In response to a lack of KR, a group of fanatics got together and decided to plot. The end result is this contest and more information can be found at the forum simply known as KaRe Wave. Check it out. You shall get a cookie. Enjoy.
G on Alvarado
First Stop – The Roommate
Disclaimer: I do not (nor do I foresee to ever) own Beyblade. Weep.
ooo
The apartment complex was two blocks from the bus stop. Quaint, with flower beds around the walkways and sticker-decorated message boxes on every door, anyone could stroll in without hassle…even that respectable-looking young man carrying a decrepit box of questionable contents that stunk of opium.
Interesting.
'Another party,' Rei reasoned as he locked up and walked toward the parking lot. He pulled on his only pair of gloves and hastily placed his earbuds in. If the complex police came by again, he didn't want to be able to give a comment about it.
Balling his fingers against his palm, Rei suppressed a shiver and scurried across the bike circle. A soft hum came from the buds, along with a bucket of static. He fumbled with his mp3 as a bicyclist narrowly nicked his elbow as it hugged the corner.
"Damn freshmen."
Rei plotted borrowing the keys to Takao's Mercury one day and driving through campus to…lower the student population. Everyone would thank him. And if they didn't, Takao would laugh his ass off as he bailed Rei out of the campus asylum. Did their campus even have an asylum?
'Probably, considering the tuition and amount of construction equipment piled against the lecture halls,' he mused.
He took his place beside his fellow students and stuffed his hands deeper into his sweatshirt pocket. Rei wrung his fingers together as his gloves were so care-worn they were practically fingerless. He took a step backwards and huddled with the rest like penguins. Backpacks rubbed against each other and rain boots shuffled along the cobblestone. Barely anyone showed skin. Every exhale produced a puff of steam. Rei took it all in with one short, furtive glance. It was the first day of the new quarter.
–I know we were, yeah ye-aaa—zzzttt…
Rei inhaled sharply, flinched at the pain from the cold, and pulled out his player. He had run out of batteries.
Biting back a curse, Rei removed the buds from his ears and quickly stuffed the device into a side pocket of his backpack. His hands dove back into the unipocket and this time he did shiver. A large puff of warmth left him, and a new body of heat took its place to his right.
Rei welcomed the new member to the shivering masses, but it took him two…three seconds before he noticed an inconsistency. No puffs.
Rei blamed his curiosity on a lack of musical distraction. His golden eyes stole a look to the right and he had to fight back a laugh. The guy next to him had a scarf wrapped around his mouth.
'Kind of like an assassin…or a ninja,' Rei checked for the bus again and then stared at the ground. 'Or like when people are sick. Maybe he's sick. How considerate, no exhalation, no germs…no puffs.' He rocked back on his heels. 'No puffs…puffless. Mr. Puffless…'
Rei's cheeks burned from the stupidity of it all. Was he really a college student?
"Damn cold, too," he added to his list.
The guy next to him turned his head and Rei (who would later regret doing so), out of habit, turned to meet him. Gold met mahogany…and white. Rei quickly turned away, biting down his fit of laughter with all the willpower he could muster until he felt the gaze lift off of him. Off to the side, he released his breath and as the bus rolled into its stop, Rei added yet another item to his list.
'Scarves,' he thought as he flashed his student ID to the driver and stepped onto the bus. 'Damn white scarves.'
Rei walked to the back of the bus and turned away from the incoming students. God help him should Mr. Puffless stand next to him again. It was a 10 minute ride to campus. He would surely combust. He didn't see where, but Rei was satisfied when the boy hadn't stood next to him. He reveled in the bus's heating system and looked out the frosted window. Alvarado…Covell Boulevard…next stop.
ooo
Five minutes in, an effervescent blond stepped on board and made his way to the rear. Rei waved him down.
"Rei!"
The blond maneuvered through the sea of students, threw his shoulder bag into a recently vacated seat ("Sure you don't want to sit down, Rei?") and sat down against it. He pulled his headphones down and shrugged off a much-too-orange jacket.
"It's so winter wonderland out there, huh?"
"It could do with some snow and a polar bear drinking Coke, but yeah, pretty winter-tastic I guess," Rei said.
"Makes me glad I have a two hour lecture first," he dug into his bag for his schedule. "It'll be a lot of Fairytales, but at least it'll be warm."
"Fairytales, Max?" The bus coasted to a stop and a flood of students came in. Rei clung to the pole as people jostled behind him. "You moved to a foreign country to take a course on fairytales?"
Max smiled. "Fairytales, Fables, and Myths!"
Rei stared him down until the smile faded to a lighthearted curve of the lips.
"Ok, I needed one more class; and everyone says it's an easy A," Max stuffed his schedule into a cargo pocket. "By the way, sorry we kicked you out of the loft."
Rei shrugged it off. "Don't worry about it. I found a place, didn't I? And it's not too far from where you, Takao and Kyouju are staying."
"I still feel bad. That two-bedroom would have been perfect for all of us!"
"Well, now we know to apply for apartments sooner," Rei swung his backpack around to his front and unzipped the largest section. "We'll get it next year. Be grateful you guys nailed that loft."
Max fiddled with his headphones. "I guess. I mean, it's kind of cramped, especially with Takao's kendo equipment and Kyouju's computers…but it's cozy. I bet you could have fit, too Rei. You don't have that much stuff and you're so tidy…"
"You just want a mother hen to keep the place from getting infested with roaches," he said. "Forget about it. The one-bedroom I'm sharing now is decent for the price," he continued digging around his binders, simultaneously holding onto the pole with his foot.
"And your roomie? He's not a schizophrenic axe-murderer with a foot fetish is he?"
Rei lost his grip and just about caused a domino effect with the students behind him as the bus skidded to a halt. He composed himself. "God, Max, what has Takao been telling you?!"
Grin. There's the sugar-sweet Max grin.
"Yuriy may be a secretive, barely speaking, silent-as-the-shadows kind of guy with a glint in his they-must-be-colored-contacts eyes, but…on the whole, he doesn't pry into my business and locks the apartment on his way out. And he's kind enough to pay more than his share of the rent," Rei took a break from digging and looked up at the blond. "Do you know what that makes him to me, Max?"
The blond pursed his lips in mock-thought. "Someone who's desperate for a roommate because no one wants to live with a schizo?"
Rei stared him down. "It just about makes him my God, that's what," he continued with his excavation.
Max sat up in his seat. "Geez Rei, what are you looking for? Did you lose your sense and sensibility in there?"
"And I thought Kyouju was a geek," he muttered. "Yuriy left his glasses on the counter. He asked me to give them to him later."
"You guys have a class together?"
"I'm meeting him around noon, he has a break then," Rei checked a side pocket and smiled when his hand ran over the supple leather casing. "Good thing I didn't forget the—ugh!"
The bus jolted to a stop and the shock wave threw most of the standing students forward. Max bumped his shoulder against the seat ahead of him. Sneakers skidded and pencils rolled. Rei fell against another student and knocked them both over. Books dropped and curses flew. The driver took all the commotion with a wave of the hand and turned into the main campus.
Rei adjusted his grip on the other student's thick sweater and pulled himself up. What a day he was having.
"Could you let go?"
"Yeah, sorry, really…" he let go and grabbed his backpack. "Normally I have excellent bal…" Rei picked at the fabric that had caught around his neck. White fabric. White fabric that had probably prevented puffs from coming out of a guy who he had stood next to and made an idiot out of himself in front of.
Dear God. It was one of those things that wasn't happening…and yet WAS.
Rei released the fabric and met nonplussed mahogany eyes.
What a day indeed.
"Sorry! Really…yeah…I mean, everyone was doing it…" Rei cringed as the words left his mouth. Everyone was doing it? Was he high and didn't know it?!
The other boy readjusted his scarf and tugged it loosely so that it hung "just so" around his neck. "Hn."
Rei tried to compose himself and mumble a proper apology, but then the bomb dropped. Mr. Puffless had not one, but two blue triangular marks on his cheek. And Rei was willing to bet that the design was mirrored on the other side of his face.
Blue triangles.
Blue shark fin-esque triangles.
…
And then he had to say it.
"Blue's not even a school color," he murmured.
A hard crimson glare bore into Rei's helpless soul via wide golden eyes. And in the deepest reaches of his mind, Rei knew that he had just been formally welcomed to hell.
"Rei! This is our stop, time to go!"
To the rescue, Max all put bulldozed Rei out of the bus and onto the sidewalk, where he began to drag them away with all the energy his sugar-coated breakfast had bestowed upon him. And one lecture hall and four near bicycle hit-and-runs later, Rei came to his senses and, started running with Max, and then he ran even faster when he realized…when he fell, and his backpack dropped, he had lost Yuriy's glasses.
The schizo was going to axe off his head.
ooo
Rei finished his last lecture as the sun disappeared behind the bus station. He flagged down the departing G line and boarded without a fuss. Snagging a seat near the rear door, he rummaged for a rubber band from his pant pocket and began pulling his hair into a loose tail. After Yuriy had scolded him about the glasses (in front of a cowering Max), Rei had walked into a bike circle without looking and the wrap keeping his long hair together was torn by two bikers racing each other. As he ran off swearing revenge, Max trailed behind him, playing with the loose tresses while chanting something about karma.
Rei didn't even want to recount the rest of the day. He opened the bus window slightly and leaned back. Considering all that had occurred, Rei was rather pleased. 'No blue triangles,' he mused as the bus passed the college bookstore and drove out of the main campus.
Thankful for an uneventful ride, Rei got off on Alvarado and hurried back to the apartment. It was square, in both the literal and slang sense. Facing the parking lot on the ground floor, the square consisted of a living room, a kitchen with a counter, one bath, and a bedroom. Rei threw his backpack onto the second-hand futon and started pulling ingredients for dinner, as well as some for dessert. He wasn't savvy with worded apologies, but he could whip up a bundt cake so buttery the receiver would let any transgression go. And if that wasn't enough…
"I knew it was a good idea to filch this from that party," Rei said as he produced a bottle of Midori liqueur from the bottom cabinet. As good as his bundt cakes were, his spiked ones were always grand slams.
Rei checked the clock and set his timer for 8 o'clock. While Yuriy's classes ended before Rei's, he always came back later. Being a responsible and serious sophomore, Yuriy worked to pay off his books and rent. Rei, on the other hand, relied on the kindness of people like Yuriy, and continuously withdrew from his savings. He swore he'd get a job once he got settled. After all, apartment life was a huge switch from that of the dormitories.
Rei measured out the liqueur and added a bit more to the flour and milk mixture. Yuriy could use it, he reasoned, he always seemed so stiff. The cake went into the oven and Rei went to his notes.
"From the beginning of the story, Andrea has two sets of feelings toward the bowl…"
ooo
"Not even a schizo could say no to this," Rei boasted. He poured the sugar glaze over the fresh cake, smirking as the glaze drizzled around and down the bundt mounds, but never spilled over onto the plate below. The scent of flour, vanilla, and honeydew filled the apartment, giving it a grandmother's cottage feel (if the honeydew hadn't been from the liqueur that is). It made Rei think that this living arrangement could actually work.
"Hey."
Rei glanced up from his creation. Yuriy closed the door behind him and began peeling off his coat and boots.
"Hi Yuriy," he took his elbows off the counter. "About your glasses…" Rei paused. Did he see what he thought he saw? "You…did you have a spare?"
Yuriy smirked, shook his red bangs out of his face and purposefully adjusted his designer frames. "If you can believe the luck, my friend found them on the bus," he said.
Rei was dumbfounded.
"You should thank him," he went on. "He saved your ass," he walked up to the counter and hummed in approval. "Oh, cake." Without waiting, he ran his finger through the perfect glaze and sucked, another hum. "Good cake, too. This for me?"
Breaking out of his stupor, Rei nodded and sunk against the countertop. He had a big speech and presentation ready to wow him with, too.
Yuriy came around and picked up a plate and fork. Using the knife Rei had put out, he sliced himself a generous piece, pushed Rei's backpack aside slightly, and made himself comfortable on the futon. Rei climbed onto the barstool and pouted.
"Aren't you going to have dinner first?" he asked.
"My coworker brought pizza to the office," Yuriy said as he waved his fork around. "Nice guy."
"How convenient," he paused again. "…So, about the glasses. Am I forgiven?"
"Oh, sure, no harm done."
That was good enough for Rei. "All right." He headed into the bedroom, gathered his pajamas, and moved to the bathroom.
"You still owe my friend your ass, though," Yuriy sang out as he licked his fork.
Rei stuck his head out the door. "What?"
"If he hadn't found them, you'd be on the cutting block," he said. "You owe him."
As Yuriy went on about the price of the leather case and the intricate marks on the frame, Rei wasn't sure if this was really happening. "Owe him…with what? Another cake?" They hadn't lived together for more than a week and the redhead was speaking to him in an overly cordial manner, as if they were friends. Yuriy hadn't seemed half this approachable in the short time they've been roommates. Maybe he had added too much liqueur...
"Don't be unimaginative," he said as he placed the dishes in the sink. "And Kai doesn't like sweets." Rei sighed. "Although he doesn't mind a mild liqueur…it's probably the alcohol."
"Yuriy…"
"Just kidding, Rei," he drawled out. "Let me take the rest of this bundt to him and it'll be water under the bridge."
Rei pulled the rubber band out of his hair and started brushing. "Okay," he wasn't convinced, but if it cleared this alleged debt of his…
"You should meet him sometime, he lives in this complex, too, you know."
As he was wrapping up his hair, Rei asked out of habit, "What's he like?"
"You'd love him, he's just like me," Yuriy said with a Cheshire-grin.
"I'd…rather not," Rei closed the bathroom door and cringed as Yuriy's less than innocent laughter rang out. He stepped into the shower, turned the water on high and leaned against the wall. Maybe he'd take Max up on his offer. Being the mother hen of a loft of three boys sounded lovely at this point.
ooo
When Rei stepped out of the bathroom, the living room of their square was dark. Dishes were done and the bundt cake was carefully put away. He entered the bedroom quietly; lights were out, Yuriy was already asleep. As he put his clothes in the hamper and pulled the covers of his bed back Rei had to admit that things could have been a lot worse. Yuriy was, temperament aside, a decent roommate who had a job and locked the door whenever he left. Max, Takao and Kyouju were nearby if he needed a place to stay. He got all the courses he had wanted. It could have been worse.
What if he had moved in with Mr. Puffless? God. Rei crawled under his comforter and turned onto his side. He'd have to face him again tomorrow, and if not tomorrow, definitely the day after. Puffless's class seemed to start at the same time Rei's did, and he had that class Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Three days of blue fins. Oh God.
Rei mumbled worries into his comforter until something large and heavy for its size landed on his face.
"…Have to work early…shut up…" Yuriy turned over and went back to sleep.
Rei grabbed the stuffed wolf Yuriy threw at him and held it tightly. Pushing thoughts of the mahogany glare of death aside, Rei decided to make another bundt cake for Yuriy and his friend tomorrow. Kai. Even if he was similar to Yuriy, Rei would take him over puffless any day. He closed his eyes. Eventually, Rei drifted to sleep thinking of cake, wolves and puffs of warm air.
ooo
"Fairytales, Fables and Myths" is an actual class. I've yet to take it, but I've heard wonderful things about it.
The line about Andrea and the bowl is from an essay I wrote about the short story "Janus" by Ann Beattie. It's melancholic, and really is about a bowl.
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It didn't turn out the way I originally intended it to, but that's what I love about writing on the spot. Sorry about the mood fluctuation between scenes, I haven't done this in a while. Oh, and more randomness shall ensue, so be prepared.
Reviews and miscellaneous comments are appreciated! The other writers of the contest will submit soon (in a systematic order, actually); be sure to check those out as well.
Sleepy Sheep G.