RP Log: Kaidoh & Dan

[https://users.livejournal.com/-rattlesnake/]

Date: Lunch Tuesday
Rating: PG for some strong language on Kaidoh's part
Summary: Dan invites Kaidoh to lunch, though Kaidoh has some reservations.




Kaidoh stepped out onto the school lawn, wincing in the bright noon sunlight. He sighed; he had the distinct feeling that this was not going to go well. At all. This Dan kid had been very adamant about having lunch together, but apparently he also still thought he was at an art school, or something stupid like that.

Obviously his opinion of that was going to change in the next few minutes, and drastically. Kaidoh hoped this entire thing wasn't... well, a worse idea than he already thought it was. He finally spotted a lone, small figure beneath one of the nearby trees, and began making his way slowly toward it, all the while trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach that this kid was going to take one look at him and scream bloody murder.

Dan Taichi was nearly squealing with excitement. A big smile was on his face and he couldn't help, but anxiously look for anyone who might be Kaidoh. Nervously he glanced at the new, waterproof watch his dad had gotten him as a sort of going away present. It was nice and shiny, but looking at the time didn't help at all.

He sat down under the tree while enjoying the shade that the tree gave. He nervously fumbled with the end of his shirt. His mother had clearly told him to go and make friends while he was at art school. Dan wanted to do just that. As he looked around the area one more time he spotted someone coming towards him. Dan quickly got to his feet and waved. "Kaidoh-senpai?" He shouted while dismissing the fact that there seemed to be something...odd about the advancing person.

The figure stood and waved; Kaidoh sighed again, and quickened his steps just slightly, keeping his head down as if hiding the bone on his cheeks would help any. It wouldn't, he knew, but still... maybe if he could delay the inevitable a few more seconds...

“Yeah, it's me. You're Dan-kun, then?” he asked, just loudly enough to be heard as soon as he was within earshot. “I... um, well...” He really didn't know what to say. Instead he just looked up and waited for the kid to run away.

Dan was at a loss for words...Mainly because he couldn't think of anything to say. As the chosen outcast in his class he'd never got the opportunity to really communicate with anyone without being made fun of or bullied.

"Wow...Senpai you're really cool!" Dan exclaimed. "How'd you do it? Did you do all that make-up just for me?" He asked with his already big eyes wide with amazement. Oddly he mistook the mutation as Special FX make-up. "Could I touch it?"

Kaidoh blinked, staring down at the black-haired shrimp staring up at him with wide – but not frightened – eyes. Make-up? What a way to avoid reality completely. He sure as hell wished it was make-up.

“I – I'm not cool,” was the automatic reply. “Y-you want to touch it?” The only person who'd ever wanted to touch him – that hadn't been a doctor – was Ohtori-kun. He wasn't sure this was a very good idea.

He smiled happily up at Kaidoh. Dan had to move his head almost all the way back just to see Kaidoh's face. He was used to it of course. Fate seemed to hate him and he had yet to experience a growth spurt. He was fifteen and he still looked like a young girl. Even his dad had mistaken him for his little sister although that had been after a Christmas party where he had been slightly drunk.

"Senpai's so humble! I would never be able to do something like that." It was probably his obliviousness that prevented him from thinking that maybe it wasn't make-up. His family had always kept quiet about his powers and the habit had grown on him. Dan simply reasoned to himself about abnormalities. "Yeah, could I? It looks so realistic!"

Humble? Kaidoh really couldn't help but stare at the kid now. “T-that's because it is real, you dolt,” he said quickly, then mentally kicked himself. That hadn't been a good thing to say at all. Dammit, why was he so bad with people? “I – I mean... you're not... it's...” He sighed. “It's not make-up, okay?” That was sure to send the kid packing. Though... he wasn't so sure anymore. Dan seemed to be pretty... naive. He wondered if he even would run away. Only one way to find out, he supposed, studying the smaller boy carefully for the reaction that was sure to come.

Dan merely looked at Kaidoh for one long moment. He blinked rapidly thinking that something might be wrong with his eyes. "It's not?" His voice was like a squeak, soft and several pitches too high. Then Dan thought about the end of the sentence. ‘You dolt’ He remembered the times at the playground with the other kids calling him names. Why was he the one that they always insulted?

"You're not lying to me are you?" Dan said slowly with his voice edged with suspicion. He examined Kaidoh's face trying to figure out whether it was real or not. Dan wasn't sure what to do. He knew there were people out there that were...different, after all he was one of them. Dan remembered the word that he heard his parents use when they were discussing something late at night...Mutant.

Kaidoh looked away from the kid, seeing the hurt look in his eyes at being called a name that Kaidoh really hadn't meant to call him in the first place. “N-no, it's not. I wish it was.” He sighed and held up one hand, showing the younger boy the bone on his knuckles. “It's not just on my face, either.”

He studied the grass near his feet intently a moment. “And you're not a dolt, but this isn't an art school.” He was sure Dan must have a reason of his own to be here that had nothing to do with art.

He gasped in surprise while staring at Kaidoh's knuckles. Seeing it up close Dan began to admit that it did look pretty real. No one in their right mind would take the time and effort to do Special FX make-up on anything casual.

Dan looked up at Kaidoh, the smile long gone from his face. "I'm not? Really?" His eyes got that teary-eyed look that was a sure signal of tears. The insult to a normal person wouldn't be very harmful, but Dan took things seriously. Every insult had been taken seriously, which was surprising considering how cheerful the boy was. "S-so this isn't an art school? They lied to me?" Dan's voice trembled as he was almost on the verge of tears. He wasn't sad he was just confused. No one had ever taken back an insult. It was a first.

Kaidoh sensed his impending doom as the smaller boy's eyes began to grow wet – he'd made the kid cry? “I – I didn't mean – don't – no, you're not a dolt,” he said quickly. “But... um, no, this isn't an art school. I... I dunno what your parents told you, but it's not. I mean, you... must have... something. Like this.” He motioned to his face. “Something... uhm... different, or you wouldn't be here.”

A small smile began to make its way onto Dan's face. He cheered up at Kaidoh's reassurance that he wasn't a dolt. Despite the small smile, Dan still looked hurt. He had the expression that small children got when they found out things. Like when they find out Santa Claus is actually some guy in a costume or that the Easter Bunny didn't exist. He had been excited to go to an art school, even if he wasn't the best artist, but in the end it had all been a plan to get him out of the house. Dan took in a deep breath before admitting, "I see...stuff."

Kaidoh studied Dan's face, supposing he really wasn't that surprised at the hurt he saw plainly on the delicate features. He wondered what Dan meant. He didn't think he knew of anyone else who saw things. “W-what kind of... stuff?” he asked quietly, suddenly afraid that if he spoke too loudly or said the wrong thing, the kid would bolt. And he found himself actually warming to him a little – it wasn't Dan's fault, after all, that his parents had apparently lied to him. He found himself thinking unfavorably of them, whoever they might be. It was really wrong to send your kid off to someplace like Ryuhana with no idea of what they were getting into.

He thought about the question raised by Kaidoh. It was hard to answer. He saw a lot of things that were really random actually. "All kinds of stuff. Um...Like murders and explosions and uh....people. It's always really different. Like one time I saw dinosaurs and another time I saw these two samurais fighting." Dan paused for a moment to really think about it. "I think....I think I see history....Stuff that happens in the past." He sounded unsure of himself, but most of the things he saw looked like it happened before he was born. There were the strange old hairstyles and the fashion choice by the people he often saw through his visions.

Kaidoh found himself wincing at the thought of seeing most of the things the boy had just described. It... didn't seem right, somehow, for someone like what Dan seemed like to see such horrible things. Though at least it didn't sound all bad. “...Oh,” he said slowly. “But it's not all bad stuff?” He fingered the aching growth on his elbow through the sleeve of Ohtori-kun's too-big shirt.

Dan shrugged slowly. "It's like watching TV. Sometimes you turn onto the channel you're not supposed to be watching. Most of the time it's boring like a bird flying or a field." Sometimes he wished that he hadn't received this postcognitive ability. It felt like watching a video in History class, but sometimes it could get exciting. Dan would have preferred something else for a mutation though like the ability to grow taller in an instant. "Does it hurt?" He asked with a finger pointing towards Kaidoh's face. "I think I'd cry. It looks like it hurts...a lot."

Well, at least everything the kid saw wasn't bad. That was a very good thing, in Kaidoh's book – he was definitely finding himself warming to the boy. It must be Ohtori-kun's fault – ever since the silver-haired boy had begun being nice to Kaidoh – but now was not the time to even start thinking about Ohtori-kun. No way in hell. That was too big a can of worms to let out in his head in the middle of a conversation with a newcomer.

Kaidoh nodded slowly, sighing. Did it hurt – hell yes it hurt, and especially right now, because of the running. But damned if he was going to tell the physicians that. “Y-yeah. It does,” he admitted, a bit surprised at himself really, because this was the second near-total stranger he'd admitted that to. “I... have a pretty high tolerance for pain, though, I guess,” he temporized. “And, um... I heal fast.”

"You're lucky, senpai. You got something useful." To Dan his visions weren't useful. What was he supposed to do knowing about where some squirrel buried his acorns?

Then Dan realized something that had completely slipped his mind since he saw Kaidoh. "The lunch! It's getting cold!" It was a silly thing to say considering the lunch was cold in the first place. He turned around searching for the big, bright lunch box filled with food.

“Useful?” Kaidoh echoed, even as the smaller boy turned and began looking for their lunch. “Wh- how's this useful?” he asked, watching as the boy found a red lunch box and presented it proudly. “I woulda thought... y'know... seeing stuff would be useful. This isn't useful.” He sat carefully, watching as Dan unpacked the lunchbox.

"Well senpai said that you could heal fast and that's useful I guess. Maybe one day you can do something with your bones. For me my power thingy isn't very useful. I can't do anything with it. I can't protect myself with it. It doesn't really help in school either." Dan replied while carefully setting the food on plates he had managed to get from the kitchen people. He glanced up at Kaidoh. "To me it seems useful in a way."

Kaidoh watched as food appeared, on plates and everything. He was a little impressed. “Um... thanks for lunch, by the way...” he said, feeling a bit lame and undeserving. He knew he wasn't really the friendliest of people, or the easiest to approach, but this Dan was still trying. This place was so strange – most of the people treated him the way the rest of the world did, with complete indifference or even fear. But then here was Dan. And there was still Ohtori-kun...

“And... I mean, I bet that's useful in history class at least, right?” He did have to admit that healing quickly was useful, but it was no compensation for looking like a monstrosity. “At least you don't look like a freak,” he muttered.

"It was fun to make, but all they would let me do was make sandwiches. I think they thought that I would burn down the building or something." Dan grinned and held out a sandwich square. "Here, try one!" He offered.

"Not really. The teacher always scolds me for not following the book. I know what happens, but never the date. The kids in the class called me crazy when I told them about the dinosaurs." He frowned. It was a very bad idea telling them in the first place. "Senpai! Don't call yourself a freak! If you call yourself a freak then other people will call you a freak!" Dan said fiercely. One of the many philosphies he had told himself when his peers ridiculed him. "Anyways I think it looks cool!"

Kaidoh took the sandwich and bit into it, nodding slowly, finding it just a bit amusing as he imagined the school's cooks trying to keep Dan from doing too much in the kitchen. “Thanks,” he said again, softly.

He did suppose that not knowing the date would make Dan's ability less useful, at least in history class. But still, it seemed more useful than having bones sticking out of your skin. “I do look like a freak, and I know it,” he said, perhaps a bit more forcefully than he'd meant. “It doesn't look cool when it's all over your body,” he grumbled, sighing and taking another bite. “I just wish it would go the hell away.”

Dan bit into his own sandwich while somewhat wishing they had let him near the ovens. He was old enough to use them and he made really good cookies when he tried. "I should be thanking you, senpai. I would have thought that this was an art school my entire time here. You're nice too and you're going to be my first friend here." Dan smiled at the thought of a friend. He had friends at one point when everyone was still young. Then no one was going through puberty so everyone was still the same height. Although he was rather strange then too.

"N-no..." Dan's voice softened as he tried to think of something to reply to that comment. "You should just accept it. You're lucky in other ways. You're really tall. I wish I was tall. People still think I'm nine or ten. Some people even think I'm a girl! Anyway, maybe it'll get better some day. There's medicine and stuff."

His first friend here? That was… a bit ironic, Kaidoh mused. Though he had to admit, he wouldn’t really mind being friends with this kid. “Tall?” he asked. He’d really never thought of himself as particularly tall, but he supposed that next to Dan, he was. He was forced to think of Ohtori-kun; there was no way around it. “You should see my roommate. He’s tall.”

He studied the boy sitting beside him. Yes, he supposed that he could see how he could get mistaken for someone much younger. Or a girl. But really, it wasn’t that bad. “I wouldn’tve thought you were a girl,” he said, hoping it would make Dan feel better. “I, um, I’m sure you’ll grow.”

Dan's eyes widened at the thought of someone taller than Kaidoh. "Really? Is he nice? What's his name?" Dan asked hoping to one day meet the boy taller than Kaidoh.
"That's what my family says, but I haven't grown at all this year. It's really disappointing." He sighed softly. He was frustrated with his lack of growth and there was that feeling in his left eye again. It was like that tired sort of feeling that warned an incoming vision. Dan crossed his fingers hoping it wouldn't be anything scary.

“Y-yeah. He’s the nicest person I know,” Kaidoh admitted, again having to mentally slap himself so he didn’t mull over the Ohtori situation. “His name’s Ohtori-kun… I think he said you could stop by anytime, in your journal.” He wondered if that was still okay – there was Neko to consider, after all, but then again Dan didn’t seem to be the sort to rat out anyone, and especially not for a kitten.

He glanced at the boy again; there was an odd look on his face. “Hey… are you okay?” Dan was looking… a bit distant. Distracted. He wondered what it could be, and looked back over his own shoulder, but there was no one there.

"Oh him! With the electrical tape!" Dan nodded to indicate that he did recall who Kaidoh was speaking of. He rubbed his left eye as the left side of his vision began to fade. The grass, the trees, and even a part of Kaidoh began to disappear. New colors replaced them. It was blurry at first to see. Gradually a picture formed. Dan could make out the vague shapes of a building. There were...shapes on the ground too and occasionally something would line up.

"Yeah...I'm fine." Dan replied, but his attention on whatever he was watching. It took him several moments to realize that the shapes on the ground were bodies...of people. He panicked and even let out a small scream. Uniformed men fired guns at the still rebelling people. Alarmed he grabbed the green cloth and pulled down the headband to cover his eyes.

Kaidoh watched as Dan’s expression grew more and more distant, until it was clear that the boy was no longer paying attention to him at all. He wondered if it was Dan’s ability kicking in – and figured the answer was a resounding yes as the boy screamed and pulled the cloth of his green headband down to cover his eyes. Kaidoh wondered if that actually worked. He had a sinking feeling it didn’t; and whatever Dan was seeing, it was obviously not pleasant.

“O-oy,” he said, putting the sandwich down and tentatively placing a hand on the younger boy’s forearm. He didn’t like touching people, really, but this was a bit of a special case. He shook the boy slightly. “D-Dan-kun? Really… are you okay?” He wasn’t sure what he should do – if his shaking would snap Dan out of it, or if it would pass, or if he should get someone…

Closing his eyes helped to some degree, but he could still see whatever he was watching. He could see the outline of everything, the lines of the building, the guns, the tanks. It seemed surreal in some way as if a director was toying around with some effects on a movie he was working on.

Fortunately it didn't last very long. That was one reason he never chose to practice his power by himself. He was reluctant to do anything with it since he believed that practicing would only make things more constant and make the visions last longer. He opened his eyes and his heart sped up when all he saw was black; darkness. "S-senpai?!" He shouted nervously. "C-can't see!" He choked out. His arms flailed looking for something that seemed familiar.

Kaidoh winced as a small hand smacked him on the cheek – he hoped that had hurt Dan less than it had hurt him. “Hang on!” he said, trying to get at the green cloth and pull it back up over the boy’s forehead. He finally succeeded, yanking the cloth away from large, frightened eyes. “Of course you can’t see – you pulled the – was that a… vision? Or whatever it was?” he asked, a bit concerned. Dan had managed to go completely white since this entire thing began.

The back of his hand hurt, but that was the least of his concerns at the moment. Dan stared at Kaidoh while breathing a long sigh of relief. His eyes stayed on Kaidoh since it reassured him that he was looking at the present time. "Sorry! Thank you!" He said quickly with feelings of guilt for making his senpai worry like that. "Err...it was. And it was really scary! And and and...and there were people there and they were dead or dying and there were mean people and they were scary too and I was afraid that they were going to shoot me and and--" Dan paused to take in a deep breath to make up for his long run-on sentence.

Kaidoh blinked at the onslaught of words, even as they abruptly cut off as the kid stopped to finally take a breath. It did indeed sound as though Dan had seen something… less than pleasant. He wondered briefly what it would be like, instead of having bones growing through his skin, if he was privy to events he didn’t want to see at any given time. Like people dying.

Suddenly he wasn’t entirely sure that looking like a freak was so bad.

“Are you… okay now?” he asked carefully. “I mean – no one can shoot you, it’s a vision, right? You’re just seeing stuff. You’re not actually there.” He was sure that was small consolation when faced with the actual events before Dan’s eyes, but he hoped it might help at least a little.

"And they were...laughing!" Dan finally concluded his little summary of what he saw. He wasn't exactly able to hear anything, but he could imagine it. There had been a man who had thrown back his head and slapped his knees. Somehow the man found the situation funny if that was ever possible.

"I-I think I'm okay...." Dan mumbled with his body shaking. He dearly wished he could have seen the boring visions. The ones where it showed grass being blown by the wind or deer prancing. "I thought he would...It looked like he staring right at me." Dan wished that the vision had come later when he was in his room. He never liked telling people about what he saw, but he was also glad that Kaidoh was there. His parents were hardly there to comfort him and his sister had become unfriendly towards him knowing that she was the normal one.

“… Oh,” was all Kaidoh could say. People laughing? At other people dying? That was something he didn’t even want to think about, let alone see. Dan may look like a little kid, but he certainly wasn’t, that was for sure. Whether he wanted it or not.

“I… well, it’s over now, right? Um… and the lunch break will be soon too, I think.” It was kind of lame, but maybe the best thing to do was get Dan back inside. He supposed that the teachers – or one of the headmistresses – was better-equipped to handle this than he was, though he doubted they’d care as much that Dan seemed to be nothing more than a frightened kid who saw things he’d rather not.

"Mmhmm..." Dan glanced at his watch to note that it was in fact almost the end of the lunch break. He moved towards the lunch and started to clean up. He packed up the leftover food and closed the box. Oddly he found comfort in cleaning up.

"It was nice meeting you, Kaidoh-senpai. I'm sorry about scaring you." Dan got up onto his feet and weakly smiled. He was already trying to cheer himself up. He felt better knowing that he hadn't cried this time although he had come close to.

Kaidoh shook his head as the younger boy finished cleaning up before he could even start to help. “No, you didn’t scare me. It’s fine. I… um, hope you feel better. S-sorry you had to see that.” He pushed himself off the ground, wincing at the pain in his limbs as he did so. “I… guess it was nice meeting you too. I’m sure I’ll see you around… um, you know, especially if you come to see Ohtori-kun. And thanks for lunch.”

He tried to look reassuringly down at the smaller boy, sure it probably hadn’t worked, and began to lead the way back inside.

Comments

[static-smile.livejournal.com]

*wibbles* poor Dan