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Takeshi puffed several rings of smoke and grunted, "Yuna. You gonna take much longer or what?"
The tiny woman looked up from rummaging and sighed. "What's got you so on edge? You've been smoking nonstop since we got here."
The towering concrete facades all around them shot to the heavens and cast the clean sidewalks and spacious road in an eerie shadow. Eerie for Takeshi, anyway. Though the sky was blue and cloudless, the day pleasant and breezy and the distant sounds of downtown Celadon a pleasant drone, there was a scent in the air that made the former Rocket splinter uneasy.
He'd spent almost no time in Kanto. Why would he? Johtoan, born and raised. And hopefully dead too, he didn't fancy meeting his end in a place this terrible. He tossed his cigarette into the open ashtray atop the trash can beside him. It joined two dozen of its brothers and earned him a scowl. Lots of smokers. Lots of trash cans too. Must've been one every thirty meters. None of them were overflowing either.
The street was clean enough to eat off of, and it made his skin crawl. He looked over at an approaching figure - a woman as tiny as Yuna, wearing what might as well have been rags. She stopped at the entrance to one of the concrete behemoths down the road, waved something at a door and then disappeared across the threshold.
"What are you even looking for?" groaned Takeshi, looking into Yuna's purse with her. The hairs on his neck were standing on end and he could feel a chill crawling up his spine.
"I think I dropped my cell phone…" she muttered.
"It's a travel model, we can get you a new one."
"But they're expensive, we should look for it!"
Takeshi ground and shook his head. "Not worth it. Better off just putting a couple hundred on Moltres roulette and letting it ride."
"Keshi, please?" Yuna clasped her hands together and looked up at him, eyes as wide and sweet as a newborn growlithe.
"Don't Keshi me, you got any idea where we are?"
She was as fiery as one too. "They're expensive, you idiot! We're not going to just gamble for enough money for a new one."
"We're good for it, Yuyu." He smirked at his fiance.
"Don't Yuyu me!" She stomped her foot once for added effect. It had little, she weighed maybe a third of what he did. "We're gonna go look for it!"
"Fine, let's go. Where do we start?"
The Alolan gave a start and looked around, taken aback. "Uh. Wait, you're not gonna argue more?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "What are you playing at?"
"Nothin'. You're determined, so where do we start looking?"
Yuna continued to eye him carefully. "You want something don't you?"
"Are we gonna look for your cell phone or not? Lead the way if we are, otherwise, we're going uptown to see that garden you keep raving about."
"You never just… Alright fine. Fine, follow me." She turned on the spot and led him towards the nearest door. With a confidence even some of his old bosses struggled to maintain, she strode up to the reinforced steel portal and banged her fist against it. No response. Again. No response. Again.
A crackly voice sprung to life from a speaker beside the doorway. "The hell do you keep banging for? If you lost your entrance card then get your ass to the Housing Bureau and get a new one. I'm not fuckin' letting you in for anything. Especially you, Osamu. You know how many fucking cards have been turned in with your name on them? Keep this shit up and you'll be bumming out back with the others."
"Who the hell is Osamu?" said Takeshi, cutting across Yuna before she could speak.
"New tenants? For the love of The Three, didn't anyone tell you how to do this shit?" spat the electric voice.
"We're not tenants, asswipe. We're tourists. Anyone turn in a cell phone?" said Takeshi, his tone curt.
"Tourists!? The hell are you- Hold on." The speaker went dead. Thirty seconds later, a metal panel around head height slide aside, revealing the face of a very disgruntled, unshaven security guard. His tattered blue cap bore a fading gold emblem that read, "CELADON BLOCK 3 - UMI."
"It's not polite to go banging on people's front doors, you know," muttered the security guard, staring at Takeshi. He glanced down at Yuna and shook his head. "Could you get any shorter?"
She pouted and crossed her arms. "We're looking for my cell phone. Has anyone turned one in?"
"Why the hell would someone turn in a cell phone to me? They'd keep it or chuck it in the gray market," said the guard. A gloved hand came up to scratch his face and he shook his head. "If that's all you wanted to ask me, I got a job to get back to."
"Don't you have cameras on the outside of the building? Maybe you caught footage of me dropping it?" asked Yuna, still pouting.
"Yeah. But if I didn't see anything, are you gonna go and ask every single housing block on this street?" said the guard, looking down at Yuna with a half-exasperated, half-amused expression.
Takeshi could just barely see past the guard - he was standing in a dimly lit hallway. It looked like a horrible mess inside. Bags of trash lined the walkway, and it was then that Takeshi realized the scent of decay, mold and the unique combination you get from too many people in one spot all hit his nose. So that's where the unease was coming from.
Always was good at knowing when he was close to those kinds of places. He frowned. People lived here. No. People live here.
"What's eating you?" said the guard, looking at Takeshi.
"How many people live in here?" he asked, gesturing with his head past the guard.
"What's it matter to you?" said the man, narrowing his eyes. "You guys really tourists or you on some shit?"
Takeshi unbuttoned his sleeve and rolled it up. Yuna immediately sighed and whined, "Keshi, please…"
"Never made it out here, we were too estranged by then," said Takeshi, showing the guard his forearm. The tattoo had yet to lose its vibrance. The brilliant red gradient on the R framed with the branches of a mahogany tree still gave him trouble from time to time. But it was a blessing more than a curse. For the moment.
The guard's jaw dropped, but he recovered and put on a warm smile. "No kiddin'? You missed out on a fuckin' shithole man. Still is but they gotta put on the airs for them, you know?" His eyes flicked to Yuna once. He pulled his glove off and flexed his hand at Takeshi. A faded red R wrapped in thorns and leaves stared back at him.
The guard slipped the glove back on and shrugged. "Name's Tetsuya." He looked over his shoulder once and then back at Takeshi. He appeared to relax some more and added, "Yeah, look. No one's turned anything in. If you dropped a phone, it's long gone, and that's the truth." He paused and scratched his cheek again, then added, "And if you ask me, I'd cut your losses and leave. Head downtown and have a bite of something good. Lose a couple hundred on slots or tables and get out of Celadon when you're done."
"Are we not wanted here?" said Yuna, crossing her arms.
Testsuya shook his head. "No, no, you're plenty wanted here. But that's the problem, y'know?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "It's the poor bastards in here that aren't. They know it. Why d'you think they stay in here?"
"I don't follow," said Yuna, frowning and furrowing her brow. "The city's wonderful why would-"
"Use your head, it'll do ya good. Think about it, you ever wonder why Celadon doesn't got any alleys?" He shook his head and sighed. "It does. But you ain't ever gonna see them, and that's on purpose. Buildings ain't actually built to be touching. It's an illusion. There's a wall coverin' something up. Be glad it is."
"But why would-"
"Your boyfriend can explain it some time to you, I think he knows what it looks like when the fat fucks got a good thing going for them." Tetsuya paused and then shrugged. "Or maybe he does, I don't remember hearing anything 'bout us getting in good in Goldenrod after shit hit the fan with that one blue-haired bitch." He reached through the bars of the door, his hand balled into a fist. Takeshi bumped it with his own and nodded. "History, whatever. Take my advice. Eat, gamble, fuck, sleep and leave. It's all Celadon's good for. You stay here too long and you realize the city's just a rug, and you won't like what you find under it."
He pulled his arm back inside and shut the panel with a soft, metallic thud.
Takeshi looked down at his fiance and then looked down the street towards downtown Celadon. "So… you wanna keep looking for your cell phone?"
Yuna looked at the door into the housing block and then in the same direction as Takeshi, frowning. Finally, in a soft voice she said, "No. I wanna listen to his advice. Let's go."