[Arashi] [Cyberpunk!AU] Open Your Eyes (2)
[Title] Open Your Eyes (2)
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG13 for now
[Notes] Homework? What homework?
Ohno ducked his head in shame, submissive and silent as his squad leader berated him for yet another error on his report. Ohno hadn’t been terribly good at spelling when they still were allowed to use the native language (which he’d been old enough to start in school), let alone the Common required now. Common characters were never the first things to come to his mind, and he simply couldn’t get his mind to transfer the language he could speak perfectly well onto paper.
“If you can’t even be bothered to check your own damn work, how do you expect to get anywhere?!” The squad leader snapped at him and Ohno nodded his head in wordless agreement. “It’s no wonder you’ve been a level 2 for so long; you’re useless.”
‘Then get rid of me,’ Ohno wanted to say. But he knew better, so instead he said, “Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.”
Once dismissed for the day, Ohno carefully changed out of his uniform and walked home. He lived in a large living complex mostly inhabited by other members of the force and their families; the building had more floors than Ohno could remember, but fortunately, he never forgot the two that mattered. Floor 56, unit 217 was his mother’s meager apartment. Floor 89, unit 134 was his own. He hadn’t really ever intended to leave his mother like that, but the Force officers were given their own units as a perk, and it was too small for the both of them.
Leaving the lift on the 56th floor, Ohno let himself into his mother’s unit. He had his own card-key for the door, and she had one for his. Ohno slipped off his shoes in the doorway; even though the tradition had been ‘abolished’, he couldn’t shake the habits he’d grown up with in the first five years of his life. He left his bag with his uniform and helmet next to his shoes; the less he had to look at them, the better.
“Mom?” he called out, following his nose to the kitchen.
“Ah, Satoshi!” his mother chirped brightly, waving him in. “Come taste this, it’s a new block. Not bad if you put a little onion in, I think.”
Smiling, Ohno obliged her and took a bite off the spoon she offered. He sighed happily; it was delicious. Nobody could improve a block meal like his mother.
“It’s good,” he confirmed, dropping a kiss on her cheek. She grinned, pleased with the praise and continued to stir, humming to herself happily. Sitting down at the small kitchen table, Ohno watched her bustle around and felt himself relaxing.
She was why he did it, after all.
At age sixteen, Ohno had been on the verge of dropping out of his local academy. He didn’t do particularly well in his lessons, constantly confused by the contradictions between what the Ment curriculum said, and what he remembered. It was then that the force made their once-yearly sweep through the academies to recruit. He’d been pulled aside when the recruiters realized he had color vision in one eye, and correctly guessed his mother had full color vision.
They had presented him with a choice: join the Force and use your eye for us, and have your mother provided for, or the both of you can go to jail tonight.
Ohno signed the papers and moved into his unit the next day. His mother had cried, not understanding why, and he didn’t have the heart to explain to her that he was terrified.
Now, years later, both knew better than to bring Ohno’s employment up. They spent nearly every evening together, talking and eating dinner and avoiding the topic until his mother went to bed, and Ohno returned to his own unit.
Once there, he would change into more comfortable clothes, clothes that he’d snuck out of the confiscated goods section of his Force HQ, clothes with color, and grab his tools. Sneaking out of the building wasn’t as hard as one might think; he’d picked up a few tricks from the people he’d been forced to arrest over the years. Then he’d wander down to the City Limits and find a wall no one remembered.
He’d paint until the sun rose or he ran out of space; whichever came first. Then he went home and slept for a few hours before rising to become one of the Bad Guys again.
~
Nino woke up with Aiba’s elbow in his ear and Jun’s hair in his mouth. Somewhere around his knee, the Cat-Pillow was gargling happily as Aiba curled his toes into it, attempting something somewhat like a stroke. It was dark, but that wasn’t any indicator of time; the house had no windows. Groaning and spitting out Jun’s hair, Nino forced himself upright; a difficult task with Aiba’s shoulder pinning his, and Jun’s head on Nino’s chest.
Aiba and Jun had their own beds, but they were smaller and much harder to nest in than Nino’s. Over the years, Nino had carefully constructed his WonderBed out of old dumped mattresses and worn handmade blankets he’d stolen from Confiscation Houses. Even better, one of Aiba’s failed attempts at a Toasting Laser (“Just point at the bread, and POOF!”) ended up making a rather capable bed warmer. After missions or even just hard days, it wasn’t unusual for the three of them to end up piled in Nino’s bed for the night.
“Jun,” Nino grunted, his voice still sleep-fogged. “Jun, get up. Time to open the Place.” He reached down to fluff Jun’s hair violently, guaranteed to have him up and preening in no time. Sure enough, Jun jerked upright with a cry of distress, automatically smoothing and finger-combing through his hair.
“What time is it?” Jun asked once he’d finished having a panic attack.
“Dunno,” Nino shrugged. “Ask the clock.” Jun nodded and turned to the small magic eight ball on Nino’s nightstand, shaking it upside down.
“What time is it?” he said aloud before turning it over.
7:46AM, the ball informed him. BUT ASK AGAIN LATER; IT CHANGES.
“Duly noted,” Jun snorted, setting it back down and pushing himself with great effort out of the bed. Aiba made a soft whimpery noise and curled into the empty spaces Jun and Nino had left behind, and Jun paused for a moment to look at Aiba, conflicted.
Nino sighed. He really was just too nice.
“I’ll start everything,” he said to Jun, low enough to not wake Aiba. “You get this guy up. And don’t do anything fun without me.”
Jun didn’t thank him, but he really didn’t have to. Nino knew a grateful look when he saw one. He climbed all the way off the bed as Jun got back on, running a hand down Aiba’s back and nudging him gently into wakefulness.
Nino wandered up the stairs, kicked on his shoes, and headed out the door into a tunnel that had probably once been a sewer of some sort but now functioned solely as a road for the Underground. Three ‘doors’ down was the back entrance for The Place, and Nino walked up the stairs and into the bar with little trouble, starting up the various machines and setting out the dishes quickly.
He’d only been there ten minutes when there was a soft knocking on the front (still closed) door. Frowning, Nino silently edged to it, peeking out the viewfinder Aiba had attached. Standing on the doorstep was a man not much older than Nino, dressed in clean, bright colors.
He opened the door.
“Um, hello,” the man said brightly. “My name is Sho. Is this The Place?”
Nino grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him inside, shutting the door tightly behind him.
~
“I need some help,” Sho explained. Once Nino had finished berating him for being so damn obvious and Jun and Aiba had arrived, they managed to get him to sit down long enough to talk. “There are these… books.”
“We get a lot of books,” Jun said. “Where are they?”
“In my house,” said Sho, and everyone blinked at him.
“…You already have them?” Nino asked slowly, as though Sho was mentally retarded.
“That’s the problem,” Sho continued. “I need you to take them from me. But I don’t want to lose them, I just can’t have them in my house anymore.”
“Okay,” said Nino. “Assuming we agree. Then what?”
“Well, it’s going to take a few trips,” said Sho. “There are more than 400 at last count.”
“…Where,” asked Jun, with carefully measured patience. “Are we supposed to put 400 books while you are being sniffed out by the Ment?”
“They don’t sniff me very long,” Sho said. “A week, at most. You can bring them back after.”
“You are insane,” Nino determined firmly. “Utterly insane.”
“Well, yes, probably,” Sho agreed. “But I did go to all the trouble to track you down, so… what do you think?”
“No,” said Nino.
“I’d pay per book, per hour, of course,” Sho added with a smile. “Generously, for your trouble.”
“When can we start?” Nino chirped.
Jun put his head in his hands.
~
Ohno’s latest project was a slab that had fallen sideways in some earthquake or another, smooth and untouched since the city fell apart. He sprayed his homemade paints across the concrete, shading and shaping as he went. He never had plans when he started; he let the ‘canvas’ decide for him.
Today’s piece was very yellow; he was excited to see the pigment was staying opaque. His yellows and reds had a problem of turning a bit translucent as they dried.
Completely focused on his art, Ohno didn’t hear the clatter coming up the street behind him until a boy on skates tripped over one of Ohno’s brushes and nearly face planted in the street. The boy caught himself just in time and rolled, stopping to check to make sure all his limbs were intact. He looked up and spotted Ohno.
Ohno froze.
He watched the boy look at him, then at the wall, then at the paints scattered around him, then back at Ohno.
“Run,” the boy said. “They’re maybe two blocks behind me.”
“What?” Ohno said, startled. “But, my paint-“
“What’s more important,” the boy snapped, holding out a hand to Ohno to pull him to his feet. “Your paint or living another day to leave another image behind?”
Ohno took only a moment to decide; he grabbed the boy’s hand and let himself be pulled down the street, and pointed in a new direction.
“Go that way; get as much distance as you can. Don’t circle back. Don’t draw attention to yourself. I’ll delay them here,” the boy instructed, glancing at a display on his wrist. When Ohno didn’t move, the boy looked up again.
“I mean it. Go!”
Ohno wanted to say thanks. He wanted to ask the boy’s name. He wanted to do a lot of things that there just wasn’t time for.
So he nodded, and ran.
~
Nino waited until the painter was out of sight before heading to the tubes of paint. He pulled a bottle of acid out of his pocket; he kept it for strict emergencies only. Opening the specially-treated cork, he upended the bottle across the tubes, melting them into piles of bubbling pigments.
The painter had fingerprints. Nino wasn’t going to let him get caught that easily.
As soon as he was satisfied that nothing could be gained from the remains, Nino took off again. This was the second night in the row he was outrunning the Force; he wasn’t going to push his already poor luck any further.
He did spare a moment to wish he’d asked the painter’s name, though.
Chapter 3.
[Author] honooko
[Rating] PG13 for now
[Notes] Homework? What homework?
Ohno ducked his head in shame, submissive and silent as his squad leader berated him for yet another error on his report. Ohno hadn’t been terribly good at spelling when they still were allowed to use the native language (which he’d been old enough to start in school), let alone the Common required now. Common characters were never the first things to come to his mind, and he simply couldn’t get his mind to transfer the language he could speak perfectly well onto paper.
“If you can’t even be bothered to check your own damn work, how do you expect to get anywhere?!” The squad leader snapped at him and Ohno nodded his head in wordless agreement. “It’s no wonder you’ve been a level 2 for so long; you’re useless.”
‘Then get rid of me,’ Ohno wanted to say. But he knew better, so instead he said, “Yes Sir. Sorry Sir.”
Once dismissed for the day, Ohno carefully changed out of his uniform and walked home. He lived in a large living complex mostly inhabited by other members of the force and their families; the building had more floors than Ohno could remember, but fortunately, he never forgot the two that mattered. Floor 56, unit 217 was his mother’s meager apartment. Floor 89, unit 134 was his own. He hadn’t really ever intended to leave his mother like that, but the Force officers were given their own units as a perk, and it was too small for the both of them.
Leaving the lift on the 56th floor, Ohno let himself into his mother’s unit. He had his own card-key for the door, and she had one for his. Ohno slipped off his shoes in the doorway; even though the tradition had been ‘abolished’, he couldn’t shake the habits he’d grown up with in the first five years of his life. He left his bag with his uniform and helmet next to his shoes; the less he had to look at them, the better.
“Mom?” he called out, following his nose to the kitchen.
“Ah, Satoshi!” his mother chirped brightly, waving him in. “Come taste this, it’s a new block. Not bad if you put a little onion in, I think.”
Smiling, Ohno obliged her and took a bite off the spoon she offered. He sighed happily; it was delicious. Nobody could improve a block meal like his mother.
“It’s good,” he confirmed, dropping a kiss on her cheek. She grinned, pleased with the praise and continued to stir, humming to herself happily. Sitting down at the small kitchen table, Ohno watched her bustle around and felt himself relaxing.
She was why he did it, after all.
At age sixteen, Ohno had been on the verge of dropping out of his local academy. He didn’t do particularly well in his lessons, constantly confused by the contradictions between what the Ment curriculum said, and what he remembered. It was then that the force made their once-yearly sweep through the academies to recruit. He’d been pulled aside when the recruiters realized he had color vision in one eye, and correctly guessed his mother had full color vision.
They had presented him with a choice: join the Force and use your eye for us, and have your mother provided for, or the both of you can go to jail tonight.
Ohno signed the papers and moved into his unit the next day. His mother had cried, not understanding why, and he didn’t have the heart to explain to her that he was terrified.
Now, years later, both knew better than to bring Ohno’s employment up. They spent nearly every evening together, talking and eating dinner and avoiding the topic until his mother went to bed, and Ohno returned to his own unit.
Once there, he would change into more comfortable clothes, clothes that he’d snuck out of the confiscated goods section of his Force HQ, clothes with color, and grab his tools. Sneaking out of the building wasn’t as hard as one might think; he’d picked up a few tricks from the people he’d been forced to arrest over the years. Then he’d wander down to the City Limits and find a wall no one remembered.
He’d paint until the sun rose or he ran out of space; whichever came first. Then he went home and slept for a few hours before rising to become one of the Bad Guys again.
~
Nino woke up with Aiba’s elbow in his ear and Jun’s hair in his mouth. Somewhere around his knee, the Cat-Pillow was gargling happily as Aiba curled his toes into it, attempting something somewhat like a stroke. It was dark, but that wasn’t any indicator of time; the house had no windows. Groaning and spitting out Jun’s hair, Nino forced himself upright; a difficult task with Aiba’s shoulder pinning his, and Jun’s head on Nino’s chest.
Aiba and Jun had their own beds, but they were smaller and much harder to nest in than Nino’s. Over the years, Nino had carefully constructed his WonderBed out of old dumped mattresses and worn handmade blankets he’d stolen from Confiscation Houses. Even better, one of Aiba’s failed attempts at a Toasting Laser (“Just point at the bread, and POOF!”) ended up making a rather capable bed warmer. After missions or even just hard days, it wasn’t unusual for the three of them to end up piled in Nino’s bed for the night.
“Jun,” Nino grunted, his voice still sleep-fogged. “Jun, get up. Time to open the Place.” He reached down to fluff Jun’s hair violently, guaranteed to have him up and preening in no time. Sure enough, Jun jerked upright with a cry of distress, automatically smoothing and finger-combing through his hair.
“What time is it?” Jun asked once he’d finished having a panic attack.
“Dunno,” Nino shrugged. “Ask the clock.” Jun nodded and turned to the small magic eight ball on Nino’s nightstand, shaking it upside down.
“What time is it?” he said aloud before turning it over.
7:46AM, the ball informed him. BUT ASK AGAIN LATER; IT CHANGES.
“Duly noted,” Jun snorted, setting it back down and pushing himself with great effort out of the bed. Aiba made a soft whimpery noise and curled into the empty spaces Jun and Nino had left behind, and Jun paused for a moment to look at Aiba, conflicted.
Nino sighed. He really was just too nice.
“I’ll start everything,” he said to Jun, low enough to not wake Aiba. “You get this guy up. And don’t do anything fun without me.”
Jun didn’t thank him, but he really didn’t have to. Nino knew a grateful look when he saw one. He climbed all the way off the bed as Jun got back on, running a hand down Aiba’s back and nudging him gently into wakefulness.
Nino wandered up the stairs, kicked on his shoes, and headed out the door into a tunnel that had probably once been a sewer of some sort but now functioned solely as a road for the Underground. Three ‘doors’ down was the back entrance for The Place, and Nino walked up the stairs and into the bar with little trouble, starting up the various machines and setting out the dishes quickly.
He’d only been there ten minutes when there was a soft knocking on the front (still closed) door. Frowning, Nino silently edged to it, peeking out the viewfinder Aiba had attached. Standing on the doorstep was a man not much older than Nino, dressed in clean, bright colors.
He opened the door.
“Um, hello,” the man said brightly. “My name is Sho. Is this The Place?”
Nino grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him inside, shutting the door tightly behind him.
~
“I need some help,” Sho explained. Once Nino had finished berating him for being so damn obvious and Jun and Aiba had arrived, they managed to get him to sit down long enough to talk. “There are these… books.”
“We get a lot of books,” Jun said. “Where are they?”
“In my house,” said Sho, and everyone blinked at him.
“…You already have them?” Nino asked slowly, as though Sho was mentally retarded.
“That’s the problem,” Sho continued. “I need you to take them from me. But I don’t want to lose them, I just can’t have them in my house anymore.”
“Okay,” said Nino. “Assuming we agree. Then what?”
“Well, it’s going to take a few trips,” said Sho. “There are more than 400 at last count.”
“…Where,” asked Jun, with carefully measured patience. “Are we supposed to put 400 books while you are being sniffed out by the Ment?”
“They don’t sniff me very long,” Sho said. “A week, at most. You can bring them back after.”
“You are insane,” Nino determined firmly. “Utterly insane.”
“Well, yes, probably,” Sho agreed. “But I did go to all the trouble to track you down, so… what do you think?”
“No,” said Nino.
“I’d pay per book, per hour, of course,” Sho added with a smile. “Generously, for your trouble.”
“When can we start?” Nino chirped.
Jun put his head in his hands.
~
Ohno’s latest project was a slab that had fallen sideways in some earthquake or another, smooth and untouched since the city fell apart. He sprayed his homemade paints across the concrete, shading and shaping as he went. He never had plans when he started; he let the ‘canvas’ decide for him.
Today’s piece was very yellow; he was excited to see the pigment was staying opaque. His yellows and reds had a problem of turning a bit translucent as they dried.
Completely focused on his art, Ohno didn’t hear the clatter coming up the street behind him until a boy on skates tripped over one of Ohno’s brushes and nearly face planted in the street. The boy caught himself just in time and rolled, stopping to check to make sure all his limbs were intact. He looked up and spotted Ohno.
Ohno froze.
He watched the boy look at him, then at the wall, then at the paints scattered around him, then back at Ohno.
“Run,” the boy said. “They’re maybe two blocks behind me.”
“What?” Ohno said, startled. “But, my paint-“
“What’s more important,” the boy snapped, holding out a hand to Ohno to pull him to his feet. “Your paint or living another day to leave another image behind?”
Ohno took only a moment to decide; he grabbed the boy’s hand and let himself be pulled down the street, and pointed in a new direction.
“Go that way; get as much distance as you can. Don’t circle back. Don’t draw attention to yourself. I’ll delay them here,” the boy instructed, glancing at a display on his wrist. When Ohno didn’t move, the boy looked up again.
“I mean it. Go!”
Ohno wanted to say thanks. He wanted to ask the boy’s name. He wanted to do a lot of things that there just wasn’t time for.
So he nodded, and ran.
~
Nino waited until the painter was out of sight before heading to the tubes of paint. He pulled a bottle of acid out of his pocket; he kept it for strict emergencies only. Opening the specially-treated cork, he upended the bottle across the tubes, melting them into piles of bubbling pigments.
The painter had fingerprints. Nino wasn’t going to let him get caught that easily.
As soon as he was satisfied that nothing could be gained from the remains, Nino took off again. This was the second night in the row he was outrunning the Force; he wasn’t going to push his already poor luck any further.
He did spare a moment to wish he’d asked the painter’s name, though.
Chapter 3.