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It’s Saturday and Retsu sleeps in, thinking it’s going to be a relaxing day since he has no work and no plans. That feeling is immediately ruined when he checks his phone and reads the twenty text messages from Shido Magoroku he apparently received an hour ago. They consist of various forms of begging accompanied with many emojis trying to get him to head to the central park in the city, without a single reason stated. He deletes them all and heads back to sleep.
He wakes up sometime later to his phone ringing this time, looks at the caller ID and sees that its Magoroku, and answers the call with an extremely grumpy “what.”
“Hurry up and get to the Choutokyo Central Park!” He hears Magoroku yell on the other line, sounding panicked.
“What is it.”
“Hey, are you talking to Gremlin-chan?” He hears Davide somewhere in the background.
“Shut up, I’m calling him!” Magoroku clears his throat before continuing. “You’re sixteen now, aren’t you?”
His birthday was a month ago. He was sure he had made sure they wouldn’t find out so Davide couldn’t bug him on the day, so how Magoroku knows is an extremely annoying mystery. He answers simply.
“Great! Come over here now! In 30 minutes! I’ll pay for your subway ticket later so please just get here now!”
Magoroku hangs up before he has a chance to protest. He groans, then crawls out of bed and gets ready for what’s going to definitely be a tiring day. Baku’s out with Kuguru for the day (nice girlfriend his cousin’s got), so Retsu grabs a slice of bread and heads out, slinging his bag over his shoulder. He leaves a note for Baku on the table in case this errand runs long.
He’s been living with Baku again, and they aren’t the richest, but they get along just fine. He currently works at quite a few cardshops, generally just travelling out and giving workshops for beginner buddyfighters on how to build decks. Sometimes he gets hired to build decks for high ranked pro’s, and that’s a nice break because it pays well and his name’s still famous from the Gaen Cup a while back. Baku’s girlfriend also insists on helping them out regularly. He hasn’t had any real contact with the other members in a long time, except the occasional job requests from Kyoya for the Gaen Financial Group or the insistent annoyance of Magoroku (and sometimes Davide using Magoroku’s phone) texting him about whatever, whenever.
Retsu shows up at the Central Park thirty-five minutes later, because the skytrains had lots of people this time Saturday and also because it was annoying being told what to do by Shido Magoroku of all people. Neither of his two former teammates are there, and Retsu considered just going home for the day when Davide literally pops out of the bush next to the bench he was sitting on.
“Oh, you’re here, Gremlin-chan.” Davide says, then turns towards the playground across the pathway in the park and shouts at the top of his voice without giving Retsu a chance to recover. “MAGOROKU-CHAN, HE’S HERE!!”
Magoroku’s head rises above the top of the kiddie-slide, with an annoyed expression plastered to it. “Finally!” He slides down the playground toy headfirst and scrambles over to them. “It took you long enough, Gremlin.”
Retsu twitches at the use of that old name. “It’s Omori Retsu. Again. Call me that.”
Magoroku looks mildly confused. “I always thought the name Gremlin was stupid.” Davide shrugs, and Retsu shoots him a glare, which he returns with his usual mocking smile and tongue.
“So, why did you need me?” The sooner he got this over with, the better.
“The carnival!” The two point in the direction down the road where Retsu can see the travelling carnival that comes to their city for a few weeks every year. “It’s finally here!”
Retsu takes this chance to gape at them in disbelief. “Let me get this straight.” He says slowly. “You texted and phoned me at six in the morning, and dragged me all the way out here so I can go to an amusement park with you?”
“I got a special deal for three, except we need a legal adult.” Davide says, holding up the pass. “Getting a fake ID’s no problem; we just don’t have a person to act as the adult.”
“So we thought to call our old friend and teammate!” Magoroku nods.
“Couldn’t you call your dad?” Magoroku’s father, Shido Sueroku, was still a member of the Buddy Card Office, despite being extremely demoted after the incident of the Gaen Cup. He was also a legal adult, and absolutely doted on his son, and it was annoying that Retsu had to play chaperone to actual ten year olds instead of a man who was obviously made for that job.
“Papa’s busy with business.”
“As if I’m going anywhere with that that time-traveling clone of yours.” Davide scoffs. “If you called your ‘papa’ along, I’d retract my tickets.”
“You can’t use them without me! Who else would you invite?!” Magoroku frowns, crossing his arms at the other boy. “If you can’t remember, it’s thanks to me that you got those tickets!”
“Please, a stool could have done a better job helping than what you did!”
“You couldn’t have called anyone else?” Retsu asks.
“Sofia isn’t responding to any of my messages or calls!”
Retsu regrets not doing the same.
“How exactly did you get those tickets?” He asks, hoping that he wouldn’t regret the answer.
“Well…” Davide begins, his smirk growing, and Retsu already regrets asking. “There was a contest a week ago in the mall where people would enter their names and a short essay on what they would do at the carnival to win these tickets. I’m a terrible writer, so I called Magoroku-chan.”
“I do have the best test scores at Aibo.” Magoroku brags.
“Did you get those with your own skill or did you use your Student Council President rights to mess with the results.” Retsu says.
“Well, my Student Council President rights are technically some of my skills.”
“Anyways, I made Magoroku-chan write something, then I entered the thing in the contest.” Davide shrugs. “Except they were taking too long with announcing the results─”
“─Davide just didn’t want to wait a day to see that we won.”
“We didn’t win, remember!” Davide snaps at the other. “So me and Magoroku-chan snuck into the office, and read the results. We got fifth place, where the only prize is a ten dollar gift card to some café down the street, and that is not what I spent all that effort on to achieve.”
“All you did was write your name on a card! I wrote the essay!”
Davide shrugs. “We had already broken into the office, so I figured we might as well take the tickets.” He holds up four cards from his pocket. “Plus the gift card. And the other prizes too.”
Retsu regrets asking. He regrets knowing. He regrets going outside today.
Magoroku checks his phone, and gasps when he turns it on. “It’s already ten thirty! We’ve wasted so much time we could have had on rides at the carnival! Let’s go!”
And before Retsu can object, Magoroku grabs one of his hands and Davide grabs the other and they’re running down the street to the entrance of the carnival.
Retsu feels like a babysitter again. The feeling’s not unknown to him; he’s had to babysit Baku and some other kids in the past when they were younger, and he always felt like being on Team Darkness Masterminds was basically a babysitting job. Magoroku’s now sixteen and Davide’s fifteen and they both might as well be four by the way the act to each other.
He’s stuck sitting on a bench in front of a water fountain, holding onto two bags of goodies and candy that the other two won from various stands and watching Davide try to hit a moving rubber duck on the stand with a water gun. Magoroku’s run off to get cotton candy somewhere, Retsu doesn’t really care. He’s been dragged all around the carnival and his legs are sore.
Davide lets out a whoop of victory when he wins the grand prize of a huge water gun the length of his arm span. He swings it around without a care in the world as he walks back over to Retsu, it nearly hitting him in the head. “Watch it!” Retsu complains.
“Sorry! But you should watch where you put your head, or something might hit it!” Davide laughs, and Retsu resists the urge to strangle him.
It’s only noon. They’ve only been at the carnival for a bit over an hour and yet Retsu feels absolutely exhausted. He had been forced into a ride called the Hellevator and dropped from over 60 meters high over and over, and the only thing that made up for him collapsing onto the ground as soon as the safety belt was off was that Magoroku threw up and Davide landed face-first on the ground, groaning right alongside him. The roller-coaster was rickety and old and and he had almost fallen out at the first drop if it weren’t for Magoroku clinging onto him for dear life. He didn’t even want to think about any of the other rides any longer. He didn’t want to look at any rides any longer.
Magoroku returns with three servings of cotton candy, and Retsu’s thankful for the distraction of the sweet floss dissolving on his tongue, nearly forgetting about his headache and the cramp in his legs. He’d just sit here and not think about anything remotely carnival ride related.
“So,” Davide says casually, “what ride should we go on next?”
Retsu elbows him off the bench. His cotton candy lands on the ground, and is stepped on by some passer-by adult who doesn’t even bother to look down and apologize.
Magoroku bursts into laughter, and then Davide picks himself off the ground and shoves him backwards, tripping over the bench and landing on the edge of the fountain, the cotton candy in his hand dropping into the water. “Ahh!! I paid two hundred yen for that!” Magoroku shrieks at the other. Retsu was the one that gave him the money for cotton candy.
“Serves you right!!” Davide sneers.
“I’m not the one who even did it! It was Gremlin!”
“Retsu.” He corrects for the third time to Magoroku.
“You’re right!” And Davide turns towards him and he barely has a chance to say ‘don’t’ before his cotton candy is smacked out of his hands and floating in the dirty fountain water.
“Now we’re even!” Davide and Magoroku high-five each other, and Retsu sits back down on the bench. He can feel that headache growing. That’s his six hundred yen wasted.
“I’m telling you! I won that first place prize, but the tickets were stolen! Let me and my brothers in!” Retsu hears someone yell. The fountain’s right next to the entrance to the carnival, and he turns and sees three weird kids dressed in punk leather, yelling at the poor girl in the toll booth. “My name’s Konmae Kurooni and I won that first place prize fair and square! I demand the prize to my work!” The three of them storm past the booth, ignoring the girl’s pleas to calm down.
“Ooh, sounds like trouble~” Davide smirks, licking his lips.
“Didn’t we fight those clowns in the first round of the Gaen Cup?” Magoroku says, and then Retsu recognizes them as Team Three Brothers Konmae, the team Kyoya had thrown in just to boost his own status of being a generous leader. He couldn’t believe they were still running around. They must have not been even considered a threat by the police and were never rearrested.
“I’m guessing they’re not the real winners.”
“Nope.” Magoroku confirms for him. “Didn’t even make the top hundred. Those peoples back at the office were really organized.”
“Let’s have some fun!” Davide stretches his arms out, then cracks his knuckles. He begins strolling up towards the three (kids??), smiling in a completely non-innocent fashion. Retsu freezes up in disbelief, he thinks. Neither Davide nor Magoroku brought their decks today. They don’t even have Disaster Force backing them up anymore. Without that, Davide’s just an obnoxious tongue-wagging freak and Magoroku’s just an egotistic whiner.
“Oi! Team Three Bozos Konmae!” Davide yells, and Retsu smacks his forehead into his hand. “Remember me?!” He sticks out his tongue at the three.
“It’s that kid that beat us in the first round of the Gaen Cup!” The stout one with reddish hair yells at them. That was Konmae Akaoni, which Retsu (unfortunately) remembered from reading the documents Kyoya had provided him on participants in the Gaen Cup.
“Looking for these?!” Davide holds up the three tickets with his smirk growing. The slim blue-haired one, Konmae Aooni (Retsu wishes he didn’t even remember that they existed) screams at them when he apparently recognizes what they are.
“You little punk! You’re the one who stole them!”
“You got that right! Took you long enough to catch on!”
“Davide, don’t!” Magoroku hisses, and Retsu agrees with the boy for once.
“We’re gonna teach you a lesson!” Akaoni growls, cracking his knuckles as he attempts to tower over the boy (he’s shorter than Davide, which is sad). His two brothers glare as menacingly as they can manage at Davide and the rest of the people watching the outbreak.
“I was just thinking the same thing.” Davide says, then kicks Akaoni between the legs hard.
The man groans and collapses to his knees, holding that area as Davide sticks his tongue out and laughs. Aooni’s hand latches onto the back of Davide’s shirt collar and pulls his away, and he begins shouting out curses as Akaoni slowly recovers and glares, obviously intent on revenge.
A sudden stream of water hits the blue-haired one in the face, and Retsu turns and sees Magoroku holding onto the huge water gun Davide had won. It was now filled from the fountain water and pointed still at the ex-convict’s face. “Let go of him, you uncivilized… plebeian!” He yells, squirting another jet of the dirty liquid at the guy’s face.
Aooni lets go of Davide’s collar and starts chasing after Magoroku, who yelps in surprise and begins running away, leaving the two of them in a chase around the fountain. Davide, who now has nothing holding him down, lands an uppercut punch on Akaoni’s chin. Retsu’s left watching Magoroku continually run around the fountain away from Aooni, occasionally landing a shot with the water gun, as Davide wrestles with Akaoni on the ground.
“How dare you...” Kurooni, the last of them, makes his way towards Davide. But Retsu finally snaps out of his daze and steps forwards, glaring at the ex-convict.
“Don’t you dare do anything further.” Retsu says. “The police are already on their way to come rearrest the three of you.” He hopes that’s the truth.
“Aren’t you that deckbuilder? I thought you hated buddyfighters! Are you defending them?!”
Retsu had to admit, it really wasn’t worth it. What had Magoroku and Davide ever done for him? All Retsu was doing was babysitting two kids, but maybe that was why he was defending them. Because Davide’s obnoxiously uncivilized, snide, and unserious, and Magoroku’s a stuck-up, self-absorbed whiner who desperately yells for help as soon as it seems like too much work for him to handle himself, and they are both twisted and the worst combination to be put together, but he had called himself Gremlin and to be honest that wasn’t much better.
“Yes.” Retsu responds.
And then he tightens his fist and punches the criminal in the stomach as hard as he can.
Granted, it doesn’t do much other than make the guy wince and step back in shock, and it feels like he’s broken his knuckles, but Davide lets out a whoop and Magoroku claps a bit before going back to being chased around the fountain, and it felt a bit nice to see the guy put in his place, and then Retsu realizes he’s hung out with Davide and Magoroku too much already.
Kurooni recovers quickly though, and Retsu almost regrets not using those exercise machines back in the Disaster hideout where Rouga always was. But Davide’s almost immediately by his side, and swings that giant water gun into the guy’s stomach, sending him crashing into the fountain and destroying the main statue in the middle that water poured out of. With nothing controlling it now, water began spraying everywhere, quickly soaking everyone in the area.
“Oh.” Davide says. “Whoops.”
Then the police show up. Retsu’s more surprised by how long it took them to get here than how they already seem to know Davide and Magoroku’s names. Team Three Brothers Konmae crawl off to the side, leaving Retsu surrounded by police on every side. Davide and Magoroku are quickly forced to join.
“Who started this fight!” The first burly police member bellows at all of them.
“It was us!” Davide says proudly, wrapping one arm around Magoroku and the other around Retsu. “Whatchya gonna do about it!”
Retsu regrets going outside today.
“I. Can’t. Believe. YOU GOT US ARRESTED!!”
“It’s only juvy, calm down.” Davide pats his shoulder in a way that isn’t comforting in the least.
“Calm down?!”
The good news is, his knuckles aren’t broken (they’re just sore). The bad news is, they’re in jail. They are all under twenty, so they only get put in a juvenile detention centre instead of an actual prison, but the feeling of humiliation and shame and regret is probably the same. He’s locked in a room. With Magoroku and Davide of all people. It doesn’t help that the room’s absolutely disgusting and that the beds so small and close together that Retsu would have to sleep on top of one of the others just to fit.
“I think I’m developing claustrophobia!” Magoroku complains from his seat on the bed.
Retsu feels the same.
“Aw come on, it’s not that bad…” Davide starts, but stops thankfully. “I’m lying to myself. It is that bad.”
“You broke the fountain!!”
“Technically it was that criminal bozo who crashed into it so hard that it broke.”
“You pushed him into it!”
“Look, if we’re gonna be stuck in prison together, we might as well get along.” Davide sighs, and that’s a scary moment where Retsu actually agrees with him for a second. “So on that note…” He reaches and hooks Magoroku across the shoulder. “You did great out there with that water gun!”
“I do have superior aim.” Magoroku nods.
“We are so using that water gun on some other fools once we get out of this joint!” The corner of Davide’s mouth curls upwards into a mischievous smile so evil and foreboding that Retsu’s almost relieved he can go back to disagreeing with the boy again.
There are footsteps echoing down the hall outside, which stop abruptly in front of their cell. “W-What are you guys doing in here?” Standing outside is a boy with a white outfit and deep blue hair pulled back into a ponytail, staring at them in shock through his glasses. One hand is one that pretend ninja sword shaped Core Deck Case.
It’s that kid Kisaragi Zanya.
“What does it look like….” Retsu groans.
Zanya regains his composure, then clears his throat. “What did you do?” He asks, suddenly all professional.
“Oh, we destroyed a fountain.” Davide says from behind him, shrugging as if he was discussing the weather. “Some dudes showed up that I didn’t like, and long story short, there’s a crushed fountain at the carnival and we’re in jail. Also, I won this cool water gun. Make sure they give it back when we get out of here.” Zanya’s face is one of complete shock alongside mild disgust and exasperation.
“Please get me out of here.” Retsu begs.
Zanya frowns. “Well, I’m only here to observe my dad, Police Commissioner Kisaragi, at work. I don’t really have the power to… and besides, considering what you guys did at the Gaen Cup, why should I do you a favour?”
“Aw, don’t hold a grudge over something that happened a year ago. It’s all water under the bridge now. I’m going straight! I haven’t committed any crimes!”
Retsu didn’t mean to snort at that comment, but some things are just too ridiculous to pass up.
“Besides,” Magoroku begins, “we’ve forgiven you for what you did at the Gaen Cup! So it’s only fair you do the same and help out your fellow classmates!”
“I didn’t do anything other than win a few buddyfights.” Zanya states. “You’re father forced everyone to watch a six hour film about your accomplishments. And you nearly destroyed the Buddy Police tower while attempting to help two criminals escape.”
“I fell from that tower!”
“It was amazing!” Davide breaks into laughter.
“Please.” Retsu says. “Just let me make a call to someone. Then us three can pay the fine and get bailed out of jail and you won’t have to deal with us ever again.”
Zanya adjusts his glasses, and Retsu prays that’s a sign that he’s considering it. Allowing one phone call seemed like an extremely cheap price for not having to deal with Davide and Magoroku for a while. “Dad.” He calls, and the police commissioner walks over towards them. “Is their crime a serious one?”
“They started a fight in the middle of the carnival, destroyed city property, injured three others, and got dozens wet.” Retsu lets out a sigh of relief when he doesn’t hear thievery on the list. So the police didn’t find out the reason for the fight breaking out… That was for the best. It’d probably increase their sentence tenfold.
“It’s not that bad, right?” He asks.
“Well… the three injured were criminals that needed to be arrested sooner or later, and that fountain was going to get demolished for the city to build a new road anyways…” The police commissioner admits.
“So it all works out.” Davide lets out a laugh. “Alright!”
It must be something showing on the expression of his face or the fact that Magoroku’s now crying in a ball for his papa or for Sofia or for anyone, but Zanya gives him a look of sympathy before sighing. “Please let them have a call.” His father shrugs.
Retsu is escorted out of the cell by a guard to another room, with a lone telephone hanging on the wall. He uses his one call to call Baku and explains the situation as fast as he could, and practically begs his cousin to do something, anything. Baku shows up at the centre with Kuguru fifteen minutes later.
“Retsu-nii-chan!” Baku yells, running to their cell. “Student President Shido? Yamazaki Davide?” His cousin brushes them off and turns his attention back to him. “What were you thinking?!”
“Obviously he wasn’t.” Davide says. “Who’d want to hang out with Magoroku-chan here?”
“Hey! It’s not as if you’re anything special yourself!”
“Do you have any sort of plan?” Retsu asks. He wants nothing more than to get into his own bedroom and take a long, long nap and forget that this happened in the first place.
“Kuguru’s handling everything at the front desk.” Baku replies. “She’s good with this stuff. We just gotta hang tight and─”
“I’m done!” Baku’s girlfriend, that nice purple-haired girl with lamps in her hair and a white and green dress, skips over with a smile on her face. “I’ve arranged for the bail for all three and covered the damage charges.”
“Sorry for dumping all that on you.” Baku says.
“It’s fine! We’re friends, and we need to help each other out when things like this happen.”
“But still….”
“I said it’s fine, Baku-chan.”
“I’m definitely getting you those chocolates you’ve been talking about from downtown next time!”
And Retsu watches them go back and forth like that and he realizes he’s an idiot for not paying more attention to this girl whenever she appeared at Baku’s playdates when they were little. He had been a deck-building maniac back then (and still a bit now), but he must have been really clueless about girls to miss this.
Come to think of it, he hadn’t ever given Baku the “talk” yet. Baku was probably more of an expert in that aspect than he was now, to be honest. He was grateful for that.
“Never dump this girl.” Retsu says. “Buy her the best chocolates in the city for your next date. Get her a truck full of bouquets of flowers. When’s the marriage, I’m perfectly fine with it.”
“R-Retsu-nii-chan! What are you saying?!” The couple’s face goes red with embarrassment, and they both attempt to splutter out some sort of rebuttal as a guard comes by and unlocks their cell. Magoroku scrambles out of the cell as fast as he can, followed by a skipping Davide. Retsu walks out, and he can’t wait to go home and sleep and pretend this was all just a bad dream.
“Same time next week then, Retsu-chan!” Davide waves to them, before grabbing Magoroku by the shoulder and the two of them stroll leisurely down the hall out of the centre.
Retsu stops. “W-What?!” He had been dragged off to a carnival with illegal tickets, gotten into a gang fight, and arrested and bailed out all in the span of four hours. Why would he ever do this again?
Davide stuck his tongue out at them. “The tickets are good until the carnival leaves, and that’s in two weeks. We can still have lots and lots of fun! Besides, we’re friends! We were on the same team at the Gaen Cup.”
He’s a deckbuilder. The only reason he had been on a buddyfighter’s team was because Kuchinawa Terumi had left and it was Kyoya’s orders for him to participate to make a team of three. He hadn’t been fond of Davide or Magoroku, and he honestly wasn’t sure if that opinion had changed.
“You know the old saying. Once a team, always a team.” Magoroku recites. “No matter how terrible the affinity for each other is.”
“That’s not even a saying.” Kuguru says.
“Well it sounds like one!”
Retsu sighs. People like them needed a babysitter. Plus neither of the two had Disaster Force anymore. How bad could it possible get? “Fine. Call whenever you need me.” He says to the two.
Retsu regrets saying that a week later, when he gets a call from the Choutokyo Juvenile Detention Centre with a panicked Shido on the line. “What did you do?!” He answers the call.
“Please come and help this is the only call we get.” Shido begs.
“What did you do!?!”
“Davide got into a fight with a few guys at the mall, and it got out of hand and long story short they started a fire while beating each other up with crowbars and that turned on the sprinklers in the entire place! Please bail us out I’m wet and tired and bleeding!”
“You only got a cut on your arm!! I’m the one who has a broken arm!!”
“Where did you get the crowbars?!” Who let Davide near crowbars! The call’s cut off abruptly, and Retsu’s left yelling into an empty line. “Oi!! Argh!!”
“What’s wrong?” Baku asks as he slams his phone onto the table in frustration. He grips his head to try and prevent another headache.
“I need to go bail a couple of idiots out of jail.” He takes a piece of toast off of Baku’s plate, chomping down on it as he grabbed his backpack from beside the door or their apartment.
Baku looks at the caller ID on the phone. “Oh.” He says. “Davide and President Shido. Of course.”
Of course is right.
“How do you put up with that?”
Retsu sighs. “Good question.”
He feels like a kid lost in the desert: tired and desperate for any bit of water, and knowing that every oasis he comes by is a mirage. But he still falls for it every time, with that sliver of hope that there will be water this time, that things won’t be as bad this time. It’s the same mirage of water every time. He’s such an idiot.
Retsu waves goodbye to his cousin and walks out the door. He has a couple of teammates to meet.