standalonehuman | Recolle IC Inbox

Um... Earlier today I opened a package I got from Retrospec and it contained this notebook, and it turned into a rifle.

Although he is not drinking anything, the first sound Togusa makes in response to that is a startled choking noise. "A gun?" Pitching his voice down. "Retrospec sent you a gun? In the mail?" Let's start there, and then approach the 'notebook' part of that.

[ Koutarou nods, even though Togusa can't see it. ]

Yes... Sort of...

[ It wasn't a gun when it was delivered, but turned into one after it was unpacked. ]

"Sort of," Togusa repeats. He runs a hand over his face. "All right. You know what? I'm coming to you. You're going to have to show this thing to me." He is already grabbing his jacket.

"On the plus side, you said it was a rifle? That's- easier to get registered up than a handgun." Oh man, this is not okay if Retrospec just dragged a guy as peaceful as Koutarou into whatever game it is they're playing with the weapons.

"Yeah.. Ah, okay. I'm at home." He didn't want to take the thing out of his apartment, even after managing to figure out how to make it change its shape back to being a notebook, and practiced just a little so it didn't change on accident again (even if he still got a little startled every time it changed shape).

"I didn't know that. I suppose that's good, at least... Even if owning a weapon never was a goal of mine." Chuuya might think it's unfair that Koutarou got a gun while he got a knife, or something like that, but Koutarou is pretty different from his cousin that way. Weapons are not cool.

"Yeah, this whole thing has made me go back and get a huge crash course in weapons laws in this country," Togusa mutters unhappily. "Hang on, I'll be there soon."

It's not a hard excuse to rush out and check on a situation, because, frankly, he is. He really doesn't want to get his best friend charged with a felony, so he grabs some of his recent notes from his review of the laws he'll need.

Togusa is breathless when he knocks on the atelier door. "All right... Let's take this from the top."

"It's become useful to know, huh.." Particularly for the people in law enforcement, he supposes. "Yeah, I'll see you soon."

He opens the door and moves to the side to let him into the hallway, which is just as neatly arranged as the rest of the apartment (except for the sketchbooks and pencils and erasers readily available in case of inspiration striking). There are plenty of paintings and photographs on the walls, nicely arranged, and in the living room corner the portrait of his mother that stands on the little home shrine is angled toward the window as usual.

"You didn't have to run or anything...." But that was his choice. "So," He closes the door after Togusa has come inside. "I got a package a week ago or so, but I forgot about it until I came back here earlier today. When I opened it, it was a notebook but when I looked through it, it changed into a rifle."

The rifle in question is in notebook form now, on top of the kitchen table. Nothing weird happened to the clothes so he put those in the closet. But the notebook is absent of any writing, and the cover is dark purple with a hot pink stripe toward the top.

Togusa steps inside, and it's just automatic for him to leave his shoes at the door before padding in. He's always liked it here, hasn't spent much time here as of late. Hmm, needs to change that.

But, rather than his usual mode of looking around at everything that Koutarou is working on, he is drawn right to the point. He walks over towards the notebook, and looks at it dubiously, turning his head one way and the other to look at it from all angles, but he doesn't touch it. His mouth forms a line, and he scratches at the back of his head. "I completely believe you. But-"

And every ounce of confusion and emphasis that he can put comes out in this word: "How?" He holds his hands out helplessly. Because this is so far beyond Togusa's understanding of the way the world works.

"It's weird, isn't it? It really startled me when it happened before."

He pulls one of the curtains in front of the window just in case. "I don't know how it works but, it just does." And he reaches out, awkwardly picking up the notebook and takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to make it change, but he thinks it would be good if Togusa saw it. So he lets his concentration flow into the cover and papers, until it changes form in his hand. He sighs in relief when it does as it changes as it should, but his grip on the handle is tight and nervous. "I don't know why either, but when I talked to Chuuya about it earlier, I remembered? having used it before, though reluctantly."

Togusa jumps when it changes, just as promised, and he stares at the gun for a long moment, like he's trying to see how a magic trick was done. Nope. That just happened. And his friend is now holding a (still slightly purple?) rifle. Togusa looks between Koutarou and the gun a few times, trying to wrap his head around this all. As strange as that just was, the sight of Koutarou with a gun is just as strange, feels just as wrong.

"You weren't kidding."

That feels so inadequate to the situation, but it is taking Togusa a minute to catch up to this. "You're- You remember using it?" Maybe the memory is more important than the rifle's origins. We can get back to that. Togusa takes one last glance at it, and then focuses on Koutarou again.

Of course I wasn't kidding is nothing that he says, because he never thought that Togusa thought he was kidding.

"I do..." He puts down the rifle on the table. Even if he remembers being able to use it effortlessly, he is far from comfortable with it right now. If Togusa wants to take a closer look on it though, he's free to. "It was only a very brief memory, and I couldn't see who or what I was fighting." The thought of it though... He doesn't want to fight anyone.

Koutarou's discomfort is obvious, and Togusa is trying to get a lid on his own unease. His friend, well, his friend was almost a fighter, if his father had his way. And he didn't want that life. So anything that drags him back in that direction makes Togusa a little protective of Koutarou.

Togusa snatches up one of the rags that Koutarou keeps around for cleaning before he picks up the gun. Force of habit to not touch it directly and put his prints on the weapon. The first thing he does is flip the gun over and lifts it to examine the underside of the barrel very closely. What he finds, or doesn't find, brings a sharp frown to his face.

"No serial number. Not that something like this could probably be registered anyway." Not again. "But it's old." What on earth is the mechanism on this thing? He peers at the chamber carefully.

Togusa's brow is creased sharply as he puts the gun back down. "I don't want you to get in trouble. I'd have to look up the laws on it, but we could probably get you paperwork on this as a decommissioned antique." But now his friend is in the exact same mess that he's in. Togusa's cheek twitches, but he has to fight that down. Help Koutarou first, get angry later.

As Koutarou has not inspected it closely, he didn't know it didn't have a serial number. Not that he knows much about serial numbers on guns, like where to look or how they're given, or anything of the sort.

He knows though that Togusa knows far more about these sort of things than he ever will know, and he nods slowly. "You're the one who knows how the weapon laws might work... If that's what it would have to be registered as then I will do so, though I don't really know what papers one fill out..... Nor did I ever think I would need to know."

"You shouldn't have to know." The words come out before Togusa can stop them. The look on his face stays one of pure worry. "Why are they dragging you into this? To- give you something like that?" He breathes out a quick sigh.

"I can get you what you need. Just, call it an antique, claim it doesn't work anymore. Because, well, we'd be telling the truth about it. I can't imagine it would be fired." Not in Koutarou's hands. It's just too alien to what he knows of the man.

"Weapons laws are in place to protect people. Both the people who are unarmed, and the people who have weapons that they might not know how to use. This- it's not a danger. It's not to do with just keeping you from getting in trouble. Register it that way, and it'll all be okay." Now, is he saying that to Koutarou, or to himself?

Koutarou shakes his head. "I'm starting to wonder if they have a reason at all."

He makes sure to remember the details on what he's supposed to register it as. He probably won't remember all of the extra details but at least he can remember the important part. Mainly by imagining it in images. A small, grateful smile makes its way up on Koutarou's face as he tucks some hair behind an ear. "Thank you, Hitori." He's not sure the words are completely comforting, but that Togusa is trying matters.

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