AN: Hello and thank you for reading! I really wish I had some elaborate story or excuse as to why I wrote this bunch of crack. I really have no excuses though. The only person I can even partly blame is my little sister who introduced me to the wonderful minor character of Ohm RICE and how completely amazing he and Kaki Leader are. As to the pairing... well it's crack. If you don't like it then kindly don't read it.
Warnings: mild language, homosexuality, not beta read so there shall be grammatical and potentially spelling errors.
Disclaimer: the .hack/ series is the property of Cyberconnect 2 and Namco Bandai. I do not gain anything from the publication of this story other than writing experience and the satisfaction of knowing I'm probably the first and only person to ever write a Haseo/Ohm Rice fiction.
Chapter 1: Tripping Over You
Out of all the people I know I am perhaps the most prone to accidents. It doesn't matter how careful I am, how sturdy the structure is or how completely not dangerous an item is I will find a way to cause an accident. My best friend (who may I add is twenty years older than me) constantly makes fun of me for this.
Good evening, this is Ohm RICE
I suppose it should be said that due to my inability to create anything resembling edible in the kitchen I've come accustomed to eating weird things. Subsequently my favourite smoothie consists of grapes, blueberries and oranges. It can also only be obtained from a smoothie shop which is located twelve blocks from my apartment. Twelve blocks gives a person such as me a lot of chances to cause accidents.
There was really nothing I could do when the kid on the skateboard whizzed by me, shoving me to the side. In a desperate attempt not to have my smoothie sail on to some random passerby I clutched it to my chest and stretched out my other arm to brace my fall. But since I was such a stickler to Murphy's Law I found myself falling into a black clad young man no older than myself. We hit the pavement with a sickening smack, him underneath and me straddling him, my crushed smoothie cup between the two of us. With all the extra momentum my left knee scraped along the pavement a bit before we came to a complete stop.
"Get offa me!" He hissed and more or less threw me to the side. He sprang to his feet and yelled after the kid "The hell do you think you're doing you stupid brat? You better damn well run because if I ever catch you there won't be enough left to identify you by!"
I'd somehow managed to drag myself into a sitting position and stared at the poor person I'd nearly flatted in fear. If that's what he was yelling after the kid then surely I was up for a worse fate. Slowly he turned around and glared down at me. "Stupid kids... Are you ok?" He reached out a hand and I took it in confusion.
"Uhh... yah." After I was standing I gave him a faint smile. "Believe it or not stuff like this happens to me all the time. Are you ok?" I looked him up and down; aside from the shirt he seemed to be completely unscathed. This was a good thing seeing as it looked like his shirt was worth more than everything I was wearing combined.
"I'm fine. It takes a lot more than that to get me down." He looked me up and down and I couldn't help but feel a little self conscious. Currently I was wearing a very beat up pair of tennis shoes some old black shorts and a white shirt I'd gotten for a charity marathon I'd run two years ago. It's not that I was poor or anything (well, not so poor I couldn't afford nicer clothes) but I just liked my comfy old clothes. "Your knee doesn't look so good."
A bit confused I looked down to see that it in fact didn't look like it had any skin left. "Yah... I guess not." I laughed a little and scratched the back of my head. God was Kaki Leader going to laugh at me for this when I got home.
"Do you live close to here?"
"Huh?" I looked at him dumbstruck.
"If you don't live close I live just across the street, you could come up and get bandaged up before you bleed all over the place."
"Oh, I live like ten blocks from here... that would be nice." I smiled at him.
In a sort of daze I let him lead me into a really nice apartment building. I couldn't help but think I recognised him. Although he looked to be about the same age as me I didn't think he went to my school. Maybe he went to one of the other schools? Then it hit me, the two of us rode the subway together a lot of the time and I'm pretty sure he went to that expensive private school not too far from my school...
I don't remember much of the trip up to his apartment. I was too taken in by the gigantic lobby and fancy elevator. When we entered his apartment he sat me down on a black wooden kitchen chair then said "I'm just going to change my shirt then I'll see what I have for first aid stuff." While he was gone I glanced around. The apartment was small and sparsely decorated but very tidy. It was more than likely that he lived alone. The only mess in the whole place actually was the mountain of dishes in the sink.
Realising I was still holding my crushed cup I got up and began glancing around for a garbage can. After a moment of not spotting one in the open I decided to be brave and check under the sink. Bingo. I disposed of the cup and returned to my seat at the small table. A moment later he re-emerged from what I assumed to be his bathroom wearing a really nice black Tapout shirt with a red sketched skull on it. "By the way, my name is Misaki Ryou." The other teen said as he set a first aid kit beside me on the table.
"Oshima Makoto." I managed to smile and look up at him. He returned the smile briefly before starting to dig through the first aid kit. "Thanks for letting me come up here. If you want I can handle it from here. It's not the first time I've torn all the skin off my knee."
With shrug he handed me some gauze and bottle of hydrogen peroxide. "Be my guest." He wandered over to the fridge as I went about the painful process of taking the pavement out of my knee. "Do you want anything to drink seeing as your drink is now on both our shirts?"
"I think I'm ok, but thanks for the offer." I winced as I dabbed some hydrogen peroxide on my knee. Ow ow owwwwww...
A shrill ring cut through the air, startling me and causing me to drop the tissue I'd been dabbing my knee with. After retrieving the tissue from the ground I grabbed for my pocket thinking it was my cell phone, even though the ringtone clearly wasn't one I recognised. I paused; hand on my cell phone, the realisation hitting me that it wasn't my phone ringing. Misaki pulled a new model Sony Ericsson smart phone out of his pocket and after glancing at the caller moved towards his bedroom to answer it. "I'll be a few." I nodded in his direction but he was already gone.
I managed to finish cleaning myself up and banding my knee without further incident. I even had a few moments to look around his apartment absently. Sitting on the other end of the table was a new computer with "The World" home screen showing. A moment later I heard the sound of a door opening and Misaki's soft footsteps as he came back into the room.
"Oh, so you play 'The World'." I turned to him and smiled. However the look of annoyance on his face stopped any further comments I had. "Sorry, that was sort of rude. I just saw it on your computer screen over there."
"I just got a new computer and I've spent all morning setting it up, that's why I went out for that walk."
"I know how I can repay you now!" A giant grin plastered itself on my face. "I'm a pretty high level character, if you ever need anything in 'The World' feel free to look me up, my name is Ohm RICE."
"Ohm RICE eh... I think I recognise that name." He seemed lost in thought for a minute I was about to help him out when he snapped his fingers and grinned at me. "You're on the forums, Butt Rice, right?"
My face fell. I was going to kill Kaki Leader. And knowing my luck I could make it an accident. "Yah... that's me. And it's OHM RICE, O-H-M."
"You don't have to get defensive."
"Oh sorry I'm just so used to yelling at Kaki Leader for that. So what's your character name, we could meet up tonight and do a dungeon or something." I leaned back in my chair, relaxing slightly.
Misaki went quiet and began rubbing his elbow as he seemed to be contemplating something. When he turned to look at me he had a deathly serious face and said, "I'm the Terror of Death."
My mouth fell open in awe. THE Terror of Death. I was standing in the apartment of none other than Haseo; Arena Emperor of Sage Palace, the most famous PKKer "The World" had ever known and a general badass. And I'd spilled smoothie on him. Oh god, there were no words to express the terror I now felt.
"What's the matter? I'm not going to PK you or anything." This seemed to bring a smile to his face and my anxiety level skyrocketed.
I snapped my mouth shut and forced a smile. "Wow, this is a... um... honour." I looked at my left wrist that usually had my watch on it but I'd forgotten to put it on this morning. Regardless I said "Wow, look at the time, I better get home. It was nice meeting you Terr- err Misaki. Have a good day!"
In a moment of terror I bolted for the door, put on my shoes and made a run for the elevator. Not the smoothest thing I'd ever done. And oh god, he probably thought I was a complete spaz. Here I was, seventeen years old and running from a fellow high school student like I was some three year old girl running from a monster.
-x-x-x-
By the time I got home I was out of breath and my knee was throbbing. I changed out of my sticky clothes and slumped down onto my desk chair. Not knowing what else to do I took a glance through the forums. Nothing really interesting had been posted so I decided to log in to "The World". I was still undecided on what to tell Kaki. I couldn't very well say that I'd met Haseo; there was no way he was ever going to believe me.
Upon logging in I got a flash mail from Kaki Leader.
'Great, you came online at the right time. Umbrella and I were just about to start on a dungeon and we need a third.'
I accepted the party invitation and almost immediately found myself being teleported to a level 128 dungeon.
"Awesome, it's BUTT RICE. HAHAHAHAHA" Umbrella exclaimed and started off running down the passageway, Kaki not too far behind him. Apparently he was excited to start on this adventure.
"It's OHM, O-H-M!" I yelled as I ran after my two friends. By the time I'd caught up with them the other two were already fighting the first mobs. The fight was hard and I wound up spending most of my time on recovery. The three of us were still a little low for this place. Umbrella was the highest of us as a level 127 lord partisan, Kaki was a level 125 edge punisher and I was bringing up the rear as a 122 blade brandier.
When we'd finally beat the stupid goblins I sat down. "Jeeze, give me a minute you two. I gotta throw some junk out of my inventory." I destroyed a couple low level necklaces and changed around my old dual swords for the new ones I'd picked up last night.
"Wow, you sound all flustered, Butt Rice, did you meet a pretty girl while you were out?" Kaki teased.
"No... I had another small accident..." I sighed, still unsure how to word it.
"Oh, let me guess, you fell and accidentally grabbed some skirt off a hot girl and got a look at her panties? Ha ha ha..." Umbrella chimed in and danced around my sitting character.
I gave a sigh in real life and rubbed my temple. "No... You know that really good custom smoothie place like 12 blocks from my place?" Both my companions nodded. I'd taken them there the last time they'd picked me up for an offline meeting. "Well I went there today and when I was coming home I got pushed by a kid on a skateboard and fell on this guy that goes to that really fancy private school."
My two best friends burst into laughter. After a moment Kaki slapped me on the shoulder and managed to utter between laughs. "God, you are amazing Butt Rice. So what did little rich boy do, did he beat you up for touching him?"
"Actually no." I glared at Kaki and pushed his arm away. "He took me back to his apartment and cleaned up my knee which, thank you for asking, is fine despite not having any skin left on it."
"Aww, our little Butt Rice is getting invited back to apartments of handsome young men. He's just growing up so fast, isn't he Kaki?" Umbrella wiped away a fake tear and burst into further laughter.
Sometimes... sometimes I wonder why I ever bother.
"Come on." I huffed and started moving deeper into the dungeon. "Let's just kill everything that moves and get the hell out of here."
-x-x-x-
By the time we reached the third floor we were all a few levels higher and nearly out of healing items. I'd gotten a new ring finally. I'd been using the same accessory for the past 30 or so levels. Umbrella had found an unlucky animal and had thus kicked it and cursed us, causing us to nearly die on the next group of ogres we fought. Currently Kaki was AFK getting some supper or something and Umbrella was on the phone with someone.
When I heard the footsteps coming from the room behind us I felt my stomach sink. If we got PKd in this part of the dungeon then we'd all lose nearly two hours of experience and various awesome items. I gripped the controller tighter in my hands and moved more off to the side, hoping that the newcomers wouldn't notice me. Of course, I had no such luck. As the trio entered the room they stopped, glanced around and immediately spotted us.
"Hey look, it's a bunch of noobs." A maximum level lord partisan pointed his spear at me.
"How fortunate for us. We haven't found any good prey in the last couple days have we." A harvest cleric rubbed his hands together.
"We – we don't want any trouble. We're just here to level up. I can give you some rare items if you'd like." I stuttered dumbly. This probably wasn't going to save me but I had to stall for time. At least if Kaki and Umbrella came back we just might have a slim chance of living. Ok... extremely infinitesimal chance of living.
"Hah!" The third party member, a huge edge punisher, laughed. "You don't understand who we are. We're well on our way to being the first chaotic PK trio! I am Chair, son of LavaLamp and lord of Airc0nditi0n3r! And you my friend, are about to be PK victim number 274"
To confirm their names I hovered over their characters with my cursor. God, what kind of moron names their character Chair, LavaLamp or Airc0nditi0n3r?
I tried to defend myself but Chair cut through me like I was a stick of hot butter. I lay helplessly on the ground as they quickly took care of Umbrella. They were just about to move on to Kaki when a steam shot rang out and the harvest cleric, Airc0nditi0n3r, fell to the ground dead. Rotating my camera so I could see who had come to our rescue my breath caught. Before the other two PKers could even turn around my saviour brought out a gigantic ornate scythe and preformed a Reapers Dance, taking out half of their hit points. He then brought out broadsword with a chainsaw blade and went on to take out the remaining hit points of the lord partisan in two hits.
"W-who the hell are you?" Chair spat as he backed away and used a healing item on himself.
My saviour advanced with a malicious smile on his face. "You're a lousy PKer if you can't recognise the Terror of Death."
"Oh... oh I was just kidding about that becoming a chaotic PKer. You know, juts having some fun... we really don't PK that much. I wasn't even really a PKer until recently my dad-"
"God you're annoying." With a few more strokes of his broadsword Haseo finished off Chair and the battle area faded away.
"WOW THAT WAS SO COOL!" Umbrella yelled into party chat. I sighed in real life and rubbed at my temple. Now I really had a headache.
A few seconds later Kaki Leader's character came back to life and he glanced around confused. "What'd I miss?"
"Your friends got PKd by a particularly annoying group of PKers. You should be good for a while but I'd recommend getting out of this dungeon as soon as possible in case they decide to come back." Haseo approached our group and crossed his arms over his chest.
"Teaches me to go AFK in a dungeon" Kaki laughed and began searching through his inventory for a revival item. After what seemed like forever Kaki revived me and Umbrella. After using a SP recovery item I cast Ol Repth on myself a few times.
"Thanks a lot... Haseo" I muttered nervously. I wasn't sure if he'd even noticed it was me yet and I was hoping that he wasn't going to say anything about earlier.
"It's no problem. Good luck to you guys." He turned and started to walk away when he paused after a few strides. "Oh." He turned and looked right at me, a smirk on his face. "So we meet again Butt Rice."
"It's OHM RICE. O-H-M" I yelled reflexively then slapped a hand over my mouth in real life. Damn damn damn damn...
This seemed to only make Haseo smile more. "That's not any way to treat someone who just saved you. Plus you were kind of rude earlier, running away like you did."
"Umm, I really did have an important thing and... err... I'mreallysorryIwont'doitagain..."
"Wait, wait!" Umbrella looked between the two of us. "You two know each other and what's this about Butt Rice running away?"
"Oh, he didn't tell you?" Haseo crossed his arms over his chest and glanced between the three of us. "He ran into me earlier."
"Wait," Kaki Leader held up an arm and pointed between the two of us. "You're telling me that Butt Rice here when he got pushed by the kid spilled his smoothie all over the Terror of Death?" He clapped a hand on my shoulder and let out a bark of laughter. "Good going Butt Rice."
Currently the amount of humiliation I felt at this point in time far surpassed any incident in the past. It was about 100 fold worse than the time in third grade I threw up on the teacher during music class when she wanted me to play the cowbell and I didn't want to. Maybe 50 fold from the time in ninth grade I got my pants pulled down in front of the girl's gym class and they saw my boxers with the little ducks on them. And I have to admit it was even worse than the time Umbrella told that really pretty girl at the offline meeting that I wet the bed until the age of five and was a virgin because I wanted to save my first time for a woman old enough to be my mother. Admittedly the first part of that was true, but I was a virgin because... well, I'm kinda gay and still very much closeted. But that's a drama for another time.
The only reason I rate this current situation as more embarrassing than that last one with Umbrella is because... well... Haseo, or rather Misaki Ryou the person behind the character, is pretty hot and I hate to admit it but I have a bit of a thing for him now. That was the only thing I'd managed to work out on my run home.
"I Just.. I just got a bit flustered and overwhelmed, that's all." I huffed and put my arms over my chest.
It looked like Kaki Leader was about to make another wiseass comment when Haseo held up a finger, signalling everyone to wait a second. "Ahh sorry, I have to go. I have a mild disaster to avert. See you around Butt Rice." And with that he was off down the passageway to find the nearest chaos gate. Just before he got out of sight he paused one more time. A flash mail appeared and something else I hadn't expected in my wildest dreams.
'Here's my member address, if you ever need anything don't be afraid to ask.'
Dumbstruck I added him to my friends and then just stared at his name for a while on my very short list. Huh.
"So what's he like, in real life I mean?" Umbrella was the one to break the silence.
"Yah, and why didn't you say you'd met The Terror of Death? You're not holding out other secrets on us, are you Butt Rice?" Kaki prodded.
"Uhg, I need to be alone right now." I rubbed at my temple in real life and let out an exasperated sigh. This night was just too much for me. "I'll see you guys later"
"Hey, that's not fair!" Umbrella protested but I'd already used a return feather and was warping back to town. I ignored the barrage of messages I got in party chat as I headed for the save shop and logged out. A few seconds later my phone chimed indicating I'd received a text message.
With a sigh I flopped onto my bed and stared at the ceiling. For once why couldn't simple things happen in my life? I wish I could be the normal guy that has normal friends his own age and liked a normal girl. Instead I'm an introvert with a best friend 20 years older than myself and I've fallen for someone who, let's face it, is just out of my league. Teenage drama sucks.
This is Ohm RICE logging out.
Hopefully after some sleep things will make a little more sense. Well, I guess they can't make any less sense...
-X-X- End Chapter -X-X-
AN: Yes, that was a homage to Penny Arcade in there with the names of the PKers. :) I can't guarantee a speedy update but I'll try my best! Thank you for any and all reviews, I especially love long ones!
