HANDS OF TIME | rantaro kiyama

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 18 - ғᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ .༄

FEBRUARY 21, 2013
4:29 PM
Homework hour.  Skies are rainy.

       "IT'S STRANGE THAT I ONLY CALL YOU FUTURE Y/N."

       "Huh?"

       Y/N's head sat in her palm as her elbow held her up on her desk.  Her other hand twirled a mechanical pencil as she got on to the week's homework.  She was also on call with Future Y/N, the phone sitting on top of some books.  "I need a nickname for you, so it sounds more natural."

       "You don't need a nickname for me." The background noises on the other end consisted of five seconds...of water dripping(?), a small explosion, and a moment of silence before her voice resumed.  "...I'll be gone as soon as I resolve this situation from the past."

       "What're you making?" Y/N asked.  Her thumb pressed on the side of the black pencil, sending the front side up and down like a seesaw.  She wasn't really doing homework at the moment, but she was thinking about it.  It's all the same to her; still progress.

       "Nothing of your concern.  It won't affect you anyways."

       "Sheesh, why so cold?" Y/N "tsked", stretching her limbs to the heavens and earth before cracking her knuckles, now actually wanting to start on the schoolwork.  "You know everything about me.  What's there to be ashamed of?"

       "...I'm making a poison."

       "Poison—" Y/N's head jerks up. "What—why?"

       "To induce myself with."

       "But why—"

       "When I'm finished with the mission I had planned out years ago, I'm done with life. There's nothing else I want to do, nothing else for me here."

       There was the unwavering certainty in her voice that made Y/N gulp.

       "How stoic." Y/N managed a passable smile, chills still slithering down her spine like a rush of gelid wind. "Are you sure?"

       "Do you not know yourself? If you set your mind on something, you would do it and finish it. Or is that not your first thought anymore? I hear the complaints from you have died down a bit, did you perhaps change? Not a whole lot, but enough? Was it Rantaro?"

       "I think I'm fine." Future Y/N had a point, however. Present Y/N was ambivalent in her answer. Things that Future Y/N's thoughts and things used to just be something to shrug at for them, now she freezes up. What if Y/N has changed over the few months? Could it be the influence of Honcho?

       "Yeah..." Their voice had a raspy to it, similar to scraping of a metal fork onto a bare plate.  It sends your head slamming straight into a wall.

       "So about the nickname thing," Y/N continued on about the topic.  "Since you call me Y/N and I call you Future Y/N, I can't exactly also call you Y/N."

       "You can though."

       "It'll get intricate."

       "Not for me."

       Y/N rolled her eyes at that statement.

       "But adding on," Y/N twiddled with the cap of a pen she found laying on her desk using her index and thumb. No pen part, just cap. "I figured why not call you Future, y'know, a shortened version of the mouthful-to-say Future Y/N."

       Honcho has really rubbed off on me.

       "I don't care." What sounded like the black desk chair with wheels thumping across a planked floor rolled through to her. "Whatever's good for you I guess."

       Y/N dropped the cap, the clacking once it made contact with the table caused her to cringe from her own actions. "I almost forgot, why are you messaging me from the future? I've asked you about a dozen times, but you always dodge the subject like the plague.  It won't kill you to tell me why."

       "You can't be certain about that." Future said. Y/N shrugged her off.

       "So will you tell me?" she asked again. The penless cap's pen was then spotted on the floor, rolling further underneath the desk. Y/N bent down from her swivel chair to retrieve the pen.

       "No." Her response was firm.

       "Why?"

       "I don't owe you an explanation."

       "I want one though."

       Future doesn't reply.  A moving figure caught Y/N's attention from the corner of her eye.

       It was a man(?) in a brown trench coat.  They wore a black, baker boy cap that sent raindrops sliding effortlessly off.  They were fixated on the concrete foundation with long strides and heavy steps.  The figure soon disappeared from her line of view as they descended farther and farther into the abounding pours mixed with the coming night.

       "I've got to go.  Bye, Y/N." Y/N's focus snapped back to her homework. 

       "See you, Future." she replied.  Her hands were sweaty.  The person passing in the rain had an ominous aura to them.  Goosebumps painted her skin.

       Future hung up.

       'Come to think of it...that reminds me of the dead-looking person I ran into at the candy shop.' Y/N squinted her eyes, tapping her pencil against the graph paper.  'I wonder if he ate all those strawberry lollipops.  I mean, he did purchase the shop's entire stock.'

       Her thoughts then drift to Honcho.

       Honcho.

       Honcho.

       'What happens in the future that is so bad that Future would spend her life trying to fix it?'

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