i doubt that Arata's going to make any major appearances now, but i think it would be so funny if VBS starts travelling and he is made to supervise them, because Ken is busy and tells the kids, "sorry, i am not trusting you guys by yourselves abroad in a million years." so he calls up Arata, since he's travelled before (to America)
Arata is like "yeah, sure. how hard could it be?"
about everything that could go wrong goes wrong.
in the middle of the night, they were all meant to meet at WEG, from where Ken would drive them to the airport. all of them except Toya forgot at least one thing at home and had to go all the way back to retrieve it.
Arata ordered a cup of strong coffee while they all waited for An to come back after running up to her room for the sixteenth time.
at security, An, Akito and Arata seem to accidentally create a "whose jewellery can set off the metal detector more" competition. Toya is highly disappointed in Akito. and just before the trip, Emu had given Kohane a tiny little robot that has recorded messages from all of W x S, to remember them by while she's away!! so cute!!
it gets Kohane pulled away to be searched.
not even anything dodgy in it, it's just as if the machines could detect the Made In Rui Kamishiro's Room essence. Kohane was terrified. it took Arata, Akito and Toya to hold An back from fighting security and getting them all arrested. Rui woke up at home a few hours later to fifty missed calls from Akito, An and the airline.
Arata bought another coffee at duty free afterwards.
oh, and since i'm silly about my headcanon of Iori and Arata being twins, STANDOUT happens to be doing a world tour at the same time. Arata prayed he would not see his sister at the airport. he is not God's favourite. she sees him struggling with the kids and immediately takes the piss. he retorts that he hopes her plane crashes. nearly gets jumped by the other band members (minus Mio)
he needed two coffees to recover from that.
Kohane is super excited about taking as many photos as she can while in the airport, wanting to capture everything. Arata sees her struggling with holding the camera while dragging her suitcase and decides to be nice, offering to hold it. she accidentally calls him nii-san and he feels joy for the first time, thinking that maybe it's all worth it. which is very quickly dissolved when An takes him holding Kohane's bag as an invitation to drop her bag on him ("cheers, Arata!!"), followed by Akito. Toya tries to scold them and help carry all the things, though sheepishly finds that he does not have the strength to.
"why the fuck do i bother." ~ Arata Tono, 2024, on his fifth coffee.
Arata gets a call from Souma checking up on him and is so relieved that he's positively beaming (and maybe even tearing up) while he walks away to answer.
"ehhh, he hasn't smiled at us like that all night, even though we've been so good!!" ~ An. she and Akito tease the hell out of his relationship with Souma when he returns.
while waiting to board the plane, he has to deal with standing next to a bickering An and Akito, the sleepiness starting to really get to the both of them, making them more snappy. Toya is starting to really realise that flights involve... heights. and is staring into space while having a silent panic attack. Kohane unintentionally wanders off to go take more photos, nearly giving Arata a heart attack when he thinks he's lost her. or that might've just been the caffeine.
he is unable to buy another cup of coffee at this time.
the second Arata gets into his plane seat, he goes "do not talk to me" to all of them and immediately falls asleep. some poor flight attendant has to shake him awake to ask him to put his belt on because he'd forgotten. he starts sobbing right then and there.
he gets to order his now hourly coffee from that same flight attendant a bit later.
he tries to drift off once more, though is awoken again, this time by poor Toya in the middle seat digging his fingernails into both his and Akito's arms from fear, like a cat, while the plane takes off.
Arata downs some more coffee and reflects every one of his life's decisions while his arm is taken hostage.
An, who is much too peppy at this sort of hour, in Arata's opinion, reaches across the aisle every ten minutes to shake his free arm and ask "are we there yet??" so he makes Toya keep an eye on how many exact miles away they are and regularly report it to her, to both distract him from the height and satisfy An's curiosity.
when they arrive at their destination, VBS is ecstatic. Arata promptly goes to his room in the hotel and passes out for about twelve hours.
he gets offered coffee during breakfast and feels sick at the thought... before remembering that he's with this lot for a good few days and quickly accepts.
blakekathryn
snowghoul
origamiaround
dededos
prguitarman
