What happens when I have writers block and no internet apparently
Had no electricity for a few days. After emerging from my cave, I find that random crack is the result. I- I'm posting this because I don't understand how I wrote ~6000 words of what's basically just Maachin abuse. Hopefully it's funny to someone other than me D8
Title: Off to see the wizard.
Characters: M.A (Machida mainly), A.B.C-Z, Yamamoto Ryota. I feel Chura also deserves a mention here.
Rating: PG-13 for A.B.C-Z's existence.
Warnings: To reiterate: random crack, Maachin abuse. That is all.
For about the twentieth time that hour, Machida looked all around him for any signs of life. The road stretched in a near straight line north to south as far as the eye could see. It had taken him three days to get this far. He estimated there were another six days to go before he arrived at his destination. (It had been two days since he’d last seen another human being). Far above, one lonely wisp of cloud swept across the sky, blown by the dusty wind. The scrubland was all dust. The sky the road, the dark green bushes clinging to the land, Machida’s decrepit, old Ford - everything was seen through a brownish grey pallor. Machida could feel the dust settling into all his pores, scratching lightly at his eyes.
To the east the land began to slope almost imperceptibly. There were tree-covered mountains and magnificent clear lakes beyond the horizon. Machida wished he was heading that way. Machida wished he was heading anywhere. His car had broken down in the middle of the night and he was yet to see any passers by to ask for help. The closest thing he’d seen to civilisation was the ostrich that had been staring at him from behind a rock when he woke up that morning. It had run away quickly when it had realised he was awake, a cloud of brown and grey feathers disappearing in the scrub. Machida sighed. It was about 9am. He figured he should set off now before the Sun got much hotter. Rummaging in his car, he gathered up his sunglasses, his phone (out of range), a bottle of water, a baseball cap and all the shreds of optimism he had left, and started walking.
By half past eleven he was fading fast. His vision was swimming and he couldn’t really understand if that was because everything looked the same or if it was because of the concrete mixer in his head. For some reason he couldn’t seem to hang on to his bottle of water either. He reached down to pick it up, blinking his eyes against the dust. Machida didn’t realise until much later that he had been socked in the back of his head, just that the road looked fierce comfy right then.
X-X-X
Quite frankly, the man smiling at him was terrifying. Machida tried to push himself into a more upright position but felt a weight in his skull shoving him back down. He squinted at his surroundings, sprawled as he was on a hard sofa with ragged mustard yellow cushion covers. The terrifying man was sat opposite. The window behind him reflected a blond, worried lump that Machida gradually recognised as himself. He let his unsteady gaze float around the boxy room, from the rough grey carpet with its questionable stains to the tiny, orange cupboards decorated with pictures cut out from magazines to the big, glass box with sticks in it lying on the floor, and finally back to the terrifying man and his smile. Machida waved weakly.
“Evening,” the man replied cheerily.
It was, Machida thought, the hair that did it. The man’s hair stood straight up in black spikes with near platinum blond highlights. His grey, steady eyes and his sharp grin that showed a mouthful of too-white teeth added to the serial killer effect, but the hair was the real kicker. Machida pursed his lips, thinking about all this as the terrifying man hovered over him, checking his forehead and pulse.
“You’re pretty ill, na. You need to drink some water.” With that, he disappeared. Machida screwed his eyes shut and attempted to will his brain to focus. He became aware of a hum, barely audible. Opening his eyes, the first thing he spotted was the glass box. Now that he looked again, a dull blue light seemed to emanate from inside. Very carefully, he picked himself up and fell forward onto his knees. He crawled a few paces across the grey carpet - which was just as rough and greasy to the touch as it looked - until he could look straight into the glass. It occurred to Machida, that finding space in such a small room for a big glass box of sticks that hummed was slightly strange. He peered closer. It was strange, wasn’t it? Was it that hum that was making his nerves feel like they were vibrating or was that just the sickness? Maybe the terrifying man had slipped him something. Maybe it was already too late for Shingo of the Machida household… All these thoughts came to Machida as he stared, hypnotised, into the glass box. Two beady, black eyes stared back at him. The snake came out to wrap itself around Machida’s shoulders. He needed a moment to digest the situation. Then Machida shrieked.
The sound of laughter pulled him out of it. He whipped his head to the side. Too fast, his vision started somersaulting again. The man. He was sat on one end of the ugly yellow couch and he was laughing.
“Chura-san likes you! That’s great. Yaracchi, your girlfriend likes the waif!”
Machida crumpled, sitting on the carpet and holding himself up with his hands. He wanted to cry sort of. He thought he might. The terrifying man held a plastic cup of water under his nose and waggled it invitingly. Machida took it and sipped at it miserably while Chura-san explored his more personal areas. There was a sound of an engine stuttering to a halt and the vibrating in his nerves seemed to calm down. A caravan then? Things made a little more sense now Machida realised they were travelling in a ratty caravan. They made something closer to sense anyway.
A burst of cold air swam into the caravan and Machida shivered. A man was standing in front of him. Machida looked up. From pristine white trainers to brand name jeans to fading Michael Jackson tour t-shirt to cat-like eyes, the distance wasn’t very far. The little man stood with his hip cocked, smiling lazily.
“Churarin only chooses the best men to be her playboys. That’s why she won’t go near him,” he joked, gesturing to Spike-Head. At least, Machida assumed it was a joke. It was a little hard to tell. The Spike-Head just laughed. The little one crouched down and gave Machida a friendly salute.
“Yo. Do you own the shitty, blue Ford ‘94?”
Machida nodded (gently - that cement mixer in his head hadn’t quite quit yet).
“You don’t anymore,” the little one (‘Yaracchi’ was it?) replied. We stripped it. There was fuck all money so we thought it might be worth stripping you too. It wasn’t. So, uh, sorry about that.”
Machida nodded again. He’d understood very little of that other than that it didn’t seem like he was going to see his car again.
X-X-X
They travelled through the night and well into the next day, Yara (as Machida had found out he was properly called) declaring that there was no time to stop and if Machida had to go then what did he think the empty Coke cans lying around were for. By the time they stopped the next evening, most of Machida’s wooziness and travel sickness had been replaced by an intense desire to eat about 10 horses’ worth of meat and to bathe. Yone (as the terrifying man had eventually introduced himself over a bottle of vodka) had fed him nothing but mints and booze all day. While Machida supposed that meant he was ready for any kissing that might occur, the only one who wanted to kiss him right now seemed to be Chura and he had set up camp on the corner of the couch furthest from her home.
The car had been stopped for several minutes. Yone was smiling like he knew a secret. Machida wondered if he could just open the door and make a break for freedom and fresh air, but Yone seemed to be waiting for something and somehow that coupled with the terrifying man’s terrifying smile was enough to keep him rooted to his seat.
Finally, the door stuttered open and Yara hopped in holding a flaming torch.
“Gentlemen, Lady, we have arrived.”
He made a grand gesture for them to leave the caravan first then, when they did, quickly skipped in front to lead the way. Struck by the non-air-conditioned air and the biting cold of the night here, Machida’s eyes began to water and he hunched in on himself to fend off a sudden wave of shivers. He found his way by following the sharp, petroleum smell of Yara‘s torch. They turned a couple of corners, constantly stumbling over rocks. Machida became aware of music. Not just the house music Yara had been blasting from his stereo for much of the day, this sounded like a guitar and voices singing and laughing. Soon, after Yone saved him from walking into a third cactus, light and warmth began to electrify Machida’s senses. He rubbed at his eyes and made himself straighten up. They were at a whitewashed cave entrance. It had clearly been dug into the hill, being too perfectly symmetrical for nature. An array of cables and pipes trailed out the entrance or stuck out from the wall seemingly at random. There was a torch affixed to the wall around which big brown moths singed their wings. Inside, a string of dim bare bulbs led into an inner chamber from which the guitar and voices were now clearly audible. A man in a scarlet shirt and black, pinstriped trousers stood in the entrance. He had a presence that rather filled the entrance, although only in a metaphorical sense as he was, if anything, somewhat shorter than Yara. His light brown hair sat in perfectly styled layers almost to his shoulders and his neat, black shoes caught the moonlight. Machida was left with the odd impression that the dust which caked everything and everyone else here had opted not to settle on this man. He cast a lazy smile over all of them (Machida inched behind Yone), coming to a very deliberate stop at Yara.
“It’s you.”
“Don’t pretend you’re not happy to see me, Dearest,” Yara grinned, fixing his torch to a bracket on the wall. Next, he glided forward and slung an arm around the little, terrifying man’s shoulders. Then the little, terrifying man did something Machida did not expect - he giggled.
“You’re late,” he chided, nudging Yara with his hip.
“I always come on time,” Yara countered - the words were somewhat lost as he was nuzzling the little, terrifying man’s neck. To Machida’s great relief, Yone chose this moment to draw the conversation back from the unsavoury direction it was heading. He did so by shoving Machida forward so he had to flail to stop himself banging into the little, terrifying man.
“This is ours,” Yone explained.
The little, terrifying man politely gave Machida his attention (ignoring Yara nibbling his ear) so Machida introduced himself properly.
“Hello. Nice to meet you. I’m Machida Shingo, in your care.”
Machida stood firm. While instincts bred since childhood told him that what he’d just said was exactly right, a large part of his brain, a part not entirely numbed by alcohol, was reiterating to Machida the reasons why he ought to make a break for it while he could still walk.
“A pleasure,” the little, terrifying man replied, a slight quirk of his lips showing his amusement, “Goseki Koichi, at your service.” A pause. Goseki surveyed the three men loitering in the entrance way.
“Well, come on. Everyone’s been waiting.”
X-X-X
The first chamber was full of wooden crates. A few had been jimmied open. Peeking inside as they trotted after Goseki, Machida spotted booze, some jars of food and smoky-smelling parcels wrapped in waxy paper and tied up with twine and one very large crate of some electric blue soft drink.
In the second chamber, the floor was covered with straw and the acrid (!!) stench of stale smoke permeated the thick air and stung their eyes. The thought grabbed Machida that the walls were watching them. He soon realised that it was just the charcoal drawings someone had scrawled all over the walls and ceiling, though that did nothing to assuage the unsettled feeling that was twisting up his stomach. They were faces, twisted into strange, surreal shapes. Some cried tears like diamonds. Some smiled square, rictus grins under eyes like fire. Machida’s heart was racing when they finally entered the third chamber and a naked man pounced at them. The last thing Machida saw was a man with bowl-cut hair almost as bleached as Yone’s highlights waving and biting his lip nervously.
X-X-X
“Is he going to be ok?”
“Well, that’s sort of… Depends on your definition, doesn’t it?”
“Did Yaracchi give him something?”
“Just the usual. Do you think he should give him some of the special stuff?”
“Uwah! Maachin’s waking up!”
Opening his eyes proved to be a difficult task. Machida blinked, willing the crusty haze from his vision. He groaned. His throat felt like it had recently been scrubbed with broken glass and his limbs were lead weights. As his vision began to clear, he recognised the shapes above him as faces, four of them. There were a man with pale skin, pretty, round features and long black hair falling into his face, a man wearing an Arab-style scarf around his neck who had a square jaw and cropped yellow hair gelled to a precise scruffiness, a boy probably about 18 with caramel coloured hair pinned back with star shaped hairpins, and Bowl-cut. He was still naked and looked awfully contrite. He was also eating non-descript lumps of meat from a stick. Machida heard crying and only realised as he was scrambling backwards away from these freaks that it was him.
He ran. He got as far as the second chamber when he tripped over his feet and went careering into one of the graffiti covered walls. Nanoseconds before impact, two strong arms grabbed him and pulled him back, sitting him down on the chilly ground. On instinct, Machida gripped hard on to the person holding him. Looking up as his burst of adrenaline began to clear, he saw it was the boy who’d saved him. He was saying things, trying to comfort Machida, but they barely registered.
“… because Maachin already fainted once tonight, ne, so it would be bad if he fell into a wall. Plus it’s cold outside, so you should stay inside with us… Well, Yone went outside. But he’s not human so it doesn’t really count… I’ll draw your picture, if you like. I draw everyone who comes here. Though, it’s not like a can draw well or anything. But Gocchi says he likes my pictures and he let me have this room to draw on, ne…”
Machida let himself be half-lifted, half-dragged back into the third chamber where the boy sat him down on a pile of red cushions and the man with cropped hair waved a drink under his nose. The drink was green and smelt like lighter fluid. Machida accepted it gratefully.
“Sorry,” the man with cropped hair said, “Yone and Yaracchi said they treated you well, but I guess…”
“Coming from them,” the man with pale skin finished. The two shared a look both knowing and amused. Machida sipped his drink. It was burning his throat and making his hands shake. Somehow, though, he was also feeling a lot more accepting of the situation. Like maybe this cave wasn’t so bad, when he came to look at it. Piles of woven rugs in reds, yellows and greens covered the floor. The massive cushions scattered around the walls were silky with kanji sewn into them in gold thread. In the centre of the floor stood three large oil lamps with patterns carved into their multicoloured glass, casting silhouettes of birds and flowers all over the pristine white washed walls. The main light came from a mass of white fairy lights string haphazardly about the ceiling. Leaning against the wall in one of the darker corners of the chamber were two acoustic guitars, although most of the strings were broken on one of them.
“I’m really sorry I scared you,” Bowl-cut said, pulling Machida out of his thoughts, “I totally didn’t mean to.”
Machida blinked at Bowl-cut slowly. He pressed his own hand down into his knee to stop it from shaking, but the shake just seemed to travel up through his bones and become a twitch in his jaw. Bowl-cut was cleaning his teeth with a wooden skewer. He had put on a tank top and a pair of cargo pants. For this Machida was thankful. The light from the oil lamps glinted off something on his neck. A chunky, silver collar with its own padlock. Machida, feeling incapable of processing this discovery, forced his eyes back up to Bowl-cut’s face.
“That’s alright,” he said, his voice coming out in a raspy whisper, “I over reacted. It’s just… It’s been a long few days.”
A relieved smile broke out on Bowl-cut‘s face. The one with cropped hair padded across the woven rugs, threw himself down next to Machida and slung an arm over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a grin that revealed a mouth full of crooked teeth, “Our Tsuka-chan has that effect on people.”
All four of them chuckled so Machida did to, just to be polite.
“Well, but, it’s true, ne,” the boy spoke up. He had moved to sit beside the man with pale skin and seemed to be in the process of trying to subtly pull the man further and further into his lap. The dark haired man didn’t appear to mind. He leaned his head against the shoulder of the boy - who was much taller than him - and allowed himself to be manhandled. Truthfully, the boy confused Machida. Although he looked to be about 18 or 19, the way he spoke and a lot of his mannerisms (the way he pouted, the way he constantly played with his hair) were more reminiscent of a 15 year old school girl. “Tsuka-chan shouldn’t scare off our guests when we don’t get very lots.”
The man with pale skin ran his fingers through the boy’s hair and shuffled around to whisper something close to his ear. It looked very intimate. How his lips grazed the boys skin, how the boy’s cheeks flushed and he leaned down until their foreheads touched. A shiver ran up Machida’s spine, though that was probably the drink. The drink which the man with cropped hair was topping up. He shook Machida’s shoulders lightly.
“Hasshi speaks the truth. Be careful in the future, Tsuka-chan. At least remember to put underwear on before you say hello.” Tsuka-chan, who was using the wooden skewer to poke at his collar, said he understood and gave a quick salute and a peace sign. “By the way,” the man with cropped hair continued, forcibly turning Machida‘s head to look him in the eye, “We haven’t introduced ourselves yet. You can call me Fumito. That meaty one is Tsuka-chan.” Tsuka-chan laughed and gave Machida a wave. “That guy is Jesus. Actually, he’s Tottsu.” The man with pale skin smiled pleasantly and mumbled a greeting. “The kid is Hasshi -” With a serious face, the boy rattled off a formal greeting, “And I believe you’ve already met our Goseki-sama.”
“Gocchi says Maachin’s Yaracchi and Yone’s especial friend, ne,” Hasshi chirped. Smiling indulgently, Tottsu patted the boy’s shoulder and gestured to the guitars nearby. Hasshi nodded and scrambled over to fetch the working one, making Tottsu have to hurriedly slide off his lap.
“You should play something to welcome Maachin,” Fumito called, grinning.
“I have no idea what that would be,” Tottsu laughed, picking out chords without settling on a tune.
Machida began to relax. These four had a peaceful aura. The drink was still making him twitch, but, with the warm weight of Fumito’s arm around his shoulder and the white noise in his head, that didn’t seem like much of a problem. He hardly remembered how he’d gotten here, why he’d been travelling in the first place. Fumito started humming something. Tottsu picked it out on the guitar and soon Hasshi was singing along. The song was dark and pretty and the kid’s voice was like velvet. The lyrics floated through Machida’s head. Tumbling together in dark nights, hot kisses and cold embraces. Briefly, Machida wondered again how old the boy was. From some angles he looked close to 20, then blink and it was a 15 year old singing in the guitarist’s ear. The thought was strange. Many things in Machida’s life were strange lately. He let it slide and swayed to the beat with Fumito. When Tsuka-chan crawled over and offered Machida a stick of meat, he found himself thinking that these four truly were good people to have wound up with. His gut screamed and shaking wracked his body as he nibbled desperately on the tough meat. Fumito patted his shoulder kindly.
X-X-X
Machida tucked his legs under him so the dry straw scratched his ankles. He turned his face a few degrees to the West where pale morning light was filtering into the cave. It was all at the boy’s direction. Hasshi closed one eye and held his stick of charcoal up, measuring the proportions of Machida’s face then whipped his head back around to face the cave wall. Machida didn’t really understand why the boy was being so exact - from the little he could see around Hasshi’s shoulder, his in-progress portrait seemed to be rather Cubist thus far. However, he was more than willing to oblige. Hasshi and Tsuka-chan had crept out shortly before dawn to go for a jog. When they returned a few hours later they’d dug through the crates in the first chamber, emerging after some minutes with chocolate and a drink that was pink and tasted like ice-cream. Machida didn’t know what it was except that Fumito had expressly forbidden Hasshi from drinking it and that, rather than giving him the shakes, the drink left Machida with a warm, glowing feeling in his heart. Even the second chamber, the one that stank of smoke and was scrawled with Hasshi’s drawings, didn’t scare him now and he was perfectly happy to sit for his portrait.
The thought kept flitting though his head, both terrifying and exhilarating, that he might have been abandoned. Neither Yone nor Yara nor even Goseki-sama had returned since yesterday. Tottsu had played guitar well into the night. Machida had fuzzy memories of dancing with Fumito and Tsuka-chan. He was pretty sure he’d even sung at one point - he felt somewhat apologetic about that. That he’d had a car and that he no longer had one Machida remembered perfectly well. Quite well, at least. The way he felt right now, though, he figured he could run. Just run and run. He had some where to run to, of that he was sure. Where that place was was difficult to grasp hold of. Probably it didn’t matter. Probably, if he just kept running…. Hasshi was chattering away with his back to Machida, working hard on his drawing. Machida very slowly, very carefully began to draw himself up, expending all his muscles on trying to make no noise at all.
“Ne, but if Maachin moves it’ll be all wrong,” Hasshi whined, pouting at the wall.
“Sorry,” Machida yelped and sat back down.
A few hours later and the heat of the day was beginning to penetrate even into the second chamber. The air was humid and heavy and Machida was wilting. Quite suddenly, Hasshi dropped to his knees, hands drooping at his side. The nub of charcoal that remained slipped from his fingers.
“It’s done,” he announced. Machida’s breath caught in his throat. For some reason, whether because he hadn’t moved for hours or maybe just because the effects of the pink drink were wearing off, he was rigid, unable to even blink as the boy oh so slowly and painstakingly stood up, stretched and, finally, moved to let Machida see his own portrait.
“Amazing,” Machida whispered and meant it. The thing was a collection of scrawled geometric shapes connected with what looked like barbed wire but, Machida instinctively knew, was somehow hair. The thing was crying tears like lava from eyes shaded to look like they were bursting open from the walls.
“I totally wanted Maachin to like it since Gocchi said you were a special special guest. You do like it, don’t you?” the boy asked, eyes wide as dinner plates. .
Machida nodded, having trouble speaking. He was confused as to why his cheeks were wet. Tottsu and Tsuka-chan emerged from the third chamber and wrapped him up in a hug. Tsuka-chan patted Machida’s hair while the man sobbed into Tottsu’s shoulder. Tottsu mumbled comforting things into Machida’s ear. The warmth of their arms and latent terror washed through Machida. Hasshi crawled over and held Tottsu’s sleeve.
“Is Maachin ok?” he asked in a tiny voice.
“He’s fine,” Fumito assured, emerging from the first chamber wearing nothing but a pair of purple boxer shorts and a grin and carrying with him a bottle of the pink drink. He dropped down beside the boy, squeezing a comforting arm around his shoulders, and leaning over, waved the bottle in front of Machida. Gathering himself up, Machida made a sniffling apology and took a deep, calming slug from the bottle.
“It’s just, no one’s ever done something like this for me before. I really… I - I love it. Thank you, Hasshi. Thank you, all of you…”
“Say, does all this,” Tottsu asked, indicating Fumito’s general state of undress, “Mean that Goseki’s back?”
Fumito’s pig-in-shit grin answered that one. On cue, Goseki appeared in the entrance. His hair was tousled and his shirt was rumpled and hastily buttoned. The evening sunlight swam about him, casting a warm light on his strange features. Young and old, Machida thought. Ethereal. Beautiful and terrifying. Goseki smiled.
“Ne, have you finished, Ryosuke? Can I see?” The friendly, cute tone came as a surprise. It shocked Machida out of his daze. Goseki strolled over to where the boy was still clinging to Tottsu’s arms. Hasshi smiled up at him, the picture of a happy puppy. Goseki ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. He gazed at the portrait for a long minute.
“Well?” Fumito prompted, “What’s the verdict, Goseki-sama?”
Goseki took a deep breath. When he next spoke, his voice was brimming with pride.
“As always, Ryosuke’s amazing. You did very well, ne. I think this is your best portrait yet.”
He smiled down at Hasshi. The boy leaned into Goseki’s touch, letting the man stroke his cheek. Happy kitten, Machida corrected. Some sort of pet, anyway. When, after a few moments, Goseki moved to kneel in front of Machida, Hasshi made a small sound of protest at the contact being taken away and snuggled closer to Tottsu, slipping his long arms around the man’s waist. It was comical, in a way, Machida thought (not for the first time since arriving at the cave). None of the four men were what could be called tall. Compact, lean muscles, they moved like they were ready to pounce. On the other hand, the boy was all long limbs and emerging muscles, the remains of puppy fat visible in his face. He moved like he had more leg than he needed and hadn’t figured out what to do with it all yet. Machida knew he was smiling stupidly, the warmth of the pink drink spreading through him like toasted marshmallows on a cold night. Goseki laid a hand on his shoulder.
“The boys will come back for you in a few hours. They went to pick something up.”
Machida just nodded, the words slowly swimming though the candyfloss in his head. On hearing that he would be leaving soon, Tsuka-chan and Hasshi whined. Fumito suggested a good send off. Like he was listening to a radio through a wall, Machida heard them chattering. Goseki explained that Maachin had somewhere important he had to get to and that it wouldn’t be right for them to keep him. Someone lifted him up by his armpits and walked with him into the third chamber.
“Can I maybe ask, is this pink drink different from the other pink drink?” Machida enquired, hardly recognising the slurred, low pitched sound that came out as his own voice.
“A little, ne,” Tsuka-chan replied brightly, giving Machida’s arse a squeeze.
X-X-X
They’d been dancing. Machida wasn’t really sure the order in which things had happened. Tsuka-chan bouncing and flipping off the walls of the cave. Hasshi pressing his hips against Machida’s and politely asking to be taught to dance. Goseki laughing. Tottsu’s fingers bleeding from playing guitar too long. Fumito and Goseki waltzing to something rockish and entirely inappropriate. And now shadows dancing. If Machida was going to be honest, he felt that he had had just a little bit too much to drink lately and, speaking frankly, he wasn’t quite sure what it was he’d been drinking. Also, he wasn’t quite sure that it was just oil they had been burning in those oil lamps in the cave. Now, Machida was very cold at the moment and the shadows were moving and Machida wondered if this was maybe a bad sign. Someone slapped him hard on the back.
“Cold out here, isn’t it? You know, you should just come back inside and stay with us,” Fumito declared, grinning into the desert breeze. Machida looked up. The stars. The stars were bright and swirling. If he concentrated very hard, Machida thought he remembered Fumito and Tsuka-chan picking him up and helping him walk outside. That still didn’t explain why the shadows were dancing.
“He’s not staying with you perverts.”
One of the shadows stopped moving and glided closer, and then it was Yara standing before them. With his hips cocked, thumbs tucked into his pockets, his dangerous smile… he looked just as Machida remembered. This made Machida somewhat nervous as he’d hoped certain things had been a dream. Fumito was making a weak attempt at arguing with Yara. Machida wasn’t paying much attention. The other shadow was coming forward, still dancing with acrobatic movements - sometimes smooth and beautiful just like Yara’s, sometimes jerky and rushed like a kid on a sugar rush. It was oddly compelling. Before Machida knew it the shadow had flipped its way to millimetres in front of Machida’s face.
“Hi!” it said. Machida waved in reply, slightly stunned. The boy had a youthful, round face, yellow hair sticking out at all angles thanks to his energetic dancing, an impossibly enthusiastic smile and glitter all over his skin (although, Machida did wonder if this last was a hallucination). Yara wrapped an arm around his neck and yanked the dancer boy back.
“Oi, Ryochan. Maachin’s spent the night with these freaks. That means he’s pretty delicate right now.”
“Ah! Right. Sorry.” In between making vaguely apologetic gestures with his hands, the one called Ryochan managed to squirm out of Yara’s grasp only to drape himself against the man’s side moments later.
“Yamamoto Ryota,” he said in an affected deep voice, “Good to meet you.”
Smiling slightly at the boy’s attempt to sound grown up and at Yara shoving him away, Machida shook the boy’s hand and introduced himself. Unsurprisingly, Ryota said he had already heard of Machida and that Yara had said lots and lots about him already and that Goseki had told him that Machida was one of Yara’s “very special friends”. On the mention of Goseki, Ryota wrinkled his nose slightly and on the mention of “very special friends”, Ryota attempted to surreptitiously eye up Machida.
“Yara-nii says we’re all going in the same direction.”
“Yes, I have somewhere I have to go,” Machida replied, airily waving one hand about.
Before Ryota couldn’t ask anymore questions, Yara smacked him on the back of the head.
“I see Yone coming. Let’s go.”
He began strolling off in an apparently random direction and they followed. Machida, for his part, couldn’t see very much of anything. The stars were bright, but this was the desert. Some bits of darkness were less dark than others. This particularly dark bit could be a cactus or it could be some sort of hungry desert creature rearing up out of the sands. Soon the ground under their feet turned from gravely earth to hard concrete and Machida was relieved that Yara hadn’t led them to another group of obscene troglodytes. All of a sudden Machida caught the whiff of petrol. There was the sound of a car door opening and a blinding light flicked on. While Machida’s eyes were still swimming, Ryota helped him up in to the front and scooched in beside him. Machida let out a small sigh at the sensation of sitting on a chair again.
“Would you look at this asshole,” Yara said with a smirk.
Machida’s eyes were adjusting to the light, but he still couldn’t see anything. Then Yara kicked the engine into life and switched the headlights on. What Machida saw, as he squinted into the light, made no sense so it took his brain some moments to accept it. A familiarly terrifying man was back-flipping down the middle of the highway. Machida counted seven flips before he came to a stop a few metres in front of the caravan. Yone gave them a meaty grin and yelled ‘hello’.
X-X-X
It was good, Machida thought, to be moving again even considering the fact that Ryota had been allowed to drive. Yone had smacked his head at the suggestion. But Yara and Ryota had shared a smile, Yara pronouncing that it was good for the boy. It may well have been good for the boy. However, it was not, in Machida’s opinion, good for his own health to have the boy at the wheel, careering across the land, bouncing around to pop music as he swerved to avoid the occasional passing ostrich. Still, Ryota’s driving aside, it was good to be on the road again. He had found his old spot on the mustard yellow sofa and Chura had found his shoulders and wrapper herself around them.
Yara was explaining to Machida about the pictures sellotaped to the little, orange cupboards. Most were of Michael Jackson, though there were some other famous dancers and a few pictures of traditional Okinawan dancers taped up as well. Yara could speak at length about every single picture. More than that, though, he demonstrated dance moves as he chattered. Machida found it astounding that Yara could dance in such a confined space without whacking something every few seconds. Whenever Yara got especially animated, Machida would try to press himself deeper into the hard sofa in the hope of avoiding being hit by a poorly aimed limb (or, considering the way Yara danced, crotch). Lying back on the sofa opposite, one hand behind his head, the other playing with his phone camera, Yone seemed to have mostly zoned Yara out. Occasionally, he’d put in a comment about how almost running Morita Go-san over with your motorbike didn’t count as meeting him or how Yara was destined to die in great pain if he ever let Ryota behind the wheel again.
Soon enough, Machida began to drift off, numbed by the swaying of the caravan and the weight of Chura around him. Yara scoffed, seeing Machida’s eyes and threw a scrappy blanket at him from one of the cupboards. To Machida’s relief, the man was happy to leave him alone and go poke Yone’s shoulders. Outside, early morning light spilled golden over the mountains. Far below the highway, still lakes the colour of sapphire nestled quietly.
Trying out the webclap thing :)
Title: Off to see the wizard.
Characters: M.A (Machida mainly), A.B.C-Z, Yamamoto Ryota. I feel Chura also deserves a mention here.
Rating: PG-13 for A.B.C-Z's existence.
Warnings: To reiterate: random crack, Maachin abuse. That is all.
For about the twentieth time that hour, Machida looked all around him for any signs of life. The road stretched in a near straight line north to south as far as the eye could see. It had taken him three days to get this far. He estimated there were another six days to go before he arrived at his destination. (It had been two days since he’d last seen another human being). Far above, one lonely wisp of cloud swept across the sky, blown by the dusty wind. The scrubland was all dust. The sky the road, the dark green bushes clinging to the land, Machida’s decrepit, old Ford - everything was seen through a brownish grey pallor. Machida could feel the dust settling into all his pores, scratching lightly at his eyes.
To the east the land began to slope almost imperceptibly. There were tree-covered mountains and magnificent clear lakes beyond the horizon. Machida wished he was heading that way. Machida wished he was heading anywhere. His car had broken down in the middle of the night and he was yet to see any passers by to ask for help. The closest thing he’d seen to civilisation was the ostrich that had been staring at him from behind a rock when he woke up that morning. It had run away quickly when it had realised he was awake, a cloud of brown and grey feathers disappearing in the scrub. Machida sighed. It was about 9am. He figured he should set off now before the Sun got much hotter. Rummaging in his car, he gathered up his sunglasses, his phone (out of range), a bottle of water, a baseball cap and all the shreds of optimism he had left, and started walking.
By half past eleven he was fading fast. His vision was swimming and he couldn’t really understand if that was because everything looked the same or if it was because of the concrete mixer in his head. For some reason he couldn’t seem to hang on to his bottle of water either. He reached down to pick it up, blinking his eyes against the dust. Machida didn’t realise until much later that he had been socked in the back of his head, just that the road looked fierce comfy right then.
X-X-X
Quite frankly, the man smiling at him was terrifying. Machida tried to push himself into a more upright position but felt a weight in his skull shoving him back down. He squinted at his surroundings, sprawled as he was on a hard sofa with ragged mustard yellow cushion covers. The terrifying man was sat opposite. The window behind him reflected a blond, worried lump that Machida gradually recognised as himself. He let his unsteady gaze float around the boxy room, from the rough grey carpet with its questionable stains to the tiny, orange cupboards decorated with pictures cut out from magazines to the big, glass box with sticks in it lying on the floor, and finally back to the terrifying man and his smile. Machida waved weakly.
“Evening,” the man replied cheerily.
It was, Machida thought, the hair that did it. The man’s hair stood straight up in black spikes with near platinum blond highlights. His grey, steady eyes and his sharp grin that showed a mouthful of too-white teeth added to the serial killer effect, but the hair was the real kicker. Machida pursed his lips, thinking about all this as the terrifying man hovered over him, checking his forehead and pulse.
“You’re pretty ill, na. You need to drink some water.” With that, he disappeared. Machida screwed his eyes shut and attempted to will his brain to focus. He became aware of a hum, barely audible. Opening his eyes, the first thing he spotted was the glass box. Now that he looked again, a dull blue light seemed to emanate from inside. Very carefully, he picked himself up and fell forward onto his knees. He crawled a few paces across the grey carpet - which was just as rough and greasy to the touch as it looked - until he could look straight into the glass. It occurred to Machida, that finding space in such a small room for a big glass box of sticks that hummed was slightly strange. He peered closer. It was strange, wasn’t it? Was it that hum that was making his nerves feel like they were vibrating or was that just the sickness? Maybe the terrifying man had slipped him something. Maybe it was already too late for Shingo of the Machida household… All these thoughts came to Machida as he stared, hypnotised, into the glass box. Two beady, black eyes stared back at him. The snake came out to wrap itself around Machida’s shoulders. He needed a moment to digest the situation. Then Machida shrieked.
The sound of laughter pulled him out of it. He whipped his head to the side. Too fast, his vision started somersaulting again. The man. He was sat on one end of the ugly yellow couch and he was laughing.
“Chura-san likes you! That’s great. Yaracchi, your girlfriend likes the waif!”
Machida crumpled, sitting on the carpet and holding himself up with his hands. He wanted to cry sort of. He thought he might. The terrifying man held a plastic cup of water under his nose and waggled it invitingly. Machida took it and sipped at it miserably while Chura-san explored his more personal areas. There was a sound of an engine stuttering to a halt and the vibrating in his nerves seemed to calm down. A caravan then? Things made a little more sense now Machida realised they were travelling in a ratty caravan. They made something closer to sense anyway.
A burst of cold air swam into the caravan and Machida shivered. A man was standing in front of him. Machida looked up. From pristine white trainers to brand name jeans to fading Michael Jackson tour t-shirt to cat-like eyes, the distance wasn’t very far. The little man stood with his hip cocked, smiling lazily.
“Churarin only chooses the best men to be her playboys. That’s why she won’t go near him,” he joked, gesturing to Spike-Head. At least, Machida assumed it was a joke. It was a little hard to tell. The Spike-Head just laughed. The little one crouched down and gave Machida a friendly salute.
“Yo. Do you own the shitty, blue Ford ‘94?”
Machida nodded (gently - that cement mixer in his head hadn’t quite quit yet).
“You don’t anymore,” the little one (‘Yaracchi’ was it?) replied. We stripped it. There was fuck all money so we thought it might be worth stripping you too. It wasn’t. So, uh, sorry about that.”
Machida nodded again. He’d understood very little of that other than that it didn’t seem like he was going to see his car again.
X-X-X
They travelled through the night and well into the next day, Yara (as Machida had found out he was properly called) declaring that there was no time to stop and if Machida had to go then what did he think the empty Coke cans lying around were for. By the time they stopped the next evening, most of Machida’s wooziness and travel sickness had been replaced by an intense desire to eat about 10 horses’ worth of meat and to bathe. Yone (as the terrifying man had eventually introduced himself over a bottle of vodka) had fed him nothing but mints and booze all day. While Machida supposed that meant he was ready for any kissing that might occur, the only one who wanted to kiss him right now seemed to be Chura and he had set up camp on the corner of the couch furthest from her home.
The car had been stopped for several minutes. Yone was smiling like he knew a secret. Machida wondered if he could just open the door and make a break for freedom and fresh air, but Yone seemed to be waiting for something and somehow that coupled with the terrifying man’s terrifying smile was enough to keep him rooted to his seat.
Finally, the door stuttered open and Yara hopped in holding a flaming torch.
“Gentlemen, Lady, we have arrived.”
He made a grand gesture for them to leave the caravan first then, when they did, quickly skipped in front to lead the way. Struck by the non-air-conditioned air and the biting cold of the night here, Machida’s eyes began to water and he hunched in on himself to fend off a sudden wave of shivers. He found his way by following the sharp, petroleum smell of Yara‘s torch. They turned a couple of corners, constantly stumbling over rocks. Machida became aware of music. Not just the house music Yara had been blasting from his stereo for much of the day, this sounded like a guitar and voices singing and laughing. Soon, after Yone saved him from walking into a third cactus, light and warmth began to electrify Machida’s senses. He rubbed at his eyes and made himself straighten up. They were at a whitewashed cave entrance. It had clearly been dug into the hill, being too perfectly symmetrical for nature. An array of cables and pipes trailed out the entrance or stuck out from the wall seemingly at random. There was a torch affixed to the wall around which big brown moths singed their wings. Inside, a string of dim bare bulbs led into an inner chamber from which the guitar and voices were now clearly audible. A man in a scarlet shirt and black, pinstriped trousers stood in the entrance. He had a presence that rather filled the entrance, although only in a metaphorical sense as he was, if anything, somewhat shorter than Yara. His light brown hair sat in perfectly styled layers almost to his shoulders and his neat, black shoes caught the moonlight. Machida was left with the odd impression that the dust which caked everything and everyone else here had opted not to settle on this man. He cast a lazy smile over all of them (Machida inched behind Yone), coming to a very deliberate stop at Yara.
“It’s you.”
“Don’t pretend you’re not happy to see me, Dearest,” Yara grinned, fixing his torch to a bracket on the wall. Next, he glided forward and slung an arm around the little, terrifying man’s shoulders. Then the little, terrifying man did something Machida did not expect - he giggled.
“You’re late,” he chided, nudging Yara with his hip.
“I always come on time,” Yara countered - the words were somewhat lost as he was nuzzling the little, terrifying man’s neck. To Machida’s great relief, Yone chose this moment to draw the conversation back from the unsavoury direction it was heading. He did so by shoving Machida forward so he had to flail to stop himself banging into the little, terrifying man.
“This is ours,” Yone explained.
The little, terrifying man politely gave Machida his attention (ignoring Yara nibbling his ear) so Machida introduced himself properly.
“Hello. Nice to meet you. I’m Machida Shingo, in your care.”
Machida stood firm. While instincts bred since childhood told him that what he’d just said was exactly right, a large part of his brain, a part not entirely numbed by alcohol, was reiterating to Machida the reasons why he ought to make a break for it while he could still walk.
“A pleasure,” the little, terrifying man replied, a slight quirk of his lips showing his amusement, “Goseki Koichi, at your service.” A pause. Goseki surveyed the three men loitering in the entrance way.
“Well, come on. Everyone’s been waiting.”
X-X-X
The first chamber was full of wooden crates. A few had been jimmied open. Peeking inside as they trotted after Goseki, Machida spotted booze, some jars of food and smoky-smelling parcels wrapped in waxy paper and tied up with twine and one very large crate of some electric blue soft drink.
In the second chamber, the floor was covered with straw and the acrid (!!) stench of stale smoke permeated the thick air and stung their eyes. The thought grabbed Machida that the walls were watching them. He soon realised that it was just the charcoal drawings someone had scrawled all over the walls and ceiling, though that did nothing to assuage the unsettled feeling that was twisting up his stomach. They were faces, twisted into strange, surreal shapes. Some cried tears like diamonds. Some smiled square, rictus grins under eyes like fire. Machida’s heart was racing when they finally entered the third chamber and a naked man pounced at them. The last thing Machida saw was a man with bowl-cut hair almost as bleached as Yone’s highlights waving and biting his lip nervously.
X-X-X
“Is he going to be ok?”
“Well, that’s sort of… Depends on your definition, doesn’t it?”
“Did Yaracchi give him something?”
“Just the usual. Do you think he should give him some of the special stuff?”
“Uwah! Maachin’s waking up!”
Opening his eyes proved to be a difficult task. Machida blinked, willing the crusty haze from his vision. He groaned. His throat felt like it had recently been scrubbed with broken glass and his limbs were lead weights. As his vision began to clear, he recognised the shapes above him as faces, four of them. There were a man with pale skin, pretty, round features and long black hair falling into his face, a man wearing an Arab-style scarf around his neck who had a square jaw and cropped yellow hair gelled to a precise scruffiness, a boy probably about 18 with caramel coloured hair pinned back with star shaped hairpins, and Bowl-cut. He was still naked and looked awfully contrite. He was also eating non-descript lumps of meat from a stick. Machida heard crying and only realised as he was scrambling backwards away from these freaks that it was him.
He ran. He got as far as the second chamber when he tripped over his feet and went careering into one of the graffiti covered walls. Nanoseconds before impact, two strong arms grabbed him and pulled him back, sitting him down on the chilly ground. On instinct, Machida gripped hard on to the person holding him. Looking up as his burst of adrenaline began to clear, he saw it was the boy who’d saved him. He was saying things, trying to comfort Machida, but they barely registered.
“… because Maachin already fainted once tonight, ne, so it would be bad if he fell into a wall. Plus it’s cold outside, so you should stay inside with us… Well, Yone went outside. But he’s not human so it doesn’t really count… I’ll draw your picture, if you like. I draw everyone who comes here. Though, it’s not like a can draw well or anything. But Gocchi says he likes my pictures and he let me have this room to draw on, ne…”
Machida let himself be half-lifted, half-dragged back into the third chamber where the boy sat him down on a pile of red cushions and the man with cropped hair waved a drink under his nose. The drink was green and smelt like lighter fluid. Machida accepted it gratefully.
“Sorry,” the man with cropped hair said, “Yone and Yaracchi said they treated you well, but I guess…”
“Coming from them,” the man with pale skin finished. The two shared a look both knowing and amused. Machida sipped his drink. It was burning his throat and making his hands shake. Somehow, though, he was also feeling a lot more accepting of the situation. Like maybe this cave wasn’t so bad, when he came to look at it. Piles of woven rugs in reds, yellows and greens covered the floor. The massive cushions scattered around the walls were silky with kanji sewn into them in gold thread. In the centre of the floor stood three large oil lamps with patterns carved into their multicoloured glass, casting silhouettes of birds and flowers all over the pristine white washed walls. The main light came from a mass of white fairy lights string haphazardly about the ceiling. Leaning against the wall in one of the darker corners of the chamber were two acoustic guitars, although most of the strings were broken on one of them.
“I’m really sorry I scared you,” Bowl-cut said, pulling Machida out of his thoughts, “I totally didn’t mean to.”
Machida blinked at Bowl-cut slowly. He pressed his own hand down into his knee to stop it from shaking, but the shake just seemed to travel up through his bones and become a twitch in his jaw. Bowl-cut was cleaning his teeth with a wooden skewer. He had put on a tank top and a pair of cargo pants. For this Machida was thankful. The light from the oil lamps glinted off something on his neck. A chunky, silver collar with its own padlock. Machida, feeling incapable of processing this discovery, forced his eyes back up to Bowl-cut’s face.
“That’s alright,” he said, his voice coming out in a raspy whisper, “I over reacted. It’s just… It’s been a long few days.”
A relieved smile broke out on Bowl-cut‘s face. The one with cropped hair padded across the woven rugs, threw himself down next to Machida and slung an arm over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said with a grin that revealed a mouth full of crooked teeth, “Our Tsuka-chan has that effect on people.”
All four of them chuckled so Machida did to, just to be polite.
“Well, but, it’s true, ne,” the boy spoke up. He had moved to sit beside the man with pale skin and seemed to be in the process of trying to subtly pull the man further and further into his lap. The dark haired man didn’t appear to mind. He leaned his head against the shoulder of the boy - who was much taller than him - and allowed himself to be manhandled. Truthfully, the boy confused Machida. Although he looked to be about 18 or 19, the way he spoke and a lot of his mannerisms (the way he pouted, the way he constantly played with his hair) were more reminiscent of a 15 year old school girl. “Tsuka-chan shouldn’t scare off our guests when we don’t get very lots.”
The man with pale skin ran his fingers through the boy’s hair and shuffled around to whisper something close to his ear. It looked very intimate. How his lips grazed the boys skin, how the boy’s cheeks flushed and he leaned down until their foreheads touched. A shiver ran up Machida’s spine, though that was probably the drink. The drink which the man with cropped hair was topping up. He shook Machida’s shoulders lightly.
“Hasshi speaks the truth. Be careful in the future, Tsuka-chan. At least remember to put underwear on before you say hello.” Tsuka-chan, who was using the wooden skewer to poke at his collar, said he understood and gave a quick salute and a peace sign. “By the way,” the man with cropped hair continued, forcibly turning Machida‘s head to look him in the eye, “We haven’t introduced ourselves yet. You can call me Fumito. That meaty one is Tsuka-chan.” Tsuka-chan laughed and gave Machida a wave. “That guy is Jesus. Actually, he’s Tottsu.” The man with pale skin smiled pleasantly and mumbled a greeting. “The kid is Hasshi -” With a serious face, the boy rattled off a formal greeting, “And I believe you’ve already met our Goseki-sama.”
“Gocchi says Maachin’s Yaracchi and Yone’s especial friend, ne,” Hasshi chirped. Smiling indulgently, Tottsu patted the boy’s shoulder and gestured to the guitars nearby. Hasshi nodded and scrambled over to fetch the working one, making Tottsu have to hurriedly slide off his lap.
“You should play something to welcome Maachin,” Fumito called, grinning.
“I have no idea what that would be,” Tottsu laughed, picking out chords without settling on a tune.
Machida began to relax. These four had a peaceful aura. The drink was still making him twitch, but, with the warm weight of Fumito’s arm around his shoulder and the white noise in his head, that didn’t seem like much of a problem. He hardly remembered how he’d gotten here, why he’d been travelling in the first place. Fumito started humming something. Tottsu picked it out on the guitar and soon Hasshi was singing along. The song was dark and pretty and the kid’s voice was like velvet. The lyrics floated through Machida’s head. Tumbling together in dark nights, hot kisses and cold embraces. Briefly, Machida wondered again how old the boy was. From some angles he looked close to 20, then blink and it was a 15 year old singing in the guitarist’s ear. The thought was strange. Many things in Machida’s life were strange lately. He let it slide and swayed to the beat with Fumito. When Tsuka-chan crawled over and offered Machida a stick of meat, he found himself thinking that these four truly were good people to have wound up with. His gut screamed and shaking wracked his body as he nibbled desperately on the tough meat. Fumito patted his shoulder kindly.
X-X-X
Machida tucked his legs under him so the dry straw scratched his ankles. He turned his face a few degrees to the West where pale morning light was filtering into the cave. It was all at the boy’s direction. Hasshi closed one eye and held his stick of charcoal up, measuring the proportions of Machida’s face then whipped his head back around to face the cave wall. Machida didn’t really understand why the boy was being so exact - from the little he could see around Hasshi’s shoulder, his in-progress portrait seemed to be rather Cubist thus far. However, he was more than willing to oblige. Hasshi and Tsuka-chan had crept out shortly before dawn to go for a jog. When they returned a few hours later they’d dug through the crates in the first chamber, emerging after some minutes with chocolate and a drink that was pink and tasted like ice-cream. Machida didn’t know what it was except that Fumito had expressly forbidden Hasshi from drinking it and that, rather than giving him the shakes, the drink left Machida with a warm, glowing feeling in his heart. Even the second chamber, the one that stank of smoke and was scrawled with Hasshi’s drawings, didn’t scare him now and he was perfectly happy to sit for his portrait.
The thought kept flitting though his head, both terrifying and exhilarating, that he might have been abandoned. Neither Yone nor Yara nor even Goseki-sama had returned since yesterday. Tottsu had played guitar well into the night. Machida had fuzzy memories of dancing with Fumito and Tsuka-chan. He was pretty sure he’d even sung at one point - he felt somewhat apologetic about that. That he’d had a car and that he no longer had one Machida remembered perfectly well. Quite well, at least. The way he felt right now, though, he figured he could run. Just run and run. He had some where to run to, of that he was sure. Where that place was was difficult to grasp hold of. Probably it didn’t matter. Probably, if he just kept running…. Hasshi was chattering away with his back to Machida, working hard on his drawing. Machida very slowly, very carefully began to draw himself up, expending all his muscles on trying to make no noise at all.
“Ne, but if Maachin moves it’ll be all wrong,” Hasshi whined, pouting at the wall.
“Sorry,” Machida yelped and sat back down.
A few hours later and the heat of the day was beginning to penetrate even into the second chamber. The air was humid and heavy and Machida was wilting. Quite suddenly, Hasshi dropped to his knees, hands drooping at his side. The nub of charcoal that remained slipped from his fingers.
“It’s done,” he announced. Machida’s breath caught in his throat. For some reason, whether because he hadn’t moved for hours or maybe just because the effects of the pink drink were wearing off, he was rigid, unable to even blink as the boy oh so slowly and painstakingly stood up, stretched and, finally, moved to let Machida see his own portrait.
“Amazing,” Machida whispered and meant it. The thing was a collection of scrawled geometric shapes connected with what looked like barbed wire but, Machida instinctively knew, was somehow hair. The thing was crying tears like lava from eyes shaded to look like they were bursting open from the walls.
“I totally wanted Maachin to like it since Gocchi said you were a special special guest. You do like it, don’t you?” the boy asked, eyes wide as dinner plates. .
Machida nodded, having trouble speaking. He was confused as to why his cheeks were wet. Tottsu and Tsuka-chan emerged from the third chamber and wrapped him up in a hug. Tsuka-chan patted Machida’s hair while the man sobbed into Tottsu’s shoulder. Tottsu mumbled comforting things into Machida’s ear. The warmth of their arms and latent terror washed through Machida. Hasshi crawled over and held Tottsu’s sleeve.
“Is Maachin ok?” he asked in a tiny voice.
“He’s fine,” Fumito assured, emerging from the first chamber wearing nothing but a pair of purple boxer shorts and a grin and carrying with him a bottle of the pink drink. He dropped down beside the boy, squeezing a comforting arm around his shoulders, and leaning over, waved the bottle in front of Machida. Gathering himself up, Machida made a sniffling apology and took a deep, calming slug from the bottle.
“It’s just, no one’s ever done something like this for me before. I really… I - I love it. Thank you, Hasshi. Thank you, all of you…”
“Say, does all this,” Tottsu asked, indicating Fumito’s general state of undress, “Mean that Goseki’s back?”
Fumito’s pig-in-shit grin answered that one. On cue, Goseki appeared in the entrance. His hair was tousled and his shirt was rumpled and hastily buttoned. The evening sunlight swam about him, casting a warm light on his strange features. Young and old, Machida thought. Ethereal. Beautiful and terrifying. Goseki smiled.
“Ne, have you finished, Ryosuke? Can I see?” The friendly, cute tone came as a surprise. It shocked Machida out of his daze. Goseki strolled over to where the boy was still clinging to Tottsu’s arms. Hasshi smiled up at him, the picture of a happy puppy. Goseki ran his fingers through the boy’s hair. He gazed at the portrait for a long minute.
“Well?” Fumito prompted, “What’s the verdict, Goseki-sama?”
Goseki took a deep breath. When he next spoke, his voice was brimming with pride.
“As always, Ryosuke’s amazing. You did very well, ne. I think this is your best portrait yet.”
He smiled down at Hasshi. The boy leaned into Goseki’s touch, letting the man stroke his cheek. Happy kitten, Machida corrected. Some sort of pet, anyway. When, after a few moments, Goseki moved to kneel in front of Machida, Hasshi made a small sound of protest at the contact being taken away and snuggled closer to Tottsu, slipping his long arms around the man’s waist. It was comical, in a way, Machida thought (not for the first time since arriving at the cave). None of the four men were what could be called tall. Compact, lean muscles, they moved like they were ready to pounce. On the other hand, the boy was all long limbs and emerging muscles, the remains of puppy fat visible in his face. He moved like he had more leg than he needed and hadn’t figured out what to do with it all yet. Machida knew he was smiling stupidly, the warmth of the pink drink spreading through him like toasted marshmallows on a cold night. Goseki laid a hand on his shoulder.
“The boys will come back for you in a few hours. They went to pick something up.”
Machida just nodded, the words slowly swimming though the candyfloss in his head. On hearing that he would be leaving soon, Tsuka-chan and Hasshi whined. Fumito suggested a good send off. Like he was listening to a radio through a wall, Machida heard them chattering. Goseki explained that Maachin had somewhere important he had to get to and that it wouldn’t be right for them to keep him. Someone lifted him up by his armpits and walked with him into the third chamber.
“Can I maybe ask, is this pink drink different from the other pink drink?” Machida enquired, hardly recognising the slurred, low pitched sound that came out as his own voice.
“A little, ne,” Tsuka-chan replied brightly, giving Machida’s arse a squeeze.
X-X-X
They’d been dancing. Machida wasn’t really sure the order in which things had happened. Tsuka-chan bouncing and flipping off the walls of the cave. Hasshi pressing his hips against Machida’s and politely asking to be taught to dance. Goseki laughing. Tottsu’s fingers bleeding from playing guitar too long. Fumito and Goseki waltzing to something rockish and entirely inappropriate. And now shadows dancing. If Machida was going to be honest, he felt that he had had just a little bit too much to drink lately and, speaking frankly, he wasn’t quite sure what it was he’d been drinking. Also, he wasn’t quite sure that it was just oil they had been burning in those oil lamps in the cave. Now, Machida was very cold at the moment and the shadows were moving and Machida wondered if this was maybe a bad sign. Someone slapped him hard on the back.
“Cold out here, isn’t it? You know, you should just come back inside and stay with us,” Fumito declared, grinning into the desert breeze. Machida looked up. The stars. The stars were bright and swirling. If he concentrated very hard, Machida thought he remembered Fumito and Tsuka-chan picking him up and helping him walk outside. That still didn’t explain why the shadows were dancing.
“He’s not staying with you perverts.”
One of the shadows stopped moving and glided closer, and then it was Yara standing before them. With his hips cocked, thumbs tucked into his pockets, his dangerous smile… he looked just as Machida remembered. This made Machida somewhat nervous as he’d hoped certain things had been a dream. Fumito was making a weak attempt at arguing with Yara. Machida wasn’t paying much attention. The other shadow was coming forward, still dancing with acrobatic movements - sometimes smooth and beautiful just like Yara’s, sometimes jerky and rushed like a kid on a sugar rush. It was oddly compelling. Before Machida knew it the shadow had flipped its way to millimetres in front of Machida’s face.
“Hi!” it said. Machida waved in reply, slightly stunned. The boy had a youthful, round face, yellow hair sticking out at all angles thanks to his energetic dancing, an impossibly enthusiastic smile and glitter all over his skin (although, Machida did wonder if this last was a hallucination). Yara wrapped an arm around his neck and yanked the dancer boy back.
“Oi, Ryochan. Maachin’s spent the night with these freaks. That means he’s pretty delicate right now.”
“Ah! Right. Sorry.” In between making vaguely apologetic gestures with his hands, the one called Ryochan managed to squirm out of Yara’s grasp only to drape himself against the man’s side moments later.
“Yamamoto Ryota,” he said in an affected deep voice, “Good to meet you.”
Smiling slightly at the boy’s attempt to sound grown up and at Yara shoving him away, Machida shook the boy’s hand and introduced himself. Unsurprisingly, Ryota said he had already heard of Machida and that Yara had said lots and lots about him already and that Goseki had told him that Machida was one of Yara’s “very special friends”. On the mention of Goseki, Ryota wrinkled his nose slightly and on the mention of “very special friends”, Ryota attempted to surreptitiously eye up Machida.
“Yara-nii says we’re all going in the same direction.”
“Yes, I have somewhere I have to go,” Machida replied, airily waving one hand about.
Before Ryota couldn’t ask anymore questions, Yara smacked him on the back of the head.
“I see Yone coming. Let’s go.”
He began strolling off in an apparently random direction and they followed. Machida, for his part, couldn’t see very much of anything. The stars were bright, but this was the desert. Some bits of darkness were less dark than others. This particularly dark bit could be a cactus or it could be some sort of hungry desert creature rearing up out of the sands. Soon the ground under their feet turned from gravely earth to hard concrete and Machida was relieved that Yara hadn’t led them to another group of obscene troglodytes. All of a sudden Machida caught the whiff of petrol. There was the sound of a car door opening and a blinding light flicked on. While Machida’s eyes were still swimming, Ryota helped him up in to the front and scooched in beside him. Machida let out a small sigh at the sensation of sitting on a chair again.
“Would you look at this asshole,” Yara said with a smirk.
Machida’s eyes were adjusting to the light, but he still couldn’t see anything. Then Yara kicked the engine into life and switched the headlights on. What Machida saw, as he squinted into the light, made no sense so it took his brain some moments to accept it. A familiarly terrifying man was back-flipping down the middle of the highway. Machida counted seven flips before he came to a stop a few metres in front of the caravan. Yone gave them a meaty grin and yelled ‘hello’.
X-X-X
It was good, Machida thought, to be moving again even considering the fact that Ryota had been allowed to drive. Yone had smacked his head at the suggestion. But Yara and Ryota had shared a smile, Yara pronouncing that it was good for the boy. It may well have been good for the boy. However, it was not, in Machida’s opinion, good for his own health to have the boy at the wheel, careering across the land, bouncing around to pop music as he swerved to avoid the occasional passing ostrich. Still, Ryota’s driving aside, it was good to be on the road again. He had found his old spot on the mustard yellow sofa and Chura had found his shoulders and wrapper herself around them.
Yara was explaining to Machida about the pictures sellotaped to the little, orange cupboards. Most were of Michael Jackson, though there were some other famous dancers and a few pictures of traditional Okinawan dancers taped up as well. Yara could speak at length about every single picture. More than that, though, he demonstrated dance moves as he chattered. Machida found it astounding that Yara could dance in such a confined space without whacking something every few seconds. Whenever Yara got especially animated, Machida would try to press himself deeper into the hard sofa in the hope of avoiding being hit by a poorly aimed limb (or, considering the way Yara danced, crotch). Lying back on the sofa opposite, one hand behind his head, the other playing with his phone camera, Yone seemed to have mostly zoned Yara out. Occasionally, he’d put in a comment about how almost running Morita Go-san over with your motorbike didn’t count as meeting him or how Yara was destined to die in great pain if he ever let Ryota behind the wheel again.
Soon enough, Machida began to drift off, numbed by the swaying of the caravan and the weight of Chura around him. Yara scoffed, seeing Machida’s eyes and threw a scrappy blanket at him from one of the cupboards. To Machida’s relief, the man was happy to leave him alone and go poke Yone’s shoulders. Outside, early morning light spilled golden over the mountains. Far below the highway, still lakes the colour of sapphire nestled quietly.
Trying out the webclap thing :)