CHAPTER 2

Title: Something Rhetorical

Summary: For truth, for justice, for nightmare free slumber. AU Shinji/Takako

Genre: Humor/General

Rating: T (for language)

00.

Hiroki Sugimura woke up at 2:46:24 am, JST.

He was very much happy to be alive. His dreams were nothing sort of what Shuuya had.

On second thought…what a shame really.

01.

The incessant ticky-tick-tack on her phone was getting on his nerves. Hiroki Sugimura was known to be a patient man—so patient; in fact, his patience could tolerate the slow progress of the line of patient-customers in the optical shop they were currently in BUT NOT THE INCESSANT TICKY-TICK TACK OF TAKAKO CHIGUSA'S PHONE!

"Taka."

No answer.

"Taka."

"Hmm?"

"TAKAKO!"

Takako's eyes narrowed at Hiroki slightly as she flipped her phone shut. "The fuck?"

Hiroki sighed—patience, oh dear God, patience—as he took a deep breath and looked back at his best friend. He shifted on his seat.

"Your phone…it—it's shitting me," he said as he tried to grab it from her grasp.

Takako easily dodged his roaming hand and only blinked mockingly. He hated it when she would do that. It had some sort of a disarming effect. It was only to his chagrin though, that the phone beeped, and there she was again on her massacre of the poor keypad.

He looked instead at the long line of customers to distract him from the noise, and proceeded to gaze on the red scarring mark on the little paper on his hand when he resolved in his mind that the people's line would never be straight. The paper held a fierce 472 and they were just serving the 444th customer, whoever that was, so this would take him long. He also noticed that his paper was not finely cut on the edges, probably due to Takako's abrupt pulling from the machine—which eventually led his thoughts back to the incessant painstaking torture of her fingers on her phone.

Hiroki wondered why he actually felt a little off today, noticing even the slightest stress-bearers; he pondered if Shuuya indeed rubbed his off-ness on him today. He wasn't sure if he was, or he was just troubled by the idea of Shinji and Takako almost-psuedo-dating, or if it was the long line or damn it to hell, if it was the INCESSANT TICKY-TICK TACK OF TAKAKO CHIGUSA'S PHONE!!! Goddamnit.

The martial artist almost snapped when he asked, "Who are you talking to anyway?!"

Takako just had to look at him with the way he aired his question. She merely raised an eyebrow—fingers still magically doing their thing—and was about to reply when Hiroki cut her off.

"Swear, if that person you're talking to is usually called with three letters, with the same first and third letter, and that would be letter M, don't look at me like that," he half-shouted, "…swear, I am—God, I will—"

"You will what my MOM, Hiroki?" Takako grinned.

Hiroki stopped his tirade. He took and deep breath, shifted his head to the side and sighed, "…oh. I thought—oh well, never mind."

"You thought what?" Takako closed her phone shut, attention full on Hiroki.

"Well, I thought," said Hiroki as he raked his hand in his hair, and continuing, "…I thought…"

Hiroki trailed off as a thought crossed his mind. Takako could be totally twisting his mind; after all, there was no way he could affirm if that was her mom…or—

"Give me your phone."

"What, are you paying my bills now?"

"You could be talking to Mim!"

"So?"

As Takako realized her slip, she immediately retorted, "…and by that, I mean, you meant Mimura-the-lanky-tard-who-whored-a-hug-from-me?"

Hiroki failed to recognize her slip, fortunately to Takako, but he went on riding her fake innocence as he responded with, "Yes, that Mimura-the-lanky-tard-who-I-might-add-is-my-friend-that-whored-a-hug-from-you-who-is-my-other-friend-and-also-whored-a-make-out-session-with-you-as-well-in-the-school-parking-lot-except-that-you-are-so-not-paying-him-or-him-paying-you-or-whatever," complete with an uncharacteristic grin.

Takako kept a deadpanned expression that Hiroki almost feared his life. But he had unconsciously brought upon the topic, open for discussion, so he might as well extract some—no, scratch that—THE answer/s before his life would go to the biodegradable segregation scheme of Shiroiwa Junior High.

For justice, truth, and nightmare free slumber, Shuuya, for truth.

Hiroki cleared his throat. He awkwardly asked, "And so while I'm on it, what's up between you and Mim?"

"…Huh?"

His best friend remained stoic, or at least pretended to look like one. Hiroki prodded and challenged her almost- silence. "I take that as a?"

A few moments passed before she answered, "Hiroki, after in here, let's get to an ear doctor okay?" Her voice totally sounded her puppy just died a minute ago.

Hiroki's prodding mood suddenly changed into a concerned one. "Eh?"

Takako did not even bother to look at him away from her phone (not again!) as she replied, "Were you saying something? Because your mouth was moving and you were looking at me but all I heard was blah blah blah." (1)

Hiroki should have known that that was Takako's way of changing a subject she did not particularly feel like talking about, and that eight years of friendship could have at least trained his senses to detect it at a mile range. Unfortunately, he might have missed that course over the eight year training because it just hit him full blast right on the face.

But he was in no mood to give up, either. Eight years of friendship told him too, that she would bend—if he would push her a little too hard (but that sounded wrong). And also, that was a big IF.

"Oh come on, I think I just said, I saw you two sucking face in the school parking lot! There I said it, AGAIN!" Hiroki said, completely disgusted by his statement.

"Wrong. You said make out session earlier."

Hiroki tried not to laugh but failed. "You can stop refuting your point anytime now—you, definitely, were so not listening."

"Exactly the reason why I needed to go see an ear doctor because I believe I misheard."

Oh no, not this again. He whined like a little child, "Takaaaaa…"

"Me sucking face—make out session whatever, you just didn't say that, did you?"

Again, eight years of friendship would tell him that the conversation was or should be over and Takako won the round, like she always had. But the strong code of the martial artist was telling him to fight back—as this was clearly, a mind attack. It could count, for truth, justice and nightmare free slumber, it could.

"I think I just did."

Hiroki was not intending it to sound like he was desperate to know (he was, actually, but there was no way he would admit it). He knew that it probably wasn't even his business; Takako could go out with whoever she liked (conscience says, are you sure?) but…then again, for truth, justice, and nightmare free slumber, he would ask to know, who cared if it sounded desperate or not.

It worked on Takako, even just for a little bit. "What gives?"

Oh, hey Progress, nice meeting you.

"You mean…how sure do I think I am that it was you and Mim? Well," he tapped his nose and pointed at her friend's hair, "…the streaks. I'd recognize the orange color anywhere."

Takako grinned at him and for a while, and Hiroki caught a glimpse of her phone screen.

Sending message to: M—m.

Fucking angle. He immediately looked back at his companion before she would notice where he was looking.

"Hiroki," Takako slowly started, "the fact that we are in an optical shop, about to see an optician, just says that you really need to get your eyes checked."

"Takako," Hiroki replied, "the fact that we are in an optical shop, about to see an optician, just says that I really need to get my eyes checked. Because I was sure it was you, and I was sure it was him, and I sure would like to be proven wrong."

Takako's grin did not falter. "Well, since this line is long, opticians are way too busy, and you are pissing me off gravely, how about I check your eyes for you?"

She fully smiled.

Hiroki looked away, "And what, pop it for good measure? Phone-guy-you're-mysteriously-texting could be Kiriyama, so I'd rather not take my chances."

The cross country runner flipped her phone open again and muttered a satisfied, "Good."

Silence enveloped them but Hiroki had been thinking, Shuuya, for truth, justice and nightmare free slumber, I shall try again…next time.

He was adamantly decisive in his resolve when Takako broke him from his contemplation, "So…just curious, what was the color of the streaks again?"

He was adamantly decisive in his resolve and he got a little sad on the fact that he should probably be a little less decisive. He did not own this round; in fact, this round owned him bad.

"Blue. I saw blue streaks. Clear in the moonlight, y'know? I also need to get my eyesight checked."

Sending message to: M—m.

"Right. Mine's orange. That was surely some other girl you saw Mimura sucking face with."

Hiroki rolled his eyes and unintentionally saw Takako's phone screen. He sighed when he saw that it was clearly an 'I' in between the two M's. That or he really needed to get his eyesight checked.

02.

Far far away, Shuuya Nanahara asked his friend, "So, what's up between you and Takako?"

Said friend named Shinji Mimura looked up at him from his laptop, brief enough to manage a little, "Huh?" before he went back to How I Met Your Mother S03E05, earphones on with Shuuya left to watch the clouds go by.

For truth, justice, and nightmare free slumber…

TBC

A/N: Oh I know people have left and ignored me, but thank you to Myahra for sticking around. And to imjuzakyd, even though you don't review because you get a premiere screening.

Still, proper dedications to my BR once-in-a-while friends jenizaki, SkyLilies and Hickoryflower; even if you guys weren't reading, thank you for every support along the way.

(1) is from a show supposedly, but I don't know what exactly.

ALSO. This is important. I didn't plan to update this sooner but out of boredom, I decided to put this up JUST FOR THE SAKE OF THE A/N. I needed to ramble because nobody else could understand me but you guys lurking around.

The fact of the matter is that, I just started reading the BR novel and wtf is wrong with me, I keep giggling like a school girl whenever Shinji gets a mention. When he finally came formally to the scene of the game (he and Yutaka) and they were voicing about love; OMG I NEARLY WENT TO BLISS because he mentioned that at his age, he only slept with three girls, and I got the impression he did want to know how it was to fall in love. He did say he was envious at Yutaka because he felt that way for Izumi Kanai (it was Fumiyo in the manga though) and you know he was all this--GOD I WISH I COULD JUST FIND THE RIGHT GIRL FOR ME TO FALL FOR LIKE NOW BEFORE I DIE. And he did say he wanted to have a steady girlfriend (albeit he did this a little questioningly to his dead uncle).

And then pages after, he goes on announcing that Takako Chigusa is totally his type.

THERE GOES MY CUE TO DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN AND UPDATE THIS FIC.

I tell you, I tell you, Shinji/Takako is so canon even if it's heavily one-sided. Now we are all left wondering with their potential because both of them died so early. Shinji, man, YOU ARE SO ON THE RIGHT TRACK. *cries*

God, I really love Shinji Mimura. SORRY. Enough of my ramble. Share me some love too. *cries* Review!