One day my coworker made an origami frog at work, then as I was searching around to figure out how to make one myself, I discovered that candy wrapper origami is an actual thing, and, well...
This one contains the most blatant use of headcanon yet, I'm sorry. It still fits into the narrative tho. At least. That's what I tell myself.
Enjoy!
Origami
Rantaro is up on the roof, waiting for the rest of the BeyClub to show up, when Kensuke joins him.
"Good morning, Boss!" Beus greets him first, followed by Ker's "Morning!" as Kensuke settles in on the bench next to him.
"Hi!" Rantaro glances at the other boy briefly before going back to his comic. He's gotten in the habit of getting to school before all the others, somehow, and ordinarily spends the time reading in the rare peace and quiet.
"Do you wanna have a battle?" Ker asks.
"To practice before the others get here!" Beus elaborates. "Besides, we haven't battled Boss in a while, now."
"Sure!" Rantaro agrees, because how could he refuse? Kensuke is nice, and it's not everyday someone wants to battle him specifically. "Just let me finish this chapter, first."
"Okay!" Ker and Beus seem to speak at the exact same time, and Rantaro will never figure out how Kensuke manages that.
He doesn't notice anything amiss until he goes to reach for the lollipop wrapper he uses as a bookmark and finds it gone. He'd left it on the bench next to him, within reach, but now it very much isn't there. Sometimes the wind blows them away, so he spares a cursory glance around the rooftop – but then….
Then something in the corner of his eye grabs his attention, and he turns back to Kensuke.
On top of the short stack of manga Rantaro has piled next to him now sits a tiny, bright red origami frog. As Rantaro watches, Beus pushes on its back and releases it, and it springs from the top of the comic tower and onto the rooftop. Kensuke follows its path with a small smile.
"Did you make that?" Rantaro asks, sticking his pointer finger in as a place marker in lieu of his usual, which has, apparently, been transformed.
"Oh," is all Beus says, and the puppet seems to stand up straighter, along with its companion. Behind them, Kensuke looks a little embarrassed at being caught.
"Yes!" Ker confirms.
"Sorry if you were using it!" Beus apologizes.
"But it was just lying there…." Ker defends.
Rantaro, meanwhile, is unconcerned about the loss of the wrapper, and his attention is instead focused on something a little more important. "Can you show me how?"
"Eh?!" Beus seems a little shocked, "show you?!"
Kensuke is sporting a small blush by now, but he certainly doesn't seem opposed to the idea by a longshot.
"Sure!"
"We'll need more paper, though," Ker grumbles.
Wordlessly, Rantaro stuffs his free hand into his pocket and pulls out an overflowing handful of lollipop wrappers. "Like this?"
A real, actual laugh pops out of Kensuke at that, and Rantaro feels something like accomplished about it. When Ker speaks next, Rantaro thinks that just maybe there's still a hint of that laughter in his voice.
"That'll do."
Kensuke leaves Ker and Beus propped up lovingly on the bench as he and Rantaro move to the floor. Kensuke's dexterous hands fold the small surface area of the wrapper with skill that speaks of lots of practice as Rantaro clumsily attempts to follow along.
Once in a while, Kensuke will reach over and carefully reposition Rantaro's hands, or redo a fold that he'd gotten crooked – he doesn't give any verbal instructions, but that's just fine. Before long, Rantaro has his own (slightly misshapen, but still functioning!) jumping frog in front of him. When it works like it's supposed to and hops forward little by little, he grins to himself.
"Can we make more?"
Kensuke nods, and that's when they really get into it.
Ker and Beus come back, then, and it turns out they're just as good at making the little frogs as Kensuke is when he does it by himself. They're especially helpful with creasing the folds, and like to help Rantaro press his down. (When they aren't busy, their favorite thing to do is bounce the already made frogs around.)
Eventually, Rantaro and Kensuke find themselves surrounded by an army of tiny, red frogs, and there isn't a single wrapper left unfolded.
This, of course, is about the time Rantaro realizes that he never did replace his bookmark. He kind of can't, now, because he's out of extra wrappers.
"Ah, dang it…" he digs around in his pockets, hoping that he missed one and that he at least remembers where he was in his manga. He's not about to dogear a perfectly good page, after all!
Kensuke, Ker, and Beus look up from where the latter two have been making a few of the origami play leap frog.
"What is it?" Ker asks, which is quickly followed up by, "What's wrong?" from Beus.
"I'm out of bookmarks, now," Rantaro explains, looking ruefully at the excessive array of jumping frogs around them. "Oh well…"
"If you have another wrapper," Beus says, and Kensuke looks serious, "we can make you a new one."
Rantaro is about to say that he doesn't have any left, but instead he simply shrugs and pulls out a new lollipop, because he's got enough of those, after all. He unwraps it and offers it to Kensuke, and Ker takes the lollipop and deposits it into Kensuke's mouth while Beus takes the wrapper and holds it for Kensuke to scrutinize.
"Got it!" Ker announces.
"We know just what to do!" Beus agrees.
Their voices sound a little off, which may be the fault of the lollipop, but Rantaro pays it no mind. As he watches, Kensuke sets Ker and Beus aside again as he folds and folds away at the little paper, until eventually he's holding out a small, flat star.
Rantaro grins. "It's perfect!" He handles the star reverently, and shuts it in his comic carefully.
He says "Thanks!" at the same time as Kensuke does, and they both look at each other and laugh.
x
"Can you make anything else out of lollipop wrappers?" Rantaro wonders later that day. It's just him and Kensuke again, waiting for the rest of their friends to join them for lunch.
Kensuke nods, and Beus gently lifts Ker off of his perch and holds onto him. A long sleeve is shimmied down, showing off Kensuke's wrist, and there's a pink and green bracelet there, made of various candy wrappers and fastened with pink ribbon.
"That's so cool!" Rantaro runs his fingers over it a little before pulling back. "Can you show me how to do that, too?"
Beus places Ker back onto the hand he belongs on and then says, "Sure, but it might take longer than the frogs."
"And we'll need even more wrappers," Ker adds.
Rolling his lollipop from one cheek to the other with his tongue, Rantaro grins. "Not a problem," he says, plunging his hand into his pocket and retrieving the new stack of lollipop wrappers he's built up over the first half of the day.
"Isn't eating that much candy bad for your teeth?" Ker asks, one tiny puppet arm pointing at Rantaro while the other is folded onto where his hip would be. Even though the tone is reprimanding, Kensuke looks amused and pleased.
The folds for the bracelet turn out to be fairly simple, if repetitive and time consuming. With Kensuke helping, and working after school (again waiting for the others to show up to the BeyClub) they manage to finish it that day.
Kensuke explains that you can fasten it without a ribbon, but Rantaro asks him for a yellow one anyway.
x
The idea is one he gets with no warning when he's lying in bed one night. Looking around his room, even in the dim light, he can see the hundreds of tiny hopping frogs and clusters of different origami stars – everything that Kensuke's taught him to make – and he thinks he ought to do something to thank him.
Whenever the two of them are the first ones to arrive at the BeyClub, they will battle and then fold, or fold and then battle. It's nice, and Rantaro appreciates the extra decoration his room ends up with as well as the multicolored wrappers that Kensuke supplies.
He also appreciates Kensuke's company, and the fact that Kensuke's thanked him for all the experience at battling a stamina type.
And so it's only fair that he do something for the guy. They're friends, after all! And Kensuke is always really nice!
The next day, after school, Rantaro buys the biggest and brightest bag of lollipops he can find and takes it straight home. They haven't made any bracelets since that first day, but the technique was easy enough, and he remembers it after only a couple tries. (He practices on his usual red wrappers, wanting to save the colors from the new bag for the gift.)
Over the next week, nobody comments on the sudden variety to his lollipop flavors. He gives the blue raspberry ones to Valt – because he's never liked that flavor himself – and pockets the wrappers that get handed off to him.
When he has time, between homework and the BeyClub, Rantaro works on the bracelet. He's more than halfway done when he realizes that he doesn't have any idea where he's going to get the ribbon he wants to use from. He doesn't want to ask Kensuke for some, afraid that it'll give his whole plan away – so he does the only thing he can think of and goes to see Valt's mom.
Mrs. Aoi doesn't even ask him what he wants it for, and gladly supplies him with some thin ribbons that had originally been meant for Nika's hair. There are more colors than he probably needs, but Rantaro is happy to have extras. He thanks her and is on his way out the door when he remembers one other detail.
"Um – Mrs. Aoi?" he asks, turning back around, still holding the ribbons in one fist, "Can you teach me how to braid?"
x
His project stalls when they spend a couple days going to the Xhakuenji house, and that, of course, is when Kensuke tells them he has to move away.
Rantaro is just plain sad about that, and it hardly feels fair, and the rest of the day just doesn't seem as bright. On the way home, he realizes with a jolt that it means he needs to finish the bracelet post haste, and suddenly he's running.
That night finds him in bed, hiding under the covers and working when he should be sleeping. The flashlight that he usually uses for reading comics after hours is propped between his cheek and shoulder as he puts the finishing touches on the present.
The last thing he does is braid the ribbon together: green for Kensuke, blue for Ker, and soft brown for Beus.
Rantaro runs his fingers over the finished product. It looks good, he thinks, especially considering it's the first one he's made all by himself. He'd used every color of wrapper he had, and the result is bright and fun like Kensuke.
He remembers the first time he saw Kensuke wearing a bracelet like this, that day with the frogs. Tomorrow, he's going to give him this new one before he leaves town.
The flashlight falls as Rantaro buries his face in his pillow, and he only cries a little bit so he won't have to tomorrow.
x
At the start of their little farewell party, Rantaro pulls Kensuke aside. He's thought a lot about what to say, because he wants Kensuke to know that he appreciates him and he's glad they met and all the rest of it. But in the end, words fail him and he holds the bracelet out on his open palm in a silent offering.
Kensuke's eyes light up and shine when he sees, and as he looks at the gift his mouth quirks into a smile.
It's contagious, and Rantaro smiles, too.
Hastily and wordlessly, Beus pulls Ker off of Kensuke's hand, just as he'd done that first day. A long sleeve is once again shimmied out of the way, this time with a sense of urgency, and Kensuke offers his wrist to Rantaro.
Rantaro ties the bracelet on, right below the original green and pink one. He worries (belatedly) that the colors might clash.
Kensuke, however, is looking at it with mounting excitement. "Thanks, Boss!" he says, and the words come out of his own mouth as his eyes flick to Rantaro's face before going back to admiring his gift, "it's perfect!"
Beus deposits Ker back on his perch, but Kensuke's sleeve remains pushed back.
"I like the colors of the ribbon," Beus says, pointing at it.
"Needs more blue!" Ker complains half-heartedly, arms folded. "But altogether it's nice!"
Happy that the gift was so well received, Rantaro releases his nervous energy on a laugh. He puts a hand on Kensuke's shoulder. "I'm gonna miss you," he says, surprised at how easy it comes out.
"Don't worry," Beus assures, "we'll always be around!"
Longer than usual and extra sappy, bc whenever I think about Kensuke I just cry bc he's such a great kid? My heart...
Thanks for reading!