Chapter Text
On one particularly rainy afternoon, Asa noticed Denji practically bouncing with excitement. She had just barely closed the door when he was in front of her with a wide smile. Whenever he got this way, his enthusiasm and sheer glee at seeing her always made Asa’s heart do a quick jump. Why did her cheeks always turn hot looking at Denji? Why did her heart do goofy little ballerina twirls whenever he smiled? Who knew.
She would acknowledge one thing: his golden retriever dog-like energy was infectious. “Yeah?”
“You gotta see what I found!”
Denji beckoned Asa over to his mattress and sat down, patting the space beside him impatiently. Asa simply smiled as she set her things down and hurried over. She hasn’t even taken her shoes off yet!
“What is it, Denji?” she asked, sitting down. She had brought a ratty bath towel from home to lay over the stains. The towel eased some of her worries concerning germs, but she still had to take it home weekly for washing. So far, her mother and father hadn’t noticed.
“Check it out!” he exclaimed, reaching into the pockets of the green coat he’d found from somewhere. He held up some small plastic figurines with their fronts facing away from her.
“P…penguins?”
Denji finagled them around in his hands so that they were looking at her with cartoony and expressive eyes. “Yeah! I’ve never seen anything like ‘em.”
Asa took a moment to examine the little characters. They were definitely from some nicer brand, but they were definitely banged up. The biggest penguin had seen the most damage with one missing eye and both missing flippers. The slightly smaller one was missing one flipper and half its beak. The last and smallest one was the luckies with only a slight hole in the side of its head.
“But, that’s not all!” Denji placed the figures down and grabbed something else from behind the mattress. “Boom!”
It was a dry snow globe with a chipped wooden base and a cracked hard plastic dome.
“Denji, where did you find that?” she questioned.
“Found it in some froo-froo shop’s dumpster," he replied with a toothy grin.
“Denji, isn’t that stealing?” Asa squeaked.
“Eh? It’s trash. They threw it out!” he retorted, sticking his tongue out as he placed it beside him. “Finders keepers.”
Asa raised a finger ready to talk about the ethics of it before thinking better of it. He…he might have a point. Instead, she sighed and propped up her chin in her hand. “They’re all…pretty neat, Denji.”
“Aren’t they?” He punched a fist into the air in victory and leaned back to observe his haul. “I feel like a treasure hunter whenever I find things like these.”
Asa found herself averting her eyes away from his wide grin and sparkling eyes. His little celebration was…nice. Not adorable, just nice. She had to change the subject.
“Where’d you find the penguins, Denji?”
“Some dude’s trashcan. They were underneath some rotten and fuzzy.”
Asa’s jaw dropped open in shock.
Ew!
“You found them this morning?”
“Yup.”
“...Have you washed your hands since then?”
“‘Course not. Do you see a sink in here?”
Asa went for the cute hand sanitizer attached to her backpack in a millisecond.
“Hands out!” she barked.
“Eh?”
“Hands out like you’re gonna wash your hands!”
Asa squirted half of the bottle into Denji’s awaiting grubby hands.
“Now, scrub! Scrub like your life depends on it!”