Started out as an Ibuki birthday present, I was late, and it turned into this weird half-reflection fic about Kazuichi. It doesn't really go anywhere, but it has Kazuichi, Hajime, and Ibuki, with some Mahiru, an inordinate amount of mentions and one appearance by Ruruka, and a dash of Leon and Makoto, because unlike Kazuichi, Leon remembers that to get milk you need to... actually get it. Cross-posted on AO3 under the name xXPokeFictionXx_isnt_that_bad_of_a_name.
As stated in the description, this was original meant to be a birthday fic for Ibuki but it went places, and was also delayed. To be precise, I increased my work-load of fics this month (well, last month, in my timezone) because I wanted to actually do something, so I came up with a gag birthday fic that I would release on Celeste's birthday about Ruruka and Ibuki's, but didn't actually do any of the things I wanted to do, including this one. I dropped the gag about Celeste and as writing went on, Ruruka got pushed a bit into the back in favor of focusing on Ibuki (that comes when I haven't actually seen Danganronpa 3. I find Ruruka interesting, and yes I know she's a bitch, but I can't claim proper knowledge of the character even though I have attempted to write her before this) and I ended up with... a mess, shall I say. It reminds me a lot of how I write my main story, this weird Leon killing game that kinda sucks, which is a bad thing because I'm not writing Leon, I'm writing KazuKazu. I'm still experimenting with trying to not make every character I write sound exactly the same.
As a byproduct of being primarily written at times around 1 and 2 in the morning, there isn't much coherency. I tried to keep up the themes, and the general flow of Kazuichi's thoughts, but it was kind of messy. Hopefully you can still get a kick out of it, Kazuichi is pretty cool.
No mistakes, no calamities, no screw-ups, no self-destructions. Please, PLEASE no self-destructions. Kazuichi would melt if at the end of everything, his present suddenly self-destructed.
Kazuichi Middlename Soda was a single setback away from collapse. Even his genius Ultimate Mechanic skills couldn't salvage much if whatever watch or radio he just re-assembled had a bit stuck that grinded everything else inside to pieces... or much worse, if it was something more complicated that he screwed up and wired like a bomb.
Self-destructions were the most disastrous outcome for anything he built or repaired. You accidentally create one explosive project, and suddenly you're behind on everything. Eat, sleep, his other projects, writing all of that down in a calendar, everything was pushed back and his life was offset for the next week, just in time for the next catastrophic failure. Accidentally blowing up a motorcycle halfway through putting it back together, building a machine wrong so it slammed into its own gears and tore itself apart, the list of specific failures with the issue he already had went on and on, it was reasonable to be this terrified of another self-destruction. If Kazuichi Soda could trust Kazuichi Soda with anything, it was that everything he did was a messy mistake that would result in calamity!
The Ultimately Stupefied Mechanic came to a halt, trying to figure out what his own mind just thought. If... he could trust himself with anything... it was that, he screwed up everything?
Kazuichi shrugged it off and continued walking. If he didn't ignore it, he'd end up late to giving away this stupid gift and then he'd be late to finishing his work, and THEN he would be late to finally taking a shower after a week of being lazy about it. Besides, who cared if everything he thought made sense? Not him, not when he'd spent the past nine hours of the night and morning getting this stupid thing working just to deal with other big problems, four big problems individually known as Yui Hirasawa, Mio Akiyama, Ritsu Tainaka and Tsumugi Kotobuki. Put 'em all together and what do ya get?
A handful. A great friend of a handful, mind you, and she's pretty... pretty, but she was a hyperactive, insane handful. Kazuichi liked to consider himself a sociable guy, he had plenty of friends and was close enough with most of them to have a second birthday he had to worry about just this week, but this handful took it to a whole 'notha level. Imagine the energy, enthusiasm, tea time and sickeningly sweet kindness of four highschool girls who'll spend their lives together rolled into one, and then that amalgamation of a girl is coated pretty pink and deep, bombastic blue from head to toe. That was how her best friend described her, anyway, and while Kazuichi wasn't that best friend, ol' reliable Hajime was also his best friend, so Kazuichi trusted such a glamorous analysis of the girl.
...Kazuichi had no idea who Hajime's best friend was between them, but he could only assume that he was it. Not. Not some musician who was a girl and could also hang out with other girls, and was described by Hajime himself as being sickeningly sweet and pretty pink and absolutely glamorous. Nuh-uh. No way.
Again, Kazuichi couldn't worry about anything else right now, Hajime's feelings about him were irrelevant crap he couldn't juggle in his head until later. Pushing off those thoughts were hard, but he had to do it. Kazuichi knew exactly where his priorities were, he just had to commit to them and hope for no self-destructions. Not even ten minutes ago he tested his present to a great enough success to be gifted, now he just needed to get it to the Ultimate Light Musician and pray, and THEN he could worry about everything else, schedule permitting.
Also, he had to rely on Ibuki Mioda to not break it herself, but Kazuichi also decided to ignore that possibility so he didn't die before he even finished the invention, much less handed it to her. He was almost there, almost ready to leave this piece of crap behind him and focus on all of his work-
-Thinking about being focused on one thing was itself not being focused on that thing, a lesson Kazuichi just learned when he turned the corner and almost dropped Ibuki's gift after slamming straight into somebody he didn't see. Kazuichi was sent stumbling backwards, before making a dive with the grace of a blind raccoon, catching the trashy present as he landed on the floor. A sudden pressure point of pain hit his stomach and spread throughout his whole body, but that didn't matter as long as he hadn't just cracked Ibuki's goddamn present.
"Watch where you're going, other people also use the hallways, y'know!" A groaning Ultimate Photographer rubbed her head as she berated Kazuichi for his near-blunder. Near and not full-blunder because Ibuki's present hadn't made a loud, breaking noise that could shatter hopes and dreams. "How many times have I told you to get out of your own head and to pay attention?"
Kazuichi pulled himself up off the floor as he answered the question. "I dunno... seven, eight times?" ...This month alone. Mahiru made sure to remind him all of the time, but usually trying to remember it just made things worse. Of course, he could never tell her that, if Hajime really liked Ibuki so much to become a poet just trying to explain her existence, he needed a back-up best friend and Mahiru Koizumi was it. Seriously, they got along really well, if Mahiru didn't care so much why would she bother to tell him everything he did was wrong? In return, Kazuichi actually listened... most of the time. "Sorry, I was up all night trying to finish this stupid thing and I just want to be done with it."
"Maybe if you kept up a regular sleep schedule you would be less out of it and this sort of thing wouldn't happen basically every week." Again, she groaned. Being a photographer aiming for very specific shots probably didn't help, but Mahiru probably developed a habit of having a disgusted, disgruntled look on her face most of the time. At best, she'd have something unempathetic and critical... but Kazuichi was sure there was more there, and no, the fact he liked looking at her wasn't why. It was because she told him that she herself also had stuff to work on, thank you very much... own consciousness. "What even is that?"
"It's a present. Y'know, it's that day and all." Kazuichi left Mahiru guessing, like she left him to figure out what what she always told him meant. He already figured it out, of course, that being there was more to it, let's see if she could do the same.
"Oh, yeah, if you don't mind, could you go get me some milk from the School Store or something? We're somehow out of it in the kitchen and we need some since it's that day and all." Well... she figured it out immediately. "It's not the best, but it'll have to do, and I can't get it myself because I keep losing time running into people in the hallway."
"Alright, just leave it to me!" Kazuichi turned around, headed in the way of the School Store and its many beverage options. It'd just take him a minute or two to pick up some milk...
...Which is exactly what he said the last forty-two times he got distracted, which is what set him back to where he was right now. Distractions, glorious distractions, distractions that left him unprepared to deal with calamity.
Of course, he couldn't just turn a request from somebody down AFTER he accepted it, so now he was going to get some milk. All the more chances to drop the stupid present for Ibuki, and all the less time to work on everything else once he was over and done with giving it away.
Kazuichi tried to look for a positive angle about this... Ibuki would appreciate all of this, maybe he'd get a hug or something. Once it's done with, that's one less thing to worry about... and a thank you was basically guaranteed. A thank you would be nice right about now, since this wasn't even for a grade, and anything more than that would be good enough to get him feelin' fine so he could fight the feeling of fearing feeling- fearing calamity. He meant fearing calamity.
Just hold onto that thought, Kazuichi, a thank you was good enough to make this all worth it. Go get the milk, give it to Mahiru, go find Ibuki, give the thing to her. Four steps, just four easy steps and everything'll be fine. Kazuichi let out a breath, regaining some basic sense of calm. Step one, go get the milk and be done with this distraction.
That regained sense of calm was enough to get him to open the door, but it ran dry for anything beyond that, he didn't have any strength or strength-substitute to get him through sharing a glance with Leon Kuwata.
"Morning, Kazuichi." Next to the Ultimate Baseball Player, who was just a stupid, less stylish version of Kazuichi, was good ol' Makoto Naegi. Hajime but nice and less depressed was the best way to describe Makoto. A simple description for a simple dude, no need to delve into all the bitter hatred he brought to the surface like with what Leon provided. "What's that you're holding-"
"Kazuichi."
"Leon."
Mechanic and Baseball Star stared each other down, interrupting the busy days they were both probably having with a reminder of a score they had yet to settle. Kazuichi hadn't forgotten about the last time they'd met... and it'd do him a whole lot of good if he could. Today was a very stressful, eventful day that he wanted over and done with. Just as Kazuichi was about to end the staring contest, Makoto cut in with his ultimate skill of interrupting people as they were talking. "Uh... what's going on?"
"Nothing, I have a lot of stuff I need to do today. Mahiru asked me for some milk, and after I get her that I need to go give Ibuki her present so I can finally do my homework!" Kazuichi wanted to take a shot at Leon, who was probably having Makoto do his homework for him with how little he could manage, but other than being a distraction was probably true of himself. Any other day, it'd be easier to just throw out the jab and retreat, but today was a day for thinking about focus, and thinking about focus led to un-focus like actually thinking before he spoke. Once he was all caught up, his next project would be hopefully finishing somebody else's brainwashing device, if he couldn't make his own to forget about the ability to be unfocused.
Turns out, that was all a waste of thinking time anyway, he somehow got Leon with that. "What? I thought that was next week?"
"Nope, it's today. Hope you didn't forget, but it looks to me like you did." Before Leon could whip out the "Oh, right, you're just neon bootleg me" or whatever nonsense insult he normally used, Kazuichi realized that he was the one who made the mistake. Huh. There was the calamity. "AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH! TODAY'S THE WRONG DAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
"Y-Yeah... I thought so. I know Ibuki's birthday is after Celeste's, and that isn't until the day after tomorrow." Makoto's confirmation was the finishing move that knocked Kazuichi to the bottom of the pit. It wouldn't even matter if it actually was Ibuki's birthday, because Kazuichi was going to self-destruct before he could even deliver her anything. "It's somebody else's birthday today, though, isn't it?"
"I think it's Ando, right? Ultimate Confectioner?" Leon answered, attacking Kazuichi with the accuracy of stolen ninja moves to finish him off after somehow surviving the fall. "Aren't you and her close, Kazuichi?"
"Yep." Kazuichi couldn't settle on a single emotion, replying with slivers of anger, disappointment and terror smushed between the bread of his jumpsuit, mayonnaise'd with oil grease and a prayer or seven that this was a dream. "Please tell me this is a joke and it's actually Ibuki's birthday today."
"You were the one who thought it was the wrong day first." Leon replied, scratching his head before looking at Kazuichi like he was the idiot in the mirror, but without the mirror or the man, just an idiot who needed to make a change and build a time machine if he was going to get out of this mess. "Granted, you were also the only one who thought it was Ibuki's birthday, so we wouldn't even know you got the day wrong."
"I think I fucking figured that out by now, no need to tell me!" Kazuichi always put too many red-hot fuming peppers on his sandwiches. "Great. Just great. Absolutely fantastic!"
"Hey, calm down, it's alright!" Makoto assured, if that was the right word for a failed comfort attempt. "You can just save Ibuki's present for next week and quickly figure out something for Ruruka. Maybe you can get Mahiru to return the favor and help you." Kazuichi felt like fawning over Makoto's adorable optimism after he smashed his face in with a wrench.
"I'd help if I knew a damn thing about what Ruruka liked." Leon claimed, putting a teasing hole through the pit's floor to a new netherrealm for Kazuichi to go burn up in, because he wasn't already as good as dead on the inside. "Anyway, if you're gonna get something worked out you better hurry up and do it."
"Again, already figured that out!" Kazuichi was barely inside of the School Store, so turning to leave took barely a second. He nearly hit his head on the door on the way out, but he was already four steps away from the store.
"Hey, wait! Weren't you getting milk for Mahiru?" Thanks, Makoto. Kazuichi turned back around and walked back into the store, revitalized anger with
"Come on, man, that was almost hilarious!" Leon whined, confirming that Kazuichi still had yet to settle things with him. On another, less horrible, terrible, no-good very bad endless maelstrom of calamity day, Leon would forget what being a smug, stupid asshole with a superiority complex over his opinion on sunlight and how to walk felt like. "Oh, forget it. Here." Leon pulled out a coin and pushed it into a vending machine, dispensing a small carton of milk. Leon reached down to grab it, but Kazuichi beat him to the punch.
Gritting his teeth and muttering out a "Thank you." as close to Leon's face as he could get. Kazuichi trudged out of the store with feelings unconcerned with a hug or even his own thank you to replace the one he just granted a stupid baseball player the right to have. Ibuki's bright smile of appreciation —which he wouldn't even get to see for another six days— wasn't enough to pay back the past week completely wasted on the wrong project. No, not just that, time wasted on a completely made up sense of confidence, a self-fulfilled prophecy of needing to act the best to deal with the worst mistakes from being a fucking idiot whose one-track mind couldn't pay any attention.
Just up ahead, Mahiru was talking to the Ultimate Nurse about something. Like Makoto, Kazuichi didn't spare her much thought. With the hand not held to his side with an incorrect present in it, he reached out to hand off the milk carton.
"Oh, there's Kazuichi. Thank you." Mahiru didn't reach out a hand of her own to grab it. "Actually, can you go with Mikan and help her in the kitchen? We don't actually have any resident bakers in there, so an extra hand could be really helpful."
Kazuichi shoved the carton into Mahiru's hands, walking away without giving Mahiru an explanation or giving the poor nurse right next to her even a glance.
"Geez, boys..." Mahiru muttered, adjusting her grip on the carton. "I dunno what's up with him today, but he's been acting weird."
Acting weird, acting stupid, acting absolutely crazy insane, it was all the same. It all meant at some point, there was some massive fuck-up that put him where he was, a place of rage and doubt and worry. There were enough emotions stuffed inside he wanted to scream because he couldn't fit it all in his stupid, fat mouth connected to the rest of his dumb body controlled by his confused, poorly-wired brain.
Kazuichi stopped for a moment, glancing backwards to see that he was being stared at by two girls he just blew off, adding onto the insult of ignoring them with a random, enraged scream. Embarrassing himself again was apparently the next step he was taking today, one step of many on this descending spiral that ended in him praying he would die and then actually getting hit by a truck. There were four steps at one point. Just four steps, and none of them involved any negatives aside from giving away a gift to a good friend.
"-And what are you yelling about?"
"AUGH!" Another scream, another tumble. Kazuichi fell backwards on his ass, nearly dropping Ibuki's piece-of-junk-to-be as he mustered up enough care to even bother trying. Whatever of that "care" stuff he had left went straight into looking up for the second time today, faced with a pretty lady he'd also call his best friend if the options before her were unavailable, if it were any other day. Looks like his prayer of dying actually worked, Ruruka was probably going to choke him out if she found out he forgot her birthday.
"Get up off the ground, maybe it's okay to be dirty in a garage but you should probably have different standards on a day like today." The Ultimate Confectioner lifted him off the ground, pulling him around the corner so she could face him in all of his hopeless glory. "Speaking of which, what's that you have there? Maybe a present of some kind?"
"Oh, u-uh, this?" Kazuichi hid the nifty little device he wanted to smash behind his back. "It's nothing, obviously. Nothing at all! Don't worry about it."
"Alright, I'll trust you, but I really wanna know." Ruruka gave a sly smile, but she took a step away in respect. She was a believer in trust, a believer that breaking trust made you subhuman scum that belonged in the trashy sewers. Trust Kazuichi was sure would result in two knives to the back of the head if he ever broke it, and as much as he liked Ruruka, he didn't trust her to draw the line somewhere more extreme than with birthday presents. "Y'know, I was thinking about baking something delicious today, it's been awhile since I baked anything. Maybe I should head over to the kitchen and..."
"No, stay away from there!" Kauichi begged, forgetting that whatever was going on there didn't even involve him, with how bent and poorly-planned-out his head was at the moment."I-I... well, I heard Teruteru was busy in there today, s-so you might want to leave him to it unless you're in the mood to get hit on."
"Huh. I thought he was sick." The bastard of a beautiful girl turned to distrust, squinting her eyes with a frown. It was the perfect blend of cute and terrifying that Ruruka specialized in. "If you say so. If I can't bake anything today... are you free right now? Yoi-chan is busy with something, and I'm kind of in the mood to hang out today for some reason."
"Nope, I'm busy with... err... an assignment, s-sorry! I'll catch you later!" Revitalized with the overpowering stench of fear drizzled over the anger and disappointment, Kazuichi ended the conversation there to focus on the imminent failure of his brain, cooling himself off with the cold sweat from his possible death in the future by crossing Ruruka so readily.
"H-Hey! Don't you at least have something to say to me?" Ruruka barked, but wasting any more time was wasting time he didn't have, two knives in an hour wasn't as bad as 92% of his body being ready to combust. He felt bad leaving Ruruka without an answer, and even worse for actually thinking she'd go crazy enough to kill him over this, but he'd already chosen, b-best not to dwell on it, right?
He could practically hear Ruruka muttering insults and swears under a teary, offended breath, but Kazuichi was too far away to know for sure. Getting away from her was the only thing he was truly focused on, and in doing that, he walked so far away he had gone far past where his room was and was almost at the kitchen himself. Today was just an endless, spinning string of bad luck wrapping around him more and more, tighter and tighter, up until that coil of weird shit popped him.
Kazuichi felt sufficiently popped, pulped, and pulverized, before he even ran into Ruruka he'd already hit that point, but being at that point didn't change the fact you COULD beat a broken machine, it'd just be pointless and it'd hurt you more than it. Something you already fucked up bad was gonna hit you back first... yeah, in this case, he was taking the hammer to his own head either way, but it's not like he could get any worse.
No punchline, no "he already said that", no following distraction of negative ideas. His brain conversation had a time and a place for this stupid interaction, and it was talking with his good ol' mate Leon, anything to numb himself from trying to understand what that idiot was saying, from thoughts about thought that Leon'd probably enjoy or some dumb battle of the bands that was an actual street fight with the band members, which he also might enjoy. He's supposed to be a music guy, Taylor Hawkins bashing Johnny Rotten with a cymbal would probably be something he could use to steer him away from being an annoying prick, and if not, it'd be SOMETHING to think about then, but this wasn't then. This was something ever-so-slightly-more-manageable.
Kazuichi wasn't afraid about something going kablooey, that already happened. His focus was currently on just getting a solution, which would hopefully come with the presence of his bestie, one Hajime Hinata who probably didn't feel the same way. However Hajime felt about him was another psychological issue for another time where his sanity didn't hinge on repeating that his problems weren't his problems until tomorrow, the Ghost of Kazuichi's Future wasn't doing anything yet, but he has some work now.
Hajime noticed the broken mechanic approaching him. "Morning, Kazuichi. It's been awhile since anybody's seen you, have you been up to something for Ruruka's birthday? If you're done, could you help me and Seiko in the kitchen-?"
"-That's great and all, go friendship, happy birthday to Ruruka, but I have a WAY bigger problem than somebody else's birthday." Kazuichi wasn't lying to himself that he suddenly had open his book about how to stay calm, but he'd scraped up enough to power forward, engines revving with "Check Engine" only blinking when he made a turn. "Like you just said, you haven't seen me for like, two weeks. That's because I've been working on a birthday present... for Ibuki."
"Ibuki?" Kazuichi could already tell Hajime didn't get it. That was his "Huh, what do you mean?" voice and not his intense disappointment voice. "What's the problem, you're actually thinking about somebody else for once. I'd say that's an improvement."
"This is the one time you aren't treating me like an idiot, of course." That wasn't actually true, couldn't be, but it certainly felt like Hajime thought he was stupid sometimes. Again, Kazuichi not the time! "Oh, whatever! I was working on Ibuki's present because I thought it was HER birthday that was today. Go on, laugh about it. Quickly."
"Did you really mix up Ibuki's birthday again? You said you were keeping a calendar to make sure this sort of thing never happened again." Instead of being an ass about it, Hajime replied with... worry? Now that he'd just thought about how much Hajime didn't like him, Kazuichi was almost caught off-guard. It was... nice. Now wasn't the time for it, but it was nice.
"As we can see, it clearly didn't work." Seriously, it was REALLY nice. This is exactly why screwing up birthday presents was so horrifying, imagine telling somebody you didn't get them anything, and then not getting a thanks while they go to jam to Revolver or Realign CD that they don't have because you didn't buy it for them. "Having a reminder doesn't work if you don't have time to update it to make it work."
"Couldn't you just get a program or something that updates automatically?" Hajime suggested. "I'm sure they exist, with everything else that you can find on the internet."
"Hey, that's a good idea. Remind me after we deal with this current problem to go look for one." Again, without spare time or focus, Kazuichi had to cut out the joke of a moment's pause before shifting back to the big issue. "There's a good chance, like, 100% chance, that I won't finish anything for Ruruka's birthday in time, and I'm not even sure if Ibuki's present is stable either. And forget about presents, I have homework! Remember that? Do you even do homework?"
"...Yes. Unlike you, I have a specific bunch of tests I need to follow instead of stuff related to my talent and future."
Aaaand back to thinking Hajime hated him, he had every right to now. That dead, neutral expression spoke a bunch of words Kazuichi wasn't prepared to unpack, but similar feelings of offense and self-doubt had probably gone through both of their heads today. "Sorry, but I REALLY need some help or at least, like... frickin' something! What do I do?!"
"I don't know, why are you asking me?" Hajime deflected, rightfully-but-unhelpfully so. "Since nobody else was willing to help, Mahiru and Seiko roped me and Mikan into helping out in the kitchen all day. I don't have time to help out with Ruruka, or whatever your problem even is." The regular-cirriculum student took a moment to think of an alternative. "Why don't you ask... no, they're busy... err... Hiyoko?"
"Yeah, the wizard of getting Hiyoko to not be awful is suggesting this lowly peasant to go talk to the obnoxious queen." Hajime wasn't even in the top three, but he was wizard enough for being able to talk to Hiyoko at all. "At that point I may as well just let Ruruka stab me, it'd probably be less painful than hearing Hiyoko talk about my teeth again."
"Exactly, what's the problem? It's not like Ruruka is going to stab you as long as you're honest about it." Funny joke, Hajime, clearly you didn't know Ruruka. "...Unless you were being a jerk about it earlier." There we go, right on the money for what sort of person the Ultimate Confectioner is. Kazuichi looked away as Hajime sighed. "You were being a jerk about it earlier, of course."
"She was asking me about Ibuki's present and THEN said she was going to the kitchen!" Kazuichi screamed, almost literally. It was pretty easy when he was on-edge and generally a squeamish little child, as Hiyoko would put it. "What was I supposed to do? Let her go and find out a bunch of people with no baking sense in them were trying to make the Ultimate Confectioner a birthday cake!"
"How do you even know about that? Also, what present for Ibuki?"
"Mahiru asked me for some milk earlier, so I had to go and buy a shitty carton from the vending machine, and..." Kazuichi realized Ibuki was standing right behind him, practically breathing down his neck with an excited, puppy-like presence that made him feel like everything would be alright, as long as that puppy didn't give him its sad, pitiful eyes. "Th-that's, um, when I met Leon and Makoto who reminded me it was Ruruka's birthday."
"Man, you forgot Ruruka's birthday? That's cold, dawg." Ibuki Mioda stepped out from behind Kazuichi, taking a place to the side of her friends so she could view them both trying to awkwardly look away from her. She turned to Hajime, who quickly relented and gave up his full attention to his friend. "Speaking of cold dawgs, so cool dogs, so hip dogs, so Snoop Doggs, I was wondering, what kind of music does Ruruka like again? Would it be appropriate to play stuff like For All My Ni-"
"No." Hajime declared. Kazuichi couldn't decide if this was somehow a blessing in disguise, but all signs that weren't blind hope pointed to it being another element of despair, despair in a crazy hairstyle atop a bouncing-with-excitement lady. "Kazuichi, just tell Ibuki about your mistake."
"Why the hell would I do that?!" Kazuichi caught himself before he even looked over at the slightly offended Ibuki, quickly jamming together a fixing addition to his statement. "I-I wouldn't want to bother her with it or anything..."
"It's fine, bother away. Ibuki was tailor-made for bothering, both her own bothering and the bothers of others!" Ibuki recovered from her disappointment to strike a cutesy pose, complete with a peace sign and an exaggerated facial expression that somehow combined an adorable smile with a nose that looked like it tripled in size. Apparently, the wooden doll before him was worthy of some description, enough to take focus away from trying to not die to Ruruka Ando's wraith. Ibuki was a good reminder of what it felt like to not stress out over every little thing, not to mention a reminder that there were solutions to problems, it just so happened Ibuki found enough of them to get where she was now, to be down with dishing out advice or a hand to help others get there as well. That was the kind of person Kazuichi thought was worth giving a birthday present to, which is why this was so hard to begin with. Lucky him, Ibuki's birthday wasn't until next week.
"O-Okay, just..." Despite all the good stuff he had to say, Kauichi hesitated. Why now of all times was certain a question he could ask, but instead, he was asking if he actually wanted to get Ibuki involved. To be honest, he did, but it'd probably be a total pain in the ass trying to come up with a good solution even with her help when his perfect solution was lying on his floor as twenty different pieces and a blueprint, and it wasn't like Ibuki could be much help there. If he hurried, maybe he could figure out what corners to cut and finish it in time... or he could use the excuse that Teruteru got him sick so he was a day late. Another all-nighter for him, maybe, but it was a solution, the perfect one, no doubt. Kazuichi remembered the present he HAD already finished, looking back to Ibuki, waiting for him to finish his internal debate and answer. That was when Kazuichi made a random, impulsive decision, and found himself committed to saying all of his worrying was for nothing, and that he'd just finish now. Still, thanks, Ibuki. "Take this, and I-I don't owe you a birthday present this year! Okay? Bye!"
Kazuichi made like a nut and bolted, leaving Ibuki to twist and turn whatever it was she was just handed to her hearts content as he ran away in what looked to be a panic. Whatever Kazuichi's deal was today, he seemed distressed... but she couldn't exactly spare the time to help him. Darn, this is when it'd be useful to split into five guys! Maybe this thing did that... "Hey, Hajiwajimajime, did Kazuichi tell you what this weird box does?"
"I'm not exactly sure, but since it's supposed to be your birthday presen-"
"SHHHHH!" Ibuki threw a hand over a confused friend's mouth, a confused friend who was probably tired of being treated this way whenever he did exactly as he was told. Wants could change rapidly like that, Ibuki felt bad Hajime couldn't keep with the times. "IBUKI DOESN'T WANT SPOILERS, SHE RESCINDS HER HUMBLE REQUEST FOR ANSWERS AND REPLACES THEM WITH A LOUD REQUEST FOR SILENCE!"
Hajime placed a hand around Ibuki's wrist and lowered it, only for her to throw up her other, present-filled hand instead. After recovering from the mild hit of it against his mouth, Hajime lowered that hand as well. "Kaz messed up yours and Ruruka's birthdays, so now he's freaking out and the one time it'd actually make sense, he isn't accepting other people's help to do his work for him."
"I see, I see... poor KazuKazu." Ibuki sympathized with him, but she had a party to plan, so she couldn't help him right now. "We'll call it a super-special surprise, he's giving us gifts on the wrong dates for the surprise factor!" That would probably be more helpful to him if he were actually here to hear it. Ibuki turned her attention back to her own gift, it was... something, most probably. "I still have no idea what this would be?"
Hajime prepared to answer again, slightly more wary of Ibuki suddenly throwing her hands up to his mouth. "As I was saying, since it's YOUR birthday present, maybe it's some sort of mini-speaker. It has dials for adjusting something, and a few holes to plug stuff into."
"Ibuki bets Kazuichi built it, which is why this is such a big deal to him!" Ibuki couldn't imagine sitting down all day, trying to put something together with your hands. Well, writing songs was sorta the same deal, but the inspiration part came from weird conversations in bathroom stalls instead of sitting down and writing down MORE stuff on a blueprint first. "Y'know... I could just use this at Ruruka's high-confidential-definitely-not-sur-prise-par-tay, and say Kazuichi helped set it up, everything's solved, and he can just save whatever he was working on for next year."
"That's true..." Hajime hesitated, Kazuichi probably needed some saving grace like that, but did he deserve it was another question. "Y'know, if you didn't help out Kazuichi, you could probably use this as payment to get Leon to stop talking to you."
"Fair enough, Kazuichi is on his own!" Ibuki turned towards the hallway the Ultimately-True-Friend-Lacking Mechanic turned down. "SORRY, KAZUICHI, GOOD LUCK!"
So... yeah. Hope you enjoyed once again. Love me some Danganronpa 2, considering that's... all I have published. Y'know, I got into fanfiction to write MOTHER, and later switched gears to Fire Emblem (okay, yes, I do have an FE thing up but we don't talk about it). Enough about me, this fic was packed with musical references, some subtle and some Ibuki about to talk about Doggystyle. Music is pretty cool, I'd give it a go if you've never tried it. It's great, I'm tellin' you, it's got sounds and talking, Ibuki likes it, Leon likes it, you might too. The shameless K-On reference is there because... I dunno, I haven't even see K-On in full. Ibuki is a giant K-On reference, so whatever, it works.
This was originally titled "Kazuichi Soda is an idiot and Ibuki Mioda is glad he at least got the month right this time", but that spoiled the punchline at the end, which I ended up taking out for something better anyway, so I probably could've kept it, but then the story title doesn't match the story, does it? Haha, weed eater.
Neil Cicierega (Lemon Demon) music was what got me through this, at least most of it. Some of it was probably fueled by like... Marina and the Diamonds or whatever. As said above, lotta musical references, since... Ibukificbutnotreally.