: Keito thought the hardest thing in his life was the possibility of making a fool of himself on national TV. He never expected to get stuck in Medieval England with his bandmates and participating in a jousting tournament.
Warnings: An abundance of historical inaccuracies, the author’s fondness for running gags, Yuto’s inability to keep his pants on
Notes: The title of this fic comes from this TVTrope. And please have fun spotting the references to Monty Python and the Holy Grail! Special thanks to xingphonic for beta-reading this craziness. I appreciate all the support! And also thanks to turtleheartz for cheering me on too! I couldn’t have made it to the finish line without either of you <3
Okamoto Keito was pretty sure his father never had to do things like this. But then again, his father was mostly active as an idol in the 80’s, a time when variety shows were much less ridiculous. Probably. Most likely. In any event, Keito was reasonably certain that his father had never been forced to wear full samurai armor and then perform strange tasks in front of a film crew.
“Will you stop poking me?” Keito snapped at his bandmate, Yaotome Hikaru, who had been happily hitting him in the side with the blunt end of his spear for the past five minutes. The dull repetitive clang against his armor was starting to grate on his nerves.
“I’m practicing for when we get to storm the castle,” Hikaru announced with a toothy grin showing all his crooked teeth. Keito turned his head to look up again at the large feudal era castle they were filming at this morning. The TV crew was still trying to set up the equipment and discussing logistics with the castle staff. And they were also wrangling up all the horses. Keito had hoped that their manager had been joking about the horses earlier, but he could see some of the animals from a distance being handled by the crew. He shuddered to think how disastrous that was going to turn out. With his luck, Keito would probably end up on the wildest stallion of all.
Feeling the strain of all the extra weight from the armor, Keito lowered himself down onto the nearest bench to rest while he waited. But his solitary peace was short-lived once Chinen Yuri slid right into the empty spot beside him, wearing a slightly mischievous grin on his face. Despite being the youngest and shortest of their group, Chinen didn’t seem to be showing any signs of being uncomfortable in his own samurai gear.
“So is something bothering you or are your warrior pants just pinching you in sensitive places?” Chinen asked as he sprawled out like he was just relaxing in his pajamas in the comfort of his own bedroom instead of on a public park bench.
Keito scowled at the question and shifted slightly in his seat to remove the pressure of the tightly bound plated armor. It was true that the outfit chafed a bit. But it was also true that something was bothering Keito. Chinen had always been astoundingly perceptive when it came to figuring out stuff like that. Back when they first debuted together as a group and Keito felt like he was the one who didn’t belong, Chinen had been the one to see through his smiling façade, had been the one to reach out his hand and welcome him into the group.
“I don’t think you’ll understand,” Keito said, hoping maybe Chinen would drop the subject and stop worrying about him. He turned to look away from his friend who hadn’t even broken a sweat in the mid-morning sunshine.
Much like his eight other bandmates, Keito had been really excited when they found out their variety special Itadaki High Jump had been approved as a regular show. The show consisted of weird and strange challenges, like making them run races against each other at 5am or have them dress up in absurd costumes to help people out. But once they started filming more episodes of the series, Keito began to worry. Was he entertaining enough? Was he interesting? Was he making a fool of himself on national TV because he was terrible at everything?
“Are you insinuating that I’m not smart enough to understand your problem?” Chinen teased to lighten the mood. “Because I happen to be very smart, if you weren’t aware.”
Keito leaned back a little and gave his friend a particularly exasperated eye roll. “That’s exactly it. You’re smart. You’re amazing at acrobatics. You’re a fantastic dancer. Everyone wants to be your friend. And you can even manage to sleep in the van when Daiki and Hikaru are having a rap battle in the backseat.”
“Well, the ability to sleep through loud obnoxious noises is a Chinen family trait…” he answered with a smirk before letting a more serious look settle on his face. “You have your own talents too, you know. Don’t let yourself feel inferior next to me. We’ve all got a place in this group.”
Keito still disagreed and frowned, but didn’t respond. He was startled when Chinen suddenly patted him on the shoulder. “You’re important, Keito. You’re our anchor in the storm. Don’t forget that.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Keito muttered quietly but Chinen had already jumped up and wandered back towards where the rest of his bandmates were mingling together. With a sigh, Keito followed after him to see what everyone else was doing.
“Hey,” Takaki Yuya called out as he jogged back to the group from where he had been talking to the staff. He couldn’t travel too fast because of the bulky armor but the curled ends of his brown hair bounced as he moved. “They said it still might be an hour or two before they’re ready to shoot.”
“Ugh,” Yamada Ryosuke whined and dramatically leaned against Keito’s shoulder since it was closest to him. Keito sort of awkwardly bent at the knees a little to accommodate the height difference. “Do we have to keep wearing all this armor?”
Takaki shook his head. “They said we could leave the heavy stuff behind and check out the museum nearby while we wait.” He pointed to the building across the road that they’d passed by earlier. Medieval History Museum was written in both English and Japanese on the sign in front.
“Let’s go learn things,” Arioka Daiki exclaimed and pulled Yamada off of Keito’s shoulder. Keito rolled his shoulder to loosen it up again and then reached to undo some of his armor but then-
Clang
He paused and glared at Hikaru who just gave him a couldn’t-resist shrug of explanation before turning to help Yabu Kota stumble out of his samurai gear.
“I’m keeping the hat though,” Yabu insisted. He rested his hands protectively on the helmet, like the sturdy steel was capable of shattering. One lone feather stuck straight up in the air in the center of the helmet, adding some character to it.
Since there was nothing better to do, the whole group trudged to the cool, air-conditioned museum building. Nakajima Yuto brought up the rear as he struggled with his armor removal.
“Wait for meeee,” he shouted after them. “I need to take off my pants!”
Chinen doubled back to help Yuto remove the bottom half of his armor. How he managed to get tangled up in the metal in the first place, no one knew. Once Chinen had successfully separated Yuto from his metal pants, he dragged his tall friend back to where everyone was waiting.
Exhibits from all around the world lined the walls as they all stepped inside the cool air-conditioned building. The nine of them shuffled through the ticket line quickly since they were apparently the only visitors at the moment. The ticket lady gave each of them a friendly smile, like she was used to all her visitors being half-clad in samurai armor, until she got to Hikaru who was still carrying his spear. She gave him and the weapon a silently disapproving glare as she handed him his ticket. Hikaru easily ignored the glare and just proceeded to poke Keito again.
“Will you stop that?!”
Hikaru cackled and then wandered off with Inoo Kei to look at the sword display. “Hikaru, I bet you couldn’t juggle these swords?” Inoo teased. He swept his arm out to gesture at the katana collection on the wall.
Keito didn’t hang around to hear Hikaru’s answer. He walked off to the nearest exhibit. It was about sports like archery and jousting and games similar to horseshoes and golf played around the world during the medieval time period. He carefully read each information card to learn about them all. He never knew when he was going to need to whip out random bits of information on a variety show.
“Hey you guys, come look at this!” an excited voice called out. Keito turned to see Daiki excitedly gesturing at a display over in the corner of the room. The group gathered around to see, their armor clanking together as they moved.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to shout in a museum,” Yamada scolded.
“No, no, you’re thinking of movie theaters,” Daiki answered.
“Or libraries,” Hikaru added.
“Churches!” Yuto called out as well.
“Memorials?” Takaki guessed with a shrug.
“My great aunt’s house!”
They all stopped and stared at Inoo, who blinked back at them. “She has very sensitive ears,” he explained.
“Anyway,” Daiki said, returning their attention to the small exhibit in the corner. “Look at this fancy trophy.” The trophy in question looked like a large silvery chalice with a nice design etched around the rim. Keito imagined that it could easily pass as a prop in an Indiana Jones movie. “And also, look at this.” Daiki pointed to the one line of information about the item written in the display card nearby.
This trophy was won in a jousting tournament in England, year 1257 by the mysterious Heisei Knights who were never seen again.
“That’s weird,” Yabu said. He reached to scratch his head in confusion but then remembered his helmet was in the way. He settled for his exposed forehead instead.
“Yeah, so weird,” Takaki agreed. “Who gives out such a fancy trophy for jousting?”
Daiki elbowed Takaki for his dumb comment and immediately regretted it as he bounced off the other’s plated samurai armor covering his torso. “I meant the name heisei,” he clarified as he rubbed his sore elbow. “Isn’t that weird?”
They all looked to Keito for confirmation since, as the only one of them who’d ever lived in England before, he was the supposed authority on the subject. Keito did indeed think it was strange that some medieval knights happened to share the same name of the current Japanese era of history their group was named after. “Yeah, it’s weird,” he conceded.
“It’s a really shiny trophy,” Inoo said, leaning over the rope barrier to look at it more closely. He began to reach his hand out towards it but Yamada slapped it away.
“Dude, no touching museum exhibits.”
Inoo leaned back. “I don’t see any signs anywhere.”
“That’s because people generally know not to touch things in a museum.” Yamada whipped his head around as a bit of movement caught the corner of his eye. “Chinen, what are you doing!?” While Yamada was lecturing, Chinen had slipped under the rope and saddled up to the stand where the trophy rested.
“Yeah, Chinen the rebel!” Inoo cheered him on and gave Yamada a smug look.
Keito watched his friends’ antics and tried to ignore the feeling of dread building up in his stomach. He glanced around to see if the ticket lady was anywhere nearby, watching them with a glare reminiscent of a librarian with rowdy loud children within her sanctuary. Keito was sure they were going to get kicked out of the museum any moment now. But the lady was nowhere to be seen.
Chinen grinned as he stretched his fingers out and said the words that were always heard right before something really bad happened: “What could possibly go wrong?”
And as soon as he touched the trophy, they were all engulfed in a bright white light right before everything went dark.
***
To say that Keito was surprised to open his eyes and see blue sky above would be an understatement. Much like saying nobody likes Mystery Meatloaf Day at the cafeteria would be an understatement. He had been inside the museum half a second ago and now he was lying flat on his back facing the sunny cloudless sky that hadn’t been there before. Keito tried to move but then realized there was a person lying on top of his legs.
“Um, Inoo?” he began tentatively as he recognized the familiar messy mop of hair, “do you think you can get off my legs?”
Having just regained consciousness, Inoo blinked a few times as he tried to orient himself to the situation. He didn’t bother moving however, but pouted like he’d just been roused from a pleasant nap. “Has anyone ever told you that you have very comfortable knees?”
“…thank you?” Keito wondered if maybe Inoo had hit his head in transit because Keito was still wearing the bottom half of his armor and he couldn’t imagine that the hard metal would make a good pillow. Then again, Inoo was always saying weird things. As Keito glanced around, he saw that the rest of his bandmates were tangled up in similar positions. Amusingly, Yuto had landed directly on top of Chinen, and so their tallest groupmate was completely obscuring their shortest.
“Get off,” came the muffled grunt from below, “I’d like to be able to breathe again.”
Yuto rolled off with an “oops” of apology which he repeated as he collided with Yabu and Daiki nearby. Takaki, who had managed to untangle himself from Yamada, grabbed Inoo by his shoulders to hoist him off of Keito. Once free, Keito stood up too, helped up by an extended hand from Hikaru, who thankfully resisted the urge to poke him with the spear again at the moment.
Now that he had a better view of their surroundings, he realized that there really wasn’t very much to look at. They were standing in the middle of a grassy plain of gently rolling hills that seemed to stretch on for a good long ways. A few trees dotted the horizon in the distance but not much else. Keito felt like something was missing, and after a moment, he realized it was sound. The usual symphony of city life that he’d grown accustomed to his entire life was absent.
“So…” Yabu began slowly, “what just happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Yamada said as he put his hands on his hips and began to berate them all like a tiny angry housewife. “I said ‘hey don’t touch that’ and Chii said ‘what could possibly go wrong?’ and then everything possible went wrong!” Once he finished his rant, he was red in the face and breathing heavily, shoulders heaving as he glared at all of them.
“Don’t panic,” Yuto said as he patted the top of Yamada’s head.
Yabu gently clapped Yamada on his exposed shoulder where he’d taken off some of the armor earlier. “The best thing for a panic attack is to stick your head between your knees.”
Yamada did as he was told but the weight of the armor he was still wearing threw off his sense of balance and he toppled forward into a somersault and then ended up lying flat on his back again.
“Even when he’s falling down, he’s graceful. How does he do it?” Hikaru complained.
“It’s the Yamada charm,” Chinen explained.
“Yeah, the Yamada charm,” Yuto agreed.
“All of you shut up,” Yamada grumbled from his position in the grass.
“Do you hear cheering?” Takaki asked, interrupting.
“Everyone is applauding Yamada’s amazingly graceful somersault,” Inoo joked.
“No, I hear it too,” Keito said. It sounded like it was coming from the other side of a nearby hill.
Curiously and cautiously, the group climbed up to see what all the fuss was about. In the distance past the bottom of the hill, there was a small group of spectators watching two people on horses. The audience looked to be wearing relatively simple and plain outfits, but the horse riders were clad in full armor, each holding a brightly colored lance and shield. Keito quickly recognized the activity as jousting from what he’d just read about in the museum.
“Hey, did we get transported to a Renaissance fair?” Yuto asked. At the top of the hill, Yuto was craning his neck forward to focus better. Keito reached his hand out and grabbed his accident-prone friend by the back of his armor in order to keep him from rolling down the hill and making an unwanted scene. “Do you think they have deep-fried oreos here?” Yuto continued. “I’ve always wanted to try those.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” Inoo said, shaking his head. Keito looked to Chinen to see if he had any explanation for the situation, but even he was frowning in confusion at the medieval jousting spread out in front of them. His eyebrows drew close together as he made the same face he made whenever someone refused to buy him a soda from the drink machine.
Nearby, Daiki dug his cell phone out from somewhere inside his armor. “I’ll just use my GPS to figure out where we are.”
“Shh,” Yabu said, waving his arm towards Daiki but never removing his eyes from where they were locked on the joust below. He began quietly commentating on the match like a sports announcer watching a soccer game. The only one really listening was Takaki, but even he looked like he was nodding with feigned interest.
“That’s weird. I have absolutely no service out here.” Daiki frowned and shook his phone as if that might help. After that was unsuccessful, he flipped the phone upside and waved it in the air while he put his hand to his forehead and made antenna-like motions with his fingers. That, too, didn’t restore service to his phone. “Anyone else’s phone work?”
The screen of Keito’s phone indicated that it didn’t have service either. It wasn’t even roaming for nearby cell towers. He was starting to get a bad feeling about it. He looked back at the jousting tournament-one knight had finally been knocked off his horse-and he hoped his gut instinct was wrong. Time travel had to be impossible, right?
“Let’s just go ask the cosplayers where we are,” Inoo suggested.
Since the joust was over, the crowd began to break up and slowly make their way back to what looked to be a small village in the distance. Keito could make out a few thatched roofs and some small gardens. They weren’t sure who to approach since the peasants were either giving them wary side-eyes or ignoring them completely.
“Um…hello?” Takaki called out tentatively in English. It was clear that they probably weren’t in Japan, so the odds of someone around there speaking Japanese were slim.
The winning knight had just helped up his competition from the ground. He waved as the other knight trotted away on his horse before he turned to address the group of strangers in front of him.
“Greetings, fellow knights,” the knight said as he removed his helmet. “You all look a bit lost. From where do you hail?”
The group immediately looked to Keito to translate the knight’s English. He resisted the urge to scowl because as many times as they’d been to Hawaii together, they all knew enough of the language to at least understand mostly what the guy was saying. But Keito translated the question quickly before beginning to answer.
“Well we’re from…” If Keito was right about his time-travel theory-and it was looking like a legit possibility-then it would be pointless for Keito to answer honestly with “Japan.”
“France,” Takaki butted in before Keito could think further. The group nodded in agreement and Keito resisted the urge to slap his hand to his forehead. At least Takaki and Chinen had been to France before and could speak a tiny bit of the language if questioned.
But thankfully, the knight seemed to accept this answer and continued. “You looked like you’ve run into a bit of trouble during your recent travels,” he pointed out, obviously noticing that they were only partially clad in their samurai armor, which probably looked extra strange to him since the style was a bit different from British armor.
“Yes,” Keito said, finally deciding to just say whatever came to mind. “We were attacked by some nasty roving bandits.” He spoke slowly enough so that everyone could understand his slightly accented words.
“Who were these bandits?”
“They called themselves…”
“Stormtroopers!” Yuto filled in the blank. He looked entirely too excited saying the name for someone who had supposedly just been attacked by them. But again, the knight didn’t seem to take much notice.
“Hm… well I am the protector of this realm, so I’ll look into it,” the knight answered. “For now you can stay at my castle to rest up. In fact, I’m hosting a jousting tournament in two days if you’d like to stay and watch.” He smiled and gestured for them to follow him as he climbed back up on his horse.
“He’s giving us a place to stay and probably free food,” Keito translated quickly at his confused bandmates. “Let’s go.”
“Oh, I’m being rude,” the knight began again. “I should introduce myself. I’m the Lord of Angleton, Guardian of the Sacred Tambourine, Keeper of the Scrolls of Antioch, and Knight of the Order of the Brotherhood. But most people just call me Tim.”
“Tim,” Yabu repeated with a nod. “Good name.” Keito was sure that Yabu hadn’t actually understood any of that except for the “just call me Tim” part.
“And you are?” Tim asked Keito.
He hesitated for a moment before realizing what the answer had to be. “We are the Heisei Knights.”
***
“So… time travel, huh?” Chinen, having just removed all of his armor, flopped down onto the straw mattress in the small guest house Tim had provided for them. They had just recently finished a lovely feast provided by their host which Keito probably would have enjoyed more if he hadn’t had to play translator the whole time. Although he supposed he couldn’t blame his bandmates for not understanding Tim’s old-fashioned way of speaking because he had a bit of trouble with it too. But even he didn’t need to understand English to recognize the trophy sitting on display in Tim’s castle. They’d all noticed it as soon as they sat down to eat dinner. It was the same as the one in the museum, and apparently it was going to be awarded to the winner of the upcoming jousting tournament.
“Looks like you got us into this mess by touching the museum exhibit,” Keito said as he sat down beside his friend. Having removed the heavy weight of his own armor, Keito felt a bit lighter. He still felt bulky and unnatural while wearing the extra weight.
“Or…” Chinen suggested, “it was destiny for us to come here. You’re welcome.” He teasingly stuck his tongue out before rolling over to his stomach. Sometimes it seemed like Chinen was much younger than his actual age.
Keito shifted a bit on the lumpy mattress to get more comfortable. He already missed the conveniences of modern society like pillow-top mattresses, cell phone games, and indoor plumbing. “Even when you mess things up, it turns out good,” he complained.
Chinen plucked a few bits of straw out and threw them at Keito’s head. They fluttered through the air and landed in Keito’s hair, but he didn’t bother brushing them away at the moment. “Still feeling useless, huh? You know, you really should stop comparing yourself to others.”
But before Keito could respond to this, the rest of the group trudged back in one by one from wherever they’d been earlier. The sun had just set and now it was too dark to do anything else but sit by the candlelight in their little wooden guest house and hope Yuto didn’t accidentally set the curtains on fire or something.
“Fun fact we just learned,” Daiki announced as he snagged the nearest chair. His clothing had grass stains smeared all over it. “Cows don’t like it when you try to sing to them.”
“No they do not,” Hikaru agreed and sat down too. He tried to smooth away the grass and dirt stains from his own clothes.
The group just looked to the two of them in confusion. “Why did you even…?” Yamada began to ask.
“We don’t want to talk about it,” Daiki said. “So how is everyone else?” He not-so-subtly changed the subject.
“Well, we have sorta important news,” Yabu announced. He picked up the nearest candle and held it close to his face like he was setting up ambiance for a ghost story or something, but then his eyebrow was dangerously close to catching on fire so he quickly set it back down on the table. “We’ve entered ourselves into Sir Tim’s jousting tournament.”
“We’ve what?!” several voices called out at once.
“Well either that or we volunteered to cook roasted chicken for dinner,” Yabu clarified. “But I’m 86% certain it’s the jousting one. It’s kinda hard to talk to Sir Tim when you only understand half of what he says. Anyway, it’s definitely all Takaki and Inoo’s fault.” He pointed to the offending parties in the corner.
“Hey!” Takaki protested, but Inoo just shrugged like he couldn’t deny it.
“This seems like a terrible idea,” Chinen complained quietly, which Keito thought was strange for him considering that he was usually very excited for whatever challenges were thrown his way.
“So how did this happen?” Yamada asked, crossing his arms and giving them all a stern look again reminiscent of an angry housewife.
Yabu swung his arms out as he prepared to tell his epic tale. “It all began when the three of us were hanging out with Sir Tim. He asked us about France and Takaki tried to tell him things about cheese and then Inoo said he would speak to him in French.”
“Except Inoo actually spoke in really poor Chinese,” Takaki added.
Inoo gasped in mock-offended tone. “Hey, I studied Chinese in college.”
“Are you sure?” Takaki questioned.
“Like you know how to say anything in Chinese other than I love you,” Inoo scoffed.
“Anyway,” Yabu continued, “Sir Tim has never been to France so he didn’t notice the difference. So after that he told us about all the cool things he does as a knight. I didn’t really understand most of it but he didn’t say anything about dragons so that’s disappointing. And then he asked if we wanted to participate in his jousting tournament and I said yes.”
“…then isn’t it really your fault we’re in the tournament?” Chinen asked.
“Takaki and Inoo were there and they didn’t stop me so… they’re responsible.” He pointed to the two of them again for emphasis.
“Hey!” Takaki repeated but Inoo just shrugged nonchalantly again.
“We don’t really know anything about jousting though,” Daiki complained. He leaned his elbow against the table but accidentally shook the candle so that it tipped precariously towards its side for a moment. He frowned and scooted his chair away from the table.
“Keito does,” Chinen said, clapping him on the shoulder and bringing everyone’s attention over to their direction.
Keito automatically wanted to sink into the wall as the whole group turned their eyes on him. Chinen wasn’t entirely correct. All Keito knew was just what he had read in the museum before they had travelled through time to get here.
“Uh, well…” he began. It suddenly felt very hot in the small room. “It involves horses.”
“Really? I hadn’t guessed,” Hikaru drawled out in a sarcastic voice.
Feeling more flustered, Keito struggled to find the right words to explain the details of the sport. He stuttered a moment, suddenly feeling like a kid again just returned from his years at the boarding school in England, unable to articulate his feelings in Japanese accurately at the time. But then Chinen caught his eye and gave him a friendly encouraging smile. That seemed to help.
With a deep breath, he continued with a bit more steadiness and explained to them the rules of the game-simply knock your opponent off of their horse-and the importance of chivalry and sportsmanship-i.e., don’t use any dirty tricks to cheat. They all seemed pretty interested once he got into it, and he felt good once he’d finished.
“So do you think we can return to the present if we win the tournament?” Yamada asked.
“Maybe if we have the trophy that brought us here?” Hikaru suggested. “We don’t know what really happened but if we recreate the circumstances, maybe we can go home?”
“Do we all have to participate in the joust?” Chinen asked, suddenly looking concerned.
“With nine of us, we’ll have better odds of winning,” Yabu said. “Inoo did the math earlier.”
“He really just scribbled out some numbers on paper to make Yabu happy,” Takaki pointed out.
Inoo whacked Takaki on the top of his head. “Stop it.”
“I think we have a bigger problem though,” Daiki interrupted their squabble. “Do any of us know how to ride a horse?”
“I do!” Yuto exclaimed with a happy grin as he jumped up from where he had been sitting and bumping into the table in the process. Yamada reached his hand out to stabilize the wobbly candle again and shot Yuto an exasperated glare.
The anxiousness he was feeling earlier was welling up in Keito’s stomach again. But he supposed they didn’t have much choice. The information in the museum had said the “Heisei Knights” had won the tournament, and they couldn’t do that unless they participated. He looked to Chinen for reassurance again, but the younger was picking at the straw mattress and trying to hide a hint of a frown on his face. Keito suddenly remembered that Chinen didn’t really like animals, so the thought of having to ride a horse, let alone one charging at another opponent, was probably a bit intimidating.
Yabu nodded in an attempt to look determined but he didn’t look completely confident about their chances. “Well I guess tomorrow, you can teach us all how to ride,” he told Yuto and then he turned to Keito, “and you can teach us more about the game.”
“This will be fun!” Inoo said and pretended to wave his arms like a cheerleader.
Chinen rolled his eyes and began to speak. “What could possibly go-”
“Don’t you dare finish that statement,” Yamada cut Chinen off, pointing dramatically at him.
Hikaru yawned and stretched, bumping into the table and setting the candle into motion again. They all held their breath and watched as it wobbled again, and then collectively let it out as it finally stabilized. That, of course, meant someone accidentally blew the candle out, plunging them all into darkness.
“…I guess it’s time for bed, then?” Takaki suggested.
It took a few moments for everyone to shuffle around in the dark before they all settled down in mostly comfortable positions to sleep. Keito pulled the slightly itchy wool blanket over him as he curled up on his part of the lumpy mattress.
“Goodnight Yabu, goodnight Chinen,” Yuto called out into the darkness.
“Goodnight Yuto.”
“Goodnight Takaki, goodnight Yama-chan,” he continued.
“Goodnight Yuto.”
“Goodnight Inoo, goodnight Daiki.”
“Goodnight Yuto.” At this point their voices were beginning to sound annoyed.
“Goodnight Keito,” Yuto continued, oblivious to the fact that they just wanted to sleep.
“Goodnight Yuto,” Keito replied, actually not really minding it. Yuto’s happy attitude was comforting when they were so far from home. It helped him forget that there was a possibility they may never make it back to their own time. If they didn’t, at least they had each other.
“Goodnight Hik-”
“If you don’t stop, I will smother you with this pillow,” Hikaru threatened.
“-aru,” Yuto continued, unfazed by Hikaru’s warning.
Keito heard the sound of a pillow hitting something in the dark.
“Dude, I’m not Yuto,” Yamada complained. “He’s on the other side of the room.”
Yuto’s cackle-like laugh echoed throughout the tiny space.
Yabu coughed. “You’re getting feathers everywhere.”
“I thought we were sleeping, you guys. Shut up. I need my beauty sleep,” Inoo said from somewhere in the room, but his voice was muffled like he hadn’t had the energy to move his face off of his pillow long enough to speak.
“Are you sure?” Takaki’s voice joined the fray.
“Hikaru, hit Takaki with the pillow too,” Inoo said.
Another thump and then another cough from Yabu.
“I think you’re hitting me on purpose,” Yamada complained again. “I didn’t even do anything.”
“Guys, there are feathers everywhere,” Yabu whined.
Keito smiled and snuggled down further under his blanket, drifting off to sleep thinking about his silly bandmates instead of the jousting training they’d have to face in the morning.
***
Keito wondered who was going to blink first. His eyes were beginning to water but he held strong. His opponent would surely break at any moment. But then, just as he thought he was going to win, that horrible itching feeling right before a sneeze made its way into his nostrils. He scrunched up his nose and mouth to try to stave it off, but it didn’t work. He knew he’d lost as soon as he sneezed right in his opponent’s face.
Thankfully, the horse apparently didn’t take offense to being sneezed on. Instead, it just ambled away across the grass, having lost interest in staring contests.
“I’m not sure how this is going to help,” he said to Yuto.
“Yeah this is dumb,” Hikaru complained while he was trying to keep his horse from galloping away. His seemed to have a short attention span. Hikaru dug his heels into the grass and tugged on the reins, but he still ended up being dragged forward.
“No,” Yuto shook his head very seriously. “This is important. It’s how you earn the horses’ respect.” He turned back to stare into the eyes of his own horse.
“They’re not freaking hippogriffs, you know,” Daiki complained. “You don’t need to bow to them like in Harry Potter.” Daiki’s horse didn’t seem to like that, and neighed loudly right in his face. “I’m sorry Buttercup, I didn’t mean it!” He petted his horse’s nose to appease her.
Keito grabbed his own horse and brought it back to the group while he observed everyone else’s progress. Yuto, of course, was a natural with horses and surprisingly, Inoo seemed to be doing quite well too. Inoo was already riding his horse around by the stables and jumping over small bushes like he had been doing this his entire life. It seemed like Inoo’s horse was a bit of a showoff. Takaki, who had ridden horses a few times before, also seemed to get along well with his own, although he had spent the last twenty minutes just happily brushing his golden-colored palomino’s mane.
Yabu, on the other hand, seemed to be having an actual conversation with his horse, and so Keito thought it was best to just leave them alone. And Yamada, over by the edge of the group, was still in an intense staring contest with his horse, determined not to lose. He wasn’t sure how long they’d been going, but Yamada wasn’t showing any signs of needing to blink any time soon.
He turned to Chinen and frowned as he realized his friend was having trouble. Chinen stood facing the horse which towered over his short figure. Chinen held his shoulders up like they were tense, like he was wary of making any sudden movements. It was strange to see Chinen like this. Keito had seen their youngest groupmate do all sorts of high-flying trapeze tricks and even dangle over their concert audience by just a few ropes. He’d seen the DVD of Chinen parasailing in French Alps, excited and happy about it while his companion Takaki had just tried to avoid it. Normally, Chinen was fearless.
“Maybe you should give your horse a treat?” Keito suggested.
His voice made Chinen jump before he resumed his wary staring in case the horse made any sudden movements. Keito handed Chinen a carrot. “Just say hello and be friendly?” he suggested. He didn’t really know anything about horses either but that had worked for him.
Chinen held the carrot out and winced as the horse stepped forward. “Hi?” he said in a quiet voice. The horse ate the carrot and Chinen tentatively patted its nose. “This isn’t so… bad. Maybe.”
“You’ll be fine. You’re Chinen Yuri. You can do anything.” Keito hoped that sounded encouraging. His own horse nudged the side of Chinen’s horse in what looked like its own form of friendly support.
Keito laughed. “Look, our horses are friends too.”
“Seems like it,” Chinen smiled.
“Alright people,” Yuto called out and clapped his hands for attention. “Time to ride! Inoo, get back over here.” Inoo and his horse trotted back over to the group, narrowly avoiding running into Yamada who glared at them all for interrupting his staring contest.
Yuto demonstrated the proper technique for getting on the horse a few times before the rest of them tried it. Keito took a deep breath and somehow managed to get on his horse. He petted its mane and said a quiet thank you. He looked to his side and found that not everyone else had fared so well. Yabu had apparently climbed up on his horse and then fallen directly off the other side. Hikaru had made it up there but his horse had bucked him off right away. And Daiki was having trouble reaching high enough to even climb up at all.
“We’re doomed,” Keito said.
“Well we can’t all be The Horse Whisperer like Inoo over there,” Chinen said, pointing to the pair that had already galloped away again.
“You made it,” Keito said, realizing Chinen had managed to climb up on his horse. “Good job.”
“I… needed a running start,” Chinen admitted. Keito wished he hadn’t missed watching Chinen apparently vault himself onto his own horse.
After a few more tries, and a lot of carrots for Hikaru’s horse, the nine of them were finally on their horses. Yuto led them around a bit as they got used to guiding the horses and learning what different speeds they could move around at.
“It’s kinda hard to move in all this heavy armor,” Daiki complained. He’d borrowed a helmet from Tim, but the rest of his armor was the antique samurai stuff they’d been wearing when they arrived here. They had all supplemented their missing armor parts with English armor normally worn by the local knights. The two styles clashed, so they all stood out in a crowd, but at least they were safe.
“Would you like to have someone charge at you with a lance without all the heavy stuff?” Yabu asked. He was leaning to the side and looking like he was dangerously close to sliding off his horse again.
“Definitely not,” Daiki answered. “Hey Yuto, maybe you should put on some pants.”
Yuto looked down at his legs just to check what he was wearing. “I’m wearing pants!” he exclaimed. Daiki gave him a deadpan stare for a long moment. “Oh, you meant I should put the lower half of my armor on.” He was the only one who’d neglected to scrounge up some extra armor earlier.
“Yes.”
Yuto pouted and then galloped away towards the castle to go borrow some. While he was gone, Takaki passed out lances and shields for everyone. Keito explained more of the particulars of the sport to refresh their memories, but he really didn’t know anything about properly handling the equipment. There weren’t details like that in the stuff he’d read at the museum.
Both the lance and the shield were heavy in his hands while also being large and unwieldy. It took all of his concentration to hold them both up at once. His fingers curled around the hilt of the lance and the strap of the shield, and he wondered whether he’d be able to defend himself at all. It’d be embarrassing for him to be the first one out of the tournament. But on the bright side, at least this wouldn’t be on national television.
Once Yuto returned, they decided it was time to divide up into pairs so they could run through a few practice jousts. First up was Inoo versus Yamada. Their horses began galloping towards each other, picking up speed as they got closer and closer together. And once they were almost in range of the lances, Inoo let out a ridiculously loud shout through his helmet, startling Yamada so much that he fell off of his horse without even being touched by the lance. They could hear Inoo laughing as he circled back around to wrangle up Yamada’s free horse that had continued on without its rider.
“Inoo used Intimidate. It was Very Effective,” Hikaru said, like he was commentating on a Pokemon battle.
“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated again.
Next they paired Yuto up with Yabu. It seemed like things were going to go better with this joust until Yuto tried to do some fancy swinging thing with his lance and accidentally dropped it before he even got close to Yabu. He tried to defend himself with his shield but was knocked off anyway.
“I win!” Yabu cheered, and then slipped off his own horse.
“We’re going to be stuck here forever, aren’t we?” Daiki said.
Takaki versus Hikaru was a better match but it took a while to begin because Hikaru’s horse wouldn’t listen to any commands and kept trying to go eat some nearby flowers. Once they finally got going, they both managed to make a hit with their weapons, but both remained on their horses. They went another round but Hikaru’s horse veered off course before he ever got close, seemingly distracted by some tasty-looking grass.
“Who thought signing up for this was a good idea?” Inoo asked.
After finally declaring the Hikaru/Takaki match a draw, Keito and Chinen were up next. Chinen kept adjusting the borrowed helmet that was too big for him, and Keito just hoped he didn’t throw up from the nerves. The horses galloped forward and Keito was surprised by just how fast they were. The wind was rushing past his armor as he moved ahead. Once he was close enough he extended the lance out but it only bounced off of Chinen’s shield. At the same time, Keito leaned to the side to avoid Chinen’s lance. He almost fell off but somehow managed to adjust his weight in time to hang on.
“Guess this one’s a draw too,” Yamada announced with a sigh.
The only person left was Daiki. After an intense game of rock-paper-scissors, Yuto ended up being the one to face him. They squared off and charged towards each other. But instead of holding the lance straight out, Daiki held his like a baseball bat. Yuto looked like he was going to try to twirl his like a drumstick again, but thought better of it and just mimed Daiki’s pose. When they met, they crossed lances like two swords, so both of their attacks were ineffective while also looking really dumb.
“That’s not how you’re supposed to do it,” Takaki said, scratching the side of his head.
“Does anyone listen to me when I explain things?” Keito muttered.
They continued for a few hours before finally deciding to take a break for lunch. Yamada had planned ahead and packed a picnic lunch for them all. Keito sat on the ground and munched on his sandwich, trying to ignore all the aches and pains from their training session. His muscles felt like they were on fire. He’d never realized how bouncy a galloping horse was until he spent hours on one. On top of that, the armor was really starting to chafe in uncomfortable places.
Everyone else seemed to be tired out from all the training too. Inoo, helmet removed, was lying face down in the grass snoring away loudly, scaring away tiny ants that were just trying to go about their daily business. The only person still full of energy was Yuto, of course, but only because he had removed the bottom half of his armor again and was running around with the horses.
On the bright side, at least they had been improving a bit. Yabu still couldn’t manage to stay on his horse longer than a few minutes, but during his last match-up against Daiki, he managed to tackle the shorter boy off of his horse while on his way towards the ground. Keito decided not to point out that was against the rules because Yabu had been so proud of his accomplishment. And after tying a carrot to a stick, Hikaru managed to lead his easily distracted horse in the right direction for the joust, but the only problem was that they both moved a bit too slowly for a real match.
“I think maybe we should just wrap up for the day and rest until the tournament tomorrow,” Chinen suggested. “We don’t want to be too tired to even participate.”
“I think I’ve already pulled three different muscles,” Daiki said with a nod of agreement.
“I told you you were supposed to stretch,” Yamada said as he packed up the remains of their lunch back into his picnic basket.
“I think we’ll be just fine,” Takaki said. “We’re destined to win after all.”
“You’re just saying that because you didn’t fall off during any of your practice jousts,” Yabu complained.
Takaki patted Yabu on the shoulder and gave him a smile. “I believe in you, Yabu.”
“Believe in the me who believes in you who believes in the heart of the cards!” Hikaru shouted at them both enthusiastically.
“…what does that even mean?” Yuto asked.
“It’s a mash-up of anime… references… oh nevermind,” Hikaru said and walked away to track down his wandering horse again. But not without poking Keito with his lance first. Keito sighed.
A shriek from Inoo startled everyone and they all turned to see what was going on. He was sitting on the ground, rubbing his nose with a really disgusted look on his face, apparently having been woken up unpleasantly from his nap.
“What happened?”
“I think an ant crawled up my nose,” Inoo answered. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to stick his finger up his nostril to check if it was still there or not.
“We’re doomed,” Keito repeated once again.
Next