Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

U-1, age something something? A boy with dark medium length scruffy hair, a newsboy cap that he never really took off, a jacket that has seen better days, and the harsh wind against his scrunched face. The kid ran through the streets of his hometown searching for Pico, really his only friend. Granted he wasn't really a little kid anymore, but not much older either. He also didn't actually know what he was doing, but he just felt like he was bound to find Pico eventually.

With the sun burning down on him and the guitar case beating against his back as he loosely ran, he turned left and right, running as if his life depended on it. He wanted to start a band and since he had only one friend (with opposable thumbs more precisely, sorry Puma) he was desperate to at least try to get Pico to join. Actually, he knew she played the drums to some degree, so hopefully it was at a start. After a while of aching he sat down in the plaza on a bench to end up spotting Pico by a miracle, walking out of the arcade. He quickly jumped up and exerted the last of the energy he had left to run over to her and- "Pico- I'm-" He gasped for air  "I wanna start a band- a band and uh-" He was completely exhausted and had to take several moments to breathe in-between chopped up sentences, Pico only looked at him with some amount of concern.

"Band- You- Drum- Join-" Was the last of what U-1 said before falling to the etched stone streets of the plaza, splayed on his back. "U-1 are you okay? You look really, uh, worn out." After a few moments of silence between the two, U-1 sat up again, "Yeah sorry I ran around town trying to uh, find you." He admitted sheepishly as he pulled himself back up. "And you didn't think to just call me?" She put her hands on her hips as she spoke, amused but somewhat confused that U-1 didn't take the infinitely easier option. "Oh yeah I forgot I had your number and a landline…" A house landline? This was a teenager in the 21st century, and he had a landline? Pico decided to dismiss it as a weird joke, or maybe English not being U-1's native language.

He mumbled as he looked to the side before quickly snapping back up as he remembered his motives. "Oh yeah Pico I was looking for you cause I know you play the drums and I was thinking we could-" He glanced around before continuing. "-start a band?" "Start a band?" She echoed back, U-1 simply nodded vigorously in response. "Yeah I've been wanting to start a band! Cause I play guitar and stuff and I like writing music and you're like the only friend I really have to join…" His voice trailed off into a whisper near the end, realizing he didn't want to sound like a huge loser in front of Pico.

With bated breath he awaited her response as he tried to guess what she was thinking based off of her expression. "Sure why not?" She shrugged after a moment. Her reasoning was that she didn't have much else to do, and she would entertain the idea, and also hopefully get a chance to play the drums again.

U-1 bounced on his toes in excitement. "You have any other members?" Pico asked casually, interrupting U-1's brief celebration. "Uh not yet…" he scratched the back of his head in embarrassment as he watched her pull out her phone. "Great, I'm gonna invite someone then." She started typing away with a smile, U-1 never questioned 'who' she was texting, he was just happy to hopefully have one more person. "So meeting at my place tomorrow after school?" He asked as she continued typing. "Yeah I can make it, hold on… Okay he can make it too, see you then!" She walked off seemingly instantly disregarding the boy. But U-1 didn't really care as he was all too excited to already have two band members. "Crud I gotta think of a band name, It's gotta be something cool like…"

The two band members so far sat outside on the street next to U-1's house. He lived relatively close to the town center, specifically the town center where he was attacked by Flying-O, so it wasn't exactly quiet due to all of the busy streets nearby. U-1's house was…Simple to say the least, the outside looked quite quaint.

"I've never actually seen your place, you live here?" She looked at U-1's home with a raised eyebrow, something about the way it was built made it feel almost whimsical in a sense, but somehow it felt like it was from another era, all the same it was an otherwise ordinary wooden house. U-1 was eating a push pop as he gave one to Pico. He was also carrying a slinky that he continually fiddled with.

"Push pops? Man I can't remember the last time I had one of these, they still make them?" "The last time? I have a ton in my freezer. I get them all the time." He spoke right before going back to ravaging the cold confectionary.

U-1 stopped as Pico stood up and waved. Is this the other band member? Have they finally arrived? He stood up, excited to see an approaching silhouette, slowly finally approaching enough to make out their form and- "Kazuya?!" U-1 jumped in surprise and almost dropped the push pop, quickly catching it before it could hit the ground and shoving the rest into his mouth. Kazuya raised an eyebrow. Kazuya, with his short blonde hair and resting-bitch-face, seemed to be carrying an instrument of his own, U-1 inferred that it was a bass.

Pico seemed to be unaware of the tensions between the two as she smiled. Kazuya looked somewhat less annoyed than usual, apparently because- "I'm just going home." He spoke flatly as he turned around before Pico grabbed his arm. "Come on, give it a chance, please?" She asked softly as Kazuya turned around and looked at U-1 who anxiously smiled at Kazuya. "You uh,want a push pop?" "Push pop? How old are you? Been waddling with dinosaurs?" The taller boy quickly retorted against U-1's genuine offer. Nevermind, U-1 was fine with totally not giving Kazuya push pop. He heard Pico mutter something about not being so mean but U-1 was honestly already fed up.

"You've wanted to learn the bass right?" Pico asked the blonde boy. "From that kid? All I've seen him play is an air guitar." "And you fell on your ass and cried about it." U-1 snapped back against the slander. Pico stifled laughter as Kazuya finally showed some signs of actual anger and not just annoyance. Pico whispered something into Kazuya's ear and his expression seemed locked onto U-1. "Fine." His shoulders fell, though that didn't change the tension U-1 felt as Kazuya glared a hole into him.

The anxious boy didn't really feel like asking Pico what she said at the moment. But as Kazuya walked over to U-1, he flinched before Kazuya took off his case and handed it to U-1 surprisingly normally. There was a wordless exchange as U-1 took it, opened it up, and gently examined the instrument, a bright shiny red bass, as he predicted. "The heat out here might mess with the tension on your strings." U-1 quietly spoke as he set it back in Kazuya's fancy insulated case. "You know like when metal gets hot and it-" "Uh yeah, I've been to school dipwad." Kazuya huffed. U-1 shot a glare at Kazuya and got up and went towards his house, Kazuya followed. "If you break this thing you're paying for it, probably costs more than your life." 

U-1 ignored the statement as he opened the front door to a small living room with a kotatsu in the center and some cushions stacked in a corner, alongside a doggy bed and a couch at the back with a minifridge next to it and a coffee table. Off to the left was a door with 'U-1' crudely scratched into it, and another sliding door further up. U-1 set the bass case down on the kotatsu table and ran over to an ac unit in his window to turn it on. Pico suddenly realized the landline mentioned earlier was not a joke as he spotted a phone box on his wall.

As Kazuya and Pico sat on the couch and watched U-1 run around the room preparing stuff, Puma suddenly perked up and looked to U-1 "Hey U-1 you-" the dog paused, noticing the two other kids. "Wan wan." He barked flatly before going to bed. "Did that dog just-" But before Kazuya could finish his sentence he was interrupted by a loud, out-of-tune strum from the bass, and another, and another. But with each strum the instrument sounded a small level more harmonic. Pico and Kazuya were both almost captivated by U-1 just tuning it by ear. 'Almost', Kazuya looked more annoyed after a moment. A minute or two passed by, U-1 played a few chords before putting it back in the case, and handing it back to Kazuya reluctantly.

Pico smirked at Kazuya for a moment. Kazuya only glanced at her angrily, handing her $50. "Huh?" U-1 watched the exchange. Pico started laughing a bit, "I bet Kazuya that you would be able to tune the thing by ear, he said $50 that you wouldn't."

U-1 was almost flattered by this, but the blonde just continued to glare condescendingly which quickly knocked U-1 off of his tiny pedestal of confidence. As U-1 realized his anxiety again he blankly stared into space for a moment before quietly speaking. "Uh… You guys want tea?" For some reason this brief and almost inaudible.

Though this quiet question immidiately broke the silence as Pico started up again. "Yeah, what kinds you got?" she asked as she leaned back casually in her seat, pushing Kazuya a bit. "Uhh…" U-1 actually didn't know what he had, he brought tea occasionally, mainly for when he gets sick. "You know what? I'll take whatever you got." Pico shrugged as she spoke with a smile, knowing exactly what was ticking in U-1's mind. U-1 rushed off into his kitchen through some sliding door.

Kazuya just sat there, staring at the door U-1 went into. Pico glanced over at the blonde for a moment. "What're you thinking about Kazuya?" She asked entirely innocently, she couldn't really get an idea of what was churning about his head. Kazuya hummed a quiet note and leaned to the other side of the couch. "I dunno, not thinking about much I guess, I think U-1 has numbed my brain already." Pico rolled her eyes in response. "He's a good kid Kazuya, I don't understand what's with you two being rivals."

"I think he's too much of a tryhard. Besides he can't even do multiplication, let alone whatever the hell he's planning with a band." He spoke flatly, without much care for the words that slipped out. Pico quickly retorted, "He did teach himself to read, and to play an instrument. Maybe he had a reason to drop out as early as elementary school. He's never brought up his parents, he probably has something rough going on, of course he's gonna 'try hard' to scrape by." She spoke as she stared up at the ceiling, attempting to make out little patterns and shapes.

Kazuya went quiet, knowing that Pico's words would tear him apart if he continued to talk smack about U-1. He looked at the shapes she was staring at on the ceiling, they weren't really shapes as much as they were globs of plaster that could look like something if you squinted. Pico seemed intent on finding something though. After a while she spoke and pointed. "That one looks like a robot shark, that one looks like you with horns, and I think that kinda looks like… A bee man with sunglasses and a trumpet?" She seemed a bit perplexed herself, even though she was the one that came up with the concept.

Kazuya let his thoughts drift around, nothing majorly important. Learning the bass, U-1 attempting to make a band, what flavor of tea that Pico was about to get, and so on with occasional disjointed ideas. After a while U-1 finally poked back into the room, sliding the door open with his foot, and holding a tray with two cups. He carefully made his way over to the couch and handed Pico and Kazuya? a cup each.

Kazuya was quite confused for a moment, he was entirely thinking the second cup would be for U-1 himself, but here he was with some unidentified tea in his hands. He didn't know how to really accept it. He scrutinized it for a moment, wondering if U-1 somehow made a mistake while preparing tea, but it seemed to be steeped almost perfectly. He looked over to Pico who glared at him, she knew he was looking for something to attack U-1 for, he always was, maybe to an obsessive degree. After a while he took a sip, chamomile. "Is it good? I think I remembered how to do it right… Chameleon tea or something?" 

"Chamomile." Kazuya quickly interjected. "Yeah, that." U-1 rubbed at the back of his neck. "I used to cut open the tea packets and put them in cold water, but Puma told me that I was doing it super wrong." He passingly mentioned Puma without a second thought. Pico leaned forward, tea in hand. "Puma? Your dog?" She glanced at the cozy canine in the corner. "Uh-" U-1 attempted to formulate a lie as fast as possible, which he was unfortunately really good at. "Yeah cause he would… Bark at me and nuzzle the kettle and hide the scissors, every single time. You know, you understand your dog really well when you've had him your whole life." He spoke smugly, the other two stared intently at Puma, was he actually that intelligent of a dog?

"What next, you'll tell me he's written a novel?" Kazuya grinned meanspiritedly at U-1. He knew the dog thing was a lie, but there was no other explanation that was any more reasonable. "I think he could if he wanted, he-" U-1 stopped before he could mention the fact that Puma homeschooled U-1 and taught him to read. "-He's a smart dog." He managed to save his butt once again.

Kazuya only raised an eyebrow and drank a bit more of his tea, he didn't want to admit that he actually really liked it. He glanced at U-1 then looked around the room again for a moment. Pico was right, Kazuya noticed how archaic the technology U-1 used was. He supposed he was really just scraping by. Kazuya almost felt a pang of guilt, but quickly pushed it to the back of his mind.

After a while Pico finally spoke up. "So U-1, you think you can teach this nerd how to play the bass?" She enunciated the word 'nerd' and elbowed Kazuya, who was startled but firmly held his cup of tea. U-1 shrugged "Uh, I guess if he agrees to it and… Doesn't… Try to kill me or something?" He smiled sheepishly, and Pico beamed back, quickly turning to Kazuya. "See? Can't believe U-1 of all people is willing to teach you!"

"I could ask my parents to pay for lessons, I don't need U-1's crash course." He huffed. "Well he did tune your bass entirely by ear, I'm pretty sure that already shows some level of mastery and competence." Pico sternly spoke and glared at Kazuya who was taking another sip of his tea. Kazuya felt her eyes burning into him and almost dropped his cup. He sighed. "But if U-1's lessons are free I guess I can't complain…" He looked back at Pico who grinned at him again, and she turned back to U-1 and the two started chatting. What was that? Kazuya asked himself a few times, before finding that he had already drank all of the tea. 

After a moment of spacing out again, Kazuya felt something on his hand. He quickly snapped back to reality and flinched, U-1's dog was sniffing him. He just stared at Puma as the dog stared back. They seemed to be locked in some kind of staring competition suddenly. Puma tilted his head and Kazuya unintentionally also tilted his head in the same direction. As they stared, Kazuya almost felt like something was going on behind the dog's eyes. Puma then stuck his tongue out and walked off towards U-1.

What was that about?

Wherever U-1 went, there would be some sort of crazy stuff happening, U-1 is weird, his dog is weird, his house is weird- Hell, one day after he bullied U-1, some musical UFO appeared minutes later and then crashed into the woods with a person and some robot on it. Or was that a crazy fever dream? 

Kazuya was on his way to U-1's place again, with Pico behind him talking about something he didn't really understand, but he nodded anyway as she articulated random sentences about media that he's never seen. U-1's house wasn't too far from the main plaza, where that UFO attacked a long time ago. Sure the town was a bit… weird, the people here had strange hobbies, the buildings were strange colors and had odd bits and bobs, but a UFO was still the weirdest thing to ever happen here. But wherever U-1 went, stuff just seemed to get weirder and weirder.

As they made their way to U-1's house, Kazuya appeared to be a lot less on edge as he was yesterday, until he saw U-1 sitting on the steps that is. He felt himself shoot back into a straight posture and eyed U-1 to make sure he didn't do anything strange.

The shorter boy waved and stood up, Puma sitting next to him and getting up to stretch before waddling over and sniffing the two. He almost sounded like there was some form of whirring coming from him. The dog followed U-1 inside, glancing back at U-1's group of 'friends' trailing behind him.

U-1 had apparently already pre-prepared tea for the two as it was already on the table. "I think you guys liked the tea? I made more just in case…" U-1 trailed off at the end, nevertheless Kazuya accepted the tea and sat down, also setting his bass case next to him. "Mind if I check your bass again?" U-1 politely asked, only getting a dead stare and a "Sure." from Kazuya. U-1 opened the case, and sat down across from his friends and strummed at the bass again, a little clumsily but after a minute U-1's playing became more confident with very few mistakes.

Again he looked up at Kazuya, not making eye contact with him, but for the moment he did, he only saw some strange unreadable expression on Kazuya's face. He held out the bass by the neck for Kazuya to grab, which he didn't seem to pick up on. "He's handing it to you." Pico whispered to Kazuya and he looked like he was drifing off again in his own head, snapping back once again to grab the bass.

He tried to copy the way U-1 held it, but instead swivelled the neck into Pico's face by accident. "Ow! Crud-" She rubbed at her nose. Kazuya quickly snapped upright and stuttered in concern, though he didn't really sound as appologetic as he actually was. "Sorry, I hit your nose." He spoke again in a neutral tone. In reality he really was extremely sorry, but he actually didn't recall how to properly express sorrow in his tone. "You're good, Kazuya-" She spoke as she rubbed her nose. "I'm gonna step outside for a bit." She stood up and walked out. U-1 and Kazuya both glanced at each other, then at the front door.

After another passing minute or so, Kazuya again tried to swivel the bass around until he found a postition that seemed comfortable and correct. And where Pico was previously sitting, U-1 got up and sat on the couch to help out Kazuya.

"You're gonna want to put your elbow here," U-1 carefully instructed, Kazuya just went with whatever, he had a bit of hope in U-1, though he didn't know where it came from. "And your hand is gonna be placed up at the top frets here, you won't be using the lower ones for a while." He pointed around the neck, again Kazuya followed the instructions. "Here hold on-" U-1 moved forwards and grabbed Kazuya's hand, he flinched and snapped a bit. "Don't touch me." he glared at the shorter boy and pulling back his hand away from him. U-1 flinched for a moment too as Kazuya pulled back his hand, after a momwnt he opened an eye just to see Kazuya glaring.

And U-1's poor emotional management set in.

"What's your problem?" He snapped back. Scooting away from Kazuya. Kazuya raised a hand, only to point at U-1 but the boy flinched again as Kazuya's accusatory point neared him. U-1 again shut his eyes, and opened them to still not have anything happen to him. He stood up, "All I'm trying to do is help and you keep being a jerk for no reason!" U-1's words didn't have much bite, he never really had to deal with verbal confrontations. After a moment of bickering Pico finally reenters the room and- "Are you guys serious?" She spoke in a half joking tone. "I step outside for two minutes and you two are already arguing?" She didn't seem as upset as she was amused by the situation.

The two boys stopped in their argument for a moment, before U-1 spoke up. "Kazuya-" Pico quickly shut U-1 down. "Nope, no blaming, geez you guys bicker like when you were little kids, 'U-1 did this!' 'Kazuya did that!' Come on, settle a dispute a bit more maturely?" She rolled her eyes afterwards as she watched the two glare at each other. 

Kazuya sat up and as he did, knocked over a cup of tea that was on the table with his instrument and shattered it, of course, still by accident. Kazuya seemed more upset by this and packed up as fast as he could and left. Pico and U-1 just sat there in silence for a bit, staring at the shattered cup. U-1 trudged off to grab a broom, Pico grabbed some paper towels in advance.

Kazuya was walking alone today to U-1's house, with a wrapped box in his hands and his instrument slung over his shoulder in its case. The sky was a bit gray today, looking as if it were to rain later. Yesterday, he remembered the bickering, Pico telling them off. But none of that really upset him, except his own mistake in knocking the cup over. He felt like Pico and U-1 were going to yell at him, and tear him down, all because of the cup. So he ran off before they could, before he could be yelled at again for making some little mistake.

After managing to remember where he was going (he isn't particularly good with remembering directions) He made his way down an increasingly familiar street and eyed the wooden house. As he approached the door he felt reluctant to knock but he did so anyway. He heard various thuds and sounds before the door opened, not by U-1 but… his dog? Puma stared at Kazuya and appeared quite a bit pissed at him. The boy slowly came to the realization that the dog was much more intelligent than it let on.

"Puma, who's at the door?" U-1's familiar voice came from the kitchen, where he finally slid out on his socks and scrambled to not fall. "Puma who-" U-1 spotted Kazuya in the doorway and held still for a moment, before relaxing to his normal posture. "Oh it's you." He spoke flatly.

"Can I come in?" Kazuya spoke more as if it was a statement rather than a question, though U-1 hesitantly nodded. Kazuya sat down on U-1's couch and set the box on his table. "This is… for your cup yesterday." It was an indirect apology, but still an apology nonetheless. U-1 opened the box and held up a mug with Snoopy on it. "I thought he looked like your dog." Kazuya felt strange, he felt warmer and he suddenly felt much more comfortable. He stared at U-1 who was grinning at the mug. "Wow- Thanks Kazuya!" He expressed earnestly. Kazuya felt, happy in the most simple terms.

"So uh… about teaching me to play the bass?" the blonde quietly spoke. Suddenly scared that U-1 would bring up the broken cup. He then noticed U-1 was staring at him strangely and didn't respond. Kazuya sat up straight, was U-1 judging him? Was he still mad? Was… "Oh- Sorry- Kazuya. I just- You were smiling a moment ago." U-1 bashfully looked off through a window. "I was?" "Yeah I don't see you smile much, really, at all, ever." Kazuya simply hummed a note of affirmation in response, not sure what to say. But it seems that simple hum was a good enough response for U-1. 

U-1 sat down next to Kazuya on the couch, still keeping some distance, feeling as if he would sour Kazuya's mood. He liked it when Kazuya smiled. "So uh…" U-1 tried figuring out how to articulate his words. Kazuya nodded, "You tried putting my hand uh," he moved his hand near the top of the neck "I was being a bit of a prick." He passingly commented on his behavior yesterday. "Not unlike your hair." Was U-1's instant quip back. "Touche U-1." "Is that French?" Kazuya snorted at U-1's earnest question. "What? Is it some other language?" U-1 prodded Kazuya with the inquiry again, which only made Kazuya quietly laugh.

U-1 stopped talking just to watch Kazuya laugh, this felt rare, he feels like he's never seen the other boy truly laugh, even if it was quiet.

Kazuya again felt anxiety from the staring, U-1 quickly apologized as he noticed Kazuya's posture straightened again. "Sorry was I staring odd or something?" He swiftly attempted to remedy whatever could have made Kazuya uncomfortable.

"I don't like it when people like you look at me." He spoke flatly once more. "People like me? What's that supposed to mean?"

U-1 was never keen on details, but one thing he did pick up on was that Kazuya would straighten his posture every time he was stressed, U-1 couldn't really figure out what kind of response it was, he was never keen on mental health stuff, (Puma told him he has a Dee Aech Dee?) but Kazuya seemed somehow even less knowledgeable on the subject.

He seemed to be staring off into space again, U-1 reached out and gently tapped Kazuya's shoulder which brought him back down to earth.

"U-1 I said not to touch-..." He sighed before continuing. "What is the proper hand placement on a fret?" He spoke sternly as if he was making a statement, Kazuya's speech patterns were just a bit strange at the least. But U-1 honored Kazuya's request and simply gave him pointers as to what to do next. 

"Alright so when placing your fingers on the frets you want to place them closer to your body, it's softer on your fingers and they're gonna hurt a lot when you start."

"Why does placing it closer to me matter at all?"

"I dunno it just feels nicer you know? Stop being difficult Kazuya…"

"Alright, whatever. I'm only doing this cause Pico wants me to. We're rich, I could get professional lessons if I wanted and it would be pocket change."

"None of those guys have saved the universe or anything."

"Oh and what, you have?"

"Well-! I can't think of a good insult…"

"Great, now stop being annoying and keep explaining"

"How about you stop being a freaking cactus and quiet down for a second?"

"Fine."

Chapter Text

"I'm not there for one day and you two are already friends?" Pico laughs as Kazuya and U-1 both simultaneously say "No." resoundingly. They look at each other and then look away, both with an angry huff. "Come on guys I can totally tell that you two have been 'buddy buddy' since yesterday, did something happen?"

It's sunny outside and the 3 are in front of U-1's house. The air was warm but crisp, and the sky was bright and open with no clouds in sight. A few glances are exchanged, after a while Kazuya sighs resignedly and speaks. "I guess we talked it out for a bit. He was teaching me the bass and I just followed I guess, nothing big." He spoke honestly with a hint of something else in his voice, almost as if he was forcing himself to be nonchalant.

"Well, U-1 you ready to get to finally putting this band together?" She asked, hyping U-1 up. "Yeah!" He did a brief fist pump before excitedly running inside. "Guys I have so much to get to!" He beckoned the other two inside, Kazuya actually seemingly willingly following him in.

But as the two entered suddenly Puma started barking at them causing Kazuya to stumble back on his feet. Pico just stared at the tiny thing. He almost sounded mechanical… "Oh sorry about that-!" U-1 dashed over and grabbed Puma. "He doesn't like it when people wear shoes in the house." Puma stopped barking and glared at the two, Pico slipping off her shoes and Kazuya just standing there defiantly. They noticed U-1 was already wearing slippers. "Do you guys have… what's the English word for it darn…" He stared off at a wall and Puma almost looked like he was talking in U-1's ear. "Yeah uh, slippers?" Kazuya stared perplexed at U-1.

"Sorry, Puma is a bit of a clean freak, I don't mind it when visitors wear shoes in the house but he does." He finally set Puma down, and walked off to his room to grab some stuff. Kazuya tried walking in further but Puma growled at him and blocked the path, with a reluctant sigh Kazuya slipped off his shoes and Puma… nodded at him? He dismissed it as the dog being weird. As he sat down again, setting the bass down, U-1 finally rushed back into the room carrying papers and an old guitar case that seemed to be a fair bit worn. As he set the papers on the coffee table, and picking up a slinky that was also on his table, Pico and Kazuya leaned in to read them, various music sheets that were heavily annotated and some other papers that- "Okay so I've been working on a song and I think I have some of the lyrics down- Pico can you-" "I'm not really a singer or a writer-" Pico quickly tried to dismiss the possibility of singing, before realizing that left just U-1 and Kazuya to the vocals. Kazuya glanced at U-1 and Pico before smirking. "Well I wouldn't want to leave U-1 to blow out everyone's ears-" "Hey!" "-So who am I to deny the lead singing role?" He shrugged with a smile. U-1 stared at his papers for a moment.

"Actually Kazuya I- guess you're right?" "I am?" "Yeah I'm not too good at the… at singing." He looked at his papers. He handed some of them to Kazuya and Pico and watched as they reviewed them, and after a minute or so, Kazuya set the papers down on the table. "I can't read this."

"What?"

"I can't read this." "Is my handwriting bad? Puma told me I was getting better-" "No, U-1, I literally cannot read this, it's in Japanese."

…

"Oh."

Pico watched the exchange as U-1's face became devoid of all color and he sunk to the floor. "Wait don't tell me-" Pico sat up and set her papers down. "Wait wait wait… English isn't your native language?" She gestured around with her hands. U-1 just messed with his fingers and looked away. "How come you never told us this? Dude no wonder you're so weird!" She had an extremely misguided moment of realization. "I'm weird?" Pico ignored this and continued rambling. "So it all makes sense like when you say something about your dog being hyper-intelligent it's probably just some weird translation thing!" She seemed extremely proud about this moment of 'clarification'. "Uh… Yeah! Sorry I'm… uh… I don't speak the language perfectly?" U-1 shrugged, almost dropping the slinky he was fidgetting with. Truth be told he was perfectly fluent in English and Japanese (He exclusively spoke Japanese to Puma while at home to avoid losing fluency, Puma's idea, not his) but U-1 took this as an opportunity to patch up some previous lies. Kazuya simply shot U-1 a look, this time it was Kazuya seeing through his bullshittery. U-1 noticed this glare and smiled sheepishly as if it would ease Kazuya, it did not.

"Okay so U-1, what are these papers?" Pico held some of the Japanese ones, she, like Kazuya, couldn't read them. "Those are lyrics for the uh main singer…"

…

The association struck all three of them at the same time. U-1 can't sing but knows the language. Kazuya does not, but can sing. (Or at least he says he can.) Pico can do neither. "Can't you just romanize it?" Kazuya mentioned an efficient way to be able to read the lyrics, U-1 though was… "What's a roman eyes?" "You-" Kazuya pinched his nosebridge and sighed deeply. "You take those things, and write how they sound in English." "Ohhh I get it- I think." Pico watched the exchange as she took a sip of some carbonated soda type drink- wait- "Where did that come from?" U-1 pointed at it and cocked his head, almost like his dog. "Oh this? Well…" She never answered the question as she took another sip.

U-1 decided not to prod any further, Kazuya simply stared at the two. After another extremely loud sip, Kazuya eyed U-1. "So are we gonna practice? I haven't gotten to fully play the bass yet, you have an amp right?" Kazuya's bass was a fancy electric one, of course he would need "An amp…" U-1 almost got scared until looked at Puma. "Yeah I- It's in my room I will be right back!" He ran off into his room calling for Puma to follow. Puma obliged but looked a bit tired. After some loud whatever the hell U-1 was doing, he came back out carrying a machine that looked weirdly also like a dog. U-1 seemed to be struggling carrying it, if anything it looked more like a boombox, but Kazuya supposed he could deal with whatever. 

Suddenly the dog-amp-boombox-whatever's tail shot out and instantly plugged into the bass. "Pretty cool right? It also has tons of automatic pedals and volume control!" U-1 stood proud, hands on his hips, Kazuya inspected the dog and played a few chords U-1 taught him. "Hm… Good sound quality. Where did you get this?" "Found it on the street." U-1 didn't put much thought into it, which quickly earned him a glare from Puma and the perplexed expressions from Kazuya and Pico.

"Someone just left this on the street?" Pico pointed at the machine as she spoke. "Yeah uh, you know rich people throw out the craaaaziest things!" He shrugged and grinned, avoiding eye contact with his two friends. He instantly felt Kazuya's eyes searing a hole in him despite not even having so much as glanced in his direction. U-1 shuffled off to the side to pretend like he was changing settings on Puma, just prodding at the dog's side. Suddenly as his head was near a speaker, a loud bass chord sent U-1 into a momentary shock, which was followed by a loud laugh from Kazuya. U-1 stood up, shook his head as if shaking off the shock, and instantly started telling off Kazuya, Pico watched as she took another sip of her drink with an eye roll.

"Dude, that hurt my ears!"

"Wish it fully knocked you unconscious."

"Well who's gonna teach you the bass then, hm?"

"My parents can buy me a-"

"'My parents are rich! They can buy me this!' Oh shut up man!" The shorter boy attacked Kazuya in a mocking tone, rolling his head around to match. Kazuya stood up and set his bass down now, huffing at U-1. "Well at least I'm not some freaking hobo kid living with his dog!" Oh it started getting personal. And Pico, well she was actually quite entertained by this, though she knew she was gonna have to break it up eventually. "At least I'm not a freaking snob who's never worked a day in his life!" "At least I have parents!" "At least my parent cares about me!" "At leas-"

Pico finally stood up and pushed the two apart. "At least I can go 2 seconds without a petty argument." She calmly retorted them both. To which they failed to respond to and sat back down. They both angrily sunk down before dismissing the whole thing. Pico was actually surprised at how easily they got over it.

U-1 got up after a moment, set down his slinky, and grabbed his old looking guitar case over in the corner. It had frayed edges and one of the hinges looked a bit unstable, and opening it up was an acoustic guitar, albeit a bit strange looking as it had eyes and a mouth cleanly painted onto it.

"So, Pico," U-1 made sure to try and avoid opening up to Kazuya at all points. "I have this uh, demo for my song-" He interrupted himself with a strum to check his tuning. "I uh, can't sing but…" He glanced at Kazuya who seemed almost intent on hearing this song. U-1 stood up, he played a quiet chord, Pico noting that there wasn't a shoulder strap on the peculiar instrument.

A moment of silence hung in the air, U-1 was almost afraid to try playing, in fear of judgment by Kazuya, Pico seemed like she was actually excited to hear this demo. He looked at Kazuya, who gestured for U-1 to play as if he was getting impatient.

A deep breath and U-1 started off.

…

"Matatakuyouna jikan ga sugite-"

Pico and Kazuya were both watching intently.

"Kimi ni aenai hibi ga kuru…"

"Tobi-agaru rokketo no naka de, miokuri no kimi ni namida-"

He was nervous but kept playing.

"Aenai kaisu kazoeteru saichuu, kiri-hanashi aizu naridashita-"

"Take you! Mugen no sora he. Itsuka take you! Ubaku machi made. Souda renkyuu! Mukae ni yuku yo. Ato de meiru wo okuru yo!"

After a breif acoustic guitar solo, he slowed down and looked at the two, nervously. Pico started grinning ear to ear, and Kazuya nodded, which was much more approval than he ever really got from the boy. Kazuya again had a certain unreadable expression, as he noticed U-1 was staring at him he quickly looked away. Pico didn't seem to have noticed, or at least what U-1 thought. "Sorry uh, it would have been cooler if I had an electric guitar…" He stumbled over his words until Pico spoke up, "Are you kidding U-1? That's awesome! Did you make it yourself?" "Yeah the music and the lyrics. I'm not sure if it's any good, there's a lot more to do on it.." "Dude you know what? I think this whole band thing is gonna work!" Pico punched U-1's shoulder lightly in excitement. U-1 slowly smiled back at the girl's excitement. Kazuya finally spoke up. "Not too bad, the lyrics could use some work." Pico rolled her eyes. "Are you looking for something to criticize? Last I checked you said you didn't know Japanese." And like with a bullet, Kazuya's statement was destroyed. He looked off to the side, knowing that he couldn't recover from that. "Fine, what are the lyrics even about?" He directed the question at U-1. 

"Uh, I guess just, I really want to see somebody that I haven't seen in years… I had to leave that- place a long time ago. But I promised I would go back eventually. Maybe someday I can bring them here…" Pico clasped her hands together. "Ohh is it a love story?" "I guess? Maybe I did kinda like them…" Pico noticed Kazuya's expression shifting, he looked… almost upset at something. "But, they were really cool, maybe someday you guys can meet them!" "What kind of loser would be friends with you?" Kazuya spoke again, never knowing when to quit. Pico facepalmed mentally. "Kazuya come on dude, can you not try to start a fight every minute?" "And what loser-" "Kazuya." "-Would even accept a confession from you ?" "Kazuya." Pico kept interrupting him to stop the initiating fight. Though trying to stop the two idiots was like trying to pour water on a volcano and hoping to stop an eruption. Though, eruption was an overstatement, their fights never got worse than boiling water it seemed, except for a few days ago when Kazuya lashed out. U-1 started up but was quickly stopped by Pico slapping a hand over his mouth.

"Can you two stop being immature?" She sighed, Kazuya was quick to pin the blame on U-1 "But U-1-" "Kazuya Orion Eswaran." She had pulled out his entire legal name, U-1 was frankly a bit surprised. "And you, U-1, is that even your real name?" She took her hand off of his mouth to let him speak. "It's uh actually Yuichi…" "Okay Yuichi whatever whatever and Kazuya-" She sighed, also determining that she probably wouldn't be able to get 'Yuichi''s full name out of him. "You two literally cannot go a minute without arguing-" She quickly tried to think of some stakes to set just to stop them from ceaselessly bickering. "You know what, if you guys argue again I will cut off this whole band thing." "U-1 is a-" "Kazuya, and if you start up an argument I am pouring my drink on your bass." She was frankly sick of this. The two boys looked at eachother and slunk down. "Great, now if you guys can get along…" "Oh I forgot-!" U-1 piped up, interrupting Pico's train of thought. "-So a band needs like, recording equipment and…" He glanced at Puma who was already picking up that U-1 was going to leave him to the recording and mixing. U-1 stopped to count something on his fingers before speaking again. "We need a practice space, and I need to save up for an electric guitar and another amp… Oh and proper recording equipment!" He looked around. "I uh, have $15 and can't buy a guitar with that…" He trailed off, Pico tilted her head at him, meanwhile Kazuya seemed to be watching him but also plucking at his bass. He looked up. "I guess we can use my empty garage." He spoke dismissively as if he didn't care, in reality he just wanted to sound cool and he was actually kinda excited by the premise of being in a band. Pico smiled and nodded, U-1 jumped up and grinned. "Really?!" "Yeah we have one that's a bit dusty and we don't have anything in there except for a few boxes and junk. Don't you have a garage though?" He asked, unaware that not everyone has these things, though luckily U-1 did, the thing was it was basically unusable. "Yeah I do but-"

Pico stared at the machine, a strange whatever-the-hell it was bug-looking machine with closed eyes. Kazuya just stood there and stared, face scrunched up as if he was analyzing it. "Yeah the woofer-jet kinda takes up the whole garage." U-1 scratched at the back of his neck nervously, gauging the two's reactions to the woofer-jet's existence. "U-1 what the hell is this thing?" Kazuya splayed out his arms in emphasis while speaking. "The woofer-jet." "Yeah but what the hell does it- is this thing alive?!" One of its eyes opened and stared directly at Kazuya. "I think? I dunno?" Not even U-1 knew what the hell was up with the thing. "So yeah the garage is-" "unusable I suppose." Kazuya finished U-1's sentence as he walked out. Pico simply poked at the woofer-jet for a moment, commenting on how cool and gross it was. "Pico are you coming?" "Oh- Yeah-!" She stopped poking its nose and got up to also leave the garage, behind Kazuya. U-1, for a moment, watched as the woofer-jet fell back asleep and he flicked off the lights.

All three sat in the living room, Kazuya putting his bass away carefully, Pico sipping on her neverending energy drink, and U-1 writing a list. "Okay so we need recording equipment, and I need to save up for a guitar and amp, and also we need a band name- geez I can't believe I forgot to think of that…" "You're telling me you never even considered it, even once?" Pico leaned forward from her spot on the couch to read U-1's list as she questioned him. "I'm not good with names?" he nervously laughed before sinking back down. "Well I'm not either." Pico laid back on the couch, and looked over at Kazuya.

"Hey Kazuya, you got any ideas for a band name?" Leaving the naming to Kazuya? He wasn't particularly creative either, opting for options in life with set rules like math or science. "Uh…"

"Coil."

"Coil?" The other two questioned, shocked in unison as they stared at Kazuya. "Yeah cause U-1 kinda carries around a slinky and… stuff… sometimes…" As he spoke he got quieter and quieter. Something that U-1 and Pico never really saw Kazuya display, some amount of shyness. "You know like a slinky is a coil? This is dumb-" "Coil, I'll go with that!" U-1 put his hands on his hips proudly as he stood up. "Yeah… Coil!" Pico thought about it for a moment before finally agreeing.

Pico was already picking up on some undertones of Kazuya's words. She thought about how suddenly Kazuya remembered a small detail about U-1 of all people. And she already started piecing together the puzzle before the two boys even knew there was a puzzle. 

"See you tomorrow, Pico, Kazuya!" He waved as the two set off. U-1 had a slip of paper with Kazuya's address, so they could use his garage. 

It was getting dark out, long shadows being cast from strangely shaped buildings and the sky turning a dark blue, with orange fading from the horizon. Pico walked off in one direction, Kazuya ran off in the other. "Geez, that's gotta be some of the slowest running away I've ever seen." Puma commented snidely as he watched Kazuya. "So Yuichi, you actually going to his house and not suspecting he's going to like, shoot you?" "What? Kazuya isn't the nicest but he wouldn't shoot anyone, not even me!" "Fair enough." Puma remarked as he thought back on the mug. "You know Yuichi, you've actually grown quite a bit since the whole Gitaroo Man schtick. You usually wouldn't hesitate to kick Kazuya out of the band instantly, or at least kick him out of the house. And for once he isn't picking on you. You're not totally useless are you?" He snickered after his last statement and waddled back inside.

Chapter Text

U-1, dragging a rusty red wagon up a hill, with a guitar case, Puma, a slinky, and several notebooks. He grunted as he continued putting all of his strength into pulling it up the road. Puma was actually the heaviest component, being made of metal and all. "Puma can't you walk?" "Well Yuichi, if I walked then I wouldn't have the energy to be your amp." "We can just plug you in…" He whined as he strained against gravity. "Yeah well, you're almost to the top so you're fine." The dog waved his paw dismissively as he remained seated in the little wagon.

U-1 was on his way to Kazuya's house, which was inconveniently on top of a hill. It was another picturesque day outside, a few clouds dotted the sky here and there. The weather was relatively warm, though with U-1's physical activity of dragging a wagon up a hill, it was enough to make him sweat. Though he could see Kazuya's house at the top, and it was quite a bit more than he expected, the thing was a bright white modern house, he could see some balconies from where he was on the hill.

"Hey U-1!" He heard Pico's voice and looked back to see her running up the hill effortlessly towards him. "Need help with that? You look like you're  struggling." "No thanks I got it- crap!" U-1 accidentally had let go of the handle he was dragging ithe wagon by to give Pico a thumbs up, but now it was rolling down the hill and picking up speed. He mustered up the little energy he had left to run after it, quickly being surpassed by Pico who also ran to chase it. Puma, being in the wagon, still showed little care as he carefully stretched out a leg to stop the wagon, avoiding letting Pico see the metal tubing that he kept coiled up in his legs. Essentially he was a plushie, sewn on fur and full of cotton for extra realism. But when needed he could pop certain parts off to use his more robotic capabilities, such as removing his leg just now to use his metal one. Pico was a bit bewildered at the wagon stopping almost suddenly though.

"Wow Pico if that rock wasn't in the path the wagon would have totally been uh, sent flying down the hill-?" He spoke as if it were a question rather than an observation. He shrugged, hoping that Pico would buy that there was a rock in the way that she had missed previously. "Eh fair enough." She shrugged as she grabbed the wagon and effortlessly walked it up the hill. U-1 trailed behind her, also questioning if he was weak or if she was just insanely strong. 

But the question quickly faded from U-1's mind as they trekked their way up the hill, instead his mind wandered to other more trivial things, such as 'What should I make for dinner?' 'Puma probably needs more donuts.' 'Why does Kazuya keep looking at me funny?' 'How much can Pico bench?' (The last question was also asked in a bit of fear).

And as they neared the top of the hill, U-1 realized that the top of the hill was a bit of a 'rich people neighborhood' and that he looked like an urchin in the area. "All of these houses are so big and… bright…" U-1 strained to speak as a random car window concentrated the power of the sun into his retinas, a common summer day occurrence. "I know, it's so bourgeois." Pico responded as she flicked some hair out of her face with one hand. "So U-1 you got that address paper?" "Yeah, his house number is uh…" He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Pico, who nodded and led them onwards. U-1 saw people walking dogs, and one particular lady's small dog started barking at Puma, who simply barked back in an extremely loud, ear-splitting, stone-shattering fashion that left U-1's ears ringing and the other dog whimpering off. "Geez- U-1 your dog really is more bark than bite, and that is one hell of a bark-" She also looked as if she was recovering from the sound.

Puma seemed smug about this the whole wagon ride to Kazuya's house. He used his extra speakers to pack that extra punch in his bark, an extra several decibel punch.

"This is the place." Pico finally approached a house, glancing at her paper and the number on the house. And the two heard some loud clattering, and a loud thud.

…

Finally after a moment of waiting and Pico impatiently tapping her foot, Kazuya opened the door with an icepack on his forehead. He just kinda stared at the two, unsure of what to say. Pico looked at Kazuya, and at the staircase, and at Kazuya, and the icepack, and back at the staircase, back at Kazuya, back at- "Woah is this your place?" U-1 exclaimed, it seemed he let himself in already, pulling his wagon through the door and was excitedly looking around. Kazuya wanted to make a comment about cleanliness and how U-1 would get everything dirty, but he already noticed U-1 took off his shoes out of habit and wasn't touching anything, and he left his wagon at the doorstep. He was almost a bit angry at the fact that he couldn't find anything to insult U-1 on. … Angry? What? Kazuya suddenly found himself confused in the doorway until Pico snapped her fingers. "Dude, dude. Come on, we got a garage to work on!" "Oh, right." He stated stoically as he watched U-1. U-1 looked, excited by all of these strange things, AKA modern technology. "Dude that TV is flat? Where are all of the computery guts?" And Kazuya kind of… enjoyed watching it, until he got elbowed by Pico. "What?" He angrily rubbed his arm where he was gently nudged. Pico didn't respond but only gave him a smug grin.

He groaned as he finally gestured for the two to follow him. What is Pico dopely grinning about anyways? Kazuya also noticed U-1 wasn't with them. "U-1 dude, come on." He yelled across the room, U-1 was messing with the router until he stood up and sprinted over. The house was large, but not an entire mansion, just a pretty large expensive house, but since U-1 had never seen a place like this, he started assuming Kazuya was a millionaire. "Your house is so cool! You have all of this future tech-" He clasped his hands together and suddenly all of the curtains closed and lights turned off. "What the-" He stumbled backwards. "This place is haunted?! Oh my god I'm going to die-" He hugged onto Kazuya's hip "We're all going to die! KAZUYA YOUR HOUSE IS-" Kazuya clapped again and the lights turned on and windows opened. "Dude we have smart lighting, whenever we clap it just goes on and off." "Oh." … "What's smart lighting?" "You know like voice commands and-" "Voice commands?" "You speak and it understands." "How does it understand?" "It's coded to know what you're saying." "Coded???"

…

Kazuya simply sighed and gave up, continuing down to the abandoned garage. After a moment and the trio making their way down white pristine halls and another cramped flight of stairs, U-1's wagon painfully thudded down each step, with dissonant guitar chords playing from each small fall. Kazuya told them to wait for a moment as he walked off, quickly returning with three brooms, handing one to Pico and U-1. "Come on, we got some cleaning to do." He monotonically spoke as he finally opened the garage door and flicked on a light. It was quite dusty but spacious, a few racks of boxes on the walls and a lot of random boxes on the floor. 

"So all of the boxes- Is that your dog?" Kazuya finally noticed Puma who had trailed in behind U-1. "Yeah." "My parents don't like animals in the house you can't just-!" He was about to snap until Puma walked over to him and pawed at his leg with big puppy-dog eyes. "He doesn't shed, at all, ever." U-1 commented before Kazuya could recover from the distraction. Kazuya was suspicious of this claim, he bent over and pet Puma for a moment, attempting to grab some fur off of him, but all of it stayed firmly in place, a little too firm. But he had no reasonable explanation to how this could happen so he just looked at U-1, sighed, and started sweeping.

"Weird dog." Pico commented. "I agree." Kazuya muttered. "I agree." U-1 also responded, Puma looking offended briefly. And so the three swept- actually well, U-1 assigned himself box duty, and he loved sifting through the boxes for random trinkets. "Woah these are some cool figures… Hey uh…" He hesitated. "Kazuya could I-?" "Go ahead, keep whatever you want. It's probably never gonna see the light of day again since it's down here. Better to give it to you rather than let it rot, or not." He shrugged, peeking over his shoulder to see U-1 giddily holding some kind of Gundam robot figure. He smiled for a moment, unaware that he was as he kept sweeping.

You know, he actually felt nice about giving that to U-1. He kinda liked U-1's excited smiling and bouncing. Wait, he liked it? He shook his head as if his brain were an etch-a-sketch and he could erase the thoughts. Forcing it all to dissipate back into nothingness.

Over an hour had passed and they had almost cleaned up the garage. Puma had also been carrying his weight, literally, helping U-1 move heavy boxes and assorted stuff onto high shelves when no one was looking. A robot dog with extending legs isn't an everyday sight after all, and he wanted to keep it that way. U-1 had kept a box, one he had emptied out so he could carry the trinkets he found home. He grabbed Puma and noted the contents. "Puma check this out! We have this cool robot, a dusty game called… Parah puh? It has a dog on the cover, and I like dogs, and also I grabbed some random cool metal bits, and uh, what is this exactly?" He showed Puma some tiny game chip that read 'GH    T TR    K p        om         c     ve' though most of the letters were smudged beyond readabiloty. Puma tilted his head and shrugged, at least as well as a dog could shrug. "Eh looks cool enough, I'm keeping it, and oh! This stuffed animal cause-" He held out a stuffed animal, a little cat. "It looked lonely…" U-1 stared at it in his hands, a small black cat with blue embroidered eyes, it was in fairly good condition. Kazuya looked over, eyeing the plush. He glanced away, it also made him a bit sad to see it down here like this.

"Kazuya?" U-1 called out. "You uh, looked sad, do you want it?" "No uh-" He stammered for a moment, looking at Pico who just seemed to be watching the conversation with interest. Kazuya's shoulders tensed up, and slowly lowered again "You should take care of Ming Ming for me." "Ming Ming?" U-1 asked, that name was eerily familiar. Kazuya fell silent. He seemed to be avoiding talking longer than necessary.  "I'll take you home, Ming Ming." U-1 repeated the name back to the inanimate stuffed creature, he felt an odd sympathy towards it. He quickly got distracted though. "Is that a Nintendo 64?!" "Yeah I don-" "Can I have it?!" Just as Kazuya barely got out another word, U-1 started bouncing on his toes. "Puma, we have a Nintendo 64!" He ran over to show his dog.

"Weird kid." Pico muttered. "I agree." Kazuya responded, though with a small smile on his face. He felt that Ming Ming was in good hands. Which was weird, he never really trusted U-1 with anything, ever. But in the past week it felt like the two were finally easing up around each other, and there was almost a small thread of trust between them. Pico could already tell this though. She smiled too as she swept, finally feeling like the group would get along well for once. 

3 Hours had passed. "Whew I'm beat- This is too much…" U-1 complained as he laid on the floor. "All you did was look through boxes to steal my stuff." " AND you said I could. I put away a ton of boxes, still!" He retorted, sitting up, he still had Ming Ming under one of his arms too. Pico rolled her eyes. "And Kazuya kept staring at U-1 while I did most of the sweeping." "Did not!" "You totally were." She cackled at Kazuya for a moment. It was partially true, while Kazuya had swept a lot, he still spent a chunk of his time just observing U-1. Kazuya just crossed his arms and looked away with his nose in the air. "Dude you are so bad at hiding it." Pico laughed. "Hiding what?" Kazuya snapped looking back at her, still irritated with his tone reflecting it clearly. Pico never responded but just laughed to herself for a moment. U-1 was also just as confused as Kazuya, but both knew she wasn't going to give them an answer since she enjoyed being cryptic about seemingly random things.

U-1 stood up, grabbed his wagon, placing his boxes of stuff he wanted to take home in it, and grabbed his guitar case. "Can you uh, excuse me and Puma for one moment?" He stepped out and grabbed Puma, less than a minute later he came back with the weird dog amp. 

"Where's Puma?" Kazuya asked, raising an eyebrow. "This is- uuuuh, he's outside in your yaaaard? He gets claustrophobic. He's a good dog and stays where he needs to." Another 'flawless' lie, that Pico and Kazuya could still not piece together. Of course they could both tell U-1 was lying, he had a certain draaaaaawled out tone when he did. But also what was he lying about? There was nothing logical surrounding the boy. What is he lying about? Where is Puma, what is the amp? There was nothing that could even possibly click here. It was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with only the corner pieces, and U-1 ate the rest of them. Having that much cardboard in your system probably isn't very good.

But either way, Pico and Kazuya decided it would be best not to dwell on it with an exchanged confused glance.

Kazuya was quick to focus back onto U-1, well not directly on U-1, but the stuffed cat he held. What did he mean by 'It looked lonely'? Stuffed animals don't get lonely, they don't need anyone. They don't have feelings, the plush was stuffed in a box for years and it was perfectly fine, U-1 didn't need to feel sympathy for it. But its embroidered smile remained, still a few loose threads threatened to unravel it entirely.

"Kazuya?" Pico leaned over and snapped her fingers a bit near Kazuya. "What?" "You're crying."

Kazuya froze. He lifted a hand to his face and felt tears rolling slowly down his face. Slowly he traced his finger down and felt a tear hit it. Pulling his hand away he looked at his shaky palm, wet with his tears. And Kazuya didn't notice it, he didn't notice his own crying until Pico pointed it out to him.

U-1 shuffled over to them, sitting next to Kazuya. "Are you okay?"

Kazuya didn't respond, he wanted to, but he couldn't find the words, he couldn't find his voice. He just sat there for a while, mouth slightly agape. And suddenly he felt a warm embrace, U-1 had wrapped his arms around Kazuya's waist in a hug.

Why was U-1 hugging him?

Pico had also placed a hand on Kazuya's shoulder, not hugging him since she felt she needed to let him have this, more than one hug was bound to overstimulate him, as stuff did when he was stressed.

And Kazuya, he didn't know how to react to U-1's hug, why did he feel this way? Why was it so hard to breathe? Why was it so warm? Why, why, why? And he reacted the only way he knew, after a few moments of the hug he shoved U-1 away with an angry yelp, because all of his questions didn't have answers, and the only way he knew how to respond to confusion was anger.

Kazuya jolted up, why did he do that? And again, with another frustrating unanswered question, he stormed off. Pico observed the exchange, U-1 also watched, and as Kazuya left U-1 subconsciously hugged the plush cat a little tighter. Another thread in the smile loosening. Pico stood up and stared blankly for a bit. "U-1, I think we should keep working without him for now." "But-" "He needs a break okay? Come on, we can set up in here until he comes back."

U-1 was on a step stool, tacking some string lights around the room near the ceiling. Pico had suggested decorating a bit with the random objects they had down here. U-1 had stacked all the boxes neatly, and by U-1 I mean Pico whom U-1 asked for help, and who did most of the work stacking said boxes. Right now Pico was scrounging around some boxes looking for stuff to lighten the atmosphere of the garage. "Is… Do you think Kazuya is gonna be back?" U-1 was a bit nervous. He still focused on hanging the lights but as hard as he tried, his mind would drift around and bounce to Kazuya one way or another. He just wanted to know if he was okay.

And speak of the devil, Kazuya showed up again, quietly coming in through the back garage door connecting to the house, though 'quietly' is a bit inaccurate to the situation, the door was old so when he came in, everyone turned their head to the sound of a long slow 'Creeeeeeeeeakkkk' . It was an awkward few seconds as Kazuya shuffled in. "It looks… nice in here." He quietly spoke, afterwards looking back down at the floor. 

It was a long awkward silence.

Well, a long 15 second silence, but it really feels like an eternity when it's so quiet and still.

"Kazuya?" This time Pico spoke up. "I-" She had to think of what to say, she knew what she wanted to say, but just struggled to articulate it for a moment. "Are you okay?" Was the simplest way she could put it. There was so much more behind the words, but language felt limiting. "I'm sorry." he spoke barely above a whisper. A deep breath later and he finally looked upwards again. "I'm sorry, I just- I get mad and I don't know why, and that makes me mad too… What am I saying-"

Kazuya was, apologizing? He has in the past occasionally but it suddenly felt like he was more… emotionally aware all of the sudden. U-1 was a bit surprised at this too.

Kazuya was avoiding eye contact and clutching his arms. Pico, she somehow just knew exactly what was going on in his mind. She placed an understanding hand on his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay you were just- overwhelmed. I get it, wanna help us finish setting up?"

The three had almost finished setting up their stuff, U-1 set the strange dog amp down (PumaAC30) and Pico had set up a portion of her drum kit, meaning to bring the rest later.

It was still a bit of a dusty garage, boxes stacked on the left wall, a concrete floor, power tools on wall racks, and yet with the stuff they scrounged up they had made it feel a bit cozier than just a concrete box. It felt like some kids setting up a secret base. There were hanging lights on some walls, a desk with an old lamp and U-1's lyric and songwriting notebooks, and a few fake plants Pico had wanted to use to decorate. "Well it looks like I have to roll in the rest of my drum kit tomorrow before we can practice." Pico placed her hands on her hips and sighed. "But hey! We did a great job today! See you guys tomorrow!" She was quick to always look at the bright side. U-1 picked up the dog amp, which never got used that day, and placed it in his wagon alongside the rest of his boxes, and the slinky. Pico made her way out and left Kazuya and U-1 alone briefly.

"Hey uh- Kazuya?"

"Hm?"

"... Thanks for letting us use your garage."

"Not even gonna say thanks for the free stuff?" Kazuya smirked. U-1 softly chuckled in return. "I didn't say that 'cause I didn't want to seem like- like- god what's the word-" "Materialistic?" "Yeah- that one! Bye Kazuya! Thanks!" U-1 waved as he grabbed his wagon and raced out to catch up to Pico.

"U-1 why did you keep that?" Puma asked as he curled up on the floor next to U-1. U-1 slipped into his futon with the stuffed cat. "I guess I felt bad for it, Ming Ming, Kazuya said." U-1 explained as if Puma wasn't there. "Ming Ming… I remember that name… can't wrap my head around it…" Puma groaned as he scratched at his head. U-1 held up the plushie for a moment, noting how despite its cleanliness, it seemed that it would slowly fall apart if not patched from the loose threads. He tilted his head at it, the moonlight from his window and his lamp across the room faintly lighting it.

That night, it seemed the cat's smile was genuine.

Chapter Text

U-1's 'borrowed' wagon? Check. Used cardboard boxes? Check. Bubble wrap that Pico has been keeping for who knows how long? Check. Pico had finally managed to pack up the rest of her drum set to take to Kazuya's. Now the problem was getting it there, shouldn't be too bad.

She had actually just taken U-1's wagon from his front porch where he keeps it in place with a bike lock, she had remembered the passcode, 7862; and unlocked it, walked off, all without any guilt under the idea of "I'll return it later". Besides he wasn’t using it right now, she thinks. She stole- borrowed, she borrowed it last night while he was asleep and rolled it over to her place to start stacking her boxes, which took her several hours.

She stared back at the wagon scanning it up and down while going over her mental checklist again. Was she forgetting anything..? Pico counted all of her boxes again, she's gonna make this journey one and never again hopefully. All of her boxes seem to be accounted for, did she forget any? She shrugged as she finally grabbed the handle and headed down the road.

Pico started on her way to Kazuya's. A fairly long walk since she lived on the south side of the town, and Kazuya lived on the north side with his parents on the hills near the town border. You know, fancy rich people and their hills and lawns and… you know, rich people stuff. It’s not like Kazuya was crazy rich living in a golden mansion, his family was just well off and lived in the better part of town. She felt a brief pang of jealousy but ignored it.

And so it begins. A tired sigh as she dragged the bright red wagon behind her, with scarily stacked and taped boxes that looked as if they would topple at any given moment. Surprisingly they were mostly static as she continued her tired trek. She should be there in a little under an hour, hopefully. It was only a little past 9 am, and she was fine, they had planned to meet at 10 am over the phone last night, U-1 only being able to call Pico and Pico having to relay the messages between a home phone and her cellphone. It was like a frantic pacer test of words.

Pico giggled to herself, these situations were so bizarre, who else other than U-1 would still be using a landline? Who else other than U-1 and Kazuya would have to argue through "Pico, can you tell Kazuya that he's a stuck-up snob?" "Pico, can you tell U-1 that he's a whiny little numbskull?" "Pico, can you tell Kazuya to shut up?" "Pico, tell U-1 that he's no smarter than a rock." “Pico, tell him to stop being mean to me!”

It was weirdly endearing the way they argued now. They both did and do have the ammo to say truly hurtful things about each other, but instead, they preferred to make empty and oftentimes comical insults. And the wagon rolls.

It was a bright picturesque day. The blue sky with occasional but fluffy clouds still few and far in between, a slight summer breeze that occasionally swept through the streets, the quiet rustling of the leaves in bright and vibrant green trees, and the strange buildings that made up the town with lights on inside. It was warm but not too warm, and the shade of the trees and buildings was cool but not too cool. Absolutely perfect.

Occasionally she would come to a crack or a bump in the road, but somehow even with her lousy stacking skills (Kazuya has apparently banned Pico from playing Tetris) the boxes remained stacked in their original position, even the weirdly tilted, crushed, or somehow the godforsaken diagonally stacked ones, god forbid she somehow had one on its’ corner (that wouldn’t fly in Tetris now would it?)

The town seemed quite busy today she noticed as she got closer and closer to the main plaza. Which reminded her of that weird UFO all those years ago… was that a dream? Most likely. She shrugged it off for now. 'Hey Kazuya, a guy is playing a guitar at a UFO that’s making people dance!' as if that was believable in the slightest. As she started getting closer to the main streets, there were more stores and more open businesses. This seems like an obvious statement, yes stores would be in a busier part of a city, it's just a common business practice. But the thing was Pico had a habit of- She stopped in her tracks. Maybe just a brief stop at the convenience store for some snacks wouldn't hurt. 

Some time had passed of her rolling the wagon uptown, probably about 10 to 12 or so minutes. And the uptown lights only got brighter, the people noiser, the buildings bigger, architecture stranger, everything screamed for attention here, and she loved the main town plaza for it. The fun buildings and signs and whatever even would happen at the plaza- She grinned as she saw the anglerfish sign on top of a building in the distance. And more strange buildings poking above.

She ran, carefully to not topple all of her boxes and smiled.

…

The plaza… The UFO… She tells herself it was a dream but why did it feel so real?

…

It was years ago now. It doesn't matter anyway.

But what if it was, did that mean anything?

She had stopped running and found herself amidst the heavy foot traffic. People buzzing all around her. Navigating through the crowds with occasional bumps and jolts. It was a bit difficult going as the town was slanted a little bit, with her going against gravity ever so slightly.

Despite the town being well, quite large for a town, even on the borderline definition of a city, she knew most of it like the back of her hand. U-1's house was to the northeast of the plaza, not too far away from here. But again, up straight north was Kazuya's, about 30 minutes of walking away. 

30 minutes away and it was… Only about 9:20, she would make it on good time she hoped. But she sighed wishing that there was more public transit in the town. Even a bus would make it a ton easier.

Wheels rolling, people stumbling around her left and right. Her mind was still a bit fuzzy from thinking about the UFO as if she had suffered some mind fog. Most people forget their dreams shortly after waking up, but some stick with you forever. She still remembered that one guitar-playing man, with black hair, a bit of a face that resembled.. U-1…

Walking, walking, rolling, rolling. Her mind kept looping back to the UFO. As U-1 got older he looked more and more like that person. Maybe it was a dream and she just imagined him as some extraordinary guitar-playing hero. It’s odd though, he only started playing the guitar after she had that ‘dream’.

THUD

Pico winced as she reeled back from smacking her face straight into a street sign. She wasn’t paying attention as she got lost in her thoughts. “Gahh…” She rubbed at her nose and took a deep breath. “Well, all my boxes are still here- oh, oh no.” Looking around, where… was she? Pico threw her head back groaned and turned back, she was walking in the wrong direction. Grabbing the handle of the wagon and gripping it tighter than before she was off again. She was going west this whole time. And the wagon rolls again.

9:40

“This… Damn… Hill…” Pico was straining to speak to herself as she slowly forced her way up the hill. The wagon was unbelievably heavy and almost dragged her down. But Pico was somehow so stubborn that she was forcing her way up the hill slowly. She was already back on her correct route, though she lost some time having to turn back and get to the plaza again before turning back north.

Pico strained, it was a losing battle, like pushing a boulder up a hill, but Pico’s willpower stood stronger than gravity. With both hands on the handle she slowly kept stepping up backwards. “You’re- not- gah- I’m not letting you- roll- down-!” as she still slowly but surely dragged the wagon. She made a note to complain to the town about the lack of a bus.

One step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time… CLANK! The wagon snagged against a rock and hit an axle. “Oh no, you’re not getting stuck now-” speaking as if she was a parent scolding a child. She gritted her teeth and pulled, tugged, and- “Oh no OH NO” Pico’s grip slipped and the wagon went barreling downhill. Pico quickly got to running after it. “Get- back- here!” She bolted downhill as fast as she could, stumbling but somehow remaining on her feet, and Pico was fast. She started almost catching up as the slope tapered off, grabbing the handle; what she didn’t take into consideration was that the momentum of the wagon would carry over. The second she realized this, she muttered a brief curse to herself as she was pulled along and had to keep running to avoid being dragged against the ground and ground down like sandpaper. And she also had to somehow stop this monstrosity. Due to the weight of all of her boxes (somehow still miraculously stacked up) Her weight wouldn’t suffice to even slow the thing. 

She managed to get her other hand onto the handle, and in a true leap of faith moment and praying to whatever god there was, she managed to hop up onto the wagon with her boxes. She was hoping maybe her weight would steer the thing and noticed the plaza was right below, well that’s gonna be a lotta time wasted. And she did the only thing she could do at this point, scream. The wagon snagged on a rock and Pico went flying.

After a moment there was a huge crash, nobody was hurt (thank god for Pico’s wailing as people saw and jumped out of the way) and she was dazed on the ground, feeling like this situation was somehow familiar. While she adjusted she looked over at the wagon. Every box is somehow still accounted for. Huh.

Suddenly she felt like somebody was looking at her… “Puma..?” she exclaimed as she spotted U-1’s little canine buddy, without U-1 around oddly enough, she’d never seen Puma separated from him. The dog barked “Wan!” (what an odd bark Pico thought to herself) and jumped up to grab the wagon handle with his mouth. “What are you-” Pico tripped over herself for a moment before getting back on her feet. She noticed Puma was taking the wagon the same way she was going before she lost control of the wagon. “Are you helping me?” She asked, for some reason maybe expecting Puma to speak, but with his mouth full he simply… nodded. She had always wondered what kind of dog Puma was, he seemed… too intelligent. But she supposed not to look a gift horse in the mouth and walked alongside Puma as he pulled the wagon with ease.

What the hell was U-1 feeding this thing.

And up the hill the two went. What time was it? Pico never wore a watch but she was sure that she didn’t lose too much time to the hill.

9:55

Pico was still closely following Puma’s side. He had been going in the right direction this whole time, she found it extremely odd to grasp how intelligent this dog is. If she didn’t know any better she would say he’s smart enough to raise U-1, not like she ever saw any of his parents anyway. The bright crisp air, the warm summer sun… It was such a nice day out, Pico could finally appreciate it since she wasn’t dragging the godforsaken wagon. The breeze on her face, the pleasant warmth. It was nice enough to fall asleep in Kazuya's yard.

“Hey Puma, isn’t it nice out?” She asked partially jokingly, but as she watched the dog nod extremely deliberately she again felt the need to question exactly how smart this canine conundrum was. ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth’ she repeated to herself in her head as she strolled alongside him peacefully. Puma looked as if he didn’t struggle at all to roll the wagon uphill in stark contrast to Pico's previous struggle. “What time is it?” “9:57.” “Hm.”

…

“Oh shoot we’re gonna be late!” The panic that set in was fast enough to intercept any questions she had about the voice that answered her. She ran over to Puma, grabbed the wagon handle, grabbed the dog, and booked it. “Geez you’re so heavy-” Pico commented as she put Puma under one arm and started running with the wagon handle. Puma barked disapprovingly but decided it would be best to let her run. She was moving surprisingly fast, it’s not like being late by a single minute would hurt but she ran as if it was the end of the world. U-1 was usually late to everything anyway, Pico rolled her eyes to herself. It’s not like he’d already be there and fighting Kazuya or anything… 

But what if U-1 was already there and she wasn’t there to mediate them? She tried running faster but the force of gravity against the wagon held her back, and so did the heavy dog under her arm. She set Puma down before running again, he clearly could run on his own. Losing the weight didn’t make her much faster but it was better than nothing. The wagon creaked under the weight of her boxes, clearly, she hadn’t packed only her drum kit, but she was thinking that a bit of extra decor in the band’s basement wouldn’t hurt. Just a little bit…

As Pico slowly climbed the slope and the force of gravity started easing off a bit, running faster and faster, she was picking up speed. Kazuya’s house was just around the bend. Looking behind her for a moment to make sure Puma was still with her and looking up to the sky, the sun was high up in the air, it must be past 10 already. U-1 wouldn’t already be there she hoped, he’s always late to everything. Pico huffed and finally spotted Kazuya’s house, Puma still trailing behind her she booked it, the wheels against the road, the brief and usually soft breeze almost felt as if it were attacking her as she ran against it. What if they were fighting? What if she walks in and they’re both unconscious? What if U-1 is already being burned at the stake- Closing in on Kazuya’s door she dropped the handle of the wagon at the porch and knocked on the door a single time before bursting in.

“Oh hi Pico!” U-1 waved as he sat across from Kazuya at a chess board, both of them sitting on the floor. Kazuya didn’t look up as he contemplated his next move but raised a hand to wave to Pico. “Hi, I’m teaching U-1 how to play chess.” “I like the horses.” U-1 added at the end. Kazuya moved a piece across the board and U-1 just moved his knight again. Kazuya pointed at the board, “It’s two squares, not three.” “Oh sorry,” U-1 moved the knight back. Pico was bewildered, just watching them play chess without any conflict whatsoever, and Kazuya wasn’t insulting U-1’s intelligence? But it was also much more jarring to just watch U-1 play chess. Puma waddled in by Pico’s feet, somehow pulling the wagon inside for her. “Oh huh- thanks-.” She spoke blankly but breathlessly. “Oh, did Puma help you?” U-1 looked up as he spoke and noticed his wagon. “Uh, yeah, by the way, U-1, Puma-” “It’s your turn.” Kazuya interrupted as he pointed back at the board signaling to U-1 to make his move.

“You taught U-1 to play chess?” “No, I only know how to move the horses.” “Knights.” Kazuya interjected. “But it’s a horse… If it’s a knight where are the wings on its head?” “Wings?” Kazuya looked up from the board for the first time since Pico got here. “Like knights have?” U-1 gestured to the top of his head where the wings of his Gitaroo Man helmet had once resided years ago. The dream, Pico remembered, the person that looked like U-1 had wings on his helmet, exactly where U-1 was pointing. What does this mean? What could this mean? Surely it must be some strange bedtime story or something that every kid has read and just can’t remember, some joint experience that leads to all these connections.

Pico and Kazuya just stared at each other and then back at U-1. With a shrug Kazuya watched U-1 move the knight again before moving his piece swiftly. “Checkmate.” “Awww… this is the 13th time you’ve won…” U-1 groaned before splaying out on his back on the floor. “Then be better.” Kazuya replied bluntly before packing up the board. “What? We’re not playing again?” The shorter boy sat up and crossed his legs as Kazuya started packing the pieces into the board. “Well, Pico’s here isn’t she?” “Yeah…” Pico chuckled to herself for a moment. “Thirteen losses in a row and you’re still trying?” U-1 ignored her comment as he stared at the wagon that Pico had clearly stolen. “Is that my wag-” “Oh yeah Kazuya I got my drum kit!-” she interrupted nervously before U-1 could comment on the fact she knew how to open his lock. She glanced over and saw his eyes drilling into her.

Kazuya nodded as he stood up and closed the wooden chessboard. As he led the group to the garage Pico leaned over into U-1’s ear, “If you’re losing when he looks away, put his pieces in your mouth.” before sprinting over to follow closer behind Kazuya. U-1 just eyed the way Pico’s boxes were stacked on the wagon and scrutinized her for stealing it, he would have said yes if she asked anyway, it was just his grocery wagon. 

He clutched the plush cat he was carrying. “Hey Pico, did you pay for those snacks?” He pointed at the few candy bars in her wagon and she stopped in her tracks.