A New Normal [A Dragon Maid Story]

A Change Of Pace

Life isn't great, and that's what makes it great. No grand purpose to dedicate your life to. No important duty on which the world relies. All you're expected to do is to wake up, get your ass to some office and contribute very little to a random company's output. Don't like it? Well this guy sure does, this man is all about having the same day over and over again.

Which is why he feels rather unsettled by the current situation.  Hutch is able to sense a dangerous evil, and while this ability hasn't served him in the last three years, it has awakened on this fine winter morning. Whatever that presence was, it meant danger, and he was the only one able to stop it.

Hutch cursed himself for that passing thought. However true this is, he would have never expected that he had to go back to his heroic roots, those he discarded three years ago, in favor of the peaceful life he currently has.

It's not like he can help it anyway. And that presence is particularly nasty. He can just tell that it will be difficult even for him. And there's also this fear plaguing him. Not fearing for his life in a literal sense, but rather fear for his life changing.

While these thoughts were spreading in his head, he was already in a dark alley, changed in his magical armor. Curse his unyielding willingness to help! Once he fully equipped himself, he jumped to the sky and flew into his target to strike it down.

Or at least that's how it was supposed to go in his head. Whatever it was, it was fast enough to dodge despite it's size. Hutch gazed at the evil being's general direction and stared it down... as much as two invisible beings can stare each other down.

"State your business, fiend!" Hutch shouted at whatever beast was flying around.

"I return the statement. Have you come to finish me off, Hero!?" The large creature replied. The nature of which can be broken down to either a God, or a dragon, due to this booming voice commanding respect.

"I know not of what you are talking about. All I know is that you are evil, and I must strike you do-.

A third voice emerged from behind the beast.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm running late and it would be really nice if you didn't try to kill us."

This voice startled Hutch, this voice was familiar. In fact, it may be the voice he was most acquainted with. Even more so than his own parents'.

With that in mind, he summoned an energy bow and shot an arrow in a fraction of a second. The foe, while surprised, still managed to dodge the lightning fast projectile, which turned out to be a decoy as Hutch teleported from the moving arrow on top of the creature's back. From there he feels his way around the area and gets close to what he assumed to be a human shape.

"Yup, it is indeed Kobayashi."

That person, who was now identified as Kobayashi, pushed away the hands that were examining her.

"Was it really necessary to touch my face, Hutch?"

"Well blame the person who made you invisible."

"Yeah, it's only morning and it's been the most eventful day of my life. I'm on the back of a dragon, if you didn't notice!"

"And it would be great for you to get off!"

Hutch promptly ignored the dragon complaining about who gets to be on her body and just leaned on her neck.

"About that, what are you doing on the back of a dragon? This girl's a bit rowdy, but I don't remember her kidnapping random women."

"Oh yeah, it's because I wa..."

She holds a pause as the realization hits her. She then raises her voice in a panic. "We have no time for this!!! We're running late for work!!!"

"Oh shit!!!" Hutch catches her worry and in his rush grabbed Kobayashi in his arm and flew away, leaving the dragon utterly confused and lost.

In a matter of minutes, the way to the office was cleared and Hutch put Kobayashi down before dispelling his perception blocker and rummaging through a pocket dimension he just opened.

"Well, your arms are more confortable than Tohru's back, but I'm still in massive pain." She complains, pretty much ignoring that her friend is donning a set of armor and that wormhole opening up at his whim.

"You have back problems? I've learned how to deal with it if you need me." Hutch offers, still looking for what he needs in this pocket dimension.

"Aren't you tired of touching my body you weirdo?" She retorts ironically, expecting to get a rise from the big guy.

"What can I say? You're so soft, I'm basically addicted." Hutch played along, earning a playful punch in the stomach from his co-worker as he found what he was looking for.

"Dumbass."

Hutch smiles at himself as he finally found what he was looking for. It was a large silver ring with some unknown inscriptions on it. "You might want to use that. To deal with your whole..." Hutch motions around, to where Kobayashi may or may not be. "...invisibility thing."

Kobayashi didn't question this gesture and simply put the ring on. It was big but eventually resized itself to fit neatly around her ring finger.

Hutch dispels his armor and enters the office, already dreading what was about to come.

"KOBAYASHI!!! ALDER!!! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING THIS LATE!?"

Yup, this is what he was afraid of. The manager was waiting for the two of them so he could scold them about their 10 minutes delay. Being shouted at so early in the morning is already pretty bad.

Now consider this, the manager is a notorious misogynist, and Kobayashi is his favorite stress relief toy, fact which is made even more obvious by the joy he took lecturing her.

Normally, this is the part where Hutch does something to get back at the manager some way, through violence, a cunning plan or straight up harassment, but the last thing he needs is more useless trouble on his friend, and so he grits his teeth, and helps her apologize.

"We're very sorry!"

"APOLOGIES WON'T CUT IT!? YOU LOST THE COMPANY SOME VALUABLE TIME AND I EXPECT YOU REPAY IT!?"

All in all, it probably could have been a lot worse, and the two co-workers managed to make it out of it only slightly more overworked than usual. Before Hutch could fully settle, he grabbed some of Kobayashi's workload.

"Hey hey hey hey hey! What do you think you're doing? Don't you have enough to do on your own?" Kobayashi unsurprisingly caught him dead in his tracks and questioned his intentions.

"It's technically my fault you got late. I'm just making it up to you." Hutch bluntly responded.

"How many times do I have to say this? We're friends, there's none of that stuff between us." Kobayashi kindly smiled and extended her hand to recover the stolen burden.

"Then try and take it from me. If you want to get back home a little later." Hutch smiled, running off two desks away with the stolen goods.

"You win this time." Kobayashi gives up, and the rest of the day goes smoothly.

At the end of it all, nothing changed between Kobayashi and Hutch, to the relief of the two of them, who didn't lose their friendship over whatever the hell happened this morning. But the more things stay the same, the more they change, and that ring on Kobayashi's finger may mean more than meets the eye.

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Is this how it feels to not just write shit and hit a button? Cause I rewrote this chapter at least 3 times, which is 3 more times than anything I've ever done.

Did you know I have a book where I tell people how to write? And I don't have a book where I actually write? And so I'm fixing this mistake, by releasing my most advanced draft.