fic - Johnny's and Associates - Don't:
Title: Don't:
Author: virdant
Length: 2859 words; oneshot
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General.
Pairing: None. Pikame, Akame, KAT-TUN OT6 if you squint and tilt your head to the left as you read.
Summary: Akanishi smiles, a madman’s smile. “It scares you too, doesn’t it? Everything will kill you.... Some things just kill you faster.”
Warning: UCSD!AU. Excessive chemistry terminology.
Notes: UCSD!AU. Slice-of-life one-shot regarding organic chemistry labs. Based off of 143AH at UCSD. Much use of MSDS of various chemicals. The MSDS for chemicals can be found online: google MSDS with a chemical name and it will likely show up. All the chemical hazards for various molecules are quoted from MSDS' found online.
Don't:
“Hey,” Kamenashi says suddenly from where sitting on the floor, back against the wall, in Yamashita and Akanishi’s shared double. His textbook sits on his crossed legs, his lab notebook on the floor in front of him, a cup of coffee beside him despite the fact that the sky outside’s dark and has been for an hour already. He’s already preparing to pull his first all-nighter of the quarter, barely a week into school.
“What’s up?” Yamashita asks, turning away from a physics problem set due tomorrow to focus on Kamenashi. Akanishi is out tonight again; just some fun with the frat guys, he said, but both Yamashita and Kamenashi know better-he’s out drinking and partying and won’t come back until three in the morning if they’re lucky. Usually Kamenashi sits at any of the empty desks, spreading his work out across the tiny surface and onto the floor around him in a wide orbit. Tonight, his papers sit stiffly before him, as if he’s not sure if he belongs here without Akanishi in the room.
Kamenashi smiles a little, a tight little grimace as he sips his coffee. “Look up the MSDS for sulfuric acid for me, please?” Kamenashi asks.
Kamenashi doesn’t have his computer with him today. It explains why his papers are so tightly organized around him-without a computer to distract him, he’s focusing completely on lab.
Yamashita shrugs. “Sure,” he says, and pulls up the material safety data sheet for sulfuric acid. He doesn’t need to look at it to tell Kamenashi what’s going to be written on it.
Warning! Corrosive. Fatal in ingested. Irritant. Carcinogenic. Permeator. May be toxic to kidneys, lungs, heart, cardiovascular system, upper respiratory tract, eyes, teeth. Handle with safety goggles, gloves, and lab coat.
Yamashita unplugs his laptop and hands it to Kamenashi, watching as Kamenashi copies down the information in careful handwriting, face furrowed.
“Do you know what this means?” Yamashita asks suddenly. He thinks of professors yelling at them to learn, to understand, not just to regurgitate the material. He thinks of Kamenashi, hands trembling from caffeine as he tries to spot a TLC plate and ends up breaking the thin glass spotter instead. He thinks of tired eyes and a tired voice asking him: “Tell me how I’m going to die now, please?”
Kamenashi smiles at him, wan and tired. It makes Yamashita glad to not be pre-med. It makes Yamashita glad that he’s not like Kamenashi. It makes Yamashita sad to see somebody he remembers as a bright presence in his life so faded and dull. “Of course I do,” Kamenashi says. “It’s a common catalyst for lots of reactions.” Kamenashi lifts up a notebook, where he has a mechanism drawn out, showing how one molecule transforms into another.
It’s paper chemistry. It’s safe. The only danger lies in a paper cut from flipping a page too quickly. There are no chemicals to spill and seep through skin into a respiratory tract to kill a person too early.
Kamenashi watches Yamashita, waiting for his next move.
“Why are you doing this?” Yamashita asks.
Kamenashi turns his head away. “Is this another one of those, ‘Why are you pre-med?’ discussions?” He turns a page in his textbook, reaching for a highlighter with his other hand.
“Not why are you pre-med,” Yamashita says. He knows why Kamenashi’s pre-med, even if Kamenashi doesn’t realize it himself. “Why are you doing this? Why not just...”
“Be like the bio majors here and just take the bio track for everything so it’s easier?” Kamenashi laughs.
“No!” Yamashita slides out of his chair and sits in front of Kamenashi, staring straight into his eyes in hopes that he’ll just understand. “Why are you killing yourself like this?” He takes the coffee-even through the insulated cup, he can feel the heat burning his fingers-and puts it aside. He lifts the textbook off of Kamenashi’s crossed legs and pushes the lab notebook away. “Why can’t you just... why don’t you ever stop?”
Kamenashi watches Yamashita blankly.
“Everybody else went home for the summer, and you took classes. A full course-load. You spent your four weeks of summer break studying-don’t tell me you didn’t, I heard you talking about that to Nakamaru in Organic Chem in the beginning of the year. And this winter, you stayed on campus and worked. You haven’t taken a break since you’ve come here. I wonder if you’ve taken a break since you started High School!”
“Yamashita,” Kamenashi begins.
“Aren’t you pre-med? Shouldn’t you know how bad this is for you?”
Kamenashi smiles sardonically. “What right do you have to say this to me?” he asks. “You spent your summer working. Got a job, did some work. I did the same thing, except I paid money instead of earned it.”
“That’s still a change, Kazuya!” Yamashita clenches his hands into fists, struggling to explain, but there’s a reason he’s not a communications major, a writing major, a social studies major. He’s in engineering for a reason, and he clenches onto that excuse for his poor communication skills. “That’s...”
“Of course,” Kamenashi interrupts, voice quiet and calm. Yamashita thinks that he doesn’t belong in science, with the way he seems to pick words that hurt to hear. He pushes Yamashita away-gently, but firmly. Yamashita rocks back on his heels, watching as Kamenashi gathers up his textbook, his notebook, and finally his lab notebook. “I think I’ll go back to my dorm,” he says quietly.
“Don’t do this,” Yamashita says. “Don’t just walk away. You know what I’m saying makes sense.”
Kamenashi turns around in the doorway. Yamashita thinks it’s just like a scene from a drama, with the light from the hallway outside silhouetting Kamenashi figure. Kamenashi slowly nods. “I do,” he says, and walks away.
He leaves behind his coffee.
*
Ueda’s sitting in the common room of Kamenashi’s suite when Kamenashi gets back to his on-campus apartment, walking down Sun God Hill and past Price Center from Yamashita and Akanishi’s apartment.
“Hey,” Ueda says, looking comfortable on the couch that crinkles when he shifts. There’s plastic bags in the dorm furniture-everybody knows this, even though they don’t talk about it because it’s one of those things that you don’t talk about. He has his glasses on, instead of his usual contacts, and a textbook on his lap. “We were going to study together, remember?”
It’s not accusing, but Kamenashi feels guilty anyways. “I forgot,” he admits. He reaches for his phone: study with Ueda and Koki, it says.
Ueda looks at him, peers at him really, studying the bags under Kamenashi’s eyes that have formed even though classes have only started for 4 days. They shouldn’t even be studying yet, it’s week one and they don’t have anything assigned yet other than review for the previous quarter, but Kamenashi’s paranoid. Kamenashi’s always paranoid.
Kamenashi waits, phone clutched in his hand and books hanging off his shoulder. There’s something missing, and Ueda sees Kamenashi’s empty left hand where he’s usually clutching his drug of choice.
“It’s alright,” Ueda says quietly.
Kamenashi sinks down onto the couch next to Ueda with a sick crackling of plastic. “I feel horrible,” he admits.
“Get some sleep,” Ueda says.
“No, I mean...”
Ueda pushes his glasses up with a finger. “I know,” he says. Ueda takes Kamenashi’s books, settling them in the crook of one arm while he reaches for Kamenashi’s bag with the other, slinging it over his shoulder. It’s heavy; it’s typical of Kamenashi.
Kamenashi has a single this year-his roommate from last year’s transferred away to another school. Ueda fishes Kamenashi’s keys out of Kamenashi’s pocket, sliding past the smaller lab drawer key and pulling out the room key. He unlocks Kamenashi’s door, dropping his books and bag by the desk before steering Kamenashi to bed.
“I have lab tomorrow,” Kamenashi begins.
“I know,” Ueda says in reply. They have lab together, at twelve across campus in the Natural Sciences Building. They have virtually the same schedule this quarter, and Kamenashi’s grateful for it, for Ueda’s sharp eyes following the movement of chalk on blackboard, even if Ueda doesn’t write anything down for the entire class.
Kamenashi sits on bed, shoes toed off as he’s been thinking and it’s quiet, his apartment-mates either asleep or out hanging out with other people. “I haven’t finished pre-lab,” Kamenashi begins.
“Yes, you have,” Ueda says. He slides Kamenashi’s lab notebook out and show it to him, the procedure copied on one half of the paper, safety information written on the page before because Kamenashi’s careful like that. “Stop worrying.”
Kamenashi closes his eyes and says. “Fine. Wake me up in an hour.”
Ueda closes the notebook, safety information for sulfuric acid still unfinished. He takes Kamenashi’s lab notebook out to the dining table and carefully, and in as close to Kamenashi’s handwriting as he can manage carefully scribbles: corrosive.
*
“I’m surprised you aren’t drugging yourself into alertness all the time anymore,” Taguchi whispers in lab, sliding past Kamenashi to pour sand into his distillation column. After the professor’s withering comment about how they need to pay attention to what they’re using because these chemicals can kill them, the entire class pretty much migrated to the fume hoods to do their work. The only time they spend time outside on the benches is to pull out their glassware, these days.
Kamenashi rolls his eyes at Taguchi. He’s been sleeping more this quarter, after Yamashita shouting at him. Ueda’s been meeting him at his apartment too, ordering him to bed because his apartment-mates won’t. It’s been making a difference. He hasn’t been consuming caffeine like an addict anymore, and his hands are steady as he dots his TLC plate-a piece of aluminum about as long as his index finger and half as wide covered in white silica gel-with a mixture of ethyl acetate and acetylsalicylic acid. He watches as the solvent-the ethyl acetate-evaporates in the fume hood, carefully dotting another drop of the solution onto the rectangular shaped plate.
“There’s pure caffeine at the back,” Tanaka jokes as he reaches into the hood that Kamenashi and Taguchi are sharing to drop his TLC plate into the glass jar full of iodine to develop his plate.
Kamenashi mutters, “Does the fact that we’re working in an environment where everything is either poisonous or carcinogenic not mean anything to you?”
“What part of ‘Do Not Eat’ do you not understand?” Ueda asks from where he’s working in the hood next to Kamenashi and Taguchi. “And who’s going to drink caffeine from a bottle like that?” He nods towards the back, where the caffeine bottle that Tanaka’s talking about is sitting among other dark, stained, glass bottles with green caps.
Nakamaru walks back from the back, ground Tylenol on a sheet of weighing paper. “What are we eating? Or drinking?”
“Snack at Plaza cafe after this,” Ueda says. “Akanishi’s paying to make up for disappearing for six months.”
“I didn’t agree to this,” Akanishi mutters from where he’s running his column, looking lazy and relaxed but actually completely focused.
Kamenashi drops his TLC plate into the developing chamber, watching the solvent climb slowly up. It’s carrying ground up aspirin up the plate. It should scare him, seeing something that he puts in his body indiscriminately in a chemical lab, but it just gives him a strange sense of calm.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Tanaka says. “It’s just dining dollars.”
And this, that liquid Taguchi has in his hands is just spinach extract. Kamenashi ate that yesterday for lunch. The powder Nakamaru’s pouring into a pipette to analyze is Tylenol, which he bought a bottle of yesterday. There’s caffeine in the back, the real stuff, not just the stuff that comes with a cup of black coffee.
“Kame, your plate’s pretty much done,” Taguchi says softly so the TA doesn’t hear and dock Kamenashi his lab points.
Kamenashi fishes the plate out the chamber with his tweezers, staring at the already evaporating chemicals. They’re leaving behind aspirin and caffeine and who knows what else.
“Kame?” Taguchi asks. “You alright? Are your results alright? Your TLC plate’s okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Kame says. “I know.” He copies the data into his lab notebook, in pen. “I know,” he murmurs.
Under UV light, Kamenashi can see a dark spot on the otherwise white plate. That’s aspirin, right there. That’s what he’s been eating for years without ever knowing anything about it. And there, that splotch over there. That’s caffeine.
Kamenashi swallows hard. That’s what was in his coffee. That was what was in his tea.
That dark smudge was just sitting in a dark glass bottle with a green lid with brown stains.
*
“Why is Kamenashi looking up the MSDS’ for sulfuric acid when he isn’t using it in lab?” Yamashita asks Akanishi one night.
“Because Kamenashi’s a freak,” Akanishi offers.
Yamashita frowns at Akanishi, because sometimes Akanishi says things that are just plan tactless. Akanishi’s probably drunk, even though he’s not allowed to be drunk on-campus. “Jin,” Yamashita begins.
Akanishi looks away from his laptop. There’s probably porn open on it, but Yamashita ignores that for staring at the notebook full of mechanisms open beside Akanishi. So Akanishi was studying, after all.
“Jin?” Yamashita asks.
Akanishi says, “Kamenashi’s paranoid.”
“I know that,” Yamashita says, and he wonders if maybe Kamenashi’s standing outside with his ear to the door because he always comes by at about this time, and it would be like Kamenashi to sit and listen to them talk about him.
Akanishi says quietly, “I don’t blame him. It’s scary, some of the stuff we’re using in lab.”
“Yeah?” Yamashita says. “Why aren’t you freaked out?”
Akanishi laughs. “But I am,” he says, and he looks almost like he did before he studied abroad for six months and came back changed. “I am,” he says. “I’m very scared.”
Yamashita waits.
“But that’s how you make mistakes. If you’re so scared that your pipette shakes and you end up spilling concentrated sulfuric acid on you. You wouldn’t if you weren’t scared to begin with. You wouldn’t if you were confident enough to dip it in and then out again... but you’re scared.” Akanishi reaches out, and his hands are shaking as he reaches for Yamashita. “You’re very scared,” he says, and it’s not just the alcohol in his system muddling his brain.
Yamashita thinks of Material Safety Data Sheets and hazards listed one after another. Ethanol, also called Ethyl Alcohol. Flammable. Causes respiratory tract irritation. May cause central nervous system depression. Causes severe eye irritation. This substance has caused adverse reproductive and fetal effects in humans. Causes moderate skin irritation. May cause liver, kidney and heart damage.
Akanishi smiles, a madman’s smile. “It scares you too, doesn’t it? Everything will kill you.” Akanishi reaches with a trembling hand and presses his palm against Yamashita’s cheek.
Yamashita holds still, smiling warily.
“Some things just kill you faster.”
*
“Hey,” Taguchi says, sliding into the seat next to Tanaka as lab lecture is about to start. “So... any idea what will kill us next week?”
Kamenashi, one row down, turns around and says softly, “I read ahead. It’s an identification of an unknown lab next week. And the week after. Same unknown. This lab’s going to take forever, probably.”
“Joy,” Tanaka mutters.
Nakamaru shrugs. “It can’t be that bad, can it?” he asks.
Ueda sighs. “We aren’t going to know what’s going to kill us until after we’ve been killed by it.”
Taguchi looks up from the lab that Kamenashi’s already printed out. “We could just look up the hazards for all of the possible unknowns. The professor gives us a list.” He shakes the paper. “He gave us six lists.”
Nakamaru murmurs. “I’m sure that we’re working with small enough amounts that nothing will actually hurt us permanently.”
Taguchi shrugs, smiling.
Kamenashi sighs. “We have to just work really carefully.”
Akanishi snorts from where he’s sitting next to Kamenashi, head resting on Kamenashi’s shoulder. “Or we could just give up and die before the year ends.” He rests his hand on Kamenashi’s notebook, tracing the words next to caffeine.
Warning! Harmful if swallowed or inhaled. Causes irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. Possible birth defect hazard. May cause birth defects based on animal data.
“Hey, Kamenashi,” Akanishi whispers into Kamenashi’s shoulder as lecture starts. Ueda's said this, Nakamaru's said this. Even Taguchi and Tanaka and Yamashita have said this to Kamenashi already. "Hey," Akanishi says, quietly to keep the professor from hearing. “Don’t live off of coffee again, alright?”
end.
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Author: virdant
Length: 2859 words; oneshot
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General.
Pairing: None. Pikame, Akame, KAT-TUN OT6 if you squint and tilt your head to the left as you read.
Summary: Akanishi smiles, a madman’s smile. “It scares you too, doesn’t it? Everything will kill you.... Some things just kill you faster.”
Warning: UCSD!AU. Excessive chemistry terminology.
Notes: UCSD!AU. Slice-of-life one-shot regarding organic chemistry labs. Based off of 143AH at UCSD. Much use of MSDS of various chemicals. The MSDS for chemicals can be found online: google MSDS with a chemical name and it will likely show up. All the chemical hazards for various molecules are quoted from MSDS' found online.
Don't:
“Hey,” Kamenashi says suddenly from where sitting on the floor, back against the wall, in Yamashita and Akanishi’s shared double. His textbook sits on his crossed legs, his lab notebook on the floor in front of him, a cup of coffee beside him despite the fact that the sky outside’s dark and has been for an hour already. He’s already preparing to pull his first all-nighter of the quarter, barely a week into school.
“What’s up?” Yamashita asks, turning away from a physics problem set due tomorrow to focus on Kamenashi. Akanishi is out tonight again; just some fun with the frat guys, he said, but both Yamashita and Kamenashi know better-he’s out drinking and partying and won’t come back until three in the morning if they’re lucky. Usually Kamenashi sits at any of the empty desks, spreading his work out across the tiny surface and onto the floor around him in a wide orbit. Tonight, his papers sit stiffly before him, as if he’s not sure if he belongs here without Akanishi in the room.
Kamenashi smiles a little, a tight little grimace as he sips his coffee. “Look up the MSDS for sulfuric acid for me, please?” Kamenashi asks.
Kamenashi doesn’t have his computer with him today. It explains why his papers are so tightly organized around him-without a computer to distract him, he’s focusing completely on lab.
Yamashita shrugs. “Sure,” he says, and pulls up the material safety data sheet for sulfuric acid. He doesn’t need to look at it to tell Kamenashi what’s going to be written on it.
Warning! Corrosive. Fatal in ingested. Irritant. Carcinogenic. Permeator. May be toxic to kidneys, lungs, heart, cardiovascular system, upper respiratory tract, eyes, teeth. Handle with safety goggles, gloves, and lab coat.
Yamashita unplugs his laptop and hands it to Kamenashi, watching as Kamenashi copies down the information in careful handwriting, face furrowed.
“Do you know what this means?” Yamashita asks suddenly. He thinks of professors yelling at them to learn, to understand, not just to regurgitate the material. He thinks of Kamenashi, hands trembling from caffeine as he tries to spot a TLC plate and ends up breaking the thin glass spotter instead. He thinks of tired eyes and a tired voice asking him: “Tell me how I’m going to die now, please?”
Kamenashi smiles at him, wan and tired. It makes Yamashita glad to not be pre-med. It makes Yamashita glad that he’s not like Kamenashi. It makes Yamashita sad to see somebody he remembers as a bright presence in his life so faded and dull. “Of course I do,” Kamenashi says. “It’s a common catalyst for lots of reactions.” Kamenashi lifts up a notebook, where he has a mechanism drawn out, showing how one molecule transforms into another.
It’s paper chemistry. It’s safe. The only danger lies in a paper cut from flipping a page too quickly. There are no chemicals to spill and seep through skin into a respiratory tract to kill a person too early.
Kamenashi watches Yamashita, waiting for his next move.
“Why are you doing this?” Yamashita asks.
Kamenashi turns his head away. “Is this another one of those, ‘Why are you pre-med?’ discussions?” He turns a page in his textbook, reaching for a highlighter with his other hand.
“Not why are you pre-med,” Yamashita says. He knows why Kamenashi’s pre-med, even if Kamenashi doesn’t realize it himself. “Why are you doing this? Why not just...”
“Be like the bio majors here and just take the bio track for everything so it’s easier?” Kamenashi laughs.
“No!” Yamashita slides out of his chair and sits in front of Kamenashi, staring straight into his eyes in hopes that he’ll just understand. “Why are you killing yourself like this?” He takes the coffee-even through the insulated cup, he can feel the heat burning his fingers-and puts it aside. He lifts the textbook off of Kamenashi’s crossed legs and pushes the lab notebook away. “Why can’t you just... why don’t you ever stop?”
Kamenashi watches Yamashita blankly.
“Everybody else went home for the summer, and you took classes. A full course-load. You spent your four weeks of summer break studying-don’t tell me you didn’t, I heard you talking about that to Nakamaru in Organic Chem in the beginning of the year. And this winter, you stayed on campus and worked. You haven’t taken a break since you’ve come here. I wonder if you’ve taken a break since you started High School!”
“Yamashita,” Kamenashi begins.
“Aren’t you pre-med? Shouldn’t you know how bad this is for you?”
Kamenashi smiles sardonically. “What right do you have to say this to me?” he asks. “You spent your summer working. Got a job, did some work. I did the same thing, except I paid money instead of earned it.”
“That’s still a change, Kazuya!” Yamashita clenches his hands into fists, struggling to explain, but there’s a reason he’s not a communications major, a writing major, a social studies major. He’s in engineering for a reason, and he clenches onto that excuse for his poor communication skills. “That’s...”
“Of course,” Kamenashi interrupts, voice quiet and calm. Yamashita thinks that he doesn’t belong in science, with the way he seems to pick words that hurt to hear. He pushes Yamashita away-gently, but firmly. Yamashita rocks back on his heels, watching as Kamenashi gathers up his textbook, his notebook, and finally his lab notebook. “I think I’ll go back to my dorm,” he says quietly.
“Don’t do this,” Yamashita says. “Don’t just walk away. You know what I’m saying makes sense.”
Kamenashi turns around in the doorway. Yamashita thinks it’s just like a scene from a drama, with the light from the hallway outside silhouetting Kamenashi figure. Kamenashi slowly nods. “I do,” he says, and walks away.
He leaves behind his coffee.
*
Ueda’s sitting in the common room of Kamenashi’s suite when Kamenashi gets back to his on-campus apartment, walking down Sun God Hill and past Price Center from Yamashita and Akanishi’s apartment.
“Hey,” Ueda says, looking comfortable on the couch that crinkles when he shifts. There’s plastic bags in the dorm furniture-everybody knows this, even though they don’t talk about it because it’s one of those things that you don’t talk about. He has his glasses on, instead of his usual contacts, and a textbook on his lap. “We were going to study together, remember?”
It’s not accusing, but Kamenashi feels guilty anyways. “I forgot,” he admits. He reaches for his phone: study with Ueda and Koki, it says.
Ueda looks at him, peers at him really, studying the bags under Kamenashi’s eyes that have formed even though classes have only started for 4 days. They shouldn’t even be studying yet, it’s week one and they don’t have anything assigned yet other than review for the previous quarter, but Kamenashi’s paranoid. Kamenashi’s always paranoid.
Kamenashi waits, phone clutched in his hand and books hanging off his shoulder. There’s something missing, and Ueda sees Kamenashi’s empty left hand where he’s usually clutching his drug of choice.
“It’s alright,” Ueda says quietly.
Kamenashi sinks down onto the couch next to Ueda with a sick crackling of plastic. “I feel horrible,” he admits.
“Get some sleep,” Ueda says.
“No, I mean...”
Ueda pushes his glasses up with a finger. “I know,” he says. Ueda takes Kamenashi’s books, settling them in the crook of one arm while he reaches for Kamenashi’s bag with the other, slinging it over his shoulder. It’s heavy; it’s typical of Kamenashi.
Kamenashi has a single this year-his roommate from last year’s transferred away to another school. Ueda fishes Kamenashi’s keys out of Kamenashi’s pocket, sliding past the smaller lab drawer key and pulling out the room key. He unlocks Kamenashi’s door, dropping his books and bag by the desk before steering Kamenashi to bed.
“I have lab tomorrow,” Kamenashi begins.
“I know,” Ueda says in reply. They have lab together, at twelve across campus in the Natural Sciences Building. They have virtually the same schedule this quarter, and Kamenashi’s grateful for it, for Ueda’s sharp eyes following the movement of chalk on blackboard, even if Ueda doesn’t write anything down for the entire class.
Kamenashi sits on bed, shoes toed off as he’s been thinking and it’s quiet, his apartment-mates either asleep or out hanging out with other people. “I haven’t finished pre-lab,” Kamenashi begins.
“Yes, you have,” Ueda says. He slides Kamenashi’s lab notebook out and show it to him, the procedure copied on one half of the paper, safety information written on the page before because Kamenashi’s careful like that. “Stop worrying.”
Kamenashi closes his eyes and says. “Fine. Wake me up in an hour.”
Ueda closes the notebook, safety information for sulfuric acid still unfinished. He takes Kamenashi’s lab notebook out to the dining table and carefully, and in as close to Kamenashi’s handwriting as he can manage carefully scribbles: corrosive.
*
“I’m surprised you aren’t drugging yourself into alertness all the time anymore,” Taguchi whispers in lab, sliding past Kamenashi to pour sand into his distillation column. After the professor’s withering comment about how they need to pay attention to what they’re using because these chemicals can kill them, the entire class pretty much migrated to the fume hoods to do their work. The only time they spend time outside on the benches is to pull out their glassware, these days.
Kamenashi rolls his eyes at Taguchi. He’s been sleeping more this quarter, after Yamashita shouting at him. Ueda’s been meeting him at his apartment too, ordering him to bed because his apartment-mates won’t. It’s been making a difference. He hasn’t been consuming caffeine like an addict anymore, and his hands are steady as he dots his TLC plate-a piece of aluminum about as long as his index finger and half as wide covered in white silica gel-with a mixture of ethyl acetate and acetylsalicylic acid. He watches as the solvent-the ethyl acetate-evaporates in the fume hood, carefully dotting another drop of the solution onto the rectangular shaped plate.
“There’s pure caffeine at the back,” Tanaka jokes as he reaches into the hood that Kamenashi and Taguchi are sharing to drop his TLC plate into the glass jar full of iodine to develop his plate.
Kamenashi mutters, “Does the fact that we’re working in an environment where everything is either poisonous or carcinogenic not mean anything to you?”
“What part of ‘Do Not Eat’ do you not understand?” Ueda asks from where he’s working in the hood next to Kamenashi and Taguchi. “And who’s going to drink caffeine from a bottle like that?” He nods towards the back, where the caffeine bottle that Tanaka’s talking about is sitting among other dark, stained, glass bottles with green caps.
Nakamaru walks back from the back, ground Tylenol on a sheet of weighing paper. “What are we eating? Or drinking?”
“Snack at Plaza cafe after this,” Ueda says. “Akanishi’s paying to make up for disappearing for six months.”
“I didn’t agree to this,” Akanishi mutters from where he’s running his column, looking lazy and relaxed but actually completely focused.
Kamenashi drops his TLC plate into the developing chamber, watching the solvent climb slowly up. It’s carrying ground up aspirin up the plate. It should scare him, seeing something that he puts in his body indiscriminately in a chemical lab, but it just gives him a strange sense of calm.
“Don’t be a wuss,” Tanaka says. “It’s just dining dollars.”
And this, that liquid Taguchi has in his hands is just spinach extract. Kamenashi ate that yesterday for lunch. The powder Nakamaru’s pouring into a pipette to analyze is Tylenol, which he bought a bottle of yesterday. There’s caffeine in the back, the real stuff, not just the stuff that comes with a cup of black coffee.
“Kame, your plate’s pretty much done,” Taguchi says softly so the TA doesn’t hear and dock Kamenashi his lab points.
Kamenashi fishes the plate out the chamber with his tweezers, staring at the already evaporating chemicals. They’re leaving behind aspirin and caffeine and who knows what else.
“Kame?” Taguchi asks. “You alright? Are your results alright? Your TLC plate’s okay, right?”
“Yeah,” Kame says. “I know.” He copies the data into his lab notebook, in pen. “I know,” he murmurs.
Under UV light, Kamenashi can see a dark spot on the otherwise white plate. That’s aspirin, right there. That’s what he’s been eating for years without ever knowing anything about it. And there, that splotch over there. That’s caffeine.
Kamenashi swallows hard. That’s what was in his coffee. That was what was in his tea.
That dark smudge was just sitting in a dark glass bottle with a green lid with brown stains.
*
“Why is Kamenashi looking up the MSDS’ for sulfuric acid when he isn’t using it in lab?” Yamashita asks Akanishi one night.
“Because Kamenashi’s a freak,” Akanishi offers.
Yamashita frowns at Akanishi, because sometimes Akanishi says things that are just plan tactless. Akanishi’s probably drunk, even though he’s not allowed to be drunk on-campus. “Jin,” Yamashita begins.
Akanishi looks away from his laptop. There’s probably porn open on it, but Yamashita ignores that for staring at the notebook full of mechanisms open beside Akanishi. So Akanishi was studying, after all.
“Jin?” Yamashita asks.
Akanishi says, “Kamenashi’s paranoid.”
“I know that,” Yamashita says, and he wonders if maybe Kamenashi’s standing outside with his ear to the door because he always comes by at about this time, and it would be like Kamenashi to sit and listen to them talk about him.
Akanishi says quietly, “I don’t blame him. It’s scary, some of the stuff we’re using in lab.”
“Yeah?” Yamashita says. “Why aren’t you freaked out?”
Akanishi laughs. “But I am,” he says, and he looks almost like he did before he studied abroad for six months and came back changed. “I am,” he says. “I’m very scared.”
Yamashita waits.
“But that’s how you make mistakes. If you’re so scared that your pipette shakes and you end up spilling concentrated sulfuric acid on you. You wouldn’t if you weren’t scared to begin with. You wouldn’t if you were confident enough to dip it in and then out again... but you’re scared.” Akanishi reaches out, and his hands are shaking as he reaches for Yamashita. “You’re very scared,” he says, and it’s not just the alcohol in his system muddling his brain.
Yamashita thinks of Material Safety Data Sheets and hazards listed one after another. Ethanol, also called Ethyl Alcohol. Flammable. Causes respiratory tract irritation. May cause central nervous system depression. Causes severe eye irritation. This substance has caused adverse reproductive and fetal effects in humans. Causes moderate skin irritation. May cause liver, kidney and heart damage.
Akanishi smiles, a madman’s smile. “It scares you too, doesn’t it? Everything will kill you.” Akanishi reaches with a trembling hand and presses his palm against Yamashita’s cheek.
Yamashita holds still, smiling warily.
“Some things just kill you faster.”
*
“Hey,” Taguchi says, sliding into the seat next to Tanaka as lab lecture is about to start. “So... any idea what will kill us next week?”
Kamenashi, one row down, turns around and says softly, “I read ahead. It’s an identification of an unknown lab next week. And the week after. Same unknown. This lab’s going to take forever, probably.”
“Joy,” Tanaka mutters.
Nakamaru shrugs. “It can’t be that bad, can it?” he asks.
Ueda sighs. “We aren’t going to know what’s going to kill us until after we’ve been killed by it.”
Taguchi looks up from the lab that Kamenashi’s already printed out. “We could just look up the hazards for all of the possible unknowns. The professor gives us a list.” He shakes the paper. “He gave us six lists.”
Nakamaru murmurs. “I’m sure that we’re working with small enough amounts that nothing will actually hurt us permanently.”
Taguchi shrugs, smiling.
Kamenashi sighs. “We have to just work really carefully.”
Akanishi snorts from where he’s sitting next to Kamenashi, head resting on Kamenashi’s shoulder. “Or we could just give up and die before the year ends.” He rests his hand on Kamenashi’s notebook, tracing the words next to caffeine.
Warning! Harmful if swallowed or inhaled. Causes irritation to skin, eyes, and respiratory tract. Possible birth defect hazard. May cause birth defects based on animal data.
“Hey, Kamenashi,” Akanishi whispers into Kamenashi’s shoulder as lecture starts. Ueda's said this, Nakamaru's said this. Even Taguchi and Tanaka and Yamashita have said this to Kamenashi already. "Hey," Akanishi says, quietly to keep the professor from hearing. “Don’t live off of coffee again, alright?”
end.
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