fic - Johnny's & Associates - The Question of Nobuta - Week 1: NOBUTA
Title: The Question of Nobuta; Week 1: NOBUTA
Author: virdant
Length: 4405/25530 words (1/5)
Rating: PG-13 / R
Genre: AU, Dystopia, sci-fi.
Pairing: implied Pikame, Implied Shuji/Akira
Summary: Story Summary: NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA. In a world where people spend the majority of their time online playing roles, a rogue program named NOBUTA tries to be happy. But what is NOBUTA, and why does it exist?
Chapter Summary: Kamenashi and Yamashita weren't friends, just strangers who occasionally drugged themselves out of their brains together.
Warning: Drug use.
Notes: I use various names and nicknames very extensively in this story for the purpose of differentiating between various settings. Please keep that in mind. For more information regarding this story, including the posting schedule, please check the Masterpost and Pre-reading Notes
The Question of Nobuta
Masterpost | Week 1: NOBUTA | Week 2: Kouji | Week 3: Mariko | Week 4: Nobuko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira | Post-Completion Meta
Week 1: NOBUTA
Kamenashi was really sick of life.
The fluorescent lights flickered dimly as he sucked hard on the hallucinogen, focusing on not watching Yamashita Tomohisa, whatever he was doing now; Yamashita always got the stupidest ideas into his head. Yamashita flapped his arms and laughed before forming a fox's hand with his fingers and nipping Kamenashi's nose with them. “Kon!”
Kamenashi rolled his eyes and sucked harder on the drug.
Kusano Akira-not Yamashita Tomohisa, even though their faces were the same-leaned forward, forward, forward until his nose almost touched Kamenashi's. “Kame-chan?” he asked, voice slurred.
Kamenashi narrowed his eyes. No. That's not right. He sucked on the drug harder, feeling rather than seeing the telltale pinpricks of white needles lacing through his vision. That's not right. It's not Kame-chan when it's Akira-kun. It's Shuuji-kun, with the vowels drawn out and almost sung. Kamenashi sucked harder, the drug slowly dissolving in his mouth. For a second, Kamenashi fought the urge to gag as the hallucinogen's bitter taste flooded his mouth; then the drugs kicked in, the chemicals dancing along his brainwaves, and the bitterness faded into a tangy sweetness dissolving in his mouth. As the world faded away, Kamenashi relaxed for the first time.
*
Ueda Tatsuya hated his work. That didn't mean that he went to underground bars to take hallucinogenic drugs and stumbled into work half dead the next day; that was Kamenashi. Except Kamenashi Kazuya didn't do that. Kamenashi Kazuya, twice every month-the first and third Friday evening of every month-went to some underground bar that Ueda really didn't want to know about and took exactly one dose of hallucinogens-whichever was cheaper that month-and then walked into work exactly on time Monday after.
Kamenashi kept his entire life under tight control.
Except he didn't, because none of their lives were really in their control anymore. Ueda probed down his back, searching for his main port for Network hookup. Hallucinogens were the poor man's escape; for a hefty fee, one could install a port for full immersion into the Network, the all-spanning information network, where one could live whatever life they wanted without even moving from their chair.
“Bad day?” Taguchi asked, as he played on his porternal, his portable terminal for Network connection. Nowhere powerful enough for full immersion, Taguchi's had been so heavily modified that he could get two senses to immerse if he hooked himself up. Today, he had decided to immerse his vision and smell, leaving his other senses open. It was a tricky feat, to juggle the conflicting messages from within the Network and outside, but Taguchi had always been good at that. “Or work?”
“Both,” Ueda said curtly.
Taguchi's eyes focused on the porternal. “This boss is really hard,” he said distantly.
Ueda's lips curved up a little in the corners. It wasn't quite a smile, but for a stressed Ueda, it was good enough. “Of course. Will you be joining me soon?”
Taguchi didn't look up, focused on his game. “After this level,” he said, before shouting incoherent words at the screen.
Ueda shook his head. “I'm going in.” He plugged himself into the Network, taking the time to rearrange his limbs appropriately in the immersion chair before he immersed himself completely.
Taguchi didn't look up until ten minutes later, when he reached behind him and unplugged himself from his porternal. “Oh,” he said faintly. “Uepi went in already.”
He hooked his porternal up to the main computer, opening up programs with practiced flicks of his fingers. “I wonder where he is right now.”
*
Kamenashi woke up in Yamashita's bed, Yamashita lying next to him. He got up carefully, trying not to disturb Yamashita; they weren't friends, just strangers who occasionally drugged themselves out of their brains together. Kamenashi would watch Yamashita take his dose, keeping a careful wary eye on the older man as eyes rolled back and fingers spasmed and his entire body relaxed into lax comfort.
“You're awake,” Yamashita said as Kamenashi finished climbing over him, his eyes fluttering open and watching Kamenashi carefully.
Kamenashi nodded. “Thank you for spotting me,” he said formally. “I must have been very troublesome last night.”
Yamashita propped himself on an arm, watching as Kamenashi straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. “It wasn't a bother,” he replied. “It was a tricky drug. Just hit the market, I think.”
Kamenashi nodded. “I will find some way to repay you for your help,” he said.
“Doesn't matter. Just spot me next time and I'll consider it done.”
They had woken up in the same bed before; not often, but often enough for them to be comfortable with each other. The first time, Kamenashi had overdosed and didn't wake up at the end of their allotted time. Yamashita had picked him up-“Shuji is too thin,” he said to Jin later-and carried him through the tracks until they reached his hostel. He had placed Kamenashi on his bed, and settled down next to him, mind relaxed enough to not care. Kamenashi had bowed and apologized for causing trouble and asked to repay him when they woke up. Yamashita had shrugged and said, “I'll go second next time, and you can take care of me if something goes wrong.” Two months later. Kamenashi had hauled Yamashita-“Akira is fat,” he griped to Akanishi the next day-back to his home, tucked him in, and settled in next to him. Yamashita had woken up, thanked Kamenashi for his help, and helped Kamenashi make breakfast the next day. They had fallen into a comfortable routine, rotating between their homes, spending the night even if they weren't still in the throes of a dream.
Kamenashi nodded. “Thank you for your help,” he said again, before heading towards the small refresher, where he rinsed his mouth and splashed water on his face. “Is your schedule comfortable today?”
“It's good enough. I'm planning on going through a full immersion later. Want to immerse with me?” He grabbed a porternal as he got up and followed Kamenashi into the refresher room, watching as Kamenashi spat out a mouthful of foam.
“No, thank you,” Kamenashi said, eyes fixed on the small mirror that Yamashita had affixed to the wall, “I have some issues to tend to.”
Yamashita nodded. “D'you have time for breakfast?”
Kamenashi paused. Yamashita handed Kamenashi the porternal. Hallucinogenics tended to make the mind a bit fuzzy the next day, especially regarding fine details; Kamenashi wrote down his schedule in his porternal for that reason. Yamashita just sent a ping to Koyama, a few seconds away with the Network, and asked him what exactly he needed to be done.
Kamenashi tapped the flat object, the screen expanding and bathing his hands in a soft pink light. “Yes,” he said finally. “I don't have anything until two hours later.” He tapped it again, and the screen faded away. “Thank you,” he said as he handed the porternal back to Yamashita.
“Want to go out, or stay in? I have something other than rations, I think.”
“Going out is fine.”
Yamashita nodded. “Give me a second here? I'll be ready soon.”
Kamenashi nodded politely, stepping out of the refresher room. The first time he had come over, he had tried making Yamashita's bed and had simply stood there, hands listless at his sides, not knowing what to do with the thin sheets until Yamashita had come out of the refresher and poked him with a finger and said, “Don't worry about it, Shuji.”
(“Akira,” Kamenashi had almost said before he had caught himself. “Do not call me that,” he had said curtly instead. “Please,” he had added, remembering where he was. “I'm not under the influence anymore. My name is Kamenashi.”)
Now, he simply smoothed out the sheets, not tucking them in, simply placing them neatly on the bed. There was a wrinkle in the middle, and Kamenashi took the time to tug the edges until the sheets laid flat; Yamashita appreciated Kamenashi's effort, even if he never said anything, just stood in the narrow doorway and watched as Kamenashi took the time to take care of everything.
“Kamenashi?” Yamashita asked.
Kamenashi didn't look up, smoothing out wrinkle-free sheets; their straightness a sharp contrast to the rest of the room. Yamashita wasn't a messy person, but there was distinctly lived-in feeling to the rest of the room that perfectly straight sheets didn't fit. Kamenashi set his hand in the center of Yamashita's bed and curled his fingers, watching as his hard work came undone in a moment.
He looked up. “Yamashita,” he replied.
Yamashita studied Kamenashi. “Ready? There's a small cafeteria where Koyama works that has good breakfasts.”
Kamenashi sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Doesn't matter. I've told you that once, and I'll tell you it again. You'd do the same for me.”
But Kamenashi wouldn't. Not if Yamashita hadn't taken the first step.
*
“You left without me,” Junno said as he stepped out into the bright night of a city that never slept. He could see Tat-chan leaning against the wall by the door out of the corner of his eye, his focus on the flashing colors of advertisements that covered the buildings.
“You were playing.”
“That doesn't mean that you should leave without me,” he protested, but it was really more of a token protest. “Tat-chan,” he added. “Why are you here?”
“For work,” Tat-chan said, because he wasn't Ueda now. The lines of his face were softer; his eyes didn't have dark smudges underneath them from working late at night. “I told you when we were offline.”
“That doesn't answer my question,” Junno said. Taguchi liked visiting the Network; it was relaxing-like taking off a pair of pinched shoes-to stop being Taguchi, who was perpetually smiling, and to be just Junno, who could stop smiling for a moment if he really wanted. Except Junno never really wanted to stop smiling. That was another difference between Taguchi and Junno. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
While they worked together, under the same boss and in the same team, even, their jobs were radically different. Taguchi's job was within the Network proper; he earned his ration tabs even as he sat hooked up to his porternal, touching briefly on Network pathways with his fingers. He spent so much time on the Network that it was almost a part of him; he could play Network games and maintain the pathways at the same time. Junno and Taguchi were closer than most people expected because of Taguchi's work.
Ueda's job was outside the Network, but he went into the Network too often for his comfort. Because Ueda and Tat-chan were so separate, his boss liked sending Tat-chan on the weekends, knowing that Ueda would come back into work the next week without any sign of full immersion for two days. “There's supposed to be a rogue program or something,” he explained. Tat-chan prodded the corner of his mouth with a tongue, tasting sea salt.
Junno nodded. “And they sent you?”
Tat-chan shrugged. “Kamenashi has his fix this week.”
“That's this week?”
Tat-chan nodded.
Junno smiled. “I don't see why he takes the hallucs when he can just plug himself in.” He flexed his fingers, accustoming himself to full immersion; it was always a bit of a surprise, entering full immersion after a long period of time only half-immersed. “It's just as good.”
“Nobody understands Kamenashi,” Tat-chan said. Tat-chan glanced at Junno, watching as Junno accustomed himself to neurons sending different messages. Junno bounced on the balls of his feet for a second, light on his feet as always. He continued, “What he chooses to do in his free time is his choice.” He tapped his fingers to each other, trying to bring Ueda back from unconsciousness; “Help me track the program?” he asked.
Junno's face went blank as he searched for a rogue program; most programs worked in perfect harmony in the Network; rogues were programs that had deviated from their function, and the fact that most of them happened to have Artificial Intelligence attributes bothered The General Populace. “I found one; it's just sitting around, not doing anything.”
“I guess we'll have to stop it before it becomes malignant.” He laughed, a Tat-chan laugh instead of Ueda laugh despite his tone slowly slipping into Ueda's.
Junno frowned. “It seems tame enough. I don't see why they want to get rid of it. There are worse rogue programs.”
“Don't question the bosses,” Ueda said darkly. He glanced around, taking in the bright lights of a pseudo night life; crowds bustled to and fro, laughing and chattering to each other, their faces locked into caricatures of happiness. “Where is it?”
He pointed towards a cluster of high-rise buildings in the distance. “It's just sitting there, waiting,” Junno said.
Tat-chan nodded and started to stroll towards the building in the rolling gait that everybody in the Network walked with, with his feet barely leaving the ground. If it weren't for Junno tailing his every move, he would have blended in with the crowd and disappeared.
“It's not hurting anybody,” Junno repeated.
“It's only a matter of time,” Tat-chan replied.
*
Tanaka had left Kamenashi four messages by the time Kamenashi decided to open up his contact system and check his mail.
“You're busy,” Yamashita commented as they sat in the cafeteria that he had suggested, eating food that wasn't as bland as the food that Kamenashi was used to. He nodded to Kamenashi's porternal, beeping gently on the table as Kamenashi focused on stirring his food into even more unappetizing mush.
“It's Tanaka,” Kamenashi said, as if that would explain everything. “Tanaka Koki.” He glanced up at Yamashita, shrugging. It wasn't the first time that they had eaten something after crashing at one of their places, but it was the first time that Yamashita was treating him to a meal, and outside of their respective apartments too.
Yamashita nodded towards the porternal. “You work with him, right?”
Kamenashi nodded, stirring his food listlessly.
“Are you not going to eat?”
“Maybe later.”
“Just because it's my ration tab doesn't mean you can waste it.” Yamashita frowned, eyebrows furrowing slightly and lips pursing as he thought.
Kamenashi managed a smile, cheerfully polite. “I'm not...”
“Eat,” Yamashita said. “You know that the hallucs take up too much energy.”
Kamenashi lifted up a bite and swallowed the food mechanically; the bland tasteless mush fell apart in his mouth just like everything else that Kamenashi had eaten in his entire life. Kamenashi chewed and swallowed mechanically, muttering a quiet, “it's good,” because that was expected of him.
Yamashita watched carefully as Kamenashi ate, making sure that he swallowed every bite of his meal. “You're too skinny.” Yamashita thumbed his porternal, studying his ration count; Yamashita's position was high enough up on the food chain that he never really worried about his spending, but there was no real reason to spend more when he could spend less. He eyed Kamenashi critically. “You should eat more.”
“Not hungry,” Kamenashi said automatically.
“You're never actually hungry,” Yamashita replied. And then he studied his porternal carefully, focusing on a mail from Nishikido Ryo he had already read yesterday, so he wouldn't have to look up at Kamenashi's startled face. When Kamenashi was surprised, his face seemed to open up, his features shifting to reflect Shuji rather than Kamenashi.
“Do you have work?” Kamenashi asked, his voice seeming to come from far away even though Shuji's mouth was opening and closing in front of him.
Yamashita blinked. Shuji melted back into Kamenashi. He focused on what Kamenashi had just said, “No,” he said. “It's an old mail. From Nishikido Ryo.” Kamenashi nodded. His porternal beeped from its position on the table, and he reached for it automatically; Yamashita grabbed it before Kamenashi could. “Not until you're done eating,” he said sternly.
Kamenashi laughed a little. “What if it's important?” he asked, but he took another bite of his food.
Yamashita tapped the porternal. It didn't recognize his touch, being keyed to Kamenashi, so he couldn't check Kamenashi's mail, but he could access the news channels. They all were reporting the same thing; there was a new committee being set up for Network patrol to prevent the incendiary actions of radicalists. “Can't be that important can it?”
Kamenashi swallowed several mouthfuls, and held out his hand. “Give it back,” he said.
Yamashita studied Kamenashi's plate and deemed it appropriately finished for Kamenashi to check his mail. He handed back the porternal, and Kamenashi pressed his fingers to the touchscreen, the projector activating and enveloping his hands; Kamenashi's fine motor skills tended to be poor the day after he took hallucinogens, and his fingers shook slightly as he expanded the projector to make it easier for him to open up his mail.
“Is it Tanaka?” Yamashita asked. Yamashita's motor control was better, though he had a pounding headache for 24.7 hours after he came off the hallucinogens; he preferred to access the Network because it was mind numbing enough to make life a bit less painful.
Kamenashi nodded. “He wants to change the time of our meeting,” Kamenashi said slowly. He scanned the mail. “He has to go into work to check up on some stuff, so we'll have to delay.” He lifted a finger and tapped a part of the projected mail. “He's been mailing me about this since last night.”
“When are you meeting now?”
“In six hours.” Kamenashi slid his fingers along the edge of the touchscreen, and the projection slowly faded down. “I can take the tracks back to my hostel.” He tucked his porternal into his bag and rose. Yamashita stood with him, running his fingers over the touch pad embedded in the table and authorizing payment with his ration tabs.
“Or you could hook yourself up to the Network with me.”
Kamenashi smiled automatically and said, “That's very kind of you to offer.” Then he paused. “You have equipment for duel hookups?”
Yamashita nodded; like Kamenashi, he worked in Network Maintenance-Johnny Laws, the hackers called them, or even just Johnnies sometimes, with their lips curled in derision-but he had been working for longer than Kamenashi and was higher up in the workforce; duel hookups were expensive to own personally, but Yamashita had splurged when he was given his own team to lead, and he had never had a reason to regret that decision.
Kamenashi stared.
“Want to see?” he asked, smiling through the massive headache pounding through his head. He slung a loose arm around Kamenashi's shoulders, feeling the smaller man stiffen under his touch. It was an action more typical of Akira than Yamashita, but Yamashita didn't mind being more like Akira if it made Kamenashi-not Shuji-relax.
Kamenashi's sighed quietly and leaned into Yamashita. “Alright.” He rested his head on Yamapi's shoulder, letting Yamashita manhandle him. “Only this once.”
*
They had gotten halfway to the program source when Tat-chan's avatar started to fray; his fingers grew numb, and his fine motor control skills slowly deteriorated, and his vision blurred.
“Something wrong?”
“It seems like that,” Tat-chan said. He flexed his fingers, watching his fingers flicker through eyes that weren't his own. He had stumbled into malicious programs-Junno was better at disarming them before they attacked, Tat-chan just dealt with them as they came-that had contaminated his connection with his Network avatar before, but usually one of the many safeguard programs kicked in before the contamination could run its course.
“Has this happened before?”
“Not this quickly,” Ueda said, hearing his voice as it ran through the Network and echoed in his ears. “I'm losing connection to this avatar.” He pulled out of the Network enough to start a scan, watching Tat-chan as Tat-chan flickered before his eyes. “Are you experiencing anything strange?”
“Ah, I got a worm trying to get into the main system.”
“Deal with that from inside; I'm going to log out and deal with this from the outside.” Ueda blinked furiously as his vision shifted from the metropolis of the Network to the gray walls and Taguchi's glassy eyes staring through Ueda into the metropolis.
Ueda felt Tat-chan's mindset slip away even as he reached behind himself and deftly unlatched the wires that connected him to the network. He picked up Taguchi's porternal, pressing his fingers to the screen and feeling Taguchi's programs kick in, the fingerprint sensors whirling as they slowly recognized not-Taguchi and then One-of-Them before settling on Ueda.
He lifted up the porternal, bringing it to his mouth as he said, “U. Ueda Tatsuya.”
Taguchi's porternal whirled, the modifications slowly overriding the original programming as Ueda's fingerprint and voice unlocked the machine. Setting the porternal onto a low table, Ueda placed two fingers on the screen and spread them apart, the projector flaring to sickly green life above him. “Taguchi Junnosuke,” Ueda said. The projector instantly connected to Taguchi in the Network, displaying Junno's visage.
Junno blinked in the projector. “Hi, Ueda.”
“Junno,” Ueda said. It was opposite from what they usually did; usually Taguchi sat outside while Tat-chan let the program ravage through his avatar. Taguchi was better at chasing viruses around in person, he was quick and could trace the path of the bugs with half of his mind alone while Ueda simply didn't have the temperament to chase and chase and chase the path of a bug with only the dream of a thread under his fingers. “Junno, talk me through this.”
“This is a tricky bug,” Junno said. They had been wandering away from the busy streets when the bug had hit, and Junno was now sitting on the curb, long legs tucked under lanky arms. “It's not doing anything malicious, so it's not setting off any of my usual traps. It's just sitting here, in the system.”
Ueda scowled. “It fucked my avatar up,” he began, but he stopped, because he could see the virus sitting there in Junno's display program, a red triangle among the soft blue of Junno's.
“Just pull it out gently,” Junno said.
“No,” Ueda said, shifting the display from graphical to code. He stared at the dark blue text until his eyes blurred. “She's not hurting anybody.”
“Ueda?”
Ueda shifted the display again, focusing on the smudge of red that stained Junno's presence in the network. “She's lonely.”
“Ueda!”
They had all gone through the most basic training in programming; even if Taguchi was the best at reaching deep into programs and extracting pieces of code that didn't belong, Ueda knew enough to wipe the virus from the Network completely. But despite his experience, his knowledge, and his talent, Ueda had never truly become their team's leader, because he could see the programs before he dropped into the Network, and sometimes seeing code meant seeing faces that you were carefully exterminating.
“She doesn't exist, Tat-chan.” Junno's voice was distant, as if coming from far away. “She doesn't exist, Ueda.”
But her eyes did. They were sad, so sad, so carefully tentative as she studied Ueda. “You aren't Shuji,” she said, her voice stuttering over itself as she peered out at him from her long bangs. “You aren't Akira,” she said, and her voice was hard as she pronounced the syllables A-ki-ra.
“Junno,” Ueda said. “She does. She's looking at me right now.” And, he thought, she's talking to me.
The girl studied Ueda seriously. “Two together is happiness,” she said, as if she was repeating a mantra that she had repeated many times before.
“What's your name?” Ueda asked, reaching a hand to the tiny girl in the display.
“You aren't Shuji,” she said. “and you aren't Akira.”
“I'm Ueda,” he said. “Who are you?” he asked, and he could hear Junno's voice in his ear whispering, NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA.
The girl didn't respond, focusing on her toes.
“NOBUTA?” Ueda tried. “Are you NOBUTA?”
The girl looked up at Ueda. “You aren't Shuji. You aren't Akira.”
“Your name. Your label. You're NOBUTA.”
The girl didn't say anything. But she nodded, a small careful nod.
*
“I feel like something is missing in my life,” Yamashita said carefully to Kamenashi's carefully blank face. Kamenashi's eyelids fluttered, unresponsive to Yamashita's hand resting on Kamenashi's. “Like there's pieces of me missing.” The wires trailed out from Kamenashi's back, stark metal gleaming against the dark gray of Kamenashi's jacket.
Yamashita closed his eyes, stepping away from Kamenashi and settling down in the second of the dual outlets. He fumbled for the wires, sliding them into the jack at his back with ease. When he opened his eyes, it was to Kame's amused face smiling at him. It was like staring at Kamenashi but not.
“So you're Yamapi,” Kame said. “I thought so.”
Yamapi nodded, not certain what to say.
“I'm glad it's you,” Kame said cheerily into Yamapi's silence, before he turned into milling crowds and disappeared.
*
Santa Claus came, in a dream, and asked me if there was anything I wanted. But at that time, I couldn't think of anything. So I said “I'm fine. Please go to Kiritani Shuji.”
Santa Claus came, he came in a dream I had, and asked me, “What do you want? Is it now?” I said, “No, I'm fine. So please, please go to Kusano Akira's house.”
Santa Claus came and asked if there was anything I wanted. And without thinking I said, “Curry bread,” even though I wanted to say, “I'm fine, please go find Nobuta.”
To Masterpost/Pre-reading Notes | To Week 2: Kouji
Masterpost of Chapters here
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
Author: virdant
Length: 4405/25530 words (1/5)
Rating: PG-13 / R
Genre: AU, Dystopia, sci-fi.
Pairing: implied Pikame, Implied Shuji/Akira
Summary: Story Summary: NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA. In a world where people spend the majority of their time online playing roles, a rogue program named NOBUTA tries to be happy. But what is NOBUTA, and why does it exist?
Chapter Summary: Kamenashi and Yamashita weren't friends, just strangers who occasionally drugged themselves out of their brains together.
Warning: Drug use.
Notes: I use various names and nicknames very extensively in this story for the purpose of differentiating between various settings. Please keep that in mind. For more information regarding this story, including the posting schedule, please check the Masterpost and Pre-reading Notes
The Question of Nobuta
Masterpost | Week 1: NOBUTA | Week 2: Kouji | Week 3: Mariko | Week 4: Nobuko | Week 5: Shuji to Akira | Post-Completion Meta
Week 1: NOBUTA
Kamenashi was really sick of life.
The fluorescent lights flickered dimly as he sucked hard on the hallucinogen, focusing on not watching Yamashita Tomohisa, whatever he was doing now; Yamashita always got the stupidest ideas into his head. Yamashita flapped his arms and laughed before forming a fox's hand with his fingers and nipping Kamenashi's nose with them. “Kon!”
Kamenashi rolled his eyes and sucked harder on the drug.
Kusano Akira-not Yamashita Tomohisa, even though their faces were the same-leaned forward, forward, forward until his nose almost touched Kamenashi's. “Kame-chan?” he asked, voice slurred.
Kamenashi narrowed his eyes. No. That's not right. He sucked on the drug harder, feeling rather than seeing the telltale pinpricks of white needles lacing through his vision. That's not right. It's not Kame-chan when it's Akira-kun. It's Shuuji-kun, with the vowels drawn out and almost sung. Kamenashi sucked harder, the drug slowly dissolving in his mouth. For a second, Kamenashi fought the urge to gag as the hallucinogen's bitter taste flooded his mouth; then the drugs kicked in, the chemicals dancing along his brainwaves, and the bitterness faded into a tangy sweetness dissolving in his mouth. As the world faded away, Kamenashi relaxed for the first time.
*
Ueda Tatsuya hated his work. That didn't mean that he went to underground bars to take hallucinogenic drugs and stumbled into work half dead the next day; that was Kamenashi. Except Kamenashi Kazuya didn't do that. Kamenashi Kazuya, twice every month-the first and third Friday evening of every month-went to some underground bar that Ueda really didn't want to know about and took exactly one dose of hallucinogens-whichever was cheaper that month-and then walked into work exactly on time Monday after.
Kamenashi kept his entire life under tight control.
Except he didn't, because none of their lives were really in their control anymore. Ueda probed down his back, searching for his main port for Network hookup. Hallucinogens were the poor man's escape; for a hefty fee, one could install a port for full immersion into the Network, the all-spanning information network, where one could live whatever life they wanted without even moving from their chair.
“Bad day?” Taguchi asked, as he played on his porternal, his portable terminal for Network connection. Nowhere powerful enough for full immersion, Taguchi's had been so heavily modified that he could get two senses to immerse if he hooked himself up. Today, he had decided to immerse his vision and smell, leaving his other senses open. It was a tricky feat, to juggle the conflicting messages from within the Network and outside, but Taguchi had always been good at that. “Or work?”
“Both,” Ueda said curtly.
Taguchi's eyes focused on the porternal. “This boss is really hard,” he said distantly.
Ueda's lips curved up a little in the corners. It wasn't quite a smile, but for a stressed Ueda, it was good enough. “Of course. Will you be joining me soon?”
Taguchi didn't look up, focused on his game. “After this level,” he said, before shouting incoherent words at the screen.
Ueda shook his head. “I'm going in.” He plugged himself into the Network, taking the time to rearrange his limbs appropriately in the immersion chair before he immersed himself completely.
Taguchi didn't look up until ten minutes later, when he reached behind him and unplugged himself from his porternal. “Oh,” he said faintly. “Uepi went in already.”
He hooked his porternal up to the main computer, opening up programs with practiced flicks of his fingers. “I wonder where he is right now.”
*
Kamenashi woke up in Yamashita's bed, Yamashita lying next to him. He got up carefully, trying not to disturb Yamashita; they weren't friends, just strangers who occasionally drugged themselves out of their brains together. Kamenashi would watch Yamashita take his dose, keeping a careful wary eye on the older man as eyes rolled back and fingers spasmed and his entire body relaxed into lax comfort.
“You're awake,” Yamashita said as Kamenashi finished climbing over him, his eyes fluttering open and watching Kamenashi carefully.
Kamenashi nodded. “Thank you for spotting me,” he said formally. “I must have been very troublesome last night.”
Yamashita propped himself on an arm, watching as Kamenashi straightened his shirt and ran his fingers through his hair. “It wasn't a bother,” he replied. “It was a tricky drug. Just hit the market, I think.”
Kamenashi nodded. “I will find some way to repay you for your help,” he said.
“Doesn't matter. Just spot me next time and I'll consider it done.”
They had woken up in the same bed before; not often, but often enough for them to be comfortable with each other. The first time, Kamenashi had overdosed and didn't wake up at the end of their allotted time. Yamashita had picked him up-“Shuji is too thin,” he said to Jin later-and carried him through the tracks until they reached his hostel. He had placed Kamenashi on his bed, and settled down next to him, mind relaxed enough to not care. Kamenashi had bowed and apologized for causing trouble and asked to repay him when they woke up. Yamashita had shrugged and said, “I'll go second next time, and you can take care of me if something goes wrong.” Two months later. Kamenashi had hauled Yamashita-“Akira is fat,” he griped to Akanishi the next day-back to his home, tucked him in, and settled in next to him. Yamashita had woken up, thanked Kamenashi for his help, and helped Kamenashi make breakfast the next day. They had fallen into a comfortable routine, rotating between their homes, spending the night even if they weren't still in the throes of a dream.
Kamenashi nodded. “Thank you for your help,” he said again, before heading towards the small refresher, where he rinsed his mouth and splashed water on his face. “Is your schedule comfortable today?”
“It's good enough. I'm planning on going through a full immersion later. Want to immerse with me?” He grabbed a porternal as he got up and followed Kamenashi into the refresher room, watching as Kamenashi spat out a mouthful of foam.
“No, thank you,” Kamenashi said, eyes fixed on the small mirror that Yamashita had affixed to the wall, “I have some issues to tend to.”
Yamashita nodded. “D'you have time for breakfast?”
Kamenashi paused. Yamashita handed Kamenashi the porternal. Hallucinogenics tended to make the mind a bit fuzzy the next day, especially regarding fine details; Kamenashi wrote down his schedule in his porternal for that reason. Yamashita just sent a ping to Koyama, a few seconds away with the Network, and asked him what exactly he needed to be done.
Kamenashi tapped the flat object, the screen expanding and bathing his hands in a soft pink light. “Yes,” he said finally. “I don't have anything until two hours later.” He tapped it again, and the screen faded away. “Thank you,” he said as he handed the porternal back to Yamashita.
“Want to go out, or stay in? I have something other than rations, I think.”
“Going out is fine.”
Yamashita nodded. “Give me a second here? I'll be ready soon.”
Kamenashi nodded politely, stepping out of the refresher room. The first time he had come over, he had tried making Yamashita's bed and had simply stood there, hands listless at his sides, not knowing what to do with the thin sheets until Yamashita had come out of the refresher and poked him with a finger and said, “Don't worry about it, Shuji.”
(“Akira,” Kamenashi had almost said before he had caught himself. “Do not call me that,” he had said curtly instead. “Please,” he had added, remembering where he was. “I'm not under the influence anymore. My name is Kamenashi.”)
Now, he simply smoothed out the sheets, not tucking them in, simply placing them neatly on the bed. There was a wrinkle in the middle, and Kamenashi took the time to tug the edges until the sheets laid flat; Yamashita appreciated Kamenashi's effort, even if he never said anything, just stood in the narrow doorway and watched as Kamenashi took the time to take care of everything.
“Kamenashi?” Yamashita asked.
Kamenashi didn't look up, smoothing out wrinkle-free sheets; their straightness a sharp contrast to the rest of the room. Yamashita wasn't a messy person, but there was distinctly lived-in feeling to the rest of the room that perfectly straight sheets didn't fit. Kamenashi set his hand in the center of Yamashita's bed and curled his fingers, watching as his hard work came undone in a moment.
He looked up. “Yamashita,” he replied.
Yamashita studied Kamenashi. “Ready? There's a small cafeteria where Koyama works that has good breakfasts.”
Kamenashi sucked in a deep breath. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Doesn't matter. I've told you that once, and I'll tell you it again. You'd do the same for me.”
But Kamenashi wouldn't. Not if Yamashita hadn't taken the first step.
*
“You left without me,” Junno said as he stepped out into the bright night of a city that never slept. He could see Tat-chan leaning against the wall by the door out of the corner of his eye, his focus on the flashing colors of advertisements that covered the buildings.
“You were playing.”
“That doesn't mean that you should leave without me,” he protested, but it was really more of a token protest. “Tat-chan,” he added. “Why are you here?”
“For work,” Tat-chan said, because he wasn't Ueda now. The lines of his face were softer; his eyes didn't have dark smudges underneath them from working late at night. “I told you when we were offline.”
“That doesn't answer my question,” Junno said. Taguchi liked visiting the Network; it was relaxing-like taking off a pair of pinched shoes-to stop being Taguchi, who was perpetually smiling, and to be just Junno, who could stop smiling for a moment if he really wanted. Except Junno never really wanted to stop smiling. That was another difference between Taguchi and Junno. “What are you supposed to be doing?”
While they worked together, under the same boss and in the same team, even, their jobs were radically different. Taguchi's job was within the Network proper; he earned his ration tabs even as he sat hooked up to his porternal, touching briefly on Network pathways with his fingers. He spent so much time on the Network that it was almost a part of him; he could play Network games and maintain the pathways at the same time. Junno and Taguchi were closer than most people expected because of Taguchi's work.
Ueda's job was outside the Network, but he went into the Network too often for his comfort. Because Ueda and Tat-chan were so separate, his boss liked sending Tat-chan on the weekends, knowing that Ueda would come back into work the next week without any sign of full immersion for two days. “There's supposed to be a rogue program or something,” he explained. Tat-chan prodded the corner of his mouth with a tongue, tasting sea salt.
Junno nodded. “And they sent you?”
Tat-chan shrugged. “Kamenashi has his fix this week.”
“That's this week?”
Tat-chan nodded.
Junno smiled. “I don't see why he takes the hallucs when he can just plug himself in.” He flexed his fingers, accustoming himself to full immersion; it was always a bit of a surprise, entering full immersion after a long period of time only half-immersed. “It's just as good.”
“Nobody understands Kamenashi,” Tat-chan said. Tat-chan glanced at Junno, watching as Junno accustomed himself to neurons sending different messages. Junno bounced on the balls of his feet for a second, light on his feet as always. He continued, “What he chooses to do in his free time is his choice.” He tapped his fingers to each other, trying to bring Ueda back from unconsciousness; “Help me track the program?” he asked.
Junno's face went blank as he searched for a rogue program; most programs worked in perfect harmony in the Network; rogues were programs that had deviated from their function, and the fact that most of them happened to have Artificial Intelligence attributes bothered The General Populace. “I found one; it's just sitting around, not doing anything.”
“I guess we'll have to stop it before it becomes malignant.” He laughed, a Tat-chan laugh instead of Ueda laugh despite his tone slowly slipping into Ueda's.
Junno frowned. “It seems tame enough. I don't see why they want to get rid of it. There are worse rogue programs.”
“Don't question the bosses,” Ueda said darkly. He glanced around, taking in the bright lights of a pseudo night life; crowds bustled to and fro, laughing and chattering to each other, their faces locked into caricatures of happiness. “Where is it?”
He pointed towards a cluster of high-rise buildings in the distance. “It's just sitting there, waiting,” Junno said.
Tat-chan nodded and started to stroll towards the building in the rolling gait that everybody in the Network walked with, with his feet barely leaving the ground. If it weren't for Junno tailing his every move, he would have blended in with the crowd and disappeared.
“It's not hurting anybody,” Junno repeated.
“It's only a matter of time,” Tat-chan replied.
*
Tanaka had left Kamenashi four messages by the time Kamenashi decided to open up his contact system and check his mail.
“You're busy,” Yamashita commented as they sat in the cafeteria that he had suggested, eating food that wasn't as bland as the food that Kamenashi was used to. He nodded to Kamenashi's porternal, beeping gently on the table as Kamenashi focused on stirring his food into even more unappetizing mush.
“It's Tanaka,” Kamenashi said, as if that would explain everything. “Tanaka Koki.” He glanced up at Yamashita, shrugging. It wasn't the first time that they had eaten something after crashing at one of their places, but it was the first time that Yamashita was treating him to a meal, and outside of their respective apartments too.
Yamashita nodded towards the porternal. “You work with him, right?”
Kamenashi nodded, stirring his food listlessly.
“Are you not going to eat?”
“Maybe later.”
“Just because it's my ration tab doesn't mean you can waste it.” Yamashita frowned, eyebrows furrowing slightly and lips pursing as he thought.
Kamenashi managed a smile, cheerfully polite. “I'm not...”
“Eat,” Yamashita said. “You know that the hallucs take up too much energy.”
Kamenashi lifted up a bite and swallowed the food mechanically; the bland tasteless mush fell apart in his mouth just like everything else that Kamenashi had eaten in his entire life. Kamenashi chewed and swallowed mechanically, muttering a quiet, “it's good,” because that was expected of him.
Yamashita watched carefully as Kamenashi ate, making sure that he swallowed every bite of his meal. “You're too skinny.” Yamashita thumbed his porternal, studying his ration count; Yamashita's position was high enough up on the food chain that he never really worried about his spending, but there was no real reason to spend more when he could spend less. He eyed Kamenashi critically. “You should eat more.”
“Not hungry,” Kamenashi said automatically.
“You're never actually hungry,” Yamashita replied. And then he studied his porternal carefully, focusing on a mail from Nishikido Ryo he had already read yesterday, so he wouldn't have to look up at Kamenashi's startled face. When Kamenashi was surprised, his face seemed to open up, his features shifting to reflect Shuji rather than Kamenashi.
“Do you have work?” Kamenashi asked, his voice seeming to come from far away even though Shuji's mouth was opening and closing in front of him.
Yamashita blinked. Shuji melted back into Kamenashi. He focused on what Kamenashi had just said, “No,” he said. “It's an old mail. From Nishikido Ryo.” Kamenashi nodded. His porternal beeped from its position on the table, and he reached for it automatically; Yamashita grabbed it before Kamenashi could. “Not until you're done eating,” he said sternly.
Kamenashi laughed a little. “What if it's important?” he asked, but he took another bite of his food.
Yamashita tapped the porternal. It didn't recognize his touch, being keyed to Kamenashi, so he couldn't check Kamenashi's mail, but he could access the news channels. They all were reporting the same thing; there was a new committee being set up for Network patrol to prevent the incendiary actions of radicalists. “Can't be that important can it?”
Kamenashi swallowed several mouthfuls, and held out his hand. “Give it back,” he said.
Yamashita studied Kamenashi's plate and deemed it appropriately finished for Kamenashi to check his mail. He handed back the porternal, and Kamenashi pressed his fingers to the touchscreen, the projector activating and enveloping his hands; Kamenashi's fine motor skills tended to be poor the day after he took hallucinogens, and his fingers shook slightly as he expanded the projector to make it easier for him to open up his mail.
“Is it Tanaka?” Yamashita asked. Yamashita's motor control was better, though he had a pounding headache for 24.7 hours after he came off the hallucinogens; he preferred to access the Network because it was mind numbing enough to make life a bit less painful.
Kamenashi nodded. “He wants to change the time of our meeting,” Kamenashi said slowly. He scanned the mail. “He has to go into work to check up on some stuff, so we'll have to delay.” He lifted a finger and tapped a part of the projected mail. “He's been mailing me about this since last night.”
“When are you meeting now?”
“In six hours.” Kamenashi slid his fingers along the edge of the touchscreen, and the projection slowly faded down. “I can take the tracks back to my hostel.” He tucked his porternal into his bag and rose. Yamashita stood with him, running his fingers over the touch pad embedded in the table and authorizing payment with his ration tabs.
“Or you could hook yourself up to the Network with me.”
Kamenashi smiled automatically and said, “That's very kind of you to offer.” Then he paused. “You have equipment for duel hookups?”
Yamashita nodded; like Kamenashi, he worked in Network Maintenance-Johnny Laws, the hackers called them, or even just Johnnies sometimes, with their lips curled in derision-but he had been working for longer than Kamenashi and was higher up in the workforce; duel hookups were expensive to own personally, but Yamashita had splurged when he was given his own team to lead, and he had never had a reason to regret that decision.
Kamenashi stared.
“Want to see?” he asked, smiling through the massive headache pounding through his head. He slung a loose arm around Kamenashi's shoulders, feeling the smaller man stiffen under his touch. It was an action more typical of Akira than Yamashita, but Yamashita didn't mind being more like Akira if it made Kamenashi-not Shuji-relax.
Kamenashi's sighed quietly and leaned into Yamashita. “Alright.” He rested his head on Yamapi's shoulder, letting Yamashita manhandle him. “Only this once.”
*
They had gotten halfway to the program source when Tat-chan's avatar started to fray; his fingers grew numb, and his fine motor control skills slowly deteriorated, and his vision blurred.
“Something wrong?”
“It seems like that,” Tat-chan said. He flexed his fingers, watching his fingers flicker through eyes that weren't his own. He had stumbled into malicious programs-Junno was better at disarming them before they attacked, Tat-chan just dealt with them as they came-that had contaminated his connection with his Network avatar before, but usually one of the many safeguard programs kicked in before the contamination could run its course.
“Has this happened before?”
“Not this quickly,” Ueda said, hearing his voice as it ran through the Network and echoed in his ears. “I'm losing connection to this avatar.” He pulled out of the Network enough to start a scan, watching Tat-chan as Tat-chan flickered before his eyes. “Are you experiencing anything strange?”
“Ah, I got a worm trying to get into the main system.”
“Deal with that from inside; I'm going to log out and deal with this from the outside.” Ueda blinked furiously as his vision shifted from the metropolis of the Network to the gray walls and Taguchi's glassy eyes staring through Ueda into the metropolis.
Ueda felt Tat-chan's mindset slip away even as he reached behind himself and deftly unlatched the wires that connected him to the network. He picked up Taguchi's porternal, pressing his fingers to the screen and feeling Taguchi's programs kick in, the fingerprint sensors whirling as they slowly recognized not-Taguchi and then One-of-Them before settling on Ueda.
He lifted up the porternal, bringing it to his mouth as he said, “U. Ueda Tatsuya.”
Taguchi's porternal whirled, the modifications slowly overriding the original programming as Ueda's fingerprint and voice unlocked the machine. Setting the porternal onto a low table, Ueda placed two fingers on the screen and spread them apart, the projector flaring to sickly green life above him. “Taguchi Junnosuke,” Ueda said. The projector instantly connected to Taguchi in the Network, displaying Junno's visage.
Junno blinked in the projector. “Hi, Ueda.”
“Junno,” Ueda said. It was opposite from what they usually did; usually Taguchi sat outside while Tat-chan let the program ravage through his avatar. Taguchi was better at chasing viruses around in person, he was quick and could trace the path of the bugs with half of his mind alone while Ueda simply didn't have the temperament to chase and chase and chase the path of a bug with only the dream of a thread under his fingers. “Junno, talk me through this.”
“This is a tricky bug,” Junno said. They had been wandering away from the busy streets when the bug had hit, and Junno was now sitting on the curb, long legs tucked under lanky arms. “It's not doing anything malicious, so it's not setting off any of my usual traps. It's just sitting here, in the system.”
Ueda scowled. “It fucked my avatar up,” he began, but he stopped, because he could see the virus sitting there in Junno's display program, a red triangle among the soft blue of Junno's.
“Just pull it out gently,” Junno said.
“No,” Ueda said, shifting the display from graphical to code. He stared at the dark blue text until his eyes blurred. “She's not hurting anybody.”
“Ueda?”
Ueda shifted the display again, focusing on the smudge of red that stained Junno's presence in the network. “She's lonely.”
“Ueda!”
They had all gone through the most basic training in programming; even if Taguchi was the best at reaching deep into programs and extracting pieces of code that didn't belong, Ueda knew enough to wipe the virus from the Network completely. But despite his experience, his knowledge, and his talent, Ueda had never truly become their team's leader, because he could see the programs before he dropped into the Network, and sometimes seeing code meant seeing faces that you were carefully exterminating.
“She doesn't exist, Tat-chan.” Junno's voice was distant, as if coming from far away. “She doesn't exist, Ueda.”
But her eyes did. They were sad, so sad, so carefully tentative as she studied Ueda. “You aren't Shuji,” she said, her voice stuttering over itself as she peered out at him from her long bangs. “You aren't Akira,” she said, and her voice was hard as she pronounced the syllables A-ki-ra.
“Junno,” Ueda said. “She does. She's looking at me right now.” And, he thought, she's talking to me.
The girl studied Ueda seriously. “Two together is happiness,” she said, as if she was repeating a mantra that she had repeated many times before.
“What's your name?” Ueda asked, reaching a hand to the tiny girl in the display.
“You aren't Shuji,” she said. “and you aren't Akira.”
“I'm Ueda,” he said. “Who are you?” he asked, and he could hear Junno's voice in his ear whispering, NOBUTA; the program's name is NOBUTA.
The girl didn't respond, focusing on her toes.
“NOBUTA?” Ueda tried. “Are you NOBUTA?”
The girl looked up at Ueda. “You aren't Shuji. You aren't Akira.”
“Your name. Your label. You're NOBUTA.”
The girl didn't say anything. But she nodded, a small careful nod.
*
“I feel like something is missing in my life,” Yamashita said carefully to Kamenashi's carefully blank face. Kamenashi's eyelids fluttered, unresponsive to Yamashita's hand resting on Kamenashi's. “Like there's pieces of me missing.” The wires trailed out from Kamenashi's back, stark metal gleaming against the dark gray of Kamenashi's jacket.
Yamashita closed his eyes, stepping away from Kamenashi and settling down in the second of the dual outlets. He fumbled for the wires, sliding them into the jack at his back with ease. When he opened his eyes, it was to Kame's amused face smiling at him. It was like staring at Kamenashi but not.
“So you're Yamapi,” Kame said. “I thought so.”
Yamapi nodded, not certain what to say.
“I'm glad it's you,” Kame said cheerily into Yamapi's silence, before he turned into milling crowds and disappeared.
*
Santa Claus came, in a dream, and asked me if there was anything I wanted. But at that time, I couldn't think of anything. So I said “I'm fine. Please go to Kiritani Shuji.”
Santa Claus came, he came in a dream I had, and asked me, “What do you want? Is it now?” I said, “No, I'm fine. So please, please go to Kusano Akira's house.”
Santa Claus came and asked if there was anything I wanted. And without thinking I said, “Curry bread,” even though I wanted to say, “I'm fine, please go find Nobuta.”
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