Archive of Our Own ^beta

Shinji was arguing with Ren, trying to get him to reduce his debt instead of increasing it, when something made him stop in his tracks. Ren stopped too, looking paler than Shinji was used to seeing him. They glanced at each other, then towards the direction of the sound. 

Shinji’s heart nearly stopped. Not one, not two, but three dogs were headed right towards them. 

He wasn’t even aware that he had started running, just that all of a sudden he was in a tree and Ren was right next to him. 

“Down, down, you three!” 

A middle-aged-ish man was scolding the dogs, picking up their leashes and trying to rein them in. 

“Are you three alright?” 

Now, Shinji was aware he wasn’t the brightest, but he was pretty sure there were only two of them in the tree. 

“No! You have damn dogs!”

Shinji nearly fell out of the tree, finding some sort of…red guy above him. He had seen a flash of red as he was running, but was too busy trying to get away from the dogs to think about it. 

“Who are you?” Ren demanded. He was busy holding onto the trunk, and if Shinji wasn’t in the same boat (well, tree, technically), he’d make fun of him. 

“Momotaros! Ryoutarou was invited to see his friend Wataru! No one said there’d be dogs!” 

All three of them looked down and shuddered at the dogs. They were sitting now, panting, but Shinji had seen them before they had been scolded. They had been at the base of the tree, barking, probably intent on eating him. He tried to remember if what he had eaten for breakfast would make him taste delicious or not. Hopefully not. 

The man looked at the three of them in the tree, then at his dogs. 

“They won’t hurt you, you guys can come down.” 

Shinji shook his head so fast he nearly got dizzy. He wasn’t going down there, with those dogs that were wayyyyy too big. Big and yellow. 

“We’re good up here, DenLiner’s gonna come in a bit anyways,” Momotaros called down. 

Ren stayed quiet. Shinji thought he was trying to be tough, except that he was in the tree too, so it wasn’t really working. 

The man studied them a bit longer, then sighed. “Well, I feel bad, so if you guys want to stay here, I’ll bring you guys some coffee.” 

Shinji perked up at the mention of coffee, as did Momotaros. Ren just scowled, making Shinji nudge him. No need to be rude just because this man had dogs! 

The man brought the dogs away, who were clearly interested in meeting the three in the tree, so they didn’t go quietly. Shinji was pretty sure they were discussing who would taste the most delicious. Considering the Momotaros guy did smell like peaches, Shinji rather thought it’d be him, except it wasn’t nice to let the dogs eat Momotaros over him…

He was so lost in thought he hadn’t realized that Ren was now out of the tree. 

“Kido, they’re gone, get out of the damn tree.” 

“Oh.” 

Shinji carefully made his way down, except he slipped and would have fallen if it wasn’t for Ren grabbing him at the last second. Shinji grinned at him but Ren just grunted, crossing his arms as he watched Momotaros come down as well. 

Shinji stuck his tongue out at Ren, making Ren roll his eyes. 

“Mature, Kido.” 

Shinji was about to retort that Ren should be nicer to him when the man came back, a high school girl with him. He was holding two cups of coffee and she was holding one, actual cups, not take out ones. Shinji thought Auntie Sanako would be proud, even if it was coffee and not tea. 

“Here you go,” he said, carefully handing over a cup to Ren, then Shinji, while the high schooler gave her cup to the red guy. She didn't seem to be surprised at all to be giving coffee to a kaijin. Shinji had a deja vu moment of a red dragon, and cards, which was dislodged once he took a sip of the very good coffee. 

“You worked with Wataru, right?” the high schooler asked Momotaros. 

Shinji wondered if he should be taking notes for an article, or if Okubo would just laugh at his choice, considering the two of them were talking about time travel, the middle aged guy not looking very surprised. 

Once their cups were empty, they had thanked the man, who gave them a business card for a place called “mald’amour”, and told them to come over if they wished. Shinji dug out his business card as well, informing the man that he was a Kido too, making Ren snort. Shinji bared his teeth at him, which made the man hide a smile. After some nudging, Ren also gave the master of mald’amour an Atori business card. 

“You know, Wataru was afraid of everything, too, but he got over it,” the high schooler informed Shinji and Ren after watching the business card interaction. Shinji just kind of blinked at her. He couldn’t help that he was afraid of dogs! 

The girl shrugged. “Just a thought.” 

Ren crossed his arms and scowled. 

“Well, see you around,” she said cheerfully. The three of them watched the two leave, Momotaros muttering something about the DenLiner again. 

Shinji was going to ask about the DenLiner, but Ren started walking off, leaving Shinji to kind of bow awkwardly at the kaijin and run after him. 

“Ren!” 

Ren stopped and let Shinji catch up, for once, although he brought out the debt paper and wrote something on it by using Shinji’s back, making Shinji try to grab at it, only for Ren to laugh and hold it out of his reach. 

"Ren!”