[LOG] The One Where They Become Felons
Characters: Kikumaru Eiji, Oishi Shuichiro & Fuji Shuusuke
Location: In town
Time: October 5, Friday afternoon
Rating: PG (since robbery is WRONG people)
Summary: Fuji, Eiji & Oishi rob a bank.
Fuji followed Eiji’s bouncing step down the school drive at an easy pace. Behind him, Oishi also followed along, his expression a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. Fuji smiled back at him which didn’t seem to help.
Fuji had not had a particular plan in mind when he had invited his friends to come into town with him. Eiji normally thought of something entertaining and if his determined plan to rob the bank blind and spend their stolen cash on ice-cream did not come into that category, Fuji did not know what would.
Despite that fact that they'd only been back at school for a couple of weeks, a break in the familiar routine of classes was always something Oishi welcomed readily. He hadn't thought twice about accepting the invitation for a day out on the town with his friends… even if their suggested outing was more than a little illegal. Oishi didn't count on any of it being carried out to fruition. Eiji had probably marathoned one too many gangster movies over their break and gotten 'inspired' for this kind of mischief. Oishi trusted since Fuji was with them, there'd be twice as many people to talk him out of it.
Perhaps an error in judgment. Oishi tucked his hands into his pockets and caught up with the two of them, indulging in the awkward silence.
Eiji spun on his heel to walk backwards, giving his friends a grin. “Sooo~” he began brightly, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. “My brave accomplices, we’re about to set out on the ultimatest of missions!” he declared. “Now, I can totally rob a bank all on my own, but it’s more fun with friends, right~?” Plus he had only realised that morning that he couldn’t teleport into a bank vault he’d never seen before, and he didn’t think having watched Ocean’s Eleven counted.
“Just think,” he said, slipping into leader-mode because he was obviously leader of this Operation, “We can turn one of the rooms into a money bin and swim in it like that duck~!” His tail swished in anticipation and he looked at Oishi and Fuji eagerly.
Fuji caught the tail as it swung around its excited owner and gave it a tweak. “You should put your long coat on, Eiji,” he reminded his friend. “Bank robbers ought to be incognito.” OK, so maybe that wasn’t the biggest issue here but pulling tails was too much fun to miss. His eyes moved from Eiji’s excited face to the road leading down to the town. It was wonderful when Eiji was this geared up about something.
Privately, Oishi rolled his eyes in that knew-he-was-right sort of way, though he hadn't counted on Eiji's inspiration for villainy being Scrooge McDuck. He chuckled, prompted by Fuji's tug on Eiji, "Ah, that's true. It wouldn't do any good to be tracked down so soon, and before we can spend any of it."
Oishi still wasn't sure what was going to happen once they'd made it to town-- how they'd talk Eiji out of it, or trick him into thinking they'd done it, but either way it wasn't as if they were actually doing it. "What are you going to do with all that money? Besides swim in it."
Eiji made a face at the tug on his tail and flicked it away; the other two were right so he tugged on the coat as required- it would really suck to be caught before they actually put the plan into action!
He didn’t skip a beat to answer Oishi’s question, though, shoving his hand through a coat sleeve as he replied. “Buy ice-cream, of course!” he declared, having been thinking about just how much he could buy with that kind of money. “And I’ll give you guys some too!” Whether he meant ice-cream or money, he didn’t specify: they could decide which they wanted.
Fuji was largely indifferent to both ice cream and money, but Eiji’s eyes lighting up when he pictured exactly what he could be eating in short order made him laugh. “You will become a fat butterball and unable to teleport,” he warned the excitable redhead.
They waited at the bus stop, fastening coats against the cooler autumn air as they waited for the bus to rattle around the corner.
“Tell me you lot aren’t heading in for takoyaki too?” the bus driver inquired with an amused shake of his head.
“No,” Fuji assured him with a smile. “Our plans are more profitable.”
An amused huff left Oishi as they each climbed aboard and found their seats together-- a regular coconspirator meeting place. For a moment he let himself imagine how things would go if they actually did have access to that kind of money, "I think I'd like one of those aquariums that stretches from the ceiling to the floor. Do you think Niou would mind walking around that everyday?" he asked, grinning.
Eiji’s eyes widened in wonder at the idea of a huuuuge aquarium. “That would be so cool!” he exclaimed, forgetting completely that this meant he’d have to give his friends money and not just a truckload of ice-cream. “It’d be like living underwater! You should get one for all the walls of your room!” He wasn’t sure if Niou was a fish person, but Eiji was sure of the way to convince him, “You could maybe get a shark too!”
“What about you, Fujiko?” he continued, turning to the brown haired boy, “Don’t tell me you’ll spend it all on cactuses - I mean cacti!” It was Fuji, after all.
Fuji briefly indulged in the image of filling his room with Mexican saguaro cacti with spines so long that his roommate became trapped in one corner, unable to move. Then he remembered Yukimura’s loaded comment regarding Yuuta’s arrival. The image shifted to show the blue haired boy impaled on said spines.
“I’d get a new lens for my camera,” he said mildly. “One for close-ups to take pictures of cacti.” Which could then be photoshopped for all the above viewing pleasure.
The bus bumped to a halt by the main pedestrian route through the town centre. Fuji stepped down onto the pavement and scanned the high street shop fronts.
The way Fuji happily drifted into silent thought on the subject, Oishi had been expecting an answer that was a lot more exciting. Though, as it was with the promise of more money than they could ever spend, their wants were all fairly mundane. Following the two of them off the bus and into the boundaries of town, he took a brief look around at how it had changed since the last trip he'd made out here. He registered with some amusement that he'd better take a good look at the outside before he was locked up with the two of them.
"Do you suppose there's a list of mutant villains we'll have to register with now?" Oishi mused aloud.
“There might be,” Eiji replied thoughtfully. “But before that,” he added, raising a finger into the air in anticipation of a point to be made, “We’re gonna hafta come up with super-villan names! Like Bizarro Man... or something.” He wondered for a moment what his name would be. It would, of course, have to be pretty awesome, like... “Cannonball!” he concluded. Because cannonballs were awesome.
Fuji had to admit that ‘cannonball’ summed up his energetic friend, even if there were more flattering analogies to be made than to a lump of iron. “I will take ‘mirage’,” he said, flicking his fingers so that all three of them briefly appeared to be inside a high security prison cell, complete with the screams of tortured souls wafting down the corridor.
He turned to Oishi, his eyes quickly scanning the other teen’s appearance. “You need a good name, Oishi. We’re all relying on you.” His hand came up and lightly touched the hair fangs that curved downwards over Oishi’s forehead. “How about ‘Eggtimer’?”
Though brief, Fuji's illusions were convincing enough that the agonized noises unsettled Oishi enough to prompt a shiver. Now that they were on the subject, he hummed and attempted to think of a suitable nickname for himself, one that properly conveyed just how dangerous and formidable an opponent he could--
And 'Eggtimer' was certainly not it. Oishi frowned (bordering on a pout), and angled out of the touch on his hair, "T-that's really not very…" He puffed up his chest, "It has to be something more impressive, like… I don't know, Time Lord," he insisted, setting his hands on his hips.
“All right!” Eiji cheered, completely unaffected by Fuji’s brief illusion and getting more excited by the minute. Those seemed like pretty good names to be sidekicks to the amazing Cannonball that was himself. “But Oishi, you’d better be able to keep up with a name like that or you’ll be back to being Eggtimer again!” he teased, poking Oishi’s cheeks with his fingers with a grin. “We’re the Terrible Trio!” he added. “Beware of us, Banks of the World!”
“Eiji,” Fuji warned with a smile. “Incognito, remember?” He touched his own finger to his loud mouth friend’s lips. Then he walked purposefully in the direction of the bank.
Oishi squirmed fussily out of the fingers that laid into his cheeks and swatted his hand in front of his face, wondering what it was about him that made him so liable to having his personal space invaded. 'Terrible Trio' wasn't a half-bad nickname though, he had to admit.
As time went on and they actually drew closer to the building, his knowing glances over toward Fuji were more frequent, as if he silently expected an answer to how they were going to play this off. When they were finally inside the bank building itself, he looked decidedly more wary. "So is this the part where we get a giant bag?"
Eiji grinned, reaching into the voluminous pockets of his trench coat to pull out a handful of collapsable grocery bags. “Way ahead of you, Oishi~” he chirped. “I couldn’t find just one bag though,” he frowned briefly, “But I figure I could make a bunch of trips if I can’t get everything in one go! That is, after I get to see the vault so I can get in,” he added in a stage whisper.
Fuji looked around. Along the far wall were the counters for the tellers, five in all. They would have some cash in the drawers below their workstations, but more serious quantities would be kept elsewhere. His eyes flicked further back to glass fronted doors that led to another room inaccessible to the public. He could just make out the front of several heavy looking safes. Getting into one of those was likely to be much more profitable.
Since their location could be seen, Eiji would have no trouble in appearing right by the safes. The secret was to unlock one.
Fuji smiled as he mentally rephrased that last statement: the secret was to make one appear locked.
Fuji was an individual happy to go with the flow. When they had left the school that day, he had not necessarily planned on robbing a bank. Eiji’s contagious excitement had made Fuji happy to wait and see what unfolded. However now he was here …. it seemed almost rude not to.
“Eiji,” he said to his friend who was still gathering up the shopping bags he had extracted from his coat. “Do you see those safes?” He slid his foot gently over the tip of Eiji’s tail that had poked out from the bottom of the coat to twitch in excitement. “They’re locked right now. Don’t move until my signal.” And with that, Fuji strolled purposefully towards the counter.
Oishi's face had begun to fall right as Eiji started conjuring bags up from his pockets as they were standing in the bank lobby. As he'd imagined it, this was about the point where he and Fuji would laugh this off, or break the news to Eiji that they'd been humoring this delusion that they were becoming a group of super villain mutants, but as time went on that seemed less and less likely to happen. He held the bag that he'd been handed against his chest, clutched it nervously, and then suddenly felt keenly aware of how suspicious they must have looked.
"Uh, but we're--" He tried to interject in a mumble, though his pair of accomplices were each too busy sizing up the joint to notice. Then of course there was always the risk of speaking up too loudly, of calling attention to themselves and making this all worse. Could they even be caught and arrested before doing anything…? He caught the eye of a nearby customer and was convinced of how guilty they looked, clustered together like this. Oishi's mind reeled. He caught the tail-end (no pun intended) of Fuji's whisper to Eiji and watched as he strode away, chewing his lip. If this was a joke, it was fairly elaborate. "Wait, are we…?"
Eiji couldn’t keep the grin from his face as he stuffed the bags back into his pockets. He had full faith in Fuji’s ability to formulate a plan that would have those bags filled with gold coins - or maybe just Yen notes - in no time. He looked at Oishi, who was beginning to look a little bit off-colour. “Don’t worry, Oishi!” he assured his friend, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as they waited for Fuji’s signal. “Remember, loooaaads of ice cream!”
The small branch was busy that afternoon. Fuji stood in line behind a serious business type carrying a large leather suitcase. It looked like an item that would feel exceptionally good filled with large quantities of yen. If its owner felt the same, then all Fuji would need was a good line of sight.
Two tellers became available, allowing both the man with the briefcase and Fuji to approach the counter. Keeping half an eye on the other customer, Fuji smiled at the teller.
"How can I help you?" the woman asked.
"I'm looking to open a savings account," Fuji replied. Beside him, the briefcase customer withdrew a heavy file of papers.
"This is the leaflet on our basic accounts," the teller sounded bored. "Details for our student account can be found online." She clearly expected the interview to be over in short order. Next to her, her colleague reached forward to take the paperwork from her own customer and began checking it with painstaking precision.
"I'm not a student," Fuji said smoothly. "I'm a financial employee of the Atobe family. Perhaps you have heard of them?" It was a fairly safe bet if you owned a television.
The woman opened her mouth in surprise, then looked doubtful. "The millionaires who live…"
"Yes," Fuji continued with easy confidence. "Their son attends school in this area and they would like to deposit funds in a close vicinity."
The teller with the briefcase customer buzzed for her manager. An older woman joined them and signed a sheet of paper, nodding her approval.
"I see," Fuji's teller was looking decidedly unconvinced. "Do you have any proof Mr----."
"Mizuki." Fuji picked up the leaflet on savings accounts that he'd been passed moments before. "I think this will clarify the situation." His hand drifted over the leaflet's surface.
The teller picked the leaflet up and stared at it for a long moment. "I must apologise, Mizuki-san," she said at last. "I did not expect an honoured representative from such an estimable gentleman."
Dimly, Fuji began to find many things about Atobe understandable. His eyes however, were not on the teller but on her companion who had finally left her seat to walk into the back room. She moved to the safes and began to unlock one of the largest.
"What is the current status of the funds to be transferred?" the teller asked Fuji.
"… Frozen," Fuji replied vaguely.
The safe door swung open and the teller began to count notes onto a tray.
"Frozen?" Fuji's teller appeared confused. "But you'd like them transferred."
"Yes." Fuji's voice was still distant. "Apparently, the icicle has thawed."
Counting complete, the teller began to close the safe door. Fuji's wrist twisted sharply. The teller paused, looked at the ajar door, nodded and walked away. Turning slightly, Fuji glanced back at Eiji.
Meanwhile Oishi was doing everything he could to stay upright, his anxious eyes focused on the bouncy redhead next to him-- poised and ready to disappear into the bank vault at a moment's notice. "Ice cream, right…"
Since when did he commit crimes? … Come to think of it, since when did his friends commit crimes? There were clearly more things about these people he'd spent the last two and a half years of his life with than he was aware of. Amidst the learned realities of his life completely flipping upside down, Oishi was vaguely aware of Fuji's signal, and what that meant.
Eiji grinned, meeting Fuji’s eye when the brunette turned around briefly: he had what he needed. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what he’d just seen- the inside of the bank vault with all its dimensions. He could get in there now! “Ready, Oishi?” he whispered. “You gotta shield me when I make my move!” Grabbing the other boy by the shoulders, he steered him to a corner and, quickly glancing around to see that no one noticed (and it was a bank full of bored people so no would would), he poofed out of existence, leaving nothing but vacuum and a faint smell of brimstone behind.
“Frozen?” the teller was inquiring of Fuji. “Are there problems with the funds?” Behind him, Fuji saw Eiji materialise right next to the open bank safe.
“It’s money from a will,” he told the teller, making sure he had her entire attention. “I am not in charge of the details, but I think it is not uncommon for there to be a delay.”
“Ah, yes,” the woman nodded her understanding, then hesitated. “I follow the news of the Atobe family, you know....” She coloured slightly. “In fact I’m rather a fan.”
Fuji was watching Eiji. His friend had opened the safe wider and was examining its contents. He removed a roll of newly minted 1 yen pieces, examining how they glittered. It was probably worth a single can of coke.
“... I hadn’t heard anyone from the family had died.”
“What?” Fuji turned back to the teller. “Oh. The son is very sick.”
Eiji finally put the yen coins down and lifted up a stack of notes. Fuji gave an inward sigh of relief.
“The son? But isn’t the money to be deposited for him?” the teller was looking doubtful again. It was time to move but still Eiji was not ready.
Oishi hadn't even been aware enough to object when Eiji tugged him into a corner to shield his sudden disappearance, blinking into a small tuft of smoke where his redheaded friend once stood. He spun immediately around once the reality of the situation caught up to him-- they were actually robbing a bank today. Later, he'd remember this moment as being the sudden realization of things he should have put together a lot sooner, for now he stammered quietly as he caught Eiji materializing within the safe nearby.
A hand dragged along his face, covering how wide his eyes had gone before he'd averted them. He couldn't just stare at Eiji in disbelief right now, someone would notice! They would get caught! Oishi traced what were quickly becoming fascinating shapes of the patterns on the carpet beneath his feet. He should… he had to stop this before it got out of control. He listened as the teller on the opposite side of the room continued a set of vaguely-confused questions, and Fuji offered up an answer for each one (though they were growing increasingly improbable…) He wouldn't be able to reach Eiji from here, his only choice was to convince Fuji to stop all this.
With fists at his side, Oishi anxiously hurried himself forward, very unfortunately not noticing the line of stanchions that separated the lines. A belt loop on his pants caught the corner of one, yanking it forward just enough that the rest of them toppled and dominoed, trapping the other customers in a cluster of plastic and nylon. Oishi tripped, then hurried to his feet to apologize as a group of tellers stepped out from behind the counter to help right the mess he'd made. Momentarily, he'd bumbled his way into providing an efficient distraction. “Sorry, sorry...”
Eiji stuffed the wads of cash into his grocery bags as fast as his hands (and the occasional tail) could move, feeling further and further accomplished with each passing moment. He could hear something noises from behind him and figured his friends were working hard planning their getaway. They were so awesome!
He paused when he caught sight of something more colourful than just money: a bigger sheet with a load of writing on it that looked somewhat like a school certificate. “I promise to pay the bearer the sum of Fifty Thousand Yen,” it said, under a curvy-curly heading for the ‘Bank of Japan’. “That is so cool,” he whispered, and he picked up a few more of those.
As Fuji struggled for words, the bank collapsed behind him. Following his teller’s aghast stare, he saw that Oishi had decided to capture all the other customers in a giant spider net of cords and ransom them over to the staff. He gave a brief nod of approval and then turned back to the shocked woman in front of him, who seemed to feel obliged to keep serving her customer.
Either that, or she was too disturbed to move.
Through the glass, he saw Eiji’s task was nearly complete. It was time to leave. “It will be in memoriam,” he told his stunned teller. “Please excuse me, I must help my friend.”
Turning, he caught Oishi’s elbow and steered him from the bank, leaving the rest of the staff trying to put everything to rights.
Like a finger trap, the more Oishi struggled to unhook the nylon ropes between the bars, the tighter and better tangled they became. One customer tripped over another, then she pulled the next one down with her… The tellers butted past Oishi's efforts to untie them when it became apparent he was just making things worse. Before he knew it, Fuji had hooked his arm and hastily began their retreat (getaway…?) and soon they were both outside, waiting for the third member of their criminal operation to pop out.
Oishi's eyes darted between Fuji and the doorway to the building, his mouth hanging open as if he meant to say something a long while before he actually did, "W-w-we're robbing a bank! Why are we robbing a bank?!" His panic was framed in a harsh whisper, made worse by the fact that Eiji was still inside and had the very real possibility of being caught… though with Eiji, that was likely to only be momentary anyway. The next time he looked up, Eiji was conspicuously missing from his place in the vault, and Oishi caught sight of a familiar-looking coat settling behind a nearby building. Wait, had they actually just succeeded at this…?
The moment his friends joined him in his handy-dandy getaway-alleyway, Eiji did a little victory jig, literally hopping in excitement as he grabbed them both in a hug. “We did it! We totally did it!” he cheered, flashing victory signs all around. “How awesome are we?” He danced around the grocery bags of money piled on the ground, adrenaline still rushing from the thrill of the experience. “‘n it was so much fun, right?”
Fuji chuckled as Eiji grabbed him and Oishi and attempted to crush them together. Leaning around Eiji’s subsequent devil cauldron dance, he reached his hand into the first grocery bag. It came back with a stack of 10,000 yen notes and bank cheques. Eying the quantity and the bags, Fuji estimated they probably had an excess of 20,000,000 yen, the possibility of higher denomination notes than what he was seeing balanced by the chance Eiji added several rolls of one yen coins. It had really been ridiculously easy. He turned to Oishi, “We robbed the bank, Oishi,” he corrected his friend’s tense. “Next time, we should try a bigger challenge.”
The reality of more money than Oishi had collectively seen in his life being shuffled and counted out of those stuffed bags was jarring enough to bring him out of his started stupor. He ran a hand over his hair, staring at it as the pair of them celebrated their perceived victory. There was so much he could have said-- a lecture a mile long he could have battered out mercilessly, but he chose the simplest route.
He was going to put the money back.
Oishi sighed, and time around him slowed to a complete stop. The sound of cars and pedestrians on their walks came to a silent standstill, as did the sound of Fuji and Eiji's post-crime celebrations. Very purposefully, Oishi took the money out of their hands, stuffed it back into the bags, and hurried back into the bank to return it. By the time Fuji and Eiji came to Oishi had largely worked the fresh panic out of his system, and was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning. "I put it back."
Eiji blinked in mid ‘bui’. “Ehhh?!” He looked around frantically and realised that the money was, in fact, gone. Even the notes he was waving around in celebration. How did... Of course, Oishi had stopped time and gone and put it back. Which meant they could’ve just done that in the first place to steal it but that’d’ve been less fun and Eiji was glad they hadn’t thought of that. “But Oishi!” he whined, face falling into what was possibly the most potent pout he could manifest. “We’d just gotten it! What about the ice-cream ‘n the cactus pictures and the aquarium?”
Fuji was mildly impressed. He had not even realised Oishi was going to act until he was in the street, sans huge illegal sums of money. Still, it did not matter much. The activity had been the interesting part. “Our Time Lord is a buzzkill, Eiji,” he said. “But we can always return and do it again.” He slipped a hand into his coat to find that Oishi had at least left him with his own wallet. “How about we get an ice cream on the way back?” He looked over at Oishi who was plainly sulking. “Did you leave a note expressing your regret at our actions?”
Oishi hesitated in answering that as he wondered if he was that predictable, "… I wrote a note apologizing for the inconvenience," he admitted in a mutter. Surely they would have noticed all that money missing, or rather, gathered up in bags on their countertop rather than safely stored away in their safe. Somehow, in the commotion of returning it, it struck Oishi as necessary to write a short note of apology and an assurance the money was all still there. "A-and it's not being a buzzkill, we could have gotten in real trouble for this!" He noted the discernible lack of worry on both of their faces and sighed.
Eiji continued to pout (somewhat surprised that it was not having the desired effect of Oishi feeling sorry for him and getting at least some of the money back). While the promise of ice cream was always a cheer-upper for him, it couldn’t come close to undoing the feeling of bummed-ness. “Not if we weren’t caught,” he muttered through puffed cheeks.
Fuji bent and tweaked the tail that was not hanging morosely downwards and trailing on the floor. “You still did it,” he pointed out. “We can come back next week.” And with a cheerful smile at Oishi, he led the way towards the bus stop.
Location: In town
Time: October 5, Friday afternoon
Rating: PG (since robbery is WRONG people)
Summary: Fuji, Eiji & Oishi rob a bank.
Fuji followed Eiji’s bouncing step down the school drive at an easy pace. Behind him, Oishi also followed along, his expression a mixture of pleasure and anxiety. Fuji smiled back at him which didn’t seem to help.
Fuji had not had a particular plan in mind when he had invited his friends to come into town with him. Eiji normally thought of something entertaining and if his determined plan to rob the bank blind and spend their stolen cash on ice-cream did not come into that category, Fuji did not know what would.
Despite that fact that they'd only been back at school for a couple of weeks, a break in the familiar routine of classes was always something Oishi welcomed readily. He hadn't thought twice about accepting the invitation for a day out on the town with his friends… even if their suggested outing was more than a little illegal. Oishi didn't count on any of it being carried out to fruition. Eiji had probably marathoned one too many gangster movies over their break and gotten 'inspired' for this kind of mischief. Oishi trusted since Fuji was with them, there'd be twice as many people to talk him out of it.
Perhaps an error in judgment. Oishi tucked his hands into his pockets and caught up with the two of them, indulging in the awkward silence.
Eiji spun on his heel to walk backwards, giving his friends a grin. “Sooo~” he began brightly, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. “My brave accomplices, we’re about to set out on the ultimatest of missions!” he declared. “Now, I can totally rob a bank all on my own, but it’s more fun with friends, right~?” Plus he had only realised that morning that he couldn’t teleport into a bank vault he’d never seen before, and he didn’t think having watched Ocean’s Eleven counted.
“Just think,” he said, slipping into leader-mode because he was obviously leader of this Operation, “We can turn one of the rooms into a money bin and swim in it like that duck~!” His tail swished in anticipation and he looked at Oishi and Fuji eagerly.
Fuji caught the tail as it swung around its excited owner and gave it a tweak. “You should put your long coat on, Eiji,” he reminded his friend. “Bank robbers ought to be incognito.” OK, so maybe that wasn’t the biggest issue here but pulling tails was too much fun to miss. His eyes moved from Eiji’s excited face to the road leading down to the town. It was wonderful when Eiji was this geared up about something.
Privately, Oishi rolled his eyes in that knew-he-was-right sort of way, though he hadn't counted on Eiji's inspiration for villainy being Scrooge McDuck. He chuckled, prompted by Fuji's tug on Eiji, "Ah, that's true. It wouldn't do any good to be tracked down so soon, and before we can spend any of it."
Oishi still wasn't sure what was going to happen once they'd made it to town-- how they'd talk Eiji out of it, or trick him into thinking they'd done it, but either way it wasn't as if they were actually doing it. "What are you going to do with all that money? Besides swim in it."
Eiji made a face at the tug on his tail and flicked it away; the other two were right so he tugged on the coat as required- it would really suck to be caught before they actually put the plan into action!
He didn’t skip a beat to answer Oishi’s question, though, shoving his hand through a coat sleeve as he replied. “Buy ice-cream, of course!” he declared, having been thinking about just how much he could buy with that kind of money. “And I’ll give you guys some too!” Whether he meant ice-cream or money, he didn’t specify: they could decide which they wanted.
Fuji was largely indifferent to both ice cream and money, but Eiji’s eyes lighting up when he pictured exactly what he could be eating in short order made him laugh. “You will become a fat butterball and unable to teleport,” he warned the excitable redhead.
They waited at the bus stop, fastening coats against the cooler autumn air as they waited for the bus to rattle around the corner.
“Tell me you lot aren’t heading in for takoyaki too?” the bus driver inquired with an amused shake of his head.
“No,” Fuji assured him with a smile. “Our plans are more profitable.”
An amused huff left Oishi as they each climbed aboard and found their seats together-- a regular coconspirator meeting place. For a moment he let himself imagine how things would go if they actually did have access to that kind of money, "I think I'd like one of those aquariums that stretches from the ceiling to the floor. Do you think Niou would mind walking around that everyday?" he asked, grinning.
Eiji’s eyes widened in wonder at the idea of a huuuuge aquarium. “That would be so cool!” he exclaimed, forgetting completely that this meant he’d have to give his friends money and not just a truckload of ice-cream. “It’d be like living underwater! You should get one for all the walls of your room!” He wasn’t sure if Niou was a fish person, but Eiji was sure of the way to convince him, “You could maybe get a shark too!”
“What about you, Fujiko?” he continued, turning to the brown haired boy, “Don’t tell me you’ll spend it all on cactuses - I mean cacti!” It was Fuji, after all.
Fuji briefly indulged in the image of filling his room with Mexican saguaro cacti with spines so long that his roommate became trapped in one corner, unable to move. Then he remembered Yukimura’s loaded comment regarding Yuuta’s arrival. The image shifted to show the blue haired boy impaled on said spines.
“I’d get a new lens for my camera,” he said mildly. “One for close-ups to take pictures of cacti.” Which could then be photoshopped for all the above viewing pleasure.
The bus bumped to a halt by the main pedestrian route through the town centre. Fuji stepped down onto the pavement and scanned the high street shop fronts.
The way Fuji happily drifted into silent thought on the subject, Oishi had been expecting an answer that was a lot more exciting. Though, as it was with the promise of more money than they could ever spend, their wants were all fairly mundane. Following the two of them off the bus and into the boundaries of town, he took a brief look around at how it had changed since the last trip he'd made out here. He registered with some amusement that he'd better take a good look at the outside before he was locked up with the two of them.
"Do you suppose there's a list of mutant villains we'll have to register with now?" Oishi mused aloud.
“There might be,” Eiji replied thoughtfully. “But before that,” he added, raising a finger into the air in anticipation of a point to be made, “We’re gonna hafta come up with super-villan names! Like Bizarro Man... or something.” He wondered for a moment what his name would be. It would, of course, have to be pretty awesome, like... “Cannonball!” he concluded. Because cannonballs were awesome.
Fuji had to admit that ‘cannonball’ summed up his energetic friend, even if there were more flattering analogies to be made than to a lump of iron. “I will take ‘mirage’,” he said, flicking his fingers so that all three of them briefly appeared to be inside a high security prison cell, complete with the screams of tortured souls wafting down the corridor.
He turned to Oishi, his eyes quickly scanning the other teen’s appearance. “You need a good name, Oishi. We’re all relying on you.” His hand came up and lightly touched the hair fangs that curved downwards over Oishi’s forehead. “How about ‘Eggtimer’?”
Though brief, Fuji's illusions were convincing enough that the agonized noises unsettled Oishi enough to prompt a shiver. Now that they were on the subject, he hummed and attempted to think of a suitable nickname for himself, one that properly conveyed just how dangerous and formidable an opponent he could--
And 'Eggtimer' was certainly not it. Oishi frowned (bordering on a pout), and angled out of the touch on his hair, "T-that's really not very…" He puffed up his chest, "It has to be something more impressive, like… I don't know, Time Lord," he insisted, setting his hands on his hips.
“All right!” Eiji cheered, completely unaffected by Fuji’s brief illusion and getting more excited by the minute. Those seemed like pretty good names to be sidekicks to the amazing Cannonball that was himself. “But Oishi, you’d better be able to keep up with a name like that or you’ll be back to being Eggtimer again!” he teased, poking Oishi’s cheeks with his fingers with a grin. “We’re the Terrible Trio!” he added. “Beware of us, Banks of the World!”
“Eiji,” Fuji warned with a smile. “Incognito, remember?” He touched his own finger to his loud mouth friend’s lips. Then he walked purposefully in the direction of the bank.
Oishi squirmed fussily out of the fingers that laid into his cheeks and swatted his hand in front of his face, wondering what it was about him that made him so liable to having his personal space invaded. 'Terrible Trio' wasn't a half-bad nickname though, he had to admit.
As time went on and they actually drew closer to the building, his knowing glances over toward Fuji were more frequent, as if he silently expected an answer to how they were going to play this off. When they were finally inside the bank building itself, he looked decidedly more wary. "So is this the part where we get a giant bag?"
Eiji grinned, reaching into the voluminous pockets of his trench coat to pull out a handful of collapsable grocery bags. “Way ahead of you, Oishi~” he chirped. “I couldn’t find just one bag though,” he frowned briefly, “But I figure I could make a bunch of trips if I can’t get everything in one go! That is, after I get to see the vault so I can get in,” he added in a stage whisper.
Fuji looked around. Along the far wall were the counters for the tellers, five in all. They would have some cash in the drawers below their workstations, but more serious quantities would be kept elsewhere. His eyes flicked further back to glass fronted doors that led to another room inaccessible to the public. He could just make out the front of several heavy looking safes. Getting into one of those was likely to be much more profitable.
Since their location could be seen, Eiji would have no trouble in appearing right by the safes. The secret was to unlock one.
Fuji smiled as he mentally rephrased that last statement: the secret was to make one appear locked.
Fuji was an individual happy to go with the flow. When they had left the school that day, he had not necessarily planned on robbing a bank. Eiji’s contagious excitement had made Fuji happy to wait and see what unfolded. However now he was here …. it seemed almost rude not to.
“Eiji,” he said to his friend who was still gathering up the shopping bags he had extracted from his coat. “Do you see those safes?” He slid his foot gently over the tip of Eiji’s tail that had poked out from the bottom of the coat to twitch in excitement. “They’re locked right now. Don’t move until my signal.” And with that, Fuji strolled purposefully towards the counter.
Oishi's face had begun to fall right as Eiji started conjuring bags up from his pockets as they were standing in the bank lobby. As he'd imagined it, this was about the point where he and Fuji would laugh this off, or break the news to Eiji that they'd been humoring this delusion that they were becoming a group of super villain mutants, but as time went on that seemed less and less likely to happen. He held the bag that he'd been handed against his chest, clutched it nervously, and then suddenly felt keenly aware of how suspicious they must have looked.
"Uh, but we're--" He tried to interject in a mumble, though his pair of accomplices were each too busy sizing up the joint to notice. Then of course there was always the risk of speaking up too loudly, of calling attention to themselves and making this all worse. Could they even be caught and arrested before doing anything…? He caught the eye of a nearby customer and was convinced of how guilty they looked, clustered together like this. Oishi's mind reeled. He caught the tail-end (no pun intended) of Fuji's whisper to Eiji and watched as he strode away, chewing his lip. If this was a joke, it was fairly elaborate. "Wait, are we…?"
Eiji couldn’t keep the grin from his face as he stuffed the bags back into his pockets. He had full faith in Fuji’s ability to formulate a plan that would have those bags filled with gold coins - or maybe just Yen notes - in no time. He looked at Oishi, who was beginning to look a little bit off-colour. “Don’t worry, Oishi!” he assured his friend, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as they waited for Fuji’s signal. “Remember, loooaaads of ice cream!”
The small branch was busy that afternoon. Fuji stood in line behind a serious business type carrying a large leather suitcase. It looked like an item that would feel exceptionally good filled with large quantities of yen. If its owner felt the same, then all Fuji would need was a good line of sight.
Two tellers became available, allowing both the man with the briefcase and Fuji to approach the counter. Keeping half an eye on the other customer, Fuji smiled at the teller.
"How can I help you?" the woman asked.
"I'm looking to open a savings account," Fuji replied. Beside him, the briefcase customer withdrew a heavy file of papers.
"This is the leaflet on our basic accounts," the teller sounded bored. "Details for our student account can be found online." She clearly expected the interview to be over in short order. Next to her, her colleague reached forward to take the paperwork from her own customer and began checking it with painstaking precision.
"I'm not a student," Fuji said smoothly. "I'm a financial employee of the Atobe family. Perhaps you have heard of them?" It was a fairly safe bet if you owned a television.
The woman opened her mouth in surprise, then looked doubtful. "The millionaires who live…"
"Yes," Fuji continued with easy confidence. "Their son attends school in this area and they would like to deposit funds in a close vicinity."
The teller with the briefcase customer buzzed for her manager. An older woman joined them and signed a sheet of paper, nodding her approval.
"I see," Fuji's teller was looking decidedly unconvinced. "Do you have any proof Mr----."
"Mizuki." Fuji picked up the leaflet on savings accounts that he'd been passed moments before. "I think this will clarify the situation." His hand drifted over the leaflet's surface.
The teller picked the leaflet up and stared at it for a long moment. "I must apologise, Mizuki-san," she said at last. "I did not expect an honoured representative from such an estimable gentleman."
Dimly, Fuji began to find many things about Atobe understandable. His eyes however, were not on the teller but on her companion who had finally left her seat to walk into the back room. She moved to the safes and began to unlock one of the largest.
"What is the current status of the funds to be transferred?" the teller asked Fuji.
"… Frozen," Fuji replied vaguely.
The safe door swung open and the teller began to count notes onto a tray.
"Frozen?" Fuji's teller appeared confused. "But you'd like them transferred."
"Yes." Fuji's voice was still distant. "Apparently, the icicle has thawed."
Counting complete, the teller began to close the safe door. Fuji's wrist twisted sharply. The teller paused, looked at the ajar door, nodded and walked away. Turning slightly, Fuji glanced back at Eiji.
Meanwhile Oishi was doing everything he could to stay upright, his anxious eyes focused on the bouncy redhead next to him-- poised and ready to disappear into the bank vault at a moment's notice. "Ice cream, right…"
Since when did he commit crimes? … Come to think of it, since when did his friends commit crimes? There were clearly more things about these people he'd spent the last two and a half years of his life with than he was aware of. Amidst the learned realities of his life completely flipping upside down, Oishi was vaguely aware of Fuji's signal, and what that meant.
Eiji grinned, meeting Fuji’s eye when the brunette turned around briefly: he had what he needed. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on what he’d just seen- the inside of the bank vault with all its dimensions. He could get in there now! “Ready, Oishi?” he whispered. “You gotta shield me when I make my move!” Grabbing the other boy by the shoulders, he steered him to a corner and, quickly glancing around to see that no one noticed (and it was a bank full of bored people so no would would), he poofed out of existence, leaving nothing but vacuum and a faint smell of brimstone behind.
“Frozen?” the teller was inquiring of Fuji. “Are there problems with the funds?” Behind him, Fuji saw Eiji materialise right next to the open bank safe.
“It’s money from a will,” he told the teller, making sure he had her entire attention. “I am not in charge of the details, but I think it is not uncommon for there to be a delay.”
“Ah, yes,” the woman nodded her understanding, then hesitated. “I follow the news of the Atobe family, you know....” She coloured slightly. “In fact I’m rather a fan.”
Fuji was watching Eiji. His friend had opened the safe wider and was examining its contents. He removed a roll of newly minted 1 yen pieces, examining how they glittered. It was probably worth a single can of coke.
“... I hadn’t heard anyone from the family had died.”
“What?” Fuji turned back to the teller. “Oh. The son is very sick.”
Eiji finally put the yen coins down and lifted up a stack of notes. Fuji gave an inward sigh of relief.
“The son? But isn’t the money to be deposited for him?” the teller was looking doubtful again. It was time to move but still Eiji was not ready.
Oishi hadn't even been aware enough to object when Eiji tugged him into a corner to shield his sudden disappearance, blinking into a small tuft of smoke where his redheaded friend once stood. He spun immediately around once the reality of the situation caught up to him-- they were actually robbing a bank today. Later, he'd remember this moment as being the sudden realization of things he should have put together a lot sooner, for now he stammered quietly as he caught Eiji materializing within the safe nearby.
A hand dragged along his face, covering how wide his eyes had gone before he'd averted them. He couldn't just stare at Eiji in disbelief right now, someone would notice! They would get caught! Oishi traced what were quickly becoming fascinating shapes of the patterns on the carpet beneath his feet. He should… he had to stop this before it got out of control. He listened as the teller on the opposite side of the room continued a set of vaguely-confused questions, and Fuji offered up an answer for each one (though they were growing increasingly improbable…) He wouldn't be able to reach Eiji from here, his only choice was to convince Fuji to stop all this.
With fists at his side, Oishi anxiously hurried himself forward, very unfortunately not noticing the line of stanchions that separated the lines. A belt loop on his pants caught the corner of one, yanking it forward just enough that the rest of them toppled and dominoed, trapping the other customers in a cluster of plastic and nylon. Oishi tripped, then hurried to his feet to apologize as a group of tellers stepped out from behind the counter to help right the mess he'd made. Momentarily, he'd bumbled his way into providing an efficient distraction. “Sorry, sorry...”
Eiji stuffed the wads of cash into his grocery bags as fast as his hands (and the occasional tail) could move, feeling further and further accomplished with each passing moment. He could hear something noises from behind him and figured his friends were working hard planning their getaway. They were so awesome!
He paused when he caught sight of something more colourful than just money: a bigger sheet with a load of writing on it that looked somewhat like a school certificate. “I promise to pay the bearer the sum of Fifty Thousand Yen,” it said, under a curvy-curly heading for the ‘Bank of Japan’. “That is so cool,” he whispered, and he picked up a few more of those.
As Fuji struggled for words, the bank collapsed behind him. Following his teller’s aghast stare, he saw that Oishi had decided to capture all the other customers in a giant spider net of cords and ransom them over to the staff. He gave a brief nod of approval and then turned back to the shocked woman in front of him, who seemed to feel obliged to keep serving her customer.
Either that, or she was too disturbed to move.
Through the glass, he saw Eiji’s task was nearly complete. It was time to leave. “It will be in memoriam,” he told his stunned teller. “Please excuse me, I must help my friend.”
Turning, he caught Oishi’s elbow and steered him from the bank, leaving the rest of the staff trying to put everything to rights.
Like a finger trap, the more Oishi struggled to unhook the nylon ropes between the bars, the tighter and better tangled they became. One customer tripped over another, then she pulled the next one down with her… The tellers butted past Oishi's efforts to untie them when it became apparent he was just making things worse. Before he knew it, Fuji had hooked his arm and hastily began their retreat (getaway…?) and soon they were both outside, waiting for the third member of their criminal operation to pop out.
Oishi's eyes darted between Fuji and the doorway to the building, his mouth hanging open as if he meant to say something a long while before he actually did, "W-w-we're robbing a bank! Why are we robbing a bank?!" His panic was framed in a harsh whisper, made worse by the fact that Eiji was still inside and had the very real possibility of being caught… though with Eiji, that was likely to only be momentary anyway. The next time he looked up, Eiji was conspicuously missing from his place in the vault, and Oishi caught sight of a familiar-looking coat settling behind a nearby building. Wait, had they actually just succeeded at this…?
The moment his friends joined him in his handy-dandy getaway-alleyway, Eiji did a little victory jig, literally hopping in excitement as he grabbed them both in a hug. “We did it! We totally did it!” he cheered, flashing victory signs all around. “How awesome are we?” He danced around the grocery bags of money piled on the ground, adrenaline still rushing from the thrill of the experience. “‘n it was so much fun, right?”
Fuji chuckled as Eiji grabbed him and Oishi and attempted to crush them together. Leaning around Eiji’s subsequent devil cauldron dance, he reached his hand into the first grocery bag. It came back with a stack of 10,000 yen notes and bank cheques. Eying the quantity and the bags, Fuji estimated they probably had an excess of 20,000,000 yen, the possibility of higher denomination notes than what he was seeing balanced by the chance Eiji added several rolls of one yen coins. It had really been ridiculously easy. He turned to Oishi, “We robbed the bank, Oishi,” he corrected his friend’s tense. “Next time, we should try a bigger challenge.”
The reality of more money than Oishi had collectively seen in his life being shuffled and counted out of those stuffed bags was jarring enough to bring him out of his started stupor. He ran a hand over his hair, staring at it as the pair of them celebrated their perceived victory. There was so much he could have said-- a lecture a mile long he could have battered out mercilessly, but he chose the simplest route.
He was going to put the money back.
Oishi sighed, and time around him slowed to a complete stop. The sound of cars and pedestrians on their walks came to a silent standstill, as did the sound of Fuji and Eiji's post-crime celebrations. Very purposefully, Oishi took the money out of their hands, stuffed it back into the bags, and hurried back into the bank to return it. By the time Fuji and Eiji came to Oishi had largely worked the fresh panic out of his system, and was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, frowning. "I put it back."
Eiji blinked in mid ‘bui’. “Ehhh?!” He looked around frantically and realised that the money was, in fact, gone. Even the notes he was waving around in celebration. How did... Of course, Oishi had stopped time and gone and put it back. Which meant they could’ve just done that in the first place to steal it but that’d’ve been less fun and Eiji was glad they hadn’t thought of that. “But Oishi!” he whined, face falling into what was possibly the most potent pout he could manifest. “We’d just gotten it! What about the ice-cream ‘n the cactus pictures and the aquarium?”
Fuji was mildly impressed. He had not even realised Oishi was going to act until he was in the street, sans huge illegal sums of money. Still, it did not matter much. The activity had been the interesting part. “Our Time Lord is a buzzkill, Eiji,” he said. “But we can always return and do it again.” He slipped a hand into his coat to find that Oishi had at least left him with his own wallet. “How about we get an ice cream on the way back?” He looked over at Oishi who was plainly sulking. “Did you leave a note expressing your regret at our actions?”
Oishi hesitated in answering that as he wondered if he was that predictable, "… I wrote a note apologizing for the inconvenience," he admitted in a mutter. Surely they would have noticed all that money missing, or rather, gathered up in bags on their countertop rather than safely stored away in their safe. Somehow, in the commotion of returning it, it struck Oishi as necessary to write a short note of apology and an assurance the money was all still there. "A-and it's not being a buzzkill, we could have gotten in real trouble for this!" He noted the discernible lack of worry on both of their faces and sighed.
Eiji continued to pout (somewhat surprised that it was not having the desired effect of Oishi feeling sorry for him and getting at least some of the money back). While the promise of ice cream was always a cheer-upper for him, it couldn’t come close to undoing the feeling of bummed-ness. “Not if we weren’t caught,” he muttered through puffed cheeks.
Fuji bent and tweaked the tail that was not hanging morosely downwards and trailing on the floor. “You still did it,” he pointed out. “We can come back next week.” And with a cheerful smile at Oishi, he led the way towards the bus stop.