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Ever since he had seen Ninomiya Masataka on that screen in Tamakoma at 11:46 a.m Hyuse had wanted to fight him.Or… Hyuse had wanted to do something with him. He wasn’t quite sure what though, so he decided that it must’ve been an urge to fight. Despite the fact that he knew exactly what the urge to fight felt like and it sure as hell wasn’t this. Though, must it be classified as that, well… He didn’t exactly want to win. In fact, (though he’ll go down with his denial about it) he wanted to lose. But as soon as this thought managed to get its way into his head, he completely ignored it. There was no way. Nobody wants to lose, that’s dumb, if they do what’s the point of even fighting. Jin had clearly noticed how conflicted Hyuse was (despite how hard he was trying to hide it) and simply said: “Which one?”Hyuse knew that was a trap. He didn’t answer. I mean, the asshole probably knew exactly which one, whatever that means. Or rather, he couldn’t know because Hyuse felt absolutely nothing towards everyone on that screen. Nope, nothing at all. Jin, seeing his reaction (or lack thereof), responded with “It’s okay. You’ll get what you want.”Hyuse hid his face. In retrospect, doing that probably gave away waaaay more than he thought it did. Not that it could give away anything, because you can’t give away something that doesn’t exist. Fortunately, the embarrassment was cut off by Yotaro loudly announcing “I need to pee!” and trotting off, before entering the room again after realizing he had forgotten Raijin-maru, then leaving the room again. Hyuse fixed his eyes on the television. During the previous conversation, Yotaro was probably the only thing keeping him from swallowing the small pouch of cyanide trapped inside one of his teeth as a quick escape. But of course he couldn’t do that, he reminded himself, the poison was removed the day he got here as a measure to keep him alive. Why Border wanted him alive was a different question. They’d already seen that they wouldn’t be able to get any information out of him, so there was really no point in keeping him from jumping off the roof of HQ. Not that he had the guts to jump off the roof of HQ. But back to the topic at hand. Or rather, lack thereof, because you can’t have a topic of someone you don’t feel anything towards. And despite what it might sound like, NO, Hyuse was not in denial, because denial is something that you do when you don’t want to feel something that you do feel. And because Hyuse felt nothing, absolutely nothing, he was not in denial. Well. He could at least admit that Ninomiya looked good in that suit. I mean, so did the rest of his squad, but… mainly him. Jin, now gaining the power to READ FUCKING MINDS, leaned towards him without taking his eyes off of the screen and said, “I know-”Hyuse jumped. “He looks good in that suit.”Fuck.Jin knew. Something. He knew something. Hyuse didn’t know what, but it was probably related to whatever the hell it is he was feeling. The silence was once again broken by Yotaro, who marched into the room and announced, in his typical Yotaro style “I have peed,” then plopped off of Raijin-maru’s back and onto the couch. “Good for you,” Hyuse said.“I know.”The match continued on for he next two hours like the typical match does, Hyuse ignoring anything and everything that popped into his mind the moment it did (like one does), Jin smirking because he knew something that one other person in the room might’ve but was too frightened to admit it, and Yotaro being… well, Yotaro. By the time the match was over, Hyuse was about to explode. On the inside. Outwards, he looked completely fine. He hoped. Fuck, they could all probably tell exactly what he was thinking. Fuck. But on the bright side (or perhaps an even darker side), he knew what he was feeling now. Aaaaaand, nope. Darker side. He knew what it was. And it was… not good, to say the least. Hyuse… oh goddess.He could never let anyone know. ---Hyuse had made that promise to himself two months ago. Well, eight weeks ago, so sort of. And while there were a few people he couldn’t keep it from (Jin, Tachikawa), he had been pretty sure no one else would find out (we’re gonna pretend for five seconds that Jin has a concept of social boundaries, okay?).So how. In the name of every single Mother Goddess in all of history. Was he here? Here’s what was happening. Here Hyuse was, in a dark room — a closet — backed up against a wall, his knee between the legs of Ninomiya— no, given the way they’d been going before, Masataka, the man who was currently kissing his neck and tugging at the neck line of Hyuse’s hoodie. Good Goddess. How in the name of fuck did he get here?
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Hyuse had gone for option B. Because when you realize that you’ve got a giant fucking crush on the person that a surprising number of people also have a giant fucking crush on, you have to options. You either a) join the fanclub and admit defeat, or b) deny it to anyone and everyone who asks. Hyuse did not like to admit defeat. No one does. Defeat is for failures and bottoms. He was so lucky Jin was keeping his mouth shut and Yotaro was too young to figure out what was happening. Though frankly, just how much did Jin know? The other voice in Hyuse’s brain replied immediately, stating very clearly that Jin knew literally fucking everything. Great. Because of all the people who could possibly do anything good with the knowledge of literally fucking everything, Jin was probably the last person on that list. Another thing: Ninomiya fanatics are weird. I mean, you have to be at least a little bit weird to join Border, but well… if you know Kazuma Satomi, you know that nothing good can come out of it. And sure. All of Border is a little bit weird. Hyuse was probably already above the average level of weird. You show up out of nowhere, claim you’re from Canada without speaking a word of Canadian or whatever they speak in Canada (Canadish? Canadese?), people are bound to start talking. Hyuse did not need “a Ninomiya fanatic” added to The List of Things That Make Him Weird. The mechanical sound of the front door creaking open made Hyuse jump. Again. Stop jumping, dude. “We’re home!” the voice of the tiny white haired one loudly announced, but the slight waver in his voice betrayed his disappointment. Hyuse could understand their struggle. Losing a battle was one of the few things that stayed the same between the two worlds. However, any feeling of pity he felt for them was overpowered by the fact that they had kidnapped him and held him in a single room for 2 months. So he didn’t feel that bad. However the one who had clearly been hit hardest by the loss was the tall dark-haired one. Their shoulders slumped and they only looked at the floor. The short one looked up at them reassuringly. The other tall one, with the long hair, remained cheerful. They greeted each of the people around the house, even if they probably couldn’t hear them. “Hey Kirie! Hey Director! Hey everybody else!” They then turned to the people on the couch. “Hello Yotaro, hey Jin, hey Hyuse…” they trailed off, clearly exhausted. However the realization that there was a Neighbor in the living room clearly outweighed the exhaustion from the previous match. The long-haired one leaned over to Jin and whispered in his ear, not realizing that pretty much everyone in the room could hear them. “Why,” they whispered, “the flying fuck,” they paused, “is there a fucking Neighbor in my living room?!”“Well—” Jin started.“And not just any Neighbor! No, the Neighbor we’ve been keeping in the fucking basement for two fucking months, you just—” they paused paused again, “BRING HIM UP HERE?!” As Jin desperately tried to tell them why exactly there was a Neighbor in the living room, Hyuse redirected his attention to the other three people who had just entered the building. The short dark haired one immediately plopped down onto the couch and curled into a ball, bringing their knees to their face. The white-haired one left the tall one’s side to go and console them. Hyuse took the comfort they showed around each other as his cue to leave. He was just getting up off the couch to head to… somewhere else (given as he’d been in the basement of this house for two months but never really explored above it, Hyuse didn’t know where anything was) when he was stopped by the long haired one blocking him with their hand. “You are not going anywhere,” they said, moving to block him from leaving. “Jin tried to explain it all to me, but unfortunately he was unsuccessful in his attempts. So,” their tone changed and they refocused their attention, “You. We need to do introductions.” The long haired one moved to show the other three. “This absolute ball of sunshine and rainbows is Osamu. He’s from Hokkaido and is part of the 0.35 percent of Japan that is Catholic.”Osamu nodded. “Both of those things are true. He/him.”The long haired one didn’t miss a beat, immediately moving onto the tall one.“And this tiny albino over here,” they gestured to the short white-haired one, “is Yuma. He’s from…” they trailed off. “Kalispera,” Yuma clarified. “Anything really.”“Aaaaaaaaand the short one over here is Chika.”Chika looked up and stated, “She/her. One time I ate only rice for a month and got scurvy.” She then sunk her head back into her knees. The long haired one continued. “And I, the most awesome, amazing, incredible, charming, beautiful lesbian you will ever meet—” they paused for dramatic effect, “am called Shiori. She/her.”Hyuse understood most of those words. There was one word at the end, but that didn’t really matter. It was probably another word for amazing. The one called Shiori leaned over to Jin. “Can he even understand us?” she whispered.“I don’t think so,” came the reply, followed by a quiet “shit” from Shiori. Yuma looked up at Osamu. “You good?” Osamu nodded. “Just tired,” he said, then headed in the direction of the stairs. Yotaro followed, for some reason. Shiori’s face scrunched up with confusion. “He doesn’t have a room here, right?” she said, looking at Yuma for confirmation.“Not the last time I checked.” Chika raised her head and pulled her legs off of the couch. “Why is Hyuse up here again?” Shiori sat down next to her. “Well,” she said, looking at Jin, “That’s not something I have the answer to. Jin, perhaps you might care to tell us?”Jin sighed and replied, “Ask the Branch Director. He’s the one who suggested that I bring him up here to watch the match.”“I can talk, you know,” Hyuse said, startling everyone. “Oh look, the alien we kidnapped two months ago and kept in our basement for some fucking reason can talk and is an actual person with wants and needs and feelings! What a fucking surprise!” he said, his voice laced with spite. Everyone stared. “The wants part I can definitely confirm.” Jin broke the silence with a smirk. Hyuse kindly refrained from murdering him right there in front of everyone. Yotaro would probably not like that. Of all the people he had met here, Yotaro was the only one who treated him like well… a person. Maybe it was the fact that Yotaro was five, and the thought of treating him like an object hadn’t occurred. Maybe it was that the only spark of good in this world was those who were five. And those with middle-parted dark brown neck-length hair and suits. Fuck. Of all the things to think about. That. Brilliant. That little annoying voice in his head told him that he shouldn’t think about it. Like, you get it. If you think about it, that means admitting it happened, which it didn’t. And if it didn’t happen, Hyuse had nothing to justify. And nothing to worry about. End of story. Oh Goddess, he was gonna die.
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Though they would never tell him, everyone in Tamakoma knew about Hyuse’s… feelings towards Ninomiya. They could all see the way he tensed up when the name was brought up, the way he would sometimes go through five different emotions in the span of seconds, the way he would ask questions about literally everything else so as not to seem strange or attached. All of this bullshit started when Shiori was quietly going over the matches with Jin. She was carefully observing Hyuse for any sign of well, anything from him at the mention of any of the names. She would pause carefully before and after every name to see if she got a reaction. So far, however, she’d been unsuccessful. “Next match,” she said, looking at Hyuse from the side of her eye. “Yuba Squad, Ikoma Squad, and Ninomiya Squad.” She finally got her reaction from Hyuse at the mention of Ninomiya. Said reaction was the aforementioned Neighbor stiffening and listening much more closely than before. And that was the beginning. The next time it came up was a conversation between Shiori and Kirie. It was their day off, the day that the Reiji and Torimaru spent at home, the Directors spent at HQ, and while Shiori loved the rest of the branch very much, she still did not know where they went. She was currently at the branch residency, sitting on a couch and braiding her girlfriend’s hair. Kirie sat in front of a couch, having her hair braided. “Okay, so you have aaaaaaaall the captains of Border,” Shiori said, clearly very drunk. “All of the legal captains.” she corrected. “Which one do you screw?”Kirie thought this over for a bit. “Kusakabe Saki,” came the answer. “Isn’t she the operator?” asked Shiori.“Captain, too.”“Goals, right there.” Shiori finished her braid, tying the end off with an elastic. “So.”“Yes?”“I’ve been noticing something lately. About Hyuse. And whenever a certain person is brought up, he goes… stiff. Weird. All that shit. He talks a bit different.”“And who is said person?” asked Kirie as she climbed onto the couch and laid her head on the other’s shoulder.“Ninomiya.”Shiori paused and waited for what she had just said to hit Kirie. “No.”“Yes. I shit you not, Hyuse has shown signs of… feelings , to say the least, about Ninomiya fucking Masataka,” Shiori said.Kirie contemplated. “That is strange, yet somehow not entirely unexpected of him,” she replied, twirling the end of her braid. “In other news, you need to come back to being our operator. Do you know how many times I’ve greeted with ‘Oh, you must be Tamakoma-1’s operator!’ like dude. I’m the fucking third most powerful fucking attacker in all of fucking Border!”From then on, Kirie told Yuma, Yuma told Osamu, Osamu told no one, Yuma told Chika, Chika accidentally told Reiji, and soon enough, all of Tamakoma knew. It was when Kirie was telling Jin something that he already knew that the information finally reached Hyuse. “So,” Kirie said to Jin, lying on one of the two couches, “Did you hear about a certain…” she trailed off, trying to think of the best way to describe Hyuse, “ person’s feelings towards a certain captain with say, middle-parted dark brown neck-length hair, who stands at a mighty one-hundred and eighty-four centimeters, whos team wears suits because said captain, ‘doesn’t like the cosplay look’ but unintentionally made his uniforms the most cosplay of all of them?”“What?” Jin said for the eighteenth time in the past five minutes.Shiori patted her girlfriend’s shoulder. “First of all, you went into way too much detail there, secondly maybe you shouldn’t bring this up in front of said person with said feelings?” she said, tilting her head in Hyuse’s direction at the end of the sentence. “Oh please,” Jin said, “we all know, he just doesn’t really know that we do.”“Yes I do,” said Hyuse from the table. Jin slapped his hand on his knee and began to get up. “Welp, that settles it. Case closed. We’re done here. Everybody go to bed.”Hyuse observed the situation. There was something gentle about it. Something kind. Maybe it was finally getting verified as an actual fucking person with feelings. Maybe it was how close they all were with each other. Maybe it was that finally, for the first time in his fucking life, he was included. In whatever the fuck this was. Hyuse’s sentimental moment was interupted by Yuma stumbling into the room, looking quite discheveled and walk-dragging themself over to Shiori. “Shiori,” they said, “I can’t find…” they snapped their fingers twice. “Shit, what’s it called— my toothbrush.” They then promptly collapsed on top of Kirie and started to snore.Kirie looked confused. “But… but she doesn’t sleep. Why is she sleeping?” Reiji flipped the egg he was making and said, “No one questions Yuma Kuga, the Almighty Slayer of Gods.”From then on, life continued to happen. At least, for the next week or so. Part of the information provided to the soldiers on the away mission to attack Meeden was about the ship that would come to Meeden approximately 48 days after the original infiltration. The ship was purely for trying to take Meeden’s crown trigger, but they notified everyone that if, Goddess help them, they got left behind on Meeden, to go to Border headquarters on that day that the invasion was planned for. That day was today. Just ten more hours and he could leave. Hyuse would finally be free of this planet, of this horrid house. Of… the only friends he had ever made. Of the first person who…Hyuse pushed the thought of Ninomiya out of his head. He was leaving today. Back to tiny rations and mockery. After all, getting spoiled isn’t good for you. Hyuse knew that. Hyuse knew that very well.
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So he’d packed up what little he had, changed into a trion body (fucking plaigerism. Those Meeden birds had stolen the technology), gone outside, and started to walk. Anticipation rattled him inside, but once again, on the outside, he hoped to the Goddess that he looked fine. Normal. Despite being anything but. Hyuse’s plan was simple. Leave, then keep walking and try to talk to the first Prosopo he saw. Reveal his horns and then he could leave. What was not part of his plan was that Yotaro would follow him. Hyuse had left the house and heard sounds of battle. He went towards them. The army had to be large for this much noise to be made. Was it Gaolopoula or Rhodokhroun? Either way, how would he contact them? Could he talk to them? Questions raced through his head as his pace quickened. Hyuse had to get there fast, or else they would leave without him. If the invasion was from Rhodokhroun, the army would probably be big but weak and use its size to its advantage. If the invasion was from Gaolopoula, the army would be small but incredibly well trained. That was the country’s whole thing, having well developed soldiers but not a lot of them. Hyuse kept walking. Was walking always like this? Maybe it was being trapped in a basement for two fucking months and then not going outside like, at all, for another four weeks. Maybe that was it.Eventually he came to a building. Moreover, a building with a roof. To get a better look. He used the Border trigger he had stolen to cut open the door and enter. The building was empty, thank the Goddess. Hyuse climbed the stairs. Goddess, why were there so many fucking stairs? Eighteen floors later, he finally made it to the top. Once again, he used his stolen trigger to cut open one of the doors and got to the roof. Looking around, it was easy to spot where the battling was happening. There were flickering lights, loud sounds, and even more lights. This would probably go down in history. The extreme always seems to make an impression. It was a wonder some people were still asleep. People like Yotaro. Yotaro who had been Hyuse’s only friend for the months he had spent in that building. Yotaro who would randomly come into his room and fall onto the floor. Yotaro who had a Crown Trigger in the shape of a Capybara for some fucking reason. Shit, that’s a manga spoiler. Sorry. But it’s not like Hyuse could stay here. It was too late for that. It was too late for that the moment he left the building and whispered “Goodbye, senpai.” And good Goddess, looking down at this it was chaotic. Not like chaos isn’t great. Chaos is great. Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs. Goddess, stop quoting Jason “J.D.” Dean from Heathers (1988). It’s not healthy. Hyuse looked around. With all of the chaos and the flickering lights and the loud noises and the flickering lights, the odds were definitely against him. But what was he going to do? Go back? Nope. Abandon this journey and go somewhere else? Hell no. So he climbed down the stairs and headed out of the building. And oh shit. This was faster than he imagined it would be. The first Prosopo he’d seen all night, standing there, right across the street. They stared at each other for a few seconds.Hyuse finally broke the silence by taking down his hood and saying, “You must be from Gaolopoula’s away team.” He could see the shock on the other Prosopo’s face at the revelation of his horns. The other one even muttered, “Aftokrator…!!” lightly under their breath. Hyuse sighed. At least they weren’t an idiot, whoever they were. “If you understand that, this will be easier,” he said. “I am Hyuse of House Erin, under the command of House Beltiston. I demand that you assist me in returning home. Now take me to your away ship.” It was demanding, but sometimes there’s no other way to get what you need. “Hyuse!” came a voice from behind, and Hyuse looked back to see Yotaro riding on Raijinmaru. Yotaro who, the idiot, had followed him. Yotaro, he thought, did he come to stop me? But it appears that Yotaro did not come to stop him, as the child pulled out a certain circle that Hyuse recognized immediately as his Lambiris. “You left this,” Yotaro said, holding out the Trigger. “That’s… Lambiris,” were the only words that left Hyuse’s mouth.
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“Yotaro,” said Jin, drinking God knows what out of a mug, “would you be happy if Hyuse joined Four-Eyes’s squad?”
“That’d be the best,” Yotaro replied, leaning forward on the couch. “I’ve taught Hyuse to do so many things.”
Jin set his mug down on the coffee table and looked over at the five-year-old. “Then,” he said, “what if he wants to go home? To be honest, there’s a fifty-fifty percent chance of him staying or leaving. Which is why I haven’t talked with Four-Eyes about the details yet.” He took a sip of whatever the hell it was he was drinking. “What do you think?”
Yotaro pondered the question for a bit before answering with a sad look on his face, “If he wants to go back… I want to let him go.”
Jin reached into his pocket. “I see,” he said, pulling out the trigger that Hyuse had brought in with him during the invasion. “I’ll leave this with you then.” He handed it to Yotaro. “Don’t loose it, all right?”
Yotaro nodded.
---And right now, Yotaro held out that very same trigger.“I got this from Jin,” he said. “He told me to give it back to you if you left. If you were going to leave…” he trailed off, momentarily forgetting his point, “you should’ve just told me!”Hyuse looked down, meeting eyes with the child. “I’m sorry. And thank you,” he said as he took Lambiris from the child.The moment was broken by the Neighbor speaking up. “Hyuse of House Erin,” they said. “Sorry, but I can’t let you board the away ship.” Hyuse’s face expressed confusion.“There were many things about this mission that didn’t make sense to me,” they continued. “And it looks like you’re on good terms with the Meeden people. Didn’t you sell out your country and join their side?” they said accusingly.Hyuse looked at them from the side. “What did you say,” he said.The Neighbor continued. “If you want me to trust you, you must prove that you didn’t surrender to Meeden.” They paused. “Capture that child. Take him as your hostage.”The fuck were they asking him to do? “Capture that child” my ass. Fuck them. There was no way in all goddesses that he would ever, in any amount of time, do that.“Only then,” they continued, “will you convince me your not a traitor.”The fuck? Where is the logic in that? Like, you’re not a traitor just because you don’t want to force a five year old into a life that you led but could prevent for him. Fuck off.“What if I refuse?” Hyuse asked.“I won’t let you board the away ship, of course.” The fuck did they mean of course? Fuck you! “I can’t accompany a person suspected of spying.” You have low fucking standards for spying, sir. Ma’am. Person. Fuck.“I see,” Hyuse said, eyeing Yotaro. Hyuse then proceeded to stab the child.---It was a very simple trick. Move the blade so that it went around the body but through the clothing so that it looks like you stabbed them. Everybody was taught it. But seeing the Prosopo’s stunned expression, the soldiers of Galoupoula clearly weren’t taught it.“Do you still think I’m on their side?” asked Hyuse. “Just take me with you already.”But they clearly had no intention of doing so. They clenched their fists and shouted, “I knew it. You people from Aftokrator are all garbage! ‘Take me with you, you say… like hell I will, you idiot!!”They continued shouting. “‘We don’t need to rescue captives. We can dispose of them if they interfere.’ That’s what your higher-ups told us!! Do you understand what that means?!”“ Your country has abandoned you!!”They continued on once more. “The one who killed the Meeden child is you! It wasn’t us! Now you must bear the brunt of Meeden’s hatred!!”“Are you saying…” said a voice from the ground, “Hyuse can’t go back home?” Yotaro had risen from the ground, eyes sharp and very alive.The Prosopo clearly hadn’t learned the trick, judging from their response of “Wha… He’s alive?”But they were only fazed for a second. “You set me up!” they said accusingly.“Set you up?” Hyuse asked. “You set me up first.”Shit went down when the Prosopo activated their trigger, calling “Thugator!!” in the process. Don’t ask me why. I didn’t write it.So of course Hyuse activated his, also calling out its name for some reason. Once again, didn’t write it. Take that up with Ashihara.The fight was very loud, very short, and very vague, but ended with Hyuse pinning the other Prosopo to the ground, winning. His magnets whirled around him, creating a scene that he hoped was impressive.“You have my gratitude,” he said, “for the valuable information.” And with that, he sliced the other’s head and shoulders off, causing them to disappear from sight in some fashion that had not yet been developed on Aftokrator.Yotaro tilted his head. “Huh…? He’s gone…? Was that a bail out…?!”“Looks like they’ve also created bail out technology,” came a voice from behind. They both turned around to see Jin.“Jin!” called Yotaro.“That was some good acting, you guys,” said Jin.Yotaro smiled. “I taught him so many things,” he said.“Jin,” Hyuse began, “Do you still remember the bet?”Jin smiled. “Of course.”Hyuse took Lambiris from Yotaro. “I’d like to use that power right now. Do whatever it takes, but you must get me back to Aftokrator.”There was a moment of silence before Jin said, “Okay. Understood. In that case, there’s an open seat for you…” he looked at Yotaro. “Right, Yotaro?”It took a moment for the child to understand. “...! I see!”Jin began to walk home, beckoning the other two to follow. “Maybe we can still make it,” he said. “Let’s take a look at the squad you’ll be joining.”
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No matter who you think you are or how special you believe yourself to be, never, under any circumstances ever, fall in love with an alien. No matter how hot he is, or how many people he’s killed, just don’t. It’s a bad idea. Masataka knew this very well. You were taught it when you joined Border. Never, under any circumstances, have any sort of feelings for a Neighbor. At all. So to no surprise Masataka fell in love with a Neighbor. Fuck. It had started by him hearing of Tamakoma-2’s new rookie, Hyuse Kronin or something, who had climbed the ranks in a single. Fucking. Day. No one does that. So of course Masataka was… intrigued, for lack of a better word. And then there was a match. Tamakoma-2 versus Kageura versus Ikoma. The latter two he really had no interest in, but the first, well… it had honestly started out as a simple manner of, “How did he do it? How did he climb all the way up to the B-rank top group from the C-rank bottom?” and then it escalated. All it took was a single one hour match to bring that feeling to a “Fuck it, I need to meet him.” But first we need to go through the fuck pile of emotions that raced through Masataka’s head while watching the match. Thankfully, Inukai was in the box doing the commentary and couldn’t see him because he knew that if he could, the teasing would never end. When he had first entered the booth, he had suspected there was some sort of trick to the rookie’s batshit power. There must’ve been some sort of loophole, or maybe an excess of trion or something. Masataka, however, failed to predict that he was just that good. But that realization sunk in incredibly fast as he watched this— this… person? Was he even a person? He acted like some sort of robot, some android, some sort of… alien. Fuck. That was it, wasn’t it? There was no other way that with a day of training he would be this good. But of course, there was no way to confirm this theory other than to speak to the combatant in question personally. But it’s not like you just go up to someone like, “Hi, are you a Neighbor?” No. You don’t. If you do, you should see a therapist. Masataka did not want to make it seem like he belonged in a mental hospital, so he figured that the best way to ask would be to have a conversation and just subtly work it into said conversation. But for now, the only thing that he could really do was watch the match. Of course, for the first twenty or so minutes of the match, he got nothing as things happened, but not really important ones. Well, important to the plot of the original story, but not this one. Fuck off. And so a solid half hour passed and then— and fucking then, Hyuse used Escudo. Escudo is a tricky thing, and not many people know how to use it but Hyuse… he had it down cold. Which was terrifying, in its own sense. Of course, the shock that that brung was quickly overridden by the next… technique? Could you even call it a technique?? Either way, there was only one word that could be used to describe it: fucking badass. He silently corrected himself that that was two words. God, he was falling apart. Why the fuck was he falling apart? I mean, sure, this rookie was fucking amazing and— ooooooh fuck. That made a lot of sense. Do you know that feeling when a thought pops into your head and immediately you force it out and the only thing that runs through your head is “NO” in all caps? If you do, you know exactly the thought process that Masataka was currently feeling. There was no fucking way he would let this happen. He couldn’t… shit, anything he could’ve thought would come off incredibly Which segways us to our next topic: he had a fucking status to uphold! That alone should speak for itself. There’s this point in denial when the only things that go through your brain are “no. Fuck.” That was exactly the point that Masataka was experiencing. I could write more about this denial, but denial is surprisingly hard to write and incredibly boring. So this stream of fuck no had continued pretty much for the rest of the match, though because of this internal monologue Masataka didn’t realize when the match had ended. But it did end, and with it everyone’s excitement. But back on the subject of Hyuse. He sure as hell wasn’t from Canada, that much was true, but then… oh fuck. That was it, wasn’t it? That was totally fucking it. Let me clarify; at this point in the story, Masataka had come to a conclusion that will eventually spark pretty much the entire plot: Hyuse was a Neighbor.In fact, Masataka thought as he stood up and left the booth, he was probably at the large scale invasion. Masataka remembered him now, standing in that black coat, magnets swirling around him. He didn’t know, however, that the Tamakoma branch had—His thought process was interrupted by him stupidly not watching where he was going and running into the aforementioned person in the middle of an unpopulated hallway. A miracle it was unpopulated because he had just ran into the person he had just been thinking about. Like an idiot. Hyuse had also clearly not been paying attention to his surroundings because after bumping into him, he looked around, his eyes taking a few moments to finally land on Masataka. “You…” he said, squinting. “You’re the one my squad fought against a few matches ago, right?”Masataka blinked a few times before saying, “Yeah. That’s me. I’m Ninomiya Masataka.”Hyuse nodded. “I know.” He knew? Okay. That was fine. Perfectly fine. Fuck.Masataka tried his best to look unfazed. How much it worked he couldn’t tell. “And you’re Hyuse Kronin? From… Canada?” The last word was said with a bit more than a hint of sarcasm.“Yep, that’s me,” Hyuse said. “I’m from Canada, I…” he trailed off, probably thinking of things that Canadians do. “I watch hockey! And uhh, what else do Canadians do…”“I think they fold their pancakes.”“Yes! I do that. I fold my pancakes like some kind of… pancake… folder,” Hyuse gestured vaguely before whispering, “I’m not from Canada.”This was the perfect opportunity to ask him if he was a Neighbor. If only Masataka had the social skills to do that. Instead, he said, “Right. So where are you from. Are you…” he gestured vaguely.Despite how vaguely everyone was gesturing, Hyuse got the message and answered it with a simple, “Yes. I am.” There was a pause. “Goddess,” he said, “Does everyone know?”Masataka shook his head. “Not that I know of. But of course, I have never been the best at…” he trailed off, “gossip.”Hyuse sighed. “Believe me, neither have I. But part of it’s the whole, being terrible at emotions thing. Earlier Konami was complaining about something, and I… well, I don’t particularly wish to relive it. But it was incredibly terrible.”“I hear that. You are the first person outside of my squad I’ve talked to normally in months,” Masataka said. Of course he said that. Of fucking course. Hyuse laughed, a truly impressive laugh. Almost… beautiful. No. Bad. Wrong. Fuck. “You’re the first person outside of my squad I’ve talked to on this planet. Save one person,” said Hyuse.“Who was this person?” Masataka asked.Hyuse looked around aimlessly. “I tried to run away from my problems,” he said, shrugging. “It didn’t work.”Masataka looked up at the ceiling for a second. “It never does.” And of course, he would know.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
You’re probably expecting some sort of deep dive into the Ninomiya squad trauma and all of that Hatohara Mirai kind of crap, but Masataka did not have the mental preparedness nor want to go down that rabbit hole. I mean, sure, he loved her, but… not that much? Not
enough
? Was that it? Was that why she ran away with some asshole she found off the street who was failing all of his classes? Was that why she jumped through a portal and left the rest of them to fend for themselves?
It had started with her slowly edging out of the squad. Mirai— if they still had the right to call her by that name— still fought with them, still did everything she
had
to do, like appearing in public and shit. But eventually, they rarely saw her.
It had started simple. They would ask her if she wanted to go out to eat with them. No, she had volleyball tryouts. Did she want to come and work on the technique? No, she was on a road trip. Was she up for a round of drinks? No, she was… studying? She never studied.
And then, one day, she just… left. Disappeared. She was there one day and then she just… wasn’t. They had found a note that read:
I’m leaving. If this world couldn’t accept me, maybe the next one can.
And that was it. And that was fucking it. She didn’t elaborate to where she was going, she didn’t say why, she didn’t bother to tell them in person, she didn’t— she didn’t even say goodbye. Hatohara Mirai, A-rank flake, had just… left.
The police had thought it was a suicide (make a note of that, kids. If you ever decide that you’re gonna jump into an alien dimension with a guy you’ve been cheating on your boyfriend with, always leave a note that is vague enough to be interpreted as a suicide note). Then they had thought it was murder, the note a forgery. Then they couldn’t find a body and thought it was an abduction. Then the note was verified to be Hatohara’s handwriting, and they had to face the truth.
Mirai had run away.
And they all knew where.
---
In the months before she had left, Hatohara Mirai had begun to bring up a certain name when talking to her teammates (a.k.a. making excuses). She had started by bringing it up once or twice, then gradually more, until it was all she would talk about.
Amatori Rinji
.
So when that surname appeared in the Border records, Masataka was hit with an emotional rubber band being shot at his face. He looked around to see who had played this cruel joke. He wondered where it— she— came from. He raised this question with others, and they verified his suspicions. Amatori Chika— that was her name— was Amatori Rinji’s sister.
He tried to ignore it. He really did. And for a while there, he could. But then there was that match. Masataka had watched one of Mikumo squad’s matches as research and holy fuck did she have a lot of Trion but that’s not the point. He didn’t remember much about it, mainly because he was too focused on the fact that this— this
girl
’s brother had been the one that Mirai— no.
Hatohara
had chosen to leave with.
And then Masataka thought about it from Chika’s perspective (he didn’t dare call her Amatori due to a fear of confusing her with her brother). Did she know about this? Probably not. Was it her fault? Fuck no! But there was only one way to confirm any of this. He had to ask her.
So Masataka did. He went to the Tamakoma branch building, asked to speak with her, and showed her the picture of Hatohara. Mirai? Either way, she didn’t recognize her, which was expected, and Masataka felt somewhat better. It was never like he had some sort of grudge against the team just because one of the members was the sister of the person that his girlfriend had chosen to run away with without even bothering to tell anybody before she did it. Okay, maybe he did a little but that’s not the point.
And now, speaking with Hyuse, Hyuse who knew nothing of the scandal that had taken place with his teammate's brother, was standing in front of him. And they may have been having a normal conversation. Probably.
While Masataka was having this ill-timed flashback, the air had been overtaken by a sort of awkward silence, which he then proceeded to break by saying: “How’s life been?”
Hyuse let out an exasperated breath. “I kind of hate my friends.”
“I get that. It’s like, they’re my teammates, so I should like them, but…” Masataka looked around. “They’re the only ones who will talk to me normally. Everybody else just… stares? I don’t know if 'stares' is the right word.”
Hyuse laughed. Once again, that laugh. “I mean, I don’t blame them,” he said, doing something that could be interpreted as flirting if you weren’t as fucking bad at it as Masataka was. I mean, he certainly
could
be flirting, but that would be dumb because like, why would he be flirting?
Don’t get your fucking hopes up, Masataka. He’s totally not
, Masataka told himself because Masataka is an idiot and has not read the first five chapters of this fic which are literally just Hyuse simping.
Why would he? That would be dumb.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
So. That feeling when you’ve been pushing all of your thoughts about a person back for months and then you have a conversation with them and your entire train of thought is screaming and nothing else? That’s what was happening to Hyuse right now. He had managed to stumble through the conversation without saying something incredibly stupid, like, “One time a cat ate my ear.” No, that’s not from experience. He’s never randomly blurted that out in front of a man he was interested in ever before. Shut up.
So anyway, Hyuse had managed to have a fairly long conversation with the Ninomiya. Masataka? No, he didn’t have that authority.
After thinking that, there was a small voice in the back of his head that said, “yet.” But that was him getting his hopes up. Never get your hopes up. Trust is always betrayed. Always. And that, children, is why trust is dumb.
Of course, there was really no way to hide his, stupid, blatant
excitement
or something like that at the events that had played out the day before.
He had had a
conversation
. With Ninomiya.
Fucking.
Masataka
. Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit. Of course, the conversation had been cut off by Shiori yelling at him to get in the car or else they would leave him there. Frankly, he wouldn’t exactly
mind
that, but she still proceeded to march over to him, grab him by the arm, realize who he was talking to, look mildly surprised, turn toward him, tilt her head, and drag him out of the building, through the parking lot, and all the way to the car, despite his various attempts to get her to let go.
Once home, she went immediately over to Kirie and whispered something in the former’s ear. The two had proceeded to talk in hushed tones for about five minutes, followed by having a full-fledged argument with their eyes. Eventually they seemed to settle on something.
Hyuse immediately went to his room to silently scream. As one does.
---
At some point during his silent screaming he must’ve fallen asleep, for the next thing that he remembered was sunlight shining in his eyes. Wait. How the fuck was there sunlight in here? This room had one window that was covered in paint for some weird-ass reason that Reiji had attempted to explain to him once. But back to the subject at hand. Why the fuck was there sunlight in here?
As it turns out, it was not actually sunlight, but Chika shining a flashlight directly at his face. “You up?” she asked.
“What who where when how time what?” he asked. “
Why
?”
Chika answered all of those questions immediately. “I woke you up, Chika, Tamakoma branch building, right now, with a flashlight, 3:48 a.m. Tokyo time, I woke you up, and I need your opinion on something,” she said. “Sorry. Did I talk too fast?”
Hyuse blinked. “No,” he said. “I just have one question:—”
“This is actually your
ninth
question.”
“Oh fuck off, will you? I have one
final
question. Why wake
me
? Why not wake someone like Shiori or something?”
“Shiori doesn’t know enough about this topic for me to ask her. So here’s my question:
“When we were having that meeting to get you into our team that eventually spiraled into shit about the away team, they said that they would take me if not the rest of the squad. They gave me a choice, however even through my autism I could see that it was absolutely not a choice and they are fully prepared to kill me were I to refuse. I am still conflicted about this matter, and I would like to ask your opinion on it because you know the Neighborhood better than anyone else here does. Save Yuma, but 1) he’s somewhere else, and 2) he hasn’t been there in years.”
Hyuse sighed. “First of all, don’t call it the Neighborhood. I could go in-depth about why exactly that term is offensive, but I have the feeling that you get why. And here is my advice: do you want to die?”
Chika shook her head.
“Then don’t resist. Because I know governments, once the demon decrees it, it cannot be changed. However, on the flip side if you
do
go, you’ll probably be going to Afto, where you would most likely be captured to become the next Mother Goddess. You would be treated like royalty for five to six years while they try to exercise your Trion gland as much as possible. Then the moment you turn 20 you would be taken to the Holy Table where you would have your soul and Trion taken out of your body and the two would merge together and become a planet. The people of Aftokrator would move onto that new planet, which would most likely be called Syllogí Vrochís, and you would never be seen again, nor would you be able to see anyone again. Being the Holy Mother is extremely hard.”
Chika thought for a bit. “Would I be conscious the entire time serving as the Mother Goddess?”
Hyuse nodded.
“How long would I be the Holy Mother?”
“The last one, Vasílissa Aftokrátoras, stayed for two hundred years. However with your Trion supply you might last anywhere from five hundred to two thousand.”
Chika’s face expressed nothing; the lack of emotion was made up by the incredible concern showing through her voice as she said, “I wouldn’t like to spend the rest of my existence like that.”
“Vasílissa didn’t want it either. But the priests didn’t care. They took her no matter what she said. There’s a good chance that they’ll take you the same way.”
Chika looked down. “I’m going to think about this,” she said and retreated out of Hyuse’s room. “Sleep,” she called as she went back to her own.
Hyuse sighed, pushing every single thought about
anything
out of his mind, and tried to go to sleep.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The next day, or rather, the same day, given as he’d been woken up at 3:48 in the fucking morning, Hyuse woke up feeling like a wool sock full of tennis balls. Which is not a very good feeling. So he just lied there, thinking about… well. You know. You’ve read the first eight chapters of this fic.
Every once in a while, a thought would pop into his head and he would vigorously deny ever having thought it. As one does.
But he had to get up at some point. So he did. He ate a piece of bread. Then he decided that probably the best choice would be to get his mind off of… well. Why do you think Hyuse was trying to get his mind off of it?
So he decided that he would go to Border HQ and practice. Not that he needed it. The annoying voice in the back of his head kept telling him that every single person in all of Border knew that with his abundance of Trion and power, he was almost definitely a “Neighbor” or whatever slur they decided to use as the “technical term.” Goddess, he hated people.
But nevertheless, he decided ever so smartly to go to Border HQ and practice. At least, that was what he had intended to do. That was quickly interrupted by him running headfirst once again into Ninomiya. Fucking. Masataka.
Ninomiya immediately apologized and went to return to whatever it was he was doing beforehand. Then he looked back.
“Oh, it’s you again,” he said. “You’ve come here often.”
Hyuse blinked. “I work here.”
Ninomiya swore to himself. “Of course you do. Why wouldn’t you come here. God, I’m an idiot. At least I didn’t say that to you at your house?”
“House is a bit of a stretch,” Hyuse said. “Like, sure I live there. But like… I don’t even know. Place of residency, I guess.”
Ninomiya nodded. “Earlier I was talking to Tsuji and I tried to say ‘fun’ and ‘cool’ at the same time and it came out ‘fool’. That was fun.”
Hyuse sighed. “At least this is your first language. A few days ago I forgot the word for ‘ruler’ and said ‘dick’.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Ninomiya asked.
“I don’t even know. This language has to many rules and I’ve reached a point where I can’t even remember half of them. I was taught to speak it, but… I was raised strange.”
“How were you raised?” Ninomiya inquired. “I mean, if you’re comfortable sharing.”
Hyuse looked around. “Not here,” he said finally. “Somewhere more private.”
Ninomiya nodded, and proceeded to bring him to one of the combat rooms, but instead of going into the actual simulation, the two sat on the bed where one would be taken to the simulation.
Hyuse decided to immediately break the silence. “Do you know how the Holy Mothers are raised, Ninomiya?”
The other shook his head. “No. And uhh, call me by my first name. Please.”
“Okay. So basically they take a girl from her family at one week old, bring her to the temple, raise her there until she is twenty (raping her pretty much the entire time), and then, the day she turns twenty, they kill her and do a bunch of other shit to make the new planet.”
Masataka nodded. “That’s terrible.”
“We’re old-fashioned,” Hyuse said nonchalantly. “So that’s basically how I was raised, without the death part and with slightly less rape.”
“That’s even more terrible,” Masataka said, looking at Hyuse. “Why?”
Hyuse fidgeted with the strings of his hoodie. “I had an overabundance of Trion, but as a male I couldn’t be selected as the next Goddess, so I was given to house Erin. Rumors said I was treated like an adopted child, but really I was bragged about like a child, talked to like a prostitute, and treated like a slave.” He pulled the sleeves of his hoodie down, partially hiding his hands. “It did some serious shit to me.”
Masataka looked at Hyuse. “No wonder it did shit. That’s… ‘terrible’ is the only word I have for it, but it’s definately more than terrible.”
Hyuse nodded. “Yeah. But it got better? I think. I don’t quite know.” He looked at Masataka. “You’re surprisingly easy to talk to. I don’t think I’ve told anyone in this world that before.”
Masataka sighed. “You’re like, the first person I’ve talked to normally in months. I know I said that the last time we talked, but everyone else is all like ‘Oh my God you’re so hot’ and ‘I’m super racist’ and ‘Oh my God you’re so hot’. It’s tiring.”
Hyuse laughed. “They’re not wrong, of course.” Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. He shouldn’t have said that. He
really
shouldn’t have said that.
“You think that?” Masataka asked.
“Of course I do. Have you seen yourself?”
“Not lately. Been avoiding mirrors. You’re not…” Masataka trailed off, realizing he had no idea where he was going. “Terrible. You are not terrible.”
“The words every man longs to hear.”
“You know what I meant.”
“I believe I do. But I do need some confirmation that what I think you meant was what you actually meant.”
Masataka smiled. “Can I kiss you?” he asked.
“Fuck yes.”
So he did.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was a long kiss, eventually broken off by Masataka pulling away and asking, “This is what you wanted, right?”
Hyuse raised an eyebrow. “Would I have said ‘fuck yes’ if it wasn’t?”
“That’s fair,” said Masataka and went back to kissing him, hands tracing the other’s waist.
Hyuse leaned in, his hands around the back of Masataka’s neck. The kiss continued for quite some time, both of them vaguely remembering that this was a very dumb idea. But nevertheless, some fucking how Hyuse ended up underneath Masataka, his hands clawing at the buttons of other man’s shirt. Masataka had removed his jacket when first entering the room, leaving his rolled-up sleeves visible.
Masataka broke off the kiss to trace his lips against Hyuse’s neck. At this point Hyuse had undone four of the buttons on his shirt, and the other man was dragging one finger down the front of Hyuse’s shirt. His hand stopped at Hyuse’s abdomen, and he lifted his face to look at Hyuse for permission. Meekly, Hyuse nodded, and holy fuck how in the motherfucking what how did he get here.
There’s a point in when the man you’ve been… well, there’s
probably
a word for it, but whatever that word is, Hyuse didn’t know it. Anyways, you’re under him, and he’s stroking you, and his shirt is now completely undone and you have absolutely no idea how you got here but you are enjoying it very much and Goddess—
In other news, Masataka had now lost his shirt
completely
and Hyuse currently felt
very
overdressed, but any feelings he had were currently being overridden by this feeling of pure
ecstasy
at whatever the fuck was going on, he still had no fucking idea but Goddess he loved every moment of it.
Do you remember that tiny voice in the back of Hyuse’s mind from chapter 4? Well what do you fucking know, it was back, whispering to him that this was a terrible idea, that this was stupid, that there was no way that he could keep this up, but once again, every feeling except pure happiness and raw instinct were completely overridden.
Masataka’s lips met Hyuse’s once again, and eyewitnesses (which was no one. No one was there. Perv.) would say (if they were there, which they weren’t. Shut up.) that Hyuse just
melted
. That on top of the fact that Hyuse was
very
close, and—
There was the sound of the rattling of a door knob. They both froze, listening intently, waiting to see if the sounds continued, which they did. The rattling of the doorknob went on rattling for what was only around a solid ten seconds but felt like years until the person outside finally seemed to understand that this room was occupied and left.
However after that, both Hyuse and Masataka were too spooked to continue. The tiny annoying voice in the back of Hyuse’s head (whom he had named Penelope) had won this argument. Hyuse and Masataka looked at each other for a few seconds before Masataka slowly backed off of Hyuse, picking up his shirt and beginning to put it back on.
Hyuse too backed up, rezipped his jeans, and straightened himself out. At this point, Masataka had put his shirt completely back on and stood up, grabbing his jacket. “How should we leave?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Masataka began to pace. “Neither do I. I mean we can’t just leave at the same time and oh
God
that was dumb, why did we think that that was a good idea—”
“Well I never thought it was a good idea, I can’t speak for you—”
“—well I never thought it was a good idea but I wasn’t thinking—”
“—Of course it wasn’t a good idea, we both knew it wasn’t a good idea, so why the fuck did we do it? It was a stupid idea and we both knew it—”
“—but how should we leave? We can’t just leave at the same time, people will be like ‘Did they just fuck?’ and of all the things I need in my life, that is not one of them,” Masataka finally shut Hyuse up, placing a finger on the other’s lips.
Hyuse slapped his hand away. “Okay, you go now—”
“I can’t go right now, we’re talking.”
Hyuse sighed. “You know what I meant. You go soon, and I’ll wait three minutes and
then
I’ll go and no one will know.”
“Can you up that to five?”
Hyuse stood up and sighed again. “You’re being paranoid,” he said.
“Of course I’m fucking paranoid, why the fuck would I
not
be paranoid? You’re not? The public can absolutely
never
find out about this, if they did we’d
die
—”
“Of course I’m paranoid, but I don’t think we’re going to
die
, I mean Penelope says otherwise but still—” he pinched the bridge of his nose “we’re not going to die. Probably. The chances of
this
being the thing that kills
both
of us are very low, but then again never zero—”
Masataka stopped pacing. “Who the fuck is Penelope?”
“The voice that tells me that everything will
not
be fine and that I
will
die. Okay, listen, you’ll leave, then I’ll wait
ten
minutes, and then I’ll leave. Okay?” He poked the center of Masataka’s chest.
Masataka nodded and went to the doors before looking back. “We should probably talk about whatever the fuck just happened sometime, right?”
Hyuse nodded. “Probably, but not now. Now get out that door.”
Masataka nodded again, turning to the door before once again looking back at Hyuse and saying, “You will wait ten minutes, right?”
Hyuse sighed once again. “Goddess, you have my word. Now get. The fuck. Out of here.”
Masataka finally left the room, leaving Hyuse alone. He sighed. Goddess, that was dumb. Why the fuck had he thought that that might’ve been the slightest bit a good idea? Why was Penelope almost always right?
Maybe Hyuse was just an idiot. Maybe he
would
die. Be kinda weird if he never died, but still. That was a very dumb idea. He knew that.
Goddess, he was going to
die
.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Why had that happened? Not that Hyuse was expressing any sort of distaste at the events that had happened the day before, it was simply that the entire idea was incredibly stupid. I mean, it wasn’t the absolute
worst
thing that had happened to him… no. It was dumb, it was some sort of fling, they weren’t
thinking
—
Shiori popped her head through the door frame. “We’re having curry again, that good?”
Kirie snorted. “You’re a strange woman to be making curry.”
“Well, not all of us can have your exceptional talent for making curry. Some of us have other concerns for which curry must wait.”
Kirie stood up from her position on the couch. “Truly a shame. For what could possibly be so important that curry would have to wait?” She smiled and laughed, locking eyes with her girlfriend.
Shiori smiled. “Everything.” She spun around to face the stove again. “Now help me with this sauce. Hyuse, you help me too.”
Hyuse was broken from his trance-like state (in which he was wondering, of course, why the events that had played out roughly a week prior) and stood up. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked. “I set fire on water.”
Kirie sighed and turned to Shiori. “He’s been like this all week. He’s been in this trance. When you say something, it breaks, but only for a bit.”
“I’ve noticed that too. Did something happen to him?”
“I don’t know, but either way it’s
very
annoying. You can’t even talk to him. And that’s terrible when it’s your job to teach him.”
Shiori looked at Hyuse, who had fallen back down onto the chair and returned to staring at the distance and barely
breathing
.
Shiori leaned her head on Kirie’s shoulder and said, “Is he okay?”
“I don’t know at this point. But anyways, get to the curry, it’ll burn.”
The voice of Torimaru came shouting across the house, saying, “Curry doesn’t burn!”
Hyuse looked up, regaining his bearings, and said, “Is there a way to kill him?”
“I heard that!”
Hyuse sighed. “I know!” he said and returned to his trance.
Goddess, why would they ever think that that was a good idea? It wasn’t, and it was going to
kill
them both because they hadn’t the sense to
think it through
and if they had just stopped being idiots (not that the both of them had been idiots, Hyuse was the one who had agreed to it, and that’s the only one who matters) and
thunk
about it for
five
seconds then they would’ve noticed that it was a
terrible
idea and that they should’ve absolutely
not
done what they did (he didn’t dare think of what had
actually
happened, it was much easier to just imply it and hope that people would read the previous chapter) and—
Goddess, the next match would be
terrible
. I mean, sure Masataka (should he even call him that? Or was that like, a thing for that time would that be weird it most certainly would be good Goddess Hyuse was going to
die
)
had
said that they should talk about it later and Hyuse had agreed, but that mainly a means of ushering him out of the room so that Hyuse could die in peace.
Would they have to talk about it before the match? After? Both? Goddess, this was impossible. It would be a lot easier if the Goddess of this realm would just drop a brick on Hyuse’s head and kill him already.
Meanwhile, Kirie and Shiori continued to whisper about Hyuse while preparing the curry.
“He looks like hell,” Kirie said.
Shiori laughed a bit. “I have a feeling he just got back.” Close Shiori, close. Really close.
“Maybe it’s a spoke in his menstrual cycle.”
Shiori pinched the bridge of her nose. “Kirie, do I really need to explain this to you?”
“Well, I don’t know, have
you
seen him naked?” (Well, some people have. People I won’t name. We’ll call them Ninomiya Fucking Masataka. Or at least Masataka had seen enough to confirm that this was not, in fact, a spoke in his menstrual cycle.)
Shiori stared at her.
“See? Neither have I! It could be! The only way would be to ask him.”
Shiori sighed once again. “You are insane,” she muttered, stirring the curry.
“I know,” Kirie said, leaving the curry to head back to the couch. “I’m going to ask him. Hyuse, do you have a uterus?”
Hyuse took a few seconds to respond, then shook his head.
“And there’s your answer. Come back here and help me with this curry.”
But Goddess, what if Hyuse—
no
. He did not, under any circumstances, want to think like that, and Goddess, what had happened to him? When did he start getting this happy? He wasn’t supposed to be this happy, not at anything, he didn’t
deserve
it. He was a soldier, and not a very
good
one at that. He was Hyuse of House Erin, under the command of House Beltiston. He wasn’t
from
here. There was no way, no way in fucking Pompeii that he would be able to form any sort of connection or relation to the people here.
But hadn’t he already done that? Wasn’t he part of this squad, no matter how much he seemed to hate him, or how terribly he treated them? And there was no denying the events that had played out the day before. That was something that, like in the first chapter, he would desperately try to deny it for about 1200 words but everybody would just figure it out somehow and he would die. Again. Goddess, how many times has he died?
And
Goddess
if they ever spoke to each other again after the events that had played out yesterday, it would be— well, it would be something. And not a good something, either. It would probably be the thing that kills him. If not, it would still be immensely awkward and he would be the equivalent of dead without the whole “being dead” part.
Let’s hope it just flat-out kills him. That would be ideal.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For the next roughly twelve days life continued on as close to normal as it can get when one is in critical denial of feelings that very much exist and events that very much happened. Hyuse didn’t go back to Border HQ. He figured it was a good idea, considering the events that may or may not have happened days prior.
Eventually though, through the passage of time that I’m sure you all are quite familiar with (it would be strange if you weren’t), it was time for the match. And Goddess, if Hyuse had only listened to Shiori when she went over all of those matches six weeks ago (was it six? He was losing track of time). Well. He had listened to
one
of the matches and… oh Goddess. Vasílissa, Mother of All Creation. It was
that
one, wasn’t it? That one that he had first seen as mesmerizing that he now saw as some sort of…
something
that was like, going to eat him or something like that. Either way, it loomed in front of him like a cheap, tree-shaped air freshener hanging from a rear-view mirror of the cluttered car of a seventy-two-year-old man who treats his wife like a servant and his wife doesn’t fight back and all of her relatives have given up trying to help her because from what they can tell she doesn’t
want
help and also he smelled like potato chips and mistakes. No, the author is most definitely not projecting. Shut up.
Constructing this decent simile took him pretty much all of the time Hyuse had to think of this, because before he knew it he was being shoved into a car and taken off to that place he’d been avoiding. Hyuse was walking through the hall (walking is a generous term. He was stumbling), Shiori half-dragging him, when he saw him.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
They made eye contact for a moment that felt like it lasted
years
, finally breaking it and having this entire conversation with their eyes that eventually resulted in,
We’ll talk about what happened before later. First we have to fight this match.
---
Hyuse had absolutely no recollection of what the match was like. He had died, said something shitty to Chika (again), and probably been an ass the entire time. The standard. What he did know was that it was completely possible to have an entire conversation with just your hands. A conversation that can lead you to branch off from your friends (well, teammates) and into a fucking broom closet (a fucking broom closet of all places!), waiting for someone else to show up.
And that someone else did, in fact, show up. Hyuse, being once again too absorbed in thought, did not hear the door creaking slightly. So when a soft voice said, “Hey,” Hyuse practically jumped. Before realizing it was the man he had both been hoping and dreading to see, Ninomiya Fucking Masataka.
Hyuse, brain short circuiting, decided to point out the weirdest thing. “This is a big closet,” he said, tracing some of the framework with his left hand.
“They need it to be this big to fit all of Border,” came the reply.
“What?”
Masataka sighed and waved his hand. “Nothing. Tasteless joke.”
“Oh,” said Hyuse. “I’ve heard that those are common here.”
“They are,” Masataka said. “But back to the topic at hand. That…
thing
that happened nine days ago. That was like…”
“Dumb.”
“Yes. It was very dumb. It is, probably one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done, I mean, have you done something dumber than that?”
Hyuse thought for a minute. “There was this one guy, I can’t remember his name right now, but I was like, deeply and immeasurably in love with him because I was thirteen and didn’t know any better, and I went up to him and I said, ‘A cat bit my ear off.’”
“Oh, yeah, that does sound dumb.”
“It was.”
“But that’s not as dumb as— as
that
, like that was dumb. That was
really
dumb. And like, sure, it was like—”
Hyuse raised his eyebrows. “You’re doing the thing again.”
Masataka stopped. “What ‘thing’?” he asked.
“That thing where you’re freaking out and you start pacing and speaking really fast and I can’t see your face right now, but I’m willing to bet eighteen of those weird pieces of paper that you people use for currency that your eyes are super wide and your eyebrows are scrunched together.”
The room was quiet for a moment. “They are,” Masataka eventually said. “But still,” he continued, going back to the previous topic, “that was stupid, like, sure, it was fucking great except for the part at the end where we got interrupted and then I freaked out because from what everyone I’ve ever closely known has told me, freaking out is all that I
do
—”
“Well, not everything—”
“—but it was still very, very
dumb
. Great, but dumb. Perhaps more great than dumb but still astronomically stupid, like it was awesome but also stupid, and I mean—”
Hyuse cut him off, saying, “It sounds an awful lot like you want to do it again.”
Masataka sighed. “Of course I want to do it again, but there are reasons that we
shouldn’t
.”
“Like what? Name five of their albums.”
Masataka squinted. “Do you even know what an album is?”
“I do not,” came the reply.
Masataka sighed. “Well, there are reasons, like…”
“Like…?”
“Well, I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but still—”
“Neither can I. Shall we?”
And see, in that moment, the Penelope of Masataka’s mind (who is named Bert and often materialized as Masataka himself) kept telling him, as always, to
not
do
whatever
the fuck it was he was about to do. But, as established in prior chapters, nobody in this fic has any sort of impulse control, so Masataka gladly ignored Bert’s suggestions and kissed Hyuse because for some reason he thought that that would be a good idea.
And, at least in that moment, it was.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Remember that promise that Hyuse had made to himself in chapter 1 that he could never let anyone know of what he felt? Well, strangely enough, that popped into his mind. It was almost ironic, as here Hyuse was, in a dark room — a closet — backed up against a wall, his knee between the legs of Ninomiya Masataka, the man who was currently kissing his neck and tugging at the neckline of Hyuse’s hoodie. And it was… fine. Hyuse felt oddly calm about the entire situation (a situation where he definitely should not be feeling calm). Hyuse was suddenly reminded of the last time that he and Masataka had done something like this in a place like this. But he also didn’t want to break the moment, so he didn’t say anything at first. However, when things escalated (and he also got a leg cramp), he decided to bring that up.Gently, he nudged Masataka’s head. “Remember the last time we did this?”Masataka stopped and looked up to meet Hyuse’s eyes. “Yeah. Why?”“It didn’t end well.”“It didn’t.”There was a moment of silence that was broken by Hyuse saying, “So we probably shouldn’t do this here.” “Yeah, probably.”“I’m also getting a leg cramp.”“Oh. Yeah, we should go somewhere that is not—” Masataka gestured around vaguely, “—here.”Hyuse nods, and before he can comprehend what’s going on he has (somehow) gotten into the Ninomiya squad building. No one is there save him and Masataka. It feels eerie, to be in another squad’s building, especially with only one other person there. In the dark. And besides, he’s there with Masataka. Not like that brings him a sense of safety, but it certainly washes out any sort of fear that he has. As it turns out, it’s very hard to be afraid when you’re making out with a very attractive man. Who knew? The night passes in a blur. Shit happens— a lot of shit happens— and for the most part of it, Hyuse is barely thinking. It’s just happening and Vasílissa, Goddess of This World he would not change it for anything. And well, shit escalates— shit escalates quickly— and at some point, he has somehow found himself lying naked in bed next to Ninomiya. Fucking. Masataka.Goddess, he could never tell himself from two months ago about this. That Hyuse would lose his shit. But Hyuse right now, well, Hyuse right now was fine with this. The same type of calmness from earlier passed over him, the same type of calm that would be concerning if you weren’t so damn calm. ---Hyuse woke up, the next morning. Waking up was a thing he did. Another thing he did was calm down a frantically pacing Masataka (again). Of course, given what had happened the night before it took much longer to do so this time. But at some point, he was able to leave, and get home (somehow. To this day he has no idea how he got home that day. He wasn’t thinking and didn’t remember, which was terrifying). So he got home (somehow) and was immediately bombarded with questions from Shiori and, on occasion, Kirie. The first was, of course, from Shiori. Hyuse was barely through the door when she asked, “Where the fuck have you been?”Hyuse froze. “...Somewhere?”Shiori sighed and said, “Let me rephrase that. Whose bed did you wake up in?”Hyuse, who was now panicking, said, “Uhm… no one’s?”Kirie looked up from her crochet. “My money’s on Ninomiya.”Shiori looked at her. “Ninomiya?”“Well yeah, I mean, we all know that Hyuse has wanted to fuck Ninomiya since he laid eyes on him, and they’ve had some interactions in the past few days that scream ‘sexual tension.’”This time it was Hyuse who spoke up. “We have?”“You have.”Shiori looked confused. “So let me get this straight,” she said, then added as a side note, “(not that any of us are)”. She pointed at Hyuse. “Did you, Hyuse… whatever your last name is…”“Of House Erin, under the command of House Beltiston,” Hyuse said. “That’s exactly what I said. So anyway, did you sleep with Ninomiya Masataka?”Hyuse paused, wondering what to answer her with. “Yes,” he said finally. Kirie looked amused and Shiori looked confused and mildly surprised. She reluctantly handed Kirie a few of those random sheets of paper and blinked quite a few times. “So you… well first of all congrats, half of Border wants to wake up in his bed—”“Four-ninths,” Kirie interrupted. “Four-ninths wants to wake up in his bed, four-ninths wants to wake up in Kako’s, and one-ninths really doesn’t care.”“—six of one, half dozen of the other. Basically a lot of people have dreamed about doing exactly what you just did, so you are… you won like, money. Or something. I don’t think you actually win money for sleeping with attractive people, but you definitely should, because it’s hard.”Hyuse raised his eyebrows. “Your point is…?”“My point is, we can— well, you can— never let anyone know.”“I made that promise to myself months ago.”Shiori looked even more shocked. “You were sleeping with him months ago?” she asks.“No. It was of a different thing relating to him.”“Oh, thank God. I was afraid you were able to keep a secret for a second.”Chika popped into the room, seemingly only to make the comment of: “He can’t,” before leaving. Shiori looked at her. “We know,” she said. “But anyway, we need you to make that promise about this—” she waved her hands around vaguely, “—shitstorm. Can you do that?” she asked.“I can. In fact, I already did.”“Oh, thank God. The last thing we need is a rumor going around that one of our agents slept with Ninomiya Fucking Masataka.”“I swear on my Goddess that I will tell no one of the events that played out last night between myself and Ninomiya Masataka,” Hyuse said.Shiori looked at him. “I have no idea what that means,” she said, “but good.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Trying to ignore someone that you most definitely
do not
want to ignore is really hard. You pass them in the hall and you two have to look completely different directions despite it being quite obvious that you want to talk to each other. You just can’t. For publicity reasons. For reasons that the two of you had established and reasons that you
know
are much more important and valid than simple
feelings
, but still, there’s this other voice in your head that’s telling you to go up and
talk
to that person. But you can’t.
This was exactly what Hyuse was going through. He would be walking through the halls, looking around, and unexpectedly make eye contact with a certain Ninomiya Fucking Masataka. They would quickly look away and pretend that they didn’t see each other, and that? That was pain. It was almost as if Masataka (if Hyuse could still call him Masataka, even in his head) was trying to
deny
the events that had most definitely happened, or at least he was trying to pin them down as
bad
or
dumb
.
That wasn’t saying that the events weren’t
dumb
. In fact, those two interactions were probably some of the dumbest in Hyuse’s life. It was like all of the common sense in Hyuse’s brain (that is to say, Penelope and nothing else) had been completely shut down in favor of sex.
But those two interactions were some of the best ones that Hyuse had had on this stupid planet. If he had to put up a ranking, they would be sitting in second and third place, right after he had thrown a pickle at Chika’s face and she punched him and then apologized and then got mad at herself for apologizing and retaliated by taping up hundreds of pictures of Jin’s face in Hyuse’s room whilst he was sleeping so he had rigged the sink in the bathroom to pour pickle juice instead of water.
But the pickle incident was irrelevant. The real problem at hand was emotions. Emotions that Hyuse hated. Because Penelope was currently battling with a different force in Hyuse’s brain, which he had named Euphrosyne. Penelope was arguing that common sense stated that it was perfectly normal and right for Masataka to be avoiding Hyuse because of the public, and Euphro was just sort of whimpering in the corner (which is all she ever does, really).
Goddess, was
this
what this situation was doing to Hyuse? He was making up names for the fucking
voices in his head
. Of all the things to name, that was probably one of the dumbest (the actual dumbest being a goldfish cracker. The author knows a guy).
But the worst thing about having two voices in your head that are constantly fighting is having to decide which one’s right? Is it possible that both are right? Or did Hyuse know which one was right and just in denial (again) and using terms like “common sense” or “emotions” to cover up pain?
Hyuse was having a long, deep internal monologue about which voice was right and which one was wrong while once again walking through the halls, trying to find Shiori. And guess who fucking walks in? If you guessed the man with the
worst
timing, the man who was able to casually ignore someone he had fucked just
days
ago, if you guessed Ninomiya Fucking Masataka, you would be too right and would have to die.
But time continues on no matter what you’re thinking or who you’re sentencing to death. And because time moves on, Masataka was now walking down the same fucking hallway that Hyuse was walking down. Penelope was yelling at him to not panic and just keep walking regularly like a normal, regular person, and Euphrosyne was crying again.
Unfortunately, Masataka had noticed Hyuse the same way that Hyuse had noticed him, and now the two of them were looking at each other very quickly and then looking away. This was a cycle that repeated more than it should have and Hyuse only got tenser the more that he did it.
And Goddess, they were in a hallway. They would be in this hallway together for like, five minutes,
tops
. It was going ot be fine. They were going to be fine. Everything was going to be fine.
Or it wasn’t. It most definitely was
not
going to be fine. Hyuse was going to die.
Masataka was now staring very intently at his shoes and walking slightly faster than he had been before. At least Hyuse was better at looking and acting unfazed than Masataka. He hoped. Goddess, everyone probably knew. Wasn’t that a good thing? Did that mean— no. Everyone knowing would be
bad
.
But would it be that bad? Wouldn’t that— didn’t that— wouldn’t that be like killing the wicked witch of the west— no, east— west? Goddess, he sounded like a fucking psychopath.
While he had been having this internal mental breakdown about what knowing would do to his relationship with Masataka, the man in question had already made his way out of the hallway (thank the Goddess) and gone wherever it was he was going.
Speaking of going places, where was Hyuse going? Goddess, look at him. He was too busy fucking worrying about what a public relationship would do to him and he
forgot where he was going to go
.
Oh right. He was trying to find Shiori to ask her about… something. Goddess, he fucking forgot that too. See? This is exactly why Hyuse couldn’t be seen with Masataka in public or even among anyone else: he was a fucking mess of a nightmare of a child’s self-assigned art project. And not a very talented child.
And Hyuse had also already passed the room that Shiori was in by like five rooms. So he walked back to her room, internally freaking out (again), and knocked on the door, as he now understood above all the importance of knocking.
There was the sound of a person— or was it two people?— shuffling around the room, and then the sound of one person locking themself into a closet. Eventually, the door unlatched and Shiori came out.
“Oh, Hyuse!” she said. “Hey! What in the everloving fuck do you want?”
Hyuse looked around. “Uhh… nothing, never mind.”
Shiori sighed. “Okay then,” she said, sighing, “please go away.”
Hyuse nodded. “Yeah. I will. Uhh… bye.”
Shiori nodded and fake smiled. “Bye,” she said, and then turned back to her room. The door latched and there was the sound of a closet opening.
Hyuse still had no idea what he had wanted to ask her.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hyuse stood outside the door to the operator room currently occupied by Usami Shiori (who was most definitely
not
using the room for its intended purpose), staring at a wall and thinking about the situation that his relationship with a certain Ninomiya Fucking Masataka was currently in.
On the one hand, there was reason, there was Penelope. She was arguing that completely ignoring the man and leaving him alone and attempting not to think of him ever again was the best possible way to go about this business and there was really no other option if Hyuse ever wanted to leave the house again.
On the other hand, there were feelings, there was Euphrosyne.
She
was arguing that if Hyuse continued to ignore the man and deny everything that ever happened, he would eventually break and quite possibly die. However, Penelope was arguing that the thing that would kill him would be breaking and accidentally slipping up, causing the world to know of what had gone down between him and Ninomiya Masataka.
So while this emotional shitstorm was going on in Hyuse’s head, guess who turned the corner (hint: it’s the same exact fucking person from last chapter)? Yeah. Him. Ninomiya Fucking Masataka.
You know, it was really strange that they kept running into each other. I wonder why that is. Maybe it’s because they’re the main characters and the author is impatient. Maybe.
It took a few seconds for Hyuse’s eyes to adjust to actually looking at something, and the thing that he chose to look at was, you guessed it, Ninomiya Fucking Masataka. His brain took a few more seconds to comprehend what exactly he was looking at.
Masataka waved. “Hi,” he said awkwardly.
Hyuse blinked. “What do you want?”
“Your voice. I’ll give you human legs for it,” came the response.
Hyuse looked puzzled. “What do you actually want?” he asked.
“I want to talk.”
“The last two times you said you wanted to talk, we ended up fucking,” Hyuse said, fiddling with a pin on his uniform.
“Touché. But I actually want to talk, though.”
Hyuse hesitated and looked around before finally saying, “Fine. But not here.”
The two walked around for a bit before eventually finding an unoccupied training room and sitting down in there.
Hyuse looked around. “Is this the same training room where…” he trailed off, seeing Masataka nod. “Oh. Well that’s awkward,” Hyuse said. Masataka nodded again.
There were a few moments of silence that hung around the room, lingering on for longer than anyone in the room actually wanted, but neither wanting to say something. Eventually Masataka spoke up and said, “We should never tell anyone that we did… that.”
Hyuse looked at him. “No shit, Sherlock,” he said.
“Do you even know what that means?” asked Masataka.
“Sort of?”
Masataka sighed. “It’s not only that we should never tell absolutely anybody about it, but also that, like…” he trailed off, trying to think of the right words to say, “it would be the wisest decision to like, not. To not, like, again.”
Hyuse nodded. “I… have realized that also. I mean, like, that’s just the smartest way to go about this.”
“Yeah.”
“Euphrosyne is mad at me for saying that.”
Masataka looked around. “Who the fuck is ‘Euphrosyne’?”
Hyuse fiddled with one of the buttons on his jacket. “Penelope’s twin,” he finally answered.
Masataka sighed. “You have more than one,” he said.
“Yes. Do you not have more than one? I figured the most common number is two or three.”
Masataka pressed his hands to his forehead, saying, “Good God! I don’t even know what the
fuck
we’re talking about because we’ve had like, one conversation that didn’t get eight sentences in and then just deteriorate into sex—”
“Is there something wrong with that?”
“—we barely even
know
each other—”
“—yes we do, we know each other—”
“—like, name one time we’ve actually had a conversation that wasn’t just us being dumb or us being like, ‘oh you’re hot let’s fuck’! There isn’t one!”
“—well there was the conversation before the first time, the second conversation we had, the day after the first one, that one we talked to each other, we
understood
each other—”
“We understood nothing. And I don’t think we ever will.”
“—fine! So we didn’t understand each other! So maybe it was just really fucking emotional foreplay! We
connected
—”
“—if physically counts—”
This comment lead to Hyuse loudly slapping Masataka across the face. Masataka stood there for a second, stunned, holding his hand to his face, before muttering a quiet “Sorry.”
Hyuse sighed. “Look,” he said, “we’re shit at this.” Masataka nodded in concurrence. Hyuse continued, “And I don’t know if we’re too shit at this to make ‘this’ work, or if we might be able to scrape by, or maybe we’ll both die trying. But…”
Masataka raised an eyebrow. “But…?”
“But I don’t know where I’m going with this. And
we
don’t know where we’re going with
this
. But we’re going. Somehow, we’re going. I think,” Hyuse said.
Masataka blinked. “That… made sense. In a way. Somehow.”
“Great. I didn’t intend for it to make sense.”
Masataka laughed dryly. “Still, I feel like we should like, try to not. To not
this
. At least not openly, or something.”
“Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.”
“Great.”
“Cool.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It’s really odd, when you make a deal with a person that you both
want
to uphold, but both know, somewhere, in the back of your mind, that you
can’t
. Well, not
can’t
. More like
won’t
.
In fact, Hyuse had already started a betting pool in his head of how long it would last. It was a very small betting pool, considering that there were only three people putting down money, and ultimately spectaculairly useless, considering that none of this money actually existed and everything that went on with the people in Hyuse’s head was probably some sort of symptom of some psychological condition caused by PTSD and regret.
Nonetheless, Hyuse had made a promise (more to himself than to Masataka) that he wouldn’t so much as
look
at the other man for the sake of keeping the social economy of Border alive. Goddess knows what would happen if people found out that there was some sort of interspecies relationship going on between one of the most important and powerful agents and a random nobody that showed up from “Canada”.
And so, because of those reasons listed above, neither of them were to so much as be in the same room together.
(But frankly, there were
plenty
of other interspecies relationships within border. Take for instance Yuma and Osamu, or litterally any of the off-handed flings that agents had had with certain people like Reghidetz.)
And so, he had
wisely
resorted to talking about his problems to
Chika
. Hyuse had told her that he had to talk to her about something.
And so he simply told her everything. In detail. Well, most of it. He didn’t get into too much detail when it came to… well. Anyways. He ended shortly and abruptly after their last interaction.
Chika thought for a few moments, before finally saying, “I have no idea why you came to me.”
“You are the person I trust the most in this hellhole.”
She tilted her head. “That’s dumb. Sweet, but dumb. I have literally nothing to say to you. What am I supposed to say? ‘Hi, this is my relationship advice’? Do I look like an experienced woman?”
Hyuse paused. “In a sense,” he answered.
Chika snorted. “So I am going to say back to you everything you said to me, just to make sure I understand it,” she said, before reciting everything he had said previously exactly word for word.
“Yeah, that’s basically the jist of it,” Hyuse said to her after she was done.
“Hmm. Do you realize how much blackmail I could use this for? Because I could use it for a good deal of blackmail. I’m not sure what I would threaten to tell, but this is definitely if not publishable, blackmailable. Is that even a word? ‘Blackmailable’?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Odd. So you came to me for… advice?”
Hyuse looked around. “More like I came to you to vent because you’re the only person who listens.”
“Bold of you to assume that I listen.”
“No offense, Chika, but you literally just recited an eight hundred synopsis of pretty much my entire relationship with a certain Ninomiya Fucking Masataka for the past month or two word for word exactly back to me. I’m pretty sure that you listen,” Hyuse retorted.
Chika didn’t appear to be listening. This time. “Chika?” Hyuse asked.
Chika looked up from the button on her sweater vest she was fiddling with. “Oh. Yes, I did literally just recite a synopsis of your entire relationship with Ninomiya Masataka for the past one month and thirteen days. And also, it was an eight hundred and twenty-six word synopsis,” she said. “I was just still wondering why ‘blackmailable’ isn’t a word. Is it? I should look that up.”
“You should.”
“I’m going to do that. I will be back with answers.”
“Answers to the universe?”
“Always,” Chika called from the hallway.
Five minutes passed, and Chika came back into the room. “My searches were inconclusive.”
“Just like the universe,” Hyuse said, not looking at her.
“Exactly like the universe,” Chika replied. “Exactly like your relationship with Ninomiya.”
Hyuse paused for a moment. “I suppose,” he said, “that in a way it was inconclusive.”
Chika tilted her head. “Go on,” she said.
“We never really got closure with each other,” he continued. “Our last discussion ended with a final point of, ‘We should probably not do this anymore.’”
“And so you don’t know where it’s going?” Chika asked.
“I don’t know
if
it’s going.”
Chika raised an eyebrow. “Honey, from what you’ve told me, it’s
definitely
going, if not in the best way possible. I mean, what happened the last time the two of you made a promise ‘to not to’? You totally did. Approximately a week later. In fact, you seemed to have made a promise ‘to not to’ and then immediately broke that promise and slept together.”
Hyuse sighed. “That
did
happen,” he said. “But…”
“But?”
“This time it seemed more… final? I guess? It seemed like this time we weren’t going to just, keep the promise for a week and then hookup at random for no reason.”
Chika thought for a moment. “Are you actually attached to this relationship?” she asked.
Hyuse sighed again. “I don’t even know. It’s like… we’ve only hooked up twice, I’m pretty sure he has like, no actual emotional attachment to this relationship.”
“And how do you know that?”
Hyuse let out a dry laugh. “I’ve spilled pretty much my entire trauma and PTSD and what do I know about him? Not… much.”
“Really?” Chika asked. “Have you tried… actually talking to him and getting his opinion on this?”
Hyuse blinked. “That was… actually good advice. Where did that even come from?” he asked.
“Oh, I just made up the exact opposite of what I would do.”
“And what exactly would
you
do?”
“I would go up to him at random, hand him a dead worm, and propose.”
And of course, Hyuse sighed again.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Hyuse had (ever so wisely) decided to take Chika’s advice and actually try to
talk
to the man he was having nonexistent relationship problems with (that is, problems about the nonexistent relationship. Not nonexistent problems. Vasílissa Queen of This World those problems were there).
That was a fun thing to work out. You have to convince the man that you pretty much
just
slept with to come into a room with you and talk and that it’s not about sex and you don’t want to
have
sex and Goddess not everything is about sex.
But Hyuse managed to do it. Somehow. He had managed to get Masataka into the room to have a conversation with him. But now… now there was just awkward silence.
Hyuse decided to be the first to break it, by saying, “Look, I know I shouldn’t’ve done this.”
“No, it’s fine,” Masataka said. “Like… something. God, I don’t know. You talk.”
Hyuse blinked. “Do I look like I have anything to say?” he asked.
Masataka nodded and said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, you do.”
“Great, because I do. Have something to say. And shit.”
“Good. Then say it.”
“I shall.”
And, believe it or not, ladies, gentleman, and genderless fish-creatures, Hyuse said it. Well, more like he
asked
it. Because it was a question. And questions get asked.
Hyuse asked, to Ninomiya Fucking Masataka, “Do you have any emotional attachment to this relationship?”
Masataka blinked.
There was another moment of pause, complete silence filling the room.
Masataka finally answered, “Uhh… yes? Sorry?”
“No, no, it’s… it’s not a problem,” Hyuse said. “It’s just… we should leave it alone. But at the same time,” here he paused before adding, “I don’t want to leave it alone.”
Masataka smiled. “Neither do I.”
“Neither does Euphrosyne.”
Masataka laughed. “I still have no idea what the fuck a Euphrosyne is.” He took a breath. “God. Have I ever told you about Mirai? If I can even still call her Mirai.”
Hyuse tilted his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Okay,” Masataka began. “Simply put, Mirai and I were fucking. And I’m not sure if she had like, any actual emotional commitment but I was stone-throwing teeth-shattering in love with her, because I was like, sixteen.”
“Ugh,” Hyuse said.
Masataka looked confused. “Aren’t you sixteen?”
“Legally. In your years I suppose I am… approximately six and twenty-two thousands multiplied by ten to the power of twenty three.”
Masataka’s eyes widened, trying to comprehend what had just been said. “Fun,” he finally answered. “Uhh, just curious, but, like, how old is Kuga? Like, technically. On your planet.”
“On
my
planet he is considered to be exactly the number that you humans consider ‘pi.’ On his planet, however, he would be considered closer to the exact number that on this planet is called ‘e.’”
“But here he’s fifteen.”
“Basically. Anyways, you were saying?” Hyuse said.
“Uhh, yeah,” Masataka continued. “Basically I was screen-smashing, pencil-eating in love with her. Aaaaaand, she was friends with this… this guy. Amatori’s brother. Amatori Rinji, who was, in retrospect, better-looking, smarter, and waaaaaay hotter than I…” Masataka trailed off before finally having a realization and saying, “Woah. Well, that makes a lot of sense now.”
Hyuse made a noise that was probably best interpreted as a question mark. There was a moment of silence before Masataka continued, saying, “So basically Mirai and Amatori Rinji (along with a few close friends) left for the neighborhood. Illegally. I never saw her again, and she had left a note that was so fucking vague that the police thought she killed herself, then thought she was kidnapped, and then eventually realized that the had left.
“Mirai was the Border equivalent of a drug dealer. Or more like, someone who sells government secrets. She was illegally trading designated Border triggers for… something. I never got to know. She just… she was there, and then she was gone,” Masataka finished.
There were a few moments of silence. Hyuse eventually said, “That’s terrible.”
Masataka let out a dry laugh. “It does sound that way, doesn’t it?” He sighed. “When she first disappeared, I was… well, I was devastated. And then two years passed. I dated Nozomi. God, that went…”
“Horrible?” Hyuse asked.
Masataka smiled. “She
hated
me, which was fair, because I hated her. I don’t even know why we were dating, just that we were, and that it was probably because of the societal expectations that we were
supposed
to or something. Like, because we were together and like,
all
of Border knew, and—”
“Because you’re both look like dry erase markers?” Hyuse interjected.
Masataka looked confused. “We do?”
“Yes,” Hyuse answered.
“What does that even mean?” Masataka asked.
“I’m not actually sure.”
“Okay,” Masataka said, obviously still confused. “Anyways, it feel apart. Fast. I think it lasted like, six months. At most.”
Hyuse nodded. “I had… what was sort of like a relationship with this one guy? His name was Paeëon.”
“Go on,” Masataka said.
Hyuse did, saying, “Yeah. It was, like, three months. And he was like, the first person to actually listen to me and not like, torture or rape me. And he was like, nice? I guess. Or at least I thought he was…” Hyuse trailed off.
Hyuse breathed in and said, “And then, right six months after I met him, he like, took me aside. And like, shit. And then… and then he raped me. That was fun.”
“That’s terrible,” Masataka said.
“Ehh,” Hyuse replied. “I’d endured worse, at least physically. But that ‘worse’, well, I didn’t… I hadn’t had an entire (possibly beneficial?) relationship with the other people who did shit like that. And so… That time hurt, like, physically because it
always
hurts, and like, I guess the physical pain got worse because like, the emotional pain? If that’s even a thing?”
“Did you ever see him again?” Masataka asked.
“Once. Right before I left for this planet. He was… one of the people who sent me.”
Masataka looked horrified. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s… terrible.”
“It’s fine,” Hyuse said. “It stops hurting when you leave it.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
To be honest, Hyuse didn’t really want to think about it. I mean, no one does. That’s… kinda what happens when you get raped. You try not to think about it. Duh.
And so being forced to think about it, well… that was like, worse somehow?
You brought this on yourself
, Penelope said, or thought, or did
whatever
the
fuck
Penelope actually did.
And he knew that. He knew that he had forced this upon himself. Reason to hate himself number infinity. Woot.
What’s worse than being forced (by yourself, too) to think about someone is having an attractive man pity you for it. People often misunderstand pity. They see it as this sort of hideous, superiority thing, when in reality it’s more like someone being nice to you because they don’t want you to live through what you did or are, and the entire concept of pity being a necessarily
bad
thing often comes from the pitied.
Like what Hyuse was feeling right now. He didn’t necessarily
hate
being pitied by Ninomiya Fucking Masataka? For some reason? But he knew that he was better than this, he was
raised
better than this, and
this
, this was just. Just. Ugh. Fucking emotions.
What didn’t help was that he like, didn’t know exactly where he stood with Ninomiya Fucking Masataka? Like, it was complicated. Everything in life is complicated. Could something,
anything
, not be complicated?
And of course, the answer is always no. And the answer here was
especially
no, because Masataka had begun to talk. “Are you… are you alright?” he said.
Hyuse let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Is anyone ever actually alright?” he asked, not giving an answer to the original question.
“I’m going to take that as a no,” said Masataka.
Hyuse sighed. “It’s just, like, complicated? For no
fucking
reason, it’s complicated. It doesn’t
have
to be complicated, it doesn’t, it just, it fucking—” Hyuse stopped and leaned his head on Masataka’s shoulder before saying, “Fuck.”
Masataka stroked Hyuse’s hair. “Fair point,” he said. “Counterpoint: shit.”
Hyuse smiled. “You win. Goddess, I don’t even know who I am anymore. Do you ever get that?”
Masataka nodded. “All the fucking time. I broke a mirror a few days ago. I just… I was in my squad building and there was just, like, a mirror. And I saw myself, for a split second. Before I threw a hairbrush at it.
“I don’t even remember what I was thinking,” he finished. “I just… didn’t want to see myself. Ever?”
“I get that,” said Hyuse. “As it turns out, the people on this world don’t lay eggs.”
Masataka blinked and looked at Hyuse. “And the people on yours do?”
Hyuse nodded. “Yeah. Kinda. Somehow. And so, um, if you ever lay an egg, do not go to normal civilians who
don’t
lay eggs. They won’t, um, help.”
Masataka blinked again. “I’m still trying to process the egg thing,” he said. “So you… lay eggs?”
“Occasionally,” Hyuse said.
Masataka continued blinking. “So… what? What does that even
mean
?”
“It would take literal years to explain the gender binary of Aftokrator, so I’ll summarize. Do you know what a chicken is?” Hyuse asked.
“Yes, I know what a fucking chicken is.”
“Okay. So basically think chicken, but everyone is like, both male and female? At the same time.”
“Okay. What?”
“As opposed to some countries where the reproduction is more like… bees. I read somewhere that that makes relationships a lot easier but far rarer, given that they’re entirely unnecessary,” said Hyuse.
Masataka, who was clearly still trying to process the
egg
thing, said, ever so wisely, “What?”
Hyuse said, “It’s too complicated to explain. Anyways, our relationship.”
“Just as complicated,” muttered Masataka.
“Exactly,” Hyuse said. “Where in the fuck is it going?”
“No one knows.”
“Place your bets now, folks.”
“Do you even know what a ‘bet’ is?” asked Masataka.
“Nope,” said Hyuse. “I just live with weird people. But the people I live with aren’t the topic of discussion. Our relationship is.”
Masataka sighed. “I don’t even know. Like, what the fuck are we
supposed
to do? Not? Not not? Not not not? Not not—”
Hyuse cut him off, saying, “If you stack too many negatives you’ll barf.”
Masataka tilted his head and said, “Where’s the logic in that?”
“No idea. I just wanted you to not go on forever. So like, I feel like, we like, like shit. You know? Shit?”
“I do, in fact, know shit,” Masataka said. “But like, relationship. How?”
Hyuse sighed. “I feel like we should
not
. Continue. For now? Or something.”
“Yeah,” Masataka agreed. “Like, for now. For a little while. I don’t know how long that will be. Somewhere between two days and two years.”
“Yeah,” Hyuse said. “But how will we know when that’s over? The period of not.”
“I dunno,” Masataka said. “I’ll kill one of your teammates and paint the walls with their blood?”
“That’s probably not a very good idea,” said Hyuse. “But I mean it’s better than nothing?”
“I’m not going to actually do it.”
“I was only mildly concerned about that.”
“I’ll like, write you a note. Or something.”
“Or something,” Hyuse agreed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Time went on, as it does. Shit happened, a lot of shit happened. It would be pointless to attempt to articulate it all, but seeing as the author has a word count to get to, he will try. Jin accidentally got married. Unfortunately, the marriage was completely and entirely legal, making Jin now a divorced man at the age of twenty. That was awkward to explain to everyone. Yuma almost died, thrice, no surprises there. The away mission happened. Chika got captured. She ended up being fine, albeit very shaken up.Everyone went to therapy. I’m kidding. But Chika went to therapy, so that’s the start to a start of a start. She underwent multiple multi-hour full examinations, causing her to be diagnosed with not one, not two, but four neurological disorders, with more on the way. Shiori and Kirie broke up twice and got back together twice. Frankly, this was just adding to the number of times they had broken up (making it now thirty-five), and no one was particularly fazed. In fact, the majority of the Tamakoma branch was almost put off by how long the space in between the break-ups had been. Osamu came out to his mother, who actually already knew pretty much everything, so it wasn’t that big of a deal. She responded positively, for the majority of it. Hyuse and Yuma held sex education for the Meeden people, who did not, in fact, lay eggs, for some reason. It was almost fun to explain to them that some people do, in fact, lay eggs and have no birth sex until the age of fifteen (“Hence,” Hyuse had said, “why Yuma here looks entirely androgynous and goes by any pronouns.” This caused more than a few people to blink fast and repeatedly.). Time went on, pausing for no one. Because you can’t stop time. That’s blindly obvious, even for blind people. Sometimes one wishes that time would pause for them. So that they could get their bearings, look around, enjoy something not just in retrospect. But time is a harsh and cruel mistress (almost as harsh as the Good Lady France is beautiful), and refuses to yield her power to anyone. So we must live as closely to the present as possible. Hyuse understood this well. It was one of those things that they drill into your mind when you get adopted/bought/stolen by a wealthy family to be raised as a child/slave/soldier. Still, Hyuse would, every once in a while, wish that time would stop for him. It was a selfish wish, but a wish nonetheless. Most wishes are selfish if you think about it. Go check your hypocrisy, anyone who outright said that that was a selfish wish. Take that. Goddess, get rid of fucking feelings, please. They’re not fun, nor are they worth anything. But still, everyone has feelings. For some reason or other. And there really isn’t anything anyone can do about that. Except like, yell at the moon or something. And Hyuse wasn’t going to do that. For dignity’s sake. It wasn’t like he forgot Masataka. No, he remembered him very well. Hyuse was just… something. Something to do with feelings. Again. Because the Goddess of this world, whatever the fuck she was called, was an even harsher mistress than time. And that’s saying something. If you’ve been reading for the past two hundred and fifty words, you know how harsh time is. I digress, to fill up words. In shorter terms, Hyuse was feeling a sort of melancholy. A bittersweet feeling, something like that. The feeling he was getting was sort of like reading the part of Les Misérables where Grantaire dies with Enjolras. Happy, but sad at the same time. If that even is a thing. Once again with the fucking word count. Words: the harshest mistress of all. Or perhaps that is oneself. I suppose that this message relates to Hyuse’s dilemma (if it can even be called that), seeing as he was being unnecessarily cruel to himself. Or possibly not. No one really knows the mysterious meaning of that guy from “Canada” (Hyuse made this joke to himself, then was reminded of an interaction he had had previously and had a mild internal breakdown about relationships and emotions, again.).Anyways, Hyuse went on feeling weird as fuck about his emotions (and will probably continue to do that until he dies, if he ever dies), and one day, he received a note while in a training room. It was completely sealed, no signs of ever having been opened before it was sent. The note read, Well, I didn’t kill one of your teammates and write a message on your walls with their blood. I hope you’re proud of me. Or not. I’m still trying to decide if I care or not. I probably do. Shit. That sucks. Training room 305, Thursday? It wasn’t signed, but Hyuse understood exactly who it was from and what it was referring to immediately. It was Wednesday. The note didn’t specify what time, so Hyuse decided that it was probably a safe bet to arrive there at noon. I mean, noon is right in the middle of the day, therefore following a certain sense of… something, it made sense to have noon be the average time in the day. Long story short, Hyuse would get to training room 305 the day after the current one at noon on the dot. It was probably a safe bet. Probably. Now there were approximately thirteen hours before that time. --- It was now that time. He stepped up to the fifth training room on the third floor, knocked twice, paused, once, paused, and then twice again. And then, swiftly, the door opened.