Chapter Text
It was another day for the cleaners, another busy day especially for Team Akuta. The usual team set-up and their usual supporters alongside the team. A majority of them were ready, and yet Zanka was the one who was sent to gather up their last member of the team.
The one who was clearly still sleeping in at this time, Zanka doesn’t understand how the kid doesn’t wake up earlier.
Reaching Rudo’s door was as casual as he’s done almost every time to wake the albino boy up, since he supposes he is Rudo’s teacher. Banging aggressively at the door, the staff user tries not to smile when he very clearly hears Rudo startle awake with a yelp and the loud thud made when he rolls off his bed and onto the floor.
“What?!” Came muffled through the other side and Zanka tries not to chuckle.
“Wake up, runt. We have a mission today n’ ya slept in! Did ya forget, brat!”
Silence from behind the door then a little curse.
-
Taking Rudo back to the main room with Semiu with the map for the mission on the desk. The gloved boy was no longer so tired from when Zanka pulled him from his room and down the hall after the noble handed him a little wrapped caramel. Sweets always seem to always truly wake him up.
Once the receptionist takes notice of both boys, she nods at the staff user when they go up to the desk.
“Good, everyone here now, finally?” She finilazes, making Riyo giggle as Rudo’s face flushes.
Agreements through the team echo to her and the woman nods once more, back down to the map to explain their mission. Quite a long one at that and it gets a groan from a couple of the team but she only ignores them to get their mission ready and started.
As Semiu talks and explains the mission, Rudo’s mind dazes off as he looks at the wall behind their resident receptionist. He was listening, he was! He is! He swears, but mission briefs are a bit borning .. and he can’t focus when he hears the blaring music a few halls down and within a certain eccentric blonde’s man room.
The tune and beat of the song he’s playing sounds awfully familiar to the ones his dad always played when they had to clean their home back up in the Sphereic slums.
When Rudo’s trash collection grew musty and made the house feel dirty, Regto would mess with a little radio Rudo had fixed up and blaring music with rhythmic beats and words as the man would grab a broom and sweep around the main room. Singing along loudly and their cleaning gets delayed when his dad would make Rudo dance with him.
Rudo misses those times, and he’s quite startled when he hears the same music coming from August’s room. The beat sounds super familiar to one Regto liked to play a lot when the albino messed with trash.
The music gets to Rudo’s ears as he starts nodding his head and bopping his shoulders up and damn, catching the attention of Riyo beside him and she giggles, slightly joining him. Catching more attention but it's brought back when Semiu tells them to pay attention.
Rudo’s boot taps against the floor and doesn’t notice when Semiu stops talking and looks at him and Riyo, though she too looks at him. What does catch Rudo’s attention is how the music blares louder signaling August leaving his room and leaving those big ass metal doors open. Making the Sphereite catch what song was really playing.
“Oh … Qué Calor ..”
“What was that, Rudo?”
Finally, the albino’s attention was grabbed as he looked at Semiu, then looking around himself to see his team staring at him.
“Huh?”
“What’d ya say there, kid?” Enjin spoke up, but with a large grin on his face and wild looking eyes.
“I said nothin’..?” Rudo mumbles blearily, trying to remember if he did say something. Maybe it was something that upset one of them, did he accidentally insult one of them.
“No, you definitely said somethin’, about the music clearly from August’s room. What’dya say, kid?” Enjin pushes, and Rudo’s brows pinch together. Does Enjin not know the song? Is he asking Rudo for the song as a sort of recommendation.
“Uh.. the song from August’s room… its Qué Calor.. Do you not know it .. ‘s that why you asked me?”
After his sentence, Enjin seemed to blow up in howling laughter, doubling over and it startles Rudo when Riyo, Follo and Gris seem to join his laughter. Even Semiu looked surprised at the kid.
Rudo was utterly confused, why are they laughing??
“Huh..” Zanka’s voice drew Rudo’s attention to the noble who faced him, his hand under his chin and looking at him with a raised brow. “So you know Spanish..?”
Oh.
Oh.. that’s what it was.
“Uh.. yeah, mi-- my dad. Both of them actually .. they speak it .. or technically.. They are.” Rudo shrugs, he doesn’t know why that had made them all start laughing though, its kidan irking him. “Why.”
Zanka only shakes his head as Riyo’s giggles die down and she leans against the noble as the redhead gasps shakily.
“Rudo! You’re hispanic! No way, we all thought you had some like-- rich blood from the Sphere!”
“No..? I lived in the slums in the Sphere .. Both my biological and foster fathers were Spanish.. Er, well, ’Mexicano’.”
“Dude, that's sick! So you know Spanish ‘n all that!” Follo shoots up, eyes glimmering in the way Regto’s used to when Rudo had finally picked up on the language he spoke and was meant to speak.
“Is it common here?? It wasn’t up in the Sphere!”
“Uh, yeah Rudo! Me, the Stilza family and a couple others here are Hispanic!”
That’s so cool! Is all Rudo can think and suddenly his tongue feels heavy in his mouth as excitement starts to buzz under his skin, yet before he can open his mouth. Semiu clears her throat to regain all their attention from the sudden distraction.
“Well, as much as a sweet surprise that is to know that our Resident Sphereite got some spice in him, you all have a mission to do, remember?”
All of the chuckling gasps and giggles had dissolved and were replaced with groans of annoyance, but they all had straightened and ears perked to go back to listening to the mission brief Semiu had for them.
Rudo’s attention was finally back on the briefing the woman was giving, a new sense of excitement and.. Joy buzzing in his veins. That there are those like him down here and he’s quite glad, maybe then, he can go back to imagining times with Regto when he’s talking to Follo, or maybe of the Stilza siblings.