fic - Johnny's & Associates - The Question of Nobuta - Week 2: Kouji
Title: The Question of Nobuta; Chapter 2: Kouji
Author: virdant
Length: 4270/25530 words (2/5)
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: “Nii-san, it's me! How can you not recognize your own brother? Shouldn't you know your own name, Nii-san? You're Kiritani Shuji, of course.”
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 2: Kouji
The weekends Kamenashi didn't spend in the aftershocks of hallucinogenics he spent at work pulling overtime shifts with the others. This weekend was no different; he slumped into his chair Saturday morning as the sun peaked dully through gray clouds outside the window, shivering as fans blew frigid air across his face. He wrinkled his nose at the permanent tang of coolant that lingered in the air no matter how many windows they opened, pulling out his porternal from his pocket and absently checking on the new assignments that had piled up overnight in his personal inbox.
The past week had been more hectic than usual. Ueda was usually on top of the new assignments, but for the past week he and Taguchi had roped Akanishi into a project that they had discovered over the weekend and were spending all their time either hooked up to the Network manually tracing programs all over servers or pouring over code on Taguchi's porternal. That meant that Kamenashi was covering Ueda's assignments and delegating not only Akanishi's assignments but Taguchi's as well to Nakamaru and Tanaka.
Kamenashi sighed and reached for one of the many caffeine patches that he kept in his desk drawer. It was going to be a long day. Of all the moderating assignments possible, KAT-TUN tended to to receive all the sex related offenses; Kamenashi wondered if it was because Domoto thought that they were better at breaking up couples trying to make out over the Network or if it was because they were the only group that hadn't gotten caught for making out yet.
He was the only one in at this time; it was 0730, and none of them except for Kamenashi came in this early, even on workdays. Kamenashi fumbled for the caffeine patch, sliding it onto his neck behind the loose strands of his hair. He sank into the hard metal of his seat, feeling the caffeine rush through his system; he closed his eyes, letting the fluorescent lights beat into his eyelids.
It was the second weekend of the month; Kamenashi had been tempted to go out last night-to walk down to the back alleys of the city where self-respecting Johnnies did not go-and lose himself to another person's life. It would have been easy, he thought wistfully. He had more than enough in his account to afford another dose of cheap narcotic drugs pulsing through his bloodstream, he could easily have asked for even the good stuff, a dose of hallucinogens while plugged to the Network in one of the many private servers that seedy underground drug bars ran.
“Good morning!” Nakamaru called out, interrupting Kamenashi's thoughts.
“Good morning,” Kamenashi muttered in reply, opening his eyes and focusing on Nakamaru navigating through the tangle of wires on the floor. Was it 0800 already? How much time had Kamenashi been wasting, just sitting around in his mind? He opened up the list of assignments again; there were reports of illegal sexual activities on all of the public servers, as usual, and absolutely no assignments on anything like vandalism or even thievery.
“You're in early,” Nakamaru said cheerfully. “Didn't go out last night?” He settled in his seat and ran his fingerprint over the scanner embedded in his desk. Nakamaru's desktop projector turned on and bathed the room in a dull green light.
Kamenashi glanced at Nakamaru before focusing on his porternal. “No,” he said. “That was the last week.” He picked out the districts that he would have to check up on today; the list was surprisingly short.
Nakamaru nodded, clicking his tongue against his mouth as he opened up boxes after boxes of code. “So what are we doing today?”
Kamenashi sent the list of assignments to Nakamaru; he had already highlighted the important districts.
Nakamaru sighed.
“I'll start checking on the code for the highlighted servers. There isn't any one district that was hit more, so we'll probably have to track down the individuals in person to question them the way we're supposed to.” Kamenashi slid his fingers along the desktop projector, his data syncing from his porternal to the desktop with only a touch.
“Officially,” Nakamaru said cheerfully, tapping his fingers through the projection, his fingers bathed in green light as he worked. “Is it just us today?”
“I mailed Tanaka and Taguchi.”
Nakamaru looked sharply at Kamenashi, who avoided his gaze, focusing on his porternal. “Why not Ueda and Akanishi?”
“Don't need all of us on overtime,” Kamenashi said quickly, not looking at Nakamaru. He stabbed his fingers viciously into the projection, twisting his fingers around as he extracted a file-one of the many chain messages that Taguchi was fond of forwarding to all of them under the guise of research-and deleted it from memory.
Nakamaru watched Kamenashi. “If you say so. Are you coming under?”
“In a bit,” Kamenashi said.
“Who's your halluc buddy?” Nakamaru demanded suddenly.
Kamenashi glanced up in surprise.
“He's the reason you didn't respond to Tanaka's mail last week, isn't he?”
“What does who I take hallucinogens with have to do with work?” Kamenashi slid his fingers viciously (calm down, Kamenashi, calm down) down the projection screen, and his desktop faded from the air. “That was my day off, and Tanaka said he didn't need me that early after all.”
“Because he gave the assignment to Ueda and Taguchi when you didn't pick up your porternal,” Nakamaru said. “I know you like the hallucs, Kamenashi, but don't let it interfere with your work. If we're getting messages from outsiders telling us-”
“Outsiders?” Kamenashi narrowed his eyes. “What outsiders? And I replied to his mail at least hours before Tanaka needed me, why did he get Ueda and Taguchi?”
Nakamaru hesitated.
“Nakamaru, Maru,” Kamenashi said. The suggestion of Nakamaru's Network handle made Nakamaru frown. “Nakamaru,” Kamenashi said. “What happened?”
Nakamaru sighed. “Tanaka got the assignment right after you had left for your halluc dose. He mailed you, but by then you had been under. Your buddy, whoever it was, somehow managed to get a message out to Akanishi.”
“They know each other on the Network,” Kamenashi said tightly. “It doesn't mean anything.”
“Taguchi told Tanaka that your halluc buddy told us to piss off.”
Kamenashi frowned. “I was out at that time. I'll talk to him. He won't interfere. The halluc's won't interfere. It won't happen again.”
“It's not the drugs that I'm worried about, Kamenashi,” Nakamaru said, getting up from his desk across the room and walking to Kamenashi's. “It's you. A month ago you would have stopped taking them if something like this happened. But you're compromising KAT-TUN. We've worked hard to get to where we are now, Kamenashi, and it's not like you to just give that up for a halluc buddy.” He pressed his hands on Kamenashi's desk, leaning in.
Kamenashi closed his eyes, recognizing the tactic; they used it on the underage kids they cornered on the Network for drinking and trying to grope each other in the dark seedy online bars. Nakamaru meant well, he really did; years older and always trying to take care of everybody in KAT-TUN. But Nakamaru didn't understand; Kamenashi wasn't compromising their group by associating with Yamashita. He had everything under control. “It's under control.”
Nakamaru leaned forward a little more, his forehead creased into a frown. “Kamenashi,” Nakamaru began.
Kamenashi shook his head, cutting Nakamaru off. “It's fine. He doesn't matter.” He stood up slowly and languidly, maintaining eye contact-Nakamaru stepped back instinctively-and took the opportunity to slip around Nakamaru's frame and settle himself down on the hookups aligning the opposite wall. Nakamaru followed Kamenashi, tailing his every step, but Kamenashi ignored Nakamaru and focused on untangling the wires to connect them to their proper ports.
“Kamenashi, listen...”
He couldn't fiddle with the wires forever-he only had one port resting at the bottom of his back, and Nakamaru knew that-so Kamenashi decided to just enter the Network early. He stared steadily at Nakamaru before he plugged the cords in, letting his head fall back and his eyes flutter shut as the computer rewrote his world.
*
Ueda stared at his home terminal dully.
They had found the program last week, and then she had disappeared. Completely vanished. They had tried tracking the program, but all they had managed to find were a series of dead-ends. It wasn’t the first time that he had failed, but this one rankled. He had thrown himself into a week’s worth of work, but now he knew that he couldn’t keep sitting around anymore.
NOBUTA. What did the program want? She hadn’t been hurting anybody; she simply sat in the code. She didn’t change any code, she didn’t send anything to somebody outside Maintenance... she simply sat there.
Why was Management so upset about it?
He huffed. Things just didn’t make sense.
*
Nakamaru really did mean well, Taguchi thought as he checked Tanaka's mail; Nakamaru had apparently tried to confront Kamenashi about his no-show last week, which had led to Kamenashi simply avoiding the issue-it wasn't about his halluc buddy, it was about Kamenashi rewriting his life to include this other person who didn't belong in their careful group of six. The entire message was carefully constructed so only KAT-TUN would understand that Nakamaru was upset that Kamenashi was ignoring the rest of them.
Taguchi didn't usually check the others' mail; Upper Management liked to nose through their inboxes, their payment statements, their Network logs, everything that connected them to anybody else, even the ever-present cameras tucked into corners with their lenses narrowing and widening as they entered and exited room and server alike, but Taguchi didn't like browsing through other people's messages even if it was too easy to hack the others' inboxes. He made exceptions though; he hacked Akanishi's inbox once a week because he hadn't quite gotten out of the habit when Akanishi was on six month leave to get another three ports installed and Management would sometimes send assignments to Akanishi that they expected the rest of them to complete, and he hacked Tanaka's inbox on a daily basis because Tanaka liked to pry open his porternal and “modify” all the circuitry that Taguchi spent most of his expense credits upgrading.
Taguchi hummed under his breath, closing Nakamaru's message to Tanaka and opening up a new message. He was still in Tanaka's mail system, but the others were used to Taguchi sending emails from everybody's account except his own. He told Nakamaru to just let Kamenashi hide in his shell for a few hours, and then he sent the mail to everybody in KAT-TUN except for Kamenashi, because Kamenashi was nosy and wanted to know what everybody else was doing-just like everybody else in KAT-TUN-and a successful hack would satisfy Kamenashi enough that he wouldn't bother to hack anything that actually would be a problem.
If any of them wanted to send a message to everybody in the group, they sent it to Akanishi because everybody hacked Akanishi's inbox regularly. It wasn't even real hacking anymore, everybody knew the backdoors in the code to get into Akanishi's inbox-and how to avoid the viruses that they littered the back pathways with-and Akanishi didn't even bother trying to hide the pathways that Taguchi had found. It was protected so only KAT-TUN would be able to hack it, because Akanishi's inbox was theirs to hack, and not free game for some brat on the servers. It was an old habit from when Akanishi was away; they were selfish, possessive bastards and even if Akanishi was an idiot for putting himself out of commission because he had decided that it was a good idea to upgrade his ports barely six months into their promotion, he was KAT-TUN's idiot. That meant that only KAT-TUN was allowed to hack Akanishi Jin's inbox.
Taguchi eased out of Tanaka's inbox and pulled open his with a flick of his fingers. Kamenashi had mailed him a good hour ago about going into work; he forwarded that message to Akanishi-whoever was bored enough to hack Akanishi's inbox in a weekend deserved to have some work to do. There was the usual spam, which Taguchi read for the amusement factor, and a small note from Ueda under some of the strangest encryption that Taguchi had ever seen.
He tapped the message with a finger; the message didn't open, but instead read his fingerprint for a good minute. Then Ueda's voice quietly requested vocal authentication. Taguchi grinned, he knew this program. All six of them had sat around and programmed it when they had been given their first major assignment, and they had only improved it since. Taguchi didn't bother saying anything; that was the point, to do the unexpected, but simply removed his finger from the message and scanned his print. He grinned as their program activated; it needed a valid fingerprint before it would even start to work. “Authorization denied,” Ueda said curtly, his voice just barely polite. Taguchi could still hear Akanishi's muffled snickers behind Ueda's polite voice. “Try again,” Nakamaru's recorded voice said.
Taguchi didn't hesitate, rattling off the Ueda specific and Nakamaru specific passwords as he scanned his appropriate fingers. “Authorization denied,” Kamenashi said as he finished. “Try again,” Tanaka's voice called out gleefully, and Taguchi scanned his appropriate fingers and muttered appropriate passwords-“My one and only love. Keep the faith.”-before he pressed his thumb against the screen. There was no actual right answer; each answer depended on who was talking in what order and who was answering and what fingers he was pressing to the screen. It had been Tanaka's idea, and only KAT-TUN could pull it off.
The projection flickered. “Taguchi,” Ueda said, not looking directly at him. “Tanaka messaged me about Kamenashi requesting assistance. He's going to go in, and help take care of any stragglers. There must be a reason Kamenashi doesn't want me or Akanishi, so Jin's going to try to corner Kame online. I've found data about an experimental program from several years ago that might be related to the NOBUTA program, so if you have time, come find me in our usual server.” Ueda paused. “Don't tell Kamenashi.”
“Why?” Taguchi asked, not expecting an answer.
Ueda must have predicted Taguchi's response. There was a brief pause before Ueda continued, “I think that Kamenashi might have been involved in NOBUTA.”
*
It was Kame-Kame-chan to the other Johnnies and just Kame to the others he met on the Network-and not Kamenashi who sauntered into some club, joining the writhing crowds. Settling at a secluded booth, Kame ran a scan on the crowd, searching for invalid identification-kids these days were better, but Kame was the best. There were at least four underage teenagers in the crowd, getting drunk without the prospect of a hangover the next day and flirting with men and women alike. Kame should-if he was a good Johnny kid-tag their ID's and then start tracking their actual ID's, but Kame didn't care about underage drinking and teenagers sneaking into clubs to dance, the other groups could fuss about dancing and drinking, Kame and the rest of KAT-TUN would pick apart fake ID's for the sake of picking them apart.
KAT-TUN was officially in charge of watching over the few servers where Netsex was legal; unofficially, KAT-TUN was in charge of all sexual activities, legal or otherwise, on the Network, which meant that they were supposed to pull unauthorized persons from the Network if they were caught hacking their authorizations to have pretend-sex. Kame really didn't see the point, but it was a job that paid well, and he was a professional.
He tagged the four teenagers he had caught drinking for the others to pick up later-if upper management wanted them so badly, they could send another group-and then he worked his way through the crowd, heading towards back rooms where teenagers liked running their hacks.
“Hey, Nii-san,” a quiet voice called, a ping resonating in the back of Kame's mind. “Nii-san.”
Kame turned towards the voice. Standing in a dark corner was a boy no older than 14. “You shouldn't be in here,” Kame said carefully. Something about the boy bothered him; his identification said he was underage, but there was a sheen of authorization that kept him from tagging his ID and kicking him off the net straight away.
“I wanted to see you work,” the boy said. The boy leaned forward. “Hey, where's that friend of yours, Nii-san?””
“Who're you?” Kame demanded.
The boy frowned. “Nii-san, it's me! How can you not recognize your own brother?”
Kame thumbed through the kid's ID. Kiritani? “You're not my brother.”
The boy scowled. “Nii-san is so cruel, denying his own flesh and blood. Nii-san is more fun when Akira-nii-san is around.”
“Akira...” Kame repeated carefully. “Who is this Akira-san you're talking about?” he demanded, but he already knew the answer.
Kusano Akira..
“Shuuji-kun!”
Kame pulled up the ID again. “Kiritani Kouji-kun,” he read off the data scrolling along his eyes. Hair color, eye color, height weight. Nothing to connect the boy to Kamenashi Kazuya. He frowned at the boy. “Who am I then?”
Kouji smiled. “Is this a trick or something? Shouldn't you know your own name, Nii-san? You're Kiritani Shuji, of course.”
“Kon-kon!”
Kame closed the ID file, feeling his hands shake even though he was still plugged in. The only person who knew that his drug dreams involved him being Kiritani Shuji was Yamashita Tomohisa. “You have an hour to cut your connection to the Net, Kiritani Kouji-kun,” Kame managed to say. “You're underage,” he added, strangely at a loss from words. He struggled to put his mind into focus. “You shouldn't be here. I'll give you an hour though before I tag your ID, Kiritani-kun, since you're not doing anything but standing here.”
“Nii-san,” Kiritani Kouji began cheerfully.
“I'm not!” Kame burst out. “I'm not who you think I am.”
Kouji looked at Kame thoughtfully, a furrow between his eyes.
“Get off the Net, Kouji,” Kame said to the boy he didn't know. “Or I'll have to tag you and bring you in.”
“I have an hour, right?” Kouji's voice was level, still cheerful but no longer as bright.
Kame nodded.
Kouji faded from the Net in a shimmer of pixels.
*
The room was dark, illuminated only by a singular projector that displayed a half-naked girl lounging on the beach. Ueda ignored the projection. “Okay, Akanishi. Let's get you up to speed really quick,” Ueda said quickly as he threw a wadded napkin at Akanishi. “First: Kame's online and on duty right now, and he doesn't want us to help.”
Akanishi ignored Ueda.
Ueda kicked Akanishi's chair. “I know you went out drinking last night, but at least have the decency to pretend to pay attention to me. Kame's on duty.”
Akanishi frowned at Ueda through his bangs. “Upper Management disapproves of me caring,” he said blandly. He fixed his gaze on a spy-cam in the corner, leering into the camera.
Ueda rolled his eyes. “That’s off.”
Akanishi laughed. “I can see the recording light.”
Sometimes, Ueda forgot what Akanishi’s extra implants had done to him. Implants weren’t supposed to affect personality-despite the fact that they were wired to the brain-but Akanishi had come back from getting his implants with his eyes glazed over and his face completely blank. When Kamenashi had gone to Upper Management to question why, he had been sent away with orders not to question.
Akanishi had gotten better, but only in flashes. Kamenashi suspected a personality wipe, an experiment, but Taguchi had hacked as deep into Upper Management as he dared and said that it wasn’t.
“Akanishi, it’s not Management watching that.”
Akanishi flicked his eyes from the spy-cam and focused on Ueda. “Taguchi,” he said.
Ueda nodded.
Akanishi straightened up somewhat. It was hopeless to expect Akanishi to actually pay attention; he never cared that much even before he had gotten his implant. “What about Kame?” Akanishi’s eyes flicked around, searching for pinpricks of light signifying another spy-cam.
Ueda huffed. He reached over and shut down the projection-the overhead lights automatically lit up, casting the room in bright luminescence. “He’s pulling a shift. He doesn’t want us to help, but that’s normal for you, isn’t it?”
Akanishi laughed. “Kame and Jin don’t mix. You know Upper Management’s rules.”
“Then explain why he didn’t request for me.”
Akanishi blinked. “He didn’t send you the request?”
Ueda ignored the question, pressing on. “Why would he do something like that, Akanishi. You knew him best before we started taking the hard jobs.”
“But there’s no reason for that,” Akanishi said, brow furrowing. He reached for the projector, tapping the keys quickly. “Did you get into a fight with him?”
“No.”
“I would know,” Akanishi agreed with Ueda. He pulled up a shell, quickly typing code into the screen.
Ueda watched as white letters floated in the air on the blue background of the projection. “Are you hacking Management?”
Akanishi smirked. “You can call it that.” He compiled his code, and an inbox opened on the screen.
Ueda blinked.
Akanishi hummed to himself as he scrolled through the messages. “Ah.”
Ueda focused on the name in the upper left corner. “That’s Kamenashi’s inbox.”
Akanishi nodded.
Ueda blinked. “Kamenashi puts more safeguards on that inbox than Taguchi has on yours.”
“Except Kamenashi’s remarkably predictable.” Akanishi waved a hand at the projection. “Kamenashi changes his password every three months just like the good boy he is. In the 2 second gap between his old password and new password, there’s just barely enough time to drop a backdoor.”
Ueda nodded slowly.
“I’ve had this backdoor for years now.” Akanishi scrolled through Kamenashi’s messages. “Kamenashi knows,” he added at Ueda’s skeptical look. “He left me a message here once. He’s protected this backdoor, but I know how he codes and he knows that. Ah, here we go, this looks suspicious.” Akanishi tapped a line, and the message opened.
Ueda leaned forward. “It’s from a Kusano Akira.” He frowned. “I don’t know any Kusano Akira.”
“I don’t either. That’s why it’s suspicious. And Kamenashi opened it twice, that’s also suspicious.” Akanishi read the message aloud. “It’s Akira! Akira received a mail from Nobuta yesterday. Nobuta met a new friend called Ueda. Do YOU think that Nobuta’s new friend will replace Shuji and Akira?” Akanishi turned to Ueda. “You met a girl named Nobuta?”
Ueda’s heart lurched. “A program,” he said carefully.
“Must have been a pretty sophisticated program if you thought it was a girl. Was she pretty?”
“A little. But she seemed more lonely.” Ueda shook his head, biting his lip carefully to remind himself to focus. A program was a program, not a person. “It took a girl form. She mentioned Shuji and Akira, just like this Kusano Akira.” He tapped the projector, and the message magnified. “We can assume that they’re talking about the same Shuji and Akira.”
“Yeah.”
Ueda frowned. “What’s going on?”
“No clue.” Akanishi focused on Ueda. “Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?”
Ueda ran a hand along the projector, and the display closed on itself. “I had a feeling that Kamenashi was involved in NOBUTA before this that I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Why?”
“Something about the program.” Ueda tapped the projector, logging Akanishi out and switching to his personal network. “There are parts of it that felt a lot like Kamenashi. I wanted you to analyze the code-what little that I managed to get from what was broadcast at me-and tell me what you thought.”
“I can still do that.”
Ueda clenched his fists on top of the projector. “Except this is more suspicious. Kamenashi opened this message twice. That means he knows this Kusano Akira. Why don’t we know anything about him?”
Akanishi focused on the spy-cam.
Ueda continued. “And that program. What on earth does that program do?”
“Taguchi,” Akanishi called.
Ueda frowned at Akanishi.
Akanishi nodded to the camera. “Taguchi, how good are you at hacking?”
“Decent,” the projector said in Taguchi’s voice.
“See if you can figure out who Kamenashi’s halluc buddy is in real life so we can pull him in for questioning. His network handle is Yamapi.” Akanishi smiled. “He sent me a message yesterday about Kamenashi. The funny thing is... if I remember correctly...” Akanishi pulled out his porternal and flicked through his inbox. He nodded in satisfaction. “He signed it Kusano Akira.”
*
It was Yamashita's day off, and he had nothing to do. Normally, he went into the Net and hung out with Jin or Ryo-chan, but Jin had bailed, saying that he had some work to do, and Ryo-chan had decided to pull overtime today, which meant that Yamashita was wandering around the streets looking for something to do.
He didn't walk in this district very often; it was a district where the servers hosted in public Net cafes tended towards games. Games, of course, varied depending on each cafe. Yamashita passed by a small rather nondescript building that advertised hookups for mature games on the Net.
Nakajima Yuto, hands in pockets and head cocked to the side, was leaving the Net cafe.
Yamashita’s nerves kicked into high gear. He grabbed his porternal, preparing to call for security. “Nakajima!” he called. “Nakajima Yuto, what are you doing here?”
Nakajima Yuto froze, turned and stared at Yamashita. “Yamashita-san,” he said carefully.
Yamashita scanned the younger boy quickly, eyes searching the pockets for any bulges. “You’re a little young to be in this cafe, aren’t you?” Flat. That meant that whatever hardware Nakajima was playing with, it was already in the building, probably connected to the servers already. Fuck.
Nakajima smiled. “It’s not illegal to enter this district,” he said. “And it’s not illegal to just check out a store, is it?”
“Except somebody like you would have no reason to unless you’re doing something suspicious.” Yamashita clenched his porternal tightly in his pocket, trying to type a message out to the group in charge of this district through touch alone. Everybody knew that Nakajima Yuto and a bunch of other kids ran around hacking servers for fun. Rumor had it that the big boss at top was actually looking at recruiting this bunch of delinquents for doing such a wonderful job crashing the servers and rebooting them so the only news that the feeds would show was news about bunnies.
“It was a dare,” Nakajima said with a smile. “Chinen dared me to come into this this building and see if I could get away with accessing the Net. I couldn’t though, since I don’t have authorization for... adult activities.”
Yamashita laughed a short laugh. “I know you, Nakajima. And I know Chinen and the rest of you Hey! Say! 7 kids. You wouldn’t just give up like that. You hacked the servers, didn’t you.”
Nakajima’s face shuttered. “I hate calling in favors,” he said carefully.
“Who?” Yamashita demanded. “Who are you going to call for help from?” He stopped trying to tap a message out to the rest of his group. No need to pull them out on their day off if Nakajima was just going to slip away with a favor.
He stared steadily at Yamashita. “Kame.”
“This isn’t the Net.” Yamashita ran his hand along the edge of his porternal. “Kame has no jurisdiction here.”
“But you won’t bring me in.”
Yamashita’s jaw dropped at the sheer audacity of Nakajima’s statement. “Who says?”
Nakajima fished out a porternal from his pocket, holding it flat so that it projected into the air. The air shimmered as he scrolled through files. He shook the porternal slightly, and the display rattled. “Recognize this?”
A tiny version of Yamashita sat on a bike. The Yamashita in the display tilted his head and said clearly, “Shuji and Akira. The two of them were always one.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Yamashita demanded, even though his eyes were fixed on the recording of himself-it wasn’t quite himself, he had never worn a uniform like that before, he could tell that now-but the resemblance was uncanny.
“Everything, Akira” Nakajima Yuto laughed, fingers closing firmly over the porternal. The display shut down. “Or have you forgotten Shuji-nii-san already?”
*
That’s right... I thought to myself as I stopped running; they’re not here anymore. I looked out the window to the sky, to avoid seeing their empty seats. I had said to Kusano Akira before he left, “I’ll cry for the first three days, but I’ll show you that for the rest of them, that I can make it through all of them.” So later that day, I climbed to the roof and faced the sky and said, “I can really smile now.” What I really meant thought, was “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
To Week 1: NOBUTA | To Week 3: Mariko
Masterpost of Chapters here
Masterlist of fandoms here
Masterlist of Jpop fanfiction here
Author: virdant
Length: 4270/25530 words (2/5)
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: “Nii-san, it's me! How can you not recognize your own brother? Shouldn't you know your own name, Nii-san? You're Kiritani Shuji, of course.”
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 2: Kouji
The weekends Kamenashi didn't spend in the aftershocks of hallucinogenics he spent at work pulling overtime shifts with the others. This weekend was no different; he slumped into his chair Saturday morning as the sun peaked dully through gray clouds outside the window, shivering as fans blew frigid air across his face. He wrinkled his nose at the permanent tang of coolant that lingered in the air no matter how many windows they opened, pulling out his porternal from his pocket and absently checking on the new assignments that had piled up overnight in his personal inbox.
The past week had been more hectic than usual. Ueda was usually on top of the new assignments, but for the past week he and Taguchi had roped Akanishi into a project that they had discovered over the weekend and were spending all their time either hooked up to the Network manually tracing programs all over servers or pouring over code on Taguchi's porternal. That meant that Kamenashi was covering Ueda's assignments and delegating not only Akanishi's assignments but Taguchi's as well to Nakamaru and Tanaka.
Kamenashi sighed and reached for one of the many caffeine patches that he kept in his desk drawer. It was going to be a long day. Of all the moderating assignments possible, KAT-TUN tended to to receive all the sex related offenses; Kamenashi wondered if it was because Domoto thought that they were better at breaking up couples trying to make out over the Network or if it was because they were the only group that hadn't gotten caught for making out yet.
He was the only one in at this time; it was 0730, and none of them except for Kamenashi came in this early, even on workdays. Kamenashi fumbled for the caffeine patch, sliding it onto his neck behind the loose strands of his hair. He sank into the hard metal of his seat, feeling the caffeine rush through his system; he closed his eyes, letting the fluorescent lights beat into his eyelids.
It was the second weekend of the month; Kamenashi had been tempted to go out last night-to walk down to the back alleys of the city where self-respecting Johnnies did not go-and lose himself to another person's life. It would have been easy, he thought wistfully. He had more than enough in his account to afford another dose of cheap narcotic drugs pulsing through his bloodstream, he could easily have asked for even the good stuff, a dose of hallucinogens while plugged to the Network in one of the many private servers that seedy underground drug bars ran.
“Good morning!” Nakamaru called out, interrupting Kamenashi's thoughts.
“Good morning,” Kamenashi muttered in reply, opening his eyes and focusing on Nakamaru navigating through the tangle of wires on the floor. Was it 0800 already? How much time had Kamenashi been wasting, just sitting around in his mind? He opened up the list of assignments again; there were reports of illegal sexual activities on all of the public servers, as usual, and absolutely no assignments on anything like vandalism or even thievery.
“You're in early,” Nakamaru said cheerfully. “Didn't go out last night?” He settled in his seat and ran his fingerprint over the scanner embedded in his desk. Nakamaru's desktop projector turned on and bathed the room in a dull green light.
Kamenashi glanced at Nakamaru before focusing on his porternal. “No,” he said. “That was the last week.” He picked out the districts that he would have to check up on today; the list was surprisingly short.
Nakamaru nodded, clicking his tongue against his mouth as he opened up boxes after boxes of code. “So what are we doing today?”
Kamenashi sent the list of assignments to Nakamaru; he had already highlighted the important districts.
Nakamaru sighed.
“I'll start checking on the code for the highlighted servers. There isn't any one district that was hit more, so we'll probably have to track down the individuals in person to question them the way we're supposed to.” Kamenashi slid his fingers along the desktop projector, his data syncing from his porternal to the desktop with only a touch.
“Officially,” Nakamaru said cheerfully, tapping his fingers through the projection, his fingers bathed in green light as he worked. “Is it just us today?”
“I mailed Tanaka and Taguchi.”
Nakamaru looked sharply at Kamenashi, who avoided his gaze, focusing on his porternal. “Why not Ueda and Akanishi?”
“Don't need all of us on overtime,” Kamenashi said quickly, not looking at Nakamaru. He stabbed his fingers viciously into the projection, twisting his fingers around as he extracted a file-one of the many chain messages that Taguchi was fond of forwarding to all of them under the guise of research-and deleted it from memory.
Nakamaru watched Kamenashi. “If you say so. Are you coming under?”
“In a bit,” Kamenashi said.
“Who's your halluc buddy?” Nakamaru demanded suddenly.
Kamenashi glanced up in surprise.
“He's the reason you didn't respond to Tanaka's mail last week, isn't he?”
“What does who I take hallucinogens with have to do with work?” Kamenashi slid his fingers viciously (calm down, Kamenashi, calm down) down the projection screen, and his desktop faded from the air. “That was my day off, and Tanaka said he didn't need me that early after all.”
“Because he gave the assignment to Ueda and Taguchi when you didn't pick up your porternal,” Nakamaru said. “I know you like the hallucs, Kamenashi, but don't let it interfere with your work. If we're getting messages from outsiders telling us-”
“Outsiders?” Kamenashi narrowed his eyes. “What outsiders? And I replied to his mail at least hours before Tanaka needed me, why did he get Ueda and Taguchi?”
Nakamaru hesitated.
“Nakamaru, Maru,” Kamenashi said. The suggestion of Nakamaru's Network handle made Nakamaru frown. “Nakamaru,” Kamenashi said. “What happened?”
Nakamaru sighed. “Tanaka got the assignment right after you had left for your halluc dose. He mailed you, but by then you had been under. Your buddy, whoever it was, somehow managed to get a message out to Akanishi.”
“They know each other on the Network,” Kamenashi said tightly. “It doesn't mean anything.”
“Taguchi told Tanaka that your halluc buddy told us to piss off.”
Kamenashi frowned. “I was out at that time. I'll talk to him. He won't interfere. The halluc's won't interfere. It won't happen again.”
“It's not the drugs that I'm worried about, Kamenashi,” Nakamaru said, getting up from his desk across the room and walking to Kamenashi's. “It's you. A month ago you would have stopped taking them if something like this happened. But you're compromising KAT-TUN. We've worked hard to get to where we are now, Kamenashi, and it's not like you to just give that up for a halluc buddy.” He pressed his hands on Kamenashi's desk, leaning in.
Kamenashi closed his eyes, recognizing the tactic; they used it on the underage kids they cornered on the Network for drinking and trying to grope each other in the dark seedy online bars. Nakamaru meant well, he really did; years older and always trying to take care of everybody in KAT-TUN. But Nakamaru didn't understand; Kamenashi wasn't compromising their group by associating with Yamashita. He had everything under control. “It's under control.”
Nakamaru leaned forward a little more, his forehead creased into a frown. “Kamenashi,” Nakamaru began.
Kamenashi shook his head, cutting Nakamaru off. “It's fine. He doesn't matter.” He stood up slowly and languidly, maintaining eye contact-Nakamaru stepped back instinctively-and took the opportunity to slip around Nakamaru's frame and settle himself down on the hookups aligning the opposite wall. Nakamaru followed Kamenashi, tailing his every step, but Kamenashi ignored Nakamaru and focused on untangling the wires to connect them to their proper ports.
“Kamenashi, listen...”
He couldn't fiddle with the wires forever-he only had one port resting at the bottom of his back, and Nakamaru knew that-so Kamenashi decided to just enter the Network early. He stared steadily at Nakamaru before he plugged the cords in, letting his head fall back and his eyes flutter shut as the computer rewrote his world.
*
Ueda stared at his home terminal dully.
They had found the program last week, and then she had disappeared. Completely vanished. They had tried tracking the program, but all they had managed to find were a series of dead-ends. It wasn’t the first time that he had failed, but this one rankled. He had thrown himself into a week’s worth of work, but now he knew that he couldn’t keep sitting around anymore.
NOBUTA. What did the program want? She hadn’t been hurting anybody; she simply sat in the code. She didn’t change any code, she didn’t send anything to somebody outside Maintenance... she simply sat there.
Why was Management so upset about it?
He huffed. Things just didn’t make sense.
*
Nakamaru really did mean well, Taguchi thought as he checked Tanaka's mail; Nakamaru had apparently tried to confront Kamenashi about his no-show last week, which had led to Kamenashi simply avoiding the issue-it wasn't about his halluc buddy, it was about Kamenashi rewriting his life to include this other person who didn't belong in their careful group of six. The entire message was carefully constructed so only KAT-TUN would understand that Nakamaru was upset that Kamenashi was ignoring the rest of them.
Taguchi didn't usually check the others' mail; Upper Management liked to nose through their inboxes, their payment statements, their Network logs, everything that connected them to anybody else, even the ever-present cameras tucked into corners with their lenses narrowing and widening as they entered and exited room and server alike, but Taguchi didn't like browsing through other people's messages even if it was too easy to hack the others' inboxes. He made exceptions though; he hacked Akanishi's inbox once a week because he hadn't quite gotten out of the habit when Akanishi was on six month leave to get another three ports installed and Management would sometimes send assignments to Akanishi that they expected the rest of them to complete, and he hacked Tanaka's inbox on a daily basis because Tanaka liked to pry open his porternal and “modify” all the circuitry that Taguchi spent most of his expense credits upgrading.
Taguchi hummed under his breath, closing Nakamaru's message to Tanaka and opening up a new message. He was still in Tanaka's mail system, but the others were used to Taguchi sending emails from everybody's account except his own. He told Nakamaru to just let Kamenashi hide in his shell for a few hours, and then he sent the mail to everybody in KAT-TUN except for Kamenashi, because Kamenashi was nosy and wanted to know what everybody else was doing-just like everybody else in KAT-TUN-and a successful hack would satisfy Kamenashi enough that he wouldn't bother to hack anything that actually would be a problem.
If any of them wanted to send a message to everybody in the group, they sent it to Akanishi because everybody hacked Akanishi's inbox regularly. It wasn't even real hacking anymore, everybody knew the backdoors in the code to get into Akanishi's inbox-and how to avoid the viruses that they littered the back pathways with-and Akanishi didn't even bother trying to hide the pathways that Taguchi had found. It was protected so only KAT-TUN would be able to hack it, because Akanishi's inbox was theirs to hack, and not free game for some brat on the servers. It was an old habit from when Akanishi was away; they were selfish, possessive bastards and even if Akanishi was an idiot for putting himself out of commission because he had decided that it was a good idea to upgrade his ports barely six months into their promotion, he was KAT-TUN's idiot. That meant that only KAT-TUN was allowed to hack Akanishi Jin's inbox.
Taguchi eased out of Tanaka's inbox and pulled open his with a flick of his fingers. Kamenashi had mailed him a good hour ago about going into work; he forwarded that message to Akanishi-whoever was bored enough to hack Akanishi's inbox in a weekend deserved to have some work to do. There was the usual spam, which Taguchi read for the amusement factor, and a small note from Ueda under some of the strangest encryption that Taguchi had ever seen.
He tapped the message with a finger; the message didn't open, but instead read his fingerprint for a good minute. Then Ueda's voice quietly requested vocal authentication. Taguchi grinned, he knew this program. All six of them had sat around and programmed it when they had been given their first major assignment, and they had only improved it since. Taguchi didn't bother saying anything; that was the point, to do the unexpected, but simply removed his finger from the message and scanned his print. He grinned as their program activated; it needed a valid fingerprint before it would even start to work. “Authorization denied,” Ueda said curtly, his voice just barely polite. Taguchi could still hear Akanishi's muffled snickers behind Ueda's polite voice. “Try again,” Nakamaru's recorded voice said.
Taguchi didn't hesitate, rattling off the Ueda specific and Nakamaru specific passwords as he scanned his appropriate fingers. “Authorization denied,” Kamenashi said as he finished. “Try again,” Tanaka's voice called out gleefully, and Taguchi scanned his appropriate fingers and muttered appropriate passwords-“My one and only love. Keep the faith.”-before he pressed his thumb against the screen. There was no actual right answer; each answer depended on who was talking in what order and who was answering and what fingers he was pressing to the screen. It had been Tanaka's idea, and only KAT-TUN could pull it off.
The projection flickered. “Taguchi,” Ueda said, not looking directly at him. “Tanaka messaged me about Kamenashi requesting assistance. He's going to go in, and help take care of any stragglers. There must be a reason Kamenashi doesn't want me or Akanishi, so Jin's going to try to corner Kame online. I've found data about an experimental program from several years ago that might be related to the NOBUTA program, so if you have time, come find me in our usual server.” Ueda paused. “Don't tell Kamenashi.”
“Why?” Taguchi asked, not expecting an answer.
Ueda must have predicted Taguchi's response. There was a brief pause before Ueda continued, “I think that Kamenashi might have been involved in NOBUTA.”
*
It was Kame-Kame-chan to the other Johnnies and just Kame to the others he met on the Network-and not Kamenashi who sauntered into some club, joining the writhing crowds. Settling at a secluded booth, Kame ran a scan on the crowd, searching for invalid identification-kids these days were better, but Kame was the best. There were at least four underage teenagers in the crowd, getting drunk without the prospect of a hangover the next day and flirting with men and women alike. Kame should-if he was a good Johnny kid-tag their ID's and then start tracking their actual ID's, but Kame didn't care about underage drinking and teenagers sneaking into clubs to dance, the other groups could fuss about dancing and drinking, Kame and the rest of KAT-TUN would pick apart fake ID's for the sake of picking them apart.
KAT-TUN was officially in charge of watching over the few servers where Netsex was legal; unofficially, KAT-TUN was in charge of all sexual activities, legal or otherwise, on the Network, which meant that they were supposed to pull unauthorized persons from the Network if they were caught hacking their authorizations to have pretend-sex. Kame really didn't see the point, but it was a job that paid well, and he was a professional.
He tagged the four teenagers he had caught drinking for the others to pick up later-if upper management wanted them so badly, they could send another group-and then he worked his way through the crowd, heading towards back rooms where teenagers liked running their hacks.
“Hey, Nii-san,” a quiet voice called, a ping resonating in the back of Kame's mind. “Nii-san.”
Kame turned towards the voice. Standing in a dark corner was a boy no older than 14. “You shouldn't be in here,” Kame said carefully. Something about the boy bothered him; his identification said he was underage, but there was a sheen of authorization that kept him from tagging his ID and kicking him off the net straight away.
“I wanted to see you work,” the boy said. The boy leaned forward. “Hey, where's that friend of yours, Nii-san?””
“Who're you?” Kame demanded.
The boy frowned. “Nii-san, it's me! How can you not recognize your own brother?”
Kame thumbed through the kid's ID. Kiritani? “You're not my brother.”
The boy scowled. “Nii-san is so cruel, denying his own flesh and blood. Nii-san is more fun when Akira-nii-san is around.”
“Akira...” Kame repeated carefully. “Who is this Akira-san you're talking about?” he demanded, but he already knew the answer.
Kusano Akira..
“Shuuji-kun!”
Kame pulled up the ID again. “Kiritani Kouji-kun,” he read off the data scrolling along his eyes. Hair color, eye color, height weight. Nothing to connect the boy to Kamenashi Kazuya. He frowned at the boy. “Who am I then?”
Kouji smiled. “Is this a trick or something? Shouldn't you know your own name, Nii-san? You're Kiritani Shuji, of course.”
“Kon-kon!”
Kame closed the ID file, feeling his hands shake even though he was still plugged in. The only person who knew that his drug dreams involved him being Kiritani Shuji was Yamashita Tomohisa. “You have an hour to cut your connection to the Net, Kiritani Kouji-kun,” Kame managed to say. “You're underage,” he added, strangely at a loss from words. He struggled to put his mind into focus. “You shouldn't be here. I'll give you an hour though before I tag your ID, Kiritani-kun, since you're not doing anything but standing here.”
“Nii-san,” Kiritani Kouji began cheerfully.
“I'm not!” Kame burst out. “I'm not who you think I am.”
Kouji looked at Kame thoughtfully, a furrow between his eyes.
“Get off the Net, Kouji,” Kame said to the boy he didn't know. “Or I'll have to tag you and bring you in.”
“I have an hour, right?” Kouji's voice was level, still cheerful but no longer as bright.
Kame nodded.
Kouji faded from the Net in a shimmer of pixels.
*
The room was dark, illuminated only by a singular projector that displayed a half-naked girl lounging on the beach. Ueda ignored the projection. “Okay, Akanishi. Let's get you up to speed really quick,” Ueda said quickly as he threw a wadded napkin at Akanishi. “First: Kame's online and on duty right now, and he doesn't want us to help.”
Akanishi ignored Ueda.
Ueda kicked Akanishi's chair. “I know you went out drinking last night, but at least have the decency to pretend to pay attention to me. Kame's on duty.”
Akanishi frowned at Ueda through his bangs. “Upper Management disapproves of me caring,” he said blandly. He fixed his gaze on a spy-cam in the corner, leering into the camera.
Ueda rolled his eyes. “That’s off.”
Akanishi laughed. “I can see the recording light.”
Sometimes, Ueda forgot what Akanishi’s extra implants had done to him. Implants weren’t supposed to affect personality-despite the fact that they were wired to the brain-but Akanishi had come back from getting his implants with his eyes glazed over and his face completely blank. When Kamenashi had gone to Upper Management to question why, he had been sent away with orders not to question.
Akanishi had gotten better, but only in flashes. Kamenashi suspected a personality wipe, an experiment, but Taguchi had hacked as deep into Upper Management as he dared and said that it wasn’t.
“Akanishi, it’s not Management watching that.”
Akanishi flicked his eyes from the spy-cam and focused on Ueda. “Taguchi,” he said.
Ueda nodded.
Akanishi straightened up somewhat. It was hopeless to expect Akanishi to actually pay attention; he never cared that much even before he had gotten his implant. “What about Kame?” Akanishi’s eyes flicked around, searching for pinpricks of light signifying another spy-cam.
Ueda huffed. He reached over and shut down the projection-the overhead lights automatically lit up, casting the room in bright luminescence. “He’s pulling a shift. He doesn’t want us to help, but that’s normal for you, isn’t it?”
Akanishi laughed. “Kame and Jin don’t mix. You know Upper Management’s rules.”
“Then explain why he didn’t request for me.”
Akanishi blinked. “He didn’t send you the request?”
Ueda ignored the question, pressing on. “Why would he do something like that, Akanishi. You knew him best before we started taking the hard jobs.”
“But there’s no reason for that,” Akanishi said, brow furrowing. He reached for the projector, tapping the keys quickly. “Did you get into a fight with him?”
“No.”
“I would know,” Akanishi agreed with Ueda. He pulled up a shell, quickly typing code into the screen.
Ueda watched as white letters floated in the air on the blue background of the projection. “Are you hacking Management?”
Akanishi smirked. “You can call it that.” He compiled his code, and an inbox opened on the screen.
Ueda blinked.
Akanishi hummed to himself as he scrolled through the messages. “Ah.”
Ueda focused on the name in the upper left corner. “That’s Kamenashi’s inbox.”
Akanishi nodded.
Ueda blinked. “Kamenashi puts more safeguards on that inbox than Taguchi has on yours.”
“Except Kamenashi’s remarkably predictable.” Akanishi waved a hand at the projection. “Kamenashi changes his password every three months just like the good boy he is. In the 2 second gap between his old password and new password, there’s just barely enough time to drop a backdoor.”
Ueda nodded slowly.
“I’ve had this backdoor for years now.” Akanishi scrolled through Kamenashi’s messages. “Kamenashi knows,” he added at Ueda’s skeptical look. “He left me a message here once. He’s protected this backdoor, but I know how he codes and he knows that. Ah, here we go, this looks suspicious.” Akanishi tapped a line, and the message opened.
Ueda leaned forward. “It’s from a Kusano Akira.” He frowned. “I don’t know any Kusano Akira.”
“I don’t either. That’s why it’s suspicious. And Kamenashi opened it twice, that’s also suspicious.” Akanishi read the message aloud. “It’s Akira! Akira received a mail from Nobuta yesterday. Nobuta met a new friend called Ueda. Do YOU think that Nobuta’s new friend will replace Shuji and Akira?” Akanishi turned to Ueda. “You met a girl named Nobuta?”
Ueda’s heart lurched. “A program,” he said carefully.
“Must have been a pretty sophisticated program if you thought it was a girl. Was she pretty?”
“A little. But she seemed more lonely.” Ueda shook his head, biting his lip carefully to remind himself to focus. A program was a program, not a person. “It took a girl form. She mentioned Shuji and Akira, just like this Kusano Akira.” He tapped the projector, and the message magnified. “We can assume that they’re talking about the same Shuji and Akira.”
“Yeah.”
Ueda frowned. “What’s going on?”
“No clue.” Akanishi focused on Ueda. “Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?”
Ueda ran a hand along the projector, and the display closed on itself. “I had a feeling that Kamenashi was involved in NOBUTA before this that I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Why?”
“Something about the program.” Ueda tapped the projector, logging Akanishi out and switching to his personal network. “There are parts of it that felt a lot like Kamenashi. I wanted you to analyze the code-what little that I managed to get from what was broadcast at me-and tell me what you thought.”
“I can still do that.”
Ueda clenched his fists on top of the projector. “Except this is more suspicious. Kamenashi opened this message twice. That means he knows this Kusano Akira. Why don’t we know anything about him?”
Akanishi focused on the spy-cam.
Ueda continued. “And that program. What on earth does that program do?”
“Taguchi,” Akanishi called.
Ueda frowned at Akanishi.
Akanishi nodded to the camera. “Taguchi, how good are you at hacking?”
“Decent,” the projector said in Taguchi’s voice.
“See if you can figure out who Kamenashi’s halluc buddy is in real life so we can pull him in for questioning. His network handle is Yamapi.” Akanishi smiled. “He sent me a message yesterday about Kamenashi. The funny thing is... if I remember correctly...” Akanishi pulled out his porternal and flicked through his inbox. He nodded in satisfaction. “He signed it Kusano Akira.”
*
It was Yamashita's day off, and he had nothing to do. Normally, he went into the Net and hung out with Jin or Ryo-chan, but Jin had bailed, saying that he had some work to do, and Ryo-chan had decided to pull overtime today, which meant that Yamashita was wandering around the streets looking for something to do.
He didn't walk in this district very often; it was a district where the servers hosted in public Net cafes tended towards games. Games, of course, varied depending on each cafe. Yamashita passed by a small rather nondescript building that advertised hookups for mature games on the Net.
Nakajima Yuto, hands in pockets and head cocked to the side, was leaving the Net cafe.
Yamashita’s nerves kicked into high gear. He grabbed his porternal, preparing to call for security. “Nakajima!” he called. “Nakajima Yuto, what are you doing here?”
Nakajima Yuto froze, turned and stared at Yamashita. “Yamashita-san,” he said carefully.
Yamashita scanned the younger boy quickly, eyes searching the pockets for any bulges. “You’re a little young to be in this cafe, aren’t you?” Flat. That meant that whatever hardware Nakajima was playing with, it was already in the building, probably connected to the servers already. Fuck.
Nakajima smiled. “It’s not illegal to enter this district,” he said. “And it’s not illegal to just check out a store, is it?”
“Except somebody like you would have no reason to unless you’re doing something suspicious.” Yamashita clenched his porternal tightly in his pocket, trying to type a message out to the group in charge of this district through touch alone. Everybody knew that Nakajima Yuto and a bunch of other kids ran around hacking servers for fun. Rumor had it that the big boss at top was actually looking at recruiting this bunch of delinquents for doing such a wonderful job crashing the servers and rebooting them so the only news that the feeds would show was news about bunnies.
“It was a dare,” Nakajima said with a smile. “Chinen dared me to come into this this building and see if I could get away with accessing the Net. I couldn’t though, since I don’t have authorization for... adult activities.”
Yamashita laughed a short laugh. “I know you, Nakajima. And I know Chinen and the rest of you Hey! Say! 7 kids. You wouldn’t just give up like that. You hacked the servers, didn’t you.”
Nakajima’s face shuttered. “I hate calling in favors,” he said carefully.
“Who?” Yamashita demanded. “Who are you going to call for help from?” He stopped trying to tap a message out to the rest of his group. No need to pull them out on their day off if Nakajima was just going to slip away with a favor.
He stared steadily at Yamashita. “Kame.”
“This isn’t the Net.” Yamashita ran his hand along the edge of his porternal. “Kame has no jurisdiction here.”
“But you won’t bring me in.”
Yamashita’s jaw dropped at the sheer audacity of Nakajima’s statement. “Who says?”
Nakajima fished out a porternal from his pocket, holding it flat so that it projected into the air. The air shimmered as he scrolled through files. He shook the porternal slightly, and the display rattled. “Recognize this?”
A tiny version of Yamashita sat on a bike. The Yamashita in the display tilted his head and said clearly, “Shuji and Akira. The two of them were always one.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” Yamashita demanded, even though his eyes were fixed on the recording of himself-it wasn’t quite himself, he had never worn a uniform like that before, he could tell that now-but the resemblance was uncanny.
“Everything, Akira” Nakajima Yuto laughed, fingers closing firmly over the porternal. The display shut down. “Or have you forgotten Shuji-nii-san already?”
*
That’s right... I thought to myself as I stopped running; they’re not here anymore. I looked out the window to the sky, to avoid seeing their empty seats. I had said to Kusano Akira before he left, “I’ll cry for the first three days, but I’ll show you that for the rest of them, that I can make it through all of them.” So later that day, I climbed to the roof and faced the sky and said, “I can really smile now.” What I really meant thought, was “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
To Week 1: NOBUTA | To Week 3: Mariko
Masterpost of Chapters here
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