“Oh, of course I can. I’m an expert at opening locked doors. It’s a specialty of mine you could say.” He crouched down for a moment to inspect the lock and hummed to himself. After a few seconds he nodded his head and stood up. “Well lucky for you this doesn’t take much effort. They really should change the locks around here, I mean really.”
With that he took a step back and slammed his heel into the door right about the knob. The door made a cracking noise as it swung open; the top hinge broke off and it hung precariously from the middle and bottom hinges. “Ooops, that was some overkill there.” Yoichi walked inside to inspect the broken hinge. “Ah, that’s an easy fix. We really could’ve been in some trouble for a second there.”
He looked around the immediate area until he located the two small nails that had popped out of place. Picking them up, he stuck them back into their holes and used his flashlight to bang them into place. “There we go. Good as new. Er, actually I’d call maintenance to fix that, I’m not entirely sure the door is going to be straight.” He turned to face the younger boy with his hands on his hips; his watch beeped as a self satisfied smile crossed his face.
“Hah, and just in time. Now, do you need any help with something that doesn’t involve doing illegal things?”
Kyouhei…… didn’t know what to say.
He probably should’ve expected this, knowing his luck, that the officer (Yoichi, he meant) would go about it destructively, and not have a master key or a lock-picking set - although having a lock-picking set would be a pretty weird thing to see on a police officer, right?
The student couldn’t find it in him to care anymore. It was late, he was exhausted, and honestly. Honestly. The fact that he’d seen Yoichi lift his leg and didn’t even bother to try stopping him said something about his mental state.
“I’d offer you some food as thanks,” but I don’t know if I should thank you, “but I don’t know if they’ll charge for repairs and I’ll need all the food I can get if so.”
Still, the nice boy inside him wouldn’t let this go without… without something. He reached into his pocket for his notepad and pencil, scribbled down a number, and ripped it out, presenting it with little ceremony to his “savior”. “If you ever need something a college student can provide, text me… or something.”
He scratched his cheek as the younger male described his predicament. Well he was fresh out of luck if he left it at work; not even Yoichi was dedicated enough to go on a hunt for some dorm keys. “Well if you dropped them I can help you look around.” Not like he had much anything else to do. He blinked at the others question before flicking the name on his badge.
“Officer Oshiro from Bellevue’s finest at your service. Although you can just call me Yoichi, that’s what everyone else does.” He tucked the flashlight under his elbow and began picking at his nails. “I’m on patrol right now. Supposed to be watching out for riff raff or something. I just assumed that you weren’t some hooligan looking to break in because…well…you’re a bit scrawny. And most young offenders would probably make less noise when trying to enter a building.” He spoke from experience, of course.
“Anyway,” he let the flashlight roll back into his hand and tilted his head, “do you want to solve the immediate problem at hand or would you rather go waste your time at midnight looking for your keys. The real question being, if you did leave them at work could you even get in the building to retrieve them.” Yoichi glanced at his watch. “My first offer remains for another three minutes and fifteen seconds.”
“Nice to meet you, Officer - I mean, Yoichi?.” Kyouhei wondered if maybe he should salute. It was more of a military thing, right? What did you do to show respect to police officers… well, he’d figure it out?
He figured that was the case - not the part about the guy being an officer, but the ‘too scrawny’ part - that and there was the argument that he didn’t have a meaninglessly violent bone in his entire body.
That wasn’t really helpful but now there was an element of panic involved - a time limit. He felt like he was playing that one shark-watching simulator where you had to tranq the shark - anyways.
“Can you really get me inside?” Did he have a master key or something? A lock-picking set? Kyouhei decided to go with the quick solution. He could find his key tomorrow.
Yoichi slowly chewed his sandwich as he watched the younger man make a desperate attempt to open the door to the dormitories. His patrol had taken him out to Oakville University, which usually had something going on to keep him entertained. It was just a little past midnight and it seemed the poor kid had lost his keys to the dorm.
He finished off his late dinner and clapped his hands together to get rid of the bread dust before standing up. He’d let the poor guy suffer long enough, and he had another 7 minutes and forty-three seconds until his break was up. Yoichi slowly made his way towards the poor, locked-out college student; he yawned as he approached the other from behind and placed one hand on his hip using the other to cover his mouth.
“Having some issues, hmm?” He dropped his hand to his side and eyed the door. The lock looked simple enough, but he didn’t expect this kid to be looking at the issue the same way he was. “Did you lose your key or something?” Reaching for his flashlight, he clicked it on and swung the beam in a wide arc around the nearby grass.
“I can help you find it. Or I can open the door for you if you ask in the next,” he looked at his watch, “five minutes and twenty-seven seconds.”
When Kyouhei was a little kid, he would’ve lost his head if his neck wasn’t attaching it to his shoulders. It was a well-known fact - you never trusted toddler Kyouhei with anything important.
Fortunately, he grew out of it by age twelve or so.
Unfortunately, it was Throwback Thursday and he might’ve misplaced one of the most important items he owned. It was way too late to backtrack to find them too, and mentally he’d already given up.
“I think I left it at work?” He still peered in the direction the light revealed, hoping it would magically appear on the ground somewhere. No such luck. “Or maybe I dropped it on the way here….”
Either way, it was terrible and unlucky.
Curiosity made him peer up at the person offering their help in a professional manner, his interest mostly focused on the offer to open his dorm’s door within a certain time frame.
“Who are you, actually? Not that I don’t appreciate the help of course….”