Koichi (hirose) wrote in antecedents, @ 2010-03-16 21:53:00 |
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For the past three months now, Koichi had been living a life that few others would probably be able to believe. On the surface, he was a normal high school freshman, who dealt with the same problems every other boy his age did. Receiving low C's on test scores and having to take Friday detention, getting grounded by his mother when he would go out with his friends rather than cleaning his room like he was supposed to. But underneath, he had very different problems from his average peer. He, along with Josuke, Okuyasu, and Jotaro, had been fighting several Stand users around the city, battles which often were a matter of life or death. Beyond that, they were still trying to track the mysterious killer that the ghost of Reimei pleaded with him and Rohan to find. Often, these two sets of problems were interconnected.
For example, he would come home after one of these fights, and his mother would ask him where he had been. Of course, he couldn't tell her, it sounded crazy, not to mention he didn't want her to know he was putting himself in that much danger. So he'd just say: "The guys and I were out playing ball," since that also doubled as a good explanation for the occasional cuts and scrapes he'd come home with (the larger injuries already healed by Crazy Diamond). Thinking her son had just been absent-mindedly goofing off again when she had already reminded him three times to clean his pig sty of a room, this would lead to a few days grounding. He couldn't really complain, and Koichi's relationship with his mother was a pretty good one. He knew that, from her perspective, how it must of looked, so he just accepted her decision. Still, it made him wonder how much longer this kind of lifestyle was going to go on. Yes, of course he wanted to do everything he could to help Reimei, who only had this small group of people to rely on, and he wanted to help Jotaro as well, who's goal was to eliminate all the evil Stand users who'd been born from the bow and arrow (the same item which he, Rohan, Yukako and Okuyasu all got their powers from) until it could be retrieved and never used again. But on the other hand, he didn't want to make a life out of this, to be a super hero or anything like that. He hoped they could wrap this up soon and he could go back to his mostly-average life, where he only got grounded every couple of months versus nearly every other week now.
It was no surprise he was exhausted after he'd finished picking up his room, given how tired he'd already been when he'd gotten home, and the place really was getting out of hand-- before he'd started, one could hardly see the floor underneath all the mess. It wasn't perfect when he finished, but it was a whole lot better. As tired as he was, he flopped down on his bed after he finished, just to get a moment to relax, but ended up falling asleep without even realizing it; the sound of his mother calling from downstairs to tell him that dinner was ready didn't wake him up, either.
She came upstairs when he didn't respond, and opening his door, smiled to see her son napping atop his bed covers, still dressed in his school uniform. The room must of been even messier than she thought, she mused, to have tuckered him out that much. Quietly, she shut the door, letting him get some rest; she'd wrap up his dinner and put in the fridge, so he could heat it up later.
When Koichi awoke, it was to the sound of birds chirping outside his window. Already morning? He must of been more tired than he thought, to sleep that long! Yet for some reason, he still felt pretty groggy, like he'd only caught a short nap. A few more hours would be nice.
Rolling over in bed, he pulled the sheets a little closer to his face, figuring that it must be early still if he still felt this tired, that he should be able to get some more sleep. Checking to see how much time he had, he opened his blurry eyes halfway, and the first thing he took in was the sight of the red numbers on his digital clock which read:
9:35 AM
"...Oh, crap!" he exclaimed as he sat up, seeing that. He was over an hour late!! Why hadn't his alarm gone off? Why hadn't his parents woken him?! This was bad--really bad. He'd already gotten a lecture from the vice-principal on his absences. Something which was at least communicated to him in a sympathetic tone-- Koichi had never been the greatest student even before all the recent happenings, but on the other hand he was someone who tried to give it his 100%, and who was such a nice, friendly person, that teachers might want to go a little easier on him than the average delinquent. But this had been one of those 'rules are rules' talk, and there would be no negotiations for this. If he was late again, he'd have to do community service and have an appointment made with a school counselor to discuss what was really going on here. If his lateness now had been because of another fight, he would of just sucked it up and asked Jotaro to write him a note--the man had offered, before, but Koichi didn't want to put anyone out-- but there was nothing he could really do about sleeping in.
In his hurried panic, he realized he at least was already dressed for school, not having changed the night before. His eyes were still foggy with sleep when he jumped out of bed, looking for his school bag. Hadn't he left it near the bed? He only looked for about ten seconds before deciding he just couldn't deal with this right now, he could pull his chair next to Josuke's or something to share his book for the day. Running out the door, he sped down the steps, nearly tripping at the speed he was going. "Mom, why didn't you wake me up?!" he called as he ran, able to hear that the television was on in the house. He rubbed at his eyes to clear the sleep out of them was he hurried, uncovering them when he reached the front door to open it up and leave--
--when he realized he'd walked straight into a closet, roughly bumping his face on a vacuum cleaner. ?!
Now definitely much more awake, he turned around and, for the first time, noticed that this was not his house. The set up was incredibly similar, except for the fact that, apparently, the front door was on the other side of it. Oh no...What's going on? Where am I? As he stepped back into the main room, he looked around worriedly. Perhaps another in his situation would be feeling a different kind of fear than the kind Koichi did, but to be honest, this wouldn't be the first time he'd suddenly, inexplicably, found himself not at all in the house he wanted to be. In fact, it was the third time.
Did something happen while I was sleeping? ... Is there a Stand user here? That had been the explanation last time; he strongly doubted he'd been kidnapped by someone ordinary. That would be a nice change of pace though, at least he was confident enough with his abilities now that an "ordinary" kidnapper would be no problem. Seriously, though...did other people have as bad as luck as he did? Did this have to do with his mother's mirror he'd accidentally broken when he was five?
His priority to get to school put on the back burner for now, he recalled the television he'd heard, and decided to go check out the source, albeit cautiously. Approaching the threshold to the living room carefully, he peered around the corner. He had to look at this two ways: either it was an enemy of his, and he shouldn't reveal himself so easily, or this was someone caught in the middle of whatever was going on, and he'd probably already scared them when some unknown teenager had called them 'mom'. However, he was surprised to see there was no adult sitting in there; just two girls, probably about eight or nine, sitting in front of the TV watching cartoons. It was up pretty loud, maybe they hadn't heard him to begin with? With that in mind, he decided he should probably just sneak out before they did notice him, and went to tell their parents. He could see the front door from where he stood, but it required walking past the living room, and there was no way he could do that unnoticed. Turning around, he headed back the way he came to look for an alternative.
Shortly after, he found a small adjoining laundry room, which had a window he was able to push up with some effort and climb out of, landing less than gracefully in a bush on the other side he hadn't been able to see. Closing it behind him, he carefully made his way around the house, ducking when he passed other windows, until he could see the sidewalk. Glancing both ways, he could now notice something else very obvious. All of these houses, they weren't at all styled like the ones in Morioh. Granted, there was a good deal of variety by district, but even so... He decided to think about that later, to instead be a bit relieved when he reached the sidewalk and once again looked as normal as anyone else did. At least that was one (of many) stresses off his shoulders.
"I need to find a phone," he mumbled to himself, trying to figure out what was going on; he replayed yesterday's events in his mind, to see if anything stuck out to him as fishy, but there was nothing. Why had he ended up in some stranger's house? How had he gotten there? Obviously, he was far away from his own home. Just to be safe, he decided he would classify this as a potential attack on him, which meant he needed to call Jotaro. The man had told him and his friends that even small things could be important in figuring out the bigger picture regarding their foes, and to alert him first if anything strange happened rather than trying to play detective themselves.
A two mile walk later, and Koichi found a phone in front of a Denny's. Picking it up off the receiver, he eyed that building warily... American restaurant? Fishing in his pocket for a ten yen coin, he tried to stick it in the coin slot without even thinking about it. He was surprised when he met resistance, and looking down, he noticed the coin didn't fit. Wearing a confused expression, he lowered his head to get a better look at the hole -- weird, what kind of coin did it take?
"Hey, are you gonna use that?"
Turning around, an even more surprised Koichi looked up at a scruffy man dressed in baggy clothes, his eyes a very clear blue. A foreigner, he placed, still not 'getting it' just yet. The man used English, a language which Koichi unfortunately wasn't exactly versed in. Not to say he hadn't been taught it, he had... he just wasn't particularly good at it.
"Sorry, I need to call," he replied, slightly stuttering one of his words as he tried to find the appropriate one. "But money does not fit." He looked a bit puzzled at his coin in hand.
The man raised an eyebrow at the kid holding some strange looking money, "What are you trying to use?" Reaching into his own pocket, he decided to spare the young guy a quarter. "Try this."
Taking the silver coin, Koichi blinked. American money...american phone...american resturaunt...an american speaking to him...
His eyes grew as wide as saucers.
"Is this America?!"
"..."
His exclamation had popped out before he'd been able to think how bizarre that might sound; granted, that kind of shock was more than justified. Going to bed and waking up at another house might not be new to him; waking up in another country was. There was no way possible he could of gotten that far overnight, no Stand had that kind of power. Completely shocked, he knew he had to call Jotaro more than ever right now, but unfortunately there was no way he could place an international call with just a quarter. The man was already looking at him like there was something wrong with him, so he probably wasn't the right person to ask for more money. Not to mention, he'd only get a minute or two to talk, and he definitely needed longer than that to explain all this. He decided the best thing to do was to give himself some time to just process all of this aside before he placed any frantic calls. When all this had begun a few months ago, Koichi's character was much different; he was much more easily scared, a bit shy towards anything even somewhat intimidating, his braveness buried beneath the surface. His recent trials had definitely made him stronger, but at extreme times like this, that kind of personality could resurface if he didn't take a step back.
"Sorry," he apologized again, also returning the man's quarter to him. "You can-- um, you can use." Stepping aside, he started to walk off down the sidewalk again, rubbing the back of his neck. This was really bad; how was he going to explain it to his mom when he definitely wouldn't be home tonight? Maybe could call Josuke too, ask him to cover for him until all of this was figured out. He had stopped in front of a restaurant before, but the area he was in was still mostly residential; his best option was probably to ask someone up ahead if he could use their phone. Even as he tried to think of potential solutions as calmly and rationally as possible, though, his mind still reeled with the concept of being in America, not even really able to get his head around that.