Walking on ceilings is a nice party trick, and gravity manipulation certainly does come in handy during fights, but for Chuuya, the real perk of his ability is this: the faculty to keep his hat fixed perfectly on his head at any given time. There’s power in being able to do that, and not ironic, either— it’s like a toast and a fuck you to the riffraff he deals with on a day-to-day basis, letting him demolish them in battle even as his hat remains impeccably installed atop his equally impeccable haircut. It’s the equivalent of knocking them into the middle of next week while simultaneously rubbing in their faces that while they’ve been busy being destroyed, he still looks like he’s barely broken a sweat— which, granted, he usually hasn’t. The pros are infinite: the immortalization of his hat as a staple of his appearance, the reinforcement of his dashing sense of style, the fact that it requires only the slightest of thoughts on his part.
The con, incidentally, is also that it requires only the slightest of thoughts on his part, because it’s easy for him to forget that he has to actively think to exercise his ability on his hat.
Which is why, ambling along one fine morning and harmlessly minding his own business, it’s all Chuuya can do to blink when a gust of wind comes along and ever so rudely blows his hat off his head.
His mouth catches up before the rest of him does. “Fuck—!”
He’s getting ready to sacrifice his dignity and chase after it in broad daylight because god fucking damn that is his favorite hat, when someone else captures it for him. A boy — a kid, really — with blond hair and large, friendly eyes, dressed in a pair of cuffed blue overalls. Around his neck hangs his own hat, an old straw thing that’s probably seen better days. It rings a bell, and Chuuya pauses, fishing after the memory that it sparks, only to realize that of all the people to encounter on the streets, he’s bumped into one of the members of the Armed Detective Company. Of course. Not even noon, and his luck today is already shaping up to be shitty.
“Onii-san?” he repeats in bemusement at the kid’s choice of address. Then, in horror at the recommendation that follows, “Strings?”
Chuuya needs a moment to process this. The kid is even nicer than he looks, and it’s fucking weird, but being called onii-san is the least of his problems right now.
“Where do you think we are, a farm?” he says, and, upon eyeing the kid’s outfit, amends, “Wait, don’t answer that. Thanks for catching my hat, though— I’ll be sure to try your suggestion if I ever want to ruin it.”
Kenji has never been the sort to judge or hold a grudge. All humans could come together if they responded genuinely and honestly with one another, even if they had been guilty of crimes in the past, even if they did wrong by others in the present. So, although he remembers who is in front of him (there’s been enough dealings with the Mafia that he can’t really forget faces anymore), not even the slightest irritation reads upon his face.
In fact——the questions uttered are about the norm, even for people not associated with the Agency or the Mafia. If anything, he’s oblivious to the oddity of his nature, his seemingly unnatural radiance and optimism being considered just the norm for him and him alone; ‘tis simply the way he wonted to be, and there was little chance of it ever changing.
“Ruin it?” The farm boy eventually repeats, albeit tilting his head backwards as if attempting to steal a glance at his own (he didn’t think his hat looked that bad just because it had strings he tied ‘round his neck.). The worn, woven straw bends as he does, however, and the tension against the back of his scalp forces him to stop. Rebounding, he lands firmly atop his sandals and innocently restates his intentions: “I was just thinkin’ it might stop it from getting blown away, onii-san.”
Never mind the familiar form of address——he lays a wrist atop the other behind his back, allowing his crown to tilt just so. “Losing such a nice hat would be a shame, after all, and the city sure has a lot of gusts pick up with all the cars around.”
snowghoul
prguitarman
kianamaiart
tangentwithtanner
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
titsay
izzy806
2087
