[Log] Flight Plan [Gakuto, Ktwins]
Characters: Mukahi Gakuto, Kisarazu Ryou, Kisarazu Atsushi
Location: Observation Tower
Time: October 7th
Rating: ...At least PG13 because of Gakkun’s potty mouth ):
Summary: Let’s go flying!
Hand in hand, the twins raced pell mell up the stairs to the Observation Tower where they were to meet with Gakuto. Time to go flying! They grinned as they got to the top and opened the door. “Yoo hoo, we’re here!”
"Well, finally!" Gakuto greeted the two, waving from where he sat at the window ledge watching the sky dim grey blue. Dusk was the best time for flying, when the air felt cooler and smelt fresher. At least it wasn't freezing cold out yet, or else he would have given a second thought to coming here with the suggestion of just his swimming trunks, top bare but wrapped in a towel too thin to keep him warm or hold much water but light enough that he liked to use it while tower-jumping if he didn't have his jacket on him. Motioning the two over with one hand, he tapped the double paned glass with the knuckles of the other. "Fuji says they don't open, but so long as it's replaced, no one's going to care if we move it, right? Gonna need some help here." Of all the powers he could have had, strength wasn't one of them.
The twins looked at each other. “How do you propose we put them back?” Ryou asked. Sure it was possible to remove them, but doing so in a way that wouldn’t break them or render them unusable again was the hard part.
"...Um," Gakuto supplied helpfully, staring at the window pane as if by willing it to disappear, it would. But of course it didn't. "Put them back by doing the opposite of taking them out," was the logical explanation he finally came up with, "Come on, we don't have to worry about that until later." The windows used to be the sort that rolled open halfway to let in air, but it seems to have been sealed over break so that the pane would have to come out all at once. The panes were fairly wide and tall too, squarish in size and arranged around the room in a circle so that one could see all around them without distorted corners.
"I've removed the windowpane from my room back home before, it isn't hard. Just sort of...," eyes squeezed shut and tongue poking out in comic concentration, he tugged on the bottom edge of the pane in front of him, "slide it out." It didn't move. He gave another, much harder heave, and there was a sound that might have been cracking glass. He really hoped it wasn't. Gakuto cracked open one eye. And spotted the spiderweb fracture on corner of the glass.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Atsushi said, coming up to stand on Gakuto’s right, staring at the broken glass. “That’s pretty impressive. Is that on the inside pane or the outside one?” he asked.
Ryou took advantage of the distraction to run one of his retractable claws around the seal on the window next to the one the other two were standing at. Pulling his claw back in and making his nails human once again, he called out, “Looks like they missed one. Bad luck picking that one,” he added, shaking his head at the smaller boy.
"That window was cracked to begin with," Gakuto said seriously, quickly stepping back from the glass. It wasn't with a tone of someone trying to convince another, but rather, that of someone insisting 'This is our story and we. are. sticking. to. it.' He saw though that the neighboring pane had shoddily done seal-work, and he cursed himself for not checking all of them before attempting to dismantle the building's framework. This one wouldn't pose as much as a problem though, he decided, learning his lesson to stand back and inspect the glass for the best way to get it out. Best way, easiest way, same thing. He raised a foot up and planted it flat against the right edge of the pane. "If there's no better ideas, I'm kicking it out. There's the *possibility” that it will pivot around the center so you two can catch the other edge and pull the whole thing though. Either that, or it might, you know, shatter. Worth the risk, right?"
They shook their heads and pulled Gakuto away from the window. “Let us do it,” Ryou said. He looked at Atsushi, and after a mental count of three, hit the frame, making the whole thing pop out and start to fall, outside the building. Ready for just such a thing, Atsushi moved quickly and caught it.
Atsushi looked at Gakuto as Ryou helped him move the window back in. “Are all your plans this haphazard?” he asked. “It’s out, now. How are we to all get outside and not fall before we can fly? Ryou and I do require a certain amount of a running start.”
"Not always." And they wouldn't be, either, if he had reflexes like that. Gakuto gripped the frame and stuck his head out the window, breathing in the outside air. Then craned his neck up, the tiles of the sloped roof top jutting out from above. He pointed to the peak of the cone. "Boost me up over the ledge, and I'll help you up after. The tiles aren't very hard to scale; I've done this before. We'll get a good several meters to slide down and build up momentum. Should be a 'running start' enough for you guys?"
This was why the windows had been sealed shut, the two suddenly realized. “How often did you jump from this tower last semester?” Atsushi asked. They weren’t afraid of the drop, their flight ability could handle that with ease, but they were rather worried for the jumpy redhead. Low density or not, falling would hurt.
"Uh. Not that often." It wasn't a complete lie, as it was only this school year that Gakuto had built enough confidence in his power to jump from this high and maintain the same weight without tiring and reverting still meters in the air, so most of his jumps had been from the rooftops of other buildings. He didn't come often enough for the windows to be sealed, unless he had been spotted before and was given the benefit of the doubt that one time. "But I know what I'm doing," he stated defiantly, flapping the large towel around his shoulders demonstratively.
“Of course,” they said in unison. But they were there and he was safer jumping with them than without them, so they stood next to the window and each offered him a hand. “After you!”
Taking the twins' hands in each of his, Gakuto steadied himself on the windowsill, acutely aware that if he leaned back just so and let go, he'd be seconds away from freefall. Patience, he willed himself, exchanging one of his hands for a foot and grabbing the edge of the tiles of the roof, then doing the same with the other so that the twins supported his feet and he was able to pull himself up with their help from below. When he was properly situated up on the roof, he lowered himself onto his stomach with his toes digging into the tile so he wouldn't slip, and arms dangling over the edge for the two to take hold of.
"Not yet," he warned, once he felt his hands enclosed in theirs, "You guys are too heavy still for me to pull you up." Can't do anything about his upper body strength, which is dismal at best, but there's ways around that. He bit softly down on his lower lip, trying to concentrate. Which was hard with the clear dark sky and all this open space up here. But okay. Outward force. Lower the mass. Shit, it's hard with two people at once. Lower. Lower. He gave a tentative tug on one of their hands.
Atsushi gave Ryou a startled glance as he could feel himself weighing less. It was odd. With their particular power, they were used to weighing what they did or more. Less was different.
Ryou grinned back, then hopped up to the windowsill, then turned to grab hold of the roof with his free hand, claws extended, hopefully not so much that Gakuto would notice. He pulled himself easily up to the roof and got himself situated next to the other boy before reaching his hand down for his twin as well.
Now having two hands grasped and feeling rather light, Atsushi jumped up to the windowsill. Holding those hands securely, his next jump was feet first, using their clasped hands as the point at which he rotated, so that he landed, safe and secure, on the roof as well. “Nicely done!”
"Great!" Gakuto panted, wasting no time in making his way up to the very peak of the roof, motioning the twins to keep close behind. They will start feeling heavier already if he didn't maintain contact with them, but he needed both his hands to hold onto the tiles and it would still be easier manipulating their weight as they were now and growing heavier, rather than start completely from the beginning again. And then there was himself, he remembered, even though he was very light by default. He knotted the towel over his chest like a cape and took the two corners in each of his hands. He focused inward onto himself, and when he felt the other two at his side and held their hands sandwiched between the fabric, moved the energy outwards as well, splitting it three-way. "Let's go," he said urgently, because he couldn't maintain stability for very long when so spread out, but excitedly as well, staring down their sloped runway.
This was going to be interesting. They didn’t usually start up this high, though they could reach it while flying if going for height rather than distance. Plus, with Gakuto’s help they were a lot lighter. Focusing on their power and holding tight to the smaller boy’s hands, they took a couple of sliding steps down the roof, then hit their stride and launched themselves into the dark unknown.
Well, it wasn’t completely dark and for the twins it wasn’t even that dark, thanks to their ability to see well in low-light conditions. The sports courts, then the pool whooshed by as the three of them flew toward the lake, buoyed up by the wind as well as their power.
From the very moment his feet left the rooftop, Gakuto could feel his smile stretching wider and wider, laughter freely escaping his lips before becoming lost in the wind carrying them. They skimmed over the greenhouse where he caught a glimpse of the manic grin plastered to his face on the reflection of the glass, and then it was the backside of campus stretched out below them, and then water, everywhere around them water several meters below, the waves in the lake churning dark blue and black as the wind buffeted the surface. THIS WAS SO. FREAKIN. COOL. Gakuto gave a wild whoop, and immediately fell into a lapse of breathless laughter, squeezing the twins' hands hard in attempt to not double over with mirth. Exactly the reason why he loved this. So so much. The exhilaration of being tied to absolutely nothing, of weightlessness and being carried by the winds, the lightness in his head and in his soul, the...
...well, no, he didn't actually like the lightheadedness, he realized, as the three of them suddenly started dipping lower, just past halfway across the lake. Lightheadedness was a bad thing, it meant he-- "Fuuuuuucck," Gakuto choked out in between gasps of laughter, arms going slack but a light still dancing in his eyes despite exhaustion. The load between the three of them finished doubling then, reaching their original weights a lot sooner than he had expected, as he had never tried manipulating the densities of three people all at once and holding his attention while doing something so seriously cool as flying.
They were getting heavier. Well, okay. The twins tried to adjust their flight, but they could see that they were going to come up several feet short at that weight. They had gotten a lot farther than they ever thought they would, but with three people and the twins not touching, this was as far as they went. With a split second to consider the alternatives, the twins detached themselves and the towel from Gakuto, dropping him into the lake. Moments later, they safely landed on the shore, turning to call out to their now soaked friend. “Gakuto!”
ASDFLKJH
One moment he was playing Superman, the next he was performing an impressive belly flop, water clapping over his head as Gakuto plunged into the dark water and tumbled beneath the surface. It was a different sort of weightlessness here, of being supported by water instead of air, just a lot more wet and a lot less... being able to breathe. Which was a problem. The other problem being, he wasn't exactly sure which way was 'up' from down here, that if he just started kicking forwards from how he was oriented, he might be swimming deeper and deeper down instead of towards the surface and never know it. But he didn't have the time (or the breath the hold) to think about it, so he instinctively curled in upon himself into a tight ball, as if making himself appear smaller would extract less energy for his power to work, and he felt himself lift, buoyed by the water, and then rush towards the surface like a cannonball in reverse.
"Pwahh!!" he spluttered when his head broke the surface of the water, taking the first few moments to suck in all that precious, precious air. Glorious air. Life-sustaining air. "Mnnnphharrggghhh," he greeted the twins testily when he finally dog paddled his way to shore and got his feet on land again, one hand tugging up his waterlogged swimming shorts that had threatened to get pulled off when he first dove in, and the other hand wiping the water off his face. When he was close enough, he shook his head violently, spraying water everywhichway in a futile attempt to dry his hair. “Fun.”
A little ashamed, the twins handed him his dry towel. “It was all we could save, sorry,” they said in unison.
“We almost all three made it though!” Ryou said, grinning again as he thought of their accomplishment. “That’s the furthest we’ve flown like that!”
“That was really cool,” agreed Atsushi. They high fived. “We need to practice that again!” He looked at the soaked Gakuto and the waning light. “Just not tonight. It’ll be dark by the time we get back,” he pointed out.
"Aw, who cares about it being dark?" Gakuto mumbled. The breeze answered, sending a shiver down his back all the way to his toes. That, and he was too tired now anyways to be of any use a second time around so soon after the first, and with luck, they'd crash headfirst into the basketball courts instead of the lake. Ten points if one of them makes it through the hoop...! Not.
Hastily wiping himself off with the towel and then throwing it back over his shoulders so his hair could drip onto it, Gakuto huddled inside the fabric against the cold. "Let's get back quick then, claim the shower~ Rather be warm and wet than cold and wet." He led the way but took to walking along the shoreline since he was already wet anyways, splashing and kicking up water with his feet, toes flexing in the mud so that the water turned murky where he stepped.
Really, Gakuto could be so stubborn at times, the twins thought, exchanging a look with one another. There was no way they could fly the entire way back, but with some short hops they could get there a lot faster. Running forward through the mud, they each caught him under the arm and leapt, carrying them forward in a low flight for several hundreds of yards, landing just on the edge of the water again as they would have to skirt the lake.
"UWAHH!!" Gakuto gave a yelp as his feet, instead of stomping in the water, treaded air as the three of them glided forward. His surprise gave way to elation, however, once he realized he wasn't being carried off by some monstrous bird of prey looking for a late night snack. Much better way to travel; maybe he can enlist these two into carrying him around campus like this. Beats walking any day, in Gakuto's opinion.
Each hop was a little shorter, well, a fair amount shorter, actually, but it cut the distance down considerably. The last one was only about 30 feet and took them to the base of the path leading back up to the school. “Sorry, Gakkun, far as we can go,” Ryou said, letting go of his arm. He staggered a little.
Atsushi let go of Gakuto and took his brother’s arm instead. “Looks like we’re walking from here, but it’s not that far, right?”
"And here I was, hoping I'd get flown through the window~" Gakuto teased, moving over to help support Atsushi too but then realizing he might not be as much of a help because of the height difference, so walked ahead to give them room.
It was times like this that he wished he still lived in the Junior dormitory, where he used to be able to play a hard game of hockey on the courts and just hop right over to the showers and collapse on the couches in the lounge. The Senior dorms, on the other hand, was located all the way on the other side of campus, and then some. Presumably this was because the upperclassmen have a bit more work than the newcomers so were nearer the classrooms than the recreational areas, and being out of the way ensured the peace and quiet they needed in order to concentrate on their studies. Needless to say, Gakuto stayed away from the dorms as much as possible, returning only to prepare meals and sleep at night. "Think the kohai would let us crash for the night?" he half joked, but the yawn escaping his mouth had him hoping they would.
“Probably. You could probably manage to simply snag a couch like you used to do,” Atsushi said, smiling at him. “I want my bed though. It’s warm, comfortable, has blankets, all the comforts of, well, a bed.”
Ryou laughed. “Do you want us to drop you off at the Junior Dorms or poke at you so you can make it back to your room, Gakkun?” he asked.
"Couches are warm, comfortable, has blankets," Gakuto shot back, "if you grab them from an open dorm." There used to be plenty of those, of first years who prop their doors open in case of visitors, just to be social and meet new people. But it was late into the term now and certain... activities... require the doors for be shut and locked, especially at night. And no way he was walking into that. Still, between the Junior dorms and the Senior ones, he'd rather take his chances with the Juniors. "Junior dorms," he decided, motioning to his height with a wry grin. "I can still fit in without looking too suspicious~"
The twins smiled at him. “I’m sure you’ll finally hit your growth spurt eventually, Gakkun,” Ryou said.
“Some boys just bloom later than others,” Atsushi added. They walked up past the pool and the sports courts and opened the junior dorm door for their friend. “Do you need any help or do you have it from here?” he asked.
Gakuto made a face. "I'm eighteen already. That's like, old." But he still had hopes he might grow. Maybe not super super tall, but... enough. He hadn’t exactly stopped yet, just too little each year, and slowing down, at that. "I'm pretty sure I can find a couch without getting myself killed," he waved them off all the same. Watch him screw this over the moment he walks through the door. Actually. Better not let them watch; he'd never hear the end of it. No witnesses then. "...Night~"
“Good night!” the twins said in unison, tousling his hair as they both passed by him. They knew he’d be fine. None of the juniors would have the heart to say no to Gakkun, he was too cute. They wrapped their arms around each other and hurried back to the Senior Dorm, discussing which of their beds they’d sleep in that night.
Location: Observation Tower
Time: October 7th
Rating: ...At least PG13 because of Gakkun’s potty mouth ):
Summary: Let’s go flying!
Hand in hand, the twins raced pell mell up the stairs to the Observation Tower where they were to meet with Gakuto. Time to go flying! They grinned as they got to the top and opened the door. “Yoo hoo, we’re here!”
"Well, finally!" Gakuto greeted the two, waving from where he sat at the window ledge watching the sky dim grey blue. Dusk was the best time for flying, when the air felt cooler and smelt fresher. At least it wasn't freezing cold out yet, or else he would have given a second thought to coming here with the suggestion of just his swimming trunks, top bare but wrapped in a towel too thin to keep him warm or hold much water but light enough that he liked to use it while tower-jumping if he didn't have his jacket on him. Motioning the two over with one hand, he tapped the double paned glass with the knuckles of the other. "Fuji says they don't open, but so long as it's replaced, no one's going to care if we move it, right? Gonna need some help here." Of all the powers he could have had, strength wasn't one of them.
The twins looked at each other. “How do you propose we put them back?” Ryou asked. Sure it was possible to remove them, but doing so in a way that wouldn’t break them or render them unusable again was the hard part.
"...Um," Gakuto supplied helpfully, staring at the window pane as if by willing it to disappear, it would. But of course it didn't. "Put them back by doing the opposite of taking them out," was the logical explanation he finally came up with, "Come on, we don't have to worry about that until later." The windows used to be the sort that rolled open halfway to let in air, but it seems to have been sealed over break so that the pane would have to come out all at once. The panes were fairly wide and tall too, squarish in size and arranged around the room in a circle so that one could see all around them without distorted corners.
"I've removed the windowpane from my room back home before, it isn't hard. Just sort of...," eyes squeezed shut and tongue poking out in comic concentration, he tugged on the bottom edge of the pane in front of him, "slide it out." It didn't move. He gave another, much harder heave, and there was a sound that might have been cracking glass. He really hoped it wasn't. Gakuto cracked open one eye. And spotted the spiderweb fracture on corner of the glass.
“You’re stronger than you look,” Atsushi said, coming up to stand on Gakuto’s right, staring at the broken glass. “That’s pretty impressive. Is that on the inside pane or the outside one?” he asked.
Ryou took advantage of the distraction to run one of his retractable claws around the seal on the window next to the one the other two were standing at. Pulling his claw back in and making his nails human once again, he called out, “Looks like they missed one. Bad luck picking that one,” he added, shaking his head at the smaller boy.
"That window was cracked to begin with," Gakuto said seriously, quickly stepping back from the glass. It wasn't with a tone of someone trying to convince another, but rather, that of someone insisting 'This is our story and we. are. sticking. to. it.' He saw though that the neighboring pane had shoddily done seal-work, and he cursed himself for not checking all of them before attempting to dismantle the building's framework. This one wouldn't pose as much as a problem though, he decided, learning his lesson to stand back and inspect the glass for the best way to get it out. Best way, easiest way, same thing. He raised a foot up and planted it flat against the right edge of the pane. "If there's no better ideas, I'm kicking it out. There's the *possibility” that it will pivot around the center so you two can catch the other edge and pull the whole thing though. Either that, or it might, you know, shatter. Worth the risk, right?"
They shook their heads and pulled Gakuto away from the window. “Let us do it,” Ryou said. He looked at Atsushi, and after a mental count of three, hit the frame, making the whole thing pop out and start to fall, outside the building. Ready for just such a thing, Atsushi moved quickly and caught it.
Atsushi looked at Gakuto as Ryou helped him move the window back in. “Are all your plans this haphazard?” he asked. “It’s out, now. How are we to all get outside and not fall before we can fly? Ryou and I do require a certain amount of a running start.”
"Not always." And they wouldn't be, either, if he had reflexes like that. Gakuto gripped the frame and stuck his head out the window, breathing in the outside air. Then craned his neck up, the tiles of the sloped roof top jutting out from above. He pointed to the peak of the cone. "Boost me up over the ledge, and I'll help you up after. The tiles aren't very hard to scale; I've done this before. We'll get a good several meters to slide down and build up momentum. Should be a 'running start' enough for you guys?"
This was why the windows had been sealed shut, the two suddenly realized. “How often did you jump from this tower last semester?” Atsushi asked. They weren’t afraid of the drop, their flight ability could handle that with ease, but they were rather worried for the jumpy redhead. Low density or not, falling would hurt.
"Uh. Not that often." It wasn't a complete lie, as it was only this school year that Gakuto had built enough confidence in his power to jump from this high and maintain the same weight without tiring and reverting still meters in the air, so most of his jumps had been from the rooftops of other buildings. He didn't come often enough for the windows to be sealed, unless he had been spotted before and was given the benefit of the doubt that one time. "But I know what I'm doing," he stated defiantly, flapping the large towel around his shoulders demonstratively.
“Of course,” they said in unison. But they were there and he was safer jumping with them than without them, so they stood next to the window and each offered him a hand. “After you!”
Taking the twins' hands in each of his, Gakuto steadied himself on the windowsill, acutely aware that if he leaned back just so and let go, he'd be seconds away from freefall. Patience, he willed himself, exchanging one of his hands for a foot and grabbing the edge of the tiles of the roof, then doing the same with the other so that the twins supported his feet and he was able to pull himself up with their help from below. When he was properly situated up on the roof, he lowered himself onto his stomach with his toes digging into the tile so he wouldn't slip, and arms dangling over the edge for the two to take hold of.
"Not yet," he warned, once he felt his hands enclosed in theirs, "You guys are too heavy still for me to pull you up." Can't do anything about his upper body strength, which is dismal at best, but there's ways around that. He bit softly down on his lower lip, trying to concentrate. Which was hard with the clear dark sky and all this open space up here. But okay. Outward force. Lower the mass. Shit, it's hard with two people at once. Lower. Lower. He gave a tentative tug on one of their hands.
Atsushi gave Ryou a startled glance as he could feel himself weighing less. It was odd. With their particular power, they were used to weighing what they did or more. Less was different.
Ryou grinned back, then hopped up to the windowsill, then turned to grab hold of the roof with his free hand, claws extended, hopefully not so much that Gakuto would notice. He pulled himself easily up to the roof and got himself situated next to the other boy before reaching his hand down for his twin as well.
Now having two hands grasped and feeling rather light, Atsushi jumped up to the windowsill. Holding those hands securely, his next jump was feet first, using their clasped hands as the point at which he rotated, so that he landed, safe and secure, on the roof as well. “Nicely done!”
"Great!" Gakuto panted, wasting no time in making his way up to the very peak of the roof, motioning the twins to keep close behind. They will start feeling heavier already if he didn't maintain contact with them, but he needed both his hands to hold onto the tiles and it would still be easier manipulating their weight as they were now and growing heavier, rather than start completely from the beginning again. And then there was himself, he remembered, even though he was very light by default. He knotted the towel over his chest like a cape and took the two corners in each of his hands. He focused inward onto himself, and when he felt the other two at his side and held their hands sandwiched between the fabric, moved the energy outwards as well, splitting it three-way. "Let's go," he said urgently, because he couldn't maintain stability for very long when so spread out, but excitedly as well, staring down their sloped runway.
This was going to be interesting. They didn’t usually start up this high, though they could reach it while flying if going for height rather than distance. Plus, with Gakuto’s help they were a lot lighter. Focusing on their power and holding tight to the smaller boy’s hands, they took a couple of sliding steps down the roof, then hit their stride and launched themselves into the dark unknown.
Well, it wasn’t completely dark and for the twins it wasn’t even that dark, thanks to their ability to see well in low-light conditions. The sports courts, then the pool whooshed by as the three of them flew toward the lake, buoyed up by the wind as well as their power.
From the very moment his feet left the rooftop, Gakuto could feel his smile stretching wider and wider, laughter freely escaping his lips before becoming lost in the wind carrying them. They skimmed over the greenhouse where he caught a glimpse of the manic grin plastered to his face on the reflection of the glass, and then it was the backside of campus stretched out below them, and then water, everywhere around them water several meters below, the waves in the lake churning dark blue and black as the wind buffeted the surface. THIS WAS SO. FREAKIN. COOL. Gakuto gave a wild whoop, and immediately fell into a lapse of breathless laughter, squeezing the twins' hands hard in attempt to not double over with mirth. Exactly the reason why he loved this. So so much. The exhilaration of being tied to absolutely nothing, of weightlessness and being carried by the winds, the lightness in his head and in his soul, the...
...well, no, he didn't actually like the lightheadedness, he realized, as the three of them suddenly started dipping lower, just past halfway across the lake. Lightheadedness was a bad thing, it meant he-- "Fuuuuuucck," Gakuto choked out in between gasps of laughter, arms going slack but a light still dancing in his eyes despite exhaustion. The load between the three of them finished doubling then, reaching their original weights a lot sooner than he had expected, as he had never tried manipulating the densities of three people all at once and holding his attention while doing something so seriously cool as flying.
They were getting heavier. Well, okay. The twins tried to adjust their flight, but they could see that they were going to come up several feet short at that weight. They had gotten a lot farther than they ever thought they would, but with three people and the twins not touching, this was as far as they went. With a split second to consider the alternatives, the twins detached themselves and the towel from Gakuto, dropping him into the lake. Moments later, they safely landed on the shore, turning to call out to their now soaked friend. “Gakuto!”
ASDFLKJH
One moment he was playing Superman, the next he was performing an impressive belly flop, water clapping over his head as Gakuto plunged into the dark water and tumbled beneath the surface. It was a different sort of weightlessness here, of being supported by water instead of air, just a lot more wet and a lot less... being able to breathe. Which was a problem. The other problem being, he wasn't exactly sure which way was 'up' from down here, that if he just started kicking forwards from how he was oriented, he might be swimming deeper and deeper down instead of towards the surface and never know it. But he didn't have the time (or the breath the hold) to think about it, so he instinctively curled in upon himself into a tight ball, as if making himself appear smaller would extract less energy for his power to work, and he felt himself lift, buoyed by the water, and then rush towards the surface like a cannonball in reverse.
"Pwahh!!" he spluttered when his head broke the surface of the water, taking the first few moments to suck in all that precious, precious air. Glorious air. Life-sustaining air. "Mnnnphharrggghhh," he greeted the twins testily when he finally dog paddled his way to shore and got his feet on land again, one hand tugging up his waterlogged swimming shorts that had threatened to get pulled off when he first dove in, and the other hand wiping the water off his face. When he was close enough, he shook his head violently, spraying water everywhichway in a futile attempt to dry his hair. “Fun.”
A little ashamed, the twins handed him his dry towel. “It was all we could save, sorry,” they said in unison.
“We almost all three made it though!” Ryou said, grinning again as he thought of their accomplishment. “That’s the furthest we’ve flown like that!”
“That was really cool,” agreed Atsushi. They high fived. “We need to practice that again!” He looked at the soaked Gakuto and the waning light. “Just not tonight. It’ll be dark by the time we get back,” he pointed out.
"Aw, who cares about it being dark?" Gakuto mumbled. The breeze answered, sending a shiver down his back all the way to his toes. That, and he was too tired now anyways to be of any use a second time around so soon after the first, and with luck, they'd crash headfirst into the basketball courts instead of the lake. Ten points if one of them makes it through the hoop...! Not.
Hastily wiping himself off with the towel and then throwing it back over his shoulders so his hair could drip onto it, Gakuto huddled inside the fabric against the cold. "Let's get back quick then, claim the shower~ Rather be warm and wet than cold and wet." He led the way but took to walking along the shoreline since he was already wet anyways, splashing and kicking up water with his feet, toes flexing in the mud so that the water turned murky where he stepped.
Really, Gakuto could be so stubborn at times, the twins thought, exchanging a look with one another. There was no way they could fly the entire way back, but with some short hops they could get there a lot faster. Running forward through the mud, they each caught him under the arm and leapt, carrying them forward in a low flight for several hundreds of yards, landing just on the edge of the water again as they would have to skirt the lake.
"UWAHH!!" Gakuto gave a yelp as his feet, instead of stomping in the water, treaded air as the three of them glided forward. His surprise gave way to elation, however, once he realized he wasn't being carried off by some monstrous bird of prey looking for a late night snack. Much better way to travel; maybe he can enlist these two into carrying him around campus like this. Beats walking any day, in Gakuto's opinion.
Each hop was a little shorter, well, a fair amount shorter, actually, but it cut the distance down considerably. The last one was only about 30 feet and took them to the base of the path leading back up to the school. “Sorry, Gakkun, far as we can go,” Ryou said, letting go of his arm. He staggered a little.
Atsushi let go of Gakuto and took his brother’s arm instead. “Looks like we’re walking from here, but it’s not that far, right?”
"And here I was, hoping I'd get flown through the window~" Gakuto teased, moving over to help support Atsushi too but then realizing he might not be as much of a help because of the height difference, so walked ahead to give them room.
It was times like this that he wished he still lived in the Junior dormitory, where he used to be able to play a hard game of hockey on the courts and just hop right over to the showers and collapse on the couches in the lounge. The Senior dorms, on the other hand, was located all the way on the other side of campus, and then some. Presumably this was because the upperclassmen have a bit more work than the newcomers so were nearer the classrooms than the recreational areas, and being out of the way ensured the peace and quiet they needed in order to concentrate on their studies. Needless to say, Gakuto stayed away from the dorms as much as possible, returning only to prepare meals and sleep at night. "Think the kohai would let us crash for the night?" he half joked, but the yawn escaping his mouth had him hoping they would.
“Probably. You could probably manage to simply snag a couch like you used to do,” Atsushi said, smiling at him. “I want my bed though. It’s warm, comfortable, has blankets, all the comforts of, well, a bed.”
Ryou laughed. “Do you want us to drop you off at the Junior Dorms or poke at you so you can make it back to your room, Gakkun?” he asked.
"Couches are warm, comfortable, has blankets," Gakuto shot back, "if you grab them from an open dorm." There used to be plenty of those, of first years who prop their doors open in case of visitors, just to be social and meet new people. But it was late into the term now and certain... activities... require the doors for be shut and locked, especially at night. And no way he was walking into that. Still, between the Junior dorms and the Senior ones, he'd rather take his chances with the Juniors. "Junior dorms," he decided, motioning to his height with a wry grin. "I can still fit in without looking too suspicious~"
The twins smiled at him. “I’m sure you’ll finally hit your growth spurt eventually, Gakkun,” Ryou said.
“Some boys just bloom later than others,” Atsushi added. They walked up past the pool and the sports courts and opened the junior dorm door for their friend. “Do you need any help or do you have it from here?” he asked.
Gakuto made a face. "I'm eighteen already. That's like, old." But he still had hopes he might grow. Maybe not super super tall, but... enough. He hadn’t exactly stopped yet, just too little each year, and slowing down, at that. "I'm pretty sure I can find a couch without getting myself killed," he waved them off all the same. Watch him screw this over the moment he walks through the door. Actually. Better not let them watch; he'd never hear the end of it. No witnesses then. "...Night~"
“Good night!” the twins said in unison, tousling his hair as they both passed by him. They knew he’d be fine. None of the juniors would have the heart to say no to Gakkun, he was too cute. They wrapped their arms around each other and hurried back to the Senior Dorm, discussing which of their beds they’d sleep in that night.