Chapter seven
Author's Notes: I love and hate .hack wiki. I love it for all of the information it gives me, and I hate it when it all out says, "Your characters are WRONG!" So, this is pretty much an alternate universe that is very closely related to the real .hack. The only thing I can never get quite right is the characters offline. It's all good. I think.
Gaspard, no, Kouta, the player behind Gaspard, was babbling on and on about things Ryou didn't really understand that well. He spoke much faster in real life than online. He was just a kid, a Crimson Vs. patterned shirt stretching over his large tummy, and jeans. He was tall for a thirteen-year-old, Ryou caught that information from a very quickly blurted sentence from the man himself. A little less than six feet, around 5'8". Ryou didn't think he could impose his image of what he thought Gaspard should look like over Kouta. That shrill voice should never come from someone that big.
"Hey, Haseo!" Kouta suddenly exclaimed.
"Uh, what?" Ryou was noticing the people watching them way too much. He never really was that sociable and a lot of people just made him feel tiny and insignificant.
"You still have to meet everyone else! Come on!" With that said, Ryou was whisked off his feet as the charging Kouta made a mad dash through the crowd, neatly dodging everyone and everything, a feat that was not wasted on Ryou.
"Haseo?" Kouta asked as soon as they stopped before a thick crowd.
"I thought... I was going to die..." He gasped a few times, because the fucking tree had just been waaaaaaaaay too close to his head. To taking it off, that was. "Are you on a sports team?"
"No..." Kouta looked sadly at a man in an obnoxious green blazer that emphasized what shoulders he had and his thin waist. Come to think of it, he was standing on a wooden park table, talking to the group as a whole.
"There are vendors over that way, if you need anything." The man gestured over to the way that Ryou and Kouta had come from. He paused, noticing Ryou. His eyes dragged across Ryou's slowly, as if he were stuck in them, then flicked them away.
Ryou didn't need any introduction to know that the man's name was Yuuichi. Ryou watched Yuuichi think, and though to himself, This is going to be an interesting party.
Another man jumped on the table beside Yuuichi and started talking in a voice almost as obnoxious as the other's coat. His brown hair shone and augmented his dashing smile.
"Hello! I'm Kuhn! I would love to meet each one of you all individually. Escpecially you." He pointed to someone in front and a group of girls broke out in titters.
"Kuhn! Don't use this as a oppurtunity to pick up girls!" Yuuichi said, chastising him. Yuuichi pushed at Kuhn to get off his table. Kuhn, unfortunately for Yuuichi, was a good three inches taller than him and much broader. He didn't move an inch.
Yuuichi sighed in defeat and looked up to address the people again.
"There are name tags up here, take one, write your Player Character's name on it and stick it on yourself." Yuuichi hopped off the table.
Kouta pulled in a breathe, and Ryou had a bad feeling as he opened his mouth. Before he could stop him, Kouta shouted, "Silabus! I found Haseo!"
People immediately located Ryou and began backing away. A girl actually screamed. Some dude shouted, "It's the Terror of Death!"
"Ryou!" Yuuichi greeted him warmly, blissfully unaware that people were staring.
WOW, Yuuichi thought. He was Tall, capital T and everything. He must be close to 6'5". And... Yuuichi reddened a bit at the thought, but he was very attractive. For a man. That is. Very lean and wiry. Very scary. Pierced. Not the kind of man any mother would let her child even talk to. But Yuuichi's mother was not here right now.
"Yuuichi..." Ryou was suddenly hit with a feeling of belonging, and the rest of the people faded from his sight. He knew now that he was among friends; he could live with this. This felt very nice compared to the rest of his life.
"Haseo!" Someone shouted from the crowd.
Ryou turned in time to see a little kid dash out of the crowd and hug his leg.
"What the...?" I think he's getting tangled in my chains...Ryou fretted.
"Haseo, I've been looking forward to seeing you!" A short person, an elementary school kid, was clinging to his leg for dear life.
Ryou was well aware of who this one was.
The kid looked up. In his bright blue eyes, Ryou saw the soft, giving look he had often seen when the kid was talking about his sister.
"Bo..."
"Yup!" He smiled a smile that was laced with the fluffiest things known to mankind.
"Hey!" A low girl's voice heralded him from one side.
"Uh...yeah. Are you... really Haseo?" The girl, around his age, scratched at her shoulder-length hair nervously. People stared at her, as if they were unsure of if this were a good thing, someone talking to the Terror of Death, or if she was another person to be feared.
Ryou had no problem placing her.
"Yeah. I'm really Haseo, Alkaid." Alkaid gave him a slightly shocked and embarassed look.
"Oh, okay. Just making sure!" She covered up her blush by turning to the side.
"Why don't we go sit down somewhere?" Yuuichi's voice snapped Ryou back to reality.
Everyone filed through the crowd. Someone was standing alone by the trees. He and Ryou locked eyes, and immediately knew the other.
"Endrance..."
"Haseo..." Endrance took a few steps toward Ryou. "How I've longed to meet you..."
Ryou didn't break eye contact with him. Yuuichi watched Ryou, wondering if, maybe, Ryou was gay and liked Kaoru. No. He thought as Ryou broke eye contact and invited him to sit with them. Just friendly. He couldn't be that lucky.
They sat slightly apart from the rest of the party. Ryou plopped down wherever, sitting his backpack on the ground behind him. Bo sat next to his foot, Kouta sat to one side of Ryou, and Endrance chose to be very close to Ryou on his other side. Alkaid sat on the other side of Endrance, who inched away from her, but still facing Ryou. Yuuichi completed the circle by sitting in between Alkaid and Kouta. The grass was cool as the sun began to set.
Yuuichi was the first to speak.
"Wow. This really got a little out of hand, didn't it?" He chuckled.
Ryou laughed. "That's an understatement."
"There's so many people here!" Kouta threw in.
"It's kind of scary here." Bo admitted.
"Didn't you come with a guardian?" Yuuichi asked.
"Yeah. I'm safe, because I brought Saku!" Bo's face shone happily. Ryou kept quiet, not knowing if anyone besides him knew that Saku lived inside Bo.
"What's your real name?" Ryou asked him instead.
"Iori." He said. "And Saku's name is Sakura."
"Sakubo..." Endrance said thoughtfully. Bo looked at him uncertainly.
"Um... Do I... Know you?" He asked Endurance
"Yuuchi!" A girl in a blue sundress took a running slide to come to a stop, squished between Alkaid and Yuuichi.
"Hi! Guys, this is Tomoki." Yuuchi made the needed introduction.
A chorus of greetings all around. She smiled and said, "I'm the Lord Partizan, Namida!"
"She looks like Natsume." Ryou noted. She gave him a funny look. She was unaffected by his looks, but wondered what he was talking about. "A Player with green hair." Ryou explained, fingering one of his own locks.
"Natsume?" Kimiko thought. "No, she said finally, "I don't know her."
Iori and Kouta had got into a discussion on Crimson Vs.; Iori knowing nothing on the topic, but interested. Kouta offered to teach him to play with his cards. Kouta and Iori moved behind Ryou's back, so as not to disturb the others. Endrance settled his hand on Ryou's. Ryou immediately pulled his hand into his lap, shaking off his hand.
"What... is your name?" Endrance asked Ryou, staring at him if he were the only thing in the whole world.
Yuuichi noticed Alkaid leaning forward to listen better.
"I'm Ryou." He blushed, feeling so different actually being in front of the people he knows so deeply. It wasn't like being in front of his laptop, wearing a FMD. They were actually here. It made everything so...weird. So exposed.
"Ryou..." Endrance tasted the other's name on his tongue. He had been thinking of the chance to meet the man behind Haseo, the man that gave him a reason to live again. In those times, in the first World, where he lost his reason, the hacked cat PC, Mia, he was extremely sad. He had thought of just dying a few times, but then if he died, he would never know if Mia had survived and was merely wandering The World, looking for him or the other wavemaster character she dreamed of. So, he played. Up until the last day of The World, R:1, he was desperately looking for her. When The World ended, he couldn't get past her. She was a beautiful memory, a computer program, his first love.
It crushed him. This was the beginning of his new life, searching the entire internet for information on her. Every little post of comment that another Player had posted on her had made him feel as if she was there, watching him, urging him to look harder, longer, faster, for time was growing short. The World came back to him, soon. He began the first day The World came back. So many searches, his life was renewed. He found a Mia-like character, but it turned out to only care about itself. Then...
He found the real Mia. Macha. Mia. The same. It was thanks to Haseo that he should feel this way. He scooted closer to Ryou and leaned against him.
"Hey! Kaoru!" Ryou blushed and pushed him off. Kaoru threaded his arm and fingers with Ryou's and grasped firmly. Ryou gave up trying to detach him from the other, so he merely looked away, huffy.
"Hey, Yuuichi." The girl next to Silabus said. All had been watching the spectacle closely for entirely different reasons and as soon as Ryou gave up, Kimiko began talking.
"What is it, Kimiko?" Yuuichi asked.
"I'm thirsty. Do you have anything to drink?"
Yuuichi rubbed the back of his neck and plastered on a grin. "Ah, no. I did have two bottles of Ramune, but I drank one, and I gave the other to a little kid... Do you want me to get you something?"
She nodded. "Thank you so much, Yuuichi." She said, purring over his name, as she handed him some yen.
She glared at Ryou, as Chika and Kaoru glared at her. This may be more interesting than the amazing fun he had been looking forward to.