Fumiko's Business (Fumiko, Madoka)

In the Fujiwara Senki garage, Fumiko worked tirelessly. She was building high-lumen flashlights.

She wanted to strap lights into some of those flying toys, or even make them herself, but they needed programming, or something like that.

Fumiko knew nothing about those things.

But Dawn did. The only problem Fumiko had was approaching Dawn. They were both the “weirdos” of the Fujiwara-Senki. One was locked in her room on a bad day. and the other was exhaling smoke and locked in a workshop, getting dirty and messy with oil and rust.

But Fumiko had no idea of how to approach her. She liked those video games. Fumiko liked to hit a machine with a wrench until it began working again.

How could Dawn be interested in her own pet interest, when Fumiko had no idea how to develop an interest in her hobbies? It made Fumiko sick, because she really needed a hand, but she didn’t know how to ask her fellow Fujiwara-Senki member.

She really wanted to.

But didn’t know how, that choice paralysis, that negation, made a part of her frustrated and sad, she didn't like that.

With a sigh, Fumiko continued to work. Welding parts together, connecting the circuits, making sure the battery didn’t burn or do any funny things, and testing the light intensity.

Fairly boring job for normal people, but Fumiko loved to do those tests, stress each part to the limit to see if they held up to stuff.

In a way, Fumiko was the most normal member of the Fujiwara-Senki, alongside Dawn.

Fumiko was not a people person. That was more of a Momo or Madoka thingy. Fumiko was focused on making thingamajigs and other stuff no one cared about, just like Dawn and her software babbles and PC talk. Hell, Fumiko only understood the hardware-level talks with Dawn.

Fumiko was a fairly mundane girl. Sure, she could do insane stunts if she felt like it, but she was not like Momo, who had some big dream and a quirky way to go about it, or Madoka with her insane personal pull and personality.

Compared to them, she was like a small child, sticking her hands into a peanut butter bottle and eating straight from it.

She liked the simplicity of what she did; she didn’t have it in her to shout about dreams or push people forward. Fumiko lacked the special sauce that made her friends stand out; in a way, she was like Kanna-P: too down-to-earth.

Mundane was not bad on its own. However, Fumiko couldn’t help but notice things were changing in the background.

The student council seemed like a den of people with great personalities and pulls coming together, like a singularity.

That was not a bad thing in itself, but it could pose dangers. It was a matter of time before jealous and evil people gathered and made the council into a target. They were a glowing neon sign of goodness, and her time on the streets taught her that wicked and small people hated nothing more than good people doing good acts.

Momo, on the other hand, had the opposite problem.

Fumiko had faith, no, she knew for sure that the council would never become corrupt.

Fumiko had her doubts about Momo and the entire Fujiwara-Senki affair. Sure, it was cute if you heard it from a small child like Cato, that they were doing justice and facing evil-doers.

However, Momo was too old for that shit. A bunch of teenagers doing community work was good, but sadly, the Fujiwara-Senki didn’t stick only to that.

They faced gangs, sometimes broke limbs, and messed people up for real.

Those were things Fumiko would never agree with. It was why she chose paintballs rather than gas or air-powered airsoft guns.

A paintball sucked, and sucked a lot, but a BB shot by a gas-powered airsoft? That hurt, and hurt like hell, besides the damage it did.

She was all for teaching thugs a lesson, but what was the point of a lesson paid in blood?

Fumiko didn’t like the direction the Fujiwara-Senki were going. It was a plant watered in blood; it would soon become a corpse flower. Maybe now was the time to intervene… but Fumiko trusted Momo; she desperately trusted that Momo wouldn’t go too far.

Cutting her thoughts short, Fumiko saw the image of Madoka entering her workshop. A boombox in her hands. “Fumiko-chan! It broke! It is not making any sound!” She brought her cumbersome ghetto box to her workshop.

Fumiko identified the problem immediately by laying her eyes on the ghetto box, but she wouldn’t fix it immediately.

Madoka was a pleasant company; she wanted to keep her around for a bit.

It was selfish, but Fumiko made her peace with it.

“Sure. Put it on the table, and I will fix it. Ten thousand yen.” Madoka placed both the ghetto box on the table, alongside the ten-thousand yen bill.

It was impressive how much money she casually carried around.

Meh. It didn’t matter in the end.

Fumiko charged the price she found fair for bothering her in the middle of something, and Madoka agreed to pay her.

Fair on fair.

Fumiko stopped working on her flashlights and began to work on the ghetto box. She opened her cabinet to get the right tools and disassembled it.

“So, Fumi-chan. How was your day?” Madoka asked with a smile, trying to make small talk. her face as radiant as ever. It made Fumiko smile, too.

“It was enjoyable as it can be, Madoka-chan. Some things happened, some things I wanted to happen didn't, but oh well, those things happen every day, don’t they?” Fumiko spared a glance at Madoka. Her dexterous hands go after the ghetto box piece by piece.

“Yeah. How are you feeling after coming back to Kageoka? You are living with your grandpa, right?” Madoka questioned, leaning over slightly to see her friend’s work.

“Yup. Old man is kicking and still strong, hell, I doubt some of us are as healthy as him.” Fumiko laughed. Her grandpa was a force of nature. It was a miracle someone as old as him could still be so tall and strong on the eve of his hundredth or so year.

“I see. Momo ain’t bothering you too much, right? I know how pushy she can be at times…” A small laugh, veiled with concern, left Madoka’s lips.

Fumiko saw where Madoka was coming from. Momo had a way of being overbearing without realizing it, pushing things a little too far at times, or not recognizing how inane or stupid a thing was, even after the damage was done.

A lack of consequence management… in a way, it was her charm? Her “tsun tsun” way, as Madoka liked to put it?

“Don’t sweat it. It is no big deal.” Sometimes Momo did get on her nerves, getting too close, stepping over her boundaries too much, but it was something Fumiko could ignore.

Madoka gently clasped her hands together, a radiant smile on her lips, as her bright eyes glimmered with happiness. “I see. That’s good. Thank you for being such a sweetie, Fumi-chan.”

Soon, Fumiko had identified the problem she had detected: the power button was stuck, most likely due to enthusiastic pushes from Madoka, which had caused it to get stuck. It was a simple matter of getting her WD-40 to lubricate it and unstuck it.

Fumiko quickly scrambled the ghetto box back together and pressed the power button. Bosa Nova started to roar out of it, showing it was fixed.

Madoka enthusiastically hugged her. Fumiko stood silent, as her brow slightly twitched. She was not a fan nor an enjoiyer of spontaneous hugs, but it would hurt poor Madoka’s mood if she talked about it now.

“You are such a lifesaver, Fumi-chan!” She rubbed her face against hers. Fumiko got a little dizzy. Couldn’t Madoka make things faster and less awkward?

“You are welcome.” Madoka quickly picked up her ghetto box and exited Fumiko’s workshop, leaving her alone to her devices, just as she liked it.

Yet, Fumiko rubbed her cheek. “Sigh.” It was a strange sensation. She didn't like it much, but she couldn't deny that it was nice to have the warmth of another person, different from the heat that comes from a resistor, or the coldness of metal and materials she usually deals with.

Why couldn’t people be as simple as machines?

Why can't she be simple like a machine? A cowboy obsessed machine?

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Pub: 23 Sep 2025 00:44 UTC

Views: 39