Author's note: Tremendous apologies for the very long unannounced hiatus. This chapter had been almost finished two years ago (I was actually quite surprise to find that this chapter is almost done) and I thought it was about time I get back on finishing the stories I left. I had been busy moving to a different country and settling in and now I think I'm ready to get back to my unfinished projects. Hope you guys enjoy this one~ (／u＼)

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Kenta Shinohara.

Implications

Chapter 2 - Gashapons

There would be certain days of the month when he went to the store down the other street to spend his well saved pocket money on gashapons. The new Garagara Pyun Monsters collection had a very, veeery wide range of characters and weapons available that eight weeks of saving and spending had not been enough to even gather the major characters.

He'd jump and cheer happily whenever the figures of the main Gara Soldiers popped from the opened gashapons; they were really cool despite their lumpy moss colored skin, thanks to the awesome headgears they wore. He'd shrugged nonchalantly whenever it was the followers of Pyungara Tribe that got out from the gashapon; they weren't as cool as the Gara Soldiers after all. They'd be chased away by the storekeeper whenever it was Jones who scrambled out of those toy casings because he'd be throwing the gashapon away (for some reason those gashapon would end up hitting some customer) as he'd be furious for having yet another piece of that stupid looking Jones when almost half of his GPM collection was invaded by Jones figures. It was a lot more irritating than the Anthony figure from his past collection. Thankfully though, he would sometime be lucky enough to have the machine give him the rarest Pyungararara Summoned Summons and he and Himeko would high five each other.

Once his pocket got devoid of all his money, it was time for them to leave the store, either dejected or elated. Still, he'd continue gashapon hunting until he finished his collection. After all, collecting gashapons was such an exciting adventure, even Himeko confessed that she looked forward to seeing the figures he hadn't unlock yet.

While walking, he'd tell her the grand stories behind the gashapon characters and she'd give her usual tsukkomi's when some weird, illogical background story would appear. Most of the time they'd end up with conversations unrelated to gashapons so by the time they'd reach Himeko's house (which was just a few blocks away from the gashapon store), either Himeko would invite him in for some tea, or Bossun would tell her that he'd just give her a call once he got home so that they could continue their talk. He'd walk home thinking of a new formation for all the figures of his GPM collection.

That day was one of those days when he was set to buy gashapons.

Bossun was more spirited than ever to get Magenta Garara Summoner (which was actually a yellow colored Pyungarapyunpyun summon) and Jonez (an ultra mega rare figure who looked like Jones except that Jonez' IQ was 250 while Jones' was below 50; Himeko would always tell him no one will know about their IQ difference when they look exactly the same, but what did she know about gashapon collection anway?) that day, specially because Switch had already completed the GPM collection last week.

Humming the Pelocan theme song, he sat on his favorite tatami bench as he made an origami figure of Jonez while Switch played the second release of Nervous Nervous dating sim Edo version. Aside from Captain, no one else came to visit the clubroom that day so Bossun had been thinking of heading to the store already since half an hour ago.

He spared a small glance on his phone and placed down his finished Jonez origami upon noticing that he had a new message. He flipped his phone open and read the text on his mobile screen.

He stared at the message for a while (Switch turning to look at him out of curiosity) before merely shrugging.

Closing his phone, he placed it back on his bag and started to pack his notebook (he ran out of origami paper so he resorted to using paper from his notebook).

He told Switch he was heading off first, to call him just in case any request would come after he left. In return, Switch asked him if he knew that there were only two Jonez figures left that had not been bought nationwide and for a minute, Bossun called Switch dummy, dummy, dummy.

When Bossun recovered from his short despair (to which Switch managed to solve by telling him that one of the remaining Jonez was delivered on the shop Bossun always visited), the young Sket Dan leader immediately left the clubroom and rushed through the hallways, barely avoiding a fuming Tsubaki.

Reaching the school gates, he sighed amidst himself and started to walk slowly as he pulled his phone from his bag. Flipping it open with one hand, Bossun scratched his head, and mentally berrated himself that there wasn't anything to worry about, really. Still, he decided to reopen the message from earlier, typed in his thoughts of worry, pressed the clear button to erase his message, typed that he was going to get Jonez on the store, and finally pressed 'send'.

Satisfied with his action, he tucked the phone back to his bag and started to run again. His mind was already starting to visualize his success on his Jonez and Magenta Garara Summoner quest.

A good twenty minutes later, Bossun cried in happiness for he finally, finally got MaGaSu (short for Magenta Garara Summoner). The storekeeper congratulated him for his success. But Bossun started crying again when he picked up the other nine gashapons he got earlier. Six of them were Jones.

Jonez was nowhere to be seen and so was his pocket money.

Placing his ten new toys inside his bag and subtly turning his phone to check it, Bossun stood in front of the gashapon machine and remained there for a while. He looked at his favorite toy dispenser yet his attention was completely on his bag. Or rather, on what was inside his bag.

His phone.

There wasn't any new message.

Sighing, Bossun tried to convince himself that he really didn't want to see Jonez that much and begun to walk away from the shop. He managed a three meter walk before he looked back at the shop.

He scrunched his face in dissatisfaction before he continued to drag himself home. He also tried to ignore the desire to pull his phone out to check it again.

Opening his bag, he pulled out his new MaGaSu figure and basked from its awesomeness.

Neither vibration nor blinking light notification came from his phone.

Amidst his ego, he found himself pouting.

When he reached their home, Rumi asked him why his face looked like No Face, to which he replied with a grunt before pulling out his MaGaSu toy and gawkily showing it off to his younger sister. Rumi eyed him weirdly as he ran off to his room with his hand and MaGaSu up in the air.

He sat on the floor, opened his bag and shook off its contents. Gashapons, pens, notebooks and his phone were all scattered on his floor seconds later. For a few minutes, he busied himself arranging his new toys on the shelf where his other figures were creatively displayed. Not at all bothered at the lack of any new message on his phone, he took his time carefully posing MaGaSu like it just won a battle against a group of Jones.

Nope, he wasn't bothered by the lack of new message.

Not at all.

Not even an inkling of care.

Nope, nada. No.

He arranged his gashapon figures according their level of Pyunness and when he reached a certain summon that was level 7.3 Pyu, he huffed in defeat and dropped the toy he was holding in order to reach for his phone. He quickly pressed the call button to contact the last person he called. Sitting down cross-legged on the floor with his eyes narrowed, he tapped his free fingers impatiently as he listened to the ringing on his phone.

He's so gonna brag MaGaSu to her and make her regret not coming.

A few rings later, Bossun perked up with a haughty smile when his call was answered with a 'Bossun-!'

He was so gonna make her envious of his rare toy.

However, he was not even able to mutter back a 'Hey' when the call was abruptly ended with a deafening CRASH!

His eyes widened at the unexpected sound that made him let go of his phone for a short while. Unsure of what had cut the phone call, he picked up hisphone immediately and redialled her number, only to be answered by an automated voice saying 'the number you dialled is not available at the moment. Please try-'

Bossun quickly ran out of his room, knocking some of his collections along the way. Questions filled up his mind as he tried to deduce what happened to her. What was that crashing sound? Where was she? What the heck happened to her? Why the hell did she go to an all girls' shopping trip instead of going with him to the gashapon shop like what they usually did when it's gashapon day? As he ran out of their apartment, he redialled her number but ended up more worried when only the automated voice answered. Why did she turn off her phone?

Dozens of scenes (most which were memories he didn't want to recall) flashed on his mind. There was the time some gangsters picked her up. And then another when another bunch tried to fight her. And that other time when a group of tugs made her go to their hiding place to try and-. He did not want to remember that. Nor did he want to remember that time on Osaka. Nor those all other times she managed to put herself in trouble.

Not that she wasn't capable of protecting herself. But geez, she could at least try to tell him where she was so he could help! Not that he was any good in fighting, but man.

He stopped on an intersection a few blocks away from the gashapon shop. Since she was not answering, he tried calling her mother's phone instead. It was a good thing she tried to call him a few months ago to make sure that he studied during final weeks instead of texting her daughter on such an important time of the school year. He breathed out a relieved sigh when her mother answered the phone. However, she had not even managed to greet him, when Bossun heard the phone being dropped on the floor and from the background she cried, 'Hime! What happened to you?'

That was more than enough to make him run, dash, get scolded by a police officer for almost jaywalking. Who among those gangsters beat her? Who among those fools hurt her?

He was not sure how many people he bumped on his way nor did he notice passing the gashapon shopkeeper shouting after him about a certain rare Jonez gashapon he wanted to give to Bossun. He did not even know how he managed to recall the shortcut to their house that she once told him during one of their lazy afternoons in the club until he reached the Onizuka's residence after passing through a small alley. Usually there would be two of them reaching gates but now it was only him.

With thoughts of Himeko beaten up and bruised all over, Bossun burst through the front door of Himeko's home without even knocking. However, he hadn't gone two steps inside their house when a basin went flying towards his face (with a rather loud BAM) and the last image he remembered before blacking out was that of a furious, red Himeko who was only covered with a towel.

When Bossun opened his eyes, he could feel his face all sore yet he couldn't remember what happened that made his head hurt all over. He realized he was lying on a sofa and upon turning his head, he grimaced because Jones was there standing with all his glory on the table. All the sour expression on his face was immediately replaced with surprise when Himeko, with a huge grin on her face, popped her head above him. He suddenly remembered why he rushed over there and all his energy came rushing so fast he tried to stand up so quickly he ended up headbutting Himeko's forehead.

After minutes of agonizing pain from their heads crashing at each other and a few loud scolding from Himeko's mother because of the curses that two teens shouted, Himeko proudly showed Jones again to Bossun who was sitting beside her on their living room sofa. He eyed her weirdly for a while, noting that the only injury (a bump on the head) she got was the one from their accidental head crash.

After a moment, he reached for the figure and muttered about how he got six of this stupid Jones earlier and that he didn't really need another one. He turned away from her and continued silently muttering complaints. What was she giving him another one for? Yeah? He had an army of these useless Jones and he was so not going to let her see his awesome MaGaSu and Himeko laughed so loudly because apparently, he was a stupid idiot.

That was all it took for him to cry idiot, idiot, idiot, dummy Himeko, stupid person who didn't reply to his message, idiot, idiot-

Normally, Himeko would whack him on the head at this point, but she saw that Bossun wasn't pity crying (like what he usually did when he was being overly emotional) so she gently laughed (that made Bossun stop to look at her) and tried to appease him by saying that the figure was actually Jonez, didn't he notice?

Bossun raised his eyebrow as he gave the figure another look. He realized that the eyes of that figure had a different glint compared to those of the stupid Jones and he stared back at Himeko in disbelief. This was JONEZ with a 250 IQ! She grinned proudly and said that the girl's brother who asked for her help with Captain promised to give that Jonez figure in exchange for helping them find their lost pet pig.

Bossun blinked and continued looking at her suspiciously. He asked her what that crashing sound was when he called and why her phone ended up unreachable, to which Himeko only laughed aloud, albeit rather nervously. Bossun would have asked more but Himeko slapped his back so hard all he could do was cough in pain.

They were quiet for a moment just sitting there beside each other until Himeko sighed. Apparently, she accidentally dropped her phone on a mud pool and now it was pretty useless. Bossun replied with a dragged 'ohh' and rested his head on the sofa.

Usually she'd ask for Bossun's help on a case like this but they had quickly managed to find the pig on a neighbor's small garden farm where there was a mud pool. It took them a rather long time trying to convince the pig to get up from there and Himeko had to use all of her force to push the pig back to its pen. They were about to go home when Captain said that she dropped her handkerchief on the neighbor's garden. The two of them were looking for it when Bossun called her phone and she was so elated to brag about the Jonez figure that she didn't notice the mud pool. Needless to say, she ended up going home smelling like the pet pig and her clothes all covered in mud.

She was cut off from her thoughts when Bossun, who was narrowing his gaze at the other side of the room, started to mumble something incoherent about Jonez not being the type of summoner to leave his owner and something more about having no choice but to leave Jonez there at the Onizuka residence.

The following day, Jonez found himself accompanied by MaGaSu after Bossun delivered the highly acclaimed summoner by himself. The day after that, the two rare figures were joined by one high ranking soldier. By the end of that month, Himeko found her room filled with Garagara Pyun Monsters after Bossun insisted that Jonez' IQ was so high it was summoning all the summons, soldiers and monsters alike.

It was not that Bossun was walking Himeko home every single day since that fateful day Bossun completed his collection; Bossun was simply sending his summons to their rightful place and that was where Jonez was.

It was just coincidence that his Jonez' home happened to be Himeko's home too.

Author's note: I hope those gashapons' names aren't too confusing. Your thoughts about this chapter will be most welcomed~ ouo

Nobody really said anything about it so Bossun wasn't sure when his hand started to automatically link with Himeko's; that was until Jin miserably sighed and stated that boy, they finally got together, huh? Sket Dan's leader did not understand what the younger lad meant at first, when he suddenly felt Himeko pulled her hand from his. Since when did holding hands become a habit?