The Undesired Second Chance

Chapter 48: Multicultural

"Okay." Obito had his hands held together in front of his face, palm to palm, and he tipped them forward as if to clear the way for his next thought. "Explain 'trains' again."

Axel had to take a moment—more than a bit frazzled at all the talking he'd been doing, and needing time to find another way to describe public transportation. But he was beaten to the punch by Rin, who, despite being as unfamiliar with the concept as the rest of them, had been paying close attention. He was more than happy to let her try to summarize things as best she could.

They had been talking for over an hour, nearing two, and somehow the topics had branched out in ways he never would've been able to anticipate. The fixation on trains was unexpected, but quite entertaining—like they have some kind of innate appeal, even across dimensions.

He stretched a little, watching them chatter with a tired-but-content smile. When his elbow dropped onto the backpack by his side, as if it were an armrest, it thunked on something more rigid than he was expecting. And, rather abruptly, he remembered why he'd packed his things up in the first place.

"It might be easier to just show you," Axel said, reaching for the zipper-pull.

Minato, who had joined him on the floor at some point, leaned forward in interest. "Right, you did say you had pictures."

Better: he had some videos.

Laptop open—and subsequent flurry of questions about it ignored, for now—Axel quickly navigated his files. He had a lot of photos saved to his computer, as he'd transferred them from his outdated phone whenever it ran out of space. Not all of his pictures had made it, alas, as the last batch he'd moved over had been from around a month before the trip back to Germany.

But he did have most them.

Thank goodness for crappy phones and regular backups.

He skipped over the folders that had photos of family and friends—eventually he would want to share stories about them, but right now... He was already getting emotional about trains, for goodness sake. One step at a time.

Plus, it would be extremely awkward if they happened to catch sight of any stray cosplay pictures. His sister had dressed up as the fourth Hokage once, and that would be a heck of a thing to explain—not least of all because Minato hadn't even been nominated for the position yet.

The batch of pictures from that last trip to Japan would probably be the safest bet: he had a good idea of what he'd find there, and none of it should be Naruto-themed. Or at least not obviously so, hopefully.

Clicking the folder open, he set about quickly skimming the contents to get to the train clips he was looking to share. But he was forced to slow down quite a bit, as it would seem that his over-the-shoulder audience was interested in... well, all of it.

It felt like they stopped him at every other picture, asking questions about even the most mundane settings—and he had plenty of those. Images of empty streets, clips at intersections, buildings that caught his eye: pictures he'd taken to send to his sister, knowing that Adri wanted to see everything from his time in Japan.

Axel still had stories he'd wanted to tell her, too, and he might never get the chance.

He paused, mid-explanation, as he turned that thought over in his head. Bittersweet, perhaps, but he got to share some of those stories now, here, with new friends—no matter how unexpected this all had been.

(She'd be glad. Probably jealous, given the context, but glad nonetheless.)

It was nice, taking the time to openly think back on what his life had been with joy: with celebration, almost, as he shared some of the highlights. Everything had become so caught up inside his head, and mired in grief. Getting to just... talk about it, fond and wistful and homesick, was a deep relief.