Chapter Text
The ebony haired boy leaned back on his desk chair, readjusting his thin, gold-rimmed glasses onto his well-sculpted nose. He had spent the past hours skimming through website after website, judging and educating himself further on how to make money. He knew all too well that no amount of capital could bring Akane back, but as they said, ‘old habits die hard’. Closing the lid of the bottle he had just drunk out of, the ravenette half-heartedly stretched his back, feeling each vertebrae pop one by one before preparing himself to resume his past activity.
“Take a break from your screen, you’ll fuck up your eyesight before you’ll even realise,” he could practically hear Inui chide him, making the dark eyed one chuckle to himself, knowing fully well he was going to ignore his best friend’s reprimands. He had already compromised his eyesight years prior, not that his blonde friend was aware of it, Koko prided himself on how well he had hidden his poor eyesight from the scarred boy he spent most of his time with.
The task at hand was tedious to say the least; his obsidian eyes scanning paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, word after word, seeking valuable knowledge and sorting out the heaps of misinformation sprouting from each document as he went along. After clicking a link, a new window opened up. Groaning, his pale hand moved his mouse to click off of it before the site presented itself and his interest was piqued. The announcement read:
“Part of a gang? Want to meet up with fellow delinquents? Click the link bellow to apply to our new social media and stay connected to an entire network of people just like you!”
Such bad marketing was never a good sign so naturally, Koko had to check out the train wreck of a network that must have stemmed from it. Almost routinely, he pulled his phone from his jacket pocket – his jacket having been hanging from the back of his chair. Downloading the app didn’t take long, a minute at best. As soon as it had finished installing itself onto his device, he clicked the “open app” button. What he was greeted with was a dark background with white writing, in a font the jet black haired one was not familiar with. It was an application form, one as basic as they came. The boy soundlessly filled it out.
:: name: Hajime Kokonoi // nickname: Koko
:: birthdate: April 1 // age: past 16 and present 28
:: gender: cisgender male
:: sexuality: biromantic/asexual
:: gang: what gang are you in?/if any: ex black dragon current Tokyo manji gang
After clicking the “submit information” button, he felt his anticipation growing, this was going to be an interesting trip to say the least. His enthusiasm stopped to a halt when the site finished loading, only to bombard him with more questions about himself. Koko let a whiny noise escape his lips and considered giving up on signing up; it was taking far too much of his precious time, time he could spend on his research that is. Despite that knowledge, however, he decided to carry on with the task he had set upon himself.
:: virtues: hardworking, serious, intelligent, resourceful, brave
:: vices: emotionally inept to a degree, judgemental, doesn’t take advice from others, impulsive at times, unpredictable
:: likes: money, hanging out with Inui, researching, arguing, fighting (both verbally and physically)
:: dislikes: not having anything, losing things/people, hospitals, being useless, being unprepared
:: hobbies: solving equations, researching, reading, finding new ways to make money, annoying Inui with reaction memes and low quality pictures of random things
If there is one thing Koko thought himself bad at, it was having to describe himself. He never understood the purpose of it, it was much simpler to just meet others and wait for them to make their opinions of him. He’d actually normally ask Inui to do it for him but looking at the time on his computer, 3:49am, he realised his blonde friend was most likely sound asleep and waking him up for such a trivial task was quite frankly, ridiculous.
Making his profile was no different than what he had experienced from his other times exploring social networks, put in your username, koko, email address, he decided to go with what he most frequently and appropriately referred to his “dumbshit address”: [email protected]. It then asked for a profile picture, what a hassle. He scrolled through his gallery – a land filled to the brim with various screenshots of articles he had found interesting and reaction memes - not finding a single picture of him that wasn’t outdated. He resulted to opening up one of the various chats he had with Inui, his only source of pictures. Inui had been interested in photography for a few years by now, after Koko had bought him his dream camera for his birthday, the boy had never stopped, being able to create some stunning images from scratch. After scrolling through their conversation for a while, occasionally laughing at bad jokes the both had made, he found a picture of himself that only dated back a month or two. Perfect.
The last part of the signing up process was to verify your email address… well, time to hopelessly try to remember the password. The biggest downside of having countless accounts, email addresses and other miscellaneous presences on the web was, it took a toll on one’s memory. He sat there, softly tapping his finger to his glasses’ temple - a small habit he had picked up a short while after being prescribed them – as he pondered, thoroughly searching each nook and cranny of his mind, looking for the password needed. When he found it though, he didn’t feel victorious. An all too familiar emptiness spread through his body as he almost robotically typed Akane’s birthday into the slot bellow the address. He clumsily clicked the validation link, all past enthusiasm gone, just… nothing, pervasive numbness at best.
His sharp, onyx eyes absently gazed into the void for an undeterminable amount of time before he shook the heavy feeling from his shoulders and looked down at his phone.
“Your account has been set up! You can now find people to talk to!”
Koko took up the offer, looking for something to distract himself with and to say he was disappointed would be a gross understatement. The *“network”* wasn’t exactly what it promised to be. After 15 minutes of scrolling, all he saw were random troublemakers bragging about pointless, ridiculous achievements. Unimpressed, he set his phone down and looked back at his computer, readying himself to resume his previous activity. He had barely had the time to look up at his screen when his phone vibrated, he could have sworn he had left it on silent. He picked it up to see a notification from the app he had just installed. He clicked on it without looking at what it said and was greeted with a message invitation from someone called “the monarch”. The ebony haired one scoffed, *who calls themselves like that?*. Wanting to have a bit of fun with this, assumed, moron, he accepted.
► the monarch:: hey fucker hows it goin?
► the monarch:: you fite gud?
Well that sure is… promising. Koko decided to respond as he would any other person with a simple:
► koko:: What’s it to you?
Koko smiled at himself. Toying with people and stirring up drama was always a fun activity that he would never say no to doing if the occasion presented itself. He was putting down his phone, getting ready to read again when he got interrupted, yet again, by the buzzing of his device.
► the monarch:: whatev lol bet i cld kik ur ass
► the monarch:: meet me n Yoyogi Park. lez brawl!
Yoyogi Park? Isn’t that Toman, territory? Koko was perplexed at that, people usually knew to keep off Toman land unless they wanted trouble. Not to mention the chances of this being a member of Toman were extremely low as they would have recognised his face, him and Inui had after all caused quite the commotion when they joined and ’scar face and snake boy’ were quite hard faces to forget as he had heard more than once.
“Curiosity killed the cat” a part of his brain warned him.
”But satisfaction brought it back” another part reminded him as he slipped on his jacket, getting ready to investigate who ‘the monarch’ was.
► koko:: Get an ambulance ready, you’ll need it.