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Senku began to notice.
If there was even a glimpse of a grey cloud in the sky:
“Ryusui, will it rain today?” Gen would question.
And again he heard, days later, “Think it’ll rain on our parade today, Ryusui?”
But, it was on the days when Ryusui would give an affirmative answer that Senku truly began to listen in:
Finger raised in the air in thought, Ryusui hummed before nodding sharply, “Seems so.”
“Eally-ray?” Gen asked in a voice that sounded off. It wouldn’t have been noticeable to anyone else, but Senku had been paying attention. His curiosity was peaked.
This went on for months. And to add even more mystery, on the days when Ryusui told Gen that it would rain, Gen would suddenly go missing. Senku would ask Suika where Gen had gone and he’d only get a tiny shrug or an unsure answer. Suika, of all people, couldn’t find the mentalist? Just where was he running off to?
Senku began to come up with various hypotheses for this behavior. Did he not like getting wet? That didn’t make sense. He could go into one of the many huts they had available to wait out the weather if that was the case, so why disappear from the camp? Was he collecting rain water in a different location because he believed in the occult? He was quite the magician, but did he truly believe in that type of magic? Unlikely.
Nothing that crossed his mind felt like the right answer. Was he missing a crucial ingredient to the recipe that was Gen Asagiri?
As this continued on, and as Senku began to run out of plausible reasons for this behavior, he decided to act. He’d follow him. Discretely.
This proved to be more difficult than he anticipated. In every attempt to follow the purple-clothed man, he’d either be called away by someone, usually Chrome, or he’d somehow lose Gen’s trail. He considered asking Kohaku, but decided against that course of action. She’d have way more questions than he was willing to answer and he didn’t want to explain why this had become important to him. It wasn’t a big deal. Gen disappeared when it rained, there was no reason for concern there. But he had to know or his mind would surely implode.
So, he came up with a new plan. He’d plant a tracking device. It was simple really. Essentially, he’d just need to gather the materials needed to create a base radio station that could act as a receiver to pinpoint Gen’s location, like a GPS. He’d make a separate radar screen to monitor where Gen traveled visually. The hardest part would be planting the transmitter onto the cunning escape artist.
It took careful planning, but he’d managed to do it. He’d planted the tracker. With Yuzuriha sworn to secrecy, he confided in her and the two of them had worked out the plan together.
Two days earlier
“He won’t get hurt, will he?” she asked.
“Huh? No. I mean, nothing is impossible, but I’m one-billion percent sure that this will work. Plus, even if the thorn did catch his skin, a little scratch isn’t going to hurt him.”
“Don’t you think this is going kind of far just to cause a tear in his clothes? Wouldn’t it be easier for me to tell him that I’d like to make some alterations?”
“No. He’s too smart and might get suspicious.”
“I still don’t understand why you’re doing all of this. What if he’s just scared of the rain? Lots of people are afraid of thunder.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” This was one of the many hypotheses he’d deliberated on, but it didn’t fit the image of Gen that he held in his mind so he ruled it out.
She sighed, “Senku, why not just ask him?”
Senku scratched the inside of his ear and grunted, “I tried once and he got all weird about it. I’m going to figure this out my way.”
Yuzuriha gave him a sly grin and said, “Maybe he has a secret lover that he’s sneaking off with on those romantic rainy days.”
Senku’s brows furrowed and his teeth clenched. This was another hypothesis he’d had. It was one he had not been able to completely rule out. While he was solely focused on the restoration of humanity, he knew humans were, in the end, mammals with sexual instincts. However, this was the theory that his mind seemed to keep gravitating towards when he was at his wits end. “Then this is an invasion of privacy and he’ll have a very dramatic moment where he chews me out,” he forced out calmly. While the thought of this outcome being a real possibility came with a pinprick of irritation that he did not yet have a reason for, his mouth quirked up on one side while imagining the look on Gen’s face as he berated him.
Yuzuriha shook her head, giving Senku a knowing look, then let the topic go so they could continue with their plan.
The plan was as follows:
First, Yuzuriha would recruit Gen to help her search for various berries and flowers in the forest that could be used to dye fabrics. Senku would tag along with the excuse that he was on the look-out for other plants that could be used for medicinal purposes.
“Why must I be the one? Senku is already here.” Gen griped.
“Because you have a better eye for this type of thing, and I could use your opinions.” Yuzuriha easily countered, “Senku is too focused on function and not at all with design.”
She was a little too good at this, Senku thought.
Second, they’d find the blackberry bush that he’d scouted out the day before.
“Oh this is perfect!” Yuzuriha exclaimed in excitement, “we can make purple dye with these. Let's get to picking, Gen!”
Accepting his fate, Gen knelt down between two bushes and began the tedious task of picking blackberries. “You going to help us, my dear?” Gen asked in a sarcastic tone that made Senku smirk.
“Might as well since I haven’t found anything I’m looking for. I’ll start in the bush behind you.”
Third, while he moved behind the mentalist, he’d carefully grab the bottom edge of Gen’s haori and stab it through one of the many thorny branches in the bush.
Fourth, once they’d completed their task, Gen would go to stand up and…
RIIIIIP
“Eriously-say?!” Gen yelped as he quickly grabbed at the hem of his haori to see a messy tear from the thorns. “My poor haori is ruined!” He turned to face Senku with a pout on his face and the damage on full display.
Senku shrugged, “What’s the big deal? It’s just cloth. Ask Yuzuriha to mend it.”
Gen gasped and turned to her immediately, “Yuzuriha, this is an emergency.”
She walked closer to examine the rip, then held out her hand, “Give it here. I’ll fix it tonight. Good thing we got these berries, huh? I should be able to match your purple perfectly.”
As Gen removed the garment, Senku felt his eyes scan over the trickster's body before he paused. He'd never seen him without the purple layer and it came as a brief surprise. Humans were creatures of habit and this was new to him. Why did it feel almost…inappropriate? Gen was fully covered. He cleared his throat and turned away, “Well, since I found nothing of importance, I’m headed back to help Chrome. See ya.”
Finally, Yuzuriha would secretly sew the transmitter into the pocket of Gen's haori, return it, and Senku was officially locked onto the two-toned man's location just in time for a three-day-long thunderstorm to roll in.
Present Day
This was too easy. Senku watches the little green dot on the screen from the comfort of his observatory, map on the floor to his right as he tracks the path Gen makes through the forest.
The clouds had rolled in half an hour ago and it didn’t take long for the magician to begin his disappearing act. Senku kept his eyes peeled on his location as he traced a path onto the map until the blinking dot stopped moving approximately fifteen minutes later. After confirming that Gen would move no further, Senku quickly rolled up the map, stood, exited the observatory, and started his trek to find his mentalist.
When he journeyed to the end of his marked-out path, he found a cave. Unsurprising as there were many in the area. Though as he came upon it, he slowed and listened closely, wondering if what Yuzuriha had teased could actually be the answer he’d been looking for. When he reached the edge of the entrance, there was a boom of thunder and he heard a whimpered cry of “f-fuck,” from inside. He froze in place and felt his stomach drop. Was it actually a lover? He should leave. He should definitely leave. He wasn’t so dense as to interrupt two people copulating.
He didn’t leave. His ears were burning. His fists were clenched at his sides. But he didn’t leave. Taking a slow breath to calm the roiling emotion building within that he couldn’t name, he stepped inside.
What he found was not Gen in a scandalous position. Instead, squinting his eyes into the darkness, he saw a figure curled in the corner of the cave. He could just barely make out the silhouette of the man he’d been searching for.
BOOM!
Thunder cracked loudly through the air and the flash of lighting followed close behind. In that same moment, another whimper sounded and within the light of the storm he saw wide, frightened eyes staring back at him.
“S-Senku?!” Gen exclaimed, anger coating the tone, though the stutter took away from the aggressiveness. “What on earth are you doing here? Did you f-follow me?!”
“Uh…” Senku rubbed the back of his neck guiltily and cleared his throat, “Something like that. I wanted to know where you kept running off to.”
Gen’s eyes were blazing and he shot to his feet, pointing a finger into the scientist's chest, “You had no right! This is my usiness-bay.” Well, the rage seemed to have taken away the stutter. “Now eave-lay before I get even more upset with you.”
“I asked you before what was going on and you wouldn’t answer me.”
“I’m not required to tell you.”
“But I wanted to know.”
Gen scoffed, “You can’t always know everyth-” BOOM!!! Senku watched in fascination as Gen’s body locked up, his words stolen from his lips, instead replaced with an exclamation of fear while his hand shot forward to clutch itself into the front of Senku’s top. He could feel the tremors shooting through the mentalist's body from this connection and he looked him over before saying more gently, “You’re afraid of thunder.”
“No sh-shit, Sherlock.” Not removing his fist from Senku’s clothing, he pulled him further into the cave to one wall and pulled him down to sit on the stone floor. Taking a deep breath, he turned glaring eyes to him and said, “Appy-Hay? Big secret revealed.”
“I like not having to come up with theories for why you kept disappearing anymore. Thankfully you weren’t in the middle of having sex with some secret lover.”
Gen blinked, “what? Why the ell-hay would you think that?”
He shrugged, “It was just one of many possibilities. I’m glad it was not the correct one.”
“You’re…glad?” Gen’s eyes kept glancing between Senku’s face and the cave entrance, clearly waiting in anticipation for the next round of thunder. But the question made him pause. Did that come out correctly? Was he glad? It shouldn’t make a difference to him whether Gen had a secret lover or not, but he felt relief nonetheless.
“I mean, I guess so. Now I know you’re not just trying to escape from the tasks I’ve assigned you. Relationships tend to distract people.” He said logically and he watched the man beside him frown deeply, seemingly disappointed. “Unless…you’re afraid of thunder and you have a secret partner?” He waited with baited breath, but Gen shook his head and rolled his eyes, “Nope, can’t say that I do. And it seems I never will.”
“We’ll be reviving humanity. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of time and options to choose from.”
Gen sighed, “You are so emotionally dense.”
Senku opened his mouth to ask what he could possibly mean by that when thunder struck again and he unexpectedly had what felt like an octopus wrapped around him. Long arms and slim legs entangled themselves around the side of his body while Gen’s face and head smooshed into the side of his neck. “F-fucking hell.” The grip around him was surprisingly strong even while trembling and he couldn’t bring himself to remove the leech.
“You curse a lot when you’re scared.”
“Shut up. W-when do you predict this storm will end, genius?”
Senku gave a half chuckle, his own arm cautiously coming up to wrap around the mentalist as he responded, “The sky is beginning to brighten up, so it should be over within the next ten minutes. I don’t think we’ll hear anymore thunder, that last one was quite a bit further away.” After his hand settled on Gen’s waist, he felt the shaking form against him slowly relax while in the same moment the heart within his chest felt as if it were about to burst. “What is it about thunder that scares you?”
Still not disengaging himself from Senku’s person, his answer came out muffled from where he was pressed into the green-haired man's neck, “Don’t eally-ray know, been like this since I was oung-yay. I’ve never been a fan of loud noises, but thunder is the worst. It’s humiliating.”
“It’s not a big deal. Everyone is scared of something.”
“And pray tell, what are you afraid of, dear?”
He thought for a moment, “nothing.”
Gen removed his face from his neck to scoff. He set his chin on Senku’s shoulder and loosened the hold on his body, but still did not remove himself completely, “Right. Forgot that you’re otally-tay weird.” Looking towards the entrance to the cave, he saw the sunlight beginning to stream in and he felt the tension within him deflate. Exhaustion was hitting him now. “Think you could carry me back to the camp?” he asked, purposely getting his lips close to the other man’s ear.
Senku lifted his shoulder to rub against said ear in surprise as he jerked back from Gen. Staring at him from arms length now, ears burning, he croaked, “No, that would take up unnecessary energy.” Then, he quickly extracted Gen from himself and stood, dusting his bottom off. “Let’s go. I have an idea for this fear of yours.”
Feeling triumphant for taking Senku off guard, he stood slowly and stretched his arms above his head, “An idea? Sounds like too much work coming from your mouth. I’ll pass.” But, he grinned cheekily as he looked at his scientist as if he hadn’t just been holding onto Senku in fear just a moment ago.
They left the cave.
Just as they were about to arrive at the village, Gen asked, “How did you find me, anyway?”
“Oh that was easy. I created a tracker and had Yuzuriha plant it in your haori.”
“What?!”
Two Weeks Later
“Yes! I’ve perfected them.” Senku held up his new creation with pride.
“Remind me again what these are? They just look like weird earmuffs to me.” Chrome questioned.
“They’re noise-cancelling headphones.”
“Uh-huh…” Chrome blinked, not fully understanding, “So, what are they for?”
“Just something I thought might come in handy some day.”
Chrome stared at the scientist, but decided not to question him any further.
Once Chrome had left, Senku placed the headphones into a bag that he tied around his wrist and went out in search of his mastermind. Finding him chatting up Ryusui, he frowned and grabbed him by the scruff of his haori and began to drag him away, “I need him. Get back to work, Ryusui.”
With a yelp, Gen glared back at Senku, but followed him regardless, “I was talking.”
“Unimportant. Come up to the observatory with me.”
“It’s the middle of the afternoon, not uch-may to observe.”
“Just come on.”
He led them up the ladder and once Gen was standing in front of him expectantly, Senku suddenly felt unsure. Gen raised a brow, “Well? What was so important that you needed me all to yourself? Something naughty?” He fluttered his eyelashes and this broke Senku out of his inner turmoil. He rolled his eyes.
Removing the bag tied to his wrist, he handed it over. “Here. For you.”
“For me?” Gen accepted the bag, opened it, and slowly pulled out the purple and black clothed headphones, “earmuffs?”
“No. Put them on.”
Gen placed them over his head and looked at Senku, waiting on an explanation. Senku opened his mouth, “I bet you can’t hear a single word I’m saying. I could say anything I want to that annoyingly attractive face of yours.”
Gen tilted his head, blinked, then removed the headphones, “Were you actually talking or just essing-may with me? Are these noise cancelling headphones?”
“Sure are.”
“And you’re giving these to me because?”
Senku rolled his eyes again, “Now who’s the dense one? With these you won’t have to disappear during thunderstorms. I mean, you won’t be able to hear if anyone is talking to you either but…” Gen’s eyes widened and he looked down at the new invention then back up at Senku in astonishment.
“I can’t believe…”
He shrugged, “believe it, they aren’t all that complicated to make. It’s just making sure that the ground wire is properly connected to the negative pad that gets a bit complicated. Integrating the microphone to detect outside noise and negate it was the hardest p-OOMPF,” he staggered back as he was, for the second time in a month, trapped in the arms of Gen Asagiri. With a faint chuckle, he patted the mentalists back, “Guess you like them then?”
“Ugh, you’re annoying. Yes, I like them. Thanks.” He muttered with a grumble before pulling away, cheeks colored pink.
Before he could stop himself, Senku spoke up, “During the storms, you can come up here if you want. I usually camp out here during them anyways. You know, if you don’t want anyone finding out. You can wear the headphones up here and I won’t bother you. I have a few blankets to make a pallet if you get uncomfortable.” It was something he had wanted to ask during their short time in the cave, but he hadn’t been sure if Gen would be willing at the time.
Gen smiled, “I think I’d like that.”
“Really?”
“Eally-ray.”