[OPEN] and it's an old scar

[burnmetwice]

WHO: Kazu and whoever he runs into!
WHERE: Heropa, nonresidential area
WHEN: November 22
WHAT: Kazu needs to clear his head after this drama happens so he decides to go for a run on his hyper-motorized skates. Don't get traumatized and ride kids.
WARNINGS: some background drama and also unsafe operation of a wheeled device going like 40 miles an hour. AN UNSAFE SPEED. Strong language. Potentially reference to violent imagery.


[Kazu had no idea what the fuck he was doing.

He'd laced on his Air Trek and jumped out the second-story window, and just hadn't stopped. Hit the ground, shifted his weight to kick the motor to life and took off fast enough to break the speed limit in the residential zone by... probably a lot. He had no idea where he was at for a long time; all he could see was the world torn down around him bathed in smoke and fire and slashed with red. All of the memories—his own and Tetsuo's kept replaying, one after another or mashed together in a slur of violence, pain, and fear. Fuck his head was killing him, throbbing sharply to the beat of his pounding heart. Maybe he should have taken one of those pain pills before he left, but he wasn't stupid. Right now, his body was on autopilot--adjusting his balance and weight into sharp turns, moving him around or over obstacles. Slowing down those reflexes even a fraction would be asking to get killed.

But that only occurs to him later, after who knows how long of just running. Somewhere near the takeout place he usually goes to, his head finally clears up enough for him to think he should maybe get the fuck onto the roofs before he runs into somebody like a dumbass. Which, of course, is exactly when he almost does.

He doesn't see who it is. He has just enough time for his mind to register PERSON!! and CAN'T STOP IN TIME before he has to spin tightly, avoiding collision at the absolutely last second. His balance and trajectory fucked, he's got nothing but momentum, which slams his hip into a bench hard enough to spin him again and leaves enough force to send him another few feet into the conveniently placed garbage can, sending them both sprawling. Flat on his back, he gasps out.]

Ohfuckow. [and then, still flat on his back:] ARE YOU OKAY.

Comments

[burnmetwice]

Kaneda!!

[His voice is a little high, maybe a tad hysterical. Oh great, Kaneda, the absolute last person in the world he wanted to run into right now! Fuck.

Carefully, Kazu levers himself up on his elbow to get a look at him to make sure he hadn't actually hurt him, but when he see Kaneda on the ground he scrambles up, ignoring the pain in his hip and back.]

Kaneda! Are you alright?!

[rassera]

[His head hangs for a bit, shaking his brain to jump start it again. After that minor concussion, anything sort of familiarity to that is not exactly welcoming. Once he's thinking straight, he gets to his feet, looking pretty alright for being barreled into.

Then again, Kazu looked pretty fine too. Must've just been the speed.]

I think so...nothing busted, at least. And there aren't two of you.

[A smile....and then he swats at the kid--not hard, but enough to get his attention.]

What the hell are you doing going that fast on the sidewalk?!

[burnmetwice]

G-good...

[He's holding a hand against the hip that smacked into the bench, but he's pretty sure nothing's broken. It's just going to leave one fuck of a bruise. He realizes that his legs are also kind of shaking—from relief? Adrenaline? Or had he just been running too long? It was dark now but it got dark pretty early in the winter... Maybe he had been at it for a few hours. He was looking at Kaneda, looking him over for injuries, but through a fog of unreality. Like he got when he was either totally exhausted or too wired.

Man, he was going to regret this all so much tomorrow.]

I—um [He glances around because he has absolutely no fucking clue where he is. Spots the takeout place.] Er... Just stopped for food. Guess I forgot to slow down. My bad, man.

[rassera]

[Kaneda can immediately tell something's up. From the way his body language shifted uncomfortably to the stammering in his voice. It wasn't just the shock of running into him, he could tell. Because he'd known signs like that since he was a kid. Much like Tetsuo, Kazu was a terrible liar when he really tried at it.

But he won't call it out just yet.]

Yeah. Just look where you're going--

...

You know, me too. Know any good places around here?

[burnmetwice]

[Kazu makes a weak gesture to the place they're standing outside of: a pretty run of the mill Chinese take-out place. Kazu didn't delude himself that Kaneda would probably just take the food and go home.

All he had to do was get through one meal without mentioning Tetsuo. How hard could that be. They'd probably have food in their mouths most of the time, anyway.

He fuses with his beanie, grimacing a little as his fingers drag against his sweat-soaked hair. Gross.]

I was, er, just about to grab some.

[rassera]

[He probably would, but he's not stupid enough to just leave the conversation at that. Kazu, while easy to panic, had never been quite this bad, even when Kaneda was at his worst in teasing. Something had obviously spooked the kid, and...he can't help but feel that intuition kick in.

Something wasn't right about this.]

C'mon, and try not to run into any pedestrians while crossing the street, yeah?

[He starts to walk, TOTALLY just ignoring any traffic and j-walking the hell over to the other side of the street.]

...

[Watching Kazu's body language.]

[burnmetwice]

[Kazu shoots him a flat look, though the remark's an earned one. Shit, it was actually lucky he'd run into Kaneda and not an old lady or something. At that speed he really could have done some damage.

—And Kaneda was across the street. Kazu shakes his head to try and clear it. Not very successfully, but he did notice that his headache was mostly gone. He'd traded one pain for another, just great. His shaky legs may not hurt now but he knew that could come later tonight, or tomorrow if he was lucky.

He looks both ways before crossing —twice, because his mind was drifting again the first time—and then glides over. The tremor in his legs is a lot more visible when he's moving, and so is the difference in the way he's moving. Normally when he's on his AT, which is most of the time, his movements are tight and graceful, precisely controlled. But now, even just crossing the street he's wobbly. It looks like he's putting too much effort into figuring out where to place his feet. Which he is.]

[rassera]

[Kaneda hops onto the other side of the sidewalk, turning to face the street and...okay.

Okay.

Kazu, the one he'd seen sporadically, through both random encounters and visiting Tetsuo, had always been most at home on his wheels. Air Gear, the way he talked about it was his life. He felt as comfortable with those on as Kaneda did on his bike. But what he was seeing right now was like a baby deer learning to walk. His legs shook, his eyes darted around like a nervous animal. He'd even ridden on Kazu's back when he was injured, and it was like walking on air.

What HAPPENED to him.]

...What's gotten into you? You're pale as a ghost.

[burnmetwice]

Kinda overdid it a little. [Which was a vast, vast understatement. He hadn't run that hard since... Well, since he'd gotten out of the hospital. For good reason. Thanks to Tetsuo the memories of laying in a hospital bed in a haze of painkillers that barely dented the agony of his torn apart body was was viscerally fresh. He shivers a slightly to think about it, even now.

And in the back of his mind... always getting pushed back and carefully ignored, he knew that running on a regalia without a tuner was an disaster waiting to happen. The strain a regalia put on the body, especially his body, barely healed, was too immense without regular tunings to keep machine and rider in sync. That was the unconscious reason behind not pushing his AT, though he'd told himself it was just until he could make sure he got the parts. Shit, he was such a fucking idiot! What if he'd fucked something up, running scared from the images Tetsuo jammed into his head? What if he'd fucked something up for good? How much of a coward did he have to be to want to run from his own past? From Tetsuo's, his friend? All of the blood and rage and grief and powerlessness had been real once but they weren't any more... they weren't... Maybe for Tetsuo but not for him. He'd survived. He'd healed. He'd shoved those memories and those feelings back.

But not hard enough. It was pitiful how quickly it all came flooding back through the simple crack that dread had opened. If he'd done something to himself. If he couldn't use the regalia properly any more, couldn't be 'Flame King'—even if he had never deserved it in the first place ... He'd lose his connection to Spitfire, to Sano. Let them down again. Why did it always come out like this? Always boiling down to his own uselessness. He'd poured his life out and it still hadn't been enough to save his tuner, Sano. He hadn't won. He'd only managed not to lose... That had been Tetsuo's thought. Far too resonant with his own.

So after that feeble remark about overdoing it, Kaneda can see Kazu get even paler, his breathing starting to pick up visibly until he's flat-out hyper-ventilating as anxiety knots thickly in his chest.]

[rassera]

[Hands immediately go out to Kazu, gripping him just under the shoulders. He's never seen Kazu so panicked, even when the guy was the equivalent of a shy rabbit ready to book it at a moment's notice. His breathing's too quick to be normal, and the way those eyes contract, looking like he's staring a million miles away...]

Hey, HEY! Kazu what's your problem?!

[Overdid it a little...if that's what Kazu's going with, this is a major understatement. Because he has a feeling that if he lets go of him now, that he's going to crumple to the ground. He doesn't let that happen, moving him to put him against the wall jsut outside the takeout place to give him a little stability, eyes frantically searching Kazu's to try and see just what's going on, as if eyes could tell.

He's trying to find out--trying to understand. Intution strikes heavily--he knows something's wrong. ]

Breathe, idiot! Breathe...!

[burnmetwice]

[I am breathing, too much!! He thinks but doesn't say, because he can't actually catch his breath enough to get out words. But Kaneda's voice does help pull him back into the present, enough to start thinking logical thoughts like if he'd really fucked something up he'd feel. It takes a full few minutes, but eventually he gets his breathing back to almost normal, forcing himself to take deep, slow breaths. He's still shaking a little with the sudden rapid intensity, leaning heavily back against the wall, mostly upright only by virtue of Kaneda's grip.]

I'm‐g-good, I'm fine,

[rassera]

[WELL EXCUSE HIM FOR NOT BEING MOBILE WEBMD. Kaneda notices him attempting to get his breathing under control, trying to provide a slow base for him to emulate. If he takes deep breaths, maybe Kazu would follow suit. Slowly but surely, he can see the man catch his breath, each one more full than the last, even if the exhales were shaky. He'd take it at this point.

When Kazu starts to speak, Kaneda lets out a breath of relief as well, smile slowly creeping back onto his face.]

Shit. You're okay. You're okay.

[His hands move a little, rubbing those arms to try and comfort.]

Think I can leave you for a few seconds?

[Too late, he's running the hell into that takeout place--vague shouting in Japanese from the inside before he hurries out, cup of water in his hand. He pours a little drop or two on his gloved fingers, giving the rest to him.]

Here.

[He's just going to dab your forehead now with the wet fingers. You look like you ran a damn marathon, asshole.]

Drink up.

[burnmetwice]

[It's funny. Going over a hundred miles an hour he effortlessly balanced all the factors he needed. Weight, speed, balance, the terrain... All of them constantly shifting, all of them vital for split-second decisions that could get him killed. It was only now, standing still, that he couldn't seem to wrap his mind around what was happening. Like he was caught in one of his own time tricks, his mind just couldn't process what was going on fast enough.

Kaneda's helping though. Kazu matches his breathing, shudders a little as Kaneda's hands bring him back to himself a little. He's overheated from the run, but now that the sweat's cooling on his skin it's a little chilly. Great, an improper cooldown. Something else that could fuck him up.

But he doesn't have time to freak out about it. The gentle gesture of Kaneda's hand on his forehead makes him flush, giving him focus and presence of mind enough to be embarrassed. He gulps down the water, half hiding behind his cup .]

Th, thanks. C-can we walk? I need to cool down, gonna cramp.

[Let's be real, it's more like he ran several marathins.]

[rassera]

[That's how speed works, Kazu. Everything is smooth sailing until obstacles, and if caught unprepared...you could be doing everything BUT moving. His damp fingers drag water across his brow, lifting up some of that hair to make sure it stays out of the way. This wasn't all too unlike helping Tetsuo, in a way. He often overdid it in an attempt to show off or take a risk.

He couldn't always stop Tetsuo, all he could do was pick up the pieces.

There's resistance against his hand still holding that shoulder as Kazu moves, drinking the water in the cup. With a wary glance, he lets go, still 'spotting' him with his arms just in case he decides to crumple.]

Yeah, where's your house? You're going right there.

[burnmetwice]

N-no! No. I'm fine.

[Yeah, dragging Kaneda back to his house to meet Tetsuo was the last thing he needed.]

E-er, I was actually coming out to get food, soo... after I cool down I was going to do that...

[rassera]

[Kazu, you were hyperventilating and you can barely stand. Your argument is flopping.]

...Okay. Food and then home. Got it?