bunnyfic 37.5 [sidestory]
I have two essays due within the week, and also something else I've promised to work on, but ahh. 8D These things happen.
Featuring the First and 45-I.
( sidestory: what friends are (really) for )
"Hashimoto!"
The underground was quiet as Totsuka jogged through it, in high contrast to the thudding of his heart in his ears. He wasn't scared per se but there were certain things that just got his pulse racing, and lost charges happened to be one of them. Unlike Kawai, Fujigaya, Goseki and Yokoo, Totsuka wasn't much the betting type, having instead an innate and inexplicable inclination toward slim odds and strange occurrences.
Unfortunately this attribute had also endowed him with an imagination active above and beyond the call of duty. What if, he wondered, Hashimoto had wandered all the way down to the abyss at the bottom of the underground? (Because there surely was one if you descended enough flights of stairs.) What if the boy had not only gotten too close to its edge, but was now hanging by his fingertips from the lowest rung of a creaking ladder, a radioactive sludge monster from outside the Capital having writhed and slithered its way in from the wasteland snapping at his heels?
"Hashimoto!" Totsuka shouted again - and winced a little as his voice bounced coldly off the platforms and pipes around him, giving the call an eerie feel. He wondered if Hashimoto ever got scared - it was pretty dark in some areas underground, and Nozawa and Sanada weren't with him all the time. (Like now.) Or if not scared, maybe cold? Or perhaps not so cold since he still had a bit of puppy fat on him. With a couple of blankets, he'd probably be alright almost anywhere except border territory...
"Hashimotooo!"
The puppy fat probably wasn't going to last through another year, though. It was odd. Every time Totsuka saw him, Hashimoto seemed to have grown another handspan. Nozawa, too, actually - and half the mixed bag kids the Guard had been charged with keeping tabs on. Except Onodera, but Fujigaya and Kawai had wagered charge duties on whether or not he was going to outgrow Kawai within the next three years. (Fujigaya said yes and often tried to slip Onodera extra nutricubes on the sly. Kawai said no and often tried to kick Fujigaya in the shin for cheating. Totsuka said that as long as the kid survived the next three years in the first place, his remaining chances were probably split fifty-fifty. One never knew - Onodera could easily be eaten by the wasteland sludge monster as well, if Hashimoto didn't fill it up enough. But that would depend entirely on how big the monster was, and who else it had eaten that morning.)
"Hashim- eh?"
Through the grate past Totsuka's feet, a sliver of movement caught his eye. Totsuka paused. "...hello?"
"I knew you'd come find me," Hashimoto said in a small voice, smiling as he stepped out of the shadows and peeked up from his hiding place. "I even knew kind of where you'd start looking first!"
Totsuka glanced around for the fastest way down. Seeing nothing else, he swung his legs over the guard rail and dropped to the platform below, jogging over to his charge. Well. Hashimoto was technically nobody's charge - or the charge of the Guard collectively - but somehow Totsuka found himself attending to the errant most often. It was an arrangement that, as much as he didn't technically mind it, was kind of bad for his stress levels.
"Hi, Totsuka!" Hashimoto said, arms out as if for a grabby hug. His tone was chipper and blissfully unaware of the state that Totsuka's adrenaline factories had been working in for the last little while.
"Hasshi!" Totsuka said. "Have you been here all this time?" Ducking under the other's reach, Totsuka peered into the little enclave in order to assuage the ridiculous thoughts that had been plaguing his imagination: there was no blood, no evidence of other inappropriate bodily fluids; Hashimoto wasn't disintegrating and hadn't run off to die alone like an ancient elephant of old... Everything was okay.
"...Totsuka?"
Breathing a not-so-subtle sigh of relief, Totsuka ducked back out and looked up to meet Hashimoto's eyes. "Are you alright?" he asked, and bodily patted down Hashimoto's deltoids, triceps, serratus anterior and lumbar for damage or contraband. "Did something happen? Nozawa was worried - he said that Balcan reported you'd been gone a while, and since you left Balcan behind..."
Hashimoto smiled, a hint of triumph in his face that he unsuccessfully tried to hide with shyness. "I left him behind so it couldn't have been hide and seek, right? I thought of that! Last time it didn't work because I took Balcan with me, and Nozawa and Sanada just thought I was playing. Then I had to go back because I got reaaally hungry." He paused, and looked down at his stomach mournfully. "Actually I'm pretty hungry right now, too... But you came! And it was the right spot so you got here first!"
Totsuka blinked. Hashimoto's language and logics often took some getting used to. Sometimes, he just said things in odd ways; othertimes, he accidentally said things completely different from what he meant. (Yet other times, Hashimoto said exactly what he meant and how he meant it, but his brain had unfortunately arrived at an erroneous conclusion prior to delivery.)
In most cases, the essential meaning could be either deduced or distilled, but sometimes it couldn't - like now. Despite Totsuka's self-proclaimed 'fair proficiency' in Hasshiese, he couldn't quite tell what Hashimoto's current point was supposed to be. In lieu of an impending epic revelation, Totsuka merely said, "I see..." and fished a nutribar out of his back pocket. He held it out, smiling. "Well. Here?"
To his mild surprise, Hashimoto actually held back. "...can I?" the boy asked first, hand hovering uncertainly.
Totsuka tsk'd, turning Hashimoto's hand palm-up and depositing the nutribar into it himself. "If you're hungry, eat."
"Thank you," Hashimoto said.
< Ommnom-nom... eet. Eat. Thank you! >
"Oh...!" Stepping back, Totsuka glanced down.
With a quiet symphony of clicks and whirrs, Balcan trundled up to them. His head spun once, 360°. < Eat. >
"Balcan!" Hasshi exclaimed, kneeling to pet the little robot. "You're here, too!"
< Hello, Ryosuke! Hello. >
"I thought he might have been able to help me search for you," Totsuka said. "But it turned out he moves a little too slowly. And can't take ladders." Balcan3000 was cute, but essentially useless. (A bit like its creator, no? Totsuka heard his inner Goseki-voice laugh in the back of his head.)
Hashimoto glanced up at Totsuka, his expression earnestly sincere. "I'll make him faster, then. And fix him some magnetic treads that he'll be able to switch out for the rolling ones so next time he'll be more useful!"
Something clicked.
"Waaait, wait, waitwait- back up the truck," Totsuka said, raising his hands. "Next time? Not another round of this, Hasshi." Crouching, Totsuka joined the little circle. (Balcan trundled backward a bit so the three of them made a more equilateral triangle.) Concerned and not a little confused, he searched Hashimoto's face. "You're not Houdini. Why the disappearing act?"
"Who's Houdini?" Hashimoto asked.
Totsuka gave him a Look for changing the subject. "Hasshi."
"Okay." Hashimoto glanced aside. "...can we be friends?"
"Of course we-" Totsuka stilled. Ah, so that's it... He smiled. (Genius! his inner Kawai sporfled.) "You're lonely."
"No!" Emphatic, Hashimoto shook his head, Balcan mimicking the gesture from the sidelines. "No, that's not it!"
"Then tell me what is?"
"I just want to be friends with you," Hashimoto said, and gave a half-coy smile from up through his bangs. "Because you're always watching out for me... that's all."
Totsuka blinked again as his heart skipped. He wondered for a moment who he ought to castrate for adding a trick like that to Hashimoto non-verbal arsenal, but said instead, "I see..." and tilted his head. Then grinned. "So you ran away and worried us all for your safety, just to tell me that?"
"Well..." Hashimoto chewed at his lip, practised façade gone now that he was in a bit of a pinch. "Kind of, maybe halfish? You don't come down here otherwise and - actually, hey? I was hoping you'd hang around a bit. And we could do friend stuff, you know? I want to be friends with the others too, but you seemed kind of kindest, so I thought I could start with you."
Wow, how are you so amazingly selfish? Totsuka didn't say. He heard Kawai's voice scorn it plain as day, though. You don't even have parents and you're still this spoilt! (But that was why Kawai was aboveground fighting crime with Fujigaya, and Totsuka was down below wrestling with his own demons-that-weren't. People's feelings were spared all around, that way.)
"Well..." Casting his eyes up to the insulayer far above, Totsuka thought about Hashimoto's request. Could he stay? Things were going down up there, but the others were competent. Kitayama, Kawai and Fujigaya would be fine, and even if they weren't then Tsukada and Goseki were as solid a backup as one could ask for. Chances are they wouldn't need little old Shota Totsuka on standby.
"Alright." Smiling, he turned back to Hashimoto. "Two hours. Just promise me you won't pull stunts like this again, alright? You could've been eaten by a large mythical creature of some sort."
"Nobody'd eat me," Hashimoto said. "I'm fat."
"You're not-"
"I promise," Hashimoto interrupted sincerely, saving Totsuka from having to list everything that was wrong with the theory of monsters not eating fat kids. "But only if you promise to visit, okay? It kind of sucks how I only get to see you guys when I'm in trouble."
Well, you get in trouble so often... "I promise," Totsuka said. And tilted his head, a half smile quirking his mouth. "Ryosuke."
He had to laugh when Hashimoto's brown eyes lit up in happiness. "Thanks! Tottsu? Can I call you Tottsu? Kawai was calling you that, and I totally want to be at least as good a friend as him! Even if he's had a bit of a head start."
Totsuka grinned. Well, Kawai had more than just a head start on Hashimoto, but Hashimoto didn't have to know that kind of detail for maybe a few more years yet. "No harm in trying? Ah, send Balcan back to Nozawa. He's been worried, and Sanada's out looking for you, too."
"Oh..." Hashimoto had the decency to look momentarily guilty. But then he gave his little robot a pat on the head. "Go on," he said, "you heard Tottsu. Back to Mama! And tell Papa I'm alright if you meet him on the way!"
< Back! Back... > Balcan bleated. < Back! > Wheels spinning, it zipped back off in the direction from which they'd come.
And then Hashimoto sidled over and gave Totsuka a kiss on the cheek.
Totsuka nearly fell over sideways, but (for better or worse) Hashimoto's arms had also twined around his waist. "Hash- Ryosuke, what? What was that for!" Shoving a little at Hashimoto's shoulders, Totsuka attempted to extract himself- "Ehh..." -in vain. Especially when Hashimoto just looked at him from close range with large eyes. Totsuka stopped struggling.
"Well, Sanada and Nozawa do it all the time, you know?" Hashimoto said, voice all soft. "And they're reaaa~lly good friends, so..."
Briefly, Totsuka wondered if some cosmic power was laughing at him from above - because it was either that, or Hashimoto was heaps intelligenter than he let on and also a brilliant actor to boot. (And Totsuka was more inclined to believe in divine intervention.)
"First," Totsuka said uncomfortably, "tell me how old you are. And if you have STDs."
"What are STDs?" Hashimoto blinked back at him.
"No, nevermind that one," Totsuka amended. "That was a stupid question. How old are you?"
"I don't know," Hashimoto grinned.
"Ah," Totsuka said, not really terribly okay with that. Granted, a lot of errant kids had no idea when they'd been born, but Hashimoto seemed to be taking a bratty sort of perverse delight in his answer. "You're younger than me, though. Probably by a lot."
"I'm taller than you though," Hashimoto pointed out.
"Yes," Totsuka said, "and Senga's also taller than Hiromitsu." (A lot of people are taller than Mitsu, Totsuka's inner Kawai-voice snorted - to which his inner Goseki said, About the same amount that are taller than you, Fumikyun? and Tsukada laughed, Guys, guys! Pots and kettles and stuff!)
"Who's Senga?" Hashimoto asked, eyes narrowing. "Is he your friend as well?"
"Less my friend than others," Totsuka said wryly, but a gentleman, as Goseki liked to say, didn't kiss and tell (or walk in on people and tell either, as the case was occasionally). Hashimoto frowned, and Totsuka went on: "He's a ward of my boss. You might get along with him, come to think of it - or maybe not - you're kind of similar..."
He paused.
"Ryosuke, do you hear that?"
Hashimoto sat up, tilting his head. "...yeah? Somebody?"
It sounded like a distant call, and Totsuka was glad he wasn't just imagining people yelling his name (because occasionally that happened, too). Extracting himself from Hashimoto, he stood and cupped his hands at his mouth. "Coo-ee!" His voice rang out clear and sharp, bouncing echoes around.
There was no reply. Yet.
"Whoa," Hashimoto marvelled, reattaching himself to Totsuka's side when Totsuka sat back down. "That was really loud. Does it mean anything?"
"It kind of means 'come here'," Totsuka said, "in an Old Local variant that was dead even before the First Collapse. But it was generally just used to find people - like GPS without the tech."
"GP- wait, the first what?" Hashimoto stared. "Old what?"
And then Totsuka remembered that he was talking to a relatively unintelligent life form. It was nobody's real fault that Hashimoto hadn't ever been to school, but the way he seemed to think friendship was all about touching people a lot made Totsuka assume the boy hadn't gleaned much from any acquaintances who might've had some formal education. (Well, nothing academic anyway.)
"A long time ago," Totsuka explained, "people thought it was a good idea to join all the countries in the world together, because..." the convergence of the various standards of the world's economies had been so successful, he didn't say. Legal systems had finally become more or less the same across the board, and technology had evolved to a point enabling instantaneous translation of most languages, so- "everybody was happy."
"Countries?" Hashimoto asked.
Totsuka said, "Our Capital isn't the only city around. There are some in other places."
"Oh..." Hashimoto visibly turned that thought over in his mind for a bit.
Totsuka nodded. Well, the First Collapse had supposedly been a good thing. For a while. But entire languages and cultures had been lost from the mainstream. And then the Second Collapse had happened - the ones that the fanatics generally liked to call Armageddon - and the little pockets of Old language and culture had been wiped out along with most of the rest of the world.
The vague shout sounded again, but from somewhat closer now. Totsuka sat up and gave another call (ignoring the way Hashimoto took the liberty to sprawl into his lap uninvited). "Coo-ee!"
Apropos of nothing that Totsuka could discern, Hashimoto poked him in the stomach. Totsuka jerked, not so much ticklish as unused to people invading his personal space quite like that. "Ryosuke-!" Hashimoto just poked him again, but a bit more considering this time, and Totsuka blinked. "...what?"
Hashimoto gave a third experimental poke before a guileless grin popped onto his face. "Tottsu has muscle. I like that."
With an incoherent noise, Totsuka slapped Hashimoto's hands away. "Don't say things like that, you've got it all wrong!"
This time, it was Hashimoto's turn to blink. "What's wrong?"
"You're wrong! I mean, I mean-" Totsuka amended as Hashimoto's face fell. "We can be friends perfectly well without, without - ah, sit up! Sit up right now and get your head out of my lap!"
"But why!"
"...Tottsu?"
Totsuka spun and froze, mild psychotic episode aborted. "Taipi! Hi! So it was you. Where's Fumito?"
"That's the thing..." Fujigaya started but then paused, taking stock of the situation. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No," Totsuka tried.
"I think you did," Hashimoto said. But then his eyes widened. "BALCAN! He got you!"
"Balcan?" Fujigaya looked down at the little robot in his hand. Its head spun, whirring and clicking softly. < Nozawa! Totsuka has found Hasshi! Tottsu. Totsuka has. Found Hasshi! > "Ohh, you must be Hashimoto Ryosuke."
Hashimoto glanced at Totsuka, eyes big and surprised. "I'm famous?"
"Um. Sort of," Totsuka told him. "Infamous, maybe."
"This belongs to you, then?" Fujigaya asked, holding Balcan up.
"Yes," Hashimoto said. "He's my friend for when nobody likes me."
Totsuka cleared his throat. "Actually, our carrier pigeon. It was relaying a message."
"Oh, oops," Fujigaya said, half his mouth quirking up amusedly. "Since it was broadcasting your name, I was hoping it would help me find you." He set the robot down and it immediately took off again, speeding back in the direction of Sanada and Nozawa's camp.
"Don't let anybody stop you this time, Balcan!" Hashimoto called after it.
< Don't stop! > Balcan confirmed as it disappeared around a corner.
And Fujigaya gently deposited a dead body on the ground.
Totsuka squinted at its face. "So~ I suppose this is the infamous Tamamori?"
"Is he more infamous than me?" Hashimoto wanted to know, leaning over the hacker in question. He wrinkled his nose. "Even if he smells funny?"
Totsuka didn't answer, patting Hashimoto's hair instead, and Fujigaya likewise ignored him: "I need a favour, Tottsu. Look after sleeping beauty here for me? Please?" Fujigaya had on the innocent, earnest expression that he used when he wanted something (and, in Totsuka's opinion, should've outgrown about ten years ago).
"I can take him home," Totsuka said all the same, not immune to innocent, earnest expressions whatever their form. "What's up?"
"Fumito's head, up his own backside," Fujigaya said. "I'm going to go save him from himself. Oh, and thanks-" Reaching out, he unclipped the satchel of first aid bits and bobs from where it was slung under Totsuka's belt (just in case Hashimoto had been near death). "I'll take this."
"Okay?" Totsuka said as Fujigaya grinned and kicked in his skates, leaping up. "Good luck..." Next instant he was out of sight, the only sign he'd ever been being Tamamori's sleeping self.
Totsuka was still for a long moment. Well, that figured. Kawai could be a pretty unintelligent life form, too. But if it was still just him and Fujigaya and they hadn't called for backup yet, then things were probably still okay. Probably.
"...are you going to have to go?" Hashimoto asked quietly, pointedly not looking at Totsuka as he made a show of continuing to inspect Tamamori's bangs. The sad note was audible though.
But Totsuka wasn't really listening, regarding Hashimoto and Tamamori with pursed lips. There was a job to be done, now. "It's like a gathering of Lost Boys."
"A what?" Hashimoto asked, frowning a little.
"Peter Pan's..."
"Who...?"
Leaning down, Totsuka got one of Tamamori's arms around his shoulders, and gestured for Hashimoto to do the same around the other side. "Help me get him back home and I'll tell you along the way."
Hashimoto's face lit up with a bright "Okay!" and Totsuka tilted his head curiously as they began to walk, having never seen someone so happy about doing gruntwork before.
1- if you want to know what a good cooee is supposed to sound like, check out this ancient news clip of the cooee championships, LOL. the defending champ at 40sec is epiiic. (try it yourself. 8D i'm not joking, it's a lot of fun and you literally can be heard for miles if you get it right. we used to do them randomly a lot on camps and stuff.)
2- i think tottsu would be good at cooee. xD his voice is clear and high, and even if not really good for singing, very good for stage lmao.
3- ESSAY TIME. why am i already halfway through the next chapter? prioritiiies.
Featuring the First and 45-I.
( sidestory: what friends are (really) for )
"Hashimoto!"
The underground was quiet as Totsuka jogged through it, in high contrast to the thudding of his heart in his ears. He wasn't scared per se but there were certain things that just got his pulse racing, and lost charges happened to be one of them. Unlike Kawai, Fujigaya, Goseki and Yokoo, Totsuka wasn't much the betting type, having instead an innate and inexplicable inclination toward slim odds and strange occurrences.
Unfortunately this attribute had also endowed him with an imagination active above and beyond the call of duty. What if, he wondered, Hashimoto had wandered all the way down to the abyss at the bottom of the underground? (Because there surely was one if you descended enough flights of stairs.) What if the boy had not only gotten too close to its edge, but was now hanging by his fingertips from the lowest rung of a creaking ladder, a radioactive sludge monster from outside the Capital having writhed and slithered its way in from the wasteland snapping at his heels?
"Hashimoto!" Totsuka shouted again - and winced a little as his voice bounced coldly off the platforms and pipes around him, giving the call an eerie feel. He wondered if Hashimoto ever got scared - it was pretty dark in some areas underground, and Nozawa and Sanada weren't with him all the time. (Like now.) Or if not scared, maybe cold? Or perhaps not so cold since he still had a bit of puppy fat on him. With a couple of blankets, he'd probably be alright almost anywhere except border territory...
"Hashimotooo!"
The puppy fat probably wasn't going to last through another year, though. It was odd. Every time Totsuka saw him, Hashimoto seemed to have grown another handspan. Nozawa, too, actually - and half the mixed bag kids the Guard had been charged with keeping tabs on. Except Onodera, but Fujigaya and Kawai had wagered charge duties on whether or not he was going to outgrow Kawai within the next three years. (Fujigaya said yes and often tried to slip Onodera extra nutricubes on the sly. Kawai said no and often tried to kick Fujigaya in the shin for cheating. Totsuka said that as long as the kid survived the next three years in the first place, his remaining chances were probably split fifty-fifty. One never knew - Onodera could easily be eaten by the wasteland sludge monster as well, if Hashimoto didn't fill it up enough. But that would depend entirely on how big the monster was, and who else it had eaten that morning.)
"Hashim- eh?"
Through the grate past Totsuka's feet, a sliver of movement caught his eye. Totsuka paused. "...hello?"
"I knew you'd come find me," Hashimoto said in a small voice, smiling as he stepped out of the shadows and peeked up from his hiding place. "I even knew kind of where you'd start looking first!"
Totsuka glanced around for the fastest way down. Seeing nothing else, he swung his legs over the guard rail and dropped to the platform below, jogging over to his charge. Well. Hashimoto was technically nobody's charge - or the charge of the Guard collectively - but somehow Totsuka found himself attending to the errant most often. It was an arrangement that, as much as he didn't technically mind it, was kind of bad for his stress levels.
"Hi, Totsuka!" Hashimoto said, arms out as if for a grabby hug. His tone was chipper and blissfully unaware of the state that Totsuka's adrenaline factories had been working in for the last little while.
"Hasshi!" Totsuka said. "Have you been here all this time?" Ducking under the other's reach, Totsuka peered into the little enclave in order to assuage the ridiculous thoughts that had been plaguing his imagination: there was no blood, no evidence of other inappropriate bodily fluids; Hashimoto wasn't disintegrating and hadn't run off to die alone like an ancient elephant of old... Everything was okay.
"...Totsuka?"
Breathing a not-so-subtle sigh of relief, Totsuka ducked back out and looked up to meet Hashimoto's eyes. "Are you alright?" he asked, and bodily patted down Hashimoto's deltoids, triceps, serratus anterior and lumbar for damage or contraband. "Did something happen? Nozawa was worried - he said that Balcan reported you'd been gone a while, and since you left Balcan behind..."
Hashimoto smiled, a hint of triumph in his face that he unsuccessfully tried to hide with shyness. "I left him behind so it couldn't have been hide and seek, right? I thought of that! Last time it didn't work because I took Balcan with me, and Nozawa and Sanada just thought I was playing. Then I had to go back because I got reaaally hungry." He paused, and looked down at his stomach mournfully. "Actually I'm pretty hungry right now, too... But you came! And it was the right spot so you got here first!"
Totsuka blinked. Hashimoto's language and logics often took some getting used to. Sometimes, he just said things in odd ways; othertimes, he accidentally said things completely different from what he meant. (Yet other times, Hashimoto said exactly what he meant and how he meant it, but his brain had unfortunately arrived at an erroneous conclusion prior to delivery.)
In most cases, the essential meaning could be either deduced or distilled, but sometimes it couldn't - like now. Despite Totsuka's self-proclaimed 'fair proficiency' in Hasshiese, he couldn't quite tell what Hashimoto's current point was supposed to be. In lieu of an impending epic revelation, Totsuka merely said, "I see..." and fished a nutribar out of his back pocket. He held it out, smiling. "Well. Here?"
To his mild surprise, Hashimoto actually held back. "...can I?" the boy asked first, hand hovering uncertainly.
Totsuka tsk'd, turning Hashimoto's hand palm-up and depositing the nutribar into it himself. "If you're hungry, eat."
"Thank you," Hashimoto said.
< Ommnom-nom... eet. Eat. Thank you! >
"Oh...!" Stepping back, Totsuka glanced down.
With a quiet symphony of clicks and whirrs, Balcan trundled up to them. His head spun once, 360°. < Eat. >
"Balcan!" Hasshi exclaimed, kneeling to pet the little robot. "You're here, too!"
< Hello, Ryosuke! Hello. >
"I thought he might have been able to help me search for you," Totsuka said. "But it turned out he moves a little too slowly. And can't take ladders." Balcan3000 was cute, but essentially useless. (A bit like its creator, no? Totsuka heard his inner Goseki-voice laugh in the back of his head.)
Hashimoto glanced up at Totsuka, his expression earnestly sincere. "I'll make him faster, then. And fix him some magnetic treads that he'll be able to switch out for the rolling ones so next time he'll be more useful!"
Something clicked.
"Waaait, wait, waitwait- back up the truck," Totsuka said, raising his hands. "Next time? Not another round of this, Hasshi." Crouching, Totsuka joined the little circle. (Balcan trundled backward a bit so the three of them made a more equilateral triangle.) Concerned and not a little confused, he searched Hashimoto's face. "You're not Houdini. Why the disappearing act?"
"Who's Houdini?" Hashimoto asked.
Totsuka gave him a Look for changing the subject. "Hasshi."
"Okay." Hashimoto glanced aside. "...can we be friends?"
"Of course we-" Totsuka stilled. Ah, so that's it... He smiled. (Genius! his inner Kawai sporfled.) "You're lonely."
"No!" Emphatic, Hashimoto shook his head, Balcan mimicking the gesture from the sidelines. "No, that's not it!"
"Then tell me what is?"
"I just want to be friends with you," Hashimoto said, and gave a half-coy smile from up through his bangs. "Because you're always watching out for me... that's all."
Totsuka blinked again as his heart skipped. He wondered for a moment who he ought to castrate for adding a trick like that to Hashimoto non-verbal arsenal, but said instead, "I see..." and tilted his head. Then grinned. "So you ran away and worried us all for your safety, just to tell me that?"
"Well..." Hashimoto chewed at his lip, practised façade gone now that he was in a bit of a pinch. "Kind of, maybe halfish? You don't come down here otherwise and - actually, hey? I was hoping you'd hang around a bit. And we could do friend stuff, you know? I want to be friends with the others too, but you seemed kind of kindest, so I thought I could start with you."
Wow, how are you so amazingly selfish? Totsuka didn't say. He heard Kawai's voice scorn it plain as day, though. You don't even have parents and you're still this spoilt! (But that was why Kawai was aboveground fighting crime with Fujigaya, and Totsuka was down below wrestling with his own demons-that-weren't. People's feelings were spared all around, that way.)
"Well..." Casting his eyes up to the insulayer far above, Totsuka thought about Hashimoto's request. Could he stay? Things were going down up there, but the others were competent. Kitayama, Kawai and Fujigaya would be fine, and even if they weren't then Tsukada and Goseki were as solid a backup as one could ask for. Chances are they wouldn't need little old Shota Totsuka on standby.
"Alright." Smiling, he turned back to Hashimoto. "Two hours. Just promise me you won't pull stunts like this again, alright? You could've been eaten by a large mythical creature of some sort."
"Nobody'd eat me," Hashimoto said. "I'm fat."
"You're not-"
"I promise," Hashimoto interrupted sincerely, saving Totsuka from having to list everything that was wrong with the theory of monsters not eating fat kids. "But only if you promise to visit, okay? It kind of sucks how I only get to see you guys when I'm in trouble."
Well, you get in trouble so often... "I promise," Totsuka said. And tilted his head, a half smile quirking his mouth. "Ryosuke."
He had to laugh when Hashimoto's brown eyes lit up in happiness. "Thanks! Tottsu? Can I call you Tottsu? Kawai was calling you that, and I totally want to be at least as good a friend as him! Even if he's had a bit of a head start."
Totsuka grinned. Well, Kawai had more than just a head start on Hashimoto, but Hashimoto didn't have to know that kind of detail for maybe a few more years yet. "No harm in trying? Ah, send Balcan back to Nozawa. He's been worried, and Sanada's out looking for you, too."
"Oh..." Hashimoto had the decency to look momentarily guilty. But then he gave his little robot a pat on the head. "Go on," he said, "you heard Tottsu. Back to Mama! And tell Papa I'm alright if you meet him on the way!"
< Back! Back... > Balcan bleated. < Back! > Wheels spinning, it zipped back off in the direction from which they'd come.
And then Hashimoto sidled over and gave Totsuka a kiss on the cheek.
Totsuka nearly fell over sideways, but (for better or worse) Hashimoto's arms had also twined around his waist. "Hash- Ryosuke, what? What was that for!" Shoving a little at Hashimoto's shoulders, Totsuka attempted to extract himself- "Ehh..." -in vain. Especially when Hashimoto just looked at him from close range with large eyes. Totsuka stopped struggling.
"Well, Sanada and Nozawa do it all the time, you know?" Hashimoto said, voice all soft. "And they're reaaa~lly good friends, so..."
Briefly, Totsuka wondered if some cosmic power was laughing at him from above - because it was either that, or Hashimoto was heaps intelligenter than he let on and also a brilliant actor to boot. (And Totsuka was more inclined to believe in divine intervention.)
"First," Totsuka said uncomfortably, "tell me how old you are. And if you have STDs."
"What are STDs?" Hashimoto blinked back at him.
"No, nevermind that one," Totsuka amended. "That was a stupid question. How old are you?"
"I don't know," Hashimoto grinned.
"Ah," Totsuka said, not really terribly okay with that. Granted, a lot of errant kids had no idea when they'd been born, but Hashimoto seemed to be taking a bratty sort of perverse delight in his answer. "You're younger than me, though. Probably by a lot."
"I'm taller than you though," Hashimoto pointed out.
"Yes," Totsuka said, "and Senga's also taller than Hiromitsu." (A lot of people are taller than Mitsu, Totsuka's inner Kawai-voice snorted - to which his inner Goseki said, About the same amount that are taller than you, Fumikyun? and Tsukada laughed, Guys, guys! Pots and kettles and stuff!)
"Who's Senga?" Hashimoto asked, eyes narrowing. "Is he your friend as well?"
"Less my friend than others," Totsuka said wryly, but a gentleman, as Goseki liked to say, didn't kiss and tell (or walk in on people and tell either, as the case was occasionally). Hashimoto frowned, and Totsuka went on: "He's a ward of my boss. You might get along with him, come to think of it - or maybe not - you're kind of similar..."
He paused.
"Ryosuke, do you hear that?"
Hashimoto sat up, tilting his head. "...yeah? Somebody?"
It sounded like a distant call, and Totsuka was glad he wasn't just imagining people yelling his name (because occasionally that happened, too). Extracting himself from Hashimoto, he stood and cupped his hands at his mouth. "Coo-ee!" His voice rang out clear and sharp, bouncing echoes around.
There was no reply. Yet.
"Whoa," Hashimoto marvelled, reattaching himself to Totsuka's side when Totsuka sat back down. "That was really loud. Does it mean anything?"
"It kind of means 'come here'," Totsuka said, "in an Old Local variant that was dead even before the First Collapse. But it was generally just used to find people - like GPS without the tech."
"GP- wait, the first what?" Hashimoto stared. "Old what?"
And then Totsuka remembered that he was talking to a relatively unintelligent life form. It was nobody's real fault that Hashimoto hadn't ever been to school, but the way he seemed to think friendship was all about touching people a lot made Totsuka assume the boy hadn't gleaned much from any acquaintances who might've had some formal education. (Well, nothing academic anyway.)
"A long time ago," Totsuka explained, "people thought it was a good idea to join all the countries in the world together, because..." the convergence of the various standards of the world's economies had been so successful, he didn't say. Legal systems had finally become more or less the same across the board, and technology had evolved to a point enabling instantaneous translation of most languages, so- "everybody was happy."
"Countries?" Hashimoto asked.
Totsuka said, "Our Capital isn't the only city around. There are some in other places."
"Oh..." Hashimoto visibly turned that thought over in his mind for a bit.
Totsuka nodded. Well, the First Collapse had supposedly been a good thing. For a while. But entire languages and cultures had been lost from the mainstream. And then the Second Collapse had happened - the ones that the fanatics generally liked to call Armageddon - and the little pockets of Old language and culture had been wiped out along with most of the rest of the world.
The vague shout sounded again, but from somewhat closer now. Totsuka sat up and gave another call (ignoring the way Hashimoto took the liberty to sprawl into his lap uninvited). "Coo-ee!"
Apropos of nothing that Totsuka could discern, Hashimoto poked him in the stomach. Totsuka jerked, not so much ticklish as unused to people invading his personal space quite like that. "Ryosuke-!" Hashimoto just poked him again, but a bit more considering this time, and Totsuka blinked. "...what?"
Hashimoto gave a third experimental poke before a guileless grin popped onto his face. "Tottsu has muscle. I like that."
With an incoherent noise, Totsuka slapped Hashimoto's hands away. "Don't say things like that, you've got it all wrong!"
This time, it was Hashimoto's turn to blink. "What's wrong?"
"You're wrong! I mean, I mean-" Totsuka amended as Hashimoto's face fell. "We can be friends perfectly well without, without - ah, sit up! Sit up right now and get your head out of my lap!"
"But why!"
"...Tottsu?"
Totsuka spun and froze, mild psychotic episode aborted. "Taipi! Hi! So it was you. Where's Fumito?"
"That's the thing..." Fujigaya started but then paused, taking stock of the situation. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No," Totsuka tried.
"I think you did," Hashimoto said. But then his eyes widened. "BALCAN! He got you!"
"Balcan?" Fujigaya looked down at the little robot in his hand. Its head spun, whirring and clicking softly. < Nozawa! Totsuka has found Hasshi! Tottsu. Totsuka has. Found Hasshi! > "Ohh, you must be Hashimoto Ryosuke."
Hashimoto glanced at Totsuka, eyes big and surprised. "I'm famous?"
"Um. Sort of," Totsuka told him. "Infamous, maybe."
"This belongs to you, then?" Fujigaya asked, holding Balcan up.
"Yes," Hashimoto said. "He's my friend for when nobody likes me."
Totsuka cleared his throat. "Actually, our carrier pigeon. It was relaying a message."
"Oh, oops," Fujigaya said, half his mouth quirking up amusedly. "Since it was broadcasting your name, I was hoping it would help me find you." He set the robot down and it immediately took off again, speeding back in the direction of Sanada and Nozawa's camp.
"Don't let anybody stop you this time, Balcan!" Hashimoto called after it.
< Don't stop! > Balcan confirmed as it disappeared around a corner.
And Fujigaya gently deposited a dead body on the ground.
Totsuka squinted at its face. "So~ I suppose this is the infamous Tamamori?"
"Is he more infamous than me?" Hashimoto wanted to know, leaning over the hacker in question. He wrinkled his nose. "Even if he smells funny?"
Totsuka didn't answer, patting Hashimoto's hair instead, and Fujigaya likewise ignored him: "I need a favour, Tottsu. Look after sleeping beauty here for me? Please?" Fujigaya had on the innocent, earnest expression that he used when he wanted something (and, in Totsuka's opinion, should've outgrown about ten years ago).
"I can take him home," Totsuka said all the same, not immune to innocent, earnest expressions whatever their form. "What's up?"
"Fumito's head, up his own backside," Fujigaya said. "I'm going to go save him from himself. Oh, and thanks-" Reaching out, he unclipped the satchel of first aid bits and bobs from where it was slung under Totsuka's belt (just in case Hashimoto had been near death). "I'll take this."
"Okay?" Totsuka said as Fujigaya grinned and kicked in his skates, leaping up. "Good luck..." Next instant he was out of sight, the only sign he'd ever been being Tamamori's sleeping self.
Totsuka was still for a long moment. Well, that figured. Kawai could be a pretty unintelligent life form, too. But if it was still just him and Fujigaya and they hadn't called for backup yet, then things were probably still okay. Probably.
"...are you going to have to go?" Hashimoto asked quietly, pointedly not looking at Totsuka as he made a show of continuing to inspect Tamamori's bangs. The sad note was audible though.
But Totsuka wasn't really listening, regarding Hashimoto and Tamamori with pursed lips. There was a job to be done, now. "It's like a gathering of Lost Boys."
"A what?" Hashimoto asked, frowning a little.
"Peter Pan's..."
"Who...?"
Leaning down, Totsuka got one of Tamamori's arms around his shoulders, and gestured for Hashimoto to do the same around the other side. "Help me get him back home and I'll tell you along the way."
Hashimoto's face lit up with a bright "Okay!" and Totsuka tilted his head curiously as they began to walk, having never seen someone so happy about doing gruntwork before.
1- if you want to know what a good cooee is supposed to sound like, check out this ancient news clip of the cooee championships, LOL. the defending champ at 40sec is epiiic. (try it yourself. 8D i'm not joking, it's a lot of fun and you literally can be heard for miles if you get it right. we used to do them randomly a lot on camps and stuff.)
2- i think tottsu would be good at cooee. xD his voice is clear and high, and even if not really good for singing, very good for stage lmao.
3- ESSAY TIME. why am i already halfway through the next chapter? prioritiiies.