The Textbook Without Number Said Something
The second opening made me mistook Yoshio as Jack Frost falling from the blue sky to the blue ocean letting go of his dark hoodie. This is not exactly a crossover. It's still in Trickster Universe. It just happens that there is another immortal whose ability is to control ice and ride the wind. If the story's scene is inconsistent with the anime, know that I paused after Hanasaki threw the pill away. I don't want to continue and get some more screen time of the others that would ruin my mood to write this.
Then this peculiar child was born out of my peculiar brain. If you would leave a memento of your visit in the form of a review, this humble author would be very happy.
Disclaimer: TRICKSTER Edogawa Ranpo is produced by TMS Entertainment and Shin-Ei Animation. Rise of the Guardians is created by William Joyce and was the final DreamWorks Animation film to be distributed by Paramount Pictures.
Warnings/Tags: Callous attitude around the subject of life. Immortality. Yoshiken/Kohana if you squint (even though I do not ship them).
Summary: "I need you to trust me." "That's like asking me to jump off a cliff." They were hovering around Kobayashi who had bodily thrown himself in front of a gunshot to Hanasaki when Jack Frost visited.
. o . 0 . o .
Antiseptics, pine or tea tree oil would do well. IV supplies, for both the transfusion and to keep Kobayashi hydrated and supply his meds straight to the bloodstream. Anesthetic that is strong enough to knock him out for when they have to dig out the bullet.
That's what Inoue would order around if they could even perform the surgery. They couldn't even touch the kid let alone that.
You're pathetic. Kobayashi's words had been popping up in his head for weeks now, but the thought was particularly loud at the moment. Watching Hanasaki keeping the thirty centimeter distance to pour water at the wound was pathetic.
He should be pulling the clothes off and examine the wound, not sit around like some bystander. But he had to force himself to wait for a heavily injured person to either die or recover because Kobayashi happens to have some kind of wacky, mystical, supernatural forcefield that doesn't let anything touch him if Kobayashi wasn't the one to touch them.
"It's a pill. Come on. Kobayashi! Give me your hand. Take it and drink it yourself. Kobayashi! Kobayashi!"
Kobayashi was clearly lucid now, eyeing them with his trademark look that conveys his boredom to the world. Like he wasn't throwing them out of another loop.
Does he or does he not want to die?
Detective?
A way to die.
Except, he still stayed.
Hanasaki Kensuke?
A complete idiot.
Except, he threw himself in front of a bullet to protect him.
(or maybe he just wanted to be the one to get the bullet to die)
Life?
Don't need it.
Except, he pulled a genius move to drape himself over the curtain so they can carry him without touching him after he just got shot.
"Please! Please! Kobayashi!"
"Kobacchiiiiiiiiii—"
But now, he doesn't make any move to take the pill from Hanasaki's hands. He just eyes him like the brunet was being a pig, albeit in a tired way.
"—iiiiiiiii—"
Akechi took another long drag. "Troublesome."
Hanasaki glared at Akechi, like he was tempted to throw a fastball at his nose, before turning it over to the albino. "Kobayashi, you don't want to keep hurting, don't you? Please, just take the pill."
Akechi sighed. "If you think you're being a man by gritting through the pain—"
"I. Can't u-use that," Kobayashi spoke up for the first time since the incident, cutting the man off.
"Er, is your barrier not allowing you to—"
"Moron. No. I…" Kobayashi sighed tiredly. "Can't 'cause I don't… know how." Kobayashi eyed the orange plastic. "Nev-ver… exactly need—" he let out a weak cough, "—needed meds."
"Oh!" Noro exclaimed. "Well, you just swallow it!"
"And best not to chew it," Inoue said.
Hanasaki smiled and offered the pill again. Kobayashi seemed to sneer at it.
"What is it now?" Akechi prompted.
"Tsk," the albino glowered. All of them privately admitted that the look would have been menacing if it wasn't attached to a baby face. He murmured a string of words that came out too soft.
"Can you repeat that?"
"That building was thirty floors tall," the non-sequiter was a little bit confusing, and Kobayashi continued. "Can't believe you… actually hauled me," Kobayashi's face scrunched up in pain. Hanasaki glanced at the wound and saw that the blood was staining the floor now. He inched the pill closer to his friend. "All the way down. H-here."
"It was hard," was all Inoue said.
"Of course we did!" Noro sounded like she was grinning and Pippo hooted.
Akechi shrugged. "Eh."
"What'd you expect?" Hanasaki grinned widely.
The albino deadpanned at him, and not a second later the brunet blushed. That had been a rather stupid question, considering everything till now.
Taking pity on him, Inoue spoke up, "You were the one with the quick thinking, ripping off that curtain."
"Hmm. If that's your first reaction when getting shot, seems to me all those wishes to die are a fake."
"I wasn't lying!" Kobayashi coughed again. "I d-do… still…" his left eye slid shut at the oncoming headache. If he was going to say something like 'you should have left me there' Inoue was going to throw something at him. Hauling his ass in a wheelchair downstairs was not an experience Inoue wanted to repeat. "Want—"
"Oi, Kobayashi," Hanasaki pouted angrily at him. "Would you stop saying that? For now?"
A raised eyebrow showed that the boy wasn't impressed. The way Kobayashi controls his facial expression often impressed Hanasaki. The few times they went out in the heat, or rain, or when it was especially windy so dust and leaves blew everywhere, Kobayashi's expressions never changed involuntarily. Hanasaki can only guess that Kobayashi is also immune to weather.
"You're offended now?"
"Don't run away," Hanasaki blurted out.
The words were confusing and made him thinking. Thinking gave him a headache. Wait. He already has a headache. Tsk. "What?"
"You always do that. Running away."
"I'm not the," he exhaled. "One with an emotional problem."
"I'm not referring to problems. I'm saying you always run away at good things."
"Hah?"
This time Akechi was the one who answered. "Like you'd rather cut your losses now before you lose them later."
A stomachache. A gunshot wound. A worse headache. Worst of all, he was hungry and so tired. He should be pissed at them. "Ingrates." He failed to muster up much anger.
"Just… I'll never tell you to run away…" Hanasaki said, "but isn't it okay to take a break?"
Delighted, bored, pissed, tired – Kobayashi's red eyes were still shining unnaturally. But they were suspiciously shinier at the moment. Kobayashi tried to say something, but it came out unintelligible and his eyelids slid shut.
"Hanacchin! You're too close to Kobacchin!"
Hanasaki jerked away at Noro's warning. They hadn't realized he had broken the thirty centimeter rule. His face had been way too close to Kobayashi's. Shouldn't the barrier had…
Gulping, he gingerly moved his hand forward. No wind gathered in a volatile manner. No familiar blast met his finger to repel him away. His fingers touched a cheek covered with skin so soft and unblemished it shouldn't be possible.
Noro gasped loudly and so did the others. They could pull the bullet out. It had lodged inside the albino's stomach for way too long anyway – three hours. Hanasaki fished the pill out of its plastic and accepted the glass of water from Inoue. The boy touched Kobayashi's arm just in case and was thrilled that the barrier was finally down. He tilted Kobayashi's chin and opened the mouth to—
The pill met a thin mirror of ice, forming out of thin air above Kobayashi's lips.
"Hn. I can't let you humans do that~"
All were then startled when the voice came from above. A person was hanging onto the hanging aquarium above with nothing but a crooked stick. Someone with the same shock-white hair like Kobayashi.
"Eeeh, how did you get up there?" Noro questioned. Her owl left its perch on the table and circled the newcomer. "Who are you?"
The boy smiled at the owl and took one look at everyone's guarded expressions. Then he detached the crooked end of the stick from the wire.
Except, well, he didn't fall. He floated.
"Woooooah, you can fly?!" Noro oohed. "That is so cool!"
The adult in the room groaned. "Am I correct in guessing you're like him?" He nodded to Kobayashi, who doesn't seem to be waking up for another while.
Inoue privately hoped that this one wasn't going to be as much as a pain in the ass as Kobayashi was. Another… superpowered human, seriously?
The new teenager then glanced at Inoue's direction and as if he read his mind, the boy answered, "Yes, there are more of us, but you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that."
With a frown, Inoue assessed him in irritation. He didn't read his mind, did he?
"Nope. You just happened to be easy to read and that's usually what humans want to know when they found that there are more than one creature with supernatural abilities."
"Not that we don't appreciate the answers," Akechi said, "but why are you here? Mister…"
The boy smiled mischievously and tapped his stick (magic staff?) on the floor. Inoue tried not to gawk when the boy's feet looked like it was being carried by the wind and the boy was floating horizontally in front of them, arms crossed on the crooked staff. "Please call me Jack Frost."
An English name. That would explain the lilting accent in the boy's Japanese. But… "Jack Frost… like in the western children myths?"
Jack grinned sweetly. "I happen to be very good friends with Yuki-onna. The few days in decades when she's actually sane enough for a conversation, anyway."
Ghostly lady leaving frost-coated corpses is real.
"Aww, that's nice of you!" Jack chirped. Oh, he had spoken that aloud. "Some people think she's a granny."
"Frost-san?" Hanasaki spoke up. His body was still facing Kobayashi.
"Don't use honorifics on my name, please."
"What do you mean you won't let us do… what?" Hanasaki asked. "Your ice is getting in my way."
That reminds me, Inoue thought. "And you called us humans," he remarked. They had been under the assumption that Kobayashi's human. Just with some freakish power that prevented him from dying. "You're… not?"
"No."
"Frost-sa—Frost. Um. Does that mean Kobacchin's not human too? But he breathes and eats like a pig!"
"I'm not. Yoshio is still one. Sort of, anyway. Not for long, though." Jack finished with a chuckle.
"Sort of?" Not for long? Akechi took another look at Kobayashi.
"Wanna know something about the 'barrier'?" He whispered teasingly like it's a secret, and giggled to himself, like keeping secrets that will be revealed within the next five minutes is somehow naughty. "It's an egg shell."
"What?" Hanasaki asked.
"Like a yolk slowly morphing into a baby bird," Jack beamed. "Except he has to die in the egg to turn into a 'baby bird'."
"And what exactly are you?" Inoue questioned.
Jack tilted his head. "Dunno. Immortal? Spirit? Who cares? I've been here since the 1700s and I'm bored. So I picked Yoshio to be my playmate."
"So you're the one who made Kobayashi like this?" Inoue accused sharply.
"Hey, don't get mad at me when you know nothing at all."
Hanasaki whirled to round at Jack. "Kobayashi can't die now! He still wants to live!"
"What do you know? What do you care anyway?" Jack clicked his tongue. "Hanasaki Kensuke. Total moron. So busy with himself. Disregards other's feelings. Makes empty promises."
The brunet flinched. His distress made the others agitated. "There's more of you right? Why should you pick Kobayashi?"
Jack snorted. "The others," he drolled, "are very, very old immortals who doesn't know how to have fun. Despite having all the time in the world, they work work work and no play play play. I wasn't born like this, you know? I was like Yoshio too. The one who turned me was an immortal who calls himself Man in the Moon. He made a group of immortals who envision themselves as guardians of childhood."
Jack continued his rant, this time flying around the room like he was swimming with lazy elementary backstroke, except with preoccupied arms. "Santa Claus, you know? Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny. They're real. The jolly and wonderous part is not though. Whatever ambitions they had to bring happiness back in the Dark Ages are nothing but duty and tradition now. So dedicated to their self-appointed jobs, they don't really interact with children."
"And you do? You're not really proving to us that you're any better than them. If they're even real."
"He's miserable now, but when he finally dies, he won't be anymore. He wasn't lying when he says he wants to die."
"But part of him also wants to live," Hanasaki spoke up with a no-nonsense tone that leaves no argument. "You… you're like him too. You're lonely too. But I won't let you just take Kobayashi for yourself. Not like this. Kobayashi has us. I know I don't know much, but we all know Kobayashi still wants to live."
Something stirred behind them. The clashing sound was familiar to them and they turned around to see Kobayashi's barrier semi-transparent. A squelching sound was heard, and something poked out of Kobayashi's bloody shirt. It was the bullet, sliding off the stomach and falling off the table onto the floor.
As if in agreement to Hanasaki's statement.
They turned around to see that Jack's eyes have narrowed in distaste, losing whatever innocent air he had had before. His sapphire eyes shone eerily.
Jack clicked his tongue. "Suppose he's right," Jack said to Hanasaki, "you are a pain the ass."
Kobayashi drew their attention with a soft grunt. He looked at them, then at Jack specifically with bleary eyes. "Not… ready. I g-guess."
Jack kept their eye contact for a moment before sighing. He shrugged, and said, "It's fine." The windows slammed open suddenly, startling them. The wind blew in almost violently. "I have all the time in the world anyway." And then the immortal took off.
"You know him, Kobacchin?" Pippo cocked its head. "He seems mean."
The albino hummed. "Jack's decent. Just." He paused. "Not helpful."
"Well, I'm just glad you're okay now! You'll be fine, right?" Hanasaki asked in worry. "'Cause we can't touch you anymore. Your barrier's recovered."
"Tsk. I'm glad you can't. You do weird things to bedridden people." Kobayashi huffed. "If you still could, I would have risked a sponge-bath."
"Aww, Kobayashi!"
Kobayashi smiled, pulling it from somewhere out of his depth.
.
.
.
.
Yoshio didn't acknowledge the soft sound of wooden staff tapping the roof. The legs dangling from above made shadows from the moonlight onto Yoshio's "bed". They sat in silence, enjoying the nothingness.
"You still miss him?"
"…" Jack kept quiet for five more minutes. "I regret not making Jamie an immortal."