EVIL MONK

Kuko Harai -- 19 years old -- he/they

M.C. EVIL MONK, leader of Bad Ass Temple. 

As the name suggests he’s a Buddhist monk. He’s not actually evil, though, in fact he’s the exact opposite.

He’s a bit feral but it’s fine, don’t worry about the fact that he’s small enough to bite your ankles.

In all seriousness, Kuko is actually a very nice and loyal guy, he’s just very brash and loud. He also sometimes wakes up and chooses violence but he’s well meaning I swear.

It was a shock to feel Kuko’s hand on his. Ichiro didn’t really expect him to actually take it, he expected the swat that Kuko had been charging up hardly a second before. God, what was he? Some sort of schoolgirl with a dumb crush? He averted his eyes from Kuko’s, trying to do everything in his power to keep himself from freaking out over their hands. They did stuff like this a lot back then, helped each other up when the other was down. This wasn’t anything special.

Traitor. Where the hell did Kuko get that one? He’d argue, but now really didn’t seem like the time.

“Whatever, do you need to be taken to a doctor?”

He helped Kuko stand, pulling on his hand and holding onto the monk’s other arm to steady him. For a second, if Ichiro closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that they were 17-year-old punks again, and this was the aftermath of another successful fight. 

But this wasn’t then. Those days were long gone. Things are different now, Ichiro knew, but his heart was having problems catching up with his head,

“I think I know where one is, around here. Unless you just need to sit down or something?”

As much as Kuko wanted to keep him at arm’s length, he knew he was in no position to fight back any help. He was stubborn and angry, but he knew better than to bite the hand that fed him, even if that hand belonged to someone who he would rather spit on. Defeated, he let Ichiro pull him up, and-- god damn he was just as strong as he remembered. He stumbled a little as he got back on his feet, only to collapse against his chest. The headache finally went away, but now he was in a less than ideal position, slumping against the person he hated more than anything in the world without the strength to even fight back.

He hated how comforting this was.

“No, I’m fine, don’t fuckin’ treat me like some kind of baby,” he huffed, raising a hand to curl his fingers into a fist and gently hit Ichiro’s chest with it.

He took his place behind Kuko, continuing to scan the treeline for threats.

“Got it,” he said, his hands readjusting their grip on the bat.

He wouldn’t mention it, but he could sense that softness. At least they weren’t going to be at each other’s throats– much better to work together than bark at each other.

It was quiet, eerily so. Until the rustling– Ichiro turned his head immediately towards the source, holding his bat up to swing.

He saw the creature bound from the trees, a nasty-looking wolf-like beast. 

“On your six!” Ichiro said, alerting Kuko before he took a swing at the mist creep. The bat collided, sending the beast off course, but not taking it off its feet.

“Shit,” he muttered, revving up to take another crack at it. 

From behind Ichiro, he could hear the beast from earlier standing, making puffs of angered breaths as it stumbled up. Two of them, great.

They’d taken on more than this before. Granted, that was more in terms of people, and not creatures made of mist, but that was neither here nor there.

He heard Ichiro’s shouting, and without even thinking about it, Kuko turned around and swung his crowbar in whichever direction his body took him. It completely missed the creature, but now there were two of them, and they looked pissed. He glanced over at both of them, then stepped back until his back was completely against Ichiro’s. “Haa... What a pain in the ass,” he grumbled, a wide grin on his face as he tapped the crowbar on the ground.

“If ya got any plans ya wanna pull outta your ass, now’s the time to do it, cause I’d say we have about five seconds before we become their chewtoy,” he laughed a bit, the banter so natural that it almost made him sick to his stomach. He decided not to think too hard about THAT.

Oh god. Oh fuck.

His knees threatened to buckle– threatened to fall next to Kuko, like they had always done for each other so long ago. He couldn’t bring himself to.

The passerby had either begun to walk faster, or spread out, putting space between themselves and the teens in front of them. An empty circle, denoted by crumbling cobbles and the line of shoes of spectators, encompassed the two.

Ichiro couldn’t bring himself to run, as much as he wanted to. The warning sirens in his brain refused to cease, just as his legs refused to move.

“Kuko…” was all his stupid brain could make him say, in an exasperated, worried, disbelieving way. His being hadn’t caught up with his mind in realizing what the actual fuck was occuring.

Finally, as it felt like a million years later, he realized Kuko was in pain.

Without thinking, he knelt down next to Kuko, offering him a hand.

“Dude, I’m sorry for bumping into you, but what the fuck is happening to you right now? Did you hit your head?”

He seemed to filter the bits about getting the hell away from him out, as his full focus was on making sure Kuko was okay.

Even after all this time, it still mattered. He still mattered. Shouldn’t Ichiro know better than this?

Why-- even after all this time, what the hell was going ON--!? Although mild, the pain was still sharp enough to make his body shake uncontrollably. It’s just like back then-- no matter how much he fought against what shrouded his mind and filled his brain with lies and deceit, he succumbed. It was a part of him that he hated more than anything. The fact that he dwelled on the past while working towards the future-- it was annoying and weak, and the fact that Ichiro was a symbol of the past that Kuko was trying so desperately to move on from was even more annoying. 

Ramuda giggled, the sound so positively mean and cruel that it surprised even him. He twirled the lollipop in his mouth and took another few steps forward as if testing the waters.

“Whaaa ~ do you not like the Buster Bros? Why not? Are you scared of them because they’re probably better than any group you could ever make?”

Just the mention of this was enough to make Kuko grit his teeth, that familiar pounding in his head NOT helping his already foul mood. It took every bit of willpower not to put his hand on this creep.

“ Haaah, are you callin me a fuckin COWARD?” he snarls.

He pulled his hand back, slowly, as it was slapped away. Ichiro couldn’t say he didn’t expect that reaction, but for some reason he wished that it wasn’t the case.

He’d seen Kuko angry before– fuming, even. This was different. Ichiro couldn’t explain why.

“If you couldn’t tell, numbnuts, I’m doing one of those stupid Optimization things. If I had better things to do, I’d be doing ‘em.”

Ichiro rested the bat he carried on his shoulder, following Kuko with his eyes.

“Let’s make it quicker, alright? I’ll tag along with you.”

Ichiro said it more as a command than a suggestion. What could he say? Even though the guy in front of him hates his guts for some reason, he still cared about his wellbeing. Wouldn’t do to see him torn to shreds.

That’d impact him more than being a mere inconvenience, at the end of the day. He doesn’t want to see him hurt at all.

He turned his gaze from Kuko for a second. Another goddamn flash of red. Was it another one of the mist beasts? He couldn’t tell. It seemed too eye-catching to be a creature made of mist.

If it wasn’t that, then what was it?

He was tired, he was irritated, and most of all, he wanted his fucking mom’s ring back.

The bat he grabbed at the safe zone dragged through the dirt, making a hollow metallic thump when it scraped against the occasional rock. He definitely had read the “hard” difficulty rating next to this Mistwood quest, but he was somewhat doubting its ultimate difficulty. They were monsters made of mist. He felt like that was maybe a little easy to take a swing at, right?

It was almost too still, here. The air was dead, not even a slight breeze to indicate any sign of life. Maybe there was a crunch of leaves every once in a while, but Ichiro hardly flinched, other than shooting a glance in the same direction. Each time, he thought he saw a flash of red. Each time, there wasn’t anything there. He was getting kind of sick of this shit.

“SHIT!”

He wasn’t expecting that one.

Ichiro’s legs moved before his brain had the ability to catch up. He crashed through the brush, one arm up to shield his face from whipping twigs. He came through to a clearing, seeing a beast of mist tussling with someone. 

He raised the bat up, bringing it down on the creature’s head with a shout. Despite what he expected, the bat collided, and didn’t pass through the beast. 

“TAKE THAT, FUCKER!” He bellowed, giving the creature a swift kick to the side to get it off the poor sod it was attacking.

He had to blink twice once he saw aforementioned poor sod.

“Kuko?!” He knew they didn’t have the time to get in a spat, as they were already a bit in the midst of one with this creepy mist thingy, but it didn’t stop him. He offered him a hand, regardless. “Get up, man, what the fuck are you doing here?”

The mist creep made what Ichiro could only assume was a groan in pain. He kinda got him good.

Dammit, of all people--

As the beast was knocked to its side, Kuko snarled as he slapped Ichiro’s hand away and got up on his own, brushing off his pants. Luckily he didn’t sustain any bad injuries, but he would be lying if he said the impact of his back hitting the ground didn’t make him a little sore. He let out a growl as he reached towards his his crowbar, looking over at Ichiro and feeling a pain in his heart that he wished he couldn’t identify. Frustration, fury, loneliness-- why did Ichiro have to play the hero even NOW? "Don’t tell me what to do, traitor!” he snarled as he took two steps back away from the other, his body practically shaking in anger. He grit his teeth as a familiar headache started to come on, but he chose to ignore it for now. It wasn’t unbearable this time. “I should be asking you THAT-- don’t you have some better shit you could be doing, like finding your brothers or kicking someone else that’s down?” despite his venomous words, there was a tinge of insincerity that he prayed Ichiro (or himself) wouldn’t pick up on. There were pressing matters at hand.

You’ll never believe what Ichiro is doing right now.

He walks pretty quietly. It’s a little scary how well he’s able to do so.