@dragonmic starter!
Day by day, Ichiro was getting used to this weirdo place. Spirale was becoming more and more familiar, and for that he was grateful. Does he feel like he can breathe here yet? Not in the slightest-- Ichiro was always the hypervigilant one, never taking well to sudden changes in scenery or situation. But, he was also good at adapting. You'd never know that the whole time he's been here, he's felt three inches to the left of himself.
There were some moments, though, when the foreign architecture of the Archimedes ward melted away, and Ichiro could pretend he was back in Ikebukuro. The square of Archimedes was about as close as it gets. Dozens of people pass by him, offering him either a wave or not acknowledging him at all; if he could ignore the vastly different smells, the strange plaster of the walls, the sounds of foreign languages, he could quell homesickness, if only for a bit.
Home.
There was a lot to unpack with that simple word, he realizes. It's not as black or white as it seems.
He can't dwell on it, and he knows that. He's too far from it for it to even be an issue.
He's shaken from his train of thought by a passerby bumping into his shoulder. He looks up, offering an apology to the passing stranger, but stops dead in his tracks.
That goddamn red hair. He could recognize him from anywhere.
Ichiro didn't even recognize the way his open flopped open, gaping like a dumb fish out of water. His eyes widened, his gaze focused solely on someone he never thought he'd see again.
And who can blame him? He told him to never talk to him again anyway.
He feels the urge to call out. To yell. To do something. There's a familiar, yet unfamiliar pull in his chest-- this is something he'd hadn't felt in years. Kuko had a way of fucking with the very workings of Ichiro's brain, in ways he couldn't even begin to describe.
He watches, he stares. He blinks, and the familiar face doesn't dissipate. This isn't a delusion, a dream, a nightmare-- at least, as far as he can tell from a couple yards away.
Kuko fucking Harai. Who would've thought?