Kanji was beginning to find the daily patrol of the laboratory a big waste of his time. It was easy, simply ticking off a checklist that Fuuka handed to him every morning about what was actually around, but the fact was with only one scientist working here nothing was ever really out of place. There might be some food wrappers out from the night before, but Fuuka always popped up and insisted on clearing up her own mess, all the while apologising profusely. Kanji liked manners, not formalities, but the simple decency of being nice to other people. She took it to a whole new level.
Today for instance. He had walked in the facility, still excited by the simple thrill of having to press a security panel to open the door, and spotted his supervisor leant back in her chair. Snoring. He walked over to her, quietly, keeping his distance. He squinted as he got near her, arms by her side, head lolled in a position that must have been uncomfortable. If he knew her better, he might have nudged her a little, so she wouldn't wake up with a crick in her neck, though, waking her up would just be far too awkward. He smirked when he saw a little bit of drool roll off her chin. Shit, she's really out of it, he noticed, kind of wishing he was having a nice snooze himself. Still, he had a job to do.
He tiptoed to her desk and made his way around her, looking for the drawer he was sure she pulled his inventory form out of last time. Picking one essentially at random, he was disappointed to find documents with far too many words to remotely interesting, and that weird gun again. He had looked up the show she said it was for, having nothing much to do while Chie and Labrys had their sleepover, (Which I am still pissed for not being invited to by the way, he thought sourly), and finding nothing, which was a little odd, since it was the internet, but he knew some things did fall through the cracks.
He closed the drawer and went for the one below, surprised when he was greeted by yet another one of those guns. Thought it was the exact same design as the other, it was scuffed in more than a few places, yet was still infinitely more polished than its brother. More curiously, the Kirijo group logo, which now he thought about it, would be weird to find on cosplay accessory, was replaced by another, for something called 'S.E.E.S.'. Man, her stuff makes no sense, Kanji thought dismissively, pushing the drawer shut and going for the one below it.
He hit his jackpot, and pulled out one of the inventory forms. Creeping away from Fuuka, he started his work as usual, moving clockwise around the lab, mindlessly checking that all the weird little things were in the right places, there was the right amount of them, and so on. Half an hour in, he had been nicely dulled into doing the task on autopilot, before a groaning from the middle of the room turned his attention elsewhere.
"Urnnn…?" She sounded completely adorable, and looked it too, shielding her eyes from the harsh white light of the basement, and stretching with a wide yawn. "What time is it?" She wondered groggily. "I was only reading those reports for a short while… Let's see," she hummed, "I was just looking into the incident in Kyoto when I rested my eyes for a moment and-" Her eyes spotted Kanji, leaning on the table, glancing towards her, and she squealed. "Ah!"
She jerked up from her seat, gripping the armrests, promptly coming back down clutching her chest, panting. "Uh… Good morning?" Kanji offered, scratching the back of his head.
"Good," she gulped, "Morning, Tatsumi-san." As if something else had poked out to scare her, she jumped out of her seat and bowed low, speaking with a rapid tongue. "I am so sorry Tatsumi-san I am your superior and should be setting an example- not that I'm actually superior I mean of course I wouldn't imply that but what I am trying to insinuate-"
She was talking so quickly Kanji didn't know where he could jump in to turn the damn thing off. She managed to babble on for a couple minutes before she noticed the security guard's outstretched palm. "S'okay. At my last job Ma always found me face first in whatever project I spent the night on. Same in school. And the food court now I think about it…"
Fuuka managed to smile a little, regaining her usual posture. "Still, I apologise… The light down here isn't conducive to a natural sleep schedule…" She explained, shifting awkwardly.
"I bet, could get a tan down here…" Kanji joked, easing the woman away from making yet another long winded apology. "You must really like your job if you pull an all-nighter for it."
Fukka laughed, which morphed into a slow sigh as she sat back down. "Usually I do, but my job kind of requires… Other things, to happen, before I can really be useful. So at times like now all I can do is look over what's happened before, so we're ready for next time…"
"Next time," Kanji repeated inquisitively, as Fuuka winced at her slip, "Time for what?"
"Oh, er, just business stuff mostly," she shrugged. She had realised that a vague blanket cover all statement would probably be more effective than being forced to make up random lies on the spot to explain the stranger aspects of the Kirijo group to its' two newcomers. "Stuff that's much to boring to really explain."
Kanji wouldn't let the matter lie however. "Well, I got time down here," he said, waving the inventory form, "I know I ain't that sharp, but…"
Darn, Fuuka cursed. Lying is so much harder than I thought… "What I mean is, Tatsumi-san, completely irrelevant to your, I am confident, more than sufficient mental faculties," she added timidly, "I, um, find the subject boring. So why don't we talk about something else?" She had to restrain herself from punching the air. Good job Fuuka!
Being shut down so completely was a little surprising, but he definitely had one thing to talk about. "Whatever. First off though? I ain't 'Tatsumi-san', I'm Kanji."
As he thumbed to himself, Fuuka smiled a little, and nodded. "Okay, and so it's fair, I'm Fuuka. Please don't call me Fuuka-san, even if I am your supervisor…" She shivered. "It makes me feel… Old."
A sentence like that begged for an actual figure, but if one lesson Mrs. Tatsumi had forced on her son stuck, it was that women and their age made for a volatile topic. "Sure. Still find it weird I'm eighteen…" He folded his arms. "I mean, I ain't nowhere near bein' an adult yet, but law says I gotta be one in a couple years..."
"I'm sure you'll find your way," Fuuka said approvingly, "Though if I'm being honest, twenty just passed me by. I guess I must have been working…"
Man, do you do anything but work? Kanji thought. He then remembered Chie's advice by the beach. "It's just I was still at school like, three months ago," He segued in lumbering fashion, "and now I'm here… What was your high school like Fuuka?"
"Oh! Um…" A reoccuring problem she had with her time at Gekkoukan high was that there was only a very small pool of people she could actually discuss it with freely. "It was… Very modern. Right in the middle of Tatsumi Port Island, and it was actually owned by the Kirijo group so its funding was always more than adequate."
"Ours was crap," Kanji replied candidly, "Was just a big buildin' right in the middle of farmland. Whole think looked like it came out of the budget catalogue. Prolly did too, no one gives a shit about the countryside."
"Hmm," Fuuka pondered, tapping her chin, "I never really considered the advantages I had of going to a privately owned school…" She thought for a few moments. "Perhaps the government should be focussing on reaching a similar standard?"
"Yeah, or you guys could just make crappier schools so we don't look as bad," Kanji replied, smiling.
While it was an obvious joke, Fuuka moved back in her chair in horror. "That would be awful! Education is really important, it's what makes us, well, people."
To say the security was unconvinced by that would be an understatement. "Nah, it was always the stuff outside'a class that made me."
"But your qualifications!" The scientist insisted. "The lessons you learnt!" S.E.E.S was technically a school club, she pondered, would that count? She nodded firmly. "If I didn't go to my Gekkoukan, I wouldn't be where I am today."
"Ain't that just from knowing Mitsuru-san from there though?" He subsequently clamped a large hand over his mouth, realising how tactless he'd sounded. "Shit- I mean, 'course you're talented and know stuff, but isn't it always, like, knowing people which is- Fuck."
Fuuka wasn't accustomed to seeing someone else get flustered, and giggled, which only made boy's face redder. "Hehe, it's okay," she reassured, with a wide grin on her face, "it's kind of true. Our relationship puts me in a unique place for this position."
She had confused him again. "Uh," he droned, squinting slightly, "like how?"
"Business stuff."
"Oh, okay." Her expression was stern in a frightening way, and he quickly changed topics. "So, uh, what was Mitsuru like when she was younger? Chie said I should get dirt on the boss or summit."
The researcher rolled her eyes. "You won't find any. She was a model student, even more so than me, and I never stepped out of line!"
"You're telling me she was a bit stuffy then?"
"Not at all!" Fuuka objected. "She was just a lot more involved, and it wasn't just because her family owned the school! She was the student council president and another club I was part of, as well as always getting the best grades. You know she can speak fluent English, and even French?"
Kanji just scowled. "Don't talk to me about languages. Almost didn't graduate 'cus of 'em." He could clearly see there were no juicy secrets- Mitsuru seemed to be as dominant in everything during high school to the same degree she was now. "So much else go on there?"
"Oh lots-" Which I can't talk about, she thought blankly. "Um, Akihiko was one of my friends, and he was the captain of the boxing team. He was obsessed with getting stronger and winning everything. This one time, he and Junpei-kun decided to have a beef bowl contest, Junpei barely managed one, but Sanada-senpai went through three!"
"Dude sounds like Chie's dream man," Kanji quipped. "What else?"
"Another time, Junpei-kun was getting on Yukari-chan's nerves, and because she does archery, she bet him she could shoot an apple off of his head! Minato-kun," she paused for a second, eyes glazing over as she said his name. "Sorry. So Minato-kun sort of bullied him into it, and the arrow just missed Junpei's face. We're still not completely sure if she wanted to miss the apple…"
Her offhanded retelling of a story where a man almost got an arrow through his forehead left Kanji wide-eyed. "Jeez. Worst that could happen in Inaba was Chie kickin' ya in the nuts. Or any of the girl's cooking…"
"Shinjiro-san could cook," she said, eyes glazing over once again, "One time I walked into our dorm, and he was totally watching a cooking programme but pretending to be asleep, I'm sure of it! He never really let us try anything though…"
Kanji tilted his head in concern. "You okay? Ya kinda zoned out a couple times there."
Fuuka tried to nod, but her smile was sorrowful. "Sorry. Shinjiro-san and Minato-kun were really good people. They were important to us, and…"
She looked straight to the floor, looking so small that Kanji's heart cracked right along the middle. "Shit, sorry, I shouldn't have said anythin'…"
"No." She said firmly, her strength seemingly coming from nowhere. "It happened years ago, I should be moving forward, it would be what they wanted." She grabbed her upper arm shyly. "They both died in my first year. I'd only really known them for a few months, but it still…"
Of course, Kanji was stumped. He'd had his own share of tragedy in the past, whether it was fair or otherwise, but even with the battles he'd faced during the Inaba murders, the death of his friends was a possibility only perilously close, and it was a mercy that the threats were never followed through. "Must've been tough," he said carefully.
Fuuka sighed. "One day they were there, the next..." She shook her head. "The funny thing is we're all like this, every time we think of them. I mean, Akihiko and Yukari-senpai were always much stronger than me, I would have thought they would..." She bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. "Even Mitsuru-san..."
"If people are special to ya it's hard to let 'em go," Kanji murmured. Only realising after a few seconds that he'd actually said anything, and had actually gotten listened to, he continued. "Sounds completely normal t' me. Shit takes time, an' a lot at that."
"You're right," she inhaled, breathing out slowly. "Thank you." She looked back up to him. "So, were there any eventful occurrences during your high school education?"
"There was a cross dressing pageant-" He stopped himself before he could run his mouth any further about that shitshow. "Not really! Er, as I said, I think it's the stuff outside of there that counts. Hell, I ditched a lot in my first year…"
Upon hearing this, the woman's jaw dropped. "You ditched?!"
"Uh, yeah?"
"But how?" Fuuka spluttered. "Surely your parents would have known? The teachers too, and then they would have send the truancy officer…"
"Wait a sec," he stopped her, waving a hand, "They were supposed to care?" He slapped his forehead. "Now I'm offended they didn't put the effort in…"
"Surely your parents would have punished you," she said incredulously, "School is important."
Spoken like a real nerd, Kanji thought wryly. "Actually no," he said, "Not really sure why now I think about it... She gave me free rein all over really, 'cept when it came to the shop."
"Your family ran a business?" Fuuka said. "That's impressive."
"Yeah, Tatsumi Textiles. Only one of 'em town, got a fair bit of business." Business I made, he thought dismally. Biting his tongue, and annoyed that actually saying it still took a lot of effort, he made his confession. "I… actually made some of the stock."
Fuuka's eyes practically budged out of their sockets. "Really? Wow, you have to teach me!" Fuuka exclaimed, "I have all the equipment and material already and I've been wanting to learn embroidery and knitting for so long but everything begins to fray or I try something to hard or I prick my finger and oh can you please?"
Kanji felt two emotions, first off a little bit of fear, overwhelmed by his supervisor's extreme enthusiasm, and second being an intense relief, that this wouldn't be yet another girl making him feel like he was strange or completely ashamed of his unconventional hobby. "Uh, Great! Actually I forgot to bring my stuff so I'm a little out of practice." He let his mind run away with him. "Shit, I can make that doll for Chie, wait I can spruce our uniforms up a little, dude, I can make some cute as hell cushions!"
"Oh, that all sounds amazing!" Fuuka gushed in admiration. "When can we get started?"
"Well, um…" he drawled. It hit him at that moment that he would actually be having to teach her, show her everything from the fundamentals to the more complex movements, and that wouldn't be easy. But dammit, if he could teach Nanako to make a cute little dog, he could teach this genius to do anything! "Tomorrow, I guess? I think I need to think up some sort of lesson plan, can't do this shit on a dime," he said seriously, with Fuuka nodding with a similar fervour. "When I do stuff, I do it right."
"I agree with that approach," Fuuka said, but her voice began to waver. "It's a lot to learn though, isn't it?"
"'Course," Kanji grunted, thumping his chest, "But your bein' taught by the best there is. On this island right now at least. No reason to freak out."
His confidence is really quite something, Fuuka thought brightly. Sure, the last time she really tried to learn a new skill were Shinji's occasional cooking lessons, with only passable results, but this time she felt something different, a feeling that she would get something bigger out of this particular piece of tuition. "Your right! I'm be looking forward to studying under you," She said, smiling. A quick look downwards however wiped it right off of her face. "Hmmm, I still have so much of this to read…"
Kanji shrugged. "S'cool. Get your stuff done so we got time tomorrow. I still gotta finish this off," he pointed out, waving the inventory form.
Fuuka nodded, and resigned herself to digesting pages upon pages of mostly useless information, while Kanji moved on with his incredibly pointless bookkeeping exercise. But time after time, they kept coming back to how nice the next day would be, to learn, to teach, to do something different from their dull, daily routine.
