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White Rabbit
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"Can't talk now..."
That's all Ryuichi said as he walked past Tatsuha, aloof and cold, like a cherry bon-bon with all the filling sucked out. A hard candy shell mourning the loss of its guts.
"...Can't talk now..."
His backpack was open, and with each step, something else fell out. A cellphone. A lollipop. A string of grape-flavored condoms. Several miniature plush toys, all with their heads missing, crayons, and a photograph of Elvis standing next to a spaceship, all plunked down onto the ground, one by one.
The world must have been invisible to Ryuichi at the moment, because he
floated through the halls of NG, unseeing, uncaring, hollow and void.
Tatsuha had come, you know, just to check up on Shuichi (right), and hang
out (riiiiiiight). But, he found himself following after Ryuichi,
stopping every second or two to pick up another lost toy or crayon or
(geez) credit card.
"Sakuma-san! Sakuma-san! All of your STUFF!"
An egg full of silly-putty, a small German-Russian pocket dictionary, a tube of something called 'Happy Glow Glitter", a cassette of the KLF's "White Room" with all the tape pulled out and tied into an impossible knot. These all fell onto the floor, like the strangest trail of breadcrumbs ever.
"Sakuma-san!" Tatsuha wondered if maybe someone poisoned his idol. Where could he be going, so focused, so...completely entranced? He had to know. Was he meeting someone? Was it...a lover? No... Nothing like that. Not his wonderful, majestic, unobtainable, Sakuma-san.
A crowbar fell out of the backpack and almost hit Tatsuha on his foot. A -crowbar? What did Ryuichi need that for? This was followed by a map of Schenectady, the detailed schematics for a submarine, and a live mongoose.
"Sakuma-san..." Tatsuha wondered how the hell all this crap fit in his backpack. He rushed to scoop up all the stuff. His arms were becoming quite full. Tatsuha reached for the mongoose, which promptly tried to bite him. Tatsuha decided Ryuichi could get that one...later.
Ryuichi came to a stairwell, and stood at the door for a moment, which allowed Tatsuha to catch up with him. Well, he caught up with him after he narrowly avoided tripping on the marbles which fell out of Ryuichi's backpack. And the cactus. He didn't actually fully avoid the cactus, however, which was why, at this point, Tatsuha was hopping and trying to pull the spines out of his foot without dropping everything.
"Say, Sakuma-san..." Tatsuha peeked over his bundle of stuff, Ryuichi's stuff. "Where are you going? What's so important?"
"Can't talk now," Ryuichi replied, opening the door and heading down the stairs, "I'm very late."
"I see..." Should he just let his idol be? Maybe use all this stuff as an excuse to see him later and 'give it back'? No, no, something was -definitely- wrong here, and Uesugi Tatsuha, while not a super sleuth, would not allow his beloved to endanger himself by...
Well, he wasn't exactly sure that Ryuichi was really in danger. But, something could fall out of his backpack and he could slip while Ryuichi was going down the stairs, and maybe Tatsuha could be there to (ahem) break his fall.
Damn, the stairwell was dark. Tatsuha could barely see Ryuichi. He almost had to run to keep up. And running, and stairs, and darkness, and a load of miscellaneous stuff in your arms... These things usually do not go well together.
"Sakuma-san... Ah, I... Could you slow down a little, please?"
"I'm late. It's very important."
"Yes, well..." What could you say to that?
At the bottom of the stairs, Ryuichi disappeared through a set of double doors, and Tatsuha, still struggling to keep up, saw him turn left down a hallway through the window. Good. Now he knew which way to go once through those doors, and...
Oomph. A collision. Tatsuha ended up on the ground.
"Who. Are. You?"
Tatsuha gathered Ryuichi's things from the floor, and tried to pay no attention to the shadow looming over him. What was this place? Like the VIP basement of NG or something? Carefully, Tatsuha looked up, only to find a blond man waving a gun at him with malicious ire.
"I said...'Who...are...you'?"
"I'm...uh...I'm carrying Sakuma-san's stuff for him."
Mr. K squinted, and then waved his gun as if to motion for Tatsuha to continue. Tatsuha, glad to be out of -that- strange situation, sprinted in the direction he had seen Ryuichi go. For several moments, he saw nothing, but finally, Ryuichi's silhouette came into view.
Stuff was -still- falling out of his backpack.
A bottle of Jolt Cola, a Twister spinner, a scale model of Godzilla.
A Santa Claus hat, several fishing lures, a pack of cards.
Ryuichi stopped and turned around. He grabbed the deck of cards out of Tatsuha's hands. He turned them over and over in his palm, and then said. "Oh, I need -those, na no da."
"Sakuma-san, could you, would you at least..."
Ryuichi turned around and started walking down the hall again. Tatsuha was beginning to get turned around, horribly lost. This basement seemed to be some sort of labyrinth. A maze. He just hoped that Ryuichi knew where he was going, and that eventually, Ryuichi would tell him how to get out again.
They began to pass rooms with the doors open. Tatsuha glimpsed inside of them as he walked. In the first one, his brother, Yuki Eiri, was playing croquet, and using an upside-down Aizawa Taki from ASK as the mallet. In another, Seguchi Tohma was ripping the heads off of plush dolls resembling several NG singers, cackling loudly, "Off with their HEADS!"
"Have you seen the Mome Raths play?" Someone asked from right next to Tatsuha. Shocked, he looked over and found Fujisaki Suguru smiling at him with that creepy grin only the boy keyboardist ever sported. Mome Raths? Were they one of NG's new bands or something?
"Hey, you..." Tatsuha said, trying to switch his load of stuff to the other side, so he could get a better view of Suguru. "Do you know where Sakuma-san is going?"
"Forwards." Suguru replied, a mysterious glint in his eye, "He's going forwards, because it would be just daft to go backwards. Then he couldn't see his way."
"His way to -where, though?"
"To the place where he is going, of course. You're not very bright, are you?"
"But, where...?"
Tatsuha realized the line of questioning was circular right about the time Suguru started disappearing into thin air, leaving only a creepy smile behind.
Okay, now things were getting -really- strange.
Tatsuha picked up the pace again. Ryuichi's backpack now appeared to be empty, so at least there wasn't anything else to collect off of the floor.
Ryuichi stopped at a door, the last door at the end of the hallway, and seemed not to do anything for a moment. Tatsuha, now worried beyond belief at all this bizarreness, walked up to stand beside him. For some reason, Ryuichi looked forlorn, with his hair down over his eyes, his lips swishing back and forth. He touched the doorknob, once, twice, and then a third time. Just touched it, with his fingertip, as if testing to make sure it was real.
"Sakuma-san..." Tatsuha looked down and realized all of the stuff in his arms had completely disappeared. "Are you...alright?"
"Ah...um..." Ryuichi leaned his forehead against the door. "I..."
Tatsuha put his hand on Ryuichi's back. "Hey, it's okay. You can tell me."
"I don't want to go." Ryuichi shook his head. No, that was wrong. "I don't want to go...alone."
"Go where?"
Ryuichi turned his face towards Tatsuha. There were clear streaks down his cheeks, rivulets of tears which had previously been covered by his mop of hair. He lowered his head, and every few seconds, his shoulders quaked.
"Hey, Sakuma-san, where is it that you don't want to go alone? I mean...you don't have to go anywhere alone, because I'm here with you, right? So, there's no reason to be upset." Tatsuha tried to smile his usual haughty smile, bursting with confidence, over-confidence, even. "I promise. I'll go with you, no matter what."
"You...promise?"
"Sure! I swear as a monk. So just tell me where you're going."
Ryuichi turned back towards the door and sighed deeply before grabbing the knob.
"I'm going...mad."
Ryuichi pushed the door open as the terrified words fell from his lips.
"I'm going mad, Tatsuha-kun."
And that's when Tatsuha understood exactly what Ryuichi was looking for all this time.
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"Gaaaaaaaaaaaar, Kumagoro wants more tea! More tea, Tatsuha-kun, more tea!"
Tatsuha laughed and shook the bottle of iced tea he'd gotten out of the vending machine. It was all gone. Thankfully, he'd thought far enough ahead to get several other drinks. "How about cranberry juice? I mean...cranberry tea...for Kumagoro?"
"Cranberries! Yum! I like them on turkey."
"I'd like them on you."
"I'm not a turkey! You can't eat me!" Kumagoro and Ryuichi both nodded to this, in unison.
"Are you sure?"
Ryuichi turned a little pink. Kumagoro stayed the same shade of pink he always was. Looking back down at their makeshift tea-party, Ryuichi went back to work cutting a cupcake into very small pieces.
Paper plates and styrofoam cups... Twinkies, chocolates, soda, and juice... A half-dozen different stuffed animals all spread out on the floor in various silly-looking positions...
Some people might say that it was mad for a man Ryuichi's age to have a tea party with toys...
But, Tatsuha knew he was happy...
Because this time, he wasn't alone.