bunnyfic 43.5 [sidestory]
"I have two essays due within the week, and also something else I've promised to work on, but ahh. 8D These things happen." ←this is exactly what i prefaced my last sidestory with, and hilariously the situation is exactly the same again now. :D *sensing a pattern?* (actually though, one of them is now due within the day. xD oh well~)
Featuring the First and 45-I; appearances by the Third and Fourth.
( sidestory: what friends are (really) for -2 )
"Be polite," Totsuka had told Hashimoto.
"Be yourself," Goseki had smiled.
Hashimoto, possibly torn between the two options, was turning out to be distinctly neither in front of Takizawa: "I am your pleasure to be met well with," he said, bowed stiffly at the waist, before straightening more awkwardly than Totsuka had ever seen any automation do.
"What is this child?" Takizawa laughed.
Totsuka gave a helpless shrug, thinking that in futuro he'd simply direct Hashimoto to whatever instruction Goseki gave. "He's special, Tono." (At least their boss seemed amused.)
"He's really inept!" Tsukada remarked, and Goseki stifled a giggle when Takizawa didn't even tell him off for being rude. (Kawai, Totsuka imagined, would be demanding a high-five right about now, were he present.)
"I'm sorry," Hashimoto said, looking somewhere up in the middle-distance. "I am a lot of many things."
Takizawa smiled. "Not least of which is troublesome, but don't worry too much. You've been in good hands thus far, and we'll continue to look after you whether you choose to stay here or not."
Hashimoto's gaze refocused like lightning. "I can stay here?" he asked, turning to Totsuka and Goseki with wide eyes. "Can I?"
Takizawa cleared his throat. "You can if you like. When I register you with the government, you'll become a legal child and member of this House..."
Hashimoto turned back Takizawa's way. "I can be a real boy?"
Takizawa laughed. "A real boy."
"You can!" Tsukada grinned. "But it means you'll have to go to school and training, and can't spend all day sleeping."
"-in," said Totsuka.
"-around," said Goseki.
"Training?" Hashimoto asked. "Can I be like you guys, too? I want to, you know! I really do!"
*
"Tottsu, tell Watchtower to rush his paperwork when they're done with the current issue," Takizawa said. "Goseki-kun, you'll set him up some netgear and teach him how to use it, won't you? You always do so well with the new recruits."
"With all due respect, Tono," Goseki said, straightfaced, "I'm not so sure about this one. He was barely two steps inside the egress hatch before a stray hand hit me in the face."
"It was an accident!" Hashimoto wailed softly from behind Totsuka's shoulder. "I said I was sorry...!"
Takizawa was laughing again, and Totsuka gave Hashimoto a pat. "They're just teasing, you know. But Gocchi and I can always switch..." He looked skyward when Hashimoto latched onto his arm like a limpet. "We'll switch."
"If you like," Goseki said with a benevolent smile.
"I like, I like!" Hashimoto called, and Totsuka nobly refrained from accusing Goseki of wanting exactly this arrangement all along.
"Alright then, it's settled," Takizawa smiled. "But for now, the four of you get some sleep. Everything else can wait 'til daybreak."
*
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep though~" Hashimoto chatted, on and on to rival Fujigaya's best as they walked. He bounced on the balls of his feet following Totsuka through Takizawa's halls. "I'm so excited, man. This is like, so cool! I get to be a real boy in the morning, and like~ hey, Tottsu, did you do this, too? Did you become a real boy like this, too?"
"I did." Totsuka smiled over his shoulder. "More or less. It was a while ago."
"Ahhhh~" Hashimoto barely breathed, reverent. "So cool."
"Mm." Totsuka stopped to check that the egress hatch was sealed (it wasn't, so he locked it), before backtracking to his bedroom door where he paused at the keypad. If the hatch hadn't been locked, and Kitayama had been out...
He punched his door code in.
"Ah! I shotgun doing the lights!" Hashimoto called, flailing his hands about before Totsuka could respond. The lights flared up to full, and Hashimoto froze. "Oh."
Sprawled out on Totsuka's bed, Kitayama grunted, brows knotting slightly. But he didn't wake before Totsuka turned the lights back down with two crisp waves.
"Apologies," Totsuka said, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness for a moment, before toeing off his shoes by the door. "You can play with the lights tomorrow. Or maybe the day after." (Naptime had no particular limit when it came to Kitayama.)
Hashimoto hadn't moved from the middle of the room. "...is he your friend?" he asked, his voice emerging as a remarkably silly growl to Totsuka's ear.
"Shh~" Totsuka said, and set about finding them both some clothes to sleep in. "Volume decrease, please, Ryosuke."
Hashimoto cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he sounded a little less sure and a little more plaintive- "...is he your friend, Tottsu? I want to know." -but his volume was relatively appropriate, so Totsuka answered.
"Yes."
Hashimoto pouted. "Like, a good friend?"
"Later," Totsuka said, sidestepping the question entirely, and pressed a pair of shorts and his baggiest tee into Hashimoto's chest, "I am going to introduce you to another good friend of mine."
"Really?" Hashimoto blinked, and looked down at the clothes he'd been handed. "Would you do that?"
"I would, I will, and you'll thank me," Totsuka said. "His name is the dictionary, and I'll even guide you through your first time fingering his pages. But only when it's light outside."
Hashimoto blinked in confusion, and Totsuka let him get changed in silence, busying himself rearranging Kitayama's limbs with the easy manner of prior experience. He noted the synthetic patch over Kitayama's calf as he shifted the other over, and the various bruises already visible even under the dim light.
At least nothing seemed to be broken or missing entirely. This time.
Totsuka tried not to sigh. "It's the bigger man who can ask for help, Hiromitsu," he said. Stubbornness was one of those traits just as likely to get its bearer killed as not. (A pity it was one of Kitayama's more appealing characteristics.)
"...Tottsu?" Hashimoto asked, his voice finally quiet for real. "I mean... Is your friend a'kay?"
Totsuka turned back around, and put his smile back on. "He'll live. We'll train you to deal with those guys properly so you don't end up like him, okay?"
The first rule in the Guard's book was to never fight alone.
"Okay," Hashimoto said solemnly, and Totsuka gestured to the now-free half of the bed.
"There's room enough for you to lie down here. Hiromitsu doesn't take up much space once you check his sprawl. You should get some rest."
"Isn't... this your bed though?" Hashimoto asked, hesitating. "What about space for you? I'm not really Hiromitsu-or-you-sized."
Totsuka smiled, and reached up to muss Hashimoto's hair. "You should probably call him Kitayama for now. But no, go ahead and sleep first. I've still got things to do. Other charges to check on." Pulling his netgear out of his pocket, Totsuka settled himself on the floor.
"...others like... Yuma and Nozawa?" Hashimoto asked softly, climbing into bed as told. He didn't lie down though, making a noise of surprise at the give in the mattress under his weight.
"You left them behind, didn't you? They'll be worried."
"...I sent Balcan at them," Hashimoto said, though looked guilty enough that Totsuka didn't feel the need to remind him of all the chances that Balcan wouldn't have made it back to base.
"You're going to miss their company, aren't you?" he asked instead. "Even if you weren't living together for so long."
"...maybe," Hashimoto admitted. "But it's okay! It's okay, really..." But his eyes didn't lift, and Totsuka felt a little sympathy.
"We can go see them in the morning."
"Can we?"
"Yes. But for now, please sleep."
"...I'm not tired," Hashimoto said.
Totsuka raised an eyebrow, then raised a hand and stifled an ostentatious yawn.
"Heyyy~ not... fair!" Hashimoto clapped his hands over his own yawn.
Totsuka chuckled, and rubbed his eyes. "Well, I'm tired. Maybe you're stronger than me, though."
"If you're tired too, then you should sleep too!" Hashimoto said, but Totsuka just shook his head again.
"After this. There are more kids like you out there, you know, who we-"
"There aren't anymore like me," Hashimoto deadpanned.
Totsuka tilted his head slightly. "There are plenty," he said, though it was true that none had caused the Guard as much trouble (nor on such a regular basis) as Hashimoto.
"There aren't," Hashimoto said, and gave a little smile. "You know, there's none of them that wants Tottsu all to themself, probably. Or if they do, then they don't want it as much as me." He made himself comfortable on the bed, then, lying on his stomach with his chin pillowed on his forearms, looking over. "You know, I want it a lot."
Totsuka was entirely unsure how to respond to that simple declaration. "...your esurience is quite... something."
"What's that?" Hashimoto said, and tilted his head. "I thought I was being quite unsneaky by telling you it first." And there it was again, that little smile.
"...you must be very tired," Totsuka said. "We'll talk about this when there is daylight."
Hashimoto laughed then. "There's no sunlights underground, you know. I sleep whenever I want."
'...will you want to sleep if I want you to sleep?' Totsuka was tempted to ask, but the notion didn't sit quite right. "Okay," he said instead.
"Mm~" Hashimoto smiled. "I'll keep watch for you, okay? While you're online."
"If you like," Totsuka told him, and hooked his netgear behind his ears, feeling not a little like Kitayama just then: the quicker he could check on the others, the quicker he'd be able to sleep. Except the only reason he was tired was because Hashimoto was exhausting.
*
The bed was weird, Hashimoto thought. It was really soft, and moved every time he shifted his weight even a little bit. And it was really warm too, which was weird as well. And even if Hashimoto had lost his sweater and other sweater since getting to Takizawa's place (and didn't know where they were now), and was just wearing a t-shirt right now, it still wasn't cold at all.
The sunlamp in the ceiling had faded the room to darkness, but Hashimoto was okay with that. The dark didn't scare him. He could still make out Totsuka by the bed, legs stretched out as he sat completely still. Online.
Hashimoto had seen Sanada and Nozawa do it before, go online. They'd go up, up, up, aboveground and then one would log on (usually Nozawa) and the other one would stand guard (usually Sanada). They never took very long with it, because apparently it was dangerous. But Totsuka was taking a long time.
"Not fair," Hashimoto told the empty room at large. "If I knew how to go online, I'd totally go."
Maybe in the morning, he'd ask for going online. And food. But mostly online. Just watching was boring when there wasn't any danger. And if Totsuka had work to do, then maybe Hashimoto could help him get it done faster, and then they could play. In the morning.
For now, Kitayama could keep the blankets, Hashimoto decided, and slid out of Totsuka's bed, trying not to make it move too much. (It was beyond him how Kitayama could stay sleeping on a moving thing.) The floor was much more normal and comfortable. With casual aplomb, Hashimoto curled up beside where Totsuka sat, and put his head in Totsuka's lap.
And like that, though he said he'd keep watch, he was asleep within moments.
*
So we'll come by and find you two sometime (he misses you already). Talk more then. Totsuka wrote on his sheet of white paper, finishing up his note. The charges were rarely logged on for very long, so communication with them came mostly in the varying forms of notes and PMs. Stay careful! And stay in touch.
Done, Totsuka clapped the sheet of paper twice between his palms, and it sprang into the form of an origami boat when he pulled them apart again.
He crouched down and set the little boat upon the water-the cute, calm little stream running through the grassy scenario. (There was a playground behind them, full of colourful equipment. Very specific equipment, but the Guard knew it all by memory.) Gently, the little boat began to float downstream.
But it was plucked from the water barely a dozen metres down.
"Goseki-kun..." Totsuka said.
"You should give yourself a little more time," Goseki said, and slicked a bit of waterproofing along the boat's 'hull' so it would survive a little longer atop the water. "It's because you set such tight deadlines that you always fall ill."
Totsuka said nothing, but neither did he deny access to Goseki's add-on.
The water was a security measure, the message-boat designed to degenerate after a certain timeframe. Every message any of the Guard sent bore that code for two reasons: firstly to lower the likelihood of the message being traced back to its sender; and, also, if a message timed-out without first being read, a minor flag would prompt Watchtower to check the satellites for sightings of the missing charge.
If there was still no trace of the charge, a more thorough search would be launched.
Totsuka preferred to err on the side of caution with regard to initiating these searches, though they did tend to drain time and energy. And while his... charge expiry statistics weren't significantly different from Goseki's despite the other's longer routine lag time, that didn't change the fact it granted him a little more peace of mind.
It occasionally also saddled him with charges like Hashimoto. But that was turning out to be possibly another basket of fruits altogether.
"Where's Tsuka-chan?" Totsuka asked instead, changing the subject.
"Present!" Tsukada called, materialising perched atop the monkey bars as if on cue. "Sorry!"
Totsuka grinned. "And Fumito?"
"Ah, he did his arm in..." Tsukada said, flipping down from the play equipment.
"Sprained his wrist," Goseki specified. "Taisuke's keeping him useless."
"I see," Totsuka said, and didn't ask any further. "Well, that's fine. Let's just clear the rest of these logs and call it a day."
"You're tired," Goseki observed. "Is that boy still with you?"
"Gocchi and I can cover these replies, you know," Tsukada said, walking over to them. "There's not much today."
"I might as well stay," Totsuka told them. "Then we can all go quicker."
"Hm," Goseki mused irreverently. "He seems the clingy type. You should send him over to me if he's too much trouble. I know how to wear kids out."
It was nice of Goseki to offer, Totsuka thought. Sort of. Except for how, "That's my concern exactly," he said, sincere.
Tsukada laughed. "Extra training, extra training!"
Goseki smiled. "That's right. Extra training."
Sure, Totsuka thought, extra training, and shook his head. "No, it'll be alright for now."
*
Totsuka was a little surprised to find his right leg asleep by the time he logged off again, but then less so when he looked down to find Hashimoto sound asleep in his lap.
A strangely unsurprising turn of events, all things considered.
Totsuka sighed and let his head flop back against his bed, shifting slightly to restore a minimum of circulation, and gently rolling his shoulders. Well, that was unfair. He couldn't very well just climb into bed beside Kitayama and leave the House's newest member to sleep on the floor, now.
Even if he could, his brain didn't feel in any mind to shut down anytime soon.
So many things to do, and dawn was on the approach...
Logging back on instead, Totsuka loaded up a null-pain code patch and imagined himself floating calmly, falling through the dark. He relaxed his limbs on a slow exhalation and closed his eyes.
Sleep would come when he hit the bottom.
1- soooo~ pointless! ♥ *cracks up*
2- i really do think that if there's anyone who'd take the nature of FD's as a practical brain-off switch to avoid insomnia, it would be tottsu. |D watchtower probably thought they were coding up some sort of training aid for him with the null patch.
3- because he does it relatively often, i think he also comes out of the KO relatively quickly and just sleeps normally after that... *ponder* probably.
Featuring the First and 45-I; appearances by the Third and Fourth.
( sidestory: what friends are (really) for -2 )
"Be polite," Totsuka had told Hashimoto.
"Be yourself," Goseki had smiled.
Hashimoto, possibly torn between the two options, was turning out to be distinctly neither in front of Takizawa: "I am your pleasure to be met well with," he said, bowed stiffly at the waist, before straightening more awkwardly than Totsuka had ever seen any automation do.
"What is this child?" Takizawa laughed.
Totsuka gave a helpless shrug, thinking that in futuro he'd simply direct Hashimoto to whatever instruction Goseki gave. "He's special, Tono." (At least their boss seemed amused.)
"He's really inept!" Tsukada remarked, and Goseki stifled a giggle when Takizawa didn't even tell him off for being rude. (Kawai, Totsuka imagined, would be demanding a high-five right about now, were he present.)
"I'm sorry," Hashimoto said, looking somewhere up in the middle-distance. "I am a lot of many things."
Takizawa smiled. "Not least of which is troublesome, but don't worry too much. You've been in good hands thus far, and we'll continue to look after you whether you choose to stay here or not."
Hashimoto's gaze refocused like lightning. "I can stay here?" he asked, turning to Totsuka and Goseki with wide eyes. "Can I?"
Takizawa cleared his throat. "You can if you like. When I register you with the government, you'll become a legal child and member of this House..."
Hashimoto turned back Takizawa's way. "I can be a real boy?"
Takizawa laughed. "A real boy."
"You can!" Tsukada grinned. "But it means you'll have to go to school and training, and can't spend all day sleeping."
"-in," said Totsuka.
"-around," said Goseki.
"Training?" Hashimoto asked. "Can I be like you guys, too? I want to, you know! I really do!"
*
"Tottsu, tell Watchtower to rush his paperwork when they're done with the current issue," Takizawa said. "Goseki-kun, you'll set him up some netgear and teach him how to use it, won't you? You always do so well with the new recruits."
"With all due respect, Tono," Goseki said, straightfaced, "I'm not so sure about this one. He was barely two steps inside the egress hatch before a stray hand hit me in the face."
"It was an accident!" Hashimoto wailed softly from behind Totsuka's shoulder. "I said I was sorry...!"
Takizawa was laughing again, and Totsuka gave Hashimoto a pat. "They're just teasing, you know. But Gocchi and I can always switch..." He looked skyward when Hashimoto latched onto his arm like a limpet. "We'll switch."
"If you like," Goseki said with a benevolent smile.
"I like, I like!" Hashimoto called, and Totsuka nobly refrained from accusing Goseki of wanting exactly this arrangement all along.
"Alright then, it's settled," Takizawa smiled. "But for now, the four of you get some sleep. Everything else can wait 'til daybreak."
*
"I don't think I'll be able to sleep though~" Hashimoto chatted, on and on to rival Fujigaya's best as they walked. He bounced on the balls of his feet following Totsuka through Takizawa's halls. "I'm so excited, man. This is like, so cool! I get to be a real boy in the morning, and like~ hey, Tottsu, did you do this, too? Did you become a real boy like this, too?"
"I did." Totsuka smiled over his shoulder. "More or less. It was a while ago."
"Ahhhh~" Hashimoto barely breathed, reverent. "So cool."
"Mm." Totsuka stopped to check that the egress hatch was sealed (it wasn't, so he locked it), before backtracking to his bedroom door where he paused at the keypad. If the hatch hadn't been locked, and Kitayama had been out...
He punched his door code in.
"Ah! I shotgun doing the lights!" Hashimoto called, flailing his hands about before Totsuka could respond. The lights flared up to full, and Hashimoto froze. "Oh."
Sprawled out on Totsuka's bed, Kitayama grunted, brows knotting slightly. But he didn't wake before Totsuka turned the lights back down with two crisp waves.
"Apologies," Totsuka said, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness for a moment, before toeing off his shoes by the door. "You can play with the lights tomorrow. Or maybe the day after." (Naptime had no particular limit when it came to Kitayama.)
Hashimoto hadn't moved from the middle of the room. "...is he your friend?" he asked, his voice emerging as a remarkably silly growl to Totsuka's ear.
"Shh~" Totsuka said, and set about finding them both some clothes to sleep in. "Volume decrease, please, Ryosuke."
Hashimoto cleared his throat. When he spoke again, he sounded a little less sure and a little more plaintive- "...is he your friend, Tottsu? I want to know." -but his volume was relatively appropriate, so Totsuka answered.
"Yes."
Hashimoto pouted. "Like, a good friend?"
"Later," Totsuka said, sidestepping the question entirely, and pressed a pair of shorts and his baggiest tee into Hashimoto's chest, "I am going to introduce you to another good friend of mine."
"Really?" Hashimoto blinked, and looked down at the clothes he'd been handed. "Would you do that?"
"I would, I will, and you'll thank me," Totsuka said. "His name is the dictionary, and I'll even guide you through your first time fingering his pages. But only when it's light outside."
Hashimoto blinked in confusion, and Totsuka let him get changed in silence, busying himself rearranging Kitayama's limbs with the easy manner of prior experience. He noted the synthetic patch over Kitayama's calf as he shifted the other over, and the various bruises already visible even under the dim light.
At least nothing seemed to be broken or missing entirely. This time.
Totsuka tried not to sigh. "It's the bigger man who can ask for help, Hiromitsu," he said. Stubbornness was one of those traits just as likely to get its bearer killed as not. (A pity it was one of Kitayama's more appealing characteristics.)
"...Tottsu?" Hashimoto asked, his voice finally quiet for real. "I mean... Is your friend a'kay?"
Totsuka turned back around, and put his smile back on. "He'll live. We'll train you to deal with those guys properly so you don't end up like him, okay?"
The first rule in the Guard's book was to never fight alone.
"Okay," Hashimoto said solemnly, and Totsuka gestured to the now-free half of the bed.
"There's room enough for you to lie down here. Hiromitsu doesn't take up much space once you check his sprawl. You should get some rest."
"Isn't... this your bed though?" Hashimoto asked, hesitating. "What about space for you? I'm not really Hiromitsu-or-you-sized."
Totsuka smiled, and reached up to muss Hashimoto's hair. "You should probably call him Kitayama for now. But no, go ahead and sleep first. I've still got things to do. Other charges to check on." Pulling his netgear out of his pocket, Totsuka settled himself on the floor.
"...others like... Yuma and Nozawa?" Hashimoto asked softly, climbing into bed as told. He didn't lie down though, making a noise of surprise at the give in the mattress under his weight.
"You left them behind, didn't you? They'll be worried."
"...I sent Balcan at them," Hashimoto said, though looked guilty enough that Totsuka didn't feel the need to remind him of all the chances that Balcan wouldn't have made it back to base.
"You're going to miss their company, aren't you?" he asked instead. "Even if you weren't living together for so long."
"...maybe," Hashimoto admitted. "But it's okay! It's okay, really..." But his eyes didn't lift, and Totsuka felt a little sympathy.
"We can go see them in the morning."
"Can we?"
"Yes. But for now, please sleep."
"...I'm not tired," Hashimoto said.
Totsuka raised an eyebrow, then raised a hand and stifled an ostentatious yawn.
"Heyyy~ not... fair!" Hashimoto clapped his hands over his own yawn.
Totsuka chuckled, and rubbed his eyes. "Well, I'm tired. Maybe you're stronger than me, though."
"If you're tired too, then you should sleep too!" Hashimoto said, but Totsuka just shook his head again.
"After this. There are more kids like you out there, you know, who we-"
"There aren't anymore like me," Hashimoto deadpanned.
Totsuka tilted his head slightly. "There are plenty," he said, though it was true that none had caused the Guard as much trouble (nor on such a regular basis) as Hashimoto.
"There aren't," Hashimoto said, and gave a little smile. "You know, there's none of them that wants Tottsu all to themself, probably. Or if they do, then they don't want it as much as me." He made himself comfortable on the bed, then, lying on his stomach with his chin pillowed on his forearms, looking over. "You know, I want it a lot."
Totsuka was entirely unsure how to respond to that simple declaration. "...your esurience is quite... something."
"What's that?" Hashimoto said, and tilted his head. "I thought I was being quite unsneaky by telling you it first." And there it was again, that little smile.
"...you must be very tired," Totsuka said. "We'll talk about this when there is daylight."
Hashimoto laughed then. "There's no sunlights underground, you know. I sleep whenever I want."
'...will you want to sleep if I want you to sleep?' Totsuka was tempted to ask, but the notion didn't sit quite right. "Okay," he said instead.
"Mm~" Hashimoto smiled. "I'll keep watch for you, okay? While you're online."
"If you like," Totsuka told him, and hooked his netgear behind his ears, feeling not a little like Kitayama just then: the quicker he could check on the others, the quicker he'd be able to sleep. Except the only reason he was tired was because Hashimoto was exhausting.
*
The bed was weird, Hashimoto thought. It was really soft, and moved every time he shifted his weight even a little bit. And it was really warm too, which was weird as well. And even if Hashimoto had lost his sweater and other sweater since getting to Takizawa's place (and didn't know where they were now), and was just wearing a t-shirt right now, it still wasn't cold at all.
The sunlamp in the ceiling had faded the room to darkness, but Hashimoto was okay with that. The dark didn't scare him. He could still make out Totsuka by the bed, legs stretched out as he sat completely still. Online.
Hashimoto had seen Sanada and Nozawa do it before, go online. They'd go up, up, up, aboveground and then one would log on (usually Nozawa) and the other one would stand guard (usually Sanada). They never took very long with it, because apparently it was dangerous. But Totsuka was taking a long time.
"Not fair," Hashimoto told the empty room at large. "If I knew how to go online, I'd totally go."
Maybe in the morning, he'd ask for going online. And food. But mostly online. Just watching was boring when there wasn't any danger. And if Totsuka had work to do, then maybe Hashimoto could help him get it done faster, and then they could play. In the morning.
For now, Kitayama could keep the blankets, Hashimoto decided, and slid out of Totsuka's bed, trying not to make it move too much. (It was beyond him how Kitayama could stay sleeping on a moving thing.) The floor was much more normal and comfortable. With casual aplomb, Hashimoto curled up beside where Totsuka sat, and put his head in Totsuka's lap.
And like that, though he said he'd keep watch, he was asleep within moments.
*
So we'll come by and find you two sometime (he misses you already). Talk more then. Totsuka wrote on his sheet of white paper, finishing up his note. The charges were rarely logged on for very long, so communication with them came mostly in the varying forms of notes and PMs. Stay careful! And stay in touch.
Done, Totsuka clapped the sheet of paper twice between his palms, and it sprang into the form of an origami boat when he pulled them apart again.
He crouched down and set the little boat upon the water-the cute, calm little stream running through the grassy scenario. (There was a playground behind them, full of colourful equipment. Very specific equipment, but the Guard knew it all by memory.) Gently, the little boat began to float downstream.
But it was plucked from the water barely a dozen metres down.
"Goseki-kun..." Totsuka said.
"You should give yourself a little more time," Goseki said, and slicked a bit of waterproofing along the boat's 'hull' so it would survive a little longer atop the water. "It's because you set such tight deadlines that you always fall ill."
Totsuka said nothing, but neither did he deny access to Goseki's add-on.
The water was a security measure, the message-boat designed to degenerate after a certain timeframe. Every message any of the Guard sent bore that code for two reasons: firstly to lower the likelihood of the message being traced back to its sender; and, also, if a message timed-out without first being read, a minor flag would prompt Watchtower to check the satellites for sightings of the missing charge.
If there was still no trace of the charge, a more thorough search would be launched.
Totsuka preferred to err on the side of caution with regard to initiating these searches, though they did tend to drain time and energy. And while his... charge expiry statistics weren't significantly different from Goseki's despite the other's longer routine lag time, that didn't change the fact it granted him a little more peace of mind.
It occasionally also saddled him with charges like Hashimoto. But that was turning out to be possibly another basket of fruits altogether.
"Where's Tsuka-chan?" Totsuka asked instead, changing the subject.
"Present!" Tsukada called, materialising perched atop the monkey bars as if on cue. "Sorry!"
Totsuka grinned. "And Fumito?"
"Ah, he did his arm in..." Tsukada said, flipping down from the play equipment.
"Sprained his wrist," Goseki specified. "Taisuke's keeping him useless."
"I see," Totsuka said, and didn't ask any further. "Well, that's fine. Let's just clear the rest of these logs and call it a day."
"You're tired," Goseki observed. "Is that boy still with you?"
"Gocchi and I can cover these replies, you know," Tsukada said, walking over to them. "There's not much today."
"I might as well stay," Totsuka told them. "Then we can all go quicker."
"Hm," Goseki mused irreverently. "He seems the clingy type. You should send him over to me if he's too much trouble. I know how to wear kids out."
It was nice of Goseki to offer, Totsuka thought. Sort of. Except for how, "That's my concern exactly," he said, sincere.
Tsukada laughed. "Extra training, extra training!"
Goseki smiled. "That's right. Extra training."
Sure, Totsuka thought, extra training, and shook his head. "No, it'll be alright for now."
*
Totsuka was a little surprised to find his right leg asleep by the time he logged off again, but then less so when he looked down to find Hashimoto sound asleep in his lap.
A strangely unsurprising turn of events, all things considered.
Totsuka sighed and let his head flop back against his bed, shifting slightly to restore a minimum of circulation, and gently rolling his shoulders. Well, that was unfair. He couldn't very well just climb into bed beside Kitayama and leave the House's newest member to sleep on the floor, now.
Even if he could, his brain didn't feel in any mind to shut down anytime soon.
So many things to do, and dawn was on the approach...
Logging back on instead, Totsuka loaded up a null-pain code patch and imagined himself floating calmly, falling through the dark. He relaxed his limbs on a slow exhalation and closed his eyes.
Sleep would come when he hit the bottom.
1- soooo~ pointless! ♥ *cracks up*
2- i really do think that if there's anyone who'd take the nature of FD's as a practical brain-off switch to avoid insomnia, it would be tottsu. |D watchtower probably thought they were coding up some sort of training aid for him with the null patch.
3- because he does it relatively often, i think he also comes out of the KO relatively quickly and just sleeps normally after that... *ponder* probably.