chapter two: I'd rather people think I'm a weeaboo than make a girl cry, thank you very much
Kozume Kenma is pissed off.
Even without confirmation on the matter, he knows this is Tora's fault. The idiot had never quite gotten it through his thick skull that their mutual circle of friends was enough for Kenma. He always pontificates about how Kenma should open up more and be more social and 'talk to people, man! So they don't keep thinking you're an introverted otaku or something!'
Right, because setting up Kenma to go through the traumatic experience of making a girl cry was totally better than being an otaku. Oh, and not only did he have go through that horrifying situation, oh no. Kenma had panicked, gotten the great way urge to get out of that situation, and now both he and the girl he had made cry are falling endlessly into Alice in Wonderland.
Kenma thinks, if he listens very hard, he can hear karma clap a round of an applause in the background.
They're still falling of course, courtesy of the nonexistent physical laws ruling Wonderland. Yachi has woken up and fainted about four times now, and Kenma had just plain given up and pulled out his 3DS to grind some of his tropes until this is over.
Kenma curls up as best as he can while falling. He hopes his hair doesn't perpetually stick on end the way it is now when they reach the bottom. He is very uncomfortable with how clear his field of vision is. He also hopes the next time Yachi wakes up, she doesn't immediately faint again. He would like to brief her on the many, many, many abnormalities they are going to face when they land in Wonderland, and at least try to prepare her for them.
His wish is answered after fainting spell #6, right after he had finally been able to beat the level he was stuck on. Yachi's eyes open slightly and take in the surroundings deliriously. Kozume thinks she's going to faint again, but she seems to be holding herself back on that front. Or, he thinks, that's what she's doing by staring at him like she's trying to either rationalize the perpetual fall or maybe even just forget it's happening.
"K-K-K—" she stops, and takes a few deep breaths, with a hand on her chest to guide the motions. Kenma saves his game but keeps the console between his fingers. The whiplash of the fall continues to ruffle their clothing, and he's glad Yachi chose to wear pants today in contrast to her usual skirts. That would have been more than a little awkward.
"Kozume-kun," she finally says, and Kozume would applause her if he was the type. "W-what's going on?"
Now Kenma knows how this happened. He has the power to jump in books which he uses to great effects depending on the day. He usually just has to think 'I want to jump' and boom, he's back a hundred centuries or suddenly in queer witch hell, or even watching a basketball game of boys sprouting hair colors from every color of the rainbow. However, 1) he normally can't take people with him on jumps, or at least, as far as he's tried and 2) he hadn't actually willed a jump this time around. He hopes it doesn't affect their departure in any way. He isn't the fondest of Wonderland physics.
He ends up saying something like— "—I, uh, can jump in books—" which gets caught off when the both of them fall straight into a wayward canvas, and then bounce off it Yachi immediately clings to him and screams bloody murder just as they fall right into an open drawer.
They fall through it, Kenma's head ringing with how close and loud the shrill shrieks in his ears are, and tumble onto a bed of flowers.
Yachi is shaking so bad Kenma is vibrating along with her. He almost feels bad for her, except he can barely breathe with how tight her grip is around him.
Where is she even hiding this strength?
"Would you look at that, something I didn't drag in."
A fluffy black cat with an unnatural smirk floats in front of where they have crumpled the flowers. Yachi somehow manages an even tighter grip, this time around his neck, and Kenma is really having trouble breathing. And being this close to someone for a longer period of time than strictly necessary.
"H-how is that cat floating? How is it talking? W-where are we? How—oh god, d-did I... Did I die? Is this—I-is this the afterlife? Oh no, no but I— I can't have actually..."
"Woah, Kenma, your friend looks two seconds away from a nervous breakdown. You should probably do something about that," says the cat, floating closer towards the girl, who finally lets go of Kenma in favor of scrambling away from the abnormality.
Kenma was going to do that anyway without having to be told to by a cat. Except, as per usual in Wonderland, and with its inhabitants love for dramatic entrances, Yachi and him are abruptly introduced to twenty pointy spears ends.
A woman with wild white hair held up by a red ribbon stands at the guards' backs. Decked in a uniform painted head to toe in crimson, she crosses her arms and gives him a disdained look, clipping her red boots against the floor.
"What have I told you about dropping in the Queen's gardens unexpectedly, Kenma? It's always such a headache convincing her not to behead you."
To absolutely no one's surprise, Yachi tips back in a fainting spell.
"Totally called that," cackles Kuro, tumbling through the air in glee with a nyahahaha!
"Your friend is rather faint hearted, isn't she?" says Shiro, with a very mean smile on her face.
With as much annoyance as he can muster up, Kenma sighs.
They are both thrown in jail.
Kenma is parts nervous, and still parts pissed off. It's not his fault they dropped in the Red Queen's Royal Red Garden. He doesn't even know how the both of them got here. He hadn't initiated this jump, and Yachi shouldn't be here even if he had. But of course no one cares about the semantics. He is stuck behind red bars with dimmed red lights like a fucking kinky host club for something he didn't even do. All he had wanted was to finish his lab report in the library in peace and quiet. He had never asked for an unplanned trip to Wonderland with Yachi Hitoka of all people.
And, because karma is having a field day throwing all these mishaps his way, his 3DS now has a blinking red light.
The beheading doesn't sound too bad right about now.
"First time I see you bring a friend here."
Kenma does not jump. He turns to glare at Kuro, who's leaning against the cell wall in a human form plus cat ears and a cat tail, thinking he's cool or something for sneaking up on Kenma like that.
Kenma does not at all think he's cool. Kuro is closer to a mental category Kenma has labeled Annoying Friends Who Think They Known What's Best For Kenma.
Three guesses to who else is filed underneath that very particular division.
Kenma doesn't answer, preferring to scowl at his reflection on the 3DS screen. Two Kenmas scowl back.
Kuro chuckles heartily. "That's not a very happy face." A cat floats around him and wraps around his shoulders. "You should smile more! Look, I'll show you how!"
The unnatural human grin on the cat's face is creepy AF. This is exactly what he was talking about when he'd said 'Think They Know What's Best For Him'.
Kenma shoves him, and Kuro the cat tumbles through the air with a yowl.
"Go away."
"Ok, fine." Kuro easily slips through the bars with his agile form. "Geez, what's a cat gotta do to get some appreciation around here?"
Kenma pauses. Now that he thinks about it, he probably shouldn't shoo away the few friends he has here. It's not like drawing the Go To Jail card was something new to him. It's happened before and maybe he does need a cat to cozy up to him and purr to make him feel better.
"There's a mouse in the garden."
A cat gets attached to his face faster than Kenma can say 'score'.
"Where?! Hurry and tell me!"
"It's—" Kenma wraps his hand around Kuro and pulls him away from his face. Kuro stubbornly keeps his paws on Kenma's face. Kenma's just glad he had the sense not to use his claws because that certainly would have been a bitch to drag off, "—in the garden. Where I fell. It ran away when it saw me."
Kenma is rewarded with a mouthful of fur, a cat purring right in his face which is not at all what he'd wanted, and a quick, "I love you so much right now!" before Kuro vanishes out of thin air.
Beheading sounds amazing.