The Motley Crew, Ch. 2

Part 1:

At 5 pm, after another vapid shift at the cafe, Flower Inokori marched through the door of her apartment, clutching a bag of groceries.

"No more dieting," Flower frowned in distaste, as she slammed the bag onto her kitchen table. "I'm never doing that again."

After emailing her manager about new songs and such, she was left with quite a small amount of work to do that day. A bag of chips cradled in her hand, and her legs sat akimbo. Encumbered by exhaustion from the past night's folly, Flower soon found herself taking a deep, placid nap, dreaming about serene landscapes and misty meadows. This was until she was awoken by a singular knock upon her door. Originally planning to ignore the frivolity of answering it, she tried to continue napping.

KNOCK KNOCK...knockKNOCKknockKNOCK!

This was evidently to no avail.

Flower, once again in quite adverse clothes to her usual stage appearance, opened the door to find herself glowering over a small boy, rather than an annoying landlord or door-to-door charlatan.

He was diminutive in stature, with a dark blue coat negligently buttoned, to go so far as to reveal the blank, starch-colored undershirt (this time, actually buttoned). His blond hair hung in shaggy points, showing his cherubic face through his thin bangs. He wore shorts, sandals, and a little white sailor hat.

But the first thing Flower noticed were the bandages adorning his limbs, and half his face.

"Woah," Flower's face was muddled with concern. "Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah!" The kid beamed. "I just get scrapes a lot! That one's from climbing a tree, that one's from trying to-"

He paused from showing his valiant battle scars.

"I'm supposed to give this to you!" He revealed Flower's phone, which sat in the palm of his hand.

"Oh my gosh, thank you!" Flower gratefully accepted the item, which she had been previously looking for that day. Then, she had an immediate epiphany to where it was.

"Do you know a certain guy? His name is..." Flower paused, having trouble remembering the name of the benevolent soul who saved her from her diet, the guy she had been writing that song with the night before. "Oh, Fukase!"

"Yeah, that he's SO cool! He lets me stay past my bedtime!"

Flower looked at the boy in confusion. "Does he babysit you?"

"No! Fukase says babysitting is stupid, and alpha males 'adopt'."

"Sounds like something he'd say-" Flower was about to proceed when the last bit of information struck her. "WAIT, YOU'RE HIS KID?!"

"I'm not a kid! I'm 10 years old! I'm a MAN!" he argued.

"Yeah, I'd be able to notice." Flower frowned.

"Anyways, Fukase says 'Tell Flower the Cereal Killer I said hi.' So, HI!"

"Will he mind if I come over?"

"Well, I'd guess Fukase would say 'Flower can come over, now, leave me alone, tiny.', so I shall lead the way!"

As the boy with no name started to heroically direct Flower, he accidentally went two doors down, before getting the gist that both addresses were next to each other. Sighing with the insipidity of such a trip, upon opening the door he immediately relapsed onto the couch in utter dismay.

"Well, look what the tide swept in," Fukase turned around from a chair he had been sitting in, which was likely the only clean thing in his eclectic room of oddities. "Did you get your phone?"

"Yeah," was the affirmative

Now that it had become day, and that Flower was significantly less of a tired, famished zombie, she noted a couple more details in Fukase's dress. As his coat was a tad unbuttoned, she could see he wore a mini-skirt, preceding a pair of sullied tights, and rather than donning his slippers, was slipped into blocky sneakers (both were untied). And looking at his face more closely in the light, he had various burn marks on the right side of his face, which looked like they were from quite a while ago.

"Oh! You're probably so confused right now!" Fukase alighted. "You don't even know who this child is! You're probably like 'Oh no, Fukase kidnapped a random British boy!', right?"

"Well-"

As the boy finally got up from his place on Fukase's messy couch to get something from the kitchen adjoining, the latter ruffled his hair.

"This pipsqueak is Oliver. Oliver, you should know who she is."

"I do!"

"Well, that settles it. Prelude over." Fukase clapped his hands.

"Wait," Flower interrupted. "How does this answer any of my 'questions'?"

"OH, yEaH. I adopted him after my stupid cousin Al died, that old flesh-bag. Oli had a brother, some singer who now resides in Sweden namedYohio, but the guy was too busy making edgy vampire songs to take care of the kid. So, LUCKY FOR HIM, I EXIST!"

"Dad wasn't stupid!" Oliver stuck out his tongue at the audacious narrator.

"Says you," Fukase scoffed, and was about to exclaim an entire 5th-grade-level essay-esque statement at Oliver's understanding to combat his remark when he was interrupted by the guest of honor.

"So, where was Oliver when I came over last night?"

If Fukase wasn't prepared for this, it would've been a hit to his chest cavity, maybe lethal enough to stagger him to the ground. But he simply smirked at such a statement.

"He was at a neighbor's apartment downstairs. Utane Piko, if you haven't heard of him. He's quite...special, but Oliver seems to like him." He then coughed and muttered "Trap", as one does when one tries to hide an offensive comment.

"Oh, ok,"

"Hey, child!" Fukase called out, as Oliver had gone out of sight."

"What." Was the reply, followed by a groan of annoyance.

"Aw, I was going to give you an ice-pop, but you seem not to like those right now. Hm."

"WAIT, wait WAIT! I want an ice pop!!"

"I'll have one too," Flower volunteered.

Icepops and "random British children", what more could one want in life?

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The Tumblr artist who drew the original cover image

Character pronunciations:

Oliver Dappleback (Aw-lih-vhur Dah-pel-bahk)

(Although Piko was mentioned, I'll do his when he's actually in a chapter)

Character ages:

(Since I forgot this last time)

Fukase: 21

Flower: 22

Oliver: 10

Notes:

I can't wait to write Piko's chapter, OML! It's going to be so random, and so fun, as I kind of imagine Piko to be the kind of guy who's like "I WAS a famous singer", and everyone's like "Who are you again?". I'm also planning on Len Kagamine (yes, LEN FRIGGING KAGAMINE) to be his roommate.

Also, although Fukase seems like a horrible guardian, he isn't always rough on Oliver, lol. That was just mostly how he was raised :/

(More on that when we get to the burns on his face...)

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