i rly hope u like dis e-even if it's not festive. i wrote it after the ep 35 Thing (well there wasn't A Thing really but lotsa people were freakin out so yep) PUFFS CHEST OUT
what are you dreaming of | danball senki WARS
A gentle breeze blows in from the west. The sound of crashing waves fills the air. It is peaceful. A boy is on the beach, silhouetted against the dying sun. He is singing a song, a song that no one hears.
. ✲･*:.｡. .｡.:*･✲ .
“Are these seriously just all clothes?” Arata says exasperatedly, moving his fourth box from the hallway into the room.
“Well excuse me for wanting to wear stuff,” Hikaru looks up from spreading fresh linen on two single beds, one his and one Arata’s. “Besides, who exactly keeps borrowing them when theirs runs out?”
Arata purses his lips, unable to deny the accusation. He neatly piles the boxes on Hikaru’s side of the room and surveys his handiwork with a satisfied sigh.
It’s moving day for the dormers at Raimon High. Classes are starting in a week and the entire campus is slowly coming to life.
Arata flops on a freshly made bed and watches as Hikaru keeps the brooms and rags they had used for the whole afternoon. “Man, I’m beat. I hope dinner’s good.”
“We could shower before eating,” Hikaru suggests, undoing his hair and retying it.
“Good idea,” A pause. “Hey, did Haruki tell you which room he was staying in?”
“206, just down the hall. He said he’ll come over once he’s finished straightening out his stuff—“
Before Hikaru could finish, they hear sharp knocks on their door and turn to look. Haruki is leaning on the doorframe.
“This sure brings back memories,” he greets with a smile.
Arata positively beams. “Haruki! I haven’t seen you since graduation!”
Haruki nods at them. “Same to you. How are things? I didn’t think you two would actually request to be room mates.”
Arata blushes softly and Hikaru huffs. “Someone has to wake him up.”
Haruki laughs. “You guys want to eat? Guess who I ran into today. We talked for a good long while…”
“Who? Who?” Arata asks, falling into step beside him while Hikaru locks up their room and jogs to catch up, quiet but listening.
“You’ll see,” Haruki replies and they head to the floor below.
Students litter the halls, excitement and energy from returning to school settling down for the evening. Many head to the canteen in steady increments, chatting merrily along the way.
The door to 113 is closed and Haruki raps sharply on it. They hear a thud and sounds of muffled panic.
“Who is it?” comes a small voice.
“It’s me, Haruki.”
Hikaru and Arata exchange curious glances at the tense pause that follows, but the door eventually clicks open.
“Sheesh, don’t scare us like that…” Mikhail sighs and steps aside to let them in.
“Why?” Haruki asks but is drowned by Arata’s excited “Muraku!” followed by a more subdued “Pardon the intrusion,” by Hikaru, who is no less pleasantly surprised.
Muraku smiles at them. “Arata, Hikaru,” he greets casually from where he was on the bed, combing Vanessa’s hair.
“Ooh! It’s you guys!” she says as a greeting of her own.
“Vanessa snuck into the dorms,” Mikhail explains. “She wanted her hair braided.”
Vanessa pouts. “I hardly have friends over at the girl’s dorms! Besides, Muraku’s the only one who can do my hair the way I want it.”
Arata laughs heartily. “Just like in middle school!”
“Yes, yes, just like middle school,” Muraku says, straightening Vanessa’s head and braiding her hair with deft fingers. “Now stay still.”
“But seriously,” Hikaru says, settling himself on a bed. “It’s great to see you guys. I thought you were going to Teikoku?”
“No, that was Kageto,” Mikhail answers, fiddling with his phone charging by the study desk. “We were all offered scholarships but Kageto was the only one who took it since their engineering track’s very strong.”
“That’s true,” Arata remarks. “But why Raimon though? It’s as strong as Teikoku but doesn’t quite suit your image.” He ends sheepishly.
Muraku smiles again. “I like the atmosphere of Raimon better.” He ties Vanessa’s hair and pats her lightly on the back. “It’s warmer, more homely.”
“Just like when he transferred to Jenock,” Vanessa adds, looking at herself in the mirror attached to the closet, extremely pleased.
“Something like that…” Muraku agrees.
“Speaking of getting scholarships,” says Haruki from the bed opposite where Hikaru was. “Didn’t Teikoku offer you a scholarship too, Arata?”
There was a hilarious uproar of disbelief.
“No way!”
“Probably because you were the best fighter in the batch.”
Arata holds his hands up in an attempt to defend himself. “Hey! You had to maintain a good grade. I couldn’t possibly do that. Besides, Raimon’s where most of us went to.”
“We understand. This school’s your best bet if you want to pursue a career in LBXs,” Vanessa says, cross-legged on the floor. “And compared to the other students on the same track, we’ve got perks since we came from Kamui Daimon.”
“The Military Scholarship is what my senpai calls it,” Haruki slowly says. “…the one I’m rooming with,” he adds at Hikaru’s questioning look.
“Military Scholarship, huh,” Mikhail repeats wistfully. “If you think about it, our middle school years were pretty incredible.”
“Yeah,” Arata pipes up. “Remember our first day of second year? When the teachers told us what we were really doing during War Time? Man, that was the biggest shock of my life! I got so scared, I couldn’t fight properly for a week!”
“It certainly put a lot of pressure on us, knowing the responsibilities we were shouldering. No wonder the senpai were forbidden to disclose anything to the freshmen,” Muraku says.
“Arata quickly got over it, though,” Hikaru smirks “LBX-idiot.”
“Hey!”
“You and Muraku rose to be the best fighters the school’s had in years,” Haruki says. “And then there was the guy from Londonia too right?”
“Itan Kyouji!” Vanessa exclaims. “A real mercenary, that one. He Lost a ton of units back when we were still in Rossius.”
Mikhail sighed in assent. “Spent weeks doing extra classes to make up for all that credit.”
“Oh man! Extra credit,” Arata laughs reminiscently. “Worst part of getting Lost. One time I had to write a thirteen-page paper on the socio-economic significance of taking back land from Arabista. Like hell I’d know!”
“Getting Lost gave the mechanics one hell of a headache as well,” Hikaru says evenly.
“You could say it made for thorough training,” Muraku remarks. “Speaking of mechanics, which school did Sakuya go to again?”
“Would you believe he’s personally training under Yamano-hakase at Tiny Orbit?” Haruki replies, showing them his phone. There is a picture of a beaming Sakuya working at a lab. “He was gushing about it all of last week.”
“Woah! Lucky!” Vanessa takes the phone and browses through other photos. The others crowd around her.
“He got it on the recommendation of Mito-sensei and Jin-sensei.”
“Not that he needed any. He was the best mechanic of the batch!”
They lapse into a comfortable silence, remembering their friends and their experiences at school.
“And now a new batch of students are fighting in the Second World, huh?” Haruki begins, leaning back on the bed.
“Yeah, so it we can enjoy peace here in the real world,” adds Mikhail.
“LBXs are really great, aren’t they?” Arata says breathlessly. “I’m really looking forward to life in this school!”
. ✲･*:.｡. .｡.:*･✲ .
He plays on the shore like a child—running, jumping, and shouting with glee. In his heart, he is a child. His world, this world, is a perfect one. He settles down and builds castles in the sand.
Meticulously.
Reverently.
. ✲･*:.｡. .｡.:*･✲ .
“Hey, we should go eat,” Mikhail says. “Vanessa, do you want us to walk you back?”
“Are you crazy? If your dorm head catches me, we’ll all be dead before the school year even starts! I’ll sneak back out. I promised Yuno I’d help paint her nails before the day’s done,” and with that, she flashes them a smile and slips out the window, unnoticed against the darkening sky.
“Ah.” Arata says absently. “I forgot to tell Yuno we finished moving in today…”
“She’s going to scold you again,” Hikaru warns.
“I can handle it.”
“Speaking of the girls, how are they?” Muraku asks as they prepare to leave for dinner.
“Yuno aside, Catherine and the others have gone to Country A with Kojou Takeru from Harness. Remember the guy? They’re training to be pros.”
“That’s amazing…”
Their conversations carry on will after dinner and into the night, until their tongues are tired and their hearts are satisfied. It’s late when Hikaru and Arata finally arrive at their dorm room, pleasantly exhausted yet cozy from a warm shower.
“I’m soo beat!” Arata sighs, once more flopping down on a bed while Hikaru moves to dry his hair.
“Hey wait, that’s my bed!” But it’s too late and Arata is dozing off, face buried into the pillow (one of the many things they brought over from their old dorm at Kamui Daimon, Arata having become unable to sleep without it).
“Mmm, smells like Hikaru…” he mumbles.
He gently tucks Arata in and kisses him on the cheek. Arata burrows further in the sheets and his breathing evens out. Hikaru smiles and switches off the lights.
. ✲･*:.｡. .｡.:*･✲ .
A thousand or half—many, many castles. One for each. It is night time and the only lights out are the spinning stars. Celedy Kreisler continues to sing a song. A song no one hears.
“Sleeping child, peaceful child, lovely child finally at rest. I wonder, I wonder what you are dreaming of.”
