A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, C24 – write a post-canon fic.

building a rocket

'I'm still not sure why you asked me to help you build this,' Kouichi said, trying to connect the smaller cylinders to a larger one. 'Are you sure they go here?'

'You were the one who found the rocket in the digital world,' Junpei pointed out, pouring over the instructions and the diagrams that came with the kit. 'Uhh…' He checked what the other was doing. 'Looks like it. Maybe the smaller cylinders are the wrong way around?'

Kouichi flipped one around and found it clicked neatly into the larger one. 'They were,' he agreed, fitting the other two as well. 'And I don't know anything about rockets.'

'Really?' Junpei didn't sound like he believed him. 'You know Netwon's Laws of Motion, right?'

'Every object moves at a constant speed unless an external force is applied to accelerate or decelerate it?'

Junpei nodded, rolling a few other bits to the other and pointing out where they were meant to fit. Kouichi attempted to fit them. Click, went one wing. Click, went the other. The cone shaped piece kept on falling off until he found the little grooves they were supposed to grip. Then that went click too.

'Do you know the second and third laws as well?'

'Uhh…' Kouichi caught the strips of black rubber the other tossed and stared at them. 'For every action, there's a reaction – which honestly sounds more philosophical than physical to me – ' Junpei laughed. 'And an equation that's…uhh…' Kouichi closed his eyes, as though the answer would be printed under his eyelids. And maybe it was, because he opened them a moment later and said triumphantly: "force equals mass times acceleration!"

'That's the one,' Junpei nodded. 'Though I'm surprised you remembered that.'

'Books,' the other shrugged. 'The only reason I knew them in the first place; we don't do that detailed physics yet.'

Junpei had forgotten that. He'd loved making things so much he'd looked a whole bunch of physics and engineering stuff up. And sometimes he forgot that level of science wasn't taught to fifth-graders. Or sixth-graders for that matter. Basic principles maybe, and Newton's Laws were a basic principle, but knowing them by names… 'It'll seem like baby talk when we finally learn it.'

Kouichi laughed at that. 'Baby talk isn't necessarily understandable,' he pointed out. 'What do I do with these strips?'

'Uhh…' Junpei consulted the guides again. 'They go on the inside.'

'Right.' And Kouichi fiddles around with the cone, trying to get it out, because he'd already sealed off the inside.

'You babysit?' Junpei asked. 'Or have baby cousins or something?'

'Babysit,' Kouichi replied. With a click, the cone came off and rolled off. Luckily, it rolled towards Junpei, so neither of them had to get up. Junpei just gave it a little nudge and it rolled merrily back to Kouichi. 'It's doesn't quite qualify as a job, so the school's okay with it.'

'Not quite the same as working at a supermarket or something like that.' Junpei nodded. 'Those are okay once you're in senior high school though.' He looked as though he wanted to add something to that comment, but thought better of it. 'I'm going to build real rockets one day. And go to space. Our moon.'

'Our moon?' Kouichi repeated, surprised.

'I think it'd be cool to go to space in a rocket you built yourself.' Junpei shrugged. 'Not sure what you'd have to do to make that happen.'

'Build the rocket, I suppose.' Kouichi grinned. 'Maybe they let the builders on as a courtesy kind of thing?'

'Can't hurt to find out,' Junpei agreed. 'It's more of an excuse, you know.'

'What is?' Kouichi asked.

But Junpei asked something else instead. 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'

Kouichi managed to get two of the three strips looking like they were in the right place before replying. 'I'm not too sure,' he confessed. 'I like kids, but I'm not sure about the idea of being a teacher. Goodness knows we've given our teachers more than their fair share of grief and I'm not sure I want to look forward to that.'

Junpei laughed. 'I'll say,' he agreed. 'I think you'd do better as a teacher for special kids than kids in general though. A large class would walk all over you.'

'Gee, thanks,' Kouichi said dryly, finishing with the last strip and clicking the cone into place again. 'Is that because I'm still not convinced with your excuse but came over anyway?'

Junpei shrugged. 'Hey, it's not my fault everyone else is late.'

'And you couldn't wait for them?'

'Well…' Junpei buried himself into the instructions again. 'Too many cooks would've made a mess of this. It's not big enough. Or complicated enough. You just got here first and looked interested.'

'I guess that's true…on both accounts.' Kouichi had never pegged himself as the sort interested in rockets, and maybe he really wasn't, but putting things together with someone was certainly fun. He turned the toy model over in his hands. 'Is there anything else?'

Junpei scanned the floor. They'd made a decently sized mess, but he could see two fin-like pieces still there. 'Those too.' He pointed. 'They go under the main wings.'

Kouichi picked them up and felt along the cylinder for their fittings. 'So why special kids?' he asked curiously.

'You can do this sort of stuff with them.' Junpei gestured. 'Make stuff. Spend more one on one time with them. And you're with them for years so it's less like teaching and more like…' He fished for a word. 'Uhh…nurturing? Though I guess it'd be harder too, with each person being different and having different needs…'

Kouichi nodded thoughtfully. He'd stopped looking for where the fins fit at some point, and he went back to looking and found them easily. Two clicks, and the rocket was finished. 'It is an idea,' he agreed. 'I guess there's a lot of time to think and find out and decide, though.'

'There sure is.' And Junpei grinned and scrunched up the manual just as the door rang. 'That was too perfectly timed.'

But the curtains had been drawn and there was no way Takuya, standing at the door, could have known they'd just finished the rocket…and their little career talk.

In fact, he hadn't known about the rocket at all until he saw it in its fine glory on Junpei's bookshelf. And that was when Tomoki pointed it out, well after he came in to the bedroom and found Kouichi clearing up the scattered bits of paper and other things. Well after the others had arrived too, and Junpei's mother had brown homemade brownies and lemonade for them to snack on.

He'd just assumed Junpei had left some school project on his bedroom floor. And said as much when Junpei explained the rocket after Tomoki had pointed it out.

And no-one minded he hadn't waited for them, and he hadn't thought they would either. Because it really was too small a thing for more than two people to work on.

'Though if you build a bigger rocket, we'll all be there,' Takuya decided.

And Junpei decided to note that down in case he ever did get around to building that life-sized rocket. Because then he'd definitely need six people – and more – and who better to go to first than his friends?