i'm so hot 'cause i'm in hell
title: Another Morning
author: grey_nezumi
band: Antic Cafe
pairing: Kanon/Bou
disclaimer: I don't own them.
summary: One summer night, Bou and Kanon meet under unfortunate circumstances. Now Kanon is a believer.
Chapter Three: Sick
Only a little bit later, after school, Kanon found out that this was not the only lie Bou had told that night. If he had a choice, he would have liked to live with that second lie a little bit longer. Only because it made everything so much easier.
Bou was angry.
First of all angry at himself. At the way he had mindlessly gotten dressed into one of his girly outfits this morning, without thinking about the reactions he would get from his new classmates. At the way he had forgotten about the possibility that his "savior" from last night would attend the same school.
At the way he had done nothing to clear up that big hilarious misunderstanding that he was a girl with some anger management issues. Back at home everyone had known about him, that he was a guy who dressed like a girl sometimes, and they either were okay with that or they antagonized him. Bou had never cared. He was used to being the weird one, he could live with that, but he had never made so many people hate him. And those people didn't even know the worst part. They simply hated him because of his... violent reaction, not because they knew what a sick freak he really was.
Which they would have found out that morning, if he hadn't emptied that test tube on Tachibana's face before that bastard went any further with his groping him under the table.
Some of his anger was also directed at this pigshit little town, where people loved to stick their noses into other people's business, but were oh so easy to appease with just a nice front and a happy face.
But most of all he was angry at this fat metal devil of a coke machine which ate his money.
"Come on, don't be that way", he said, his face so close to the machine that his breath condensated on the cold surface.
"Be a good vending machine, I know you can do it."
"This is madness", said Kanon as he looked at the three tall beverage and candy vending machines
"having these in school. Who would want to put any more sugar into these kids?"
Miku shrugged. "It's a conspiracy."
"Oh my god, I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!", Bou's fist slammed against the machine so forceful, that he was almost sure there would be a dent.
Miku gave Kanon a worried look, as if he wanted to suggest that they run away before they got into the line of fire.
Then he coughed.
"Whatever you do, Bou-chan, don't try to reach inside that thing to get it out.", he pointed at the opening at the bottom of the machine, where whatever drink you had purchased was supposed to come out.
"Yeah, follow his advice.", said Kanon "They almost had to amputate his arm."
"Oh really? You incompetent SON OF A BITCH!",both of the boys flinched, until they understood that their friend was still talking to the coke machine. Suddenly 'she' took a step back, stared at the machine with seething hatred in her eyes, and landed a kick right in the middle.
There was silence and then a crack and then the familiar noise of a can falling into the opening. Bou kneeled down and took it out with slightly shaking fingers.
"See", he breathed "Was that so hard?"
At that moment the bell signaling the end of their lunch period rang. He looked into the faces of his two new aquaintances and felt stupid all over sudden.
"Shouldn't...shouldn't we go to class?"
The rest of the school day went by much faster than the first half, and even though Bou tried to deny it, he knew it was because now he had an ally in this class. It was strange he thought, how easy it was, talking to Miku.
Don't get too used to it. Soon enough he'll not want to talk to you again.
"Are you sure you want to sit next to me?", he had asked before their English lesson began.
"The others might... put you on their shit list or something."
"Don't worry about it. They'll think what they wanna think, anyways."
Bou had smiled at that.
But all too soon it was after school.
While Bou and Miku were packing together their stuff after their last lesson, Bou asked:
„So...have you known Kanon-san for a long time?“
Miku looked up at him „I've known him since like...forever. Why?“
Bou bit his lip. „I just thought... Has he always been so... unlucky?“
They were walking down the hallway to meet up with Kanon and were ignoring the stares and raised eyebrows they attracted as good as they could.
„Oh yeah. For as long as I can remember. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong for him. You know, on his ninth birthday party, we did this fishing for apples with your mouth in a bucket full of water game?“ Miku laughed at the memory.
„And he was always really really terrified of water. But he didn't want anyone to know so he did it anyway, panicked and almost drowned himself.“
Bou's eyes went wide. „In a bucket?“
„It...It was a really big bucket“, Miku grinned „He said he saw his life flashing before his eyes.“, laughter -
„Oh, and he was wearing a pirate costume.“
That did it, Bou couldn't suppress his laughter any longer, however tasteless it might have been. He broke into another one of his laughter fits, that left him pink-faced and breathless.
„What's wrong with her?“, he heard a voice and his head shot up. There stood Kanon, frowning at them both, almost looking worried. Miku was staring pointedly at his feet, but it was obvious that he was grinning, too.
Bou wiped his eyes.
„Mi-kun just told me... about your near-death experience“, and he started laughing again. Kanon looked at Miku and his hands tightened to fists.
“You didn't!”
“I'm...I'm sorry!”, the fact that he was laughing so hard made his apology a lot less believable.
“I'm sorry, too, Kanon-san”, said Bou, trying to catch his breath. “I just think that... people with near-death experiences are...very fascinating!”, he had that shiny, tear-struck face of someone who had just laughed his ass off.
"You know what we should do?", asked Miku after they had all calmed down a bit.
"Change schools?", Kanon asked with an air of gloominess around him that was almost typical. It was weird, thought Bou, that Kanon, with his looks and mysterious appearance didn't have girls fawning over him. Maybe girls out here had different tastes.
Instead he must have had endured a morning full of jokes and taunts by the girls in his class about the "Kanon-bleeding-all-over-himself"-incident, only interrupted with speculations about the "psychotic-bitch-blinding-baseball-star"-incident.
"No! We should show Bou-chan around the town. You just moved here, right? We could show you everything."
"Show her what? Here's nothing worth showing anyone."
"That's not necessary, really", said Bou, pulling nervously on the strings of his choco-cat backpack.
"Oh, but we want to! Right, Kanon?", said Miku and gave him his best puppy-eyed look.
Kanon rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like "---whatever".
"Great! Let's go. Come on Bou-chan!"
"No, really, you shouldn't..."
"Oh, but it's no big deal, really!"
"But...but there's something I need to tell you!", Bou said and stared down at his feet. They had all stopped walking.
"What is it?", said Miku. Kanon said nothing.
Just say it. Just say it and then it will be over. You'll be on your own again.
...Like you're supposed to be.
"I'm not"...just say it... "I'm...", he looked up "I'm..."
"Oh my god, look at that!", said Miku suddenly and ran over to the metal fence they were walking along. Bou's head spun around, confused.
Behind the fence there was an out doors swimming-pool, with diving boards and everything, but there was no water in it.
"It's empty", said Kanon, not nearly as excited as Miku had been.
"Why did they do that??", asked the other boy, his fingers looped through the holes in the fence.
"I don't know...I guess they didn't have the money to keep it opened.“
Miku turned around, obviously disappointed.
"Why couldn't they have done that three years ago when we had swimming practice in there?", he asked, shaking his head.
"Yeah, that was hell.", said Kanon.
"Do you hate swimming so much?", Bou asked and noticed that his hands were still shaking from his near-confession.
„It's like having your liver torn out with hot fishhooks.“, he said with a perfectly straight face and coming from someone with severe water-phobia, that was probably true.
"Didn't you want to say something?", Kanon asked suddenly, making Bou almost choke on his laughter "Before?"
Bou looked at him and stood up straight.
"No...It's...It's nothing."
Maybe just enjoy this for a few minutes longer...
They were serious about showing him around, alright. Half an hour later Bou felt like he had seen every last corner of this town and had been curiously stared at by at least half its inhabitants.
During the tour, Bou had gathered his courage.
You better do it now, or else your next PE lesson will be even uglier. The lockerrooms... Oh, the scandal...
But when he opened his mouth to say something, his eyes fell on the two little arms on the clock, high above their heads on the clocktower.
“Oh my god!”, Two heads spun around to see what had happened to make Bou lose his composure again.
“I totally forgot... I have to pick up my sister!”
“You have a sister?”, asked Miku, but Bou didn't even listen.
“And I don't even know where her new school is, fuck.”
“Is she going to elementary school?”, asked Kanon.
“Yeah, she's... third grade now.”
“That's alright, we can show you”, he said and asked himself why he didn't even mind.
“It's the same school Miku and me went to.”
“Th...Thanks.”
“Wait”, Miku stared at Bou wide-eyed
“You mean, there's a seven year year old version of you?”, he thought of a chibi-Bou, dyed hair, kung-fu kicks and all.
Bou considered shoving him into a street lamp.
“She's eight and we look nothing alike. We're not even biologically related.”
“Oh... why?”
“Because...because we're both adopted.”
He stared down at his feet again and wished, not for the first time that day, that they would just stop asking him questions. It had never been his intention to draw this much attention to himself. And he had not planned on making a friend here, much less two.
All he wanted was stay invisible and work quietly on the execution of his plans.
But the idea of having allies was enticing to Bou.
“Listen”, said Bou as they were arriving in front of the school
“There's something you should know about me, I'm...”
“OKAY, who are you and what are you doing with MY BROTHER?!”, a high pitched voice demanded to know, and it took Kanon a second to discover that the owner of that voice stood right in front of him.
A small girl in a cute blue and white school uniform, black hair pulled up into two bouncy pigtails. Her face held an all too familiar angry expression.
“Man...”, he heard Miku say “This is so scary...”
“Hey, Mimi”, said Bou quietly. “Did you have to wait long?”
He saw the expression on Kanon's face change, as he realized what had just been said.
Okay, here we go...
“Your...Your brother?”
Mimi looked up at Kanon as if she couldn't believe how anyone could be so dense.
“Yeah. MY brother”, she pulled on Bou's elbow as if to emphasize that they were talking about the same person.
“And I don't know what you were planning, but you sure as hell are not gonna kidnap him.”
“Kidnap...him?”, repeated Miku.
“It's alright, Mimi.”, said Bou “They're just two guys from school.”
“You...”, Miku looked at him, no, looked him over from head to toe.
“You're a boy?”
“That's what I've been trying to tell you the whole time!”, Bou couldn't help but yell a little.
Suddenly everyone's eyes were on him.
“Don't tell me... You didn't figure it out?”, asked Mimi, still holding on to her brother's elbow.
“I thought she was weird”, said Miku slowly.
“I just couldn't point out exactly what was weird.”
“I'm sorry”, Bou bowed down a little and when he looked up again he could see Kanon's face. His eyes were staring downwards, but Bou could tell their expression, and it sent a pain through his chest that he hadn't felt in a long time. Kanon almost looked...
hurt?
He had to look away.
“I'm sorry I lead you on, both of you. I should... We really should go home now.”
With that, he turned around and left, his sister following him, turning around once more, only to glare threateningly at the two shellshocked boys they left behind.
AN: Oh, hey there. Why is there so much dialogue in this fic? Writing dialogue hurts my soul. Does any of this still make sense?? The reason why this is so short is because this chapter and the next one were originally one single chapter. The next one will be up tonight (in my time zone XP), hopefully, maybe.
author: grey_nezumi
band: Antic Cafe
pairing: Kanon/Bou
disclaimer: I don't own them.
summary: One summer night, Bou and Kanon meet under unfortunate circumstances. Now Kanon is a believer.
Chapter Three: Sick
Only a little bit later, after school, Kanon found out that this was not the only lie Bou had told that night. If he had a choice, he would have liked to live with that second lie a little bit longer. Only because it made everything so much easier.
Bou was angry.
First of all angry at himself. At the way he had mindlessly gotten dressed into one of his girly outfits this morning, without thinking about the reactions he would get from his new classmates. At the way he had forgotten about the possibility that his "savior" from last night would attend the same school.
At the way he had done nothing to clear up that big hilarious misunderstanding that he was a girl with some anger management issues. Back at home everyone had known about him, that he was a guy who dressed like a girl sometimes, and they either were okay with that or they antagonized him. Bou had never cared. He was used to being the weird one, he could live with that, but he had never made so many people hate him. And those people didn't even know the worst part. They simply hated him because of his... violent reaction, not because they knew what a sick freak he really was.
Which they would have found out that morning, if he hadn't emptied that test tube on Tachibana's face before that bastard went any further with his groping him under the table.
Some of his anger was also directed at this pigshit little town, where people loved to stick their noses into other people's business, but were oh so easy to appease with just a nice front and a happy face.
But most of all he was angry at this fat metal devil of a coke machine which ate his money.
"Come on, don't be that way", he said, his face so close to the machine that his breath condensated on the cold surface.
"Be a good vending machine, I know you can do it."
"This is madness", said Kanon as he looked at the three tall beverage and candy vending machines
"having these in school. Who would want to put any more sugar into these kids?"
Miku shrugged. "It's a conspiracy."
"Oh my god, I DON'T BELIEVE THIS!", Bou's fist slammed against the machine so forceful, that he was almost sure there would be a dent.
Miku gave Kanon a worried look, as if he wanted to suggest that they run away before they got into the line of fire.
Then he coughed.
"Whatever you do, Bou-chan, don't try to reach inside that thing to get it out.", he pointed at the opening at the bottom of the machine, where whatever drink you had purchased was supposed to come out.
"Yeah, follow his advice.", said Kanon "They almost had to amputate his arm."
"Oh really? You incompetent SON OF A BITCH!",both of the boys flinched, until they understood that their friend was still talking to the coke machine. Suddenly 'she' took a step back, stared at the machine with seething hatred in her eyes, and landed a kick right in the middle.
There was silence and then a crack and then the familiar noise of a can falling into the opening. Bou kneeled down and took it out with slightly shaking fingers.
"See", he breathed "Was that so hard?"
At that moment the bell signaling the end of their lunch period rang. He looked into the faces of his two new aquaintances and felt stupid all over sudden.
"Shouldn't...shouldn't we go to class?"
The rest of the school day went by much faster than the first half, and even though Bou tried to deny it, he knew it was because now he had an ally in this class. It was strange he thought, how easy it was, talking to Miku.
Don't get too used to it. Soon enough he'll not want to talk to you again.
"Are you sure you want to sit next to me?", he had asked before their English lesson began.
"The others might... put you on their shit list or something."
"Don't worry about it. They'll think what they wanna think, anyways."
Bou had smiled at that.
But all too soon it was after school.
While Bou and Miku were packing together their stuff after their last lesson, Bou asked:
„So...have you known Kanon-san for a long time?“
Miku looked up at him „I've known him since like...forever. Why?“
Bou bit his lip. „I just thought... Has he always been so... unlucky?“
They were walking down the hallway to meet up with Kanon and were ignoring the stares and raised eyebrows they attracted as good as they could.
„Oh yeah. For as long as I can remember. If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong for him. You know, on his ninth birthday party, we did this fishing for apples with your mouth in a bucket full of water game?“ Miku laughed at the memory.
„And he was always really really terrified of water. But he didn't want anyone to know so he did it anyway, panicked and almost drowned himself.“
Bou's eyes went wide. „In a bucket?“
„It...It was a really big bucket“, Miku grinned „He said he saw his life flashing before his eyes.“, laughter -
„Oh, and he was wearing a pirate costume.“
That did it, Bou couldn't suppress his laughter any longer, however tasteless it might have been. He broke into another one of his laughter fits, that left him pink-faced and breathless.
„What's wrong with her?“, he heard a voice and his head shot up. There stood Kanon, frowning at them both, almost looking worried. Miku was staring pointedly at his feet, but it was obvious that he was grinning, too.
Bou wiped his eyes.
„Mi-kun just told me... about your near-death experience“, and he started laughing again. Kanon looked at Miku and his hands tightened to fists.
“You didn't!”
“I'm...I'm sorry!”, the fact that he was laughing so hard made his apology a lot less believable.
“I'm sorry, too, Kanon-san”, said Bou, trying to catch his breath. “I just think that... people with near-death experiences are...very fascinating!”, he had that shiny, tear-struck face of someone who had just laughed his ass off.
"You know what we should do?", asked Miku after they had all calmed down a bit.
"Change schools?", Kanon asked with an air of gloominess around him that was almost typical. It was weird, thought Bou, that Kanon, with his looks and mysterious appearance didn't have girls fawning over him. Maybe girls out here had different tastes.
Instead he must have had endured a morning full of jokes and taunts by the girls in his class about the "Kanon-bleeding-all-over-himself"-incident, only interrupted with speculations about the "psychotic-bitch-blinding-baseball-star"-incident.
"No! We should show Bou-chan around the town. You just moved here, right? We could show you everything."
"Show her what? Here's nothing worth showing anyone."
"That's not necessary, really", said Bou, pulling nervously on the strings of his choco-cat backpack.
"Oh, but we want to! Right, Kanon?", said Miku and gave him his best puppy-eyed look.
Kanon rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded like "---whatever".
"Great! Let's go. Come on Bou-chan!"
"No, really, you shouldn't..."
"Oh, but it's no big deal, really!"
"But...but there's something I need to tell you!", Bou said and stared down at his feet. They had all stopped walking.
"What is it?", said Miku. Kanon said nothing.
Just say it. Just say it and then it will be over. You'll be on your own again.
...Like you're supposed to be.
"I'm not"...just say it... "I'm...", he looked up "I'm..."
"Oh my god, look at that!", said Miku suddenly and ran over to the metal fence they were walking along. Bou's head spun around, confused.
Behind the fence there was an out doors swimming-pool, with diving boards and everything, but there was no water in it.
"It's empty", said Kanon, not nearly as excited as Miku had been.
"Why did they do that??", asked the other boy, his fingers looped through the holes in the fence.
"I don't know...I guess they didn't have the money to keep it opened.“
Miku turned around, obviously disappointed.
"Why couldn't they have done that three years ago when we had swimming practice in there?", he asked, shaking his head.
"Yeah, that was hell.", said Kanon.
"Do you hate swimming so much?", Bou asked and noticed that his hands were still shaking from his near-confession.
„It's like having your liver torn out with hot fishhooks.“, he said with a perfectly straight face and coming from someone with severe water-phobia, that was probably true.
"Didn't you want to say something?", Kanon asked suddenly, making Bou almost choke on his laughter "Before?"
Bou looked at him and stood up straight.
"No...It's...It's nothing."
Maybe just enjoy this for a few minutes longer...
They were serious about showing him around, alright. Half an hour later Bou felt like he had seen every last corner of this town and had been curiously stared at by at least half its inhabitants.
During the tour, Bou had gathered his courage.
You better do it now, or else your next PE lesson will be even uglier. The lockerrooms... Oh, the scandal...
But when he opened his mouth to say something, his eyes fell on the two little arms on the clock, high above their heads on the clocktower.
“Oh my god!”, Two heads spun around to see what had happened to make Bou lose his composure again.
“I totally forgot... I have to pick up my sister!”
“You have a sister?”, asked Miku, but Bou didn't even listen.
“And I don't even know where her new school is, fuck.”
“Is she going to elementary school?”, asked Kanon.
“Yeah, she's... third grade now.”
“That's alright, we can show you”, he said and asked himself why he didn't even mind.
“It's the same school Miku and me went to.”
“Th...Thanks.”
“Wait”, Miku stared at Bou wide-eyed
“You mean, there's a seven year year old version of you?”, he thought of a chibi-Bou, dyed hair, kung-fu kicks and all.
Bou considered shoving him into a street lamp.
“She's eight and we look nothing alike. We're not even biologically related.”
“Oh... why?”
“Because...because we're both adopted.”
He stared down at his feet again and wished, not for the first time that day, that they would just stop asking him questions. It had never been his intention to draw this much attention to himself. And he had not planned on making a friend here, much less two.
All he wanted was stay invisible and work quietly on the execution of his plans.
But the idea of having allies was enticing to Bou.
“Listen”, said Bou as they were arriving in front of the school
“There's something you should know about me, I'm...”
“OKAY, who are you and what are you doing with MY BROTHER?!”, a high pitched voice demanded to know, and it took Kanon a second to discover that the owner of that voice stood right in front of him.
A small girl in a cute blue and white school uniform, black hair pulled up into two bouncy pigtails. Her face held an all too familiar angry expression.
“Man...”, he heard Miku say “This is so scary...”
“Hey, Mimi”, said Bou quietly. “Did you have to wait long?”
He saw the expression on Kanon's face change, as he realized what had just been said.
Okay, here we go...
“Your...Your brother?”
Mimi looked up at Kanon as if she couldn't believe how anyone could be so dense.
“Yeah. MY brother”, she pulled on Bou's elbow as if to emphasize that they were talking about the same person.
“And I don't know what you were planning, but you sure as hell are not gonna kidnap him.”
“Kidnap...him?”, repeated Miku.
“It's alright, Mimi.”, said Bou “They're just two guys from school.”
“You...”, Miku looked at him, no, looked him over from head to toe.
“You're a boy?”
“That's what I've been trying to tell you the whole time!”, Bou couldn't help but yell a little.
Suddenly everyone's eyes were on him.
“Don't tell me... You didn't figure it out?”, asked Mimi, still holding on to her brother's elbow.
“I thought she was weird”, said Miku slowly.
“I just couldn't point out exactly what was weird.”
“I'm sorry”, Bou bowed down a little and when he looked up again he could see Kanon's face. His eyes were staring downwards, but Bou could tell their expression, and it sent a pain through his chest that he hadn't felt in a long time. Kanon almost looked...
hurt?
He had to look away.
“I'm sorry I lead you on, both of you. I should... We really should go home now.”
With that, he turned around and left, his sister following him, turning around once more, only to glare threateningly at the two shellshocked boys they left behind.
AN: Oh, hey there. Why is there so much dialogue in this fic? Writing dialogue hurts my soul. Does any of this still make sense?? The reason why this is so short is because this chapter and the next one were originally one single chapter. The next one will be up tonight (in my time zone XP), hopefully, maybe.