#67 christmas drabbles 2011 - part 2/2
PART 1/2
For smileandrawr: Nino/Naka Riisa - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time AU (SPOILERS) - 2300 words
The first time Riisa managed a successful time leap on purpose, it was to go back to the five minutes before Nino ate her curry bread.
"You're not coming anywhere near this," Riisa told him sharply, in between large bites. "It's not as if you even like curry bread all that much. You do it just to wind me up."
Nino held his hands up in surrender, grinning wryly. "You know me too well."
He ended up eating all the chicken karaage in Sho's bento instead. Needless to say, Sho had not been pleased.
They were on the cusp of summer, the days growing longer and headier and steadily warmer. After school they sometimes headed over to the field nearby to play a three-person game of baseball.
"You can't call it baseball if it's only the three of us," said Sho, pitching the ball over to Riisa.
"I suppose not," Riisa replied, catching the ball with ease. She liked the solid sound the baseball made when it hit her glove. "Oi, Ninomiya."
Nino was sprawled out on the dirt with no regard for the state of his uniform or the fact that there was a game taking place. He was gazing intently up at something, bat lying forgotten by his side.
"Is there a plane?" asked Sho, wandering over and sitting down beside Nino.
When Riisa looked up all she saw was a blue and boundless expanse of sky.
"I jumped too, when I was a girl," said Riisa's aunt. "It's not as uncommon as you think."
If Riisa hadn't leapt through time that first time, she might have died.
She now walked to school in the mornings, while her faulty bicycle remained locked in the courtyard. Nino gave her lifts home on the back of his bike, swerving confidently and precariously past startled pedestrians.
There were moments when Nino seemed old, much older than seventeen. It was in the way he looked at certain things, face filled with something Riisa could only describe as cautious wonder. Or yearning. She couldn't place it, much less explain it.
When they first met he said he'd transferred from somewhere in Hokkaido. Perhaps that was why.
Most of the time, though, Nino was Nino, sharp-tongued and full of mischief. Nino, who was always around, somehow, and who seemed not to mind that he was rubbish at most classes except for Math and music. He spent most of his time in school alternately disturbing Riisa or staring out the window, and it wasn't uncommon to see him bunking off class and going up on the roof.
"What do you do up here, anyway?" Sho had once asked Nino, when they had come up during lunch break to find him sitting by the staircase door, shoulders hunched as he examined something in his lap.
Nino had shrugged, picking idly at a speck of dirt on his grubby school uniform. "Nothing in particular."
"Well," Sho had replied after a pause, "if you wanted company you should have asked us along."
"As if you'd skip class," Nino had retorted, but he hadn't been able to hide the pleased look on his face.
"Any idea what you're going to do during the summer vacation?" Nino asked, as they sped past the river on their way back from karaoke.
"I'm going to play," said Riisa. "I'll play so much and so hard that by the time the first two weeks are over I'll be tired and bored. And then I'm going to play some more."
Nino laughed. "Sounds like a plan."
"What about you?"
"I don't know," said Nino. "Cycle. Play baseball. Hang around with you guys."
Riisa swatted him on the shoulder. "How is that different from what you're doing now?"
So perhaps there were a few things Riisa shouldn't have leapt back to re-do. Like the pop quiz, because Sho never quite recovered from failing to top the class and being beaten by Riisa, of all people.
Or that home economics lesson, because Kato was now getting all sorts of crap from the class bullies after that accident with the tempura that should have happened to Riisa. (And Riisa wouldn't have gotten any crap at all because she didn't take crap. Also, she had Sho and Nino, and nobody was dumb enough to mess with all three of them.)
The ten-hour karaoke marathon had been kind of silly too, on hindsight.
And then there was this:
"Will you go out with me?" Nino said this like it was a casual question, like what he was asking wasn't something that would irrevocably alter what it meant to be Sho-chan and Nino and Riisa.
"Stop," said Riisa. "Stop for a second."
The bike screeched to a halt.
"What was that?"
"Let's go out," Nino repeated. This time he could barely keep the earnestness out of his voice, the hope and the uncertainty.
It was terrifying.
The silence between them stretched unbearably. A group of schoolchildren cycled slowly past them.
"I'm not that ugly, am I?"
"You're serious?"
Nino nodded.
In that moment Riisa felt a twist in her stomach, the not-unfamiliar feeling of creeping distress that accompanied the knowledge that something was about to change. She had felt this before. It had been there, stirring darkly the first time she tried on her middle school uniform, on the day her period began, or when she wore her first evening gown for a cousin's wedding. Time was pulling her inexorably into a place she did not wish to be, when all she wanted was to go back.
And she could.
So Riisa did. She went back to the point that afternoon when Nino offered to give Riisa a lift home, and instead of hopping on gladly she shook her head and said she'd rather walk.
She did not consider the possibility that in time she might perhaps regret ever making that choice.
(She discovered it while soaking in the bath one day. Two digits tattooed on the inside of her upper arm.
90, they read.)
Riisa did her level best to avoid Nino, after that. It wasn't something she enjoyed doing, scurrying behind bushes when she heard Sho and Nino's footsteps approaching, or ducking under a table when Nino popped into the classroom during lunch break in search of her.
"He doesn't know, you see," said Riisa, when Sho confronted her about it.
"He doesn't know what?" asked Sho.
He didn't know why Riisa was avoiding him, for one thing. More importantly, he didn't know he had confessed to Riisa and that she had leapt right back over it.
But Riisa didn't say any of that because how could she? It was impossible to imagine Sho taking her seriously about time leaping.
"I miss the three of us," said Riisa instead.
"Then you should come to the field today," Sho told her. "It's no fun playing baseball with two people."
"I thought we weren't supposed to call it baseball."
"Whatever," said Sho. "You're an idiot and we miss you."
When Riisa finally headed out to the field, two days later, Nino was already there, sprawled out on the grass.
"If you lie here like this you might get hit by a stray ball," said Riisa. "The real baseball team at our school are excellent pitchers."
"That's because they spend so much of their time playing real baseball," Nino replied. "Rather than hiding in bushes from their best friends."
Riisa felt a sharp flush of embarrassment. "You saw me?"
"Well," said Nino, yawning widely. "You're hard to miss." When he glanced up at Riisa they both couldn't help but grin.
"I'll fix it," said Riisa.
Matsumoto frowned. "And how do you suppose you're going to do that?"
Officially, Sho had quit the volunteering club for the sake of his studies, because he couldn't believe he "scored lower than a layabout like Riisa". Matsumoto, on the other hand, was convinced it was because Sho wanted more time with his girlfriend.
"What girlfriend?" asked Riisa, puzzled.
"You mean you're not dating?"
Riisa couldn't help but make a face. "Who, him? Never. We're just good friends."
"Oh," said Matsumoto, with visible relief.
"Is it bad that he's quit the club?" asked Riisa.
"We're quite lost as to what to do, to be honest," said Matsumoto seriously. "He is, after all, the vice president."
"I'll fix it," said Riisa, because it was her fault that Sho was quitting club activities. He couldn't really have helped the fact that Riisa had known all the answers to the quiz.
It was simple. She would just jump back and re-do the test the way she had done it the first time.
Except that it wasn't that simple. The thing about fixing things, Riisa soon realised, was that there were too many variables to consider.
First, she did too badly on the test, which resulted in her getting made to re-do it by the teacher since she was clearly not trying. When she leapt back again to try to fix that, she ended up going further back to the evening before, when they were playing baseball together. And somehow she had managed to pitch a ball to Nino that had ended up hitting Sho in the right shoulder.
That wouldn't do at all. She leapt back again, this time correctly. She redid the test, with just the right level of mediocrity, and submitted it with no major mishaps. Third time's the charm, as they said.
As she descended the stairs two steps at a time, she glanced casually at the tattoo. 10, the digits read.
"I was sure it was-" Riisa began. Then she lowered her arm until the tattoo was upside down. "One?"
"This is kind of a stupid question," said Nino over the phone, "but can you time leap?"
No.
Again.
"This is kind of a stupid question," said Nino over the phone, "but-"
"Did I tell you about what my sister did the other day?" Riisa interrupted. "She ate all of my pudding!"
"Oh, did she?"
"Yeah," said Riisa. "Horrible, isn't she?"
"Maybe she was hungry."
"Maybe she was greedy."
"Yeah, well, so are you. Will we see you at the field later?"
00, read the tattoo.
Riisa's phone buzzed. It was a text from Sho.
Borrowed your bicycle
helping Matsumoto deliver
supplies for Club, sorry
I didn't ask you earlier
And this was how it could have ended. With Sho hurtling down the slope towards the train crossing, unaware of the faulty brake on Riisa's bike. With Riisa chasing down the slope after him, powerless to stop the inevitable. The roar of the train was deafening, overpowering the terrible sound of Sho colliding with the barrier. She couldn't even look as he was sent flying directly into the path of the train -
Time froze.
When Riisa looked up, there was no Sho, no oncoming train.
Nino was there, wheeling Riisa's bike.
"Would you believe me if I said I was from the future?"
Nino had used his last jump to stop Sho's accident. As his explanation unfolded, so many inexplicable things became clear. Nino had come from a future where there was no grass or trees or blue sky, where their only refuge was the past. Except that now there was no way for Nino to return.
"What will happen?" asked Riisa.
"Well, you've found out about it, and I've run out of jumps…" Nino shrugged. "I wasn't meant to stay this long, anyway. I suppose I got too used to it."
But there was still so much that they hadn't yet done. There were afternoons of baseball and eating shaved ice, firework viewings and street fairs to go to. They had even considered going on a trip. Atami, Sho had suggested. There was a game coming out this summer that she knew Nino really wanted to play.
"You can't go."
Nino's hands were stuffed in his pockets, head turned away so that Riisa couldn't glimpse his expression.
"I don't want you to go," said Riisa, but Nino was already vanishing into the crowd.
It was only in Nino's absence that Riisa realised exactly what she liked about Nino. She missed the easy way he threw a baseball; his careless laughter, head thrown back; the way he smiled when he was smiling for real, gums showing, eyes shining. His small hamburger hands, the ones Sho always laughed at. The nasally tone of his voice. The pranks he saved for Riisa, and all the other good turns that came with that privilege.
She liked everything about Nino, and he was gone.
01, read her tattoo.
It didn't make sense.
It made perfect sense. Nino had jumped back to before she had used her last jump.
There was only one thing she could possibly do.
She went back. Back, past the baseball games and the karaoke sessions and the stolen curry bread that she got to eat anyway. Past Nino's erased-over confession and the surprise quiz and the bicycle accident that never happened.
She went back to that afternoon in the science storeroom, to the moment when she had tripped and fallen and hit her elbow against that little walnut-shaped device.
And she ran, and ran, until she found Nino, standing in the field as always, ball in hand, hair ruffled by the wind.
"Late as always," said Nino.
"I think this is yours," said Riisa. She held out the device.
And perhaps everything came down to this breathless moment, the two of them standing along the same riverbank by which Nino had first confessed. Nino coming back to her, putting one hand on her shoulder and turning her round. Fingers sliding up to rest against the back of her neck as he drew her close and said, in her ear:
"I'll be waiting in the future."
---
For rodiy: future timestamp for It's Not All Good in the Hood - 711 words
(I apologise in advance that not a great deal of rapping or hip hop takes place in this.)
The Great Lyrics Drought that summer began on a swelteringly hot Tuesday morning. Nino got up from bed to find that the only standing fan in his house was no longer working. Then he discovered he had run out of lyrics.
"How is that even possible?" Jun demanded. "You don't just run out of lyrics."
"Maybe he's just run out of inspiration," said Ohno.
Aiba frowned. "I thought the two were the same."
"What I really want to know," Sho interjected, "is why you've decided to move into my house."
"My fan's broken," said Nino simply.
"And you can't buy a new one because…?"
Nino shrugged. "I know you have an extra futon."
It turned out that Sho had an extra futon, but he didn't have enough towels.
"You have one towel," said Nino incredulously.
"Two, but the other one's in the wash. I keep a strict rotation," Sho told him. "I do have these, though."
He held out a pair of furry hand towels.
Two weeks, six hand towels and twenty-nine watermelon slices later, Nino was still out of lyrics.
Aiba arrived at Sho's house with a book for Nino.
Nino read the title. Procrastination. "I'm not procrastinating!"
"I wasn't saying you were. I just found this below a large pile of unwashed laundry and I thought you would like it."
"Procrastination," said Sho. "Determination. Illumination."
"You're terrible," said Nino, from where he was sprawled out on Sho's veranda under a blanket of newspapers.
"At least I'm making an effort," said Sho.
Nino responded by stuffing a large slice of orange into his mouth.
"Maybe if I stop feeding you…" Sho mused.
"Don't you dare."
"Dare. Au pair."
In the meantime, Ohno had embarked on a shounen manga-esque journey of epic b-boy dance-offs that would potentially take him around the world. He had only just got past the Tokyo stage and had sent them a post card upon his arrival in Seoul. (The only thing he had written on the back was 'HELLO입니다'. Since none of them could read Korean, they weren't very sure what he was trying to tell them.)
"Even Ohno's trying," said Jun.
"And I hear you're just getting your butt kicked by MC Meisa and her new crew," Nino replied.
"Well, the only reason why we're getting our butts kicked is because you're not rapping with us," Jun told him.
"You have Sho," said Nino sullenly. "What's Sho doing?"
"Between you and me, I think he's slightly afraid of Meisa," said Jun in an undertone.
"I heard that," said Sho.
They received another postcard from Ohno. ('나체가 왜 나쁘냐?' it said.
"Well," said Jun, "still no idea what he's saying but I suppose he hasn't left Seoul."
"There's a question mark there," said Aiba. "Surely we're supposed to reply if there's a question mark."
"Perhaps it's a rhetorical question," said Sho.)
"You know," said Sho one evening, when he and Nino had finished eating dinner and were watching the news and eating peanuts like two old men.
"Yes?" Nino nibbled on a peanut.
"It's okay to take a break. With the rapping and lyric-writing, I mean."
"I have been taking a break."
"I saw the lyrics you were trying to write on the backs of those supermarket receipts."
"Oh," said Nino. "Those were just haikus meant for you." And then he laughed like a troll.
Sho's eyes widened for a moment, and then he sighed with relief. "Thank goodness," he said. "They were really bad."
The next day, Sho awoke to find that Nino was gone.
All of Nino's things (and some of Sho's) had been packed up and taken away. His furry hand towels had been neatly hung up to dry, and the bathtub (where Nino spent a lot of his time) had been thoroughly cleaned.
The only evidence of Nino's presence in Sho's house was the handful of peanut shells left behind in front of the television. And the receipts with the bad haikus on them.
Sho felt rather bereft, if he was to be completely honest.
And then he found the note.
YOYOGI PARK TONIGHT
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE
IF YOU DARE
-MC KAzu
AU PAIR. ha ha ha ha you loser.
---
For aegistheia: Inception AU - Jun and Arthur, on loss - 506 words
Arthur finds Matsumoto Jun in a grubby bar near Wanhua station in Taipei. He is in his shirtsleeves, mutely nursing his fourth beer of the night.
He is only there because he knows that Arthur is looking for him.
"You ask for too much," says Matsumoto with no preamble, when Arthur sits down beside him.
Matsumoto is dangerous because he is as good as Arthur is. He approaches jobs with a level intensity that Arthur has always respected; a steady point man who has earned himself a reputation for meticulousness. He is nearly the best in the business. So is Arthur. By rights they should be keeping each other at arm's length.
Instead, Arthur orders him another beer and a plate of chicken skewers, to share.
"I hear you're looking for work," says Arthur in Japanese.
"Not from you," Matsumoto replies in English. He gulps down a mouthful of beer.
Arthur smiles. "I keep my jobs for myself."
"You ask for too much," Matsumoto says again.
Matsumoto is dangerous because he knows what Arthur wants. Even now, when times are rough and he's lying low - when they're both lying low - he has his ears and eyes out and all around.
So does Arthur. Which is why he knows what went down during Matsumoto's last job, and who he's cut ties with.
"You don't owe Proclus Global any allegiances," Arthur reminds him.
It was only a little while back when Matsumoto had, Arthur knows. Or rather, Matsumoto's team. Now, however, he is adrift.
"I don't owe you any, either."
"How about this," says Arthur. "How about you view it as you doing me a favour?"
As a rule, Arthur doesn't do favours. He knows people who do things for him, and sometimes he does things back. But he doesn't like being held to something, being accountable. Perhaps the only person he has really ever been accountable to is Cobb. And maybe Mal, but Mal is gone now and Arthur owes Cobb enough to have to stick around and fix things.
"How about you stay away from that job?"
"There are some things I'm not prepared to walk away from," Arthur tells him, after a long pause. "I'm sure you understand that."
Matsumoto shrugs and orders Arthur another beer.
Arthur takes it as a yes.
"I need to know-"
"I'll give you whatever I'm willing to give," says Matsumoto. "And that's all."
"Fair enough," Arthur replies. "It's a deal."
They don't shake on it. Arthur finishes his beer and rises to leave.
"I would watch out for Saito if I were you," Matsumoto tells him.
"Take care of yourself," Arthur replies.
The next morning, he finds the file on Saito in his inbox, forwarded from an anonymous account. It gives him enough information to get a good head start on the job, and the details of a young man named Tadashi whom Matsumoto claims is a reliable contact.
At the end of the attachment is a note. Make sure you stick around long enough to return the favour.
---
For calerine: Arashi get ahold of the/a tardis. Where do they go what do they do - 541 words
1. Aiba - somewhere on Earth during the Jurassic period
The dinosaur was rearing on its hind legs, neck extending far over the trees.
"LOOK AT THAT DIPLODOCUS!" Aiba exclaimed, pointing frantically in its direction.
"Yes, I doubt any of us isn't looking, Aiba-chan," said Nino
"Can we please leave?" Sho whimpered plaintively.
2. Jun - Italy, present
"That's it?" asked Nino. "You just wanted to go to Italy?"
"Yes," said Jun. Already he looked utterly at home strolling along the Via de' Tornabuoni.
"Really," said Sho, "you could just have taken a plane."
"Guys-" Aiba was saying.
"What's the point of being able to leap through space and time if you only elect to leap through space?" Nino demanded.
Jun scowled. "It was my turn to pick and I picked Italy. What would you rather, dinosaurs again?"
"Um, everyone," Ohno said, sounding slightly troubled.
Jun and Nino rounded on him. "What?"
"I think we brought an oviraptor along with us," said Aiba, pointing at the vicious-looking creature still darting about inside the TARDIS. "Just so you know."
Sho peered at the dinosaur. "Do you think they'll let us take it into the shops with us?"
3. Ohno - a boat-
"Let's just skip yours, Oh-chan," says Nino. He is already starting to look at little green.
4. Nino - the Nintendo office, 1984
"Nino," says Jun.
"Yes," Sho agrees. "Nino."
"Are we here to witness the invention of the original Super Mario Bros?" asks Aiba excitedly.
Nino is practically aglow with glee. "Even better," he says. "We're going to see if I can alter the space-time continuum by making them change Princess Peach's name."
Sho buries his face in his hands.
"We're leaving," says Jun, seizing Nino by the collar before he can begin to harass any of the programmers and dragging him forcefully back to the TARDIS, where the oviraptor is now worrying at a stack of Possibly Important papers.
5. Sho - a forest, 1854
"Where are we?" asked Ohno.
"A forest," said Nino.
"Don't be an imbecile," Jun snapped. "Which forest?"
"I'm pretty sure I meant Edo," Sho murmured, casting around. "Hopefully we run into some people soon. I was looking forward to getting first-hand primary accounts from people who lived during this time of great change."
"What, sunset?" asked Aiba.
"Imbecile," said Nino snidely.
"The years preceding the bakumatsu period, I mean," said Sho.
Sho's wish was soon granted when a group of men suddenly appeared before them. Well, not so much before them as surrounding them. They looked rather scruffy and unwashed, and were holding various sharp implements.
"Good day, gentlemen-" Sho began.
"Your money or your lives!" snarled the scruffiest of the men.
"Hooray," said Nino morosely. "Bandits."
"Should we run for it?" hissed Jun.
"No," said the second-most scruffy man, "I wouldn't advise it."
Before they could plan their next move, however, they were pleasantly interrupted by the oviraptor leaping straight at the bandits with great reptilian abandon.
"I thought oviraptors only ate eggs," said Sho as they backed towards the TARDIS.
"I might have been mistaken," Aiba announced. "It was probably a velociraptor."
"Do you think we should leave it behind, then?" asked Jun.
"Well," said Nino, "it looks like it's having quite a bit of fun."
----
And that's all! :D
A note on the Korean: the first phrase 입니다 is just imnida which literally means 'is', I am told. Basically Ohno is not making much sense. And then 나체가 왜 나쁘냐? is the translation of Kusanagi Tsuyoshi's famous 'What's wrong with being naked?', because I suspect it will never stop being funny.
♥
For smileandrawr: Nino/Naka Riisa - The Girl Who Leapt Through Time AU (SPOILERS) - 2300 words
The first time Riisa managed a successful time leap on purpose, it was to go back to the five minutes before Nino ate her curry bread.
"You're not coming anywhere near this," Riisa told him sharply, in between large bites. "It's not as if you even like curry bread all that much. You do it just to wind me up."
Nino held his hands up in surrender, grinning wryly. "You know me too well."
He ended up eating all the chicken karaage in Sho's bento instead. Needless to say, Sho had not been pleased.
They were on the cusp of summer, the days growing longer and headier and steadily warmer. After school they sometimes headed over to the field nearby to play a three-person game of baseball.
"You can't call it baseball if it's only the three of us," said Sho, pitching the ball over to Riisa.
"I suppose not," Riisa replied, catching the ball with ease. She liked the solid sound the baseball made when it hit her glove. "Oi, Ninomiya."
Nino was sprawled out on the dirt with no regard for the state of his uniform or the fact that there was a game taking place. He was gazing intently up at something, bat lying forgotten by his side.
"Is there a plane?" asked Sho, wandering over and sitting down beside Nino.
When Riisa looked up all she saw was a blue and boundless expanse of sky.
"I jumped too, when I was a girl," said Riisa's aunt. "It's not as uncommon as you think."
If Riisa hadn't leapt through time that first time, she might have died.
She now walked to school in the mornings, while her faulty bicycle remained locked in the courtyard. Nino gave her lifts home on the back of his bike, swerving confidently and precariously past startled pedestrians.
There were moments when Nino seemed old, much older than seventeen. It was in the way he looked at certain things, face filled with something Riisa could only describe as cautious wonder. Or yearning. She couldn't place it, much less explain it.
When they first met he said he'd transferred from somewhere in Hokkaido. Perhaps that was why.
Most of the time, though, Nino was Nino, sharp-tongued and full of mischief. Nino, who was always around, somehow, and who seemed not to mind that he was rubbish at most classes except for Math and music. He spent most of his time in school alternately disturbing Riisa or staring out the window, and it wasn't uncommon to see him bunking off class and going up on the roof.
"What do you do up here, anyway?" Sho had once asked Nino, when they had come up during lunch break to find him sitting by the staircase door, shoulders hunched as he examined something in his lap.
Nino had shrugged, picking idly at a speck of dirt on his grubby school uniform. "Nothing in particular."
"Well," Sho had replied after a pause, "if you wanted company you should have asked us along."
"As if you'd skip class," Nino had retorted, but he hadn't been able to hide the pleased look on his face.
"Any idea what you're going to do during the summer vacation?" Nino asked, as they sped past the river on their way back from karaoke.
"I'm going to play," said Riisa. "I'll play so much and so hard that by the time the first two weeks are over I'll be tired and bored. And then I'm going to play some more."
Nino laughed. "Sounds like a plan."
"What about you?"
"I don't know," said Nino. "Cycle. Play baseball. Hang around with you guys."
Riisa swatted him on the shoulder. "How is that different from what you're doing now?"
So perhaps there were a few things Riisa shouldn't have leapt back to re-do. Like the pop quiz, because Sho never quite recovered from failing to top the class and being beaten by Riisa, of all people.
Or that home economics lesson, because Kato was now getting all sorts of crap from the class bullies after that accident with the tempura that should have happened to Riisa. (And Riisa wouldn't have gotten any crap at all because she didn't take crap. Also, she had Sho and Nino, and nobody was dumb enough to mess with all three of them.)
The ten-hour karaoke marathon had been kind of silly too, on hindsight.
And then there was this:
"Will you go out with me?" Nino said this like it was a casual question, like what he was asking wasn't something that would irrevocably alter what it meant to be Sho-chan and Nino and Riisa.
"Stop," said Riisa. "Stop for a second."
The bike screeched to a halt.
"What was that?"
"Let's go out," Nino repeated. This time he could barely keep the earnestness out of his voice, the hope and the uncertainty.
It was terrifying.
The silence between them stretched unbearably. A group of schoolchildren cycled slowly past them.
"I'm not that ugly, am I?"
"You're serious?"
Nino nodded.
In that moment Riisa felt a twist in her stomach, the not-unfamiliar feeling of creeping distress that accompanied the knowledge that something was about to change. She had felt this before. It had been there, stirring darkly the first time she tried on her middle school uniform, on the day her period began, or when she wore her first evening gown for a cousin's wedding. Time was pulling her inexorably into a place she did not wish to be, when all she wanted was to go back.
And she could.
So Riisa did. She went back to the point that afternoon when Nino offered to give Riisa a lift home, and instead of hopping on gladly she shook her head and said she'd rather walk.
She did not consider the possibility that in time she might perhaps regret ever making that choice.
(She discovered it while soaking in the bath one day. Two digits tattooed on the inside of her upper arm.
90, they read.)
Riisa did her level best to avoid Nino, after that. It wasn't something she enjoyed doing, scurrying behind bushes when she heard Sho and Nino's footsteps approaching, or ducking under a table when Nino popped into the classroom during lunch break in search of her.
"He doesn't know, you see," said Riisa, when Sho confronted her about it.
"He doesn't know what?" asked Sho.
He didn't know why Riisa was avoiding him, for one thing. More importantly, he didn't know he had confessed to Riisa and that she had leapt right back over it.
But Riisa didn't say any of that because how could she? It was impossible to imagine Sho taking her seriously about time leaping.
"I miss the three of us," said Riisa instead.
"Then you should come to the field today," Sho told her. "It's no fun playing baseball with two people."
"I thought we weren't supposed to call it baseball."
"Whatever," said Sho. "You're an idiot and we miss you."
When Riisa finally headed out to the field, two days later, Nino was already there, sprawled out on the grass.
"If you lie here like this you might get hit by a stray ball," said Riisa. "The real baseball team at our school are excellent pitchers."
"That's because they spend so much of their time playing real baseball," Nino replied. "Rather than hiding in bushes from their best friends."
Riisa felt a sharp flush of embarrassment. "You saw me?"
"Well," said Nino, yawning widely. "You're hard to miss." When he glanced up at Riisa they both couldn't help but grin.
"I'll fix it," said Riisa.
Matsumoto frowned. "And how do you suppose you're going to do that?"
Officially, Sho had quit the volunteering club for the sake of his studies, because he couldn't believe he "scored lower than a layabout like Riisa". Matsumoto, on the other hand, was convinced it was because Sho wanted more time with his girlfriend.
"What girlfriend?" asked Riisa, puzzled.
"You mean you're not dating?"
Riisa couldn't help but make a face. "Who, him? Never. We're just good friends."
"Oh," said Matsumoto, with visible relief.
"Is it bad that he's quit the club?" asked Riisa.
"We're quite lost as to what to do, to be honest," said Matsumoto seriously. "He is, after all, the vice president."
"I'll fix it," said Riisa, because it was her fault that Sho was quitting club activities. He couldn't really have helped the fact that Riisa had known all the answers to the quiz.
It was simple. She would just jump back and re-do the test the way she had done it the first time.
Except that it wasn't that simple. The thing about fixing things, Riisa soon realised, was that there were too many variables to consider.
First, she did too badly on the test, which resulted in her getting made to re-do it by the teacher since she was clearly not trying. When she leapt back again to try to fix that, she ended up going further back to the evening before, when they were playing baseball together. And somehow she had managed to pitch a ball to Nino that had ended up hitting Sho in the right shoulder.
That wouldn't do at all. She leapt back again, this time correctly. She redid the test, with just the right level of mediocrity, and submitted it with no major mishaps. Third time's the charm, as they said.
As she descended the stairs two steps at a time, she glanced casually at the tattoo. 10, the digits read.
"I was sure it was-" Riisa began. Then she lowered her arm until the tattoo was upside down. "One?"
"This is kind of a stupid question," said Nino over the phone, "but can you time leap?"
No.
Again.
"This is kind of a stupid question," said Nino over the phone, "but-"
"Did I tell you about what my sister did the other day?" Riisa interrupted. "She ate all of my pudding!"
"Oh, did she?"
"Yeah," said Riisa. "Horrible, isn't she?"
"Maybe she was hungry."
"Maybe she was greedy."
"Yeah, well, so are you. Will we see you at the field later?"
00, read the tattoo.
Riisa's phone buzzed. It was a text from Sho.
Borrowed your bicycle
helping Matsumoto deliver
supplies for Club, sorry
I didn't ask you earlier
And this was how it could have ended. With Sho hurtling down the slope towards the train crossing, unaware of the faulty brake on Riisa's bike. With Riisa chasing down the slope after him, powerless to stop the inevitable. The roar of the train was deafening, overpowering the terrible sound of Sho colliding with the barrier. She couldn't even look as he was sent flying directly into the path of the train -
Time froze.
When Riisa looked up, there was no Sho, no oncoming train.
Nino was there, wheeling Riisa's bike.
"Would you believe me if I said I was from the future?"
Nino had used his last jump to stop Sho's accident. As his explanation unfolded, so many inexplicable things became clear. Nino had come from a future where there was no grass or trees or blue sky, where their only refuge was the past. Except that now there was no way for Nino to return.
"What will happen?" asked Riisa.
"Well, you've found out about it, and I've run out of jumps…" Nino shrugged. "I wasn't meant to stay this long, anyway. I suppose I got too used to it."
But there was still so much that they hadn't yet done. There were afternoons of baseball and eating shaved ice, firework viewings and street fairs to go to. They had even considered going on a trip. Atami, Sho had suggested. There was a game coming out this summer that she knew Nino really wanted to play.
"You can't go."
Nino's hands were stuffed in his pockets, head turned away so that Riisa couldn't glimpse his expression.
"I don't want you to go," said Riisa, but Nino was already vanishing into the crowd.
It was only in Nino's absence that Riisa realised exactly what she liked about Nino. She missed the easy way he threw a baseball; his careless laughter, head thrown back; the way he smiled when he was smiling for real, gums showing, eyes shining. His small hamburger hands, the ones Sho always laughed at. The nasally tone of his voice. The pranks he saved for Riisa, and all the other good turns that came with that privilege.
She liked everything about Nino, and he was gone.
01, read her tattoo.
It didn't make sense.
It made perfect sense. Nino had jumped back to before she had used her last jump.
There was only one thing she could possibly do.
She went back. Back, past the baseball games and the karaoke sessions and the stolen curry bread that she got to eat anyway. Past Nino's erased-over confession and the surprise quiz and the bicycle accident that never happened.
She went back to that afternoon in the science storeroom, to the moment when she had tripped and fallen and hit her elbow against that little walnut-shaped device.
And she ran, and ran, until she found Nino, standing in the field as always, ball in hand, hair ruffled by the wind.
"Late as always," said Nino.
"I think this is yours," said Riisa. She held out the device.
And perhaps everything came down to this breathless moment, the two of them standing along the same riverbank by which Nino had first confessed. Nino coming back to her, putting one hand on her shoulder and turning her round. Fingers sliding up to rest against the back of her neck as he drew her close and said, in her ear:
"I'll be waiting in the future."
---
For rodiy: future timestamp for It's Not All Good in the Hood - 711 words
(I apologise in advance that not a great deal of rapping or hip hop takes place in this.)
The Great Lyrics Drought that summer began on a swelteringly hot Tuesday morning. Nino got up from bed to find that the only standing fan in his house was no longer working. Then he discovered he had run out of lyrics.
"How is that even possible?" Jun demanded. "You don't just run out of lyrics."
"Maybe he's just run out of inspiration," said Ohno.
Aiba frowned. "I thought the two were the same."
"What I really want to know," Sho interjected, "is why you've decided to move into my house."
"My fan's broken," said Nino simply.
"And you can't buy a new one because…?"
Nino shrugged. "I know you have an extra futon."
It turned out that Sho had an extra futon, but he didn't have enough towels.
"You have one towel," said Nino incredulously.
"Two, but the other one's in the wash. I keep a strict rotation," Sho told him. "I do have these, though."
He held out a pair of furry hand towels.
Two weeks, six hand towels and twenty-nine watermelon slices later, Nino was still out of lyrics.
Aiba arrived at Sho's house with a book for Nino.
Nino read the title. Procrastination. "I'm not procrastinating!"
"I wasn't saying you were. I just found this below a large pile of unwashed laundry and I thought you would like it."
"Procrastination," said Sho. "Determination. Illumination."
"You're terrible," said Nino, from where he was sprawled out on Sho's veranda under a blanket of newspapers.
"At least I'm making an effort," said Sho.
Nino responded by stuffing a large slice of orange into his mouth.
"Maybe if I stop feeding you…" Sho mused.
"Don't you dare."
"Dare. Au pair."
In the meantime, Ohno had embarked on a shounen manga-esque journey of epic b-boy dance-offs that would potentially take him around the world. He had only just got past the Tokyo stage and had sent them a post card upon his arrival in Seoul. (The only thing he had written on the back was 'HELLO입니다'. Since none of them could read Korean, they weren't very sure what he was trying to tell them.)
"Even Ohno's trying," said Jun.
"And I hear you're just getting your butt kicked by MC Meisa and her new crew," Nino replied.
"Well, the only reason why we're getting our butts kicked is because you're not rapping with us," Jun told him.
"You have Sho," said Nino sullenly. "What's Sho doing?"
"Between you and me, I think he's slightly afraid of Meisa," said Jun in an undertone.
"I heard that," said Sho.
They received another postcard from Ohno. ('나체가 왜 나쁘냐?' it said.
"Well," said Jun, "still no idea what he's saying but I suppose he hasn't left Seoul."
"There's a question mark there," said Aiba. "Surely we're supposed to reply if there's a question mark."
"Perhaps it's a rhetorical question," said Sho.)
"You know," said Sho one evening, when he and Nino had finished eating dinner and were watching the news and eating peanuts like two old men.
"Yes?" Nino nibbled on a peanut.
"It's okay to take a break. With the rapping and lyric-writing, I mean."
"I have been taking a break."
"I saw the lyrics you were trying to write on the backs of those supermarket receipts."
"Oh," said Nino. "Those were just haikus meant for you." And then he laughed like a troll.
Sho's eyes widened for a moment, and then he sighed with relief. "Thank goodness," he said. "They were really bad."
The next day, Sho awoke to find that Nino was gone.
All of Nino's things (and some of Sho's) had been packed up and taken away. His furry hand towels had been neatly hung up to dry, and the bathtub (where Nino spent a lot of his time) had been thoroughly cleaned.
The only evidence of Nino's presence in Sho's house was the handful of peanut shells left behind in front of the television. And the receipts with the bad haikus on them.
Sho felt rather bereft, if he was to be completely honest.
And then he found the note.
YOYOGI PARK TONIGHT
BE THERE OR BE SQUARE
IF YOU DARE
-MC KAzu
AU PAIR. ha ha ha ha you loser.
---
For aegistheia: Inception AU - Jun and Arthur, on loss - 506 words
Arthur finds Matsumoto Jun in a grubby bar near Wanhua station in Taipei. He is in his shirtsleeves, mutely nursing his fourth beer of the night.
He is only there because he knows that Arthur is looking for him.
"You ask for too much," says Matsumoto with no preamble, when Arthur sits down beside him.
Matsumoto is dangerous because he is as good as Arthur is. He approaches jobs with a level intensity that Arthur has always respected; a steady point man who has earned himself a reputation for meticulousness. He is nearly the best in the business. So is Arthur. By rights they should be keeping each other at arm's length.
Instead, Arthur orders him another beer and a plate of chicken skewers, to share.
"I hear you're looking for work," says Arthur in Japanese.
"Not from you," Matsumoto replies in English. He gulps down a mouthful of beer.
Arthur smiles. "I keep my jobs for myself."
"You ask for too much," Matsumoto says again.
Matsumoto is dangerous because he knows what Arthur wants. Even now, when times are rough and he's lying low - when they're both lying low - he has his ears and eyes out and all around.
So does Arthur. Which is why he knows what went down during Matsumoto's last job, and who he's cut ties with.
"You don't owe Proclus Global any allegiances," Arthur reminds him.
It was only a little while back when Matsumoto had, Arthur knows. Or rather, Matsumoto's team. Now, however, he is adrift.
"I don't owe you any, either."
"How about this," says Arthur. "How about you view it as you doing me a favour?"
As a rule, Arthur doesn't do favours. He knows people who do things for him, and sometimes he does things back. But he doesn't like being held to something, being accountable. Perhaps the only person he has really ever been accountable to is Cobb. And maybe Mal, but Mal is gone now and Arthur owes Cobb enough to have to stick around and fix things.
"How about you stay away from that job?"
"There are some things I'm not prepared to walk away from," Arthur tells him, after a long pause. "I'm sure you understand that."
Matsumoto shrugs and orders Arthur another beer.
Arthur takes it as a yes.
"I need to know-"
"I'll give you whatever I'm willing to give," says Matsumoto. "And that's all."
"Fair enough," Arthur replies. "It's a deal."
They don't shake on it. Arthur finishes his beer and rises to leave.
"I would watch out for Saito if I were you," Matsumoto tells him.
"Take care of yourself," Arthur replies.
The next morning, he finds the file on Saito in his inbox, forwarded from an anonymous account. It gives him enough information to get a good head start on the job, and the details of a young man named Tadashi whom Matsumoto claims is a reliable contact.
At the end of the attachment is a note. Make sure you stick around long enough to return the favour.
---
For calerine: Arashi get ahold of the/a tardis. Where do they go what do they do - 541 words
1. Aiba - somewhere on Earth during the Jurassic period
The dinosaur was rearing on its hind legs, neck extending far over the trees.
"LOOK AT THAT DIPLODOCUS!" Aiba exclaimed, pointing frantically in its direction.
"Yes, I doubt any of us isn't looking, Aiba-chan," said Nino
"Can we please leave?" Sho whimpered plaintively.
2. Jun - Italy, present
"That's it?" asked Nino. "You just wanted to go to Italy?"
"Yes," said Jun. Already he looked utterly at home strolling along the Via de' Tornabuoni.
"Really," said Sho, "you could just have taken a plane."
"Guys-" Aiba was saying.
"What's the point of being able to leap through space and time if you only elect to leap through space?" Nino demanded.
Jun scowled. "It was my turn to pick and I picked Italy. What would you rather, dinosaurs again?"
"Um, everyone," Ohno said, sounding slightly troubled.
Jun and Nino rounded on him. "What?"
"I think we brought an oviraptor along with us," said Aiba, pointing at the vicious-looking creature still darting about inside the TARDIS. "Just so you know."
Sho peered at the dinosaur. "Do you think they'll let us take it into the shops with us?"
3. Ohno - a boat-
"Let's just skip yours, Oh-chan," says Nino. He is already starting to look at little green.
4. Nino - the Nintendo office, 1984
"Nino," says Jun.
"Yes," Sho agrees. "Nino."
"Are we here to witness the invention of the original Super Mario Bros?" asks Aiba excitedly.
Nino is practically aglow with glee. "Even better," he says. "We're going to see if I can alter the space-time continuum by making them change Princess Peach's name."
Sho buries his face in his hands.
"We're leaving," says Jun, seizing Nino by the collar before he can begin to harass any of the programmers and dragging him forcefully back to the TARDIS, where the oviraptor is now worrying at a stack of Possibly Important papers.
5. Sho - a forest, 1854
"Where are we?" asked Ohno.
"A forest," said Nino.
"Don't be an imbecile," Jun snapped. "Which forest?"
"I'm pretty sure I meant Edo," Sho murmured, casting around. "Hopefully we run into some people soon. I was looking forward to getting first-hand primary accounts from people who lived during this time of great change."
"What, sunset?" asked Aiba.
"Imbecile," said Nino snidely.
"The years preceding the bakumatsu period, I mean," said Sho.
Sho's wish was soon granted when a group of men suddenly appeared before them. Well, not so much before them as surrounding them. They looked rather scruffy and unwashed, and were holding various sharp implements.
"Good day, gentlemen-" Sho began.
"Your money or your lives!" snarled the scruffiest of the men.
"Hooray," said Nino morosely. "Bandits."
"Should we run for it?" hissed Jun.
"No," said the second-most scruffy man, "I wouldn't advise it."
Before they could plan their next move, however, they were pleasantly interrupted by the oviraptor leaping straight at the bandits with great reptilian abandon.
"I thought oviraptors only ate eggs," said Sho as they backed towards the TARDIS.
"I might have been mistaken," Aiba announced. "It was probably a velociraptor."
"Do you think we should leave it behind, then?" asked Jun.
"Well," said Nino, "it looks like it's having quite a bit of fun."
----
And that's all! :D
A note on the Korean: the first phrase 입니다 is just imnida which literally means 'is', I am told. Basically Ohno is not making much sense. And then 나체가 왜 나쁘냐? is the translation of Kusanagi Tsuyoshi's famous 'What's wrong with being naked?', because I suspect it will never stop being funny.
♥