The Ultimate Stride | Prince of Stride Fanfiction |

• Riku •

    One year afterwards...

        ~ ~ ~        | {Third P.O.V.} |

    It all started with a bang.

    The Johnson family was sitting on the porch of their house, and the youngest Yagami was out in the middle of the street with a red dollar store lighter clenched tight within his grasp. He was standing before a hollow tube that was leveled with the height of his knees, and there were remnants of burnt cardboard scattered around him.

    Saying that he was nervous at the time would've been an understatement; the boy felt like he was about to lose his dinner.

    He was glad that it was dark outside, because he knew Kyouko's brothers would've been laughing at how shaky his hands were. He'd gotten far too used to their laughs being directed towards him during those past few days...

    'Deep breaths, Riku,' he chanted the words in his head over and over again like a mantra. 'I only have to set off one. After this, Ryan and the twins will take over and I'll be home free.'

    "H-hey, Kyouko!" He looked back at the porch where everyone was resting.

    She smiled brightly when she saw him waving at her. "Yes?"

    "Which firework do your brothers want me to set off? There's a lot of 'em sitting over here," his gaze fell to the heaps of explosives that were haphazardly piled on the side of the street.

    He would be lying if he said he wasn't impressed by the number of fireworks Toni and Tyler had purchased, for there were a lot of them. They must've spent hundreds of dollars on those things, and that didn't even include the small stuff they'd purchased for their shitty little sidewalk pranks.

    Riku could hardly wrap his head around the exorbitance of this American holiday.

    Who knew that a day dedicated to independence could be so grand? And who knew that it could involve so many explosives? He respected the fact that this was something Kyouko had celebrated ever since she was a little kid, but he'd be damned if they did this for every holiday that crawled down from the depths of their attic. It was just too much for him to comprehend.

    As his thoughts grazed over this, he absentmindedly watched Kyouko converse with her brothers. He couldn't understand much of what she was saying because his English still wasn't the greatest, but he was able to pick up bits and pieces of her sentences. They were pure, simple, straightforward.

    He didn't have to depict a whole lot from her brothers' response when he saw the twisted looks on their faces.

    They were emitting major machiavellian vibes, and their ill intentions couldn't have been any more obvious. It didn't take a genius to know that those dudes were up to no good, and that sent Riku's nerves into overdrive.

    'They were like this in Tokyo as well... maybe this behavior is somewhat normal for them?'

    He didn't bother dwelling on the idea any longer than he had to.

    After hearing out the rest of their answer, Kyouko turned back to Riku. "They said that instead of doing a mortar, you should light one of the specialty boxes."

    "A specialty box?" His skin crawled at the sound of it. "Which one?"

    More translations were made before she answered him again. "Do the black one with the green python on it. Apparently that's one they've been waiting to see for a while!"