Prison
Chapter One: Work
A NEW Story Brought to You by:
Laura "OMGWTFILOVEMICHAELSAKAKI" Laurent
And by:
Bandai and the people who created Witch Hunter Robin A.K.A. not me,
And reviewers like you.
Sitting at the window was a boy, staring at the street with an intense concentration that currently conveyed slight annoyance. On the street below him, cars scared off large black birds and continued on, not giving even a passing glance to the window where he sat.
Tic-ti-tick-tic. Ti-tick-tick-tic. Tick-tic-tic-ti-tick.
"It's so like them to make me do all the boring work. I'm stuck here while everyone else is out. I hate this place. I hate the way they call me rookie,--"
"Well, you kinda are one--"
Tick-ti.
"--and I hate the fact that I'm always the one who gets hurt on our hunts. Out of the six months I've been here, I've only caught one witch. One--"
Tic-tic. Tick.
"I know, I know. Jesus, is that all you think abo-"
"One! Am I really such a bad hunter?"
Ti-tick.
"Yes. Sakaki, you fail at life. And would you please stop interupti-"
"Just shut up…" He realized having a conversation with himself, no matter how bored, was not a positive thing. He stopped immediately and busied himself by looking for entertainment. Glancing down at his hands, he watched them fold themselves into a familiar shape.
Tick-tic-tick-tick-ti.
He remembered as a child playing cops and robbers on the playground, making his small hands into a gun and firing at the "bad guys." The boy frowned down at his make-shift gun. It didn't look anything like a real gun. Yet, his younger self seemed to think that it would bring justice.
That all seemed childish now but, in a sense, he was doing the same thing now as he had on the playground. Except now, the gun was real and the game was "hunters and witches." It seemed he hadn't grown up quite yet.
Tick-tic-tic-ti-tick. Tick-ti-tic-tick-tic. Tick-tic-tic-ti-tick.
Sighing heavily, the thoughts died down as his grey-indigo eyes watched thin fingers fly over the small white keyboard. The rhythmic sound of the typing was calming to him; a reassuring and familiar sound in the small, quiet office setting. The office itself was in an old, gated building called "Raven's Flat", and it certainly lived up to its namesake. (The building appeared to be home to dozens of the birds that seemed to accumulate around that area of Japan.)
However, neither its name nor the feathered occupants of Raven's Flat were nothing compared to the work going on inside.
Or lack thereof, really.
What would have normally been a semi-filled room was only occupied by two people. One of whom, Michael Lee, appeared to be working. Or at least typing what appeared to be codes. The code made random windows start popping up and showing more strange codes, which were then filled with even more of the indistinguishable codes. It looked pretty dull but the person typing appeared to be doing so with a passion.
His fingers worked quickly, typing commands, passwords, more codes. His eyes glanced quickly at the pop-up windows, effortlessly decoding and finding the useful bits of whatever it was. The boy worked in a rhythm, set by the rock-pop song blaring from his headphones. It controlled the pace he typed, scrolled, and glanced. The song had a fast, pounding rhythm, so his actions matched it.
Haruto Sakaki, the only other in the room, was not doing his job as a hunter. Well, he had nothing to do! The rant inside his head started up again, luckily, no one replied this time. Sakaki had been left behind, like always, with the hacker, given orders to help Michael investigate a suspicious murder case.
Instead, Sakaki was watching his co-worker's foot tap against the carpeting to the beat as the typist worked. It was pretty dull, just sitting there watching Michael, but his own job wasn't particularly entertaining to Sakaki at this current moment. And he didn't particularly want to have another conversation with himself. (Plus, Sakaki had forgotten his prized Game-Boy Advance on his counter this morning, which annoyed the boy to no end. "This always happens to me!") What made Sakaki interested enough to watch Michael, however, was the intensity and obliviousness that Michael showed while hacking. The boy was like an android: amazingly intelligent and very focused on its purpose.
His headphones were slightly askew from all the head-bobbing to the music. His blonde-brown hair stuck up at an abnormal angle from when Michael had run his hands through it, absentmindedly. His foot was still tapping incessantly and his fingers and eyes were moving furiously. So concentrated on his work, Michael was, that his tongue poked slightly out of his lips and his eyebrows seemed to come together at the middle. Putting all the elements together created an adorably funny picture. Sakaki would have laughed, but he didn't want to disrupt the hacker and miss out on more hilarity.
He simply sat quietly, like a good boy, and watched. Sakaki occasionally glanced at the screen, hoping to pick up bits of info, but he found the random letters impossible to read. So he'd give up and stare (longingly) at the photo of a scantily-clad woman with huge breasts posted in the upper left corner of the large screen. Michael always had a picture up; it changed monthly.
This month it was "BeccAAH," (Who insisted on adding the "AAH", capitalized.) a pretty brunette with short hair in a red swimsuit of some sort. Last month, Sakaki recalled, it was "NicOHHle," (Also insisting that her name should be spelled wrong and capitalized incorrectly.) who was dubbed "Robi-chan" due to her amazingly similar appearance to Robin, a co-worker. Robin, however, was not as well equipped in the upper areas and didn't dress in bunny outfits completed with a sexy little smirk, floppy ears, and a fluffy tail.
That picture, unfortunately, had to be taken down at the insistence of Amon, the leader of the small group, who saw the picture and had a fit. Amon confiscated it and scolded them, but both of Sakaki and Michael saw him take the picture out of his pocket several times and glance at Robin. He then would close his eyes, stuff the picture away, and resume his work. Michael stopped putting blondes up on the screen and switched to brunettes instead. It seemed to get him less trouble with Amon.
"Maybe he got over that crush on Robin finally?" Sakaki wondered, tilting his head to look at Michael at an angle. "Donuts do crazy things to a guy, I guess." At the word "donut," his mind produced a whole new line of track for his thought-train to run on. His sane, normal thoughts chugged away, and started a pastry-induced stupor that left Sakaki's eyes glazed…like his favorite type of donut.
That "glazed" line was just too perfect to resist. I'm so lame; it makes me want to cry. Chapter two will be posted with this, as I feel that this is a poor chapter ending. I just didn't want to make this chapter any longer. Lazy? Me? Nooooooo. Anyway, feel free to press that button down there, though you may want to read the next chapter before leaving me something.
DONUTS,
LAURA
