i o u. -ishimondo story

chapter one • first day on the job.

Bright and early in the morning, Kiyotaka had gotten ready to shadow his father at a police station.

It's not that he wanted to be an officer. A couple days ago, he and Takaaki had a conversation that left Kiyotaka interested in what his father does for work in the first place. That following weekend, Takaaki offered to have him work there.

Unlike other students in his school, he never had plans over the weekend. He finished his studying over the weekdays and there wasn't anything to do. So he accepted the request.

Bringing us to the current story.

Kiyotaka POV

I took a deep breath before walking into the building with my father. This is the second day I've worked with him at the station.

Its...different than I expected. I wouldn't say it is in a bad way however.

It's better than sitting around at home. I thought.

My father—well I have to call him Officer Ishimaru while here—was already on a call. He pat my head before walking off, and I went to the front desk to sign in. The person at the front desk was on the phone too.

I don't want to bother them...should I just wait?
I turned to sit somewhere and wait until they spoke up.

"You're Officer Ishimaru's son, right?"

I nodded. "Yes. My name's Kiyotaka."

They held their hand over the desk and I gave them a handshake. Their hair was brown and fluffy, they had grey glasses.

"Wonderful to meet you! I'm Fujisaki, but feel free to call me Taichi."

Fujisaki? I recognize that name.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Taichi!"

Taichi picked up a clipboard and handed it to me. "You can sign in here. You're shadowing, right?"

"Yes, is there anything I can help with right now?"

He pointed to the wall behind him. "A couple rooms down, my child's organizing files if you'd like to help with that."

"Okay! I'll do that. Thank you." I signed in on the paper, and walked to find the filing room.

This is a lot different than yesterday, Takaaki mostly just showed me what he did. I guess he's busy today though, so I'll figure it out on my own today.

I walked past a room where a couple officers were eating doughnuts and talking. In another room, a woman was sitting by the phones. I'm guessing that's where the first calls to the police go.

The sound of papers printing led me towards a room with a smaller person with brown hair sitting by a printer and a stack of papers. They smiled at me and waved.

They look a lot like Taichi, this is definitely his child.

"Hi! You're Kiyotaka right?"

The fact that they already knew my name startled me. "Yes. How'd you know?"

"You look a lot like Officer Ishimaru, and he talks about you a lot so it's kind of difficult to not know your name."

I crossed my arms kinda embarrassed. "He talks about me that much?"

They laughed a bit. "Yeah. No need to be embarrassed though, it makes him happy." Then they pulled up a chair next to them.

"That's good to know I suppose." I sighed and sat next to them. "And you're Fujisaki?"

"Yep! Call me Chihiro, though."

"Okay. Anything I can help with, Chihiro?"

They pointed to the box of files. "My da-I mean Taichi wanted these filed out in alphabetical order. There's a lot though."

Without further instruction, I took a stack of papers and began to sort through them.

"You didn't need to take the entire stack."

"I'd just like to help."

Chihiro sighed. "Yep. You're definitely related to Officer Ishimaru."

(10 minute timeskip)

It was a quiet ten minutes, with just the noise of printers and talking in the distance.

I should start a conversation...

"Umm...what made you wanna work here?"

"Hmm?" Chihiro looked up at me.

I repeated the question, but continued to file the papers in front of me. "What made you wanna work here?"

"Oh, I'm not working here. I'm just volunteering while da-Taichi's busy." They mumbled something afterwards.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that last part."

"I'm not interested in working with that kind of system, I guess. They make me nervous."

"Cops do?"

"Yes." They nodded.

I've heard a lot of people are nervous around them...I guess I'm not since I've grown up with one...

"Oh. So what do you want to do?"

Chihiro stopped filing the papers for a second. "Computer programmer. Well, more of coding. Or just working with computers in general."

"Like coding video games?"

They nodded. "Yes, but not just video games. Just coding, I guess."

"That sounds fun! Have you coded before?"

Chihiro's face beamed and they suddenly lit up.  "Yeah! It's a hobby at the moment. Well, my Ultimate actually. And I want to code in a way that can help people!"

Ultimate? Wait, then-

"Chihiro, do you go to Hopes Peak Academy?"

"Yeah! Do you?"

"Yes!"

"That's amazing!" Chihiro smiled. "I guess we're just in different classes, maybe that's why I haven't seen you around."

I laughed nervously. "Yeah..."

"Do you wanna eat lunch together next week?"

I paused, a little shocked. Is this what making friends is like?

"Yes, that would be great!"

Chihiro jumped up and hugged me. "Yay!"

I hugged them back.
Maybe this whole shadowing thing won't be all that boring.

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(907 words. Sorry I have no idea how police stations work so just go along with this :') )
Also I made this a month ago so it's trashy apologies)