Fresh Meat

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Shuichi wants to go on a boat tour for his and Eiri's "monthly dates", and Eiri would rather saw his own leg off. How will they get through this date?

Genre: Comedy

Flavor: Liberalistic :P

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Eiri did not want to be here. This was NOT how he planned on spending a Saturday. 'What a waste of a day', he thought irritably, puffing on a cigarette as he made his way into the…ibodai (1) harvesting farm…

"Yuki! Come on!" His lover shouted, racing down the dock to the main trawling (2) boat. The idea alone made him shudder involuntarily. He did NOT want to see where his food came from…

Eiri had heard of these places, and he was wary of coming here at first, but Shuichi had been adamant (since ibodai was his favorite type of fish), reminding him that it was his turn to pick that month where they went. Why the hell he wanted to come here on a date was beyond his comprehension. It was something they did regularly now, something his therapist had suggested to keep their relationship in balance: one planned date a month. Eiri had questioned the idea of regular dates at first, but after a while it didn't seem like such a bad idea…

Until now…

"Yuuuukiiiiii!"

Eiri huffed, crushing out his cigarette and rolled his eyes, grumbling as he followed his overly-hyper partner.

"Good afternoon Yuki-san, Shindou-san," the man on the boat bowed. He was decked out in the cliché Japanese fisherman's attire: a simple hachimaki (3) and a white shirt and shorts that looked as thought they hadn't been washed in months, in Eiri's opinion.

"I must admit, we do not get a lot of people calling here asking for a private tour in our boat, but my wife is such a fan of your books, Yuki-san, so I couldn't say no!"

"Isn't he great!" Shuichi grinned as he hopped onto the boat. Eiri grumbled as he followed his lover, wincing at the stench that permeated his nostrils.

"So, how long is this going to take," Eiri asked, hesitating as he sat down next to Shuichi on a filthy-looking chair.

"Well, I figured you wouldn't want to be out here as long as we usually stay out," the man laughed, tossing something to a man on his boat crew, "so it'll be a short experience."

"Good," Eiri grumbled.

"About five hours."

"What!?"

"Yaaaaayyyyy!" Shuichi bounced up and down in the chair he was sitting in next to Eiri. "A five hour boat ride with Yuki!"

"More like five hours of smelly shit," Eiri mumbled under his breath.

"I'm sorry, did you say something Yuki-san?"

Eiri waved the man off. "No, let's just get this started…and over with," he said the last part more to himself.

"So how do you catch the fish?" Shuichi asked the man excitedly.

"Well, here we've adopted a technique they use over in America called bottom trawling."

Shuichi scrunched his face up in confusion. "What's that?"

"Well," the man started up the boat. "Basically we throw a big net overboard and drag it along the bottom of the ocean!"

"It's that easy?"

"Yes! No problem!" The man shouted in English. Eiri had a bad feeling about this…

"And the fish just swim into the net?"

The man laughed. "Not exactly. Ibodai generally feed near the bottom of the more tropical waters around here, so we have to go out pretty far to find them first. Then we throw out the net and scoop everything up. Sometimes other fish and animals get caught in the net so we have to throw them out…"

"Like let them go?" Shuichi asked a bit apprehensively.

"Uh, sure!" The man responded and went back to steering the boat.

"Yeah," Eiri answered, lighting up another cigarette. "After their backs are broken from the net, they let the weak ones go."

"B-but a fish can't swim if its back is broken!" Shuichi wailed. It was a miracle the fisherman didn't hear them, but Eiri supposed the wind was pretty loud from how high up the man was.

"Good observation. No wonder you graduated from High School."

"Yuuuukkiiiiii, I don't want to see the fish die!"

"Then why did you drag me HERE of all places," Eiri grumbled and took a long drag of his cigarette. "We had to wake up early just to get here when we could have been sleeping for another hour and then fucking after a well-rested night."

"I just wanted to see what my favorite fish looked like!"

"Then you should have looked in a book. I can guarantee you won't be eating sushi for a month after this boat ride."

"Why is that?"

"Not only do they throw back the half-dead fish, but they ruin the bottom of the ocean."

"What?"

Eiri sighed, and crushed out his half-smoked cigarette. "The nets catch a bunch of stuff they don't need, so it disrupts the plant life (4). I don't know, ask Kissin Maru(5) over there."

Shuichi looked down at his hands. "I don't want to."

Eiri knew that he had won, and that Shuichi would want to go back. His little lover had too big of a heart to watch some fisherman tear up the ocean. (6)

"Yuki…"

"Hn?"

"I want to go back."

Eiri smirked and stood up, making his way over to the fisherman.

"I apologize, sir," Eiri grinned with feign sympathy, "But my lover over there is getting a bit sea-sick. I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this short and turn back."

"Awwww, that's too bad!" The man shouted over the wind. "We wouldn't want his experience out here to be ruined now, would we?"

Eiri chuckled. "No we wouldn't…"

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"Yuki?"

"What?"

"I don't ever want to eat ibodai, ever again."

Eiri smirked, relieved that he was now away from that smelly boat.

"Yuki?"

"What?"

"Can we get something American?"

"What?"

"Like MOS Burger? Or McDonald's?" (7)

"As long as we never go to another fish farm."

Shuichi smiled. "Okay, Yuki."

Eiri continued the long drive back to Tokyo, and Shuichi was surprisingly silent. 'He must still be in shock,' Eiri thought with a sadistic smile.

"Yuki?"

Eiri sighed. 'So much for silence.'

"What?"

"Where does beef come from?"

Eiri didn't have the energy, nor surprisingly the heart to explain that one to Shuichi.

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Author's Note: Hehe. I've been wanting to write one about some sort of issue like this for a while, lol. I couldn't find a lot of information regarding inhumane animal food killing techniques in Japan (since they eat a lot of seafood), so this is the best I could do. :P

Let me know what you think with a review!

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(1) Ibodai is a popular fish in Japan. English-speakers call it the butterfish. Here's a link if you're interested: http://en. See note four for more information.
(3) Hachimaki-a traditional Japanese Headband.
(4) I assumed Yuki Eiri wouldn't know a ton about the effects trawling has on the ecological life of the ocean, nor would he care much, so here's a wikipedia link if you're interested: http://en. Kissin Maru was a fisherman who became famous for trespassing on the frontier of the Russian Federation. I thought this would be ironic. More information: Do you remember seeing Shuichi wearing the "Save Tibet" shirt in manga 6? I do! Lol. I don't know if it was something put there randomly by Tokyopop, or if it was Murakami's work, but I liked it. :) I figured if he was wearing a shirt that said "Save Tibet," and the fact that he's gay/bisexual, then he's got to be liberalistic on ecological views. :P
(7) McDonalds is the highest-profiting fast food company in Japan, and MOS burger comes in second to it. More information: http://en.