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Chapter Fourteen
Symptoms
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“I still don’t know why this is happening on a Wednesday.”
Ren sidled into his seat, holding a bag of popcorn in each hand. “I don’t understand.”
“I mean, why isn’t this happening on a weekend instead of in the middle of the week?” Kohaku replied, gesturing downwards with splayed fingers. “You’d think they’d have this on a day when more people are likely to attend.”
“Because on the weekend they have real baseball players in here,” Ren shoved a handful of popcorn into his mouth mid-sentence. “Instead of all these kids running about that don’t even know how to play. I could do a better job than any of them and I don’t even play baseball.”
“Corey is literally there right now!!” Kohaku’s jaw sank into the floor again. “It seems to me like he’s doing just fine, mister Fukushi!”
At the same moment, Corey struck a foul that zipped directly towards Ren’s face. Barely flinching, he snatched the ball out of the air, and gestured to the in-stadium camera about how totally definitely enthused and not at all bored he was at his sudden catch. The crowd applauded his maneuver while Corey looked away sheepishly.
“H… How did you-”
“I’ve been using my mask for several years now.” Ren eyed the ball as he spoke, feeling the rough seams running across it. “And Wild always told me, the more you use a mask, the more it becomes inherent. It’s how he always stayed in perfect shape despite never working out; his mask pushed his body to its greatest limits, maximizing his physical potential.”
“…And yours…?” Kohaku’s eyebrow was raised in curiosity.
“Similar to his, but more specialized.” His eyelids squinted for a moment as a play was called, causing an argument between the two teams. “My mask lets me operate at my maximum potential in every way, meaning I’m working at peak efficiency, whereas Wild’s was on a purely muscular level. His didn’t affect his mind.”
“Meaning that it makes you sharper.” Kohaku tapped her chin. “Let’s see… Ah, because you need all the help you can get, I assume.”
“Maybe you need it if it takes you that long to think of a dig.” Ren smirked. "Although I wouldn’t recommend it, honestly. The feeling of your mind speeding up and operating so much faster is incredible, but taking the mask off… It’s crushing." He looked down at the baseball as his brow crinkled. “It feels like someone’s taking a chunk out of your brain every time, like you’re being robbed of your thoughts.”
The silence dragged on for almost a whole minute. “You didn’t come here to watch Corey play.”
“No, I still would’ve come.” Ren sighed, looking back up at the game. “But right now there’s an experienced group of mercenaries after our heads, and while I have to be here, my mind is just about everywhere else. What if they’re in the grandstands, watching everything that’s happening, trying to take one of us out?”
“You thought about that before coming here.” Kohaku frowned. “You knew the risks to keeping up an appearance like this before you arrived. And you decided it was worth it in the end. So don’t give me that attitude about it, Ren Fukushi.” She jabbed a finger almost directly into his face. “You knew exactly what you were doing.”
“Yeah.” Ren mumbled, staring down into the field as the conflict between the teams turned into a brawl and several of the adults sitting aside rushed in to break it up. “I just hope we’re able to find some peace under these circumstances. Never know when someone might be watching, is all.”
The pair continued to watch the game in silence for a moment more, as several rows behind them watched two careful eyes, masked behind perfectly round sunglasses, as their owner softly nibbled on popcorn of his own. “What’s the rest of your group up to?”
“Oh, them?” Ren instantly relaxed, ignoring Corey’s cries of pain from being hit on the arm by a flying bat. “Rook and Race are flying out to Hong Kong briefly to do some checking-up on a hunch I wanted followed. Tone insisted he’d be able to take care of himself, and well, you don’t argue with Tone.”
—
“I said, junkie,” Tone growled, shoving the poor kid into a locker, which buckled under the impact. “This is my station, and until I hear otherwise, that means you keep out of it, capiche?”
“HEY!!” A growling voice boomed behind him. “Let him go and get OVER here! I’m not putting up with your disrespect towards my people.”
“There you are,” He hissed, dropping the youth and marching up to the somewhat obese man who challenged him. “Mind explaining to me why this sleaze is confiscating all of my gear? I pay good money to rent this place out, Shinsuke, and I’m not going to put up with this kind of nonsense!”
"YOU??" Shinsuke roared. “You listen HERE, MISTER HOT-SHOT!! WHEN I WANT YOU CLEARED OUT I DON’T ASK FOR PERMISSION FROM YOUR MOTHER!! You’re not putting on another act here AS LONG AS I LIVE!!”
“Don’t get loud with Me, Shinsuke.” Tone growled.
“I’ll do what I please.” He exhaled, scratching the back of his ear. “But my word is final, and I expect it followed. You’re out. You’re a bum, and I don’t want to see you around here ever again.”
“That all you have to say?” Tone scowled, pointing an accusing finger at the shorter man, but taking extra care to angle his thumb off to the side. The shorter man quickly blinked twice, prompting him to angle his thumb inwards instead.
“All for you.” The man felt at his throat. “Oh, one other thing. There’s a magazine 'said they want to do an interview with you, some cheap place high up in the north, some place called Taruki.”
“Not helpful.” Tone crossed his arms. “You’re just trying to goad me into leaving in a rush so you can throw all my stuff away like the garbage you are.”
“WHY YOU-” The man bellowed, but caught himself as he felt at his throat again. “If I wasn’t on medication right now I’d sock you so hard you’d pop out the roof. I’d hit you right through the RAFTERS, you big lummox!” The man growled, gesturing violently with his tensed arm.
“Got him.” Tone whispered, and slid his hands into his pockets.
"YAAAAAAAHHHGH!!!" The figure wailed, falling off of the rafters in the back corner of the gym and smashing into a pile of sandbags at the bottom. Tone walked over at a casual pace, the man following nervously at his heels. As they neared the figure, he reached out his hand suddenly, but cried out in pain again and gripped at his ears as his body shrunk closer to the fetal position.
“I suspect the tinnitus will go away in a day or two,” Tone mused, walking up to the sandbag pile with a smug attitude. “But unless you want things to become awfully unpleasant for you in the next ten seconds, I’d start by telling me who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish.”
“P-Pakka,” The figure winced, trying to stand but finding sitting down on the pile much more convenient, especially after Tone’s hand roughly shoved him into the position. “I have a message for you from the Pangolins.”
“Didn’t even ask you that yet.” Tone sounded surprised, glancing at Shinsuke briefly. “Okay, what’s the message, then? And if involves any kind of bodily harm against him, expect it repaid in much more than full.”
“I didn’t intend to actually hurt him,” Pakka almost whimpered. “But I had to get him to call you, and it was the only way to convince him to help.” He gestured towards Shinsuke with his head, and he in reply reached to the back of his neck, removing a toothpick placed against it.
“…You serious?” Tone sarcastically replied, snatching the toothpick away and snapping it in his fingers. “I hope you had a backup plan, because right now you’re looking even more incompetent than Shinsuke here.”
Before Shinsuke got the opportunity to be properly offended at the comment, the toothpick rebuilt itself, flying into the open fingers of Pakka. “I had to demonstrate a little to get him to listen.” Tossing it upwards, the toothpick reinserted itself back into one of the rafters. “I’m sorry, mister Shinsuke.”
“Not sorry enough.” Tone growled, clenching his fists. “I should have known there’d be more of you mask-wearing lunatics in that group. The Pangolins, huh? Makes sense for a bunch of overly-defensive rodents.”
“They’re not rodents.”
“Shut up. Now listen, Pakka.” Tone cracked his knuckles, wincing as he did so. “That mask you’ve got on, I’ll be needing it. You’re going to hand it over, just like that, no questions asked. Or, I’m going to blow your eardrums out. It’s your choice, of course.” He extended his gloved palm towards the huddled figure of Pakka, gesturing for him to relinquish it.
“I wonder,” Pakka wearily replied, slowly slipping back his hood to reveal the dark mask intertwined directly into his bark-like skin. “How you intended for me to remove it?”
—
“Kōhī?”
Race waved away the stewardess with a very impolite air. It couldn’t be helped; if she hadn’t reserved the window seat and occupied it as thoroughly as she had, someone else might have been able to see out of it.
Her passenger was rather obliging, as well; from the moment the plane took off, he had remained fast asleep, although perhaps this was due less to his polite desire for slumber and more to the sleeping pills she had dumped in his drink at the airport lobby.
Taking the magazine out of the window momentarily, she peered out at the blue sky, where a pair of equally blue eyes turned to look at her in turn. Rook was sitting on the wing of the plane, traveling at the same speed as the aircraft, and looking rather bored while doing it.
Quietly Race returned the magazine, prompting an inaudible sigh from Rook as he turned back towards the clouds, wondering how in the world he ever got talked into this in the first place.
—
“Sono noizu o tometekudasai!” The older woman hollered, smashing her broom against the door. “Damaranaito keisatsu o yobuzo!”
With a groan the character descended from his position, crawling across the floor to the open laptop, and with considerable resignation paused the audio which had been playing. He continued to sigh with increasing degrees of violence until there was a knock at the door.
“Whozit?” He inquired.
“Pakka,” The voice outside answered. “And you better let me in, it’s awfully suspicious for me to be out here.”
With some grumbled words of contempt the occupant shuffled across the floor, hoisting himself up with some difficulty to the doorknob and unlatching it. He had barely cracked it open before Pakka slipped in, slamming it shut behind him.
"Boss," He breathed, then looked around at his new surroundings in confusion. “Uh… You get a gardener in here recently? Little overgrown, it seems.”
“Maybe I like it that way.” The occupant grumbled, shuffling across the floor and propping himself in a backless armchair, one of the few things in the room not smothered by vines, leaves, and other sorts of plantlife. “You look a bit shaken up, Pakka. What happened?”
“This guy, from the group we’re after-”
“WE are not after them.” The occupant of the lush apartment replied, placing his two-fingered hands together. “I thought I made that clear, Pakka; we are only doing this for Rikuto Kumagai. Nothing else matters here.”
“It’s getting a little more personal than that.” Pakka rubbed one of his ears through his hoodie. “Oisim- uh, Mister Makuei, he asked me to get Tone kicked out of that wrestling thing he’s a part of. Went there and made some vague threats to the owner, Tone showed up like clockwork after he got the word, had a bit of an angry showdown with the owner and WHAM! Hits me with the loudest noise I’ve ever heard.” His expression grew injured at the memory of it.
“Yes, yes, but then what? Did you hurt anybody?”
“No!” Pakka swiped his hand off his ear in frustration. “He corners me, demands to know who I am and what I’m doing there. I tell him the Pangolins sent me-”
"You what??" The figure started forwards, causing Pakka to flinch away in response, but immediately collected himself and resettled into his seat. “…I see. Then what?”
“Well, after I tell him that, he asks what the message was, but I never end up telling him. See, he asks how I threatened the owner, and I tell him about the splinter, the uh — I threatened him with a splinter at the back of his neck — anyway, he knows it’s my mask and demands I hand it over, and I show him how it’s, y’know… Attached.”
“And?”
“He froze. It was like talking to a statue for two whole minutes.” Pakka rubbed his opposite arm. “When he finally moved again, he kinda looked at the ground for a minute, then turned and walked off. Like he just gave up or, or something.” He looked around anxiously. “Why do you have to keep it so humid in here?”
“I like it.” The figure spat, tapping his limited fingers together. “Anything else?”
“I… I’d like it… Tonight, if it’s not too much trouble…”
“What.” The figure leaned forwards with an incredulous air. “Are you actually serious right now? While we’re in the middle of all this nonsense?”
“P… Please…?”
The figure gave a massive groan, his cadence implying that his peculiar head was about to explode. “All right, fine. You had better appreciate me handing these sessions out like candy to you; I don’t exactly make any money off of them.”
“Thank you, master Odgu,” Pakka began in earnest, but the figure cut him off with a raise of his hand. “Just Odgu. And if you decide in the middle of this that you’ve had enough, say something this time. Alright? I don’t want you to end up worse as a result.”
Pakka didn’t answer. His hands slowly drifted to his hood and lowered it, revealing his masked head with its bark-like consistency. Odgu slowly dismounted his seat, waddling over to the middle of the room and slowly placed his oblong head against Pakka’s. “I’m thinking you can start paying me back in takeout food. Hard to get things delivered up here on my own. There’s a real good place couple blocks from here,” His red eyes lit up with enthusiasm as his head disengaged from Pakka’s momentarily. “It’s got Greek, Italian, not really authentic of course but it-”
“Okay, afterwards.” Odgu relented after seeing Pakka’s tired glare, returning his head to its position before producing a low, harmonic sound, interrupted in stretches by a hissing pause, the room slowly drowning out in a buzzing, pulsating hum.
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