"You're right. It's ridiculous how much it spiked. At this rate both our plans are going to fall through. Why am I telling you this? Because at this rate the whole UG is gonna know in 2 days' time."
Part 25: Urban Sound
"Woah, you strolled in here with a makeover and a purpose, man." Yudai Miki quickly fumbled some yen notes into the register, before meeting Fret's attention.
"I take it you're here to…" His voice cracked slightly, revealing a slightly less smooth yet still baritone inflection to his words. He regained his confidence quickly after clearing his throat.
"I take it you're here to pay what I'm owed?" He exhaled and relaxed.
"Oof, customer service voice failing ya?" Fret joked, pulling out a pin from his pocket.
"Gah, wish it was easy to keep up the act."
"Best just to act natural. Find it helps you to stop stressing so much." Fret flipped the pin up and down in the air as the two chatted. Miki kept watching its rise and fall with unfailing fascination.
"Been thinking of asking for some customer service tips from my cousin – his first day on the job with some fancy ramen joint he opened dug that attitude into him real quick."
"Huh. I remember hearing something about that." Fret swiped the pin from the air and placed it onto the counter in front of him. Yudai reached out to take it but Fret placed a finger to hold it place, causing the cashier to hesitate.
"Could I interest you in throwing in something else for…" Fret checked his ShibuPay and felt relief that there was at least something in there, "around eight-thousand yen?" Yudai raised his eyebrow and scoffed.
"Shoot," he said.
Minutes later Yudai walked out of the storeroom with an anxious look on his face and a box in his hands.
"If anyone asks, this was just stock for a varsity jacket or something." He said, his face pale and hands trembling as he pushed the box across the counter.
"Thanks for going out on a limb for me, man! Had no idea you were a total pin-thusiast!"
"Look, old Jupes pins are my weakness and I don't wanna be found out for this. We've been robbed blind enough by those hoodied freaks enough this week. Dunno what they'd do if they found me handing over old stock like this." Fret knew there was a story there, but he also knew that from the vein popping out from beneath his cap Miki was best not pressed on this issue. He didn't know what a lecture from an angry underground fight involved and right now he didn't want to find out.
"Hey, I owe you one. If I ever get my hands on another rare pin, it's yours for sure." Fret winked and the colour seemed to return to Yudai's face.
"Thanks. Seriously." He watched with trepidation as Fret walked out of the store, but Fret gave him one last reassuring wave to try and calm his nerves. He would've thought that a normally stony-faced prizefighter would stay that way under the pressure of the retail world, but a think back to his every encounter with Yudai always reminded him of how false that was. He had improved though, Fret noted as he slipped the jacket – just his size – on and grinned, feeling a surge of confidence well up from within him. He'd never felt so ready for something in his life.
_14:02_
Fret: Yo yo yo
Nagi: Ah, confident, I see.
Fret: Yup.
Nagi: I assume this means
the transaction went
smoothly.
Fret: You know it! It was
ambersial or whatever
you say
Nagi: …'Ambrosial'?
Fret: That!
Nagi: I see. And may
I ask where you plan
to rendezvous with I?
Fret: Uhhhhhhhhhhh
hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
how bout
Hachiko? Think you're
still on the train, right?
Nagi: You would be
correct in assuming
so.
Fret: Awesome! :)
Lets meet there then
Nagi: As you wish,
Tosai.
She called him Tosai again. Dammit, that was his weakness. When Rindo called him that for the first time he couldn't get rid of the butterflies for a week. But this was something more. Even though it was only over text Fret could feel his fingertips buzz and his stomach go crazy. It was almost dizzying, and it felt so overwhelming now more than ever. Something about his new look just made it feel orders of magnitude more cutting, twisting his heart into knots. If she ever said it to him, it would probably feel like a bullet to the chest. Some passerby knocked his shoulder and quickly apologised and suddenly he was back on Earth. Hachiko, right. He had to make his way there.
Nagi stepped off the train and into the sweltering heat. She made a low groan – a 'hegehehehehhrgghh…" – as she realised that not only was Shibuya bustling like a city possessed today, but that it was likely some of these rubes and yokels would lay their finger upon the sacred garb of Lord Tomonami. She scanned the area just around Hachiko for Fret and couldn't seem to find him. Maybe he was just late? She was about to sit down to hit some autobattles whilst she waited when suddenly she was nearly blindsided by a passerby wearing the jacket of Lord Shirō stepping in front of her. She looked up to meet a face – unmistakably Fret's – and felt her eyes widen involuntarily. It wasn't just the hair or the beads or the jacket or any of that, really. It was something about the look on his face. His smirk was electric, stretching across his face in a way that suggested he was damn excited for her to see this. And his eyes… they were calm. There was light in there, still; blinding, wonderful light that screamed for all the world to bear witness to how alive he was in this moment. But there was also a stillness she hadn't seen in there before. A peace that swept through them that was only noticeable now he'd changed like this, obvious now but almost alien, too. She couldn't imagine him without it, now.
"Basking in my glory, Boss?" Fret laughed, a hearty and genuine laugh, one that Nagi had grown accustomed to hearing, but pleased her to hear nonetheless.
"Merely critiquing your cosplay's merits in silence."
"Well? Wellllll?" Nagi could not help but suppress a smile at how eager he was.
"I would deign to say that it surpasses all other cosplays of this Lord I have seen, in spite of its minimalism," Nagi saw Fret go to make a show of celebrating and interjected, "however."
"However?" Fret asked, his victory lap cut short before it could even begin. Nagi stood on her tiptoes and, avoiding eye contact as best she could, reached around Fret's neck and for the clasp of his choker. She could hear a short, spastic and suppressed set of gasps leave his mouth and his heart pound as she did so. She remembered the conversation she and Rindo had yesterday, about Fret and his attraction to her. As her hands undid the clasp with a tiny 'click', she wondered why she had not just walked behind Fret in order to do this. Pulling away the delicate fabric from around his neck, this question would continue to pester her. She mused on it as she looked up on saw Fret, shellshocked and red in the face.
"Lord Shirō does not wear a choker," she told him.
"R-Right," He made sharp, awkward movements as he took the choker from her hand and slipped it into his pockets. "Sorry for forgetting."
"To err is human, Lord Tosai." She said. "Now, we have scant few hours before the doors on the event open and I, like you, wish to be there on time. Were this any other year I would have camped out beginning a week ago, but, alas, university taketh away."
"I getcha. So, weather's nice, the city's smoggy and my legs are all sorts of worn out after lying in a cramped hospital bed all day – how's about we go sit in Miyashita Park and soak up some rays?" Fret pointed towards the entrance to the park down the road and Nagi nodded in concurrence.
The short journey to the park was conducted in silence. Nagi was free to just allow herself to soak in the dense tapestry Shibuya was weaving with her company. In a way, she was glad to just be walking alongside Fret mute like this. During the game he refused to let up with the small talk during walks (or often sprints) to their next location, always looking for an 'in' to prove himself to her, to get her to acknowledge him or how awesome he was. But there was something to be said about the peace of enjoying his company just walking down a street and listening to Shibuya continue to be Shibuya. They'd saved this city – it would be criminal not to enjoy it every once in a while. So, even if it was just a trek down one street to Miyashita Park, Nagi was more than glad to enjoy the silence.
"Ahh~!" Fret thuwmped himself down under the shade of a tree a dozen other people were sharing. He watched Nagi produce a small blanket of nylon from her breast pocket and use it to create an area free from grass to sit down next to him on, hugging her knees to keep herself in the safe zone.
"I would chide you on your disrespect of your chosen Lord's garments if I thought it would be knowledge well retained," Nagi leaned her cheek against her legs and looked over at him with a mixture of bemusement and disappointment on her face. Fret breathed in the only clean-feeling air in city and watched the sun attempt to break through the tree leaves above him, flecks of golden might just managing to pierce through every so often.
"Well, my whole get-up was thrown together in a few minutes. Dunno what I was doing, really, but I still feel great!"
"Your point?"
"Your cosplay blows mine out of the water and you look like a million billion yen?" Fret laughed.
"I-Indeed? You think this is a cosplay worthy of His Radiance?" Nagi craned her neck and shuffled the blanket over slightly so she could block Fret's view of the canopy above.
"I mean… I like Tomonami, sure, but I dunno, I guess you just…" his throat went dry, "surpass him." Nagi's mouth made a small 'o' shape before morphing into a beaming smile.
"A lowly servant such as myself could never surpass His Radiance in any way, though I am glad you think so."
"I know so," Fret said, sitting up and nearly bumping Nagi's head on the way up. He stretched his back and yawned, catching sight of a bouquet of hydrangeas wilting away in the stifling heat. He must've been staring a bit too long, because Nagi quizzed him on what he was looking at.
"A memorial. For Ayano." Fret said, still lost in the memory of three days ago and Shoka's formalised goodbye to someone so close to her.
"Ah, Lady Ayano." Nagi seemed to want to say more, but stopped short. "…That Game had some truly unjust victims." Fret saw those dying flowers and wondered what had became of the memorial upon Spain Hill, his last true farewell to Kanon. Was it gone? Stolen? Removed by the city governance?
"Do you…" Fret began.
"Ever wish the Game had never occurred?" Nagi finished his sentence so quickly, so bluntly that Fret could tell the question weighed heavily and often on her mind.
"I uh," Fret began, his voice cracking, "I went to the sweet shop near Shibuya Hikarie the other day. Well, it was more like last month."
"The one owned by Kawahara's late wife?"
"Yeah, that one. I let a dumb comment slip about how she'd changed her last name while we were talking. She said that she'd never changed her last name – never been married or divorced or anything like that. I told her that I must've been thinking of someone else, but that comment stuck with me. I think about it, sometimes, when I sleep at night. It keeps me awake." Fret's tone had become dire by the end of his speech, and Nagi and he stared into the concrete horizon.
"My mind is sometimes plagued by similar thoughts. I think about how I only knew Ayano as a fractured woman on the verge of erasure. I think about how my primary memory of her was of her as a monstrous being of Noise rather than of her as a person. I think about the crushing pressure of the Dive into her mind and how…" She paused, looking for the right word whilst combing her weary mind, "futile it all was. For all my mastery of communication and understanding of human interaction, I can and may never grasp her as more than a woman who tried to end our lives, then died shortly after." Nagi didn't like to talk about how badly performance anxiety hit her – often all it did was stir anxiety to the fore, creating a whirlwind of dizzying emotion.
"It's just hard to move past that. I've… mostly relied on you." Fret turned away, "And I don't know how to even feel about it. It's like… like I'm just another person using you or something, trying to just distance myself from UG as hard as possible, except for the moments where I can't and you have to be right there to help me." Nagi moved herself closer to Fret, the edge of his shoe touching the edge of the nylon.
"I don't wanna be like the people who treat you like some sort of revolving door, whose life they can be in one second and out of the next. But I feel like if I let go of you, I'm gonna drown and the whole of… of everything that happened in the UG is gonna collapse on top of me."
"Even after all that has occurred, are you still unable to comprehend it?" Nagi asked him, speaking softly.
"Comprehend what?" Fret slowly turned his head towards her. It took effort, but he finally met her eyes. The sun glinted off the frame of her glasses, forging steel to pure silver in its golden light. Dressed as she was in the visage of Tomonami she seemed unreachable, but unlike him she was grounded and real, something that he could reach out to connect to – and someone who could, in turn, connect to him back. And, God, she was just gorgeous.
"I am not merely around because you force me to be. I enjoy your company," she flushed slightly, "…Perhaps more than anyone else's. You are a uniquely fascinating person." Fret knew he was deep scarlet right now and with how clogged his throat was, he could only nod in response.
"I was so closed off to the ways of the light, that I had not considered who dwelled amongst their ranks. Indeed, had I opened myself to the light more, than perhaps I would have discovered more about myself sooner than I have otherwise." Fret mentally slapped and chided himself and quickly regained his composure.
"I… I'm glad you're getting more in touch with yourself. I mean, I was almost worried you were too perfect, y'know?" He let out a nervous chuckle that masqueraded as something almost confident before abandoning the act near the end.
"Agh, what I mean to say is that I wanna help you with the shit you're going through because I just feel like I owe you a whole lot, okay?" Fret's face burned, but he knew he had said what he meant and did not regret it.
"You owe me nothing, Tosai. I do not do this out of obligation – and I will resent you if you delude yourself into believing otherwise. I would like to think that I have eased the weight of the millstone around your neck and, in turn, you have begun to make me realise that I have neglected the weight of mine own." Nagi's words surged equal parts confidence and confusion into his head. He felt warm and funny and on the verge of collapsing but loving every second of it.
"So… I helped just by being around. Just by being… Tosai?"
"That is what partners are for, is it not?" Nagi asked, chuckling.
"P-Partners?" Fret nearly choked out a lung. God, she was good at reading people and he was an open book right now. He was almost glad she wasn't returning the feelings he felt rushing around him, because he was so totally lame.
"Indeed," Nagi said. "In EleStra there are certain rivalries and partnerships bound by the red string of fate. Shirō and Tomonami are not one such pair… but that is the reason that fanfiction exists, is it not?" She extended a hand towards him, "Neku told me of the ruleset of his first Game and the distance it lessened between people. The people joined together there were partners, too. I think it fitting that, dressed as we are, we write our own canon for those we represent." There was no romance in her tone, but Fret did not care. Nagi, who for so long seemed dead-set on snubbing him, on blocking him out, had honoured him like this. Some invisible distance, some long-standing set of unspoken rules, seemed to fade away as Fret's hand swished through the air.
"Well, when you say it like that," Tosai smacked her hand and gripped it, laughing another genuine, rolling laugh, "let's rock this world's canon, partner!"