dinohouse | [Rescue Fire/Gaia fusion] For Tatsuya

He wasn't going to pace. He was going to wait patiently for Tatsuya to arrive, not give in to nerves before he'd even got there. So what if they had a lot to talk about, that was no reason to be nervous.

Yeah, right. They had over ten years worth of stuff to catch up on and it wasn't exactly all sunshine and rainbows.

He glanced down at his watch and sighed. Come on, Tatsuya.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

fire1

"Right, right." Tatsuya clapped his hand on Katsumi's shoulder and let go, but reluctantly.

From:

hotshotlightning

Why did he feel cooler all of a sudden? That was just ridiculous.

"We done?" he asked, gesturing at the tray. He had no idea where to go next but they'd come up with something.

From:

fire1

"Yeah." Tatsuya put it in one of the tray holders and then went over to join his brother, "what're you doing? Do you have to go back yet?"

From:

hotshotlightning

"Not yet," Katsumi replied, automatically checking his watch. "I've got some time yet. Anywhere you want to go?"

From:

fire1

Tatsuya thought for a moment, then said brightly "The arcade! It's open till 2am!" He pulled on Katsumi's hand excitedly.

From:

hotshotlightning

With what was most definitely not a yelp, Katsumi found himself being dragged outside enthusiastically.

"You don't need to dislocate my shoulder you know. I'm coming already."

From:

fire1

Tatsuya chattered all down the road about high scores and favourite games. He seemed to run out of steam as they neared the arcade itself; and finally admitted "I haven't really told anyone about you yet. They'd think it was ... strange."

From:

hotshotlightning

"Oh please. Like I'm not going to wipe the floor with you on those."

He went still as Tatsuya admitted that last. "I haven't really talked about it either."

How did you talk about something like this, though?

From:

fire1

Tatsuya frowned, "yeah ... everyone at work has noticed something's up with me, but I didn't know what to say. Sorry." He realised what this might sound like to Katsumi, and his face paled, "I just mean it's awkward ... It's not like I'm embarrassed about you."

From:

hotshotlightning

Katsumi's eyebrows rose slightly at that, pointedly ignoring the small stab of hurt the comment had produced. "Stop digging yourself in deeper," he suggested. "But I know what you mean."

He didn't actually think many people had noticed with him, but he was a lot more used to being closed off than Tatsuya was.

From:

fire1

"No, really-" Tatsuya began but then broke off. He petted Katsumi's arm, though with more hesitation than usual, "It's just difficult, you know?"

From:

hotshotlightning

"Yeah," Katsumi agreed after a moment, taking a breath before replying. "Yeah, I know."

It wouldn't surprise him if certain people on base started prodding to get answers but he didn't have to deal with that yet. "We'll have to talk about it some time, though."

From:

fire1

"Like, us talking about it? Or telling other people?" Tatsuya had no other family besides Katsumi and that left only his friends and co-workers at UFDA. He felt awkward mentioning the subject but was sure they would be sympathetic.

From:

hotshotlightning

Katsumi shrugged. "Either, I guess. Your friends will probably want some idea of what's going on with you."

Which was easy enough to say, not so easy to do in practice.

From:

fire1

"Don't you have friends, too?" Tatsuya looked at his watch, and tugged on Katsumi's sleeve, "c'mon. You can't beat my Dragon Fighter score."

From:

hotshotlightning

"I have friends!" he replied, stung. "And yeah, right. Any score you can get, I can get."

From:

fire1

"Wouldn't they support you?" Tatsuya decided not to pursue it any further, and instead chased over to the nearest machine.

From:

hotshotlightning

Before he could retort Tatsuya was already gone, bounding over to the closest machine.

"How did this even get turned around onto me?" he muttered under his breath, joining his brother at the game.

From:

fire1

Tatsuya proudly loaded up the high scores for Katsumi to observe that he was 36th out of the top 50, "Bet you can't beat that," he bragged and then shovelled more coins into the slot.

From:

hotshotlightning

"Oh, we'll see about that." Elbowing Tatsuya out the way, he took control of the console just as the game started.

From:

fire1

Tatsuya rushed to select his player character before Katsumi did. He had every faith in his ability to beat his brother at this and every other game in the arcade.

From:

hotshotlightning

"I hope you like losing," Katsumi taunted as Tatsuya scrambled for his controls. No way was he losing.

From:

fire1

Tatsuya stuck out his tongue at Katsumi. He hammered furiously at the controls when the game started, and kept giving his brother little nudges in the side.