Falling From The Universe Into Your Arms

Jetting Out, Getting Home

"Woah, are you sure you are not drunk, senpai? It's illegal to drink as a minor," Miki started to say, almost sounding like a joke but with such a serious atmosphere including from the boy himself made the joke come all wrong and threatening. The fact that he was not let out from Miki's grip was all too telling as well as the distance that Eichi was giving between the duo now, eyes resting more on Rinne in more contemplative wariness than anything.

"Senpai?" Eichi asked warily, as his eyes directed towards Miki and sharing a silent conversation that Rinne found himself not liking at all.

When did those two ever get close? Alternate universe it was whether he died and went to another world or it was just a simulation, this was just plain wrong.

OK, so actually he hated this and he wanted to get out before he made horrible decisions. Sure, Rinne had already made his fair share of horrible decisions but getting trouble when he just got here and barely knew anything about whatever this situation was was a bad plan.

What did he want to do? How would he define himself now? What can he figure out and work from there?

At least let him have an option instead of going through this forced flow from a lapse of judgement that he had displayed in front of Eichi. So how would he get out of here, with a now distrustful Miki still holding onto him? He never thought the day would come Miki giving him such an expression, since Niki wasn't above doing the same back in his old life for his gambling and 'bullying' ways according to Niki himself which was obviously heresy and falsehood.

And now Rinne found himself splitting the life he had when ES happened and the space launch with the life he had after waking up to this world as an old and new life respectively. Again, he had to deal with this later.

"Why is he not saying anything?" Eichi asked, when Rinne went too long in contemplation without saying anything even though it seemed that both Eichi and Miki was fishing for something out of Rinne.

"What? Did I scare ya just like that? Ya just reminded me of someone and I lost myself for a sec. Sorry for that, so can you let me go?" Rinne wanted to smooth this over quickly just saying what he could come up with at the moment, be let go and finally go home.

"After an insincere apology like that? I don't think so, senpai," Miki said, doing the opposite of what Rinne actually wanted and squeezing his shoulder tightly that Rinne winced. So he couldn't really smooth things over from the bottom of his heart and came off insincere but forgive him that he couldn't muster any reason to apologize even to an Eichi look-alike after battling against him mere minutes ago!

In contrast to Miki who looked like he wanted Rinne to stay away from Eichi from some deep seated worry, Eichi actually approached Rinne even at baby steps with more confusion than the initial wariness that befell the blonde from a sudden attack immediately stopped by Miki.

"I remind you of someone? I don't know who that is but I'm probably nothing like him to warrant such aggression from you, senpai. I hope we don't start off the wrong foot like this if we ever meet each other again..." Eichi said, trying to ease the tension in this situation even when he was the victim of an unwarranted aggression.

Because Rinne can see this objectively, like the monarch he had trained to be a long time ago and get rid of his lingering subjectivity in this situation. He had let loose a few pent-up feelings that were better off not being shown in such a situation but honestly, anyone waking up from a space battle that was definitely real to find a dead friend alive again and the enemy approaching so casually who was responsible for the death of said friend would cause a violent reaction.

Unfortunately, the duo involved wouldn't see it that way when they would have no memory of Rinne's old life as they would basically be strangers. Eichi was now cautious, wary, confused and tentatively hopeful for something that Rinne did not understand.