003; Horizontal Wings
Ruki/Shinji. For Koji.
The mid-July heat was stifling--not precisely a rarity for the densely populated area of a city, which clamored with oblong rows of concrete earth and tar--which greedily drained the heat from the sun and reflected it with a shimmering intensity of blacks and chipped silver into the upper windows of the orderly rows of business offices and apartment complexes alike. The end result was not unlike a microwave--the densely packed together buildings suffering in turn from the conditions of the outside, and cooking the inhabitants that dwelled inside with a merciless intensity. The air conditioner had kicked off not two hours ago with a depressing wheeze and alarming clanging noise, fading into lighter, hot ticking noises as the slanted grates snapped shut and still once more.
A call down to the landlord had resulted in a curt conversation, in which, mostly through a series of unhelpful and short-tempered grunts, the man had conveyed that the AC was out throughout most of the building, and that, no, he didn't have an estimate as to when he could have someone out to have a look at it, and that Shinji would simply have to suffer along with the rest of them. In despair, Ruki had thrown the windows wide, in a vain attempt to circulate the stale air. Instead, all that resulted from it was that the sound of late-afternoon traffic from the city below increased in pitch, free from the barriers of woven glass that sealed away that world from the more private one of their's. That, and the the stifling summer air--thick with soot and a myriad of scents, from sidewalks and hawking street vendors alike--mixing together to create a sickly sweet, cloying stew that quickly permeated throughout the apartment.
That afternoon found Shinji, clad only in his boxers after having discarded most of his clothes in a fit of complaint against the heat, sprawled across the couch. One knee was drawn up nearly to his chest, while the other long, lanky leg was draped over the back of the couch, his foot dangling with spread toes just on the other side, his laptop balanced precariously on his one raised knee, using his chest as brace to hold it steady as he typed rapidly.
Ruki was slouched down in an overstuffed armchair, absently flipping through the glossy pages of a magazine that rested in his lap with one hand, and periodically dipping his hand into a plastic cup of ice, fishing out an ice cube, and offering it with a flattened palm to one of the dogs with the other. The only sound was the ragged panting of the dogs before their pink tongues unfurled, snaking across his palm to accept the cold treat gratefully and cracking it between their jaws with great, steady grindings of their molars--and the incessant, quiet tapping of keys as Shinji's fingers flew across them.
A rapid series of clicks caused Ruki to glance over at the boy briefly. Shinji had been staring intently at the screen for most of the afternoon, making quiet remarks under his breath mostly directed at himself. Whatever they were, they were too low for Ruki to make out, and so he dismissed it as Shinji playing yet another one of his virtual porn games. With an irritated and sharp snap of the edge of a page, Ruki had just begun to dip his already numb and puckered fingers--already a pale and pointed yellow streaked with wrinkles at the tips--back into the glass, when Shinji suddenly spoke up.
"This might be fun."
"What might?" came Ruki's absent reply.
Emi's black and tan head reared up then, black snout pushing greedily through the vocalist's closed fingers as he wound his tongue lizard-like around them and claimed the swiftly melting block of ice. Shinji gripped the sides of the laptop then, swiveling it around on his knee at an angle to face Ruki, displaying the screen with an air of mild excitement. Ruki squinted. He didn't have his contacts in, and his glasses weren't meant so much for far away objects as they were for things up-close. As a result, the screen resembled little more than a backlit white square.
"...If you somehow found the Karma Sutra online, forget it. It's too hot to have sex."
"No! You perv," Shinji said, (a touch too defensively, Ruki thought) wrinkling his nose. "It's a free origami workshop down at the YMCA." He paused, rubbing the underside of his nose with his finger and sniffing a bit. "It's for today only, it says."
Ruki shot him a skeptical look over his magazine.
"And?"
"And I think we should go."
"Great!" he enthused. "Maybe we can even take up Ikebana!"
"...Don't be an ass. Come on," Shinji coaxed. "What else are we gonna do, huh? And at least it'd be somewhere cool."
Ruki sighed, folding his magazine shut in resignation. The idea still didn't thrill him--after all, origami was more of a woman's art, and frankly, it had never really held his interest. There were only so many times you could walk past displays of multicolored cranes before they lost any real sense of beauty that the culture associated them with. That, and they all looked the same. From a designer standpoint, at least. But Shinji did have a point, as much as he would only grudgingly admit it.
"All right, all right. Get dressed and let's go, I guess," he sighed.
"Great! It'll only be a minute!" Shinji promised as he swung both long legs into the air and resettled them onto the floor, setting the laptop aside as he got to his feet and made his way quickly down the hallway. He emerged a few minutes later, dressed in cutoff shorts and a t-shirt, an eager look in place.
"Ready?"
"...Sure."
The vocalist leaned forward in his seat, depositing the magazine and empty glass on the coffee table in front of him before getting up and out of the chair. The dogs lifted their chins from the floor in sleepy eyed question, a hopeful look on more than one of their furry faces. But Ruki just shook his head.
"Not today, guys. Maybe some other time, okay?"
Ignoring their crestfallen expressions and drooping ears, he made his way into the main hallway, with Shinji trailing behind, all but bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. Gathering up his keys and wallet, Ruki slipped both items into his back pocket, before tugging open the door to their apartment and stepping out into the hall. He waited until Shinji had also exited the apartment before pulling the door shut behind the both of them and locking it firmly.
---
The YMCA center had only been a short busride away, although between the poorly ventilated air conditioning and the amount of people packed onto the bus itself, the trip itself was far from pleasant. So it was with great relief to the both of them when the bus finally wheezed to a stop just curbside of the gym, it's tired old doors swinging open with a sigh."
"YMCA and Main," the driver announced in a flat, bored monotone.
A handful of passengers, themselves included, rose from their seats and crowded down the aisles for the doors, pushing lightly but impatiently at each other's backs as they squeezed through the narrow doors. Once the last of the passengers stepped clear of the bus doors, they swung shut with a brisk snap, and the bus slowly rumbled away from the curve.
"I can't believe I let you talk me into this," Ruki muttered out of the corner of his mouth, as they began their leisurely walk up the path to the double glass doors. Shinji only smiled broadly, before pulling heavily on the door handle and yanking the door open.
"After you," he sang, with a flourish of his hand. Ruki rolled his eyes then, before ducking under the boy's arm and heading inside. The classroom that was holding the origami instructions for the day was a small one at the end of the hall, tucked away in the right hand corner. No sooner had they passed through the open door than Ruki stopped dead in his tracks at the sight that greeted his eyes.
Rows of pristine white tables in a straight line, their ends firmly meeting, dominated the center of the room, replete with low, small wooden chairs. Pale green plastic baskets full of multicolored paper sat at the ends of each on either side, and one neatly in the center. But perhaps most horrifying of all were the brightly colored, unmistakable cutouts of hiragana characters and the English alphabet, sporting comically goofy cartoon faces.
A daycare center. A
"I really can't believe I let you talk me into this," he hissed.
Shinji merely elbowed him lightly in his ribs.
"Oh, hush," he scolded, shooting the instructor at the center of the room his most winning and brightest of smiles.
"Hello! We've come to join the lesson today."
"Oh! Well. Pleased you could join us. Please take a seat at one of the tables. The lesson will begin shortly."
"C'mon, Ruki!" he enthused, gripping the vocalist's limp wrist in a firm hold and tugging him towards the first free table he came across. Ruki averted his gaze as he was dragged along, a faint creeping heat coloring his cheeks. The room was full of women--mostly young high school girls and some middle-aged housewives, all of whom eyed the male couple with wide, curious guys and quiet giggles, whispering to each other as they passed.
The two plopped into a chair, sitting side by side. Ruki looked far from amused, and only scowled at the basket of paper in front of him. Shinji, on the other hand, was already eagerly sorting through the many colors with enthusiasm.
"Hey, look. They've got a gold sheet, too!"
Ruki's head whipped around then. Sure enough, a thin, bright and shiny sheet of delicate gold paper was clutched in the boy's hands. Without thinking, his hand shot out and tore it away from Shinji eagerly. The youth blinked and held up his hands, eyes rolling in exasperation.
"Why, sure, Ruki. You can have it. Sheesh."
A moment later, the lesson began.
"Welcome, class. Please fold your paper in half."
In unison, they did as they were instructed.
"Good, now fold it again, this way. Like so." A pause. "Great! Now. Take the left edge of your paper, and fold it towards the center. Smooth it down and do the same with the right half. You want to make it look like a hat. Or a sailboat."
It went on this way for several minutes. Ten minutes in, however, and Ruki's crane had gone horribly, horribly awry. It looked more like a badly wrinkled triangle than the reversed rectangle that everyone else was working on. The vocalist looked around in quiet dismay, then back to his own deformed crane with a crestfallen expression. Shinji glanced over and blinked.
"...Uh, Ruki. What happened?"
"Shut up," came the sullen reply.
"It's okay! It, uh. Doesn't look too bad. We can fix it!"
"No, we can't. I don't want a stupid crane, anyway."
Shinji bit his lip. In truth, his crane didn't look much better--criss-crossed with wrinkles and rips in places until the teacher, upon seeing him struggling with it so pathetically, had taken pity on him and come over, guiding the movements of his hands to form the next correct step with a slight smile.
"No, come on. Don't be like that. Let me see it..."
"Fine."
Ruki slid the ruined paper down the table towards the boy. Shinji went quiet for a moment as he studied it from all angles, before suddenly picking it up and turning it over in his hands.
"What did you do to it?"
A glare.
"I...I mean, here. Let me show you..."
Sliding the paper between them, he carefully picked up Ruki's smaller hands and laid them over the crane.
"See, first you fold this part here down like this...and then you flip it over and smooth down this part..."
As he spoke, he guided Ruki's hands in his own. A few corrected mistakes later, and a medium sized, golden crane sat cupped in the palms of their joined hands, glittering faintly in the light.
"See? Told ya you could do it."
Ruki stared down at the bird with a glint in his eye, a swelling of pride forming in his chest.
"Wait," he said suddenly. "It's not finished." Reaching into the basket once more, he drew out a red thread and a pen. He gathered up first his crane, driving a hole through it's narrow beak, and then Shinji's, doing the same to it.
"Hey! What are you--?"
Ignoring his protesting, Ruki threaded the red yarn through their beaks before sitting back.
"There. All done."
A gold and blue crane rested on the table, connected by a red string. Shinji's eyes softened.
"Perfect," he agreed.
Not ten minutes later, they left the class, fingers interlaced, holding the cranes just so, so that the strand wound through their fingers as well as they caught the last bus home.