Work Text:
ONE
At 4:13 in the morning, on the anniversary of her brother’s death, she pulls the window screen in her room from the frame and slips through. She has a backpack with her, a cell phone (purchased for ¥7000 at the convenience store), and her sister’s old pink windbreaker (the one with a tear in the left elbow). She walks to the corner of the next street before looking at her phone.
calicos today at 4:09 AM
I’m about to go
bunnied today at 4:09 AM
yay!!!! good luck (●'◡'●)
calicos today at 4:20 AM
SRY for the wait. I had to get my window screen out and walk away from the house a bit
My father wasn’t supposed to get home as late tday.
bunnied today at 4:20 AM
(┬┬﹏┬┬) aww sry shouka </3
when u get here u can have a break from being around him !!
stay safee OK? mssg updates!! (❁´◡`❁)(❁´◡`❁)(❁´◡`❁)
There’s something to be said about how easily her life has slipped through the cracks between her father’s fingers. It coalesces in three factors. There’s the family computer—for Shouka’s school work. There’s her allowance—so she can learn about responsibility. There’s the quiet, gentle distance from everyone—for her to focus on her training.
And yet—Ochaco is there, through the family computer, on a chat forum dedicated to tiny collectable animal figurines. And yet—Shouka’s mobile is acquired through convenience store spent savings, as are her collectibles, as are her train tickets. And yet—she’s distant enough from even her sister to just quietly slip away.
Disappearing is the simple part.
TWO
The glare of the phone screen is bright in the darkness of the early morning. The air is crisp—it smells like winter and like freedom. Deep in her heart, she wonders if it was freedom her brother felt when he was dying.
Here, on the edge of fading into the night, she can tuck Todoroki Shouto into a neat little box and feel her father’s grand plan start to slip away, along with her future. This is fine. It’s fine because Ochaco is seven hours away by train, waiting with open arms. Ochaco is seven hours away and she’s her best and only friend—perhaps, she can be considered closer than her real family.
This is how Ochaco and Shouka meet—or rather what leads to it:
Shouka’s at the convenience store check-out, loaded up on protein bars and blank composition books, about to pay. The fluorescent lighting glares down. There’s a quiet bustle about the store. Time seems frozen—it’s almost like fate that her eye catches on one of the little blind-box style gashapon toys on the shelf next to the register. It’s a “Pocket Pet,” a tiny, fuzzy animal figure. The packaging is pastel but muted, and the little animal mascots on the box draw her toward it. It gives her pause. Her father wouldn’t approve of her spending the pocket money that she has on anything other than school supplies and training-safe foods—but Shouka has the pocket money and it’s hers .
She buys the blind-box.
At home, sitting cross-legged on her bed, she carefully unboxes the thing. It’s packaged in a layer of plastic inside the little cardboard carton and there’s a small card tucked in with it, denoting details about the character. The whole thing is colored in those same muted colors, decorated with little graphics of the animals within the packaging.
When Shouka rips the plastic open with her teeth, she ends up holding Daiki the Dilute Calico in the palm of her hand. He’s inches tall—a tiny, white, dusty gray, brownish, blotched cat. The figure is dressed in tiny trousers and his hard body is slightly fuzzy. There’s something kind of perfect about him.
She tucks him carefully into the bottom of her pillow case, for safekeeping.
And—as she goes to recycle the box, the packaging, the little card that came with the figure, she sees the website. It’s a simple little advertisement on the back of the card, Pocket Pets Collector’s Forum— but it catches her eye.
THREE
Introduction Post by calicos in New Users
Hello. I’m quite new to “Pocket Pets,” and I mostly wanted to make an account out of interest. As for my introduction, you can use my screen name “Calicos” to refer to me. I don’t know if I have enough information to have a favorite figure, though I like the one I do have—Daiki the Dilute Calico. Is there anything I should know about collecting or the forum?
From Calicos.
Thread by alpine in Introduction Post
Hi, Calicos! It’s nice to meet you and have you join us! We’re a pretty small forum so we don’t get a lot of new members! I’m Alpine, one of the assistant admins that you’ll see around here.
Daiki is a really nice figure to find as one of your first—one of the classic kitties! I’d like to direct you to our Getting Started thread for some tips on expanding your collection as well as to the official Collector’s Catalog on the Pocket Pets website. In case you’ve already checked those out however, if you are over 18, you can verify your age and head over to the Meetups and Trades forum!
As a final note, there’s no need to formally sign off on every post, as you can fill out a small profile that will tell us about you upon hovering your screen name!
Expand thread…
calico’s Profile:
My name is: Calicos
My age is: 14
My collection: Daiki the Dilute Calico
I enjoy:
My social media is:
About me: I am new to collecting Pocket Pets.
Achievements: First Post!
Thread by bunnied in Introduction Post
Hello! Welcome (o゜▽゜)o☆!! It’s nice to see someone the same age as me!! I hope you enjoy the forums. Like Alpine said, Daiki the Dilute Calico is SUPERRR CUTE! My personal favorite is Gina the Garden Hare! I really like the Arts and Crafts forum if you want to check it out! Hopefully we’ll see each other around! U•ェ•*U
Expand thread…
bunnied’s Profile
My name is: Bunnied
My age is: 14!
My collection: Cat set 3/4, bunny set 1/4, farm set 0/5, woodland set 1/4
I enjoy: Collecting! Practicing to be a hero! Messaging! Making friends!
My social media is: Bunnied
About me: My favorite set is the bunny set and I’m definitely going to collect them all! I’m planning to go to a hero school for Senior High! U•ェ•*U
Achievements: First Post!, Thread Starter, 20 Posts!
FOUR
Shouka has a train ticket ready—one way trip. She bought it at the same corner store she bought her first Pocket Pet from. It’s not that she really wants to be running away. There’s just something suffocating about being at home. She wishes she could disappear into the night and never come back, never finish her UA application, never see her father’s face outside a screen again.
There’s something satisfying about being on the train platform on her own. Only a handful of morning shift workers are boarding at the same time as her. It feels exhilarating to be doing this alone. Truly alone, without her father hanging over her shoulder, gaze heavy, judging. When the train rushes into the station with its thudding wheels, the sharp wind it kicks up sticks in her lungs on the inhale—like missing a step on the way down the stairs.
The conductor doesn’t give her hunched shoulders and windbreaker hood-covered hair a second look.
On the train, Shouka thinks. She can afford a ticket back home. Of course she can. But—bile rises in her throat at the thought, her face burns, sweat slicks up her palms. The train’s warm lights let her see her pale reflection in the darkened window. She looks sickly.
There’s a poison rotting through everything in their house, Shouka thinks, and slowly, it’s getting to her.
calicos today at 5:09 AM
I’m on the train. BTW
Deleted message from calicos today at 5:09 AM
Ochaco. I wish home wasn’t my house. I want to go home.
bunnied today at 5:11 AM
i wish i could hold you
Deleted message from bunnied today at 5:11 AM
i dont know how to help
bunnied today at 5:13 AM
i’ll take you around when you get here and i’ll give you your first pocket pet trade and i’ll be able to hug you and you’ll be away from your house and things will look up, OK?
calicos today at 5:15 AM
OK
Sun gathers at the blurred, horizon line, spinning past. The sky swims into pale gray-blues. Shouka can’t see her face as a reflection anymore—the train’s overhead lights have turned off.
FIVE
Shouka doesn’t remember a lot of her brother.
What she does remember is this: her brother is always on fire—he is a wreck of anger. The house smells like burning hair and flesh. Sometimes, at random, she struggles to breathe in. All she can smell is the memory of him burning himself alive, slowly, angrily, day by day.
She wonders if she will turn out like him—poisoned through and rotted by that house, angry enough to char herself down to bone.
SIX
Morning creeps up on her. The train lulls her into a half-sleep, a drowsy stillness that she keeps snapping herself awake from. With the passing minutes, comes awareness that her father will find her gone soon, will start up the search. Maybe she won’t need return tickets after all—likely, some sidekick from her father’s agency will drag her back home.
Her forehead thuds against the cool glass of the train window. It shakes, vibrating against her skull. Home is defined as a a familiar or usual setting: congenial environment, also: the focus of one's domestic attention. She thinks, though she hasn’t met her yet, Ochaco may be her real home. Something deep in her chest aches.
bunnied today at 8:37 AM
how is the ride? U•ェ•*U
do
you feel a bit better
Unsent message from calicos today at 8:39 AM
I want to go home so bad. I miss you even though we’ve never met. How can this hurt so bad? I think i’m dying.
calicos today at 8:40 AM
It’s boring.
The scenery is OK
I want to see you
bunnied today at 8:43 AM
it’s just a few more hours right??!!
(●'◡'●)(❁´◡`❁) and then we’ll see each other!
calicos today at 8:50 AM
I got on the train at 4:43 and the ride is close to 7 and a half hours.
Arrival time should be 12:13-ish.
bunnied today at 8:43 AM
YAYY!!!!
i can’t wait!!
i’ll hug you so hard!! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧
Sometimes—just for brief seconds—Shouka thinks there may be nothing left to hug.
SEVEN
The Appeal by calicos in Discussion
Hello. I’m quite new to “Pocket Pets,” as mentioned in my introduction post. I really like the one I have and I want to collect more. I just wanted to ask why other users think they may be so appealing to collect and have. I think it is nice to have something soft and pleasant of my own that I’ve purchased with my own money. I would imagine my father might disapprove of something like this—so there is more appeal to having it for myself. But I wanted to know about others’ reasons for collecting them.
Expand thread…
bunnied today at 4:39 PM
hi!! U•ェ•*U
calicos today at 4:43 PM
Hello! Nice to properly meet u
EIGHT
Her father might have already tracked down where she’s going, Shouka thinks. Maybe she will walk off the train and someone will be there to march her right back onto another one, headed back home. Or—maybe Ochaco will be there. Waiting to hold her. Maybe Shouka will be coming home.
She tugs on the sleeves of her sister’s old windbreaker. The fabric crinkles under her fingers. Somehow she isn’t worried about her family—not worried about if they are calling her, about who found the open window. She just doesn’t want—
calicos today at 11:49 AM
What if they make me go back
Deleted messages from bunnied today at 11:52 AM
well…
you still have to right? eventually?
calicos today at 11:55 AM
Ochaco
I don’t want to
I’m so
bunnied today at 11:55 AM
i’m sorry
NINE
Shouka thinks about her dead brother a lot. Is this how he felt? Did he want to disappear out of their father’s grip? She wonders about it. She doesn’t know.
TEN
Shouka pulls Daiki the Dilute Calico out of her backpack before the train stops. When it does slow, she almost trips over with the momentum of it.
Ochaco should be out there—on the platform, waiting. A home, the second heartbeat in Shouka's chest.
At 12:13 in the afternoon, on the anniversary of her brother’s death, she holds her little figurine in her hand—her new start, her disappearance, her escape—and steps out onto the platform.
calicos today at 12:15 AM
I’m here