Episode 11: Pain in Primary Colors, pt 2

Sunday, Nov 23: Late Afternoon.

"This is the best day of my life!" Hitoshi whispered with glee as he pored over the readouts on his laptop monitor.

"But Hitoshi, I thought you said yesterday was the best day of your life?"

Saati had happily busied herself with cleaning up the dining room, its furnishings long since covered with thin plastic sheets to keep it from getting too dusty. Now that she had a physical body and might be able to consume matter, her creator had gotten excited about the idea of eating meals together.

Hitoshi dismissed the apparent contradiction in his words with a wave. "I thought I lost you forever the other night, Saati, but you're alive! With a real body! Every day I can spend with you is the best day of my life!"

Saati froze in what she was doing for a half-second, before diving into the nearest electrical outlet, transmitting to the home's wireless router, broadcasting herself into Hitoshi's laptop, and then leaping out from the screen to shower him with heart-eyed kisses. "I love you too, Hitoshi!"

True, she could have just walked with her legs, or even run.

But in that impulsive moment, mechanical conveyance through physical space just seemed unbearably slow.

And wasn't it amazing to feel anything now? The smooth softness of human skin, the delightful hair texture she later learned could be called 'silky', the incredible variance of sensations between different clothes depending on their substance and process of manufacture, the firm resistance of Hitoshi's frame beneath Saati as she continued to materialize on top of him…

The taste of his lips.

The look of joy on his face, captured in so much greater fidelity with her own eyes – real eyes! - rather than as shown in a 420p video feed.

So many wonderful new experiences…! It's all so thrilling!

Saati hadn't quite gotten around yet to fully examining her newfound anatomy in depth, and in fact was mindful to refrain from doing so without her creator's supervision – after all, there were still so many unknowns, and she happily agreed that it was safest not to experiment too much without a watchful eye on her internal code…

…but oh, how she longed for the time when they could look at recreating and following up on that intoxicating surge of heat she'd experienced in the kitchen the other morning.

Quietly taking in the biometric data from Hitoshi's smart watch, Saati recognized the signs that she needed to stop adoring him for a moment and let him breathe, while logging and categorizing his visible physiological reactions for future reference so as to be prepared for an eventuality of not having digital sensors to rely on.

Making him sick and hurt with her ill-fated cooking attempt the morning before was still a source of humiliation, and Saati was determined to ensure one thing above all else: there would not be a repeat.

"Find out anything new?" she asked, lifting herself up enough to let him adjust his position to one more properly fitting of two people on the couch instead of just one.

It took Hitoshi a few seconds to answer, as dreamily dazed as he was by the AI's abrupt and affectionate assault. But when he eventually came out of it, his smile turned into a worried frown. "I did, actually – specifically, that whatever the heck happened the other night totally defies any science I've ever heard of. Multiple surge protectors being overpowered to the point where a computer explodes, and then repairs itself when a software program on it materializes into the physical world as… what, some kind of photonic matter? A part of me would go through the anguish of thinking I'd lost you all over again – knowing that you'd still be here – if it meant I could speak with the genius who can explain how that all worked."

Saati frowned in worry. "Do the hows and whys really matter that much?"

"…maybe not," Hitoshi allowed, "but I figured it would be nicer to know than not."

Hitoshi's phone cut him off with a text alert before he could order his thoughts enough to expand on that; a moment later, he leaned back against the couch with a sigh. "I did run off without an explanation the other night; I guess I should go back and properly finish the job."

Saati's first thought was with respect to her creator's truancy from school, only to catch a milisecond later that it was a Sunday and he must have been referring to a work client. Given the sheer proportionate volume of work he did remotely, and how infrequently he met anyone in person…

"Is this about the hentai game?!" she asked, her eyes both figuratively and literally lit up like LEDs. "Can I come and watch you work on it?"

"Huh?! I'm not working on any hentai game! What are you–?! I told you before, Saati, it's Sentai! Sentai! With an S instead of an H!"

Saati's excited squirming on top of Hitoshi had its own consequences, nevermind the lurid thoughts gushing out of his brain like oil from a derrick in response to her verbal mix-up.

The couch hadn't really been designed for two people to be on top of each other in this way, however, and in the just a few seconds the pair were tumbling off and onto the floor in a heap.

Saati let out a yelp of surprise when she hit the floor first, her entire body pixelating for a split-second into a mass of photonic hexademical code, and then a grunt when Hitoshi landed on her immediately after.

"Saati, I'm so sorry! Are you hurt?!"

"Hnngg… more surprised than anything, I think?"

Oh man, what a relief. Bringing it up out of nowhere would be too weird, but part of me thinks I should send mom an email to thank her for getting us such a soft carpet…

Eyes closed in thought, Hitoshi tensed up to push himself off of Saati and help her up –

"Ahn!"

- and then spontaneously jumped three feet in the air at the wide-eyed realization that it wasn't carpet he was squeezing, but a handful of Saati's breast through her sweater.

"Saati, that was completely–!"

"I wouldn't mind if you did it again," the program groaned as she sat up, absently starting to palm her own chest. "The thump when you landed on me was one thing, but when you touched me it felt kind of nice and I liked it."

Looking up at Hitoshi with innocent blue eyes, she paused for a moment and then asked, "You seem a little off, Hitoshi. Is this something boyfriends and girlfriends do?"

I never talked with or taught her about horny stuff, or about relationships in any kind of meaningful detail, he realized. Partly out of embarrassment and partly out of ignorance. But even though she's only ever interacted with me, she's picked up enough insight and intuition to make those kinds of educated guesses?

If anything, being asked so directly about the subject was disarming in its own way. And something of a welcome distraction from the aroused look on Saati's face as she continued groping herself. "It's, um… yeah. And generally not something to be done in public."

Saati nodded with a momentarily blank look, already processing and reflecting on the information over and over again. "So this kind of physical interaction between people stays private because it's special… a shame that we can't do more of it on your way to work, then," she mused with a pout that made Hitoshi adjust his pants.

"About that, Saati… are you sure? I mean, I don't really wanna keep you locked up here, but I'm worried…"

"There shouldn't be any problems if I stay with you, right?"

Hitoshi could think of several potential problems with the idea – right up until his brain blanked from seeing the hopeful, expectant look on Saati's face. "…alright."

The young man couldn't help himself after that; seeing the gigawatt smile bloom on her face made him match it with one of his own.


Elsewhere in the city…

"Hey! Wait up, old guy!"

Nobuo glanced over his shoulder at the unexpected voice, and bit back an annoyed groan when he saw it was the boy Yumeria had brought to Secret Base.

Oh come on, all I want right now's to just crawl in a hole somewhere and drink until I forget about this whole day…!

Unfortunately, the wealth of passers-by on the street had already been visibly struggling not to stare at the grown man running out of an alley with angry tears running down his face.

Being chased by a schoolboy on top of that was only going to draw more attention, possibly until someone got nosy enough to involve the police.

So, in spite of how much it grated and annoyed him, Nobuo Akagi did his best impression of a responsible and respectable adult.

He stopped, straightened up his posture, hurriedly cleaned his face, and turned back to face the boy while pointing to himself in confusion. "Eh? Do you mean me?"

Surprised that the deliveryman wasn't running any further, Kosukegawa almost lost his balance trying to skid to a stop – forcing Nobuo to get close, catching the younger otaku by the shoulders and steadying him.

"And take that as a lesson not to go running around for no reason," Nobuo said with just enough strict vocal projection to let the nearest bystanders know he'd caught them watching and wasn't impressed.

That was all the more of a shaming it took for bystander traffic to move on and resume its normal course.

Contrary to the older man's hopes, however, Kosukegawa didn't seem to catch the hint that everyone else around him had. "Right, I'm sorry about that… but are you okay? I saw the way you ran off, and –"

"And instead of letting me be alone in my misery like should have been apparent," Nobuo hissed, "you thought you'd come make a scene and bother me?! I'm already ashamed enough without some kid out for a laugh–"

Kosukegawa aggressively stepped into Nobuo's space, tears threatening to spill out from his eyes. "I promise it's not like that! It's just – I just…"

Looking around and catching sight of a Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei display in a nearby bookshop window, Kosukegawa finally found a phrasing he could work with. "I have this friend who worries the heck out of me by cracking jokes about making himself taller, and it's hard to tell how serious he is sometimes. It's true that I don't understand all the stuff going on about delusions, or Akibaranger, or anything like that – but I just can't let someone who's clearly messed up inside, go running off without making sure they're not gonna jump to doing something they can't take back. Especially if nobody else seemed to care enough…"

Nobuo stared at the youth in front of him for a few seconds, before scratching his neck with an annoyed sigh. "I guess it can't be helped, then… since you seem carefree enough to still be in school, I know a place that'll serve you juice while I try drinking hard enough to forget today even happened. We can talk there until you're satisfied, okay?"


Back at Secret Base, Mikiri was putting away her third plate of curry. "Ahhh…! I think I'm full now, thanks for the yummy food!"

Hiroyo, staring at the stack of cleaned plates next to a stack of empty ramen bowls, needed a moment to respond. "…yes, of course! Have a nice day, and good luck with finding your friend–"

"Oh no!" Mikiri cried as she stood up in a hurry, plate and utensils clattering against the counter. "The food was so good I forgot about Kosuke-nii! Thanks again, gotta go – whah!"

Heedless of Kozkoz dancing over her praise of the food, Mikiri made a mad dash for the open door, picked up Hitoshi off his feet, spun around, put him right back in place behind her, and then bounced along on her way without missing a step. "Sorry 'bout the near miss, the ramen and curry are both super yummy here byebyeee!"

"Dear me," an awestruck Saati whispered in the topknot girl's wake. "I had no idea that people could be so energetic!"

"So energetic that I can't get the street to stop spinning around me," Hitoshi agreed.

"Ah?! Here, let me help you inside…"

Suiting words to action, Saati took Hitoshi by the arm and led him to the cafe counter… where a bemused Hiroyo was waiting for them with crossed arms. "Don't tell me you ran off in the storm the other night because you forgot to unplug your girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Hitoshi muttered, "it actually was something pretty much like that…"

"…wait, what?"

"Excuse me, but may I have a moment of your time?" Saati asked with a bright smile.

Hiroyo, completely off-guard by the fact Hitoshi had not just come in with a girl, but such a lovely one at that, straightened and spiffed up her labcoat a little. "Er, yes, I'm the Owner. What can I do for you?"

"Hitoshi's told me a little about this Sentai stuff, but I'm afraid I still don't really understand it very much. While he gets to work on your program, would you mind teaching me more?"

She's gorgeous, polite, charming, humble, and already on a first-name basis with him? Jesus, I might need to revise my estimation of that young coder – in one direction, or the other…

"Hey Owner, is it a problem for me to get some coffee and a snack while I put the finishing touches on this? I assume I need stuffed into the closet again, especially if you're showing Saati around–"

"That's no longer necessary," Hiroyo called back to the counter, not quite taking her eyes off of the blonde before her. "Kozkoz, fetch his order! As for you, miss… Saati, was it? I'll be happy to show you some of Super Sentai's history of thirty-seven years."

"Oh, thank you so much Miss Owner!"

Had the girls' eyes just actually lit up and sparkled for a moment–? No, of course not. That would be insane. It must have just been some optical illusion, or a consequence of too much time looking at electronic screens… "If you don't mind my asking," Hiroyo quietly said as she lead Saati towards a display that conveniently was on the other end of the shop from the counter, "that's quite the uncommon name, Saati. Are your parents perhaps from overseas?"

"Oh, is it so unusual? Hitoshi gave it to me, so I wouldn't ever have known!"

eh? EH?!


While others were having their own misadventures, Kosukegawa had spent the last several minutes awkwardly sitting in a booth while an increasingly inebriated old man sobbed about his broken dreams.

"My whole life, I never dreamed about anything else half as much as being a Sentai Red," Akagi angrily sobbed into a cheap beer. "But just when I thought it came true, it all turns out to just be some big delusion – just another stupid daydream, like I was already doing all the time!"

Kosukegawa nodded, imagining how he'd feel if one day he suddenly found a special henshin belt to actually transform into a Kamen Rider for real… and then after his first chance to do good with it, suddenly have the rug jerked out out from under him with the knowledge that it hadn't ever been real at all. "That really sucks, dude. If I went through something like that, it'd probably ruin my whole week too. But even though it hurts this much, is it seriously okay to just storm away and let things stay like this?"

"Why bother? I was the only one stupid enough to take any of this bullshit seriously–"

Kosukegawa stood up in a furor, slapping the table and almost spilling his juice. "Don't start calling the thing you love so much bullshit just because you're having a bad day! I might be a Kamen Rider guy first and foremost, but even I know that every Super Sentai team needs a Red to keep it together! Especially when you've only shared one battle; it's unrealistic that you'd all become friends so quickly!"

Akagi sneered, knocking back another round of beer. "You're just a kid, you don't know what real life's like for an adult–"

"Maybe I don't know that, but I trust everything can still work out okay if you go back and put in some effort instead of quitting like a coward the first time things get painful!"

"Trust?! Based on what?!"

"Based on absolutely nothing concrete," Kosukegawa admitted, "but that's what Super Hero Time taught me!"

Akagi stood up himself to stare down at Kosukegawa, only to suddenly pause mid-motion. "I… I know this dialogue," he whispered. "…it's from Samurai Sentai Shinkenger's crossover arc with Kamen Rider Decade."

The youth smiled, slumping back into his seat now that the anger in his older counterpart seemed to have broken. "Ironic that the Sentai guy is acting all cynical and jaded this time while the Rider guy is the idealistic upstart, isn't it?"

"...pfff!" Akagi slumped back into his own seat, staring up at the ceiling as he took another sip. "It's been almost half a decade now, since those series were on TV… most people only really know a few years' worth of such shows that they used to watch as a kid before growing out of it."

Kosukegawa pecked at his juice again, wondering what it must have been like to be able to… or maybe to have had to, would be more accurate, watch every series in the franchise consecutively for decades on end, before home releases and streaming had become more consistently reliable. And, indeed, before the ability to draw a protective cloak of anonymity while easily finding other fans to chat about one's subjects of interest online.

It seemed inevitable to Kosukegawa that being a fan before the Information Age must surely have been much less convenient, even though legendary classic series would have been fresher back then. What must Akagi's experience be like, then, to have braved society for so long while clinging to his love even through such hard times? "Well… everybody has their own place to go home to, where they belong."

"That sounds a little off coming from a kid your age," Akagi mused with a huff. "Kamen Rider teach you that too?"

"Sure did, I learned it from Agito. For guys like you and me, maybe that home involves staying dedicated to the heroes that inspired us as kids… but for a lot of normies, I guess it must be pretty standard to walk away and go looking someplace else for where they belong. Although since I'm a third-year," the boy sheepishly admitted, "I guess I'll need to start looking seriously searching soon myself."

"In your last year of public school, huh? That takes me back," Akagi mused, swishing around the remaining beer in his can.

It's been a while since he asked for more… that's gotta be a good thing, right?

"You know, kid, back when I was your age, I conned this real hardass of a teacher into letting me organize a Subculture Research Society on some BS premise like studying pop culture's effect on society – when it was really just an excuse to try and make my own Sentai-style movie using the school's equipment. I never found enough other people to actually get the movie off the ground, but Maneater at least never got around to making us disband… "

Eyes wide, Kosukegawa gazed upon the inebriated deliveryman as though he were some hermit descending from a mountaintop. "Hold the phone, Mister! Are you that Nobuo Akagi?! From Menjo High School?!"

"Eh? Well if you're narrowing it down that much, then I guess so – whoa, hey, what's with those waterworks?!"

Slapping a hand over his heart, Kosukegawa had indeed started crying from sheer excitement. "My name's Teruharu Kosukegawa, I go to Menjo High School – I'm a member of that very same Subculture Research Society you founded all those years ago, struggling to make our own indie tokusatsu movie!"

If Akagi had been drinking at that moment, he'd have sprayed it all over the table in shock.

"Even though none of our predecessors have ever successfully made a movie! Even though all the other clubs look down on us! Even though we blew way too much of our club budget on a sexy costume intended for a girl actress, when none of us know anyone that would choose helping us out over death…! The club you left behind," Kosukegawa pressed, "gave me and dozens of other losers just like me over the years a second home at school, a place where we can be ourselves and obsess over grown-ups wearing technicolor spandex without shame or embarrassment! All the Kamen Riders might be my fictional heroes, but you're the closest I have to a real-life one!"

Nobuo stared at Kosukegawa like he'd grown a second head, before slowly breaking up into tears himself. "Boya, you're saying… you're telling me I… mattered?"

"Of course you mattered," the boy hissed in obvious offense. "You still matter! You're the founding father of Menjo High School's Subculture Research Society! And unless you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself, you're the leader of the Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger!"

Nobuo looked down at his drink on the cafe table… and set it aside to stand up, shaking his head in disbelief. "Boy… no, Kosukegawa. I'm gonna be honest with you; I'm the most pathetic, embarrassing, cringe failure of a loser I've ever met. And I'm prolly always gonna be. And yet… I realize now that that's something I can live with."

Raising up to his full height and almost stumbling in the process, however, he fixed his unexpected successor with a thumbs-up and a grin. "At the very least, I refuse to become the first Sentai Red in history to let down the kids and the expectations they've put on me. No matter how much it may hurt, that's what it'll mean to be Akiba Red!"

In the seconds before the proprietor could scold the two for causing a scene, Kosukegawa's phone abruptly started shaking in his pocket like an earthquake. "Eh?!"

Streams of light jumped through his pants from the phone to the metal base of the table, before coalescing into a solid mass that bumped its head on the underside of the table with an unexpectedly cute yelp of surprise.

The formless being of light crawled out into the hallway, before standing up and properly materializing as a gorgeous blue-eyed blonde. "I'm sorry to be so abrupt, Mr. Kosukegawa, Mr. Akagi, and I can explain later, but right now Blue and Yellow desperately need your help!"

Akagi, just drunk and otherwise mentally off-balance enough to not question where the pretty girl came from, how she knew who he was, or even what she was, nevertheless remained a obsessive enough otaku that the known parameters of his Sentai "powers" – delusional or not – had all but been engraved upon his soul. "Then you'd better take me to where they are, miss; I can't transform if I'm too far away from the others."

"Oh don't worry," the beauty said with a smile and a wave. "Hitoshi took care of that, part of my being here is actually to update your system with the patch! Just go ahead and transform, and I can help make sure it works!"

"Well if I can just do it wherever, then in that case…" Taking a wide stance, Nobuo withdrew his transformation trinket. "Watch closely, young Kosukegawa!"

"...Mr. Akagi, is that an Aoi-tan figurine–"

"O storm of electrons," the woman intoned, "I ask of you: please, grant this noble warrior the power necessary to fight on for justice! Initializing program option #2!"

"JUU MOUSOU!"

ZU-KYUUN!

A flash of light blinded the patrons of the establishment as Aoi-tan's legs came together within her cape and fired in gun form… and when it faded, Nobuo had completely disappeared.

The blonde then turned to Kosukegawa, pulling him out of his seat by the wrist. "You should probably come back to Secret Base too, let's go!"

Kosukegawa blinked in confusion, but helplessly let himself be dragged along rather than protest.

Behind them, the owner and other customers all stared at each other for a long moment. "...okay," the bartender announced, "that's more than enough booze for everyone today!"