Chapter Text
Agnes Tachyon was not known to be very touchy.
In fact, she was well known to be the exact opposite. Rumors abounded in Tracen Academy about how if you even slightly brushed against her ears or tail, she’d do anything from jump 10 feet into the air to splash a nasty potion in your face. Maybe she would grow fangs and turn into an evil beast and rip the unsuspecting student’s throat out. Nobody seemed to be able to find anybody who had survived touching Tachyon’s uma appendages.
Most people could not even find anyone whom Tachyon would willingly touch without the layer of her lab coat in the way.
But these rumors could not stand for a certain Miss Perfect, who demanded that Tachyon’s awful reputation be cleared through any means. And what better source for accurate Tachyon-related information than the three umas sat across from her at the lunch table?
“Thank you all so much for coming and sitting with me on such short notice!” Daiwa Scarlet put her hands together and bowed slightly after sitting across from her informants. “I know you all have such busy schedules, but there’s an issue that I need your help to deal with!”
“Oh, it’s no problem, Scarlet-san! I-it was a bit sudden, though, the way you dragged us over here…” Dantsu Flame scratched her chin slightly while tossing a meek smile across the table. “What’s the problem?”
“Well…” Scarlet hummed to herself, thinking about how to start this conversation. “There’s been some nasty rumors about Tachyon-san around lately, and I don’t think she deserves to have her reputation tarnished like that! She’s such a hardworking and smart person, I just wanted some help stopping them from spreading any farther!”
“. . . Maybe those rumors are true.” Came a quiet murmur from behind a coffee cup, eliciting a slight gasp from Daiwa Scarlet and a chuckle from Flame in response. “She’s a weird person. And… A trouble-maker.”
“N-not true! She’s been really helpful to me whenever I come to her!”
“Hah! That makes one of us. Maybe she just really likes you?” Piped up Jungle Pocket from the other side of Dantsu Flame. She leaned back in her chair and rested her arms behind her head, leaving one eye open with an eyebrow raised to see Scarlet’s response.
“No! She has to like you guys more! You all spend so much time together, you have to know she doesn’t eat people!” Scarlet yelled in response, leading a few people to suddenly glance in her direction. Her entourage, though, seemingly had to think about what Scarlet just said. This only frustrated her further. “ Guys!”
They all laughed, causing Scarlet to fume a little. It felt like how Vodka teased her, and she had half a mind to just abandon this avenue and leave if she wasn’t going to be taken seriously. But after Jungle Pocket calmed down from her laughter, she leaned in a bit.
“Alright, alright, I think we get the idea. You wanna know if she does anything when you touch her, right?”
That’s when Scarlet got excited, nodding furiously. Pocket snickered again, but this time she didn’t care about it. “Those are some funny rumors. You can have my account, at least, but I dunno if anyone’s gonna believe you.”
“I don’t care if anybody believes me! I’ll make them believe me!”
“Good attitude.” Pocket quipped. “I don’t mind helpin’ you out, then.”
“Hmmmm… Well, there was that one time a couple of weeks ago…
JUNGLE POCKET’S ACCOUNT
2 WEEKS AGO
LOCATION: TACHYON’S LABORATORY
Jungle Pocket was walking up to Tachyon’s lab when she heard some strange noises from inside. Normally, Pocket had expected to hear the clicking and clacking of keyboards from the other side of the door, or the bubbling of beakers, or any other number of the somehow familiar yet alien noises she had grown more and more accustomed to over the past few months.
But at the door, Pocket hesitated for a second. If this were somebody, anybody else, these noises would be more offputting. A loud and harsh hissing was slipping through the cracks of the door. She shrugged the noise out of her mind and slid the door open, slinging her school bag over her shoulder with her other hand as she did so.
“Oi, Tachy, what’s goin’ on in h–”
BOOM!
Smoke suddenly filled the room as a rush of heat blasted into Pocket’s face, causing her to drop her bag and cover her face, coughing into one hand and waving the smoke away from her eyes.
“A-ack, Tachyon, w-what the hell?!” Pocket managed to cough out.
“Ahhhhh, Pokke-kuuuuuuuun!” She managed to squint and see a figure, presumably the mad scientist herself, in the cloud of smoke, with something on her face. It was hazy, though, so she couldn’t make out the details of the figure before it suddenly rushed through the smoke and slammed into her, knocking the wind out of her lungs.
And then she was suddenly outside of the lab, her eyes tearing up from the residue of the smog and cough starting to settle.
“Pokke-kuuuuun..! You always have such good timing!~” When Jungle Pocket looked up at her, the first thing registered was how she had a set of goggles flipped up, resting on her head. The second thing was the thick black residue of the smoke left on her coat and hair.
The third thing Jungle Pocket noticed was how tightly she was being held.
“T-Tachy, I– I can’t breathe!”
“Oh!” Tachyon suddenly let go of Pokke, freeing the other from her grasp. “I apologize, I couldn’t contain my excitement! Pokke-kun, my latest experiment was a massive failure, but it was also a gargantuan step forward for my research as a whole!”
And on and on and on Tachyon went.
And Pokke just stared at her, dumbfounded. She had seen Tachyon go on and on about how her latest experiments had been going, but she had always just been happy to show Pocket her results from her computer screen. Any physical touch had always been initiated by Pocket and either unreciprocated or moved against by Tachyon. Tachyon had never hugged her before.
It was kinda cute, though, Pocket thought to herself as she felt her face flush slightly.
“Huh?”
Pocket’s face flushed a deeper hue of pink now. “W-what?”
“Did you have a comment on the advancement of the understanding of the effects of uma ears on our racing capabilities? I heard you mutter something under your breath.”
Pocket scoffed. “N-no, I just... “ And Pocket hesitated.
Well, maybe just this once would be fine. If Tachyon was suddenly fine with touch…
She reached her hand out to the top of Tachyon’s head, and looked into the other girl’s eyes to see how she’d respond.
As always, her eyes were an enigma that held countless secrets.
So Pocket glided her hand onto Tachyon’s head and nestled her fingers in between the strands of her hair. She could swear that she heard Tachyon sharply inhale on the (presumably) unusual contact for her. After a few moments more of hesitation, she began to ruffle the scientist’s hair, each brush against her ears causing them to flicker wildly. And the whole time, Pocket maintained a soft yet curious eye contact with Tachyon.
Pocket noted how… Silent Tachyon was. She could get used to this.
“What’s wrong?” She decided to push her advantage to tease and lean in slightly, reducing the distance between them. “I was just getting interested in your failed experiment.”
“I.”
“You?” Pocket stopped for a moment, her hand resting against the base of Tachyon’s left ear.
“That. Feels. Nice.” Tachyon seemed as though her words were being forced out of her throat. Pocket assumed that she was just nervous.
“Yeah?” Tachyon hummed quietly in affirmation. “How often do you let someone touch your hair?”
“Never. It. Makes me uncomfortable. And I find it to be… A waste of valuable research time.” She looks away slightly, revealing a sheepish side that Jungle Pocket has never heard before. “B-but this is. Nice. And embarrassing.”
At that last comment, Pokke retracted her hand to cover her mouth as she snickered. “You? Embarrassed? That’s a n– woah, hey, calm down there Tachy!”
Jungle Pocket hadn’t even had the opportunity to finish her teasing before Tachyon practically headbutted her hand to get it back on the top of her head. “I did not say you could conclude with this. Experiment. Continue as you were.”
“Sheesh, alright, alright. Never knew you were so needy.” Pocket sighed. “Can we at least get into your lab?”
“. . . How long has it been?”
“Eh? Uhhh, according to that clock behind you it’s been… Maybe 5 minutes?”
“A few more minutes, then. The room needs to finish ventilating before we go in and potentially inhale toxic fumes.”
“Toxic f–? Just what were you doin’ in there this time?”
Tachyon sighed. “So you weren’t interested in my “failed experiment”...”
“Well, now I’ve got a more interesting one, anyhow. But I do wanna know how you almost blew yourself, me, and my bag up.”
The other hummed to herself, thinking briefly. “A few more minutes. And. Try scratching a modicum. I theorize it will provide a pleasant sensation to my scalp.”
“Theorize, schmeorize. You’ve got it, pal.”