Love is Blind: a Jouno and Tetchou story

What day is it?

As soon as Jouno woke up, he knew there was something he was forgetting. Some pressing, urgently pushing against the layers of his mind that he'd known the night before, and not now. This was bad. Jouno was a member of the hunting dogs. He couldn't afford to be off his game. His beeping alarm clock reminded him he didn't have any time to figure it out. With an amused smirk, he walked over to his closet to pick the outfit of today.

There were many things about Teruko that annoyed Jouno. For one thing, she was one of those people who upon discovering Jouno was blind, thought it was her personal mission in life to describe what everything looked like. She also found all sorts of assistive technology that Jouno didn't need. If he wanted something like that, he'd make it himself, and it would be way more covert than what she came up with.

Recently, Teruko had downloaded an app on Jouno phone, where if he took a picture, it would tell him what it was. She'd suggested it could help him pick his outfits, which Jouno wasn't sure was her trying to be helpful, or telling him she didn't like his style. Before the app, Jouno had no problem selecting what he wore. Now, with the app, Jouno went out of his way to find clothes that would annoy Teruko.

Today's outfit was a multi-colored plaid shirt, purple ripped jeans, and a pair of light up high tops that Tetchou  had found at a garage sale somewhere. Perfect. He'd make a big deal of complimenting Teruko every morning about how her app had truly allowed him to express his taste in clothing. He could tell from Tetchou's reactions that the look on Teruko's face was something else. Ah, annoying his teammates. The joys of life.

However, there was something wrong today. When Jouno found his way downstairs, no one was there. If they were pulling some kind of surprise party, they were a few months early. Deciding there was nothing to be done about everyone else's absence, Jouno made breakfast, pulled out his book, and started reading. He loved this one. The ink was done in a particular way, meaning Jouno could feel the different textures on the paper, and discover where the words were that way. Nobody could tell he wasn't reading in your typical manner unless they knew what they were looking at.

Jouno started to get suspicious when half an hour passed. He knew his boss was away for a few days. That was fine. There were still three other people unaccounted for. He could imagine Tetchou sleeping until noon on a weekend. That made sense. Tachihara? Nope. He had a job to do. Even if he wasn't around base most days, he should totally have been there today. And there was no universe in which Jouno could imagine Teruko missing any part of her job.

Jouno pulled out his phone, and checked for any messages. He fired a quick "where r u?" Into the group chat. One of Teruko's oh so helpful apps was a text to speech converter on his texting, so whenever anyone sent him a message, it read it out loud. For everyone to hear. So helpful, Teruko. This could be managed with headphones, though, but that was counting on the fact that Jouno remembered them.

"Mwahahahaha." One of the other things about the texts being read was that the voice that read them was so robotic, it sounded creepy. Especially when trying to read Teruko's supervillain laughter. Jounodidn't know what was going on, but he knew it was something bad. Whenever Teruko was laughing, it was usually at someone else's expense. Most people would go to extreme lengths to avoid being that somebody. Teruko's sense of humor could be rather violent.

Tachihara and Tetchou remained silent. This was bad. Jouno held down the home button of his phone, and asked "what's the date today?" Maybe that would clear things up. There was something he was missing, something obvious. "February 14th." Came the robotic voice. Jouno let out a theatrical sigh of annoyance. It was Valentine's Day. There was no telling what Teruko had done. "I have so much in store for you two." Came a robotic text from Teruko. Jouno held his head in his hands. That was what Jouno was afraid of. 

Author's note: as someone who is blind, Jouno has totally always been my favourite blind character. After rewatching season 4 of Bungo, I decided to write what would happen when he goes on his first date. I hope I've done the Blind King justice.