Work Text:
“Hey, let’s stop here for a second.”
“Hmm? Okay.”
I brought the AP-1 to a halt in front of what looked like some sort of dilapidated ocean pier, rotting wooden beams sticking out haphazardly and buildings atop the splintered planks in various states of disrepair. We’ve come across a lot of buildings in the Otherside like this, which exist in an uncanny valley of looking like they were at one time used but also purpose built in this state of decay.
The strangest thing about this one is how out of place it was . For one, we were currently traversing what could be best described as a grassland, with only the occasional tree or hill here and there. But yet, here was this pier. The rotting mass smelled slightly of seawater, but I couldn’t even see a pond in sight, let alone any ocean near us. Come to think of it, we hadn’t actually seen an ocean since we dealt with Kisaragi Station.
“Does anything look strange?”
“Oh, let me check really quickly.”
Straining my eye, I scoured the pier for any signs of it being a glitch. Nothing seemed out of place to me, and nothing gave off that silver glow. The area we were in was pretty sparse when it came to glitches in the first place. Maybe this was related to that? Or maybe the Otherside had a weird spawn rate for random things like this.
Spawn rate? I’m really starting to lose it aren’t I…
“Nothing seems out of the ordinary, but we should be ready anyway.”
“Mhm.”
With a curt nod, Toriko jumped up to grab both of our guns from the top rack. She quickly checked that both magazines were full before handing me my rifle. I gave my hip a quick pat to make sure the Markov was there. Toriko wore a determined expression, more so than she usually did when we explored ruins like this. What was with that? It made her beauty show off even more than usual. She really was so pretty it’s annoying sometimes.
We dismounted the AP-1 and checked to make sure everything was secure before moving towards the wooden hulk. There was a small staircase leading up to the main deck, and a quick test of my weight showed it would hold. In fact, it seemed surprisingly sturdy given how horrible it looked. I guess that’s commonplace for things here.
“This seems just like…”
“Hmm? Toriko? Did you see something?”
“No, no. It’s just, this seems so…”
I gave her a puzzled look, but it seemed my concerns went unanswered as she continued forward. Her eyes shifted from building to building, almost as if she was looking for something. I was doing something similar, checking each building for any signs of a glitch or entity that would stick out. Nothing so far it seemed. All of the signs were unreadable of course, but normally they have the appearance of something you’d see in Japan. Usually there were areas written top to bottom, or with different fonts or colours. But this all seemed so… foreign. Which given it was the Otherside makes sense, but more foreign than usual.
We stumbled across a booth that looked like it walked out of a carnival. Dirty and ripped stuffed animals were scattered all over the floor, and tattered paper targets hung haphazardly on the walls. None of these seemed notable, but Toriko was oddly fixated on one of the toys, her eyes now unwaveringly staring at it.
“Uh, Toriko?”
She didn’t respond to me, instead keeping her trance-like gaze fixated forward. I checked the booth again, and still found no indication that anything was wrong with them. Did she really like it that much?
If she was going to get distracted, we would never finish clearing this.
“Toriko!”
I reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her body away from the stall. She stared back at me with a startled look, blinking several times before shaking her head in confusion.
“Oh… sorry, that just seemed like something I’d seen before and I was trying to place it.”
“Easy, we know how much this place wants to mess with our heads.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
We continued our walk down the pier, but I could tell Toriko wasn’t all there. I was actually pretty concerned for her and found myself glancing at her more than I was checking the buildings around us. Had I been looking more carefully, I would have noticed the black shape that was moving amongst the broken wood starting to take a more firm shape. I was treating it like one of those things you think you see out of the corner of your eye, but when you look they are gone. I wasn’t comfortable with Toriko being so out of it before engaging it.
Keeping my eyes split between two things was hard, but Toriko’s look of determination was slowly coming back. I was able to look at the black entity a bit more, before I felt she was able to engage it with me.
“Hey, Toriko. We’ve got something over there. Behind that building, look.”
As I pointed it out to her, she didn’t even respond to me. Instead, she continued walking forward as if she didn’t hear me. What the heck was this? I know I spoke loud enough.
“Toriko!”
When she still didn’t respond I ran up to her, grabbing her arm again to try and shake her out of it. With me hanging off her, she continued to drag me forward, the look on her face unchanging. The black figure was starting to take shape more and more as I checked it, and I was mortified. It was starting to resemble Toriko.
Panicking, I pulled on her with all my might, to little avail. She was stronger, too strong even. It wasn’t a strength I’ve known from her before. Damn it, I need to do something to snap her out of it!
“The king checks his chess phone at midnight.”
What? Toriko started to spout some nonsense. It seemed clear that there was some link between her and the entity to our sides, and it seemed like she was starting to sound like we did on Kozakura’s phone that time we called her from the Otherside.
“Today we will gather in the field of flowers to welcome the elevator of friendship.”
No, she was speaking straight gibberish now. The figure was starting to gain colour, the same clothes that Toriko was wearing. I only noticed now that she seemed to be fading, almost as if I could see through her the slightest amount.
Working to stem the full blown panic in my chest and my head, I did the only thing I could possibly think of to try and snap her out of this.
I manoeuvred myself ahead of her and grabbed on to her face as tightly as possible and brought my lips to hers, trying to emulate the same kiss she’d given me to prevent me from losing my sanity.
Oh, her lips were so, so soft. She smells so nice too. Did she really wear perfume to go to the Otherside, or did pretty girls just naturally smell this way? Whatever.
She luckily stopped moving, but I didn’t feel any response from her. I tried to kiss her more, gasping through the brief seconds I drew away from her with my eyes tightly shut to try and hide my own embarrassment over doing this.
I could feel her mouth move slightly, and I used it as my chance to slip my tongue into her mouth. If this wasn’t going to get her back, I don’t know what else I would do. Not that this was bad of course. Well… no it was really bad! I’m basically kissing a defenceless, sleeping person! I’m truly the worst, ugh! Hopefully she can forgive me.
“Mmphm!”
Toriko started to squirm under me, and I immediately withdrew from her. My eyes snapped open to see if she was okay. She was giving me the most surprised look I’d ever seen her express before. A massive blush also spread across her face. She didn’t look mad, so that was a benefit at least.
“Uhm-I-Uhm-y-y-you w-ere-uhm.”
Before I could say anything she closed the gap between us and kissed me back. What the hell? How could she do something like this so easily? I could feel her arms snake around my back as she pulled me closer. I guess it was good she was back to normal now. But wasn’t this really enough already? There was something stalking us, and it almost took Toriko away from me. We had to end it.
“Eugh! Enough! There’s something over there!”
I managed to break both her kiss and the embrace, before frantically grabbing my Markov and pointing it where I saw the shadowy figure. To my surprise, it was gone. Even more surprising was that we had somehow ended up at the very edge of the pier. I don’t remember being that close to the end, and a quick glance over the edge showed a large glitch right in our path. I shuddered to think what would happen if Toriko had gone into it.
With no present danger, I cautiously lowered my pistol. Toriko was still standing in the same place, jaw slack and staring at me like I grew another head. Wait. I didn’t, did I? I waved my hands around my head and face. Everything was still there thankfully. The memory of what I had just done to her came back to me once the adrenaline faded and I felt my own face flush a deep crimson. I could feel my heartbeat in my face, that’s how bad it was.
“S-Sorawo?”
“I-I d-didn’t know another way!”
“...”
Our staring match continued like this for an uneasy couple of seconds. I saw her relax slightly as she started to get closer to me. Oh no, is she going to kiss me again? No, right? No. She wouldn’t. That’s too bad. Wait. What? I didn’t think tha-
Before I could finish my thought she embraced me, burying her face in the side of my head. I could feel her let out a deep sigh that rushed through my hair. A couple of ragged breaths later made me realise she was crying and trying to hold it together. I brought my own arms around her and hugged her tightly in response.
“I… I thought I was seeing my parents.”
“Oh yeah?” I mumbled it gently, rubbing her back in slow circles.
“This place… it’s a pier in Vancouver. I’ve been here before, with my parents. I thought I saw Mama in the distance and it looked like she was looking over at Mom. I couldn’t think of anything else but seeing both of them. I-I’m sorry Sorawo. What would have happened if I-”
I brought one of my hands up to her head and held her head against mine, slightly rubbing her hair.
“It’s okay, Toriko. We’re here. It’s going to be fine, I’m here for you.”
“I know you are.”
We embraced each other a bit longer, me keeping the position of trying to sooth her and her trying to stop crying. When her breathing seemed to calm down, and she seemed good enough to return to the AP-1, I let her out of my embrace.
“Come on, let’s get back.”
The two of us walked silently down the pier. At some point we started holding hands. For once I wasn’t too concerned about it, and I might have even grabbed her hand when we parted. We still kept our eyes on the buildings, but there was no sign of the shadowy figure. I’d have to make a note of what we encountered for future reference. That means I should probably add a new notebook to the shopping list, huh.
We stowed our guns on the rack of the AP-1 and gave the pier one last look before turning the engine over and having it roar to life. I took the driver’s seat because I felt she probably wasn’t in the best position to drive, not for a little bit anyway. With the pier receding behind us, the endless grasslands stretched out before us.
“Hey, Sorawo?”
“Yeah? What is it?”
“That’s the first time you’ve kissed me.”
This girl! After everything we just went through, and she had to say that of all things?! Seriously?
As she said that I felt my face rapidly heat up again. How can she say something like that? What the hell was wrong with her. I did my best to ignore her and watched where we were going, but I could see her own face was red out of the corner of my eye. I could also see a smirk on her face.
“It was kinda hot.”
At this point I hoped a sudden pit would open and take me away. I still couldn’t bring myself to respond to her.
She kept that smirk on her face as she watched me continue to fidget under her gaze. The things I put up with for her.
“We should do it again sometime.”
I could feel the resistance inside me snap at her teasing. Instead of being embarrassed, I was more angry now than anything. The AP-1 slowed to a crawl as I rounded on her and looked her straight in the eyes. She had a puzzled look on her face and looked behind her quickly to see if anything was there. When she turned back around I kept my face as level as possible.
“Yeah. Next time I won’t stop at just tongue.”
Toriko’s face rapidly went through four shades of red, before breaking eye contact and letting out a small cough and a mumble. She bashfully looked anywhere but at me, and settled on a copse of trees that was far in the distance in front of us.
Satisfied that I’d been able to tease her enough to shut her up, I eased the throttle of the AP-1 and held a smug grin on my face as we continued on our way.