Gravitation Fan Fiction ❯ Lost and Found ❯ The Search ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter Two: The Search

 

1. Half a Blueberry

 

He had accepted the rabbit. He had, really. He had accepted it and had even come to like it, after a while. It was a part of Ryuichi, another one of his loveable quirks. But this…this was getting ridiculous.

 

“So, you're saying that this dog is talking to you?” said Tohma, for the fifth time. He looked down at his desk and sighed.

 

“In English,” supplied Ryuichi.

 

“I see.” Tohma's hand dropped to the pile of papers before him. Shaking his head, he asked one more time. “In English?”

 

“Yes.” Ryuichi's head bobbed. Tohma glanced at the dog in question. It was currently sniffing through the contents of his wastebasket.

 

“That dog?” He jerked his thumb towards the brown and black mongrel.

 

“That's him. His name is Barnabas.” Ryuichi grinned.

 

“And he talks to you?”

 

Ryuichi nodded.

 

“In English?” The dog overturned the discreet blue wastebasket, at this point. It helped itself to a leftover half a blueberry muffin.

 

“Yes.”

 

“I see,” said Tohma, and he suddenly felt that he needed to sit down.

 

2.Squishy and Covered in Purpley-Browny-Purple

 

“Um… hi?” The blob shook, heaved itself over to the edge of the purple and brown muck. It made a good gooey, squelching sound, like mud under galoshes when it's raining outside and you don't feel like going inside anywhere because it's all boring inside and sometimes the rain is so much better than the sun, most especially when you're not feeling very sunny.

 

It smelled funny here, like rotten eggs or a bologna sandwich that had been left underneath the refrigerator for seven and a half months. She'd been to places that were worse, however.

 

Traveling was nice. (It was easier for her than it was for most people). She liked the sights (though not always the smells) and moving around a lot helped keep that buzzy-dizzy-sad feeling away.

 

She turned to her pink companion. “Don't fall in! You would get all squishy and covered in purplely-browny-purple stuff!”

 

Said companion assured her that he would do no such thing, and reminded her of their mission.

 

“Oh, yes, thank you. I forget sometimes…” she turned to the blob, “Have you seen my doggy? He's veryniceandhisearsgolikethis,” she said, all in one breath, motioning to her head one-handed. The other hand was occupied.

 

“What's that?” Her companion had something to add to the query, apparently. Listening carefully, she drew the rabbit to her ear. “Oh… and a really sparkly guy about this big?” She stood on her tiptoes, raising her hand high above her head. It was good that the bunny was around to remind her; she was so so bad at remembering.

 

The blob shifted and a huge bubble exploded from the muck.

 

“Eeep! Um. Okay. I think we'll just go now. Thank you for not doing the thing where you squirt us with the poison and um, digest us from the outside in and everything. Yeah. Um.”

 

She waved to the blob as they headed to their next destination.

 

The bubbles in the muck popped and the ground shook.

 

3.Twenty Times Worse

 

They were doing it again.

 

The little pink-haired kid gestured wildly, nearly falling onto the table. The one with the long red hair caught him in the nick of time. The kid with the short hair just looked like he wanted to be anywhere in the world, as long as it wasn't right here. And they all kept staring at him. That was the disconcerting part.

 

Barnabas couldn't abide staring. He was a dog, not some two-bit jackal or moldering hyena at the zoo.

 

He couldn't understand a word that any of them were saying, of course; that made it ten times worse. No, on second thought, make that twenty times worse. Thirty, even. Barnabas laid his head on his paws and whined.

 

4.An English Dog

 

“But Ryuichi,” said Shuichi, deciding to ignore the larger issue, for the moment, “why would a dog in Japan be speaking English?”

 

Ryuichi scratched his head, fidgeting in his front pocket for Kumagoro's ears, then clenching his hands around the corner of his shirt when he found that the bunny was no longer there. “I think he must be an English dog.”

 

“Can he speak to us now?”

 

“Um… I don't know. He says that most people don't hear him. Maybe if you tried speaking English and listened very very hard?”

 

“Shuichi, I don't think—” Hiro began.

 

“Speak English?” Shuichi made a face. “Well, I'll try.”

 

“But Shuichi, you know that you're not very good at—“ Hiro tried. Shuichi waved him off.

 

“Nonsense!” The singer got down on all fours in front of the dog. “Okay, here goes!”

 

5. Tuna

 

Barnabas wasn't exactly sure what the pink haired kid wanted with a tuna sandwich.

 

6.Snakes of Green and Florescent

 

Wind swept the hair from the back of her neck, sending it flowing over her shoulder in snakes of green and florescent orange and dark purple. The ground was not quite solid enough to walk on here, but she had fun trying anyway.

 

“Y-you mean,” she said, through chapped lips, “that you don't think we can find them here?”

 

Frost formed on the end of her nose, filmed over like sugar-glaze on her companion's black-button eyes.

 

She shivered.

 

7. Tuna Again

 

That kid seemed really adamant about the tuna.

 

8.Really-Actually

 

This place was new and bright and orange. The sky burned fiery red; the parched ground cracked beneath her feet. Hot vapors drifted from bubbling geysers, mingled with spitting olive-green fizz.

 

Delirium traveled to the planet's near-solid core, which was a molten mixture of titanium, magnesium and aluminum alloy. She slipped in through one of the in-between places, thin slices in time and space that weren't really anywhere in particular at all.

 

Not anywhere in particular: her favorite sort of place. Her new friend, however, did not believe that doggies or shiny men or anyone that really-actually needed to breathe would enjoy it.

 

This, of course, severely limited their chances of finding them here.

 

9. Tuna, a Third Time

 

“Look, I don't have any tuna!”

 

10.Absolutely

 

It was dark. And cold. And absolutely silent. She could feel the pressure bearing down on her skull. She sometimes went here to help her think, but only because it wasn't much fun and there was nothing to be distracted by.

 

Truthfully, she hated it.

 

Not just the thinking and the pulling-herself-together part, but the place as well. There weren't even any fishies here; she once tried to make some, but they fell apart almost as soon as they appeared in the still water.

 

She really hated it. Really-actually.

 

And then, her new friend reminded her, there was that breathing thing again.

 

Oh well. If at first you don't succeed… do… something that she couldn't remember. Lie again? Fry again? Die again? No, she would remember if it had something to do with her sister.

 

Either way, she wasn't giving up. Really-actually-absolutely-no-way.