Disclaimer: I don't own FLCL. End of story.
"Stop calling him, he isn't coming. He never comes."
Grow up, already!
"Haruko?" I should have known better.
"Haruko?" I shouldn't have expected her to…
"Haruko?" I should not have gotten my hopes up.
But I did.
The bed in which she usually slept is empty, again. She left me, again. And she probably won't come back for weeks on end, again. Mr. Eyebrows is downstairs waiting for me no doubt and I can't find Haruko to back me up, which means I am going to have to face him alone, again. I walked as slowly as I could down the steps because going slow was just my style. I never made a point of doing more than absolutely nothing unless Haruko was around, and since she isn't I saw no point in doing anything.
Mr. Eyebrows looked at me with a weird expression and I snapped at him "What?" I asked, looking away from his odd stare. His oversized eyebrows give me the creeps.
"So where is Haruko-san?" He asked in his weird I-know-something-you-don't voice.
"I'm not her keeper" I snapped "She comes and goes as she pleases" Although I wish she would at least tell me when she decides to disappear. Not that I worry about her or anything I just…might like to know, maybe.
"When is she coming back?" Mr. Eyebrows asked, sniffing a sour roll.
"You're paying for that" I stated. No one was going to buy a roll that he had sniffed.
"Sure kid, whatever you say. Now about Haruko" He was getting on my nerves.
"I don't know" I said, making my way behind the counter so I could half hide from him.
His subordinate, who for all I know could be named Blondie, was watching me from outside the window. "Why do you want to see Haruko?" I asked, looking away from him. I didn't really care.
"I have some business I need her to attend to" He said in a mysterious way.
"What kind of business?" I asked.
"Not the kind that kids should be involved with" He said "How much is this?" He asked, holding up a sweet roll.
"Two fifty" I said. "And I am not a kid." I added, for what seemed like the hundredth time.
"Your still in elementary school, aren't you, kid?" He asked. I scowled again.
"That doesn't make me a kid." I said.
"Because you have relations with Haruko? That makes you a big man in your eyes?" He asked. One of his eyebrows was slipping down below his eye and I was tempted to rip it off and run for it, but without Haruko's Vespa I wouldn't get very far.
"What do you want?" I repeated as I rang up his sweet roll.
"Do you know anything about the whereabouts of Haruko?" He asked. He was annoyingly repetitive, hadn't I just said I didn't know?
"For the last time, no I don't know where she is, when she will be back, what she is doing or why she is doing it. She never tells me anything." I said.
"Because you're a kid?" Mr. Eyebrows asked. I ignored him. He left the shop without saying anything else, which was just as well because his conversations weren't interesting anyway. I didn't want to wonder about Haruko, but I did.
She was just the kind of person you get attached to, no matter how many times she ruins your life, or destroys your town, or in my case, digs around in your brain. I thought about visiting Mamimi but she was just a nuisance, who only called for my brother even though he left her here to fend for herself. I didn't leave her. I stayed here so that I could have my chance to be with her.
And yet every time she calls me Tak-kun I know that I mean nothing to her. My name is Naota damnit! N-A-O-T-A. It will not, nor will it ever be Ta-kun, or any variation of the word or name for that matter. It's Naota and I wish Mamimi would remember that. I headed out to find the only other girl whom I had ever taken any kind of comfort in being with, but I didn't get very far.
"Naota" My father yelled, disrupting my momentary boredom. I turned, even though I didn't want to, to ask what he wanted. "Naota! I am glad I caught you, will you pick me up something at the store?"
"Ask Canti" I snapped. The last thing I wanted was to be forced to run an errand for my father.
"I can't find him" My father rationalized. Of course he couldn't find Canti, because I am sure that he is wherever Haruko is.
"Do it yourself" I snapped again. I didn't hate my father, but I didn't like him either.
"I need to write!" He said. Like that was the truth! He claims to be an 'author' but I have never seen him write anything more than smut. Hardly reputable.
"Wait till' Haruko comes home and ask her, she is the maid after all." I said, then turned and walked away, ignored the yells traveling behind me. I wasn't interested.
I walked, and walked, and walked and ended up at the riverbed where Mamimi usually hung out but I didn't expect her to be there, because of what I told her that day. The day another demon/robot/monster thing came out of my head and practically took Mamimi and I hostage. The day Haruko found her precious pirate lord whose name I never bothered to remember. Stupid space pirates.
Get over it Naota. It doesn't matter anyway.
I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk and landed on my hands causing them to crack and bleed. I wash them off in the river, even though it stings. Maybe I was just a kid, but what am I expected to be? My dad is an idiot, hardly good parenting, my grandfather is a horn dog, I live with a robot and an alien and am in love with my brother's girlfriend AND I just might be in love with the alien as well.
So if I am a kid now, what am I going to be, should I ever bother to grow up? Probably a loser like my dad. Or in some kind of insane asylum for saying that I know an alien. Or even worse, working with Mr. Eyebrows on some kind of save the town, capture the alien mission from hell.
Or maybe I could just die early and save myself some grief?
I heard the tires screech before the sound of my name, my real name, being called once again "Hey Naota!" Couldn't they just leave me alone for a while? I almost missed the boredom…almost.
"What" I asked, not bothering to turn around.
"What are you doing, dude?" Gaku and Masashi climbed out of the truck and came down the riverbank to bother me. Ninamori, a girl about my age, stood in the bed of the truck scowling at me as usual.
"What does it look like" I asked. What was I doing? As if it wasn't obvious…nothing…that is what I'm doing. That is what I am, or was always doing, before Haruko. Not that I would trade her presence for the boredom that used to haunt me.
I looked at Ninamori for a moment.
"Hey, Naota we were just about to go to the movies, are you waiting for your high school wife?" Gaku asked, pushing his glasses up the rim of his nose.
"She isn't my wife" I said. Why would I want to go to the movies with them, as any normal elementary school boy would? No, I have to sit and worry about the two girls that plague my life…because I am an idiot.
An idiot who is in love with an alien, and a high scholar. Even better? An alien who is in love with a robot and a high scholar who is in love with my brother. This has got to be some kind of crime.
"Well she sure acts like it" Gaku said, pointing to the mark on my neck left by Mamimi. I felt the inner dimensional pull at the back of my mind and internally groaned. That was all I needed, another freaking inanimate object bursting from my skull! Perfect…
"So are you in?" Masashi asked. I shook my head as an answer.
"Nah, I have to run an errand for my dad" I lied. I didn't mind lying to them because honestly…I just didn't care.
"Cant it wait?" Gaku whined.
"I think its urgent, see you guys later. Have fun without me" I said before standing up and walking off. I took one last glance at Ninamori, whom I really wanted to talk to, before heading back to my house.
I didn't expect anyone to be home, but Mr. Eyebrows stood outside my door again. I think my eye twitched from iritance, or I could have just gotten some dirt stuck, either way he stood there staring at the vending machine as if it held the answer he was looking for.
"What do you want?" I asked. This guy was really getting annoying.
"I need to speak with Haruko immediately." He said. I felt the pull again, harder this time, but I managed to ignore it.
"She isn't home" I almost whined. I was growing tired of this conversation.
"Fine then will you do me a favor and give this to her for me?" He asked, holding out an envelope.
I reached forward and snatched it away, jamming it into my hoodie pocket. "Whatever." I said, opening the door and then slamming it back shut. Mr. Eyebrow and his off colored cohort drove away.
I sat in my empty room for as long as I could stand before getting up. I needed to go somewhere to get Mamimi and Haruko off my mind. I shouldn't even be thinking about them in the first place. I mean, I am just a kid after all.
I'm a kid who desperately needs to grow up. A kid who ironically doesn't know how to grow up. I touched the envelope in my pocket and contemplated opening it, but instead I headed out again, towards nowhere.
I felt the pull for the third time and this time something immerged. Something small and concealable, but I knew not to get too excited. It would turn into something insane and dangerous soon and without Haruko or Canti I have no way to handle it.
I pulled my hood tight around my face and tripped again.
"You should watch where you're walking, chief" I knew the voice, but what could I say.
"I was watching" I answered. The last thing I needed was for Mamimi to be around when this thing came busting out of my head, again. Last time she kept calling for my brother, like he was going to fly on a white horse from New York to rescue her. What a joke.
"Not very well" She said. I could tell she was pouting like she usually does. Today though, it was a little annoying.
"Just leave me alone" I said, standing up and walking away from her. I didn't need someone who didn't need me. I stopped. "Stop calling him, he isn't coming. He never comes." I added, before leaving her.
I kept walking, kept heading towards nowhere. What else could I do? I couldn't leave, and even if I could I wouldn't have the courage to cross the border. So what were my options? I reached back and poked at the thing sticking out of my absence-of-a-brain. Just come out already…I poked it harder.
I watched a man pass by. He was just a man, an insignificant, random man. But what was it that made him a man? Was it his age? Was it his mustache, because I was fairly certain I couldn't grow one of those. And what about being a man was so great? Having your life dictated by schedules and loud, annoying bosses? Having no free will and losing your creativity? Well if that was the case, then I suppose I already am a man. And if that is the case, then I should be able to open the envelope Mr. Eyebrows gave me to give to Haruko that involved 'grown up business.' Yeah…I could handle it.
Or so I thought.
It was a trigger.
Three simple words burned into a piece of paper; three words, eight letters of something I really wished I hadn't read. The horn began pushing out rapidly now, triggered by my quickened heartbeat and confused emotions. I yelled, like I always did, as an unrecognizable something or other popped out of my head, as always. It stood, whatever 'it' was and began rampaging through the town.
I couldn't help but smile because, try as I might, I was addicted to this.
I took off after the giant heap of moving steal and metal which was getting some kind of thrill out of demolishing the buildings that were nearly twenty feet shorter than it. I didn't really know what to do without a Vespa, a guitar or a pink haired girl around to coach me, but today I supposed I could manage winging it.
I wasn't fast, or strong, or smart, but if there was one thing I knew, it was giant robots that came from a space rift in my mind. I bike napped a bicycle in front of a coffee shop and peddled as quickly as I could manage (pathetically falling far behind the robot) before Gaku and Ninamori caught up to me in the truck.
"Hey Naota! Off to save the world again?" Ninamori asked. I skidded to a stop and transferred vehicles, not bothering to care that I was breaking the law by leaving the stolen bike in the middle of the street.
"Hurry up" I ordered as I squished in beside Gaku and Ninamori and the small beat up delivery truck sped through the streets (at a pathetically slow rate) but the robot was moving slowly as well, so we were able to catch up.
"What's the plan?" Gaku yelled over the roar of the scraping metal-on-concrete that the robot was making.
"I'm winging it today" I said, swinging the door open and grabbing onto a piece of the robot, and began climbing up. I hoped Haruko would show up to help me like she always does. I climbed as far as an elementary school boy with no special powers could possibly climb before having to stop and catch my breath.
Maybe a plan would have been smarter?
The slip of burnt paper that triggered the madness fell from my pocket and fluttered carelessly towards the ground. I climbed higher and higher until I was near the neck of the creature. I lost my footing once, and dangled before catching myself. What had I gotten myself into? And then there was Mamimi, reckless as usual, standing in front of the monster as if her presence alone was enough to stop it.
I couldn't let it kill her, and I needed a weapon but…I had never tried digging something out of my own brain before. "Get out of the way Mamimi!" I yelled. I knew she wouldn't hear me, but it made me feel better knowing that I tried.
The monster took the final step, ready to crush Mamimi, and Gaku pulled a hero move. He sped the truck up until the frame was shaking, and in a move that would have done the 'Live free' series justice, grabbed Mamimi while still driving and sped off down an alleyway. He probably crashed into a trashcan, but I didn't have time to check. A move like that was just too cool to be real.
The monster kept moving, but by this point Mr. Eyebrows men were involved, which if possible, were only making things worse. Did they really think that a rocket launcher was going to stop this thing? No. The only thing that could stop a rampaging monster in this town was me, a robot named Canti, and an alien named Haruko.
But I was the only one available at the moment, so the town was just going to have to suck it up.
I held on with one hand as tightly as I could while trying to dig around with the other. I should have known that it wouldn't be easy, but I kept trying. It hurt, and I don't think I did much more than bruise my scalp. "CANTI!" I tried, figuring that Haruko and he were probably light-years away.
But I was wrong, thank whatever higher powers might have existed.
He came from the heavens, as usual, making a grandly overdramatic entrance and flying beside me. I didn't need theatrics; I needed to take this thing out. He swallowed me as he usually did and the rest of the battle was lost to me, all I was aware of was the sound of his bullets until he spit me out as usual and I emerged, covered in gooey robot innards.
The remnants of the robot littered the town, but I didn't care.
"You look disgusting" Ninamori said, as Gaku pulled up beside me in his half wrecked truck.
"Shut up" I said, wiping the goo off. Something told me that no grown up could have pulled that off, so what was so great about being grown up anyway?
I walked home instead of riding with Gaku and Ninamori, and their new addition Mamimi (whom I am sure they got rid of at the first convenient moment.) I stepped on the burnt paper on purpose as I passed and wondered if Haruko had planted that note in the envelope to destroy my life, or at least to make it a little weirder, anyway.
When I finally arrived home it was dark, mostly because I dragged my feet the whole time. The only light shone from my room, and I soon found myself running towards the source, hopeful, again.
"Haruko?" I should have known better.
"Haruko?" I shouldn't have expected her to…
"Haruko?" I should not have gotten my hopes up.
But this time, she sat on my computer chair and stared at me.
She smiled her cat like smile "What did you do today TAAAAAAKKUUUUNNNNN" She whined, swirling around and around like the idiot she was.
I smiled in response, a little out of breath. "Nothing out of the ordinary" I answered.
I just learned that growing up sucks, but she didn't need to know that.
A/N – Mitsuki here and this is my first FLCL fiction. I would love to know if this, in the eyes of the reader, was a success or fail so please read and review and remember, NO FLAMES. These are character drabbles featuring each and every one of the lovely characters from FLCL, the next feature will be; Chapter two: Off key Haruko
As a side note Naota calls Amarao Mr. Eyebrows simply because he is hyper aware of his god awful eyebrows…and because I thought it was funny. So worry not, good citizens! I do in fact know the names of all these lovely characters, but the nicknames give dear Naota a little more depth. Don't you agree?