Chapter Text
Kouta Kazuraba feels the darkness inside his eyelids, pressing his eyeballs back against his brain and touching the gray matter, not concussive, per se, but in a rattling, maraca-like settling against his skull. He is pretty sure this is death. It's not the first kind of death he would have considered, but he never got around to thinking about the concept, you know, critically speaking. He is pretty sure that mortality is something you're at least supposed to meditate on when you hit your twenties. Cranial homework, neurons firing about the absence of, taking up space where seven classes daily once took residence and afterward deserted (if you bothered to get around to pondering mortality) (Kouta hasn't) (not even after the white rider) (not quite yet.) As long as you don't get caught up in the smallness of everything, everyone, yourself, you're good.
This is not good. This is pretty balls. Hairy ones.
One (mental) firm shake of the head later and he's back. Like, really back. First, he has no business thinking about theoretically present and definitely nasty junk in what may be his last moments; second, why think about mortality when you're living it? Dying it. Words. He decides in a flash of inspiration that he would probably be better off thinking about the living part of the situation than the part where he panics about the immortal soul and goes into the dark crying pathetic tears. No. Not now. (If ever.) To business.
How much time has passed?
Where was he?
For a moment, he thought he was dying, and now it occurs to him that he doesn't know how he arrived at the conclusion. Wow.
Kouta decides in another brilliant flash to skip to the part where he addresses the concrete parts of the situation. Five senses, right.
He stretches, toes and fingers inching outward through soft warmth. His limbs are weighed down by soft, yielding heaviness. A comforter? A bed? Something is sticking damply to his forehead, and it's an enormous ease off his mind to realize that it's probably a damp towel. His eyelids force a flutter open and pools of fuzzy mahogany shades pour in like new pavement, heavy. Somehow it's too much. He lets his eyes fall shut again.
He thinks he hears someone under his daze. "See" is one of the words, he's sure. The word rounds out, tumbling through his brain in a sluggish flow. It's mixing with memory now, which comes in bubbles, with hiccups.
It was loud.
What was loud?
He groans. Even that's an effort, the noise blossoming through his nose, toothpaste from the tube, but the voice reacts. The cadence of the voice sounds nice; delight with a hint of buoyancy. Excitement. "For some food," it finishes, and another voice gives a chirp that sounds like an affirmation, followed by the creak-thump of bare feet moving away. "And tell Inui-san so he doesn't," it begins again, sending Kouta's thoughts into a tailspin. Inui? Doesn't he know an Inui? Maybe there'd been someone by that name at the convenience store he went to earlier.
The convenience store...?
The smoke stings his eyes, sharp ash-scent on the wind as his hands fumble for his driver and for Mai's hand.
"Kouta-kun, look." There is no urgency in her voice. Light blooms through the broken window she points through. His eyes follow her finger into the haze and upward.
He feels the towel slipping off his head as the voice starts chattering away in its muffled self-absorption, but the rest of his memories start tumbling in through the floodgates, one setting off the next setting off the next, blending the flow of real chatter into the rumble in his recollection, reality lost in the sound of a city panicking. Memories blends into dreams, giving the images light, taste, color, smell -
Acrid smoke fills his nose. He gags and holds his sleeve to his mouth, taking slow breaths. "Where's Micchy? We can't just give up!"
He sees his hand reach for Mai's. Her head turns slowly, looking into his eyes with her lips pressed tight. She nods tersely, but with a dreamlike slowness, the people dashing in the streets moving in unknowable blurs. "This is our city," she begins, pulling him through the sparking automatic door, sliding between open and jammed open, pushing through a cascade of people in the street. "Even like this, we need to take it back."
He grips her hand tightly and looks over Zawame City, the distant sound of sirens hovering over the roiling streets like buzzards. It burns. It crumbles. It roars.
"Kouta." She says his name like a brace.
"Don't let go," he starts, but the ground underneath him splits and crumbles as it folds, cracks like gunshots, loud, present. The concrete tents upward and pitches them apart. He feels her hand grip once, tightly.
"Kouta-kun. Kouta!" His eyes widen and his other hand fumbles for a Lockseed. Steam shoots up from between the cracks, followed by a telltale iridescence, roots like snakes tearing through the concrete like so much paper. Tendrils curl up and outward, trunks covered in living ivy dotted with plum-dark fruit burst between the cracks, sending flocks of green leaves into the sky.
The air is getting very grey.
A rumble. They fall to their knees, gripping tightly over a new hill cracked through, revealing knotted bark and leaves underneath. Kouta finally fumbles the lockseed into its slot. "Don't let go, don't let - "
The shock from the memory impact kickstarts Kouta's heart, jumps him upright and punches a short howl from his gut. A scraping noise rends the air as the person occupying the chair next to Kouta's bed starts, a damp towel clutched in their hands and their eyes rounded out in surprise. A series of screams outside of Kouta's range of vision followed by a clatter and a wet crash startles another yelp from Kouta's mouth, who whips his head around to see the commotion. A young man, who lies against the door with a tray upended at his feet and food all around on the floor and down the front of his shirt, plasters himself against the wood, mouth open and inhaling for another scream.
Which he fires off into the room. They both do. It's a scene.
"Heeey, hey hey. Let's." The guy in the chair tosses the towel into a large bowl, shiny with enamel and emblazoned with a rose, where the towel lands with a wet splap. His hair whips around as he holds out his hands in a universal please-cease-and-desist, his bangs held back by a handkerchief tucked behind his ears. He pauses, then interjects when both stop to take a breath. "Stop! Quit it. Hold your breath, hold your nose. Now!"
The requests stun both men into obedience. They hold their breath and Kouta watches the door guy hold his nose, his shirt still dripping with what looks like miso soup. Kouta joins him, pinching his nose just under the bridge.
"Five, four, three, two, one. We are all going to breathe out. Together. Go."
A rush of air fills the room. It turns into a laugh as the door guy releases his nose and slumps back, sliding down and pushing away the steaming mess with his feet. He ends the laugh with a sheepish sigh. "Well. Thanks, Tsugami. Don't know what got into me."
"You don't react like that unless you've got some steam to blow off. Neither of you." The handkerchief guy (Tsugami, Kouta reminds himself) lets a huge, easy smile split his face in two. It's a friendly feature on a sun-darkened face, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he waves the remaining awkwardness out of the air. "And Shouichi's fine. We'll end up on first name terms at some point, I think," he directs at the door guy as he gets up and leans over to inspect Kouta.
For the first time Kouta realizes that his jacket and shirt are gone. Swathes of bandages cover his chest instead. He reaches a hand up and touches his own face, fingertips brushing over a thickly applied bandage between the corner of his mouth and his jaw. A twinge in his chest catches his attention, no longer masked by post-nightmare adrenaline. Things start to sting. Lots of things.
"First name terms. You think so?" The door guy shakes his head and gets on his knees, flipping the tray and stacking broken pieces of dishware on top. "Was it in the stars? In the cards? How good are your predictions, anyway?"
"Hm." Another onceover and Tsugami Shouichi appears satisfied by what he sees. He prods Kouta by the shoulder, leaning him back towards the pillow. "I don't think you reopened anything, but you should lie back down. I'll change your dressings tomorrow, I think."
Kouta resists a little and opens his mouth in protest, only to be interrupted by a laugh from the guy at the door. (They're both a little older than him, or so Kouta thinks. It's hard to say. They both have a certainty to their actions that is making Kouta feel a little inadequate, no matter how bumbling or clumsy they may act.)
"'Hm'? What's that supposed to mean?" The door guy's voice tinges with playfulness, and he opens his mouth to continue his remark, but the door swings open and smacks him into the floor instead. He lands face first into the food. Kouta's mouth drops open. (Ah. The door guy became the floor guy.)
Tsugami turns his head in time to catch sight of the newcomer as he steps through the door, who studies the result of his actions with a look of mild dismay on his face. "Oh, Inui-san," he says, pleasantly. "Hey."
"Tsugami," Inui replies, sidling around the guy on the floor (who rolls onto his back, whining a wordless complaint. Kouta considers taking back his previous assessment of him.) He focuses his attention on the pair at the bed, his shoulders tensed and hands beginning to clench. His eyes droop down at the outer corners, somber, but his gaze is fierce, alarming, calculating in a way that reminds Kouta of some great predator. The look is familiar. Very familiar.
Kamen Rider.
"What happened?" Inui narrows his eyes at Kouta, who suddenly feels a lot more naked. "I heard..."
"Nothing, nothing." Tsugami waves his hands and stands up. He nabs the towel from the bowl and strides over to help the door guy off the floor, wiping off his face and hands in short, businesslike strokes. "Just a misunderstanding. Nothing to fear from our friend here."
("Hey, I'm not a kid." The guy is thoroughly covered in food yet has the gall to pout a little, snatching the cloth away. "I can handle this."
"Yes, yes." Tsugami lets him scrub his own face, then goes for the hem of the door guy's sweatshirt. There is a tussle.)
"I know you," Kouta interjects. He isn't sure if he'll get in a word edgewise if he doesn't.
"Yes, you do," Inui says, watching the two finally disentangle themselves from the food-stained sweatshirt and start cleaning the mess off the floor and onto the tray. Inui's voice is terse, confrontational. This is definitely the guy.
"Faiz... right?" The foreign word lifts off Kouta's lips with a stumble.
"And you're Gaim. We all know." Inui opens his mouth to continue, but Tsugami pops up back onto his feet and shoves the tray into his hands. Inui nails him with a stare. Tsugami returns it with a smile, plopping the sweatshirt on top of the food indiscriminately.
"Okay! All done. Bring this back to the kitchen, put it in the sink, put the shirt in the laundry room, ask Ryoutarou-kun for another meal. Don't startle him again! Don't throw things. Be nice. Start the darks, they've soaked long enough." Shouichi tosses the soiled towel on the pile in a conclusive sort of gesture, turns him around, and shepherds him out the door with a gentle push.
The door guy, now down to a plain cotton tee, shakes his head after the door shuts and Inui's footfalls fade away. "You think he can manage that? Being nice."
"He likes Ryoutarou-kun. That helps, I think. He'll try."
"I hope so. And if he doesn't, I'd love to see what those Imagin of his would do for revenge." The man makes a horrible face at the door.
"Shinji-kun."
"Right, right. Get-ting a-long." The door guy (Shinji, Shinji, Shinji, Kouta repeats to himself) waves him off, pulling a chair up to Kouta's bed and flopping into it. He's short and slight, with his long hair pulled back and pinned to the back of his head. He starts picking stray white grains off his clothes. He still smells slightly of dashi.
"Uh," Kouta begins, then realizes he doesn't remember what he wanted to ask. He'd spent too long trying to find an opening into the conversation. Damn.
"I'm sure you have a lot of questions." Tsugami sinks into the other chair, hands on his knees as he leans towards Kouta, his eyes crinkling at the corners again with the strange, fond air he carries around him like an overcoat. "Do you want to start, or should we?"
Kouta pauses. Right. "I'm pretty sure," he begins, "that you have more idea of where to start than I do."
Shinji grins this time, letting out a short bark of laughter. "You've got that right."
"What he means is that we've done introductions like this a lot. Fifth time, I think?"
"For you. I don't get invited to as many of these as you."
"Because you're nosy," Tsugami says with a smile tugging at his mouth.
Shinji returns the comment with a whine. "Am not."
"Calm down, it's endearing. Anyway," Tsugami continues, focusing on Kouta and ignoring the overwrought look of pain on Shinji's face, "that's fair enough to say. Let's start at the beginning. You're in a flying castle, which is why this room is so big and fancy."
It was, too. The bed is canopied, Kouta realizes; the walls are carved with embellishments from ceiling to floor and the ceiling vaults into lavish spaciousness. Even the wooden chairs the pair pulled to the bed are plush and elegantly carved, backs scrolled and feet ending in fleur-de-lis.
"You've been sleeping for a couple of days now, or at least that's how long you've been out since you got here," Shinji says, taking out a palm-sized notebook from his back pocket and flipping it open with his thumb.
"I patched you up and let you rest. We're all pretty sure that nothing's broken, but you were a mess. Scared Ryoutarou-kun pretty bad."
"You landed right on top of him." Shinji laughs, looking up from his notebook. "Fourth time that's happened. He's got some terrible luck. Still, that meant that Kintaros was around to haul you up to the room and start making sure you were all right."
Kouta nods, pretending that he's following all of this and Kintaros is a perfectly normal name to toss around. "You said we're flying?"
"Yeah. I'll draw the curtain later so you can have a look." Tsugami nods at the wall opposing the door, and Kouta turns his head to find the wall lined with heavy crimson curtains. "The view's pretty impressive."
"See, the castle's also a dragon." Shinji draws a photo out of his notebook and hands it to Kouta. The image of a dragon fused with a castle is overlaid with badly focused images of what looks like three brightly colored monsters and a larger image of one of the riders that he'd seen before, the chains on his armor stirring up a memory of the rider he had seen months ago.
Kouta looks up at Shinji with his eyebrows drawn up in confusion. "This photo is really terrible."
Shinji shrugs and takes the photo back. "Yeah. It's not edited at all, which is the weird part. You'll have to ask Kadoya about that."
"Anyway," Tsugami continues, tapping on the photo as it passes, "the rider in the picture, Kiva, owns Castle Doran. Wataru-san's graciously let us all use the castle as a base for the time being, since so many of us have been washing up here anyway."
Questions bubble up like froth, but Kouta decides to stick to the easiest ones for now, in order of urgency. "How many of us are there? Are we," he says, pausing to hope that the assumption doesn't sound too stupid, "all riders, here? Did I come with anyone else? Mai? Micchy - er, Ryugen?"
Shinji and Tsugami look at each other, faces sobering a bit. "You came alone," Shinji finally says, looking back at Kouta. "We all did, more or less. And you're right, we are all Riders, sort of," he confirms, looking down into his notebook and taking a pen from the side table, jotting something down as he speaks. "Fourteen of us plus you - no, wait, fifteen, W is a partner combination, right - fifteen, plus Ryoutarou's Imagin and three kaijin from Kiva's world makes twenty. And, well, there are Kivat and Tatsulot and Natsumi-chan's little bat, but they don't take up as much space. Sorry," he says, looking up from his notes. His apology is written over his face too, and he speaks gingerly. "Your friends haven't come here."
Kouta absorbs this information quietly, feeling his heart sink. His sister had been expecting him back with grapeseed oil and ketchup. Akira...
The pause hangs in the air before Tsugami speaks again. "We'll find them if they're out there. And they are, I'm sure." He beams before continuing. "Anyway, we should probably get to know each other before we get any farther! After all, we'll be in each other's company for a while, at least." He bobs his head in a bow. "I'm Tsugami, Tsugami Shouichi - Kamen Rider Agito. It's nice to meet you."
"He's the chef here, and head of housekeeping." Shinji leans over and hooks his elbow over Tsugami's shoulder, knocking their heads together. "He's basically the perfect wife, if you're interested."
"Hey now..."
"It's a fact. I've got it in my notebook under your entry." He ruffles the back of Shouichi's head, the tip of his handkerchief bouncing off his fingers, before giving him a light shove. He closes the notebook and gestures to himself with it. "I'm Kido. Kido Shinji, your friendly neighborhood journalist. Also Kamen Rider Ryuki, the red one with the shutter mask." He motions lines across his face with his finger. "You know, kind of like a vent."
"Or a cheese grater."
"Heeey..."
"Right." Kouta nods. He does remember that mask. He also remembers the dragon that the guy summoned, and the skill and force with which the rider Agito fought. Somehow, he is having trouble resolving his image of the two riders with the two men poking fun at each other at his bedside. Speaking of...
"He's not in charge of anything. He's pretty clumsy." Tsugami grins as Shinji levels a glare at him. "It's true."
"I'm getting better! That was the first dish I've broken in ages. And I take notes," Shinji adds defensively, waving his notebook around.
"And it has come in handy," Tsugami reassures him. " And you help me with the cooking. Your gyouza is very good. You're a great help even if you aren't in charge of anything."
Shinji grumbles, but his hackles lower a bit. "And you?"
"Me?"
"Yeah." Still clearly a little ruffled, Shinji nonetheless presses on, leaning over his knees and looking at Kouta with hungry enthusiasm. "We've all talked one way or the other over the past... Phew, it's been over a decade for some of us. But you're the new kid. Introduce yourself, squirt."
Kouta can't help but bristle a little. Squirt? Shinji couldn't be more than a few centimeters taller than him, if that. "Kazuraba. Kazuraba Kouta. From Zawame City."
"And your name's spelled...?"
"... Normally, I guess? Kudzu leaves, great luxury. Does it matter," Kouta ventures to ask.
"Hey, Shinji-kun, now look what you've done. You'll have to excuse him," Tsugami says, smiling in his mild, teasing way. "I'm not sure if he knows how to mind his own business."
"I just want to get it right. Getting down the right information is important." Shinji opens his notebook again and jots down the kanji, more distracted than offended now. "Just tell me if you don't want to answer. It's fine, we've all got our own deals going on."
"Not that that will stop him from asking."
"I'm not that bad."
It's like a manzai duo, sort of, Kouta thinks to himself. "What's Inui been up to? And Tsukasa?"
"Right. Inui Takumi and Kadoya Tsukasa." Shinji leafs through his notes, shaping the syllables with the tip of his tongue as he searches the pages. "I keep forgetting you've met them out of their transformations. Inui isn't really in charge of anything either, but he leaves the castle to find supplies with Kenzaki and Kisaragi. That's Blade and Fourze, by the way, you'll meet them soon. I know Kisaragi's gonna get a kick out of meeting you. Inui spends his time hanging onto Kenzaki and Souma's coattails and trying not to make it obvious that he likes anyone else, even though he does. How old are you?"
"Ah." Sans the fact that Takumi had made a friend in Blade (and someone else?), at least that all wasn't too surprising. "Twenty. Wait, twenty-one now. What about Tsukasa?"
Both men crack up. "Well... usually, he's not around." The tone of Tsugami's voice is definitely indulgent this time. "He does a lot of traveling with Godai-san - that's Kuuga - and Natsumi-chan. Actually..." He turns to Shinji.
Shinji shakes his head. "I don't think he'd know about her. Kamen Rider Kivaala, and the only girl around here besides Kivaala herself. Kadoya's photo café suddenly latched itself onto one of the castle's attics and Natsumi and Kivaala happened to be inside. Lucky guy," he adds. The constant cheer under his energetic briskness remains, but a hint of tightness squeezes on his words. "He's the only one who's found a close friend so far."
Tsugami aims a brief smile at both of them. "Very lucky. He's got a power that lets him cross dimensions into other worlds, and he uses it to find what he can. He, ah, mostly uses it to play space-time pranks on us, though."
"By space-time pranks, he means elaborate mind games." Shinji shakes his head again. "If anything in the castle looks weird or seems like it's moved, just assume it's him saying hello."
"If it gets drastic, tell Natsumi and she'll sort it out for you."
Kouta isn't necessarily surprised by the information - he's pretty sure he's got a good picture of what Tsukasa's like from the few times they've met, and douchebag pranking sounds right up his alley - but he can't help but wonder why anyone puts up with it, let alone let him get away with so much that it's a fact of living here. He'd fought alongside them more than once, but hadn't really paid much attention to their activities besides how they affected him and his city. The situation in Zawame had always seemed more dire. If he was being honest, though, he'd been suspecting activities more along the lines of tense task force summits and tactical discussions from the riders, not miso soup and interdimensional practical jokes. What kind of people were riders supposed to be, anyway?
"Okay," he says, despite his multiplying questions. "I've got it. Is, uh, Wizard here?" His voice lilts in hope. Kouta doesn't know where he stands with the rest of the riders, but he knows he likes the ring wizard from the few times they've spoken.
Tsugami's entire face brightens. Shinji looks over at him and laughs. "Sure is. He's got some fans, too. That's Souma - he never introduced himself?"
Kouta shakes his head. "There never really was a good time, I guess." The samurai war had been more like speed chess than an epic battle. Things rushed along until you were a giant watermelon getting punted into a malevolent tree by a giant burning wizard. Not much time for introductions.
Shinji pushes his mouth to the side in amusement. "Figures. Anyway, he's here, Takumi's taken a real shine to him for some reason, along with the rest of the half that isn't obsessed with Hibiki-san-" He pauses in the middle of opening his mouth, his eyes cast off towards the ceiling in sudden recollection. "Oh, that's right. Souma's been here a couple of times to check up on you."
"He has?"
"Yeah." Returning his attention downward, Shinji grins toothily. "What, are you two buddies or something?"
"Yeah!" The force with which the answer leaves Kouta's mouth stuns him a little. Well. He lifts an arm (his other one is heavy with bandages) and scratches at the back of his head. "I mean, I guess so? He's cool."
"Cool, huh." Shinji shakes his head and looks at his hands. "That's good. He's asleep right now, but I'll let him know that you're up."
"Ah, thanks." Kouta catches Tsugami shooting Shinji a glance, his eyebrows drawn upward just a little towards his kerchief. Shinji still radiates a head over heels warmth, but somehow it feels like stepping hard through an imagined stair. Kouta isn't sure what he's missing between the two.
Before he can decide whether pointing it out would be a good idea or not, the door bursts open again and hits the wall with a crash that shakes a shower of dust from the ceiling. The three jump as Inui backs into the room. A new tray of food balances in his hands.
"Oi, Inui," Shinji begins, exasperation humming in his throat as he rises from his chair. Inui strides past him and puts the tray on the side table (not a toss, nor a place; a neutral-edging-on-rude put). He looks Kouta in the eye in a way that straightens Kouta's back.
"Eat it," he growls. "While it's hot."
"... Ah. Mm." Kouta puts up a fist in understanding, nodding along for emphasis. "Thank you."
Inui pauses, narrowing his eyes, then sweeps out, slamming the door behind him.
"'While it's hot,' are you serious?" Shinji growls and scratches at the back of his head, grabbing at the back of his chair before tossing himself back into the seat again. "You've seen him eat, Shouichi-kun."
"I know." Tsugami looks at Kouta, who feels kind of lost again but tilts his head in acknowledgement anyway. "But," Tsugami continues, rising to inspect the contents of the tray, lifting the lid off the rice porridge and peering closely at it, "There's no room to throw stones here. Ryoutarou probably asked him to say it or he wouldn't have mentioned it at all. You know?"
"... That's completely something he'd do." Shinji sighs and drags a hand down his face. "Okay, you got me."
"Uh." Kouta begins. The two riders glance at him and Kouta scrambles to phrase his thoughts. "It seems kind of like... Did something happen? With Inui-san, that is."
Both riders look at each other for a beat. "It's like Shinji-kun said," Tsugami finally answers, looking back at Kouta, clearly trying to smooth over the moment, "We all have our own deals. We've been here for a few months now, and a few of us have been here much longer. And... we're all different kinds of people."
"Ah... ha." Kouta nods. It's not really a surprise, per se.
"But there's nothing to worry about! Really!" Shinji waves a hand in front of his face, his eyes widened in urgency. "We'll get it worked out. No one wants anyone else dead here or anything."
"Really?" The word jumps out without much thought, but the look the two older riders give him (a little surprised, a little worried) has Kouta babbling out a small rejoinder. "Not that that's... that's. You know. I mean. That's nice. Really." Kouta smiles, feeling something crackle open inside his chest, spreading warmth outward. Too far outward; he feels his eyes prickle. Uh oh. He turns his head and pulls his arm up to his eyes, rubbing fiercely, laughing. "Lot of dust in this room. What's up with that, huh?"
"Yeah, you got that right." When Kouta puts his arm back down, both riders have their arms crossed and are looking up at the ceiling with solemn expressions on their faces. Shinji struggles with his but Kouta appreciates the effort. "Maybe we can get Kenzaki to dust it."
"Don't be petty." Tsugami looks back down at Kouta, beaming as he catches his eye. "Just because he's the tallest..."
"Tall people are evil," Shinji insists, but a bubble of laughter rises from his chest. Kouta isn't sure if he's getting the joke, but he feels his head bob along on cue. How dare those tall people.
"I'll deliver the news to the rest of my people," Tsugami says, frowning and furrowing his brow for a moment before snapping his fingers, a light turning on in his eyes. "That's right. If Kenzaki's the leader of the tall people, that means we'd have to call him your highness!"
Shinji and Kouta stare at him. Tsugami snickers to himself for ten seconds solid.
Shinji coughs. "Back to the subject. Uh. What was I..." He leafs through his notebook with theatrical bluster, squinting hard into his handwriting. "Name, age, hometown... Profession?"
"Profession?" Kouta can feel a prickle of heat travel up his neck as the seconds stretch into an uncomfortable pause. Not a job, a profession, oh, why did he have to say that word?
A waiter. Just a waiter! But what is a waiter to a real journalist, though? "Well, uh..."
"Hmm?" Tsugami leans forward, his face blank and innocent. "Stuck? Could it be... it's something racy, right?"
"N-no! Of course not!" Kouta feels his face flush fluorescent red. Isn't Shinji the nosy one? Screw that, they both have massive attitudes! "What are you - I'm a waiter, that's all! I do, uh, a lot of. Part-time jobs." He forces the last sentence out as a statement, not a mumble. He can do that, at the very least.
The sudden bark of laughter from Shinji doesn't surprise Kouta. His next words do. "Join the club," the rider says.
Kouta feels the heat in his cheeks snap and die, melting away. He looks at Shinji, eyes wide and searching his face for sarcasm, coming up with none.
"Man, what'd you react like that for?" Shinji scratches at the back of his head, the tiny metal stud in his left earlobe catching the light as his hand brushes the shell. His smile is wide, Kouta realizes, open and free. "It's fine. We're all kind of..." He makes a tilting gesture with his hand. "I guess you could say a lot of us are professional freeloaders? I've had to. We all had to. It's no big deal."
"You guys are a lot less grown-up than I thought you'd be," Kouta blurts out before he can stop himself.
"Grown-up?" Tsugami folds his arms over his chest again and screws up his face in thought. "I'm plenty grown-up. I do the dishes for everyone, I cook, I clean and do the laundry..."
"That's mom stuff," Kouta says, the words spilling from his mouth. He finds that he can't really stop it now that he's started.
"Hmm... Well. It's not like Shouichi-kun has adopted us yet. Paperwork and all." Shinji wiggles his eyebrows. "Moms are adults though," he adds, waving a finger pointed upward, "so taking care of yourself like your mom would is a part of growing up, isn't it?"
"R... Right." Kouta's face is burning, but a tiny smile pushes its way onto his mouth anyhow. His tongue feels less confined by his teeth.
Both Riders nod. Shinji leans back, reaching his hands back and beginning to pick the pins out of his hair. Tsugami leans forward, settling his elbows on his legs and lacing his fingers together. "Do you," he asks, with a gentle force behind his voice, "want the rest today?"
Does he? This seemed like this was building into a Big Rider thing and Kouta still didn't know what he thought about all of that. The Big Rider Stuff always seemed a little out of his league, and he could never comprehend why they tended to revolve around him of all people. Why not Takatora? Why not Kaito? Hell, why not Micchy? Even with Kouta's four years on him, Micchy always seemed like he had things together.
... Thinking again. Kouta shook his head. None of that, not now. "What happened, exactly?" he asks, the sound of his voice going hoarser and hollower than he would have liked. "The last thing I remember..."
"Is the forest, right?"
Kouta looks at Shinji, surprised. "You mean Helheim?"
He doesn't expect the way both riders draw back and look at him, gazes suddenly acute. Shinji's pen appears and hovers over a fresh page of his notebook, his face drawn, serious. "You know its name?"
"Y-Yeah." Kouta's stomach starts dropping again. Oh no. "Is... that important?"
Tsugami's eyes narrow, focus drawn up and over the bed, a frown pursing his lip for the first time. "It is. And we might need to leave it for just - Shinji, I've got the curtain and the wall, get the window." In a bounding leap that belies his slim stature, he clears Kouta's bed and runs to the other side of the room, yanking the curtains open and dragging them with him as he runs to the wall opposite of Kouta's bed.
Shinji looks up from his notebook and swears. He shoves his notebook in his back pocket and vaults over Kouta's bed as well, ignoring Kouta's protests and pulling a - is that a train pass? - out of his other back pocket. "Henshin!" he shouts, pointing it at the window, his shout echoed by Tsugami at the other end of the room.
It's all going faster than Kouta can register, but two things get through his daze.
One: The zippers opening up on the walls were flooding the floors and woodwork with undergrowth and flowers in the exact way he remembers them right before he was swallowed by the grey in his memory, surrounding their feet and creaking and cracking as the tendrils burst through the wood and glass, even as Agito summons a blazing sword and starts hacking away at the vines and Ryuki calls his dragon from his reflection in the window. It twists around and breathes a lavish, gembright sheet of fire onto the glass.
Two: The sky outside is filled with stars. Impossibly filled with stars, clouds of stars, stars misted into the dark sheet of the night like a spray of a thousand white paint flecks from the nozzle of some enterprising street tagger at midnight.
"Where are the trees?" Kouta hears himself ask faintly before billowing flames consumes the panorama before his eyes.