2026-02-15: You Ain't Beat Me
- Cutscene: You Ain't Beat Me
- Cast: Tsubasa Seki, Shuyo Hayama
- Where: Third-Floor Apartment, Hirasaka
- OOC Date: 2026-02-15
- IC Date: Wed, Sep 26 2012
- Summary: Tsubasa gets home from school, with Shuyo's help.
Tsubasa went to school, today, but...
... they came right back home, when it was done. Shuyo came home with them; he was worried about them. The gang knows the rough shape of what happened -- that Tsubasa was kidnapped, probably by the same seedy underbelly their father's tangled up in -- even if the details of it being a crime committed by magical fucking ninjas have largely gone over their heads.
"Hey," he calls, to them, when he sees them still grappling with the stairs. "You need a hand, Tsubasa-kun?"
"..." Tsubasa says, looking down at the railing. "... yeah." They're not, like, all that comfortable with grabbing onto Shuyo's shoulder like that, but...
But their everything hurts.
Lance whines with concern, trotting back and forth when they open the door; Tsubasa leans down to give her a hug, right there in the hall. "Hey, girl. It's cool," they assure her, even though it's clearly a lie, and Lance has never been fooled by that kind of lie.
(She says a sad 'aroo', nosing at their face.)
"Jus'... gimme a sec," they tell her, as they brace a hand to their knee to lever themself back up again. "Been cooped up all day, ey... get ya out..."
"You want me to take her for a walk?" Shuyo offers, as they head inside.
"Nah, I oughta..." Tsubasa starts, looking down at their concerned, expectant pup.
"C'mon, dude, you oughta lie down," Shuyo insists, with his own concern. "They kicked your ass."
"... yeah," they sigh, a hand to the wall. "Guess I'll do that... thanks."
"No prob," Shuyo assures them, as Tsubasa hooks a left to go collapse in their bed, and he gets Lance's gear together for a walk.
They shove their blond wig onto their bedside table, and fish their phone out as they flop right down onto their bed, still in their uniform and everything. They thumb out one of their typical choppy messages as they lie there, to let Ichika and Ryuji know they got home alright. (Of course they have a group chat.) That done, they shove their phone onto that end table, too... and reach around their neck, to pull out that ticking three-pointed menace resting there.
"..." Tsubasa says, gazing to it. Feels like they can already always hear that background tick... tick... tick...
"... you ain't beat me," they tell the instrument, with quiet anger.
Eventually, they slip it back inside their clothing again.