FLCL Fan Fiction ❯ N.O Return Address ❯ seis ( Chapter 6 )

She makes it to the next car and I exhale a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

 

It hits Suzume right in the face. "Brush your fucking teeth."

 

"No time," I reply, like it's actually an option I'm considering. "We've got to get out of here without her noticing. How far until Mabase?"

 

"We are about to pass over a river. Next stop, Mabase."

 

That answers that.

 

Suzume and I both begin scrambling to replace the objects we'd taken from our bags. I have Reiko's book along with my Jump and a bottle of green tea and it just barely fits. I yank my hood up over my hair to try and earn a little anonymity but it's sweltering for September and I get this reeling flash of Naota across the back of my brain as soon as I do. I risk the blond and pray that no one cares.

 

We're pretty bad at being sneaky as we practically scramble to get off the fucking train when it stops. I still haven't seen Raharu again yet but I keep feeling it's only a matter of time. I feel so damn paranoid; I hope I look as composed as Suzume because she's doing an amazing job of not freaking the fuck out. We dart away from the platform and attempt to lose ourselves in the crowd but I'm still really tall. And there isn't much of a crowd in this nowhere town.

 

"You think we lost her?" I mumble to Suzume as we press through a small herd of businessmen.

 

"You wanna turn around and look?" she shoots back, and we keep going and pretend to forget it happened.

 

Once we've crossed to the other side of the station and made it out without incident I pause and allow my heart to attempt to start beating normally. The panic has got my head pulsating in dull pain like I knew it would but it's really not worth fighting any more. To calm myself I think of Mika but that just tosses me into another sort of excitement. Fuck.

 

I guess I'm sort of staring at the ground - I might even admit to being hunched over and panting a little with my hands on my knees - because Suzume is the one that goes, "The fuck?" and points off into the distance.

 

Yep. There it is. A great big fucking clothes-iron.

 

"I guess we start walking."

 

~-~-~-~

 

The train ride wasn't exactly short and now it's starting to get dark. We're really close though.

 

"You didn't tell me she was pretty."

 

It's the first sentence either of us has said for about half an hour. "Was I supposed to?"

 

"I guess not."

 

"You're dating Reiko."

 

"Am I?"

 

"You're fucking her at least."

 

"…Am I?"

 

I stop right under a street lamp and look at her, which involves once again lifting my gaze from the street. "Don't you dare break up with her, Morita Suzume. That'll make the three of us have to choose sides, and I'm equally scared of both of you. Unless you both kill each other in the process - "

 

"That can be arranged."

 

" - I don't want to hear it. Look, my brain's about to explode, can we talk about this some other time?"

 

"You didn't tell me she was pretty."

 

"She's not." Your sister is. I keep walking and I go straight past her. She follows and she's muttering under her breath but I tune it out because honestly, I really fucking don't want to hear it.

 

"So what, do we just walk right in and ask to speak to…who was it again?" She looks at me, then back at the strange building at which we've arrived.

 

"I…don't…know."

 

"Excellent."

 

But apparently we've walked too far because an (unwisely) unanticipated alarm goes off and a bright red light is pointing straight at the two of us before we can blink. And by the time we've blinked and opened our eyes there are three women with large guns pointed at us who definitely weren't standing there before. My hands fly into the air instantly and Suzume follows suit less drastically.

 

The closest, the shortest, a redhead, flips the sunglasses off her face to make eye contact with me. "The fuck you think you're doing?" she asks around a mangled toothpick that dangles from one corner of her mouth.

 

"Don't shoot," I say, panicked.

 

Suzume manages to keep her head level. "Morita Suzume. And this is Yamamaru Taro. We need to speak to…to…I don't know his name."

 

"With the eyebrows," I add helpfully.

 

"And what the fuck makes you think Commander Amarao needs to speak with you?" Redhead snaps.

 

Somewhere in my pounding head I find a scrap of conscious thought. "Raharu. It's about Raharu."

 

A fourth woman in a similar uniform walks out from behind a small guard tower about fifty feet to our left. She's blonde and dark-skinned and her eyes are huge like she's staring at someone she thought was dead. I can't quite look her in the face.

 

"Atsuko," she says faintly, as if dreaming. "Give them to me. I'll handle it." Redhead-Atsuko looks really confused but still lets her two companions manhandle Suzume and me over to the blonde.

 

"Hope you know what the fuck you're doing, Kitsurubami," she says.

 

"I'm just doing my job," she answers.

 

~-~-~-~

 

Blindly we follow the woman called Kitsurubami through a maze of hallways I'll never remember my way out of. I've almost stopped shaking but Suzume at least is paying attention. When we come to a stop it's in the most inhospitable waiting room I've ever seen, and that's counting the one for Keiji-san's garage.

 

She's lost her crazed dreamy air by now, though, and she's all business as she sits us down on the vomit-yellow stiff-backed sofa and proceeds to all but shout at us. "Where have you seen Raharu? Why wasn't this reported sooner? Do you have any idea what you're dealing with? How much do you know? Who are you?"

 

I answer the last one first. "I'm Taro. I'm the one she was looking for when she found Nandaba Naota and decided to use his N.O instead. Do you have any Pepto? I think I'm going to puke."

 

"Bathroom? Over there." She puts a sympathetic hand over her mouth and uses the other to gesture toward a utilitarian-looking door on the far wall. I leave Suzume talking to the uniformed woman on the sofa and go empty my tea and potato chips into a toilet the smell of which almost makes me want to do it again.

 

I wipe my mouth with the back of the sleeve on my hoodie. I stare at myself in the mirror over the spartan sink. I look like shit but that's probably good because I feel like shit and I'd hate to deceive anyone with my appearance. My eyes are really red and my hair is matted together and growing back dark at the roots. I look like I've been run over by a train and while the general effect is pretty much similar it's not a look that's going to be winning me the heart of the younger Morita. Even if she were here.

 

My cell phone rings and it's Mika.

 

I snap it open as fast as I can and jerk it up to my face in a gesture that almost sends it plunging into my eye. "M…moshi moshi?"

 

"Taro," she says evenly. "How are things coming along?"

 

"Good and bad," I answer, stepping out of the bathroom and into the room with Suzume and Kitsurubami - they may want to hear this. "We ran into Raharu on the train on the way up, but she didn't seem to notice or recognize us. She hasn't really gotten a look at Suzume yet anyway." From the looks on Kitsurubami and Suzume's faces she'd gotten around to explaining this far.

 

"Ask about the place!" I hear Reiko yell in the background. "I want to know if they made it inside!"

 

"You heard her."

 

"We're here." I take a deep breath and shoot a look at the blonde officer that asks for permission to elaborate. She turns me down with a sharp headshake and a pursing of her lips. "I'm…not allowed to elaborate. We're speaking to someone now, though."

 

"Figure it the fuck out!" Reiko yells back, and I hear Chisune agreeing as well.

 

"Come home alive," Mika insists, "and safe, you and Nee-san." And then she hangs up.

 

Excuse me if I read more into that than I should.

 

"That was?" Kitsurubami asks.

 

"Friends," I answer with a small gulp and Suzume nods to back me up.

 

A short, round girl with black-blue hair and thick spectacles rushes in all of the sudden and sort of hovers at Kitsurubami's shoulder.

 

"Is it a six-two-five or a six-two-seven?" she asks.

 

"I'm not sure what it is yet, but it's neither of those," Kitsurubami answers and the glasses-girl looks really confused. "Have you ever been here when there's been an eight-three-eight?"

 

A gasp. "There's such a thing?"

 

"It's possible."

 

"Well, there's definitely a blue state."

 

Kitsurubami rolls her eyes. "That much is clear. It might progress to purple sooner than you think, though, so be on your toes." The other girl nods her head and scuttles off but leaves the clipboard she was holding with Kitsurubami.

 

She glances over it as if reading notes and then makes unnerving eye contact with me. "The Commander will see you now."