Fic: Clay Figurines and Cigarettes
Title: Clay Figurines and Cigarettes
A/N: A story about two great friends for two great friends. Dear charliechaplin2, dear ellorgast: happy (belated) birthday.
***
The sweat was running down his legs.
Leaning against the battered white Peugeot, a rental that had seen too many miles, the sun relentlessly glared down on him. There was the perpetual red of sunburn on his tan arms and his curly hair was blonder than it had ever been, the strawberry tone almost bleached away by the August sun. Aided by more sweat, his sunglasses slipped down his nose for the umpteenth time until he finally had enough and took them off, fastening them to his washed out blue shirt. It read Sea Isle Marina and Yachting Centre; he’d picked it up last year when he’d gone to visit an old friend in Miami. It had been stupidly hot there too. Fucking global warming.
As people streamed out of the airport, Ando rose on his toes to look over their heads, searching for his partner-in-crime, his brother-in-arms, his best friend. It had been too long since he’d seen Umino. Two years, one month, and seventeen days, not that he was counting. But now Umino had finished his Ph.D. and as a reward, Ando had told him to pick a country, any country, and then they’d travel it together for a few weeks or months or however long he could manage to tie Umino to his side.
Honouring his Philosophy doctorate, Umino had chosen Greece and had then begun to send Ando email after email about Greek history and philosophers’ contributions to the world as they knew it and did he know that the Olympic Games were originally held in honour of Zeus and also, access to the Cave of Archedemos the Nympholept was restricted, what a bummer, was there any way around that? Because it was a really cool cave. With sculptures hewn into the rock. Wasn’t that cool? It was so cool. They just had to go there. It had gotten to the point where Ando had threatened to call the whole trip off if Umino typed the word “cave” ever again and Umino, in true spirit of their friendship, had replied by sending Ando pictures of caves for a week. And now Ando was at the airport, waiting for his friend despite all his protestations.
Having flown in from Turkey, Ando had arrived yesterday, rented the car, booked a hotel for the first three days, and then bought a big map of the country, a travel guide, and some sunglasses because he was sure, absolutely, positively, wonderfully sure that Umino would forget his. It was nice to be able to predict something again. Travelling the world was brilliant, especially because you never knew what would happen, whom you’d meet and where you’d end up next, but because you never knew what would happen, whom you’d meet and where you’d end up next, the certainty of a best friend flying in from Japan without his sunglasses was a bit like Christmas.
Except that Santa was an hour late. Ando checked his watch. An hour and one minute. An hour and two minutes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ando rose on tiptoes again and sure enough, he could now see Umino, still on the other side of the sliding doors, having just careened into a Greek family. As a result, the philosopher had dropped his suitcase and now half of his belongings were scattered on the floor, mixed with a little girl’s Barbie, her mother’s Duty Free shopping bag and the father’s cigarettes. Flustered, Umino bent down to save Barbie from his socks and spilled shower gel while the father screamed bloody murder.
Grinning, Ando pushed himself off the car.
***
“That’s a very becoming shade of magenta,” Ando said and pushed a finger on Umino’s arm, watching the skin go white before it resumed its pink hue.
“Shut up,” Umino replied, elbowed Ando in the side and squinted at the map. “I think we need to turn left, and then we should arrive at the Kanellopoulus museum.”
“More clay figurines?”
It was their third day in Athens. They had spent the day of Umino’s arrival celebrating their reunion with plenty of Gyros and lots of Ouzo. Umino had told Ando all about what was going on in Tokyo and Ando had gleefully related some of his European adventures. The next morning, a small wonder happened: Umino, despite a generous hangover, had risen early. Umino, who loved sleep the way Pooh loved honey. It really was quite remarkable. He had dragged Ando out of bed and up the Akropolis before the clock struck eight and they’d stayed there all day, touring the ruins, eating over-priced food, snapping lots of pictures to send back home to Ami and the others. They’d enjoyed the day so much, they never realised how hot the Athens sun burned and how the very pale Umino had steadily changed colour until he looked like a walking, talking strawberry.
“They have art from every period of Greek history!” Umino said excitedly, retrieving a travel guide with more post-its than pages. In two days, he’d shed his skin like a snake just to start the whole thing over again.
“Then left we turn,” Ando said and smiled, happy to indulge his friend in his History frenzy. “But wear the damn sunscreen.”
“I am!” Umino protested as pulled his backpack off to stow the map away. “I put lots on while you were in the lobby, checking your emails.”
“Then why are you so pink? You look like a Care Bear. Are there stars painted on your stomach, or are you more the rainbow type?”
“Clover leaf, Ando, clover leaf. But seriously, it’s not like I spent weeks on a cruise ship like some other people here,” Umino paused, grinning. “I didn’t get as much sun in the last year as you did; I burn easily.”
“That’s what you get for hiding in a library, all day, every day.”
Umino grinned. “No, for that I got a Ph.D.”
***
“It was destroyed by an earthquake 226 BC,” Umino said, sketching the outline of a man on his notepad. Ando didn’t have the heart to tell him that his artistic talent was roughly the same as Attila the dog’s; Umino’s Colossus of Rhodes looked more like a stick figure than anything else.
“I wonder what it really looked like,” Ando mused and slipped his sunglasses back on.
“Marble pedestal, bronze statue,” Umino replied, looking up from his drawing with a smile.
“Were the ruins ever found?”
Umino shook his head.
“Weird, huh?”
“What?” Umino asked.
“That people consider this ancient; never knowing that there was something more advanced, more civilised long before that.”
“The Golden Kingdom wasn’t more civilised,” Umino muttered, “I think all the bloodshed proved that.” He put his notepad away and stretched out on the warm sand, closing his eyes.
Ando groaned. “Why did you have to bring bloodshed into our beautiful beach holiday? You really don’t know how to have a good time.” He dramatically flipped over onto his stomach, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his bag. “I, however, do. I started a new blog, ‘cigarettes of the world’. 359 followers in two weeks. Impressed?”
“Very. So, Greek cigarettes any good?”
“Want one?” Ando asked and offered Umino the packet.
Umino shook his head. “I’m smarter than you, so no.”
“They’re horrible anyway, burn the air right out of your lungs. I prefer the Turkish ones. Oscar Wilde smoked Turkish cigarettes.”
“Is that on your blog too?”
“Of course.”
Ando spent at least an hour each day writing; be it for his blog, for the paper in New York, or for one of his countless letters to Rei. Not wanting to miss any of his precious Umino time, Ando tried to get his writing done before Sleeping Beauty rose from the bed in the morning, but seeing how the excitement to be in Greece was more dominant than his love for sleep, Umino now got up at seven every morning, meaning Ando got up at five or six. The things one did for friends.
“Can we go to Crete next?”
“This is your trip, you idiot, of course we can go to Crete.”
Umino smiled and pulled off his shirt to reveal patchy red and white skin, even though the philosopher insisted that it would be a smooth tan in a few days. Ando didn’t believe him for a second and tucked the cigarette between his lips so that he had his hands free to search for the ever elusive sunscreen. Ando finally found it and Umino offered him his back.
“And where are you going from there? I hear Tokyo is nice this time of year,” Umino said, looking at the ocean. The water was a wonderful shade of blue; Ami would love it.
“Too soon, Umino,” Ando replied steadily, cigarette between his lips, and squeezed a generous amount of lotion on his friend’s back. Rubbing it in, he tried not to rip off the bits of loose skin. “There, all done,” Ando said eventually and wiped the remaining sunscreen off on his own legs.
Now that his hands were free, he looked left and right, making sure that they were alone before lighting up with a snap of his fingers. It was a nifty trick and he lost his lighters all the time anyway. He wondered if Mamoru would be impressed with him, or whether he was so used to the senshis’ supernatural abilities that one little flame sprouting from a man’s fingers no longer counted.
“Rei misses you,” Umino said, rolling on his stomach.
Tracing patterns into the sand with his toes, Ando smiled. Rei occasionally sent him emails in response to his letters; he’d printed out every single one of them and carried them around in his large backpack.
“Minako misses you too.”
Minako didn’t write much, but she called him whenever he let her know where he was. “That she does,” he replied, thinking of their last phone call. She’d been in tears because she’d accidentally washed her bright pink Princess Peach socks with all of Takeshi’s white shirts. Predictably, they were white no more and by the end of the call, Minako had been laughing again, claiming that pink complimented Takeshi’s complexion anyway. “I miss her too. Is Takeshi nice to her?”
Umino laughed. “Yes, very. He spoils her rotten, and she rewards him by distracting him from very important work every chance she gets.”
“He needs that though,” Ando pointed out, and Umino nodded. “He does. He sends his best, by the way.”
Ando arched a brow. “Really?”
“Really. He also said you might want to consider coming back, three years are long enough.”
Taking a deep drag, Ando thought of all the bad things that had happened, be it back in the Silver Millennium or in Tokyo prior to his departure. He wasn’t sure that if he went back now, he wouldn’t just try to cope by drinking himself stupid all over again. He wasn’t sure he was the man Mamoru and Rei needed him to be. “I don’t think so.”
Umino balled up his shirt and used it as a pillow, closing his eyes against the sun. “Fine. You go on travelling and come back when you come back. I’ll take a nap now.”
“You do that, sleepy pants,” Ando said and flicked some ash onto the white sand.
No. Definitely too soon.
***
They hiked in the Samariá Gorge on Crete up until the point where Umino, to Ando’s great amusement, finally remembered that he was very much an indoor person.
They checked into a nice hotel after that and went to the next five football games of the OFI Greece, drinking beer on the stands of the Theodoros Vardinogiannis stadium while cheering for the local team no matter whom they played.
Umino bought a jersey to take home for Hiro, while Ando sent a long letter to Rei, explaining all about football and Umino’s sunburn and perhaps how everything he saw and everywhere he went somehow reminded him of her.
***
From the main island of Crete they travelled to Elounda, where they climbed into a small boat to go to Spinalonga. “Boat, not ship,” as Umino repeated over and over again, wondering whether he was a good enough swimmer to make it to the shore of the former leper colony if the rickety nutshell keeled over.
Turned out, he was.
***
They returned late at night, falling into bed with tired eyes and heavy legs. They always shared a room, and even after three weeks of being in each other’s company for 24 hours a day, they didn’t mind.
Granted, Ando would have preferred a bed of his own.
“Umino, stop moving, damn it.”
“It’s too hot,” Umino whined and kicked the thin sheet off him.
“If you don’t stop moving, I’ll abandon you on the next island, whether it’s inhabited or not.”
“Why didn’t we get a room with two single beds? And air conditioning?”
“Because we are in a teeny tiny village on a moderately small island near Crete and there is precisely one hotel here and they have three rooms and frankly, I’m ecstatic that they have advanced to having running water. Spoiled brat.”
“I just want to sleep,” Umino moaned, pulling the pillow out from underneath Ando and putting it on his own face. “I can always sleep, it’s my thing.”
“Then sleep. Sleep and lie still,” Ando shot back and stole the pillow back.
“I can’t, now I’m awake again. Awake and remembering how we almost drowned just because you wanted to catch a fish with your hands.”
“And I almost did! Now shut up and go to sleep. Seriously, you are the most annoying person in the world right now.”
“Coming from you, that’s rich,” Umino replied, but Ando could hear the amusement in his friend’s voice.
“I’m not that bad,” Ando felt obliged to point out.
“No, you’re not.”
“People think I am though,” Ando said, suddenly serious. Mamoru hadn’t responded to his last two emails. Usagi had written a few times, even Minako had emailed, asking him for an address she could send him a mobile phone to because him not having one was ridiculous, thank you very much, but his prince, who was always slow to respond, had not made contact. Three weeks of silence - it constituted a new record in the negative.
Umino sighed and opened his eyes. “By people you mean Takeshi and Mamoru?”
“You forgot Hiro.” Hiro was a horrible correspondent too; but they occasionally spoke on the phone. Ando reached for the cigarettes on the nightstand and lit up.
“Hiro likes you. He doesn’t get you, but he likes you.”
“I don’t think Takeshi and Mamoru like me very much,” Ando admitted. There, out it was. It was a fear Ando had been carrying around with him for a while now. In his memories of the Golden Kingdom, he remembered a camaraderie that had never really manifested in this time and day. Umino was the exception, of course. With Umino, the bond had been instant.
“They haven’t seen you in three years,” Umino said softly.
“I know,” Ando whispered, wanting to point out that with Umino, it didn’t matter whether they saw each other all the time or not, whether they spoke to each other daily or only once in months. The connection was there and Ando never had to worry about a thing. When he first remembered his past, he’d hoped to have this sort of relationship with everyone, but that hope had crashed and burned before he could say Jack Robinson.
“They don’t know you like I do,” Umino murmured and awkwardly bumped his foot against Ando’s.
“Minako would have hugged me by now, you know?” Ando complained.
“I don’t want to give Ami a reason to be jealous,” Umino replied, grinning in the darkness.
“More reason than my half-naked self hip to hip with you?”
Umino laughed. “We’re so not going back to sleep, are we?”
Ando chuckled and blew a ring of smoke into the hot air. “No, probably not. Let’s go for a midnight walk then.”
“A midnight walk it is,” Umino confirmed and reached for his shirt.
***
Their Greek adventure ended on Corfu.
Umino would fly back to Tokyo via Athens in two hours; he stood in the departure hall, now indeed evenly tanned, holding his tickets while tapping his foot. He still needed to buy at least three books for the flight, but Ando wouldn’t budge. “Ando, I’m going to miss my flight. Just pick a place, or come back with me to Athens.”
“Wait,” Ando said, skimming over the list of last minute flights the attendant had just printed out for him. “What about----- ummm, wait, wait... Vienna? No, wait. Tel Aviv?”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t come up with a proper travel plan. You are seriously hopping from country to country on a whim, aren’t you?”
“I’m going with my guts. Tel Aviv, Arkia Israel Airlines. It leaves ten minutes after yours. What do you think?”
“Albania is much closer. Or Macedonia.”
Ando shrugged. “Another time.”
“But---”, Umino stammered, “you---- Ando. You are right there.”
Plucking a pen from his collar, Ando circled Tel Aviv. “This one, please,” he said and handed the sheet back to the flight attendant alongside his passport.
He then turned around to Umino, leaning himself against the counter with his elbows. “Two days in Tel Aviv to enjoy the nightlife. And then Jerusalem. I bet there are a lot of clay figurines and caves in Jerusalem. If only I knew someone who cared about that sort of thing...”
The two men looked at each other while the attendant leisurely typed away.
Finally, Umino grinned.
“Miss? Any chance there’s another free seat on that flight?”
*** The End ***
A/N: A story about two great friends for two great friends. Dear charliechaplin2, dear ellorgast: happy (belated) birthday.
***
The sweat was running down his legs.
Leaning against the battered white Peugeot, a rental that had seen too many miles, the sun relentlessly glared down on him. There was the perpetual red of sunburn on his tan arms and his curly hair was blonder than it had ever been, the strawberry tone almost bleached away by the August sun. Aided by more sweat, his sunglasses slipped down his nose for the umpteenth time until he finally had enough and took them off, fastening them to his washed out blue shirt. It read Sea Isle Marina and Yachting Centre; he’d picked it up last year when he’d gone to visit an old friend in Miami. It had been stupidly hot there too. Fucking global warming.
As people streamed out of the airport, Ando rose on his toes to look over their heads, searching for his partner-in-crime, his brother-in-arms, his best friend. It had been too long since he’d seen Umino. Two years, one month, and seventeen days, not that he was counting. But now Umino had finished his Ph.D. and as a reward, Ando had told him to pick a country, any country, and then they’d travel it together for a few weeks or months or however long he could manage to tie Umino to his side.
Honouring his Philosophy doctorate, Umino had chosen Greece and had then begun to send Ando email after email about Greek history and philosophers’ contributions to the world as they knew it and did he know that the Olympic Games were originally held in honour of Zeus and also, access to the Cave of Archedemos the Nympholept was restricted, what a bummer, was there any way around that? Because it was a really cool cave. With sculptures hewn into the rock. Wasn’t that cool? It was so cool. They just had to go there. It had gotten to the point where Ando had threatened to call the whole trip off if Umino typed the word “cave” ever again and Umino, in true spirit of their friendship, had replied by sending Ando pictures of caves for a week. And now Ando was at the airport, waiting for his friend despite all his protestations.
Having flown in from Turkey, Ando had arrived yesterday, rented the car, booked a hotel for the first three days, and then bought a big map of the country, a travel guide, and some sunglasses because he was sure, absolutely, positively, wonderfully sure that Umino would forget his. It was nice to be able to predict something again. Travelling the world was brilliant, especially because you never knew what would happen, whom you’d meet and where you’d end up next, but because you never knew what would happen, whom you’d meet and where you’d end up next, the certainty of a best friend flying in from Japan without his sunglasses was a bit like Christmas.
Except that Santa was an hour late. Ando checked his watch. An hour and one minute. An hour and two minutes.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Ando rose on tiptoes again and sure enough, he could now see Umino, still on the other side of the sliding doors, having just careened into a Greek family. As a result, the philosopher had dropped his suitcase and now half of his belongings were scattered on the floor, mixed with a little girl’s Barbie, her mother’s Duty Free shopping bag and the father’s cigarettes. Flustered, Umino bent down to save Barbie from his socks and spilled shower gel while the father screamed bloody murder.
Grinning, Ando pushed himself off the car.
***
“That’s a very becoming shade of magenta,” Ando said and pushed a finger on Umino’s arm, watching the skin go white before it resumed its pink hue.
“Shut up,” Umino replied, elbowed Ando in the side and squinted at the map. “I think we need to turn left, and then we should arrive at the Kanellopoulus museum.”
“More clay figurines?”
It was their third day in Athens. They had spent the day of Umino’s arrival celebrating their reunion with plenty of Gyros and lots of Ouzo. Umino had told Ando all about what was going on in Tokyo and Ando had gleefully related some of his European adventures. The next morning, a small wonder happened: Umino, despite a generous hangover, had risen early. Umino, who loved sleep the way Pooh loved honey. It really was quite remarkable. He had dragged Ando out of bed and up the Akropolis before the clock struck eight and they’d stayed there all day, touring the ruins, eating over-priced food, snapping lots of pictures to send back home to Ami and the others. They’d enjoyed the day so much, they never realised how hot the Athens sun burned and how the very pale Umino had steadily changed colour until he looked like a walking, talking strawberry.
“They have art from every period of Greek history!” Umino said excitedly, retrieving a travel guide with more post-its than pages. In two days, he’d shed his skin like a snake just to start the whole thing over again.
“Then left we turn,” Ando said and smiled, happy to indulge his friend in his History frenzy. “But wear the damn sunscreen.”
“I am!” Umino protested as pulled his backpack off to stow the map away. “I put lots on while you were in the lobby, checking your emails.”
“Then why are you so pink? You look like a Care Bear. Are there stars painted on your stomach, or are you more the rainbow type?”
“Clover leaf, Ando, clover leaf. But seriously, it’s not like I spent weeks on a cruise ship like some other people here,” Umino paused, grinning. “I didn’t get as much sun in the last year as you did; I burn easily.”
“That’s what you get for hiding in a library, all day, every day.”
Umino grinned. “No, for that I got a Ph.D.”
***
“It was destroyed by an earthquake 226 BC,” Umino said, sketching the outline of a man on his notepad. Ando didn’t have the heart to tell him that his artistic talent was roughly the same as Attila the dog’s; Umino’s Colossus of Rhodes looked more like a stick figure than anything else.
“I wonder what it really looked like,” Ando mused and slipped his sunglasses back on.
“Marble pedestal, bronze statue,” Umino replied, looking up from his drawing with a smile.
“Were the ruins ever found?”
Umino shook his head.
“Weird, huh?”
“What?” Umino asked.
“That people consider this ancient; never knowing that there was something more advanced, more civilised long before that.”
“The Golden Kingdom wasn’t more civilised,” Umino muttered, “I think all the bloodshed proved that.” He put his notepad away and stretched out on the warm sand, closing his eyes.
Ando groaned. “Why did you have to bring bloodshed into our beautiful beach holiday? You really don’t know how to have a good time.” He dramatically flipped over onto his stomach, and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his bag. “I, however, do. I started a new blog, ‘cigarettes of the world’. 359 followers in two weeks. Impressed?”
“Very. So, Greek cigarettes any good?”
“Want one?” Ando asked and offered Umino the packet.
Umino shook his head. “I’m smarter than you, so no.”
“They’re horrible anyway, burn the air right out of your lungs. I prefer the Turkish ones. Oscar Wilde smoked Turkish cigarettes.”
“Is that on your blog too?”
“Of course.”
Ando spent at least an hour each day writing; be it for his blog, for the paper in New York, or for one of his countless letters to Rei. Not wanting to miss any of his precious Umino time, Ando tried to get his writing done before Sleeping Beauty rose from the bed in the morning, but seeing how the excitement to be in Greece was more dominant than his love for sleep, Umino now got up at seven every morning, meaning Ando got up at five or six. The things one did for friends.
“Can we go to Crete next?”
“This is your trip, you idiot, of course we can go to Crete.”
Umino smiled and pulled off his shirt to reveal patchy red and white skin, even though the philosopher insisted that it would be a smooth tan in a few days. Ando didn’t believe him for a second and tucked the cigarette between his lips so that he had his hands free to search for the ever elusive sunscreen. Ando finally found it and Umino offered him his back.
“And where are you going from there? I hear Tokyo is nice this time of year,” Umino said, looking at the ocean. The water was a wonderful shade of blue; Ami would love it.
“Too soon, Umino,” Ando replied steadily, cigarette between his lips, and squeezed a generous amount of lotion on his friend’s back. Rubbing it in, he tried not to rip off the bits of loose skin. “There, all done,” Ando said eventually and wiped the remaining sunscreen off on his own legs.
Now that his hands were free, he looked left and right, making sure that they were alone before lighting up with a snap of his fingers. It was a nifty trick and he lost his lighters all the time anyway. He wondered if Mamoru would be impressed with him, or whether he was so used to the senshis’ supernatural abilities that one little flame sprouting from a man’s fingers no longer counted.
“Rei misses you,” Umino said, rolling on his stomach.
Tracing patterns into the sand with his toes, Ando smiled. Rei occasionally sent him emails in response to his letters; he’d printed out every single one of them and carried them around in his large backpack.
“Minako misses you too.”
Minako didn’t write much, but she called him whenever he let her know where he was. “That she does,” he replied, thinking of their last phone call. She’d been in tears because she’d accidentally washed her bright pink Princess Peach socks with all of Takeshi’s white shirts. Predictably, they were white no more and by the end of the call, Minako had been laughing again, claiming that pink complimented Takeshi’s complexion anyway. “I miss her too. Is Takeshi nice to her?”
Umino laughed. “Yes, very. He spoils her rotten, and she rewards him by distracting him from very important work every chance she gets.”
“He needs that though,” Ando pointed out, and Umino nodded. “He does. He sends his best, by the way.”
Ando arched a brow. “Really?”
“Really. He also said you might want to consider coming back, three years are long enough.”
Taking a deep drag, Ando thought of all the bad things that had happened, be it back in the Silver Millennium or in Tokyo prior to his departure. He wasn’t sure that if he went back now, he wouldn’t just try to cope by drinking himself stupid all over again. He wasn’t sure he was the man Mamoru and Rei needed him to be. “I don’t think so.”
Umino balled up his shirt and used it as a pillow, closing his eyes against the sun. “Fine. You go on travelling and come back when you come back. I’ll take a nap now.”
“You do that, sleepy pants,” Ando said and flicked some ash onto the white sand.
No. Definitely too soon.
***
They hiked in the Samariá Gorge on Crete up until the point where Umino, to Ando’s great amusement, finally remembered that he was very much an indoor person.
They checked into a nice hotel after that and went to the next five football games of the OFI Greece, drinking beer on the stands of the Theodoros Vardinogiannis stadium while cheering for the local team no matter whom they played.
Umino bought a jersey to take home for Hiro, while Ando sent a long letter to Rei, explaining all about football and Umino’s sunburn and perhaps how everything he saw and everywhere he went somehow reminded him of her.
***
From the main island of Crete they travelled to Elounda, where they climbed into a small boat to go to Spinalonga. “Boat, not ship,” as Umino repeated over and over again, wondering whether he was a good enough swimmer to make it to the shore of the former leper colony if the rickety nutshell keeled over.
Turned out, he was.
***
They returned late at night, falling into bed with tired eyes and heavy legs. They always shared a room, and even after three weeks of being in each other’s company for 24 hours a day, they didn’t mind.
Granted, Ando would have preferred a bed of his own.
“Umino, stop moving, damn it.”
“It’s too hot,” Umino whined and kicked the thin sheet off him.
“If you don’t stop moving, I’ll abandon you on the next island, whether it’s inhabited or not.”
“Why didn’t we get a room with two single beds? And air conditioning?”
“Because we are in a teeny tiny village on a moderately small island near Crete and there is precisely one hotel here and they have three rooms and frankly, I’m ecstatic that they have advanced to having running water. Spoiled brat.”
“I just want to sleep,” Umino moaned, pulling the pillow out from underneath Ando and putting it on his own face. “I can always sleep, it’s my thing.”
“Then sleep. Sleep and lie still,” Ando shot back and stole the pillow back.
“I can’t, now I’m awake again. Awake and remembering how we almost drowned just because you wanted to catch a fish with your hands.”
“And I almost did! Now shut up and go to sleep. Seriously, you are the most annoying person in the world right now.”
“Coming from you, that’s rich,” Umino replied, but Ando could hear the amusement in his friend’s voice.
“I’m not that bad,” Ando felt obliged to point out.
“No, you’re not.”
“People think I am though,” Ando said, suddenly serious. Mamoru hadn’t responded to his last two emails. Usagi had written a few times, even Minako had emailed, asking him for an address she could send him a mobile phone to because him not having one was ridiculous, thank you very much, but his prince, who was always slow to respond, had not made contact. Three weeks of silence - it constituted a new record in the negative.
Umino sighed and opened his eyes. “By people you mean Takeshi and Mamoru?”
“You forgot Hiro.” Hiro was a horrible correspondent too; but they occasionally spoke on the phone. Ando reached for the cigarettes on the nightstand and lit up.
“Hiro likes you. He doesn’t get you, but he likes you.”
“I don’t think Takeshi and Mamoru like me very much,” Ando admitted. There, out it was. It was a fear Ando had been carrying around with him for a while now. In his memories of the Golden Kingdom, he remembered a camaraderie that had never really manifested in this time and day. Umino was the exception, of course. With Umino, the bond had been instant.
“They haven’t seen you in three years,” Umino said softly.
“I know,” Ando whispered, wanting to point out that with Umino, it didn’t matter whether they saw each other all the time or not, whether they spoke to each other daily or only once in months. The connection was there and Ando never had to worry about a thing. When he first remembered his past, he’d hoped to have this sort of relationship with everyone, but that hope had crashed and burned before he could say Jack Robinson.
“They don’t know you like I do,” Umino murmured and awkwardly bumped his foot against Ando’s.
“Minako would have hugged me by now, you know?” Ando complained.
“I don’t want to give Ami a reason to be jealous,” Umino replied, grinning in the darkness.
“More reason than my half-naked self hip to hip with you?”
Umino laughed. “We’re so not going back to sleep, are we?”
Ando chuckled and blew a ring of smoke into the hot air. “No, probably not. Let’s go for a midnight walk then.”
“A midnight walk it is,” Umino confirmed and reached for his shirt.
***
Their Greek adventure ended on Corfu.
Umino would fly back to Tokyo via Athens in two hours; he stood in the departure hall, now indeed evenly tanned, holding his tickets while tapping his foot. He still needed to buy at least three books for the flight, but Ando wouldn’t budge. “Ando, I’m going to miss my flight. Just pick a place, or come back with me to Athens.”
“Wait,” Ando said, skimming over the list of last minute flights the attendant had just printed out for him. “What about----- ummm, wait, wait... Vienna? No, wait. Tel Aviv?”
“I can’t believe that you didn’t come up with a proper travel plan. You are seriously hopping from country to country on a whim, aren’t you?”
“I’m going with my guts. Tel Aviv, Arkia Israel Airlines. It leaves ten minutes after yours. What do you think?”
“Albania is much closer. Or Macedonia.”
Ando shrugged. “Another time.”
“But---”, Umino stammered, “you---- Ando. You are right there.”
Plucking a pen from his collar, Ando circled Tel Aviv. “This one, please,” he said and handed the sheet back to the flight attendant alongside his passport.
He then turned around to Umino, leaning himself against the counter with his elbows. “Two days in Tel Aviv to enjoy the nightlife. And then Jerusalem. I bet there are a lot of clay figurines and caves in Jerusalem. If only I knew someone who cared about that sort of thing...”
The two men looked at each other while the attendant leisurely typed away.
Finally, Umino grinned.
“Miss? Any chance there’s another free seat on that flight?”
*** The End ***