Chapter Text
There’s a cage on the edge of my Grandfather’s ramen booth that has a maneki-neko in it. Gramps had to lock it up because customers kept stealing it.
It waves at me behind the bars, a referent smile plastered between two patsy white cheeks. I don’t wave back, busy massaging suds from the last ceramic bowl, wiping the blue-painted rim with a damp cloth and stacking it onto the counter with the rest.
“Nao,” Gramps looks less than appeased, which I don’t think has anything to do with the maneki-neko or the state of the dishes. “You’re going to be late.”
My first class probably already started. I blink at him. A soap sud bubbles off my palm and floats to the floor without a sound.
“..I’m always late. Mostly because you make me clean before I leave.”
The maneki-neko sends me a sly look and just keeps waving; the fact that it’s locked up somehow makes it more unnerving. I shake the remaining suds off my hand and they dissipate like sugar in water.
Gramp’s mouth smushes into a deep frown. His whole face will be one giant wrinkle, at this rate. “That’s not my fault. Get up earlier. Did you finish up the bowls?”
I gesture with a rag. “Cleaned and dried. My bike’s still in the garage?”
“Of course it is—? Oh for God’s sake , that was one time.”
I smile daintily, tossing the rag onto the counter. It leaves a bubbly smear on the wood. “Once a thief, always a thief.”
“ You —“ he snarls and waves his metal ladle, which reflects the lights above us like a silver sun. “I borrowed it. For ten minutes. And do you really think I wanted to? Do you know how ridiculous an old man looks riding that stupid cherry red excuse of a bicycle—?”
There’s a ba-thump as something rockets off the canopy above us and a riveting crack as it completely shatters to pieces in front of the counter. Gramps jolts into the wall, shouting something awful and nearly dropping his ladle.
“ Sonnova—!”
I’m startled enough by the outburst that I tense up for a moment, frozen. I pause and peer over the counter and a sizzling vat of broth, but can’t get a good look.
“The hell ,” Gramps is saying, “took ten years off my life, I swear to—“
“..Amari-san probably dropped another flower pot off her porch,” I utter, sighing. The maneki-neko waves cheerfully at us, unlucky and uncaring. “That’s the third time this week, now. What’ll it be today? Tulips? Camellias?”
“I don’t care what goddamn flower it is!” Gramps erupts, shuddering down to his bones. “That goddamn old lady better get down here and lick the goddamn dirt off the pavement! Just because she lives above us doesn’t mean she can wreck our goddamn storefront—“
“Careful now,” I warn, slinging my bag over one shoulder. My hands are still a little slick with soap. “Amari-san may be an avid gardener, but she’s got a temper. Don’t mess with her too much,”
Gramps looks ready to grab a nearby mob and whap me with it. “Get out of here already!”
I snicker. “Bye~”
“Out! Out!”
I dodge his swipe at my head and bolt under the flap out from behind the counter. I pause at the sidewalk, tracing a hand over a cracked leather stool.
The maneki-neko peers through the bars of the cage with slitted yellow eyes, still waving. I spot the crumpled remains of whatever hit the canopy—but there’s no flowers or dirt in sight. Actually, it’s grey stone, not ceramic—and one chunk sorta looks like a feather.
“By god,” Gramps mutters behind me. “She’s gotta stop dropping those goddamn flower pots.”
I hop off my bicycle on third avenue to spot Taiju, two cats, and a handful of senbei. They’re licking crumbs straight from his palm.
Taiju straightens to attention; the cats hiss in protest as their food’s pulled away from them. “Good morning Nao!”
“Mhm, morning.” I wipe sweat off my upper lip with my shirt collar, sending him a meaningful look. “Today’s the day, huh?”
It’s eight-thirty, partly cloudy, bustling with the kind of wind that makes me feel a little chilly. One of the cats curls around my ankle; a spot of grease from my bicycle tire smears onto the cat’s fur, which in turn smears onto my socks.
“I, what?!” Taiju flushes red, hovering like he’s not sure what to do with the senbei crackers in his hands. When he slouches like that we’re no longer the same height, which feels kinda weird. “You knew..?”
“You’re stiff as a rock, man, it’s obvious.”
“She’s gonna notice,” Taiju shrinks inward like that time in the art room he complimented Yuzuriha’s artwork so much they both turned cherry red.
“Even if she does, follow it through. Say what you feel.” I reach out to thump my fist against his chest. “You got this, He-Man.”
“I, uh,” Taiju sends me a wobbling, but grateful smile. “..Thanks.”
The time ticks, slow but a little too fast, the way most mornings are. The cat weaves away from me, disgusted by the grease matting her fur. Summer hydrangeas spill from the yard behind us onto the sidewalk, petals floating about like feathers, pink and blue. The other cat swats at one lazily.
“Want to go get Senku?” Taiju asks.
I shift my stance to knock a petal off my foot, but it stays stubbornly nestled in my shoelaces. “He’s not at school yet?”
My bicycle tire traps a few hydrangea petals that litter the sidewalk. Flowers are everywhere. It’s like an infestation. Taiju pauses like he’s contemplating how to say what he’s about to tell me.
“There’s smoke coming out of his window,”
“What.”
It’s eight-forty and there’s a smoke plume billowing out of the window of Senku’s apartment. Byakuya’s up in outer space, so it’s up to me to do something about it, because Taiju going alone would make the situation worse.
We knock on the door and when Senku opens it he’s wearing a full on gas mask, huffing and puffing through the vents like Darth Vader . He takes a moment to unlatch the thing and leave it dangling around his neck along with his untied tie, looking irritated that we’d bother to check up on him.
“Why the hell are you two so late for school?”
I stare, dumbfounded, at the gas mask, the smoke surrounding him in a menacing halo, and the shimmer of sparkling electricity warping itself through the crack in the door. I want to ask but, like usual, I don’t even know where to start. I go with the most pressing issue first. “Senku, why the hell are you so late?
“I’m allowed to be, I need more time to work on my hard drive model, if I don’t keep a close eye on it it’ll blow up.” His face contorts. “..But that doesn’t matter anymore. It blew up just now.”
“Yes,” I say absently, “I see that.”
Senku ignores me. “You’re always late, Nao, but Taiju’s late too? Did someone die or something?”
“I had to water some bushes and then the cats looked really hungry and— oh , that reminds me, do you guys want some senbei?!”
I barely have a moment to reply before he throws down and tears open his bulging bookbag. About twenty homemade senbei rice crackers in flowery-patterned baggies tumble out onto the concrete.
After a brief pause, I bend over to pick up a handful of scattered bags and shove them into my skirt pockets. “..Say thanks to Ohira-san for me.”
“Oh, it was Hikari-san this time!” Taiju grins broadly. “She made them for her grandkids but there were extra so she gave them to me after I watered her flowers this morning!”
That explains the state of the hydrangeas, then. Taiju’s always had a bit of a green thumb. Gramps likes to joke that he was a medieval farmer in his past life. Yuzuriha likes to say he’s got some fairy blood in him. And Senku, well—Senku doesn’t believe in fairies or past lives. He’s a real kill-joy like that.
Senku peeks into the bag at our feet. The zipper looks ready to give out; more crackers are squeezing through the gap in the top. “Stop making friends with old ladies, Oaf. It’s totally weird.”
I shake my head, “Senku, don’t blame Taiju, it’s not his fault he’s such a king.”
Taiju shoves the crackers back into his bag with so much force most of them crumble up. He’s as red as my bowtie. “Ki— King?!”
“Hella King,” I confirm, tearing open a baggied cracker, “who’s gonna score himself a Queen today.”
Taiju waves his hands around frantically like he’s trying to reassure us. A few more crackers try to shimmy through the ripping zipper. “I, I would be honored if she returned my affections, but of course if she says no I will respect that and,"
I nod reverently, crunching a senbei between my teeth. It tastes a little chalky, probably from the smoke. “King."
Senku sends us a glare that, when paired with the sneer on his cheeks, is more demeaning than usual. He locks the apartment door behind him and doesn’t even bother taking his gas mask off, leaving it dangling around his neck like a sicko ornament. “Let’s go. I hate listening to you losers talk.”
I gesture to the cracks in the doorframe, still weeping with grey fumes. “Uh, what about all that smoke?”
“I fixed the electricity panel for this building like eight times. The landlord owes me.”
“Right,” I say, because that’s completely normal. “Okay, let’s go then.”
“ Pst , wait, Nao,” Taiju whispers, but his whisper is an ordinary person’s normal volume so he might as well just be saying it. “Does Yuzuriha really think I’m a King?”
“Oh, man, does she ever,” I whistle slowly, snagging my bicycle from where it's propped up against the balcony.
Taiju shimmies like a bashful schoolgirl. I worry briefly for his backpack, which still swells with senbei. “Oh, that’s—”
“Wait, Nao,” Senku interjects. “Did you carry your bicycle up four flights of stairs?”
I blink at him, gripping at the handlebars as I wheel it along. “Uh, yeah? I didn’t want anyone to steal it.”
Senku glares even harder, knotting his tie under the gas mask. “You’re inhuman. I swear.”
I raise a brow. “Says the one who just blew up his apartment.”
It’s eight fifty. I know this because Osaka, Senku’s neighbor, is standing out on his welcome mat, picking up his mail; he always gets it around eight fifty. He grins at us as we pass by.
“Good morning kiddos.”
“Hey Osaka-san.” We all chime in tandem.
“Glad we all turned off our smoke alarms,” Osaka mentions absentmindedly, adjusting the package in his grip. “I’ll call my buddy Nene to patch your door, Senku. Nene’s real good at that stuff."
“Oh, cool,” Senku says. “Hey, you need me to fix your blender?”
“Nah, just bought up a new one.” The label on the box says Hanabi Housewares in bubbly font. “I needed an upgrade anyway. Thanks though. But, anyway,” Osaka raises a perfectly sculpted brow. “Aren’t you guys late? Didn’t school start, like, an hour ago?”
It’s around nine o’clock, then. The sun’s warm enough that the wind feels syrupy and a bit humid. Good napping weather. When I get to school I’ll probably sleep through the rest of first period. I sit by the window, so I get a nice breeze.
I nod. “I’m friends with my homeroom teacher, so I’m good.”
Taiju smiles widely. “Me too,”
Senku fidgets with his gas mask, looking uninterested. “I’m already accepted into eight top-league colleges.”
“Nice,” Osaka says, already tuning us out as he starts tearing into his package. “Have a good day then, kiddos.”
“Bye Osaka-san,” we chime happily. Except Senku, who regularly sounds like he’s watching someone murder children.
The hallway is long, long enough that both Taiju and I have enough time to scold (or in Taiju’s case, gently remind) Senku that explosions, especially in his enclosed apartment, are dangerous and he should only work with them in the park when he’s with us. I don’t think he’s listening to anything we’re saying, though.
“Was it the secondary circuit that malfunctioned?” He’s muttering to himself, completely lost in his head, loosening his tie only to tighten it again. “I thought it would work this time..”
“..And we care about you, so you should stay safe,” Taiju finishes kindly. There are crumbs stuck to his upper lip; it makes me hungry for another senbei. I’m staring straight ahead at a shadow of foliage: it’s tracing a very pretty speckling of light on the railing.
“Stairs,” I state flatly. Sometimes I have to warn Senku of upcoming obstacles or he runs directly into them.
Senku steps down the first step instead of falling down it. Success.
“Oh, your bicycle,” Taiju notes,“I’ll carry it down the stairs for you, Nao.”
I wheel the bicycle over to him gladly, and he hefts it up with one hand. The front wheel creaks wearily; I think I need to change the tire soon.
“Thanks, Taiju,” I smile widely. “You’re so great. You’re my best friend.”
“Thanks..ah,” Taiju opens his mouth and closes it. He adjusts the bicycle under his arm. “..I thought Senku was your best friend?”
I cross my arms in finality. “You’re my new best friend, starting today.”
“Does that even mean anything?” Senku asks, though it’s more of a sarcastic drawl. “Your best friend was Yuzuriha last week.”
“I’m a girly girl, Senku, I have mood swings.”
Senku looks aghast at my ignorance. “Nao, you are the least girly girl I have ever met in my entire goddamn life. Have you even looked at yourself today? Your uniform bow is tied in a knot .”
I glance down. I hadn’t even noticed I’d done it. The red bow around my wrinkled shirt’s collar is double-knotted in a sloppy mess, dangling under two unbuttoned buttons. I’d forgotten my school-issued sweater-vest at home, my white button-down’s untucked, and my skirt is hiked up my right thigh, probably from biking a half-mile uphill.
“Oh, cute,” I intone.
“You need to be a better role model for your Kouhai , Nao,” Senku drawls out the words, half-smirking. He’s probably referring to the fact that I’m two years older than him and all that. Which makes me depressed because he’s way ahead of me in every class ever. Kouhai my ass.
“Yeah, role model,” Taiju agrees distantly. His face is pinched and it looks like he’s thinking really hard; I’m pretty sure he’s running through ‘confessing to Yuzuriha attempt #6’ in his head and has no idea what the hell we’re talking about.
“I don’t want to be a role model,” I admonish, curling my hands tighter around my backpack straps. “I’d rather be..hilariously edgy.”
Senku looks suddenly nauseous. “Nao, when you say things like that I feel like throwing up in my mouth.”
One of Chia’s pencils skitters across my paper and knocks a pile of pens off the desk; they clitter-clatter to the tile in a miniature avalanche. There’s a spattering of erasure bits along the edge of a calculus problem I can’t solve.
“—between your best friend, lover, and yourself, who would you save?”
“Nasaki shut up about the stupid psychology quiz no one cares.”
There’s a muffled shattering noise above us and I wonder briefly if Amari-san is dropping flower pots onto the school roof from space. The track team is yelling chants outside the windows, footsteps falling bathump-bathump in tandem.
“This goddamn problem,” I blurt, “I can’t solve this goddamn problem.”
Senku swirls a vat of liquid with a sneer; he’ll never help me. “Why the hell’d you sign up for chem club if all you do here is calculus homework?”
I smudge graphite with my thumb. “You’re asking me this now ? I’ve been in chem club this whole year.”
Senku straightens like he’s lecturing an invisible audience. “It doesn’t matter when you ask, as long as you ask eventually. Science is all about asking questions.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever. Can’t I just be in a club with my best friend ever and not get interrogated for it?”
“I thought Taiju was your bes—oh whatever , you’re such a loser, stop talking.” He says it with finality; I hate it but I stop talking anyway. “Why the hell didn’t you join a different club with Taiju and Yuzuriha or something? If you wanted to walk home with us so damn badly.”
“Taiju and Yuzuriha are in the crafting club and Caring Hands community service club,” I mention, like that’ll explain it.
Senku raises a brow, unconvinced. “So you chose to join Chemistry out of the three?”
“I’m failing chem.” I pause to smear a hand over the erasure marks. “..And everything else.”
Another vat of something sizzling changes hands, Chia to Senku and back again. “Rely on your people skills, Nao.” Senku advises sagely, “It’s all you're good at.”
“False,” Chia cuts in. “Nao-senpai is as dense as a rock.”
Nasaki waggles his brows and the psychology magazine at me. “For real though, who would you save?”
“I can’t solve this goddamn problem,” I reiterate, like an incentive. No one steps in to help me.
Something poofs with a phhh-puff out of Chia’s vial and the stomping of the track team’s footsteps crumbles into a distant shatter, like cracking porcelain.
“I swear to the stars above,” I twist a hand through my bangs and almost tear out my stubby ponytail. “If I hear one more goddamn flower pot—“
Nasaki throws down his magazine with a slap . “Flower pot?”
Taiju chooses that moment to barrel through the door. “ SENKU!”
Senku shimmies his lanky arm into the vending machine slot. It’s way easier for him to fiddle things out since he’s gremlin sized.
“What’s my status?” I say, “Give me the rundown.”
Senku tosses me my drink. “Loser status, duh.”
“Oh, forgive me for forgetting,” I pop the top off my seltzer and wave it around as it sizzles and bubbles over my palm. “I am your subject, Ruler of the Science Kingdom Senku. I am below you. Like millions of meters below. Like other-side-of-the- earth below.”
Senku gestures sharply with his soda can. “The other side of the earth would not be considered below me. We’d technically be standing on the same plane. You’d have to be at the earth’s core.”
“I’m in the goddamn lava rock, then. Like, all the way down there.”
“There you go. You’re so intelligent.”
Chia gives us a long look, bracing himself on the edge of the open window. “Can you both stop talking? The level of sarcasm is almost excruciating.”
Nasaki tents the magazine on his head like a makeshift hat. It’s not even that sunny. “Hey, gimme the rundown too, Senku.”
“Burn the magazine and maybe I will.”
“ What ! Hey.” Nasaki whips it off his head and whirls it around like a baton. “Hey, you gotta admit. It’s good stuff, like, questions on the apocalypse? It really shows you who you care about.”
Chia gasps abruptly, and when we don’t react he gasps again, but louder. “Oh my god, Taiju’s going out there. Is he really gonna do it?”
“Were talking about He-Man,” I butt in, “Of course he’s gonna do it.”
Nasaki rolls his eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t go careening out of his head. “It’s been, like, a million years and he still hasn’t confessed, forgive me for doubting him.”
Chia nods reverently. “Yeah, he’s ten billion percent gonna chicken out like last year. Remember that?”
Senku’s face curls into a frown. “Chia. Stop stealing my catchphrases.”
“You get to be the main anime character, Senku,” Chia whines, puffing out his face like a toddler, “so it’s only fair that I get to say some of your dumb lines,”
Senku bristles to the tips of his hair. “I am not a main anime character, for the last time—“
“Dude, have you seen yourself in a mirror? You’ve literally got green highlights and spikes like friggin’ Naruto .”
“Shhhhhh!” Nasaki sputters into a poised finger. “Look—it’s Yuzuriha-chan! ”
“Oh,” we all say simultaneously. Except Senku, who’s sipping his soda pop like its lemon juice.
Yuzuriha’s tucked into the crescent curve of our school’s confession tree like she belongs there, tying together a broken branch with her handkerchief. I’ll tease her for that later. She’s lit up with speckles of sunlight and I can see the curl of her smile even from here.
Chia sags along the edge of the window and I worry briefly he’ll fall out of it. “100 yen she rejects him, full front.”
Nasaki tips his glasses up as he smiles. “I’m raising the bid to 1000.”
“10 billion yen she accepts,” Senku notes with a dainty sip of his drink.
The two of them shriek like babies. “What?!”
A puff of still air, slightly humid, shuffles through the open window, tinting everything a little green; though that might just be my sleep-deprived vision. I press my back against the wall, slowly sliding down it to the floor. A chuckle escapes before I can stop it.
“Cheers, Senku.” I hold my can upward with a grin. “It’s finally happening.”
Senku looks a bit distracted, staring at me, then at something out in the distance, where the green lights glimmer like distant suns. My legs have fallen asleep. Chia’s gleeful laughter abruptly cuts off.
“Nao,” Senku says, eyes widening and meeting mine. He reaches out, not with his soda can for a toast, but with his other, empty hand, fingers outstretched like he’s going to touch me. It’s so uncharacteristic that I forget to breathe; my ribs feel strangely tight.
The can falls from my fingers and with one brief, riveting clatter, the world ends.