Too Empty

[madimpossibledreamer]

I may be preposting a lot tomorrow since I'm going on "vacation" (trust me, those quotation marks are probably valid and I will probably complain once I get back).  I have a chapter of Shadowed Suspicion for tomorrow, but as usual unbeta'd, and when I get back next week I might not have time to finish a chapter and post on Jojo Friday (so it might be late, it might be skipped, not sure yet).
also there is not enough judgment fanfic in the world.  i'm trying to help.  let me help.
~dreamer~

Main Points:
Judgment/Judge Eyes, Pre-relationship
Chapter Summary: Tak hasn't gotten in contact, and Kaito's worried.
Word Count: 720
Rating: Teen (?-some swearing, kaito's in love, there's smoking, spoilers exist...though I'm pretty sure that last one has nothing to do with ratings so)

         Kaito paces (as much as anyone can in that stupidly small space that Tak calls his detective agency).  The stupid cig isn’t doing so well at calming him down.  It feels like all those stuffed animals Tak likes winning from the UFO Catcher machines (wasting hundreds of yen in the process) are watching him, judging him.
         But it’s not his fault.  He hadn’t set out to make the seeming transition from yakuza to anxious housewife.  It just kinda happened—or, rather, Yagami had just kinda happened.  Damn kid was ridiculous about finding the chinks in a man’s armor and then just crawling in and making a home there.
         “Don’t look at me like that,” he tells the puppy.  The criticizing look doesn’t change.  He really is losing it.
         The thing is, Tak said he would be in touch.  The thing is, these measures are more for Tak’s peace of mind than they are for Kaito or the others.  He’s been on edge ever since Shintani, and if not for check-ins like this he’d be pushing everyone and everything away to protect them.
         “Hell, you got a point there.  Sitting around waiting for a call pulling at my pigtails isn’t my style.”  He only pauses to extinguish the cig since it’s not doing anything for him anyway.
         A quick check in all of the restaurants turns up nothing—shocking, really, since a lot of poor Tak’s payouts go to food.  He isn’t at either of the arcades, either, and a question to the people Kaito meets on the streets who also know Tak turns up nothing, for the most part—well, until he runs into the cat-obsessed character who Kaito’s been real amused to hear Tak gripe about.
         “Sure, I’ve seen him,” cat-man says, and Kaito almost wants to grab the man and kiss him.  “Down near Theater Square.” Instead he yells his thanks and starts dashing off in that direction.  
         There’s some whooshes over his head and he cranes his head to look, catching sight of a bunch of colored lights flying overhead.
         Drones?
         And then he finally gets close and sees Tak and a buch of other people he doesn’t recognize wearing these goofy looking glasses and holding their cell phones.  How he’d managed to miss all this the first time around…probably makes himself a dumbass, but then, he’d been panicking.
         And then Tak yells “Yes!” and raises his fist in victory, and—
         Shit, he’s not sure he’s ever seen Yagami that happy, let alone smiling that big and genuine.  He’s definitely blushing, something he’ll have to write off as booze.
         So he sways a little as he drapes himself over Yagami’s shoulders and feels a slight pang as the genuine happiness dissolves into a cloud of swearing.
         And then morph, again, into confusion.  “What the hell, Kaito-san…”
         But the words quickly disappear under a storm of congratulations from the other racers, and then a cute lady in a short fitting costume walks up and informs Tak that he’d won the league championship and could access more parts at the shop.  “I’ll see you in the next league,” she tells him, winking, and Tak actually stammers as he tells them all he’s looking forward to it before he grabs Kaito’s arm and drags him away from the happy crowd.
         Kaito would be lying if he said that wasn’t kind of hot.  Of course, he’s also not dumb enough to say that kind of shit out loud.
         “You took the Pigeon out on a walk without telling me?  I’m kind of hurt, man,” Kaito slurs a little, and Yagami sighs before realizing he’s still wearing the dumb looking glasses.  He takes them off pretty quickly like he’s embarrassed.
         “She’s—I bought her.  She’s half mine.”  Like this is a custody thing.  Hell, the universe really is out to get him today.
         “Well, league champ, you wanna explain all this?”  He waves his hand at the sky as if that’s actually a useful gesture, and Tak starts speaking, quiet and reserved at first but quickly picking up in steam and enthusiasm, about drone races and drone parts and these promotional VR glasses apparently designed as a cooperative product between the Drone League and this VR place named Dice and Cube, and Yagami somehow forgets about Kaito making a spectacle of himself.