4A/N: Anyone who was around this time last year reading Black Trigger might remember me talking about Halloween one-shots or some sort. In the end, I only posted one story, but this year, it's my hope to post a one-shot every Monday in October, then one last one on Halloween itself. These will be based on random legends I find on the internet, so they might be a bit strange, but hey, it's new for me too. Sorry for any errors, OOCness, typos and overall crappy writing. I hope you guys like these, and if you know any good legends or stories you want to see incorporated, leaves a review :)
Kei Tachikawa had never been a morning person. He hated getting out of bed before 9am, and his preferable wake-up time was after 10. When he had been in school, he had been forced to wake up extremely early in the morning, and was glad to have finally escaped that fate after graduation. However, working for Border did not always guarantee him the late start in the morning that he wanted. There were some days that Tachikawa had to wake up as early as 7am at the latest in order to make it to a meeting on time. Those days were terrible, and Tachikawa was always cranky and tired until he was back in his bed.
When Tachikawa got a message from Kido on his way home from work on an early October night, the contented feeling he had gained from spending two hours chopping up Neighbors for Defense Duty disappeared in an instant.
'Meeting at 7:30 tomorrow morning. Don't be late again, or next time I'm sending Jin to make sure you wake up early enough to get here.'
Tachikawa cursed under his breath, eyes narrowing at the words on his phone as if that would somehow convey his annoyance to his boss. Not only had Kido dropped a 7:20am meeting bomb on him, the man had threatened him with Jin of all people. Jin was a good guy, of course, and Tachikawa knew that. He had singlehandedly avoided hundreds of deaths in the Second Invasion alone, even though the whole ordeal had left him visually drained and stressed. However, Jin could also be extremely annoying, and the last thing Tachikawa wanted to hear first thing in the morning was his rival calling him through his apartment door with that annoying, taunting, sing-songy voice, waking up all the people in the surrounding apartments as he did so. That fate had to be avoided at all costs, even if it meant the sacrifice of Tachikawa's day.
In the end, Tachikawa found himself forced awake the next morning by the annoying buzzer alarm on his phone. His eyes were heavy and they burned when he tried to open them, which left the poor Attacker to helplessly paw at the mattress next to him in search of the offending device. Once he finally found it, he slapped at the screen until the alarm silenced, then burrowed deeper into his blankets.
Tachikawa had only a few seconds of blissful comfort until his eyes suddenly flew open at the returning memory of Kido's message. Jin. Hell no. To risk falling back asleep and missing the meeting would only make things worse later on.
Surrendering to his terrible fate, Tachikawa groaned and rolled over in bed, slowly kicking his blankets off, only to suddenly yank them back on. His apartment was freezing. Since when had mornings ever been so cold? The chill in the air encouraged Tachikawa to just go back to sleep, consequences be damned; though with a single thought of hearing "Tachikaaaaaaaaawa-saaaaaan?" from outside his apartment door at 7am, the young man was springing out of bed.
Quicker than he ever had before, Tachikawa pulled his warmest slacks from the wardrobe in the corner, along with a t-shirt and some boxers, and changed out of his pajamas. He then picked up a thick gray sweater from the floor and yanked it on, zipping it up all the way. The Border agent also found a pair of fuzzy socks that he always told people he didn't own, since fuzzy socks were girly, and pulled them over his ice-cold feet.
Finally beginning to warm up, Tachikawa checked the time; it was 7:05. He needed to be out the door in the next five minutes to avoid being late. With that in mind, Tachikawa headed for the kitchen, where he grabbed a bagel from a bag in the cupboard and stuffed it in the toaster. While he waited for his breakfast to heat up, he searched around for a scarf and his shoes, finding the latter by the door and the former in his closet. He wrapped his scarf around his neck, and was in the process of tugging on his shoes when the toaster launched his bagel into the air. After he finished pulling on his shoes, he grabbed his bagel, which had fallen onto the the counter, stuffed it into his mouth, picked up his wallet, Trigger and keys, then headed out.
The air outside was even colder than it had been inside, leaving Tachikawa to shrink into his clothes like a turtle would his shell in an attempt to stay warm. His eyes were still a bit heavy, and his body was still tired, despite the cold air that bit at the exposed hand that held his bagel. He needed something warm and caffeinated, and the coffee shop on his way to Border was just the thing. It wasn't busy, due to the time, and Tachikawa was in an out in just a minute with a warm coffee in hand. He wasn't really a coffee guy, but sometimes the gross drink was needed, and the taste could at least be remedied with lots of creamer and milk.
With a scalding coffee in one hand and a toasted bagel in the other, Tachikawa was finally able to feel his fingers. The caffeine from his drink was also starting to wake him up, at least enough that he'd be able to somewhat pay attention during the meeting he was headed to. On the other hand, he wasn't quite conscious enough to see the cat that darted out in front of him, at least not until he stepped on the small creature's tail, earning an angry, pained scream.
"Oh shit!" Tachikawa hissed, jumping backwards in surprise. He looked down at the snow-white cat in front of him, which was crouched down with it's ears flattened against its head. The cat stared him down, then hissed at him for good measure, before it stalked off into an alley. Tachikawa watched the cat leave as his adrenaline rush fainted, leaving him even more exhausted than before.
With a sigh, Tachikawa sipped his coffee again, then continued his walk to HQ. He didn't make it very far, though, before his foot caught on a large crack in the sidewalk, sending him to the pavement face-first. Reflexes saved his coffee and bagel, but his cheek earned a small scrape, and some of his coffee had spilled into his hair. It wasn't enough to be visibly noticeable, but Tachikawa could already smell the faint aroma of coffee coming from his hair, even in the autumn wind that messed up his untamed mane even further. It caused him to curse as he pushed himself to his feet and continued his walk.
Just a few minutes later, Tachikawa rounded a corner, only to run directly into a jogger.
"Oh! Dude, I'm so sorry!" the jogger said with a surprised and worried tone as he recovered from the impact. The jogger had stayed on his feet, but Tachikawa had hit the ground. In his tired state, he was unable to react quick enough to balance himself. The jogger offered Tachikawa a hand, which Tachikawa stared at for a second before accepting with the free hand that had previously held his bagel before his fall. The jogger apologized again, then once more when they saw the scrape Tachikawa had gotten in his earlier fall, thinking he had just received it.
"I got that earlier. I'm fine," Tachikawa assured as he sent the person on their way. It was nice to see that some people still had manners, so Tachikawa put on a nice front for the jogger, even though he was not at all okay. He waited until the jogger was far down the street before he allowed himself to sigh deeply and looked longingly down at the half-eaten bagel that had been knocked out of his hand in the collision. His stomach rumbled sadly at its loss of food, but there was no time to stop for anything to nibble on. With yet another sigh, Tachikawa kept walking.
-000-
When the entrance to HQ came into view, Tachikawa felt relieved. HQ was at least a comfortable temperature, and even though that wouldn't solve the problem of his facial damage, coffee hair, and lost bagel, it was still a small victory. However, Tachikawa's misfortune was not over yet, because somehow, a manhole cover in the middle of the path to the door hand not been replaced correctly, and was sticking up. Tachikawa had his face in his scarf to warm his numb cheeks, so he missed this detail, and was sent face-first into the pavement for the third time that morning when his foot caught on the heavy lid, gaining another scrape on his forehead. He also lost his coffee, which slipped out of his hand and splashed onto the pavement. With a groan, Tachikawa pushed himself to his feet once again, and forced his legs to move again as he headed for the main entrance to HQ in the Forbidden Zone. He didn't feel like getting stuck in an elevator that day by chancing any entrance other than the direct one. The young man was so tired that he couldn't even bring himself to care about his lost coffee. With the choice he had made, he was sure he'd be okay for the rest of his trip. What else could possibly go wrong?
As it turned out, many things could still go wrong, and one of them was Neighbors. The Gate pretty much spawned on top of Tachikawa, causing him to growl in frustration. He was absolutely done with the day already, and he hadn't even been awake for half an hour yet. Even the usually-exciting thought of fighting a Neighbor filled him with nothing but annoyance. The agent spun around to face the Gate and activated his Trigger. When a Bamster walked out of the inky black portal, Tachikawa was already attacking.
"DAMMIT ALREADY!" he yelled as he sliced easily through the Trion Soldier. He let gravity pull him back to the ground, and he had already deactivated his Trigger and was walking toward HQ with his hands shoved into his pockets by the time all of the Bamster's pieces had hit the ground.
Tachikawa ignored the stares as he stalked through HQ, and he sent Kido a glare as he walked into the nearly-full meeting room with a minute to spare looking worse than Miwa on a bad day. The young man dropped down into a chair next to Jin with what was probably his tenth sigh of the day, as his exhaustion caught up to him once and for all, while his stomach rumbled to protest its discontentment. Tachikawa let his eyes slip shut for just a second of rest, then opened them back up when he heard the crinkle of a bag in front of his face. He looked to his right to see Jin holding out an unopened pouch of rice crackers.
"You look like you've had a rough morning," the brunette stated simply as his rival grabbed the food from his hand. Tachikawa ripped open the bag and shoved a cracker in his mouth as he spoke.
"All started with that stupid cat," he mumbled. Jin winced.
"You didn't see a white cat, did you? It's October. Bad luck, Tachikawa-san," Jin pointed out, before he turned to fix his wise blue eyes on Kido as the meeting began. Tachikawa only sighed quietly and ate another cracker. Bad luck of not, he had a new hatred for cats, as well as a bone to pick with Jin, who had probably foreseen what would happen with his stupid Side Effect. Damn, foresight would have been useful to have when he'd woken up that morning.
By the time the meeting reached it's end, Tachikawa's mind had too. He rose from his chair with everyone else, then booked it to his squad's room, where he promptly passed out on the couch, muttering about how he should have just stayed home. He just hoped his bad luck would end in time for him to go home, because if he kissed the pavement one more time, it wouldn't be Neighbors that Border would have to deal with. It would be him destroying Mikado City.