Fight or Flight

Flight or Fight

Notes:

After 4 months of having this song stuck in my head, I am finally free. Goodbye Conan Gray! x'D

🎵🎵🎵

Senku has been staring at his draft for almost three hours now, muscles unmoving. It had been a few months since the construction of the ship had begun in the territory that used to belong to Tsukasa's empire. There was a lot of work to be done, which meant that Senku would spend weeks away from Ishigami Village in order to supervise its construction.

"Have you talked to Gen lately?" Ukyo asked during one of his visits to the Village, he was still their chief after all.

"No? Did something happen?"

"No, just..." Senku raised an eyebrow at his sudden reluctance.

He would be lying if he said he hadn't noticed something was off with the mentalist.

Senku didn't know if he had done anything to provoke it, but lately he felt Gen wasn't looking at him the way he used to. In fact, he hardly ever did, almost as if he was avoiding him for some reason. Of course, as soon as he had noticed this, he began to take action against it, making calls more regularly and visiting the Village whenever he could.

Nothing seemed to work.

He didn't seem to be upset, but... Was it because he asked him to stay with Ukyo to teach at the Village? No, that had been Gen's suggestion. Create a small 'science academy', to call it some way, to teach the villagers how to write and instruct modern timers, as many were young people who haven't even finished high school (courtesy of Tsukasa , of course ).

"He's been spending a lot of time with... someone from the former empire lately."

"Like you?" He didn't see the problem with that, considering that it would be best to promote their integration with the Kingdom of Science. If there was anyone who was capable of accomplishing that, it was definitely the mentalist.

Ukyo seemed to want to add something else, but something stopped him. Instead of an answer, Ukyo improvised an excuse to leave.

***

"Yeah, and then the big oaf thought he could put up the mast himself," he told Gen during his call.

Now that the two kingdoms had joined, the next logical step had been to establish communication towers between them. Something extremely necessary since Senku obviously couldn't be in two places at the same time and there was a limit to how often he could visit Ishigami Village. It wasn't a particularly long journey, but it took its time and that was something they couldn't spare right now. They didn't know how long Tsukasa could safely hold out. A failure in the refrigerator and it would be a definite game over for him.

He tried not to think about it too much.

"That sounds like something Taiju-chan would do," Gen admitted with a light laugh. Senku was about to add something else when: "Ah, I'm sorry, Senku-chan, but I have to go."

"Oh yeah, I guess it's pretty late." It wasn't. At least, not compared to other nights.

He tried not to think of the times that, during his few visits to former Tsukasa territory, he had seen Gen sneak into the communications tower late at night. He had let it be, not thinking too much about it. Gen had his own obligations to the village to attend to. Surely it must be something like that.

However, he was not the only one who had noticed it and that added to the mysterious person with whom he was apparently meeting had given rise to certain rumors that, despite his best efforts, they were becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.