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Shun groans, proving at least that he is alive, despite being crumpled in the corner of the Rabbit Hutch, still wearing his clown outfit while hugging one of the plushies Tomoko brought into the base. He’s been like this ever since Miu’s flat out rejection to go to prom with him, compounded by the admission that she wants to go to prom with Gentarou, rather than him.
Ryuusei watches him from the table, not for the first time wondering how he got roped into this group of misfits, but also feeling a bit of pity for his upperclassman.
“Man, poor guy,” JK says, sitting on the other side of the table, glancing at Shun in-between applying a new coat of neon green nail polish. “Do you think he’s gonna be okay?”
Tomoko, sitting next to Ryuusei, shuffles her tarot cards. She’s been fiddling with various occult looking things since they got back to the base, Ryuusei assumes because she’s feeling the same awkward energy they’ve all been sitting in. Gentarou and Yuki haven’t come back yet, still looking for clues in the new, strange Zodiart case, and Ryuusei expects that’s more to do with Yuki’s intuition that Gentarou’s presence would only inhibit Shun’s mourning process. Miu also hasn’t returned to the hutch, though Ryuusei isn’t surprised by that choice on Madame President’s part.
Tomoko finally pulls out a card, laying it on the table. Ryuusei doesn’t know anything about tarot, but JK whistles at the sight of it, seeming to understand the meaning. All Ryuusei knows is that there’s a figure dressed in black that seems sad about some spilled wine.
“Outcome unclear,” Tomoko says, in her eerie, reverent tone she reserves for occult matters. “His fate is in his hands.”
“Well, that’s bad news. He might die at that rate,” JK mutters.
Kengo, sitting at the computer, away from the rest of them, audibly snorts at that, revealing he’s been listening in whether he wants to or not.
“Still, you can’t really blame Miu, right?” JK says, not looking away from his nails, almost bashful suddenly. “I mean, no offense to Shun, but…”
Ryuusei notices Kengo looking over with more interest, before quickly looking away.
“I heard Miu isn’t the only one who wanted to take Gentarou to prom,” Tomoko says. “Ritsuko was going to ask him too.”
“And Nomoto,” JK adds with a childish grin.
“Nomoto?” Ryuusei asks, his voice a little louder than he intends. He still has trouble keeping people’s names straight, being newer to the school than the rest (and also, if he’s honest, not really caring much about most people at the school) but he clearly pictures the track and field jock in his mind at the mention of him.
Kengo is looking over in clear interest now.
“You can say a lot of things about Nomoto, but he’s bold at least,” JK says.
“I can’t blame any of them,” Shun says, surprising all of them. He sits up, and trudges over to the table, sitting down heavily in the bench seat, clown makeup smudged where he’s been wiping at his face. “Gentarou is great. Even I would rather go to prom with him than with me…”
Tomoko gets up and grabs her makeup bag before sitting down next to Shun, as he starts crying again. “Oh no, come here…” She uncorks a bottle that says ‘makeup remover’ on the label, but smells strong enough to strip paint. Sure enough, as she dabs it on Shun’s face, it eats through the grease paint with no issue. Shun leans into the touch as Tomoko shushes him.
“Don’t say that, bud,” JK says, patting Shun’s back a bit awkwardly, with his fingers over extended to protect the wet nail polish. “You’re great too!”
Shun shakes his head slightly, careful not to disrupt Tomoko’s work. “No, Gentarou is amazing. I’d go to prom with him too… I wonder if Miu would agree to go to prom with both of us…”
Ryuusei shares a look with JK, and then with Kengo. Tomoko is too focused on removing the clown paint to share a look with any of them.
“I guess I wouldn’t mind going to prom with Gentarou either,” JK says, abnormally quietly. “I mean, it’s only for the third-years of course, so none of us are going unless an upperclassman invites us, but…” He trails off, but slaps on his signature bravado again with a smirk. “But I imagine there will be a competition on who gets to go to prom with him next year too, huh Kengo?”
Kengo looks away, but his face is clearly redder. “I’m sure half the students in our year will ask him out too, yeah.”
“I was talking about people in this room,” JK says with a laugh.
“I’m pretty sure most people in this room would be happy to go to prom with Gentarou,” Momoko says, shooting a look to JK, then to Ryuusei.
Ryuusei startles at the unexpected look. Does Tomoko think… then again, he thinks about Gentarou’s goofy smile. About the way he seems simple, and he is, yet he can read people like a book with his innate intuition, see the good in people they can’t see in themselves. He realizes his face must be flushing, and slaps his cheeks in a desperate attempt to stop it.
“Hmm… I guess we’re all in the same boat, huh?” Kengo says. Ryuusei assumes everyone else must have come to similar conclusions during his own panicked thought spiral.
Tomoko seems unfazed, perhaps having already realized that almost everyone in the Kamen Rider Club is at least a little attracted to Gentarou, with that eerie intuition of hers. Instead, she cups Shun’s face in her hands, turning it left and right. Ryuusei watches for a moment, wondering if there might be something between the two of them, but Shun seems to just be going along with it for the sake of comfort.
“Would you mind if I put eyeliner on you? I think you’d look good in it,” Tomoko finally says.
Shun sniffs a little. “Do you think Miu would like it?”
Tomoko shrugs.
JK leans over, giving Shun’s face a thoughtful look. “You know, Gentarou complimented my eyeliner the other day.”
Shun sniffs some more, still recovering from his crying fit, and gives JK a sad look. Then he looks back to Tomoko and nods. “Okay, you can put some eyeliner on me.”
“Oh, maybe give him some of that dusty red eyeshadow too,” JK says to Tomoko. “It’ll match his letterman jacket.”
The three of them carry on as if nothing is wrong, and Kengo continues typing away on his computer.
“Wait, hold on,” Ryuusei says. “Are we all just not going to address that we all are kind of attracted to Gentarou?”
Shun looks at him out of the corner of his eye, obediently staying still for Tomoko. JK and Tomoko fully look at him as if something is wrong with him.
“I think that’s one of those things we just have to accept,” Kengo says, not looking away from the computer screen. “Just a fact of life in the Kamen Rider Club. Our club base is on the moon, monsters keep attacking our school, and we’re all kind of in love with Gentarou.”
Ryuusei falls quiet at that, staring at the table. This, he supposes, is maybe the least weird thing about their situation, but he still feels like it merits some amount of fanfare. Or at least acknowledgement.
The door to the Rabbit Hutch opens, and Mr. Ohsugi walks in. “What’s going on in here?” he asks, looking at Shun getting his makeup done, still wearing his clown outfit, and then Ryuusei, who probably still looks a little shaken.
“Oh, we’re doing Shun’s makeup to cheer him up after Miu said she wants to go to the prom with Gentarou,” JK says.
“Gentarou,” Ohsugi says thoughtfully, still saying it with an edge of disdain if only out of force of habit. “Don’t all the students want to go to prom with him?”
“Exactly,” Shun, JK, and Tomoko say in unison.
Ohsugi shrugs, before snapping his suspenders, startling himself. “Makes sense. If a guy like that went to my high school…”
Ryuusei groans, hitting his head against the table. It seems truly no one is going to freak out about this with him.