CHAPTER FOUR

━━ THE WHEELS ON THE BUS GO ROUND AND ROUND

THE IMMENSE RELIEF UPON ENTERING THE BUS IS FELT BY ALL.

"OH thank fuck," Michiko groans, gripping onto a pole as the shuttle bus swerves out of the area. The sounds of creaking and strange screams become fainter and fainter, until all that is left is the sounds of the heater and the rain. Allowing herself to relax, she lurches onto the nearest seat and lets out a sigh. Beginning to untangle her wet hair with her fingers, her eyes roam around the interior.

The bus is oddly well kept, mostly clean except for some scuff marks and a very evident bullet hole patched badly with some peeling masking tape. Faded blue lights dully illuminate the swinging handles, metal bars and several suspicious-looking baskets covered in black cloth. Michiko frowns as her gaze continues to sweep the bus while ears are strained to familiarise herself.

Listening to the sound of the engine, she assumes that they modified it to go faster. How, she doesn't know, but she hopes that it saves enough fuel to get safely to wherever they are headed to.

(She just jinxed them all.)

She can feel several pairs of eyes on her but she refuses to fidget and meets their gazes steadily. There are only males; an onion-haired bus driver, a light brown haired one with a scowl, yet another scowling man with darker brown hair, and a pink haired one. Each of them have a purple fabric tied in a visible spot.

"So, who's this?" Light Brown scowls even further.

"Nikolaev Michiko. This is Kunimi." Ushijima ducks underneath a railing and settles down in the seat in front of her.

"Bruh," snorts Kunimi intelligently.

Michiko quietly fiddles at the fabric between her fingers, watching Ushijima through narrowed eyes. His broad shoulders are quite soothing for sore eyes. Mad Dog sits behind her much too closely, and she's slightly unnerved considering he tried to kill her not even an hour before.

Her gaze trails up the lines of Ushijima's back, up his shoulder to his nape and settles on certain black markings that go up to his hairline.

"—Shit! You're a Code?" Her eyes bulge.

She hears Mad Dog and Kunimi mockingly snort in sync. Ushijima turns in his seat until his cold eyes meet hers. "Yes."

That makes two Codes in this bus alone. She didn't expect such a drastic change since the last time she and Ushijima had a rendez-vous. So many things are happening Michiko is finding it hard to keep up.

She shakes her head to clear herself from excessive thoughts. Right now, the simpler the better. As her eyes flit between the slope of Ushijima's broad shoulders and his Code identification, she briefly wonders if everyone else from the Shiratorizawa area are okay. "Is Eita still around? Tendo?"

She's never really missed them, per se, but the reentering of Ushijima into her life brings up past memories— the good kinds without that underlying sense of trauma, unless you include Satori showing her Foreigner. She had never wanted to bleach her eyes that badly before.

"You'll see them," comes the unsurprisingly anticlimatic response.

"Soon?"

A grunt in response, but the leader flicks his eyes towards her again as he begins to delve into the present situation. "Listen, Michiko. This is what is going to happen."

The voice of a man who is used to being listened to. Shivers.

The olive haired male flexes his shoulders, satisfying cracks being heard. "I'm going to take you to our base where you will be introduced to our other members. We will decide what role is suitable for you and interrogate you. Then—"

"Woah, hold on. Interrogate?"

He blinks. "Yes. Then—"

"Sorry to interrupt, but we're almost out of fuel," cuts in the onion head driver.

The pink-brown haired male replies immediately. "How much left, Kindaichi?"

"Ten kilometres. "

"Oh shit, but surely that's fine."

"Hanamaki-senpai, the base is twenty five away."

"Hm," ponders Pink— or Hanamaki, "there's extra fuel in the storage section, but we're going to have to stop the bus to fill up the tank."

Ushijima immediately stands up and makes his way to the driver as they begin discussing in low tones.

Michiko rubs the cold glass of the window before peeking out. The rain is just a light drizzle now, and there are the typical ruined buildings dotting here and there. Any approaching Puppet would be clearly visible here so there wouldn't be any surprise attacks, she supposes. She raises that point with the rest of the 210 sitting here, but is immediately met with a chorus of 'NO!'s.

"Do you know where we are?" Hisses Kunimi.

"No. But we can see any approaching figures-"

"Michiko. That's your name right?" Hanamaki offers a quick, polite smile but it's more of a grimace. "This isn't our territory. If we stop, we're probably going to get trouble."

Her mouth forms an 'O'.

"Just try pushing it," Kunimi snaps at the driver. "We might make it. Sometimes the display isn't necessarily correct."

Onion bus driver looks towards Ushijima, who blinks in response. Taking that as a silent agreement, he continues to press the shuttle bus on. It's barely two minutes later when the bus sputters and the engine shuts down. All the lights turn off, encasing every member in darkness. One by one, they turn on flashlights, held between glistening teeth as they all collectively groan and begin to crawl out of the bus and fill up the tank. Michiko, after much hesitation, also gets out when she sees Ushijima's ass go down the bus' stairs.

"You jinxed us, bro," Onion teases Kunimi and is met by his iconic eye roll.

"As long as we don't run into another gang, we'll be fine. There shouldn't be too many Codes around this area."

This time, not even a minute after Kunimi utters those words, the sound of heavy tires on dirt is heard from a distance.

"Goddamnit, Kunimi."

-

writer's block do go brrrr like i had so many ideas for this story but it's not my usual style of writing so I DO B STRUGGLING

guess who's gonna make their first appearance next chapter >:))