rabbithatch | no spy music allowed in rabbi thatch | ryusei sakuta and kengo utahoshi

no spy music allowed in rabbi thatch | ryusei sakuta and kengo utahoshi

It was quiet when Ryusei walked into Rabbit Hatch. Good, there wasn't anyone in here. He made his way quickly to the control room and pulled out Meteor Switch; he needed to do this quickly before anyone came in. Tachibana's support was all very well and good, but Meteor's status was always either dictated to him or sent in a box. Nothing like the real-time updates Rabbit Hatch could do, and if Ryusei wanted to get a full picture of Meteor's capabilities, he needed to do a little sneaky diagnostic right now, right here.

Don't look down on me.

Tachibana couldn't ever again insinuate that Ryusei was at fault for weaknesses in battle. He had received Meteor Storm, but he didn't want to have to ask for another upgrade, even if he was confident that Tachibana would give it to him. He was grateful to Tachibana for doing so. But on the other hand, Tachibana had taken advantage of his situation—of Jirou's situation—to manipulate Ryusei. Oh yes, he remembered it, even if he was loathe to mention it to Tachibana. Just in case.

Quickly. He tapped his fingers on the table as Meteor Switch was scanned. After a harrowing moment, the results finally came up on the screen. Ryusei leaned forward.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Though Kengo had expected to either not fall asleep or to only sleep for a few minutes, the complete opposite had happened. As soon as Kengo had resumed his position in the chair, head pressed back against the pillow and his body facing towards the wall, he'd fallen asleep. While sleeping, his breath was uneven, but his body showed no signs of reacting to it otherwise. It was likely to be another aspect of his condition, which still had no name or reason as far as the club was concerned.

For the next hour, Kengo slept, barely moving aside from his quiet, irregular breathing. Rolling onto his back, Kengo gasped in a deep breath and put one hand up to his head, staring up at the ceiling. His head was already spinning, the boy making a soft noise in the back of his throat. Waking up tended to feel like this -- as though his entire body had to work to rearrange itself. The dizzy spell went away only after a few minutes of calm breathing. When he moved to sit up, he rested his arms on his legs and looked around the room, his hair rather ruffled.

It didn't look like anyone had come back yet. He wasn't sure if he should worry about it or not.

Ryusei was livid. A few minutes. A few minutes, he'd said. Well excuse Ryusei for not using Kengo Utahoshi language to tell time! In what part of the world could an hour be considered 'a few minutes'?!

He plastered a fake smile to his face as Utahoshi sat up. "Feeling better?"

Ryusei would feel better once he—

He shoved his fists in his pockets as he worked on uncoiling them; he couldn't let Utahoshi suspect that he was angry, but he was too angry to be able to force himself to release the tension in his body. He'd stay right here to avoid the temptation of clapping Utahoshi on the back harder than he should, for... some reason that he felt sure he could take advantage of once it arose. But if Utahoshi was going to come over here then Ryusei was going to have to invent some reason or another to get out. Quickly, for the sake of being prepared, think of one right now—

He was silent a moment until he was sure he could control his voice. "Utahoshi-kun... are you hungry? I can go out and get something...."

Kengo's reaction to what Ryusei had said was rather slow. He turned his head towards the control room door, letting out a breath. Had Sakuta really been spending all of that time working? It felt as though he'd slept a lot longer than expected and a quick glance at his watch confirmed his initial suspicion. There was a small pang of guilt that he'd left the other to work alone the entire time he'd been sleeping. Now he felt as though he needed to make up for his lack of effort, though Kengo knew he should have been more focused on his health than switch development.

Brushing off the question of whether he was feeling better or not (he wasn't), Kengo moved to stand up, using one hand to flatten his hair down once more. "You should take a break for awhile. I can take over for you. ... or I can get something for you, if you want." Walking around would probably be better for him at this point, but he didn't want Sakuta to feel as though he was taking advantage of him.

"I can do it! I insist!" Ryusei said, forceful and cheerful, already striding to the door. "Is an onigiri set okay?"

While Ryusei seemed to be cheerful, even if it was just a ruse, his attitude made Kengo more uncomfortable. His sincere, polite attitude seemed to drop suddenly, as though he were reverting back to the cold and serious self he usually had around the rest of the club members. He sighed and turned his gaze away, turning to head in to the control room.

"That's fine. Take your time." It didn't matter how well Ryusei was trying to hide what he was feeling -- at the very least, Kengo could tell he was upset. He just assumed it was for an entirely different reason. Without saying anything else, Kengo took a seat in the control room and started reviewing what Ryusei had been working on, trying to catch up with the other's progress.

"Got it!"

Ryusei got out of Rabbit Hatch, through the locker, and out the door to the storage room before slamming his fist into the wall. "Utahoshi...."

He exhaled deeply, a moment later, resting both hands on the wall. Nothing he could help now. He had to look to the future now. There may or may not be another chance, but he couldn't linger on this incident. To linger was to decide not to live in the present, and he couldn't afford that. Every faculty of Ryusei's needed to be dedicated to the present and future, for Jirou's sake. Ryusei couldn't fail. He couldn't allow himself to fail. So let it go.

Meteor had been doing well enough. Just a moment ago, Ryusei had been working on a Switch, getting it to the point where it was almost ready. If he couldn't use Rabbit Hatch's equipment for Meteor's sake, at least he was using it for Fourze's. Fourze had been responsible for the birth of a Horoscopes—an annoying one, but he'd done it nonetheless. Ryusei could stop Fourze from defeating brightest-star Zodiarts if it should come down to that. Not being able to look at Meteor's specs wasn't a tragedy.

Calmer, Ryusei went to get the food. He didn't know what flavor Utahoshi liked, so he bought two of the plainer ones and then a variety set. Utahoshi hadn't specified, so he couldn't blame Ryusei for it. Not that Utahoshi blamed Ryusei for much, especially not something like this, and he didn't think Utahoshi would send him out again for another if he didn't like it, and there had never been any indication that Utahoshi couldn't eat certain things as far as Ryusei had observed. Still, Ryusei hesitated.

He didn't know what Utahoshi liked, Ryusei decisively said to himself after a moment of debating in front of a sweets shop. The onigiri would have to do. It wasn't like Ryusei was going to get anything sweet for himself, he thought with a snort as he headed back to Rabbit Hatch.

"Sorry for the wait!" he said as he stepped back in. "Um, I didn't know what you would like...."

As soon as Ryusei had left, Kengo had moved his chair back enough to rest his forehead against the table, arms resting on the surface. ... how stupid. He really should have been more careful. Next time, he would have to set an alarm to make sure he didn't spend so much time focusing on himself. It was a strange thing to feel compelled to help out everyone else, now that they had forced themselves into their lives, but it had become an annoying part of his conscience to show concern for them. It wasn't just the insecurity that the rest of the KRC was replacing him (even if they said and proved they weren't), he couldn't shake the feeling that he was becoming more and more useless. As the person who should have felt the most responsible for the operation, it looked bad to be contributing so little.

By the time Ryusei returned, Kengo had caught up to Ryusei's progress, running system checks and double-checking everything the other boy had done while he'd been asleep. It was absurdly close to being complete, but Kengo was known to double and triple check everything before even allowing it to be tested. It was part of his concern for not wanting to give Gentarou a switch that could possibly backfire.

He barely raised his head when he heard Ryusei's voice, though when his mind finally processed that the other had returned, he snapped shut a notebook that he'd had open in front of him while waiting for the program to finish running. It wouldn't do any good to show that data to anyone else. Resting his arm on top of it, he went back to focusing his attention on the switch.

"I'm fine with anything." His words were just as dismissive as they always were whenever someone asked him about his preferences for something. It seemed as though Kengo only ever gave his opinion when it came to work.

Ryusei narrowed his eyes when he saw that Kengo was hiding something, but if it was something Utahoshi had pulled out at Rabbit Hatch, then it probably didn't concern Ryusei. He knew that Utahoshi was protective of his father's work. As long as the secrecy didn't inhibit the Club's operations... he thought, as if this wasn't Utahoshi. Kisaragi's safety was a given.

"Utahoshi-kun, come here already," he said as he took the food out of the bag. Eat first, work later. Ryusei would bring up Utahoshi's condition, but he didn't want to guilt-trip him into coming over. If Utahoshi didn't want to eat, it really wasn't any of Ryusei's business. Utahoshi just still looked a little ill, was all. "I'll eat all of it if you wait too long," he said instead, opening one of the plainer sets.

Kengo didn't even look up from his work, though when he noticed Ryusei wasn't coming in to the control room, he flipped it back open and scratched down a few more things with a pencil. He couldn't push the uncomfortable feeling aside. It always seemed to end up like this when he didn't want to talk about how he was feeling. Burying his thoughts and feelings was what had gotten him in trouble with Ryusei and Gentarou in the first place, back when they had worked on developing the magnet switches. It never got any easier...

"I already had my break." Not that it should have counted, considering his condition and how little he'd been sleeping with the school work Kengo had been working on. "I'll eat whatever you don't want once I'm done."

"I'm going to eat all of it," Ryusei repeated, feeling childish even as he did so. Today was not his day. Well, if he was already being childish....

Time for something drastic. He called this his Kisaragi move. A move so idiotic and with so high a percentage of pissing off the one he was using it on that it was bound to work! Ugh, Kisaragi logic. He got up, went to the control room, grabbed Utahoshi's shoulders, and started pushing him out to the main room.

"You can take all the breaks you want," he said, after swallowing the bite he'd taken of onigiri. "We're not on a schedule, you know...."

As soon as Kengo felt the hands on his shoulders, his face flushed red before he could figure out exactly what was going on. His body had reacted before his mind had caught up, Ryusei managing to get him halfway out the control room door before he did anything else. Raising his hands up, Kengo grabbed at Ryusei's wrists and fought to keep himself from stumbling, the expression on his face a mixture of being embarrassed and offended.

"S-Sakuta..." Taking that route of action seemed to be effective, though. When forced into a situation by someone he cared about, Kengo had a harder time talking himself out of it. It didn't even occur to him at the moment that he'd left his notebook in the control room, still open to the notes he'd been taking.

Ryusei saw. He paused for a split second, staring at the notebook, before resuming his manhandling. "I'd be in trouble in Kisaragi-kun if he returns to see you so tired," he said with a grin that didn't meet his eyes as he steered Utahoshi to the table.

"W-we get worried. About you." So embarrassing. It wasn't even his place to say; Kisaragi and Yuuki and sometimes the others had that covered. As far as Ryusei knew, Utahoshi wasn't hungry because he'd already eaten. But then, if he had, he would have said so. Everything Utahoshi had said indicated... Ryusei didn't know what it indicated, but what it didn't indicate wasn't that Utahoshi didn't want to eat. "So, I'm sorry," he said with an embarrassed air, letting go. "But... Kisaragi-kun would have wanted me to do it."

Well, he did call it his Kisaragi move.... Convenient an excuse as any, and maybe mentioning Kisaragi would abate Utahoshi's anger. Not that Utahoshi seemed angry.

Within the notebook were a variety of notes, particularly on the Fourze system and different things Kengo had been thinking about as far as reviewing future and current designs, as well as ways to better implement the switches they had already developed. There were even tactical notes, but it was all theory -- if they fought a Zodiart with certain characteristics, what were the best combination of abilities they could test out against it? Kengo knew that thinking such complicated things wouldn't do any real good unless it was implemented on the field, but the system and the mission were always at the front of his mind. He wrote everything down primarily as a way of clearing his head to focus on other things.

With this particular page, however, very little of what was written had to do with the Fourze system. There were notes about the circle module switches and Meteor's system -- Elek, Fire, and lesser things like Rocket and Chain Array. He had theorized that being able to use Elek only left Meteor compatible with that aspect of Fourze's system -- but could Fourze use Meteor, and how similar were the bases? It had to have some tie to his father, that system. He just didn't know how.

"I know..." Now Kengo looked even more embarrassed, tilting his head down and actually managing a smile with how awkward he felt. He still hadn't let go of the other just yet. "I'm sorry... for upsetting you earlier. I don't want you to have to work alone either." Apologizing was certainly not something Kengo did easily and it was obvious from the look on his face how uncomfortable he was. But the fact that he was putting the effort forward to say it meant a lot.

This was new. Utahoshi was strict, and had a temper. Not... bashful. Not with Ryusei.

His Kisaragi move had worked maybe a little too well, Ryusei thought uncomfortably as he pulled away. "I don't mind working alone," he said tentatively. "I-I wasn't upset."

Was that what Utahoshi had thought? Ryusei had left to get food. What indicators had there been that he had been upset? Not stuffing his hands in his pockets, surely.... He needed to be more careful. He didn't have an excuse for that behavior. For now, he'd let Utahoshi believe his mistake.

"Really, I wasn't." He turned away. Protest a little more, make it seem insincere. Was that enough? He couldn't tell. "I— It was just—

"Anyway!" he said after letting the pause sit until it became awkward. He turned around with a fake grin. "Let's eat! Here...." He picked up the variety set and handed it to Utahoshi.

Kengo cleared his throat during the awkward pause, moving to sit down a few feet from Ryusei at the table. He accepted the food, giving a small nod of his head in thanks without verbally expressing it. Resting his arms on the table, he picked up one of the onigiri and picked at the plastic around it. He hadn't eaten since before he'd left for school. It was true that he needed it more than he wanted to admit, but sometimes he became too focused on his work to think about eating. His mind and body always seemed to focus completely on the task at hand and he had to remind himself to eat -- or have someone else do the reminding for him.

"You left pretty quickly earlier. I guess I'm just paranoid. ... it's really hard to figure people out. I'm still not used to it yet and I know I'm usually harsh and demanding towards everyone. I was worried I'd crossed a line with you." Kengo absently picked at the plastic, keeping his head down. "I don't really spend time with anyone in the club outside of being with the group as a whole."

Realizing that he was starting to open up a bit too much, Kengo shifted uncomfortably, fighting the urge to mutter an apology. Instead, he brought the food up to his mouth and took a careful bite, still seeming as though he was focusing on his own thoughts more than anything else.

That wasn't how it seemed to Ryusei, but he didn't know if Utahoshi would feel better hearing it, Ryusei thought as finally sat down again. Utahoshi, Kisaragi, and Yuuki had always seemed to stick together, from what Ryusei had observed, even for a little while after Ryusei had joined. That was only natural; they were in the same class so he saw them together more often, and Ryusei had been deliberately holding himself apart so until recently he hadn't counted himself among them. He still didn't, but for a different reason, now.

Even so, Ryusei was surprised at the admission that Utahoshi tried. Ryusei had always been under the impression that Utahoshi Did Things, and everyone followed. Utahoshi being the most competent person in the Club probably accounted for some of that, Ryusei thought with a sardonic smile he didn't show.

"What... line is that?" Ryusei had never made it seem as if he didn't want to be alone, had he? He'd wanted to join the Club, but he wouldn't have done anything about Zodiarts on his own, and anyway, Kisaragi had already befriended him (and had dragged Ryusei over to sit near him), so Ryusei wouldn't have been alone even if he'd wanted to. Was Utahoshi projecting his own feelings onto Ryusei? Impossible. Utahoshi not working alone was the reason he'd gotten angry at Ryusei and Kisaragi in the first place.

And... why did he think not eating would solve anything if Ryusei really had been mad? Wait, Ryusei was pretending that he was. Quickly, repair this. "I-it's not like I have a line or anything...." His nervous smile faded as he shiftily looked away.

While Kengo could easily say that he and Yuki were friends and that him and Gentarou were friends as well, he didn't think that they hung out regularly, at least with either pair on individual terms. It was always work and always a group effort. Yuki had just been the first person to find him and attach to him. Gentarou worked the same way, but there was never really a time where he'd sat down with either of them individually and had a 'friend' chat or anything like that.

Kengo acknowledged the club and his ties to everyone, but it still felt... off. It was as though there was an invisible wall between him and other people where he couldn't quite understand them. Friendship and ties seemed to come so easily to Yuki and Gentarou... Why couldn't it be that easy for him? What was so hard to understand?

"Making you feel like I'm expecting you to pick up my slack, rather than having an equal standing. My condition shouldn't give me an excuse to do less work." It felt so very uncomfortable to talk about things like this, but every time he tried to stop, he felt as though he had to keep explaining himself. Sakuta had never made it difficult to like him, but with how closely they worked together, Kengo felt he needed to have a stronger relationship with him. It would make sense for them to trust each other as much as Gentarou and Kengo trusted each other.

His reason for wanting to avoid coming into the middle room was purely to avoid further issues. Kengo was aware that his attitude when it came to being hurt by anything was to lash out at others and draw away from them.

Pick up his slack? Kisaragi hadn't asked Ryusei to do Switch work to get them out faster. Picking up Utahoshi's slack was exactly what Ryusei should be doing. He didn't think Utahoshi would appreciate hearing it, though. On the other hand, Ryusei owed it to Kisaragi to try to convince Utahoshi to take it easy.

Not an easy task, if Utahoshi was going to be this stubborn about it. Maybe it would be easier to just tell Kisaragi what was going on and let Kisaragi handle it, but even thinking of this option made Ryusei feel childish. To being with, it wasn't like Ryusei was Utahoshi's babysitter. If Utahoshi didn't want to relax and take care of himself, then it wasn't any of Ryusei's business.

It was just— If Utahoshi had to someday go to the hospital because his condition worsened due to overwork, Ryusei was going to have to make an excuse not to see him. With the way Kisaragi went on and on about being friends, Ryusei didn't think he could manage it. Preventing more Jirous.... Preventing more Jirous didn't only mean using Meteor.

And to complicate things further, Ryusei was supposed to be upset about this. What a mess. "I know this is your father's work," he began tentatively. "I understand if you want to spend more time with it. But if it has to be a trade-off... Instead of you spending more time, we could lessen the time I spend...."

He trailed off awkwardly. He didn't know how Utahoshi would take that suggestion. To be truthful, Ryusei didn't like it, himself. Both Fourze and Meteor should be improving as fast as possible. But the cost— Some costs were too high.

"Whatever we do, I'm fine as long as it's equal or the extra weight falls on me. I appreciate everything you've done so far." With the way Ryusei was acting, it was making Kengo feel more and more guilty that he'd potentially upset the other. Out of anyone in the club, it seemed Ryusei was the one who would be the most sensitive to anything that was said to him. Kengo felt Ryusei's personality was too kind to be subjected to his harsh personality. And the other had helped him out a lot...

It wasn't that Gentarou wasn't kind, but his forceful personality had rubbed Kengo the wrong way from their first encounter. Ryusei was really the complete opposite, or at least it seemed that way most of the time. At least the other was getting better about coming out of his shell. Kengo could relate to that...

Kengo put his elbows on the table as he took another bite of his onigiri, seeming a bit more content now that he was eating. "Anyway, I think it should be done soon at this rate. There isn't much left to do."

"Mhm," Ryusei mumbled through a mouthful of food. He was just going to have to take more breaks, then. What would he do during that free time? Study, he supposed. It wasn't like Club work was a substantial drain on his time. He'd just have to remember to take those breaks.

On the other hand, it didn't matter that much. Utahoshi was right in that there weren't many Switches left. If they could make it this far, there was no reason they couldn't finish. Utahoshi did all the supervising, in any case. He'd probably push himself even if, theoretically, I stopped working altogether.

There was nothing he could do beyond remove himself as a competing factor, and talking about this was starting to become awkward, so he let the conversation die.

Speaking of competing factors.... He folded his hands on the table after a moment. "Utahoshi-kun... may I ask what was in that notebook?"

Kengo was content to let the conversation die there as he ate, gradually pulling the plastic away from the onigiri and seeming completely occupied with his food. However, his attention wasn't entirely focused on it, which was evident from his reaction when Ryusei asked his question. Kengo coughed for a moment, caught off guard by the mention of a topic he'd been working to avoid. Once he stopped clearing his throat, he swallowed his food and kept the back of his hand up to his mouth, looking back up at Ryusei.

Well, there was no way to say it was nothing at this point. His reaction had been enough to keep that from being brushed aside. Kengo set the rest of his food down, still picking at the plastic with his nails. It was understandable with his position and knowledge that he would want to research other systems similar to Fourze's own, didn't it? So he didn't know why it had to be such a secret other than the fact that Meteor... well. Meteor was not their ally.

"It's nothing I can do anything about, but I've been writing theories about the Meteor system." More picking at the plastic wrapper. "It seems pointless to spend time thinking about a system that isn't mine-- ours." He didn't want to seem selfish over the Fourze system, so the last bit had been fumbled over in his attempt to save face.

Ryusei's grip on his hands tightened; he looked up with a grin to hide the reaction. "Is that so?" he said cheerfully. "What have you discovered?"

From the glance Ryusei had taken of the notebook, it hadn't contained anything dangerous, but Ryusei had only seen one page. On top of that, the timing was suspicious: Utahoshi had been working on that page after Ryusei had been trying to use Rabbit Hatch's equipment to analyze his Meteor Switch? Ryusei hadn't left anything incriminating on the system, had he? He'd had an hour to straighten everything out, and he'd been working on calibrating a Fourze Switch; anything Utahoshi would have seen—either while looking over Ryusei's work or moving on to a new Switch—had already been scoured by Ryusei.

It must be a coincidence, right? But Utahoshi's reaction, both when Ryusei had stepped back into Rabbit Hatch, and just now when Ryusei brought it up, was too suspicious not to investigate. "How... often do you work on it?"

"There's nothing to discover when I can't run tests on the system itself. Whenever I think of something new, I make a note of it." When working on Switches, Kengo's mind tended to wander and go over a lot of different information, whether it was related to the subject at hand or not. The way one Switch reacted to something or a certain path of development would make him think of a way to improve an older one -- so he always happened to make note of those as well.

Sometimes, it just happened to relate to the Meteor system. Or at least his theories about it. "It's part of the system my father developed. I want to know where it came from and how it's different. Fourze was left here when I discovered the Hatch... I don't know where Meteor came from." Was it a system his father had worked on as well? Had it been stolen from him? Or developed from research his father had done? "... if I can find out more about Meteor, then maybe I can figure out something I don't know about Fourze's capabilities."

Aside from that, part of him wanted to help Meteor so the other could aid in their fight, but Meteor didn't show any signs of wanting allies. There was also a very strange suspicion he'd had about the other.

"I wonder what he's fighting for. If it's for the same reason I am."

Probably not.

. . . "What's the reason that you fight?"

It may be true that Utahoshi might be able to improve Fourze's capabilities or functionality by looking at Meteor System, but Tachibana obviously didn't want anyone looking at Meteor. Why else would he mandate that Ryusei not reveal himself? It would be suspicious if Ryusei didn't already know that Tachibana wanted to keep his own identity a secret from his and the Club's common enemy. As Tachibana's agent, Ryusei should do something about Utahoshi's notes, but Ryusei was curious enough himself that he couldn't bring himself to want to.

Maybe he'd ask to see the notes once Utahoshi trusted him more. —Maybe in the future when Utahoshi trusted him more, Ryusei corrected with a frown. There shouldn't be a problem with that; ingratiating himself with Kamen Rider Club was what he was here for. They already trusted him.

What was Ryusei thinking? He'd gotten a little confused. The Club did already trust him. Going any further was needless. Prying, especially, was needless. He'd feel like he was taking advantage if he asked to see the notes. Which he was, already, just by being here. But— "You don't seem upset that I saw," he said in a rush. "Wasn't it a secret?"

"... it's a really stupid reason." Kengo gave a nervous smile again as he sat up a bit straighter, leaning back in his seat. He let the food drop from his hands back onto the surface of the table as he laced his fingers together and stretched. Moving around was one of the signs that he was uncomfortable with the current topic, even though he wouldn't readily admit something like that. How was he supposed to admit something like feeling closer to his father and fulfilling his father's dream by fighting for him? There had to be a nicer way to say it.

Tilting his head to the side, Kengo dropped his hands to the table once more. "I'm protecting people because my father couldn't. Fighting for people who can't fight. ... though I guess now people are fighting for me because I can't." That particular comment still made him upset. It was nice that he had met Gentarou and Ryusei and everyone else, but there were times when it truly bothered him that he couldn't be the one wearing the suit, fighting for his father's sake. More and more often, however, it was becoming easier to deal with. Friends made the burden lighter.

When Ryusei asked his second question, Kengo waved one hand a bit. "I didn't see the point in talking about it. Something like that isn't important, so don't worry. We'll only need to think about it if Meteor decides to put up with us." He picked his food back up. "I just want to know if he knew my father or what his connection to him is."

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