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31. There's Truth, and Then There's This

Rule 41: Tidy room, tidy life, tidy mind.

Yoshi Kai was having a very strange day and, as everyone knew, there was a point where people drew a line, a person could only take so much before giving in. Yoshi Kai had just reached that point.

After somehow getting involved in a short-lived villain hostage situation where all the villain seemed to want was a paddling pool full of plastic balls and a clown servant, having somebody mix up his food order so he got pickled eggs with cucumber and yam instead of cheese and finally, having the three new people at his work call him three incorrect iterations of his very simple name, it was pretty understandable that he almost ignored the person failing rather amusingly to climb the fire escape in an alley just off the main street. He was only walking home to avoid the noise and awful social requirements of taking the bus with a painfully large group of his coworkers.

Sadly though, as he began to walk right past that alleyway, Yoshi Kai realised he was truly too good for this cruel world.

"Good grief," he groaned under his breath, turning into the dark alley rather than away from it like any sane person would do. He cleared his throat and almost choked on laughter at the expression on the young person's face. It was an exact replica of a child with their hand in the cookie jar. If the child was a grown man with some rather impressive facial scars. Yoshi Kai forced his eyes to stay on theirs to avoid accidentally scarring. He didn't want to offend them. "You alright, son?"

Keeping their head low and to one side, they scratched the back of their head— damn, guess Yoshi hadn't quite managed to stop staring in time. A clang drew their attention up to the ladder they'd been hanging from a moment ago. With a whimper, they were forced to watch as it rose out of their reach once more.

"Yeah," they said with a sigh, "it's just my little sister locked me out," they explained with a tired chuckle, looking up to one of the windows along the side of the building and brushing a bit of dirt off their leg. "She's done it before and she always leaves the window unlocked so all I have to do is get up the fire escape. Except I have zero upper-body strength and can't get up the ladder."

Yoshi laughed, as bad and as cruel as it was, that story had probably just made his day. He was glad he'd come into the alleyway. "Alright, son, why don't I give you a hand?" Any other man might have thought the stranger was lying, but Yoshi had kids, and he'd watched his fair share of lockout situations unfold between his children. He'd still make sure this guy and his sister were ok before leaving, of course, in case this was all a lie and actually trying to break into one of the apartments.

And so, through some complex dumpster-leaping and shoulder-spring-boarding, both Yoshi and— "I'm TT, by the way."

"Yoshi, he/him. What are your pronouns? If you don't mind me asking."

"He/him too."

— TT made it up onto the fire escape, then, with TT having made it up first, the window was already wide open before Yoshi managed to shimmy on up there.

The two of them climbed into a plain room, the only decoration being a few pastel-coloured autograph books lined up on a desk to the right. Aside from that, it would be pretty easy to think nobody stayed here, the bed was neatly made and the rest of the space was similarly pristine.

TT strode straight through the room, glancing for a quick second at the autograph books with a faint smile. He looked left before heading into a larger space to his right with Yoshi trailing a little awkwardly behind him. It wasn't exactly a normal experience for Yoshi to enter another person's house with little to no invitation.

"Otsuka, I got back in, pest. A locked door isn't going to keep your big brother out."

A redheaded girl, Otsuka, was sat on the sofa, hair cascading over the sofa back in frizzy puffs. Yoshi had never been more glad all his children had straight hair, the idea of combing through all that made him shudder.