Going the Long Way Around

[espresso_doppio]

The camp rules were agreed upon on the first day:

1. Watch rotation: everyone would have a shift keeping watch at night for 3 hours.

2. All food and resources were shared equally. If someone found something valuable, it was up for group discussion whether it was used or kept.

3. For venturing into unknown areas, they needed to stick together at all times. When anyone needed to leave for any reason, they were to inform the others as appropriate.

4. Injury or sickness had to be communicated immediately. If anyone fell behind, the group slowed until everyone was able to continue. (They had been spared incident thus far, thankfully.)

Doppio rubbed his eyes as he re-read the rules during a little downtime at camp. He had borrowed some of Reigen's paper to keep track of them. By the time he got to the specific system of emergency signals (that involved one whistle, bird signals, and the metal from a six-pack Reigen had on him to act as reflective surfaces) he felt his ability to focus dissolving. It wasn't because he was bored or disagreed with them...he actually felt way more at-ease with a clear system of operation.

He was just tired. A lot. His head hurt. A lot. He felt his focus slip away...a lot.

Rule #4 forced him to be honest about when it got to be too much to the point he couldn't hide it. Reigen and Hitomi were patient, but Doppio wasn't content with it. The first few days were the worst, especially because of rule #3--every place was new to him. Hitomi at least knew the parts of Freid that hadn't been cleaved apart, and Reigen seemed like he was wrapping his head around things quickly, but for him it was sensory overload.

So, he had to learn how to ration out his energy.

Focus on what you can do, Reigen would say. He was the meal-prepper. He had to start there. It was actually something that came to him naturally. Doppio found that encouraging--in that way, it became the first thing to properly energize him. It made the times he had to be at camp more often productive, so he took on shelter management and quartermaster duties too. Even if he wasn't the haggler that Reigen was or quick on his feet like Hitomi, he could still make himself useful.

After a week he had finally gotten his daily system down to a science. It felt torturously slow getting there, but he let himself feel good about his progress.

Pitter-patter.

Ah, rain.

It rained often, and there was only one tent to start with, so they had to waterproof more shelter pretty early on. Maintenance checks were a pretty frequent part of Doppio's day.

At times like this, when he had pushed the limits of his focus and completed his tasks, Doppio retreated to his tent and let his mind wander a little. Despite all the hardship, Doppio had to admit that there was a surreal beauty in their surroundings. There were pine trees growing along what probably would have been a mountain--rocky cliffs rising only to be sharply cut off. Rivers flowing from unknown places. Rice paddies that melded with white sands.

Then there was the wildlife...that was his favorite thing to observe. Not just for their own sake, but it was where he learned about the environment the most. Doppio had heard somewhere (where?) that early humans learned what was safe to eat from watching animals. This all went straight into his notebook.

Pitter-patter.

'Ah, the rain is still going,' Doppio noted when he looked up from his writing.

There was a rustle--Hitomi in her tent, stirring from a nap. It was just the two of them at the moment while Reigen was in town.

"Good morning," Doppio said lightly. It was early afternoon. "Are you hungry?"

Comments

[aoihitomi]

"Thanks. It smells good." Hitomi took a bowl, filled it with the soup, and settled back down. "You know, things were a lot easier when we were traveling by airship." She and Van had traveled on foot a little when she first arrived in Gaea, but it wasn't long before they took a carriage ride, and not long after that, they were on an airship.

[espresso_doppio]

“An airship…that still really sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, you know.” Doppio took a small bowl for himself so Hitomi wouldn’t be the only one eating. “Royalty and giant robots and everything else…doesn’t it get to be too much?”

[aoihitomi]

"It does, but it's not like I can give up." Maybe Hitomi could, but she wouldn't. "If I did, I wouldn't ever be able to go home."

[espresso_doppio]

“But it sounds like you’ve made friends in this world too, right?” People who she got separated from.

[aoihitomi]

"Yeah, and now you have Reigen-san and I." Hitomi smiled as she sipped at her soup.

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio blinked and then laughed, unsure of how to respond. He hadn't even been talking about himself or even about Reigen, but...

"Oh, well..." He trailed off, distracted by the realization he was blushing a little. "Sorry...I still can't really recall, but...I get the feeling I wasn't someone who traveled with others like this."

[aoihitomi]

"Before this, the only people I traveled with was my best friend and my family. And I never traveled as far as I do now." She and Yukari usually just traveled together to school and to matches. "My little brother is such a jerk that I always dread traveling as a family."

Still, Hitomi missed even him.

[espresso_doppio]

Whenever Hitomi talked about her friends or family (Reigen never really talked about his) Doppio tried to picture what they looked like. When he tried to picture her younger brother, he pictured a small boy, but he didn’t know if that was accurate.

Actually…now that he thought about it more..

“Hey, Hitomi…sorry if this is a rude question, but how old are you?”

[aoihitomi]

"Fifteen," she answered. "What about you?"

[espresso_doppio]

Out of all the things he couldn't recall, this was easily the most embarrassing because of how basic it was. Doppio made a face and hoped she wouldn't get frustrated with him over it.

"How old do I look?"

[aoihitomi]

Hitomi thought about it for a second.

"Maybe... sixteen?"

[espresso_doppio]

'Sixteen?' Hitomi seemed like she knew a lot of people, so she'd probably have a good sense of it, right?

'So...I must be a high schooler then.' What else would he be?

'Then what would I be studying?' Whatever sounded interesting, right? How did people choose these things?

'Would I have to repeat a year if I'm gone too long?' Nevermind a year, would he have to repeat EVERYTHING if he couldn't remember what he was studying at all?

"...Oh." Doppio laughed apologetically when he realized how long he was spacing out. He had enough sense to know that was rude. More than it being rude though, it was pointless to speculate too much. More than being curious about himself, he was still curious about his...travel-mates (what else could he call them?) They didn't have much downtime as they acclimated to the demands of traveling such a weird landscape.

"So...can you really see things?" Doppio gestured in a circle with his free hand. "The past and the future."

[aoihitomi]

"Let me see... how can I explain this." Hitomi had to explain this to Chid once already. If she could remember what she said before, it might help now. "When I do a reading, it's like I can see it. I guess sometimes I can see it without a reading, but I can't really control when that happens."

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio was still as he listened. His throat felt a little dry and he forced out a cough to clear it.

“Do you…think you could do a reading for me?”

[aoihitomi]

"Right now?"

[espresso_doppio]

“N-no, not right now!” It was raining after all—it would be pretty rude to make a girl do something for him in the rain right after she woke up.

“To be honest…I’m worried. It’s been a week and I remember hardly anything about myself…I don’t know if it means I’ll never get my memories back but…I’m worried about becoming a liability for you and Reigen.” They were good people, Doppio had concluded. They didn’t deserve that.

[aoihitomi]

Hitomi gazed down at the murky shadow of her frame on the soup's surface.

"What if you don't like what you find out?"

[espresso_doppio]

The question made the hair on the back of Doppio's neck prickle. He forced a bite of food down to soothe himself.

'How bad could it really be?' Worse than not knowing at all? That's what he told himself.

Before he could give an answer, his head turned at the sounds of wet footsteps making their way towards camp.

"Oh. W-welcome back." Doppio smiled at Reigen, but the smile faded when he saw the look on the older man's face. It wasn't a look he'd seen him with before. "Um...how'd it go? Are you hungry?"

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

Reigen set his backpack of goods into his tent carefully, taking out only one item--a rolled up scroll. It was lighter than he would have cared for. He had been on a roll with the hustling before...well...

"Huddle up," Reigen answered with a clap of his hands as he positioned himself in the center covered area where the food pot was still steaming. When the two kids dutifully scooted in, he began to unfurl it. He had been wondering how to do this the whole walk over but he decided there was no good way to do it other than doing it as quickly as possible since they were both upright and alert.

But he had not been looking forward to it.

"I'd like you both to look at this--calmly, please."

[espresso_doppio]

Doppio knew what huddle up meant--it was something they only did to address an urgent matter as a group. They had to use it a few times now, mostly for discussing low rations or for when they had to adjust course, but this this time--

"Um..." Doppio squinted and leaned in to look at the paper. He couldn't read the text (there was something he could make out as numbers in there) but the text wasn't the first thing that caught his attention. There was a drawing of a person right in the middle. "Isn't that...my face...?" He mused out loud. Out of everything he'd forgotten, his face wasn't one of them.

'Wait.'

The large text. The numbers. His face.

"Is that my face?" Doppio asked out loud, panic beginning to rise in his throat. "W-why is that my face??"

[aoihitomi]

Hitomi quickly clapped a hand over Doppio's mouth. "Shh, we don't want to draw attention to ourselves."

An uneasy feeling crept over Hitomi. She didn't feel like Doppio was a bad person, but...

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

"Bu-ffth fhat's afh fhanted poffter!" Doppio's voice was muffled against Hitomi's palm.

"Yeah, that's probably it. A wanted poster." Reigen confirmed. Really, no matter what world or era you found yourself in they all had an undeniable look to them. "I saw this one in the market...and after I saw probably a dozen more."

[aoihitomi]

Hitomi released her hand from Doppio's mouth.

"What are we going to do...?" That many wanted posters was definitely a bad sign. And it wasn't like Doppio could tell them why he was wanted so they could clear things up, either.

[espresso_doppio]

Sinking back, Doppio held his head tightly--the panic brought back an intense pain he hadn't felt since they formed their group in earnest. An intense wave of frustration overcame him--if his head was going to split open now, why couldn't it at least spill some answers out!?

"I really can't think of anything that would--!"

[mp_strikinglyblessed]

"Hey. It's okay. Deep breaths. Four square ones, remember?" Reigen raised his hands. This wasn't the first time they'd been through a breathing exercise together. "There's nothing we can do about this yet. Let's focus on what's in our locus of control first, alright?"

Whatever that was...Reigen was still figuring that piece out.