Chapter Text
Taichi doesn’t feel the pull on his arm, not until his legs strain against the incline, his shoes sliding unproductively against the slick earth. “Hey—” he calls out, instinct begging him to thrash against his sudden captivity like an animal caught in the wild, but when Taichi rounds on his assailant all the fight inside of him falls into remission.
“It’s dangerous up there,” an older gentleman tells him, grimly. His timbre is unnervingly calm. Taichi wonders if he is a professor at the school, one he has yet to cross paths with, for he doesn’t think this man would escape anyone’s recollection had they ever met. “There’s an akuma on the loose,” he relays further after a patch of silence.
Water weeps down through the thick canopy of leaves above them. Taichi blames the rain for the sudden shiver that curls up his spine. “Akuma…?”
An end of the old man’s comically sized mustache twitches as he considers Taichi’s question. “This is not a time for learning,” he says sternly. His grip tightens along Taichi’s arm. He can hear the silent plea in it, the soft pull, telling Taichi to leave the hill. To return to safety.
Taichi, instead, digs his heels in deeper.
On a sigh the old man tells him, “At this time they have become synonymous with the manifestation of a person’s darkness.” Even on the unfavorable decline of the hill, Taichi can tell this man barely comes up to waist, and yet his grip remains firm, ineluctable. “Only a hero with one of the miraculous gifts can hope to stop them.”
“How do I get one?” Taichi asks in a rush. For a moment the old man seems to hesitate, what little bit of eyebrows he has left on his face both raising in response, as if he had not predicted the question at all. “Where do I get one of those things?” Taichi persists. He tacks on, “Please,” remembering his manners. His mother would be disappointed that they were an afterthought, but Taichi thinks the situation is more pressing, that each syllable is another tick of the clock that is running out.
“It is a gift,” the man repeats. “It is given to those who are deserving.”
“Who decides?” Taichi asks.
But the old man simply shakes his head and tells him instead, “You should rejoin your classmates.”
Behind him, another detonation shakes the world. The trees rumble, rainwater that had collected along some of the leaves pelting down around them sharply, almost like bullets. From the sound of it, the observatory must be close, Taichi realizes, twisting against the old man’s grip to look behind himself. Smoke billows up and over the top of the trees, copper shadows eclipsing the sky and Tacihi thinks of Koushirou, clutching one half of his laptop to his chest, dwarfed under the heavy laughter of their classmates.
“I will,” Taichi promises the man, not even bothering to look behind him this time. His eyes are set and determined— towards the source of the calamity. “But not unless all of them are safe, too!”
This time, when Taichi wrenches his arm away there is no resistance and he focuses more on the push of his legs against the muck and the grass, reclaiming as much lost time as his body allows him.
Long before he makes it to the summit, Taichi feels as if he has unwittingly swallowed an entire volcano. More than just from exertion, the smoke burns all the way down through his throat, into his lungs, and Taichi gasps for any sense of fresh air. None greets him. He lifts the collar of his shirt up and over this jaw, into a makeshift mask. It does little to help him, but Taichi still trudges forward, towards the giant shadow in the thickest part of the haze.
Up close, the observatory is more impressive than the hint of it through the wild, even with the massive incaving along the front of the structure. Atop the roof the old telescope teeters on a single ledge, as if held there by a string. Looming, waiting. Taichi swallows thickly, holding his shirt tighter to his face, as he steps through what may have once been a grand door.
“Koushirou!” he calls out first. When the sound of his voice comes back muffled and undecipherable to even himself, Taichi pulls the makeshift mask down and tries again, “Koushirou!”
It is just, barely, easier to breathe here.
Somewhere behind him, a sharp crack sounds off. In its wake, a flash of white illuminates the clearing before surrendering the hallways back to the dim, smokey haze they had been. Taichi hopes that it is lightning. He knows that, most likely, it is not.
Further down the main hall, someone shouts.
“Koushirou?” Taichi chances again, rushing his way towards the source of the noise. He has to dodge half packed boxes, what he can barely make out to be photographs and plaques scattered across the floor. He stubs his toe on what looks like an old award, abandoned on the linoleum floor and yelps.
“Ladybug?” someone wonders quietly, one of the nearby rooms opening cautiously. A pair of eyes watch him, blinking and concerned. What little light can be found in the observatory seems to catch on the wetness forming beneath the other’s eyes.
From what little Taichi can see tells him, “You’re not Koushirou.”
In fact, he looks no more older than Taichi’s little sister.
“You,” Taichi starts again. His mouth feels dry as the boy watches him, curiously. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Neither of you should be here!” A third party hisses. Taichi turns immediately, hoping to see Koushirou— that his search has ended and they can return with their classmates to safety until this whatever has been detained—but it is not his classmate.
Instead, it looks like someone who took a wrong turn for a comic book convention.
“Ladybug!” The boy shouts jubiously. His grin is shaky, but relieved to see their newest member. Ladybug sends him a warm, half smile, before rounding on to Taichi with what he thinks is an ill-concealed glare.
It is hard to say, under the lack of lighting, and the heavy, green tinted visor covering the top of half of the other’s face, but Taichi suspects he has garnered a sixth sense for knowing.
“I completed a punctilious scan before the last attack,” he mutters. “Only Takeru had shown up on the infrared,” this Ladybug continues on, resting his hand under his chin and a finger over his mouth, as if concentrating. Taichi beckons the boy to come forward and join them while he lets their newest member speak to himself. “Could it be that it was glitching already? Could more people actually be—?”
“Just one more,” Taichi cuts in then. They all jump for a second when the door that the boy had been keeping propped open slams shut behind him. “I personally just got here so—”
Ladybug snaps back to attention, the same burning feeling Taichi has come to expect already strong in his gaze. “Just— What precisely do you—”
“He was calling for someone,” the boy— Taichi presumes is Takeru— pipes up, helpfully. Ladybug frowns.
“A friend,” Taichi decides carefully. “He’d be the other one still up here.” Even in the faint light, Taichi can see the way Ladybug’s jaw clenches as he continues on, “I’m sure he’s still here.”
Ladybug lets out a short huff before straightening up, his shoulders pulling back in what seems like a vy to appear taller, more in charge. Taichi’s still easily a head and a half taller, just on a quick estimation. ‘If there’s someone else here, we’ll have to canvas the old fashioned way.” He taps at the long, visor-esque glass across his face and relays, “This akuma nullifies electronics.”
He turns to start walking down the hall, then stops a second later and narrows his attention back onto Taichi. “More than that, the two of you need to get out of here. The situation has become exceedingly minacious.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” Taichi confesses, straightening back his own shoulders. “But I’ll leave with Takeru once we find my friend.”
He thinks it’s a deal, the way that Ladybug only watches him minutely before trekking back down the shadows of the winding hallways. With him in the advance, Taichi takes the flank, pushing Takeru along between them. In case.
It seems like quite a while passes with Ladybug ducking into each and every door that will budge, and knocking on each of the one’s that will not, coaxing any silent listeners to leave their hideaways and join them in, what Taichi hopes is, safety.
“So uhm,” Taichi broaches the silence tentatively. He tries to keep his voice down, but the mostly empty halls sing his every syllable back to him. Takeru looks back at him as they continue through the dark, but Ladybug keeps his focus on ahead. “Did you pick your superhero name, because you got bitten by a radioactive ladybug?”
Instead of the reprimandation he expects, Ladybug snorts. He calls, “Hello?” into the next room, but with no one inside to greet him, he tells Taichi, “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“It’s because he’s lucky,” Takeru asserts in a quieter voice, tugging on Taichi’s pant legs to call his attention in full. Taichi doesn’t miss the half amused smile Ladybug tosses over his shoulder.
“Not sure I’d call this luck,” he mumbles, unconsciously running his hand along what looks to be a dark watch and Taichi remembers the old man, wonders if that’s one of the miraculous gifts .
He wonders if Ladybug would tell him where to find one, if he were to ask nicely.
At the end of the hall, Ladybug whips open yet another door, but instead of just calling out, he beckons Taichi and Takeru to step inside. It’s much brighter out now, the last of the smog having cleared in the wake of the sun, peering through a thin layer of rain clouds. They have the perfect view of the treeline from here, and Taichi watches the woods, reaching for Takeru’s hand.
Just in case.
“The only place we haven’t checked is the observatory deck,” Ladybug relays. He crosses the room behind them swiftly, his finger deftly unlocking the emergency window towards the right side of the room. Taichi realizes they must have circled back around, that this room must be the closest end of the building to the woods without also being an open space for something to see them, Taichi tries not to think. “But that was my last vantage point. I doubt anyone escaped up there in the meantime.”
Taichi’s heart falters at the news. He had seen it, perfect as daytime, Koushirou rushing up the hill. Perhaps, he tries to calm himself, he had not made it in time. He had heard the explosions before reaching the summit, and had sense enough to turn around. Or perhaps—
Taichi swallows. “He said—”
Ladybug hoists the window up as wide as it’s hinges will allow. When he rounds on Taichi, it is the first time he can see the other’s eyes, dark and curious.
“He said,” Taichi tries again. He must be shaking, which is the worst thing to do now, because Takeru squeezes his hand where theirs are still connected, his wide blue eyes filled to the brim with concern. Taichi tries his best to smile, but even that feels wobbly along the edges. “Something. Like a person’s darkness? That’s what an akuma is, right?”
Ladybug nods, like he’s considering his answer. Outside the drizzle of rain clicks against the glass, mirroring the thrumming of Taichi’s pulse. Finally Ladybug says, “Conjecturally, an akuma is more of a creature that possesses a person with generally heightened negative emotions.” Ladybug meets his eyes briefly. “Sometimes this transfigures the person into a creature themselves, something more befitting for their purposes.”
“Then maybe he’s the akuma,” Taichi declares, his eyes turning back to the wild, looking for any sign of a monster, a beast. “And it’s all my fault, I’m — I did this— ”
Takeru squeezes his hand again. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you,” he assures Taichi.
“No,” Taichi shakes his head, “I did this— I’m—!” He tries to breath in, but it feels like something is blocking his airways, even though he knows, logically, there isn’t. Along the edges of his vision feathers off in white, and he can almost make out the sound of Takeru speaking to him, but mostly all he hears is the same static that used to lull him and his baby sister to sleep after their taped movies ended, only louder, angrier.
“Taichi,” he thinks he hears, and then a moment later he’s jolted along the shoulders, dark eyes watching him intently. “Taichi, it is not your fault,” Ladybug tells him clearly, resolutely. Taichi looks for something in his eyes, something to contradict the appeasement, because heroes always lie, when they want to protect someone. “I promise this is not your fault,” Ladybug presses and Taichi decides he can believe him.
He lets his shoulders relax, the tension that had crawled along his skin dissipating mildly. Ladybug smiles, the first, genuine smile Taichi has seen grace his face and it makes his heart clench in an not unpleasant way to see it.
“The Minotaurus,” Ladybug continues, pulling away quicker than Taichi finds he cares for, eyes back tracing toward the window, “is the local astronomer. Was,” he corrects himself a little bit later. Taichi doesn’t miss the speckle of red, easing its way up and over the exposed shell of Ladybug’s ears. “And she has been akumatized because of the new network.”
“The T.V. network?” Takeru ventures, his voice sounding smaller than Taichi has ever heard it, in the short time they have come to know each other. “She became an akuma because of the one they’re building here, is that it?”
Ladybug nods. “Which is why she’s been jamming all the electronics in the city.” He clicks a few buttons on the watch Taichi had spied earlier, even adjusting his visor this way and that, but to no obvious avail. Taichi already misses his smile. “I know the static discharge in her horns are what’s impeding the electrical currents, but I’ve had no luck finding the antithesis. Or where the akuma is hiding.”
“I can help!” Taichi volunteers, stepping forward. Takeru, still tightly at his side, nods enthusiastically adding, “Me too!”
Ladybug shakes his head, determination setting his jaw tight. "You'll both be of better help by leaving." And this time when Ladybug makes it back to the window, he ushers for the two of them to exit. "This route should take you straight towards the gymnasium at the school nearby. You'll be safe there."
Takeru falters, his grip loosening minutely. Taichi hadn't realized how tightly he had been holding on, not until the blood rushes back to his fingers, the skin there tingling with half asleep nerves.
"I have The Minotaurus temporarily subdued," Ladybug continues, his voice pressing and pleading. "She won't hold much longer, so you have to get out of here—"
"I'll make sure Takeru makes it out."
Ladybug narrows his eyes. "Both of you."
"No," Taichi volleys back, almost wishing he could cross his arms to deliver a more stubborn look. He settles on just glaring back. "I'll leave when I know my friend's safe."
"We surveyed—" Ladybug cuts himself off, taking a deep, steadying breath. Taichi's used to this, of people having to recollect themselves with him. He wonders if Ladybug would rather handle ten Minotaurus', rather than deal with him another moment. "I will look for your friend," Ladybug promises on his next breath out. "I’ll make sure he’s safe before anything else. What does he look like?"
There's a part of him that thinks, if he withholds this information, Ladybug will let him stay. To look for Koushirou, to help out further. But there's a distinctly imploring light in the would be heroes gaze, a quiet desperation. He can feel Takeru watching him as well, quizzically, his own fate probably determined by Taichi's decision.
And so he relinquishes. "Alright." Taichi breathes in, the first time in a while, he finds that it doesn't feel like a struggle. "He’s shorter than me, probably about your height,” he guesses. “S'always got this yellow backpack on." Taichi tries to filter through every little bit of knowledge he's got of Koushirou but the list is exhaustive after, "And he's got red hair."
Ladybug stares at him. Until that moment he had looked as if he were sorting through an internal list, an invisible database that had suddenly and without warning gone dry. "Red?"
"Bright ," Taichi tacks on.
"He should be easy to spot that way!" Takeru chirps in.
"Right," Taichi says. He smiles at the younger boy, and this time it feels more stable, certain. Perhaps that's the benefit to having a superhero cleaning up your slack. "Let's make sure we get back safe," he tells Takeru, rumpling the baseball cap atop his head until it frizzes the golden hairs along his ears. The boy beams up at him.
"Your friend—" Ladybug starts just as Taichi's half helped Takeru up on the counter. He watches the hero fret over his words, mouth caught between some indeterminable emotions. He settles his lips into a flat line, eyes narrowed in not quite a glare. "I saw him earlier. He should already be with the others, back at the gymnasium."
A knot in Taichi's stomach unfolds, his shoulders drooping completely of the tension they'd been holding since he'd first seen the plumes of smoke atop the hill.
Koushirou was safe.
Ladybug watches him, his eyes suddenly soft. "You were worried for him?"
Taichi stares. "Yeah," he finally manages, his throat feeling dry again suddenly. Even in the lack of major light, Ladybug's eyes are bright, as if the darkness of them were just an indefinite galaxy to hold every star and Taichi wishes he had the time to count each of them. He swallows. "I saw him coming up here. After I, uh, made a mess of things," he admits, face heating up under the sudden attention from both Ladybug and Takeru, who has since turned himself around to sit pleasantly on the counter. "And then I saw the smoke and I had—"
"You didn't have to," Ladybug cuts in, softly. It is the first time that Taichi notices how lithe his shoulders actually look and it should not strike him quite so hard, for every comic he has ever consumed has been of young heroes, but this one is no older than he is and Taichi wonders how heavy a burden this must feel on such slight shoulders, when he is the only one who can hold it.
"Listen," Taichi starts, trying to motion for Takeru to start on his way out, "if there's just something I—"
But his request catches in his throat, swallowed by the sound of a long forgotten crack— another explosion—and Taichi sees it through the window to Ladybug's back ; the tall, impending shadow as it exits the treeline, stalking it's way towards them. The figure alone would be bone chilling enough, but Taichi eyes the long, gnarled silhouette of horns atop it's head and wonders just how worse they must look, without the kindness of shadows.
Every bit of color drains, slowly and visibly, from Ladybug’s face. Taichi finds himself stepping back, his closest arm raising up and around Takeru, as if it has any possibility of actually shielding him. He wonders if it’s a habit he picked up from his mother, stopping him from smacking into the dashboard whenever she stops short on the road.
It is a matter of seconds when The Minotaurus rears its head back, a deep guttural scream ripping from its throat, only to whip its head back and—
The room shakes around them, glass shattering. His ears buzz with the sound of impact— a bomb? Taichi doesn’t know, hadn’t seen the actual weapon, but it had missed them, tearing through the wall more towards their left.
Takeru looks unharmed when Taichi checks. Though he’s got both hands clutching to his ears, he still tries to give Taichi a reassuring smile.
“Go,” Ladybug commands, coughing around the debris that has stirred around them. He wastes no time in turning on his heels towards their villain, easily slipping out of the new entrance way it had been so kind to provide them.
Taichi turns his attention back to the youngest of their party. “Let’s get you out of here, buddy!” Takeru nods aggressively, turning on the counter best he can. It is a tight squeeze, but he manages to shimmy himself out of the emergency window.
He plops softly onto the grass below, smiling shakily back up at Taichi. “I made it,” he declares. Takeru watches him, expectantly, but Taichi considers the window, wondering if it had been designed for anyone above the age of twelve.
He looks to the large encaving behind him. In the clearing, Ladybug has pulled out some type of weapon, the monster backed up towards the treeline once more.
“Start heading to the woods,” he tells Takeru.
“But—”
“Heads to the woods,” Taichi repeats, pressingly. “I’ll meet you around there soon, got it?”
Takeru stares up at him, bright blue eyes cloudy with indecision and nerves. “Promise?” He implores.
“Just a few minutes,” Taichi smiles. On habit, he almost closes the window behind him.
Taichi keeps close to the walls, where he hopes is out of sight. It makes it feel like he's in a spy movie, stealthily checking around the corner to make sure the coast is clear. His stomach wobbles when his eyes meet the scene across the clearing; Ladybug just barely a streak of color; the Minotaurus evading every advance despite it's bulky form. Taichi looks away, eyeing the path along the outside wall towards the woods.
He breathes in.
One.
Two.
Three—
“Lucky Charm!” Ladybug shouts, his voice echoing along the clearing. Taichi falters in his sprint, a flash of light catching his eyes. Above Ladybug’s head, a long, red cloth dotted with black spots drifts slowly in the air, falling softly into the hero’s outstretched arms. He can't hear the words that come from Ladybug next, but Taichi can read the frustration in his frown from even here. The Minotaurus sneers, it's eyes flashing dangerously all of a sudden and Taichi doesn't quite know what possesses him when he shouts, "Wave it!"
Ladybug's eyes find him swiftly, jaw slack with surprise. Taichi swallows heavily, because the Minotaurus sees him, too.
It's the first time Taichi has stared down the monster in the light. He is reminded of the picture books they kept in his third grade class, the mythology book he had stolen from it's shelf and kept hidden in his desk for independent reading. Sora used to join him, reading over his shoulder where they had hid away by the cubbies, regaling him in other versions of the myths that she had read about in other books. They had always skipped the minotaur, because Sora said the myth made her too sad.
Taichi swallows again. He was glad to, always, because, while he'd never admit it aloud, the illustration had always given him chills.
But the picture book was nowhere near as terrifying to the real deal.
It was every bit the monstrous mixture of man— woman, Taichi remembers quickly— and bull. Her twisted horns were jagged, sharp, but worse yet was the visible sparks of electricity chasing up and down them. Along her midnight dark body—what Taichi guesses are—constellations roam this way and that, collections of stars tracing along her bulky form. He wonders if it would be lovely, if it did not belong to something so dangerous.
"Over here!" Ladybug shouts suddenly. Taichi turns his head, thinking he might be calling to him, but the hero has already whipped out the red cloth, lashing it against the wind and rain. The Minotaurus lets out a guttural noise deep in her throat, thrashing her head angrily at the sight. Her hoofed feet stamp against the ground, ready—
In a flash she charges. Reflexively Ladybug pulls back the cloth, letting The Minotaurus run straight through, unable to stop her momentum until she has crashed into the bark of an old oak.
Taichi breathes out.
Ladybug meets his eyes, inclining his head sharply in the direction of where Taichi suspects might be the school. He can read the message clearly: Leave.
“Watch out!” he shouts as the beast pivots with an unnatural grace, lunging back across the clearing, loosened tree bark splintering behind her. Ladybug snaps back to attention, just barely pushing himself out of the way as The Minotaurus rushes by, but the cloth slips from his fingers as he loses his footing on the slick earth. It flutters against the muted gray sky, red and brilliant, as it sails on a particularly fierce gust of wind.
It settles at Taichi’s feet, innocuously. He considers the cloth for a moment, and then looks to the woods. To safety.
“You’re not invincible, Taichi,” his mother’s voice echoes in his ears, almost drowning under the blood rushing about in his head. She sounds angry, disappointed, and Taichi breathes in. The Minotaurus has already swung back around; Ladybug gives up on standing, his legs pushing back against the mud, trying desperately to escape from the beast’s intended path. On his breath out, Taichi lets his doubts go with it.
He is not invincible, this he knows very well.
But right now, he’s the only one who can help.
Taichi reaches swiftly for the red fabric before the wind decides to take it once more. He raises the cloth up his chest, lets it ripple under the pressure of the wind before he calls, “Hey ugly! Check this out!”
The Minotaurus falters, her eyes back solely on Taichi. He doesn’t dare peel his eyes away, but he imagines that Ladybug must be furious, that the person he had tried to protect was still here, quite literally calling on danger.
In indignation, the villain snorts, and in the cold, damp clearing her breath is easy to see. Taichi shivers. She takes a step backward, and Taichi thinks he should feel relieved, but it is only that much more menacing.
He waves the flag for good measure as Ladybug shouts, “No!”
But The Minotaurus advances, undeterred by the hero’s misgivings.
Taichi digs his feet into the ground, hoping it will keep long enough, hoping he doesn’t slip into the mud as well. The Minotaurus, as he had observed, is fast for such a bulky creature. It feels like a blink of an eye that she’s across the clearing, and then suddenly within distance of Taichi’s reach. He sets his jaw, waiting, waiting, and then—
Taichi manages to, somehow, jump out of the way in time, whipping the cape over The Minotaurus’ head. The fabric catches on her gnarled horns. Then, as if he weighs nothing, Taichi finds his body lifting with the raise of her head, the fabric sturdy and unbreakable.
He screams.
“Taichi!” Ladybug calls. He hears it just over the rushing wind, the chattering of his teeth whenever they make contact under the thrashing and bucking of the monster beneath him.
A particularly violent buck sends him forward, fingers slipping from the rain logged cloth. Every instinct in his body calls to him to stop the fall, his hands reaching for anything to hold, his fingers finding metal as his body jerks to a stop, blood rushing in his head with the want to settle.
It is the nose ring he has grabbed, Taichi realizes, the sort he always imagines every bull is born with, right through their snouts. This one reminds him of Victorian door knockers, just large enough to hold his hand through, and he hopes it is not covered in snot. Several charms attached to it clink together, but Taichi doesn't have the time to appreciate her jewelry when the monster howls, thrashing harder and angrier than she had been before. Her hands reach for him, grabbing blindly at her assailant, but Taichi kicks quickly against her chest with his feet and pushes off with as much strength as he can.
He expects to fall on his rump, in the mud, right at her feet, but instead he feels another rush of wind, of his head, as he is pulled through the air against his will. When Taichi looks up, it is the strong underside of Ladybug’s jawline.
They land a short distance off, Ladybug calling back whatever had been suspending them in the air for the moment. Perhaps a grappling hook, but Taichi feels too winded to think long on how cool it should have felt, to be riding through the air with a superhero on one of those. Instead when Ladybug releases him, his knees give out, his body suddenly too heavy to stand. Ladybug helps him hit the grass floor more gently, hoisting him up against the dilapidated wall of the observatory. Taichi hates when Ladybug pulls away, the space where he had occupied now cold where it had been warm.
The Minotaurus lunges blindly along the clearing, tearing at her face, screeching terribly. Taichi thinks it sounds a lot like no and somehow that makes his heart clench to think she can speak when all he had heard so far as anguished screams and growls.
“Taichi,” Ladybug huffs, his eyes scanning over his face, his body, his legs. “That was so—”
“Stupid,” Taichi finishes, lamely, huffing out a laugh. “I get that a lot,” he says, smiling at Ladybug. The other stares at him a moment, before slowly, he smiles back.
“Thank you,” he says, finally, gently, the sentiment reflecting in his eyes. It’s an awful time, Taichi knows, to feel his heart skipping, his cheeks warming under the attention.
“Go,” he tells Ladybug, croaking the order from earlier back at him. “I’ll be fine,” he clarifies.
Ladybug’s lips pull back, a concerned grimace, Taichi thinks. Then slowly the hero lifts back up to his feet, breathing in deeply until his shoulders are staunch once more. Taichi doesn’t mention that he can see the tremors in his hands, where they clutch at his side, or the fear still evident and staggering in his dark eyes.
“Get back to the school,” Ladybug orders, “as soon as you can.”
But before he can leave back to the fray of the batte, Taichi calls back at him, "The nose ring!" He gestures to his own face as he explains, "I grabbed it by accident,” and adds, "she really didn't like that."
Ladybug hesitates, teetering on his feet for a moment. There’s a light of something sparking in his dark gaze, and Taichi feels proud to have been the one to place it there—
“Taichi!” Another voice shouts, and whatever light had been in Ladybug’s eyes dims to a darkened fear when they both spot a heaving Takeru along the edge of the observatory’s wall, bright blues eye wide and wondering.
“Takeru,” Taichi shouts back. “You should have— ”
“I got worried when you didn’t come like you promised,” he cuts in quickly. His eyes roam along Taichi’s crouching position, worry thickening in his visage. Taichi tries to tell him to run away, not forward, but the boy does not listen. Perhaps they’re all stubborn, he wonders contritely as Takeru dips down at his side. “Tai—”
The fourth member of their party cuts in this time, the angry yell of The Minotaurus grabbing each of their attentions to the center of the clearing. Her one eye catches the tiniest refraction of light, glinting angrily where she had managed to rip off one half of the cloth from over her face.
Taichi swallows. He wishes he had been politer, suddenly, when he had called for her attention earlier.
The single horn exposed now glows, electricity chasing up and down the length, growing brighter until the buzz of it can be heard around them, like it’s charging, Taichi thinks.
“ No,” he thinks Ladybug says, just before lunging forward, towards the beast. The visible static of energy seems to discharge, aimed directly towards their group. Taichi feels a scream in the back of his throat catch, building in his lungs but never dying, as the electricity seems to cut right along the hero’s side. But he doesn’t have much time to worry for Ladybug, when it continues on, colliding into the wall just to the side of him and Takeru.
Above them, the telescope groans, then plummets, taking half the rest of the wall down with it.
Taichi jumps with all the strength left in him, throwing as much of his body as he can over Takeru’s own, and it is a good thing, he thinks before everything goes black, that Takeru is much shorter than him.
For a moment, it feels like the world pauses, then all at once sensation comes back to Taichi. First it is in the ringing of his ears, then in the tickling of something thick, and wet, running down the side of his face. He hopes it’s rain water. He knows, more likely, that it is not.
Over the ever ringing tinnitus, he hears the repetition of his name, resounding as if he has been trapped inside a cave.
All at once, Taichi remembers.
Takeru stares up at him, his eyes wide and building with tears. He hiccups, “Are you alright?”
“Peachy,” he answers slowly, swallowing. “Don’t worry,” Taichi adds a second later when it doesn’t seem to comfort Takeru. He hopes it sounds like he means it. His head aches.
Moving proves to be impossible when Taichi tugs at one of his legs. He thinks it might be pinned beneath some of the plaster.
“Takeru—!” He hears Ladybug calling, then, “Taichi—!”
“Don’t worry,” he calls back. His lungs burn at the exertion, breathing in dust and unstilled rubble. When he manages to settle his consequential coughing, he calls again, “Don’t worry!”
“ Takeru—” Ladybug starts. He sounds frightened. Taichi knows he must be new to this, the whole superhero thing, because the ones in Taichi’s cartoons never sound so shaken and it makes his heart shudder at the thought.
He does his best to raise himself up and back. It is a struggle, more than just holding himself up, but Taichi manages, what he hopes, is a solid thumbs-up and a winsome smile. “I’ve got him,” Taichi declares. “So now it’s up to you to save us all, okay?”
There is a hesitation in Ladybug’s silhouette, but Taichi almost hears the firm resolution in his voice when he finally says, “Understood.”
Taichi’s arm shakes against his control when he finally lets it fall back to rejoin the other. Takeru watches him, his gaze imploringly concerned. “You alright?” Taichi asks instead. Takeru nods. Taichi breathes in, relieved, his head meeting the mucky earth. Everything feels heavy, from his eyes, to his limbs, to the structure resting along his back. “I’m going to need a long nap,” he tries to say, as a joke, but the next thing Taichi knows, he is alone, eyes opening to the off gray sky, a drizzle of rain tapping his cheeks like a worried mother, begging him to consciousness.
Immediately he pushes up on his forearms, looking around him for any sign of another person. He regrets the motion a second later, his vision swimming and brain pounding against what, should be, a simple effort. He grasps at his head, in some small bid to keep himself stable, asking no one in particular, “Where’s Takeru?”
Taichi realizes he is no longer in the clearing, when his eyes meet the observatory, the telescope standing proud towards the sky. He must be back by the path to the sports fields, Taichi guesses, across the base of the hill.
“I escorted him home,” a now familiar voice answers. Ladybug comes to kneel beside him, his presence warm at Taichi’s side. He sinks, unconsciously, into the feeling of it.
“How do you feel?” Ladybug asks. Silently he holds up a few fingers, to which Taichi immediately responds, “Three.”
He adds, “Like a building dropped on my head,” when he realizes Ladybug is still waiting on a reply to his other question. Taichi huffs out a small laugh, his hands unconsciously raising to touch the back of his head, checking for any injury. If there had been anything, it seems to have been miraculously healed, to his surprise.
Ladybug smiles at him, sweetly and almost, he must be imagining, fondly. “I have it on respectable authority that you should heal up in no time.”
His voice is softer than when Taichi had first met him and at the other’s silent urging, Taichi falls back to the blanket of grass beneath him, letting his head settle down.
“What were you thinking?” Ladybug wonders.
"I wasn't, I guess." Taichi smiles up at the other boy. Against the gray sky, Ladybug is a vision, bright and lovely. He’s smiling again, and Taichi thinks that, maybe, everything had been worth this one moment . "Thinking isn't my strongpoint,” he carries on, tittering. “So I hear."
Ladybug tells him, "Be more careful."
He says, "Sorry," on impulse and watches Ladybug's mouth pull back in a not quite smile, not quite a wince and it clicks—
This stranger is worried about him. Near-tears worried. His heart pulses with a mixture of guilt and a kindling of affection.
"I'll be okay," he pushes on. Ladybug's dark eyes waver with relief, shoulders drooping with the weight of the world seeming to roll off them. “Thick skull,” Taichi continues, knocking gently on the top of his head so as not to jostle another wave of vertigo.
“I’ve conjectured as much.”
Taichi glares at him jestingly and they laugh until a shrill beep cuts through the air. Taichi recognizes it as coming from the superhero himself. Ladybug's hand clamps over his opposite wrist on impulse, surprise and panic written clearly in his eyes. Taichi wonders, if given the chance, he could learn the secrets of the universe just looking into them.
“You can go,” he tells Ladybug, even when it feels like that’s the last thing Taichi actually wants.
“I have someone coming,” Ladybug relays, eyes watching along the path for any signs of another soul. “They should be here soon.”
But Taichi presses, “I can wait on my own.” This time when he moves to sit up, there is no rush, no dizziness that follows as he holds himself up on his forearms. Ladybug smiles appreciatively, eyes flitting over Taichi for a moment longer before he’s back to his feet. Taichi thinks he hears the softest, “Thank you,” before the hero disappears out of his line of sight.
“God,” Taichi says to himself, falling back against the dewey grass while he waits for help to find him. “He’s incredible .”
Alone to his thoughts, Taichi considers what he'll tell his dad, when he asks if Taichi had a nice first day. He wonders if his mother will ask and Taichi swallows the thought down just as the first signs of rescue reach his ears, the simple shouting of his name just over the wind. Taichi rolls to his side to get up, but his fingers clasp onto something that is not earthen.
"What’s this?" Taichi wonders aloud, plucking the rectangular box up along with him as he comes to stand up. The design along the wooden box is intricate. Taichi cannot resist running his fingers along the cherry wood carvings. It looks like an abstract sun to him and something inside rattles when he shakes it. Before he can open to check on the contents, someone says his name again, ever closer, and Taichi pockets the box in the pouch of his cargos.
He’ll have to ask Ladybug if it’s his, should their path ever cross again.
(And he really, really hopes that they do).
Over the crown of the path he spots Sora rushing towards him, her auburn hair darkened and drenched with a collection of rainwater. She shoves his discarded umbrella to his chest, pinning it there a moment later with the weight of her body colliding into his. Taichi almost loses his footing on the grass.
"That was so stupid, Taichi," she crows. When she looks up, it is not at him, but to abate the swelling of tears and the sight of it breaks his heart. Between them his umbrella collapses to the muck once more.
"I'm sorry," he apologizes, wondering if he'll ever grow tired of saying those words. He pulls her in this time, and Sora relaxes except for the minute tremble of her shoulders and Taichi tells her again, "I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Sora huffs, caught between a laugh and a sob. "Just don't ever do something like that again," she whispers firmly between them. And when Taichi tells her, "I won't," he has every intention to keep that promise.
In his pocket, the box feels unnaturally heavy.
"I'm glad you're okay," Sora reiterates after Taichi finishes regaling her in the tale. They had chosen to sit on the second platform of the school’s stoop, instead of actually going inside. "It was lucky that Ladybug was there." She twirls the umbrella on the concrete distractedly, having insisted she be the one to carry it back on their way towards the school. Water splatters on his shoes, but Taichi can hardly tell where they're still thoroughly soaked.
"When I found your umbrella I thought you had gotten lost on your way back to the school. Or worse. Ladybug said you helped quell the akuma and I—" her voice catches again and neither of them pushes on the subject.
"Any idea who he is?" Taichi wonders. Outside of the roof surrounding them, the storm has picked back up, rain plopping on the cement not too far from them. Sora hums, shrugging her shoulders and leans in against him.
"That was my first time meeting him," Sora admits. "I’ve never heard of an akuma before this," she tacks on, almost quietly.
Her weight against him is warm, anchoring, and Taichi appreciates her presence until her mother's car pulls up. He waves at her through the window, wondering if Mrs. Takenouchi remembers him at all, back when they used to kick soccer balls in Sora's backyard. Her curt smile makes him believe she must. It's probably hard to forget the kid who kicked a soccer ball into the glass sliding door of your living room.
"I'm glad you're back," Sora tells him before she leaves and it makes him feel lighter than he has in a while. It always felt like home, with Sora, and he misses her when she’s gone, only the rain to keep him company.
Taichi texts his dad, to let him know he’s alright. He gets a text back telling him to stay put. Other students come and go. One of his teammates teeters on the step for a little while, pressing Taichi about where he’d been, since he hadn’t come to practice, nor had he shown up in the gymnasium. He’s glad when the other’s mother presses on the horn, and Taichi’s teammate says his goodbyes.
He thinks most students have likely gone home by now, and Taichi misses the distraction sorely. Without them, his mind flashes back to the bull, to the darkness of the concaved building, his body shivering with residual fear of near death. His head throbs with the phantom pain that only had just been there not an hour ago.
But it smells heavily of rain and atmosphere, and Taichi relishes in the privilege of just being able to breathe.
“I’ll be safe,” he hears someone saying. Taichi’s heart catches at the sound of it, half expecting to see the hero once more, but when he turns to look over his shoulder, it is not Ladybug.
But he is grateful, when his eyes fall on Koushirou Izumi, clutching ever faithfully to the straps of his yellow backpack. To their homeroom teacher, he continues to assert, “I’m practically across the street.”
“No detours,” Taichi hears her tutting before the doors close softly on her heels.
Koushirou looks to the side, the moment their eyes meet. It feels like a lifetime ago, that Taichi had been searching for him. Even longer since he’d actually seen his face. Relief floods his body, even when he knows that between them, nothing has been resolved. Wordlessly, Koushirou passes him on the steps and Taichi finds himself standing before he can even think of it, chasing after him.
"I didn't mean to break your laptop," Taichi laments. He adds, “I’m sorry,” and hopes it doesn’t sound like an afterthought.
"What did you theorize would happen?" Koushirou mutters, but his footfalls drag, as if he's waiting, listening, and so Taichi takes the time and he considers it.
"I thought it would help," he supplies. The rain hits heavier on the roof now, around them an orchestra so loud it almost drowns out the sound of his heart, thudding against his ribcage. "It worked on our old desktop back home and I just.... really wanted to help out. I swear it wasn't a hazing ritual!" He adds in his own defense, remembering how weary Sora had been when she’d heard of the incident.
“Is that all you want to convey?” Koushirou asks, pivoting on the last step to look back up at Taichi. His eyebrows press together, his gaze searching for something in Taichi’s own. He hopes Koushirou can read the sincerity in them.
“I’m really sorry,” Taichi says again, his shoulders drooping. He doesn’t know if it’s defeat, or the weight of everything.
“No,” Koushirou says carefully, shaking his head. His hand smacks along his face for a moment, like he’s frustrated, and Taichi swallows the lump in the throat. “That’s not what I—”
“I wanted to be your friend,” Taichi admits in a rush. He clenches the fist holding his umbrella when it feels like he's shaking. Koushirou’s stare is heavy on him, and Taichi looks away, flushing. “Sora used to talk about you, when we’d text,” he tells Koushirou. Beyond the roof, the rest of the world is a haze of torrential downpour. “So I wanted to get along with you, and I thought, well, if I helped out, it’d just make it easier than explaining.” He offers a sheepish smile, finally looking back down towards Koushirou. It’s a good sign, he thinks, that the other doesn’t look away. “I guess I was trying too hard, huh?”
"No," Koushirou repeats. His eyes remind Taichi of Ladybug’s, soul searching and infinite, and he shakes the thought right out of his head when Koushirou’s face finally breaks out into the first smile Taichi has ever seen on him. "You just hit the laptop too hard."
And Taichi cannot help himself from laughing, the last coil of tension releasing itself. Koushirou laughs, too, their jubilation swallowed under the heavy downpour around them.
“Can we start over?” Taichi finally asks when they both settle down, coming to meet Koushirou on the bottom step. He holds out his free hand. Koushirou stares at it for a while, before seeming to register the reason for it and takes Taichi's hand in his own. They are small, and colder than he expects. "I'm Taichi. It's nice to meet you. For the first time."
Koushirou chuckles at the add on. "Koushirou," he says. "And likewise."
“I’ll buy you a new laptop,” Taichi throws in. Quickly he adds, “But it’ll take some time.”
"Do you always proffer to buy laptops for people you've only just become acquainted with?"
Koushirou grins up at him, any hint of animosity absent from his eyes and Taichi smiles back.
"I think we can call ourselves even," Koushirou says softly, his eyes fluttering down. There's a smattering of red across the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, and Taichi thinks his own must look no different with the cold of the storm.
"Here," he says, deftly transferring the umbrella from his one hand to the other. Before Koushirou can pull his now free hand away, Taichi deposits the umbrella's handle into his grip, making sure Koushirou takes hold before he let's go.
His dark eyes are wide, unreadable for a moment. "Taichi— I can't—"
"You have to walk home, right?" Taichi recalls the conversation he'd overheard. "But my dad's on his way, so I don't need it." He takes the final step off the stairs. Even with the advantage, Koushirou is still a bit shorter than him. Taichi doesn't think it'll help their already fragile treaty to share the thought and so he says, "Just return it on Monday."
As if picking up on a theatrical cue, Taichi spots his father's car pulling up through the far end of the road, into the school’s designated pick-up area.
"Stay dry," he tells Koushirou, and takes the last few steps towards the edge of the sidewalk, waving his father down.
"Wait!" Koushirou shouts all of a sudden. Taichi turns in time just to have something pressed into his chest. On instinct he grabs for it, the plastic bag only mildly heavy in his grip. "Tha—thank you!" Koushirou manages without looking up at him.
Taichi smiles. "Thanks—" he starts to say, but Koushirou doesn't wait for any gratitude, already tugging his backpack up and on his shoulders once more and dashing for the further end of the pavilion. Taichi winces as he almost loses his footing on an uneven laying of cement, just narrowly righting himself before continuing on his way.
Taichi hopes he remembers to use the umbrella before he gets too wet.
"Whatcha got there?" His father asks as Taichi slips into the front seat.
"I don't know," he hums.Taichi pulls his seatbelt over his shoulder before rummaging into the bag. To his delight he pulls out a clear, plastic container. “Croissants!”
His father spares a quick glance over before he pulls out of the pick-up area and onto the main road. The dashboard GPS tells him to turn right in the next mile.
Taichi offers him one, but his father refuses with a polite wave, his eyes only on the road ahead. Taichi shovels the croissant right into his mouth, not even waiting to get home, making sure to hold it over the opened container in an effort to keep his father’s car clean of crumbs. It’s a wasted effort. He hums as the pastry practically melts on his tongue. Something colorful catches his eyes. Taichi pulls out a business card and reads, "Bakeology."
"We should check it out over the weekend," his father offers. Taichi keeps the container on his lap even after finishing his snack, leaning his head back against the plush cushion of the seat. He thinks he could sleep the whole weekend away without noticing, his eyes suddenly as heavy as stones. He watches the windshield wipers trek along the glass, and he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to make it home before at least taking another nap.
“Where’d you get them?” His father asks, absently tapping the plastic with one of his hands. “Sora?”
“No,” Taichi says on a breath in, settling deeper into the seat. “Different friend,” he mutters, and when the truth of it settles in, Taichi cannot contain his smile. “They’re from a new friend.”