aiko's otter den

from a compass rose - Katsuki Yuuri is never checking his phone again. He likes his past right where it is. Too bad it doesn’t give a hoot.

---

5. The Wonders of Communication

Date: 6/11/1995 — Time: 13:37

Hasetsu bubbled between cool and hot in turns. Young Katsuki Yuuri was not aware of this however. He was burying his face into the side of the railing for the sixth time after an ill-advised jump.

From the other side of the rink, Takeshi let out a snort as he spun himself in a single turn. “Seriously Yuuri!” He guffawed before he could stop the sound from escaping his mouth. “You klutz.”

Yuuri heard the sound of a very different kind of thunk as Yuuko smacked the other boy over the head. “Stop it, you big jerk,” she said, voice clear and painful in how Yuuri’s face heated up at the sound of it. “I didn’t see you trying to make that jump.”

“I like skating and having an intact nose, so sue me,” Takeshi shot back. He glided away from her, towards Yuuri, who was rubbing his nose and watery eyes. “Seriously, you all right?”

“Y-Yeah…” Yuuri grimaced, rubbing his forehead. “Just hurt a bit.”

“You could try to impress Yuuko-chan a little less, you know,” Takeshi commented, grinning once more but sounding completely reasonable in his quest to make a point. “Just let me handle that, I’m good at it.”

Yuuri’s cheeks flooded with heat once more. “I-This has nothing to do with that and you know it!”

Takeshi’s brown eyes sparkled with mirth. “Sure it doesn’t.”

Yuuri, and not for the first time, wished for bulkier arms to leave a bruise on Takeshi’s face. “A-A-And why are you doing this?”

The smile on Takeshi’s face faltered for half a second. Then he grinned. “Cause it’s fun, of course.”

“Liar! That’s not what you think at all!” He chased him around the rink until Takeshi was wheezing and clutching the edge.

“Freaking stamina demon,” he heard as he caught up to drive his smaller knuckles into the other’s cheek. “What are your legs even made of…”

Yuuri scowled at him, hands curling into fists even as his voice wavered. “They’re-they’re normal legs, you just don’t glide correctly!”

“Speak for yourself!”

“You guys, come on!” Yuuko’s voice echoed across the rink. “Lunchtime is over they have to open up for customers again!”

Both looked at each other and hurried across to the other side, bolting away from the tourist trap-to-be. The last thing any of them needed was to be bombarded by the eager families desperate for an escape from the strangely hot summer.

“Isn’t it supposed to not be this bad until like, August?” Takeshi grumbled as he fumbled with his laces.

“I heard it was flooding in Alaska,” Yuuri muttered, ducking behind a taller locker.

“Alaska?” Takeshi didn’t even bother looking up from his dry pair of socks. “Mom said she saw Chicago getting so hot the streets were sticky!”

Yuuri shuddered and finished getting dressed. “It’s not so bad here,” he decided.

“Just wait, now it’ll snow.”

“Don’t say crap like that!” Yuuko’s voice came from down the hall.

Both boys jumped. “Does she have ears like a hyena or what?” Takeshi grumbled

Yuuri resisted the urge to comment on the almost droopy way his friend was staring outside the boy’s locker room. “Probably…”

The three of them were soon exiting into the unbearable sunshine. Yuuri immediately grabbed his glasses to wipe them down.

“Summer homework,” Yuuko offered, giving her ponytail another irritable tug. “I haven’t finished my essay on Genji…”

Takeshi scowled at her. “Do we gotta?” His voice took on a whine worthy of Vicchan. “We’ll just all be crowding the fan anyway.”

Yuuko opened her mouth, hands already perched on her hips as she leaned forward. “We have to try, Takeshi. Sensei won’t care if it was hot. He’s probably grading papers and roasting.”

Takeshi looked away, pout furrowing his slanted cheeks. Yuuri smiled sympathetically. It was worth a try. Amami-sensei’s literature assignments were always rough on everyone’s brains.

“We’ll just do it for a bit?” He offered as he trailed after them. “That way it’s less for us to worry about when things cool down.”

“If things cool down,” Takeshi muttered, shooting him a glare. Yuuri, if not for Yuuko, would have shrunk away. He only smiled placidly instead. “The paper will be due by then at this rate.”

“Then we’ll have it done on time.” Yuuko sounded utterly certain of this fact, so certain that Yuuri had to raise an eyebrow at her.

Unfortunately, she noticed and proceeded to chase him down the sidewalk.

As they ran, Takeshi heard a soft buzz and turned towards a storefront window. All of the tvs were buzzing like bees, static filling up the screens like a snowstorm.

He stared for a moment. Then he shrugged and moved on. Television was still working itself out. It was normal for their to be static like that. Maybe not that much or all the tvs but still it wasn’t that far from normal.

He turned and ran to catch up with his friends. As he did, Takeshi missed the soft pop from behind the glass.

When he was far enough away, the boxes exploded, taking the storefront window with them.

---

True to form the three of them ended up plopped in front of the fan within an hour of furious pencil scratching and note taking. Yuuko was still attempting, scribbling notes as she lay on her stomach. At the very least, they had moved on to math.

“Okay but the numbers don’t divide evenly,” she said for the third time.

Takeshi groaned and rolled away from them as Yuuri, glasses long relegated to his free hand, replied. “They’re not always going to. He warned us of that.”

“Ugh.” Yuuko threw the papers to the floor. “That’s stupid.”

“That’s numbers.” Takeshi grinned at her. “You knew it was gonna suck.”

“Yeah but…” Yuuko turned away from him. “Whatever!”

“Come on Yuuko!”

Yuuri watched them bicker on both sides of him and smiled a little private smile into his arm. As he did, however, he left himself wide open for a wet tongue to get him on the forehead. He yelped and leaped up and away in a roll. “Vicchan,” he yelped, rubbing the viscous drool furiously from his forehead.

His poodle had already forgotten him, going instead to pounce on Takeshi who has much more room to stand on and lick ceaselessly. It would be funny if Yuuri wasn’t well accustomed to the weight of his poodle. He doubted the actual Viktor Nikiforov was even close to that heavy. He glided across the ice with ease after all.

Yuuko had no such restraint and was practically rolling on the floor. Her laughter turned to a brief, coughing wheeze as she settled back on the floor. She had full access to the fan now and took full advantage, stopping the pitiful breeze right in front of her face.

It would have been cute if Yuuri wasn’t also roasting in his sticky clothes. “Yuuko,” he complained. Come on, we’re hot too!”

“Takeshi’s fine!” She waved a hand as dismissively as possible. Takeshi made a sound through VIcchan’s delightful affection that did not sound fine in any sense of the word. Yuuri winced and clapped his hands. Vicchan’s tail wagged and he leaped from Takeshi, going to lay placidly in Yuuri’s lap. Takeshi lifted himself up from the tatami floor and groaned. He rubbed at his face desperately with his arms.

“I hope the real Viktor isn’t like that,” he said, spitting out slobber. “Or you’re screwed.”

Yuuri flushed. “Viktor is graceful and elegant!”

“And old,” Takeshi argued.

Yuuko threw her pencil at him. “Not for skating he isn’t!”

“He’s getting there! He’s going into seniors and that’s the end of the line!”

Yuuri tried to tune the two of them out. There were three things these two argued seriously about: Viktor Nikiforov, the merits of mixing your food together, and the attractiveness of Viktor Nikiforov. They would be at this for hours if he didn’t head them off. So he reached for the tv remote and turned it on.

Five seconds later, the remote clattered from his hand to the floor as he saw their local electronics store up in flames.

His silence and the newscaster’s drone brought the two of them back to earth and soon they were all staring agog at the screen.

“We just passed that,” Yuuko said after the story changed. “Two hours ago. We just passed it!”

Takeshi nodded, expression numb. “Who would blow up an electronics store?”

“The cults maybe?” Yuuko offered. Yuuri shook his head back and forth. “They’ve been getting really active in the center of the city though! It’s not impossible!”

“But we’re in the middle of nowhere!” takeshi protested, voice going high and teeth chattering a little. “What would be the point? This isn’t on the city news.”

Yuuko opened her mouth to speak, likely to tell them that was on purpose, when the tv suddenly exploded with static.

All three of them turned to see the grainy screen proceed to darken, the white turning red and the grey a mottled orange. It went from specks of light to zeroes and ones, a horrible whine coming from the boxy television. It almost sounded like wheezing.

Then the screen started to swell in multiple places, like welts. Yuuri let out a frightened sound as the three little lumps of zeroes and ones grew further and further out until they exploded from the screen, leaving the same smooth glass there always was, but three red hot looking eggs on the carpet. There was no smell of smoke and the light was quickly dying away. Vicchan had, by this point already fled the room.

Soon the light of the room returned to normal. The television returned to the news, now discussing the current heat wave in a drone of sound and theorists.

The three children stared at the strange items now sitting innocuously on Yuuri’s carpet. At first glance, they looked to be nothing more than the weird keychain toys little kids got from crane games.

“… Think it’s still hot?” Takeshi squinted at the strange toy, looking dubious. “Like, hurt our fingers hot?”

“We’d…” Yuuko swallowed, tugging on her ponytail to keep at least one hand away from it.
We’s smell it, Takeshi.”

“Right…” takeshi gave Yuuri a nudge. “On three, we’ll all grab one, okay?”

“What?” Yuuri hissed. “Why? It’s probably still gonna burn us.”

Takeshi ignored him. “One—”

Yuuko crawled up beside them, heart-shaped face set with determination.

“Two—”

Yuuri sometimes hated his friends and today was one of them. He reached out his hand.

“Three!”

They each grabbed one. It was warm to the touch, yes and it chirped happily as he held it. But then it grew hotter and hotter and bright light slipped through his fingers and right into his eyes. He yelped and made to pull away, only to pull the device with him. Yuuko and Takeshi both yelped, answering the question that no it wasn’t just him, they were all also losing their eyesight.

There was the faint sound of rushing footsteps, the worried cries of his mother in the distance. But they shouldn’t have been so far away. They should have been right behind them.

Yuuri forced his eyes open, looking for his mother.

Only to realize he was falling through a rainbow of sound and color, dragged down by his outstretched hand until, thankfully, he fainted.

When Yuuri opened his eyes again, an unknown amount of time later, he was looking at the bluest sky he had ever seen in his life. At least, he was until his eyes saw flickers of green numbers briefly pass over the thin white clouds.

“What…?” he croaked. ‘Where… what?’ He lifted his head wearily and bumped his nose against a beak. His head dropped back down in pain. “Ow…” Wait, a beak?

Yuuri slid backwards, bumping into the rough back of a tree. He had no time to tell what it was, there was a giant bird in his face and it was blinking at him like an owl, rather than a hawk. It’s feathers weren’t even ruffled.

It make a clucking sound. “I got the weak one, didn’t I?”

Yuuri screamed, loud enough that he heard it echo.

---

“You screamed?”

“Of course I did, it wasn’t like it was a parrot or something. It was a big hawk that could talk.”

“To be fair, I’d be weirded out if my gerbils started talking to me. What if those random cats you steal started talking?”

“… Shut up Chulanont.”

---

Yuuri did not calm down, exactly, but his racing heart did slow a little when the creature did not screech like banshees on tv and actually looked him over with concern.

“Seriously,” it said, concern melting into derisive glee. ‘I’m not even a big fish yet, and you’re afraid of me. Boy, do I have a lot of work to do with you.’ It stepped forward and Yuuri twitched, flinching hard. It scowled — how could you scowl with a beak?— “We don’t have time for this. The others are waiting, you know.” At Yuuri’s baffled blinking (and horrified look because dear gods were there more of these monsters?), He waved a singular red wing. “Yeah, more humans! More of us! We’re supposed to be finding them so we can get this over with.”

“Get what over with?”

Hawkmon sighed. “The reason you were sent here of course. We have worlds to save.”

Yuuri heard himself scream this time.

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