Untitled
Part One
~**~
It was weird how Sendoh Akira could still smile while facing his impending death. Of course, he didn't really know that he was about to die yet, but Sakuragi Hanamichi would have thought that the look on his face would warn any person with half a brain (something he seriously doubted Sendoh had) to not mess with him right then.
He was in a foul, foul mood. And it was all because of Sendoh and his god damned persistence. Damn persistence. Why couldn't Sendoh just be like the countless of other people that he knew who completely lacked any initiative or drive to get what they wanted? Wouldn't life just be *so* much simpler for him then? Of course, things like that *never* worked out that way for people like him. Somebody up there wanted him to suffer and somebody up there was making a good job of it. He had sent the grinning loon, also known as Sendoh Akira, to torment him.
Said grinning loon was standing by the doorway of his apartment, apartment B14, that cursed place where Hanamichi had been forced to drop by every night for the past few months, leaning half naked against the doorframe in a position that showed off his perfectly sculpted athlete's body to its full advantage. Of course, Sendoh's ever-present suggestive smile was right there along with the rest of him. Hanamichi cursed that stupid smile. He hated it, he wanted it gone, and he was regretting the day he first set eyes upon it. He was also beginning to think that maybe he would have been better off taking that job at the shoe store.
" Sendoh." Hanamichi wasn't happy, so he made no attempt to sound like he was. Sendoh was the customer and all, sure, and Fujima Kenji was always going on and on and on about how important it was to be pleasant to the customers, but Sendoh was also his tormentor and the redhead felt no obligation whatsoever to be pleasant to someone whose main role in life was to annoy him.
The spiky haired boy, of course, chose to conveniently ignore his lackluster greeting. "Hana-kun! I'm *so happy* you dropped by!" Hanamichi wondered if Sendoh's face ever hurt from smiling so much.
Without another word, Hanamichi handed the pizza box that he was holding to Sendoh, who took no notice of it as though he didn't care about it. And he didn't. He always had an ulterior motive when ordering out for some pizza. After all, how the hell could a man eat pizza every night for the past four months? He chucked the box carelessly onto the floor where it landed beside a pair of boxers with the words 'love machine' printed all over it, and a pile of well thumbed through yaoi doujinshis.
It figured that Sendoh would have a huge collection of those.
" Sendoh, this has got to stop." The redhead declared flatly. If the spiky haired boy thought that he was in any way affected by the look of innocence on his face (hah! Hanamichi thought, what innocence?), then he was mistaken. He knew better than to fall for the wide eyed, 'I am not aware of what you're talking about' look.
" I've missed you, Hana-kun!" It was always like talking to a dense wall of rubber when dealing with Sendoh. Things just completely bounced off the damn idiot.
" First of all, Sendoh, I am *not* your 'Hana-kun' and I never will be! It's *Sakuragi*, or the 'Tensai' to you." What would it take to get that through the spiky haired boy's thick skull? Would he have to castrate him before Sendoh finally realized that he didn't feel the slightest bit of attraction towards him? Okay, even he had to admit that Sendoh was looking sort of hot, leaning against the doorway like that with that inviting, come hither look upon his face, but he just *was not in the slightest bit* interested. " Second of all, I have a job to do. Is that concept completely alien to a rich mama's boy like you? I work in a bloody *Pizza Parlor*, Sendoh! Not in a bloody Callboy service! You've got to stop calling up and asking Fujima to get me to specially deliver your stupid pizzas to you every time you get the fucking urge to talk to me!"
" But I don't!" Hanamichi blinked. " I *don't* ask Fujima-kun to send you here! It's fate! Fate that's bringing us together! Sendoh's blue eyes had begun to mist over at the thought of how romantic it all was. Of course, Hanamichi didn't need to know that he *had* in fact put in a special request to his old friend, Fujima Kenji, the owner of the small Pizza Parlor that Hanamichi was working at, to make sure that it was the redhead who delivered his orders to him. He wasn't averse to giving fate a little push in the right direction once in a while.
" That's the stupidest thing that I've ever heard in my life, Sendoh." The redhead informed him bluntly.
" You may think that Hana-kun, and you *are* entitled to your opinions, but it was fate that brought you to this very doorstep so may nights ago when I was in the middle of cramming for exams and got the sudden urge to order a pizza!" Sendoh's eyes were flashing with sincerity. Hanamichi wasn't impressed. If the guy truly believed in all that crap, then there was a lot more wrong with him that Hanamichi had originally thought. "And now, fate is saying that you must stay here for a while and have a cup of coffee with me!"
" I don't think so, Sendoh."
" Tea?" The spiky haired boy amended hopefully.
Hanamichi cast around in his brain for some plausible excuse. After a while, the most obvious came to mind. " I have some more pizzas to deliver so if you don't mind, that would be nine dollars and fifty cents."
Sendoh shook his head sadly. " I don't like being lied to, Hana-kun."
" Lying? Who the hell says I'm lying?"
" That was the same excuse that you gave me the last time!" The spiky haired boy pointed out, " So this time, I checked with Fujima-kun and made sure that this was your *only* delivery."
" So Fujima *is* in on this!" What the hell?!? Was there some sort of conspiracy against him? Trust his boss to be involved in something like this. Fujima had always prided himself on being quite a matchmaker. Of course, when anyone pointed out that his last relationship with Maki Shinichi had been a dismal failure, Fujima always just shouted at you to get back to your damn work.
Sendoh shrugged. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned the whole Fujima thing. " Uh.How about that coffee, hey?"
Was there anything in this world more annoying than Sendoh Akira?
Hanamichi ran through a quick list in his head.
The sound of nails screeching across the surface of a blackboard? Nope. Not even *close* to the level of annoyance that Sendoh was capable of!
The stupid Kitsune? He was definitely way up in the list of things that annoyed Hanamichi, but even Rukawa Kaede, infuriating as he was, couldn't quite compete with Hanamichi's number one pet peeve.
And that was Sendoh Akira. The Sendoh that was, as of this moment, staring at him hopefully, his blue eyes begging for him to say yes. Hanamichi held up his hand, palm upwards. " Nine dollars and fifty cents, please."
Sendoh grinned cheekily. " If I give you your money, *then* will you agree to stay?"
" When you give me your money, *then* I can go away." Hanamichi countered.
Sendoh shrugged. " Then things are simple. I *won't* give you your money. Not until you come in and have a cup of coffee with me."
'Must not kill the customer. Must not kill the customer, no matter how impossible he's being'.Hanamichi repeated this mantra over and over to himself while taking in deep breaths of air. Well, *fine* then. He wasn't about to be blackmailed into doing something he didn't want to do. He turned on his heels and made to stomp off away from the infuriating bastard that was costing him nine dollars and fifty cents out of his paycheck.
" Hey! Wait! Hana-kun! What are you doing? Don't you want the money?" Sendoh demanded, rushing out onto the hallway after him.
" If it means having to suffer through your company, then no." The look on Sendoh's face after he had said that made Hanamichi feel like a complete and total bastard. You would have thought that someone had just ripped Sendoh's beating heart out of his chest, thrown it onto the tiles of the hallway and begun stomping on it relentlessly.
" Oh. All right then." Sendoh, for once, actually sounded subdued. Avoiding Hanamichi's gaze, he dug into his pocket for his wallet and handed the redhead a few bills.
After a while, just when Hanamichi was actually considering maybe apologizing and going in for that coffee after all, Sendoh looked up, grinning. " And there's a big tip for you too! See, Hana-kun! Even though you've been *slightly* unpleasant, I *still* give you a tip! That's how much I *love* you!"
Hanamichi rolled his eyes. He guessed it would take a whole lot more than that to discourage the spiky haired boy.
~**~
" Fujima? *Dammit Fujima!* *You can't just ignore me like this!*" As much as he might *want* to smash the block of cheese against the smirking face of Fujima Kenji, Hanamichi still took the fact that the guy was his *employer* into mind and managed to restrain himself.
" What are you so *angry* about, Hanamichi?" The brown haired young man demanded as he carefully decorated the plate of spaghetti before him with some garnish. Smirking, Fujima went on. " Sendoh-kun liked you, so I thought I might help him out a little. Don't you like Sendoh-kun?"
" No!"
Another little self- satisfied smirk. Fujima had smirking down to an art form. He really was a smug little bastard, in the redhead's opinion. " For some reason, I really can't believe that. Why else would you keep on agreeing making deliveries to him if you *didn't* like him?"
" *So that I wouldn't get fired!*" Hanamichi shouted. And that was the only reason. It truly was, no matter how much Fujima tried to make him think otherwise. He knew what the guy was doing. He was trying out reverse psychology or some other sick mind trick on him.
" You will be, any second now, if you don't quit shouting at me." Fujima informed him. He wasn't really serious, he liked having people like Hanamichi around, people who weren't afraid to speak their mind, but the redhead didn't know that, so the threat was effective.
Muttering darkly under his breath what sounded suspiciously like 'stupid, meddling Fujima. Why can't he just keep his damn nose out of other people's business?', Hanamichi plucked the order form that Miyagi Ryota was holding out towards him and went off on his next delivery, leaving the kitchen of La Porchetta in blessed silence.
" Oi! Rukawa. Where are you? I've got table 24's spaghetti ready!"
" I'll take it." Mitsui Hisashi told Fujima. He wiped off his hands onto the front of his apron. " Rukawa was looking a little pale so I told him to go out for his break early already."
" Rukawa's *always* pale." Fujima pointed out, carefully placing the platter of pasta onto Mitsui's tray.
" He looked even worse than usual. As though he was about to pass out or something. He's not like Hanamichi, you know. He doesn't have freakishly high stamina. Working, going to school and basketball practice is really taking its toll on him."
Fujima raised an eyebrow questioningly at Mitsui. " Why all this concern for sweet little darling Kaede?"
" Pure, human good will, Kenji-kun! Pure, human good will. Is the concept of that completely beyond you or something?"
" You never show any 'Pure human good will' towards Hanamichi." Fujima pointed out, pouring out some glasses of soda.
" That's because Hanamichi-kun hasn't got dark hair and exotic blue eyes." Ryota interjected.
" I'm disgusted that you guys would think that I was doing this only because Rukawa-kun happens to be a little attractive!" He really wasn't quite as shallow as that. Rukawa's attractiveness might play a little part of it, but he also did it because he happened to *like* the guy. Shaking his head sadly as though deeply hurt by the two, Mitsui swept grandly out of the kitchen towards table 24.
What he saw upon reaching that table completely surprised him.
A concerned looking middle-aged woman tugged on Mitsui's sleeve to gain his attention. "He's been like that ever since he finished eating the pizza." She informed him, gesturing towards the miserable lump of humanity that was softly sobbing into the empty pizza pan.
Dammit. Employee training had never covered *this* scenario. Maybe he should go get Fujima, their resident psychology student, from the kitchen. " Sir.Um.I can get you another pizza if you like, you know? There's plenty more where that came from."
He sobbed harder. " That's what they tell me."
" What wrong, sir? Was there something wrong with the pizza? Didn't you like it?"
The young man went through a bout of mad hiccupping before raising his soulful, red rimmed brown eyes towards Mitsui. " I did. I always have. And so has Fukky-chan." He sniffled dejectedly, his eyes zoning in on the platter on Mitsui's tray. " Is that my spaghetti?"
"Yeah."
He gestured for Mitsui to set the plate before him and began to eat, hiccupping and with tears streaming down his cheeks the whole time. Mitsui remained standing beside him, worried that he would end up choking on the spaghetti, what with the way that he was carrying on. The guy noticed. " Sit down."
" I don't think I should." One look from those sad, puppy dog eyes and Mitsui hesitantly sank down onto the chair across him. Fujima would understand. Fujima was the one that always went on and on about doing what the customer wanted you to.
" What's your name?"
" Uh.Mitsui. Mitsui Hisashi."
" Well, Mitsui Hisashi. I'm Jin Soichirou. *The* Jin Soichirou that has nothing left to live for." Great. Why the hell had he sent Rukawa off to his break just when one of his customers decided to turn suicidal? This was what he got for trying to be *nice*, damn it. Jin morosely stuffed another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. " Have you ever had your heart ripped bodily from your body, Mitsui Hisashi? Have you ever been so, incredibly sure that things are just gonna go downhill from here and been tempted to end it all before it gets any worse?"
Mitsui gulped. What was he supposed to say? He wasn't a bloody guidance counselor, for crying out loud. " Umm. No. Can't say that I have, really."
Jin reached across the table and patted Mitsui's shoulder, leaving a streak of spaghetti sauce on his shirt. " Then I'm glad for you, Mitsui Hisashi. I am very glad for you, and I hope that you never have to go through what *I'm* going through right now."
" Thanks."
" I hope no bastard ever breaks your heart, like mine has been! I would *never*, *never* wish this upon my worst enemy but the worst thing is that I can't *hate* Fukky! I *can't*! I just *can't*! I still *love him*!"
Oh, so *this* was the guy's problem. "Um.There's-"
" Plenty more where Fukuda came from?" Jin finished for him bitterly. " I know. That's what everyone's been telling me, lately."
" Uh.no. I was just telling you that there's a bit of sauce on your nose." A whole lot of it, actually, but he didn't want to embarrass the guy, who already seemed to be emotionally unstable.
" Oh." Jin swiped at his nose, only succeeding in spreading the sauce around even more. "Is it okay now?"
" Yeah." Mitsui told him weakly, as Jin began on his tirade about how much he loved Fukuda and wanted him back and how he would never forget him. The scar-faced boy sighed, settling in for quite a while. It wasn't as though the place was packed anyways. Fujima could get on perfectly well without him for a few minutes.
~**~
He was forgetting something. He knew it. Otherwise, why would so many people be staring at him as he walked along the streets? Staring down at his front, Rukawa Kaede realized why. He was still wearing the frilly, pink spare apron that Fujima kept just in case. He hadn't been able to find his plain white one that morning upon arriving at work and he had the sneaking suspicion that that had something to do with the idiot redhead who had some sort of grudge against him.
With a low growl, he ducked into the nearest store and began to try and undo the knot to the dammed thing, cursing Fujima for tying it so tightly. And in the first place, why the hell couldn't Fujima have gotten something slightly more masculine that the one that he was struggling with right at that moment? He knew that Fujima was gay and all, nearly everyone who worked at La Porchetta was, (Mitsui reckoned it had something to do with Fujima trying to build up a harem of handsome guys around him) but a lacy pink apron? He thought that was a bit much.
" Can I help you?"
Oh great. Just what he needed. Someone to witness his moment of humiliation. Rukawa turned around slowly, ready to give the owner of the voice his most lethal stare. He stared. And he stared. And he stared. Completely dumbfounded. Those were the most engaging chocolate brown eyes that he had ever seen in his life.
Rukawa pounded his fist against his chest. For a while there, he had thought that his heart had stopped beating.
" May I help you?" The owner of the voice repeated. If he was shocked to suddenly find a six foot two guy wearing a bright pink apron suddenly stumbling into his shop, he didn't show it. He just smiled. It was the kindest, most beautiful smile that Rukawa had ever seen. And for one, insane moment, he thought that he might go completely against his nature and smile back. " Turn around. I'll do that for you."
And so Rukawa turned, not knowing what else he could do. He could feel the brown haired boy's hands gently brushing against his back as he worked on the knot, eventually letting out a little sound of triumph as he was finally able to undo it. " Thanks." Rukawa muttered as he shed the dammed pink thing and wadded it up into a ball.
" You work at La Porchetta, right?"
" Yes."
" I'm Kogure Kiminobu."
" Oh." What a conversationalist he was! He was bloody brilliant. The life of every party, the never ending well of amusing topics.
" My family owns this store."
Rukawa looked around him, finally realizing that there was an extraordinary amount of bookshelves and books around him. " It's a bookstore." Well duh. He could have pounded his head against the floor for sounding so damn surprised upon the discovery.
Kogure just laughed. " So it is.umm." He looked at him pointedly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose so that it could rest more comfortably.
" What?"
" Your name?"
" Rukawa Kaede."
" Well, Rukawa. Can I help you find a book for yourself or anything?" Kogure asked him, taking him by the elbow and leading him further into the shop.
" Sure." It never occurred to him that had never been particularly big on reading. Right then, he couldn't have cared any less, because at that moment, Rukawa would have done anything that this Kogure guy had asked him to, all because he had the nicest brown eyes Rukawa had ever seen.
~**~
It was weird how Sendoh Akira could still smile while facing his impending death. Of course, he didn't really know that he was about to die yet, but Sakuragi Hanamichi would have thought that the look on his face would warn any person with half a brain (something he seriously doubted Sendoh had) to not mess with him right then.
He was in a foul, foul mood. And it was all because of Sendoh and his god damned persistence. Damn persistence. Why couldn't Sendoh just be like the countless of other people that he knew who completely lacked any initiative or drive to get what they wanted? Wouldn't life just be *so* much simpler for him then? Of course, things like that *never* worked out that way for people like him. Somebody up there wanted him to suffer and somebody up there was making a good job of it. He had sent the grinning loon, also known as Sendoh Akira, to torment him.
Said grinning loon was standing by the doorway of his apartment, apartment B14, that cursed place where Hanamichi had been forced to drop by every night for the past few months, leaning half naked against the doorframe in a position that showed off his perfectly sculpted athlete's body to its full advantage. Of course, Sendoh's ever-present suggestive smile was right there along with the rest of him. Hanamichi cursed that stupid smile. He hated it, he wanted it gone, and he was regretting the day he first set eyes upon it. He was also beginning to think that maybe he would have been better off taking that job at the shoe store.
" Sendoh." Hanamichi wasn't happy, so he made no attempt to sound like he was. Sendoh was the customer and all, sure, and Fujima Kenji was always going on and on and on about how important it was to be pleasant to the customers, but Sendoh was also his tormentor and the redhead felt no obligation whatsoever to be pleasant to someone whose main role in life was to annoy him.
The spiky haired boy, of course, chose to conveniently ignore his lackluster greeting. "Hana-kun! I'm *so happy* you dropped by!" Hanamichi wondered if Sendoh's face ever hurt from smiling so much.
Without another word, Hanamichi handed the pizza box that he was holding to Sendoh, who took no notice of it as though he didn't care about it. And he didn't. He always had an ulterior motive when ordering out for some pizza. After all, how the hell could a man eat pizza every night for the past four months? He chucked the box carelessly onto the floor where it landed beside a pair of boxers with the words 'love machine' printed all over it, and a pile of well thumbed through yaoi doujinshis.
It figured that Sendoh would have a huge collection of those.
" Sendoh, this has got to stop." The redhead declared flatly. If the spiky haired boy thought that he was in any way affected by the look of innocence on his face (hah! Hanamichi thought, what innocence?), then he was mistaken. He knew better than to fall for the wide eyed, 'I am not aware of what you're talking about' look.
" I've missed you, Hana-kun!" It was always like talking to a dense wall of rubber when dealing with Sendoh. Things just completely bounced off the damn idiot.
" First of all, Sendoh, I am *not* your 'Hana-kun' and I never will be! It's *Sakuragi*, or the 'Tensai' to you." What would it take to get that through the spiky haired boy's thick skull? Would he have to castrate him before Sendoh finally realized that he didn't feel the slightest bit of attraction towards him? Okay, even he had to admit that Sendoh was looking sort of hot, leaning against the doorway like that with that inviting, come hither look upon his face, but he just *was not in the slightest bit* interested. " Second of all, I have a job to do. Is that concept completely alien to a rich mama's boy like you? I work in a bloody *Pizza Parlor*, Sendoh! Not in a bloody Callboy service! You've got to stop calling up and asking Fujima to get me to specially deliver your stupid pizzas to you every time you get the fucking urge to talk to me!"
" But I don't!" Hanamichi blinked. " I *don't* ask Fujima-kun to send you here! It's fate! Fate that's bringing us together! Sendoh's blue eyes had begun to mist over at the thought of how romantic it all was. Of course, Hanamichi didn't need to know that he *had* in fact put in a special request to his old friend, Fujima Kenji, the owner of the small Pizza Parlor that Hanamichi was working at, to make sure that it was the redhead who delivered his orders to him. He wasn't averse to giving fate a little push in the right direction once in a while.
" That's the stupidest thing that I've ever heard in my life, Sendoh." The redhead informed him bluntly.
" You may think that Hana-kun, and you *are* entitled to your opinions, but it was fate that brought you to this very doorstep so may nights ago when I was in the middle of cramming for exams and got the sudden urge to order a pizza!" Sendoh's eyes were flashing with sincerity. Hanamichi wasn't impressed. If the guy truly believed in all that crap, then there was a lot more wrong with him that Hanamichi had originally thought. "And now, fate is saying that you must stay here for a while and have a cup of coffee with me!"
" I don't think so, Sendoh."
" Tea?" The spiky haired boy amended hopefully.
Hanamichi cast around in his brain for some plausible excuse. After a while, the most obvious came to mind. " I have some more pizzas to deliver so if you don't mind, that would be nine dollars and fifty cents."
Sendoh shook his head sadly. " I don't like being lied to, Hana-kun."
" Lying? Who the hell says I'm lying?"
" That was the same excuse that you gave me the last time!" The spiky haired boy pointed out, " So this time, I checked with Fujima-kun and made sure that this was your *only* delivery."
" So Fujima *is* in on this!" What the hell?!? Was there some sort of conspiracy against him? Trust his boss to be involved in something like this. Fujima had always prided himself on being quite a matchmaker. Of course, when anyone pointed out that his last relationship with Maki Shinichi had been a dismal failure, Fujima always just shouted at you to get back to your damn work.
Sendoh shrugged. Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned the whole Fujima thing. " Uh.How about that coffee, hey?"
Was there anything in this world more annoying than Sendoh Akira?
Hanamichi ran through a quick list in his head.
The sound of nails screeching across the surface of a blackboard? Nope. Not even *close* to the level of annoyance that Sendoh was capable of!
The stupid Kitsune? He was definitely way up in the list of things that annoyed Hanamichi, but even Rukawa Kaede, infuriating as he was, couldn't quite compete with Hanamichi's number one pet peeve.
And that was Sendoh Akira. The Sendoh that was, as of this moment, staring at him hopefully, his blue eyes begging for him to say yes. Hanamichi held up his hand, palm upwards. " Nine dollars and fifty cents, please."
Sendoh grinned cheekily. " If I give you your money, *then* will you agree to stay?"
" When you give me your money, *then* I can go away." Hanamichi countered.
Sendoh shrugged. " Then things are simple. I *won't* give you your money. Not until you come in and have a cup of coffee with me."
'Must not kill the customer. Must not kill the customer, no matter how impossible he's being'.Hanamichi repeated this mantra over and over to himself while taking in deep breaths of air. Well, *fine* then. He wasn't about to be blackmailed into doing something he didn't want to do. He turned on his heels and made to stomp off away from the infuriating bastard that was costing him nine dollars and fifty cents out of his paycheck.
" Hey! Wait! Hana-kun! What are you doing? Don't you want the money?" Sendoh demanded, rushing out onto the hallway after him.
" If it means having to suffer through your company, then no." The look on Sendoh's face after he had said that made Hanamichi feel like a complete and total bastard. You would have thought that someone had just ripped Sendoh's beating heart out of his chest, thrown it onto the tiles of the hallway and begun stomping on it relentlessly.
" Oh. All right then." Sendoh, for once, actually sounded subdued. Avoiding Hanamichi's gaze, he dug into his pocket for his wallet and handed the redhead a few bills.
After a while, just when Hanamichi was actually considering maybe apologizing and going in for that coffee after all, Sendoh looked up, grinning. " And there's a big tip for you too! See, Hana-kun! Even though you've been *slightly* unpleasant, I *still* give you a tip! That's how much I *love* you!"
Hanamichi rolled his eyes. He guessed it would take a whole lot more than that to discourage the spiky haired boy.
~**~
" Fujima? *Dammit Fujima!* *You can't just ignore me like this!*" As much as he might *want* to smash the block of cheese against the smirking face of Fujima Kenji, Hanamichi still took the fact that the guy was his *employer* into mind and managed to restrain himself.
" What are you so *angry* about, Hanamichi?" The brown haired young man demanded as he carefully decorated the plate of spaghetti before him with some garnish. Smirking, Fujima went on. " Sendoh-kun liked you, so I thought I might help him out a little. Don't you like Sendoh-kun?"
" No!"
Another little self- satisfied smirk. Fujima had smirking down to an art form. He really was a smug little bastard, in the redhead's opinion. " For some reason, I really can't believe that. Why else would you keep on agreeing making deliveries to him if you *didn't* like him?"
" *So that I wouldn't get fired!*" Hanamichi shouted. And that was the only reason. It truly was, no matter how much Fujima tried to make him think otherwise. He knew what the guy was doing. He was trying out reverse psychology or some other sick mind trick on him.
" You will be, any second now, if you don't quit shouting at me." Fujima informed him. He wasn't really serious, he liked having people like Hanamichi around, people who weren't afraid to speak their mind, but the redhead didn't know that, so the threat was effective.
Muttering darkly under his breath what sounded suspiciously like 'stupid, meddling Fujima. Why can't he just keep his damn nose out of other people's business?', Hanamichi plucked the order form that Miyagi Ryota was holding out towards him and went off on his next delivery, leaving the kitchen of La Porchetta in blessed silence.
" Oi! Rukawa. Where are you? I've got table 24's spaghetti ready!"
" I'll take it." Mitsui Hisashi told Fujima. He wiped off his hands onto the front of his apron. " Rukawa was looking a little pale so I told him to go out for his break early already."
" Rukawa's *always* pale." Fujima pointed out, carefully placing the platter of pasta onto Mitsui's tray.
" He looked even worse than usual. As though he was about to pass out or something. He's not like Hanamichi, you know. He doesn't have freakishly high stamina. Working, going to school and basketball practice is really taking its toll on him."
Fujima raised an eyebrow questioningly at Mitsui. " Why all this concern for sweet little darling Kaede?"
" Pure, human good will, Kenji-kun! Pure, human good will. Is the concept of that completely beyond you or something?"
" You never show any 'Pure human good will' towards Hanamichi." Fujima pointed out, pouring out some glasses of soda.
" That's because Hanamichi-kun hasn't got dark hair and exotic blue eyes." Ryota interjected.
" I'm disgusted that you guys would think that I was doing this only because Rukawa-kun happens to be a little attractive!" He really wasn't quite as shallow as that. Rukawa's attractiveness might play a little part of it, but he also did it because he happened to *like* the guy. Shaking his head sadly as though deeply hurt by the two, Mitsui swept grandly out of the kitchen towards table 24.
What he saw upon reaching that table completely surprised him.
A concerned looking middle-aged woman tugged on Mitsui's sleeve to gain his attention. "He's been like that ever since he finished eating the pizza." She informed him, gesturing towards the miserable lump of humanity that was softly sobbing into the empty pizza pan.
Dammit. Employee training had never covered *this* scenario. Maybe he should go get Fujima, their resident psychology student, from the kitchen. " Sir.Um.I can get you another pizza if you like, you know? There's plenty more where that came from."
He sobbed harder. " That's what they tell me."
" What wrong, sir? Was there something wrong with the pizza? Didn't you like it?"
The young man went through a bout of mad hiccupping before raising his soulful, red rimmed brown eyes towards Mitsui. " I did. I always have. And so has Fukky-chan." He sniffled dejectedly, his eyes zoning in on the platter on Mitsui's tray. " Is that my spaghetti?"
"Yeah."
He gestured for Mitsui to set the plate before him and began to eat, hiccupping and with tears streaming down his cheeks the whole time. Mitsui remained standing beside him, worried that he would end up choking on the spaghetti, what with the way that he was carrying on. The guy noticed. " Sit down."
" I don't think I should." One look from those sad, puppy dog eyes and Mitsui hesitantly sank down onto the chair across him. Fujima would understand. Fujima was the one that always went on and on about doing what the customer wanted you to.
" What's your name?"
" Uh.Mitsui. Mitsui Hisashi."
" Well, Mitsui Hisashi. I'm Jin Soichirou. *The* Jin Soichirou that has nothing left to live for." Great. Why the hell had he sent Rukawa off to his break just when one of his customers decided to turn suicidal? This was what he got for trying to be *nice*, damn it. Jin morosely stuffed another forkful of spaghetti into his mouth. " Have you ever had your heart ripped bodily from your body, Mitsui Hisashi? Have you ever been so, incredibly sure that things are just gonna go downhill from here and been tempted to end it all before it gets any worse?"
Mitsui gulped. What was he supposed to say? He wasn't a bloody guidance counselor, for crying out loud. " Umm. No. Can't say that I have, really."
Jin reached across the table and patted Mitsui's shoulder, leaving a streak of spaghetti sauce on his shirt. " Then I'm glad for you, Mitsui Hisashi. I am very glad for you, and I hope that you never have to go through what *I'm* going through right now."
" Thanks."
" I hope no bastard ever breaks your heart, like mine has been! I would *never*, *never* wish this upon my worst enemy but the worst thing is that I can't *hate* Fukky! I *can't*! I just *can't*! I still *love him*!"
Oh, so *this* was the guy's problem. "Um.There's-"
" Plenty more where Fukuda came from?" Jin finished for him bitterly. " I know. That's what everyone's been telling me, lately."
" Uh.no. I was just telling you that there's a bit of sauce on your nose." A whole lot of it, actually, but he didn't want to embarrass the guy, who already seemed to be emotionally unstable.
" Oh." Jin swiped at his nose, only succeeding in spreading the sauce around even more. "Is it okay now?"
" Yeah." Mitsui told him weakly, as Jin began on his tirade about how much he loved Fukuda and wanted him back and how he would never forget him. The scar-faced boy sighed, settling in for quite a while. It wasn't as though the place was packed anyways. Fujima could get on perfectly well without him for a few minutes.
~**~
He was forgetting something. He knew it. Otherwise, why would so many people be staring at him as he walked along the streets? Staring down at his front, Rukawa Kaede realized why. He was still wearing the frilly, pink spare apron that Fujima kept just in case. He hadn't been able to find his plain white one that morning upon arriving at work and he had the sneaking suspicion that that had something to do with the idiot redhead who had some sort of grudge against him.
With a low growl, he ducked into the nearest store and began to try and undo the knot to the dammed thing, cursing Fujima for tying it so tightly. And in the first place, why the hell couldn't Fujima have gotten something slightly more masculine that the one that he was struggling with right at that moment? He knew that Fujima was gay and all, nearly everyone who worked at La Porchetta was, (Mitsui reckoned it had something to do with Fujima trying to build up a harem of handsome guys around him) but a lacy pink apron? He thought that was a bit much.
" Can I help you?"
Oh great. Just what he needed. Someone to witness his moment of humiliation. Rukawa turned around slowly, ready to give the owner of the voice his most lethal stare. He stared. And he stared. And he stared. Completely dumbfounded. Those were the most engaging chocolate brown eyes that he had ever seen in his life.
Rukawa pounded his fist against his chest. For a while there, he had thought that his heart had stopped beating.
" May I help you?" The owner of the voice repeated. If he was shocked to suddenly find a six foot two guy wearing a bright pink apron suddenly stumbling into his shop, he didn't show it. He just smiled. It was the kindest, most beautiful smile that Rukawa had ever seen. And for one, insane moment, he thought that he might go completely against his nature and smile back. " Turn around. I'll do that for you."
And so Rukawa turned, not knowing what else he could do. He could feel the brown haired boy's hands gently brushing against his back as he worked on the knot, eventually letting out a little sound of triumph as he was finally able to undo it. " Thanks." Rukawa muttered as he shed the dammed pink thing and wadded it up into a ball.
" You work at La Porchetta, right?"
" Yes."
" I'm Kogure Kiminobu."
" Oh." What a conversationalist he was! He was bloody brilliant. The life of every party, the never ending well of amusing topics.
" My family owns this store."
Rukawa looked around him, finally realizing that there was an extraordinary amount of bookshelves and books around him. " It's a bookstore." Well duh. He could have pounded his head against the floor for sounding so damn surprised upon the discovery.
Kogure just laughed. " So it is.umm." He looked at him pointedly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose so that it could rest more comfortably.
" What?"
" Your name?"
" Rukawa Kaede."
" Well, Rukawa. Can I help you find a book for yourself or anything?" Kogure asked him, taking him by the elbow and leading him further into the shop.
" Sure." It never occurred to him that had never been particularly big on reading. Right then, he couldn't have cared any less, because at that moment, Rukawa would have done anything that this Kogure guy had asked him to, all because he had the nicest brown eyes Rukawa had ever seen.