Like any other day, the subway was full. Businessmen in dark suits, harassed looking parents herding their little darlings through the ticket turnstiles, the obligatory busker strumming a guitar that had seen better days- in short, the usual lunch hour rush. In a way, it was fortunate that the station happened to be so busy; because in a crowd, nobody questioned why a twelve-year old boy who clearly should have been at school was walking off the 12.06 train.
In a way, it was lucky that Aoyagi Ritsuka had picked exactly the right time of day in which to be inconspicuous and though he had a reason for being there, he was fairly certain that not a single person would believe him, were he to be asked. After, who ever heard of a kid going home early from a field trip? And out of choice?
No, there was no way anyone was going to swallow that particular line.
The truth was that Ritsuka didn't really even like field trips that much. And even with low expectations, the whole painfully extended rigmarole of who would sit next to who on the coach (he'd managed to wedge Yayoi in between himself and Yuiko and the grateful look the other boy shot him at least went a little way towards the aggrieved ones he'd received from Yuiko for most of the journey), splitting up into groups for the optimistically titled Grand Tour (as if the natural history museum had anything spectacular to offer) and listening to Shinonome-sensei reel off a long list of contact numbers "in case you get lost", was even more mind-numbing than he'd anticipated.
He'd endured Yuiko's apparent inability to go more than five minutes without uttering a plaintive but Ritsuka-kun, I don't understand and explained each time what the long words the guide seemed so prone to using meant. He had feigned interest in exhibits that they had all seen when they'd visited the museum the previous year and he had not once complained- though he had admittedly wondered about the possibility of faking a headache and going home early.
In fact, Ritsuka considered he'd conducted a perfect impression of an ordinary, if slightly bored, elementary school student, one with not a care in the world beyond the fact that lunch would not be until 1PM rather than the noon meal they were all used to back at school.
But no, it appeared that once again, Yuiko was more astute than she looked.
"You look sad, Ritsuka-kun... You didn't have an argument with Soubi-san again, did you?"
An argument? No. Well, not unless finally losing his temper when Soubi had taken it into his head to turn up at his window past midnight when he really needed to sleep and his mother had been angry at dinner again because Ritsuka apparently wasn't supposed to like edamame and all he had wanted was not to have to think about the man any more...
Yes. He'd snapped.
"Can't you just leave me be for a single minute of the day? I don't need you to always be hanging around! I can look after myself!"
Or something along those lines, anyway.
"What makes you say that?" Ritsuka had managed in a reasonably calm tone of voice.
"Because you always look so upset when you've fallen out with him! Yuiko doesn't like to see Ritsuka-kun so saaaad!" Yuiko'd wailed and Ritsuka had found that actually, he didn't need to fake a headache- the noise and sheer claustrophobia of the gallery had set his head throbbing like a bad tooth.
He must have looked pretty bad, he thought, because Shinonome-sensei had, after ascertaining that his mother was home, agreed that he could leave early and take the subway back. She'd even pressed enough change for a single ticket on him.
And thus, it was to this end that Ritsuka found himself, ticket in hand, stepping onto the platform into the full-blown hell of midday traingoers. The crowd thinned out the further away from the platform he got, though luckily it was still dense enough for him to remain unnoticed.
Walking along the passageway to the steps up out of the subway and not paying nearly enough attention to where he was going, he accidentally bumped into a man walking the opposite direction, his shoulder colliding with the man's hand. A perfectly ordinary looking man- the middle-aged kind who looked like he might be a bank clerk or maybe a librarian. Definitely someone's uncle, maybe the sort who liked to do magic tricks at birthday parties.
These men were ten-a-penny in the city, which was why Ritsuka, after muttering a quick apology, thought nothing of it and made to move on. Until he realised the man still had a grip on his shoulder.
"Are you lost, little boy? You shouldn't be wandering around here all by yourself... let me help you..." Innocent words, until you took into account the leer on the stranger's face.
Anyone you do not know is a stranger. If a stranger approaches you, you shout. You run. You get away as quickly as you can.
They'd all been taught it in class till they were blue in the face with repeating it and it had seemed idiotically simple back then. Except that it didn't take into account the paralysing fear that came over you when someone older, stronger and most likely faster than you had a bruising hold on your shoulder and you did not know how to move.
"Don't touch me!" He tried for a yell, but all that came out was a pitiful squeak, which had no effect but to widen the smile on the man's face. His gaze flickered to the steps and Ritsuka followed it with his own, panic welling up inside him.
He's going to leave. He's going to leave and take me with him and I won't be able to do anything and they'll find me floating face-down in the river a week later like in all the papers... Please, help, someone, anyone...
"Ritsuka?"
A voice he knew almost as well as his own and certainly didn't deserve to be hearing, given the way he'd last spoken to its owner rang out and Ritsuka's head snapped round, a reflex triggered by the sound, unable to believe that a silent plea could have been heard so quickly. But it was definitely him, there was no mistaking the pale, almost colourless hair, the bandages, the expression of agonised worry.
"S-Soubi?" The recognition was all he needed, the grip was immediately released and all of a sudden the man was simply an ordinary, run-of-the-mill subway frequenter who muttered a cursory apology and shuffled away down the passage.
And even though Ritsuka hated to cry in front of other people, something had to come with the transition from frozen to liquid in Soubi's too-tight embrace (distance closed as easily as a folding fan) and if that something should happen to spill out salty from beneath his eyelids, at least with his face pressed into the familiar tobacco-scented coat the Fighter always wore, it was kept between the two of them.
"I can look after myself, hm? I leave you for one day and you're cornered in the subway by a stranger with designs on these?" The rebuke was accompanied with an affectionate tug on one of the cat ears that twitched lazily atop Ritsuka's head, seemingly unaware that they had been under any threat at all.
"Stupid... irony..."
A/N: This was just a little spur of the moment thing inspired by a similar encounter I had myself today and while mine wasn't half as scary as poor Ritsuka's, I was still pretty freaked out DX As always, review if you liked it, maybe even if you didn't and want to tell me what I should improve on! I have to say, I'm not totally happy with the writing, but it's 2.20AM here and I simply cannot be bothered to rewrite =P