Chapter Text
Jouno folds his arms against the cold.
“Come on the group vacation. It’ll be fun, they said. Ugh,” he says grumpily.
Teruko glares at him.
“Would you stop? You’re bringing down the mood.”
“The mood was brought down when we got here, and everything was crappy. There are holes in the walls, all of the windows are broken and taped up, and there are bugs in the walls. I can hear them. This cabin is terrible.”
“Well, sure it was a little unexpected for our first vacation in three years, but it’s not that bad. We can make it work.”
“I didn’t even want to come in the first place. My idea of fun is not hanging out in a cabin in the mountains with the only people around being a town a mile away.”
“Not exactly my idea of fun either,” Tachihara says,” but we can make it work. Tecchou’s enjoying himself. He is easy to entertain though, he’s just watching the bugs on the floor over there.”
“Ugh, I hate bugs,” Teruko says, frowning at the floor where the bugs are crawling around.
Jouno sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Good to know. Now you’re gonna wake me up at some ridiculous hour to make me get rid of bugs, aren’t you?”
“Obviously. Don’t be silly. I’m not gonna get rid of any bugs,” Teruko says, booping Jouno’s nose playfully.
“I can get rid of them,” Tachihara offers. “So Jouno doesn’t have to.”
Tecchou starts stomping on the bugs.
“Well that fixes the problem for now. When I find some later though, I’m not waking you up. You’re the baby, and Jouno practically signed up for that job.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
“I’m not a baby,” Tachihara pouts.
Tecchou taps Jouno’s shoulder.
“How old do you have to be to stop being a baby?”
“Two years, then you’re a toddler.”
“Then how is Tachihara a baby? He’s like nineteen, right?”
“He’s not a literal baby. He’s just the baby of the group. She’s gonna call him that until one of them dies.”
Teruko nods.
“Yup, you’re gonna be the baby of the group forever.”
“Condolences,” Jouno says with a dead inside expression on his face.
“Eh, I’m okay with it. She could have found something worse to call me,” Tachihara replies.
Tecchou shrugs,” Like if she decided to call you a shrimp.”
“Why would she call him a shrimp? She’s significantly smaller than him,” Jouno replies.
“I just had shrimp on my mind,” Tecchou answers,” I’m hungry. Anyone else hungry?”
“I’ll go start making ramen cups, cause there’s no stove here,” Jouno says loudly as if Teruko can’t hear him complaining.
“Whatever,” she says, flipping him off even though she knows he can’t see it.
Jouno walks into the adjoining room to start a ramen cup in the microwave.
“Well, boys, what do you guys wanna do while we’re here?” Teruko asks, bouncing up and down.
“Sleep,” Tachihara answers,” That’s what I want to do. I don’t get nearly enough of it.”
“Sleeping is boring,” Tecchou says,” I want to go climb something really tall and maybe jump off. Do we have anything to keep us from hurting ourselves if we fall from a large height?”
“Sleeping is boring. Also, we don’t have anything to keep us from hurting ourselves, but with our body modifications, we could definitely jump out of the trees outside. We probably wouldn’t even hurt ourselves,” she says, her eyes lighting up.
“Jouno! Tecchou and Teruko are gonna jump out of tall trees!” Tachihara shouts,” How do I stop them?”
Jouno walks back in, holding two ramen cups. One of them is cooked and it looks like he was preparing the other one.
“I lied. We do have something to stop us from getting hurt if we decide to jump off of something tall. Jouno’s here, which means we don’t get to do anything fun,” Teruko says, pouting already.
“What the heck? You guys are not jumping out of the trees outside. They’re at least forty feet tall. You could break your neck.”
“See?”
“Well, we could always talk about our place in the universe,” Tecchou says.
“What brought that up?” Tachihara asks.
Tecchou shrugs,” It was on my mind.”
“Well, that is something safe that we can do,” Tachihara replies.
“We’re not doing that either. I am not dealing with an identity crisis, or any other kind of mental problems you’re going to give yourself by talking about your place in the universe. Why don’t you guys talk about Teruko’s newest conspiracy theory?”
“Yay!” Teruko yells, clapping her hands.
“I don’t have identity crises,” Tecchou says, pouting.
“What’s your newest conspiracy theory?” Tachihara asks.
“Jouno and I were watching Spongebob Squarepants, and I realized that Spongebob is a serial killer,” she says, waving her arms to emphasize her point.
“He is not,” Tachihara replies.
“He is?” Tecchou asks,” How did you figure that out?”
“Yeah, discuss that,” Jouno says, walking back into the kitchen with the cups of noodles.
Teruko goes on for about ten minutes while Jouno makes noodles. He comes in, holding the noodles, offering each one of them one.
“Teruko, no more talking about Spongebob. It’s been long enough that you should be done. We only watched three episodes.”
Teruko pouts as she takes her noodle cup.
“This has been something I didn’t know that I was in for, but definitely interesting,” Tachihara says.
He takes his cup of noodles from Jouno,” Thank you.”
“I need to know more,” Tecchou says as he takes his noodles,” Spongebob should be brought to justice.”
“No problem, and Tecchou, don’t encourage her. I can’t believe the only way I can get you guys not to jump out of trees without babysitting you is Spongebob conspiracies.”
Teruko licks one of the noodles before hissing loudly.
“What’s wrong with your noodles, ma’am?” Tachihara asks.
“It burned me.”
“Oof, that sucks.”
He starts blowing on his noodles. Tecchou eats his, seemingly without issue. Jouno sits with his legs crossed at the knee and his head back, not eating. It takes Teruko a second to notice, but she frowns.
“Everything ok?”
“Yeah, I’m just listening to the storm outside. I’m surprised that there are no leaks from the roof. It sounds like the storm is getting bad out there.”
“Knock on wood,” Tachihara says,” We do not need this place to start leaking.”
Tecchou knocks on the table, then continues eating.
“That’s ridiculous, but I agree that we don’t need a leak.”
There’s a knock on the door, making Teruko jump.
“Who would be out in this weather?” she asks, standing up.
She makes her way over to the door. When she opens it, they can all see a disheveled woman. Except for Jouno, who can’t see.
“Are you ok, ma’am?” Teruko asks, stepping out of the way so the woman can walk in.
“You have to help. Our town is being flooded, and we need help evacuating.”
Jouno sighs.
“Well, so much for our ‘vacation’.”
Teruko shushes him, but he doesn’t seem to mind. They all head to the village, immediately splitting up to help the most people. Jouno notices it first, an odd noise. It sounds like rocks falling.
“Shit!” he exclaims, racing to go find his teammates before the rock slide can reach them.
He hears Tecchou nearby so he yells for him to get out of town and tell the others if he sees them on his way out.
“Why?” Tecchou asks.
“Can’t explain. Do it.”
He keeps running as fast as his legs will take him. The next person he comes across is Teruko, and the noise is loud enough for all of them to hear. She’s holding two small children, one in each arm.
“Take those children and get out of here. As far away as you can. I’m gonna find Tachihara, and we’re gonna meet up with you.”
“Ok, quickly,” she says, already understanding what’s happening.
She races away from the town and the quickly approaching rocks. Jouno frantically searches for Tachihara. By the time he finds him, it’s too late. The rocks are already bounding down around them and Tachihara is still a few feet away from him. There’s no way that either of them are going to get away from the rock slide. Something hits Jouno in the head, and he hits the ground.
All he can feel is pain for the first few seconds that he’s awake. Then he can hear a few other things. Someone is faintly breathing a few feet away from him, but their heartbeat is slow. He can also smell blood everywhere. It even covers the person’s smell for the most part. However, it’s so familiar to him that he can still tell who it is.
“Tachihara?” he asks quietly.
His voice cracks from disuse. Thinking is becoming harder.
“Am I bleeding?” he asks, trying to move his arm to check his body.
His arm won’t move though. Neither of them will.
“Tachihara, can you hear me?” he asks louder now.
He tries to move towards Tachihara, but his body won’t respond. He can feel the fact that one of his arms is pinned and so are his legs, but the other arm won’t respond either.
“Tachihara?”
Tachihara still doesn’t respond, still as a corpse. Jouno tries to move again, but it just sends pain flashing through him. He shudders, having to force himself not to throw up. At that point all he can do is wait. He can hear Tachihara’s heartbeat slowing down. At some point he passes out, the pain overwhelming him. It’s oddly quiet when he wakes up. He strains to hear Tachihara’s heartbeat. He almost panics before he hears the quiet beat a few feet away from him. That relief only lasts for a minute since he can pinpoint the exact second that his heartbeat fades away completely. He stays shock still for a few seconds before trying to get over to him again. Some of the rocks start shifting as he starts crying.
I can’t move. I can’t help him. I can’t… I have to bring him back. I… I…
He keeps trying to force himself out from under the rock, or even just a little closer to Tachihara. The rocks start to shift, causing him to stop. Something hits the side of his head, knocking the other side into the ground. His awareness immediately fades. There’s an odd beeping in the back of his mind when he wakes up again. It’s muted to the point where he can barely hear it. Someone’s crying nearby.
“What? Where am I?” he mumbles.
He can hear the crying stop, but that doesn’t help anything. He can’t hear anyone’s heartbeat, so who’s in the room with him?
“Are you awake?” Teruko’s voice asks timidly.
“Ma’am?”
“Hey.”
“Where’re the other two?” he asks, already getting a little out of breath. “Also, what’s wrong with me?”
“Tecchou is in the room next to you. He got hurt while we were out there.”
“How bad?”
“His leg was injured to the point that he won’t be able to walk on it again. Tachihara didn’t make it. I’m so sorry that you had to be in there with his…”
She starts crying again.
“Teruko, please stop. I…”
“I’m sorry. What was your other question?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. The landslide shifted, and a rock fell on your head. You hit another one underneath you.”
She sniffles, putting one of her hands on the back of his.
“Most of your hearing is gone. The damage was so bad that they don’t think you’ll be able to hear even half as well as most people can.”
“Oh.”
“Also, your leg was crushed, and they had to amputate it.”
She starts crying again, harder now.
“I can’t believe it. You’re both going to have to retire and Tachihara’s gone. I can’t do this. I can’t be the only one who got out of this ok.”
Ah, so this is the guilt that comes along with surviving something like this. I wonder if I’ll feel that bad once I’m not high, and it sinks in that Tachihara is dead. That I wasn’t fast enough to save him, or Tecchou.
He sighs, taking her hand in his. There isn’t much else that he can do right now, but being there will have to be enough. Especially if she decides to keep going with her military career since that’ll leave her alone. The only Hunting Dog left standing. He doesn’t even realize that the government won’t leave her any choice, just like they’ve always had all had of their choices stripped away.