fallout
(✪㉨✪)
He’s a man with a lot of words, that’s true, and he knows that Sendou is not. The only times they’d say the same amount of words in one sitting is when they fought or when they’re both asleep. He’d say about a hundred (threats) and Sendou would reply with more or less the same amount, only he somehow made his words sound more ominous and promising.
(“Remember that time,” Sendou’s eyes narrowed, “I wouldn’t let you touch me for a month?”
Gouda found himself sweating.)
Then there’s the sometimes but rare casual talk between them, where he’d go on and on about his (likely terrible and more likely good) day while Sendou would comment on one thing or another, occasionally pulling out his tarot cards and give him a reading or whatever. He didn’t mind, he gets a little bit of assurance when he felt like he knows what’s going to come. There were times, however, where he draws a line with the hocus pocus stuff.
(“Why the fuck would my choice in clothing,” Gouda took a deep breath, “lead to my demise?!”)
Despite them supposedly hating each other—and you’ll never hear this come out of his mouth—he does think they’re more or less attached to the hip. Most of the time it’s metaphorically and to his guilty pleasure they had it literally too.
(It hasn’t happened before, God bless, but he can’t imagine how it’d be like if they were caught.)
So it felt weird when they gradually see each other less, with excuses like school, family and going solo on LBX tournaments. Now that he looks back at it, it seemed nothing short of the two of them trying to avoid each other. And then, as it was bound to happen, they stopped seeing each other. Even as he rose to the skies in the LBX world, posing for magazines and getting more fans by the issue, he heard nothing from the magician in the box.
In other words, Sendou Daiki became nothing short of a precious memory.
(✪㉨✪)
Some people call him prude, he’s been there done that. It got annoying, sure, but he can’t help it when Gouda’s ruthless fighting style was so distasteful. Not the mention the burly teen himself was so annoying. So when they had to battle together and it actually worked, he was surprised. Two distinctive styles that actually blended nicely, it almost sounds surreal in retrospect.
But he knows it happened, he can’t deny it; he's just wondering how in the world they were divided like this. He still remembers the mild surprise—and he can say there was a tinge of proudness for the other—when he found Gouda’s face on the front cover of LBX Weekly while he was out to get milk.
Of course he’s still doing business with LBXs, damn him to Hell if he stopped, but he’s more focused in underground tournaments, street battles and helping his sister out by letting her become his personal mechanic—who, by the way, is going to attend Kamui Daimon Comprehensive Academy soon. Hell yeah. That’s his sister—so he only occasionally joins official tournaments. He can count on one hand how many legal tournaments he’s joined ever since losing contact with Gouda.
Part of the reason is because none of the battles in the tournaments he’s joined ever satisfied him. No opponent riled him up, rarely were there players who were on par with him, let alone those who could smash his Nightmare Fear into fucking pieces. Even if there were, when he works together with his sister, his LBX just becomes better with every downfall—he swears that girl is some sort of genius. He would’ve stormed up Kamui himself if they didn’t accept Sendou God Damn Kiyoka—and then it becomes harder for him to lose in battles.
So he joined illegal tournaments, where there were no restrictions and he could literally crush his opponent like a tiny ant. Even then, his thirst wasn’t quenched. He can crush as many of them as he could in one night and still come back home sorely dissatisfied.
He’ll never say it out loud, but yes, he does miss Gouda Hanzou.
(✪㉨✪)
Most of the time when people have something, they need to lose it to realize how much it means to them. The downside is, more often than not, when you lose it you’ll never get it back.
So when one person just got back from sending his sister off to Kamui Island and it started pouring so suddenly he had to take shelter in some café, and the other person was busy wiping some glasses clean behind the counter awaiting a long day of work and hoping for good sales, neither can grasp the many emotions they felt when their eyes met for the first time in years.
“…You…?!”