Forever & Ever 27
Title: Forever & Ever (Miseinen Sequel)
Author: Zion Shadowlet
Beta: butterflysaga(the bitch)
Characters: Aoi, Uruha, Ruki, Reita, Kai and many OCs (Fuwa etc.)
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha and more~
Genre: Drama, Romance, Friendship, Comedy
Rating: NC17
Summary: Six years have passed since the summer at the Dazai Bright Future Retreat for Troubled Children. The boys meet in an unexpected way perhaps bound by fate in the underground world of Visual Kei. With broken hearts and promises; the boys-now young men look to regain some of what they lost by the wild and reckless pursuit of the same dream.
Previous Parts: Part 1.1 | Part 1.2 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.1| Part 4.2| Part 5| Part 6| Part 7.1| Part 7.2| Part 8.1| Part 8.2| Part 9| Part 10| Part 11| Part 12| Part 13| Part 14| Part 15| Part 16| Part 17| Part 18| Part 19| Part 20| Part 21| Part 22| Part 23| Part 24| Part 25| Part 26
Toru brought the tea cups to the bedside and placed the tray on the end table. Isao always admired tea cups. He was a man who made things like this. Sculptures, ceramics. And perhaps what he liked the most about them was how fragile they were, how thin their skin and yet how beautiful they were in all their delicacy ready at any moment to break.
The transparent blue curtains were pulled down and the sunlight filtered in through them casting a glow about the room like being in the bottom of the tranquil sea. The radio was playing low, old 60’s pop rock songs as he watched Toru with graceful movements quietly pour the tea into the tiny white tea cups.
“You just need some rest,” he said in a soft voice as he handed Isao the cup.
“Don’t tell me you are in denial now,” he meant it as a joke but Toru not in any mood for humor, merely breathed deeply and dragged his eyes upward to his face. “Darling, I’ll finish it.” They were talking about the sculpture Isao was working on. It wasn’t going to be any bigger than a foot tall and 4 inches wide and yet, it took him longer than he had intended. He had grown excessively tired in the upcoming days, weary from the treatment and now weary from the onset of the disease as it gained a foothold inside of him with the absence of all the doctors’ previous efforts.
So be it. Isao saluted it. Bringing the tiny white tea cup in the air, he saluted his disease, his un-doer. They were one and the same now.
In the following days, he had withdrawn from all his distant friends, the circus and all the other pleasant company of carefree artists full of life, so full of it that they were drawn drunken with stupidity from it. In his final days, he wanted only to be with Toru, the only person who could see the grace of him going out like this without a fight.
He used to think it was a beautiful thing to go down in a brilliant blaze, never quitting, never giving up. But it is strange the way your vision changes when the battle begins. No war is fought without casualties and for him, what he had sacrificed was a part of himself. He didn’t expect others to understand. The other people he had met at the hospital, other cancer patients who still fought, he could see why they did it. And he admired them. But for him, he refused to be defined in his final moments as a warrior. He wasn’t that. He wasn’t a fighter. The pain of it all, the treatments, the tiring repetition made his life nearly unbearable.
And what started out as him saying fuck it all in the car, telling Toru that he would rather go out shopping than bear another torturous treatment had turn into something else entirely. Like everyone else, he wanted to live. Like everyone else, he feared death. But this was going to be his moment of triumph and Isao, always the dramatic queen that he was, was going to embrace it with all his colors and all the life that still remained in him.
When did he become wise he thought to himself with a chuckle. Maybe it was years of being with Toru that it rubbed off on him eventually. In the end, he was going to claim his own life and die the way he wanted to.
“Why are you laughing?” Toru asked.
“How did I become like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you,” he looked up at him with a smile.
“I don’t understand.” He let his eyes fall down to the tiny tea cup in his own hands.
“I feel like fucking Mother Teresa-God bless her soul,” he threw his hands up with a smile.
“You do?” Toru eyes flashed with a sudden spark of happiness and in that moment to Isao, he seemed like a young excited boy.
“When I think of me dying…And I think about going out like this…it’s strange but…I feel this overwhelming sense of love and I know that sounds so fucking cheesey,” he threw his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why but I feel like the closer I get to that line, the more I can see the other side, you know what I mean? And I know it’s bullshit because everyone is different and I know that it could just be little chemical bubbles in my brain trying to ease my plight but whatever, I don’t care. I know what I know and I feel what I feel and,” he took a deep sigh. My God, are you fucking crying Isao? He laughed at himself feeling the warm wet bodies dangle on the ends of his eyelashes. “But…I don’t know…I feel like…this love that is so profound you know? Like when you see packs of fucking smiling African kids who used to be starving to death or you see a freaking baby deer walking for the first time,” he started laughing freely now and once he got himself under control he continued in a voice soft and warm. “That kind of love. You know what I mean?”
Toru reached over and grabbed his hand in his and held it tight.
“I don’t know…” Isao repeated. He squeezed Toru’s hand. “But I just know that everything is going to be okay.” He turned and looked at him, watched him as he sat there at his bedside with tears streaming down his face and a tender smile arching across his lips. “It’ll be okay.”
He watched him for several moments. “I love you, Isao,” was all he said.
“I love you too.”
***
“So, we’ve been practicing every night. It’s getting kinda tiring,” Uruha was hunched over and eating greedily as if he had been starving. It had been almost a week since any of them had spoken to Kai. He sat now across from Uruha at the Takashimas’ kitchen table eating a lunch of noodles that he himself had prepared.
“Practicing for what exactly?”
“That tournament at Cerberus,” he answered matter-of-factly.
Kai however let his chop sticks go limp in his hand. “The tournament?” he repeated back at him. He didn’t think a band like Gazette, as young as they were would be invited at least that is what he told himself when Yukio had told the rest of Lie:Death about it and about how this character Catfuzz almost insisted that they should join the competition. “They need a crowd drawer and a main event player,” Yukio had told them. “Apparently Catfuzz says we are the real deal.”
“Mhm,” Uruha looked up and nodded.
From across the room, the two of them could hear Aoi’s tense and frustrated voice as he yelled into a phone’s receiver “ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE!” The two of them had no idea who he was trying to call so they dragged their eyes away from him and looked back at one another.
“You guys were invited?” he inquired in disbelief.
“We’re the underdogs.” Uruha finally finishing his food, picked up his bottle of sake and washed it all down. “Are you okay?”
With obvious disappointment Kai replied “Lie:Death is in the tournament.”
“Oh,” Uruha sat up straight suddenly and rested his arms on the table as he tried to think of something to say. “So, we’ll be competing against one another.”
“YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE, YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Aoi slammed the phone down and resting his hands on his waist took a deep and painful sigh as he tried to control his emotions.
Kai soberly repeated Uruha’s words “We’ll be competing against one another.” He nodded slowly. He knew that in most circumstances the way one was supposed to go about these things was to exhibit as much sportsmanship as possible and say something like “Good Luck” and go about the tournament void of any bitter feelings but he knew that that would be complete bull shit. He was upset that Gazette was in the competition. He didn’t want to go against his friends. He didn’t want to shake their hands and wish them good luck and then go out on stage and play hard to win. It wasn’t like playing a Playstation game or a basketball game or anything trivial like that. He knew that Gazette perhaps even more than Lie:Death would need to win. To them, the opportunity was priceless and to play against them would be to undermine their dreams but what would that mean if Lie:Death whose reputation was so great if they were to lose to some young novice band like Gazette? It could be the end of his band; they would be overshadowed by these underdogs. In everyone’s mind, Gazette’s success would be like David and Goliath and at the end of the day, Gazette would have captured everyone’s hearts-that’s if they won which according to everyone else besides the guys themselves, was impossible. Regardless of who else was in the tournament, the only thing to ensure Lie:Death’s future success was to win this competition in which they were heavy favorites. Anything else would be an upset that threatened to make Lie:Death yesterday’s news.
“Aoi, are you okay?” Uruha turned and looked at him.
It took him awhile to reply. “Yeah,” he said finally. He rubbed his face in frustration and dragged himself over to the other two.
“Who are you trying to call?” Kai asked, trying to mask all his feelings about what Uruha had just told him.
“My mother. I haven’t spoken to her in over a month and she won’t answer my phone calls.” He grabbed a chair and pulling it up to the table, took a seat. With his eyes casted downward staring intensely at the surface of the table, his mind wandered every which way, thinking of all types of possibilities some so unbearable and dark that if he let his mind linger on them, he would drive himself insane. “When is the first performance for the tournament?” he asked quickly.
“Two days,” Kai answered.
Hearing his friend’s quick reply, Aoi’s eyes shot up to his face as the realization that Lie:Death was also in the tournament occurred to him. He wanted to apologize to him for some reason but he knew that would be awkward and strange. He could see in Kai’s eyes the all the various feelings it was causing him.
“Why?” Uruha asked.
“I’m thinking if I should go down there and see what’s up with her. I can’t take this anymore. What if something happened?” He began to shake his leg nervously and grabbing Uruha’s chopsticks anxiously started rearranging them on the table.
Suddenly a loud chipper knocking resonated throughout the room. And Uruha who was about to say something, quickly slid off his chair and went to go answer it. As soon as the door swung open, Ruki practically frolicked in with a cute smile on his face. The other three stared at him as if he were possessed by a strange devil. Several moments later, Reita who had been following him up the stairs entered from behind him. “Hey everyone,” he waved at them.
“Hellooooooo~” Ruki laughed. The other four gaped at him and his overwhelming cuteness. His round cheeks were bubbling as he giggled at his own playfulness. He was almost like a happy adorable toddler.
“Dude, can I eat him?” Aoi said somewhat stunned and taken aback.
“Me?” Ruki pointed at himself.
“Yeah, you,” Aoi answered flatly.
“Why?” he giggled.
“Is he on drugs?” Kai laughed.
Reita with a shrug answered “I think he’s just in a good mood.”
“What did Reita do?” Uruha asked Ruki who hearing his question merely smiled obliviously. “He did something…”
“Nothing.” Another cute smile. Realizing that he was acting overly happy, he tried to smother his smile in a pseudo-badass pout.
“What did you do?” Uruha turned and asked Reita who stood their feigning obliviousness with his jammed in his back pockets.
“HUH?” he acted as if he were shocked, his eyes wide and his hands flying outward.
“He did something,” Kai announced with finality. “Well, hello anyhow,” he waved at the two of them. “We were just talking about how Aoi was going to go see his mother.”
“Your mother?” Reita quickly moved over to the kitchen table. Ruki followed him. The five of them sat around it, crowding it even.
“Yeah, she hasn’t been answering any of my phone calls.”
“If you left now, considering the train schedules and time to find her and talk to her, you may not get back in time for the tournament,” Ruki said with his eyes looking away from him. Even though he was concerned for his friend, he couldn’t help the selfish feelings inside of him that told him that this was no time to up and leave, that tournament was a major opportunity for them and they may not have another chance like this.
“Where does she live?” Reita asked.
“She lives in Shima…” Aoi replied with a sigh. It wasn’t impossible but Ruki was right, it was cutting it close especially since it was already going on 5 p.m. and trains were running less frequently.
“If we had a car we could travel through the night,” Uruha noted finishing off his sake.
“But we don’t.” Aoi threw the chopsticks down on the table. If they advance in the tournament that might mean over two more weeks of not knowing what is going on with his mother. He wondered if he would be able to even concentrate on playing like this, with his mind swarming with all sorts of thoughts and anxieties. An anger crawled up inside of him, an anger at himself for what could possibly disappoint his friends. They needed him to be there, completely there in this tournament in which they were such great underdogs but at the same time, he couldn’t just forget about his mother. Inside that anger was also anger directed at her for doing this to him once more, for threatening to destroy everything he managed to build in his life for himself. She was like a disease almost, something that infected him since birth, something he couldn’t get rid of no matter what happened.
“I have a friend who has a car. He might let us borrow it,” Kai said.
“A friend that will let us drive all the way south into Mie prefecture?” Aoi asked incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“D.”
“D?”
“Who’s D?” Uruha asked.
“D’Marcus. Mr. Johnson’s nephew.”
“You’re good friends with him?” Reita asked surprised. Aoi let out a small chuckle at the question.
Just as all questioning eyes moved toward Aoi’s face, Kai quickly answered “Yeah, we’re good friends. I can ask him if he’d let us borrow it. Who knows how to drive?”
“I do,” Uruha said.
“Same here,” Reita nodded.
“I do too,” Kai added. “So that makes three of us. That’s a surprisingly better number than I anticipated. If the three of us alternate driving responsibilities we can go without taking long breaks.”
“It will take at the shortest 7 hours to drive there,” Aoi said.
“Alright, then we can each drive for about 2 to 3 hours,” Kai stood up. “But let me ask him first,” he dug into his pockets and pulling out his cell phone walked into the living room, leaving the other four sitting there quietly.
“Not many friends will let you take their car out of nowhere for a couple of days,” Reita noted.
Aoi chuckled once more. “Yeah…” he said.
“Is there something we don’t know about?” Ruki inquired.
With an obvious knowing shake of the head, Aoi smirked and replied suspiciously “No.”
“Come on!” Reita begged in a whisper. “Tell us.”
Aoi quickly got to his feet and walking over to the fridge opened it. “Anyone want a beer? How about you Ruki? You want a juice box?”
“Sure,” he replied.
“I’ll take a beer,” Uruha answered.
Pulling out 4 beers just for the hell of it and a juice box, Aoi placed them on the table. “I can get the baby a straw too,” Aoi smiled at Ruki.
“If you have them,” he answered in all seriousness.
Out in the living room, Kai paced as he listened the ringing on the other end.
“Hello?” D answered.
“Hey. It’s me Kai,” He said in a happy, sweet voice.
“Kai. It’s great to hear from you.”
“How are you?” The question wasn’t formal at all but asked however out of sincere interest and concern.
“Good and you?”
“Um…I have,” he sighed. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Ask away.”
“This may be a bit much but…I was wondering if I could borrow your car for a couple of days. Aoi needs to go see his mother and he needs to get back in time for this band tournament.”
“I see…” Kai waited for him to answer. “Sure. No problem. There isn’t much gas in it so you’d have to fill it up. Just come by.”
“Seriously?” He could hardly believe it. Kai didn’t think D would agree so readily.
“I know that if it wasn’t important you wouldn’t ask besides it’s just a car.”
“You know, you are really a sweet person D,” Kai smiled.
From the kitchen, the other four watched him. They couldn’t hear what he was saying but by his expression, they could tell that D’s answer was in their favor.
“Wow, he is really…smilely,” Reita noticed as he popped open his beer.
“Does he like him?” Ruki asked bluntly turning to Aoi who hearing his question, started laughing. He couldn’t quite put his own mood down for some reason, despite his nervousness in regards to his mother, his friends’ endearing behavior and willingness to up and help him made him feel like everything was going to work out. It was like being in the band; as long as their drive and hard work was there, they believed that they could tackle any issue and fix any problem. Without even asking, Kai had took control and managed to not only get them a car. The other three readily agreed to travel with him.
“Wow,” Reita laughed. “So much for the straight one.”
On the phone, D’Marcus replied to Kai’s compliment “Not really. I’m just letting you use it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Still,” Kai smiled to no one but himself. “A lot of people wouldn’t agree.”
“Well…they have a stick up their ass,” he chuckled.
“I guess so,” Kai giggled.
“Once this is all over, you should come by…” He could tell that D was feeling a bit awkward. His invitation had beneath it more implications.
In a soft and suggestive voice, Kai replied “I’d love to.”
“Well, when are you coming by to pick up the car?”
Another giggle. “As soon as possible.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Kai bit his bottom lip and smiled causing his friends to start laughing. Each of them smacked a hand over their mouth to keep it in. “You do that,” Kai said. “See you soon.”
“See you.”
He hung up and turning to face his friends saw them with their eyes glued to him, trembling with smothered laughter. His cheeks turned a deep red as he blushed and looked away. “I’ll go get the car,” he said quickly with his eyes still averted. “You four wait here,” he announced as he moved with balled fists and perked up shoulders to the door where he slipped his shoes on. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Good luck tearing yourself away from him,” Aoi teased.
Kai narrowed his eyes at him as he opened the door. “Bye,” he replied brusquely before slamming it behind him.
[A/N Sorry I'm late. I stayed up late last night watching Sherlock Holmes, the BBC show and I overslept -__-]
Author: Zion Shadowlet
Beta: butterflysaga(the bitch)
Characters: Aoi, Uruha, Ruki, Reita, Kai and many OCs (Fuwa etc.)
Pairing: Aoi/Uruha and more~
Genre: Drama, Romance, Friendship, Comedy
Rating: NC17
Summary: Six years have passed since the summer at the Dazai Bright Future Retreat for Troubled Children. The boys meet in an unexpected way perhaps bound by fate in the underground world of Visual Kei. With broken hearts and promises; the boys-now young men look to regain some of what they lost by the wild and reckless pursuit of the same dream.
Previous Parts: Part 1.1 | Part 1.2 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.1| Part 4.2| Part 5| Part 6| Part 7.1| Part 7.2| Part 8.1| Part 8.2| Part 9| Part 10| Part 11| Part 12| Part 13| Part 14| Part 15| Part 16| Part 17| Part 18| Part 19| Part 20| Part 21| Part 22| Part 23| Part 24| Part 25| Part 26
Toru brought the tea cups to the bedside and placed the tray on the end table. Isao always admired tea cups. He was a man who made things like this. Sculptures, ceramics. And perhaps what he liked the most about them was how fragile they were, how thin their skin and yet how beautiful they were in all their delicacy ready at any moment to break.
The transparent blue curtains were pulled down and the sunlight filtered in through them casting a glow about the room like being in the bottom of the tranquil sea. The radio was playing low, old 60’s pop rock songs as he watched Toru with graceful movements quietly pour the tea into the tiny white tea cups.
“You just need some rest,” he said in a soft voice as he handed Isao the cup.
“Don’t tell me you are in denial now,” he meant it as a joke but Toru not in any mood for humor, merely breathed deeply and dragged his eyes upward to his face. “Darling, I’ll finish it.” They were talking about the sculpture Isao was working on. It wasn’t going to be any bigger than a foot tall and 4 inches wide and yet, it took him longer than he had intended. He had grown excessively tired in the upcoming days, weary from the treatment and now weary from the onset of the disease as it gained a foothold inside of him with the absence of all the doctors’ previous efforts.
So be it. Isao saluted it. Bringing the tiny white tea cup in the air, he saluted his disease, his un-doer. They were one and the same now.
In the following days, he had withdrawn from all his distant friends, the circus and all the other pleasant company of carefree artists full of life, so full of it that they were drawn drunken with stupidity from it. In his final days, he wanted only to be with Toru, the only person who could see the grace of him going out like this without a fight.
He used to think it was a beautiful thing to go down in a brilliant blaze, never quitting, never giving up. But it is strange the way your vision changes when the battle begins. No war is fought without casualties and for him, what he had sacrificed was a part of himself. He didn’t expect others to understand. The other people he had met at the hospital, other cancer patients who still fought, he could see why they did it. And he admired them. But for him, he refused to be defined in his final moments as a warrior. He wasn’t that. He wasn’t a fighter. The pain of it all, the treatments, the tiring repetition made his life nearly unbearable.
And what started out as him saying fuck it all in the car, telling Toru that he would rather go out shopping than bear another torturous treatment had turn into something else entirely. Like everyone else, he wanted to live. Like everyone else, he feared death. But this was going to be his moment of triumph and Isao, always the dramatic queen that he was, was going to embrace it with all his colors and all the life that still remained in him.
When did he become wise he thought to himself with a chuckle. Maybe it was years of being with Toru that it rubbed off on him eventually. In the end, he was going to claim his own life and die the way he wanted to.
“Why are you laughing?” Toru asked.
“How did I become like this?”
“Like what?”
“Like you,” he looked up at him with a smile.
“I don’t understand.” He let his eyes fall down to the tiny tea cup in his own hands.
“I feel like fucking Mother Teresa-God bless her soul,” he threw his hands up with a smile.
“You do?” Toru eyes flashed with a sudden spark of happiness and in that moment to Isao, he seemed like a young excited boy.
“When I think of me dying…And I think about going out like this…it’s strange but…I feel this overwhelming sense of love and I know that sounds so fucking cheesey,” he threw his head back on the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why but I feel like the closer I get to that line, the more I can see the other side, you know what I mean? And I know it’s bullshit because everyone is different and I know that it could just be little chemical bubbles in my brain trying to ease my plight but whatever, I don’t care. I know what I know and I feel what I feel and,” he took a deep sigh. My God, are you fucking crying Isao? He laughed at himself feeling the warm wet bodies dangle on the ends of his eyelashes. “But…I don’t know…I feel like…this love that is so profound you know? Like when you see packs of fucking smiling African kids who used to be starving to death or you see a freaking baby deer walking for the first time,” he started laughing freely now and once he got himself under control he continued in a voice soft and warm. “That kind of love. You know what I mean?”
Toru reached over and grabbed his hand in his and held it tight.
“I don’t know…” Isao repeated. He squeezed Toru’s hand. “But I just know that everything is going to be okay.” He turned and looked at him, watched him as he sat there at his bedside with tears streaming down his face and a tender smile arching across his lips. “It’ll be okay.”
He watched him for several moments. “I love you, Isao,” was all he said.
“I love you too.”
***
“So, we’ve been practicing every night. It’s getting kinda tiring,” Uruha was hunched over and eating greedily as if he had been starving. It had been almost a week since any of them had spoken to Kai. He sat now across from Uruha at the Takashimas’ kitchen table eating a lunch of noodles that he himself had prepared.
“Practicing for what exactly?”
“That tournament at Cerberus,” he answered matter-of-factly.
Kai however let his chop sticks go limp in his hand. “The tournament?” he repeated back at him. He didn’t think a band like Gazette, as young as they were would be invited at least that is what he told himself when Yukio had told the rest of Lie:Death about it and about how this character Catfuzz almost insisted that they should join the competition. “They need a crowd drawer and a main event player,” Yukio had told them. “Apparently Catfuzz says we are the real deal.”
“Mhm,” Uruha looked up and nodded.
From across the room, the two of them could hear Aoi’s tense and frustrated voice as he yelled into a phone’s receiver “ANSWER THE FUCKING PHONE!” The two of them had no idea who he was trying to call so they dragged their eyes away from him and looked back at one another.
“You guys were invited?” he inquired in disbelief.
“We’re the underdogs.” Uruha finally finishing his food, picked up his bottle of sake and washed it all down. “Are you okay?”
With obvious disappointment Kai replied “Lie:Death is in the tournament.”
“Oh,” Uruha sat up straight suddenly and rested his arms on the table as he tried to think of something to say. “So, we’ll be competing against one another.”
“YOU BETTER NOT BE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE, YOU FUCKING BITCH!” Aoi slammed the phone down and resting his hands on his waist took a deep and painful sigh as he tried to control his emotions.
Kai soberly repeated Uruha’s words “We’ll be competing against one another.” He nodded slowly. He knew that in most circumstances the way one was supposed to go about these things was to exhibit as much sportsmanship as possible and say something like “Good Luck” and go about the tournament void of any bitter feelings but he knew that that would be complete bull shit. He was upset that Gazette was in the competition. He didn’t want to go against his friends. He didn’t want to shake their hands and wish them good luck and then go out on stage and play hard to win. It wasn’t like playing a Playstation game or a basketball game or anything trivial like that. He knew that Gazette perhaps even more than Lie:Death would need to win. To them, the opportunity was priceless and to play against them would be to undermine their dreams but what would that mean if Lie:Death whose reputation was so great if they were to lose to some young novice band like Gazette? It could be the end of his band; they would be overshadowed by these underdogs. In everyone’s mind, Gazette’s success would be like David and Goliath and at the end of the day, Gazette would have captured everyone’s hearts-that’s if they won which according to everyone else besides the guys themselves, was impossible. Regardless of who else was in the tournament, the only thing to ensure Lie:Death’s future success was to win this competition in which they were heavy favorites. Anything else would be an upset that threatened to make Lie:Death yesterday’s news.
“Aoi, are you okay?” Uruha turned and looked at him.
It took him awhile to reply. “Yeah,” he said finally. He rubbed his face in frustration and dragged himself over to the other two.
“Who are you trying to call?” Kai asked, trying to mask all his feelings about what Uruha had just told him.
“My mother. I haven’t spoken to her in over a month and she won’t answer my phone calls.” He grabbed a chair and pulling it up to the table, took a seat. With his eyes casted downward staring intensely at the surface of the table, his mind wandered every which way, thinking of all types of possibilities some so unbearable and dark that if he let his mind linger on them, he would drive himself insane. “When is the first performance for the tournament?” he asked quickly.
“Two days,” Kai answered.
Hearing his friend’s quick reply, Aoi’s eyes shot up to his face as the realization that Lie:Death was also in the tournament occurred to him. He wanted to apologize to him for some reason but he knew that would be awkward and strange. He could see in Kai’s eyes the all the various feelings it was causing him.
“Why?” Uruha asked.
“I’m thinking if I should go down there and see what’s up with her. I can’t take this anymore. What if something happened?” He began to shake his leg nervously and grabbing Uruha’s chopsticks anxiously started rearranging them on the table.
Suddenly a loud chipper knocking resonated throughout the room. And Uruha who was about to say something, quickly slid off his chair and went to go answer it. As soon as the door swung open, Ruki practically frolicked in with a cute smile on his face. The other three stared at him as if he were possessed by a strange devil. Several moments later, Reita who had been following him up the stairs entered from behind him. “Hey everyone,” he waved at them.
“Hellooooooo~” Ruki laughed. The other four gaped at him and his overwhelming cuteness. His round cheeks were bubbling as he giggled at his own playfulness. He was almost like a happy adorable toddler.
“Dude, can I eat him?” Aoi said somewhat stunned and taken aback.
“Me?” Ruki pointed at himself.
“Yeah, you,” Aoi answered flatly.
“Why?” he giggled.
“Is he on drugs?” Kai laughed.
Reita with a shrug answered “I think he’s just in a good mood.”
“What did Reita do?” Uruha asked Ruki who hearing his question merely smiled obliviously. “He did something…”
“Nothing.” Another cute smile. Realizing that he was acting overly happy, he tried to smother his smile in a pseudo-badass pout.
“What did you do?” Uruha turned and asked Reita who stood their feigning obliviousness with his jammed in his back pockets.
“HUH?” he acted as if he were shocked, his eyes wide and his hands flying outward.
“He did something,” Kai announced with finality. “Well, hello anyhow,” he waved at the two of them. “We were just talking about how Aoi was going to go see his mother.”
“Your mother?” Reita quickly moved over to the kitchen table. Ruki followed him. The five of them sat around it, crowding it even.
“Yeah, she hasn’t been answering any of my phone calls.”
“If you left now, considering the train schedules and time to find her and talk to her, you may not get back in time for the tournament,” Ruki said with his eyes looking away from him. Even though he was concerned for his friend, he couldn’t help the selfish feelings inside of him that told him that this was no time to up and leave, that tournament was a major opportunity for them and they may not have another chance like this.
“Where does she live?” Reita asked.
“She lives in Shima…” Aoi replied with a sigh. It wasn’t impossible but Ruki was right, it was cutting it close especially since it was already going on 5 p.m. and trains were running less frequently.
“If we had a car we could travel through the night,” Uruha noted finishing off his sake.
“But we don’t.” Aoi threw the chopsticks down on the table. If they advance in the tournament that might mean over two more weeks of not knowing what is going on with his mother. He wondered if he would be able to even concentrate on playing like this, with his mind swarming with all sorts of thoughts and anxieties. An anger crawled up inside of him, an anger at himself for what could possibly disappoint his friends. They needed him to be there, completely there in this tournament in which they were such great underdogs but at the same time, he couldn’t just forget about his mother. Inside that anger was also anger directed at her for doing this to him once more, for threatening to destroy everything he managed to build in his life for himself. She was like a disease almost, something that infected him since birth, something he couldn’t get rid of no matter what happened.
“I have a friend who has a car. He might let us borrow it,” Kai said.
“A friend that will let us drive all the way south into Mie prefecture?” Aoi asked incredulously.
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“D.”
“D?”
“Who’s D?” Uruha asked.
“D’Marcus. Mr. Johnson’s nephew.”
“You’re good friends with him?” Reita asked surprised. Aoi let out a small chuckle at the question.
Just as all questioning eyes moved toward Aoi’s face, Kai quickly answered “Yeah, we’re good friends. I can ask him if he’d let us borrow it. Who knows how to drive?”
“I do,” Uruha said.
“Same here,” Reita nodded.
“I do too,” Kai added. “So that makes three of us. That’s a surprisingly better number than I anticipated. If the three of us alternate driving responsibilities we can go without taking long breaks.”
“It will take at the shortest 7 hours to drive there,” Aoi said.
“Alright, then we can each drive for about 2 to 3 hours,” Kai stood up. “But let me ask him first,” he dug into his pockets and pulling out his cell phone walked into the living room, leaving the other four sitting there quietly.
“Not many friends will let you take their car out of nowhere for a couple of days,” Reita noted.
Aoi chuckled once more. “Yeah…” he said.
“Is there something we don’t know about?” Ruki inquired.
With an obvious knowing shake of the head, Aoi smirked and replied suspiciously “No.”
“Come on!” Reita begged in a whisper. “Tell us.”
Aoi quickly got to his feet and walking over to the fridge opened it. “Anyone want a beer? How about you Ruki? You want a juice box?”
“Sure,” he replied.
“I’ll take a beer,” Uruha answered.
Pulling out 4 beers just for the hell of it and a juice box, Aoi placed them on the table. “I can get the baby a straw too,” Aoi smiled at Ruki.
“If you have them,” he answered in all seriousness.
Out in the living room, Kai paced as he listened the ringing on the other end.
“Hello?” D answered.
“Hey. It’s me Kai,” He said in a happy, sweet voice.
“Kai. It’s great to hear from you.”
“How are you?” The question wasn’t formal at all but asked however out of sincere interest and concern.
“Good and you?”
“Um…I have,” he sighed. “I have a favor to ask you.”
“Ask away.”
“This may be a bit much but…I was wondering if I could borrow your car for a couple of days. Aoi needs to go see his mother and he needs to get back in time for this band tournament.”
“I see…” Kai waited for him to answer. “Sure. No problem. There isn’t much gas in it so you’d have to fill it up. Just come by.”
“Seriously?” He could hardly believe it. Kai didn’t think D would agree so readily.
“I know that if it wasn’t important you wouldn’t ask besides it’s just a car.”
“You know, you are really a sweet person D,” Kai smiled.
From the kitchen, the other four watched him. They couldn’t hear what he was saying but by his expression, they could tell that D’s answer was in their favor.
“Wow, he is really…smilely,” Reita noticed as he popped open his beer.
“Does he like him?” Ruki asked bluntly turning to Aoi who hearing his question, started laughing. He couldn’t quite put his own mood down for some reason, despite his nervousness in regards to his mother, his friends’ endearing behavior and willingness to up and help him made him feel like everything was going to work out. It was like being in the band; as long as their drive and hard work was there, they believed that they could tackle any issue and fix any problem. Without even asking, Kai had took control and managed to not only get them a car. The other three readily agreed to travel with him.
“Wow,” Reita laughed. “So much for the straight one.”
On the phone, D’Marcus replied to Kai’s compliment “Not really. I’m just letting you use it. It’s not a big deal.”
“Still,” Kai smiled to no one but himself. “A lot of people wouldn’t agree.”
“Well…they have a stick up their ass,” he chuckled.
“I guess so,” Kai giggled.
“Once this is all over, you should come by…” He could tell that D was feeling a bit awkward. His invitation had beneath it more implications.
In a soft and suggestive voice, Kai replied “I’d love to.”
“Well, when are you coming by to pick up the car?”
Another giggle. “As soon as possible.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
Kai bit his bottom lip and smiled causing his friends to start laughing. Each of them smacked a hand over their mouth to keep it in. “You do that,” Kai said. “See you soon.”
“See you.”
He hung up and turning to face his friends saw them with their eyes glued to him, trembling with smothered laughter. His cheeks turned a deep red as he blushed and looked away. “I’ll go get the car,” he said quickly with his eyes still averted. “You four wait here,” he announced as he moved with balled fists and perked up shoulders to the door where he slipped his shoes on. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Good luck tearing yourself away from him,” Aoi teased.
Kai narrowed his eyes at him as he opened the door. “Bye,” he replied brusquely before slamming it behind him.
[A/N Sorry I'm late. I stayed up late last night watching Sherlock Holmes, the BBC show and I overslept -__-]